The SAT’s over…but now it seems so insignificant compared to what happened the very same day, and the same time. I am talking, of course, of the earthquake…reportedly, the largest earthquake in the history of Pakistan, recorded at 7.5 on the Richter scale, with aftershocks of 5 to 6 expected in the next 48 hours
In Lahore an old building fell down in Shalmi...there are cracks in the Lahore museum and in the Alfalah building…but the utmost havoc within Pakistan was created in Islamabad….the middle tower of Margalla towers, a residential apartment building, is completely destroyed. It fell down...just like that…a huge building containing so many people, with their children…their lives, all that they have dreamed of was crushed under the rubble of the very building which gave them shelter.
It happened so unexpectedly…I was sitting tensely in a chair in Avari Hotel, about to give my SAT 2, when all of I sudden I stared feeling dizzy…except that I wasn’t dizzy at all, it was the whole room which was dizzy…
Pakistan has received so few earthquakes, especially in the developed areas, that we couldn’t think of what do for some time…and then everyone went crazy…and the old American woman told us all to get up and go out…I guess that lead to the real panic…the feeling that this was dangerous enough for us to run for our lives…anyway, everyone left their passports, cell phones, all the worldly things they had brought were just left behind like so much trash…and all I thought abt any of my belongings was a flashing back to my passport, which I viewed as my identity and necessity, but nothing could have been done if the earthquake had lasted much longer.
Of course, the idiot guys there HAD to be badtameez even when their lives were in peril….as we were going out a guy stopped and said in a mock-baby voice ‘Auntie, kya yeh zalzala hai?’…a great, big, man of abt six feet and in his late teens….he ought to be ashamed of himself….joking around when the thing to do was to pray for Allah’s forgiveness…it could have been his last moment, what did he know…
As it was, nothing happened to Avari (Alhamdolillah), and we were just standing in the corridor outside, wondering what to do, when we were told to turn around and come back...so we gave our test…two other amazingly stupid guys who weren’t registered for the SAT came in and tried to give the test but they were caught and sent out…I had a terrific headache after that shaking…and it was all over. Except for the American lady who thought the earthquake was nothing compared to Japan, where the buildings were made oin springs and people laugh at u if u ran out if things weren’t falling yet.
There were calls from Karachi all day from our relatives, asking if we were all right…friends called, messaged, e-mailed to ensure that we were ok…it was so touching…to see all those people caring about u…thinking of you when disaster strikes…it’s so comforting to know that if u die, there will be people who would cry for u and miss u...even if u weren’t related to them by blood or marriage…even if u’d never seen them in your whole life…they just want to know if u’re ok. Thanks so much, guys…
I didn’t know the exact extent of the destruction even when I heard about the tower falling …the cable has been malfunctioning ever since Ramzan started, so when we went to visit my phuppo at night, the news documentary on Geo was a great shock…but the biggest shock of all were these four words that showed up on the screen…words which I’d never even thought I’d have seen…Pakistan Earthquake Relief Fund…it seemed so scary...we really needed help…from ourselves and from others…it wasn’t India which received the full impact of an earthquake, it wasn’t a tsunami which destroyed Malaysia, not a hurricane in America, not an earthquake in turkey…it was us, us who suffered directly, and in the month of Ramzan too…believe me, there was nothing so pitiful as the way in which iftari was being distributed among people who had been rendered homeless that day.
It was like Allah had given us a huge slap in the face, like He was saying ‘Wake up, my people, the highest of my creations! You think you are so safe in your homes, your wealth, your possessions, your children…but they cannot last, they can never protect you…I can take it all from you within one second…you have all lost control of your senses, you are all so much in love with the world you forget that death is REALITY, that everything has to return to Me…so much in love with life that you forget the afterlife’
I have never been so afraid of Allah as I was when the ground beneath my feet started shaking…there is only Him we can turn to at times like this…they say that earthquakes are a sign of Qiyamat, the Day of Judgment is approaching…and then everything will certainly be taken from us except our deeds…just like it was taken from everyone who died in their apartments.
Now, when all is said and done, there is till that fear that more tremors are predicted…Allah have mercy on us…
