He did his duty and left rest to God

Leaders, they say, have guts of steel. Kindness is one of them. On December 28 he was back in his village, his grief suppressed. ?I am the captain. My villagers needed me.?

Kindness Israel has lived a lifetime in a year. The morning after Christmas last year swept away his daughter, her husband and their three-year-old daughter. The 49-year-old man is the captain (headman) of Kinmai village in Car Nicobar.

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Last Christmas he was by the side of his ailing wife. “I wanted to go to the church in Mus village. But my wife was running a high fever. I stayed home. I admitted her to the hospital in the afternoon and wondered if I would be able to go to the church the next day,” he says.

The earthquake shook him out of bed the next morning at the hospital. “I panicked but didn’t lose control. I shifted my wife outside the hospital. And I left for my village on my scooter but could not make it. The tsunami destroyed everything within minutes," he says and stubs the pope (tribal cigar) with his feet.

For the next two days, Kindness wept, waited and hoped his daughter in Katchal was fine. She had gone there a week ago with her husband and daughter. None of them survived. Their bodies were never found.

Leaders, they say, have guts of steel. Kindness is one of them. On December 28 he was back in his village, his grief suppressed. “I am the captain. My villagers needed me.”

A year later, Kindness looks at the skies and smiles. He is happy he could stand up as a captain. “That’s all that matters. The gods will take care of the rest,” he says and gets back to a discussion with officials on housing.