I am India

Location: St.Louis, USA
Time: 10pm approximately
Date: 30th April, 2008

YAHOO!!!! I am travelling back to India and my heart is all jingles playing in echo. I was feeling like a hostel girl going back home. In my one year stay few moments made me cry while lot of moments made me realise that life is beautiful. I made few good friends for life and leaving them was a bit hurting but again they are all Indians so I have hopes to meet them when they fly back to our country.

Now, last day of my stay we decided to party and our gang of five were ready in two cars. Kiran’s car was leading us while Amrutha, myself and Shashi in another one following it sincerely. We were having good time and I always enjoyed drives with these people. I also like another combination Amrutha driving, me in front passenger seat and rest of the guys behind us. As usual our jokes zone was going on with a zoom and suddenly I heard a BANG.

When I opened my eyes, I saw an airbag popped up on my face and another one on A.J’s face. I realised that we met with an accident. I could sense Shashi sitting behind was checking if we both were fine. We both answered and he seemed relaxed. Slowly we got down and I could see Kiran and Bugz are walking towards us in hurry. We all are fine. I immediately saw other car , they were also fine with mild injuries but cars were damanged badly. OMG, seeing the car’s condition I felt lucky that we are safe with just minor injuries.

Immediately police and ambulance arrived. The cop jeep lights were very bright and colorful. The way they flash lights looks like disco lights. Anyway, we finished all formalities and gathered to decide where to go as we were hungry. “IHOP” all of us decided.

At IHOP, I got chance to look at my face. My left eye got bruised badly as if somebody gave me a punch on the face. It looked funny.

Everyone was trying to get out of that incident when, “Padma”, Shashi called. I looked at him. “Now you understood na how airbag will come to use?” he asked and offered bite of pancake.

We all broke into laughter and thanked god for giving us another opportunity to smile again.

Cheerio,
Padma

The picture here is from one of illustrations I have collected. I like such serene, beautiful and peaceful villages/towns. I make it a point to have my vacation in such places once in a year. Walking down the paths enjoying the fresh air, eating local flavours at small joints, watching farming, all these will bring new energy to us.

Seeing illustration, we all know how important is Water (chemical term H2O) in our day to-day life. Can we imagine our life without water? Impossible. It is the only life saviour drink that is available on earth in small amounts (0.3% of 98%).

But today the same life saving water created havoc in many lives in the form of flood. The beautiful villages and towns which I always appreciated and visited turned into sea. It is water everywhere. Buildings, temples, people, cattle almost everything and everyone were submerged. The same places I visited were under 10 to 25-feet water. It was shocking to watch and I cannot even imagine the trauma those people are undergoing.

Now when they are in troubled waters, it is our duty to come forward and help them. The loss is huge. Few lost their loved ones, some lost their hard earnings and many are homeless.

So please contribute either in cash or kind as much as you can to the relief funds organized by various NGOs/State governments/any media channel etc. All our small contributions will make huge difference for them and will help them in rebuilding their lives.

After witnessing such havoc, I hope government will invest on building water reserves and channelzing them properly so that disaster is avoided.

P.S: Even if you don't find time to post a comment, do find time to donate.

Thanks,
Padma