One of his friend who was sitting nearby him on a bench listening both of us, circled his hand on his big arm muscle, squeezed it slightly and told me, see his big muscle and yet his heart is so weak that he can't even sleep in his room. He has been sleeping in a shed even after two months of earthquake his friend revealed his secret with me. I could not hide the smile from my face.
“You must have been inside the room when first time it shook earth,” I remarked. Not surprisingly, he was inside his room when the 7.8 MI earthquake shook his home heavily. Not only that, due to excessive fear he could not even think of coming down from his house because his two children were with him. Worse, from his room watched helplessly, buildings falling from both sides. Later on he found out that one person was buried and died in one of that fallen house. The fear gripped him so much that he still can't think of going inside his home and sleep in his room.
What really made me amazed is, as gripped as he was in his own fear, he have been going out to pull damaged houses in his locality, helping people who are in need and also joining his group of volunteer friends to make small jink houses known as tunnel houses. He is an active volunteer from Thankot area. He may not be knowing how to cope his fear, but not even knowingly he found the cure for his fear. This is how he is keeping his mind busy that is gripped by fear.
He is not the first person I have seen, who is gripped in fear after experiencing such mega shake. Anju lives in next door. When we all ran out, she was in her room and was there for about a minute, when everything in front of her was shaking like anything. She thought, she will die that day. Its not that, we all did not get that thought; when we experienced series of aftershocks in same day and after 72 hours also we were experiencing the continuous shakes. But some are more frightened than others. When she was in her room, she was praying and remembering gods but it did not stop shaking. When I entered the house to after a minutes or two, I called out her name, Anju and then she came out from her room. She was really frightened and that face of her, will be stamped in my mind forever to remind me how much people can be frighten when they are locked in a room, when the earth shakes with the force of 7.8 MI. Once, she was out from her room; she contacted her parents who lives in Kavre. She learned that their village house had collapsed. With that news, her fear of earthquake mounted. She was always the first to run out with every shake and then rush out in the open space. It took Anju almost two months to feel completely relaxed and go in her room to sleep.
Like Anju, most of the people who were locked inside the room at the time the earth was shaking and heard the news of collapsed house or saw it like Raju Shrestha they are more scared of sleeping inside their room, that others. Its not that others are not scared. I was scared of the shake but my fear was gone, once I saw TV and learned I am safe and my place was safer than many other places. However, Raju Shrestha really made me more determined to go out and do volunteer work and help those who need. Therefore, I will join various team of volunteers and be at different places then gather all kind of local volunteers experience after the quake. I will be on the field and know what they have seen and been through.
No comments:
Post a Comment