Watching TV news in the last couple of weeks has been a deeply disturbing experience to say the least. Not that it is ever pleasant these days but shallow politicians bickering over petty issues (or, for that matter – making light of issues of grave importance) is so much more tolerable than the sights of the horrific tragedy that has struck the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand. A mountain tsunami of sorts has washed away several homes, villages, towns, roads, bridges, everything that came in its way and has left behind hundreds dead, thousands injured and several hundred-thousands homeless. The cruel irony is not lost on us, shocked spectators, that many of the victims were pilgrims – those who went to assert their faith in the Almighty and have been bereft of their lives instead, those who hoped to seek catharsis by purging their sins and have been washed away by ferocious waves instead. And yet, this is not the first time.
My mind goes back 22 years when a devastating earthquake had rocked the same region. It was in fact the same night as my birthday but late enough for the date to have changed to 20th October in 1991 when an earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale struck the Garhwal range of the Himalayas. It tore apart Uttarkashi, Tehri, Chamoli (pretty much the same places that have been hit by the floods this time) and neighboring areas killing over 2,000 people, injuring over 5,000 and leaving over 300,000 homeless. (A decade later, at a cozy family dinner in Delhi, I would listen spell bound to the then Principal of a boarding school in Shimla who recounted to us the horrors of that night as he desperately tried to evacuate the children sleeping in the hostel from harm’s way). It wasn’t the age of 24x7 television and the radio had lost most of its old popularity, so there was a vacuum of sorts in the travel time of news and by the time it trickled to us in Calcutta through newspapers, it always already over 30 hours since the incident. However, that had not diluted the immediacy and brutality of the event. It was in the week following that terrible tragedy that I saw Mother Teresa for the first (and only) time in my life.
When I saw Mother Teresa she was already an internationally acknowledged messiah and one of the most famous citizens of Calcutta. She had spent over forty years in the city tirelessly working to provide succor to the sick and the destitute. It was over a decade since she had won the Nobel Peace Prize. Her visit to our school was no surprise. The school had sent a notice to all parents couple of days in advance announcing that Mother Teresa would be taking her Missionaries of Charity to Uttarkashi to work on the relief efforts and would be visiting our school (and many others) in a bid to collect money. The notice said that the logistics of how to give the money would be communicated after her visit and urged all of us to donate “generously” (or some word to that effect).
It is that last bit that made my mother apprehensive. To tell the truth, while I belonged to a perfectly middle class family, many of my classmates were from highly affluent families. And while my parents fully approved of the idea of being good Samaritans and donating money for a noble cause, they were conscious of the fact that our interpretation of “generous” may not match that of some of my more wealthy classmates. There was a balancing act to be done – on one hand, we wanted to give enough to strike a parity with what everyone else was giving; on the other, we did not want to give so much that we would end up far outdoing our own means. My mother did what she always did at such moments of moral dilemma – she telephoned the mothers of some of my other classmates who were her friends. I do not know what transpired on those phone calls but the instruction given to me after they got over was concise and clear – I was to ascertain exactly how much was the amount we were expected to donate. Armed with that clear agenda, I went to school the day Mother Teresa came calling.
That day was over two decades ago and yet I remember it the way I remember few others in my life. There was a palpable air of excitement in the morning assembly at school. I feel guilty to admit that the monumental tragedy that had triggered the need for her visit had somewhat receded in our adolescent minds. After all, we were going to get to see an icon, a real hero, a person whom legends were made up of.
When she finally did appear, I was a bit disappointed. She looked nothing quite like what I had imagined. With her reputation and her larger than life image, I was perhaps expecting to see someone more like her good friend Princess Diana! Instead, the person I saw looked older and frailer than my grandmother. She had a wrinkled face, was short and with her hunchback seemed even shorter, so much so that she was about the same height as me and I must have been less than five feet then. She was 81 then but if someone told me that she was a hundred years old or many hundreds for that matter, I would not have opposed. She wore her trademark white saree with the broad dark blue border though. There was no mistaking it was her. It was only when she came much closer that I saw something that startled me – there was around her frail body an aura of incomprehensible power. As she walked past, the radiance of that aura was so strong that I felt there was almost a glow around her, a halo. (Years later, while reading George Bernard Shaw’s play “Major Barbara”, I found in the description of Andrew Undershaft an imagery that comes closest to my memories of her demeanor; Shaw wrote “His gentleness is partly that of a strong man who has learnt by experience that his natural grip hurts ordinary people unless he handles them very carefully”). I don’t believe in saints today, I didn’t even then. Most people may dismiss my description as childishly (and perhaps needlessly) supernatural. But if you have seen someone who has dedicated one’s entire life to the cause of humanity, you will probably know what I am talking about. I saw that aura in another old man too, one who life is fading away today – Nelson Mandela – but I will keep that story for another day.
I don’t remember anything of what she said, except for one thing. Presumably, she would have told us about the tragedy, about the need to help people who were affected and about doing our bit by donating money. And then, to my utter disbelief she said she knew that the question in the minds of many of us was “How much is good enough” (exactly what my mother had asked me to find out!). And then she went on to say that the answer to the question was not a number but a principle. She said “give, until it hurts”. 22 years later, I still marvel at the simplicity and profoundness of that statement. What an easy thing to say, what a difficult thing to do. She said each of us should do charity based on our individual capacity and we must keep giving till we reach the point where our action starts hurting our own selves. And then, it would be alright to stop. That phrase I heard from Mother Teresa that day in school when she visited us after the earthquake in Uttarkashi got etched in my memory as a cardinal rule, a commandment that I should always aspire to live by. But I must confess today that I failed. Whenever I got a chance to do good, to show generosity, to give to others who do not have as much as I do, I always stopped short before it started hurting myself, sometimes well before. It disturbs me no end to think how little I give compared to what I have and every day I resolve to try a little harder the next.
Today, two decades after I learnt that lesson, Uttarkashi needs us again. Mother Teresa is long gone but her message remains and the need to live by it more than ever before.
The question that each one of us ought to ask ourselves today is what are we doing about it? Instead of being mute spectators to this gruesome tragedy, can we participate in improving the situation? Can we dedicate our time and physical effort to help those in need? If not, have we at least donated some money? The Prime Minister has set up a relief fund and appealed to citizens to contribute. But some of us are skeptical about giving money to the government coffers, given that the government does not have a track record of using it very effectively and efficiently. For such people, every TV channel and newspaper is publishing lists of NGOs who are working on the ground and are dire need of all the support they can get. Here is one such list http://www.dnaindia.com/india/1853462/report-make-a-difference-to-the-future-of-victims-in-uttarakhand-by-donating-today. I did not donate to any NGOs on this list though. Instead, I gave my contribution to http://www.savethechildren.in/. It doesn’t matter whom you are giving to, it matters whether you are giving. And, as I learnt from Mother Teresa, it doesn’t matter how much you are giving, it matters whether you are giving until it hurts. There are dead to be cremated, wounds to be healed, homes to be re-built. Now is not the time to sit and watch. Now is the time to do.
