It was time when I was preparing for JEE. I had passed matriculation. I was already in a college but then entering in IIT was a must aim of my life. It was a hard time. My so called career was nowhere. I had to work hard to find my way in some engineering college. I had joined coaching to coach myself for my better understanding of Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry. There was nothing much in life other than going to coaching and studying syllabus of JEE Exam. There was very little of any fun element. But it was interesting to me one way. I was learning things in detail. This preparation specially helped me grasping the basic ideas in Physics.
I used to wake up in the morning around 5 O’clock and used to go to meet a mathematics teacher. I can’t believe now that I was that person who was doing that. It was 15 kilometer drive from my home to teachers place. In the drive, there was 3-4 kilometer long stretch of a wide 4-lane road with divider. On one side there was a dairy factory. It provided a long wall along the road. It happened to be a very little activity of people on that side of the road. So, this stretch was perfect for the high speed motor biking with out a fear of traffic coming from opposite direction, pedestrian or cattle. It was my favorite drive. I had a 2-wheeler machine which people call scooter. But I call it machine*. My machine had the top speed of 95 Km/h. At that speed, that machine was totally unstable. Above 80 it used to start badly vibrating, so I rarely achieved that speed. At the center of that drive stretch there was entrance for the factory. Near the entrance, there were few shops and near those shops some poor people were living in huts. Some children from those huts used to play around and once one child was at wrong time at wrong place.
On that day, It was a cold winter morning of January. I woke up as usual and went on. I entered in that starch. I wasn’t driving very fast. Must not be more than 60 km/h. It was calm and silent morning. For a movement I looked on the meter panel to checkout the oil level and speed. And then I turned my head to look at the road. And suddenly, I saw a child was running across the road. He was coming from one of the huts. He was not more than 30 meters away. No chance to avoid hitting him. I had to do some thing and failure was not the option.** I turned my handle completely to left. This made my machine tilt and started turning. But its direction of motion didn’t change. Then It completely fell on the road and start skidding towards the child. I fell apart from the machine and start skidding on my face and solder. Form down there I saw sparkles coming out from under the machine due to skidding on the road. A thought went across my head that if that was happening with the machine what was happening with me. I wasn’t wearing helmet. So, my face was scratched at few points. Before everything stopped machine hit the child and he was thrown 4-5 feet’s away on road divider. Luckily, divider was made of metal grid. So, it acted as net for his landing.
After rolling 2-3 times on the road I stood up. I checked out that each and every part of my body is working or not. Then I saw that child. He was also standing and crying and quite full of blood. I was myself quite an 18 year old child. I didn’t thought of helping that child. For me the first thought came to me is the explanation which I would have to produce to my parents. I gathered all broken parts of the machine. Meanwhile people came around. Some of them were angry at me. Some were making point how dangerous the road had become. One was asking money for that child’s bandage. Some were angry at the parent of that child. As my situation was no better, I found sympathy among them. I simply said It was my mistake but I had no money to give anybody. And in a minute a friend passed by on a bike, He stopped and asked if I am fine. I nodded and had little conversation with him. This gave me chance to start my machine again and move out before crowd can guess it. You never know what can happen in this situation in India. You can be beaten to death by public.
I slowly drove back home. My father investigated all dimension of the event to check if I am not lying. One very weird thing happened, my machine had skidding marks on left and plastic parts were broken on right. This caused suspicion on the cause of accident. But I never knew why it happened that way. It is still a matter of discussion with my father.
Yes, I was bad. I shouldn’t drive fast. But, fast driving is a pleasure which nothing else can give you. I have a kind of lust of it. I did many accidents since then. I always avoided driving a car because it could cause more damage not only to me but also to others.
And, I feel that my lucky days are now over if I will meet another accident I will certainly die.
*Calling a machine as machine is a very realizing fact. Many people tend to love their computer, car or television. They take care of their machines as a child. They keep its use in limits such that it doesn’t go bad. Sometime they suffer themselves to take care of the machine. But if you refer them as a simple machine all that love seems to disappear. You can save that love for humans and you can be brutal with the machines. You can experiment with them without any compassion. You can use them as you want. If they go bad you either fix them or throw them away.
**As They say it in US movies.
I don't know 