NewsHour interview with India's U.S. ambassador

India's 1999 cyclone disaster

Earthquake info from the Embassy of India

Chronology of major Indian earthquakes

Government of India's earthquake site

Strength of the People

By Joel Solow, Age 13
Children's Express N.Y. reporter

During a recent media tour of Gujarat, India and other towns that were hit hard by the January 2001 earthquake, I thought I had prepared for what I would see and the people I would encounter. I was wrong.

Before I got off the plane in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), the rancid smell of the city reminded me that this was not going to be an easy trip.

Along with surveying UNICEF's relief efforts, we were going to meet and interview children who had lost their homes, their possessions and futures.

When we arrived in Gujarat, India, a town completely destroyed by a 50-second natural disaster, I braced myself. I expected traumatized children and adults crying and mourning for the dead.

Instead, we were greeted by smiling faces. The destruction was enormous, but the people seemed to carry on very well. They were willing to share their stories with us, but they didn't really complain about their problems. They expressed what they had to say and then ended it. For the most part, they were very courageous and stoic about everything.

I was often reminded that my privileged and comfortable life as a 13-year-old New York City boy is something I should be very thankful for.

You can see photographs and you can listen to news reports, but it's nothing like seeing the devastation firsthand. I stood on a hill of rubble, and ahead of me were walls that had collapsed and buildings leaning to one side with huge gaping holes, threatening to crumble in the wind.

To see this up close, one knows what real pain must be like. Everything these people worked their entire lives to attain had been completely wiped out. What do they have left to work with? How much can hope and faith build?

My pain is American middle-class pain: too much homework or relationship problems or maybe a bad grade on a test. But these people have suffered through years of drought, cyclones, poverty, and now an incredibly powerful earthquake.

In the village of Bhuj, only 20 kilometers from the epicenter of the mighty quake, UNICEF staff took us to the edge of a small cliff. When we looked down, we could see clothes strewn along the rocky wall leading down to the water. They told us that a group of women had been washing their clothes on the day of the earthquake. These mothers, wives and daughters were smothered underneath rubble and mortar as they performed a simple, time-consuming task that many parts of the world leave up to machines.

Americans are privileged, and we take it all for granted. We demand working, flushing indoor toilets. Air conditioning is a must, and safe water is all but guaranteed to us. But Indians have a more solid constitution; they depend on themselves.

While walking through the streets of Bhuj, we met 12-year-old Anjeeta and spoke with her about her seven-hour struggle trapped beneath rubble. As she talked she was composed and full of smiles and laughter.

Was she numb by the trauma of having her roof collapse on her? She certainly wasn't feeling sorry for herself, as many Americans, me included, would be.

The people spoke not of the struggle and obstacles facing them as they tried to rebuild their lives, but of God, their concern for their families, and the younger ones looked forward to continuing with their education. They had a solid inner strength and their voices were filled with hope. The weight of the tragedy did not affect the core of who they were as people.

When I told my friends I was going to India, they were jealous. They wanted a "vacation" in an "exotic" place. If only they knew how much I looked forward to going home where once again I would be comfortable. And this uncomfortable, hot, arid area will be very far away.

I will remember the people and the faith they had in their God and themselves, but I have no plans to return. I'm not used to living that hard. I don't need to work to survive like the Gujarati do.

When I'm an adult, I know I'll have to work to have food and a home, but these people have a constant fight to survive of the most basic sort: getting water, finding food, scrubbing clothes that they may have made themselves.

Maybe it's not right to have as much privilege as I do, but I don't want to even suggest a change because I like what we have in America. I enjoy the comfort and the ease with which I live. I need it.

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