Weathering the Storm in Ersama

--Harsh Mander

The menacing cyclone and its aftermath

Prashant had gone eighteen kilometers away from his village to a friend’s house in the small coastal town of Ersama in Orissa on 27 October, 1999, when a devastating storm struck. It was seven years after his mother’s death. Winds blew with extreme speed and fury. It rained heavily and continuously. Trees were uprooted. People shrieked as their houses and they were carried by the …