Its good to be alive!

Early this morning my husband informed me that his colleague's wife met with an accident while driving to office. She had to be rushed to the hospital. It was only in the afternoon that I came to know the true extent of her injuries - a fracture in the knee and her leg would be in a cast for 2 months. My husband and I went to see her in the hospital. Though she looked fine overall and seemed to have miraculously escaped any serious injuries, the fact remained that she would have to rest her injured leg for the next couple of months. The threat of surgery loomed large if there was no real recovery by then. Till then, she'd have to take a break from her job and stay home. That itself would not have been a problem except for the fact that they have a 10 month old daughter. To top it all, I learned that today is the patient's birthday. Well, this is one birthday she's not likely to forget in a hurry. All thanks to a auto-rickshaw driver who overtook her from the wrong side of the road which caused the accident.

The entire incident reminded me of my own such accident when I was in the 2nd year of college. I had come to this city to visit my grandma in the preparatory holidays. She had come to receive me at the railway station and we were going to her place in an auto-rickshaw when it collided with a scooter. The auto lost its balance, I was thrown out and the auto landed on top of my hand. I suffered multiple fractures. Thanks to the presence of mind of my grandma, who was miraculously unhurt. She rushed me to a nearby hospital and I got adequate care. The auto driver had run away from the scene and she got some bystanders to help carry me to the hospital.

Such incidents remind you that we tend to go about life in such a supercilious fashion. We make elaborate plans, secure in the knowledge that things will happen as we plan them. However, God always has other plans for us. We are but puppets in the hands of the Almighty. In the space of a second all plans go haywire, schedules get disrupted and the course of our life changes. Why does this happen? Perhaps it is to remind us of a higher power who is the ultimate planner. Or maybe these things happen to test one's fortitude and strength. Yet another view is that these things happen to preserve us from a worse fate that might have awaited us had the accident not happened. Or perhaps all of these theories are just for humoring the victims.

One thing is clear though. Such incidents do reinforce the feeling of gratitude that we are still alive. That we can still enjoy the trappings of life, the beauty of all creation and make more memories to erase this one. It also makes one humble in that our plans are never foolproof; we are but a minuscule part of the universe subject to the whims and fancies of a much greater force.