Keralite chronicles life after Nepal quake

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: In the days following the devastating Nepal earthquake that killed over 8,700, the locals were repulsed by what was then termed as the Indian media’s “jingoistic arrogance”.

Now, when the world has virtually forgotten the blighted land hidden away in the shadow of the Himalayas and its tormented people, an England-based Malayali author and journalist, Dr Chindu Sreedharan, is leading a mission to document the unspoken anguish and turmoil of the Nepalese as they stoically go about reconstructing their ravaged land, the only such post-earthquake project for Nepal.

Dr Sreedharan, a senior lecturer in journalism in Bournemouth University, England, who supervises PhD students researching conflict journalism, has evolved a project ‘Aftershock Nepal — Life After the Quake’, which has started putting out stories, voices and pictures from the ravaged soul of Nepal, from places mainstream media has not even heard of.

“Crisis reporting is not ideally served by regular journalism whose attention withdraws quickly,” said Dr Sreedharan who has long years of conflict reporting behind him.

Much of the focus of mainstream media, right after the calamity, was on Kathmandu and on Everest. But Sindhupalchok, the worst affected district whose death toll was three times higher than Kathmandu, was largely ignored. The project (www.aftershocknepal.com) serves a purpose to fill such information void.

The Aftershock Nepal team is based out of Kathmandu, and fan out for their reporting trips from there. Dr Sreedharan has recruited local students from Tribhuvan University and Kathmandu University. In all, 10 local students are involved. Unlike mainstream global journalists who are “parachuted” to the conflict site, these young local journalists are inherently sensitised to the problems of their land. This also helps the team to cross the language barrier, which foreign journalists who are normally in a hurry to beat deadlines never bother to surmount.

The operation is coordinated by a Bournemouth University news coordinator, a fresh journalism graduate, who is based in Kathmandu on a rotational basis. The objective of the project is, as Dr Sreedharan said, “to make a change”. “Media has the power to do that. So our intention is to identify the need-gaps and our approach will be solution-oriented. The idea is to keep reminding the world, consistently and without let, how Nepal is rebuilding itself,” Dr Sreedharan said.