Two tweets from actor Siddharth on December 1 saw the reel hero turn into a common man battling the rains and resultant floods like everyone else in the city. “Bathrooms submerged. Water coming out of the drains. I am an affluent actor. This is my house. Imagine the rest of TN.” And “House flooded. Moving to the terrace. God save Tamil Nadu”, drove home how the waters cut across every possible divide and rendered people helpless.
The tweets were precursors to what Siddharth had decided to do. He, along with his friend, actor-RJ Balaji, set up a hotline of sorts on Twitter and set about gathering and distributing relief material. They decided to work at the micro level, because they though it would be more effective. Their hashtag ‘ChennaiMicro’ has become hugely popular. The two gathered a handful of enthusiastic online followers and fed about 5,000 people on day one, and handed over blankets and other essentials. On day two, they covered four times that number, because people rushed in with relief supplies. As of Saturday, they were still at it, gathering relief material and sending them where needed.
Twitter was where the action began, but it played out on the various flooded streets of rain-battered Chennai. Actors and directors, with their huge fan following, chipped in in every way they could, organising supplies, rallying volunteers and heading out personally to hand over relief.
Actor Vishnu Vishal coordinated delivery of food. Photographer-actor Sunder Ramu had commandeered some boats and was figuring out areas where they could ply, besides organising food packets. Actors Vishal and Karthi along with their teams hit the ground running. On Saturday, Karthi headed to North Chennai while Vishal was in Saidapet. They have been collecting relief supplies at Lady Andal School, Harrington Road, and are also gathering supplies for Cuddalore. Director Balaji Mohan is coordinating delivery of supplies and handling distribution logistics. Dhanush has sourced over a thousand blankets and biscuits for distribution. Archana Kalpathi is one of those actively working too; she’s also opened up her family-run AGS Cinemas to house those without a roof over their heads.
“This flooding showed us how vulnerable we are,” says Siddharth. “None of us was prepared for it. Last week’s flooding was just a prelude. For the first time in my life, I had to leave my family home in R.A. Puram. I had to evacuate. No one here has seen or heard of such a flood in their lifetime,” he adds.
The actor and his team spent over 15 hours on the road on day one to figure out what people actually needed. “Many areas were completely under water. We realised we needed to do so much more.”
Actor Suriya was stuck in Indonesia, and he saw from afar the devastation wreaked upon Chennai. His home in T. Nagar was inundated with about five feet of water, and the actor did all he could via social media. “Twitter was a blessing. I could not reach anyone by phone, but I was able to help organise water, biscuits, and coordinate relief needs,” says Suriya, who’s now in Mumbai, waiting to reach home, via Coimbatore. He used Twitter to the maximum extent possible, retweeting every verified request for rescue, food, blood donation and more. “That is all I could do.” The family-run Agaram Foundation also chipped in with logistics support.
Siddharth says the field trips were a humbling experience, because they got to work with selfless workers across all walks of life — be it law enforcement, the Corporation or the defence forces. They initially covered areas such as Teynampet, Parrys, Adyar, Kodambakkam, Kotturpuram, Anna Nagar, Aminijikarai and Greenways Metro Station.
One of the biggest challenges the teams face was total communication failure, because none of their phones worked. “We did not know where the other person was. But we managed to distribute all the stuff in our cars, because we went micro, and focused on one area,” he says.
The floods also brought out how safe the city can be in times of distress. “There were so many women volunteers. On any other day, I might have worried about their safety, but not now. People are waiting to do all they can to put the city back on its feet! It may take a few months to return to normalcy, but I hope we don’t forget all this two weeks from now.”
RJ Balaji says that the move to help Chennai was spontaneous. “Anyone who’s human will do the same thing. I decided that tweeting and retweeting was not enough, since I was in a position to help. We opted for micro-level work, because if you help five people, and they in turn help five others, you will be able to cover a large number of people, without travelling much. So, we’ve tried to keep things local. Food picked up in one area goes to the closest affected places. It does not make sense to take food from Parrys and head to Velachery.”
Siddharth and Balaji say that this is the time to act, and not debate what went wrong. “Everyone needs help, some small, some big. Let’s focus on that.”
