Just to keep my naive unmotorcycled mind in a peaceful state for the interview, I started off from my appartment around 6:30 AM. It was the end of November and mornings were getting colder, compelling me to put on a dark blue woolen sweater. I hated wearing helmets! Probably you won't if on the first day of you wearing that "thing", a fly gets inside it, when you were in the middle of the traffic! aarggh!! Bikers were slowly getting mandated to wear helmets though, and later on, I had made friendships with traffic police constables, who used to catch me everyday and who later even started giving me subsidies from the fines, of course, for their benefit. Well, it was a bit later (probably after spending a lot of money with the traffic police over the months) that I came to know that I didn't really need to wear the helmet when I drove. It was just that the helmet needs to be there somewhere with me, which meant that I could have just hung it on the pillion. Strange policies!! But anyways, back to the day of my interview...
The sun was still slowly waking up from its 12 hours sleep, lazily spreading its weak orangish claws through out the sky, reclaiming the spaces it had lost to darkness the previous day. The road was clear and straight, seemed perfect for one of those speedy adventurous motorcylce rides! Well, I really meant it and decided to test the power of this machine. I slowly started speeding myself from 30... 40... 60... 80... 85... 87... 90...92... the wind, thrusting on my face, had become too strong by that time... that I could not open my eyes and go any further in speed. It felt like flying with absolute freedom and was my first ever adventurous bike maneuver!
Sooner, swooshing at this speed for sometime, I found in the rearview mirror that a truck was trying to overtake me! oops! It was very close to me and I got nervous as a fledgeling that just came out its nest in the vigour of flying high, suddenly seeing an eagle on its right chasing it! I applied my breaks and slowed down the bike to 50s, but still nervous a bit, thinking of getting rid of the truck by moving out of the main road to the left... went over a sandy sidewalk... with the breaks still on... oops... the bike skidded over the sand turning perpenticular to the road slanting... falling skidding on the road... throwing me to the road side. The truck went away without stopping or the driver even taking a peek at me...
Thankfully, I had landed near a roadside coffee shop, where some construction workers from the nearby sites were warming up for their daily chores with a sip of hot coffee. A few of the workers, seeing my gimmick, ran for my rescue, when I slowly jumped up from where I had landed... with a few shallow bruisees on my elbow, but more or less feeling fine without any pain from anywhere. Probably the thick sweater I was wearing saved me from further wounds. One guy ran towards my bike, checked it and said it was all in a good condition with a few more scratches added here and there. That was miraculous. They asked me if they needed to take me to the hospital if I was not feeling good. I said I was perfectly fine and have an "important" meeting to attend... so should hurry. They told they could take my bike back home (the request I wont certainly buy especially from people in Bangalore), and they would get me an autorickshaw to reach my destination, which I hesitated, climbed on the bike yet again and started off thanking them.
It was almost 9 AM, the time for my interview... I was riding the bike and felt some pain was building from my elbows and shoulders. Since I was wearing the dark sweater, nothing was visible outside. I did not care much about the pain and thought it would slowly ameliorate, by the time I get done with the interview... but unfortunately that was not going to be the case...
I reached the company, reported of my arrival with the person who was going to take my interview and was headed to the interview room by the security. He asked me to sit in the room, and that the interviewer would be arriving soon... I waited... pain was building up inside... it was becoming terrible... but I had a little bit more of energy left in me to give the interview I think... and thus I did not tell anyone... The lady interviewer came... and said "Hello". She asked me to tell a few words about myself... the most boring question to start an interview with... very irritating too when you have some other bigger problems happening elsewhere... I started: "I am Anoop and... Ma'am, is there any chance to postpone this interview for some other date?"... The lady, who seemed very young in interviewing (and probably it was her first interview...) asked me in an adamant tone... "Why can't you give the interview today"? I, with all my left over energy suppressing the pain from inside, told her in the most polite way that it will be better for both sides if the interview was postponed. Now, she was a bit scared and asked me what the matter was... to which I shouted... "I AM BLEEDING INSIDE!!" She, confusedly, asked me to remove the sweater, which I did, showing the shirt inside... which was fully swamped in thick blood by that time! She screamed out loud as if in some horror movie and ran out of the room...
I sat there on the chair for a minute... when the lady who had screamed out, had sent three of her colleagues into the room, to look at me. All were shocked to see something like this in an interview room for the first time (probably only time in their lives)... They asked me about the details of the accident and requested me to go with them to the hospital. I said I am okay and would like to go back to my appartment and will consult a doctor there, which they hesitated to abide telling me that I was their host and its their responsibility, blah blah blah! Finally they took me to the hospital, had bandages on, vaccinated for tetnus and finally I was freed to go home. They even thought of arranging me a free taxi, which I hesitated and started back again on my bike... for another favourite ride back home :)
I reached home around 2:30 PM... slept for some 2hrs... woke up... had some painkillers... and got ready... riding my bike again towards Ring road this time... to give my full rounds of interviews with Microsoft...
