The Tree That Fell- (Gujarat Earthquake 1/26/2001)-By Ramanpreet Kohli

 

 
" And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.”
-Abraham Lincoln

The sudden rumblings awoke us from sleep on a Friday morning. It was 26th Jan, My sister's birthday. Our parents grabbed my sister and I and rushed out of our eighth-floor high-rise apartment. We were left with no option but to stand outside the house with our neighbors and cry and pray to the God aloud. We cried and hugged as the building shook and shook and shook!!!!! There was fear written on our faces. Fear of the untamed fury !!!!!!!!!!

Amidst utter chaos and mayhem ,we rushed down the building as it ceased to shake. For the next 3 months we stayed at a rented house as there were cracks in the building that required repairs. Our neighbors had become an extended family sharing the same fear, the same feeling of homelessness and the same gratitude to have survived this disaster.

It has been more than 2 decades since this brush with catastrophe but the memories of the day are still vivid. I still reckon the jitters, the fear and the uncertainty of life….

How often do we forget
In our materialistic quest

Some sorrows to share
Laughs galore to pair

A Handful of love to give
In every moment to live

Life is not in years
But in smiles and tears

Life is short, Life is uncertain
LIVE before it draws it’s curtain!!!!!!!!!!


Comments

  1. AnonymousDecember 28, 2023 at 4:49 PM

    Ramanpreet, I recall having read about the earth quakes in newspapers, but getting a first-hand account hits differently. It's good that you memorialized this in your writings. // Rakesh

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Girl, The City and The Marathon - By Nayana Gadkari

Image
                                                             “Nayana, I see an airplane flying really low, it is coming close to the towers, where are you? This doesn’t look normal!” My husband, screaming in utter disbelief, was on the phone with me from across the river in Jersey City; I had just stepped off the train at the World Trade Center. Two years before that terrible day, I had flown into New York City from Mumbai, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, a blushing new bride. The first thing I saw as our airplane gradually descended to what was to be my new home were those gleaming towers. I remember staring at them in wide-eyed wonder, at their sheer size, at the vertical space they occupied as they rose majestically into the New York skyline on a beautiful, brilliant blue August afternoon! As luck would have it, my first job in my adoptive country was a few blocks from the Twin Towers. I was twenty-five years old, living my best life in New York. The best part of each day was when the tr
Read more

Lioness - By Nayana Gadkari

Image
The trill of the phone broke her reverie as she mindlessly prepared for the day ahead. She would later think that some days begin with no indication of how they end. Her mother was in the hospital, they told her. They are running tests now, they said. They would try to get her mother to talk to her soon. Endless hours passed as she waited. The all too familiar guilt of being 7000 miles away was burning a mom-sized hole in her heart and threatening to get bigger. After what seemed like an eternity, they called her back. The thought of her mother in the hospital many oceans away was twisting like a dagger in her heart. She needed to go. Mind-numbed, she started packing for the journey back home. Only this time, she did not grab the most enormous bags to engorge with gifts lovingly picked and carefully wrapped. Instead, she chose a modest bag. She wasn't packing for a celebration now, was she? She wondered what does one pack to be a caregiver instead of the one doted upon? As the
Read more

Amma and I: A tale of family traditions

Image
 We were a small family: Amma, Appa and I. However, we were surrounded by uncles, aunts, cousins, and grandparents within fifteen minutes of us. My parents weren’t religious folks but we still celebrated all the festivals with zeal, every year. Some were celebrated in an elaborate way and others in an intimate setting. Amma was always the driver of all things related to the celebrations and Appa was mostly interested in those mouth-watering dishes that accompanied the festivities.   Out of all those myriad Hindu festivals, the one that stands out in my mind is Gowri and Ganesha festival. Particularly Gowri festival which we refer to as Gowri Habba in Kannada. As I would learn later, this is celebrated by mostly people from Karnataka and is not as well known as its accompanying festival, Ganapathi Habba. On a typical day of the festival, Amma and I woke up early in the morning and got dressed in bright-colored Indian clothes. While I reluctantly woke up at the crack of dawn, Amma wo
Read more