Remembering the Tsunami - A Narrow Escape

(I wrote this in late December 2004)


I lost my cellphone. I could have lost my life. Thousands did.


I arrived in Varkala, Kerala, on the south-west coast of India on Christmas Day 2004. The next morning I went for a swim with another resident of my guesthouse. It was a perfect morning, the sun warm, the ocean bracing, with gentle swells.


We swam out about half a kilometre from the shore. If one of the waves was a bit higher than the others, we didn't notice. It was only when we swam back in to shore and found that someone had moved our gear to higher ground that we noticed that almost the entire beach was damp. I remarked to my companion that I had never seen the ocean come so far up on the beach. But we said no more about it.


As we strolled back towards the guesthouse, I didn't notice that the beachside restaurant where I had enjoyed my solitary Christmas dinner had been flooded, along with the neighbouring tailor shop and handicrafts store.


I stopped at a bistro for a bite to eat, and when I left the restaurant I had to make a quick choice -- left to return to the beach, right to go to the internet cafe to check my email and read the newspaper. I went left.


This time I headed south, along a trail between the sheer cliff face and the sea. It was a good trail last year, to a less crowded cove and beach, but erosion during the recent monsoon had brought down rock slides; parts of the trail were newly formed, with loose stones making footing unsure. One slip and I would tumble to the boulders along the shore. Perhaps it would be better to descend to the narrow beach. But the ocean was capricious. At times it drew back, leaving a wide strand exposed. But a few minutes later it would be churning at the rocks, covering the sand completely. It looked, I thought, like the pattern of a tsunami, but on a very small scale. But I didn't twig that I might be in any danger.


The sea drew back again, so I scrambled down to the exposed sand, and walked along the beach to the cove.


I noticed a crowd of people on the clifftop pointing out to sea, and wondered what they were looking at.


I made my way further along the shore, then put my gear at the high-water mark and waded into the surf. A youngster nearby told me all his stuff had just been washed away by a wave; then suddenly he shouted a warning to me as another huge swell came in. I clung to a huge boulder as the waves pounded me and tried to pull me from my perch. When it retreated I splashed along the rocks to check on my gear. Everything had been soaked, and a few items had tumbled out of my bag, but I managed to retrieve almost everything except one missing sandal, which a passerby found for me a few minutes later. I clambered up a trail carved into the cliff face, and spread my stuff out to dry.


My cellphone was in my shirt pocket and had gotten soaked along with eveything else. But miraculously that was the only casualty of my brush with the tsunami. It was only when I returned to my guesthouse and saw the news reports on the TV that I realized how close I had been to disaster.


By a fluke of the geography of the Kerala coast, Varkala was spared. Hundreds died in towns to the north and the south.


When I return in January to my home in Tamil Nadu on the east coast, which bore the brunt of the wave's impact on India, I don't know what news of missing friends and acquaintances will await me. As the death toll mounts (over 80,000 as I write), and I see photos and news stories from many of the places I've visited in south Asia, I ponder my brush with death and marvel that I was spared.


And I'll keep my dead cellphone as a reminder of my escape.