Mehul Srivastava, 24, a reporter for the Dayton Daily News, wrote a first person narrative about his experiences in India while covering the tsunami. Srivastava is a native of Calcutta, and a graduate of Washington & Lee University’s School of Journalism. Srivastava has worked for the Daily News for six months. This is his first reporting job.
Excerpt:
Before photographer Chris Stewart and I left for India and Sri Lanka, the woman who takes care of the computers at the Dayton Daily News gave us a present — computer disk drives, about the size of our thumbs, that could be used to carry around large amounts of information.
In Sri Lanka, in a hospital in the middle of rebel-held territory, I watched as a doctor copied image after image of dead children onto that disk drive. The photographs were heartbreaking — 10-year-olds with sand in their mouths, their eyes barely closed. Smaller children, their bodies slightly bloated, with their faces toward the camera. The doctor had taken the photographs so that someday, parents could identify their dead children.
I didn’t want to look, but he kept pointing to image after image. I realized then what it was that Chris and I were doing here. Nearly 60,000 people died in India and Sri Lanka — the least we could do is bear witness to their suffering.
That computer drive is on my desk as I write this, sitting in a hotel room in South India. I may not bring it back to America. For me, it is the heaviest weight in the world. >> Read more.
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