(Photo: Jerome Taylor)
This is an old report I made while working out in India in late 2005/2006. I had taken a break from freelancing to travel with some friends to the Keralan coast for Christmas and had originally wanted to spend the holiday weekend in the holy city of Kanyakumari - the southernmost point of India. Favouring a more relaxed break on the Keralan backwaters my friends persuaded me otherwise.
Thank god they did. Early on Boxing Day morning, the Asian Tsunami swept across Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, India and a host of East African nations killing upwards of 180,000 people. Four hundred people drowned in Kanyakumari.
In the days and weeks that followed, hordes of journalists descended upon Tamil Nadu, the Indian state hit hardest by the tsunami, to report on one of the worst natural disatsers of the past century. But in amongst the undescribable horror I came across Saswot Sourav, one of the most remarkable people I have ever met.
By Jerome Taylor in Mamallapuram, Tamil NaduPublished: The Week, India
Saswot Sourav, popularly called Saswamiji, is like any other relief worker in the tsunami-hit Mamallapuram, except for one difference—he is blind. He heads the Saswot Foundation, an NGO, which helped victims of the Gujarat earthquake and the Orissa flood.
There is a light that enters your heart when he speaks. His formula is simple: love and lots of it.
Now Saswot is in Tamil Nadu offering a mix of practical, financial assistance and emotional inspiration using his own remarkable story of overcoming the odds.
Much of the funding for the foundation comes from abroad—mainly from westerners he has met and won over with his charm.
The car crash that left him orphaned at the age of ten also left him blind. A wandering ascetic, S. Mohaprakash, who he met at a railway station in Bhopal, brought him up for 12 years and taught him that, through helping others, he could overcome his personal tragedy.
Later, he worked with Mother Teresa and Baba Amte, and then set up his own foundation as a "grassroots volunteer who loves to serve women and children, the sick and injured and those with broken hearts".
Optimistic and full of fervour, he focuses on boosting the morale of the suffering through love and humour. He seems to infuse each villager he meets with the confidence that the tsunami tragedy can be overcome. "The villagers feel that if a blind man can do it then anyone can," says Saswot, who lives in Mamallapuram.
An American woman, Brice, came to Mamallapuram as a tourist but soon found herself helping Saswot with fundraising and aid distribution. "There is a light that enters your heart when he speaks," she says. "His formula is simple: love and lots of it." Mark, a Californian aid worker, says: "He is inspirational, certainly, and the kids love him."
Saswot was on the Mamallapuram beach when the tsunami struck on December 26. He knew that little time could be lost. "I refused to leave," he recalls. "That night I set to work. I went to the local shops and bought what I thought would be needed. There was no time to haggle."
In the first week, Saswot delivered tents, food, water, medicine, clothing and over 1,000 water filters to tsunami-hit areas of Cuddalore, Karaikal, Nagapattinam and Pondicherry. He now concentrates on supplying aid to isolated villages in the Mamallapuram area, where many foreign tourists have set up base.
The Saswot foundation is a one-man show, and he is reluctant to delegate work. Watching a blind man make his way through Chennai to buy toys and supplies for schoolchildren, or bargaining over the price of fruit that he cannot see, can soften the hardest of sceptics.
It is this stubborn resolve that, he argues, gets him through. "I don’t like to waste time," he says. "I do what needs to be done, get in there and then leave."
He admits that he has certain disadvantages, especially when it comes to getting things at a fair price. "You would think that people would take pity on a blind relief worker," he says. "Unfortunately that’s not the case. Negotiating is little use when you can’t see what you’re buying and many people I deal with know this." Despite the hardship, Saswot feels that the pros outweigh the cons. "The important thing is to do the work, not sit there trying to save money. Away from the markets and on the ground, my blindness can only help inspire people."
At P.U.E. Elementary School in Kanchipuram district, Saswot has hosted a sports day for the children, providing food, cups for the winners and an assortment of toys. "Food is important, but more vital is morale," he says. "Those affected have to be convinced that the tragedies they face can be overcome."
As his car pulls away, the schoolchildren continue to sing: "We shall overcome, we shall overcome, we shall overcome the tsunami disaster, hand in hand together."
The Saswot formula seems to be working.
ends.
http://www.the-week.com/25apr10/currentevents_article9.htm
