I wasn’t really allowed to feel the shock of the accident. First the body’s defence mechanisms, and then the morphine took the pain away. By piecing together what others told me later I realise I must have felt pain, but there is no memory of it. Perhaps the body’s defence mechanism has not let go even after 23 years. I wish it would. I feel the need to face up to certain things, but the mind draws a blank when I try and think about anything related to the spinal injury. Unrelated thoughts take over and I move on.

One of the earliest memories of the accident I have, though, still haunts me. It makes me cringe and a shudder runs down my fractured spine. It is late at night, and I surface from god-knows-where to see my father dozing in a chair at the foot of my bed. I can’t move or feel the tube that has been inserted up my penis into my bladder. I don’t know how but I know it is there. It’s been about eight hours since the accident; my head is wrapped in thick gauze, the scalp has been stitched together hurriedly to prevent blood loss. I feel numb and I feel a little sorry for my father who sits in the chair, his head slumped over his chest.

The doctor asked questions. All I recall is the harsh tone. Then they left. I was staring at the ceiling, naked, tears streaming down my cheeks. The bastard didn’t even put the sheet back

“Daddy,” I call out. “I’ll be alright. Please go home.” But he knows better. He knows that I’ll be flown early next morning to the Command Hospital, Lucknow, where I will undergo an emergency surgery to extract pieces of vertebrae that have been sprayed like bullets into my spinal column. (Tears are streaming down my cheeks as I remember the look on Dad’s face.)

I don’t recall the impact of the jeep. All I can remember is a cyclist appearing from nowhere in front of my scooter and my braking very hard. Then I see the right handle of my scooter closing in on my face in slow motion. Then nothing.

Only voices.

It is diffIcult to make out who is talking. Blood is gushing out of my head as I lie on the Grand Trunk Road in Allahabad. The scalp has detached and is covering my eyes.

Only voices in my head.

Then I realise that two voices in the medley are nothing but my own thoughts. This is what I hear: “Bachega nahin…tch tch…zinda hai kya?…Go to sleep…No! You’ve met with an accident. Fight back, don’t sleep…What accident? It’s just a bad dream, you’ll wake up fine. Go to sleep…Don’t listen to this guy, you must stay awake.”

At some point, I must have gone to sleep. I am told later there was so much blood that a schoolmate in the crowd couldn’t recognise me. A mechanic identified the scooter and then they figured I lived close by. Someone rushed to call my grandfather. No one knew about the spinal injury so my grandfather took me to the hospital on a scooter, wedged between two people. I was told I kept complaining of stomachache. I’ve spent hours, even days, trying to figure out why I would say that. And I’ve realised that I probably said, “Peeth mein dard hai” (My back aches), but a weakened mumble might have sounded like “Pet mein dard hai” (My stomach aches).

I have no memory of the violence of the actual accident — no sounds, no crash, no pain. For me, the violence began eight hours later at the Military Hospital in Allahabad. I was about to tell you about it… my earliest memory that haunts me.

Dad finally decided to take a break from the vigil. A matron-nurse came to me and started talking. I had blood and something from another tube dripping into me slowly. She was nice. She spoke softly and told me that I would fly the next day to Lucknow in a helicopter. She managed to get me excited about the trip. Flying in a defence chopper. Imagine! She gave me a nurse’s name in Lucknow and a message to pass on to her. It was meaningless — something like, say hello to her and that she will see her soon. She was just helping me to focus on something. I still didn’t know much more than the fact that I had met with an accident.

And then it happened. The duty officer, a young doctor of captain’s rank I think, came for his rounds. With him were other nurses. He must have wanted to check on the emergency case. He held one corner of the white sheet covering me and yanked it off. Oh God! Oh dear God! I was naked! I let out a gasp. I couldn’t move my hands to cover myself, so I moved my face away and met the matron’s eyes.

There were three or four people around me and one of them reached down to my penis and checked the tube. I could not feel anything. The doctor touched my legs. Then he ran the end of a ball-pen on the soles. I couldn’t feel a thing. I found that strange. The doctor questionedthose standing around. All I remember is the harsh tone. Then they left. I was staring at the ceiling, naked, tears streaming down my cheeks. The bastard didn’t even put the sheet back. Across the curtain, I heard the matron screaming at the young doctor at the top of her voice, berating him.

I don’t know if she knew I would have nightmares about this for two decades (and still counting). I wonder if she knew that that one sweep of the hand had reached deep into my being and stripped me of something that I don’t even have a name for. It wasn’t respect, it wasn’t dignity, it wasn’t privacy. It was that pure stuff that we are all made of…What is it? Human-ness, humane-ness, stardust, pure joy, what? It must be something that makes us humans because I felt like an animal then. I have come to realise that animals have more sensitivity than that doctor. And now, a lifetime later, Monika, my wife, wants to know why I won’t go to a doctor for my aching tooth.

The journey to the Command Hospital was fun. I flew in a Chetak helicopter. Every time the pilot looked back to check on me, I gave him a morphine-induced thumbs-up from my stretcher, military style. I can’t help but laugh at the memory of me lying on a stretcher near the chopper, before the takeoff, one nursing assistant standing next to me, holding up a red bottle. As relatives streamed along to say bye, I was focused on touching their feet!

After two operations and months of rehabilitation at the hospital, I encountered a nurse as I returned from the physiotherapy department one day. She was short, slim, dark and had a pinched expression, or at least that’s the way I remember it.

“Why are you smiling?” she asked. “Don’t you know you will never be able to walk again?”

This was the second moment of violence. The doctors had hid the fact from us. I always thought that with treatment and exercise, I would recover in a few years time. There was no Internet then and we knew only what the doctors told us. I guess they wanted to soften the blow. I just stared at her with my mouth open. I was sixteen, living alone in a hospital with my family in another town, and this is what she could come up with to make me feel better. I just wheeled away.

I have happier memories that my mind veers towards when I remember those days. The nurses that kissed me in dark corners, the one that let me feel her butt in the ICU while she took my blood pressure; the one who sang songs to me when she gave me a backrub. But I wanted to tell you about what haunts me.