What did Harish Iyer do, when the Terrorists attacked Mumbai?

Originally Posted on the Common Threads Blog,
Centre Daily Times, Dec 9, 2009

Harish Iyer, 29, is an ordinary citizen of Mumbai.

When the terrorists attacked Mumbai on November 26 , Harish felt particularly helpless. He is quoted in a piece in Khaleej Times as saying, "I was near the Taj Mahal hotel when the blasts went off. I couldn't do a thing as the whole place had been cordoned off. My friends, from all over the world, were calling me, asking me to find out if their relatives were safe. I had to something - so I came back home and set up http://mumbaiterrorhelpline.blogspot.com/.”

He posted his mobile number on this blog, http://mumbaiterrorhelpline.blogspot.com/, and offered his services to anyone all over the world, looking for a friend or relative, but who were unable to get to Mumbai.

And the calls came in – he helped however he could - by finding any information he could by calls to hotels, hospitals, cell phones, and even physically going to the hospitals to get more information. He then called back with the information he had found or posted it on his blog.

Harish who has since been profiled on CNN and in many newspaper articles stands out for innovatively using the web to connect us at a time of divisiveness.

Reading Harish’s blog, especially the early entries, had me reeling as I identified with that well known feeling of worrying for the safety of a loved one; I could sense the anxiety of those who were calling in or writing to him, frantic for some way of getting news of their loved ones.

Harish responded to this primal need and offered himself, and his physical proximity to the scene of the terror, to help. He found out information, visited hospitals, and then called all these strangers back with any news that he was able to find.
And sometimes, strangers called him back, to tell him not to check anymore - they had already found out that their friend had died, or that their father had survived.

Harish had become part of their family, and they a part of his.

He reached out to help, and thus become a beacon of hope, amongst all that senseless terror.

Even in the bleakest of times, this one human being had changed the little world around him. He had recognized our common humanity, and had identified with those who were frantic in their sorrow.

And that does offer us some hope for the future.

Comments: Harish Iyer(Aham) here
Submitted by aham on Wed, 2008-12-10 02:41.
Thanks for the appreciation. Cannot deny that any kind of positive energy, helps me go on.
When you rub onto so much of people's sorrows, some rubs onto you as well. Thats when an appreciation brings a smile on your face and helps you in your endeavour.
Thanks
Harish Iyer

Give Thanks, Mourn or Find a Middle Way?

Originally Posted on the Common Threads Blog
Centre Daily Times, November 20, 2007

Twenty years ago, I celebrated my first Thanksgiving as a graduate student at Penn State. I travelled by Greyhound to New York to visit relatives, and made my first trip to the Statue of Liberty.

I spent subsequent Thanksgivings mostly in State College, using the break catch up on work, and other pending matters. I spend the day in the company of friends and family, using it to pause and offer thanks for the circumstances of my life.

When my daughter was in first grade, she began to ask for more. She wanted to know what the menu for Thanksgiving dinner was going to be. We asked her what she thought it should be, and together fashioned a vegetarian menu that we use to this day.

She began to read about the origins of the holiday at school and in books, and we began discussing them. We started reflecting on the many sides of the same story, and how one group’s cause of celebration can be the cause of sadness for another.

The same Thanksgiving that is a national holiday, and occasion to give gratitude for many of us, is also marked by some Native Americans as a National Day of Mourning, and by other Native Americans as a day to focus on healing and going forward.

The Teaching Tolerance website gives two native American viewpoints of this festival, in a module for grades 7-12.

The first viewpoint is a speech written in 1970 by Wamsutta (Frank B.) James, a Wampanoag elder and Native American activist, for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts 350th anniversary celebration of the Pilgrims’ arrival on Wamapanoag American Indian Land.

The speech, which was based on a Pilgrim’s account of the first year, was reviewed by the planners and deemed inappropriate to the tone of the celebration. Wamsutta decided not to attend the celebration and led a protest at Coles Hill, near the statue of Massasoit, leader of the Wampanoag when the Pilgrims landed.

Thus began the First National Day of Mourning, in 1970, and which continues to this day.

The second article, Thanksgiving, a Native American View, is written by Jacqueline Keeler, another Native American, about how she has tried to give meaning to Thanksgiving.

The same day, commemorating the same event in history. And multiple experiences of that reality.

This year, my husband and I plan to take the Thanksgiving celebrations a bit further, by discussing these writings with our nine year old daughter. And understand better what debts we owe to our collective past, and what it is that we are or are not celebrating.