KOZHIKODE: In a different time, 18-year-old hotel management student Abhijith Kallingal would have gone for a long, leisurely stroll in his village of Punchirimattom to capture its lush green hills and waterfalls with his mobile phone, as he did almost every day. But this is now. Sitting in a relief camp in Meppadi's government high school this weekend, he was deleting these cherished photos, unable to bear the memories they evoked.
Abhijith's life was shattered when a landslide early Tuesday flattened his village and claimed the lives of his entire family, eight in all - including his parents, siblings, grandmother, uncle, aunt, cousin, and four close neighbours who had sought refuge in his home as it rained nonstop for two days in Wayanad.
The teenager survived only because he was away in Thiruvananthapuram for his studies. His once safe and beautiful village, often photographed and shared with friends, became the site of an unimaginable tragedy.
Abhijith's home, perceived as safe due to its elevated location, was completely destroyed. All its 12 occupants at the time perished. The bodies of his father, sister, uncle, and aunt were found in the rubble, but his mother, brother, grandmother, and cousin remain missing. Adding to his grief, Abhijith lost an aunt who was visiting relatives in Chooralmala - the site of another devastating landslide.
Abhijith is left alone, accompanied only by his cousin Pranav, the sole survivor from his uncle Narayanan's family. Amidst his trauma, Abhijith left the relief camp to perform the last rites of his father and sister at the Mariyammam temple funeral grounds. "Our village was so beautiful. I had taken so many images. I have deleted most of them. What is the use of keeping them when everything is lost?" he said. The pictures were erased, but the scars remained.