I am in pain.

Terrible pain. For almost the last 10 days. And the worse part is that, except for Neil and Santosh I don't have anyone to share it with.

My whole left rib, both on the front and the back, has been aching since long. And I don't even know the precise reason for that. It may be any one or any combinations of the following:

a. The fall from the bike - As mentioned earlier, I have fallen a total of 4 times till now. However, the funny thing is that while all the falls have been on the right side, the pain is completely on the left. Is there a possibility that the shock waves from the fall that originated on the right travelled through my body towards left and found themselves a place comfortable enough to settle down there? I am not sure.

b. The office job - I sincerely pray that this not be the reason. The job that I do is quite mundane as I have to keep sitting in front of a stupid desktop and keep staring at even more stupid legal documents day after day after day. Two of my colleagues have recently fallen prey to the bad sitting posture. While one has got himself a slip-disk, the other has got something with some weird name that I can't even recall. He needs a complete bed-rest for a few weeks and has gone on an unpaid leave to his home. Isn't it sad that you get all these problems so early in your life, and that too doing something that you don't at all enjoy doing? I would no doubt prefer terrible pains due to bike falls rather than even a mild one from my office job.

c. I suspect there might be a third reason as well, which I will, for some reasons, not share on this public platform.

Besides this, I have been having a bad cough for almost the same duration. Although I have consulted Chhota Babu back home and have been taking some medicines prescribed by him, the relief is not really there.

I think it is time I consulted some doctor on the matter. I have been ignoring it and relying on my natural immunity for too long and it has failed to deliver me the results yet.

My Closest Save till Date.

Yesterday, at around 8.30 in the evening, I had the closest save of my life till date.

It so happened that as most of the days, I was walking back home from the office with one of my colleagues. And as usual, I was careless enough not to walk at the ultimate side of the road, where the pedestrians must walk if they love their dear life. Now, there happens to be this bus stop just before the Chakala Junction from where we take a left turn to reach Poonam Nagar where I am currently staying. Just as we were crossing the bus-stop - I on the right side of my colleague - I suddenly heard this loud horn of a bus. I turned around and to my – I don’t know which expression to use here - I find one of these newly launched A/C buses that ply in the city of Mumbai less than a foot behind me. The bus was still in motion and I had barely enough time to escape it. But somehow – thank God - the Universe conspired and I managed to do it just in the nick of time. As the bus crossed me less than 3-4 inches away, I stood on my finger-tips and could very clearly feel the wind rushing between myself and the bus.

While we were standing on the side, my colleague cursing the bus-driver and calling him names, the bus swallowed and vomited its share of passengers from the stop and moved on. The driver of the bus had turned towards my side and was looking continuously at me for a few seconds. And although I could not see his lips moving, I am quite sure he must have been abusing me in at least equal measures as we were doing him.

However, the strange thing is that even after the incident I was neither shaking nor was afraid of anything at all. Since afternoon yesterday, I was feeling a bit depressed in the office. My mind had stopped working and had shut itself almost completely away from the outside world. It was completely in a state of separate peaceful existence. And that I think must have been the reason of my complete indifference towards the almost sinister incident that had just unfolded itself.

Since neither of us two were feeling like walking down all the way to home, we were already searching for the auto before the incident. Luckily, the first auto we asked after this agreed to drop us to our place. Although my dear friend is least likely to agree to this, looking back in retrospect, I don’t think that my decision to take an auto was in any way intensified by the incident. There are reasons for that:

a. I am learning how to ride bike since a few days back. Although I am already taking it in the Mumbai traffic now and am gradually increasing the radius of my territory, I have already fallen 4 times in the middle of the traffic. This has fetched me my fair share of injuries. I have a big enough bruise on the upper side of my right foot due to which I am not wearing shoes to the office these days. Floaters that I wear are also not friendly as they too hurt the bruise. So the moment I reach office, I get rid of them even and walk bare foot the whole day in the office. So, as I was not in a state to walk, I was already planning to take an auto back home before I was almost finished off by the bus.

b. Due to the same reason, I had taken an auto even the day before yesterday and will be doing the same for some days to come at least.

The bus-stop at Chakala where I almost got crushed.

However, the good thing, apart from the fact that I am still alive and have written this post, is that yesterday, after having a quick dinner at Santosh’s place, I was back again on the roads on his Honda Unicorn. I went to Juhu Beach and back, my longest trip till date as a bike rider and had the smoothest and most confident ride till now ;-)