Oriyans

Oriyans!



Aliyah is off this morning to help dig out and clean up more 

schools. I'm sure she'll have a very rich report when she gets 

back. I am assigned to office work, which includes washing our 

clothes. As in hand washing and wringing, whacking it against 

stones, and setting it out on a line to dry. It won't really be 

clean - I'm not particularly good at this - but cleaner will 

have to do, and Aliyah needs something to change into when she 

returns.



And I have discovered that inside Krishnnammal's Kremlin (did 

I mention that the front verandah has the Indian versions of two 

Corinthian columns?), there is a shower! Cold water to be sure, 

but a real live shower. And there is a "hot" water spigot, too, 

and it is almost tepid. I am in the lap of luxury! No wonder Appa 

won't work in the building.



My brother is headed here from Gandhigram. He is a specialist in 

child trauma, and they want him to provide quick training to 

Tamil-speaking social workers. Most of those from abroad are 

well-meaning, but they lack the requisite language skills and 

knowledge of the culture. Even among the Tamils, the rural and 

fisherfolk have their own patois, and it is difficult to provide 

help where barriers are so great.



The Oriyans - both the medical teams and the school-cleaning 

teams - had a rough time of it yesterday. I am still stunned that 

the Gandhians in this state, one of the poorest and most backward 

looking in India, have sent such a robust relief team. And they 

are used to the work, as cyclones hit the coast of Orissa at 

least twice a decade, or so it seems.



The medical team says that, even 10 days later, new patients 

are showing up with severe injuries. It has taken that long for 

the daze to wear off, and for men, women, and children to find 

their way to care. There are many broken bones, half-set, that 

had to be rebroken and set correctly. Internal injuries as well, 

and perhaps worst, infected flesh wounds that have been 

festering for more than a week. Getting these folks to stay 

on a regular antibiotic regimen will be a real challenge, and 

the doctors are using a spectrum of second-line antibiotics, 

as they doubt that, if the first antibiotic fails, the patients 

will ever find their way back.



The school-cleaning team found two more bodies buried against 

the side of the school. The death toll continues to rise. It 

is well over 7,000 in Nagai District alone, and there are perhaps 

as many missing.



The Oriyans are a very engaging crew, and I am enjoying them 

immensely. They are much less formal than the Tamils, and much, 

much more laid back and open than those from Bombay or Delhi.  

They describe themselves as lethargic, and revel in it. They 

laugh readily, which helps, given that Oriyan English has always 

been, for me, the most difficult to understand, and I doubt that 

my New York accent, or Aliyah's soft voice, helps them any.



Still, I have been treated to the most wonderful lectures. When 

Aliyah noted that she was a music composition major at Smith, 

one very genial man, heavily bearded and dressed in all white 

like a cloud, launches into a learned dissertation on the nature 

of art. Art, he says, must raise the mind to the larger realms, 

to the spiritual. If it fails to do that, it may share the medium 

of art, but art it is not. Another, a child psychologist, talks 

about the failures of applying the assumptions of 

British-American education to rural India, and how Vivekananda's 

psychological studies are used in the U.S., but not in India.



We have many mutual friends as it turns out, which surprises 

them greatly, and I was close friends with two of their most 

respected leaders, now deceased. This has resulted in several 

formal invitations for me to come speak on education in Orissa. 

I know that this is not in the cards for the next several years, 

but we dutifully share information. Over breakfast, we sing the 

Gandhian hymn on the oneness of the God of all religions, and 

I am pleased to see that Aliyah remembers the words as well as 

I do. (Proud dad moment.) And they all want to tell me about 

the bauxite mines in Orissa, how they have been taken over by 

Alcan and various Canadian/American concerns, and leeching toxic 

sludge and water into the surrounding area, ruining the 

agricultural environment upon which millions depend for their 

livelihoods. Sigh. This is not a new story. The market run 

amok among people who have no voice in the marketplace to 

begin with.



Amma has discovered that herding Oriyans is difficult, and is 

mildly exasperated. I have not seen her sit down in four days. 

Aliyah is the first one on the school-cleaning bus, and then 

about 37 others climb on, all sore from yesterday but finally 

ready to go, with shovels and picks and other tools, on a bus 

meant for 24. I literally mean "climb" - by the time they leave, 

there are four sitting contentedly on the roof, a rather normal 

mode of transportation in Orissa.



I discovered that the District Collector is very pleased with 

the school-cleaning operation. Apparently, none of the other 

relief organizations wanted to dirty their hands. That's all 

right - the division of labor is much needed to prevent the 

groups from all tripping over each other, and Amma wants to 

greet the children and their families when they come back to 

school. She will be around long after most of the other relief 

organizations have departed, and the government has lost 

interest helping the poor.