Water tastes sour with coagulated blood mixed in it. I had opened my eyes to a few bare-chested villages towering over me. Never before had I seen such genuinely emotive eyes. I looked around and saw the Nayak family lying a few feet away seemingly unhurt. Sudhakar and his wife had cuts on their faces and what looked like glass jutting out of their legs. The Goyals were being pulled out of a window, unconsciously. Meanwhile, the Nayaks were now being lifted and put into a waiting auto. I closed my eyes and felt a strong pair of hands sliding beneath me. I woke up with a jerk to see a smiling fifty year old man close to my face. I turned my head around and saw people, the Vasans and the Chaturvedis being pulled out of different windows, their bodies a bloody mess. I never know what overcame me at that moment - whether it was pent up fury at the sight of so much suffering around me or a love for mankind that I had possibly inherited in my genes. I motioned to the people lying around and those neighbors still stuck inside the ill-fated bus. The village initially confused, understood my request. Setting me back on the ground, he moved towards the Goyals.
The auto-driver drove eleven full trips to the Hospital, 5 kilometers away, with tears in his eyes and pain in his heart. When the last trip with my mutilated body was done, he had made his last trip on that eventful night. The two night-duty Doctors, completely exhausted, had decided to take a short nap and had to be shaken awake after my arrival.
The Ambulance driver had been on a holiday and the fifteen year old vehicle had refused to start.
My left leg had to be amputated as gangrene had set in. "Maybe a couple of hours earlier", mused the Doctors.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment