12:12 AM

...When war becomes a possibility.

It was the after-dinner time, and my family was lazing around when we heard a blast.

and another one

and another one

and another one

and another one

By this time we stopped counting, wore shoes and were out on the street...

and so was every single person from our neighbourhood. The kids, the parents, the grandparents, the servants, the odd guests ... everyone was on the street.

and you could hear panic. The odd "Allah reham" (God, Have mercy) or "Allah-u-Akbar" (God is great)

We called our brothers, who live close by.. and they were as confused as we were ..

Nothing was being shown on the TV initially ... after a while one channel ran a "Rawalpindi may dhamakay" (blasts in Rawalpindi)

but no details ....

Everyone was freaking out. We were calling people. People were calling us. My mom was shaking. We thought it was a war, cause there had been at least 8,9 blasts...

It was half an hour before we found out that those weren't blasts. Those were cannon shots to honor the visiting Turkish PM.

Fucking cannon shots!

8 comments:

Em said...

you'd think they'd give fair warning - or did they just assume everyone is used to hearing blasts?

Annie said...

Yeah exactly.

Literally everyone was out on the road ... You know loudly narrating the Qalima and "Inn-ilallah-e"..

*sigh*

Esther said...

omg! I thought those were real bomb blasts until i got to the end of the post!

Thank God those weren't blasts.

Balvinder Balli said...

I feel that it is high time that we do away with this ritual of giving salute to the visiting diginitaries by firing cannons when so many bomb blasts are going off on a daily basis particularly in our part of the land. It will at least save the common public from confusion and panic.

LovePakistan said...

u scared me girl!!

But dont think of cannon shots on next bomb blasts...bad joke!!..its happening so frequent now..i dont know what to say...May Allah bless my paki ppl with His Mercy! Ameen.

Annie said...

@esther

aww. I am sorry. I wasnt sensationalizing it and i think i did exactly that ...but i swear, imagine how it must have been for everyone here ... crazy!

@Balvinder

*nods in agreement*

@Love Pakistan

I know what you mean .. and a great Amen to that!

Chatterbox said...

I thought they were real blasts in your area, then my mind drifted to them being pranks by someone using crackers.

That's good it turned out differently and all of you are safe and sound.

Cheers!!

Honey Bee said...

Oh fucking hell!