April 25, 2015 from my diary

Kumar Rupakheti

That Saturday morning was really cold. I tried to find some warm clothes but most of them were already washed and kept in the cupboard for next winter. We ate breakfast a little late than usual time and went for grocery shopping for the week. Children were at home, their new sessions were just started, so it was their busy weekend to cover books and notebooks. We husband and wife bought everything which were in our grocery list and were off to home, Anamnagar.

When we arrived at Sorakhutte, I felt something unusual happened in my car’s tyre. I stopped and got out. Then, I realized that it’s an earthquake. I tried to stand by holding onto one of the windows of the car as my wife was still inside the car. It went for almost 58 seconds but it felt like an hour. It was continuing and continuing, it felt never ending. I had not experienced such type of unwanted events in my life. My wife was confused whether to come out or to stay inside the car.

The road became like a river with full of broken stones and bricks. Motor bikes and their riders were laying everywhere on the road. There was dust everywhere and the wires of telephones and cables of television and internet were laying on the road. People were screaming and crying, some of the wounded people had started to appear from different alleys to the road. My wife was crying and she was ready to run to home. She was reflecting as to how bad a decision it was to leave the children at home all alone. I stopped her and told her to sit inside, then I started the car.

There was no way to drive. I blew horn and locked the windows of the car because some of the wounded people were searching vehicles to reach the hospital. But we were only thinking about our three children and we wanted to reach home quick anyhow. It would normally take around 15 minutes drive to reach home. The earth was shaking and our car was like a boat on an ocean. I was driving like a mad driver and the car was becoming like a bulldozer. About half an hour later we reached to the point from where we could see our house. We saw that there were lots of people standing just in front of our home. I started to think differently and I was so frightened and praying anything bad had not happened.

Before I stopped the car, my wife had already jumped from the car and ran towards home. I was trying to get a way to enter inside the house gate, but someone told me keep my car outside the boundary because the earth was still shaking. I stopped and watched the crowds of hundreds of people and I saw three children holding their hands together and looking me with their smile and then I realized that was my second life I found by mighty God.