MANGALAM (CHENGANNUR): A smiling Sreenivas and Neetha look at you from a February 2012 calendar — wet and curled up like an old cloth bag — perched on the bedroom wall. A dim-looking Lord Ayyappa picture can be seen on the shelf.
In the kitchen, the refrigerator has turned upside down, while an LPG cylinder has found its way to the top shelf.
What used to be a bunch of new clothes, probably part of the Onam shopping, lies staggered on the floor. Splashed all over like some sort of a leitmotif is a muddy colour with its overwhelming pungent odour. Standing in the midst of such a topsy turvy scene is a muddy-coloured man clad in just a loin cloth, all focussed on a frantic cleaning spree.
Sreenivas V Kumar, a taluk officer at Vellarikunnu in Kasargod, had to flee his house at Vazhoor, Mangalam on the banks of Varattar and Mithrapuzha - the two tributaries of river Pamba - in the wee hours of Independence Day. He, along with wife Neetha, his little kids, 70-year-old mother Thankamma and two others, fled the house when water started to rise over their doorsteps. With his family still in the refugee camp, Sreenivas has no words to describe the magnitude of loss his family has suffered.
With his family still in the refugee camp, Sreenivas has no words to describe the magnitude of loss his family has suffered. His next-door neighbours Balamurali and Babu have also been immersed in furious cleaning since morning. With water receding in many parts of Chengannur, many in the relief camps have come back to take a look at what was once home to them. On the other bank, rescue work is still on.
If Joseph of Vadi coast Kollam — who along with his fellow fishermen have been active in rescue for the past three days - is to be believed, at least 5,000 people are still stranded at places like Pandanad, Edanad, Mangalam and Thiruvanvandoor. “Out at sea, we have faced heavy winds and rough weather. But the kind of strong undercurrents that we see here is something different,” admits Joseph, who with his three-member team has rescued close to a thousand now.
“We lost virtually everything. This shirt and dhoti is all I have now. Never mind, I am happy that our lives have not been lost,” says 80-year-old Vasudevan Pillai, relief writ large across his face. Sunday morning too saw concerted rescue efforts by the Indian Navy teams and fishermen in fibre boats from the coasts of Vizhinjam, Kollam and Neendakara al ong wi t h loc a l volunteers. The rescue operations in Chengannur have almost reached its final phase.
More than the undercurrents, what worries many rescue workers is the attitude of the people. “We are inundated by hundreds of distress calls from across the globe. We then go in search of those stranded, braving strong currents and other impediments on the way. But when we manage to reach them after such herculean efforts, they say they don’t want to be rescued. ‘Just give us food packets, we don’t want to move out’ is what they say. What to do?” asks Lt Cdr Nandu who heads a team of Naval personnel deployed in four Gemini boats for the past four days.
“It’s true,” concurred Abdul Javed, a policeman in the team. “Yesterday, I went for about a kilometre braving strong currents, only to be told that they don’t want to shift,” he added. The relief camps present yet another heartbreaking picture. “We too had everything once. We weren’t refugees till the other day,” sobs a middle-aged woman, even as she keeps an eye on the vehicle distributing relief materials. On the way to Mangalam, 50 sealed sacks of damaged rice are tossed out from a small goods van stopped in the middle of kneedeep water.
“What else can I do? My losses would run into lakhs of rupees. But am left with no other option,” says Sabu, who runs a ration shop here. Hundreds of lives have been lost and wide-spread damages have been reported till date. Scores have lost their entire life savings in the floods. But gradually, thousands of victims have already begun to inch forward in rebuilding their lives, in the hope of getting some semblance of normalcy in the days to come.