Three Girls & An Earthquake

January 20, 1:53 AM: An earthquake measuring 7.4 on the Richter scale rocked the desert area in Southwest Pakistan. Miles away it shook Delhi in the wee hours of a cold winter night. And of course it rocked our house as well in South Delhi. This is our story.

I am Upasana and Akanksha's (AKA Shukla) virtual roommate. I'm usually spending my days and nights at Mr. B's. But, Mr. B was in Mumbai. On that particular night, getting drunk, to be precise. My boo is really cute when he is drunk. That's not what the post is about, though.

We'd been talking about random girl shit till about 1:30 AM in the morning. Using markers to see how we'd look with nose piercings. And how we'd 'deal' with our next birthday. It had been 5 minutes since we decided it was high time we went to sleep if we had to make it to office tomorrow. Shukla was talking about something, I don't quite remember what and Upasana was trying to sleep, when suddenly the bed starts moving. My imagination went on overdrive and everything I saw in Paranormal Activity 2 kind of became real. Then I heard Upasana shout (almost), 'Shukla! stop moving the bed youuuuuuuu...aaaaaaaahhhh!' That sentence ended with a weird scream instead of a 'idiot' or a bitch' because Upasana saw the ceiling fan swaying on the ceiling. And in those 3 seconds of that happening I thought to myself 'OMG! That demon is totally swinging from the fan...NOOOO!'

Shukla was the first to realise that it was an earthquake. My first instinct was to pull the covers over myself and sleep through it. Yes, my survival instincts weren't exactly at their best at that time. Anyhoo, by the time we got out of the bed the rattling and the shaking stopped. For 5 secs. Only to come back with a vengeance. The doors and windows started rattling, stuff toppled over from the TV. This time Shukla didn't waste anytime. I kid you not the following that I'm about to describe happened in less that 15 seconds.

Shukla shouted 'earthquake...EARTHQUAKE!' running towards the door. In one fluid motion... OK not so fluid motion because the chair fell down and she almost dragged it out of the house...she took her over coat and ran down 4 FLOORS. She was no where to be seen. 15 secs ends.

I'm sure if we (Upasana and I) hadn't seen such a brilliant demonstration of emergency we wouldn't have stepped out of the door. We're laid back that way. We ran out of the house and are about to climb down the stairs when I turn around and ask Upasana, 'Should we lock the door?' LOCK THE DOOR?! What WERE we thinking. It was a freaking earthquake. Uhhh...and we did lock that door. Later on, Upasana told me she also wanted to take her ATM card. I understood. Go ahead, judge us. I won't blame you for it. As expected by the time we reached downstairs the earthquake had passed us by. Shukla, again as expected, was busy telling us how foolish we really are and how stupid we are to LOCK THE DOOR!

Climbing up I realised I was wearing something really horrible and couldn't help myself from saying 'What am I wearing!' Anyway, we came up picked up the stuff lying around and switched on the TV to see how bad it was. And by the way, India had just won a cricket match that they were almost going to lose and for the next 10 mins the major news channels proceeded to show how 'India Won A Thriller.' Damn, an earthquake just rocked our world, can we have some information please?!

Ok, so what did I learn?

1. Earthquakes really don't care if you're sleeping

2 If you're survival instincts are not that great or just plain lousy like mine, it's probably a good idea to have a roommate who is blessed in that department.

3. It's a good idea to not keep breakable stuff on the TV in case an earthquake hits you.

4. Shukla really only needs like 10 seconds to climb down 4 floors. And Upasana and I need Shukla.

5. Don't lock the door if there is an earthquake. In case the building falls, you'd realise there really was no point in that.

6. Earthquake, Tornado, Tsunami: No matter what hits me, when it's over I WILL worry about my choice of clothes. If I'm still alive.

7. In India, if there is an earthquake and India just won some major Cricket match the News Channels will always broadcast the latter first. Yea, that's how we roll!

Ok, I am going to start working, now that I've imparted my precious wisdom on all of you.