Overexposure to Tragedy

This Monday, I had an environmental management and Isalmiat monthly test. As I was sitting in my classroom-going over the hadis included in our test topics-I felt an explosion.

In 2008, I also sat in my classroom, reading a play by Shakespeare ‘The Tempest” when we were intrerruptred by a blast on the road besides our school. At that time, we were relatively new to this thing so the shattering of our class windows’ and the flying in of rubble added to the shockwave caused much panic to ensue. The entire student body rushed out of the school gates and awaited their fate but when we heard no second explosion, we thought that we had been saved. I believed that that would be my last experience with a blast but I was wrong because two years later, history repeated itself and I again escaped death.

The last time it happened, I skipped school the following day but this time, I didn’t even bother. Come what may. We have become insensitive to hostilities like bomb explosions. This time, we just sat still in our places for a while and even later weren’t too panicked. There were a few girls’ crying but they were the new ones’ who hadn’t been with us two years ago. In fact, none of the girls who had cried last time becasue of sheer terror were the least bit terrified. There were some even cracking jokes on the comical-ness of it.

This is where we have come. Turning a grave situation into a joke becasue it is not so scary anymore. It is like a time-worn horror story of the jinn-baba!