I'm sure you all heard of the tragedy occurred in my country, Sri Lanka. On 21st of April I was on my way to hill country with mom to attend a series of lectures. Suddenly at about 9 am the woman behind me asked me if its true that there has been bomb blasts in Colombo.. Thinking if the woman is insane I turned my phone on and messages started flooding in about 2 bomb blasts in Churches. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Who killed innocent people on Easter? Why would somebody do that? Will there be more? How many people died? Is there anyone I know among casualties? How many people got injured? Where are my loved ones at the moment?
Within the next half hours I called everyone I know to see if they are okay and news about more blasts came and I started doubting if I should really go to Kandy. It took another 3 hours to clarify that we shouldn't go there and should return and we got off the bus from Pilimathalawa and got into a jam packed Welimada- Colombo bus. Warnings have been issued for people carrying bags and with my huge travelling bag and 2 more bags I had to face so many issues.. Of course no one is willing to take a strangers bag coz it might contain explosives.
For the first time in my life I was scared of dying. I thought there will be a blast in this bus for sure and will not see the faces of my loved ones. For 2 hours I kept thinking what will happen, when will this blast.. why did I come, I should have stayed home.. And then I got a seat.. I immediately started searching online about the bomb blasts and discovered that government has banned social media. After going through the details in web I found out more than 500 people are injured and about 150 have lost their lives (at this moment I'm typing, death toll is 350+) and this includes foreigners too.
At about 4pm we finally reached the highway entrance to find out that there are no buses because of the curfew. Therefore I had to call dad and he picked us up from there and finally reached home safely. Immediately I turned on the TV and news was filled with people crying for their lost loved ones... The magnitude of the attack was huge and suicide bombers have taken several 100s of innocent lives with them.
Even though we faced a war of 30 years and at the peak of the war I went to school with the risk of getting killed I wasn't this terrified. Maybe it's because I'm an adult and I have things I'm afraid to loose, or maybe it's just human nature. We all are terrified.. I have no words to explain the terror we are facing for past 4 days. Bombs are being discovered from all over the country, news about bomb lorries travelling, warnings about assaults... All these things makes me insane.. Why kill people for the sake of religion? Religions are there to make people better.. To guide them to light. No need to kill people to spread the religion. If your religion is good enough then more and more people will follow it.
Because of the same incident Sri Lankans as a nation showed the world how humble they are once again. National blood bank was filled within 2 hours, mothers offering to breastfeed infants who lost their mothers, strangers offering food and help to provide facilities in hospitals.. Sri Lanka is a paradise and we will as a nation rise again. I will end this with wishing speedy recoveries to the injured and for the families of deceased I'm truly sorry about your loss. As Carl Sagan once said,
"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.."
Comments
Post a Comment