"Ooooh! Gulati senti ho raha hai!!! He is talking about purposelessness and frustration and shit???". Well, yes indeed. I have been upto nothing useful for a bit now, not since 24th Jan at least, except for really enjoying my brother's wedding last week. Days since then have been pretty boring since I can't move around a lot too freely due to the accident. "Accident!!!!! Fuck...when did that happen?? How??". Too animated..isn't it...because if you're reading this, chances are that you already know about 'The Accident'...with full graphic details of the entire experience. Despite that, I am going to document the experience here, if for nothing else for the sake of history..for the sake of documenting every significant detail of an illustrious life. I mean c'mon, yours truly and his blog are going to be an important part of human history...c'mon...you've always felt that, now acknowledge it too :-)
A significant detail of my life!!! I don't know about that, though a major accident is supposed to be significant. Not due to the trauma related to it but due to the 'life changing experience' it might turn out to be. I mean I certainly remember so many interviews on TV about "how this accident was a life changing experience", "gave me a fresh perspective on life", "made me realise that life is too short to waste", "blah blah blah". But for a very strange reason that I am not too happy about, I don't feel any of this...damn it!!! Maybe I am too dumb or too shallow to feel any of these gloriously complex emotions. Or maybe I am wired to be very optimistic for not even a moment when I was under the truck or in the hospital, did I feel that I am going to die. Actually, there were a couple of moments that I remember when I thought "This is it" - MJ style - once when the truck was still running over me.
So, this is how it happenned...and its possible that you are reading this post because you asked me on gtalk or on phone about "How did it happen??"...and I gave you the link to this post...so pay attention. I was in London for a project (guess you already know that) and it was a sunday afternoon. I had woken up late and had decided to step out for a jog. Outside my building, but within the apartment complex, there was a Tesco delivery truck that was parked next to the side walk. And I was on this sidewalk towards the rear of the truck tuning the radio of my phone before starting to jog. There were two reasons I was doing this - the station that I usually listened to was not playing that sunday!!! And I did not have my -jpod* then - thanks Shubhra and Prashant for the lovely birthday gift :-) So back to the accident - I actually don't remember the moment when I got hit by the truck. I have this memory of keeping the phone in my pocket and taking the leap to start jogging and then the next one of being run over. While I was being run over, it took me a while...a few miniseconds maybe...to figure out what was happenning. What I remember next is that I was trapped under the front axle of the truck - I had luckily managed to fall down towards the middle of the truck and not close to the tyres - and the weight of the truck was on my left shoulder. This is what resulted in the broken collar bone of the left shoulder - that is still broken and is taking frustratingly long to heal (Now, do you get the frustrated bit that I spoke of at the beginning?). It was certainly painful and on top of that, the guys who had called emergency services had denied my request to lift the truck using the jack.
There are two important things that I learnt during this experience. First one is that, your brain is your best buddy. For example, when I was trapped under and my request for using the jack was turned down - mine quickly went unconcious, saving me the pain. I woke up when I was being rescued by the emergency services. Not only this, when I was concious and under the truck, I had some really amusing thoughts like "Wait, guess this is a bad dream...I don't remember waking up in the morning after all". I remember being amused by this one when I was under the truck. Seriously!!
Second one is that its a lot about luck or lack of it. I was of course pretty lucky to survive this one so well. But that's not the only reason why I believe in my luck or lack of it after this accident. When I was brought to the hospital, the nurse that was treating me in the trauma center was so so so so hot and I was lying in bed in front of her..............................................waiting for her to give me pain killer injections!!! What the fuck!!!!! Not only this - after my surgery, when I was still under anesthesia in the recovery room - I woke up once or twice to see these two really hot nurses dancing...to Buttons by Pussy Cat Dolls one of the times!!!! Not only this - that was the last time a hot nurse was attending to me. After I was concious and recovering, 2 out of my 4 nurses over 5 days were the ones that I could find in any and every hospital here!!! No - its not really about the hot nurses or the lack of them - its about luck...a lot about luck!!!!!
* this is the name of my dear i-pod.
