Delhi began its busy day with a deadly bomb blast and went to sleep shaken by a strong earthquake, last Wednesday. The blast occurred around 1020 am, before the Delhi High Court, the route I drive daily through to Parliament House. Though the normal time of my passing the venue is around 1045 am, on certain days I do pass through the area in that fateful hour. Providentially, Wednesday was not one such day. In fact, I left rather late, around 1130 am, after meeting a friend and his family at the airport some 5 minutes to 10 am.

BLAME GAME

Later, when I went to take my seat at the press galleries, the Lok Sabha was meeting after an earlier adjournment, and BJP veteran L. K. Advani was on his feet, condemning the blast. Others also spoke, and then the house was adjourned for the day. It was a long and hectic day for me, as I had to file a copy on the proceedings in both houses, apart from a few other stories happening outside parliament.

After returning home, post-dinner and some telly watching and reading, I hit the bed around 1030 pm, when I was woken up by a ring from my mobile. It was 11 pm, and the caller was my son, who was attending a conference in Zurich. Since he had been busy with the conference all day, he came to know of the blast only in the evening when he switched on the TV in his hotel room. After talking to me and my wife, he hung up, satisfied that everyone at home was safe. I went to sleep again but soon felt my bed shaking and thought it was my wife turning around in bed and shouted, “What are you doing?”. “Look, what are you doing?”, she yelled at me, in return.

RATTLED

In seconds, we knew it was an earthquake and rushed out and were met by my nephew, who had come out from the adjacent apartment. After a few minutes, we returned, my nephew saying it must be more than 6 on the Richter scale, judging by the strong tremors. In fact, it was 4 plus on the scale and the violent shaking was on account of the epicentre being so close to Delhi – Sonepet in Haryana.

Returning to bed once more, I fell asleep, but was soon woken up by my mobile ringing. It was again my son, worried, and asking if we were safe. He had read about the quake within minutes, thanks to messages on Twitter and Facebook.

Talking of quakes, I remember a real-time amusing incident. Years ago, when Delhi was struck by a strong quake, the ‘babus' from government quarters at Pandara Road rushed out in panic. A veshti- clad man from Madras (now Chennai), a guest of a ‘babu', experiencing a quake for the first time was so rattled out of his wits that he just cried, “I say, what's the government doing about earthquakes?”, leaving the listeners first stunned, then in uncontrollable splits!

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