A life less ordinary

Now that she is back home, one can think the unthinkable, about what might have been if she had not recovered.

It would have, indeed, been a great pity. A loss of a life for no fault of her own.

My friend’s daughter is young, in her twenties; pretty, with a calm in her face that speaks of inner reserves. She is a good daughter, and even though she holds a job, thinks she is still beholden to seek the counsel of her parents at least where major decisions are concerned.

She takes her two-wheeler to work, and in the manner of those who own access to easy conveyance, zips around the town at the smallest provocation. After all, it’s a fast and easy way to travel and get chores done or meet friends for an evening out.
It was one such small commute that proved different.

A truck knocked her down and trundled off, leaving her lying on the road.

She could have died, but she did not. But they discovered in the hospital that she had a head injury and had slipped into coma. Of course she was wearing a helmet, or matters could have been much worse. But the fact remained that she lay there, breathing, a pulse visible and throbbing on the monitor, but otherwise unmoving, inert.

I am not even going to try to explain what her parents must have gone through, as they sat anxious and tearful by her bedside. It is a vigil that has no definite end or duration, and the very business of not knowing is the most killing of emotional states.  

Luckily this story has a happy ending. She opened her eyes one morning without any effort, and slowly but surely started recognising people over the week. Her speech was still missing, but the doctor was hopeful. Perhaps it was her parent’s prayers or her sister’s , or the good wishes of wellwishers and friends and relatives, but the girl recovered.

When the clever doctor who was taking care of her asked her sister to place her laptop close on her bedside, it was not long before she let her fingers stray over the keyboard.

Something in that action jolted her memory and soon she was trying to type. She is almost completely well now and not afraid of sitting astride her two wheeler and taking to the road once again!
It’s a story with a moral.

For every one of the fast growing tribe of two wheeler drivers who clog the city roads, and try to wheel their way between cars, squeezing past as if they are liquid in nature and not flesh and blood: To them I say, that the very imbalance of the vehicle they ride is indication of its fragility, and their own exposure to harm.

Anything — a rushing truck, a speeding car, a swerving bus, or even an unexpected pothole or fissure on the road —  can brush them off like a feather; or swing them off the road to send them spinning to pain, disability or worse.

They may think they are invincible, fate might be kind and keep them out of harm’s way, but for the sake of those who wait at home, they need to remember that they are indeed mortal, and more at risk that the vehicles they zoom around.

And though wearing a helmet is not the most pleasant of ideas, in the heat and the rain, it is the one single object that could stand between death, and life.

And the next time the daredevil in them tells them to take that chance or step on to their bikes sans a helmet, they need to, like the road sign on dangerous hilly roads often reads: “Remember those waiting at home!”