My first and worst accident experience

I labeled this experience as a mixture of tragedy and comedy. When I looked back now I find myself laughing but not on the day I had it. The accident happened 2 weeks back and it was a bicycle accident. So let me narrate the exact sequence of how it happened, I hope I can do justice here because my English is not so good [someone told me so few years back but to be frank I don't believe him :)] OK now coming back to the topic.

It was a cloudy evening(Tuesday, Oct 6, 2009), and I left my laboratory at around 5.30PM and while inside the elevator I had this irresistible urge of having M&M( I am crazy after it). One month back I had decided to stop any type of chocolate or candy but when I was trying to decide whether to have it or not I was already standing in front of the vending machine on the ground floor. So broke my resolution and bought one packet of M&M thinking that would be the last time. Then I went to the bicycle stand, took out my bike and started riding. Around 1/2 miles from my workplace there is a downhill for approximately a distance of 100 feet and I was so into M&M that I decided to ride with one hand and used my other hand for eating M&M. I was doing pretty well till around half the downhill but I can't imagine till now why I pulled the full brake of the front tyre. You can imagine now what might have happened----- I was riding downhill and the front tyre suddenly stopped and my body and back tyre were still in motion. Newton's Law of Inertia was what exactly happened. I rolled with my bike and was in mid air for a split of second and fell off in front of my bike with my right side of face and head hitting the cement pavement of the side walk. And also my Ray Ban sunglasses came flying off. In that split second I thought I might die and was like,"Oh! this must be what people who are about to die must have felt". But luckily I didn't die and when I pulled myself up my newly bought corduroy pant was torn in left knee area and my knee was badly bruised with the skin all peeled off. But nobody saw me, I don't know whether I should be happy for that, may be I am happy now because nothing happened. Then I stood up and started driving back home but, on the way I started having mild headache. And that was the time I seriously started worrying about a possible head trauma. Once reached home, I looked my face on the mirror and saw bruises on my face too but they were not bleeding that much. I was more worried about the headache and my Ray Ban sunglasses which cost me around Rs 7000/- because it was damaged beyond repairable. And then I slept off skipping dinner and thinking I might never woke up from it.

But I was lucky here again, I woke up at 7AM the next morning and I was happy to know that I survived the first stage of danger.(May be it was just my imagination and I was thinking too much because I was afraid of dying and also I knew all the possible consequences of head trauma). When I reached my laboratory everybody looked at me and started asking about my signature bruises on my face. And I have to twist the story a little bit because how could I told them that I fell off from my bicycle while trying to eat M&M, that would be too embarrassing. So I skipped that part and told them that I pulled my brake and it just snapped, I didn't know why. Actually that was also a part of the incident, so I was not actually lying but skipping some other facts :) Then I went to the Walgreens store after work and bought some antibacterial ointment and band-aid. There I also bought some invisible band-aid thinking those might be helping for my face as everyone was asking me of the bruises. But the funny part was when I put and went the next day my colleagues told me it looked more obvious. So, I will consider that as cheating of customer as it didn't serve the purpose and also I wasted 5 $ on it. But the flexible band-aid for joint was very helpful.

Two to three days later I was talking to my friends about the incident and I told them that if something bad happened or if I died, my family members would be very upset but some of the people would surely have gossiped about it e.g." She went to USA to die in a bicycle accident and wasted tons of money!!!! she could have easily done that here". We had a good laugh imagining the circumstances but thank to God that it didn't happen that way. I was not able to ride my bike for one week but now I am on riding again but it won't be long as I am finally upgrading to a car ( bought a car recently). And also one of my very good friends told me things like that happened to carry away all your bad lucks, may be what he said is true......The comedy part here was-->I actually thought I might die and was very worried for 2 days and the tragedy part was--> my precious Ray Ban sunglasses which I bought after aspiring for 6 years was gone in a second and I won't be able to wear it again ( I am kind of possessive).

From this incident what I learned is that you should never try to avoid using precautionary measure because anything can happen anytime. Had I been wearing helmet ( I thought I won't be driving it for long as I already bought a car and don't want to waste 40$, so didn't buy one) I might have avoided the worry of trauma to my head and also my sunglasses would have been safe. So, it's kind of penny wise pound fool but I learn a lesson, that's one thing positive. Lastly but not the least anything is possible in head trauma. An incident where you thought is a minor head injury can actually be a life threatening one. So one must always be very careful of head trauma....


....ila

Catholic Funearal Experience

This was the first time I attended a catholic funeral in my life and it was my landlord’s mother funeral. The place we went is called Ork and is around 180 miles from Omaha so it was more than 3 hours journey. The funeral service was scheduled for 10 AM in the morning so we started from 6.30 AM. After a long time I got a chance to see sunrise from the car on the way, it was one very enchanting moment to remember. Four of us were traveling in one car and everyone was enjoying the beautiful moment. Once we were out of the city of Omaha my landlord didn’t hit towards Highway but through the road where he could show us the farmlands. It was such a beauty, I could say only Wow! Farmland stretched from one side of my peripheral vision to another and I couldn’t see anything other than corns and soybeans and cows shed in between. There were some houses and ranches in between but very few. It reminded me of my village to some extend even though we don’t have that much vast lands. We also passed through some beautiful small towns of Nebraska and one of the names is WAHOO… strange name I thought but realized the inhabitants are mostly Polish, Czech, Bohemians so the name sounds fit. It was a beautiful nice town where everybody knows everyone.

After more than 3 hours of driving and dozing off in between we finally reached Ork town where the funeral was supposed to take place. After some stretching and bending to refresh our body from the long hours drive we went into the Catholic Church where the funeral ceremony was planned. As usual we did some introductions and hands shaking and finally sat down on the church bench. One of my co travelers is a student from Tazakistan, he is Muslim and I am Hindu, and it was our first time so we are kind of trying to do everything what was going on out there. We have to stand and then sit multiple times while the church father was saying the prayers. We even joined the singing session, you know lips singing. After prayers we went to the cemetery site where the burial took place. There another session of prayers was performed and everybody left without putting down the body. When we asked why they told us that family and closed ones don’t like to see the body going down under the earth in front of their eyes. It does make sense. But one thing I learned for the first time was that everyone booked their place in the cemetery from beforehand and can put up the stone with their names written on it. And I saw some of the stones with only the date of birth with my own eyes and I was like wow!!! you can go to the cemetery and see the place where you are actually going to bury when you die and it has even your name written on the stone. To me it will be like visiting your future, maybe it is just my thought.

After that we had dinner party, I don’t know why they called it dinner because it was 1.00 PM when we had it. I preferred to call it lunch but remembered the saying, “When you are in Rome do what the Romans do”. So kept quiet and just follow the rules. After the dinner was over we have to attend a memorial ceremony in the Nursing Home where she was staying till her last moment. The service was attended by her fellow nursing home mates and family members. The nursing home was very nice and I got a chance to talk to some of the residents there, they seemed to be very lonely and were very happy and eager to talk to me. Looking at them I was like, I don’t want my parents to stay in a nursing home, it looks too lonely to me. After everything was over we finally left for Omaha at 5 PM, another 3-4 hours journey and reached home at 10 PM, ah!!! I was thinking why 5 hours while returning back, forgot to mention we had real dinner on the way. And also I forgot to mention one thing I noticed, I didn't see anyone crying, rather I saw relatives laughing and smiling and it was more like a family reunion and party than a funeral. May be it was different in different tradition because in our tradition funeral is a very serious and everyone will be either mourning or crying. May be in their tradition they don't cry openly or may be she was 87 years and their family thought it was life well spent as my landlord told me she was a very lucky lady and her life was full of happiness.

But overall it was a nice experience and got to see a Catholic funeral for the first time and also the vast Agricultural area of United States. It was a double treat for me.

....ila