part and parcel
March 10th, 2008It’s not every day that I can claim to being woken up by the sound of explosives. Exploding, as it were. So today was different. It didn’t sound like a flat tire (there was no whooshing exhalation at the end), it didn’t sound like some clumsy construction worker dropping a paint bucket. It sounded like a bomb and that’s what it was. At least in this instance, the paranoia about explody business turned out to be true.
A few glances out the window - traffic was stacked up on the bridge, but that’s not unusual for just before 0700 on a Monday morning. No ambulances. I opened up one of the large pane glass windows, just to hear the noises of the street below - but the blaring bus horns and traffic noises drowned out any other noises that I had expected to hear (like sirens).
No radio in the house. No TV either. The family had officially moved to the boondocks the day before and I was playing night watchman of sorts. Bare house. I was quite relishing the solitude. But voluntarily becoming a hermit in the urban sprawl has its drawbacks when there are flowerpots exploding nearby.
Wondered if I had imagined it all. No one seemed very alarmed that I could see.
First hint of something that might have gone wrong - vehicles on the northbound lane into Colombo were reversing out of the jam and taking alternative routes. Not the buses of course. The buses had no choice but to stick on the main road. But smaller vehicles were mounting the center island and doing frantic U-turns in the middle of the road in order to escape.
Couple of military vehicles head towards the traffic lights. They are moving unhurriedly, the soliders inside seem relaxed. The military vehicles are heading up the wrong side of the street, adding to the chaotic jam of vehicles streaming away from the main road. Couple of uniforms perched on top wave away the oncoming vehicles, but their effort seems desultory. There is no urgency.
I wonder aloud (on the phone) if I am possibly mistaken. Maybe it was a falling bucket of paint after all. Yes, the mobile phones still work, which adds to my suspicion that I had imagined the whole thing. A couple of minutes later, I got another call confirming an explosion.
Someone’s Monday morning had started off in the worst possible way.