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forgot his pain. All the widows and orphans looked up to him in their time
of grief and so, he learned to come out of his gloom and smile.

Summary

Prashant was a young boy of nineteen years of age. He belonged to
Kalikuda, a village in the coastal state of Odisha. He had lost his
mother seven years ago.

On 27 October 1999, when he was visiting a friend in Ersama, a
super cyclone hit the area. There was large scale devastation. The
gushy winds and rains continued for two days. They remained on
the rooftop of the house and survived on the tender coconuts from
the coconut trees that had fallen on the roof. As the rain stopped,
Prashant left for his home as he feared the worst for his family.

He took a stick to help him find the road. At times, he had to swim
through the flood waters. On the way he met two friends and their
uncle and the group moved together. They came across dead
bodies of human beings and animals which floated with the
current. As they crossed villages, not even a single house could be
seen.

Prashant’s house was shattered too and he saw the belongings
hanging on the branches of the trees. He wept as he felt that he had
lost his beloved. He went to the Red Cross shelter in search of his
family. There Prashant met his maternal grandmother. She was
elated to see him alive as they had not expected that he would have
survived the storm.

Prashant saw a crowd of 2500 people at the shelter. Many had lost
their families in the disaster. They were grief stricken as the
catastrophe had snatched everything. For the last 2 days they had
survived on coconuts but they were running out of stock.

Prashant took control of the situation. He formed a group with
some elders and young people. They forced the merchant to give
them the stock of rice and were successful. After 4 days the crowd
ate a meal. Then the group of volunteers cleaned the shelter and
tended to the injured people. Prashant engaged the widows to work
in the NGO named “Food for work”. He engaged the children by
arranging sports matches for them.

The volunteers managed to set up foster families comprising of the
widows, orphaned children and lone men who would form a family
and support each other. Like this Prashant overcame his grief and
learnt to smile even in the face of adversities.