Diaster Tourism(part--3}

Relief Boat was like this

At about one 'o' clock or more in the dreadful night Papa came from the office with certain staff & their cacophonous noise awake me . I simply remember , he came from the office & again I slipped into
deep sleep as I was six to seven years old ,so, mortally fatigued .In the morning every thing was still & water level had also stabilised. I overheard ,the flood will remain for two days & from third day it will start receding . Two numbers of country boat has been caught by circle staff  with their boat man & on credit, it is filled by the sacks full of coarse grains maize .  The relief party comprised of two  to three burly staff, two boatmen with their long rowing bamboos & Papa .They were girding for relief voyage where every where there was flood water only in the horizon  !

                                                    I didn't know what happened to me but I was pestering with whole might at my disposal to accompany the relief party . Papa was dead against carrying me in the relief boat but mother came to my rescue . She vetoed for my joining the relief party . About 60 years have elapsed of this event but I am thankful to her veto, as this enabled me to narrate this disaster tourism .Somehow, I went through the ritual of morning ablution ,jumped from hand to hand & found myself cocooned in the boat .Afterwards it was unforgettable spectacle of my life as I was ready for 'Disaster Tourism '.

                                                 The relief party left the vicinity of circle compound, where everywhere the objects ,natural like trees, shrubs or green foliage's or artificial like buildings, temple or other edifices were under four to five feet water . But the real disaster & resulting devastation , very forlorn  looks of the habitation were unnerving.

  The boatman had uncanny faculty of rowing the boat through safe passage,but the vast & endless expanse of muddy water was frightening . The relief boat meandering & navigating the muddy sheet of water , encircling the nariah tiled houses, majority of them supported by mud walls , bamboo groves, orchards , large green bunch of plantain leaves, shrubs, boughs & above all harassed & scary faces of man & women teens & children ,all making a crowd taking & positioning  themselves on the mounds available to them . The relief boat coming stand still to those places & distributed maize as per their need . But the frenzied cacophony turning in no time in crescendo ,asking for more relief  grains available was heart rendering . It seemed , there was no match between available few sacks of grain & scary scrounging for help  . The passing boat of relief was just a moving beckon of giving soothing ointment to ruffled psyche of onlooking crowd which had gone & experienced unimaginable trauma of flood .

Like scrounging for relief material

Like desperate fight with flood

Like desperate to save himself

   
 The relief boat was meandering in vast expanse of flood water giving panoramic view of devastation & disaster . Many heart rendering views were confronted but undulations developed at many places eddy current & swirling intensity in flowing water !


Continued........