Two weeks after my first accident, my classmates were getting ready to go on an industrial visit (IV) to Bangalore. I politely refused to join them blaming on the head injury which required me to take rest. I had to give the look of an amnesiac every time one of the IV representatives tried to convince me to go with them. Honestly, it wasn’t my head, but the ever worsening financial crunch and the stark disinterest in going to any “industry” during that weekend because I preferred being idle. I somehow managed to evade the payment of 1100 bucks till the deadline and the organizers did not have a choice other than to stop pestering me. I was glad. So were a 6 other guys in my class, who also weren’t going for the trip. One of them informed me about their plan to present papers at a departmental function in PSG Tech the same weekend. I was not going to participate, but was sure I could give good company.
On the day of the event, I dressed up to look presentable. I even wore a deo, imported from Malaysia, presented to my dad by his boss about 3 years back then. It did not matter that the deo was as old as its life, when the alternative was to stink like a pig and keep away the cute girls of PSG. I took my phone, a grey colour Nokia 2300, which I had not charged in the previous 4 days since there was neither validity nor balance in my account. Airtel, then charged 330 bucks every month for a meagre talk time and 30 days validity. Once the validity was over, a basic phone would be as good as a calculator, with a phone book and gaming capabilities. My account validity had been over about 11 days before that. I therefore had not felt the need to put my phone on charge. However, I needed the phone on that day. What’s cool without flaunting your mobile in front of random people? I did not have time to charge so I decided to take the charger along, hoping to find a plug point somewhere in the college. Meanwhile, my dad took his time to count the banknotes and cut exactly Rs.330 for recharging my account. I put the money in my wallet and crammed it inside my jeans pocket. When I stepped outside, I realised that the jeans was so tight that the charger protruded from near my crotch and the passers-by were giving me a dirty look. I wanted to go back and change my pant but the thought was overcome by the innumerable cocky one-liners that I could generate with that fake crotch. It was going to be a fun day!
I reached PSG in another 45 minutes and bought a recharge card from a nearby shop. I went inside the campus and headed towards the assembly block, where my friends were waiting for their turns to present a paper. I was disappointed as soon as I entered the hall as there were no girls. In fact, there were very few people, who were all filling the first 3 rows. Taking away the organisers, participants and judges, there were only two guys who did not participate, judge or organise the event. One of them looked like a janitor. I needed a mirror to look at the second guy, but I made do with the window pane.
The janitor dressed in a khakhi uniform was sleeping in the left extreme in the last row. I sat 2 rows ahead of him, in the right extreme, close to the plug point I had chosen. I was so impatient that, the moment my phone flickered to life, I scratched the recharge card wildly, to find the 16 digit pin number and entered it in my phone. I relaxed only after the recharge was successful. The switch board was in turn close to a window which had long red curtains. I plugged the charger and kept it on the window frame. It was convenient to repose my phone there and cover it with the curtains so that it was hidden from sight, and hence secure. So I thought.
One of my friends, Arvik had noticed me and came to sit next to me. We discussed for the next 20 minutes about the shabbiness of the presenters, the hopeless girl turnout for a mechanical department function, and the chances of my college teams winning a cash prize that day. We were so drawn in our own cynic jokes, that neither of us noticed the other end of the charger wire which was supposed to be sticking inside my phone, was instead suddenly falling freely to the ground. It took a really hilarious joke for me to do my crazy laugh- to close my eyes and convulse first, and then turn around to look for a thigh to slap. Since there was no chair to my right side, I could not miss the phoneless wire free from my wireless phone.
It took only a moment to sink in, and I was on my feet immediately. I took my friend’s phone and tried calling my number, but the sweet lady voice said that my phone was not reachable. I felt like saying “Oh yes! That’s why I am about to cry”, but I was beginning to get frustrated with something else very obnoxious. The dull paper presentation was continuing, unconcerned about my loss. I blamed myself for overlooking the fact that a window was indeed “An opening in a wall or screen that admits light and air and through which customers can be served” (Courtesy: Word web). The other side of the window opened into a walkway and it had been open all the while. I walked around hastily, asking every person on the way about a grey Nokia phone that was put on charge there. I did not expect anyone to give me back my phone. But I couldn’t get the picture out of my mind wherein “someone” comes and says, “Hey yes, I saw this phone from outside the window and I thought it might get lost. So, I took it and removed the simcard so that when the owner comes looking for it, I can barge in and hand over the phone”. Only, the “someone” kept changing in each picture every moment, depending on whom my suspicious look was aimed at. In another corner of my mind, I wished it was only a prank being orchestrated by one of my friends, just to teach me a lesson. I wouldn’t have fixated on this prank theory had it not been for the laughter this news generated among my friends. I kept troubling my classmates to come out with the truth, but it went in vain. “Thou can’t giveth that thou ain’t taketh. Amen”.
Meanwhile, I remembered that the sleeping ugliness, the janitor was not there when I did my frantic walk out of the room in search of the phone. He came back and sat in his place and began to listen to the paper presentation studiously, as if he could make sense out of controlled-plasma-energy-driven-eco-friendly engines. After some initial hesitation I walked up to him and told him about the phone. He said the same answer that everyone said, but he had vicious eyes, hairy ears and nose, and a devilish voice. What else could he be? My Sherlock Holmes brain said “That’s him!” I directly asked him to return my phone back, saying that I won’t be able to afford a new phone. At this, the janitor took offense and he retorted angrily pointing out that it was a public hall where hundreds of students (but no girls) came and went. I could not disagree with him but there was nothing much one could do when one lost one’s phone, except identifying and questioning suspects, and embarrassing oneself.
Sadly, the day darkened only hours into the morning, at least for me. Worse was the fact that I had recharged my mobile only that morning and whoever stole it, was getting a bonus. I wandered inside the campus for the rest of the day still hoping that someone would bring my phone to me. I thought perhaps the phone was somewhere near the department building, even though I never went there. I looked for my phone almost everywhere and finally gave up.
On the way back to home, there were no beeps from my pocket, no forward messages to read, no mobile phone to keep track of my time or give missed calls. I remembered that I avoided the class trip in the first place, mainly because I wanted to “save” money. The outcome of my smart strategy turned out to be a big loss for me – mobile phone + 330 bucks. A part of my life was lost in PSG campus. How I used to get butterflies in my stomach whenever one of the special girl friends sent me a message! How proud I used to look whenever I had to attend calls out in the public! All were gone. There was nothing to write in the “Mobile number” column in any form after that.
I knew I didn’t have to go to a function which I didn’t care about, yet it was my fault that I went there. If only life had creepy background music to warn you of threatening situations! I decided that I would bang my head on the wall a hundred times first thing after I reach home. But my father would not want me to lose my head also. I was very worried about how he would react. Confused already about all this, I was even more confused, yet pleasantly surprised on breaking the news to my folks. My whole family tried to persuade me that it was not my fault but the unfavourable positions of unlucky stars, which turned up once in two weeks to give me a dreadful fever, to cause an accident, or simply to take my mobile phone away. My father said, “It wasn’t meant to be”. My mother explained rather philosophically, that whenever wealth went into the drain, it meant that good health was assured. No more explanations about her concept though. Meanwhile, my grandma went into the kitchen and came back with something in her hand. All the rebuke I had anticipated and the questions I was prepared to answer, came down to circular movements of my grandma’s hand with salt, chilly and lemon, 3 clockwise and 3 anticlockwise, to ward off evil forces around me. My eyes followed her hand and made circles. As she cleansed my aura and transferred the negative forces to the ingredients in her hand and threw it out the window, I felt guilty having escaped any kind of rebuke. I heaved a sigh of relief, promising myself to be more careful from that time on. Ironically at that moment, I considered my stars did bring me luck!
Friday, June 11, 2010
Saturday, May 29, 2010
MY FIRST ACCIDENT
It was July 31st, 2006, a Monday that was no different from any other. I woke up before dawn and did my morning chores. I had to. It was a routine I started to follow again after about 10 days of respite, owing to the illness caused by some virus according to a doctor, and definitely due to unfavourable planet shifts according to my mother. I had been both on medication and magic, and one of them had worked. So there I was, eating two eggs that my mother had boiled for me as usual. She too did her best to assure her appearance-conscious-teenage son (me) that someday he too will be able to grow some flesh. After rechecking the wings and pectorals, I wore my “induction” t-shirt and my favourite (read, only) jeans on. It was 6.05 and our hall was slowly getting flooded with the first rays of the day. While my parents still asleep in their room and my grandmother cooking in the kitchen, I cycle-started TVS XL and pulled the vehicle out. 2 stroke engines are generally known for their noisiness. An ill-maintained 50 cc engine was no exception. It must have probably swallowed the “poitu varen” (I am leaving) I hollered out. It did not matter because the rumbling was enough to notify of my departure. I hit the street outside and raised the accelerator to the maximum, a 90 degree wrist-twist. The speedo was unresponsive, and going by guesses, I must have been doing more than 20 kmph, but there was no reason to believe that I touched 30. Still, I chose to believe so. After all, I was going to a gym about 3 km away from my house.
I had always wanted to go to college on my own motorbike. Unfortunately, whatever finances my father could arrange went to repay the finances he had arranged earlier for other purposes. Even if he could be ready to buy me a motorbike, I rather wanted it to be for himself since it was much more embarrassing for a formally dressed, dignified gentleman father, having a respectable job, to ride a clumsy moped. Having no choice at the moment, I had to use only the 13 year old commuter whenever I wanted to save time. Wearing the blood red t-shirt given during our fresher’s party in college (“Induction”), reminded me that I was a mechanical engineering student. The purpose of that function was not just to induct us into the department, but also to reinforce the beliefs held by every mechanical engineering fresher, that we are rebels. Riding the moped, though gave me a low self esteem, the pride of being a rebel, gave a rush of adrenaline in my blood. Suddenly, I became a racer with a defiant disregard to danger. That when I was only a couple of meters away from my house.
There were 7 speed breakers in about 100 meters from one end of Muruga Nagar to the other end which opened up to NH209, and I swore at every one of them, as they were deterrent to my thirst for speed. On my way, I saw shopkeepers carrying vegetables on their M80s, school children striding towards their tuition centres and old men marching so fast so that their bellies may fall off their torsos. The women were spraying dilute cow dung or just plain water after dutifully sweeping the rubbish off to the front sides of their neighbours’ houses. I got an eyeful on a couple of occasions, but mostly it was of the ugly and the old.
Our area, called Kurichi was then a municipality and was quite rustic, with people showing lack of worldly knowledge. I have heard that, in the olden days, criminals, right from petty thieves to dacoits, used Kurichi as their place of hiding. No wonder that the place was full of descendents with a disposition to defraud. My neighbourhood had carpenters, masons, painters, lorry drivers and others who did not have a regular job or monthly income. However, they do not remain idle at home. They remain idle in front of tea shops or other places where they can chit-chat about the drama of politics or the politics in cinema. A number of times, they also volunteer themselves in giving opinions and advice to their neighbours, which stimulates internal conflicts for the families of the advisee. This would turn out into a quarrel for everyone to see. Sometimes they would slap each other and throw household stuff on the road over issues such as the men getting drunk back from work or the women being concerned more about TV serials than family. They would abuse each other fluently and when the jobless neighbours get into the act of arbitrating, they are sure to be mortified. Later, they go around telling everyone the philosophy that, “if we try to do good for people, it gets backfired”. Such is life according to them. The place was full of stupid people and I hated it. So when somebody tried to cut my head with a pair of scissors, I yelled at her. I asked, “Mandai mela yaravathu kathrikol viduvangala?” (Who cuts a head with scissors?). She said, “Let’s finish the stitches.” I was worried that they were cutting my hair improperly, when a shooting pain at the back of my head brought me to reality.
I was sitting on a white bed in a room filled with a familiar smell of Dettol. I saw 4 or 5 people all dressed in white. Two of them were nurses and one a doc. Another person was an old man who was wearing a dhoti. I checked my pant pockets for my wallet and mobile phone and thankfully they were still there. I checked the time and it was 6.35 AM. Calculating that I was semiconscious for more than 25 minutes gave me a mixed feeling. I was scared at the thought of almost succumbing to dreadful injuries, but at the same time, I was happy that I could do the subtraction myself without any difficulty. I did not ask the trademark “where am I?” as shown in almost every movie. Instead I remember saying, “Oh my hair!” I examined myself and found blood all over the t-shirt. I had to change my opinion of the t-shirt colour I mentioned earlier. Blood red is slightly darker than the t-shirt colour. The person who was wearing the dhoti seemed very tense and he let out a big sigh of relief on seeing me come back to consciousness. I had some bruises on my feet and hands but other than the cut on the head, there was no serious injury. Since I have never met with an accident till then, except for the onetime that I fell from a running auto when I was in third standard, I was very excited at the thought of going back to college from the next day with a sporty stitch on my head. I wished I had fractured a hand or leg but it was fine. A stitch on the head was enough to fascinate the onlookers. I came to know that the person wearing the dhoti was the driver of the car which hit me. I smiled at him and asked “What happened to me?” He replied. I had met with an accident. Instinctively, next I said, “Amma... Appa...” People who have seen stage plays might know how the characters come on to the stage from either of the sides, the moment they are called. My mother, father and sister, all came through the door just like that, as if, they had been waiting all the while for that one cue. My senses were working and I got to know from the people who helped me to the hospital about what had happened.
At 6.05 AM there is lesser traffic and that is when the mofussil buses and Lorries speed without restraint on NH 209. While entering the highway from Muruga Nagar, I usually stop and look for vehicles on either side. But that morning was an exception. I was fully aware of the facts that I was a rebel who loves to race, and that there was nobody to ridicule that I was only riding a moped. After cursing the last speed breaker at the end of the road, I thrust my body forward and accelerated to the maximum, which wouldn’t have been more than 30 kmph. I chose not to slowdown once again and I therefore ignored the imminent danger of collision. My own memory of the incident ends there. According to the driver, who was rushing towards the railway station in the same direction I was intending to go, he was distracted already. The train his boss was coming had reached Coimbatore Junction and the driver should have picked him up 15 minutes ago. Having no other choice other than to practically stand on the accelerator pedal, the driver was reciting his prayers, when a stupid rider came out of a small road from the right side. He noticed the guy in the red t-shirt completely ignore all the blaring noise an Ambassador's horn could generate. The moped was ostensibly slow that it wouldn’t beat the car in moving across to the opposite side of the road, yet fast enough that it would just meet the bonnet at the current given speed of both the vehicles. The driver had to do something. The brake pedal would go down only to that deep. The screeching sound of the car had attracted all but the deaf lad’s attention. Or maybe he was on a suicide mission, thought the car driver. Whatever it is, he didn’t want to be caught in a hit and run case. He steered to the left as quickly as possible and the mortal had come side to side with the car, still unaware of anything happening around him. The side-front portion of the car hit the moped’s rear with a loud bang and the two-wheeler slid across the highway with the young man happily losing consciousness immediately. The car went on further and almost hit a tree with a sort of reluctance to stop. Thanks to the tea shops that open early, and the chain smokers who need one at 6 10 AM, there were a few people who could help. They had exchanged opinions of how long it was before I might die losing blood and of how to lift the person when there were possible internal injuries. Someone had even tried to slap the driver, but it was averted as there were more important things to be done and also, the driver stopped trying to evade and volunteered to carry me to the hospital.
Accidents in highways are so common that hospitals find it profitable to be located there. There were so many nearby the accident spot, but I was taken to N.R.P Hospital, where I remained semi-conscious for the next 20 minutes. The people who had carried me to the hospital had inquired me about my address, name and other information. I was surprised when the driver told me that I had not only given the landline number of my house but also told them my address and a detailed direction to reach my house. Perhaps, I would have shared my secret fantasies had he asked me. Maybe they can use this technique to extract truth from convicts. The point is, I was conscious enough to let them get my parents to the hospital.
My mother had her point of view to share. The moment she heard the vehicle start that morning, she feared something would go wrong. Even when my father rides (never tops 30, unlike me), whenever my mother is on the pillion she would scream at every lorry that comes everywhere, not just in her way. But she had got used to it with time. After sometime, at about 6.15 AM, the phone had rung. A phone call at such early hours of the day normally meant someone somewhere died, according to my family at least. My mother wanted to pick the call and so she got up. My grandmother had picked the call before that and was trying to hear what the caller had to say. I wonder why my grandmother would be interested in answering phone calls, even though everyone including her sure as hell knows that she cannot hear anything unless it was spoken at the top of one’s voice. Successful only in vaguely figuring out that it was something about Balajee, she handed the receiver to my mother who was waiting behind her having lost the race to pick the phone first. The caller had spoken in a calm manner, in a weird way though, stating that her son had fallen down from the vehicle. Nothing was serious, no head injury, no blood wasted. For someone who would normally go berserk at such news, she was surprisingly calm that day. She had taken in all the details that the caller had said and hung the phone. Meanwhile, my father and sister had come out of the room and looked inquisitively. My mother explained them what she heard and asked them to go to the hospital, so she could join them soon after that. My father and sister quickly changed clothes and got ready to leave. My dad took all the credit cards and debit cards he had, even those which did not have money on them. His first remark when he left home was that it was a month end (something to do with the financial crunch). My mother brushed her teeth and started a few minutes after they left. My sister apparently started weeping once she reached the highway, on seeing the pool of blood. They did not dare to imagine what would have happened to me given the conditions of the battered moped and the car that was standing on the other side almost rammed into the tree. The nurses had not allowed my father and sister to see me when they reached the hospital. But just when my mother joined them at the ward, a nurse had summoned her in saying, “the boy wants to see his mother”. A sinister dialogue that is normally associated with an untoward end as preached by cinemas for long, no wonder my mother’s heart sank. She went in preparing herself for the worst. She heard me saying “Oh my hair!” When she came inside, I beamed at her and said “Hi”.
I was still excited about my first close encounter with death. I was even more excited that I was unable to remember anything beyond the last speed breaker that I had crossed. Seeing everyone’s face relieved, I enjoyed the comfort they were providing. It was extra-care, extra- affection. My mother asked me if it hurts and my father assured me (himself) that my insurance will help us meet the expenses and there was nothing for me (him) to worry. My sister seemed to have recovered from the shock, although, only partly. We had to go to Gandhipuram, about 10km away for a CT scan. The car driver was there all along, and he even took us in his car to that scanning centre. On the way I felt nauseated and I begged the driver to stop the car. For some reason he ignored it. Sitting between my parents, lying on my mother’s lap, I was ready to puke inside the car when finally the driver found a place to vomit and stopped the car. As the door was opened I couldn’t resist any longer, and I let the contents of my stomach part inside and part outside the car. Apparently, the driver had expected me to throw up inside the ditch, in front of which he had promptly brought the car to a halt. But I never got to reach the said sink. I had discharged the two eggs I ate that morning. The yucky smell and sight of the yolk made me want to puke more. But there was nothing left anymore.
I washed my face with the water left in the car and we went to the scanning centre. It took about an hour to get the scan results. The brain was there, fit and firm, functioning properly. There were no internal damages and I was fine. The car driver was completely relieved and so he developed the guts to slowly hint that the fault was mine, but not in a particularly accusatory tone. We all returned in the same car to NRP hospital. The car driver fled immediately without even notifying anyone, fearing he would be demanded money. The news meanwhile had got out, and people from my surroundings, who I barely knew, came to visit me with lots of oranges and Horlicks bottles. We rarely bought any of these at home, so I appreciated their gesture. In the afternoon, my college friends came to visit me. The guys also thought that the accident was a serious one. They were surprised, perhaps disappointed just like me, when I explained how the accident was serious but not the injuries. I narrated the story of the accident to all the visitors, with due disregard to the seriousness of the matter, that they regretted for taking the pains to visit me.
Thanks to the higher powers that saved me from a close call, I was still alive. I had to remain in the hospital for the next four days, even though I assured the doctor that I was fine. I was recommended a second scan to be done after a year just to ensure everything remained fine. It was 5 days later (August 4) that I logged into orkut to publicize my near death experience! I did not have a camera phone then, or else I would have most certainly taken lot of pictures of the beautiful hospital, nice nurses and my bald spot around the suture on the head and posted it. Unfortunately, I only had my Nokia 2300, which I would later lose in another funny incident of my life.
I had always wanted to go to college on my own motorbike. Unfortunately, whatever finances my father could arrange went to repay the finances he had arranged earlier for other purposes. Even if he could be ready to buy me a motorbike, I rather wanted it to be for himself since it was much more embarrassing for a formally dressed, dignified gentleman father, having a respectable job, to ride a clumsy moped. Having no choice at the moment, I had to use only the 13 year old commuter whenever I wanted to save time. Wearing the blood red t-shirt given during our fresher’s party in college (“Induction”), reminded me that I was a mechanical engineering student. The purpose of that function was not just to induct us into the department, but also to reinforce the beliefs held by every mechanical engineering fresher, that we are rebels. Riding the moped, though gave me a low self esteem, the pride of being a rebel, gave a rush of adrenaline in my blood. Suddenly, I became a racer with a defiant disregard to danger. That when I was only a couple of meters away from my house.
There were 7 speed breakers in about 100 meters from one end of Muruga Nagar to the other end which opened up to NH209, and I swore at every one of them, as they were deterrent to my thirst for speed. On my way, I saw shopkeepers carrying vegetables on their M80s, school children striding towards their tuition centres and old men marching so fast so that their bellies may fall off their torsos. The women were spraying dilute cow dung or just plain water after dutifully sweeping the rubbish off to the front sides of their neighbours’ houses. I got an eyeful on a couple of occasions, but mostly it was of the ugly and the old.
Our area, called Kurichi was then a municipality and was quite rustic, with people showing lack of worldly knowledge. I have heard that, in the olden days, criminals, right from petty thieves to dacoits, used Kurichi as their place of hiding. No wonder that the place was full of descendents with a disposition to defraud. My neighbourhood had carpenters, masons, painters, lorry drivers and others who did not have a regular job or monthly income. However, they do not remain idle at home. They remain idle in front of tea shops or other places where they can chit-chat about the drama of politics or the politics in cinema. A number of times, they also volunteer themselves in giving opinions and advice to their neighbours, which stimulates internal conflicts for the families of the advisee. This would turn out into a quarrel for everyone to see. Sometimes they would slap each other and throw household stuff on the road over issues such as the men getting drunk back from work or the women being concerned more about TV serials than family. They would abuse each other fluently and when the jobless neighbours get into the act of arbitrating, they are sure to be mortified. Later, they go around telling everyone the philosophy that, “if we try to do good for people, it gets backfired”. Such is life according to them. The place was full of stupid people and I hated it. So when somebody tried to cut my head with a pair of scissors, I yelled at her. I asked, “Mandai mela yaravathu kathrikol viduvangala?” (Who cuts a head with scissors?). She said, “Let’s finish the stitches.” I was worried that they were cutting my hair improperly, when a shooting pain at the back of my head brought me to reality.
I was sitting on a white bed in a room filled with a familiar smell of Dettol. I saw 4 or 5 people all dressed in white. Two of them were nurses and one a doc. Another person was an old man who was wearing a dhoti. I checked my pant pockets for my wallet and mobile phone and thankfully they were still there. I checked the time and it was 6.35 AM. Calculating that I was semiconscious for more than 25 minutes gave me a mixed feeling. I was scared at the thought of almost succumbing to dreadful injuries, but at the same time, I was happy that I could do the subtraction myself without any difficulty. I did not ask the trademark “where am I?” as shown in almost every movie. Instead I remember saying, “Oh my hair!” I examined myself and found blood all over the t-shirt. I had to change my opinion of the t-shirt colour I mentioned earlier. Blood red is slightly darker than the t-shirt colour. The person who was wearing the dhoti seemed very tense and he let out a big sigh of relief on seeing me come back to consciousness. I had some bruises on my feet and hands but other than the cut on the head, there was no serious injury. Since I have never met with an accident till then, except for the onetime that I fell from a running auto when I was in third standard, I was very excited at the thought of going back to college from the next day with a sporty stitch on my head. I wished I had fractured a hand or leg but it was fine. A stitch on the head was enough to fascinate the onlookers. I came to know that the person wearing the dhoti was the driver of the car which hit me. I smiled at him and asked “What happened to me?” He replied. I had met with an accident. Instinctively, next I said, “Amma... Appa...” People who have seen stage plays might know how the characters come on to the stage from either of the sides, the moment they are called. My mother, father and sister, all came through the door just like that, as if, they had been waiting all the while for that one cue. My senses were working and I got to know from the people who helped me to the hospital about what had happened.
At 6.05 AM there is lesser traffic and that is when the mofussil buses and Lorries speed without restraint on NH 209. While entering the highway from Muruga Nagar, I usually stop and look for vehicles on either side. But that morning was an exception. I was fully aware of the facts that I was a rebel who loves to race, and that there was nobody to ridicule that I was only riding a moped. After cursing the last speed breaker at the end of the road, I thrust my body forward and accelerated to the maximum, which wouldn’t have been more than 30 kmph. I chose not to slowdown once again and I therefore ignored the imminent danger of collision. My own memory of the incident ends there. According to the driver, who was rushing towards the railway station in the same direction I was intending to go, he was distracted already. The train his boss was coming had reached Coimbatore Junction and the driver should have picked him up 15 minutes ago. Having no other choice other than to practically stand on the accelerator pedal, the driver was reciting his prayers, when a stupid rider came out of a small road from the right side. He noticed the guy in the red t-shirt completely ignore all the blaring noise an Ambassador's horn could generate. The moped was ostensibly slow that it wouldn’t beat the car in moving across to the opposite side of the road, yet fast enough that it would just meet the bonnet at the current given speed of both the vehicles. The driver had to do something. The brake pedal would go down only to that deep. The screeching sound of the car had attracted all but the deaf lad’s attention. Or maybe he was on a suicide mission, thought the car driver. Whatever it is, he didn’t want to be caught in a hit and run case. He steered to the left as quickly as possible and the mortal had come side to side with the car, still unaware of anything happening around him. The side-front portion of the car hit the moped’s rear with a loud bang and the two-wheeler slid across the highway with the young man happily losing consciousness immediately. The car went on further and almost hit a tree with a sort of reluctance to stop. Thanks to the tea shops that open early, and the chain smokers who need one at 6 10 AM, there were a few people who could help. They had exchanged opinions of how long it was before I might die losing blood and of how to lift the person when there were possible internal injuries. Someone had even tried to slap the driver, but it was averted as there were more important things to be done and also, the driver stopped trying to evade and volunteered to carry me to the hospital.
Accidents in highways are so common that hospitals find it profitable to be located there. There were so many nearby the accident spot, but I was taken to N.R.P Hospital, where I remained semi-conscious for the next 20 minutes. The people who had carried me to the hospital had inquired me about my address, name and other information. I was surprised when the driver told me that I had not only given the landline number of my house but also told them my address and a detailed direction to reach my house. Perhaps, I would have shared my secret fantasies had he asked me. Maybe they can use this technique to extract truth from convicts. The point is, I was conscious enough to let them get my parents to the hospital.
My mother had her point of view to share. The moment she heard the vehicle start that morning, she feared something would go wrong. Even when my father rides (never tops 30, unlike me), whenever my mother is on the pillion she would scream at every lorry that comes everywhere, not just in her way. But she had got used to it with time. After sometime, at about 6.15 AM, the phone had rung. A phone call at such early hours of the day normally meant someone somewhere died, according to my family at least. My mother wanted to pick the call and so she got up. My grandmother had picked the call before that and was trying to hear what the caller had to say. I wonder why my grandmother would be interested in answering phone calls, even though everyone including her sure as hell knows that she cannot hear anything unless it was spoken at the top of one’s voice. Successful only in vaguely figuring out that it was something about Balajee, she handed the receiver to my mother who was waiting behind her having lost the race to pick the phone first. The caller had spoken in a calm manner, in a weird way though, stating that her son had fallen down from the vehicle. Nothing was serious, no head injury, no blood wasted. For someone who would normally go berserk at such news, she was surprisingly calm that day. She had taken in all the details that the caller had said and hung the phone. Meanwhile, my father and sister had come out of the room and looked inquisitively. My mother explained them what she heard and asked them to go to the hospital, so she could join them soon after that. My father and sister quickly changed clothes and got ready to leave. My dad took all the credit cards and debit cards he had, even those which did not have money on them. His first remark when he left home was that it was a month end (something to do with the financial crunch). My mother brushed her teeth and started a few minutes after they left. My sister apparently started weeping once she reached the highway, on seeing the pool of blood. They did not dare to imagine what would have happened to me given the conditions of the battered moped and the car that was standing on the other side almost rammed into the tree. The nurses had not allowed my father and sister to see me when they reached the hospital. But just when my mother joined them at the ward, a nurse had summoned her in saying, “the boy wants to see his mother”. A sinister dialogue that is normally associated with an untoward end as preached by cinemas for long, no wonder my mother’s heart sank. She went in preparing herself for the worst. She heard me saying “Oh my hair!” When she came inside, I beamed at her and said “Hi”.
I was still excited about my first close encounter with death. I was even more excited that I was unable to remember anything beyond the last speed breaker that I had crossed. Seeing everyone’s face relieved, I enjoyed the comfort they were providing. It was extra-care, extra- affection. My mother asked me if it hurts and my father assured me (himself) that my insurance will help us meet the expenses and there was nothing for me (him) to worry. My sister seemed to have recovered from the shock, although, only partly. We had to go to Gandhipuram, about 10km away for a CT scan. The car driver was there all along, and he even took us in his car to that scanning centre. On the way I felt nauseated and I begged the driver to stop the car. For some reason he ignored it. Sitting between my parents, lying on my mother’s lap, I was ready to puke inside the car when finally the driver found a place to vomit and stopped the car. As the door was opened I couldn’t resist any longer, and I let the contents of my stomach part inside and part outside the car. Apparently, the driver had expected me to throw up inside the ditch, in front of which he had promptly brought the car to a halt. But I never got to reach the said sink. I had discharged the two eggs I ate that morning. The yucky smell and sight of the yolk made me want to puke more. But there was nothing left anymore.
I washed my face with the water left in the car and we went to the scanning centre. It took about an hour to get the scan results. The brain was there, fit and firm, functioning properly. There were no internal damages and I was fine. The car driver was completely relieved and so he developed the guts to slowly hint that the fault was mine, but not in a particularly accusatory tone. We all returned in the same car to NRP hospital. The car driver fled immediately without even notifying anyone, fearing he would be demanded money. The news meanwhile had got out, and people from my surroundings, who I barely knew, came to visit me with lots of oranges and Horlicks bottles. We rarely bought any of these at home, so I appreciated their gesture. In the afternoon, my college friends came to visit me. The guys also thought that the accident was a serious one. They were surprised, perhaps disappointed just like me, when I explained how the accident was serious but not the injuries. I narrated the story of the accident to all the visitors, with due disregard to the seriousness of the matter, that they regretted for taking the pains to visit me.
Thanks to the higher powers that saved me from a close call, I was still alive. I had to remain in the hospital for the next four days, even though I assured the doctor that I was fine. I was recommended a second scan to be done after a year just to ensure everything remained fine. It was 5 days later (August 4) that I logged into orkut to publicize my near death experience! I did not have a camera phone then, or else I would have most certainly taken lot of pictures of the beautiful hospital, nice nurses and my bald spot around the suture on the head and posted it. Unfortunately, I only had my Nokia 2300, which I would later lose in another funny incident of my life.
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