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Parental Paranoia
Posted 24th May 2009 at 11:48 PM by twinsmom
Last Thursday afternoon, I was getting ready to go to the Dragon Mart in Dubai. The FM station 89.1 was running and it was the time for the hourly news. Busy, getting dressed, I just lent a distracted ear to it when suddenly a breaking news item sunk in and started sending panic signals all over my body. The report was that 5 or 6 Infosys engineers were killed in a bus accident on the Pune - Belagaum road. Common sense should have told me that my son could not have been on that bus. It was mid-week and in all probabilities, he must be sleeping, as he is on night shift. But common sense and motherly paranoia do not see eye to eye at such times. All kind of doubts stampeded my befuddled brain… Was Belagaum Pune road the one that leads to his office? I just know that he has to travel along some highway to his office. What if he had not gone by his bike (another source of constant worry for me) and opted to go by the office bus…what if that was the fateful bus…what if…what…what…what… I was going crazy.
I ran to the living room and prising the remote control out from an indignant nephew who was watching CN or Jetix or some high decibel gibberish, surfed all the news channels. Unaware of my mental agony, some were nonchalantly speculating on DMK supremo ‘Karuna’ ( the media guys are real jokers…’karuna’ indeed! No wonder the guy upped and left for his home state where he will be referred to in a more reverent tone!) and his tactical horse trading, while others were busy yak-yakking with the Tom, Dick and Harry cricketer gurus about the impending IPL match’s outcome. Who cared about a bus accident that killed some young engineers!
The best way to console my palpitating heart would be to ring the fellow up and confirm all is well. With shaking fingers I dialed his number to be told in English, Hindi and Marathi that the Vodofone I was trying was out of reach. Not switched off, mind you, as is the case when he slumbers, but ‘out of range’. That means the guy was not sleeping he was out somewhere where there was no network.
PANIC…PANIC… PANIC…
What does a mother do under the circumstances? She takes her little black book in which she has noted meticulously down, the numbers of all his friends and flat-mates she had emotionally blackmailed him into revealing.
Interestingly, my son Karthik has given me the numbers of 4 other Karthiks and two other friends. Since Karthik1 (mine) did not respond, I try Karthik 2. He doesn’t respond either. Karthik 3 – ditto. For luck, I try the number of a ‘non-karthik’. His phone is busy. Before I suffer cardiac arrest, the 4th Karthik answers. When I ask him if I have woken him up, he is miffed. ‘I am in the office, auntie, he says.’ I believe him as the network plays hide and seek as I quiz him about the accident- of which he knew nothing … Thanks to the bad network and my incoherence, not much sensible news is exchanged. And my landline starts ringing. It is my son, Karthik1. Quickly I bid goodbye to Karthik4 and ask my son Karthik1 if he is fine. “ I was sleeping Mummy, why did you call?” he says sleepily. I blurt out about the bus accident and say, I just wanted to check if he was fine. “You know I will be sleeping at this time, Mummy… How can I be in any bus?” He sounds quite exasperated. Understandable as 3 pm is midnight in his schedule. I repeat the news of the accident and he groggily mutters,” Don’t get tensed up about things, Mummy…” Relief that he is okay though grumpy makes me snap back, “ You will realize when you become a father!” and hang up.
He promptly went back to oblivion, for the next call I got from him was when he was in the office.
Though consoled that my offspring was fine, my heart was still agitated. The mother in me just could not leave things be. I surfed the channels again and again, all Hindi and English channels…then Malayalam news channels and finally, Kannada news in Udaya News Channel. I also rang up my neighbor who is from Belagaum and asked her to surf her Marathi news channels to see if there was any report of the accident.
It was time to drive to Dragon Mart and on the way, I made BIL turn on 89.1 FM again. But the news item was never repeated. IPL was the hot topic. It was only in the evening that my husband told me that he had come home and seen the news on Udaya News channel showing the Govt of Karnataka Volvo bus that had overturned killing 5 engineers of Infosys. Karthik called the next day with the news that they were fresh trainees who were travelling to Pune from Mysore for their posting.
Inside me it still hurts. It is not easy for any parent to accept the loss of a child. Losing a 22 or 23 year old whom you have given birth to and watched grow into a young man or woman is the greatest blow God can deal on a parent. Whenever I think of the parents of those 5 youths, my heart aches… it feels all heavy. I would not even try to console those parents. For, such loss in inconsolable. Only Time will heal the raw hurt and pain that must be coursing through the blood of all those parents. Like an ostrich burying its head to hide from adversity, I tried not to think of it the last two days. Today, I just googled for the news and hit the following report:
Five Infosys engineers killed in road accident
Karnataka Bureau
Six others die in two separate incidents in Belgaum, Karwar
Those dead were among 43 engineers who had just completed training in Mysore
Government announces compensation of Rs. 2.5 lakh each to the families of the deceased
Belgaum/Bangalore/Mysore: Five Infosys Technologies Limited employees died and 30 were injured when the Karnataka Road Transport Corporation bus (KA-01-F-8438) in which they were travelling from Mysore to Pune, overturned after hitting the road-divider near Shippur Cross under Sankeshwar police station limits, on the Bangalore-Pune National Highway No.4 at around 5.30 a.m. on Thursday.
A press release said that officials of the KSRTC rushed to the spot and made arrangements to shift the injured to to KLE Hospital in Belgaum city. They are stated to be out of danger.
The police said three passengers died on the spot while two others died of injuries later. The deceased have been identified as Ankita Vedprakash Arya (22) from Delhi, Kush Mishra (22) from Lucknow, Agnivesh Athidarshi (22) from Bihar, Tushar Agarwal (23) from Agra, and Rachit Mehrotra (22) from Jhansi.
The victims were among 43 software engineers who had just completed their training in Mysore and were posted to the company’s Pune unit. Accordingly, they were heading towards Pune to report for duty, in the air-conditioned bus belonging to Mysore depot of KSRTC. Infosys had hired the bus to transport its staff to Pune.
Official sources in the KSRTC said Ganapati, one of the crew in the bus, had suffered a facture in his leg and was under treatment at the hospital. The other crew member, Devaraj Gowda, was unhurt. Bangalore Staff Reporter writes:
Minister for Transport R. Ashok has condoled the death of the five engineers. He has directed officials to ensure medical help to all the injured. He also announced a compensation of Rs. 2.5 lakh each to the families of the deceased and has said that the medical expenditure of the injured passengers would be borne by the Government.
Mysore Special Correspondent reports:
Meanwhile, Infosys, in a statement, has expressed its deep regret over the accident involving its employees. The statement said: “It is with regret we state that five of our employees have been confirmed dead. Those who have been injured have been hospitalised and are reported to be in stable condition. Our sympathies and prayers are with the families of the deceased.
It added that support teams from Bangalore and Pune were on their way to the accident site to provide all necessary support to its employees and their families. Help desks had been set up at the Mysore, Bangalore and Pune development centres, and Infosys had been in touch with the families of the affected employees.
The help desk numbers are Mysore: (0821) 4071186 / (0821) 4071189; Bangalore: (080) 41140000 and Pune: (020) 3982855.
Reading this report did not make it any easier for me. Blogging about such a sombre news seems rather insensitive. But I just need to share my grief. My son may not understand my paranoia. Children will not. Such fear and panic we, parents, ( specially mothers) nurse inside us for years while we watch our kids grow in front of our eyes. I remember watching over my premature (born in the 7th month) twins during the first 2 years. If they slept in the cradle for too long I’d watch carefully for the chest movements to see if they breathed. I have even kept my finger under the noses of my sleeping twins to ensure myself that they are...well…alive and just sleeping. I have kept awake one whole night when my 16 year old son underwent surgery, and the doctor had connected a contraption to check the Oxygen saturation level, as he kept slipping off to some state of stupor during post op hours ( this same Karthik 1)… I still pray every morning as soon as I switch on my kitchen light and face the wide array of Gods I generally plead with to keep an eye on my twins… my heart still leaps into my mouth when they say they are going out sightseeing some place where there are mountains/ rivers/ sea/ traffic/ crowd etc etc… though I try not to transfer the panic into them. But I am sure after the second ‘take –care- okay –and- sms –me- when- you -reach -there ‘ they must be getting the signals. These days, they tell where they have been more often rather than where they are planning to go.
Do fathers have such vibes? Do they undergo such bouts of panic? Or are they calm and indifferent and uncaring and callous and ‘so- just- like- a man’ ? I don’t know. But I think I have occasionally seen flashes of anxiety in a certain father’s eyes when he tells me, “ Chchod do yaar…Bachche bade hogaye…Sab teek hi hoga”. But the mother in me is never ready to just ‘Chchod do’. I guess only mothers will understand this.
I ran to the living room and prising the remote control out from an indignant nephew who was watching CN or Jetix or some high decibel gibberish, surfed all the news channels. Unaware of my mental agony, some were nonchalantly speculating on DMK supremo ‘Karuna’ ( the media guys are real jokers…’karuna’ indeed! No wonder the guy upped and left for his home state where he will be referred to in a more reverent tone!) and his tactical horse trading, while others were busy yak-yakking with the Tom, Dick and Harry cricketer gurus about the impending IPL match’s outcome. Who cared about a bus accident that killed some young engineers!
The best way to console my palpitating heart would be to ring the fellow up and confirm all is well. With shaking fingers I dialed his number to be told in English, Hindi and Marathi that the Vodofone I was trying was out of reach. Not switched off, mind you, as is the case when he slumbers, but ‘out of range’. That means the guy was not sleeping he was out somewhere where there was no network.
PANIC…PANIC… PANIC…
What does a mother do under the circumstances? She takes her little black book in which she has noted meticulously down, the numbers of all his friends and flat-mates she had emotionally blackmailed him into revealing.
Interestingly, my son Karthik has given me the numbers of 4 other Karthiks and two other friends. Since Karthik1 (mine) did not respond, I try Karthik 2. He doesn’t respond either. Karthik 3 – ditto. For luck, I try the number of a ‘non-karthik’. His phone is busy. Before I suffer cardiac arrest, the 4th Karthik answers. When I ask him if I have woken him up, he is miffed. ‘I am in the office, auntie, he says.’ I believe him as the network plays hide and seek as I quiz him about the accident- of which he knew nothing … Thanks to the bad network and my incoherence, not much sensible news is exchanged. And my landline starts ringing. It is my son, Karthik1. Quickly I bid goodbye to Karthik4 and ask my son Karthik1 if he is fine. “ I was sleeping Mummy, why did you call?” he says sleepily. I blurt out about the bus accident and say, I just wanted to check if he was fine. “You know I will be sleeping at this time, Mummy… How can I be in any bus?” He sounds quite exasperated. Understandable as 3 pm is midnight in his schedule. I repeat the news of the accident and he groggily mutters,” Don’t get tensed up about things, Mummy…” Relief that he is okay though grumpy makes me snap back, “ You will realize when you become a father!” and hang up.
He promptly went back to oblivion, for the next call I got from him was when he was in the office.
Though consoled that my offspring was fine, my heart was still agitated. The mother in me just could not leave things be. I surfed the channels again and again, all Hindi and English channels…then Malayalam news channels and finally, Kannada news in Udaya News Channel. I also rang up my neighbor who is from Belagaum and asked her to surf her Marathi news channels to see if there was any report of the accident.
It was time to drive to Dragon Mart and on the way, I made BIL turn on 89.1 FM again. But the news item was never repeated. IPL was the hot topic. It was only in the evening that my husband told me that he had come home and seen the news on Udaya News channel showing the Govt of Karnataka Volvo bus that had overturned killing 5 engineers of Infosys. Karthik called the next day with the news that they were fresh trainees who were travelling to Pune from Mysore for their posting.
Inside me it still hurts. It is not easy for any parent to accept the loss of a child. Losing a 22 or 23 year old whom you have given birth to and watched grow into a young man or woman is the greatest blow God can deal on a parent. Whenever I think of the parents of those 5 youths, my heart aches… it feels all heavy. I would not even try to console those parents. For, such loss in inconsolable. Only Time will heal the raw hurt and pain that must be coursing through the blood of all those parents. Like an ostrich burying its head to hide from adversity, I tried not to think of it the last two days. Today, I just googled for the news and hit the following report:
Five Infosys engineers killed in road accident
Karnataka Bureau
Six others die in two separate incidents in Belgaum, Karwar
Those dead were among 43 engineers who had just completed training in Mysore
Government announces compensation of Rs. 2.5 lakh each to the families of the deceased
Belgaum/Bangalore/Mysore: Five Infosys Technologies Limited employees died and 30 were injured when the Karnataka Road Transport Corporation bus (KA-01-F-8438) in which they were travelling from Mysore to Pune, overturned after hitting the road-divider near Shippur Cross under Sankeshwar police station limits, on the Bangalore-Pune National Highway No.4 at around 5.30 a.m. on Thursday.
A press release said that officials of the KSRTC rushed to the spot and made arrangements to shift the injured to to KLE Hospital in Belgaum city. They are stated to be out of danger.
The police said three passengers died on the spot while two others died of injuries later. The deceased have been identified as Ankita Vedprakash Arya (22) from Delhi, Kush Mishra (22) from Lucknow, Agnivesh Athidarshi (22) from Bihar, Tushar Agarwal (23) from Agra, and Rachit Mehrotra (22) from Jhansi.
The victims were among 43 software engineers who had just completed their training in Mysore and were posted to the company’s Pune unit. Accordingly, they were heading towards Pune to report for duty, in the air-conditioned bus belonging to Mysore depot of KSRTC. Infosys had hired the bus to transport its staff to Pune.
Official sources in the KSRTC said Ganapati, one of the crew in the bus, had suffered a facture in his leg and was under treatment at the hospital. The other crew member, Devaraj Gowda, was unhurt. Bangalore Staff Reporter writes:
Minister for Transport R. Ashok has condoled the death of the five engineers. He has directed officials to ensure medical help to all the injured. He also announced a compensation of Rs. 2.5 lakh each to the families of the deceased and has said that the medical expenditure of the injured passengers would be borne by the Government.
Mysore Special Correspondent reports:
Meanwhile, Infosys, in a statement, has expressed its deep regret over the accident involving its employees. The statement said: “It is with regret we state that five of our employees have been confirmed dead. Those who have been injured have been hospitalised and are reported to be in stable condition. Our sympathies and prayers are with the families of the deceased.
It added that support teams from Bangalore and Pune were on their way to the accident site to provide all necessary support to its employees and their families. Help desks had been set up at the Mysore, Bangalore and Pune development centres, and Infosys had been in touch with the families of the affected employees.
The help desk numbers are Mysore: (0821) 4071186 / (0821) 4071189; Bangalore: (080) 41140000 and Pune: (020) 3982855.
Reading this report did not make it any easier for me. Blogging about such a sombre news seems rather insensitive. But I just need to share my grief. My son may not understand my paranoia. Children will not. Such fear and panic we, parents, ( specially mothers) nurse inside us for years while we watch our kids grow in front of our eyes. I remember watching over my premature (born in the 7th month) twins during the first 2 years. If they slept in the cradle for too long I’d watch carefully for the chest movements to see if they breathed. I have even kept my finger under the noses of my sleeping twins to ensure myself that they are...well…alive and just sleeping. I have kept awake one whole night when my 16 year old son underwent surgery, and the doctor had connected a contraption to check the Oxygen saturation level, as he kept slipping off to some state of stupor during post op hours ( this same Karthik 1)… I still pray every morning as soon as I switch on my kitchen light and face the wide array of Gods I generally plead with to keep an eye on my twins… my heart still leaps into my mouth when they say they are going out sightseeing some place where there are mountains/ rivers/ sea/ traffic/ crowd etc etc… though I try not to transfer the panic into them. But I am sure after the second ‘take –care- okay –and- sms –me- when- you -reach -there ‘ they must be getting the signals. These days, they tell where they have been more often rather than where they are planning to go.
Do fathers have such vibes? Do they undergo such bouts of panic? Or are they calm and indifferent and uncaring and callous and ‘so- just- like- a man’ ? I don’t know. But I think I have occasionally seen flashes of anxiety in a certain father’s eyes when he tells me, “ Chchod do yaar…Bachche bade hogaye…Sab teek hi hoga”. But the mother in me is never ready to just ‘Chchod do’. I guess only mothers will understand this.
Total Comments 4
Comments
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Dear Twinsmom,
Nothing happens against God's will. Sorry to hear about those four boys and happy to know about your son. Very touching post..Posted 25th May 2009 at 09:08 AM by Deepali_deepali
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Hi Deepali,
I know... but it seems such a waste of young life. Just how cruel can Fate get?Posted 26th May 2009 at 04:38 AM by twinsmom -
When I was in my teens, we heard that my sis's student died due to rash-driving while coming down the hair-pin bends of a hill station.I still remember what my dad said,'Losing a son/daughter when they are in their teens or 20+ is the worst punishment given for a parent'.No words to console.Posted 29th September 2009 at 11:13 PM by soumya234 - Hi Soumya,
My aunt lost her 23 year old son in a freak accident. He hitched a ride in a lorry as he had to reach Hyd urgently from Pune.... That lorry hit another and he died... the driver escaped though! My uncle and aunt were/ are still devatsed over the loss. He was such a brilliant guy... so warm, humourous and friendly...Posted 29th September 2009 at 11:54 PM by twinsmom
