One thing I can say about life – NO ONE can say mine is boring. So, let me bring you up to speed here. Quick review, I promise.
So two weeks back, on a Saturday, I was just leaving my apartment complex to go bring Vidur from school. Just as I was waiting outside the gate for the traffic to clear up so I could go to the opposite side of the road, some road-rager (oh, I know that’s not a word) hurtled down the road. Naturally, I continued to wait. I was not there to test the impact of his momentum.
But – God had other plans I guess (though why I am even pulling God into this I don’t know. Oh well, who else to pull in, then?) It seemed that I WAS there to test the impact of his momentum and we collided. Wait – HE collided – straight on. Smashing in the wheel cover into the tyre in front, immobilizing me. Instinctively I just hung on to my handle bar – survival you see, not wanting to go over on the side and kiss the road. My ankle and knee wounds from that fall I had last July are still smarting inside.
Ok..back to the present. Because of the impact, our bikes somehow got tangled sideways. Extricated ourselves. Guy went to the side of the road, parked and came back the few steps to let loose his rage in words. Me, I could not move. My wheel cover was well and truly stuck into the tyre. My only option was to side stand the bike – and since I was just outside my apartment complex, I called the watchman to deal with the tirade and another worker to help me raise the cover from the tyre. Hmm. The language that guy used was completely offensive of course.
The gist of the matter was this:
- It was his friends bike (so why was he speeding on it?)
- He had to go somewhere in a hurry (so driving fast without a care for others on the road would get him there?)
Stupid. When he said that he was in a hurry, I told him I too had to go pick up my son from school. To which he replied “Your son won’t die if he waits for five minutes”. Would I continue to argue with a creep like that? Ugh. But I considered myself lucky here because:
- I was just outside my building
- I wasn’t hurt. Not really, anyway. The next morning I’d feel like hell with swollen shoulders and knees, from impacting the front of the bike, but that was okay
- I could still make it in time to school, so Vidur wouldn’t worry.
- Mostly, I was alive
My bike’s a mess, but it runs, sweety that it is. Got to get it tinkered and serviced though.
So it all tallied out nicely, or so I thought. Because Sunday morning had another big surprise for me. No – I actually meant nasty shock.
As usual, I got my coffee in the morning and booted the comp. I was getting all geared up for the day, making a list of things to do and all that. Then, since I had recently upgraded my comp and backed up all the data on an external hard disk, I thought I’d transfer back some of the stuff on to the computer, so that the external drive continues to be a back up.
Hmm….so imagine my reaction when I plugged in the external hard disk to find that my files were missing. I only saw a funny looking icon with a name in weird characters. I called my friend Vijay right away and he tried his best to help me figure out what was wrong. But it was clear that our efforts weren’t going to retrieve anything. He then suggested a friend who could use data recovery software and get everything back, provided the hard disk was in good shape. Hmm. Since that was iffy, I was facing the prospect of losing:
- all my work and work in progress
- a couple of books in progress (yes, don’t we all dream of that?)
- my digital photography of the last five years – how was I going to make Vidur a little boy again and rewind those moments?
- my digital library of music, videos and books
- important documents
Of all these, what hurt me most was no.3 – because the others, I could somehow painstakingly re-do. But the photographs? Gosh! Felt like a complete dopex. But I feel lucky, yet again.
Vijay’s friend came through – I prayed and prayed of course. Each time I’d think of not recovering the data, I’d cry. As it is, by the time most of the data got recovered, I had to request extensions on several work deadlines since I had to rework the projects from scratch. Still, I tried counting my blessings. I missed my Mom so much – she would have made me laugh, somehow. I took strength from the thought and actually wrote down a list of things I should be grateful for:
- I am alive and healthy
- I have a loving family
- I have fabulous friends
- I have roti, kapda and makaan
- I am coherent and have a couple of jobs I really love
So one might ask, what’s a lost hard disk eh? But I won’t. What I will never forget is how Vidur consoled me. As he put his arm around me and told me not to worry, he said something that touched me right where it will always stay.
“We lost Paati and we’re somehow managing, no? Don’t worry, Mi. This too shall pass”
Hmm. Out of the mouths of babes.
C’est la vie and I am not complaining. I am just grateful for everything.
