I
19 October 1988 was like any other morning when I got up and got ready to go to work. It was foggy and cloudy morning with little chill in the air. I commuted from my home in eastern Ahmedabad to Indian Institute of Management in western Ahmedabad. My road journey on scooter was 21 kilometres each way. Part of the road I used runs parallel to wall of Ahmedabad airport runway. On that day as I turned on the bend from east to west on the eastern end of the runway wall, on my right I saw lot of smoke and crowd of people who seemed worried. It was about 8.45 a.m. On stopping and inquiring I found that an Indian Airlines passenger plane had crashed in the morning while approaching the runway to land. IC113 flight had taken off from Mumbai to arrive Ahmedabad about 6.30 a.m. but did not land. Instead it had crashed a few kilometers away from on its approach to Ahmedabad runway.
I was very distressed and did not feel like going to work but carried on. On reaching the institute I found that one of the professors from IIM was also on flight and had died in the crash. The tragedy felt closer. Proximity to events in time or place magnifies their impact. I was disturbed for few days and could not focus on work. I failed to perform few tasks that I should have finished at my work. The emotional response to the tragic incident had affected my professional performance. After few days my line manager, a professor for whom I have great regards until this day, asked me about the unfinished task. I told him that I had not completed that work as I was too distressed by the air plane crash. My boss was not happy and rebuked me for having neglected my professional responsibility to complete work on time. It was my first job. I had finished MBA only few months ago and joined as research and teaching assistant to professors in IIM Ahmedabad. I had read a lot about motivation and performance management. But obviously that had not really prepared me. My emotional readiness to deal with the most tragic incident I had witnessed in life until then was tested.
For many years after the incident I would occasionally wonder why was I not able to stay focused on my work? I have now a probable answer for this question. This requires that I share another extremely tragic experience that I passed through thirteen years later and my contrasting more constructive response to that event.
II
On 26 January 2001 it was about 8.45 a.m. I stood with many students and colleagues on the playground of an institute in Kutch, Gujarat where I worked. The morning was very bright and cold. We were about to commence India's annual republic day flag hoisting ceremony. A strange thundering sound from ground deep under our feet and wild shaking of the building behind us told me in seconds that we were experiencing earthquake. I ran and told everyone else to run away from the building behind us towards cricket ground. Facing us on the left of the cricket ground were hostel and staff quarter buildings. As we ran away from the institute building behind us towards staff quarter buildings we saw those building crushing and going down. Screaming I kept running towards the staff quarters as my eight year old son had gone into that building. He had gone in to meet and to come out with my colleague's son of same age to witness flag hoisting. I saw the two boys walking out of building when the staff quarter building went down behind the boys. The scene has stuck in my memory even after sixteen years. In those milliseconds I had combined feeling of gratitude to see my son coming out and absolute terror of seeing the building, that housed many families, going down. Mother of my son's friend who was also wife of my colleague did not survive the collapse of building even though we tried to pull her out of debris. Steel and concrete slabs lying on her proved too heavy for few of us to move. Death won the race with life as we cried and tried. Her eyes asked questions, showed fear, exclaimed in disbelief all at same time while looking into complete helplessness in our eyes. Family of my fellow principal colleague perished whose dog survived and would not leave the debris days after the event. We lost 26 precious lives of staff members, their family members and students. The earthquake claimed over 10,000 lives in the region.
Unlike 1988 my response to this tragic calamity was quite different. Within few minutes I realised the potential magnitude of calamity that had struck us, I recovered and worked with others to rescue several people live from debris. For next few days it was chaos but in all that I made sure that we looked after students who had survived, took care of injured, I performed last rites for several deceased staff and their family members and the list of painful experiences goes on. Few of my students were claimed by the earthquake. Mother of one of them arrived two or three days after earthquake as key bridge connecting Kutch region with rest of India was also damaged in earthquake slowing down movement of people and support. The mother was not physically strong so the news had to be broken to her slowly in a way to minimise chance of damaging mother's weak heart. With consent from her other son who accompanied her she was mildly sedated by doctors to get her some rest after long journey she had undertaken. With great care we told her what no mother can ever be prepared to hear.
Our college buildings were damaged and could not be used until everything was checked, repaired and certified as fit for use. Students from outside who stayed in hostel were not keen to return to the area that was devastated by earthquake. This should give a sense of crisis that we faced. Personally I had to motivate not only my shocked and traumatised staff but also convince the parents and students. Despair had to die in me and in others. It would take long talks, sessions and patient sharing of pain and hopes for future to resume classes. By mid-March we resumed classes in tents as buildings were not fit for purpose until then. We slowly recovered and came to normalcy over next two years.
On reflection I find my emotional response to this terrible tragedy was different. I did not stop working but actually played whatever role I could to share the pain and suffering of affected people. I resumed teaching and management of the institute to help students cope with that tragedy. Almost all students returned and resumed studies and completed their qualification. It is absolute sense of satisfaction to know that they are happily prospering and flourishing in their life. Their persistence with studies and determination to reconstruct a community of learners after loss of several class mates and teachers is testimony to resilience of the young people. They saw meaning in life. Meaning is most powerful inspiration to overcome odds be that emotional or physical.
What had happened to me between 1988 and 2001 that prepared me to stay motivated, resilient and deal with challenges of life?
III
Emotions can be great source of constructive energy. They can also be great bottlenecks to applying energy. Extreme sense of sadness was common in both the above experiences. My response was different. In one situation I withdrew from whatever I was supposed to do in another I reacted in more constructive manner. Why? There are perhaps theories that explain why in one case we are resilient and in another not so. I believe over time, in this case about 13 years after 1988, I had matured as a person. The growing maturity had come from various sources. On reflection I feel these sources for me were reading, responsibility, and leadership.
Through reading I know that human societies are time and again struck by tragedies including those frequently caused by humans. Reading opens up a view of vast expanse of time. It lays before reader an ocean of human history in which tides of tragic events and waves of wellbeing rise and fall. Lived experience moderates youthful passions and shows limits of reason. Many years after the earthquake I would read German writer Viktor E Frankl's book Man's Search for Meaning. Victor survived Nazi concentration camps and wrote this master piece which is an antidote to despair. He wrote, "in a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible."
Being responsible showed me that just like responsibility in family matters, responsibility at work also makes huge difference to other people, in this case to my colleagues and students. I felt responsible to do something for them in time of tragedy even though some of it had very little to do with professional responsibility as head of college.
The skills of leadership and management that I had learnt over the years and practised at work were equally relevant in rescue, rehabilitation and crisis management. I applied many of those skills in the situation. So the experience had given me confidence and ability to make a difference. My personal position within the institution as head who enjoyed credibility, trust and respect not only from colleagues, superiors and students but also from wider community in the town, allowed me to be more influential and make things better. Within two years of the crisis we not only restored the normal functioning of the institute I worked for but also for the whole collegiate campus where we had incurred huge damage due to earthquake. We were able to mobilise millions of rupees from donors for reconstruction of buildings and make them better than they were before the earthquake. The students and teachers were more confident and the whole campus was rejuvenated. I worked with some of the best teams to make it happen. It was and remains privilege to have been part of those teams. Purpose united us, shared grief energised us and hope made everything possible.
Emotional resilience is not a magical capacity that one is born with. It develops, with conscious efforts and reflection and also unconsciously by unplanned unintended experiences that life presents. Consciously we can develop this by being interested in wider life (reading has been great contributor in this regard for me), by taking responsibility, by noting that individual effort and small efforts are important and by valuing one's own and others life. Doing small things well is important. It gives confidence and boosts morale. Emotional scars left by tragedy of earthquake have not disappeared. They are like flowers growing on the grave of sad memories. I visit them again today on 26th January. These remind me of the difference I can make in difficult times and hence stay motivated. In love, respect, and memory of all those who were once with me and still live in my memories.
