by Anchit Dhungana
(The following is an excerpt from the 2016 book Shaken: A collection of memoirs)
As I woke up, I found myself leaving for the office. He was a journalist, and a journalist was never on break, even on Saturday. My dad was off reporting on Yoga Guru who was visiting Pashupatinath. My grandmother (Shantaguntu) who was visiting us from Pachthar Phidim had also gone to practice in one of Ram Dev Guru’s class.
Our kitchen is on the top floor. and my mother had made Rice. Because my father was eating out, my mother and I ate sitting together and left some for my grandmother. My mom had heated up water in a pot, and I used it to shower in the bathroom. When I exited, my mother went into the bathroom. A bit after, my grandmother arrived and so I started to heat the lentils because my mother was showering.
As I heated the lentils, the house began to shake violently. My grandmother yelled at my mother, saying that there was an earthquake. I hurried to shut off the regulator, grabbed the lentils and began to run. As I sped to the other room, the lentils spilled, and burned my foot. My grandmother rushed to me and we hid under the dining table. The house was still shaking, it felt like a swing. My grandmother grabbed onto me tightly, as furniture slid about like strikers in a carom board. I started shouting for my mother, but was unable to cry.
After a while the shaking stopped. My mother came upstairs. She had been calling us downstairs, but when my mother had come running, having heard my grandmother, and having felt the earthquake. she slipped and fell. Through the shaking, and having slipped down the stairs, she had maintained a firm grip on her kitley and phone. When we didn’t respond to her calls, she came to think that something had dropped from the kitchen and knocked us out, and so she had come running back upstairs for us.
When we became sure that all three of us were fine, we began to worry about my father. Later, my mother’s phone began to ring. It was my father, who was calling us to tell us that he was safe, and to make sure that we were safe as well. My mother told us that we should go to the street, in case another earthquake came, and the house fell. I had never felt such an earthquake.
When we went downstairs, we were met with a scene of people rushing about, trying to get in contact with family members as soon as they could. There were many more earthquakes, and even the adults were scared when they happened. We later found out, that the Dharahara had fallen. Another uncle told us that many houses had fallen, and we could see the dust flowing with the wind afar. Another uncle said that a road in Kushaltar had been damaged by the Earthquake. All of us were in the field, and because it wasn’t a school day, many of my friends were there, but no one was in the mood to play.
My father came back at 2, and my mother went, without fear, back into the house and came back with lunch. After my father had eaten, he told us to stay in the field, and left to go write a news report. Everybody was busy talking about the Earthquake. As it came close to nightfall, everybody decided to sleep in the field, and so everybody retrieved their gundris and mats. We waited patiently for my dad, and when he came back he told us of the many that had died and were injured, currently in the hospital. He told us of the many houses that had fallen, and the people who had been buried in the rubble. Many people had gathered, intently listening, with a look of worry on their face, to what my father had to say. No one wanted to sleep, it seemed no one could sleep. My mother took me and rested my head on her chest, and somehow I managed to fall asleep.
The next day, there was another earthquake. We were supposed to have gone to school, as it was a Sunday, but all the schools had been cancelled. Since it seemed like we would be sleeping in the field for a while, we made some tripals (tents used in weddings), but it rained that night and the tripal leaked. My parents moved me to part of the tripal that wasn’t leaking, and instead themselves got drenched. Some uncle’s told us that many houses in Sindhupalchok, and Bhaktapur had fallen, and a lot of the elderly and children had died.
The next day, on Monday, my father took us to one Hajmo company’s large tins. It was a safe place, and we slept well that night, even though the earthquakes continued. After that, my mom said that we should go back to our house, and sleep there instead. So we went back, and began to sleep in the living room on the carpet. After 5 days we could watch Tv again but all that was shown was the destruction that had happened, and the people who had died. On top of that people began to talk about another big earthquake that was to come, which made me scared.
On Baisakh 29th, another big earthquake happened. My grandmother had gone to Fhidim, and I was with my mother in her office in Bhaktapur. When the earthquake happened the workers ran outside, and we called my father, but the call didn’t go through. We stayed worried that night, until my father called back and told us that he was safe and was at Kamaladi, in an open place. We were finally relieved.
I had heard about earthquakes before, I had learned about earthquakes before, but now I had been shaken by an Earthquake.
Translated by Himanshu Kunwar