Floods, fury and fiascos

How does one quantify disaster? That this is a bigger tragedy, that a lesser one, this is more difficult to live with, that can take care of itself? Each fatality, each injury, even each hurt, breaks survivors and mourners and touches others in different ways. Yet, life goes on. Disaster doesn’t qualify to be quantified. But let’s remember what we mustn’t forget.
2014 had its share of horrors — Kashmir valley under the ravaging Jhelum water, Jammu region flooded as well and the state’s death count nearing 300; 24 engineering students from faraway Hyderabad washed away in the Beas within a matter of seconds in Himachal; philanthropy going all wrong, with over 30 losing vision at a free camp held to improve their eyesight in Gurdaspur; the government apparatus and family planning implementation coming under serious question again as 16 women lost lives in a camp meant to ensure they did not give birth again. What about the tragedy in Patna on October 3, when Dussehra festivities saw a stampede in Gandhi Maidan and 32 deaths?
Let’s also not forget the mother lending her shoulder to her martyred Army jawan son’s coffin, a young girl lighting the pyre of her Lieut-Col father, and the killing of two Kashmiri youths mistaken to be terrorists. Let’s also share the shame for the disrespect shown to slain CRPF men in Chhattisgarh.
Amid all this, one man, Phil Hughes, dies on a cricket field and not only makes a nation stop and leaves cricket fans shaken the world over, but shows how frail life can be. And yet, strife, anger, hatred, violence saw only a rise this year. That’s tragic. Let’s not forget.