Too FAT (Fearful, Awful and Terrifying) to die!
Last Friday was just like any other Friday ‘cos I had made up my mind that I wouldn’t go out and celebrate this New Year eve. There was no reason to celebrate. Many a times in the past, I’ve ‘sacrificed’ celebrations on account of such painful happenings, but there always used to be a certain bit of resentment in a corner of my heart for making the ‘sacrifice’. For the first time, I felt no such resentment. I had no urge to celebrate.
A visit to my Uncle’s place at Gopalapuram was long over due and I finally made it on Saturday. On my way to his house, I was mentally juggling with facts about the geography of that calm and beautiful place. I, like any other Chennai vaasi who has been unfortunate enough to hear about and see the tragedies that tsunami left behind, have become paranoid about it altogether. Now, considering the location of my Uncle’s place, its less than 2 kms from the beach (This is by road, but road maps and traffic signals are not for tsunami…so probably its much lesser than that) I’ve somehow fallen into this futile habit of keeping track of the distance of any place I go to from the sea (since the 27th of Dec 2004). My thoughts drifted to a movie that I had watched a few weeks back-’Resident Evil’-part II. ‘Alice’, the key character in the movie has become one of my favorites (not as much a favorite as Xena is thought :D ) I thought I would be able to save people from such calamities if I had the agility and swiftness of Alice. I finally reached my Uncle’s at about 2pm, had a scrumptious lunch that my Aunt had prepared for me and took a nap till 5pm.Helped my Uncle out with the preparation of some docs from 6 to 10 and finally went to bed at 10.30pm.
The next morning, I was jolted out of sleep when my cot suddenly started shaking. The movement was very rhythmic. Had I been a baby with no knowledge about earthquakes and stuff, I would have slept on peacefully because it was more or less like lying inside a cradle that was being rocked gently.
To give you an overview before I let you know what exactly caused the ‘tremor’, my Uncles house, (just like my mind and this site) is a messy place- with due respect to my Aunt’s house keeping skills (not her fault really. My cousin is more to be blamed). There are too many things everywhere. The cot that I was sleeping on is placed close to the wall and immediately to the left is the washing machine. Thankfully, the movement that I felt was due to the washing m/c being operated and not due to an (other) earthquake.
The rest of the day was uneventful. I found some interesting books amongst my Grandpa’s vast collection, did a teeny-weeny bit of shopping with my cousin in the evening, bid adieu and got back home by 7.30 ...8ish.
Yesterday exhibited the true colors of a Monday. It never gave me a moment to sit back and think of something to write. Thankfully today has been nicer, but will I ever get over tsunami nightmares!?
A visit to my Uncle’s place at Gopalapuram was long over due and I finally made it on Saturday. On my way to his house, I was mentally juggling with facts about the geography of that calm and beautiful place. I, like any other Chennai vaasi who has been unfortunate enough to hear about and see the tragedies that tsunami left behind, have become paranoid about it altogether. Now, considering the location of my Uncle’s place, its less than 2 kms from the beach (This is by road, but road maps and traffic signals are not for tsunami…so probably its much lesser than that) I’ve somehow fallen into this futile habit of keeping track of the distance of any place I go to from the sea (since the 27th of Dec 2004). My thoughts drifted to a movie that I had watched a few weeks back-’Resident Evil’-part II. ‘Alice’, the key character in the movie has become one of my favorites (not as much a favorite as Xena is thought :D ) I thought I would be able to save people from such calamities if I had the agility and swiftness of Alice. I finally reached my Uncle’s at about 2pm, had a scrumptious lunch that my Aunt had prepared for me and took a nap till 5pm.Helped my Uncle out with the preparation of some docs from 6 to 10 and finally went to bed at 10.30pm.
The next morning, I was jolted out of sleep when my cot suddenly started shaking. The movement was very rhythmic. Had I been a baby with no knowledge about earthquakes and stuff, I would have slept on peacefully because it was more or less like lying inside a cradle that was being rocked gently.
To give you an overview before I let you know what exactly caused the ‘tremor’, my Uncles house, (just like my mind and this site) is a messy place- with due respect to my Aunt’s house keeping skills (not her fault really. My cousin is more to be blamed). There are too many things everywhere. The cot that I was sleeping on is placed close to the wall and immediately to the left is the washing machine. Thankfully, the movement that I felt was due to the washing m/c being operated and not due to an (other) earthquake.
The rest of the day was uneventful. I found some interesting books amongst my Grandpa’s vast collection, did a teeny-weeny bit of shopping with my cousin in the evening, bid adieu and got back home by 7.30 ...8ish.
Yesterday exhibited the true colors of a Monday. It never gave me a moment to sit back and think of something to write. Thankfully today has been nicer, but will I ever get over tsunami nightmares!?
posted by Xena at 5:50 AM
<< Home