That post of mine was made on a monday morning after I was sitting in a police station hawalat from morning 06:00 a.m. to evening 09:00 p.m. watching the police do their duty with the most ease and layed back manner.

Totally unplanned, me, and two of my friends were going to mysore on a drive in a maruti esteem. The owner was driving the car.

We left bangalore at 04:00 in the morning and were doing a max. speed of 65 – 70 kmph on the smooth surpent like bangalore – mysore highway.

At around 05:45 just as the sun was about to come out, still dark, we crossed another left curve and what we saw right in the middle of the road was a man (villager) walking very slowly with his bicycle in his hand, diagonally crossing the busy highway, his back facing us.

My friend slammed the brakes, but it was too late. The car skidded and while slowing down rammed into the guy. He along with his bicycle bumped up in the air, crashing into the windscreen just a feet away from me and the driver’s face, breaking it and sending the flood of broken glass pieces onto our faces and the body.

The man along with his bicycle was then thrown some feet away from the car in the front. A man saw this happening and came out yelling… aye aye… My friend did not stop, he drove away… going straight to the nearest police station after I convinced them to do so.

We later on learnt that if we had stopped there, we would have been burnt along with the car. That same day… the cauvery water agitation was on an increase, there were riots happening between the place we crashed and the police station, so we got stuck there for the whole day.

Also, the guy who we rammed into was a very heavy drinker, for which the local people said that “he’ll definitely die of his organs”. After crashing into him, we started driving ahead but all of us were in a total state of shock, mine and my friend’s hands were bleeding. If he had not slammed the brakes, the guy with his bicycle would have come crashing inside the car onto us. We stopped a few kilometers after the crash to clean up the car. I cleaned the right indicater side of the car with water with my bare hands. All those flesh pieces I saw and cleaned, still haunt me every few days.

Whatever happened, we did not know the guy would die on the spot. We came to know that after we reached the police station. It took the 3 of us hours to come out of the shock.

I still ride with extra caution and attention, months after the incident. Its not the same me when I am driving nowadays.

Would take me more time to come back to normal. I might not even come back to normal with my driving. Need to drive more and more to regain that confidence.

We 3 discussed the incident in and out. Speculating what happened and what more could have happened and what should not have happened.

There are a lot of sides in this story / incident. None of them are something one can forget. Specially the place where I was sitting, I went through all of it, but I never had anything in my control. The only thing in my control was and what I exercised was to convince the rest of the two of my friends to go straight to the police station. We learnt later on that within minutes of the incident, the information had reached till mysore on radio and the police on the junctions were waiting to catch a car with a broken windshield.

Would have been a totally different case if that would have happened.

I have gone through it and learnt a lot of things. Don wanna think about it anymore.

This was my side of the story.

Not directly related, but…

Last year, the son of a friend of mine died in an accident when he, sitting on his motorcycle, was rammed from behind by a car. He was flipped over and crashed down on his head. He was not wearing a helmet, and died on the spot.

I was filled with horror when I heard about – my friend had just taken out a loan for his son’s higher education – and remembered other incidents like this, including one where I almost got killed when a railway gate crashed down on my head (I *was* wearing a helmet, which is why I am able to write about the incident today, instead of being written about).

But when I try to tell people to wear a helmet when they drive a bike, I get the usual tired arguments – including “I will go bald”, “not cool”, “waste of money”, “my helmet is dirty”…..

I wonder when any of these hairy, cool, rich and clean people will become another statistic, with their hairy, cool, rich and clean brains splattered on the road for dogs to lick up, and family to cry over.

Not a very good experience to remember, but an experience to learn from, no matter which side you are.