August will always be the month of displacement in my mind. There is of course Partition. But August also brings to me memories from 1990, of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. My family was in Kuwait at that time.

Ten is awfully young to have life teach you that one’s certainties in one’s world, one’s assumptions about how things are and always will be, one’s little plans and hopes with people and things, are extremely fragile things.  Ten is awfully young to come to the realization that home, even home, may never have more than an ephemeral meaning. And thus, in the shadow of every joy and every achievement lurks a wary doubt-filled uncomfortableness - an unlooked-for, grieving relative at a family celebration who you must, for your own sake, greet, embrace and shed tears with, if even for a bit. 

My roommate in college would recall how relatives who fled from Sindh to India in ‘47 would keep wads of cash hidden in their mattresses. My brother recounts yet another perfect manifestation of the trauma of being uprooted from the verities of one’s life - the friend’s mother who carries her photo albums wherever she travels. These are not mere eccentricities. 

But August also reminds me of how my parents patiently retrieved and consolidated the dank, crumbling flotsam and jetsam of our hopes, and rebuilt and built anew. August is also about such fortitude - and acknowledgement of and gratitude for being fortunate.

Less, much much less, fortunate this August are the victims of the recent floods in Bangladesh and elsewhere in South Asia. A number of organizations are collecting money and doing excellent work for flood relief. A provisional list is provided below. I would encourage readers to donate generously. I also hope that the work of relief extends beyond the immediate delivery of food, water, medicine and shelter to the victims - to helping those affected rebuild their lives, hopes and dreams in the longer run.

* Chief Advisor’s Relief Fund - check with your local Bangladeshi Embassy.

* Drishtipat - is collecting money for BRAC and Phiriye Ano Bangladesh (http://www.drishtipat.org/flood/  - Link also contains a couple of other organizations that are collecting money)

* Occassional Addafication blogger, Shamarukh Mohiuddin’s working with Global Works Foundation to raise money for flood victims. Donations are tax deductible.  (http://www.globalworksfoundation.org/ )

* Oxfam America - Global Emergencies Fund  (https://donate.oxfamamerica.org/02/gl_emerg)

* Oxfam UK - South Asia Flood Relief (http://www.oxfam.org.uk/oxfam_in_action/emergencies/sasia_floods07.html)

Comment-ers, feel free to notify me of more organizations that you may know of that are doing relief work and seeking donations. I will add them to the list.