Disclaimer

Being a cricket and Rahul Dravid fanatic, this blog will have a heavy dosage of posts on the same :)

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Co-incidence..?!!?

It had been a long, boring and very monotonous week at college designing the department newspaper till about 8 or 9 in the night every alternate day. By Saturday I was exhausted yet was busy doing some fine tuning of the final design from my side before the scheduled class with our design teacher at 1:30 P.M.(the session with eventually began at 3 P.M.).

I knew I was not getting anything, I wasn’t able to concentrate and suddenly in the middle of the class decided to leave stating the reason that my system had crashed and dad was not able to repair it!

On my way back home I got a call from dad that he called up a hardware person and system is working again. I was in no mood to go back to college and work till late again!
Luckily as I cancelled dad’s call, I got a call from my friend asking my whereabouts. And then came the tempting offer to spend the evening at India Gate†. I got down from the bus at India Gate but could not trace my friends there. After an effort of 20 minutes of finding each other, we decided to reach Connought Place(CP).

I got down at PVR Plaza and walked to the metro station of B block asking my friends to meet me there. Standing outside the metro station I looked up for the busy Barakhamba Metro Station* stop and made a mental note of the way to be traced while going back to home(I get a direct to home bus from Barakhamba metro station). Next I got a call from my friends to reach Regal Cinema†, Connought Place. I refused to walk as I had already proceeded towards Barakhamba road and so could not see the Regal Cinema and hence was very much confused about the directions.

We finally met at 5:25 at Central Park* lawns near the B block CP and all of us were hungry much because of the Mc Donald’s right in front of us. Two of us went and brought our burgers and Coke. We roamed in the Central Park lawns, enjoying our coke, noticing the kids playing there and then Shruti suggested going to Greater Kailash M block market* near my college instead of staying in the park! Majority refused taking into consideration the distance to be covered. i refused going near to the college! Shoppers of our group suggested Palika Market and yet again majority refused. “Lets go and check the next show timings at Regal”. Just then, before we could even think upon the (not so bright!) suggestion, a little girl in pink dress and a pink balloon gathered the attention of all of us. She came to me and pointed at the balloon wala (from where she apparently bought it) standing above the underground Palika market, almost adjacent to the park I played with her for a few moments and then we decided to sit and enjoy the pleasant weather. Before that we threw our napkins and coke bottles in the dustbin* lying nearby.

And just when we were about to sit a friend of mine got a call about the Gaffar market blasts(the area just next to her door!) and was ordered to reach home ASAP! We left the park that very moment It was 6:24. We could not cross the road for another two minutes because of the traffic and meanwhile I thought of calling my grandmom who goes Karol Bagh area (some famous mandir there) every evening. Failing to recall her number, I called up dad and told him about the blasts! It was 6:30 and I just took the metro tokens. We proceeded to board the train and even before we could board it a dustbin in the Central Park blew up!

In the metro train we got another call about the blasts at Central Park near Palika market at CP! We all were shocked and all the more puzzled. Everybody else thanked god for being lucky enough to escape the deadly blast, everybody else…I could only see the face of the little girl. The blast had happened in a dustbin in Central Park near the Palika! OMG!

Next came the call of the blast outside the Barakhamba Metro station and for a moment I froze. I looked around and saw the underground CP metro complex...for I would have usually rushed to the same metro station to catch the earliest bus but I don’t know why I joined my friends for the CP metro station despite knowing this would not take me home directly and I will have to walk half a kilometer to reach home if I take the metro route.

“That was damn close you idiots, I suggested going to M block (Greater Kailash)” said Shruti. “Had you followed my suggestion we could have left considerably before the blasts…” she continued. It was 6:54 and we get the next call of the serial blasts at M block Greater Kailash! None of us spoke for next few minutes, Shruti stood frozen at her position. Then wishing each other safe journey ahead we got off the train at respective metro stations.

The third bomb blew in Delhi barely a few hundred meters away and the fourth one as well! Though I could not even hear the explosion yet I have this strange feeling of luck having left the place barely five minutes before the blast. For moments I was shaking but to be really honest, I felt frustrated as if I missed ‘something.’ And the frustration grows up as I write this…. Throughout the evening I have been to as many as four places which were the targets (two blasts happened and two were later diffused). I actually felt like going back to Central Park right that moment...

Why? I myself cannot answer this at the moment! All I know is that I have a trip pending to...


* Places where the blasts happened in Delhi.
† The places where the bombs were later diffused!

Too much of co-incidence…wasn’t that??!!??
I would like to state here another strange fact.
In the afternoon I was asked (rather ordered) by some one to post another article at my “dead” blog! I was given the deadline of Sunday 7 P.M.(I know I am 3 hrs. late but at least I did!).
So I was wondering what to write in such a short span, matching to the genre of my blog (if I can call it so!!), that too when I was expecting a lot of changes to be suggested by the design teacher which means a lot of homework! At the same time I knew I will have to write something. But what? Nothing striking at that very moment, I went for the designing class not bothering much about it! (I am so very sorry!).
I could hardly concentrate in the class and thought of doing something more interesting and again the blog came to my mind. I thought hard but could not figure out anything. Left with no choice, I tried concentrating at the computer screen praying for something ‘strange’ to happen for me to write!