On July 31, the day after landslides decimated Mundakkai and Chooralmala, the vice president of a grama panchayat far south in Thiruvananthapuram put out a reassuring Facebook post.
Here is a slice of what Suresh Babu, the VP of Malayinkeezh Grama Panchayat, wrote. "Our brethren in the affected areas can come and live here. The doors of our houses will be open to them. Don't think that you are alone in this difficult moment. We are waiting for you," the post said.
Suresh Babu's post was shared by poet and builder Shelly Vaiga in his writers' WhatsApp group. Two Kozhikode Mavoor residents and art instructors, Aslam Thikkodi and his wife Saleena, who were part of the group responded. "They asked whether they could come over with their daughter," Shelly said.
At that moment, Aslam and Saleena were in Pathanamthitta as part of the freelancing art training they provide across the state. They are 'duffmuttu' and 'mappilapaattu' specialists.
The couple were told by their neighbours in Mavoor, which is along the Kozhikode-Wayanad border, that their rented house was surrounded by water and that it was difficult for anyone to get in. Their 14-year-old daughter Amna and Aslam's mother had by then been shifted to a relative's house. By the time they rushed back to Mavoor, the house was almost fully submerged. It was hard to locate the house. Nearly 60 families in the area had been affected.
"We asked them not to hesitate and quickly pack their basic necessities and come," Shelly said. Aslam and Saleena are originally from Wayanad and at least 12 of their close family members had gone missing in the landslide. "On top of the flooded house was the loss of near ones. We knew that Aslam and Saleena were under tremendous distress," Shelly said.
He and his wife cleared one of the rooms in the house for the new family. "Now, we are living like family. Like close cousins or friends, we sit and chat together and do most of the daily chores together," Shelly said. "The presence of our little one (one-and-a-half-year-old Vamika) must have helped them to keep the tragedy away from their mind at least for a while," Shelly said. Their daughter, 10th-standard student Vaiga, has also become close to Amna.
Shelly and Asha were also the first couple in Malayinkeezh to register for the panchayat's 'open door' project, which has been named 'Snehathanal' (Shelter of Love). Now, 31 families in the panchayat have registered. "In fact, 10 more families have expressed interest but we are yet to register them," Suresh Babu, the panchayat VP, said.
This is because, besides Aslam and Saleena, no other families have arrived at Malayinkeezh. "There are a lot of enquiries but it is the distance that is causing the reluctance," Suresh Babu said.
A family of 14, for instance, had called from the affected area. "There are enough homes to accommodate them. But the problem is there are old people among them and, after the deaths and losses and injuries, long-distance travel is not something they want to take," the VP said.
One of the reasons that motivated Suresh Babu to urgently announce the 'Snehathanal' project was its potential to inspire others. "When we decided to open the doors of our homes, we knew that it would be difficult for affected families to travel 450 km for a place to stay," Suresh Babu said. "But we thought ours would be a model for panchayats in Wayanad that are in safe zones, and also those in Kozhikode and Malappuram that border Wayanad. It will be easy for people to shift to homes that are nearer," he said," he said.
Babu is hopeful that Malayinkeezh's gesture would be adopted by local bodies closer to the landslide-affected areas. "If panchayats in neighbouring districts emulate our model, we can do away with the idea of camps where families are stuffed like refugees, and where sanitation is hard to maintain and people could be exposed to communicable diseases," Suresh Babu said.
Meanwhile, Aslam and Saleena are seriously considering shifting their base to Thiruvananthaupram. "They are looking around for jobs and if they could get some to their satisfaction, they can find a rented house and stay back," Shelly said.
