Gorkha Earthquake : a personal
narrative
“Please
return to your seats and fasten your seat belts; we are shortly going to land
in Kathmandu; the local time is 2.45 pm, and the temperature is 25 Celsius”.
The shrill voice of the airhostess woke me up from my reverie. I was returning
to Kathmandu after a year, and for the first time after the devastating
earthquake of 25th April. Ever since I visited Kathmandu for the
first time in 1995, I fell in love with Nepal and its people. And this love,
having been cemented with my stay in Dharan, 1997-1999, has grown over the
years. During my short journey from Delhi to Kathmandu, I could not help but
thinking with trepidations that in what shape would I find Kathmandu and its
people. Though I remained in regular touch with my acquaintances in Kathmandu
and Dharan to know their welfare, I knew it would be a different ballgame to
see things first hand.
From
the window of the aircraft I was hoping to catch a glimpse of the mighty
Himalayas, but was disappointed due to the cloud cover. During the check-in at
the Delhi airport, I was surprised when the check-in agent asked me if I had
any preference for the seat. That meant the flight was not full. Usually
Delhi-Kathmandu flights are always full, so one cannot get a seat of choice if
not already reserved on web check-in. I always prefer a window seat on the left
side, since it allows one to have a peek at the Himalayas. Predictably, a
number of seats were not occupied. Tourists are avoiding going there, and for
trekkers it has been a big disappointment, since all the popular treks are
closed down due to massive landslides that had claimed lives of so many Sherpas
and the trekkers. From the aircraft, I could only see buildings after
buildings. Each successive year, I find the green cover of the valley shrinking
in geometric proportion. The baggage area of the Kathmandu airport had stacks
of relief material all over.
After
I checked in a hotel in the Thamel, I went for a walk in the area. Thamel is
usually a lively area with mostly white tourists (for Indian tourists, the favorite
spots remain Pashupatinath temple, casinos, and various malls and shopping
areas). The shopping in Thamel is mostly of the trekking gear, and it is
littered with restaurants serving cuisines of every part of the world. It also
has some very good bakeries, and my love for apple pie began here only. In a decade
or so, an additional ‘attraction’ that has been added here is of ‘dance bars’
and ‘massage parlours’. It was disappointing to see the area bereft of its
usual crowd. There were virtually no tourists in any of the shops. The eateries
wore a deserted look. ‘Hot Bread’, which usually would sell its unsold items of
the day at 50% rates at 9.30 pm, was doing so at 8.30 pm.
Prof
Saroj Ojha, head, Dept of Psychiatry at the Institute of Medicine, Kathmandu
visited me at my hotel with his wife. And after preliminaries, the talk soon
shifted to the ‘Gorkha earthquake’. Listen to Prof Ojha in his own words, “We
were having lunch with my aged mother and two kids, it being the Saturday, and
suddenly felt as if our chairs and the table were pushed by a train engine with
a deafening roar. After a momentary hesitation, we realized it was an
earthquake, and went underneath the dining table, hoping it would be over
within seconds. But the seconds stretched to never ending time. I felt we were
pushed and pulled simultaneously in opposite directions, with a force over
which we had no control. I was stunned into total silence, remained huddled
underneath the table, clutching my two children, while my wife and mother kept
chanting prayers all the time. All I could think was death, death, and death;
all other thoughts had deserted me; I could not even frame my parting words to
my family. Once the violent jerks stopped, it took us a few minutes more to
come from underneath the table, which seemed to be providing some security, and
we immediately rushed outside into the open area, which seemed to be the safest
place on entire Earth. The scene outside was chaotic; no building had fallen
down, but the entire neighbourhood had come outside; people were crying, even
when none seemed to have died there, shouting, screaming, whispering, some were
in total shock; people rushed to me for advice as to what they should do now.
What could I tell them; I was as confused as they were. I was totally
paralysed, not knowing what to do, should we go back inside, or just run away
somewhere. I wanted some divine intervention to suggest to me the safest place
on the Earth, where I could head to with my family.” Prof Ojha decided to shift
his family to his office in the Institute of Medicine, where he lived with his
family for the next one month. It seemed to be the most convenient place; besides
his own, IOM is working place for Mrs Ojha too, who is gynaecologist there.
Food was available in many canteens within the hospital compound, or from many
eateries in the vicinity. In case of any emergency, medical help was available
24 hours. For next few weeks, Prof Saroj Ojha remained in great demand with the
TV channels and print media for his advice to people on what should they
anticipate, and how they should look after their emotional health, but ‘I
myself remained a bundle of nerves within myself; I did not know whom to turn
to for advice’.
Sudhir
K Khandelwal
Despatch
from Kathmandu
26
June 2015
