A Citizen Moment

In the ‘Citizen Moment’ sharing in the programme held at SBLC, Nungambakkam on 17th Dec, 2009 one staff member by name Shri. M Venkatesh, a recently recruited Ex-Serviceman, shared his memorable ‘Citizen-most’ moment (if I may be permitted to use the term) while he was serving the Indian Air Force in Jamnagar for four years. He recalled the dreadful day of 26th Jan, 2001 when Gujarat was hit by an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.9 on the Richter Scale with its epicenter being Bhuj. It was the Jamnagar military Airport from where rescue operations were directed and Shri. Venkatesh was on duty during that period.
2. While the magnitude of the destructions was shocking to many, including the brave hearted Air Force personnel, Shri. Venkatesh was very bold and requested his higher officials to permit him to join the rescue operations in Bhuj, even though his duty was at the Jamnagar base station. Initially the higher ups were not willing to let him go as he had other works in the ‘radar’ system to help the aircrafts in landing and taking off. He reluctantly continued his work but went on repeatedly requesting his higher ups to let him go to Bhuj and do his ‘bit’ in the rescue operation. Seeing his enthusiasm to help people, he was permitted to go to Bhuj. The sight he saw there was mind-chilling with thousands of dead bodies, disfigured humans, cries of woes, etc. But un- deterred, he was on a ‘mission’. He started lifting the badly injured victims from the rubbles and debris to the rescue aircrafts in batches. He brought them to Jamnagar and with his friends arranged for some immediate medical treatment. The weather was biting cold and the victims had no spare clothes, except what they were wearing. He immediately set aside Rs.5,000/- from his pocket and started collecting money from his fellow Air Force colleagues. He could muster around Rs.50,000/- in no time and went around Jamnagar town to buy some clothes, eatables, medicines, etc for the victims. No shop keeper was prepared to open his shop in view of the earthquake and its aftermath. But, Shri. Venkatesh persuaded them by explaining the position of the badly injured victims and made them open the shops and bought all that was urgently needed – food, cloth and medicines. At Bhuj he also saw a three year old girl crying endlessly as she had lost her parents to the fury of the earthquake. Shri. Venkatesh could not understand the language of the girl – but she was pointing out to another boy who was injured but unconscious. Apparently the boy was the only person she knew amongst all the confusion. Shri. Venkatesh brought both the crying girl and the boy to Jamnagar for treatment. After the boy regained his consciousness after three days, he could identify the girl who was his neighbour. Collecting the names of the addresses of the relatives of the small girl with the help of the boy, Shri. Venkatesh made arrangements for sending the girl to her close relatives who had survived the earthquake.
3. The initial steps for rescue operations were mooted by Shri. Venkatesh who happened to be close to the epicenter of the earth quake and after a few days the whole world started sending teams for help to Gujarat. When Shri Venkatesh shared this emotional experience in his group’s ‘Citizen Moment’ the whole class was very much moved and started applauding his bravery, courage, willingness to take risks and above all his humanness. The group was very modest in building the ‘Tree of Fulfillment’ to this episode, with about three / four blue coins (inner fruits) and just about two white stars (joys of contribution). Shri. Venkatesh also was ‘humility’ personified in his presentation and behavior. The rest of the class corrected the aberration as Shri. Venkatesh’s feat deserved many more inner fruit and joys of contribution. As a facilitator I also guided the participants to understand the meaning of the words used in the ‘reference book’ for identifying the various fruits. Shri. Venkatesh’s human approach in acute adversities touched the class who all felt that the SBI was lucky to have this wonderful ‘Citizen’ new recruit in its ranks.
S R Raghunath
(Facilitator @ SBLC, Nungambakkam)