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This incident happened some seven years ago. It was a beautiful summer evening. With my 8 year old younger son on the back of my old Vespa T-5 scooter as a pillon rider, I was waiting at the busy intersection nearby my house looking for the opportune moment to cross. The peak hour traffic was not showing any signs of letting up, and we were patiently waiting for someone to stop voluntarily to enable us to cross the road. Finally, among the many vehicles racing towards us, an old gentleman slowed down his car and stopped it at the zebra line crossing to let us pass. No sooner had I turned my scooter towards right, I saw in my far peripheral vision an auto rickshaw hurtling towards the car at an incredibly high speed. Suddenly I heard the sound of tires squealing against the pavement and then that enormous crashing sound of metal hitting metal. The impact was so severe that it threw the auto rickshaw into a spin, flipping through the air straight down towards us. I felt a heavy force hitting our scooter and both of us fell down on the road. I immediately stood up and lifted my son out from the busy traffic and asked if he's okay. I found, he was not having any external injuries. Then, after a while I noticed a sharp pain growing across my ribs. I took a few deep breaths and I felt as if I'd been kicked in the ribs and the pain was growing stronger and stronger. I ventured to walk but the sharp pain stopped me in my tracks. Right in the middle of that road, for a moment, I felt terribly confused and numb. Standing there in total subjugation amidst shattered glass and twisted metal, unsure of whether I’ll live or die the next moment, I saw a large number of people, total strangers, came running towards me from all directions. Yes, they were all normal human beings, who didn't even know me, my name, my caste, my religion, that came running, to help me, surrounding me, asking me in soft voice, if I’m okay. While being helped by an unknown person to trudge cautiously toward a nearby foot path, I heard somebody giving directions to the 108 ambulance in a growing voice. Another Good Samaritan while bringing me some water asked if he could get the number of my dear ones to inform them about the accident. A police patrolling team that reached the spot in a flash decided to shift me right away to the nearby trauma centre in their own vehicle once they found the 108 ambulance would take too much time to arrive.
Lying there in the trauma centre emergency care room, I’ve then for the first time, remembered the supernatural powers of the almighty God and resorted to thinking how lucky I ‘am to escape such a terrible accident. When the doctors, after going through the diagnosis results and images of my sonogram, assured me that I have no internal injuries but just a few bruises and muscle contusions here and there, I felt relieved. My son was later thoroughly examined by a team of doctors and found him to be perfectly alright. He was immediately discharged from the hospital. But, the doctors decided to put me under observation for 24 hours in their surgical observation ward. That night, in the company of a few ill fated, not so lucky ones inside the trauma care observation ward, I’ve got a few valuable insights on how fragile and vulnerable is our life.
I thought, we, the human beings are nothing but a perishable hump of mass and all the wealth we are accumulating in our life and the so called powers we are enjoying have no relevance at all.
I thought, it's not your latest android phone you often use to promote your stupendous business deals that will matter the most when it comes to settle an all important deal with your life, but some old, obsolete cell phone of an unknown road vender who would call the ambulance to save your life. When you desperately gasp for breath, the hands that would lift your blood soaked body into the ambulance may not be that of your all-powerful friend in US, but those of an impoverished, illiterate street hawker.
It’s neither the luxurious seats of your BMW-M3 nor its high speed M engine that would matter on that most important journey of your life but those cramped seats of a police jeep and that scruffy hospital stretcher that will roll you into the operation theatre.
Suddenly you will find, people who you have never met before, who are not in your Facebook account, not having their numbers in your cell phones are the ones who would matter in an all important situation in your life. And that is exactly what the god demands from you by keeping you alive after such a terrible accident.
Let me say it as simply as I can. Accidents are like punctuation marks in one’s lifespan. Sometimes an ambiguous coma, sometimes a surprise exclamation mark, a semicolon and yes of course sometimes that fatal fullstop.
That makes us aware of how fragile and vulnerable is our life. When you are in that strange feeling to be unsure of whether you will live or die the next moment, you will then realise that each day of yours is a gift, a charity from an extra natural power. Doesn’t matter how talented and influential you are, at the end of the day, all that counts is how happy and optimistic do you live in this beautiful world.
I couldn’t be more thankful for those unknown friends. Thank you so much guys……
With this note I wish you all a very Happy and Humane New Year......😊😊
Ajan
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