An expat student housewife's blog takes us on a tour of how an ordinary person lives through one of the biggest quakes in living memory.

I have faced this question in many interviews. "Any unforgettable day in your life?" So far, I have always answered, "Not yet". But now, for sure, I will have one answer: "It was
March 11, 2011".

I have lived here for one-and-a-half year now and Vineeth, my husband has been living in Japan for three years. Before he brought me here, he had warned me about the quakes here. He was familiar with these minor shakes and comforted me when I first experienced these. Soon, I too became accustomed to them. So far so good. Lovely place, lovely people.

But yesterday (March 11) was a completely different day. I woke up as usual, cooked food, blogged, ate lunch, studied for sometime.

These days, I don't know if it is laziness that makes me sleep so much, but I feel a tired and sleep like a pig. Friday too, around 2 p.m., I sent a message to Vineeth to wake me up with a telephone call by 3 p.m. as I would not wake, unless he called and I had a lot to study. Lazy me, I turned on the heater, covered myself with a blanket and went to sleep!

All I can now remember is that something shook me, and to be able to wake me, it had to be a really big shake. I looked up at the heater, half asleep and found it was off. Vineeth had not called me. The lamp above me was swinging, I could hear the fusumas (sliding doors) hitting each other and making a sound, the glass panes shivered. Everything happened together and so fast, I just jumped out of bed.

I wasn't even able to balance myself, the house was shaking terribly and I realised, I something serious was happening. I took hold of the "vilakku (lamp)" and sat in a corner, holding it. I could hear things falling. Relatives' faces came before me. I cried and prayed. I had my mobile in my pocket, I tried calling Vineeth, but the calls got disconnected.

All I could see around, were the walls shaking terribly and the hanging lamp swinging. I was scared, it might come down on my head. The shaking stopped for a moment and I managed to open the window to see if anyone was running out. No one was running out. Vineeth had told me, never to run out of the house in case of a quake, because inside the house was the safest place. Out of fear, I wanted to pee! In the bathroom, the water danced, scaring me more. The laptop was not working. There was no power, no net.

Every time the quake stopped, I tried calling Vineeth. I looked out of the window to see if his office building was safe. It was. I recited the names of many gods.Time never passed so fast, like on this fateful Friday. It was when Vineeth returned home that I realized what had happened. He asked me to call home and inform our families that we are safe. We tried and tried and finally got connected to my father.

Friday was seven hours of terror and anxiety. When power was restored, we switched on the TV. We were really happy to see the messages and mails from friends and relatives asking about our well being, it was really nice to know people did care for us!

Friday, there were 120 shakes following the major one; Saturday, there were some minor quakes. Hope God saves each and every child of his from disaster. Our prayers for all those who lost their lives in Friday's Tsunami