For weeks after the tsunami, children in the fishing villages around Chennai displayed signs of trauma, and viewed the sea that had engulfed their homes and disrupted their lives with fear. Four month
For weeks after the tsunami, children in the fishing villages around Chennai displayed signs of trauma, and viewed the sea that had engulfed their homes and disrupted their lives with fear. Four months after the disaster, they’re returning to school, and returning also, to the giving sea
It was a Sunday, a day for the children of Ururkuppam and Oddaikuppam to forget about school attendance. But on the morning of December 26, 2004 they ran like never before to their Olcott Memorial High School in Besant Nagar, Chennai. In this institution associated with the Theosophical Society which has traditionally provided support in times of distress, they stayed with their families for a week, seeking shelter and receiving food and relief supplies. Some three months later the 120 affected children show remarkable resilience as they use the once unknown word ‘tsunami’ and talk about a phenomenon that has turned their world upside down but not shaken their resolve to call heir fishing villages home: no matter what, they do not want to leave.
“I was grinding chutney,” recalls S Rajeshwari, a class VII student. “My friends told me ‘Look at that wave.’ I saw a huge wall of water engulfing us and sweeping away everything. My mother screamed for my father who had gone to fetch water and we all ran away.”
Three boys Yaseen Murugan, Powell and K Hariharan had an even luckier escape. “We had taken off our clothes and were just about to bathe in the sea when we looked up and saw our friend’s father’s boat that was inland perched upside down atop a huge wave.”
Others recalled the sea’s movements as seeming to be very slow and then the waters rapidly boiling over.
For many others it was a terrifying experience to see their thatched homes being engulfed and the sea taking away all their belongings. But as one stoical student adds, “It was important to run away and save our lives, not our possessions.”
For some weeks bathing in the waters was something the children just could not think of doing. The familiar soothing sound of the sea had assumed an angry menace. But under the kindly guidance of headmistress Lakshmi Suryanarayanan and the staff the children learnt to overcome these fears. “We encouraged them to talk and share their experiences. We asked them to express their emotions through drawings or poems. One girl eloquently wrote ‘O sea, O sea, I thought you were my friend.’ We encouraged continuous expression and explained how exactly a tsunami is caused and how the earthquake in Indonesia had triggered this particular phenomenon.’’
When the second major earthquake hit Indonesia in March this year the police issued a warning and the women and children came back to the school to spend a night. Now they take the risk in their stride
“We know it takes time for a tsunami to reach our shores. If it happens again we will get the emergency warning. We also know that features like a receding sea can be the harbinger of a tsunami so we will be ready and just run away,” they say. Two books in Tamil brought out by Akanksha, a civil society organisation, The Giving Sea and A Small Boy and the Sea, have been distributed to the children to read in the summer holidays.
More than the physical fears, the social tensions that the tsunami has generated continue to trouble them. The Tamil Nadu government’s revenue order seeking to implement CRZ rules and relocate fishermen 500 metres from the coastline has created ferment in the kuppams. The fishing community is adamant that it will not move away from the sea. The children echo their parents’ feelings of not wanting to leave familiar shores.
“We don’t want to leave our homes. The breeze is so cool. You don’t fall ill here,” they say.
Most of the elder boys who help their fathers with fishing say they want to remain in the same profession. “The sea is giving us more than enough. Even if we take up another job we want to be near the coast so that we can always go to sea if there is no work,” says Desappan.
Besides the insecurity of relocation there is unease in the village caused by dissent over the distribution of relief materials and nets. There have been squabbles in the villages and noisy arguments.
Says G Mani, “Father cannot go back to sea because there are disagreements over who should get the nets.”
What is heartening though, notes Lakshmi Suryanarayanan, is that the children do not bring their parents’ squabbles with them to school. “We tried to stop the fights in our village but the elders beat me when I intervened,” says a 15-year-old.
These children are fortunate because there were no deaths in these kuppams. But in Tiruvalu, a lttle distance from Chennai, the trauma witnessed by the children manifested itself in the form of nightmares and even instances of sleepwalking , according to Arunodaya, an NGO that works with street children.
V Mahalakshmi, psychosocial coordinator working with Action Aid, explains how the focus in many of these kuppams has been on long-term emotional empowerment rather than immediate measures. Community workers are being trained to replace the field workers from various development organisations.
Community workers at the Indira Nagar kuppam have already conducted medical camps for the children and organised games to help build self-esteem. For the vacations they have planned a children’s camp with storytelling and other activities. One of the major challenges here is to motivate the children to go back to school. One reason is that children who have been housed in the temporary shelter at Kargilnagar find it too far. Another is that while the government schools have agreed to waive the fees for tsunami-affected families, the private schools have not. This has led to a rise in the number of dropouts, says Ajai, a field worker with Action Aid.
Besides tackling these issues, NGOs and concerned groups are trying to give lessons to children on gender, land and livelihood. At the Mukkutuvar kuppam near Chennai a noted folk theatre troupe, Koothupatarai, performed a lively street play using traditional mythological figures. There were loud screams as Yama, the god of death, strode like a tidal wave through the crowd of children, causing them to disperse. But in a moment they forgot their fears as Yama was vanquished by Ganesha, the elephant-headed god who removes all obstacles. Yama also represented the greedy land sharks anxious to grab their lands. The children were told that they must protect their homes and the seas. This is an allusion to fears that the Tamil Nadu government and private enterprise want to set up tourist resorts after evicting fishermen.
The show ended amid boisterous shrieks and children playing among the sands where nature had ravaged their homes some months ago. Their spirit has endured.
S Arunkumar, of Olcott Memorial High School, gifted the headmistress a shell. A giving child remembers only a giving sea.
(Freny Manecksha is an independent journalist based in Mumbai.)
InfoChange News & Features, May 2005