The nano-moment

Yes, it is that one nanosecond of stupidity or loss of judgement that haunts you for the rest of your life. Or rather, till that next nano-moment. The experience of getting drunk and calling an ex-girlfriend to tell her you still love her is something that one doesn't forget in a hurry. It may only be forgotten when one gets drunker and calls the ex-girlfriend's husband to tell him that you still love her. For the record, neither of the above has ever happened to me. Well, not all of it anyways.

Coming back to that fraction of a second where Murphy's law is at its best, why can't people just take a moment to realize the consequences of something going wrong? As a matter of principle, i am cynical and pessimistic. There's not really a bone of optimism in my being. To all of you who know me and are nodding your head in agreement, there's one thing i need to ask you all. What the hell is wrong in being pessimistic, what's so wrong in believing that something is always going to go wrong?? Believing that something will go wrong, probably does not make me a better person but sure as hell keeps me out of trouble. Opening a shaken bottle of beer in MY car is just not done! I don't care if you think it has no fizz, the chance of it spilling in my car is not something i want to take. Hundred of nano-moments have taught me that. Murphy has taught me that. If it can go wrong it sure will!

A couple of weeks ago, i was at the wrong end of a series of unfortunate events. It started one cloudy, pleasant Saturday morning, i had the urge to get away from the city and the routine of daily life. I turned over in bed, found my phone and made a few calls to let people know of my intentions. Three answered, all three surprisingly said yes. Of course, two of them were lured under false pretenses but what the hell, they could've used some excitement in life. And excitement they did get!

We decided to drive down to Hogennekal falls, about 160-180 kms from Bangalore. The weather was perfect, the music was good and the company was people I've know a long long time. Good times. We took the Hosur road flyover. At the wheel of a Baleno on a straight empty road free of humans and animals was more than i could have wanted at the time. 120 kmph!! Aaah!! Someday some woman is going to be very very jealous of that car. What can i say, I absolutely love her! Ever since i gave up on all mankind and stopped expecting things off them, the Baleno has been my only friend. She gives me comfort in the long traffic jams, she lets me blare music at obscene volumes, and when i take her out, she's always ready to give me all she has.

Coming back to the drive, after we got off the flyover, the first thing we did was look for a bar. We were headed into Tamil Nadu and Tamil Nadu really doesn't have a reputation of being alcoholic friendly. We stopped, bought a few beers and some whiskey. It was still too early in the day to start drinking for the people who had already had a few drinks on Friday night, those who hadn't, opened their beers.

It had been a long long time since I had driven on a traffic free road. I loved it. Even shifting to 4th gear on city roads had been impossible. 5th gear and 120-140 kmph felt like heaven.

So after a few stops and some aggressive driving we got within about 60kms of our destination. We stopped to buy a few things and that is when a friend of mine asked if he could drive. Prior to that, I've allowed at most 3 people to drive my car. I once drove about 650-700 kms in two days all by myself. The thing is, my car was initially owned by an early middle aged woman and I was the only guy to have handled her (i'm talking about the car here and not the middle aged woman you perverts!). The virtuous being that she was had never been touched by another man before me. And i'll be damned if i let just any random guy touch her! The only problem on that day was that this guy was no random guy. I had known him for about 15 years. I couldn't just laugh at him and say "You??? Drive my car?? Not a chance in hell!!!" as i did with everyone else.

He had been commenting on my driving and giving me "tips" all along the way, primarily directed towards slowing down and having more control of the car. So anyways, I figured i would let him drive considering his words till then had suggested he would be driving at 50 kmph. For the first few kilometers that he was driving, things seemed nice and simple. Once we hit hilly terrain, i dont know what go into him but he just took off and floored it. Small curvy roads are not really a place to be flooring it. He missed a bus by inches, slid into corners and at the same time asked me to "trust" him. I said as long as he didn't wreck my car, he could do as he pleased. I also warned him from my past experiences that once the car started drifting, he was fucked. Somebody from behind corrected me and said all of us were fucked if the car started to drift. And drift it did. Tyres screeching trying to grip the tarmac. Still no signs of slowing down.

And then it happened, that nano-moment that brought the day’s festivities to an abrupt end. We skid off the right side of the road at a corner and crashed sideways into a tree. We took half the tree with us for good measure. Crashing into a tree at about 80-100 kmph does leave behind some painful damage! The entire right side of the car was wrecked. Starting from the fender all the way to the rear door. Its a sight i can never forget. To make matters worse, the point of impact had been the right front wheel which had caused the shaft connecting the front two wheels to the steering column to snap. This meant that only the left wheel was still connected to the steering column. If i turned the steering left, the left wheel would turn left but the right one wouldn't move. The one thing that i knew belonged to me and that i thought would never leave me was smashed beyond recognition.

I have a policy never to think about and worry about something that i cannot change. What had happened had happened. There was no way to go back and undo it. I didn't even say a word to him. If it was anybody else i might have pushed him off the edge of the road into a deep gorge below. But i didn't do anything. There are some lessons people just have to learn the hard way. This was one such lesson. This was his nano-moment which would haunt him every single time he saw me or my car again.

Its been about 3 weeks now and i still haven't gotten my car back. She's still at a service station at Dharmapuri. I miss her. I hope she recovers enough to be herself again.

P.S: Two days after this story, i had another accident. I had to go to Dharmapuri to submit my original documents for insurance proceedings. Sumanth and I went in my dad's car this time. It was a Monday and both of us had taken the day off. After submitting the documents, we decided we would go to Hogennekal falls considering we never really got to do it two days ago.

We had a few drinks and on the way back, when we were passing through a small town, the left side of the car made contact with a guy walking on the side of the road. To this day i don't know how that happened. We figured that if we stopped we'd be lynched and so decided to just drive. 3 motorcycles followed us and made us stop. To our misfortune, we were now right in the middle of a marketplace. Even before we could get out of the car we had about 30 people surrounding us. This was gonna be how i went out! But thankfully, a police van was just passing by and they asked me to follow them to the police station. To cut a long story short, i spent about 5 hrs in a police station, the guy i hit wasn't injured much, we got off after paying a hefty fine!