You need to squeeze people into situation to really understand what they are made of.
There are disasters and there are disasters.
My folks made a strange observation the other day.
The big disaster happened in Uttarakhand.
They were shell-shocked to see the reaction and the initiatives of the people.
For some reason,the media had some grotesque stories to tell of people who were trying to cash into the situation in every which ways....stories of people earning lakhs of rupees to ferry the victims and leaving them mid-way,stories of people cutting off the hands and ears of people with jewellery and carrying it in a bag,people over-charging the victims for every bit of essentials.
My folks who never comment on people's character said,'The people there seem to be bad!'
They have been through a disaster recently and they were commenting ,such a thing would never happen in our place.
Many months after the episode dead bodies are still being unearthed.In Mangan,the locals took the initiatives of digging out people themselves.
They were telling me how the local people rose up to the occasion to manage the situation themselves.
They found themselves as shelter givers to the labourers working for the project which many see as an intrusion of purity of the place.
Taxi-drivers ferried people too and fro free of charge,locals opened soup kitchens in different places,people paid the fares for people who had no money .
What does it take to make monsters of mere mortals,I wonder.
There are disasters and there are disasters.
My folks made a strange observation the other day.
The big disaster happened in Uttarakhand.
They were shell-shocked to see the reaction and the initiatives of the people.
For some reason,the media had some grotesque stories to tell of people who were trying to cash into the situation in every which ways....stories of people earning lakhs of rupees to ferry the victims and leaving them mid-way,stories of people cutting off the hands and ears of people with jewellery and carrying it in a bag,people over-charging the victims for every bit of essentials.
My folks who never comment on people's character said,'The people there seem to be bad!'
They have been through a disaster recently and they were commenting ,such a thing would never happen in our place.
Many months after the episode dead bodies are still being unearthed.In Mangan,the locals took the initiatives of digging out people themselves.
They were telling me how the local people rose up to the occasion to manage the situation themselves.
They found themselves as shelter givers to the labourers working for the project which many see as an intrusion of purity of the place.
Taxi-drivers ferried people too and fro free of charge,locals opened soup kitchens in different places,people paid the fares for people who had no money .
What does it take to make monsters of mere mortals,I wonder.
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