The day the calm and beautiful sea boiled over

December 26 was a day that redefined life for millions of people. It was a day in which people, not just those directly affected, realized the volatile nature of life on earth. It was the day in which many of our ideas on life and the nature of the sea changed forever. For most of us, the beach is the favorite hangout and there could be nothing more splendid than the sea.
Approx 10 minutes was all that it took for this change and the cause was the tsunami that ravaged the coasts of a number of Southeast Asian countries including our coast. The body count is rising by the tens of thousands each passing day. Today it was 1.75 lakhs (175,000) and it has come so far from the initial estimate of 10,000 which now, pales in comparison. Obviously nobody had expected so much damage to be caused thousands of miles away from the epicenter.
We rarely get to see the violent side of the sea, hence it came as a surprise to a large number of people along the coast, they had not recognized the earning signs hidden in the receding sea. On Monday morning we woke up to the news of mild tremors and nobody expected the sea to surge and cause havoc hours later.
Initially, we got to hear about the number of hamlets completely washed out without a single surviving member and of people loosing most of their family members and their belongings too. Today, there were brighter stories – an entire village saved because a voluntary worker who had worked in the village earlier was in Singapore that fateful day and had called to warn the villagers on hearing the warning posted in Singapore; another hamlet was saved because a new stream was found in the vicinity and the entire village was out there at the stream; yet another village was saved because according to their folklore, the receding sea would always return with force; a young girl had saved the lives of a number of people by recognizing the warning in the receding sea. Unfortunately, such instances are few and far between. For the majority of the people, it had been as though the sea had pulled off a nasty surprise and they hadn’t found enough time to move away to higher ground. There are so many pictures these days, of people standing on the shore watching the receding tide only to find, moments later, a wall of water coming at them.
Why such a large-scale destruction? What is its significance in the larger scheme of life? How would these people cope with it – especially the fisher folk who will have to go back to the sea?