Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Earthshaking EarthQuakes...


Day Tuesday, 6th March. Time - @ 11-11:15 AM.

I was in my room watching 'Notting Hill' when I felt someone hit my bed and move it... I ignored... It happened again and then again until the point I couldn't ignore it anymore!! I knew something was wrong. That it is an unexpected, unpleasant and earthshaking earthquake became evident when HP (Hiral Patel for the uninitiated :-) ) came to my room... hairs ruffled and shouting... "Hemant bhai bhagoo!! earthquake aya hai..." (Hemant!! Run, It's an earthquake!!").

And he wasn't alone... the entire passage was full of people running to 'save their souls'. I too joined them. We ran down 5 flights of stairs, hearts throbbing as if they are gonna pop out any moment out of their cabinets. Trust me... I never ran down 5 stairs at such an amazing speed ever before. Had it been an actual race, I bet I would have won hands down! :-)

On a serious note, Google News later revealed that there was a Major Earthquake in Indonesia that day followed by similar seismic activity a couple of hours later. It left more than 70 people dead. And the number of injured ran into thousands.

And now as I write this mail, there's newsflash on FT.com of fresh tremors in Melbourne, Australia and I wonder if this nature play is even going to stop.

My roomie, Jigar says next time you are in doubt, just watch the water in the glasses kept on our study tables. If there are ripples, you better take cover. Being from Ahmedabad and having experienced the Bhuj quakes first hand, he should know better.

I pray I never get to see those ripples though!! For handling earthquakes is definitely not my cup of tea!!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I pray for those who lost their lives in this tragic earthquake. May thy soul rest in peace.

Kamlesh Acharya said...

hmn... Hemant... it was some moment. The tremor that we felt that is. I was sitting on the bed it shook and i woke my roomies up and we came out. But then it stopped and we kinda trudged back to our rooms.

It was a Deja Vu .. for me too after the Gujarat Earthquake of 2001.

I had summed up my Gujarat Quake experiences in my poem titled "Unspoken Benediction of Calamities"

Here is the link.
http://kamfucious.blogspot.com/2004_12_01_archive.html Hope you like it.