THE UNTIMELY FLIGHT

THE UNTIMELY FLIGHT

By Joshua Cherian Varughese

The flight I was to take on the 25^th July 2012 was scheduled to depart at 00:15 but it took me by surprise when it came more than ten hours earlier.  Being from a low context culture flights, trains or buses getting late was never a novelty for me but flights coming early was certainly surprising. More surprisingly, I did not miss the flight!! 

The flight reached at 1:10pm on the 24^th July 2012.

But there were discrepancies .The flight was supposed to take me from Trivandrum to Singapore took me only ten feet away from where I was at 1:09 pm 59 seconds. The flight was to take about 4 and half hours but it took just 2-3 seconds. The flight I booked with my hard earned money was supposed to take me to the education that I had dreamed of for years; but this flight that I never booked nor ever wanted to take gave me instant and exciting education regarding some things I could never dream of learning otherwise -  you know what I learned? I learned to thank God and secondly, I learned to respect my A-S-S and realized it could be a life saver occasionally.

Getting less mystical and figurative about the flight that came like a juggernaut - It was while I was just about to pass a traffic light on my Honda Activa that it turned red and I braked like a good citizen. Two to three seconds later I heard a bang from behind and before I could think of anything at all I was “FLYING”. It lasted for only two to three seconds but I saw and thought a lot of things – I saw that my legs were stretched forward like those long jumpers in Olympics, I saw people running towards me, I saw a horde of cars and bikes in the opposite lane glaring at me with eager eyes and a “slurping” tongues to run me over in the next few fractions of a seconds. Well, that must be a lot to see in those three seconds but that was not all. I thought while flying, “The vehicle (which by no way could be a light vehicle) must have hit my scooter at about 60-70kmph. If it had not braked completely before I landed I would make squash under its tyres in the next second. Should I wait for another hit that would take me to eternity?” As soon as I landed(thankfully I landed on my ass and helmet was intact), I gathered all strength that had ever been stored in my worn-away-athlete body and turned back as if to face the “bull” that attacked me from behind. Standing there was a bolero pick up, it wasn’t raging towards me.

People thronged around to ask me if I was okay. Someone asked me if I wanted to go to a hospital but I said that I felt okay except for the numerous minor bloody wounds on various parts of my body. I stretched my legs, hands and neck to see if I had pain but I was okay except for a shooting pain in my ass coz it had hit tarred road at around 40kmph(kinetic energy transferred leaving behind some to account for the crumpled scooter and the amount scooter moved and also considering my weight being smaller than that of the bolero..zyada techy ho gaya!!) and I knew the docs could not possibly help. Someone even said, “ The way you were falling, I thought you would die”. From the midst of the people came a “cinema style”-ish traffic police and asked to a Me who was bruised all over, “Abe traffic light pe kyun ruka. Chale jate”(Why did you stop at the traffic light? You should have kept on going”). And then he took his walkie talky and reported to the head quarters “ Two vehicles collided near Keltron both had violated traffic lights”. I smiled at him as I said to myself “Wow!! I’ve got only my God given ASS to thank for me surviving the untimely flight”.

Post script: Well, I did take my second flight later the next day - Ten hours later, though I had to pack in two hours instead of ten (thanks to my shove pack training at National Institute of Technology JAMSHEDPUR).

“And to GOD the Lord belong escapes from death”(Ps 68:20)

Towing Tales

TOWING TALES

By Joshua Cherian Varughese

One day and two nights..it proved to me yet again that there are more challenges in life left to face, there are more mountains to cover and more problems to overthrow but still our hands are never too tired, our legs never too sore and our eyes never too heavy when it comes to defeating a challenge that towers up so high and boorishly ordering us to quit..

Smell of petrol, the sound of the engine sputtering and dying out filled the air that our world hardly seemed to consist of anything else. It was a journey that started as a trip to a friend’s marriage 80kms away and had eight people,  our car’s engine fouled early during the journey when it stopped in the middle of nowhere with almost no help for us to lean on to. This never bothered me then because I knew I had eight strong pair of hands not those of fragile chicken-headed body builders, but that of workers who out of their need had made beating metal their way of life (They were hardened men who saw realities of life everyday and above all one of them(representing all) had once said to me “sir, hum aapke saath hain..aap jo bhi chiz keliye tayar ho jate ho, aap ko koi nahi rokh sakta”. I knew these exaggerated words will not stand with me in all times but I certainly knew they were with me on this). Our manipulations and “jugad” on the fouling engine got us to our destination with great difficulty but then the engine ceased, it just would not start. The night went by as thousands of mosquitoes from all corners of Hodal (a place in Haryana which seemed to be the supply house of mosquitoes to the ends of the world) feasted on our foreign blood while we were left to “sleep” in a road side shop and in the car.

The mechanic hunt started early in the morning and when we found one, he agreed to complete the work till evening the same day. The day passed fast while three of us slept on the dirty workshop couch and the others left by bus back to gurgaon. One day passed and so did half of its night; it was 1 o clock in the night when the mechanic said he could do nothing to make the engine right even after he consulted all experts in the town. Left on the road to the mercy of passing vehicles to tow us to some place near to home, we finally found a drunk but kind hearted old man who bothered enough to tow us to Faridabad. Although good enough at heart, he was a pest at towing (atleast when he was drunk) when he towed our vehicle at 80kmph cutting in between speeding trucks on Delhi Agra national highway. Our car followed faithfully like a string caught on the leg of a mad bull controlled only by me steering it off raging truckers in the pelting rain (no wipers too, remember!!). Two o clock and three o clock melted away in fright as well as exhilaration..two hours of leaning on to the car steering straining my eyes on to the only one working taillight of an Indica(our car battery completely dead..no lights..hardly any brakes: thanks to the modern power brakes which works only when the engine runs). Trying hard not to crash in a towed vehicle at the mercy of a drunk driver will surely add no value to my curriculum vitae..but it surely lets me realize that there are still challenges coming on and if I just don’t give up and go home, I can still overthrow them. I still can do it not because I have skills, but because there are kind hearted people who are ready to help, there still is a fire that burns inside me that wants to overcome, there still are friends who no matter what will back me up. So, no matter what, where or when.. our hands are never too tired, our legs never too sore and our eyes never too heavy when it comes to defeating a challenge that towers up so high and boorishly ordering us to quit.

EASILY ENTANGLED..

- Joshua Cherian Varughese

H

e walked days at a stretch; His irregular steps tended to trip him over, his hair was ruffled and unkempt like a tramp, his lips hung down uncovering his dry mouth, his drooping eyes gazed hopefully somewhere into the future looking for something that he seemed to have seen. He had seen something so gripping in the past that his well to do life filled with fun, frolic and talents moved into the background and got blurred; His thought world was a swamp with no solid ground worth a firm foothold. .his identity bobbed up and down like pieces of ice melting in water.

It was not a sight of horror that he had seen for his face was calm nor was it a sight of goodness for he lacked any in him..It was hope that he saw.. It was a sight of such great hope that lifts one to the heights no human has felt but that hope which lasts but for a moment. What is hope if it does not last? Hope by definition is something that lasts but the hope which came to him lasted only for a moment.  And yet it was so real that when it vanished he dropped from those heights to these lows. 

It is not once that he had thought it will not appear to him again, it is not once that it occurred to him that he should live in the present like everybody else, it is not once that he tried and it not once that he fell back into this depressing chasm of a “hope” of seeing that hope again. One fine day he would decide, “No more of this!!” and he would start living a normal life like anyone else. But how can man not hope when he has seen the heights of it? He would feel the “hope to hoping like he hoped” crawling irresistibly up his legs slowly winding itself on him like a python which cannot be stopped. The days that followed would be least described by the word “pain”. Repeated “normalcy” and “abnormalcy” left what is left of that fine young man to wonder:

“O hope, why didst thou choose me?

Did I ask of thee, Did I ask even a morsel?

Did my soul seek its self  or did I rob the poor?

What great sin did my self commit, O my soul?

Or what great charity did I do for your benevolence?

I just sought to live a life, with nothing but a smile

But thou hast made me hope to the pinnacle

That when thou art not, I search..I search endlessly”