Dealing with Amphan

As if the Covid-19, with Lockdown with 4 extensions was not enough, we the people of Kolkata, had Amphan, which ripped through the length and breadth of the city,at 120-130 kms/hour. Saying that we have never seen such a cyclone ever,is an understatement. In USA, I have been privy to some ghastly hurricane, with power going off for several days on end, no internet, at all, but here our faith on our own political system has become so weak and the “politics” of it so strong,that for the agencies to work to put things back on rails without disturbance and quickly, is a very difficult job. I don’t know whether the political system realise where they are leading the common people of this country into.Anyways !

Just take our own business group,as an example. In the first 2 days,we couldn’t reach out to 1200 of our workmen.We simply couldn’t contact them.1200 is a large number for a company like ours,and that shook us, more from the humanitarian point of view, as we kept on hearing ghastly stories of house damages, ceiling falling of, trees uprooted, no power,no internet, fibre optics snapped off, all over Kolkata and suburbs. All I wanted to begin with, is to know the welfare of these 1200 young men and women, contact them,understand how they are,and bring them back to normalcy, including their work life. To do this, we set up a helpdesk in our Mumbai and Kolkata Offices, manned by experienced Globsynites and they reached close to 1000 workmen in 2 days.Fantastic work. We set up Globsyn Amphan Solidarity Force(GASF), prepared a questionnaire and send them to approx 700-800 workmen and 50 support staff, and asked them about the damages, if any caused to them,in their day to day life. For the 50 odd support staff, I decided to support them, thru my Foundation, and give them peace. Life is always an interesting balance of “getting” and “giving” and I have realised that based on your soul status, it happens automatically. The process is still on. Once completed by early next week, we will be able to service our employees and support staff, to get back to normalcy.

How we wish that our political system develop “faith” in their people in the country, so that any calamities,accidents,pandemics,can be addressed in a systematic way, through proper governance and social work.