My memoirs
“The greatest magnifying glasses in the world are a man’s own eyes when they look upon his own person.”
- Alexander Pope
2015- the year that was!
It was a Sunday morning of May, 2015- as usual I went to nearby Polo Grounds to play football with boys, more for the sake of my mind. I returned back home after morning workout and was dead- tired…
At home, before my bath, I was listening to old melodies of seventies in TV channel, Jalwa- 9X. It was Kishore da and Lataji’s mesmerising voice which was reverberating in the atmosphere, “tere bina Zindagi me shikwa to nahin…!”(“I don’t have any quelm if you are not in my life…!”)…
I was lost into oblivion…!!
When after split moments, I regathered my senses, a shrieking sound pierced through my ears right into my heart, “paapaaa…”
My daughter was gazing at me on seeing my body lying still on my bed. It was by chance that my wife appeared from nowhere at the nick of time and saw my eyes drooping and becoming lifeless when she came to sweep the bedroom. She then, anxiously and with panic, called our daughter who reacted thus with the scream.
All through the episode, the subject was not aware of what went through the minds of near and dear ones… Only on gaining consciousness, he could feel that every cell of his body got rest and were revitalised as the feelings never experienced before after having the best of sleeps… Who said that there existed no light after life? But may be a life existed which vitalised body, mind and most importantly the soul. True, there were certain experiences which could not be expressed in words…!!
I was on a pacemaker since 2004 and my heart- functions were monitored by my physician on bi- monthly basis in the form of evaluation of ECG with a magnet. A habituated sports- lover after that also didn’t stop from playing Cricket and Football on Sundays. The physician advised me to take optimum load and when felt breathing trouble, I should stop there. A few days prior to that fateful incident, the Holter test was carried out in the clinic and it was found that the battery was about half exhausted. But, sometimes something might have happened which was beyond the understanding of a scientific mind which we tended to refer as an accident.
Anyway, I took out the car and with my wife rushed to the nursing Home and on the way I was feeling on regular basis about to lose consciousness, but I was determined to make the car- ride complete with constant prayers in mind. The journey was completed and I was given immediate medical care. The next day, the operation was being carried out. I was surrounded by a group of doctors and health attendants in the operation theatre. Only the local anesthesia was administered and I was in complete senses, gazing upwards at the circular light- bracket which was showing the mirror- image of my slit- up chest.
When the old pacemaker was to be detached from the electrodes, I was knowing the inevitable, as I went through the process of losing complete sense when in 2004 the “Meditronic” device was planted initially. I was praying to the Higher Power…
The sense came back and the first few words came out impulsively from my mouth, “Thank God and the team of doctors …” I proceeded on, “ you will be stitching the last one now…”
The Junior Doctor observed, “Oh my God! He was able to see everything!” The situation made a person desperate. When his back was to the walls, he had no other option but to plunge forward.
Text # 29 of “Bhagvad Geeta as it is”, second edition by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (page. 52) stated;
“vepathus ca sarire me roma- harsas ca jayati
gandivam sramsate hastat tvak caiva paridhyate”
“My whole body is trembling, my hair is standing on end, my bow Gandiva is slipping from my hand, and my skin is burning.”
“ PURPORT There are two kinds of the body, and two kinds of standings of hair on end. Such phenomena occur either in great spiritual ecstasy or out of great fear under material conditions. There is no fear in transcendental realisation. Arjun’s symptoms in this situation are out of material fear- namely, loss of life. This is evident from other symptoms also; he became so impatient that his famous bow Gandiva was slipping from his hands, and, because his heart was burning within him, he was feeling a burning sensation of the skin. All these are due to a material conception of life.”
On course to undertake the journey called “life”, there came the occasion when one realised,
“Because God is love (1 John 4: 16), loving and being loved is what makes life worth living. Once you learn how to truly accept God’s unconditional love for you and walk in love like Jesus did, you will discover the sweet peace, deep joy, and unfailing strength that come with being willing to say, “Lord, Reduce Me to Love!” ( An excerpt from above- captioned book by Joyce Meyer)
2015, the memorable year that was- after lots of professional happenings- highs and low, I got ultimately promoted to the appex post of a technical Government Department and I truly enjoyed the stint. The enormous blessings from my father and other elders were omnipresent in my life. The amount of good wishes my friends, relatives and social acquaintances had to me throughout my professional journey only could have humbled me as a person- and I was gratefully and gleefully receiving the fruits.
Came November, 2015. It was 4th of the month and I was hurriedly preparing me to go to Mawkyrwat to conduct a training session there. I collected the training materials and parked my personal car along with the training- material in front of my garage. I was little absent- minded and while parking, I didn’t pull the hand- brakes up. When I wanted to pull the garage shutters down, I realized, to my utter dismay and fear, that the Wagon R was not anymore static and was immediately down the slope in my hand- shaking distance gathering ‘inertia of motion’ all the time. My left hand was raised impromptu. The mechanical device immediately impacted with massive force my left hand, breaking the ‘radio- ulna’, making it curved in 45 degrees and then crushed my torso into the garage- pillar. In the process, the window pane broke and the glass took away sizeable portion of my cheek. I tried to scream and was left locked in agaped- mouth for quite sometimes. A girl in the neighborhood did the rest with her screams, “uncle ka accident ho gaya…”
My wife, sister in law and daughter rushed in- sister in law had the presence of mind to bring a towel and spread the same around my neck when some passer- by driver expertly took the car forward releasing me from that locked-up position. I did not lose my consciousness and my world was trembling, my eyes were forcefully kept open by me. The vehicle did hit me on the left frontal portion of the chest, thankfully the pacemaker was spared and below my left jaw, a chunk of flesh was scooped away. Some flesh was left on top of my car and the major portion was kept hanging to declare the severity of the freak- accident, therefore my sister in law did hide that tunnel- like vision below my left side of the jaw, in spreading towel round the neck… I knew I should, in no case, panic and therefore was holding my left broken arm with the right hand and with a friend and his son on driving wheels, I was yet again making a journey to the “biological- workshop” to repairs and overhauling.
The anesthetic staff were on strike and I was left in nursing home for more than a day in that condition. The body slowly was coming back to normal senses and a mix feeling of different types of pain were engulfing my senses. My brother was supporting my body on a stretcher, I could not be rested on sleeping postures- my second column of spinal chord did have two minor cracks. In that sitting position, the nurse and health staff were by a tweek fetching glass pieces from damaged lower jaw- I had to sustain and so too my younger brother who could hardly see the extent of damage. Later he said that he was almost losing his senses on sight of condition.
I was operated by a team of four doctors after 48 hours of my arrival to nursing home. A prolonged session of Surgical procedures were followed up and this time, of course, full aenesthesia was applied, the impact of which would have been fatal in instant case as we learnt post- facto.
For more than five hours the surgical operation was carried out and after that I was brought back to the private cabin. My wife was the attendant for the night. I was recovering to senses and all of a sudden my wife noticed, second time in a year, that I was sinking. She went to the nurses and everyone started panicking when I lost my consciousness. My main physician contacted the junior surgeon who rushed from Upper Shillong late at night and was anxiously trying to bring me to senses in ICU. After hours, I regained senses by a jerk when by a fork my spiralling tongue was cleared off my aesophagus. Later I came to know that it was a reaction the aenesthesia had with painkiller- a matter of doctors’ domain, we patient could only wish to get cured and take recourse to prayers.
I was in ICU with acute pneumonia for more than a week- all along in a right-angled sitting posture with all the gadgets showing the health parameters and a Philadelphia-collar around the neck. I felt hungry, but could not take properly a tea- spoon of liquid- nourishment as in that condition half of it would spill down the cheek.
After another week of hospital care, I was released and was back to home bed where for a month I had to be in complete care and bed rest.
Long time back, I had a friend who was a devout Muslim and who was opening the innings alongside me in Shillong Cricket League. His famous quote was what I had been remembering throughout that period;
“ Jisse Allah rakhe,
Usse kaun chankhe!”
I saw series of prayers in that phase- the Sisters Matron from Guwahati and Shillong Catholic Missions personally visited me and conducted prayers in Convents. Sister from the. “Brahmakumaries” came to see me with Prasad and blessings of Siva Baba. It was more than thousand people from various walks of life came to the hospital to pay visit alongwith their wishes, many of whom could not even see me!
I am grateful to each and every person for whose wishes, love and blessings that I am still living post 2015. Most importantly, I feel I am so blessed to have a family who stood by me like a strong support- base without which I could have collapsed long back!!
