'As Indians panicked, Japanese checked on project status'

I overslept as it was my weekly off, and was a little late to hear about the awful quake that hit Japan. The catastrophic images I saw on TV were worse than what Roland Emmerich depicted in 'Day After Tomorrow'. I wasted no time logging on to Facebook to check whether my friend Shyam Krishna who stays in Tokyo is fine. Minutes later, I saw his status that read: "Earthquake in Tokyo! The building is shaking!

He told me that even while typing those words, the entire building kept shaking. The building where he works is strong enough to withstand quakes up to a magnitude of 9 Richter scale. I told him jokingly to keep updating about what has been happening around him, so that we'll know he is alive. Though he trembled with fear, he managed to keep updating his status and chatting all the while, narrating the incidents each passing second.

His initial reaction soon give way to fears as they got a clearer picture of the situation. He said:
"Japan is no stranger to earth quakes, and we have had mock drills before to handle the situation. When we were alerted at first, I had no idea the situation would be this bad. And now, as I sit under the table sweating with fear, I feel how transient our lives are. I could have been a better man, God, not now please!"

I could picture him sitting beneath his table, updating the status worrying whether that might be the last status update he was making. He even got a bit philosophical talking about pride and vanity and his last wish as we both watched the killer waves washing off cities with no mercy. The only difference was that I was miles and miles away, and he just a few kilometres away.

His colleague Antony said he was too scared to think about anything:

"I was too scared to keep my eyes open and couldn't stand properly. I felt the entire building shaking like a pendulum. Only we Indians panicked. Our Japanese colleagues maintained their cool, and at one point someone was even asking about the status of project updates. But they kept assuring us that the building is strong enough to withstand the quake. It wasn't funny at all…I thought my life was finished as I sat there too numb with fear to move"

Antony praised the Japanese authorities highly for their preparedness to handle the situation. He said things would have been worse if something similar happened in India.

And , the story would've been quite different had it happened a decade ago. I can't imagine reacting to a scenario like this. Anxious relatives would have desperately waited for a phone call or tried all the helplines in vain. Now, the social networking sites have come as a boon of cyber era.

Facebook has been flooded with comments, concerns and prayers for the victims; and there I felt some kind of 'real connectivity', an integrity of a different kind though. The assurances, concerns and sympathies might have been from people who are often too busy to even smile. But it did reach them, touching their hearts.
All these don't offer relief for what the people of Japan are going through, but I think it eases their tension a bit, even making them crack a joke amidst a calamity.

Things are back to normal in parts of Tokyo where my friend resides, though minor tremors were reported last night. His status message now reads:

Everything is safe now in Tokyo…It's a bright and calm morning here…Don't know what is happening far away. I hope the worst is over.

We who watch the plight of people like Shyam and Antony through television updates can only believe we have a sense of what they've gone through. Life at the moment and surviving a near death experience as this one is quite another.