Just 7 km from devastation

NAGORE: Whenever you find hundreds of thousands of sane people trying to get out of a place and a little bunch of madmen struggling to get i...

NAGORE: Whenever you find hundreds of thousands of sane people trying to get out of a place and a little bunch of madmen struggling to get in,8217;8217; wrote the legendary American foreign correspondent H.R. Knickerbocker, 8216;8216;you know the latter are newspapermen.8217;8217;

Post-tsunami Nagapattinam was brimming over with Knickerbocker8217;s madmen within hours of the waves retreating. This small town was soon an internationally recognised dateline. Names like Akkaraipettai and Porayur were being bandied about on TV, radio and print.

While Nagapattinam has been grabbing all the attention, an even smaller town called Nagore, just 7 km short of Nagapattinam, the lifeline for the coastal towns, has remained obscure. The fact that the tsunami waves ravaged the coastal areas while towns just 5 km away escaped, is visible here. The town remained closed for some days, to mourn the dead and because there was no business. With journalists and relief teams trooping in, it opened up.

Subham Park, a small decent hotel in Nagore, was the rallying point for all journos. Language is obviously a problem. Photographer Mahendra Parekh found that out when he called a waiter and gestured for water. He got a carefully opened bottle of chilled beer, instead. He has since learned to ask for 8216;8216;thanni8217;8217;. The three of us were crammed into a small room as the hotel was packed with correspondents, photographers, cameramen and technicians.

Journalists move out early morning, come back by 3 pm and file their stories, grab a quiet bite at the hotel and go into the field again to return late night. No one asked the other what his or her story for the day was and which way they were headed.

Once out of the hotel, each on his own. Autorickshaw drivers from Nagore 8216;8216;territory8217;8217; won8217;t enter Nagapattinam, so we hired an Ambassador car. Haja, the driver-owner, was fleecing us but we thought the gleaming vehicle was our best bargain. Until my colleague Rajeev P.I. tried to get into the front seat beside the driver. The door wouldn8217;t open. We complained, so the next day, Haja worked on it. Now the door was so loose, Rajeev held on to it for dear life as Haja8217;s jalopy bumped over Nagapattinam roads all day. The hotel owner turned out to be an influential guy. Over some polite conversation, he acknowledged The Indian Express journalists were in his hotel right from December 27. Convinced we were doing a good job and seeing us struggle with Haja8217;s Amby, he offered us his new Chevrolet Tavera along with his driver. Guess what? Since then we have become hot property in Nagore.

It is almost a fortnight and Nagore has come to life fully. The first sign is the sweet aroma of freshly baked biscuits and cakes. Nagore is famous for baked products. There is a small market which has everything you can want, including the cybercafe from which journalists have been filing their stories. Computer games are popular among the youngsters. Nagore is also famous for its Nagnadhar and Prasanna Venkata Chalapathy temples and the Nagore dargah. This place grows on you.