Bloody business

The puppies are gone- and have left quite a void around here.

Among the memories they leave me with is that of other days and ages with the bloody nose theme, which was recalled while tending to the bloodied nose of one of the puppies after it was knocked down. Mammalian noses certainly contain an amazing network of blood vessles with each carrying dizzying amounts of blood!

...

As a kid I used to have the occasional nose bleeds when the then semi-arid Delhi temperatures would routinely soar over 45 degrees Celsius and the hot dust-laden westerly winds would blow in from the Thar desert. The heat without would induce the build-up of heat within too which would eventually burst out of teh body through the nasal blood vessels or manifest as boils on the body. A damp kerchief with a hint of eau-de-cologne would help cooling down as one lay the head down on some masive soft pillows (to prevent the drip within). But these were, for all the attendant fuss, very benign and manageable as the bleeding would stop soon.

Bloodier were the bleeds caused by injury. The first time I was exposed to this was when I was forced into a fisticuff with a frisky kid half my size in the back of the school bus. It was a pesky brat who insisted that he was big enough to scrap with an older (goody-goody) girl. Just to be done with the business briskly and in a no-nonsense fashion, I thought I'd give him a biff on the nose to get rid of the pest. I connected and the kid crumpled. Thankfully, I hadn't put much into the punch and soon the clod had a clot. He, and through him others, learnt from this bloody mess not to mess with me and I developed a sudden respect for the nose. I thought I might try this trick next if I was up (down?) against someone my size. (Hmm, I have never had to employ that trick, wonder why!)

...

I confess to having a pathological urge to gag- I gag at nearly most things. If I am like this now, I was far worse earlier when nearly most things could trigger my gagging! One such was the travel in the hills in those horrible metal contraptions which used to rush up the inclines and hurtle down the slopes fuelled by the alloyed mix surfeit of adrenaline, bravado and suspect and spurious diesel. While going downhill was definately worse, even the up-hill journeys on an empty stomach early in the morning was a torture. Yet my weekend marriage made it quite mandatory for me to travel in those run-down night buses atleast 2 or 3 times a month, first from Delhi to Mussoorie and then from Delhi to Shimla. So whenever I had the luxury of doing the Kalka-Shimla leg of the journey by train I would gladly sacrifice the extra three hours, over the road trip for the comfort and thrill of rail travel on that picturesque and evergreen stretch. Keeping my peculiar consideration in mind, I implored dh to come up by train when he came for me for the last time to Shimla to help me wind up my scattered and priceless effects at the end of my two year stint there.

I went to the picture-postcard-pretty railway station well in time to flag in the train which came chugging in after about 5 hours of journey on tunnel filled track. I scanned each compartment of the toy train. There was no sign of dh. Yet I knew he was to come and ran back to Yarrows to wait for word from him. It was an age of no cellular phones or GMS technology. The RAX exchanges were storming the Indian countryside but they were scattered few and far between. It was only at 2.30 in the afternoon that I received a message (third or fourth hand) that there had been a call from Dharampur district hospital about a nasty road accident on the Kalka-Shimla road and that dh was one among the injured. No more details were available. I was despatched immediately by car to wind my way down to Dharampur. I was, I realise now, worried sick, which added to my general travel sickness which the downhill journey always evoked. By the time I reached the hospital (or an apology thereof) at Dharampur, the shadows were lenghtening and a chill was fast coming up upon me. I scanned the vast bare hall and room after room of the hospital. There were quite a few casualities and there were many beds with people lying on them with a white sheet covering their faces. Not the most reassuring of scenes!

After spending about 30 minutes in this depressingly morbid environment something within me snapped. I knew dh couldn't be lying there among those faceless bodies. Imagine then how I felt when I stepped out and saw him sitting on a filthy chair in a pool of blood outside the the hospital premises, calmly sipping tea. I was so delighted to see him there that I nearly disregarded the fount of blood gushing out of the middle his face, where his nose was. When I hugged him violently, I think I probably ended up having more of his gurgling blood on me than he did. It took a long time to fix that bloody business!

Another age, indeed.