Gone With The Wind

May18th 2007 – the day when we decided to have a trip to Pondicherry. I always had a hidden sense of adventure in my heart which was pushing me for long now, to have a long trip on a bike. So I thought this would be the perfect occasion to quench the thirst. We planned the trip and started for Pondy on 19^th afternoon. We were a total of 7 people, 5 in a car and two on the bike. I was traveling on the bike along with my dear friend Amir. We decided that half the journey Amir would be driving and the other half, I’d be speeding through. Soon we found ourselves speeding away on the ECR (East Coast Road), which connects Pondy and Chennai. The road is a gem of an engineering work. Being as smooth & inviting as Aishwarya’s cheeks, no matter how cautious a driver you are, it sucks you in its sense of adventure and literally forces you to go full throttle.

I’ve been driving bikes & scooters for the past 7 years now, but never in my life I dared to go beyond 80. When I started driving on the busy roads of Delhi after my 12^th exams, my Dad once told me “Son, it’ll never be on busy roads that you’ll meet with an accident. Open & free runways are what lure into danger”. It was not that I always pay heed to all his words, it was only because of the restrictions posed by the mechanical state of the 1990 Suzuki bike that I never speeded beyond 80.

So as it was destined, me and Amir were piercing through the ECR at a speed of 98+ km/h with Amir at the driver’s seat. The wind was hitting hard on our faces and I was taking photographs from his N73. It was hardly an hour and a half when we were half way through and decided to take a pit stop to ease our burning asses. Now it was my turn to drive. I go onto the bike and in a matter of seconds the speedometer was reading “100”. We were cruising towards Pondy, overtaking buses, sumos, cars and other petty looking two wheelers. It was a feeling of abnormal excitement, and an unjustified sense of pride (pride of driving at 100+). It was after almost an hour when that fateful turn came. It was a steep one and somehow ignoring the basics of safe driving, I maneuvered the turn at top speed. The combination of high speed and laterally hitting wind took its toll and the bike was immediately swept off the road. We crashed and skidded at 100 kmph with my body bearing the brunt of the crash. Before I could realize what exactly had happened I felt some pain in my hand and heaviness in my head. Next I heard Amir asking me “Pratosh, r u fine?” I stood up, saw Amir and the bike lying helplessly on the ground and tried to figure out what had happened. But my dizziness didn’t allow me to stand for long and the next moment I was lying down unconscious.

The next thing I remember was a shouting Amir trying to bring me back into my senses. I got up, drank some water brought by a kind stranger and saw my profusely bleeding hand. At that very moment remembered my father’s words, “Open and free runways are what lure you into danger”. I was literally able to see through my flesh and describe precisely how the bone looked. In Amir’s words “D00d, I think you have lost some flesh”. Immediately Amir took out his N73 and made a video, interviewing me about the experience of my first accident. I was subsequently taken to a hospital in Pondy where I had a minor surgery on my right elbow. I recovered from my injuries after 3 days of hospitalization in Chennai and took a week’s off from office.

Now that my wounds have fully healed and I am planning another bike trip to Pondy, I look back at the accident and remember the lessons I have learnt the hard way. As I have repeated many times in front of my friends, it was an “overreaction to excitement”. As a passer by would have thought while seeing us tumbling on the road, we were literally “Gone with the wind”.