CHENNAI, India -- "Do you think the tsunami will visit us again?"
The young Indian fisherman, idle on the sands at Pondicherry near Chennai, gazed fearfully at the romping sea. His benefactor the sea suddenly turned one morning into a rampaging monster. The fisherman is afraid.
On Dec. 26, Shaktikanta Das, commissioner of tourism for Tamil Nadu and managing director of the Tamil Nadu Tourism Development Corp., received a call soon after the tsunami struck the state's eastern coast. He went at once to the devastated shore, a scene of wrecked fishermen's homes, boats and equipment, and tossed, pitiful bodies. "Horrifying? Absolutely," he said. "It was shocking."