A rush of blood to the head

May 20th, 2006.
"Have feet, will dance" That is the trademark of the 'Shiamak Davar institute of the performing arts' (SDIPA) - http://www.shiamak.com/. While dancing to the tune of 'Belly dancer', my very first time on stage, the predominant feeling wasn't stage fear or butterflies in the stomach...it was 'I have feet, so am dancing'.

SDIPA and its team of highly professional instructors seem to have the magical ability to make even a 'dud-in-dancing' person like me feel confident enough to go up on the stage, costume et al, in a matter of 2 weeks. It had been a fun 2 weeks (May 3rd - May 19th) at the practice sessions and it culminated in what they call the Summer funk show where all the batches perform on stage. I must have been in the 'High' of all this, as I rode down on the borrowed kinetic towards the intel airport road office, where I was to meet Latha and take off for the venue in her car. Since the kinetic was to be parked at my office, I decided not to take my helmet and lug it around all day. When I think back, it makes no sense. Why do we leave behind our safety gear when we are riding short distances? An accident is an accident! The assumption that nothing will happen when we are driving/riding a short distance is so baseless.

I was on 100ft road, at probably 40kmph when the green corsa in front of my braked suddenly. My reflex was to brake as well and I did not have enough presence of mind nor the experience to realize that braking that hard on a vehicle with wheels as small as those of a kinetic will cause it to skid. And skid it did....and I fell on my left knee...right there on the middle of one of the busiest roads in the locality I stay. The couple of 2 wheelers around me also had to brake but no one really collided into me...and those people were stable enough to help me up on my feet. I immediately dragged the kinetic to the side of the road...amidst blaring horns from irate drivers/riders probably cursing and saying 'ladies are such bad riders/drivers...why do they ever get on to these things when they can't drive/ride'.

I assessed the damage...my knee was slighty bruised, the kinetic rear view mirror had become loose...but more or less, everything was in place. Even though I wasn't looking back on to the road I had fallen on, I think my sub conscious mind registered the buses, cars etc that were plying right over the spot where I had fallen.

I thought for a while....my knee hurt. I wondered if I was blacking out or feeling dizzy. Negative. Everything was as normal as you can hope after a fall. So I hopped on to the kinetic and decided I was in good shape enough to ride the remaining 1.5km and park the kinetic in the safety of the Intel parking lot. I must have gone about 500 m, when I realized I could barely see! Suddenly my vision was blurred. I decided I must be losing consciousness so I got off the road and stopped at the side...waiting to fall again! Nothing happened. I could hear everything around me...I was wide awake and conscious....but I just couldn't see. From that point on there was no stopping my thoughts...I decided I must have fallen on my head and permanently damaged the hard wiring! I had lost the ability to reason or think logically. In my mind, there were only two possible outcomes of the incident. Either I die or lose my eye-sight! The fear of these outcomes was so overwhelming and 'bandwidth consuming', that my brain did not have the ability to process the 'request for vision' signals!My eyes just refused to see. In that muddle, the thought in my mind was still to drive and get to a place where people knew me..even if it involved a lot of guess work like 'huh...I think it is time to turn left....I think the signal has turned green'. It was probably the worst thing I could have done, but I rode that 1km with 20% vision and 80% guess work! How pathetic can one's presence of mind get?

I safely made it to the parking lot and minutes after I got off the kinetic, I began seeing! Once I was in the comfortable setting of Latha's office and my bruises were taken care of, I couldn't stop thinking of the buses that could have just run over me. The thought kept replaying in my head and I wondered about what all I would have left un-finished. A lot of incidents (not really related with me) in the recent past have made me think about the lack of predictability of life. My fall was very minor and it was no where even close to a 'near death experience'! Within hours I was on the stage, dancing! I was being paranoid and was blowing things out of proportion when I was telling myself that I will never ever get on to a 2 wheeler again! The impact of this small a thing and the power of the sub-conscious mind continues to baffle me. I still can't get over the fact that it was probably the shock of the whole thing and the unstoppable flow of my most unreasonable thoughts that resulted in something so seemingly unrelated as lack of vision. It might be something that has been studied and explained in medical terms...but with my lack of awareness coupled with unsuccessful hits in google I have just one resort...blame it on a rush of blood to the head!

Taking things for granted

"Most human beings have an infinite capacity for taking things for granted" - Aldous Huxley

I sang to myself today...while riding to work...KKs 'Tu hi meri shab hai'...Dido's 'White flag'...'Mississippi Girl' etc...etc. Rather, I had to sing to myself...as I was riding to work and not driving to work. I realized how much I have been taking my 5 year old car for granted...how much I am used to listening to music and how that cuts out the traffic noise! I don't have my car for a week...and everything seems to go haywire!How dependent I have become on things like this, which is a luxury for most people in this country. Like most human beings, I seem to have an infinite capacity for taking things for granted!

I had a scary thought after I read the news on Bausch and Lomb recalling MoistureLoc solution worldwide. I have been using this solution for a couple of months now. In some 'unique use patterns' this solution has caused blinding in some cases in the US! Huh! Just imagine, losing your eyesight overnight...it is something I have taken so much for granted!Sigh!Things like this make you stop and think about how much I can make out of life today...when I have the ability to do so. How I tend to lead a mediocre existence instead of making the most of each day. It inspires me to stop taking my existence for granted, stop being encumbered by everything happening around me and going off and doing something wonderful! (As Robert Noyce, a visionary and the first CEO of my company, would put it)

The drama called life

Everytime one goes through a tough patch in life, friends and well-wishers say 'it is for the best', 'learn from these things to make yourself a stronger person' ...And so on.
All through the weekend the top news was about how an innocent engineer, Suryanarayan, was beheaded by Taliban in Afghanistan. The plight of his family was too disturbing to even watch. My heart went out to his wife and children who heard of his death on TV and broke down inconsolably. I couldn't help but wonder, what must be going through his wife's Manjula's mind...whether she would have the guts and strength of character to go through these trying times. As my mind went on its train of thoughts, I tried to think of a situation in their lives a few years later when Manjula would stop and say to herself 'yes, the beheading of my husband was for the best'. I couldn't think of a single situation for which a sane person would say that. Even if he had to die and his family had to go through the sorrow, how can his brutal killing be the best for his family?

Just as she was coping with the irreplaceable loss and probably telling herself that she needs to live for the sake of her children, a new character makes an entry : his second 'wife' and claims that she has a 8 month old baby from Suryanarayan. Life is indeed a drama....and for the sake of these people who have to face this kind of adversity, I only wish there were some dress rehearsals in the drama of life! I can only imagine how tough it must have been for Manjula to deal with infidelity amidst all this...that probably pushed her to take an extreme step of attempting suicide.

Life is cruel at times...and in a moment of weakness death might seem like an easy solution. W. Somerset Maugham's advice is quite the contrary....
"Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it."