20 minutes to go before I need to log in. Taken my keys, my gym bag, helmet, everything… ready to go to work. It normally takes about 15 minutes to reach max, and I didn’t want to be late… again.
Dusted my bike in a hurry, taking off a layer of dust that gets settled over night. It’s a dusty street, so maintaining that blackness on the body of the bike is a difficult task everyday.
Got on, wore my helmet, the jaw part “open” and I started the ignition. Roared the engine a couple of times… and then took off. At the end of the street another guy on a bike comes right at me… not moving to the side, and I speed up.
I’m male, I’m on a pulsar… and I have ego. I close my helmet shut and race towards this deluded stranger on the bike. He doesn’t budge from the way, and I won’t give in and budge either.
We come so close that one of us has to move. I can’t coz I’m in my lane and I have no where to turn, so I hit the brakes hard, while he turns at the last moment and zips past me.
There’s sand on the ground in front of the construction site where I braked… and I skid. Skid as though I was on ice. Fell hard on the ground and my bike fell over me… still skidding.
There was an iron holding on the side of the building, upon which they load the cement mixer… and my head went straight bang into it. I could see the edge of the side coming nearer and nearer and there was nothing I could do. I hoped my helmet saved me.
It did. And then there was silence. The skidding stopped, the stars around my head stopped… and my bike was lying on the ground whirring away with the gears going haywire.
There I was, lying on the ground, not knowing what happened in that fraction of a second, when I was on the bike, doing 35-40 kmph and then I was down flat, not knowing if I was alive, or dead.
They say eye sight is the last to go when you die, and I thought that was it for me. But I could then hear the voices in my head, thinking if I was alright… if I was in one piece… thinking… if I was alive.
I was… and it took me a good 5 minutes to realise that I was ok. I lay on the ground for 5 more minutes, just to recover from the momentum of happenings and slow things down.
People came rushing to me and picked my bike and put it on the side and they tried lifting me too, but I hesitated. I didn’t want any help to get up because this was a mistake I’d made and I must learn to get up and walk from my own accidents.
I managed to get to my feet and took off my helmet. I was sweating profusely. A lady brought me some water, but I didn’t feel like drinking. And over the pitter patter of their voices, them commenting on how fast I was going, and that I had a helmet, and me being young and carefree… I was glad I made it. I was glad I was able to get up on my feet, on my own.
I’ve never felt so alive ever in my life. This is the second major accident I’ve had on this bike, but this time, I escaped the inevitable. If it weren’t for my helmet, I’d perhaps not be here to write this. My helmet’s pretty badly bruised on the side and so is my bike. The gear pedal is twisted in the shape of a U but otherwise, there are only scratches everywhere.
I looked at myself top to bottom to see if there was any blood anywhere. Nothing. My hand was scratched though… right from the shoulder till a little above the wrist. It’s weird how that place got scratched. I was wearing my favourite t-shirt and I would have gone mad had there been a tear anywhere. But there wasn’t.
So I was pretty much ok with me being in one piece and my clothes a little soiled, but not torn. I made a call to my manager and told him I’d be a little late. Got on my bike and tried to get the gears untangled, but I couldn’t. My leg suddenly started to hurt real bad from the knee. And from then, I haven’t been able to lift my leg. So I just held the clutch and dragged the bike down the street back home to my building and shouted for Murtuza to come help me put the stand on, coz I couldn’t do that either. I was scared that I couldn’t feel anything but pain in my knee, and having experienced what it’s like to be without one leg, I didn’t want this to get serious. Life is just terrible. You can’t sit, and walk, and when you’re able to do one of them, you can’t do the other without going through a generous amount of pain. Of all the times I’ve hurt myself, my left knee was injured the most, and I didn’t want it to become numb and get it amputated. I kinda like my left leg.
Murtuza was in a state of shock, not surprising. And that look on his face, and his tone, and his anger cum worrying that gets through to his person from within… is something I felt so sorry for letting out. There’s nothing like seeing a loved one get hurt, especially your own brother. And more than my leg, it was the expression on his face that scared me. The effect that human emotion has… is far more powerful that any physical affliction in the world.
So I tried to calm him down until he was breathing normally and assured that I was in one piece. We went to the hospital and I got an X-Ray done for my leg. No fracture. Dammit.
But the pain never left. It became worse by the end of the day. So much so that any thoughts of going to the bathroom had to be curbed, because that would just be impossible to do. It takes me a lot of courage to stand after sitting, and even more to sit again, and I just can’t imagine trying that on an Indian toilet.
So limping about, I spent four days at home (yes, I did manage to go to the loo though) giving my leg enough rest and cursing myself for scratching my bike again. What a waste of days. Two of them were work days and the other two was the weekend.
I’ve never been more grateful to be alive. To see, and feel, and breathe, and talk, and hear, and move and think. Everyone I was ever close to in my life, their faces flashed up in front of me over these days and I thought to myself, that this is not the way to have gone. Accidents are man made and cannot be a cause of death because they hinder the true path of one’s destiny. Now an accident being in one’s destiny is something I don’t agree to, sue me, I don’t care. I don’t even know if I believe in destiny, but I believe that each of us has the capacity to live to the fullest… until our last aged breath unless “man” intervenes and spoils the show.
I’ve learned patience, of course, to forgive on the road and not to be hasty, or rash… or even carefree. I’ve learned to be careful for myself on the roads, coz if you don’t, you get hit either for caring too much, or caring too little.
I’ve learned courage. To stand up, even when it hurts the most. Only then I learned pain. And that to get a better view from the top, you have to endure pain and struggle.
I’ve learned sympathy, for others alike, who have been hurt, mentally and physically. Life just comes to a standstill when your mind and body aren’t one.
And finally, I’ve learned love… is what we all need. It heals wounds and aches visible, and otherwise, much faster than medicine.
Please drive safe, and always wear a helmet on a bike. It saved my life.
