May Shri Ganesha clear all your obstacles!

The Story of Abdul Hamid

                                                                                        (image taken from Wikipedia)

The story of Abdul Hamid

My favourite radio station is Vividh Bharati service of All India Radio (Akashvani) which plays some of the finest old Hindi film music heard on radio. My car radio is always tuned to this station. Not for me the mindless chatter and commercial-filled private FM stations. Vividh Bharati does not have too many advertisements and its announcers speak in a composed manner. They are “announcers”and not “radio jockeys” as the others prefer to call themselves. In fact, these radio jockeys are most of the time unintelligible and seem to be always in a hurry to finish and go somewhere.

Vividh Bharati has been doing yeoman service to our armed forces by dedicating programmes specially for their listening pleasure. One such programme is Jayamala which is broadcast every weekday evening from 7:05 to 7:45. I cannot remember any other programme in this time slot. In the days when there was no mobile telephony or internet, the radio would have been only handy source of news, entertainment and solace from the outside world available to our brave jawans stationed on our borders, sitting in their tents or bunkers on some remote mountain top at temperatures below freezing or in the desert in scorching heat, away from their families.

On Saturday evenings, Vividh Bharati broadcasts Vishesh Jayamala, a special Jayamala programme in the same time slot of 7:05 to 7:45, where personalities from the Hindi film industry are invited to speak to the soldiers and play some of their favourite songs.

Last Saturday, as I was driving home from work, the Vishesh Jayamala programme was on and it was not someone from the film industry speaking. Instead, it was a run-up to our Independence Day celebrations and the baritone voice of the announcer was telling us the story of Company Quarter Master Havildar Abdul Hamid. Listening to the poignant account, my eyes misted over as I tried to feel and understand the sacrifice our soldiers made and continue to make.

Abdul Hamid was one such soldier. He hailed from a small village called Dhampur in Ghaziabad district of Uttar Pradesh. He was barely twenty one years old when he was enrolled in the Grenadiers infantry regiment. He was later posted in the 4^th Battalion of the same regiment where he served all his short life. Hamid’s battalion had participated in the Sino-Indian war of 1962. After five years in the anti-tank section of the battalion, Hamid was promoted and became the Quartermaster, Stores of his company. But he was reverted to his earlier charge as the NCO commanding his battalion’s Recoil-less Rifle Platoon as he was the best 106mm recoil-less rifle shot in the battalion.

On 8^th September 1965, the Pakistani forces launched an attack on India on the area just ahead of Cheema Village on the Khem Karan – Bhikiwind – Amritsar road. Though the enemy made repeated attacks, the 4^th Grenadiers beat them off successfully. That day, Abdul Hamid destroyed two Pakistani Patton tanks.

Just two days later, on the morning of 10^th September 1965, Pakistani tanks once again attacked the Indian 4^th Grenadier positions in the Khem Karan sector. Abdul Hamid who was in a gun mounted jeep, spotted a group of Patton tanks advancing on his position. Without flinching in the face of the enemy shelling and firing, he advance towards the tanks and was successful in knocking out three Patton tanks. By then the enemy had spotted him and started concentrating fire on his jeep. Before he could engage the fourth tank in his sights, his jeep took a direct hit and he was mortally wounded. He lost his life but inspired his comrades to put up a fight and beat back the enemy.

Abdul Hamid destroyed a total of seven Patton tanks before laying down his life for the nation.

The Battle of Asal Uttar was one of the largest tank battles fought in the Indo-Pak war of 1965.This battle is compared with the battle of Kursk in the Second World War for how it changed the course of the India-Pakistan war of 1965 in India's favour. (Battle of Asal Uttar - Wikipedia)

Within a week of this battle that cost him his life, Abdul Hamid was honoured by a grateful nation with the Param Vir Chakra, the highest military decoration of the Republic of India. The award was announced on 16^th September 1965 and presented to his wife, Rasoolan Bibi by the then President of India, Sri. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, during the Republic Day Parade on 26^th January 1966.

I salute our brave soldiers!

The Param Vir Chakra citation on the official Indian Army website reads as follows:

CITATION

COMPANY QUARTERMASTER HAVILDAR ABDUL HAMID

4 GRENADIERS (NO 2639985)

At 0800 hours on 10 September 1965 Pakistan forces launched an attack with a regiment of Patton tanks on a vital area ahead of village Cheema on the Bhikkiwind road in the Khem Karan Sector. Intense artillery shelling preceded the attack. The enemy tanks penetrated the forward position by 0900 hours. Realising the grave situation, Company Quartermaster Havildar Abdul Hamid who was commander of a RCL gun detachment moved out to a flanking position with his gun mounted on a jeep, under intense enemy shelling and tank fire. Taking an advantageous position, he knocked out the leading enemy tank and then swiftly changing his position, he sent another tank up in flames. By this time the enemy tanks in the area spotted him and brought his jeep under concentrated machine-gun and high explosive fire. Undeterred, Company Quartermaster Havildar Abdul Hamid kept on firing on yet another enemy tank with his recoilless gun. While doing so, he was mortally wounded by an enemy high explosive shell.

Havildar Abdul Hamid’s brave action inspired his comrades to put up a gallant fight and to beat back the heavy tank assault by the enemy. His complete disregard for his personal safety during the operation and his sustained acts of bravery in the face of constant enemy fire were a shining example not only to his unit but also to the whole division and were in the highest traditions of the Indian Army.

Fluffy Whites

Fluffy Whites

The Idli Poem

One urad dal, three parboiled rice

One spoon of salt, no sugar or spice

Soak the dal and the rice separate

For five hours let them hibernate

Grind the urad dal and grind the rice

Amalgamate them both slow and nice                                 

The spoonful of salt, mix it well in                   
Leave it be from evenin’ to mornin’                          

While you’re asleep, the batter’s workin’

Its bounden duty, never shirkin’

Come the morn, see how it has risen

Like flood waters breakin’ their prison*

Small handfuls of batter in a mould

Give them the steamer treatment of old

Out come fluffy white idlis, ready

Serve with sambar, chutney or podi

Reminds me of the tale of the bride

She sat in her kitchen and she cried

Her own self she began to despise

She couldn’t get the batter to rise

Till her husband walked in to enquire

What the matter was, what did transpire

She cried, "the batter didn’t grow higher"

He wondered “it needs water, or warmth, dear?”

You see, the crux of the whole matter

Is simply the fermenting batter

When it swells over like the high tide                                  

The heart swells with happiness and pride!

-          © Shiva Kumar

27^th April 2016

(*Acknowledgement: 
Thanks to Rudyard Kipling  for the phrase “the floods breaking their prison” from his poem An Astrologer’s Song)

Raavan ki Katha!

Raavan ki Katha!

It was the summer of 1966 (or was it 1967? My memory teases me sometimes!). I was eleven (or twelve, as the case may be). School was closed for the summer vacation and we children were enjoying our holiday in the small mining camp of Deogiri, up in the hills above the valley of the now infamous mining town of Sandur in Karnataka.

For us urbanites, Deogiri was a resort to beat all resorts. But the people who earned their livelihood from the mining activity there, like my father (who was the Mines Manager of the company operating the mines there) and his colleagues, found life rather tough and monotonous; it was a welcome change for them too when their children came there to spend their holidays.

And so it was, one day, when my father announced after breakfast that he would be going down to Sandur for a meeting. He looked at me and asked me, much to my surprise and delight, whether I would like to go along for the ride. I was surprised because my father was not known for making such tempting offers and delighted when I thought of the thrilling Jeep ride that awaited me.

I got ready in a jiffy and jumped into my father’s official vehicle, a maroon Jeep. Our driver hopped in at the back, for he knew my father liked to drive. The journey to Sandur took about an hour and involved going down a winding unmetalled road cutting through the forest and which had several hairpin bends. My father was an accomplished driver and negotiated the bends with ease while I watched from behind him with bated breath. We saw a few langurs of which there were plenty in this forest but otherwise the drive was without incident.

We reached Sandur a couple of hours before lunch and I was dropped off at my father’s friend’s (who was also a mining colleague) house. I whiled away my time playing in the garden while my father and his friend went about their work. They returned in time for lunch with another colleague and we were treated to a North Indian fare consisting of chapatis, dal and some dry kind of sabji. I heard my father’s friend suggesting that, since they had completed the day’s work, they could drive down to Bellary, which was another hour away, and catch a newly released Hindi film. My father, who was not an avid film goer, agreed reluctantly. For me it was an unexpected double bonus, coming on top of the Jeep ride. Having absolutely no knowledge of Hindi did not matter.

Soon we were on our way, my father and his two friends in front, me and our driver at the back. As we sped along the hot and dusty road to Bellary, the wind howling in our ears, I thought I heard my father’s friend say that the film was called Raavan ki Katha; I guessed it would be some story from the Ramayana and was excited at the visual treat in store, of seeing Lord Rama and his faithful band of monkey warriors led by his parambhakt Hanuman battle it out with Raavan and his army of asuras to bring back Sita.

We were running late and entered the theatre compound in a rush. One person ran ahead to get the tickets while the rest of us ran straight up to the doors. We were just a wee bit late entering the hall and the opening credits had rolled as we found our seats. The film, unfortunately, turned out to be a disappointment. I waited in vain for the battles between Hanuman’s vanara sainya and Raavan’s asura soldiers. Instead, there was some girl riding on a cart filled with hay and singing a song which had a catchy refrain with a couple of Holle Holles thrown in. There was a chap sitting in front looking somewhat petulant when the song began but the two of them come to some kind of understanding by the time it ended. The horse was also cantering along without breaking into a sweat. I tried to get interested but my not knowing a word of Hindi did not help much. I think I even managed a small nap during the show! All in all, it was a big letdown for me though my father’s friends seemed to have thoroughly enjoyed it.

As we came out of the theatre, I happened to look up at the huge hoarding advertising the film put up at the entrance to the theatre. And there I saw the title of the film and understood why there was no Rama or Raavan or Hanuman – the film was called not Raavan ki Katha, but Sawan ki Ghata!

© Shiva Kumar 2014

PS: I don't even know if the title is grammatically correct!

The Ass and the Grasshopper

The Ass and the Grasshopper

The fable by AESOP:

AN ASS, having heard some Grasshoppers chirping, was highly enchanted; and, desiring to possess the same charms of melody, demanded what sort of food they lived on to give them such beautiful voices. They replied, “The dew.” The Ass resolved that he would live only upon dew, and in a short time died of hunger.

The new fable by SHIVA KUMAR, An Eccentric Silly Old Person.

Upon a grassy knoll on the edge of the world there once lived a grasshopper. He spent his time playing in the grass with other grasshoppers and hopping to and fro. For his food he depended on tender blades of grass and more particularly on the dew which collected on them every dawn. By the time he completed three months of age, which is one-fourth the average life span of his species, the grasshopper was sick and tired of the knoll. He felt like an ass. So much so that frequently he caught himself laughing at himself. Once he even got angry with himself and stopped talking to himself for a whole day.

Having seen the entire knoll twenty three times, one fine morning the grasshopper decided that enough was enough and he would now explore the world outside. He did not know that the knoll was situated at the edge of the world as he had not ventured beyond the last line of grass. He decided he would go beyond this line. So he said his goodbyes to his friends before leaving, by waving his left antenna, and they responded by waving their left antennae back. He said goodbye to the blades of grass and they simply waved back. Actually they did not wave back to him. It was a gentle breeze which moved them. So moved was the grasshopper by this collective waving that he decided he must be moving quickly. He also said goodbye to the shrubs and bushes under which he spent the hot afternoons and cool nights. Of course they did not reply, not because they didn’t want to but because they couldn’t. Shrubs and bushes don’t speak. They rustle in the wind and make a kind of rustling noise, but they don’t speak. This doesn’t mean they are dumb. They are not dumb, but they don’t speak.

Soon the grasshopper was on his way. It took him the whole day to reach the last line of grass and the sun was setting when he decided to take a break. So he took a break. All along the way, he had not met any other animal or thing, not even another grasshopper. He was tired of chirping to himself and went to sleep feeling like an ass. He dreamt of an ass which had a grasshopper’s face and was chirping loudly as it hopped about. The dream was so funny that it made him laugh in his sleep.

He woke up early the next morning (truth be told he did not know it was the next morning – it could have been three or even seventeen days later – he had no way of knowing, but he thought it was the next morning and we’ll take his word, no, his thought, for it) and broke his fast on a drop of dew formed on the sixth blade of grass to his left. He always chose the sixth blade because liked to call himself The Sixth Blade Adventurer. Having strengthened himself thus, he set out once again, hopping this way and that. He made slow progress because he did not move in a straight line but in a diagonal movement, rather like the bishop on a chess board. He was tired and decided to rest under a bush. Soon he went to sleep. He did not know it then, but he was very close to the edge of the world and to a turning point in his life.

The grasshopper woke up with a start. It was a terrible rumbling, earth-shaking noise which woke him up. He looked up and saw flashes of blue light dancing across the sky and at the same time heard a crashing, rolling sound. He had never seen such a fantastic sight or heard such a deafening sound before! It was his first experience of lightning and thunder and frightened him to such an extent that he stuffed his ears with cobwebs from an abandoned web, closed his eyes tight and cowered under a creeper with only a passing spider for company. The spider was watching him unblinkingly, as if sizing him up for breakfast. As they didn’t know each other’s language, both remained silent. Not that it would have mattered much, on account of the thunder. Soon the spider, possibly deciding that the grasshopper was not a healthy breakfast option, crawled away to look for another prey. All of a sudden, there was a deluge and rain came pelting down like the dickens. The Sixth Blade Adventurer had never felt so scared in his life. The storm lasted an hour and, by the time it ended, he was totally wet, bedraggled and terrified out of his wits. He stayed curled up under the creeper through the day and the night which followed. He wished he were an ass. That night, once again, he dreamed of an ass which was so wet it was shivering. It couldn’t bray or even chirp. It croaked.

The croaking seemed to become louder and louder until it became unbearable and woke him up. He opened his eyes and found himself staring into the biggest mouth he had ever seen, with a pinkish grey tongue slowly unrolling towards him! It was a toad! He had never seen a toad before but some of his friends had and they had described one to him. This toad was exactly as they had described, only much bigger. The grasshopper stopped breathing and watched without moving. He did not even blink. The toad’s tongue stopped short of him just as he thought it would pick him up and he would be swallowed. It probed this way and that for a moment and then rolled back into the toad’s mouth. The toad had not seen the grasshopper! It gave a loud croak which made the grasshopper leap up and bang his head on the creeper’s stem, and then it turned and went away.

By and by the grasshopper started breathing again. His heart, which had become entangled with his tongue, disentangled itself and resumed beating. He waited for what seemed like a few hours, though it was only about a minute, watching the toad’s back and waiting for the painful lump on his head to subside. When the toad was no longer visible, he slowly crept out from under the creeper, thanked the creeper on bended knees for protecting him and took one hesitating hop-step. His wings had dried sufficiently for him to take short flights, so, starting off with a couple of running steps, he launched himself into the air. Just then a gust of wind came along and bore him aloft. He soared high into the sky, and, looking down, could see a couple of ants which looked like specks. Actually, they were tiny ants to begin with and he was only about six feet above the ground but it seemed to him that he was soaring because he had never gone so high!

Gradually the wind carried him away from the ground and over the edge of the world. Suddenly, the grasshopper could not see any land below him, only a black emptiness. The wind also died and he found himself dropping, dropping, dropping … he had crossed the edge of the world (though he still did not know it)!

The grasshopper continued to fall for some time. There was nothing in that space absolutely to stop him. He found that he did not have to flap his wings to fly. He just floated along. He could only breathe gently because there seemed to be very little air, but he wasn’t feeling uncomfortable.

After some time, he found that he had stopped falling but continued to float along horizontally. When he turned around and looked, he saw what looked like a huge flat platform whose two sides and far end he couldn’t see. He could only see the edge facing him. With a shock he understood. It was the edge of the world! It was not far away but it wasn’t near either. He could see the grassy knoll which had been his home and it looked beautiful. He could see the tiny ants and they had become tinier. He even saw the big toad. It looked small and harmless and quite friendly from this distance. It seemed to be waving its tongue at him in an affable manner. How he wished he could go back there and wave his antenna back at the toad! He flapped his wings but was not able to create any lift. He tried to chirp but no sound would come out of his mouth. For a moment he panicked and started hyper-ventilating. But since there seemed to be little air around, hyper-ventilation was of no use.

Gradually he calmed down and allowed himself to float along. After a while, he even started to like it. There seemed to be some sort of attractive force which kept him on a path parallel and quite close to his world. As he floated along, the knoll slowly went out of his sight and he could now see a forest with lots and lots of trees, some so huge that their tops were not visible.

Out of the forest came an ass. The grasshopper knew it was an ass because it had appeared in almost all his dreams. The ass came right up to the edge and looked at him. It saw him and opened its eyes wide as if recognizing him. Perhaps he had appeared in the ass’s dreams! The ass brayed loudly and gesticulated at him. The sight of another animal, albeit an ass, after so long made the grasshopper happy. He gesticulated back. The ass trotted to keep pace with the floating grasshopper. Then, with another loud bray, he started to swing his tail in the direction of the grasshopper. On the third try, the tail swished past and the grasshopper just managed to hold on to its tip. Thus hoisted aboard, the ass soon pulled him back out of orbit to safety. The grasshopper was overwhelmed with gratitude and tried to show it by going on bended knees but the ass, being an ass, did not recognize it as gratitude and tried to kick him back.

Nonetheless, the two became friends. They were always together, criss-crossing the forest and whiling away their time braying and chirping, that is to say, the ass was braying and the grasshopper was chirping. The grasshopper did not think much of the ass’s braying – the voice had a rough timbre, it was too loud and he could not understand what the ass was trying to say. Added to this, the braying was out of tune and did not maintain any particular beat. “Sounds like a silly ass”, he said to himself whenever he heard his friend bray.

But the ass, on the other hand, was simply enchanted by the grasshopper’s chirping and wanted to have a voice like that. But, try as he might, the intended chirp always came out as a bray and it made him feel like an ass. “Silly ass”, he would chastise himself.

Time passed and the two friends learned to understand each other’s language sufficiently to be able to make casual conversation.

So one day the ass asked the grasshopper, “My dear friend, you have such an enchanting voice. What is it that makes it so beautiful?”

And the grasshopper replied, “You see, my friend, it is the dew I live on. Get up early in the morning, when the dew is formed on the grass and imbibe it. You will find your voice growing sweeter and sweeter. Go ahead, try it. Have all the dew you want. But beware, every sixth grass and the dew on it is mine. I am a Sixth Blade Adventurer, you see. Six, six, six!”

The ass did not know what six was and looked bewildered, just like any ass would look if you went and said “six” to it. The grasshopper managed, by using sign language – a sort of wild gesticulation with his antennae and simultaneously rolling his eyes – to explain the sixth blade concept to the ass. He also taught the ass how to count from one to six. Soon, the ass became adept at ‘dewing the dew’ and, if one had happened to have visited the enchanted forest at dawn on certain days just past, one would have heard a hoarse, asinine voice braying “waa, foo, free, fo, fy, slurp, … sorry, skip, …”

With every passing day, the grasshopper’s chirp seemed to become chirpier and chirpier. On the other hand, the ass’ braying was growing fainter and fainter. The reason was not far to seek – the ass was surviving only on dew and it was hardly enough to even wet his tongue. He had lost quite a bit of weight and had started to look like the skeleton of a thin and impoverished ass. Which he was.

One morning, when the grasshopper woke up from his sleep, he found the ass sprawled on the grass beside him, looking quite dead. The grasshopper hopped to and fro and tried to wake him, but the ass did not stir. The grasshopper desperately sprang onto his left ear and chirped loudly. Whereupon the ass opened his left eyelid and looked balefully at his tiny friend. “I think I am going to die” he brayed softly. The grasshopper was sad when he heard this and didn’t want to be left alone. Nor did he want to leave his friend alone. He thought for a while and then chirped to the ass, “look, listen, somehow drag yourself to the edge and leap off, you will find it easier there”. So saying, he leapt up to the ass’s back and guided him to the edge of the world.

The ass somehow dragged himself to the edge and, summoning all his remaining energy with a super-asinine effort, he took a big leap and went flying out of the world, the grasshopper clinging on to his left ear. Soon they were floating along in space, within sighting distance but just out of reach of the edge of the world, with no one to help them back. They were doomed to remain there.

Time passed. They stopped eating because there was nothing to eat. They stopped talking to each other or even to themselves because they had become weak and their voices couldn’t be heard. They soon stopped breathing because there was very little air. Life slowly seeped out of them. They floated along, quite lifeless but quite inseparable. And there they are, for all eternity.

If you look up to the northern sky on a clear autumn evening, you might, if you are lucky, be able to see a cluster of seven stars aligned in the shape of an ass with its tail stretched out. That would be the ass. If you look carefully above the ass’s left ear, you may also be able to see a sort of a glimmer formed by six tiny stars; that would of course be the grasshopper, clinging on. They remain that way, to this day. True friends.

© Shiva Kumar 2016

Unwelcome Visitor

UNWELCOME VISITOR

I remember it was on a Friday morning, a week before Deepavali a few years ago, that we had this unexpected visitor at home. I was in the office, getting into the thick of things, when my better three-fourths called me up and told me to hurry home. The visitor had turned up most unexpectedly and my wife wanted me to turn him away.

I left the office in a rush, thinking dark thoughts about the unwelcome visitor. He had come home on a working day without prior intimation and it was quite annoying. My work was totally disrupted and I would have to forego my weekend R & R to make up for the lost time.

He probably wanted to surprise my wife and so did not announce himself at the main door but chose to drop in through the dining room window which was left open. My wife told me that he promptly hid behind the fridge. She had spotted him, though.

I called up Anees, who knew him and several members of his extended family quite well. Anees told me he would be at my house within half-an-hour and would be happy to take care of our “friend”. Meanwhile, having reached home, I decided to keep a discreet watch.

Anees was as good as his word and reached within the promised time. His first question was whether the intruder had showed himself. I replied that all this while he had stayed put behind the fridge, maybe waiting for an opportune moment to spring out.

Rather than wait for our guest to show himself, Anees went straight to his hiding place and without much ado pulled him out. Our friend was annoyed and tried to wriggle out. But Anees held him firmly by the scruff of his neck and put him into a cloth bag which he had brought with him!

He was quite, er, tall, at least a seven-footer, well built and dark complexioned. And, well, some would go so far as to call him handsome too!

“Wow, a big one, Sir, at least seven feet! A fully grown rat snake. Not poisonous, but he has a nasty bite, quite painful. He can climb 3-4 feet walls easily. You must be careful, there are many snakes in this area. I will release him in the Bannerghatta forest. And now I must be leaving because I have two more calls to attend to.” So saying, Anees put the cloth bag with its wriggling contents into his van and drove off.

And that ended our tryst with our reptilian visitor!

© Shiva Kumar

Chennai Floods

Chennai Floods

Bengaluru, 04 December 2015

I managed to establish contact with a couple of friends in Chennai and what they told me is not very encouraging.

The rain seems to have abated and the flood waters have started receding. People are now able to move around a bit. They are able to move to places which have power supply and are able to charge their mobile phones, pick up some essentials like bread and drinking water and make contact with their friends and families.

For the last three days they were without power, drinking water, even water for cleaning and toilet use. They were not even able to move out of their houses. They were not able to communicate with the outside world because power supply was cut, cell phone towers were down and nothing was functioning. In many areas the entire ground floors were under water. They tell me that the flood waters started gushing in all of a sudden and in a matter of less than an hour they found themselves neck deep in water. They only just had time to evacuate to upper floors. Many families are holed up in some upper floor in just the clothes they were wearing.

I hear that power is being restored in phases but there are many areas which are still dark. There is no communication from my friends and relatives in those areas and their phones are not reachable. I can only hope and pray that everyone is safe. I read somewhere that many people were forced to leave their pets behind because they could not be accommodated in the boats and rescue vehicles. I cannot believe this but I hope these poor animals are also safe.

When the flood waters recede fully and they are able to move back into their homes, they will know the full extent of the damage caused by this unexpected calamity. They are afraid that nothing will be salvageable. Household equipment, furniture, electronic gadgets, books, clothes, stocks of rations, everything would have been destroyed or damaged beyond repair. The buildings themselves have to be checked for damages to the structures and electrical wiring. Then will start the painful process of cleaning up and assessing the total loss to each and every structure and each and every family.

The fate of businesses is similar. Showrooms, offices and other business establishments have been inundated. Stocks have been washed away or irreparably damaged. They have to re-build from scratch. Small businessmen and tradesmen will be most badly affected. Those whose properties are not insured will not be able to recover anything.

In all this tragedy, what stood out bright and shining was the effort put in by the armed forces, para-military forces, small groups of volunteers and most of all the common citizens who worked selflessly to save many people and bring them to safety. Many groups from nearby cities are working tirelessly to gather and rush supplies of essential goods like packaged drinking water, bread, biscuits, dry chapaties, battery packs, etc. to Chennai. They are co-ordinating with groups stationed in Chennai to collect and distribute these essentials. Software professionals are coming out with innovative ideas to connect with people and guiding the rescue forces to rush help where it is required. Doctors and nurses are working round the clock to provide medical assistance. Able bodied men and women are pitching in to help people move to safer areas. Hotels, schools, theatres and many private establishments have thrown their doors open to anyone who needs shelter. We salute all these noble men and women.

I am told that the government disaster relief machinery is up and running, though no one has spoken up for them so far. The central government has already announced two slabs of relief amounting to almost Rs. 2000 Crores. While this may not be enough, at least the various agencies involved in rescue and rehabilitation will not be starved of immediate funds to keep the momentum of the relief work going.

The enormity of this catastrophe is mind-boggling. We can only hope and pray that the citizens of Chennai, known for their resilience, will get back on their feet, slowly perhaps, but surely.

And lastly, one particular category of people who usually come up to the front when it is time to be seen and heard, are strangely silent this time, so far. Perhaps prudently. Perhaps they are also working silently to help in the relief operations. Or is there any connection to the rumours of crocodiles having escaped from the Crocodile Park?