Accidentally, Again

When you are a fresher working in a big multinational, it is very obvious to be under constant pressure, so much that you can’t think of anything except your to-do list for the next day even after you reach home, or seeing the products that you sell, or even your clients, in your dreams. But what gets the most to you is when you are entrusted with a responsibility. My time came in early August 2015. I was about 2 months old in the company, having already established my over-enthusiastic, efficient persona, sometimes even evoking mixed reactions like “he does not have enough work on his plate”, just because I did not waste any time at work and aligned my actions for the day efficiently.

One Friday, when the entire office was in the mood for rejoicing, given that it was a second weekend of the month, meaning getting an off on Saturday, I had finished most of my work for the day and was already mentally planning for the things I was going to do over the next two days. Life was rosy, my boss and colleagues were good, work was going well without any issues, and I had managed a good environment on the family front too.

But what happened that day changed my life. No matter how clichéd it sounds, it did. I was assigned an additional task - I was to go to the Bajaj Corp office in Andheri, and get an approval from the client on one of the products we sell, before 5 pm that day. It was already 3.30 pm and seeing how traffic is, I had better leave at once. I put some orders for the client that I handle in the system, and pressed the Ola app icon on my iPhone. Within moments the driver called, and I directed him to come to my office. Since the driver was not from the locality, he did not know where to come, and went far ahead instead. In the interest of time I decided to ride on my scooter to a mall that he knew, and asked him to pick me up from there.

Always the safe driver, I did not exceed 40 kmph on my moped. Just as I was about to slide left into the exist to get to the mall, a biker cut me off on the highway. He kept looking behind as if he felt he was being followed. My left indicator was on. And then, all of a sudden, without any intimation whatsoever, he braked in the middle of the highway. I pressed the brakes hard but could not halt in time as the distance between us was not enough for the inertial motion. We collided, and being at the rear end, I was thrown off the bike onto the stony surface of the highway. My helmet was cracked, and my right hand was burning.

The biker got up and began yelling at me, I thought I’d handle this in five minutes, park my scooter somewhere and get back to work. But it was so much worse. I could not make out what he was yelling exactly, except something about me talking on the phone while driving, which was clearly not true looking at my cracked helmet and intact iPhone. The throng gathered around, and one of them offered me a kerchief to clean the wounds on my right hand. As I lifted my left hand to reach the kerchief, I felt as if I had no hand down from the elbow. I looked at the mangled left hand, and lifted it with my right. Some bones snapped and I realised how much in trouble I was. I howled in pain, and the biker ran away seeing me collapse on my moped. I could not see for a few seconds, everything looked like a view in an undeveloped photoroll.

I took my iPhone out and saw a white light pierce my eyes. I thought I’d lost my vision for good. I requested a person near me to dial my residence number. I unlocked my iPhone with whatever memory I had of the Passcode, and handed it over to him. He dialled the number and was apparently answered by a frantic response from my mother. I could not talk, somehow requested people around me to hand over the water bottle in my bag. Never have I felt so good after drinking water. My brother’s friend Adwait had rushed to the spot, probably after being contacted by my brother since he lived near the accident spot. He told me that he could see my elbow bone protruding out and I abused even more loudly.

In what seemed like a few minutes, I saw a familiar outline of a person grab me with both arms. That was the first clear face I saw – my mother’s. She was relieved to see me alive, but as soon as I realised that at least now I would not be abandoned on the road, my legs gave way. I collapsed on the road and faintly remember being taken in an auto-rickshaw to a multispecialty hospital nearby.

What followed was a huge ordeal, being taken through casualty, a few X-Rays, a doctor telling me I was fine and then the head of the orthopaedic section telling me that 2 of the bones that make up my elbow were fractured and that my left hand would be in a plaster for 6 weeks. That was it. I knew I was in trouble. But it was so much worse than I thought.

For the next 24 hours I was on painkillers, my parents taking turns to be with me in the grandest suite the hospital had to offer. My iPhone was with my mother, for I did not want to answer any calls from anyone then. Physical disability is something that frustrates me the most. I can come out of mental problems in no time, and emotional issues hardly ever bother me. But being physically incapable to do something brings out the worst in me. Nothing, not even an uber cool dark blue fiberglass cast on my hand can change it.

The opinions I got from different doctors were different, right from giving a lot of hopes to going absolutely hopeless. They kept swinging between surgery and no surgery, while we were kept on gas. But my actual problem started after I was discharged. I resumed work in a week and nothing was like it used to be before the accident happened. Firstly, I had to narrate the story to every person who asked me, second, I had to sit on the same chair for 10 hours at a stretch, only taking washroom breaks and lunch breaks. The entire attitude of the workplace changed towards me, right from getting looks of empathy to looks as if I was pretending the whole thing. I started taking longer to do my tasks, thanks to only one working hand, and the backlogs increased. Towards the end of the day I used to be so spent that nothing would cheer me up.

And I might draw a lot of ire for what I am about to say, but this post isn’t exactly about my accident. Although I am getting better now thanks to very expensive physiotherapy, it made me realise an axiom we often tend to overlook. Life is short and unpredictable. Had I not been wearing the helmet I would have died, or worse, became a vegetable for life, an inedible one at that (Sorry!). I had said these words to someone I had once loved, that because of life’s short duration we should only spend it with people we love, and those who love us. Going through life with broken relationships is not the way to live life. It may end any time, and in your last moments, you might end up with regrets. And while the pain of discipline weighs in ounces, that of regret weighs in tonnes.

I began retrospecting my choices in life, the hurt I have caused to people, especially to my family, that has always stood by my side. I may have taken a very hard decision in the interest of their happiness once, ending up hurting the family of a person I cared about, and the person herself. That regret will forever be in my mind, but knowing that the 2 families are happier now because of that decision, will carry the burden for me.

I now feel that I should never even sit on a stationary two-wheeler, for I am very accident prone, but what if each accident teaches me a lesson that ends up changing me for the better? I take it this way. I drove my moped again today, without any inhibitions, and the feeling was equivalent to setting everything in life right again. Some relations will never be built again, but as long as there is happiness and learning, all is well.