Delhi rocked – literally! I got my second mild earthquake experience. Thankfully, it was not damaging. I had one of my friends staying overnight at my place and he ensured that the adventure of the earthquake took a backseat as the unintentional humor generated by his divine utterances (when I tried waking him up to get running) took centerstage.
Me: Abe N bhukamp aaya hai, jaldi uth
N: Kahan se?
Me: Bed se..aur kahan se. Baat karne ka time nahi hai..jaldi idhar darwaze ke paas aa
N: Kya bol rahe ho? Abhi bhukamp kaise aayega?
Later he tried giving a call to star news to recount his harrowing earthquake experience and the mayhem in which he collided with the sofa trying to find his way out the hall in the darkness. He was thinking on the lines of blaming ISI for the ‘jolt’ from the blue. His call did not connect though. I remember the last time these tremors struck Delhi in 2005, I was having breakfast with Dad and was so excited to experience it that I kept staring at the glass of water that was shaking while Dad threatened to withdraw my name from his will if I didn’t get moving.
Monday morning was business as usual. I was surprised to find news of Pakistan’s political fiasco hog limelight while Delhi tremors found space in the scrollers at the bottom of the screen. It seems that nothing that I am associated with, even remotely, can become interesting enough for these newswallahs. Half of my friends didn’t even realize that it was an earthquake and half of them said that it was no big deal even though they were not from Japan.
I witnessed an after-effect of the tremors while returning from office today. A couple-in-love was driving in a Santro. Their expression of love every now and then in the non-romantic Delhi traffic jams was probably to make up for the quality time they might have lost out in the tremor confusion in the early hours of the day.
Monday, November 26, 2007
A Rocking Start To The Week
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7 comments:
LOL...that reminds me I should write my earthquake experience as well :)
@marlee: great to see u back after the long hiatus :)
Note that I don't delete the comments here. It's the 'author' of the comment and not the 'owner' of the blog who does it.
*mild* earthquakes suck. I too was in such a situation recently (California). I ran out of my house with all I had (passport and laptop to be precise) towards my car (my third prized possession). After a few seconds it was all normal. Not a single soul was outside except for me and a mexican shouting earthoquako, earthoquako. The next day I tried to convince everyone how big a deal it was (5.2 on the richter scale, only a few points below of what struck Indonesia a few years back), only to find out that the richter numbering happens on a log scale.
@saabu: LOL! I think its not about earthquakes, people in general don't react until something grave happens. I once travelled from Patna to Kanpur all tensed (a couple of months after the Godhra incident). There was a ticking thing in the bag that my fellow pasenger sleeping right above me was carrying. Thinking that I would become a laughing stock in front of other sleeping passengers if I asked him to show us what that *ticking* thing was, I kept quiet and left it to God to save me. That it turned out to be an alarm clock saved me to see this day ;)
Yes you are right. There was this other time when we were traveling to Patna and "The Superstar" Amit Gautam was with us. Those days, there were plenty of train robbery incidents.
He saw a shadow of a human-like figure on the roof of our compartment and insisted on pulling the chain and running away. Somehow, we managed to keep him from doing that. I guess you were there too. I think he was a bit more worried than the rest of us thinking that the robbers were after him as he had been to KBC a few days back, and not realizing in the heat of the moment that he actually had returned empty-handed.
@sabya: Gautam believes in being safe rather than sorry! But one thing u must know is that the 'Superstar' title that he holds has been challenged. Will let u know the details some other time.
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