A lot was written and many photographs and videos circulated in the social media marking the tenth anniversary (Dec 26) of the devastating Asian tsunami. It caught many countries, including India, totally unawares and for most victims their lives got snuffed away in a matter of seconds and that too when they were least expecting it.
Those days I used to stay in Chennai and on that fateful day a couple of hours before the tsunami, the city was rocked by tremors. I was home alone, with family gone for Christmas vacation, and happened to be having my morning cuppa.
Suddenly I felt I was going down and then coming up as if in a swing. It happened twice and I thought 'It's high time I went for a health check up'. Just then I heard a commotion outside and realised that all my flat mates were rushing downstairs with some yelling 'earthquake'. I then realised the 'swing' sensation was not something personal.
I too locked my flat and rushed outside after taking my two prized possessions - house keys and mobile phone. Outside the parked cars were shaking faintly in the after effect of the tremors. All the people in my locality had spilled down on to the street with some senior citizens being assisted by their younger dependents to climb down stairs.
Our lane was an assortment of 3-4 storey apartments and two storeyed houses with structures built in close proximity, after overcoming various building laws. I was fearing if an earthquake actually occurs these structures may suffer a bicycle-stand collapse with debris falling off to narrow street.
Though surprise and fear was writ large on most faces, it also became a rare instance to socialise and a chance to catch a glimpse of some hitherto unseen faces. Some were wondering if it will be a Bhuj earthquake (2001) redux. A couple of them were ruing the unbridled digging of borewells and depleting ground water table in the city, which they opined had taken away the 'shock absorbers' from such tremors. Some admitted that like me they too were reminded of long overdue health check ups and the pills they forgot to take the previous night!
Everyone waited outside and anxiously wondering 'what next'. Many were busy making calls on their mobile phones. Uyir thaan mukhyam (saving one’s life and limb most important) I overheard an elderly gentleman telling someone on phone. An hour later someone conveyed that an earthquake had happened somewhere in Indonesia and the worst was over.
With a tinge of anything-can-still-happen wariness we went back to our homes. Soon the news of tremor was all there on TV with a Tamil channel even showing a hilarious footage of a news anchor fleeing the newsroom when the tremors struck!
Thankfully there was no social media back then, otherwise this footage would have been godsend for Twitterati and WhatsAppers. Amid all this feeling of relief and hilarity nobody had any inkling of the actual catastrophe that was going to befall on them in a couple of hours.
Everyone got down to their daily routine of getting ready for office, cooking breakfast and as for kids, since it was Christmas vacation, they were getting ready for gully cricket. All blissfully unaware of the dreaded 'T' word. In fact till then the word tsunami was too esoteric to be part of popular lexicon, thanks to its peculiar pronunciation and spelling, and was restricted only to crossword and spelling bee junkies.
I too went through my morning routine and later had breakfast at a nearby Vasantha Bhavan restaurant. A little while later a boy from neighbourhood said, "Uncle don't go near the beach today, sea water is coming inside." I thought it was one of those nuggets coming from rumour mills, which generally go full throttle after such calamities. Moreover, with Marina beach around 10 kilometres away from my house, I had no such plans either.
A while later I happened to watch TV and saw the catastrophe unfold with cars parked on Marina beach bobbing like tennis balls in sea and huge swathes of coastal areas adjoining Bay of Bengal being deluged by tsunami.
While going to office later I was astonished to see the Cooum river, which leisurely snakes through most parts of the Chennai and spreads its trademark obnoxious odour uniformly across the city, was in full flow, but in opposite direction. Almost on every bridge there were curious onlookers.
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About a fortnight later, around Pongal time, I decided to visit Pondicherry. As we hit the East Coast road and passed the dolphin city, the sight left me astonished with the enormity of tragedy. One side of the highway was dotted with tents, ranging from hep looking ones with Union Jack and stars and stripes markings to makeshift huts put up using discarded plastic cement bags. It was the same depressing scene for long stretch of my drive and induced guilt trips within me.
At Pondicherry the hotel was near empty with the hotel cashier lamenting they have been deprived of Pongal bonanza due to tsunami. While I was talking to him another person came to check-in and I thought 'thank God at least one tourist', but he turned out to be a tsunami relief worker! Later when I ventured out I found that the entire town wore a sullen look with restaurants, parks and beaches sparsely attended.
When I went to Chunnambar boat house the boatman told me he was venturing into waters for the first time after the tsunami. Boating had been suspended all these days. As the boat moved from the backwaters to the mouth of sea it gave us a feeling of eeriness as these seemingly placid waters had wreaked havoc barely a fortnight ago.
Also Read: Bangalore Beat
Those days I used to stay in Chennai and on that fateful day a couple of hours before the tsunami, the city was rocked by tremors. I was home alone, with family gone for Christmas vacation, and happened to be having my morning cuppa.
Suddenly I felt I was going down and then coming up as if in a swing. It happened twice and I thought 'It's high time I went for a health check up'. Just then I heard a commotion outside and realised that all my flat mates were rushing downstairs with some yelling 'earthquake'. I then realised the 'swing' sensation was not something personal.
I too locked my flat and rushed outside after taking my two prized possessions - house keys and mobile phone. Outside the parked cars were shaking faintly in the after effect of the tremors. All the people in my locality had spilled down on to the street with some senior citizens being assisted by their younger dependents to climb down stairs.
Our lane was an assortment of 3-4 storey apartments and two storeyed houses with structures built in close proximity, after overcoming various building laws. I was fearing if an earthquake actually occurs these structures may suffer a bicycle-stand collapse with debris falling off to narrow street.
Though surprise and fear was writ large on most faces, it also became a rare instance to socialise and a chance to catch a glimpse of some hitherto unseen faces. Some were wondering if it will be a Bhuj earthquake (2001) redux. A couple of them were ruing the unbridled digging of borewells and depleting ground water table in the city, which they opined had taken away the 'shock absorbers' from such tremors. Some admitted that like me they too were reminded of long overdue health check ups and the pills they forgot to take the previous night!
Everyone waited outside and anxiously wondering 'what next'. Many were busy making calls on their mobile phones. Uyir thaan mukhyam (saving one’s life and limb most important) I overheard an elderly gentleman telling someone on phone. An hour later someone conveyed that an earthquake had happened somewhere in Indonesia and the worst was over.
With a tinge of anything-can-still-happen wariness we went back to our homes. Soon the news of tremor was all there on TV with a Tamil channel even showing a hilarious footage of a news anchor fleeing the newsroom when the tremors struck!
Thankfully there was no social media back then, otherwise this footage would have been godsend for Twitterati and WhatsAppers. Amid all this feeling of relief and hilarity nobody had any inkling of the actual catastrophe that was going to befall on them in a couple of hours.
Everyone got down to their daily routine of getting ready for office, cooking breakfast and as for kids, since it was Christmas vacation, they were getting ready for gully cricket. All blissfully unaware of the dreaded 'T' word. In fact till then the word tsunami was too esoteric to be part of popular lexicon, thanks to its peculiar pronunciation and spelling, and was restricted only to crossword and spelling bee junkies.
I too went through my morning routine and later had breakfast at a nearby Vasantha Bhavan restaurant. A little while later a boy from neighbourhood said, "Uncle don't go near the beach today, sea water is coming inside." I thought it was one of those nuggets coming from rumour mills, which generally go full throttle after such calamities. Moreover, with Marina beach around 10 kilometres away from my house, I had no such plans either.
A while later I happened to watch TV and saw the catastrophe unfold with cars parked on Marina beach bobbing like tennis balls in sea and huge swathes of coastal areas adjoining Bay of Bengal being deluged by tsunami.
While going to office later I was astonished to see the Cooum river, which leisurely snakes through most parts of the Chennai and spreads its trademark obnoxious odour uniformly across the city, was in full flow, but in opposite direction. Almost on every bridge there were curious onlookers.
----
About a fortnight later, around Pongal time, I decided to visit Pondicherry. As we hit the East Coast road and passed the dolphin city, the sight left me astonished with the enormity of tragedy. One side of the highway was dotted with tents, ranging from hep looking ones with Union Jack and stars and stripes markings to makeshift huts put up using discarded plastic cement bags. It was the same depressing scene for long stretch of my drive and induced guilt trips within me.
At Pondicherry the hotel was near empty with the hotel cashier lamenting they have been deprived of Pongal bonanza due to tsunami. While I was talking to him another person came to check-in and I thought 'thank God at least one tourist', but he turned out to be a tsunami relief worker! Later when I ventured out I found that the entire town wore a sullen look with restaurants, parks and beaches sparsely attended.
When I went to Chunnambar boat house the boatman told me he was venturing into waters for the first time after the tsunami. Boating had been suspended all these days. As the boat moved from the backwaters to the mouth of sea it gave us a feeling of eeriness as these seemingly placid waters had wreaked havoc barely a fortnight ago.
Also Read: Bangalore Beat
Thrilling experience 😱
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