Blasts in the city

Around 10 minutes to 3 on a Friday afternoon. Prashant gets a call, chats in Malayalam for some time & then whirls around to say, "hey they're saying there have been blasts ... 3 of them". I check up on CNN-IBN .... yup, it says so on their 'Breaking News' panel.

Ours is probably the 1st cubicle in the ODC to have got wind of this. Just as Mani; Akshay & Suresh are told, the people around start getting calls on their cells. I head out to the pantry, call up home, get a call from Jolly & wonder how long it'll be before the cell networks are jammed.

Back in the ODC, everyone's off their seats & chatting. Some staring out the huge glass panes near the conference rooms, 'cause one of the bombs went off really close to where we are. A macabre game of 1-upmanship starts .... one guy looks up from his screen & says he's read about 4 blasts, the other says no, he's seen 6 on another website. The internet speeds, already slow due to the network upgradations in progress, are going down further.

Finally, a mail from office security. The usual stuff .... & a request to head home early. I stay on .... got to complete the HLD document. Swami comes around at 5 ...., "Vivek, what are you guys doing man? Go home". The rest leave, I stay back till 5:45.

Swipe out at 5:47, traffic seems normal, a drizzle starts & soon turns into a downpour. Reach home, call up Arni, the networks are back to normal after an hour and a half. He's OK.

So that's what the aftermath of serial bomb blasts in your city feels like. It's a feeling of something that was bound to happen, a sense of inevitability about it. Helplessness .... & the knowledge that it'll happen again. Hope God remains as kind as he was with me today. And rest in peace to those who were not as lucky.