I am ensconced in my father's City, all set for a day of family visits. It is a nice car, not particularly nice-looking though. Shivakumar drives it well, with the gentle respect that is typical of him. It is a thrill to drive on Madras roads, and with Shivakumar at the wheel, it is a safe thrill.

Shivakumar is probably in his early 40s, a short, dapper man with a perpetual half-smile. His experience with the tsunami was frighteningly close. He lives in Foreshore Estate, which is an area very close to one portion of the Cooum river which in turn is fed by the Bay of Bengal. His house is on the ground floor, and on Dec 26 morning, sea water rushed in. Alarmed and confused, he gathered his family and ran upstairs to the terrace. He did not follow some of his neighbors who tried to run away from the water chasing them. Neighbors who tried to escape but failed. A young boy who lived opposite his house was washed away in the wave of destruction. Shivakumar's voice is raised when he talks about it, and he throws his hands up in gratitude. For he does not know what directed him then, during that instant of madness, to run to a higher level.

My mother and I listen to him in awe, wondering in fear how this tale will end. But it ends alright. It ends with a wave of relief from all three of us. I believe Shivakumar is a typical middle-class man, unshaken by disaster and always looking forward....with hope.

The car stops outside my athai's* Mylapore house.

* athai - Tamil for father's sister

Prayer for India

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by Thee to ever-widening thought and action;

Into that heaven of freedom, my father, let my country awake.

--Rabindranath Tagore

More on my return from the homeland.