B Ganapathi Subramanian
Chartered Accountant
Karaikal

When 42-year-old B Ganapathi Subramanian saw the water level in the rivers rise, he rushed to the Vinayaka Medical College. The sight of the dead bodies there spurred him into action; he called his spiritual guru and told him of his planned relief work.

Subramanian‘s first request was to a businessman: he wanted 20,000 garments and 20,000 packets of water. Then, along with the few others, he began the task of clearing the dead bodies.

Through the FM station in Karaikal, he asked those who needed help to contact him; the helpline number given was that of his personal mobile phone. The station repeated the announcement every 15 minutes.

He aired a plea for help on Karaikal FM. The plea, which was repeated every hour, specified what was required in which area. The ‘wanted’ list was continually updated on the basis of the requests he received on his mobile phone.

On the very first day, Subramanian received 400 phone calls offering help. He kept one number for requests for help, and one for offers to help.

Subramanian, his wife Bharati, and their friends began to organise the relief effort, routing trucks laden with relief material to places where it was needed the most.

Using the phone and the Internet, he networked with NGOs and suppliers in Karaikal, Velankanni, Nagapattinam and other affected areas nearby and began to collect data on affected people (information on the dead and the survivors, the aged, the young and the pregnant, dead and stray cattle, etc) and supplied this information to the NGOs.

One hundred and seventy-six tonnes of rice, 6 lakh sachets of water, 3 lakh loaves of bread… the list of what has been shipped from his place is endless.

“It was all because of a great power that everything went off smoothly, “ Subramanian says, even as the work he started at 8:30 am on December 26 continues unabated.

Text, photograph: Shobha Warrier