Quake Quack

‘Any questions, anybody?’ I said this customary line as I finished up the last slide of my PowerPoint. The part of presentation I hate the most: The Q&A section.
It’s like your answers and composure during this final countdown determines how good your efforts were. (Notwithstanding the monumental efforts you might have put in to add those animations and flashy lines)

I was giving a product demo at a customer location in Jakarta, Indonesia. And it seemed either my attendees were too convinced or just totally confused. I looked at the audience, moving my head like a light house (something that was taught to me during the last soft skill training) staring at each one of the intriguing faces who all seemed so much the same. As if everyone was the last minute substitute for the real audiences, eager to go out and take their payment as soon as possible. There was a complete silence and I liked it. This meant I could wrap up and leave.

Just then the whole building started to shake. It took couple of breaths for us to conclude that it was actually an earth quake. And immediately we began our sprint towards the door. ‘No elevators … go by stairs’ somebody shouted, but nobody listened to him. The whole building was shivering fanatically, as if going to collapse any moment. I wanted to run towards the stairs but then I realized that I was on the 27th floor and might not be able to make it. I decided to sit there in the conference room as there was hardly any difference if I died on the stairs or on the floor. Everything would eventually equally contribute to the debris. I counted 10 more breaths but there was no sign of respite, still. I looked outside the window at another building which was shaking like a ship amidst the ocean current. I didn’t knew an earthquake could be this much shaky, and was amazed that the buildings could stand all this.

After full 45 seconds of torment, everything became calm. I tried to call back home to inform I was safe, but unfortunately everybody else was trying the same and hence the network was jammed. I checked the rediff.com website, and it seemed India was not aware of that. Some local Indonesian website reported it to be at 7.3 on Richter scale. And suddenly I got a call on my mobile. It was not from my home, or my friends, but from my cab driver who asked me if I was safe. Which, because of the language constraints, sounded like, should he come in the evening if I was not dead. The police announced to vacate the building and leave immediately alarming about likelihood of possible aftershocks.

I looked around to see the thousands of employees who worked on various floors had assembled at the ground floor and were sharing their where-they-were-experiences in a language that seemed not more than quack quack to me.

Finally I enjoyed the only positive side of the fiasco. Took the cab and left for my hotel.

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