Part I
I'm in my room on the fourth floor of the house. Suddenly the chair starts to shake. So does the table. The shaking goes steeply severe. The two bamboo book racks stacked with books start to vibrate and sway. I put my pen down on the table and take reflexively cautious position. I see the walls vibrating, I feel the floor beneath my feet shaking, and suddenly it becomes hard for me to keep standing. It was then that I realize it's an earthquake.
When books start to fall in piles from the swaying book racks and when the cupboard standing against the wall suddenly comes down to land on top of my study table, and when I look at the ceiling and see it cracking, I realize it's not an ordinary earthquake.
The tremor grows very severe as I get trapped inside the room and I see the walls cracking, and I know the house is crumbling, but I also know that I no longer have time to run downstairs from the fourth floor. I start to realize that I can be killed. Any second these walls and the pillars may break and the ceiling above me may fall on top of my head. Any second the floor beneath me may fall apart and the whole house may flatten. This can be the last day I am alive. These moments may be the last minutes, or even the last seconds, of my breathing.
Every vertical furniture in my room has fallen, crushing my phone and calculator and laptop. I hear loud screams and thundering sound waves from the outside. Houses are falling each seconds; people are running for lives and thousands are dying. Something very, very terrible is happening.
As the shaking exceeds forty seconds, I see the walls still standing and ceiling still intact, except for fractures. The shaking has not stopped yet. I stand up and go near the door and put my hand on the handle. Should I open it? What if outside of the room has been already broken? What if I open the door and suddenly the house tilts and I find myself slipping into the ruins? I hold on.
I think of my mom who was in third floor. Where was she when it started vibrating and where is she now? What if she is still inside? Where's dad? Where are my younger brother and younger sister who must have been watching television when it started shaking? Are they alright?
The house has not still crumbled and I've not incurred the slightest of the wounds yet. I must watch out for anything that may fall. Even if the house crumbles, I should survive. I should die this way. I should not die to a disaster. I should not die so unjustly to a mischief of the nature. These thoughts revive my hope for the life.
In about a minute, the vibration became less severe and finally subsided. It was at that moment that I opened the door and got ready to run downstairs.But, no sooner had I opened the door than the shaking resumed. I waited a second and felt that it was not as powerful this time. So I reflexively decided to take chances. So I ran, as fast and carefully as possible. As I was running steps after steps downstairs, the earth continued shaking. For a split second, my mom and my dad and sister and brother saw me and I saw them on the ground. Mom and sister shouted my name and said, "FAST..." In another split second, I realized that my family was in safety. The shaking started to grew again. Just hold on for ten seconds, you house! I thought. Let me escape and you may fall if you will. Just don't get me trapped in the last second of my safety.
I was on the first floor and I saw a scarily big fault on the courtyard. The house had shaken from the foundation and was just a second or two away from falling. It was very evident. But I didn't stop to think about that fault at the moment. I ran out of the range of the possible fall and finally pushed myself into the crowd of hundreds of people in the field. It was an empty one acre land adjoining to our house. It was not completely safe but way too safer than the house. All the people of the neighborhood had gathered there. I was finally at the company of my family and neighbors. We all had just survived the catastrophe of the century.
In front of our house was a seven story house, which was still standing. Our house was standing. The immediate neighborhood seemed unharmed. But we all knew the country had changed forever the minute ago. Every single person in the crowd was shivering. They, like I, were yet to make sense of what had just happened and how they were standing alive there. The trauma was visible on their faces and bodies to most of them.
I was undergoing a completely empty mind. My mind was circling. My mental consciousness was trying to adjust to the experience of a minute ago. What could have happened to the worst? The house could have collapsed and I'd have been squeezed to death, my disfigured corpse lying trapped in the debris. A bulldozer would dig into the debris and arduously discover my dead body squeezed between the concrete. That could have been the end. All my dreams and fantasies, of becoming a millionaire by the age of 30, of travelling around the world by the age of 40, of becoming a great author and speaker and living on to 80 years to see the kids and grandkids grow and marry.... would end with my body being destroyed. I would have entered the most feared gate of all: death.
But nothing like that happened, at least to me.
Some of the people who regained their mind and who had their mobile phone on their hands started to make calls. But very few calls were successful. Some others turned FM radio on their phone. Even most of the radios were transmitting nothing. All the staff in the radio must have fled to the safety. People felt isolated. This gave way to the guessing games: what happened to the rest of the country, or the rest of the world. The quake was so powerful and big that everyone there felt as if the whole planet shrugged. It might not just be this the city of Kathmandu or the country of Nepal. It might very well be the entire geographic region of South Asia or Asia or the entire earth.
As minutes passed many rumors began to emerge and spread in that crowd of frightened, and hence psychologically distorted, neighbors: the six-storey building of a school on the neighborhood crumbled. The mall on the roadside has caved in, trapping many people inside. Dharahara, the tower of Nepal, has broken. A seven storey building that housed a church has collapsed. And so on.
Some people who succeeded in making call to their relatives were relieved. The others whose call was not successful were worried. Some who talked on phone were desperate. Many had begun to gather around a mobile phone in the loudspeaker. The fm radios had started to resume broadcasting. People started to know or guess the Richter scale of the quake. Some were saying it was 8. Others claimed it was 9. Some were even saying it was 10 or 11. Many people had fled leaving the phones behind.
About ten minutes had passed when the earth shook again. A powerful aftershock.. People in the crowd screamed. Now, people were talking about how the tremor keeps returning. Some who were about to go back to their house and grab their phones or valuables got heavily deterred by this shock. People anticipated yet another temblor. And in less than another ten minutes, the earth shook yet again. It kept shaking longer this time. The houses were swaying. The birds in the sky were flying directionless. Dogs looked scared. Some barked in fright. People looked pathetic. I was no exception. But I knew I should not lose my composure as had my parents and many elderly people there.
More rumors spread. The whole downtown Kathmandu is gone. Roads are blocked. The buildings are down everywhere. Thousands have have died already. These rumors made people even more vulnerable.
I knew lots of things do change when the seemingly and habitually unshakable ground below you stirs and when the very ground and the house that give us safety threaten to kill us. We lose faith in the things that we've always trusted. Our belief system undergoes a paradigm shift. We suddenly become aware of our vulnerability. And a lot more happen.
But the powerful aftershocks keep returning in every ten to fifteen minutes and I'm yet to figure things out. But I know something in me, in people around me, in society and in the nation has definitely change forever. I know that for sure.
- Sanjay Kumar Chhetri
For the book "Shaken Earth & Fallen Marine".
10/26/2015
The images used in the post are the properties of Google.com. The text entry of the post is entirely based on my personal experience, with negligible distortion.
I'm in my room on the fourth floor of the house. Suddenly the chair starts to shake. So does the table. The shaking goes steeply severe. The two bamboo book racks stacked with books start to vibrate and sway. I put my pen down on the table and take reflexively cautious position. I see the walls vibrating, I feel the floor beneath my feet shaking, and suddenly it becomes hard for me to keep standing. It was then that I realize it's an earthquake.
 |
| April 25 quake unleashed landslides, blocked roads. |
The tremor grows very severe as I get trapped inside the room and I see the walls cracking, and I know the house is crumbling, but I also know that I no longer have time to run downstairs from the fourth floor. I start to realize that I can be killed. Any second these walls and the pillars may break and the ceiling above me may fall on top of my head. Any second the floor beneath me may fall apart and the whole house may flatten. This can be the last day I am alive. These moments may be the last minutes, or even the last seconds, of my breathing.
Every vertical furniture in my room has fallen, crushing my phone and calculator and laptop. I hear loud screams and thundering sound waves from the outside. Houses are falling each seconds; people are running for lives and thousands are dying. Something very, very terrible is happening.
As the shaking exceeds forty seconds, I see the walls still standing and ceiling still intact, except for fractures. The shaking has not stopped yet. I stand up and go near the door and put my hand on the handle. Should I open it? What if outside of the room has been already broken? What if I open the door and suddenly the house tilts and I find myself slipping into the ruins? I hold on.
I think of my mom who was in third floor. Where was she when it started vibrating and where is she now? What if she is still inside? Where's dad? Where are my younger brother and younger sister who must have been watching television when it started shaking? Are they alright?
The house has not still crumbled and I've not incurred the slightest of the wounds yet. I must watch out for anything that may fall. Even if the house crumbles, I should survive. I should die this way. I should not die to a disaster. I should not die so unjustly to a mischief of the nature. These thoughts revive my hope for the life.
 |
| Some of the quake-induced slides blocked highways. |
I was on the first floor and I saw a scarily big fault on the courtyard. The house had shaken from the foundation and was just a second or two away from falling. It was very evident. But I didn't stop to think about that fault at the moment. I ran out of the range of the possible fall and finally pushed myself into the crowd of hundreds of people in the field. It was an empty one acre land adjoining to our house. It was not completely safe but way too safer than the house. All the people of the neighborhood had gathered there. I was finally at the company of my family and neighbors. We all had just survived the catastrophe of the century.
 |
| Buried in the debris |
I was undergoing a completely empty mind. My mind was circling. My mental consciousness was trying to adjust to the experience of a minute ago. What could have happened to the worst? The house could have collapsed and I'd have been squeezed to death, my disfigured corpse lying trapped in the debris. A bulldozer would dig into the debris and arduously discover my dead body squeezed between the concrete. That could have been the end. All my dreams and fantasies, of becoming a millionaire by the age of 30, of travelling around the world by the age of 40, of becoming a great author and speaker and living on to 80 years to see the kids and grandkids grow and marry.... would end with my body being destroyed. I would have entered the most feared gate of all: death.
But nothing like that happened, at least to me.
Some of the people who regained their mind and who had their mobile phone on their hands started to make calls. But very few calls were successful. Some others turned FM radio on their phone. Even most of the radios were transmitting nothing. All the staff in the radio must have fled to the safety. People felt isolated. This gave way to the guessing games: what happened to the rest of the country, or the rest of the world. The quake was so powerful and big that everyone there felt as if the whole planet shrugged. It might not just be this the city of Kathmandu or the country of Nepal. It might very well be the entire geographic region of South Asia or Asia or the entire earth.
As minutes passed many rumors began to emerge and spread in that crowd of frightened, and hence psychologically distorted, neighbors: the six-storey building of a school on the neighborhood crumbled. The mall on the roadside has caved in, trapping many people inside. Dharahara, the tower of Nepal, has broken. A seven storey building that housed a church has collapsed. And so on.
Some people who succeeded in making call to their relatives were relieved. The others whose call was not successful were worried. Some who talked on phone were desperate. Many had begun to gather around a mobile phone in the loudspeaker. The fm radios had started to resume broadcasting. People started to know or guess the Richter scale of the quake. Some were saying it was 8. Others claimed it was 9. Some were even saying it was 10 or 11. Many people had fled leaving the phones behind.
 |
| Deepjyoti School, a six storied structure collapses on Apr 25 |
More rumors spread. The whole downtown Kathmandu is gone. Roads are blocked. The buildings are down everywhere. Thousands have have died already. These rumors made people even more vulnerable.
I knew lots of things do change when the seemingly and habitually unshakable ground below you stirs and when the very ground and the house that give us safety threaten to kill us. We lose faith in the things that we've always trusted. Our belief system undergoes a paradigm shift. We suddenly become aware of our vulnerability. And a lot more happen.
But the powerful aftershocks keep returning in every ten to fifteen minutes and I'm yet to figure things out. But I know something in me, in people around me, in society and in the nation has definitely change forever. I know that for sure.
- Sanjay Kumar Chhetri
For the book "Shaken Earth & Fallen Marine".
10/26/2015
The images used in the post are the properties of Google.com. The text entry of the post is entirely based on my personal experience, with negligible distortion.
No comments:
Post a Comment