Night Way - Episode 1 - The Accident

"I am on the way and will reach in 2 hours." said Arun on his phone while desperately looking for a coffee shop, on the Highway road that headed to Mahabalipuram, riding along with his wife Sulochana on his Royal Enfield bike.

"Where are you exactly?" his sister Kalpana asked worriedly as she could hear the sound of the speeding vehicles.

"Darling, can you check our current location in Google Maps?" Arun asked his wife Sulochana. “Oh! so now you call me darling” Sulochana feigned anger with a smile and checked her phone as the map showed ‘Vilambur’. "Vilambur!" said Sulochana as the bike sped rapidly at 80 km/h on the silent road.

"Akka(Sister) I am in Vilambur right now", said Arun when he saw a Coffee shop and finally stopped after a continuous tiring 2 hours ride from Embalam(Pondicherry).

"Ok, I have sent a video to Sulochana’s WhatsApp. Please see. You both will be happy." said Kalpana and disconnected the call.

A day later…

Arun opened his eyes slowly and saw his brother beside him. He had never seen him by his side for the past 4 or 5 years. ‘Why is he here? Where am I? Why is everyone crying?’, he thought to himself in a daze. He looked around slowly and noticed that everyone around him were in tears. Even Sulochana’s relatives looked at him bluntly with contempt. His eyes frantically searched for his loving wife Sulochana.

Fear, panic, confusion, excruciating pain, he could feel everything at the same time and tried to get to his feet in a sense of hurry and shock. But his father Gangadhara stopped him at once. That’s when he realized that he was in a hospital bed severely injured with a trauma to the head and shoulder, connected to IV fluids on one side and antibiotics on the other side. He had been on a major brutal accident while driving on the ECR road and had been unconscious for more than a day. Where was she? “Where is Sulochana?", he uttered his first words since the accident.

Kalpana came inside the ward. She got into tears immediately seeing her brother and said, "She is fine Arun, don’t worry"... "No I want to see her now... What happened to her?" asked Arun. Arun had some difficulty recognizing faces and remembering their names. He knew he was speaking to someone so close to him but couldn’t fully realize that it was his own sister. He was in a post-traumatic shock.

Arun’s father tried to calm him down, "She is fine Arun. Doctors are treating her. She is in ICU. You can’t see her now."

Suddenly Arun just remembered a flashing image of Sulo. He spoke in fear and disbelief, "I saw blood oozing out of her mouth and ears. That’s bad. Oh my God", he started to sob.

Kalpana tried to console his brother, "Who said so? You are talking out of shock. She is perfectly alright. Like you, she was also injured, but she is fine now and is being treated in the other room".

As Arun tried to calm himself, Gangadhara slowly approached him and asked, "Arun, what happened? Where did you go?", in a feeble voice, hiding back his tears to get some output from his son.

Arun didn’t respond and tried to look around for his father in law Baskar. He was nowhere to be found. He understood his anger. Nobody in the family knew that they were travelling by bike to Pondy.

Doctor visited his room for a check-up, "Hi Arun, How are you feeling?"

Arun nodded as good. "Are you able to identify your family members?", asked the doctor. Arun was scared to respond and slowly said that he felt so strange as he couldn’t recognize many of the faces. “That’s perfectly fine for now Arun. You’ve had a head injury. This memory loss is just temporary and you should be fine in a few days. You were lucky that you had a helmet. “Sulochana! She didn’t even wear a helmet”, realised Arun.

"Doctor, Where is my wife? how is she?", asked Arun anxiously. "Yeah, she is fine Arun. Nothing to worry", saying so the doctor left without giving any more details.

Arun closed his eyes as his pain medication started to act. His eyes were filled with tears not just due to the pain but due to the fear of what could have happened to his beloved wife. He started to remember the events that led to the trip..