{"id":186661,"date":"2023-12-21T07:26:35","date_gmt":"2023-12-21T07:26:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/indiansapidnews.com\/?p=186661"},"modified":"2023-12-21T07:26:35","modified_gmt":"2023-12-21T07:26:35","slug":"my-mum-was-worried-i-was-going-to-be-killed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/indiansapidnews.com\/india\/my-mum-was-worried-i-was-going-to-be-killed\/","title":{"rendered":"‘My mum was worried I was going to be killed’"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘They had been locked up for 17 days and the door was opened and they’re like, ‘We’re not going on one of these stretcher things. We’re out of here’!’<\/strong><\/p>\n

‘Then someone says, ‘They’re all out!’ ‘They are all safe?’ ‘Yes, they’re all safe’.’<\/strong><\/p>\n

‘I am like aaaaahhh<\/em>. I cried happy tears.’<\/strong><\/p>\n

After the Silkyara tunnel rescue in Uttarakhand, wherever Professor Arnold Dix<\/strong> went in India, he would be mobbed. He said he felt, for the first time, like quite the celebrity.<\/p>\n

He was asked who would play him in a Bollywood film on the rescue operation and jovially offered himself up as an ‘extra’.<\/p>\n

“Even if I wasn’t wearing my smelly orange shirt, my crazy hat, everyone recognised me. I don’t look like a celebrity. I mean, I think I just look a bit strange at best, because I’m just an old bloke with a funny beard, weird hair.”<\/p>\n

Fame has followed Dix back to Australia.<\/p>\n

So has that immense feeling of happiness. And the deep sense of spirituality and contentment. He still gets up every morning on a high, with a walking-on-clouds kind of elation.<\/p>\n

Dix has returned to his serene Monbulk farm, 42 km out Melbourne, near the Dandenong range, where he grows vegetables, beans, berries and raises chickens, leading his quiet, slightly unworldly life that perhaps was somewhat responsible for his ability to “tune into India” so easily.<\/p>\n

“I watch the sun come up here. I view the mountains.” And Dix remembers the mighty Himalayas and the Happily Ever After story that he helped craft and bring to life. “It’s just so nice. I haven’t had many good, nice stories in recent years.”<\/p>\n

In Part III of his interview to Rediff.com<\/em><\/strong>‘s Vaihayasi Pande Daniel<\/strong>, the underground specialist further recalls the tunnel rescue experience, for which he volunteered his services, without a fee, to the Indian government, because he was “helping your friends.”<\/p>\n

The concluding segment of a MUST READ three-part interview:<\/p>\n