Tragedy brings heartening lesson

Rajendra Dawadi doesn't regard himself as a hero. More than a week after floods devastated the area in Nepal where he lives, he says simply: 'I am a principal without a school.' But because of his quick thinking in evacuating the Trishuli Bazaar Secondary School he had run for years, more than 900 pupils and staff survived. He did the normal bureaucratic calculations in his head, which included worrying that if the flood alarm he received was false, the school would lose a day's teaching time. 'But if it was true, we were going to lose our lives.' Getting everybody to higher ground included turning back buses returning to school from an outing. In the end, only five pupils were caught by the raging tsunami of water and mud, along with a teacher and a security guard. The latter died, maybe because of his dedication. He 'had probably wanted to close the gate', said Dawadi. In the midst of the tragedy and suffering – which are still far from over – Dawadi's story is a reminder of how fine the line is between survival and perishing. And how, sometimes, doing your job properly is the best way you can serve your community.