A few days ago I shifted to my new room in north Delhi.
Besides my giant almirah, I had a fridge, four bags full of clothes and over 12 boxes, both big and small with all my stuff. This excludes my shoe boxes and other two bags with my kitchen stuff.
Since I have been away from my family for so long (over four years now) I have a lot of stuff. And I wanted everything. I couldn’t leave behind anything.
While at work, I was going through the pictures of the floods in Bihar. People are affected everywhere and a region as big as Delhi has been engulfed by the raging waters of the Kosi river. I can’t imagine living in an inundated Delhi, besides the fact that we won’t be able to live then.
I saw a picture in which a family was walking towards a dry and safer place. Father, mother and their three children. That is all. In another picture a little girl had a broken suitcase on her head and two pairs of worn out chappals. She was standing in waist-deep water and she looked barely over 12.
In some pictures people were fighting over relief food, while in some they had lined up to take clothes, dry clothes sent from all over.
I never understood the logic behind sending clothes to victims of natural calamities. As a younger person, I used to wonder why someone would wear worn out clothes people send.
Calamities are the time when people can dump their unwanted clothes, serving double purpose. On no other occasion can one be proud and at the same time relieved of helping and getting rid of clothes which you couldn’t sell to the kabadi wala guy.
“They are left with nothing in this world, they will accept even torn clothes now,” is the most common answer when pointed out that the clothes they are sending is not worth wearing anymore.
This is besides the fact that there are many more who genuinely come forward to help and do everything in their capability to help.
Coming back to the pictures from Bihar. The family had nothing but themselves to save. Before the floods they might have had a small house, family belongings and most important – cattle and their agricultural land. All they could save from the raging water was themselves.
The girl had a broken suitcase which can barely hold anything. And worn out chappals? What would she do with them? And is she left with any family member? The picture didn’t show any.
I can’t imagine restarting my life from scratch at age 35. So many people in the floods lost everything they had. And I am not even talking about the lives lost.
A baby was born two days after the flood water started rising and the family had to evacuate in a hurry. The grandparents, old and frail, were left behind. Under normal circumstances, the family would be celebrating the birth. The grandparents dancing with joy, while the pandit busy performing puja to name the new born.
Now no one has time. In the relief camp, the family is trying to find a dry place amid the pouring sky. A baby without a name. I wish to give her a name but even in the comfort of my house, I can’t think of any name for her. I wish to give her a happy name but won’t it be ironical. Happiness born out of the womb of misery!
I scan my room and it is full of things that I have. Do I need all of it? Do I really use all the things that I have? What if Delhi were to be hit with an equally devastating flood?
What all would I pick up? What would I leave behind?