As the boat moved through the choppy river, I clung desperately to the edge, heart thumping with terror. Whoooosh!! A rough wave slammed against it and I was thrown out into the water like a hapless rag doll. I clung desperately to the floating branch of a nameless tree and managed to reach the bank.
Shipwrecked though I was, it was strange that I was dry all over. Except around my nose. And it grew wetter by the minute! Must have caught a cold I thought and searched in vain for a handkerchief to blow my nose, but all I discovered in the dense darkness was a slimy object slithering up and down my arm and neck.
I shrieked in fear and a vaguely familiar noise was what I heard in response. More correctly, it was something closer to a moaning appeal, followed by a humble, subdued bark. It implored me to open my groggy eyes, which I did and realized with immense relief that I had just emerged from a nightmare and that my loving canine had used up its last reserve of saliva polishing up my nose to help me wake up.
Pushing Rocky away from me, I tried to steal a few more winks. But he had now found success and was no longer prepared for compromises. The stubborn mutt licked me harder reminding me that 6 AM was the time he went for his walk and there would be no exception today.
A brisk walk in the crisp, cold, beautiful morning of 26th January revived me further and I looked forward to a day to cook something special, catch up on some reading and probably go for a long drive in the evening. My husband accompanied my daughter to her school to attend the Republic Day function and I slipped once more into my shabby but soft, blue nightgown, the sight of which never failed to infuriate my husband.
The cuckoo cooed eight times from its nest in the clock and folding the newspapers neatly, I entered the kitchen to fix my son and myself some breakfast.
Brows puckered with concentration, I was pouring the contents of an egg into the frying pan, when the windowpanes rattled violently. The house shuddered for a second and was still again. My son, who had been waiting for his breakfast at the dining table, cried out, "Maa....!!" There was a distinct note of alarm in his voice, but I mistook the urgency for impatience and gently chided him back from the kitchen, "Can't you wait for just a minute more?" But no, he couldn't wait and this time he yelled, "Maaaaaa ..., get the hell out of the kitchen, please! We have an earthquake ...".
I was still unconcerned. I would not be dragged back into one more imagined nightmare today. So, with a lopsided smile the know-all mother replied, "Naa, no earthquake, just a sonic boom inside your hungry stomach. A fried egg and hot buttered toasts are the antidotes you need to take care of your squeamish stomach."
The words had hardly left their source when pandemonium broke loose. The house swayed dangerously. BAAAANG!! CRRRAAASHHHHH!! The steel utensils fell and scattered, and the china smashed into a thousand pieces. The only question that rushed through my mind with the speed of light was whether my son was safe. I rushed back to the dining room to find him in an equally dazed condition, waiting to see if his mother would ever reappear from the kitchen.
The dining table and chairs had slid from one end of the room to the other and we found it hard to balance ourselves on our two legs. Rocky in the meantime started to bark and run as if possessed. The glass fish bowl with its two goldfishes swayed precariously and was about to fall, when my son caught it and placed it on the floor, saving the poor fishes' lives.
And then, paralysed with fear, we held on to one another and stood transfixed for a long moment, unable to move.
But people all around the neighbourhood were screaming in panic. Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!! No words, but merely the reaction of vocal chords to a cosmic catastrophe. We were still unsure about the best course of action, when, with a deafening thud, the overhead water tank of my next-door neighbour collapsed and came crashing down on our backyard.
This noise finally brought us back to our senses. Picking up Rocky, I pushed my son out of the front door shouting,"Quick! Get down the stairs; let's get the hell out of the building!" But this was easier said than done. How could we descend the stairs? The staircase itself was oscillating like a pendulum gone wild. It rocked with such unimaginable force that each time we tried to take a step down, we retracted back terror.
Finally, summoning up the last bit of courage I possessed, I began to climb down encouraging my son to follow close behind. And indeed, stumbling, shrieking and shaking all over, and then to our utter disbelief, we succeeded in getting out of the building. By then the ground had stopped to quake. The rumbling roar of the demon chained deep inside the bowels of the earth had ceased and peace had returned. But devastation surrounded us and the crowd herded together in grim silence.
The earthquake lasted for about two minutes, but it had an intensity that could have easily flattened the whole town. (Remember Bhuj?)
Safely out on the street, an immense sense of relief swept over me and I suddenly became conscious of my attire...yes, that shabby old nightdress. But who cared? Certainly not my neighbours, who had now finally found back human speech, each trying to outdo the other's horrifying experience. The faces around me were contorted with terror, surely a reflection of my own, I realized ...
With the panic subsiding a little, we returned home. But as soon as we moved in, a burning smell greeted our nostrils. An electric cable perhaps? With great caution, we tip toed around the apartment but found no trace of smoke in any of the rooms. The smell persisted however and the trail led us finally to the kitchen. We entered it slowly, warily watching the ceiling for cracks. The entire room was in a mess with the utensils scattered all across the place in wild abandon. But in the middle of it all was the frying pan perched safely on the gas stove, the only piece of equipment in the kitchen that had managed to defy the pull of gravity. And on the pan lay an egg, burning slowly to extinction along with the vessel that sheltered it.
Clearly, in my haste to depart, I had forgotten to switch off the gas. My son I and stared at the burning egg, then at each other and then back again at the egg. A timid smile broke out on our lips, which changed to grins, then to giggles and finally to hysteria.
The damage we realized had been limited to an overcooked egg alone. We had survived, quite uncooked, and so had the Indian republic. Not to speak of the goldfishes.
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