It was the year 2008, on August, when Koshi dam broke down and it inundated the whole village which was on its way down. The media coverage on this issue was more misleading than informing on the subject matter. Public and the media was blaming Indian Government for the broken dam and the flood which spoiled the harvest of about 200 families in 100 of hectares of land. Farmers were helpless, so cursing the government as well as Indian government, who had helped made that dam about 50 years ago. The center columns of the dam was decayed by the force of water during the time span of 50 years, which ultimately gave up. And when it gave up it had encroached all the river embankment in its way.
The news was so much, so that; it was on every daily headlines, topics of all the talk shows on Televisions and Radio and the talk of the town.
When my favorite talk show host VIjay Kurmar, a TV journalist, helped me to get an idea through his program, that country is not flooded, but the flood is, only on the dam affected areas.
I had no option, but to find more on it, so I switched my channel to CNN to find out; what exactly is happening here in Nepal.
The moment I switched on the channel, the muddy water, gushed out from all over; it was the picture of Bihar, India on CNN.
Koshi river, is regarded as the curse of India rather than the curse of Nepal. They use the words ‘sorrow of Bihar’ as the Bihar is most affected area being the most flood prone area of the country. CNN was not informing about the people who was affected here in Nepal and about 200 families who had lost their harvest, which will effect the country in the following months to come. It was covering the same news of the Koshi river, the impact of the flood and the flooded areas, which was bigger, I mean a lot bigger, than the broken dam had affected here in Nepal, which is the origin country of the river also. They were informing that the flood had displaced about 200,000 families in India, who ever was on its way and the country had lost millions worth of harvest and their belongings, which got dampened and then was damaged in their water logged house.
No news channel or dailies had given me this kind of big picture of the broken dam and its bigger impact in our neighboring country. It was busy talking only about the effect it had here in Nepal and public here, was busy cursing and blaming the government as well as Indian Government and I was thinking, accident do happen and once in a 50 years, disasters like this is inevitable, even if we take all the precautions to avoid it.
When the flood completed its course, it had by then swept about 300,000 houses and hundreds of people from their homeland and thousands of hectors fertile lands that was about to give them, their annual corps, in India alone.
On the screen of the CNN, the water was on the street, inside the house and on the roof of a house in that poorly structured area of the Bihar. Thin people with so much desperation and helplessness in their look, clutching on anything to hang on, so that the force of the flood; won’t swipe them off with it.
While watching that muddy water coming from almost nowhere, my mind drifted back in my memory lane. Suddenly, a though came in my mind; I am not alone ! I myself have been a flood victim, which had swept the entire village and all our harvest; landing all of my siblings ( five out of six ) in two orphanages, decades ago.
I am not alone, who is the victim of the natural disaster. When the flood swept our home, harvest and dispersed the family members. I was only three year old, young enough not to understand the gravity of the situation. But the feelings with the realisation that I am not alone was so reliving and free of burden to carry the judgement people get in their mind, when they learned, I have spent my entire childhood in an orphanage. Some times, its like giving these people, a licence to treat me like a second class citizen. I find this very strange; why do they react that way ?
If you want to know; my whole story, read With love, from God
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