August was supposed to herald a celebratory mood among Malayalis as Onam would have us all decked up and ready to gorge on the heavenly feast. But Nature had other plans for us. It decided that our state would be ravaged under one of the worst floods to have rocked it since almost a century ago. The time had come to put Kerala to test and it did rise up to the challenge.
This little state creased out the devastation on its soil and threw open the curtains to a new dawn. Part of this ongoing revival had the youth jumping into the fray and fighting the deluge with their grit and determination. From being the target group for adults to rain down their accusations on what was wrong with the world on, to being beacons of hope, charged with the resolve to hoist every last living being back up to normalcy, the young certainly have come a long way.
They weren't just doing it for the sake of it. Or because they wanted social media to know that they were heroes. They did it because they truly desired to. They genuinely empathised with the suffering of the people, had the maturity to recognise their pain and wasted no time in getting down to work.
Phones, which had been the most common converging point to kickstart a debate between the young and the grown-ups, crushed all the mudslinging with one simple stroke. They came to assume the role of tools that were used to get urgent messages across, to organise rescue missions and to sensitise everyone around about the enormity of the problem.
Incredibly, we had meme pages turning out to be powerhouses of information throughout this entire harrowing episode. The ignorant should probably take a cue card from them. Just a week earlier, these pages had been posting memes that offended one too many soft hearts. Fast-forward to the floods and the same people were part of the reason you could help those in actual need. They helped us to know things were going to be better and that your family was safe. They are some of our unsung heroes. And obviously, all of these pages were managed by the young and vibrant.
I came across a post that lauded how social media outlets had metamorphosed into control rooms. It couldn't be any more true. From beyond the borders of the state, I had a round-the-clock picture of what was happening on the ground. This also opened my eyes to the negativity around.
We had many subversives who pejoratively linked the calamity to completely unassociated factors. The surge in fake news reached unprecedented levels and were attempts at belittling the efforts of thousands who had joined hands to help out those in distress. There were also simpletons who lobbed verbal grenades at well-meaning individuals while they cowered in the shadow of anonymity that social media outlets provided. Personal choice is anathema to these people and intelligence an unfrequented resort. But that's a story for another day.
Let's talk more about the brave rescue effort.
Colleges and other educational institutions became havens where we packed our bags and rushed to as the calamity barged into our homes and wreaked havoc everywhere. They became rescue camps, the lighthouse for every flailing life form and the warm and open embrace after a particularly terrible day. These institutions taught us that no divide between religion, gender, social classes or anything else would manifest itself in moments of crisis.
This is a memory that will remain etched in our hearts, terrible and yet uniting as it is. It lastingly also reminded us how the young blood coursing through our veins is something we ought to be proud of. It was a clarion call for the whole society to regain their faith in humanity and take joy in knowing that the youth of today were going to be weaving the stories of tomorrow. It told us how being new gen is not really a bummer!
So parents, take note! It's okay to rankle your children in moderation just the way they do you, but please don't look down on them with contempt and wonder about what they can achieve in life, because despite all their minor transgressions and enslavement to their phones, they'd always be ready to roll up their sleeves, ditch their phones and lose their sleep to ensure that their fellowmen are out of danger.