Quake-Hit Gujarat Celebrates The Future, Mourns The Past

GUJARAT, India (dpa) – J.G. Pandya does not like to talk about disasters. The 50-year-old director of the State Disaster Management Authority in the western Indian state of Gujarat is particularly uncomfortable about recalling the events of January 26, 2001.

“We are trying to forget,” he says everytime a reference is made to the earthquake that peaked at 7.9 on the Richter scale, killed

13,811 people and orphaned nearly 400 children.

Explaining his unwillingness to talk about the tragedy, Pandya says: “It was a difficult time. Nothing can compensate for the dead, the children orphaned and just the fact that the surroundings we had grown up in crumbled in a minute. It is too painful to talk about.”

Not only that, there is a government order, asking the people to look to the future. Survivors have been asked to be strong and celebrate India’s Republic Day on January 26, the very day the earthquake shattered so many things.

It has been made mandatory for every village and town to celebrate Republic Day. School teachers are writing stirring speeches, children are preparing for cultural shows and the government is encouraging them.

At a roadside eatery along the Ahemdabad-Bhuj highway, there is a heated debate on the new government order. Opinion is divided.

Eatery owner Sheikh quietly says: “This is my new shop. The old one was across the road and didn’t survive the quake. My village is 10 kilometres from the highway and it is devastated. The new village school will hoist the Indian flag but right next to it there will be special prayers for the dead.”

The district administration is also organising “bhoomi pujan”, prayers for the earth. The aim is to commemorate the dead and in keeping with tradition also pray to the earth for a safer future.

On the surface it looks like Gujarat is celebrating. Like Pandya, the rest of Gujarat is also trying to forget 2001 – a year when so many lost so much.

Celebrations began with the festival of kites on January 14. A week before the festival, street corners were thronged with kitemakers busy coating strings with crushed glass powder.

Gambhir Singh explains: “The sharper the thread the better. The whole aim is to cut loose somebody else’s kite. It’s madness for three days as kites dot the skyline and people spend the day on terraces.”

Sweetshop owner Usha Purushottam is also celebrating, but for different reasons. He moved into a new house on January 14. It was built on the rubble of his old home which came caved in a year back.

Purushottam’s 18-year-old daughter Usha says: “I remember running out of the house, dragging my grandmother behind me. Just as we stepped onto the road, our house collapsed. Anyway, I think our new house is more beautiful, especially the motifs we painted on the walls.”

Everywhere in Gujarat there are signs of recovery. On the rubble of homes and those buried under them, new houses are being built for those who survived.

At petrol stations, nobody pays too much attention to the mountain of rubble near the make-shift new office. In restaurants, the cracks have been plastered and paintings hung over them. In markets, the debris has been pushed aside and new stalls set-up.

Along the long, dusty road through Kutch district, in the western most end of the state, gleaming new sign boards direct visitors to new towns and villages.

Orderly rows of earthquake-resistant houses await their occupants. In Dudhai on the outskirts of Bhuj, a village that was destroyed has been resurrected. The run-down huts have been replaced by cement and mortar houses.

“It looks nice, but people are not moving in,” says Manasi Anand of the Kutch Nav Nirman Abhiyan, a conglomerate of NGOs. “Villagers are not used to such construction. There are sentiments attached with old homes. Also, in these areas, people have a special affinity with the earth and mud houses are preferred.”

The district administration in Bhuj says that they were never expecting everyone to be fully satisfied but add that most people appreciate a roof over their heads.

Khavda is one such place. Women sit in the courtyards of their new homes, busy sewing. On colourful fabric, they weave in mirrors and embroider motifs.

“We just got back to work,” says Panna Ben looking up from the cushion cover she is sewing. “This is our only livelihood and for a year we have not been able to stitch anything. But now, construction has begun in our village and we thought we’d get started too.”

Prakash Bhanani is also back in business. The chief executive of Kala Raksha, which buys handicrafts from villagers and markets them in cities, he is busy posting pamphlets for a sale in Bombay.

“The handicraft industry was crippled by the quake,” Bhanani says.

“It took a long time for people to get back to work and meet the demand requirements. Also, tourist influx in the region fell and our sales dropped sharply. But slowly artisans went back to work and things are picking up.”

But beneath the surface, the tragedy survives.

Manoj K., a programme officer with NGO Action Aid says: “The houses will be built and the businesses will pick up. But it will be a long road to recovery for the people who lost everything.”

In Dhamdaka village, 50 kilometres or so from Bhuj, social workers have come across around 60 cases of severely traumatised people. School children are still scared of returning to classrooms and their teachers are still mourning the dead.

In neighbouring Bhimsar, 48-year-old Hira Bhai Baijal has not recovered from the death of his nephews. The behaviour of the traumatized man prompted villagers to keep him in isolation.

“We found him only now,” says Manoj. “He is being shifted to a hospital for treatment. Like him, there are so many others who could not cope and lost their mental balance. Their recovery will signal the new beginning.”