drdhanakarthakur: CHAPTER XII A CHRISTMAS IN BURIAL GROUND: ANDHRA CYCLONE RELIEF WORK

Chapter XII

A Christmas in Burial GROUND:

Andhra Cyclone Relief Work

While the first circular for the founding members of the NMO was in the process of posting, the news of the devastating cyclone on 19th Nov. 1977 in coastal Andhra Pradesh was flashed in the newspapers of 22nd Nov. 1977, reporting over 6000 deaths of people apart from the colossal loss of property, cattle and agriculture. The entire nation was in panic.

A Nepali student prompted me to do something for relief work. I issued an appeal for collecting money. I also sent a wire to the Hyderabad unit to proceed towards the cyclone-hit areas. At Darbhanga, I started collecting smaller contributions from medicos. Veteran freedom fighter Ramnandan Mishra appreciating the move, contributed a small amount too as a token of his blessings to this work. The money was sent to The Times of India Cyclone Relief Fund, Rs. 240 and Rs. 130 (from girls) and Rs. 107 to the ABVP relief fund.

Fig. 13 _ For the Andhra Cyclone relief Fund the NMO, Patna presenting a cheque of Rs.1471/- on 21.12.1977 to the Governor of Bihar H.E. Jagannath Kaushal (L-R), Mahendra Singh, Chiranjiva Khandelwal, Ashwini Chaubey (ABVP), Durgadas Mishra and Baidya Nath Mishra.

I recall that the agent of the local SBI branch called me the second day and apologised that on the first day, the draft was levied an exchange fee. A token amount of Rs. 51 was also sent to the P.M.’s relief fund. Altogether 305 boys and 80 girls contributed.

Our Patna unit deposited Rs. 1471 to the Governor of Bihar. H.E. Jagannath Kaushal on 21.12.1977, which was announced in the news on the AIR, Patna also.

From the western coast-end, the Jamnagar unit sent Rs. 414.47 to the relief fund. Today I can say that a contribution of Rs. 2413.47 to the cyclone relief fund was too small but it was contributed by over one thousand people including the contribution from Ramnandan Mishra as well (who for long remembered this work and also recalled it in his message to our First Conference in 1980). It had come from Bihar and Gujarat, which are far away from Andhra.

Not only that it was the maiden work from a nascent organisation, in its second month; had no letterhead of its own; no fund, nothing which indicated an organisation. The morning shows the day; the medicos had shown their spirit that the NMO was going to be the prime mover of social service in the coming days which it has kept up so far, be it relief in Tripura’s inhuman Mandai massacre of 1981; Bohpal’s MIC Gas tragedy of 1984; earthquakes of Bihar in 1988; and Uttarkashi in 1990 and or devastating perennial flood*, the NMO’s response was instant, and spontaneous everywhere, truly a mini-Red Cross, in the service of those in suffering.

Sending the money to the cyclone relief fund was not the end. On the morning of 22nd December 1977, we were four in the shakha. Suddenly, a proposal came to render service personally in Andhra. One non-medico among us was a bit pessimistic but two medicos of second year, Ksh. Birendra (who hailed from Manipur) and Satyanarayan Lal happily agreed. And we planned to move the very next day — imagine no money, no medicines, and no reservations in the train.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*Super-cyclone of Orissa 1999; earthquake of Bhuj in 2001 and Tsunami disaster of 2004.

But if there is a divine thought it is He who does, not you. We met the President of the IMA, Darbhanga, Dr. S.R.P. Sinha, who issued an appeal for physician’s samples. One cannot believe that some six or seven big sacks of medicines were collected by next 8 a.m. Four teachers also gave some money to us (total Rs. 60).

It is exhilarating to recall, with Dr. B.N. Das Gupta, it was my first encounter as a medico (though in 1972, I had gone to him in connection with the treatment of my sister’s son having hydrocephalus, who died of it. Dr. Das Gupta was very short-tempered and for a concessionary fee, on the suggestion of his ‘compounder’ (assistant), I had told him falsely that I was a medico at Ranchi, though I had appeared only for the PMT. Had he queried anything about the medical college of Ranchi?). I had gone to him with Ramanji, Secretary of the IMA, Darbhanga. When I asked for donation, he gave me Rs. 20 but cautioned Ramanji to take all accounts from me.

It was the cyclone relief work which brought Dr. Das Gupta in the folds of the NMO and it was with his help that we could establish it in Bihar*.

Dr. S. N. Sinha promptly issued the concession orders with a forwarding letter to the authorities for help. Dr. S.R.P. Sinha asked me to prepare a list of medicines and I recalled the days of my father when he had left the job of a Sethji. But Dr. Sinha was with us, working assiduously and went to see us off in his car. He had told us to have a camera (even today, I have not got one though I feel one should always carry it as I had missed not only many such memorable events but also interesting cases on the road, better than those printed in the text-books). We could catch the train, as it was late (though in Mithila, you did not need a time table, you could simply go to the station, some train might be there, which might be of any time of the day as per schedule). At Samastipur, we could get berths in the Mithila Express and we slept turning the pages of Prabhakar Machave’s 15 Languages of India, presented by Om Prakash who had come from Muzaffarpur to discuss the developments of the NMO.

* Including Jharkhand

We woke up in the morning crossing the harvesting paddy fields of Bangbhumi. Howrah, a crowd or station, I am still not able to differentiate, and that was my maiden visit. Railway reservation, though now easier with the computers, was a matter of money in those days, which we hardly had even for proper tickets. On producing the identity letter of relief workers, somebody suggested to us to go to the Strand Road office for the VIP quota. No doubt, the receptionist received us as VIPs with great honour as we were going on a relief work. But how could I be a VIP who while using a lift for the first time there, escaped from being trapped in the gates although I had solved numerous sums in Physics on it during my pre-medical days.

It is also thrilling to recall my first use of a telephone in my school-days in the house of a businessman at Forbesganj, when I disconnected the line ignorantly by pressing the buttons while the talk was still in progress and even before that in attending a trunk call, I could hardly understand the message that Bhaiya had told me for my father. Though I could handle TV, VCR, myself only in 1989, I found that my brother-in-law, little Saket was better, so I had given him an eponym ‘Voltage Master’. The electronics has changed the life but whether the I.Q. has also been raised? And, certainly raising standards of life have hardly any correlation with human values.

Since the wait was prolonged, we came back and caught the worst train, the Madras Janata Express and viewing the seacoast reached Vijayawada on 25th Dec. 1977.

Next morning, we went to Avanigaddha and Guntur on way to the interior villages where now stands Deendayalpuram. The villages were hardly traceable in those days. Families had been flushed out. I could meet a man who was the only survivor among the family of seven members. The house-owner of our camp had lost his parents. When some young men from Hyderabad asked Sridharji, a senior Sangh worker, to have our breakfast in the hotel itself as everything used to be brought from there, Sridharji’s remark, I still remember, “The owner, a lawyer who was also a big farmer used to have some 200 sacks of paddy each year. He has not only lost his parents but also the crop. If we ask some chatani and mix it in our breakfast purchased from the shop, he will have a feeling that his guests are having their meals in his home and he is not totally withered away.”

Such were the remarks of the cyclone relief workers, a life long lesson for me.

We were engaged more in making huts than distributing medicines since we had little knowledge of medicine at that time. Yet, we learnt many things from Dr. Subramanyam and Dr. M. H. Patil (of Hubli). We used to note the requirements and supply them the next day and somehow helped them in managing hundreds of cases.

The environment was yet smelled foul due to the dead bodies of cattle. Mostly the Sangh workers had already buried human corpses. We were told that even army people were unwilling to perform this service. It was a burial ground. I saw a damaged church having festoons of Christmas.

The devastation was such that iron poles of electric lines were twisted like a rope twined and intertwined. Very few traces of houses were left for miles together.

The cyclone that was unprecedented in previous 108 years was reported to be so furious that one person told me that he could be saved only by catching an iron-rod which after receding water-level was found to be nothing but the trishul on the top of the Shiva temple of Ganpateshwaram, a village few km away from his home where he was sleeping in his hut and the trace of which that I could see was only a cemented nad (manger).

We could work only up to 30th December 1977 as our college was to reopen and my examination was imminent. The IMA in its meeting felicitated us. We shared our memoirs. The AIR, Darbhanga interviewed me and I listened myself on the air, for the first time. My professor of Pathology, Dr. S. N. Varma had also listened to it and so he agreed to preside over the first public function of the NMO on 14.1.1978, where we had put a big board showing the path of the cyclone and our places of work. Our narrations were very much applauded. It was more of an adventure.

Later in 1984, when Swami Vivekananda, a medico, whose parents had named him so, approached me for helping him to go to Bhopal for the MIC tragedy relief work, I dissuaded him, as I was myself busy in my thesis work. His simple argument silenced me that if I could have gone to Andhra while a student why could he not?

I, then helped him to go and the team remained there, even on the day of shudhikaran (neutralizing the remaining poisonous gas) when half of Bhopal’s public, including many doctors had left the city; the NMO workers were there to help the victims in the Hamidia Hospital. Seeing them a correspondent of The Indian Express said, “Who says the country is dead...?”

Indeed, our Christmas vacation in the burial ground will inspire many ‘Vivekanandas’.