I express my heart-felt condolences to the affected families who have lost their family members in India and other countries in the South East Asia's coastal regions. My wishes to all the unfortunate people for a speedy relief and recovery from this grief situation.

It's not so easy to wipe out the bitter experiences from the heart. But, what to do? If it's a sweet incident filling the heart with happiness then we can keep them alive as evergreen memories. But this is a heart breaking one, which increases pain and feeling further and further.

Coming to India's count, Tamil Nadu is the worst-hit State when compared to other States and of course the Union Territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands also got the same measure as of Tamil Nadu.

In Tamil Nadu the coastal district of Nagapattinam is the very badly affected district and the intensity was flashed in the first page of "Herald Sun" a popular English daily in Australia.

The earthquake over the sea bed near Sumatra in Indonesia displaced a huge volume of sea water transformed as tsunami waves and hit South East Asia's coastal regions and inflicted heavy casualties and caused devastation of mass property destructions.

When I was spending my Christmas break at Mount Gambier, a tourist resort 463 kilometres west of Melbourne in the adjacent State of South Australia, I heard the outburst of natural disaster.

As the local regional TV network didn't cover much Indian news at Mt Gambier I was in a blind spot until I arrived to Melbourne. The moment I reached Melbourne the news from Australian TV Channels and Indian channels via Satellite dish were helping to know the exact picture about the tsunami's cruel play over the regions.

While appreciating the international communities for their enormous aid rushing to affected areas when the affected countries requested for help, we shouldn't forget Indian Government and people for their extended help towards Tamil Nadu.

The Tamil Nadu Government and Chief Minister J Jayalalitha acted swiftly to control the situation when other countries were struggling to manage the initial situation.

Last year Jayalalitha was honoured as the "Golden Lady" by the world. They are right. But by seeing today's situation, I feel, it would be more appropriate to call her as "Iron Lady". She is standing like a solid pillar and facing all the tests whether man made or nature made challenges.

Tamil Nadu is being challenged by fire and water in order to give her a tough time. It started from Kumbakonam school tragedy, water problem for drinking and irrigation due to drought, damage by heavy rain causing flood and agricultural implications and finally the worst disaster of tsunami waves.

She is facing such problems one after other, but still she and her Government is not tired. Few mistakes may happen here and there. No one could be one hundred per cent perfect.

According to the Holy books, to assess the quality of a person is to count the good deeds and bad deeds done by the person and then take the bigger count as the quality of that person.

Finding fault is easy and being correct is hard. So at this stage by sinking the differences all should unite together to fight out the natural disaster by donating liberally to the Chief Minister's Public Relief Fund.

To say proudly, Indians are generous in helping others. Already Indian Government and people have shown their magnanimity. As evidence contributions are pouring in from various organisations, industrialists, film industries and so on.

While concluding this, I would say the ferocity acts of nature may do some good things amidst devastations. The "Blue Lake" which was formed over the crater of volcanic eruption which occurred couple of hundred thousand years ago in Mount Gambier is the main source of drinking water for the city today.

Now, though tsunami waves inflicted so much of casualties, it has paved the humanity among people as many countries expressed their sorrow by hanging black flags during the New Year Day celebrations. Many eyes shed tears when humanity was questioned following terrorist activities eliminating human lives.

S. Sankara Subramanian
Melbourne