Today to begin with, I would take time to mourn and pray for all those unfortunate souls who had to
bear the brunt of Mother Nature’s calamity and are stranded away from their
homes and may have lost their loved ones. I also pray for those adventure
seeking souls that may have been involved in the avalanches at Mt. Everest.
This incident brings back old memories. We had been
unfortunate to experience such a mishap in our lives once. I very clearly remember
that day. It was January 26th, year 2001. It was a Republic Day and
a national holiday for us. We were supposed to go to school for flag hoisting
ceremony. I was having my 10th standard pre-boards exams. It was a
usual holiday morning. My sister and I were sleeping in our room in a two BHK
home, of a 10 storeyed building. My mother woke me and my sister. Wearily and
lazily we opened our eyes still lying in our bed. I saw my father, who usually
goes and offers his prayers to the temple before breakfast had just come out of
the bath and went in his room to get ready for pooja. Still, not wanting to get up, I kept lying down on my bed
and could hear my sister go for her bath. Lying in the bed, I decided, I would
not be going to the school and would rather study for my exams. I heard another
call from my mother, and it was in a stern voice this time. I dragged myself
out of my bed and started brushing my teeth. Within a few minutes all of us
were at the dining area having our breakfast. My father was back from his pooja, and ready to go to work, my
sister was dressed in her neatly ironed school uniform and her hair tied in two
tight plaits, tied with blue ribbons, and my mother came with a tray of
breakfast with an apron with stains of turmeric tied at her waist. And I was
sitting there with my hair all messed up, in my night suit, still sleepy. We finished
our breakfast, my sister climbed downstairs for her school and dad, left for
his work. I rushed for a bath before I would get a scolding from my mother and
my mother started making lunch. I was having my bath, still feeling lazy, with
my feet dipped in a bucket of warm water and making the study plan for the day
when suddenly I saw that the bucket started shaking vigorously. Before I could realize
what was happening, there was cement scraps falling on my head from the ceiling.
I was looking up and around and saw the walls were shaking too. I was still
trying to figure out what the hell was happening, when I heard my mother banging
the bathroom door and shouting, “It’s an earth-quake, get out of the bathroom,
quick”. Scared and shivering, I wrapped a towel around myself and got out of
the bathroom. My mom handed me my shorts and tee and I hurriedly wore them and
we rushed downstairs. I could see everyone from the building yelling and
running down the stairs. I could see the stair case trembling, the trees
outside shaking and everything was mayhem. Still not realizing what was
actually happening.
We climbed down and rushed to the garden in front of the
building. My sister who was ready to leave for school was also there. My mother
was relieved to see her and hugged her. She was scared and confused just like
me about what had just happened. She had actually seen a building just across
the street collapse into a pile of dust. But, it was impossible for us to realize
the kind of impact the earthquake, that had just happened, may have caused
everywhere. And there were we, standing in our garden looking at our building,
that was our home and the place that we loved, and suddenly it looked scary to
us. It seemed as if this giant structure of cement was at us trying to kill us.Soon my father returned from midway to his work. I was still worried about my
exams, not knowing that the thing that had just happened was of such serious
magnitude. I was telling my mother to allow me to go and get my books else, I would
fail in my exams. Thinking of it, I am quite surprised, she didn't slap me
then. Anyway, my friends and me, we started chatting and playing, and the men
of the building had gone across the street to help the people buried under the rubble.
Then slowly we could hear the sirens of the ambulances going to and fro. The wailing
cries of people after they had seen and realized that some of their loved ones
were no more had filled the air. Slowly and gradually the air had started
getting heavier and we started to realize that what had happened was a very
serious calamity and although we were safe, a lot of loss had happened in many
people’s lives.
We were taken to our uncle’s home, which unlike ours wasn't a
high-rise but was a one storeyed bungalow. There was news pouring in. Then we
got to know that the epicenter of the earthquake was in a village in Gujarat
called Bhuj which had the maximum amount of destruction. Figures and digits of
the number of people who were found dead, and people injured the magnitude and
the duration of the earthquake was displayed and the analysis showing the
amount of damage a particular magnitude of earthquake can cause was discussed. There
were stories of people whose lives changed due to this calamity, like a man who
was getting married, lost all the ladies in his family, who were getting ready
in a beauty parlor in a building that collapsed, some few month old kid who
survived, only to be left orphaned with no parents or guardians to look after,
and some person whose all four limbs were damaged but managed to survive, which
was a punishment even worse than death, a school where all the kids in the
parade got buried and so on and so forth. The television was bombarded by the
loud glaring news about the earthquake and there were sad, disturbing
photographs of people who were buried or found alive. There was negativity all
around. Only people could talk about was death and damage. None of us could
sleep that night with the fear of the earthquake happening again and thought
that, “what if we get buried and end up dead in the morning?”. Everyone was
trying to tell each other to have faith and go off to sleep but no one of us
could. We had kept a water filled bottle in the spotlight so that if the water
moves we would know that the earthquake has struck again. There were theories
that animals could sense such calamities well in advance so if you would hear a
dog bark, you should be more cautious. Everything of this was more of scare
created rumors rather than actual truth. Anyway, the good thing for me in this
situation was that I got a chance to stay with my cousins and my grandparents
for more than I ever had imagined. We were united and would support and try and
soothe each other’s fears. Although the news and the disturbing pictures
continued to pour in, we gradually started keeping the fear of the earthquake
behind us and tried to bring as much normalcy in life as much we could.
All the
high-rises were examined and certified to be safe to be lived in but it
actually took more than just a certificate for us to trust in that mammoth-
like building who in our minds was out to crush us under itself. We were made
to give our board exams in the tents outside the schools due to fear of the
quake striking again. After months of letting the fears pass away and the
wounds of that ghastly day getting healed and scarred, we were able to live in
our homes again. The cemented cracks in the walls of our homes kept reminding
us of the unfortunate day but it also reminded us that we were lucky enough to
be saved and we have resurfaced after coming through one of the biggest and
scariest experience of our lives.
The lessons that I did learn from this day
was that, your family is your biggest strength and staying together will always
instill hope and ability to face the most difficult situations in life. It also
taught me that such calamity can break people’s homes, can shatter their belongings,
but it will never break their spirit or shatter their hopes. It will teach you
to come together and make us realize what humanity is all about. Because in
that need of hour, if you see your enemy buried under the cement, you wouldn't
think, “Let it be, I’ll let him die, he has jeopardized my promotion”, but you
would go there and pick up the boulders of cement and give a hand to get the
person out. Another thing that I did learn was no matter what, life goes on. I know it’s easy for me to say that life goes
on because I didn't lose a loved one in the mishap, and I agree to the fact
that I may not be the best person to comment but I have witnessed some of my
close colleagues and friends who did lose someone precious. Things won’t get to
what they were but this doesn't mean you would stop living. The wounds will
always heal and will give you a newer and a stronger perspective in life.
And the
most important lesson that I learnt though was that negativity fuels
negativity. We weren't that scared of the whole event until the news was
bombarded to us with the ghastly pictures and the scary analysis. Although it
is a good thing to be informed about the situation but hearing only that the
entire time does multiply the fear and insecurities in your mind. And now-a-days
with the social media becoming the most important method of spreading news and
communication, it is my sincere request to all my dear readers to avoid
spreading negativity. I know we feel sad and disheartened for the people
suffering in Nepal but posting pictures, sending videos, or discussing numbers
will not help anyone. If you can, extend your help in any little way that you
can, do it. If you can, go there and help them find people, feed them, help them build
shelters, donate money, food, blankets, create awareness about the helplines
and whatever you can, do it. But please just for the sake of posting don’t encourage
negativity and don’t spread rumors about this serious situations. Please discourage
posting pictures and making the already scared people of the affected country
even more fearful. Instead why not spread positivity, spread love and extend a
hand of help. Stay positive and help them come out of their fears with hope and
positivity instead of despair and helplessness. Show your support, not
sympathy.
PS- I know it would spring in your mind that if I am
requesting everyone to not talk about it, why am I posting a story about it?
But in my defense I would say that we came out of the situation and have seen a
lot of people live their lives again and my only aim is to instill a hope that
everything will get fine if we get united and remind ourselves of the humanity
that we are supposed to have. And this post has no pictures on purpose.
