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TODAY o January 27, 2001
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Atlantans hope, pray for Gujarat kin
Waiting for news, good or bad, is worst
Don Melvin & Saeed Ahmed - Staff
Saturday, January 27, 2001
On Friday morning, Puloma Patel, exhausted and weeping, was still trying to find some way to get
through to Ahmedabad. She had been dialing all night.
She had learned the night before that an earthquake had hit Gujarat, her home state in India. And
Ahmedabad was one of the cities hit hardest.
"My two sons were very sick (Thursday) night --- they have the flu --- and all through the night and
into the dawn, I was either tending to them, praying that my mom and papi were OK or dialing and
dialing," she said. "I tried for hours, dialing and redialing and getting the same message: 'We're sorry, all
circuits are busy.'
"I was hysterical," she said. "I was literally crying."
She was not alone. Thousands of Gujaratis live in the Atlanta area; many spent Friday frantically
hitting redial and praying their relatives had escaped the devastation.
The precise number of Indians in the metro area is impossible to ascertain, but leaders of community
groups estimate it is between 40,000 and 50,000. Half or more --- between 20,000 and 30,000 --- come
from Gujarat.
As of late Friday, at least one Atlanta-area resident had discovered that the quake killed some of her
relatives.
Jayshree Modi of Smyrna lost an aunt, an uncle and a cousin, all in Ahmedabad, said Raman Patel, a
Smyrna real estate broker and community leader who visited the Modi house Friday.
Many more people have heard nothing from relatives in the quake zone and are sick with worry.
Raman Patel is not related to Puloma Patel. Patel is an extremely common name in Gujarat.
Mike Patel, the president of Diplomat Hotels, an Atlanta-area chain, had returned to India to celebrate
the country's 51st Republic Day, and spent the day before the quake in Ahmedabad. But by the time the
quake devastated that city, Patel was in New Delhi, where the temblor rattled walls but caused little
damage, said his brother, R.C. Patel, the chain's CEO.
The chain has donated $5,000 to start a relief fund at Horizon Bank, a subsidiary of Diplomat that
largely serves the local Indian community.
Those who managed to get through to relatives heard stories of thousands of people homeless, in
desperate need of help.
Today, at 2 p.m., Gujarati Samaj, an umbrella association of Gujarati cultural organizations, will meet
to organize relief efforts, said Upendra Patel. The meeting, open to anyone, will be held at a community
center at 5331 Royal Woods Parkway in Tucker, he said.
And on Sunday at 4 p.m., the Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Temple at
3518 Clarkston Indian Boulevard in Clarkston will hold a service to pray for the living and remember the
dead.
For people who did manage to get their calls through, the news was sometimes mixed.
After failing to reach her parents, Puloma Patel called a friend in a different part of Ahmedabad. After
four hours, she finally got through.
"I said, 'You have to find out if my parents are OK,' " Patel said. "I don't know how she got in contact
with my parents, but this morning they called me to say they were OK. I was so happy, I can't explain. It
was a kind of peace."
But she still is worried about her uncle. She knows that the building he and his family lived in
collapsed. But she doesn't know if he made it out.
"We are praying," she said.
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