Today morning at 7AM, I am making myself a glass of fresh sweet-lime juice using the
newly-acquired Black & Decker citrus-juicer, when my phone rings. It's unusual for me
to get a call that early - did the telemarketers start their routine early in the morning ?
It's my Brother-In-Law (BIL) calling from Kollam, Kerala. It seems my sister heard
on the radio that there was a mild earthquake in Chennai and he had phoned to check
if everything was OK with me.
Well, till he called me, I never knew that there was an earthquake last night. My satellite
dish is out-of-alignment for a loooong time and the TV is used only to watch DVDs. And I
listen to the radio only in the car. So no wonder I never knew. I tell him that it must have
been a very mild earthquake and that I am OK.
I get to work & at the parking lot, I see my boss who says that he felt the tremors, which
lasted for like 15-20 seconds. I ask him the time of the quake and he says it was around 1:30AM. The timing suprises me because I was not asleep at that time. I had hit the bed
only at 12:30 AM and remember tossing & turning in bed for an hour orso. Which means,
I should have known when the earth shook. Surprising I missed it.
I remember the last time we had an earthquake in Chennai some years ago. It was
around 8:30PM and me and my wife were in the living room when we could feel the
tremors - we rush out of the flat like everyone else in the neighborhood.
Ofcourse now with the latest scare being "swine flu", Chennai-ites might not be really
bothered about a few tremors. Till yesterday, I dismissed 'swine flu' as something that
was hyped-up by the media. But with the death of a young kid yesterday in Chennai
(the youngest casualty in India), the seriousness is sinking in. And to top it, the kid's
family lives in the same apartment as a colleague of mine. Since all residents of the
complex are quarantined, he did not come in to office yesterday and today.
I just hope this swine-flu thing does not baloon into some kind of epidemic.
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