Quaky-Shaky experience!!!

Woke up from sleep...disturbed…over the repeated banging on the door…

It was probably the first time some one knocked/banged my flat’s front door in those six months of my advent in Chennai…the door which was never locked otherwise was apparently bolted from inside that day!!! Call it destiny/serendipity what ever you believe in!!!

It was a cool December morning (even though there is nothing like a cool day in Chennai) and moreover was a weekend…I forced myself out of the bed, too reluctant to come out of the comfy zone under my blanket; I had no other choice as the banging grew louder…I slowly staggered into the living room carefully holding the walls!!!

I was more than surprised to see myself throwing out of balance…it never happened before and I was not drunk too!! At last when I answered the bang...it was my servant maid...hysterically yelling something out in Tamil, a foreign language!!! Hearing her, my roomie came out of the bedroom equally excited and also to translate what she was trying to convey...

Mystery unfolded as I understood that it was an Earth Quake…and a new fear crept in as we were living in the third floor!!!

Trying to digest what we just heard both me and my roomie walked into the balcony. This time we could walk balanced…without any support from the walls, as it subsided!! Another surprise that morning was that the balcony had the stink of sea side…we exchanged perplexed looks; when our maid ran again into the living room…this time bearing the news that the beach which was a kilometer from my house has drowned the whole residential area surrounding it…yes, it was the Tsunami of Dec 2004!!! We ran to the spot to see the devastation which doomed all over…

Three years later…2007, another side of the globe…California, USA

…Waiting at the automatic car wash to get my roomie’s car washed…the car already in the wash area was almost done and was ready to exit when our car experienced a strong turbulence as if being blown by a strong jet of air from an exhaust!!! We experienced a swift swing sitting inside the car and thought it was because of the air being blown inside the carwash to dry the washed cars…

…it was our turn when we got a call from our cousin briefing about an earth quake 2 minutes ago…thrilled, we turned on the radio and lo!! It was the news all over...of magnitude larger than 6!!! came out of the carwash and experienced the emergency vehicles’ sirens wailing and traffic jams on the roads connecting the interstates…

aren’t they shaky-quaky experiences?!?!