Forty-one workers, trapped for 17 days in an under-construction tunnel that collapsed due to a landslide in Silkyara, could at last be rescued. It should be appropriate at this point to pick some wisdom that the incident inspires. The best team, drawn from multiple agencies and globally reputed domain experts, brainstormed and planned the rescue operation.

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That tunnel again and those questions

Stop acting so small...

The fact that the operation involved not just rocks and debris, but human lives, made it sensitive and challenging. The best technology and the best equipment available were deployed. The US-made auger machine, considered a state-of-the-art driller, was tasked to needle through the debris a pipeline to improvise an escape-way. The machine did as well as it could, and went as far as it could. But the last mile, last pipe, posed problems. Technology and machinery failed and bowed out. The rescuers were at their wit's end. At last, who did they turn to? Rat-hole miners – the poorly paid, manual workers who are skilled in burrowing in narrow space and rocks, using handheld tools. And what a feat these rat-hole miners accomplished! This brings to mind what the Hindi poet, Rahim, said. In a popular doha, Rahim cautions that things grand should not blind us to shun things small and lowly. To drive home his point, he posits a rhetorical question: where a needle is needed, he asks, can a sword serve instead? The sword may have its own brave use; but so too the tiny needle. The sword is not superior to the needle; nor is the needle inferior. Each is unique. The terms superior and inferior are not absolute. They are relative; related to the need of the moment and their ability to serve that specific need. This truth extends to all worldly assets, and all social positions. To miss this point, to get embroiled in false notions of importance, leads us to a muddled value system and consequent miseries, on personal and social planes.

From the mightiest emperor down to the tiniest blade of grass, everyone and everything has a specific function in life, and is invested with a calibre tailored to this end. Emerson, has a poem titled The Mountain and the Squirrel. The two, he says, had a quarrel. The mountain, in pride, called the squirrel, 'Little Prig'. The squirrel coolly retorted: "True, I am not so large as you, but nor are you so small as I." The squirrel elaborated on its point: "Talents differ; all is well and wisely put; If I cannot carry forests on my back, neither can you crack a nut." The auger machine could do big deeds, but not what the rat-hole miners did. The rat-hole miners, again, could not have done what the machine did. The poem states: "All sorts of things and weather/ Must be taken in together/ To make up a year/ And a sphere." Hence, a thousand names for God! Vishnu, the name, connotes The All. Two other names relevant to our context that appear one after the other in Vishnu Sahasranamam, are: Anu, 835, connoting the smallest and subtlest; and Brhat, 836, connoting the immeasurably large. Both of these are on a par. And wherever you be between these two extremes, that too is perfectly fine. As the squirrel declares: "I think it is no disgrace/ To occupy my place."

Families of Silkyara tunnel workers celebrate safe rescue with firecrackers, sweets