#MyCrisisAngel

Crisis is a state of affair where your equilibrium of life is all lost.Where your hopes are on the verge of dying and you do not see the light while standing in a tunnel, pitch dark. Jammu and Kashmir was ravaged by floods this year and the Indian Army became their Crisis Angel. Come to think of it our Defence Forces have always been our Crisis Angel.

I thought hard and thought so, hard about my Crisis Angel and I actually found no one. In every situation it was I who stood tall and became the crisis angel for my family and dear ones. I felt alone all of a sudden. My life had it's share of crisis, I mean everyone's life has but then I thought who took me out of it, the answer every time was me. Then another thought came up to me and it made me smile, I found an old promise I did to myself as a child that I will always stand for myself and I saw that fulfilled and then I thought of people around me. My family, my friends and my dear ones at least I am sure that they have someone to fall back to if not at all look up to.But then I again thought and thought real hard this time. And then I found people who knowingly and unknowingly helped me and saved me and my family. I remembered Banerjee Uncle who gave me refuge when my accommodation in Kolkata was flooded in 2007. I remembered every face who helped me to be my own Crisis Angel.

Bhopal, 1984: The month was December and I was yet to be born. My father was traveling to Bhopal for an interview. He boarded the train on 2nd December 1984 morning. Does the date ring a bell? well it was the night when Bhopal Gas Tragedy took place.Those were the days when people had no mobiles. My father was traveling and it was night and in about two to three hours he would have reached Bhopal but suddenly the train stopped at a nondescript station and it remained there for hours. The news of the Tragedy reached flying to the ears of the passengers and that was it. When my father finally reached Bhopal on 4th December. The station was strewn with corpses. Father came to know that the Station Master of Bhopal Railway Station made sure that he warns each and every train bound towards Bhopal of this Calamity before dying. He saved my Father, he saved my family, he saved me even before I was born. He, the man whose name I do not know, who even died before I was born has become my Crisis Angel. He taught me that when crisis arises be selfless and think objectively. This man let his life perish, let his family's life perish because he calculated that the loss of his life and the effect on his family would be much lesser when compared to the potential loss of the lives of thousands of passengers. Who thinks like that? Being pragmatic and just when you are starring at death face to face? This man showed me what strength of character is, really is.

Gwalior, 1996: My father had got a new job and we had just moved in from Raipur. It was Diwali of 1996 and it was hardly over a month that we had moved in. My father had a blister in a very sensitive area of his body. It was actually not a matter of huge concern as my father was somehow prone to Blisters. In that time one of Father's Bengali Junior Colleague in the previous organization had come to visit us for the Festivals. The night after Diwali, the Doctor we were consulting decided to cut open the blister as he thought it was mature enough. So, he just gives the blister the first cut and then he realizes, "Oh I forgot to do a Blood Sugar Test on you Buddy!" and he does that and it comes out that my Father has a blood sugar level close to 400 and since he is not a surgeon he cannot operate on my Father. My Father was bleeding profusely because this particular place has 4000 nerve ends and various veins which are meant for ample supply of blood when the situations call for. It was 9:30 pm and my Father was rushed to the nearest Nursing Home and The Doctor and Pal uncle accompanied him. That was some night for us. We saw our Father, our superman bleeding and all weak. The entire night we had sleepless nightmares. I was 9 years, my brother was 3 years and my mother was 39 years old and we just prayed Dad to be safe. Pal uncle ran pillar to post that night opening the closed medicine shops, grabbing medicines and what not. He extended his leave and made sure that he leaves only when Dad is again Healthy as a Horse. He actually for me was my Crisis Angel. I learnt from him to be calm in the worst case scenario and think real fast. Ten years after this incident I had to use all my calm and strength to make my family deal with my Father's death.

An Appeal to avoid Crisis: My father was diabetic and he was a chain smoker. My Father controlled his diet and life style and he never had to use insulin after the initial one year. The only mistake was smoking. He was a chain smoker. he died because because his lungs were not strong enough to deal with the Cardiac Arrest situation. He loved his family. We got devastated. My life plans changed. I intended to do a PhD. crack UPSC and all I landed up was a graduate. It took us seven years to come to normal. Please I appeal to all my readers who smoke to quit smoking and save your family. Those who do not smoke, make sure no one around you smokes. I know I am getting out of the topic but I had to. I believe that untimely and sudden death is a crisis that changes the world of the people who depend on the deceased, who love the deceased. People come and go. You get sympathy for a few days but then people forget and move on and you are left alone to rejoin the pieces again.

The people of Jammu and Kashmir are people I can relate to. We will all talk , blog about them for a while and we then will forget. Haven't we forgotten Uttarakhand already? Are we even giving it a thought that why the mountains are getting flooded? Have we done something within our reach to make The Himalayas a balanced ecosystem once again?

www.InCrisisRelief.org is doing their bit for the people of Jammu and Kashmir and the peole of North East come let us join hands and contribute. Let us sacrifice our weekend eating out or the monthly shopping spree for a month and donate. It won't take much. Have we ever thought that in a country of 100 million plus even if each person contributes one rupee whenever a disaster strikes or on per month basis we can actually have 120 million INR per month for disaster relief. Think about it.

These are the few stories of #MyCrisisAngel. I hope we are not just narrating stories but we should create stories in such a way that an innocent life smiles at us and points at us saying here is #MyCrisisAngel