Lamenting the soft pillow
Good friday, it was. My tipsy head rested comfortably over the soft cotton pillow and my body was just weary of all the days work. Oh! How I miss that pillow. It was just the night before the Nepalese ground decided to harlem-shake with a rattling 7.8 magnitude.
I woke up, with no gratitude towards the pillow, for resting me perfectly for the night. I left for Basantapur, seated on the wooden seat of the shaky 3-wheeler tempo; that swung me, tilted me and often threw me off the seats as it moved over the uneven roads with ample 4 inches ditches. I spent around 3 hours, surrounded by friends and dozens of empty cups of tea we ordered. Yes i said dozens; tea is quite cheap and often taken as a sweet start for the morning, here in Nepal. And, there it was. The ground started to rattle. Suddenly the tea shop and every other surrounding lost the electricity. Not knowing what was to happen, I ran towards the Nine Storyed Durbar, that stood tall since ages. Trust this, running through a thick layer of dust really makes you feel like you are in one of those movies with big booms!
It took around 5 mins for all the dust to settle on the ground and just seconds for the Durbar. The sight of the rubbles of the Durbar would not have been so horrid, if it was not for the children trapped within the vicinity and the old people crawling on the ground. After around 10 minutes of the incident, my expression of shock faded off my face and suddenly tears rolled over. I was tapping my mother’s phone number with one hand and wiping tears with another. I felt no shame, neither was i embarrased, as i could see hundreds of people around me doing the same.
I ran off to home. Finding my family, within the hundreds of people gathered in an open stone tap, was not easy. I could see fear in everyone’s eyes- the fear from their own houses that once sheltered them and which could,at any moment crumble over their head.
Then followed the coldest night of all. Rain poured over us and all we could do was hold a 25mm thick polythene plastic over us. Underneath us, was the wet, cold and continiously shaking stone paved floor. And as the night matured, I rested my head over a rock. It was wet, hard and not comforting at all. That was when i missed that soft cotton pillow of mine. How i wished i should have thanked it the night before.
Suddenly, the enigma of Basantapur was raided, the tea didn’t taste as sweet as the day before, the tempos were all stranded off the roads. All gone within seconds. What remained, were mothers bereaved of their sons, men dismayed infront of the heaps of theirs shattered homes, children seeking for fingers to cling to as they walk. Then was the time, I selfishly thanked my god for sparing me and my family from all the dismay the quake could have brought upon us. Then was the time god gifted me a notion to thank everything and everyone because you never know you might miss the chance.
I lament that soft pillow every night as I lay my head over the new one in my rented room and thank it every morning i wake up. Thank everything- You might not see them again, it takes just few seconds even for the hardest goodbyes.
