The moment i opened the door ..saw a female in her mid 40 tall ...started jabbering in gujrati ...I could not make out head and tail of it ....told her i don't know ...then did the hearing impaired news broadcast...(with sign languages) phew finally she understood n said..nathi..n i said yes ...after full 1/2 an hr ...understood its not an easy task for me to make her understand what to do next ...she had a very smiling face ..n was very curious to know bout her new employer...she asked amna bhai n ben che ....(it meant here only u n Ur hubby) n what i understood that she is thinking as if we both are brother and sister ...then came the tedious task to explain to her that we are not brother and sister ..but how ..searched my album from the pile of cartons and showed her the picture ...saying no bhai n ben ....n she replied..ho..saraas che..by every passing minute i was getting irritated ...then she smiled and said ...ohhh yeha thi bhai n ben bulau chu (means its like having a new middle name or a surname ..for e.g rakesh arora will become in gujrat rakesh bhai arora and kamini shrivastava will become kamini ben shrivastava--)..so u can imagine what would have happened to my name ..don't even try to make a guess...it became anadi ben..as if i was raped by my own identity ...half of the soul could not understand the name ..so forget remembering ..and other half ..use to give me an expression that i am an alien or an Et in their town ..(look was howcome nebody can have a name like tat ..they were more use to dimple ,simple ,rinky ,pinky,kantha ben , jaya ben )...so i invented a new name for myself that was chatterjee ben ..n it worked ..attimes i had this feeling that i was representing all the chatterjees of the world ...in our very own saurashtra ...what a great feeling ..chatterjees in saurashtra meant only me ..
Pat came another query by Jaya ben (it was my maids name) I use to dread her questions ..neways she said ..aroop(my hubby s name ) mota che ...n that was like nail in the coffin....i was fuming ....(before i proceed --my hubby is slightly chubby by looks) how the hell she can say something like this about my beloved ....i calmed myself.. as even my anger wont make any sense to her ..as we had a BIG language problem ...i started saying to her ..in a very composed manner Jaya ben u told this today ...n in my presence, but i would appreciate that u reserve this comment of yours and in near future i should not hear it again ...and then she realized that things were going too far -she was laughing ...mota na bada ...nana na chotta....yes ..that s the meaning ..i also laughed ...
Somehow within a months time, i was fluent with gujrati..thanxs to my gujju teacher (Jaya ben) and she started to follow Hindi ...it was 26/01/2001 ....exactly 1 month completion of our stay .....time --8:45am... 26th jan....i am sleeping as was unwell ...down with fever ..my hubby got up at 8:15am---told me to rest as he will get the tea ready ....exactly at 8:45 am i heard a sound ..which is exactly like the helicopters blade ..it was blarring ..i culd not figure out what was happening ...then i saw next to my bed my computer table shaking vigrously ..so is the computer ...by the time i could sense ...natures fury ....was on its rage ..my hubby shouted ....moron get up ..its an earth quake ..good heavens at early in the morning i am trying hard its not happening with me ...the funniest thing how come earth quake of all in the morning ...as if its jaya ben reporting to work way before her usual time .....
Next thing i knew i ran to the drawing room bare foot ...shaking n scared....asking my hubby to do what ..man that is the time u r brain dead ...u cant even think..things around you r clattering ..shattering ....every possible sound and above all the building is shaking like a willow tree...(remember the willow tree in harry potter)...we decided to run after wasting good 5 minutes ...it was a double door exit and i had the habit of locking every possible lock ..and was cursing that day...y the hell.,did i lock last night ...anyways opened and started to run ...was not able to step properly on the staircase as the entire building was shaking ....went some flight of stairs and was thinking whether we could make it ...we were on the third floor and had to run down ...it was 8.9 on the ritcher scale ...last step we took .... n it stopped ....we came out of the building and saw the adjacent building people were looking hopelessly at our end ....hey thought we wont come down only.....we escaped death...it was a narrow escape ---we were alive just because as the terrain was rocky ...otherwise possibly could not have make .....it ...it was a very close shave ...intense ..and learnt that life is precious ..n one should enjoy every second of it ..not even a minute ,because a second can put an end to your a minute happiness.....
4 comments:
After reading 'CATASTROPHE' my belief in u is even stronger abt u becoming a very gud writer. Do u write on impluse or u have jotted down these small incidents on paper??
yeah!! its a funny thing about Gujarati language. even two Legimately married ppl become "BHAI" n "BEN". Thats reminds me of my guju frnd BIPIN who narrated an ancedote. He has a frnd by the name NAVIN (in guju language it means NEW)he once paid a courtsey call to his home.Navin was not at home, but his wife asked my friend Bipin. "Navin ma shu che" (So wats new things happening) & my friend replied "navin ma kai nathi" it literally means there is nthg in navin, & next day his wife asked navin to change his name to Narotambhai. {she thought Navin Ma kai nathi means Navin ma dum nathi(impotence)}
About your tyrst with earthquake i can postively say that you both are destined to live longer & u had a close shave, a brush with horrifying moments on 26/12/2001. U know Y? Bcos we were destined to chat. How Long did it take u to come to terms with narrowing experience? its the wish of the ALMIGHTY that r narrating this incident to us
KEEP IT UP!!!
I can't forget this day. We were giving final touch to our republic day preparations in our society and flag hosting was scheduled at 9:30 am. I remember close to 9am news started coming that Gujarat has been hit by an earthquake and thousands of people have lost their life. Around 20,000 people in total lost their life in this calamity and hundred thousands of people were injured.
Date 26th has always proved to be unlucky for India.....26th Jan earthquake in Gujarat, 26th July floods in Mumbai, 26th Dec Tsunami in South…..
It’s worth reading your personal experience (in fact I heard too) and to realize how difficult it is to pass through such situations / incidents. Hope/wish this was the only and last bad incident you and aroop faced and its good that destiny gave me the chance to get in touch with you.....I think date was not 26th when we first interacted....but phir bhi....anyways you keep on writing. Wish I will read one day a book (hardly I read) and authors name will be, 'Andy Chatterjee'.
Cheers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
hi andy....i read 'CATASTROPHE' liked it very much especially the humour with which it started n then ended with a nice message...i m looking forward to many such narrations....but i hope that u always narrate incidents with humour..very few people have talent to narrate incidents with humour n i think u have that...bhai, ben some very good irritating wrds for non-gujjus.....keep up the good...tc
Thanks Anjs.!! Appreciate ur kind words. It means a lot :)
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