Tsunami

It was a saturday evening. Around 8 pm Eastern US time, I called home (India) to check if dad was doing ok. Could not get through the line at all. I am trying 20 minutes, 40 minutes, 60 minutes, 1.30 minutes, 2 hours....got fed up. I have never had this trouble even once before. Something wrong. I imagined maybe dad's health got worse, so they were in the hospital. Well if that was the case, why did'nt the bell ring? So confused, fine, for one last time, let me give another try. I got it. I got the line. My niece came crying, "Aunt, guess what happened here?" I said, "Calm down first. Tell me now". Oh boy, how rude I was to that little girl! She said, "Mom is crying. Well things started falling in the house, we felt a shake, hence mom, dad, myself we all ran downstairs...however we forgot to take grandpa with us. But when we all went down, and still heard the noise of things falling down in houses, saw many people crying and running downstairs, street got filled, we realized we left grandpa upstairs. Then my dad rushed and brought grandpa down." Wow I could'nt believe what she described. For about two hours, no one entered their houses it seems. I consoled my sister, niece, dad, brother in law and kept the receiver down. I told my sister not to worry about material losses. But thanked God for keeping them alive and safe. After hearing their experience, I got shook.

Marina Beach - My college is close to the beach. I studied in Queen Mary's College. How many childhood days we have spent in that beach close to those waves, building sand castles! mmm. How many days dad used to walk along those shore? What a memory and what an end!