It’s not easy to shake me (I am such a heavyweight)! It takes an earthquake to do so. And it did, last night (March 21 to be precise) at a little past 10 pm. Yours truly had just ended the day by giving you all the news of Amitabh Bachchan gifting his Shahenshah steel jacket to a Saudi fan and gone to the kitchen to get a glass of water.
And then suddenly, standing near the RO to fill my glass, I felt myself swaying sideways, from left to right. Very bad at judging my body signals, I shifted base and still found myself swaying, till it dawned on me and I screamed Earthquake! Alone at home, I did a quick recee of the house and found the lamps and fans swinging precariously from the ceiling. Quick to react, I opened the main door. By this time, I could hear the neighbours in the lobby.
Look at my presence of mind, I grabbed my mobile with alarming alacrity and made a quick video. Marna jeena toh laga rehta hai, par video lena toh banta hai! By the way, the floor beneath me is still swaying. I can’t figure out whether it is me that is swaying, the floor or the building. Out in the lobby, I am hugging my much younger neighbour who implores me to be calm but doesn’t manage to conceal her own anxiety. All the lifts are busy. We know it’s most unwise thing to take the lift but we do so at the first opportunity because 2-3 minutes on, the swaying has not stopped. Everyone’s phone is ringing and nothing is audible in the din of voices.
As we touch ground zero, we encounter a sea of humanity. They were obviously smarter to have rushed out before we did. There’s everyone – bachche, boodhe aur jawan. Everyone shares their experience. Someone was, Ahem! Changing clothes (very dicey situation indeed), someone was in bed, while someone was watching TV. While all of us stand at a safe distance from the building that has our house worth crores waiting to see if there’s more swaying (we won’t call it tremors as an anxiety-saving measure), the guard keeps his position at the reception desk, totally nonplussed. I notice a smirk on his face and a side smile. “I felt nothing on the ground floor,” he replies when asked.
Standing outside, we wonder what will be more dangerous, the swarm of mosquitoes that have attacked us or the earthquake? (That was an aside in keeping with the state of our sanitary conditions.)
But look at the irony of it all. We actually got to meet our neighbours!
In all this, I forgot to mention, that I live on the 29th floor of a Gurugram condominium. In the one year that I have lived here, this was probably the fourth earthquake but none as severe as this one. The consolation of living on the 29th floor is that there are four families living on the 30th too, which is the last.
The most serious situations sometimes lead to the most funny anecdotes too. The lady living on the 28th floor asked me. You must have felt the earthquake more at that height. Really?
This morning’s yoga class was replete with discussions of last night’s earthquake and the travails living on the lower floors vs living on the higher floors. What is more dangerous when there is an earthquake? While you guys decide, here’s a wise one:
Boss, kismat achchi honi chahiye!
