It was just a regular day... a regular weekday. My alarm was set at 5.00 A.M. It started ringing loud in my ears and like every other day I woke up thinking "why does my college start so soon?". Yeah, it used to start at 7.30 A.M. and for which I had to leave home by 6.30 or 6.45 A.M. So as I already woke up, now I got to get ready, have something, clean my bike and off to college.
It used to be a great, pleasant and refreshing early morning ride of 16 km most of the days. Experiencing the rising sun in freezing winter mornings, the freshness and blossoms of spring, and morning drizzles of monsoon felt awesome, or actually superlative of awesome. Well, in summer we never had college. It used to start from July and end by Feb end. So couldn't experience how summer morning rides felt..ha ha..
On an usual monsoon morning, I woke up, got ready, had my breakfast, cleaned my bike and started my journey. I traveled around 4.5 km and stopped no where. Now there was a signal coming and I had to reduce my speed and put a break. Then ,Oh My God! breaks failed. One wasn't working from the previous week and the second one broke just when I pressed it. There were a few things which took place in the next few seconds. I pressed the break, it broke, the roads were wet, signal turned red and other vehicles were stopping. My bike lost its balance and started to skid. It was as if I was doing an action scene for some movie.
It continued to skid, I lost my balance, there was a truck coming just behind me and everything was blank. Everything was actually blank and black when I opened my eyes. It was for a moment I opened my eyes and saw the truck just a centimeter away and blank again. Yes, I was under it.
I would call it a miracle if I am alive today. The next time I opened my eyes was when I felt some hard slaps on my cheeks. "OH! I AM ALIVE" was the first thing that sprouted in my semi-conscious mind.
I opened my eyes and saw some people gathered around me. They asked some hundred questions in a span of one minute ( well, that is what I felt at that moment). I was curious to know what happened after everything became blank and asked what happened and was told that I just escaped from being crushed down by the truck. That noble truck driver had given a sudden break at a very right moment and though I almost went below it, just before its huge front tyres got on me, the truck stopped.
Okay, cool! I am alive. Though my hands and legs got badly scratched, hurt, wounded, injured or whatever it is and I was terribly bleeding, I was alive. The amount of joy that feeling gave me is still immeasurable and can't be put into words. I gathered myself, came to full conscious, took my slightly damaged bike and some how headed back to my home. I reached home, mom was just leaving to her office. Before she could ask what happened, I told her and so on.
Other than all these things, there was something else happening. That something was happening in the background, in my mind. There was a rush of thoughts. I felt overloaded and the scariest of those thoughts was "What if I died?". There were a lot of things I wanted to do. There were a few things that I kept postponing. I skipped those saying I'll do it tomorrow. But what if there is no tomorrow?
There were a few commitments, a few promises, a few people whom I owed a 'Sorry', a few whom I owed a heart felt 'Thank you'.
This experience was worst of all but had given me something that I always needed. I learned a lot, realized life can end at any moment. Death can embrace you any time. And because it won't tell us before coming, waiting for it all the days when we are alive would be foolishness. Yes, we know we should live our life but "How?" is my question. No, I don't need your answer because I have mine. So, just sit back and ask yourself how you wanna live and live for yourself.
#WLOO ( we live only once)
