Dudurudh

My grandmother raised my father and his siblings in Wayanad. My cousins and I spent uncountable vacation mornings laying on thin mattresses curled up in thinner blankets as the fog made its way through the large cracks in the windows of the house we stayed in. Sometimes our early morning alarm would be a wild animal (a boar or deer) scratching the red oxide verandah. On many a morning we’d hear rumors of a leopard or an elephant roaming the estates the previous night. Regardless, a small troupe of us, 3-foot tall children and our slightly taller, older cousins often trekked through the rocky estate terrain to a small opening in the hills where we’d bathe in a tiny pond formed from a thin stream of water that turned into a waterfall about 15 feet above us. Few things in life bring me as much happiness as thinking of Wayanad and being there with the people I love most. 

In the wee hours of the dawn on July 30th 2024 – a morning not unlike the one I remember from my vacations with my cousins – incessant rains triggered multiple landslides in Wayanad. Entire hillsides collapsed, bringing with them massive rocks, mud, debris and water and destroyed everything in its path. In just two hours between 2 and 4AM, whole villages disappeared. Over 350 people are confirmed dead and more than 200 are still missing. Thousands upon thousands are displaced and living in temporary camps with nowhere to return to when the rains recede. In 2018 a massive flood wreaked havoc in Kerala. The scenes from this landslide bring back terrifying images from the days of that deluge. 

I have much to say about the calamity in Wayanad including about the indefatigable spirit of its people about which enough has been said already this week but while their resilience has been widely praised, praise alone is not enough. Resources are in need. The avenues to help are many. If you know an organization – an NGO, an online community anyone gathering resources to send to Wayanad, please contribute to them. Otherwise, please go to https://donation.cmdrf.kerala.gov.in and make a donation. Kerala CMDRF does a reasonably good job of being transparent about incomes and expenses (you’ll see the reports from the COVID19 and 2018 flood donation campaigns on that website). 

I can’t bring myself to end this piece on a note of destruction. That image of Wayanad is too hard to sit with. So I will tell you about the only image that I will try to keep in my mind about Wayanad. My grandmother lived in a house atop a coffee estate. In those days, wayanad did not have electricity. After dusk, it was too dark to see your own palm in front of your face. From the verandah of that house, looking down to the bottom of the hill was a large tree. In the evenings you’d see one little light blink and disappear. And then another. And another. And another until a few minutes later when the whole tree was lit in the visual metronome of hundreds of fireflies lighting up the evening. I have never seen that spectacle live. But every one of my older cousins who has, has described it with ceaseless glee and wonder. 

Sparks of light in the darkest nights – Wayanad does that. 

To help rebuild Wayanad, you can contribute to the Chief Minister’s Distress Relief Fund at this link: https://donation.cmdrf.kerala.gov.in/

For updates about the situation in Wayanad follow the Chief Minister on Twitter or Instagram @cmokerala