I haven’t written for a while now, nothing too interesting
has been happening I kept telling myself, maybe there was a part of me hoping
that something would come up, but as of this morning I was a content kid on
vacation, back home, utterly and pleasantly jobless, spending quality time with
my family, putting on lost weight and making up for lost sleep, and then, it happened.
Normal , pleasant morning it was, woke up feeling cold, a
customary coffee, followed by seeing my brother off to college and a sumptuous breakfast (3 masala dosas ). The plans were made , ill spare you the
astrological details, it’s an auspicious day to visit a subramanya swamy temple
(To those of you who aren’t familiar with the name , he is the elder brother of
ganesh(our elephant-headed god who is pretty famous)).
We reach the temple around half past eleven and are promptly
told by a flower-vendor that the temple doors were closed 5 minutes ago, his
neighbouring competitor(or wife, I’m not sure) another vendor tells us to
follow an elderly looking man clad in a white dhoti, and follow him we do, for
mom was determined to take me to that temple today, and voila, there is another
entrance, we go inside, partake teertha (holy water) after the mangala-aarti ,
finish the darshana and head out.
Being the bangaloreans we are, the first thing dad and I do
is scout around for something to eat, and turns out that we were in the
vicinity of one of the oldest bakeries in Bangalore called the V B Bakery, we
finish packing a week’s supply of cookies, buns and cakes, and leave to return
to the car, Then, it happened .
Now I’ve read a lot of accounts, heard a lot of stories,
seen my share of movie scenes depicting Near Death Experiences, but let me tell
you this, Nothing can prepare you for it, nothing can ever describe that
feeling, I don’t know if what I experienced was near death per se , No, I did
not see a great white light, all I saw was the bumbling fool of a rider who
sped towards me like a drunken monkey while I was crossing the road with my dad.
I know I’m not goal-keeper material (to me they are as
fearless as people get), I’m just an
average joe(pun intended) when it comes to the courage department, but when I saw
that moron speeding /spiralling towards me, I was actually calm, I mean I dodged
the fucker with the reflexes of a seeker (viktor krum ishtyle), which is why I lived
to write this, but it was a feeling like I’ve never had before.
There are so many facets of this experience that make me
feel blessed, I mean, we all read books and watch movies that speak of
unconditional parental love, but in that frantic moment right after the
incident, I could see in my dad’s worried eyes that all he cared about was if I
was ok, he cared not if he was hurt anywhere, he did not even observe the
speeding idiot lying on the pavement.(eventually we picked him up and gave him
water and checked to see if he had a concussion ), in the moments after the
incident, my state would best be described by how James Bond likes his martini –
I was shaken and I did not stir from the place.
I felt no pain whatsoever and dad wasn’t hurt either, so the
mystery still remained, how did the blundering fool fall?, because hit
something he did, the answer to that question was discovered in quite an embarrassing
manner, we were on the way out of E-zone (an electronics mega-store of sorts) and my mom pointed out that the back side of
my shirt was ripped !.. the part below the hip (yes, I do not tuck my shirt),
and my jeans were ripped too, left butt-cheek region. Some part of his bike
must have gotten stuck in clothes or just brushed along resulting in loss of
control.
To say I’m a changed man and that this gave me a new
perspective towards life would be overstating it, I already knew that my
parents love me more than life itself and that I’m a scaredy-cat whose love for
self-preservation borders on a hybrid of narcissistic and psychopathic , but
faith is something that needs constant updating or reinstating, and that’s what
happened today, faith in prayer, faith in a higher power, faith in love and
above all , the faith that I’m destined for so much more and that god will take
care of any hurdles I may encounter.
