July 31st, 2007 - Chapter Four

Chapter Four

LIVING THE PAIN

3:55 P.M.

I was totally living the pain at the Vadapalani 100 feet road. After sometime, another auto driver comes and lifts me with the help of Arun and they take me to the nearest doctor in that area. Mithin was asked to wait and was told to inform the police. These people did not know about my fracture. They didn't listen to my groans and moans, but they were doing the best to help me. When we went to clinic, the doctor examined my wounds and said he will use an injection to avoid any serious infections. I said "Doctor, its not just the wound. I am pretty sure its a fracture. I heard my bone twitch when the auto hit me." Then the doctor said to Arun that it would be better if you admit him in a proper hospital. I had to hop with my right foot to get back to the auto and after sometime we reached the nearest hospital. They lay me down in a strecher and I was made to wait for half an hour.

4:30 P.M.

I was lying on the strecher like a dead body, unattended. Meanwhile, I saw a little kid who was crying because he too had met with an accident and all that screaming made me feel sad for the small kid, and I overheard the story of how the kid met with an accident.But still nobody came to check on me. I saw some doctors flirting away with the nurses and I couldn't take it anymore. I shouted at them, "This is the way you treat a patient. I have been lying on this strecher for more than half an hour and all u people is have time to talk about all these shit, leaving your patient unattended." Finally they took me to an X-Ray room and scanned my body. After that I was shifted back to the strecher, all this shifting and changing made the pain even worse or god knows if it was making my fracture even worse. I was made to wait for another half an hour. I started shouting again at those attendants and demanded the doctor come and check those X-rays.

5:00 P.M.

In the mean time, I was persuading Arun to call my parents and inform about my accident. He was very hesitant and scared. He told "Lets see what the doctors have to say. Then i ll inform them." My friends karthik, his cousin Raja came after sometime. When Arun informed about the accident and asked them to come to the hospital, they thought we were playing some sort of prank. They felt really bad after seeing me. After a few moments, a lady doctor came in and told "Yes its a fracture and quite a big one. Your acetabellum(hip-joint) has broken but we dont have very good facilities to operate so its better you are transferred to another hospital.". I became restless with all the shifting anf changing of hospitals.

5:15 P.M.

Two policemen came and saw me, they gathered the information required to file an F.I.R. Soon Arun informed my parents and they informed my cousin Sridhar who was residing in chennai. Sridhar came at about 5:30 P.M. he was joined by Arjun, my other cousin who was also in chennai during that time. After another half an hour of waiting, an ambulance arrived. It was one of the worst experiences also. The purpose of the ambulance is to take the patient to the hospital asap. He was goin at a fairly high speed refusing to slowdown even near speed breaker and potholes on the road. The bump ride gave real bad jerks to my hip causing more pain. It was almost 30-45 minutes travel which made it look as if I am going to hell.

6:00 P.M. - 6:45 P.M. (not sure of the time)

I reached the hospital. Immediately I was taken to the TRAUMA room and I was stripped down and was taken for X-Ray and CT- Scans. My uncle and aunt who were also residing in chennai came to the hospital to check on me. But couldn't say anything to them because I was being shifted to the ICU.

8:45 P.M. (not sure again)

I saw my mom and dad. I was broken down in tears to see them. My mom grabbed my hand and said "Nothing will happen to you." and for the only time I would have seen my dad in tears. All these made emotionally sad for the troubles caused to others. But the worst part was when the doctor told me that my operation will happen on the next day and I had to live the pain through out that night making JULY 31st 2007 one of the most dreadful day of my life. :'(



THE AFTERMATH

• On August 1st I was operated, the operation time lasted for more than 4 and half hours.
  
• I was in the ICU for 4 days. All those anasthecia left me unconsicous for almost a day.
• I was bedridden for 2 and a half months.
• To my disbelief, my orkut friends (whom i never met) had started a "GET WELL SOON" thread(forum) in some communities. Even a couple of them visited and called me when I was in the hospital.
  
• On september 15th, I reached coimbatore after the docs gave a green signal.
• For 4 months, I underwent intense physiotherapy.
• I have almost consulted every top doctor in coimbatore. :D
  
• I still have a 15% injury on my knee (posterior ligament tear) and also developed a foot drop after the operation.
• But I am managing to get back to my routine life with good support from my family and friends.
• Still the accident/date/place haunts me and guess it will haunt me whenever I see or hear about any accident.
• I m also planning not to step out of the house on that date, this year (lol.. just kidding).

So to all of you out there thanks for reading my first blog in epic proportions (lol), All I wanna say is that please stay safe and be alert all the time.

God Bless you :)

July 31st, 2007 - Chapter Three (RE-EDIT)

CHAPTER THREE

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN

3:00 P.M.

So there we were, cruising the streets of Chennai in an auto with guilty-pleasure. We were least bothered about what had happened ever since our entry to Chennai. We were just talking about stuff we would do. I told Arun, " We should make others feel jealous of us. So we should take snaps where ever we go and post it on the web." Arun acknowledged and we start clicking right away inside the auto-rickshaw itself. I said "We are uploading it because there are too many of our friends who are in abroad who show-off by posting pics regularly in the web like 'I am in shopping mall','I am in front of this place', 'I am at that place' etc etc".
This was one of the pics (from Left: Mithin Raj,Arun and Me).

3:20 P.M.

We were nearing vadapalani and we were mocking ourselves about how we would turn out to be in the next 3-4 months. Things seemed all good for us. We were laughing at each other and I was dishing out the quarrels that took place in saravana stores earlier. I told "U guys should stop quarreling for the things especially for things like cricket bat, cloth hanger etc". Arun sarcastically gave a reply in his own style "This dog(mithin) doesnt know what to buy and what not to buy". They went at it all over again, as Mithin started pointing out about the necessity of a cricket bat at that moment and Arun started sayin some of his own. It was quite fun to watch them go at it.

3:30 P.M.

We were nearing our apartment. We were still having fun inside the auto. We never thought what was goin to happen in the next few overs. Suddenly, the auto driver tries to make an entry on the wrong side of the road. I asked "Why did u take the wrong side of the road, instead of goin a little ahead and make a U-turn??". He casually tells," Goin' that way will add another kilometre to your travel... this is a short cut". I said "No. But... isn't that supposed to be wrong(against the traffic rules)". Arun and Mithin refresh my head by saying that in Chennai these things are normal. Some voice in my head was warning me that this is not the way, seriously something was not right. I literally felt some changes in my body like an alert, a warning, an unclear picture. But it was broken by reality. So the auto makes the turn to the wrong side of the road. I didn't care.. We didn't care about the wrong turn. Just when we thought we were about to reach our apartment. Something happened. Something I thought would never happen, something which could not stopped.


3:45 P.M.

I noticed something comin pretty fast in our way.A Share auto was trying to overtake a motorbike from the left, I saw the whole scene but was very late to act or react to it.BANG!! There was a big collision between the two autos (Remember, I was sitting on the edge of the auto and my knee was pointing outwards of the auto). During the collision, the other auto struck my knee while trying to cut past the traffic. The auto would have almost tumbled side ways but it came back to the ground after a sec. Arun yelled "Is everyone okay?", I screamed in pain and tried to get out of the auto. When I got my left foot out of the auto, I heard a snap sound.. I knew something had broken. I lost my balance and fell down.

For the next few minutes. I could see nothing but the mute spectators watching me shouting in pain, few metres away from the scene. I was yelling in pain where as my friends were have a verbal fight between the auto drivers blaming it on them. For 30-45 seconds i was lying on the road, feeling the pain. Nobody bothered to come and help me. After a while, 4 people came and try to lift me by pulling my arms and legs. I heard another bone twitch, I had lost it. I knew my leg was gone, I would never be able to walk. Arun was trying his best to calm me down by saying "Nothing has happened to you. Its just a wound , that's all!!". I screamed in pain and yelled at him "Its a FRACTURE man, I am sure. Please do something. I can't stand this pain. Please do something."

3:50 P.M.

All I was hearing were voices of the verbal war between my friends and the auto drivers from outside and also there was a voice inside me. I hear Arun enquiring people about any hospital nearby. The voices inside me were shouting ...

"It is your fault, you prick. You shouldn't have gone in an auto with all those stuff"

"It is the mistake of the auto drivers"

"It is your friend's fault, they didn't listen to you"

"FUCK YOURSELF!! You shouldn't have come to Chennai"

"You shouldn't have gone to Saravanna stores, when u had your friend telling u that he will get the stuffs for u"

I couldn't take it. Voices were echoing in my head.

I was lying in a corner of the road lying battered, bruised and injured. I didn't know what was I going to do?? I didn't know what I was going to do...

(to be continued..)

July 31st, 2007 - Chapter Two

//Read Chapter One before proceeding to this one//

CHAPTER TWO

A TRIP TO SARAVANA STORES

JULY 31st, 2007

8:30 A.M.
After a good night's sleep, I woke up at around about 8:30. I looked through the window and found to my surprise that it was pouring in Chennai. But still the humidity didnt make much difference to the climate. I go to other room to check on the other guys, they were already up. Arun was trying to listen to his favourite Ilaiyaraja numbers and Mithin was digging his bag to find something. Meanwhile, Nishant was getting ready to go to office. He said he will come back only in the evening. Nishant asked "What are u guys planning to do?". I said "No Ide.." but Mithin interfered before completing my sentence he said "We are going to Saravana stores da... We need to buy some essential things like bucket,mob,mugs,etc" I was shocked. These guys had planned it without my knowing. I asked "Then what about karthik's cousin... he said he will arrange stuff for us and deliver them at our door-steps.. I mean don't u think that would be easy for us...". He looked down and said "No da...It would be good if we go to Saravana stores and picked out stuff on our own besides it would be cheap there...". I was shocked because I got a feeling this guy didn't trust my friend. I had no other option but to adjust with these guys because I have to "get used" to these changes. Somewhere at the back of the mind I had this feeling that none of us were getting along well with each other.

10:30 A.M.

We all got ready. Then we were a hunting a spot to have our breakfast. We found a place and sat down to have Dosas again... I was kind of pissed off and said "I dont know for long we will be eating this dosas for the rest of our lives." I said that because ever since we landed in Chennai we had been eating nothing but dosas. Arun said "We have to get used to these conditions or better start looking for a hotel where we can get good food". I said "May be we can do that in the noon or evening after coming back from Saravana stores". After having quick breakfast. I take out my purse and see I had only some 50 bucks. I said to Arun " We may have to go to ATM before going to Saravana stores". Mithin replied "I have cash da no problem, we will sit down later and calculate the share-of-money accordingly. For once I felt he had spoken sensibly. We then were waiting for the bus to come. I asked "Shall we take an auto instead of waiting here for the bus to come". The Auto-fellas were asking too much, again tried bargaining but all in vein.


11:45 A.M.


After 45 mins, a bus came but it was over crowded. I asked Arun "Should we (take this bus)??". He replied sarcastically "I dont wanna wait for another bus to come". What he meant was probably that he didn't want to wait for another 45 mins. We all boarded the bus and I was literally getting crushed because of the over-crowd. Luckily Mithin got a seat after a couple of stops but Me and Arun were totally getting crushed. It was quite an experience. I said "We should have taken an auto" and Arun replied "Tomorrow if you go to work and you have no other option but to use public transport, you need to get used to the rush". I was hoping we reach our stopping soon. After half an hour, we reached Panagal park.. Arun said "Lets get down and walk from here."

12:15 A.M.

We had to walk about 20 minutes to get to Saravana Stores after we got down from the bus. We got in to the shop and while we were picking out stuffs, there were too many quarrels between Arun and Mithin like "Don't need that.. we will take this.","What is the use in buying that.. You would hardly need it.", "That item doesn't require so many quantities" etc etc. I coudn't take any of it so I went to a corner and sat down to look at these two go at it for silly things. There was a huge argument and guess where it took place.. the sports section. Arun was planning to buy a cricket bat (I don't know why it was important for him to buy it at that moment). Mithin started arguing about stuff like "We have just come to Chennai and already you have cricket in mind". After 2 hours of shopping, we stopped to have our lunch in a nearby place. After having lunch we were walking back to catch a bus,auto or a metro-train. I stopped near a shop and asked Arun to click a snap so that I can upload in Orkut and make my friends envy me. I said sarcastically "We should take photos wherever we can and upload them in orkut." And this was one of them. We were discussing about the mode of travel back to our apartment and finally we decided to take an auto. We didnt have space in the auto thanks to Mithin and also all the stuff we had to carry. I would count myself in too because I am not thin and tall guy,lol. I asked "Do u think we will fit in this auto??" Arun and Mithin said "Let's Adjust!!". After I got into the auto-rickshaw, I asked Arun "Do u want to sit on my lap so we could a little more comfortably with so many stuff taking half the space?". Arun said "No need". But I had no option to sit in an awkward position by coming forward so that everybody got some space to sit in the auto-rickshaw.

2:50 P.M.

BANG!! BANG!! BANG!!

We all were stunned by the noise but it was a traffic cop ramming the roof of the auto with his lathi-stick asking the auto-rickshaw to get a move on by not disrupting the traffic. So off we were on our way to our apartments hoping to start our new bachelor lives...

(to be continued...)

July 31st, 2007 - Chapter One (RE-EDIT)

I have no idea why I am writing about this. But it is something I wanted to tell the whole world about!!

July 31st 2007 marked a disastrous event in my life that I simply cannot forget or something that I cant stop talking about. So many turn of events happened which could have been avoided but as everyone would say "Fate is without a sense of Irony".

I will narrate this D-Day like a story/journal-entry (with 3-4 chapters). Though I vaguely remember some of the stuff which happened, I have tried my utmost level to present the happenings in detail.


CHAPTER ONE

WE HAD NO OPTIONS

June 30,2007

6:00 A.M.

I was heading to the railway station (Coimbatore) accompanied by my dad. I find Arun, my friend who also like me wanted to pursue his career in the big CHENNAI city. Me,Arun and Arun Lee were the ones who planned to go to Chennai and make a mark in our lives. But due to some reasons, Arun lee didn't join us. So it was just me and Arun starting off from Coimbatore. Arun's friend Mithin Raj who was from Salem was also due to join us in our journey. I bumped in to Krishnamoorthy who was my college-mate and he too was heading to chennai. So we had a great time in train, talking about stuffs and planning on what to do after reaching chennai. On the way, Mithin joined us at Salem. On the first look itself i had a feeling that we are not going to get along but I remained mum and was just responding to his queries.

2:00 P.M.

We reached Chennai. I was all smiles to head start a new chapter in my life. After a long walk to get out of the station, we hired a call taxi and we were on our way to meet our apartment owner. After negotiating with the owner, we headed straight to the apartment.

4:00 P.M.

After reaching the place (Vadapalani), we were waiting for one of my friend Nishant who was willing to join us in the apartment. We checked out the apartment and it was pretty decent one. We had to quarrel little bit with the broker who asked one month rent as his commission but nothing worked out so we paid him.

4:30 P.M.

We went to a restaurant for food since we skipped lunch. We had to pay for those idiot broker and co-owner for their food. We were already finding chennai to be expensive. But we had no choice.

5:30 P.M.

My friend Karthik and his cousin Raja came to see us. They were pretty happy to see us. Immediately I said to Karthik that I wanted to see City centre, watch a movie at Satyam theatre or hang out in the marina or thiruvanmyur beach. Karthik assured that he will take us on the next day. Then came a question of, where to get the bare necessities for the apartment. Raja told us he could arrange for that and everything will delivered to the apartment (if needed). Arun and Mithin stared at each other and it looked like they were not trusting Raja's words (i may be wrong but its just my view). They said "We will call you if we need anything".

7:00 P.M.

Next stop was meeting the owner and paying the advance for the apartment. We had to wait for more than an hour for the owner to show up. Then suddenly there was a huge quarrel between us and the co-owner. He started using foul-language and spoke as if we were not fitting in to their demands. After a lot of heated exchanges, we had to compromise because we had nowhere to go. It felt like we just were in the wrong place at the wrong time. After carefully discussing with all my roomies we came to a conclusion and paid the advance. I told Arun "Looks like we had come to chennai at wrong time". He told "We had no other option and we have to get used to it". Nishanth left off with his friend since he had some unfinished work, so it was just the 3 of us.

9:50 P.M.

We got out and we were searching for a place to have our dinner. Most of the restaurants were closing and we had to rush. They served only dosa. We had no option. We had 2 dosas each, and while having Arun and Mithin were going about it, they were arguing about the incident that happened and there was even talks about controlling the expenses because we had lost 75% of the cash we had brought in advance and rent. I said "We have to control our apetite for some more days" and Mithin was quite unhappy with my decision.Arun said "I can live by eating just dosas". Again, they started arguing. I was so frustrated but had to be calm in getting used to their fights. The bill was around 80 bucks, and Mithin started all over again. I said " I will pay the bill.. I have no problem."

10:30 P.M.

After all those bad events, we still remained cool and we seemed happy to be at chennai. Had a nice chat with Mithin and Arun for about 15-20 minutes, then Nishanth came back from work. Mithin and Arun shared a room where as Me and Nishant were shared the other. Before going to hit the sack, I said to myself "Today might have been a bad start, lets just leave everything for tomorrow.. ".

(to be continued...)