Faith and Death are Neighbors !

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.