Last year...

Its the 30th of December and last year this time as the entire world was overwhelmed by the disaster that was called tsunami, I was on my way to some of the badly hit areas, with a team of people from AID-India. I am not sure if I went because I had an overwhelming urge to help but I went because I wanted to prove it to myself that I can do anything I want to do at anytime-irrespective of the work I am doing or the situation I am in. I am not sure how much of it makes sense but then there are so many times when we just want to walk away and not have to answer as to why we walked away. That in some ways was my reason when I set out.

For 3 days, we were on the road visiting places and seeing death and destruction all along. As I slept on 31st December 2004, I could not immediately fall asleep. My eyes were burning because of having witnessed pyres burning and my feet were tired because of wading through god knows what not! There was so much that I was not sure of before I set out for this trip. The people in my life, what I would want to do next and whether the ones in my life then would continue to be in it or not and yet when I thought about it that night, it felt so petty when compared to the magnitude of what had happened. In some ways such disasters help you look at things more objectively.

Note: The organization AID-India is doing brilliant work in rehabilitating the affected and they also work across the world- be it the tsunami or hurricane Katrina. Please visit their website if you are interested and would like to do your bit.