"Bhuichalo!" I screamed and my grandfather who had been working on his computer in his study rushed out and I ran out behind him. We waited carefully on the passage for the tremor to subside, and as soon as it did, we rushed out of the house and my father came running behind us. We were ignorant of my father's presence in the house. I ran barefooted because I had been mentally traumatized by the quake. I could hear women screaming and wailing for their children who were away--safe, injured, or dead, nobody knew for sure. My father escorted everyone to a nearby open field, which was almost full even before we stepped on to it. Slowly more people poured in and the place became really crowded. Surprisingly, many people brought along stuffed trekking bags and mattresses.Just an hour earlier, people hadn't known what an earthquake of that magnitude felt like and within that short period of time, the very people had become experts and were then guessing the magnitude of the aftershocks. An hour later, another big aftershock passed, but my grandfather, who works for a newspaper, said he'll leave for work.
"People need to know what's going on. Newspapers need to be published. I have to go," he told me. He ignored all of our pleadings to stay home and left for work.
Sometime later, my parents left the open field, too. I went to look for them after 15 minutes because I had had enough of seeing pictures of wreckage and dead bodies on other people's phones.
But more than anything else, the sound of wailing mothers devastated me. My parents had shifted their refuge to our neighbor, Chiran uncle's compound. We settled there. I helped the older men take out the tarpaulin from under the whacked solar panels. The extended Pandey family (Chiran uncle and his cousins), us and Chiran uncle's tenants had settled under a 12 x 15 tarpaulin. It had summed up to seven tarpaulins for the night. If it weren't for Chiran uncle's good humor, we would have spent the night crying. An old woman from the Pandey family said that the April 25 earthquake was bigger than the one in 1934. Her great-grandchildren hushed her and reminded her that she had been a toddler then.
Two days later, everyone in my family was directly or indirectly linked with one or the other relief programs. I worked as a translator for a group of Turkish doctors sent by a Turkish organization called 'Kimse Yok Mu' who conducted a health camp. My grandmother was still at Aanbu Khaireni and had been calling us every time an aftershock passed.
Six days later, my grandmother arrived and she called me the moment she stepped foot in the house. She ordered me to come home immediately. I did as I was told. My grandmother broke into tears the moment she saw me. Yet another wailing mother, I thought.
Everyone in my family is fine, and so are my friends and their families. However, I can't help but think of the wail of the mother who lost her child in the big quake.
Abigya is a Class IX student at Meridian International School in Baluwatar, Kathmandu.
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