This first edition focuses on something that struck just a few days after I arrived in the United States on Aug. 23. It must have been a day or two later (I'm not sure; time gets really warped when you're spending all your time buying sheets and trash cans at Bed, Bath and Beyond), when I heard of "Hurricane Irene," which was heading up the coastline, scheduled to hit a few days later. The days following were centered almost entirely on the threat of the hurricane — which flopped back and forth between being a hurricane and a tropical storm. Every single news channel on TV had its coverage focused on the natural disaster. You all know the impact of it on flights, as most of the freshman class was on their way up here for Orientation. My roommate was stranded in the Los Angeles airport for a good three days as every plane out was canceled. People mobbed the supermarkets all over, trying to stock up on supplies so as to avoid being stranded by the hurricane.
Ultimately, the "tropical storm" (to use the correct phrasing) didn't really hit the Boston area. The impact was harsh in New Jersey, Rhode Island and other parts of the East coast — power was lost for days in parts — but aside from one short−lived shower, the result was minimal here in Massachusetts. Yet what I want to draw attention to is just how much focus there was on the storm, how many warnings and precautions were taken and how valuable each and every life was for the government.
Shifting focus from the last few days of August to the first week of school, I was online on Facebook, sometime in the middle of the day on Wednesday. It must have been around midnight back home in New Delhi. I was chatting to a good friend of mine, when she suddenly stopped replying. Being my impatient self, I questioned her as to where she had gone. Her response was one word: "earthquake." I immediately went to Google News and typed in "New Delhi, Earthquake", and hit "search." There was nothing. I refreshed repeatedly over the next 20 or 30 minutes and not a single result ever appeared. Instead, what I did find was a whole host of Facebook statuses popping up regarding the earthquake. But that was it. There was very little news coverage (to date, there are various statistics given on the actual magnitude: either 4.7 or 6.6 — two figures that are not remotely similar), and my brother's Facebook status the following morning was, "There was an earthquake?" This was how most people in Delhi reacted. Fortunately, there were no deaths, but even so, a fairly high−intensity earthquake was no big deal.
The diametrically opposite reactions to the two disasters are striking. In the United States, flights were canceled, airports were shut down, and New York City basically closed down for a day — which is as likely as alien life being confirmed on Mars. In India, the earthquake went by almost unnoticed. Most people slept through it. You may ask why this was the case; was it that people here overreacted? People in India underreacted? I don't think it was either. The way I see it, the government and the authorities in the United States can afford to, and do, place a very high value on each person's life here. In India, there are far more people and a government that has other focuses. There have been previous incidents similar to this earthquake, with similar reactions. It's not new. What was new for me was observing how the entire "Tropical Storm" Irene incident was treated. It was new, and it was different. But I guess that's what one gets used to in time.
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AngadBagai is a freshman who has not yet declared a major. He can be reached at Angad.Bagai@tufts.edu.
