Almost Hell-met

12/07/2007. I had just returned from an awesome day at work. I threw myself on my sofa thanking my Yamaha Libero for forgiving the 6'O clock Friday evening Hyderabad traffic. I was sharing my day's experiences with my mother and sister when my friend Vamsi called me on the landline. It was about 6.45 PM then.

Vamsi, a tall, dark guy is better known as IAS (Invisible After Six) in our group. He worked in his brother's firm about a mile and a half away from my home. He was leaving for The United States in about a weeks time and wanted me to accompany him for his much awaited "USA shopping". I took a quick shower and took leave from my mother and sister. My mother warned me about reckless drivers from our second floor apartment window. I smiled back at her and zoomed out. I parked my Libero beside Vamsi's Splendor in his company's cellar. A generally passive Vamsi seemed very active that night. We planned our shopping spree in a small roadside Irani cafe' and started off on his splendor. Our money spent per unit time gradient on that night was the largest of our lives. We were done shopping by 11.30 PM. We spent Vamsi's left over cash on gas, aaloo chat and pani puri. I decided to stay at Vamsi's place that night when he told me that his mother had made spicy Andhra chicken curry.

Vamsi's house was located on the city outskirts, fifteen miles away in a serene military area. Riding with Vamsi made that route more enjoyable. We reached his place at around 12.45 AM. And as they always did, his family greeted me warmly. We hogged on the chicken curry, omelet and rice made by his mother. We  then decided to meet a friend Naveen aka ringu who stays two miles away from his place. I took over  the charge of his bike. Vamsi warned me about the worn out brakes but did I care?

Naveen, Vamsi and I rode triple-seat to a Chinese food cart and feasted on hot manchurian and egg noodles. I dropped Naveen back to his house safely only after having scared him with my wheelie trick three times on the way back. Vamsi was not scared. He had seen me do that enough number of times not to be scared. The road back to Vamsi's place seemed really boring after a fun-filled evening. I removed my helmet and balanced it on the gas tank between my laps. I took my hands off the handle and started playing tabla on my helmet. I was loving the cool breeze graze on my face. Vamsi got a bad feeling and asked me to put the helmet back on. I was reluctant but he insisted. I listened to him.

60Kmph..65Kmph...70Kmph.. The splendor was cruising on the A.S.Raonagar highway when suddenly a young kid riding a 220cc black Bajaj Pulsar entered my vision from the left side of nowhere. He was taking a left turn from a narrow bylane. Unable to control his speed, he took a larger radius of curvature. He got too close for comfort but I had already committed to my speed and the brakes were lousy. The pulsar drifted closer towards me and I had to drift closer to the concrete divider on my right side.  I was only about two feet away from the divider. I had to take a decision. Three lives were at stake. I had to either ram into the stationary divider sideways or dash against the pulsar at almost zero relative speed. Option two seemed to have a greater chance for our survival.

I prayed to God to freeze any heavy vehicles following us, pulled the brake lever with all my strength and Bang!!!

The sight of Vamsi flying over my head and rolling on the road for about 20 feet was really frightening. In the first millisecond, I prayed that he should be able to take that flight to America. In the second millisecond, I saw the Pulsar sliding on the road, sparking away from me. I hoped the kid was not under it. In the next millisecond, a virtual video of my whole life flashed across my mind at super fast speed. I felt I had already died.

I did not feel the next few minutes pass by until Vamsi helped me sit on the divider. I was very glad to see him. Because it proved that both of us were alive. Sitting on the divider with my helmet still on, I saw the disfigured splendor and the stunned faces of the tens of onlookers. Two of them handed me a napkin. I was bleeding inside my helmet. The adrenalin prevented me from knowing the exact bleeding zone as I could feel no pain. Vamsi helped me unstrap my helmet and I tried feeling any open wound on my skull but could not feel blood anywhere. Vamsi pointed at my left cheek. The helmet had compressed and pulled my skin so strong that it tore my cheek while sliding on the road.  We somehow stopped the bleeding. But problems were still far from being solved. The kid, who was later found to be only thirteen years old was making scary noises. I had never heard scarier noises until then and I hope I will never ever hear those voices again. Most of the onlookers just stood there standing and staring at me as if I were a murderer.

The police arrived soon and that was the worst thing that could happen at that time. The cops removed the accident vehicles to the side of the road. A cop carefully carried the kid into his jeep and then grabbed me by my left wrist and pulled me into his jeep. It was the most excruciating physical pain of my life. Vamsi accompanied me voluntarily. They took us to Poulomi hospital, which was infamous for accidental deaths.I really did not want to go there.

The next half an hour is still missing from my life. I do not remember anything that happened to me until I found myself sitting on a chair in front of the kid's bed. My cut was cleaned and dressed up. I pulled out my phone and took my pictures even in that state of trance. The hospital room broke out into laughter seeing me do that. But I had to capture those moments as if I knew I was going to use them in this post.

A tall, well-built guy barged into the room. He claimed to be the owner of a cellphone showroom where the kid worked as a cleaner. He collaborated with the doctor and I had to pay them 1000 Rs. to stop troubling me. I was physically and mentally in no position to argue. Then police smelled meat too. They started asking us for money and warning us of dire consequences if we did not comply with their demands. We got really angry, made a few phone calls to our "political contacts" and got them out of picture. Things then settled down and we both found space to breathe. We walked out of the hospital laughing at each other.

It was about 3.00 AM and time to go home. But we went to a children's park, sat on  a bench and tried to join the missing links together. During our conversation, I realized that my left canine tooth had chipped off  and  it suddenly started hurting. Our jeans were torn and Vamsi was bleeding in his left knee. But things were much better than I had feared.

We went back to his place to give his family the shock of their lifetime. Though it was majorly the kid's fault, I was guilty of riding too fast. But Vamsi decided to take the blame on himself as he did not want my impression on his family to be hampered. He faked that we skid on a sandy patch of road while he was riding the bike. After emotions calmed down, we finished the left over chicken and Vamsi dozed off as if nothing had happened. The pain in my left arm was getting unbearable. I spent the night sleeping on my right side.

Next day, Vamsi dropped me back to my bike. I painfully rode back home. The expressions of my mother on seeing me are unforgettable. She hugged me tight and did not ask me questions. I could not feel any pain while I was being embraced. She just mentioned that I did a mistake of not calling her as soon as I met with the accident. But I knew that would have been bad for her.

The next six days saw me going to doctors and dentists to fix my body. I was too stubborn to get an X-ray done on my left arm. I thought it was a minor muscle tear. But when the requests from my mother turned into anger, I got an X-ray done on my left arm and even the doctors were amazed to know that I was living with a completely broken left collar bone since the accident.

After a few days I learned that the kid was discharged with minor injuries to his left heel and elbow as soon as we left the hospital. I request the readers to not let your kids and any other kids you know to ride on the road unsupervised.

I myself learned a lesson too. If I had not payed attention to Vamsi's request to wear the helmet, I may not have been in a position to post this. So guys, please wear your helmet. They are not just fashion accessories.

Please stay safe.

The Aftertaste of Failure

It is perfectly alright to fail. And it is perfectly alright to fail again. And again. The only impedance to moving ahead is blocking yourselves from accepting failures. Failures need not always be stepping stones to success. They can sometimes teach mightier lessons. They can teach us giving up. Quitting at the right moment is a sign of wisdom. It saves time, energy and even money. This pessimistic approach requires to be adopted at times when there is a high risk of escalating our commitment to irrationality. I hope the readers take the right sense from the preceding sentence. I do not want to sound discouraging. One can go through with ones plan if there are attainable missing links that can pull success within striking distance.

Unqualified thoughts and misdirected efforts are simply not worth us. Mental peace and physical strength may be compromised in an effort to make up for the lost ground. And after all, discovering new lands is far more satisfying and adventurous than dividing and ruling. Society feeds us ample fodder to sustain major blows even though they may leave dents sometime. Cashing in on new opportunities and letting a few of them overtake is the best way to drive safely.

There is a solid line between beginning to fail and ending up a failure. Most of us are blind to see it. Failure is like cancer. You got to remove it before it spreads and destroys the whole system. We may argue that some cancers are benign and hence do not need to be removed. Yes, and likewise we have to live with a few of our mistakes. But the day they start firming their grip on our mind, amputation is the only choice left. Trying to cope with it only inflates our balloon of pseudo-confidence. And once it bursts, repent-able consequences follow.

Wars within us have to be relaxed as we will ultimately end up on the losing side. Minor skirmishes in our body lead to a lag between our thoughts and action. Once Integrated, its difficult for others to match our graceful synchronous performance. Failures generally lead to disappointment when we match our dreams to facts. Its human to dream, its human to fall. But we have to be smart enough to stand up and redirect ourselves to a different path if we fall again. Our dream always awaits our arrival.

The sour past will turn sweet once our dreams are realized. The sweat that we burnt and the tears that we lost along the path to success will find their worth. The aftertaste of failure though bitter will make success taste sweeter once attained.

An Euphemism Called Life

Everybody experiences trigonometry in their lives. Some lucky people experience the tan curve while some hardworking people experience the sine. The problem with most of the people lies in them failing to understand that life is a beautiful self-balancing machine. If matter and anti-matter did not exist the phenomenon called existence would not have ever existed. Happiness and sorrow, love and hatred, beauty and ugliness, richness and poverty are all relative terms. The measuring stick that one uses differs with every person. Every mother is confident that her kids are the best. But ask a childless mother and she will find every kid on the street to be the best.

We pick up age as we travel towards the graveyard. This journey can be made interesting by adding value to others lives sometimes at our own expense. An abstract energy cloud keeps building around us that rains sweet fruits or acid as you reach crucial milestones depending on the type of foot marks that you leave on others' lives. I strongly believe in the Law of Conservation of Energy. This law, though very empirical, makes huge sense. This leads me to confess that I do not believe in rebirth. We have to get all accounts settled before we reach our destination or our journey continues. 

We meet people, try to check for mental resonance, and decide our stance on them depending on the amplitude of the resultant frequency. One person connects to you so well that you do not feel like walking alone any further. It would not be a mistake to take a detour at that point but only if you feel the resultant wavefront is permanent. Its a tough situation when you take a detour expecting to halt at a beautiful garden but end up in no mans land. Several people freeze at this juncture. At this point, finding the hidden route to either your original track or the calculated adopted course is very important though it is emotionally draining and mentally disturbing. Calm down, relax, think, recalculate. Once you decide to retake one of the two paths, there is no turning back. Its not in my rights to comment which path is better as everybody has been gifted with their pound of gray matter, though in different shades.

This world is a minefield. Beautiful with orchids on the surface and brutal at its roots. The irony is that we lay these mines ourselves and forget where we placed them. Everybody succumbs to one of the seven sins at least once in their lifetime. Even Mahatma Gandhi was not left untouched by them. But he had a self retracting conscious that most of us sadly lack today. We need to be strong enough to catch that one missile of chance that life keeps throwing at us. And it is not easy getting that strength. But if Mahatma Gandhi could do it, why not we? Think.. Think.. 

Life is not as serious as I made it sound. Its pretty easy to make friends with. Its very approachable, loves to be petted but its nervous that you might hurt it if you are not in your senses. Life is a friend to everybody. Befriend it and it will help you. Think about fighting against it, you will surely lose. Treat life as you treat your family. Help it when it needs you the most and it will squeeze itself till your  last drop of emotion is let out. It does not want you to hide your feelings. 

So express yourselves.