Work on progress

Finally, my work is on satisfactory progress. Even though tons of assignments, on-campus work, and other inevitable distractions are still there, I'm writing. I think I can get the whole manuscript done by the Thanksgiving. Then I may have Thanksgiving break to review and edit. By that time, I should probably decide on how I approach a publisher and which publisher(s) to approach. Again, I have TED talk to prepare, which should not be hard as far as I get my book written. I'll present my experience of the whole Idea Lab project, but from a perspective which might be useful as well as appealing to the audience. 

Writing has always been fulfilling to me, but I can't deny the fact that it's highly challenging too. It might not be a perfect one, but it'll still be a beautiful one. Here's an excerpt of my progressing draft of "Shaken Earth & Fallen Marine": 

.........About four minutes to the noon, I feel some movement beneath my feet. The movement grows violent and it almost has me tripped. The tents shake; and so does the mountain. I almost lose the balance of my camera. An uproar is heard: "Run! Run!" The whole mountain I am filming starts to shake as if it's going to overturn right at the moment. I see some snow balls and boulders rolling down. I see people running. I hear someone scream, "Mike, Run! It's the earthquake!" Suddenly, amid this utterly unexpected chaos, I see on the screen of my shaking camera a huge, I mean really huge, cloud of snow covering the whole view of the sky. From about a hundred meters on the cliff, the whole sky-covering size of snow is falling rapidly towards us. It's when I shout, "Get away! Get away! The avalanche is falling upon us!", and I run. I run as fast as possible. I see nothing, nobody. I reflexively know that in the matter of three or four seconds, the whole giga mass of snow will reach us. I reflexively know that it's unstoppable! I reflexively know  that it's here to claim our lives. I reflexively know that it's merciless!

Yes, in four seconds, a huge chunk of snow falls upon me. It slams on my head and on my back.  I fall. There's a significant mass of snow on top of me. I struggle. I shrug. I feel the cold. I feel the wound and fresh blood off my head. But I know I'm not dead.

In fact, I know I can move. I try to get back up. I can't. There's really a lot of snow on top of me. I move my  hands, and push away the snow around my head. I see that there is white all over.  All the colorful tents are gone. It's all white now.  

Several minutes of my frantic but helpless effort to get myself back up continue. Some human sounds are heard around. I shout, "Here! Here!"

Two Sherpas arrive. They say, " Mike, are you okay?" I say, "Yes, just get me up." The two remove some snow and pull me up. I can't stand on my own. I yell, "Damn! My legs are frozen. Or are they paralyzed?"

The two quickly carry me away. My legs are immobile. I don't feel them. I ask, "How many of them  are covered under there?" They say, "We don't know. It could be many." I remember that panic. While I saw the falling tsunami of snow through my camera, most of them were still unknown about it. It was when I shouted and ran that they looked up and started to run. A second before I was hit, I saw several of them just starting to run. No doubt, many could not escape. I was only hit by the tip of the avalanche. Had I lagged behind by two seconds, I would be several feet below the snow. At worst, I may have my legs paralyzed. It's quite a luck compared to the fate several others have met. What a narrow escape!

My saviors, the two Sherpas, sit me gently on a boulder and rush back. They join the others in digging the snow and retrieving the bodies. Some are alive, some are dead, some are dying. There are some who are either alive or dead. How I wish I could join them to dig. These damn legs! Then I remember, "Where's my camera?"

Then, all of the sudden, my cold blood heats up: Oh hell! This is an earthquake! What about Linda and Jessica? The earthquake must have rocked the entire region. How do I know?

My heart beats up. I feel very strangely terrified. My wife Linda and my 12-year old daughter Jessica were in a trek to Langtang Mountain valley. The earthquake was scarily big. It must have hit there, too. Houses might have crumbled. Other avalanches might have broken off. Image of devastation in my mind forms so big that I believe the whole country of Nepal, and probably the whole of China and India, might have shaken. Or who knows, the entire earth might have rocked. Didn't I see with my own eyes the biggest mountain of the world shaking so badly that it almost crumbled then and there? It was in the true sense the end of the world at that moment.

I pray that nothing happens to my beloved ones.

I have seen nothing as scary as this in my entire life.......

- Sanjay Chhetri

For the book "Shaken Earth & Fallen Marine. 

[Pictures used from google.com/images]