'Those couple of minutes...'

I was eighteen, an age when every experiment however bizzare it may be, seems like a definite recipe for success. A tiny window of extreme X-factor days when life demands a booster dose of adrenaline rush from every passing second.

 I was all pumped up at the news of my semester vacations being extended by a week. So happy was I that it hardly took me a couple of minutes to literally jump off the moving Airavat Club class bus, Ofcourse, bumping into a couple of leisurely seated passengers with my huge backpack on the way, run towards my car parked in the parking lot of the bus stand, avoiding all the awkward stares and occasional comments, only to zoom past the very bus I was supposed to be on, heading towards Bangalore.

"Now I can finally finish my Thadiyandamol trek..." I thought. 

My mom who had come to drop me at the bus stand was all shocked at my actions. She gave me a puzzled look.

"Let's go, let's go... Will explain everything on the way. For now, I'm going nowhere near a bus to Bangalore for the next whole week..." I said with a wink.

This was not new to her.

 I am known to throw tantrums, even today, on my way back to college. I sometimes disappear for hours together on the day of my return to Bangalore or purposely book my tickets on the wrong date so that I can get a couple of extra days to stay in what I feel is 'HEAVEN' in real life. 

To be honest, I have never enjoyed the buzzing life of the city.  The famous Mughal emperor Shah Jahan when explaining the beauty of Kashmir, popularly said, "Agar Firdaus bir ru-e-zamin ast, hami-ast o Hami-ast o Hami-ast”. For me, Coorg is what Kashmir meant to Shah Jahan. Though my schooling has always been in cities, I long for the calm and content life of the beautiful valleys of the serene lap of mother nature. 

When asked by my friends as to what I actually missed in Coorg, I often say, "There's something in the air of my Kodagu that I miss." 

On our way back home from the hilly town of Madikeri, I sensed a certain change in the alignment of my car. It didn’t feel normal. Having driven the car for around six to seven years then, I was well aware of what in layman's terms can be called "the feel of the drive".I ignored it. It happened again in the very next turn. This time, I told my mother, busy opening a bar of Diary milk, about it. She insisted that I wear my seatbelt, her motherly instincts in full alert. 

I refused (typical me!).

“You know that I have never ever worn a seatbelt in these roads. These are my roads and I know them like the back of my hand” I bragged. 

“You said the same thing about this car a couple of days ago and now you find something amiss in your 'aankhon ka taara'... Always nautanki” she retorts, making fun of me. 

"Now shutup and wear your seatbelt" came the order with an intense stare and an authoritative tone.

For the lack of a good comeback dialogue, I do her bidding, wear my seatbelt for the first time. Half a kilometer of pulling each other’s leg, I glance at my rear view mirror for any vehicles following me, a customary habit. Only this time, the view shook me in my boots. I felt like the back of my car jumped off the chassis with a certain bump. I instinctively turned around to see if everything was fine. At this point, I could literally feel the body of my car move away from the chassis towards my right with the angle of the turn. All this happened within a fraction of a second. 

I mentally braced myself for the impact with my left hand instinctively moving across my mother’s chest, pushing her towards her seat, to avoid any injury to her head and thorax. The car first tilted towards my right and then completely fell onto the side with a loud noise, slid on the door towards a hedge on the side of the road with sparks flying all around, hit the hedge, took a topple in the air before landing in the middle of the road, in just a blink of an eye. 

We had met with a major accident. It took time for me to realise what was going on. I had dust all over. The glass pieces of the windows of the car were all over the place. The windshield was smashed. My vision was hazy. My extended left hand was still firmly pinning my mom to her seat. 

I took a moment to compose myself. I shook my head from side to side, to get it back to reality. I still felt a buzz in my ears. Instinctively, I touched them, only to feel something greasy flowing out of them. I looked at my fingers. They were red. 

"Blood...Hmmm... maybe from the impact... " I thought. 

"Cognition, tick", my brain takes a mental note.

I looked around to see if anything has pierced my body. "Negetive... No external damage, good" I again ticked the box mentally.

I looked at my mom. Her eyes were closed. She was breathing heavily. I could feel the rythming movement of her chest with my extended arm. “Maaa… are you fine? Maaaaaa….” I shouted. She slowly opened her eyes, dazed.

"Ahhh.. alive...." was my first reaction.

"You Okay...?" I asked shaking her up. She blinked her eyes. I double checked for any bloodstains around her to find out if she has any injuries. Negetive. 

"Thank God" I thought.

“I’m here.... I'm here. I'll take care of it” I told her as she clinched my fist tightly. I was probably telling it to myself more than to her. She was still not in a state to realise what was happening around her. 

I tried to fire up the engine of the car. It was too badly damaged. The dust began to settle down. I could see clearly now.

"Biddu, you need to get out" came of message from my brain. "Roger that" I responded. 

Even before I could act on the message, I suddenly sensed a shooting pain in my right shoulder. I looked at it. This time to find the cause of the pain. The very next moment, I realized that my collar bone is projecting out of my right shoulder and my shoulder is dangled from its socket.

It had taken me a good couple of minutes to realise that things were not as fine as I was analysing them to be. By this time, the collar and sleeves of my shirt were all stained in blood.

"Wake up... you have taken a serious hit. Get out of the damn car..." ordered my brain again.

With great difficulty, I kicked open the door, lifted myself out of the seat and rolled onto the tar road. Gathering myself up, I immediately limped towards the other side of the car to drag my mom out of the car. 

Thankfully, by this time, a family friend of ours enroute to Madikeri, on seeing the accident, stopped to help me out.

As I think about it today, I still have goosebumps. It was only a matter of a couple of minutes. I have mentally retrospected and analysed this incident several times. I have tried to play out the events prior and post the accident a million times, to figure out what I could have done differently. 

Was the car too fast to avoid the collision? Or should I have stopped driving when I realized that things were amiss?

 I haven't found a solution yet. But, for those couple of minutes, I had travelled to the gates of death and returned without entering them. I have to confess. I was not scared, but I was worried for my mom. Years have rolled by after this incident. Situations have changed, cars in our garage have changed or for that matter, I have changed as a person, grown with the variety of experiences life gave me an opportunity to learn from. But, I still spend sleepless nights at the thought of how I could live with myself if it was only I who had returned from those gates on that fateful day.