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It was from a friend’s status message on Google Talk (“Chennaiyil oru bhookamba kaalam”) that I came to know that Chennai had felt the aftershocks of an earthquake that rocked the Andamans. Was glad to know that there was no damage reported to either life or property.

This is the fouth reported earthquake to hit Chennai in the last 7 years. (And during the 18-year period before that, I don’t think there was any.) And this is the fourth Chennai earthquake that I have missed. Of course, earthquakes are no fun, and I pray to God that I just keep this record going (and also, that there be no earthquakes at all!).

And though I have missed them all, here are my earthquake stories.

The first time I remember an earthquake struck Chennai was on January 26, 2001. It was a Saturday (and Republic Day as well), and that morning, my parents and I were visiting the famous Lakshmi Narasimha Swami Temple in Sholingur, about 100 kilometres from Chennai. You might recall that this was the same earthquake that devastated Gujarat – Bhuj, Anjaar etc.

The second time it happened was on September 25, 2001. The reason I remember the date well was because it was a Tuesday, and just two Tuesdays earlier, 9/11 had happened. (I think something happened on Tuesday September 18 as well, but I cannot recall what it was.) When the earthquake occurred, sometime between 8:30 PM and 9 PM, I was on my bike heading home from college. It was a minor quake, so I knew nothing about it. When I entered my street, I found that all my neighbours were on the street, standing just outside their compound walls.

You can picture the scene, it was as if the entire street was waiting to catch a glimpse of some VIP’s cavalcade. My first reaction was, and I am promise I’m not making this up, “Wow, have I won the Nobel Prize or something?” Remember, the houses were all intact; the people were outside chatting; it was dark, so I couldn’t make out their reactions, but they were all looking at me rather incredulously. I slowed down my bike a bit, and my next thought was that of the old Coca Cola ad for the Olympics – something to do with cyclists, and it ends with “Coca Cola salutes Olympics fans everywhere”. So I was trying to imagine myself as that gold medal-winning cyclist.

Well, all my hallucinations burst as soon as I made out that my mom and dad were on the street themselves. And then, much to my disappointment, the news was broken to me that the promised Nobel Prize wasn’t going to be mine.

The third occasion was the most tragic. It happened on the morning of December 26, 2004, which triggered the fatal Boxing Day tsunami that left almost 150000 people dead, and lots more shattered. The aftershocks were felt early in the morning, at around 6:30 to 7 AM. It being a Sunday, I was fast asleep (oh well, as if…!), so I did not feel a thing. My mom did recount later that she had felt something at that time, but had discarded it as a non-event.

The funniest part of that morning came before the news of the tsunami had broken. The folks at Sun TV were recording the 8 AM news broadcast about an hour earlier, and the newscaster, while reading the news, paused momentarily, and said, “Edho shake aaguthu… Shake aagara maadhiri irukku… Hey, illa, edho shake aaguthu…“, and then rushed away from the news desk. (“Something is shaking… I feel some shake… Hey, really, something is shaking…“)

The guy is actually a familiar face on Sun TV; I forget his name, some Rathnam, possibly. As this was just a recorded bulletin, they shot it again before 8, and it did not appear in the news. It was however broadcast an hour later when the first news story about the Marina being inundated was broken. It was funny, but the events of the morning left everyone feeling wretched. It did evoke some debate the next day at work whether the footage was for real or was stage-managed by Sun!

There was another interesting coincidence. The Friday before the tsunami, I found that there was a discussion on my company’s general bulletin board (relating to Poompuhar, I think), and someone had mentioned Dhanushkodi, the coastal town near Rameshwaram that was lost (submerged in sea) in the 1960s. Another person, hailing from Calcutta, had replied asking what Dhanushkodi was. I sent him a reply letting him know whatever I knew about Dhanushkodi (which, in fact, wasn’t much.) He replied back to me, and his message read thus: “Vijay, thanks for the reply. It seems as if the seas near Chennai are interested in gobbling up the land.” Less than 48 hours later, the Boxing Day tsunami happened.

Those are my earthquake stories; or rather how I missed them, or maybe, how they missed me. I reiterate, earthquakes are no fun, and I am thankful not to have had the misfortune of enduring one. The intention behind this post is not to sound unsympathetic or condescending to those who have been involved in one, directly or indirectly.

If you have an interesting earthquake-related incident, do share.