How I became the Metallic me.

It was not a wonderful morning by any standards. It was an okay okay one nonetheless. I woke up in time and got ready. I was really looking forward to going to my office that day. After all, I was, for the first time, given a whole huge Bluetooth module to work on, independently. And the best of all? I had finally figured out a solution to a problem that had not let me proceed with the module. I was really looking forward to flaunting about it with my colleagues and impressing my ma'am (my boss).

After my mom made sure I had gulped down enough idlis to last a lifetime, I did my namaskar to her and took my vehicle keys and left my flat. I usually take the vehicle out of the parking area, ride close to my balcony, and wave a 'tata' to my mom before I ride off to work. That day too, I did the same. Only, today the mami in the flat above ours was squeezing some piece of dripping wet cloth before she hung it to dry and unfortunately did not notice me standing below, looking up, waving at my mom. She was probably putting to test, the elasticity of the cloth that a good half a bucket water wrung out of it splashing onto my head. I looked up at her in bewilderment and thought she might at least apologize. I mean, I was already half way into shouting out, 'Its okay aunty'. In a certain south Indian slang, acquiring a bulb is meant to represent having encountered something very humiliating. That morning I got a 'Tsunami-Bulb' - Bulb of the highest order. Cos the aunty didn't even bother looking down at the artificial soapy rain she had drenched me with. And there I was, standing down, wet, flat faced, looking at her empty balcony with all generosity to accept her apologies. My mom was mouthing *beeps* for that imbecile of a lady. She insisted that I change and then go. I was running a wee bit late and so decided otherwise. It didn't feel so bad, what with the sun beating down upon me. It might've as well swung a gadha (once owned by Bheema, may be) on my head. Except for a mild aroma of the Tide detergent powder, I was alright in a matter of minutes.

I rode, snaking my way through the ridiculous Guindy road traffic, and occasionally, when the traffic cleared for a pico second or lesser, was as usual, petrified by vehicles zooming so close to me that I thought they were gonna ride over my feet. Probably like one of those goofy stunts they show on AXN where people lie flat on the roads and let cars n trucks ride over their limbs and when done, smile at the camera most often with a thumbs-up signaling that their limbs were still functional. Dolt - is also a word they can happen to be addressed by; both, the AXN people and the people who rode the vehicles brushing the ones they happen to ride past.
The worst part of the ride is when you reach the Sardar Patel Road. It is definitely longish and connects some really important places like Saidapet, Guindy, CEG, Adayar, CLRI, IITM, OMR etc and so calls for some bulky traffic during all parts of a day. My office at IIT Madras research park, demanded that I take that road. And I did, as always. The signal at Madhyakailash cleared and I got stuck to the right end of the traffic. I entered the OMR with a million others tugging close behind me.

One fellow being, 'the- Dolt-of-the-decade' riding a Santro, right beside me decided he would brush up against me. It would be make more sense if I put it this way; his car was blatantly trying to flirt with my vehicle; like what happens on a city bus when a guy decides to stand right beside you and keeps rubbing his shoulders with yours. His santro rubbed shoulders with my Scooty pep. I was already only an inch away from the huge cement median of the road. I never understood why they purposefully made certain walls coarse and scabby. U have seen one of those, haven’t u? I mean, it doesn't even appeal your eyes, let alone your palm, when you rub it. This median was built exactly like that, at least 3 feet and a half tall.

The result of the automobiles amorous episode ended calamitous. The scooty was shoved onto the median. The Santro still wouldn't give up. It decided to go for a full on contact with the pretty Scooty whose right half was being overwhelmingly rubbed and bruised by the median wall. If you might remember, I was the one that happened to be riding her. And hence the shove beleaguered me as well, no surprises there. I must've ridden her in the stance for about a minute when the Santro gave up, turned his nose down upon my Scooty and moved away into the rest of the traffic; probably to harass more girls.
Skipping all the parts that might welcome an 'OMG!' or 'WTH' or 'Oh god, please stop Aishu' comments, and digressing from all the grotesque details, I had hurt myself really really bad. Before I could realize where I was, I was on the road, hard on breath. In addition to my right knee and a lot more of my right leg, I had also hurt my ribs. I couldn't breath. People stopped riding, traffic piling behind me. One Christian couple - God bless them - helped me, be transported into a car.
In the car, I sat gasping and sweating like a pig that had just finished an hour long work out. I took my phone and started calling people and informing that I had met with an accident - yet again. The car had by then taken me to the hospital nearest - the VHS hospital. I still couldn't breath, was bleeding all of what my bone marrow had produced over the past one decade.

At the hospital I sat gasping (yes, I was still gasping) and holding my right leg together. My rescuer stood by my bed holding my shoulders from shaking. A couple of lazy nurses came into the room I was deposited in. They looked down at me, bored and one of them yawned at my massively bleeding wound and took a huge bundle of cotton and dipped it into a horrifyingly brownish liquidy liquid. In the meantime, one doctor came by, adjusted his spectacles up and down his stubby nose and looked down at my knee and told that I had fractured my Patella into a few tens of pieces and that I would have to undergo a surgery to stick it all up – I was praying I still had all of them somewhere in my leg. He said that and left. The nurses were talking about how much of urad dal has to be added to the Idli batter to make it as soft as malligai poo (malligai poo = tamil equivalent of the flower Jasmin; Yeah we do compare a soft idli to the flower despite the mismatch in the temperature or the aroma or for that matter, the size. Since I am not aware of the sapid traits of the latter, I choose not to comment on that. For all I know, someone probably did approve of the analogy after finding striking similarities in the taste). The nurses then took to a very painful process of cleaning and dressing up my wound (the pain was all mine by the way).
By then, my brother, dad, mom and my neighbor had arrived. Two of my really close friends from college also had come. I was in the lime light; a bloody one though. Since the hospital was not really hygienic and all those, I was, in an ambulance, taken to the nearest 'insanely costly' hospital with all those flashy receptions and flowery corridors nonetheless reeking of medicines.
I was taken into the ICU after a hundred different scan procedures in one of which I was diagnosed of suffering from an internal hemorrhage in my liver and blah blah and bull’s claw (that was a phrase I just invented. I really had to use that here though it makes as much sense as differential calculus in a history class) I was strapped onto a cushy cushy bed, which I would've otherwise enjoyed sleeping on, if not for the hundred little needles poking into all of my wrists. I don't remember much after that. I slept for most of the time. And after a few hours in observation, the liver was found to have stopped bleeding and the doctors then decided I would have to be operated on, the coming day. I was asleep all the while by the way.

Morning, noon, night, I didn't know one from the other. I was not to eat or drink anything till I was done with my surgery. Before I knew it, it was time for me to be operated on. They wheeled my bed to the operation theater. I saw a very grief stricken version of my mom and bro on the way. I waved them a hi and wished someone would shoot a video of me showing a victory sign from the bed, so that I could brag about it later. Since they all seemed apparently shaken, clumsy and fidgety cos of the melancholy they were faced with, I decided otherwise. Anyway, I was taken into the theater and transferred to another bed. Beside me someone was cluck-clucking the scissors, someone was trying to find out if the drilling machine was still working alright and someone accidentally dropped a huge hammer onto the floor. I was at Dr. Jekyll’s. One pleasant looking fat doctor came and told me that he was my anesthetist and that they would be administering a complete anesthesia before the surgery. I didn't really mind. I only wanted to be left alone and let to sleep.

I slept through the surgery and woke up after what seemed like a couple of minutes, but which was in actual about 5 hours or so, heavily dreary and pained. I finally got to go home after 5 excruciating days at the hospital of which most of my time I spent either singing or retching and puking. I had my right leg bundled  heavily with a couple of metal screws drilled into my knee bone and a coil winding my Patella (wow I was metallic now! :-P ) and had a very pained respiration that had resulted from the rib fracture. It took me 4 whole months before I could walk on my own without the assistance of this one squarish walker. Then there were these really painful sessions of physiotherapies and some wonderful times I got to spend with a couple of my friends and my family, after which I am decently cured now, but only for another surgery requiring the removal of the implants. 
Even for someone as accident prone as I am, I would call these a teeny weeny bit overwhelming. And ta daa! The ugly frog turned into a handsome prince, married the princess, and they lived happily ever after..
Err.. Wrong ending. Please reread as : That is how I ended up becoming metallic :-D

The Elevator

Why would anyone name an elevator, an elevator when all it does is not even close to elevating your social stature, but on the contrary oft puts you in an overtly queasy predicament?! If it were I, responsible for the nomenclature, I would’ve named it the nefarious carriage – NC in short maybe.  You ask why. And here’s why.

The history, for a start. The earliest forms of an elevator, it is believed, were functional in the pre historic era. Now, that is when the cavemen employed gorillas for the purpose. There were these little (well not that little) baskets that the cavemen got woven by the cavewomen, apparently with a few unceremonious whacks on the heads (who gave and who received - we might never know) with wooden clubs. They were tied to these long, strong, prolong, furlong, ping pong,.. er.. Sorry. Got a bit lost there. I have this strange affinity to words that rhyme. Anyway. The baskets were supposedly tied to one end of these long strong ropes that were tied to a gorilla on the other end. They – the baskets, not the gorillas, were then thrown over high cliffs. The ropes were long enough for the baskets to reach the bottom of the cliff. The cavemen would then go in for a spectacular dive into the water from the high cliff. (For all that we know, this could have even been the origin of the Olympics high dive acts). After his swim, when he decides to get back home and sip some hot soup, he would jump into the basket, beat his chest – Tarzan style, and holler ‘oolay oolay ooo’. The cavewoman would consider this signal and get to luring the gorilla, with a hand of bananas, away from the cliff towards her. The gorilla would mindlessly hop towards the banana, eventually pulling the basket up, with the caveman in it. 

Despite the bumbling jolts in the basket that left the cavemen looking like an overly sized and badly mutated baby kangaroo in his mommy’s pouch, the first conception of the modern day elevators proved more often than not, effectual. However, sadly, since the gorillas discovered much more profitable employment schemes, they took to growling at the cavemen, and occasional baring of their gargantuanly browned teeth in a gesture that happened to irrevocably jeopardize the caveman-gorilla employment contracts. Thus ended the short lived genesis of the modern day elevators.

The modern day elevators as we see it, comprise of a purposefully, inconveniently, suffocatingly small cabinet that often spurns in me, unpleasant memories of having been locked inside an even more  suffocatingly small dark trunk in my childhood. (I was never really locked in such a trunk. I just fancied the idea once and it still haunts me, like it really happened. Yeah yeah. Me and my eidetic memory).  What strikes to me as the strangest is that, regardless of their physical dimensions, they always seem cramped with people standing positioned in odd directions (if you are thinking of navagraham, yup that is what it looks like). I once had the misfortune of being lodged between a very very very (trust me, very!) fat lady and a tall flustered young man reeking of Denim deodorant, stuck face front to the metallic wall at the back of the elevator, dramatically exhibiting my back to the rest of the crowd inside. I was going to pass out. I couldn’t breathe; for two reasons – one of my nostrils was jammed to the wall and the other free nostril was being royally abused by the lung-strangling odour emancipating from the guy. 

Claustrophobia is just one of the factors that bother me. Have you ever had the crunch of being in a very crowded elevator with a stranger facing you? It takes only minutes for you to get off your floor. But what do you do till then? A good notable number of times, people take to staring at the shoes of that stranger. But what if the guy facing you is really really fat and sports a huge pot for his belly? It is strongly advised that you don’t bend over and try to still look at his shoes. Oh, you could probably stare at his wristwatch, if he has one. Be warned, if the watch happens to be one of those costly ordeals, do not stare at it for more than ten seconds. You might be mistaken for a kleptomaniac. 

Well, you could always wish the person a good day. If you are having one, he would probably wish you back or at least nod in acknowledgement. On the contrary, you should also be expectant of an annoyed stare, or the worst could be a zero acknowledgement.  This again sprawls two very different probable outcomes. One - the rest of the NC mates throw a sympathetic nod; two - they give you a hard time snickering at your quandary. I have been at both ends and neither of them feels good.

Forget the ‘stranger’ part. What if you encounter that annoying bald uncle from your apartment you always try to avoid at all costs? I have one at mine. He keeps rambling nonstop about how there is no discipline in youth these days and how he was very responsible in his own youth. If I happen to see him heading to the elevator I imperceptibly sneak away from the vicinity. But that one unfortunate day I am talking about, I was already in the elevator. Only then did I happen to see him running to the elevator. I panicked. Instead of pressing the [>|<] button that closes the elevator, I pressed on the [<|>] button, creating an impression in him that I am holding the elevator open for him. I’ve never abused myself so badly as I did then. He came in panting, flaunting his sweaty bald head and thanked me and without so much as a breath, started twaddling about how very different I was from youth these days and how responsible I had become, what with all the advice he had bestowed upon me. The hellish 40 seconds came to an end and I got off at my floor. "Why blood? Same blood." 

With all the humiliations, suffocation, torment and tumult, not to forget, the dizzy spells when the elevator hits a floor to halt, my mind simply doesn’t permit me to address the elevator as the Elevator. Hence the NC, you see!

P.S. : Thanks to Google for the images :)