Eerie Atmosphere

This one was taken somewhere in Kolar at about 6 pm on our way back to Bangalore. We were way behind our schedule as almost 4 hrs was spent on photography n lunch. When I shot this photo it was beginning to get dark. The whole canvas looke a bit eerie as if telling us that something drastic was to happen. We decided it was gettin late n said no more photography, lets head home as soon as possible, as I was not used to drive in the night. Also the Kolar - Bangalore highway is one of the most dangerous n poorly lit road. Added to all this my headlight was very dim which almost didnt serve its purpose. At about 6-30 a volvo bus coming from the opposite direction almost came in front of my bike, I glided my bike into the untarred sidewalk inorder to avoid the collision. Cursing the damn guy , I tried to steer the bike back onto the tarred road without realising that the height difference between the sidewalk n the road was quite a bit. Due to this the bike going at 40 kmph which is not as slow as it looks like, lost the road grip n we fell flat on the middle of the road. My Jansport bag which I was hanging around my neck served as a cushion. I fell on top of it, my friend on top of me and the bike lay next to us. It all happened in a flash. Thank the holy god, we were breathing. We were speechless and in a state of shock. What if any vehicle was coming either in the front or back? What if we had got the slightest of impacts on the head? What if something had happened to either one of us? There were unending if's which haunted my mind. For your information I was not wearing a helmet , cos I never do. Also I had met with the slighest of head injury when I fell off my bike on July 26 2002. I knew how worse an head injury could get cos I was in coma for 6 days. Thanking god for his kindness and still in a state of shock we set out to bangalore at a very slow pace cos the road was not at all visible cos it was completely dark. I had lost the confidence in driving. I was almost in tears. Heading forward just a few kms away we came across some good samaritans in the form of Rajasthani truck drivers, who were heading from the Kolar BHEL factory to Jaipur. One of the guy by name Raju offered to drive the bike till bangalore , while I was in the truck for about 1 1/2 hrs. It was a different experience in its own. The way these guys drive thier trucks and the way they approach life. Thier whole life revolves around the road n wheels, which is quite fascinating. We reached bangalore at 10-30 PM and due to the grace of the almighty my friend Harsha n me were alive .

The lesson I learnt from this episode was that I should never go on a long journey in a bike.