MY DAY WITH TSUNAMI

Tsunami, I came to know of this word only after the 2004 disaster which killed around 3,00,000 people. I am going to write about what I did the whole day, so if you are here thinking of getting any useful information forget about that and start reading to know more about how I specifically spent that disastrous day.

December 26^th, 2004 Sunday

I had a computer class at 8’0 clock and I got up at around 7:10, then the usual saga of brushing and bathing went on in lightening speed. Then I had some breakfast, we were not supposed to switch on the T.V that early in the morning, so had my breakfast quietly. We live in the first floor, so I came down to the street, I was astonished to see a few people talking about something in groups. I was about to start to the class, one of my neighbors said that it is dangerous now to go away from home as water from the sea is entering the city. I thought what rubbish this guy is talking, but believed after everybody said the same thing. I ran back to my home within second by making three steps at a time and said that to everybody. We finally switched on the T.V. to our astonishment every channel was covering about the tsunami, what caused it and how many people died. I saw this show for an hour, it said that the tsunami may come again the same day and asked everybody to leave the place immediately. My house is just 2 km away from the sea and we were all a bit frightened but we were never making a effort to move from our place as we lived in the first floor and the sea has to face a lot of buildings before it even nears our house.

We were all glued to the T.V for about an hour and called all the relatives and friends to know about their safety and/or inform them about tsunami. Many people called us and enquired about tsunami as we were near the sea. The phone was ringing continuously throughout the day. Then hours passed by but the information from the sea front was the same “BE SAFE AND READY TO MOVE AT SHORT NOTICE, EXPECTING MORE HIGH WAVES THROUGHOUT THE DAY”. Even the lunch hour passed and we were all discussing about the tsunami and especially about the hardships of the fisher folk people.

At around 3 ‘0 clock, me and my cousin brother same age as mine became very curious and planned to go to the sea front to get an first hand information ourselves and to really watch the high tides. We went to their in his scooty but we parked the vehicle a long way away and had to walk through the distance. We went walking in the street that directly leads to the beach sand, the street has the government quarters, the quarters will always be in worst conditions ( you know about the government quarters). The place looked haunting because it was deserted except the a lot people searching for their dear ones and few people searching for their belongings. Around 100 media persons were there just trying to get a glimpse of the sea and broadcast information to their respective channels. We were going around looking at different people who have been plundered of their wealth by the same sea which had provided their living all through their age, people who cried having lost their relatives, and even some looters trying to get everything possible. Police had completely taken control our the area to avoid any enthusiasts and fools like us from venturing or going near the sea. Half an hour went on like this and suddenly everybody started shouting and started running away from the sea. We also started running back with fear, but I was astonished to see the reporters moving slowly even in that tense situation one of the reporters was very intelligent. One guy is driving a bike and the other guy is sitting backwards i.e., both had their faces in opposite direction, he was holding a handy cam and was capturing video live. I thought what a fool this guy is, he is not even caring about his life simply trying to get the videos. We came out of the street and when we neared our parking area, we saw that nobody was running, we spoke with a policeman over there and came to know it was a media gimmick done to capture video for the channels, so that they could show how people were running as though they have been there at real time of tsunami. I thought the media persons to be fool but they made a fool out of me including everyone there. I came back home and tsunami was the hot topic of discussion for the next one month.

I couldn't help anybody there, that was the bad part.......

Near to Death

I have had a quite a few near to death experience and I am going to write about one of those. It happened in parry’s when I was 12 years old. Parry’s has always been an enjoyable place to me during my childhood. On this particular day I was in parry’s with mother and grandfather. We were going around few shops to buy something. I still remember we were standing in a general merchant store. We were there for more than half an hour and I was behaving restless. The shop extended till the road, occupying the whole platform as it is the trend in most shops in parry’s. we were literally standing in the road and the road was very narrow. The place was full of garbage and it was smelling bad. To my astonishment a garbage lorry came and was cleaning up the road. The lorry stood near each garbage pile and the driver as well as cleaner were clearing everything off. The lorry stood just a few feet away from our shop i.e., just in front of us. My grandfather was busy negotiating with the owner of the store. The lorry driver usually puts the gear to neutral and comes down to clear up and divert traffic. So he came down and was diverting the traffic just in front of us. The lorry was very old and it was like trembling( shaking to the core). The parts were like about to fall that was the view I had when I first saw the lorry. Then after sometime, due to the trembling of the lorry the gear dropped on its own and the vehicle started moving on its own.

We were standing just in front of lorry and the lorry was moving without a driver. I haven’t imagined a situation like that, even the most crazy idea would not lead anyone to think of a lorry moving without a driver but we were there standing in front of driverless lorry.(ha..ha…ha……..). everyone in the road started screaming and everybody was pushing and pulling each other . The store owner pulled in my grandfather, my mother pulled me with her into the shop. We all were above some bag and we were unable to move.

The lorry didn’t move very fast, so even if we had met with an accident, we would have come out with injuries but the minutes that passed by when the lorry moved across took us near death. I could still hear my mother screaming and pushing me along with her inside the shop. She was literally fighting for place against a wall of things. She held me in one hand and my grandfather in other hand and was literally pushing us inside the shop.

The lorry came to a halt after colliding with a bike parked outside the next shop. Then the driver stepped in and killed the engine. The lorry was like a demon till that second and everyone was scared to go near it. I was scared to hell on that day but I will never forget that incident.

1984 - George Orwell Novel

Ya, I read this novel recently and would like to brief you about it. The novel is set in a dystopian world (opposite of utopia). The story is set in peak of imagination in which the whole world is ruled by socialists or totalitarians (like Hitler). People are all treated like slaves with spies all around and a standard schedule of fourteen hour work for all of them. The history is rewritten every second and people are frightened to communicate with each other. It describes in core about how such a world would be set in.

One idea that attracted me in the novel was the INGSOC dictionary. For example words like NEWSPEAK (new English they speak), DOUBLETHINK (thinking of two contradictory things), JOYCAMP(concentration camp). The dictionary is also rewritten with new words, the difference here is the number of words is constantly reduced in each new version. The book has a INGSOC dictionary as appendix.

At first , I thought the author is simply expanding his book to give a more outlook of the imaginary world but as I went through the book, the author revealed that the process of reducing the words in dictionary was done to minimize the knowledge and creativity of people. The language actually improves human thinking and creativity. This simple point was seeded into me through imaginary story of the novel.

You would be thinking now, why this guy wants to say something about an imaginary world or dystopian novel in his first post rather than saying about his first blog post or how it all started. If I am right in judging you (grins) then continue……

The simple thought that was seeded into me made me think in the opposite way, to improve your creativity you should start using the language extensively . so here you see my first step towards it.