BALL THAT TURNED FORTUNES AROUND

When all seemed lost, a coach and his team helped many girls breathe life back into the game called life

- BAGALAVAN PERIER B

"CHRISTMAS or not, no compromise on practice," football coach S Mariappan told a group of chirpy teenage girls. Their weekend tradition was to add lustre to the Silver Beach sand with sharp kicks and passes. However, since Mariappan was tasked with urgent schoolwork on Sunday, practice was shifted to the Anna playground in Cuddalore. As curtains rose that morning, two decades ago, the girls began warming up. The skies were pregnant with clouds and minds with doubts as to whether the rain would interrupt. Nonetheless, the game began. Good humour abated as the scorecard ticked, and then the office phone rang.

The tsunami had wrecked the Tamil Nadu coast and Silver Beach too bowed to fate. "The call was from my wife," recalls Mariappan (72).

"Struggling to catch her breath, she said giant waves destroyed the beach and that seawater had entered our home. I thought she was joking. But suddenly, the power supply got cut and the telephone went silent. Rushing home, the girls and I saw harrowing scenes of people fleeing their homes, fear etched on their faces. Human bodies and livestock carcasses lay scattered around us. There were cars and boats perched atop houses.