Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Tragedy Strikes Again

In my interactions First Year students and their parents, I often narrate many tragedies that have struck the Institute, its students, staff and faculty. The objective being we learn from those mistakes and prevent such tragedies in future. While some learn from such narratives, others do not.

The tragedy happened again this Monday a day before the Republic day.

Five of the First year students went to Puri on Monday. This was a working day. They took an auto rickshaw to go to Puri. They went into the Sea, There was a huge wave. They lost balance and were being dragged into the sea. The Life Guards swung into action and rescued four of them. One them could not be rescued. He went missing in the sea. His body was discovered 2 days later in a lonely beach 7 kilometers away from the main Puri beach.

Sourav Kumar was a decent, studious and honest boy. He was in his full senses when he went into the sea. He and his friends went into the main Puri Beach where hundreds of tourists, shop keepers and life guards found. Many people take bath in the sea. While accidents are rare in this beach, they happen with distressing regularity.

The Institute truly saddened by the loss of life of promising young boy. Our thoughts and prayers are with the grieving family members of Sourav's family. We hope they will learn to live with Sourav's loss quickly.

However, I am concerned with us missing lessons from such tragedies. To my mind following are the lessons for the Students and their Parents:
  1.  The students must keep their parents abreast of their movements and coordinates when they go out of the campus.
  2. The parents must keep track of their wards at all times.
  3. We feel powerful in a group and underestimate the risks involved in our actions. Being aware of risk and having a plan to mitigate the risk is important