Friends in Need
Back in 2004, my elder son left for Australia, for his MS. This was on the 7th day of the 7th month. My mother in law and I wept for a week, she publicly, and constantly: I, privately, and in the confines of the bathroom. My husband looked like he was weeping within.
On the 30th day of the same month, we were returning from a friend’s house, after dinner, when a BEST bus, and a dumper truck, speeding together on the road, hit our car. Which one hit us, I do not know. Our car was precipitated into the air, turned around twice, reached as high as the lamp post and came down to rest, turned in the opposite direction. All the time, we, and the car, were somersaulting in the air, on that sultry summer night, I was only conscious of one thought, “God, please give me two more years: my kids are still studying.” It was repeated over and over in my mind, like a barely conscious litany.
When we came to rest, every piece of glass in the car had smashed, every piece of rubber was twisted, the roof of the car had caved in, and the front and back of the car had almost met in the centre. My husband was slumped over the wheel, there was glass in my eye, between my finger ring and the skin, in my shoes, in my hair. My husband sat up after I shook him, and looked around dazed. The police and bystanders smashed the doors and pulled us out and they looked from the car, to us, as we stood there shaking like leaves, “Are they alive? Both of them?” Stretched in front of the car, lay a man, un- moving. He had seen the car come flying from the sky and had fainted in shock….
But we were alive.
The accident gave me nothing more painful than a life long case of constant and excruciating backache. The first year, I had to be in bed, getting up only for the washroom. But there were exams in college, papers were assigned to me, they had to be assessed.
Enter, two good Samaritans. After their regular lectures everyday, for 15 days, they came home with daily installments of hope and succor. I used to lie down, partially, and assess the answer papers…they used to take them, add up the marks, make the mark-lists and take the papers back to college. Without fanfare, without advertisement, without propaganda, when no one turned around to help, these two colleagues, teaching chemistry in College, physically hauled me out of impending depression and despair, and taught me, with word and deed, that there was reason to hope.
Things and people, circumstances and positions may change: but as long as I live, I shall always be grateful to two pairs of hands that reached out in friendship and love.
My dear friends, you know who you are…..thank you.
