Die Another Day !

It’s been a while I wrote anything on the blog and I was feeling the literary ‘pinch’ for not taking up the mighty pen, err mighty keys (on the keyboard you silly) for a while. It also dawned upon me that my writing has been noticed and appreciated by a few good souls from highly unexpected quarters which gave me enough thrust to take up the mighty pen and resume my blog journey. Also I thought it would be a good omen to start the new year with a blog, which might provide me with enough life fuel in the form of creative catharsis which everyone of us so much long and crave for. This time around I thought of a subject which has been lingering around in my intellectual landscape for quite a while and it’s about a few life experiences which can be categorized as ‘once in a lifetime’ episodes and had me on the edge of life literally. Even though they are hair raising experiences which I went through involuntarily, I found it fun to recall and write them down. I said ‘fun to write them down’ as I have increasingly found it difficult to pen my writings on things which are presumably grave in nature – like politics, philosophy etc. May be I will take some more maturing up to develop a taste for them in writing them down. On second thoughts, I do have a taste for them but somehow haven’t found them palatable enough to be jotted down in ink (err in keystrokes). But for now, back to what I wanted to write about – a few unique life experiences which happened to me over the last 30 years or so (keep guessing my age) and have left an indelible mark on my psyche – some of them were life threatening – some of them were pure fun – some of them are just mentioned here with no particular purpose. Of course there are a few experiences which can be categorized as ‘heavenly or celestial’ which I can’t describe verbatim here for obvious reasons, so I will keep them for my ‘underworld’ writing (yes, I do have one and subscription to it is by invitation only!!). For the rest of the world, here I go –

1. This one would top the list – it was a near death experience and I escaped it with pure luck on that fateful day. But first a quick flashback of those days - I was in my college days during those times, supposedly pursuing a 4 year course in electrical engineering (don’t ask me what’s that) in a reputed institute recently christened as VNIT in my current hometown Nagpur (you don’t realize a city is your hometown until you have moved out of it ). But the hometown during those days used to be an obscure place called ‘O F Chanda’, a 3 hours drive from Nagpur. Let’s just say that it’s a small village with all the amenities provided by the government of India for the people living there to survive and serve the government, for a good reason though– they run highly confidential defense related projects out there and hence need to maintain the privacy of the place, a place which will always remain close to my heart as I spent my extremely uneventful childhood days (I meant uneventful, it’s not a typo) there with a few dangerous events which you will encounter in this post. So to cut long story short, I was studying in Nagpur, staying in college hostel with my hometown being around 3 hours away – this used to entail frequent travels between the 2 places and the only sane mode of transport during those days used to be the bus services provided by either government owned dilapidated buses or private company owned supposedly luxury buses plying recklessly on the state highways. I said recklessly because they were a really reckless lot and you would discover soon why I am emphasizing on this point. During one such travel to my hometown when I guess I was on a long weekend break from my college routine, I happened to take a private ‘luxury’ bus as I thought it would be a pleasure drive back home. Escaping to my hometown was a ritual I used to indulge in so as to take a break from college grind (literally), The most obvious cause for these escapes was not the ‘tough studies’ as you might want to believe here but the ‘home food’ which I used to miss the most. Hostel food is meant to keep you alive on minimum need basis – that’s how I can best define that food. Home food is what makes you believe in the good things the life has to offer if I am allowed to put it that way. So there I was – on an August rainy day heading back home in a luxury bus with a small suitcase accompanying me in the journey. The rains was not very heavy that day, it was just about enough to make the roads go wet. I took a window seat, parked my derriere on its cushion seat and stretched my legs to let them know that they can relax for next 3 hours with not much to do. The luxury bus I took had a TV/Video installed in it wherein they typically played a boring movie to ensure you have a sound sleep. But I guess I somehow managed to keep my eyes open as the movie had Aishwarya starring in it and in those days, she was nothings less than a goddess to me and possibly to every guy alive on the planet. Aishwarya defined and defied the fantasy of an entire generation when she first appeared in a Pepsi ad with Amir Khan as a sexy babe named Sanjana. Almost everyone wanted to know who that babe was. I will have to deliberately stop myself here as else this blog post will completely deviate from its intended theme. So as I was watching the movie ogling at Sanjana (Aishwarya I mean, though Sanjana suits her better) and as the passengers of the bus were half sleeping, I heard some kind of commotion in the driver area of the bus. The driver was grappling with the steering wheel in a more than usual manner and was trying to say a few things which I couldn’t hear from my seat distance. I didn’t pay much attention as I was too preoccupied with my lovely Sanjana! I adjusted my spectacles a little bit as it seemed to me that I was not able to keep my eyes transfixed on the beauty. But when I still couldn’t see her lovely face on the TV set, I somehow realized the bus was trembling like an aeroplane in a deep mid air turbulence. And before I could realize anything, my nose hit the back of the next row of seats with an intensity which could not be felt at that split second – though I did realize I was not watching the lovely Sanjana anymore. Before I could gather myself from my nose hit, all of my 5 senses informed me that I am not sitting in straight position on my well cushioned seat – and when I dared looked up towards the driver area again with its windows providing outside view, I couldn’t believe what I saw - the bus was skidding at an angle of 45 degrees to the road at a break neck speed of 80kmph – as I tried to put pieces together (all in those split seconds), I realized that the bus was hit head on by a speeding truck from opposite direction and that the bus had lost control due to the impact (which was most felt by my asymmetric nose) thereby skidding on the drenched road at an angle. I would pause at this moment and share my feelings with some finer details – when an accident happens, I was told that usually the victims don’t realize what has gone wrong and may or may not survive the misfortune depending on the nature of the accident. I must say this theory is not completely true – at that very moment, every nerve of my body told me - it’s certain death for you my dear but still just hang on to whatever you can! Darwin was quite true when he said no matter which creature we are talking about, the struggle to survive in a hostile situation appears to acquire almost the nature of an instinct and I think I practically witnessed this theory in this particular incident. It would be an understatement if I say I saw death staring into my eyes. In about 4 to 5 seconds (each second seemed a million years), the bus overturned and fell flat on one of its lateral window sides (the side where I was sitting with my window now touching the ground). The other window side of the bus was now right above me facing the sky. I touched myself mentally to check if I was still alive and as I was about to declare that I was alive, a few suitcases started falling on me hitting me left and right. These suitcases were kept on the side racks and fell on me as those racks were right above me in my new acquired upside down position. As I survived the ‘suitcase’ fall, I looked around to recheck if this is still the human world or am I already transported to a ‘different’ world. Much to my surprise, I saw people around me moaning and groaning and seemed to be earthlings thereby confirming that I was still alive. I realized my specs had disappeared, my suitcase was fortunately lying at an arm’s length in a twisted manner and my nose felt painful now as I took a stock of rest of the anatomical parts of my body. I could move my hands, legs, so far so good. I touched my nose and found blood on my fingers – this frightened me a bit but the fact that I could start pulling myself out of the rubble made me feel better. Surprisingly I had enough strength to pick up my suitcase, stand up on the nearby support structure (bent seats and mangled cushions) and started climbing towards the other end of the window side (which were human size wide). I was one of the first set of passengers who could successfully come out of the bus enclosure via the wide windows completely. I took a stock of myself once again, looked around and helped myself onto the surface ground making me feel relieved somehow. There were a few vehicles which had already stopped by to help the situation (most of the onlookers are just onlookers, a very few really come forward to help). I also saw the mangled remains of the truck which also had got overturned completely at about 75 meters of distance. I saw a state transport bus standing at the far end of the road. Without wasting time, I started heading for it in the hope of getting a ride to the nearby bus station. The bus conductor looked at my bloody nose, somehow reluctantly opened the door upon my requesting him and sped the bus fast so as to not attract more passengers from the ill feted bus. I reached my home town in another 2 hours time, was still in the state of shock, petrified at a subconscious level and upon reaching home broke down with tears fast rolling down my cheeks without any particular reason (I mean I was already out of danger, maybe it was my brains late reaction to being saved from near death experience). The next day local newspaper carried the accident news confirming the death of the truck driver with the bus driver being in critical condition. Luckily my bloody nose didn’t have any internal damages with the doctor declaring that I can ride on any bus anytime again! Though I had to order for a new set of specs but I guess that was too less a cost for the catastrophe considering what I might have ended up paying. It was an experience which still gives me shivers down my spine when I think about the split seconds which followed immediately after the bus-truck collision.
2. The second on the list is another ‘biting’ experience which I would never be able to forget – I was bitten by a scorpion! To go into details, I will pick up the thread of my life when I was in 7th or 8th standard and was hardly into early teens. I grew up in a place which for all practical purposes can be referred as a jungle dwelling. The place is completely enveloped by a tiger sanctuary named ‘Tadoba’ and houses lots of animals – primarily tigers and lions. The proximity of such a dense forest area means all kinds wild creatures ranging from a rare lizard to non-carnivorous lions used to loiter the area. Spotting a lion or a tiger by the locals was quite common with people taking such sightings in their stride. Speaking about small creatures, snakes/scorpions/various worms etc were extremely common place. In those days about 2 times my mom nearly got bitten by an 8 inches long charcoal black scorpion which was eventually killed with a Kolhapuri chappal by my dad. But the term ‘nearly bitten’ exhausted its expiry date when on a summer evening I was whiling away my time with my local gang members. The summer was already pervaded by pre monsoon showers and that had made all the ground hole creatures come out of their hibernation. This is such time of the season when the snakes/frogs/small insects’ sightings used to go up dramatically. As I was taking a stroll with a couple of my gangster friends on slightly wet roads due to the recent drizzle, I felt a sudden surge of sharp pain near the side area of my right leg toe. For a moment I thought I was attacked by a dozen ants all of them biting me up at one point. I stopped and looked at my feet – the pain had within seconds become unbearable – as the pain showed up on my face, one of my friends looked around and saw a baby sized scorpion running away towards the nearby bushes. As he screamed out his discovery, I realized I was attacked by a baby scorpion, though there was nothing babylike in its biting intensity. The pain was equivalent to a thousand ants biting you at the same time at the same spot on your body. I writhed in pain; someone had the common sense to tie up a piece of cloth tightly around my ankle area so as to prevent the venom spreading into the rest of my body. I was rushed to a nearby clinic, wherein they gave me local anesthesia to relieve my pain. And yes they did assure me that I wouldn’t die of the bite! That night was I guess the longest in my life so far with pain only shooting up in its intensity having no mercy whatsoever. That area on my leg remained tender and sensitive to any touches for many years thereafter. I sometimes thank my stars that if the attack was from its mother instead of the baby scorpion!!
3. Everyone is scared of air travel deep down their sub conscious no matter how hard they may try to claim otherwise. I am no exception. But my air fear shoots up sky high only twice in any flight – take off and landing. This fear of mine reached its pinnacle during one such experience which I shall share here. It was my second trip to the USA and the year was 2002 – yeah, in those days it used to be everyone’s dream destination. Though it still remains a sought after place to visit, but I wouldn’t regard it as the dream destination anymore. But more on it later. This second visit of mine was due to my official deputation on long term basis while working for an MNC assignment. Travel to the US is almost like preparing to land on the moon - you get trained, get counseled, get hugged by the family as if you are leaving for some battlefield and last but not the least – you have to be air borne for about 24 hours which is the same time it takes for a rockets to reach the moon! The flight to the US from Mumbai used to have typically 1 halt - either in Heathrow (London) or Charles De Gaulle (Paris) airport. These halts were more of nuisance as one has to disembark completely, then you are stuffed in a small visitor area along with 200 other sleepy souls (read passengers) with no food stalls around and then go through the stringent security measures all over again – all in a span of about 1 and a half hour. I hated this routine more than the fear I had for flying. On this particular visit, the flight was to land on Heathrow airport after a long 7 hours flight. I already had 3 rounds of broken sleep (and 2 rounds of vodka!!) and my entire body had gone stiff or rather petrified literally by sitting in 1 position for long hours. As my personal TV screen showed that we were about 45 minutes away from landing at the airport, I thought I will listen to some oldies to calm down my nerves. As I switched over to the radio channel and adjusted the ear phones, I closed my eyes and started enjoying the Kishore Kumar duet which I was listening after a long time. The golden age 60s/70s songs still evoke a different mix of feelings – for people of that generation, it brings back the memories of their youthful days and for connoisseurs of my generation, it brings back the sweet memories of childhood days when one used to hear only these songs on the All India radio or the then recently launched Doordarshan (Chitrahaar if you can recall). As I was serenaded by this particular Kishore number, I almost fell asleep. After about 15 minutes, my personal TV screen had gone blank and there was complete whiteout when I looked outside the window. Since I knew mentally the plane was very close to landing, I presumed I would start getting glimpses of the London city but I could not see anything except the white clouds which made me believe that the plane is still air borne and has a long time to near the landing site. With this thought, I closed my eye lids with the golden melodies still flowing into my mind. Just at this moment, I felt some kind of turbulence which soon turned into something similar to experiencing an earth quake inside the aeroplane. I almost had my worst fears come true I thought to myself. Before I could realize, the entire plane was shaking vigorously and it felt as if it was skidding at a high speed. I almost felt how much I love my dear life. It’s funny you realize how much you love yourself only when there is a hostile situation imposed upon you. For a few seconds, I couldn’t make out if I am going to die or not as outside my window it was still complete clouds thereby making me completely go crazy as to what was wrong with the aircraft. However just about a few seconds into this turmoil, I saw buildings on the ground – but more importantly I realized the plane is already on the ground. It later transpired that there was 100% fog on the ground which had made the visibility on the ground to a near zero. When I thought the plane was still air borne, it had already touched the ground at a high landing speed. I tried to control my ‘out of control’ heart beats, I told myself ‘All is well’ and looked around to hide my nervous expressions from my co-passengers, though it seemed many of them had felt the same way as me and everyone was wide awake on his/her seat. The rest of my flight was very smooth, but for those few fractions of seconds, I thought I had nearly witnessed an airplane accident with me inside it!!
4. A few other not so perilous encounters I can recall here -
   a. While learning driving in the US, I had started picking up the subtleties and niceties of driving in this ‘reverse gear’ land - as well known to most of us, everything here is done is a reverse manner – you drive/walk on the right, the switches operate in reverse way – you pull down the switch to shut off the light and so on. The biggest hurdle an Indian learner driver encounters is the reverse driving direction. I mean how you expect to unlearn lifelong habit of driving/walking on the left. As someone said something very interesting in this context – if you are an Indian and toggle between the US and India, you need to be a good ‘un-learner’. What you do here in India needs to be unlearned and vice versa. So as I was picking up the nuances of driving in the US, I kept on reminding myself that I need to drive from the right direction. However during a sharp right turn I was to take on a busy intersection during my initial driving days, my deep rooted subconscious mind instructed me to go onto the left side – my conscious mind obliged (subconscious mind has sometimes a larger say over conscious mind though subconsciously!) and there I was – right in the middle of left side of the street with about a dozen cars coming onto me literally. Sensing what criminal mistake I had committed, my conscious mind immediately turned towards Darwin’s Survival instincts and swirled the car towards the right ‘right’ direction in a split second – I could hear almost 20 horns honking at me, some of the co-passengers even shouted back at me with the choicest American expletives (believe me they are as effective as the typical Punjabi expletives) by craning out their necks from the car windows. I felt relieved as I took back the control of my car but had my balls in my hands literally for those few seconds. It was a lesson I learnt which did me a great favor – I drove for 3 years in the US with not a single ticket till date issued against me. Now that’s what I would call – lesson well learnt!!
   b. I don’t want to describe in detail about this incident but I must confess that riding a horse during my marriage’s ‘Baraat’ procession was the most frightening experience of my life – It’s one thing to go through a near death experience but completely a different ball game altogether when you know you are in dire shit, holding onto a horse with both the hands hanging onto your dear life while at the same time keep a wide smile on your face to pretend ‘All is Well’! It also took away the excitement that I was to get married to the most beautiful gilr I had met ever in just a few hours – all I wanted at that time was to get down of the horse and save my dear life.
   c. The list would be incomplete if I don’t mention about the unforgettable (but would like to forget) time of going through the college ragging sessions during the first few months of my uneventful 4 years in an engineering college. The experience was bitter sweet as you go through the grind but at the same time established a rapport with your seniors which most of the time got converted into lifelong friendships. But I guess the physical quotient was little too high in the ragging experience I went through though certainly I had the benefit of indirect protection from an ‘all out’ ragging due to the presence of my elder bro in the final year of same college. I wish I could enjoy it better as I realize now those were the most wonderful days of my life.

I guess the above post is making me feel better in some way – or even take pride in myself for having sailed through some of the toughest times and survived them too. I would like to conclude this piece of writing with the following couplets which I guess may aptly apply (or I presume it applies) to the blog theme –
“Girte hain sheh sawar hi maidaane jang main
woh tifl kya girein jo ghutnon ke bal chalein”