Sitting inside a lecture room, with a philosophy
professor reciting his versions of life, the real world and its many epithets,
I recalled one incident which introduced me to the brave affairs of the world.
This was 6 years ago. I have waited till now to recite it, but I won’t wait any
longer. With fingers aching to relive the daunting day, let me start my story
of an incident which defined my beliefs as powerfully as a stone is smoothened
by a river.
It was as the books say and the movies show, a hot and
dry summer afternoon in the month of July. The sun was at its peak, and I was sitting idle on the bed, eyes fixed on the laptop screen. You can possibly perceive that
I was a typical teenager, relishing the rare freedom in the house by carrying out all activities I was denied in the house. With my feet (with shoes on) up on the blanket, laptop in my lap, and headphones in my ears, it was turning out to be a marvelous day.
Suddenly, my idyllic world was disturbed by a noise outside. Though distracted, I let it go and went back to playing with the laptop. I had possibly thought if I went outside, I would see a dog because the noise sounded like a whimpering. However, ignoring the dog seemed less and less plausible as he continued to whimper, and was now audible even through the headphones. I decided to catch the culprit, my spirits endowed by the possibility of a weakling to bully. (We can safely assume that what I meant to do was to shout and probably throw a few stones aiming to miss the dog, just to drive it away). And while I was contemplating plans for restoring order to my heavenly abode, I heard the whimpering again, louder this time. With blood boiling with rage, mind idle with nothingness, I laid low my headset, and charged out of the house looking for the would-be victim.
As I remember it, I didn't see any dog at all anywhere near the house. (Perhaps you fail to notice, but I am telling you this story in the cold month of February today, and the setting is in the month of July five years ago, so there are at least sixty six months of memory losses embedded in this story). So as I was saying, there is no dog in my memory, but only a boy, who looked like a rag-picker, clutching his leg. It looked as if he was hit by a car. Thanks to the scorching sun, and the lonely roads thereof, the car driver must have vanished unnoticed. You would ask how could I hear a dog barking when it was a child crying, but the account is very old and thus not liable for small aberrations. But now it all came down to this. I was a proud teenager in front of the house, with an injured child and no elder at home to stress about the situation. I couldn't ask for help from the neighbors, who would take any opportunity to show me that I am still a child and need to be cooed. I had no obligation to finding an aid for the boy, and I wasn't the type to care too much about simple humane feelings. But the persistent crying of the boy was becoming quite bothersome for me and none of the neighbors seem to care. So I decided to take the boy to the Hospital myself on my father's scooter. I knew well how to drive, and the possibility of any policeman in this exorbitant heat was laughable. With the intention of dumping the boy there and letting him find his own treatment (and I doing the noble, angelic deed of transporting him there), I would come back to my room with the same laptop, and a great story to boast of when I am out with friends. But no sooner that I had picked the boy, he slipped out of my hands. I couldn't have placed him on the back seat of my scooter, with him clutching his one leg and unable to speak, so I decided to give him the rider seat and the leg space between the handle and it, and drove myself from the pillion. Luckily the boy, ill fed it seemed, shrunk to only the leg space and I carefully rode on the front, hanging my legs out trying not to stain them with the blood and dirty clothes. The hospital is not far off from our home so my heroic act wouldn't have taken much of my time. We reached the hospital in just a few minutes. My mind was perhaps occupied by the thought of my empty house and the possibility that I might have to battle robbers once I went back. For the crucial dumping part, I decided the usual parking pretext would be fine (“You stand here, I will go park” and then off to home!). I stopped the scooter in front of the emergency ward, and waited for him to get down. But he never moved, just sat shrunk there. It was frustrating. I put my scooter on a stand, and decided to again lift the boy. When I was about to place the boy down (holding him as far from my body as my arms allowed it), I heard a laugh and a voice, ”Take him to a vet kid, they don't treat gutter waste here”.
I was shocked! I looked around to see the meddler, and located him behind a reception desk, 10 feet inside the gate with the typical desi look (bidi in his mouth, gamcha on his shoulder and red pan stained mouth). Defiantly, I asked, ”What?” He again repeated his line, a cynical grin on his face. Now I was confused, as something furry brushed against my hand. I looked down to see that what I had till now thought to be a boy was indeed a dog and my imaginations (hallucinations?) had got the better of me. Still, I decided to believe in the hallucination (imagination?) theory rather than shape-shifting-alien theories. It wasn't far fetched for me to think that I was too preoccupied with the thoughts of dumping the boy/dog, and with my eyes, ears and brain already “stressed” from planning my heroic act and the possibility of robbers in the house, I was imagining things. Not putting a big deal on the situation, I started to study my surrounding. There weren't any known people who might have seen what I did and reported to my parents. Carefully, I put the dog back on the scooter. It isn't very common to see animals being hauled to the hospital. I knew everyone was watching me while I started the scooter. Obviously they may be another figment of my imagination, since I had become extremely self conscious. So while I took off, my mind started to weigh the possibility of someone there accidentally knowing me and spreading the word to my parents. So I went to the vet and with all intentions of carrying out the good deed to the end, decided to stay there and let the robbers have a picnic at my house. Nobody would remember the hospital incident and I would gloat with pride as the neighbors will praise my wisdom and generosity. Too occupied with myself, I parked the scooter at the gate and picked up the dog. With a dirty bleeding dog in my hand, I pictured myself as a great, selfless God in disguise, taking away the pains of mortal beings. I pictured the news-van of our local news channel passing by and stopping at the marvelous, stupefying sight, and journalists running out of the van to take my photo. I would play the humble hero, running in the mean time inside the vet's office and locking the door so that the journalists never got to take my pic (After which they call a posse of reporters and break in and I become a celebrity) As you may have noticed, my accounts in this story have been very much clearer now that the initial boy-dog hiccup is over. You can assume it all to be the make-belief story of a teenager obsessed with superhero comics. That way, there wouldn't be much to forget about it over the years, it would always have been a part of me. As I said before, I was dreaming some imaginary reporters, and seeing that they are not coming, I finally landed on the first step of the clinic. He was a private doctor, and the fact that there weren't much people around, evening clearly being the preferred time for a visit to the vet, I went straight to the doctor's office. I must proclaim my sanity before I proceed further. I am an engineering student in a prestigious institute, 21 years old, with no background of mental illness, or any other major illness (except a chance malaria, and occasional flues), with completely fine social traits, never being accused of being mad except when friends are passing exaggerated judgments. I am as my education and my health perhaps now indicate, a completely sound mind in a completely sound body. Thus now that I have successfully proved my sanity, I am obliged by my duty as the narrator to continue the story further. I stepped in the doctor's office expecting accolades from him, now that my dream of the reporters pushing open the door had crashed. Preoccupied again, I was completely unperturbed when the doctor said, ”Oh my God! What happened to him? Did you hit him? Take him to a hospital, I won't treat him here. I am too busy. Shoo!” Still holding my hands as far from my body as I could, I could only reply with an “Uh” before he pushed me out of the clinic. When I tried to look at him again, I saw the closed door of the clinic, a reflection of me holding a small bleeding rag-picker with my arms stretched out.
Suddenly, my idyllic world was disturbed by a noise outside. Though distracted, I let it go and went back to playing with the laptop. I had possibly thought if I went outside, I would see a dog because the noise sounded like a whimpering. However, ignoring the dog seemed less and less plausible as he continued to whimper, and was now audible even through the headphones. I decided to catch the culprit, my spirits endowed by the possibility of a weakling to bully. (We can safely assume that what I meant to do was to shout and probably throw a few stones aiming to miss the dog, just to drive it away). And while I was contemplating plans for restoring order to my heavenly abode, I heard the whimpering again, louder this time. With blood boiling with rage, mind idle with nothingness, I laid low my headset, and charged out of the house looking for the would-be victim.
As I remember it, I didn't see any dog at all anywhere near the house. (Perhaps you fail to notice, but I am telling you this story in the cold month of February today, and the setting is in the month of July five years ago, so there are at least sixty six months of memory losses embedded in this story). So as I was saying, there is no dog in my memory, but only a boy, who looked like a rag-picker, clutching his leg. It looked as if he was hit by a car. Thanks to the scorching sun, and the lonely roads thereof, the car driver must have vanished unnoticed. You would ask how could I hear a dog barking when it was a child crying, but the account is very old and thus not liable for small aberrations. But now it all came down to this. I was a proud teenager in front of the house, with an injured child and no elder at home to stress about the situation. I couldn't ask for help from the neighbors, who would take any opportunity to show me that I am still a child and need to be cooed. I had no obligation to finding an aid for the boy, and I wasn't the type to care too much about simple humane feelings. But the persistent crying of the boy was becoming quite bothersome for me and none of the neighbors seem to care. So I decided to take the boy to the Hospital myself on my father's scooter. I knew well how to drive, and the possibility of any policeman in this exorbitant heat was laughable. With the intention of dumping the boy there and letting him find his own treatment (and I doing the noble, angelic deed of transporting him there), I would come back to my room with the same laptop, and a great story to boast of when I am out with friends. But no sooner that I had picked the boy, he slipped out of my hands. I couldn't have placed him on the back seat of my scooter, with him clutching his one leg and unable to speak, so I decided to give him the rider seat and the leg space between the handle and it, and drove myself from the pillion. Luckily the boy, ill fed it seemed, shrunk to only the leg space and I carefully rode on the front, hanging my legs out trying not to stain them with the blood and dirty clothes. The hospital is not far off from our home so my heroic act wouldn't have taken much of my time. We reached the hospital in just a few minutes. My mind was perhaps occupied by the thought of my empty house and the possibility that I might have to battle robbers once I went back. For the crucial dumping part, I decided the usual parking pretext would be fine (“You stand here, I will go park” and then off to home!). I stopped the scooter in front of the emergency ward, and waited for him to get down. But he never moved, just sat shrunk there. It was frustrating. I put my scooter on a stand, and decided to again lift the boy. When I was about to place the boy down (holding him as far from my body as my arms allowed it), I heard a laugh and a voice, ”Take him to a vet kid, they don't treat gutter waste here”.
I was shocked! I looked around to see the meddler, and located him behind a reception desk, 10 feet inside the gate with the typical desi look (bidi in his mouth, gamcha on his shoulder and red pan stained mouth). Defiantly, I asked, ”What?” He again repeated his line, a cynical grin on his face. Now I was confused, as something furry brushed against my hand. I looked down to see that what I had till now thought to be a boy was indeed a dog and my imaginations (hallucinations?) had got the better of me. Still, I decided to believe in the hallucination (imagination?) theory rather than shape-shifting-alien theories. It wasn't far fetched for me to think that I was too preoccupied with the thoughts of dumping the boy/dog, and with my eyes, ears and brain already “stressed” from planning my heroic act and the possibility of robbers in the house, I was imagining things. Not putting a big deal on the situation, I started to study my surrounding. There weren't any known people who might have seen what I did and reported to my parents. Carefully, I put the dog back on the scooter. It isn't very common to see animals being hauled to the hospital. I knew everyone was watching me while I started the scooter. Obviously they may be another figment of my imagination, since I had become extremely self conscious. So while I took off, my mind started to weigh the possibility of someone there accidentally knowing me and spreading the word to my parents. So I went to the vet and with all intentions of carrying out the good deed to the end, decided to stay there and let the robbers have a picnic at my house. Nobody would remember the hospital incident and I would gloat with pride as the neighbors will praise my wisdom and generosity. Too occupied with myself, I parked the scooter at the gate and picked up the dog. With a dirty bleeding dog in my hand, I pictured myself as a great, selfless God in disguise, taking away the pains of mortal beings. I pictured the news-van of our local news channel passing by and stopping at the marvelous, stupefying sight, and journalists running out of the van to take my photo. I would play the humble hero, running in the mean time inside the vet's office and locking the door so that the journalists never got to take my pic (After which they call a posse of reporters and break in and I become a celebrity) As you may have noticed, my accounts in this story have been very much clearer now that the initial boy-dog hiccup is over. You can assume it all to be the make-belief story of a teenager obsessed with superhero comics. That way, there wouldn't be much to forget about it over the years, it would always have been a part of me. As I said before, I was dreaming some imaginary reporters, and seeing that they are not coming, I finally landed on the first step of the clinic. He was a private doctor, and the fact that there weren't much people around, evening clearly being the preferred time for a visit to the vet, I went straight to the doctor's office. I must proclaim my sanity before I proceed further. I am an engineering student in a prestigious institute, 21 years old, with no background of mental illness, or any other major illness (except a chance malaria, and occasional flues), with completely fine social traits, never being accused of being mad except when friends are passing exaggerated judgments. I am as my education and my health perhaps now indicate, a completely sound mind in a completely sound body. Thus now that I have successfully proved my sanity, I am obliged by my duty as the narrator to continue the story further. I stepped in the doctor's office expecting accolades from him, now that my dream of the reporters pushing open the door had crashed. Preoccupied again, I was completely unperturbed when the doctor said, ”Oh my God! What happened to him? Did you hit him? Take him to a hospital, I won't treat him here. I am too busy. Shoo!” Still holding my hands as far from my body as I could, I could only reply with an “Uh” before he pushed me out of the clinic. When I tried to look at him again, I saw the closed door of the clinic, a reflection of me holding a small bleeding rag-picker with my arms stretched out.
I must tell you that I was only a small kid who was
trying to master the ways of the world by imitating what he believed was the
ideal worldly behavior, and trying to hold ground in whatsoever good reputation
he could earn. The outside world was new to me. And I was eccentric enough to
imitate and not be guided. This confession of mine would also act as a
justification for my actions in the later part of this story, as you would see.
Summing my story so far, I was now stranded outside
the Veterinarian’s clinic with someone who he (I think) described as a rag picker (and
who I now see as a rag picker) after having been to a Hospital with the same
one who (I think) was described as a dog (and who I then saw as a dog). All I could
understand with my-yet-too-feeble-to-contemplate-the-world-brain (which still
held enough imagination) was that whatever this creature was, he obviously
could not be given the so obvious first-aid the by the veterinarian (and whose
treatment wasn't as important as the vet’s conversation with the fat pet owner)
and it was definitely unwanted at a hospital and could not receive a
treatment there (like other normal patients). Both these incidents ruled out
the possibilities of “it” being a human or an animal. I came back to my theory of shape-shifting-aliens. I reasoned that the
possibility of an alien life form present on earth was possible, if not highly
probable. Besides, only two forms of life were mobile on earth, humans and animals, and the creature was neither. Thus, afloat on the voice of reason, I declared it as an alien who was left
alone on earth after its mother ship had sailed away. I again decided to be the humble
hero, who decides to be modest about his deeds till he is defiantly betrayed
into fame by a blabbering friend. I rushed to my scooter, put the “someone” who
now resembled a green-bodied and injured alien on my scooter as before, and
rushed off to home. I put him where the car hit him,
parked the scooter back in the house, and ran to get a cotton and a bottle of antiseptic. My plan was to treat him on the road so someone would see me helping him and betray me out of my modesty later. While I was searching for the medicines, my mind exhilarated by my approaching
fame, I heard a loud crash outside. Afraid of what might have happened, I ran out to find the alien
dead after being run over by another car, while the receptionist and the vet
were talking outside on the pavement just in front of my house. They both
rushed to see the incident, and so did I. Very soon, a big crowd gathered and
all of them were talking about the blood spilling on the road. Since the receptionist,
the vet were the first ones to reach and thus closest to the body,
someone asked them, “Did you see anything?”, and then all sorts of related
questions. Both the vet and the receptionist denied ever having seen the
dog/boy/alien before, or having seen the accident. Unaware and confused, I
nodded with them, all the while trying to see what final shape the body takes.
But I could not see. The body remained hidden from my
view by the receptionist and the vet, and then by the crowd, till the MCD Van
took it away.
This was my first true lesson in worldly affairs. This
was the day I understood the value of life. This was the day I grew up.
