IT JUST HAPPENED IN THE FLASH OF A SECOND IN A ROAD JOURNEY

From Sampath’s Desk:

 


IT JUST HAPPENED IN THE FLASH OF A SECOND IN A ROAD JOURNEY

 

Once I travelled with my friends in a car from Chennai to Madurai. Journey being diurnal one, it was mostly joyous with few moments of anxiety as well en route. We set out early in the morning. Being a working day the car started crawling all through the traffic-laden city roads until it got well away from the city onto the national highways where sceneries flanking both sides of the road started turning verdant. As is my wont and fad, I went into a gusto viewing through the window transitory scenes appearing and disappearing, all in a jiff. My penchant for enjoying ‘looking-through-window’ was too strong to resist. The journey unleashed a veritable optical feast I have always yearned for since my boyhood which I couldn’t help but yield to.

 

My proclivity to see persons at work in paddy and other fields, diverse groves, small hamlets, boulders-borne stretches, mountainous ranges, hillocks, river banks, rivulets, bridges, culverts, gravel roads/lanes, one-foot paths, etc. was well satiated. The ever-changing scenes from typical clear-up-to-the-horizon fields to myriad activities of people in thinly populated rural hamlets added to my mirth.

 

We were four besides the driver. Initially we were chatting about all subjects under the sky; as time passed, one slipped into slumber, the second got engrossed into reading a book and the other was in a fix. But none or nothing could dampen my spirit at outside-gazing.

 

After sometime, a herd of cattle suddenly darted and jostled across the road giving the driver an opportunity to maneuver the car and, as a blessing in disguise perhaps, to showcase his prowess and dexterity to bring the vehicle to a sudden safe halt, but not before giving us jerks and jolts, mild to moderate. The driver started yelling at the cowherd for being callous and indifferent on the road. After breakfast, the conversation re-started. This time, we discussed mostly about road safety threadbare besides unmanned railway crossings and post-rain potholes with the driver also joining us at times.

 

We also could enjoy both rain and sunlight intermittently and in turns, a feel-good feature for climate aficionados. At one time, after a long gap of clear azure sky, nimbus hovering above greeted us with surroundings darkening, rain-breeze blowing across and the scent of dust/sand wafting through greeting us with what I could call a ‘gentle natural fragrance’; because one may be able to enjoy the distinctive petrichor only when it rains after a long dry spell. It’s a rare event. Soon it started raining. The rainfall moving along and catching up with our speeding car was a thrilling natural grandeur to glimpse at.

 

After lunch at a convenient place en route, we proceeded further. Just as we were short of 75 KM from our destination, thank God, we had a providential escape from a possible accident. As a dog jumped across from the left, our driver swerved a little on the right when a speeding car from behind in an attempt to overtake us was menacingly came closer. The driver steered the car to the extreme left hitting the animal. But the overtaking vehicle hit against another car coming from the opposite direction. Thanks to the sudden brakes applied in time by all the drivers, a ghastly head-on collision was averted. However, under the impact, few passengers in those two cars got injured and were lightly bleeding with bruises. We alighted from our car and rushed the injured to the nearest hospital, 10 KM away, and luckily there was neither grievous injury/fracture to anyone nor danger to anyone’s life. We then continued our journey.

 

Everything happened in a flash and appeared like a dream. With God’s Grace nothing serious had happened and the incident spared almost all of us with only a few getting injured but not seriously. While thanking God for saving us, we also prayed to Him for a speedy recovery of those injured. Heaving a sigh of relief with lingering memories, I wondered how a second makes a great difference in one’s life. These sayings hit my mind:

 

To realize value of time of:

 

*                   One year, ask an examination candidate

*                   One month, ask a salaried person

*                   One day, ask a person in fasting

*                   One hour, ask a waiting lover

*                   One minute, ask a person who has missed a bus or train

*                   One second, ask a person who has escaped from an accident

 

(R.SAMPATH)

  

This article was published in the ‘Timeout’ column of THE INDIAN EXPRESS on 28.3.2011.

 

 

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