The Accident

Just as I promised that I’ll down my guard of inhibitions in my next post, here I’m delivering that promise.

If you remember I had slightly mentioned about a lifetime experience. My mom had asked me to not to make a hue and cry about it but I want to write down that experience to recollect each feeling if someday in future I wanted to, so here it goes. It was 22nd October 2018.

I have disclosed n number of times that I travel daily by bus ­­– the safest mode. That day I was carrying a new purse to my office so I tried not to burden it with the weight of my elbows. So, I carefully placed it on my lap. I had a minor burn on my finger, so I applied an ointment on it. Urgh! The bus driver applied break and the sudden jerk wiped off a little bit of that ointment.

Call it intuition or whatever, out of nowhere I was recapping the important phone numbers which one might need to remember in case of an emergency. I don’t know if it’s a ‘girl-thing’ to imagine oneself in difficult situations but I recalled all the numbers.

Fast forwarding to the next fifteen minutes: Bang! I was trying to counter the inertia of motion by tightly holding onto the pipe of the bus seat before me because a really, really hard break had been applied. It was merely few seconds affair; 5-6 seconds of complete blankness. I knew something terrible is happening. For a moment, I even thought that I’m dying so in my mind I recited my prayers. My focus at that time was not on the dreadfulness of death or the tensions of the uncompleted tasks of life instead I was experiencing it to my best level saying, “Oh! This is how it feels like to die.” “This is what death looks like.”

When whatever was happening happened and I got back into my senses (I wasn’t unconscious; it’s just that such seconds get completely washed out of one’s mind) I realized that I’m getting buried under a heavyweight. So, I looked up and patted a masculine face signalling him to get up. I stood up trying to decipher what just happened and it was a bus-overturn. The bus had completely overturned onto its side. The purse that I had been over-protective for was lying down, unguarded, with a drop of blood or two on it.

I was sitting on the now upper side.                                Source: Hindustan Times

A man standing next to me was screaming out for his broken arm repetitively. Other faces moving here and there with blood on their faces. I was breathing heavily and my face was hurting from that side to which the bus overturned.  

All the faces which I was seeing were bleeding from one place or another. Damn. All the claims, “Outer beauty is nothing, inner beauty is what one should have” seemed nullified to me. “Hey, you’re bleeding. Am I too?” I asked a girl, trying to get an assurance about my face but I think all of it was so horrifying that she just nodded. Out of panic, I quickly pulled out my phone to check my face. ‘THANK GOD’ There were just minor wounds. I didn't suffer major injuries because I sat on the opposite side to which the bus overturned otherwise the broken glass of the window would've caused profuse bleeding.

So, after figuring out the way to get off the bus, which was through the broken glass on the back, I tried to take stock of the situation. Unable to judge how the accident happened, I asked a man standing there. He told that it was the bus driver’s mistake who rammed the bus into the roadside parked truck. I stood there, trying to gulp the situation down. Somebody was asking all the victims to sit, so I sat on the divider.

One person was lying on the road, probably unconscious. Other people were bleeding like they were zombies – blood coming out of their faces, mouth, spread on the hair and clothes. I felt that I got a skin made up of stone, for it didn’t crack and allow the blood to come out even after getting such a major blow. Amidst panic, they were making calls to their families. I didn’t. I knew mom would freak out and could even break out into her emotions helplessly.

Source: The Tribune

After five minutes or so, when it all sunk in my mind, I started weeping on realizing the intensity of accident and what I just went through. How close I was to death. What could have happened? The initial weeping led to crying, I buried my face in my stole. I faintly remember someone softly patting my back asking if I was fine.

Then came ‘the’ stranger asking where I intended to go – to my destination place or the bus boarding place. I made the obvious choice to return back to my hometown. He offered to drop me home as he was going to the same place. I was in denial mode although I had no clue what other plan would I pursue – you know, the lesson that we are taught all our lives, ‘Do not accept anything from a stranger’. 

An acquainted co-passenger convinced me to take his help so I sat in the car. I remember I covered that 30 KM distance with my stole covering my face and soaking in my tears. I wasn’t crying because I was in pain but due to some unexplainable reason, maybe because of the trauma of the accident. I informed in my office about the accident because I had to tell them that I would be on leave – it was the only call that I made. [Sometimes I feel like patting myself for this brave decision of mine.] 

The kind stranger asked if I informed my family. “Yeah,” I lied in a choked voice. They were talking how it’s in the destiny – they were late than their usual time, they took another route than their usual one and how it was written that I will be helped by them.

I looked at the time. It was 8:57AM. The time that I was supposed to mark my attendance, the exact time that I used to punch in the biometric and there I was just outside my home. This made me cry even more. ‘How I couldn’t complete my journey!’, ‘I would have been marking my attendance at this time,’ ‘Poor mom would now have to run after me’ etc. etc. going on in my mind. 

I pushed the door and it opened, mom was surprised to see me. “Nidhi, how are you here? Is everything fine.” she blurted. The two of them told her about my accident. Before she could react I asked her to keep calm and not to panic although I myself was crying.

The two of them left our place and I couldn’t even thank them properly because I wasn’t in the state to do so.

When I look back and imagine such a situation it feels like one hell of a lifetime experience; it is permanently inscribed in my black book. “I’ve survived a bus-overturn, don’t mess with me.” Thankfully, I was active and alert at the time of accident not allowing my face to hit hard because most of the passengers had injuries on the front of their face, stitches on the forehead, misalignment of teeth. 

Back then, I even had a fear that if my parents didn’t allow me to travel after this, what if they asked me to shift my base to my workplace. But I promised myself that I wouldn’t let any misconception grow inside me that led to the accident – be it the daily up-down (for it was on a Monday after Dusshehra weekend - the day even non-daily travellers travel on) or the new purse (I didn’t abandon it) or any other unusual activity which happened on that day.