When a door closed, Annai Sathya home opened a window

The home took in around 100 children who lost their parents to the waves and gave them a new lease on life

- ANTONY FERNANDO

ON one night, memories of that Boxing Day morning again ambushed V Tamilarasi. Her father had been out at sea, fishing, and her mother had gone out to collect fish from the boats. Then 15, Tamilarasi was at home in Tharangambadi with her sisters and younger brother when the waves appeared. When they receded, the security of having parents had ended.

Like them, hundreds were orphaned by the giant waves. The media glibly dubbed them "Tsunami children". Realising the urgent need to rehabilitate them, the then Tamil Nadu government, despite considerable fund crunch, established the Annai Sathya Government Children's Home in erstwhile Nagapattinam district, the worst affected in the state. Then Nagapattinam Collector Dr J Radhakrishnan, currently an additional chief secretary to the government, oversaw the admissions.

The home began in a temporary building in Akkaraipettai with around a hundred children rescued from the ruins. Most of them had lost a parent. The children like Tamilarasi, old enough to understand what they had lost, were the most distraught in the days that followed. One child would break down and the others would follow suit; there seemed no end to the mourning.