“Man survives tiger mauling in zoo”, reported in Times of
India yesterday. It seems this man jumped into the cage with a bag of rice to
feed tigers. Those two tigers, two white Bengal tigers, male and female got
nervous! The female tiger ran away. Don’t jump into a conclusion that even
Indian origin tigers are scared of Chinese! The male tiger was hesitant but started
attacking him. He was rescued by the zoo keepers.
“An
Algerian military transport plane slammed into a mountain on Tuesday in the
country's rugged eastern region, killing 77 people and leaving just one
survivor. The lone survivor – a soldier – suffered head injuries and was
treated at a nearby military facility before being flown to the military
hospital in Algiers, a retired Algerian intelligence officer said”. (Source : www.theguardian.com).
“In a recovery being described as a miracle, a Texas teen
was being transferred out of intensive care on Tuesday after surviving a
Saturday skydiving accident that caused her to plummet 3,500 feet and slam into
the ground”. ( Source : www.today.com ). Her
mother resisted her daughter’s adventure initially, but after assuring that it
would be a tandem jump riding on an experienced diver’s back, she agreed to sign
the necessary documents.
This reminds us similar accident in Salem happened almost at
the same time, but poor Ramya did not survive. She also went for a tandem jump
but from a height of 10,000 feet. Yes, it was due huge lapses by the organizers,
and she was extremely unlucky.
“Amkkaayee
korka ekku theraavo”, I made this statement (in my mother
tongue, Konkani) when I was 5 years old. Which translates to - we also need to
conduct a “theraavo. “theraavo” is a ceremony conducted on 13th day
of somebody’s death. I just had a good feast attending one such function due to
death of an uncle who died of age related illness. I never knew the seriousness of death or the ceremony, I
was so eager to have another such lunch. Everybody got amused by my words. But
my grandma got a shock. She had just been diagnosed with cancer. There were no
early detection mechanisms or any cure for cancer those days. Cancer meant
death in that era. But she was brave enough, fought through and survived much
longer than any cancer patient would have. With availability of modern
medicines and treatment she would have lived much longer.
That
day, I reached the Bangalore city railway station, one hour before departure
time as usual! I roamed in the entrance itself as the environment is better
than that in the platform. Train no 26 (now it is modernized to 16526 !) Bangalore-Kanayakumari,
Island express, which no longer goes to an Island, was my target to reach Cochin,
my home town. Though I had a confirmed ticket, I went to see those charts just
to check who all got RAC confirmed as the coach and seat number would be
published for RACs, only a few hours before the departure time. I had nothing
else to do! One list at the right hand
side caught my attention. I was just going through the list, one gentleman
pushed me aside and started looking RAC 19 to check what coach and seat he got
confirmed. He got more annoyed as his name was not appearing against sl no 19.
He started cursing to himself. I just told him “ Your name will not appear in
that list”. He got angrier and had a dirty look at me. I asked him to read the
header of the chart. It read “Train No 26, Kanyakumari Express, list of people died
in the Peruman accident on such and such a date in 1988”. He survived, I saved
one person from trying to put his own name in the list of “died” people. The aggression
he showed, I have no doubts in my mind, he would have forced the authorities to
assign his name against SL no 19 in that list!
My first
flight was not by Indian Airlines or Air India. I travelled in a company
aircraft along with the company chairman, my first experience on a plane ! I
had just started my carrier, and don’t get the impression that, I started my
career in a very high role, or the company was a high netwoth one with fewer employees ! Both are
not true. The company was 30,000+ strong and I had joined as a simple vanilla
computer engineer. Why did they select me to go with the chairman and his
delegation – because I knew PC storyboard. ( They had spotted my talent of storytelling
at that time itself !!!! ) It was a killer presentation software of those days similar
to MS PowerPoint now. The most sophisticated animation feature on that was “fading
off” a slide as the story unfolds. I was good at “fading off” stuff. They
anticipated the need for last minute change in chairman’s presentation at
Delhi, so they asked me also to join. Bangalore-Delhi flight was fun, value for
money, 5.5 hours flight on that 18 seater Avro. All fading got over, we started
return journey next day. As the aircraft
reached near Bangalore airport, instead of announcement by the captain, I saw my chairman getting into the cock pit.
Another 10 minutes, I thought I was dead. It just landed so roughly with a few
jumps on the runway. You may think I was scared because this was my first
flight. But my subsequent trips in Indian airlines flights told me that I was
not wrong, the landing was not smooth at all. Later I came to know from someone
that our chairman himself was a pilot in the forces and had tremendous flying experience.
And it was him who made the landing. And it is quite normal that these pilots
from forces do the landing in such a rough way. But for me it was seeing my death
in front me.
Does not
look scary and too close, then read on!
I was in
6th standard, Govt Upper Primary School, Thalayolaparmabu, the place
all my adventures started! My class teacher was Rajarajeswary Sir (It was quite
common in that part of the world to call female teachers also “Sir”, we had
Annama Sir, Bharati Sir, Sreemati Sir, Razia Sir !). That day I was so thirsty,
10 minutes interval between periods, I sneaked out in search of water. The Panchayat
tap was dry as usual. I decided to venture into nearby Rajarajeswari sir’s
house, I had gone with friends earlier to drink water from that well. Gate was
not locked, but house was locked, no body was at home. The well was that conventional
man made one, 6 feet in dia and must be more than 250 feet deep as it is a
hilly area. I saw the pulley, rope and bucket. I just bent down supported on
the wall, which was just at my chest level, put the bucket in to the well while
holding the rope.
I was facing east. I slipped, I was unconscious for a
fraction of minute. By the time I
regained consciousness, I was hanging inside the well – facing West holding both
my hands on that wall. I still don’t know how it had happened, my hunch is that
while falling I got my left hand grip on the wall and swirled 180 degrees anticlockwise
and got my right hand grip also. I screamed and screamed. Nobody turned up.
Slowly I managed to climb up with the hands firmly on the wall and got out.
Took a deep breath, I found the neighbor of that house who came down hearing
the sound of the bucket falling in the water. I had to tell him my class
teacher’s name, he had to tell this incident to my class teacher, my class
teacher had to tell my parents. It took a month to reach the news home, by that time I had fully
recovered from the shock. Had this happened now, the news would have reached
home soon I reached to my class back, or perhaps I myself would have taken a selfie
and posted in FB and of course in Google+
Though
it gives me a chill, I keep remembering the above incident deliberately. To
make me aware that this life is gifted to me twice - first when I was born, and
the second time when I was too thirsty! That awareness makes me more determined
on this - I should make good use of this life.
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