Rebuilding shattered lives

20 December 2005

One year on from the South Asian Tsunami, Pamela Nowicka interviews two people who epitomise the formidable efforts of Y Care International’s partner YMCA in Nagapattinam, India, to rebuild their community and make a lasting difference for people whose lives were devastated by the disaster.

When the Tsunami came to southern India in December 2004, many lives were lost, but still more were shattered and fragmented in the aftermath of the giant wave.

One year on, survivors are trying to get to grips with the enormity of what happened…helped in many cases by any one of a myriad of NGOs.

Two people

For the YMCA, long-established in the worst hit area of Tamil Nadu, southern India, two people encapsulate the realities of this struggle to rebuild.

Two men whose very different and yet linked stories tell of hope, endurance and fortitude. Two friends, both struggling in their own way to come to terms with the unthinkable, and two men who will be forever marked by what happened on 26 December 2004.

Personal story

For Karibeeran Paramesvaran, a YMCA volunteer secretary in Nagapattinam, the day was a holiday, part of the festive season, which had a special meaning for his Christian community. It was also his 40th birthday. Paramesvaran's relatives were visiting. Some of them had never seen the sea so they wanted to go to the beach, a five-minute walk away from Paramesvaran's house.

He takes up the story, his fingers tracing the words that he reads from the screen of a laptop. "I can show you my website, otherwise very hurting for me. If I tell again, I die again," he says quietly.

The day the Tsunami came

"It was 26th December 2004. I woke up and my five-year-old son Kirubasan wished me 'Happy Birthday'."

We're sitting on the floor of a roomy and pleasant middle-class house. One shelf is dominated by a large photo portrait of three smiling children.

"My loving wife Choodamani and I started our very simple family life in Nagapattinam in 1991. We were the best couple in the city and God blessed us with three beautiful children.

"My family lives very close to the shore. The children and relatives who came home for Christmas wanted to go to the beach. We went deciding to get back soon, as my nine-year-old daughter Karunya insisted that we go to church. The sea was like any other day, very calm and pleasant. Walking and playing on the beach was part of our daily routine.

Playing on the beach

"I was playing frisbee on the shore. We'd been playing for perhaps ten minutes when Kirubasan suddenly called out: 'Daddy, daddy, look at the sea.'”

Paramesvaran's face is intent as he carefully reads the words. He leans towards the laptop resting on the bed. "I saw the sea rise to a height of 50 ft in less than a second…something very unusual…we began running in fear. Kirubasan was clinging onto my hand as we ran, but we couldn't match the speed of the water. In seconds it was on us, hurling us up and then down.

Helpless

"The next wave threw us apart. My son probably thought I would save him, but I was helpless."

Paramesvaran's voice doesn't waver as he reads the next few words. "I heard my son cry 'Daddy, Daddy' as he was drowning.”

Eventually Paramesvaran managed to cling to a tree. "I survived," he continues. "I came down from the tree and went to search for my children and relatives.

Searching for loved ones

"I found my eldest daughter, Rakshanya, 12, on the railway track. I took her body and brought her home. I found the bodies of three of my relations. While I was still searching someone told me that there was a little boy 2 km away.

"I went there and found my son lying dead.

"I went to search for my other daughter and found another relation. After hours of searching I found my Karunya lying in a bush."

A second wave

A second wave erupted over the devastated beach. Paramesvaran and the nephew who was helping him search ran for their lives. "I ran home carrying my daughter's body. We barely made it."

By that evening Paramesvaran had found the bodies of seven of the ten relatives who had gathered that morning to celebrate the festival. "The city was gripped with fear and most of the inhabitants had left," he comments.

Buried own children

The next task was almost unimaginable to any parent. "We gave them a bath and dressed them up. I sent my nephew to try to get some flowers. There were no shops open so I couldn't even buy any flowers for my children.

"I dug the grave myself and placed my children inside and closed the grave with sand."

We sit in silence for a while.

Calling was to help others

Paramesvaran was himself an orphan and he and his wife had been working for the last ten years in a local village, Samanpet, to help improve people’s lives. “Two of the boys have graduated and one boy and one girl are studying engineering. Now my mission is over – they’re role models for their own community and will help them to become more educated.”

After the devastating loss of the Tsunami, Paramesvaran and his wife decided that their calling was in helping others.

Improve orphans’ confidence

They adopted 14 orphans from surrounding villages, taking care of them at their own expense. He is particularly concerned about the fate of adolescent girls who may be preyed on by men, and of women who have lost their husbands. “Nobody is supporting them and they can’t go out to work.” He has instigated training programmes in sewing and handicafts. ”We want to build up their confidence.

“Since we lost our children we feel very empty. Now I’ve founded this organisation Nambikkai – Hands of Hope – to take care of children and young girls. I’ve donated this house to the orphans. Now we feel we have children.”

Sea isn’t the Tsunami

Sustained by his Christian faith, Paramesvaran says: “I can see my children's faces in these children, bathing them, dressing them, taking care of them. I used to come daily to the water with my children and now I come daily imagining I'll meet them. Now I teach the children not to be afraid of the sea because it's not the Tsunami."

But sensitive to accusations that he may be attempting to impose his faith on the children he makes a point of taking them to the local Hindu temple. “I don’t want to spoil their culture and convert them,“ he says.

Given a second life

As a result of his work, Paramesvaran has been interviewed by the BBC and CNN as well as Indian television. And he met Bill Clinton, who described him as having suffered “the ultimate loss”.

“God has given me a second life,” says Paramesvaran. “I just want to do everything I can to best serve society.”

Friend feels empathy

Mr G Peter, who has been working in Nagapattinam since 2000 as regional secretary for the YMCA in the Tamil Nadu region, is a close friend of Mr Paramesvaran. His son studied at school with Kirubasan. Peter, a sincere and dedicated man, was in Chennai when the Tsunami hit. He is visibly moved when he recalls what happened to his friend.

"The National Council of YMCAs of India asked me to go to Nagapattinam. I reached there on the morning of 28 December. The first thing I heard about was Paramesvaran's family. I was very much disturbed, I felt like I'd lost my own children."

YMCA initative

The thriving market and fishing town was almost empty, apart from police, medical staff and some government officials. "No one was allowed to enter because conditions were so bad; bodies were decomposing, spreading disease. Slowly the government started to allow voluntary agencies to enter.

"We started bringing bodies to the graveyard, they were smelling, decomposing. Many of the other NGOs were Hindu and they didn't even touch the bodies and were not ready to take the bodies to the graveyard. The YMCA leaders took the initiative.

Rebuilding communities

Since then, Peter has been in charge of the YMCA's Tsunami Reconstruction Programme in Nagapattinam, one of many programmes supported by Y Care International. It is focused on the most disadvantaged communities who were made homeless by the Tsunami and have been in relief camps for the last eight months, and will involve building brick and concrete houses for the survivors.

We drive through flooded landscapes and roads which have disappeared into lakes of floodwater to visit the plot of land on which the YMCA and some other charities will be building the new houses. Peter pulls out a plan of the plot outlining where houses will be built. A three-inch thick file of government documentation, brochures from concrete and steel contractors and other official correspondence attests to the fact that the house building process has to surmount the same kind of bureaucratic and logistical hurdles as any other enterprise.

"We can start work next week because it's stopped raining now. The Government needs to mark out roads with stones – only then can we start work."

Improving life skills and education too

And once the survivors have moved into their new homes, a skills training and self employment programme is planned. Most of the people allocated to the YMCA are hawkers of small household goods – an uncertain and fragile lifestyle. Training for women and young people in tailoring, embroidery, knitting and toy-making will give them a trade and the opportunity for a more stable and financially secure lifestyle.

A Children in Crisis programme will educate 300 children, while Youth Empowerment and Youth Motivation programmes are aimed at increasing opportunities for young people.

Hope of a better lifestyle for the survivors

"We're going to give them an entirely new life, a much better standard of life," enthuses Peter. "They were living in very small huts before, not even like a tent, with no facilities at all. I'm very hopeful they'll be hygienic and healthier, that’s my main objective.

"It will be a different lifestyle and hopefully a better lifestyle for those people. A very good change."

Contact : Nambikkai “Hands of Hope” www.elijakiruba.com email elijakiruba@yahoo.co.in