The accident

The mornings to the office are always conjusted. People have no time, be it on the car, motor bike, public transport or on foot, the mode of transport is immaterial. The suited guy uneasily trying to maneuver his BMW or the impatient school kid who does believe that his cycle has an infinite power to evade traffic; these scenes are trivial to a seasoned traveler like Ramesh, who resonates the very pulse this everyday traffic. What frustrated him to the core at the beginning, became a part of his morning routine. Ever since he bought his Skoda Rapid, he had shut himself from the outside world, enjoying the solitude of the music on his way to work. The construction for the metros, the pavement encroachments, the ad banners that supplement the shades and coolers, the non existent traffic symbols, the road dividers that are as big as the road itself, all add to the canopy of the morning traffic.

Few minutes into his journey, that started like any other day, Ramesh saw a small agitated group at a cornor that was unusual for the location. Curiosity got the better of him. He slowed his vehicle, parking it along the road and got out to find out the reason behind this untimely commotion. As he got out there was a person shouting, “Just called the ambulance, they should be here within 15 minutes”. There was another calling, “ There has been a bad impact on the head. Its important that he is taken to the hospital as soon as possible.” Only then Ramesh realized the gravity of the situation. There was a young boy lying on the lap of a middle aged lady. She was sobbing, holding the bleeding head and trying to stop the blood with her red saree. With the moist throat, she blurted out, “ There is the General Hospital near by. Can some one please get an auto. I don’t want to wait for the ambulance.”

Seeing the plight of the woman, Ramesh involuntarily responded, “you can use my car. Guys can you please lift him up carefully?” Three men from crowd, quickly heeded to his request and along with Ramesh picked the boy up. She was holding the wound on the side of the head tight. There were tears seeping out of her eyes continuously. They carefully moved him to the back of the car seat. She sat next to him. One of the other guys called up the hospital and told that the boy is on his way and asked to keep everything ready for their arrival.

“Do any of us need to come with you?” asked one of the guys who had help in lifting the boy.  “No thank you. I think I can manage”, she replied. “I have my two wheeler on the roadside, can you pls park it some place safe”? He quickly ran and puched the two wheeler to the side and locked it instantly and threw the keys to Ramesh, who had already kept the ignition ready. He kept the keys in his glove compartment and slowly started the car.

“It will take only 5 minutes” he assured her. But her eyes were fixed on the bleeding boy. He was mumbling something and was losing conscience. Now and then he opened his eyes and that was encouraging. Ramesh in spite of being ignorant in most of the things related to medical profession, quickly checked if there was blood coming from his ears. Thankfully it was not. Looking at her, he got reminded of his mother from his younger days. He could see the pain in her eyes. He now had only one task and that was to reach the hospital as soon as he can.

The traffic thankfully was not that bad. Still he had his hand fully on the horn and maneuvered the crowd expertly. As planned there was a nurse waiting outside in front of the hospital and she along with a few others helped in lifting the boy, transferred him to a stretcher and quickly went inside.  She was following them and was stopped at a point. The boy was rushed into the emergency unit.

Ramesh still lingered around wanting to know the diagnosis. A nurse came out running and told the lady standing just outside the door, “We need to quickly check for clots in the head. If there are no clots, it should not be a problem. But before we can proceed further, we want a kin of his to sign this document. Can you please sign for your son?” and she extended a paper on a pad to her.

“Just make sure he is all right.”

She quickly signed the papers and turned around saw Ramesh waiting there. Ramesh wanted to say something to comfort her and give her encouragement that her son will be fine. She came near Ramesh and started searching her shoulder bag.

“Thank you very much for the help. Can you do me another favour also?”

“Ofcourse, pls tell me.”

“My hands are bloody, can please take this phone out of this bag? It’s the boys phone and can you pls call his parents as soon as possible?”

Inspired by the Tamil idiom “petraal than pillayaa!” English translation is difficult. It exactly means a question “A son only if born out of a womb?” Dedicated to all the mothers out there.

P.S if there is some medical BS in this pls ignore.