LocationsFrom the Himalayas to Humanitarian Frontlines: My 20-Year Journey Through Crisis, Recovery, and Resilience
February 23, 2026
Rahul in the post earthquake SURGE mission to Myanmar, 2025
When people ask how I ended up spending two decades moving between earthquakes, cyclones, conflicts, and the quiet moments in between, I always go back to the same place: the Himalayas.
Growing up in the hills of India, disaster wasn’t an abstraction; it was part of daily life. We practiced earthquake evacuations at school long before I understood what “disaster risk reduction” meant. I watched monsoons reshape valleys, saw landslides close roads for weeks, and learned early that preparation could mean the difference between tragedy and survival.
After completing my law degrees at the Universities of Pune and Bristol, I found myself at a crossroads. The courtroom felt too distant from the communities I wanted to serve. I didn’t want to argue cases; I wanted to be there, on the ground, where preparedness could save lives. That instinct took me back to the mountains, to the Peoples’ Science Institute, a small NGO in Uttarakhand working on community‑based disaster preparedness. I coordinated an Oxfam‑supported project, preparing villages on how to better respond when the next earthquake, forest fire, flood, or landslide came; it always would.
I didn’t know it then, but that decision would shape every chapter that followed.
A young Rahul in his first assignment in the development sector in the Himalayas, 2004
A Tsunami, a Turning Point
In December 2004, the Indian Ocean tsunami changed everything. Over 230,000 people lost their lives across 14 countries. India’s coastal states — Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, and Puducherry — needed a coordinated recovery effort unlike anything seen before.
I joined UNDP as part of the UN Team for Tsunami Recovery Support as a Programme Associate, working on what became a pioneering “One UN” model — multiple agencies operating under a single framework. It was my first experience of the UN at scale, and I witnessed firsthand how global systems can join forces when the stakes are high. I helped mobilize $3 million from Germany, set up Recovery Resource Centres in devastated communities, and supervised UNV District Recovery Facilitators, who became the bridge between affected families and the resources they desperately needed.
That moment didn’t just begin my UNDP story. It convinced me that crises, devastating as they are, also open windows for long-term, systemic change. Recovery isn’t just about rebuilding what was lost — it’s about building back better, stronger, and more resilient communities.
Putting My Hand Up, Again and Again
One of the most defining moments of my career has been raising my hand. After the tsunami work, I moved to UNDP’s Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery in New Delhi, managing the India component of the “Regional Project on Glacial Lakes Outburst Floods Risk Reduction” across four Hindukush–Himalayan countries. UNDP’s SURGE mechanism (short deployments into crisis settings) became my classroom. My first deployment was to Kyrgyzstan in 2010, just months after violent civil strife tore through Osh and Jalal-Abad. I arrived with technical understanding but quickly learned that experience, humility, and connection with colleagues already living through the crisis are just as critical. I drafted the country’s first comprehensive inter-agency contingency plan and a conflict-to-development coordination transition strategy, but the real work was listening — to government officials navigating political instability, to communities trying to rebuild trust, to UN colleagues who held the institutional memory.
I kept putting my hand up. Montenegro for post-flood needs assessments. Malawi after the devastating 2016 El Niño drought, where I worked directly with the Humanitarian Coordinator. Myanmar, where I mobilized $3 million from USAID for the National Disaster Management Training Centre and chaired a consortium of 11 partners. Nepal after the 2015 earthquake. Bangladesh during the Rohingya crisis, managing a team of 20 as Programme Manager for Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience with IOM. Eastern and Southern Africa. The Caribbean. Syria.
Every crisis was different, but the principle was always the same: prepare, connect, understand, then act.
Portrait of Rahul, as a member of UN Team for Tsunami Recovery and Support, India, 2006
The People Who Shaped My Path
Strong mentors shaped my journey. Kamal Kishore, now the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction, taught me what it means to work with integrity in crisis settings. His groundedness, his community focus, and his leadership style showed me that technical expertise means nothing without humility and respect for local knowledge.
But I’ve learned just as much from country office colleagues — the people who hold the institutional memory of a place. They know which bridges fail first in floods, which markets recover fastest after disasters, and which communities have no one speaking for them. They understand the political dynamics, the social fabric, the unwritten rules that outsiders miss. Respecting that knowledge has been one of the most important leadership lessons of my life. You can’t parachute into a crisis and think you have all the answers. The answers are already there. Your job is to listen, connect the dots, and build solutions together.
Syria: A Crisis Within a Crisis
One of the most complex deployments was to Syria in early 2023, just weeks after devastating earthquakes struck Türkiye and Syria. The February 6 quakes killed over 50,000 people across both countries. In Syria, the devastation sat atop 12 years of conflict, governance challenges, and humanitarian constraints — a true “crisis within a crisis.”
Even getting into Aleppo required extraordinary layers of approval. The security situation was volatile. Infrastructure was destroyed. Trust was fragile. Our first job was urgent and simple: clear debris, restore access, help people rebuild basic safety. UNDP deployed rubble removal teams, provided emergency shelter materials, and supported livelihoods restoration so families could earn income again.
But even then, we were thinking long-term. How could livelihoods be restored in a way that strengthened community cohesion? How could we build resilience that could stand against not just earthquakes, but ongoing instability? These questions define UNDP’s role: we are present, we act fast, and we always keep the long view in mind. We’re not just responding to today’s crisis. We’re building foundations for tomorrow’s recovery and development.
What struck me most was the resilience of Syrian communities. After more than a decade of conflict, after losing so much, they still found ways to rebuild. I saw shopkeepers reopening businesses in damaged buildings. Teachers holding classes in temporary spaces. Families sharing what little they had with neighbors who had even less. That’s the human capacity for hope that keeps me doing this work.
The Micro-Stories That Stay with You
People often imagine crisis deployments as nonstop chaos, and sometimes they are. But what stays with me are the quiet moments — the micro-stories that reveal humanity at its most resilient.
In Myanmar, I visited a village where the pagoda stood cracked and broken after the earthquake. Yet life still revolved around it. Someone had placed a platter of fruit and water on a tree branch. When I asked why, the answer was simple: “It’s for the sparrows and the bees.” Even in devastation, people cared for the smallest creatures.
In Malawi, during the 2016 drought emergency, I met a grandmother who walked three hours each day to fetch water for her grandchildren. Her own crops had failed, but she still found energy to smile when I asked about her family. “They are my future,” she said. “I will not let the drought take that from me.”
Culture, faith, humor, community — these things persist. They’re the heartbeat of recovery. They’re what make resilience possible.
Post-Hurricane SURGE deployment in the Barbados and Eastern Caribbean, 2024
The Personal Cost of This Work
Deployments are never just professional. They’re deeply personal. You miss graduations, birthdays, family illnesses. You take video calls across impossible time zones. You learn gratitude for partners who hold everything together while you’re gone. You learn that “work-life balance” is a myth in crisis response. Instead, it’s about work-life integration — accepting that sometimes work demands everything, and making space for life when you can.
I’ve learned to cope. Long walks help me process difficult days. Humor in the field builds bonds with colleagues. Connecting deeply with the people I deploy with creates resilience as much as any training module. And staying grounded in why this matters: every life saved, every community rebuilt, every system strengthened is worth the sacrifice.
But I won’t pretend it’s easy. There are days when the weight feels unbearable. When you wonder if you’re making any difference at all. When you question whether one more mission will break something in you that can’t be fixed. Those are the days when mentors matter, when colleagues matter, when remembering the grandmother in Malawi matters.
Innovation Under Pressure
Today’s crises demand faster, smarter responses. Since 2020, I’ve been a Specialist in UNDP’s Crisis Bureau based out of New York. We’re using satellite data for rapid damage and needs assessments, AI to match expertise to crisis needs, and chiselled surge systems and special measures.
UNDP’s SURGE roster has highly trained and experienced advisors who can deploy within 72 hours. We’re building regional capacity so responses don’t always require expertise from far — local and regional experts are often faster, effective, and better connected to authorities and communities. Modern technology makes systems agile. Innovation helps us move faster, and people help us move wisely. The fundamentals remain: listening, understanding, building trust. No algorithm can replace the judgment of a seasoned country office colleague who knows when to push and when to wait. No satellite image can tell you which community leader will champion change. No AI can build the relationships that make recovery sustainable.
The Impact You Actually See
After 20 years, I know this work makes a difference. I’ve seen it.
I’ve seen coastal Indian states go from thousands of cyclone deaths in the 1990s to almost zero today because of early warning systems, evacuation protocols, and community training. The 1999 Odisha cyclone killed 10,000 people. When Cyclone Fani hit the same region in 2019 with similar intensity, fewer than 100 people died. That difference is preparedness.
I’ve seen women and girls in remote Himalayan villages become trained first responders because we created space for them. They’re now the ones teaching earthquake drills in schools, leading disaster management committees, and ensuring that women’s needs — for sanitation, for safety, for healthcare — are prioritized in emergency plans.
I’ve seen debris-filled streets turn back into markets. Makeshift shelters turn back into homes. Traumatized communities find pathways to healing. Recovery doesn’t happen overnight, but resilience builds: year after year, intervention after intervention.
And I’ve learned that measuring impact isn’t always about numbers. Sometimes it’s the grandmother who smiles because her grandchildren’s school reopened. Sometimes it’s the shopkeeper who extends credit to neighbors because someone extended credit to him. Sometimes it’s the community that comes together to solve the next problem because they learned they could during the last crisis.
At UNDP's Crisis Bureau headquarters in New York
A Message to the Next Generation
If I had to give young professionals one piece of advice, it would be this: put your hand up. Then, step forward — even if you don’t feel completely ready.
No one enters a crisis context fully prepared. I wasn’t ready for Kyrgyzstan. I wasn’t ready for Syria. I wasn’t ready for any of it. But someone there knew what I didn’t, and I could learn and contribute.
Take the UNV or JPO route if you can — it’s how many of us started. Don’t wait for the perfect opportunity; create it. Volunteer with NGOs, get surge training, learn languages, study disaster risk reduction, understand conflict dynamics. But most importantly, go to the field. Experience doesn’t grow in isolation. It grows in conversations, in setbacks, in moments of clarity when you realize the work matters.
And remember: this career will ask a lot of you. It will test your resilience, your relationships, your sense of purpose. But if you care about building a safer, more resilient world — if you believe that every life matters, that every community deserves the chance to recover, that preparedness is a right, not a privilege — then this work will give you something rare: the knowledge that what you do matters.
It always matters.
Looking Forward: The Polycrisis Era
We live in the age of polycrises — overlapping shocks that compound each other. Climate change drives droughts that trigger conflicts. Conflicts create displacement that strains resources. Economic shocks weaken systems already stressed by disasters. The old model of discrete humanitarian responses followed by development programs no longer works.
UNDP’s role has never been more critical. We bridge humanitarian preparedness, recovery, and long-term development. We work across the humanitarian–development–peace nexus. We stay and deliver when emergency agencies stop. We build the systems — governance, risk management, community resilience — that prevent the next crisis from being as catastrophic as the last.
But to do that, we need resources. Financial resources, yes — predictable funding that allows us to prepare, not just respond. But also human resources: skilled professionals willing to deploy, country office staff with institutional knowledge, standby partners ready to mobilize. Stability in staffing and sustained investment shape our ability to respond effectively.
My hope is that the world sees the value of preparedness, resilience, and early recovery — not after the next disaster hits, but now. Because every crisis we respond to is also a chance to build a future that is safer, fairer, and more resilient than the past.
Twenty years ago, I left the courtroom for the mountains, thinking I wanted to help communities prepare for disasters. What I found instead was a calling: to be part of a global system that responds when the worst happens, stays to rebuild what was lost, and works to ensure that next time — and there’s always a next time — communities are stronger.
I’m still putting my hand up. And I always will.
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