Shadowfax

I read it once somewhere in some forwarded email:

“To know the meaning of miracle, ask someone who’s been saved by a hair’s breadth”

Having never had the chance to measure a hair’s breadth in that sense, I only could understand that sentence at a theoretical level. A Monday in November this year changed all that.

I drive a Toyota Camry all white model which I completely love. It’s the first car I ever owned myself and I call it my “Shadowfax”(a reference from the book Lord of the Rings where the king of horses is named Shadowfax). J I know it sounds crazy, but I really do believe that “it’s the car that chooses the driver”, and I’ve shared an amazing chemistry with mine. It’s like since the time I’ve owned it, I’ve gradually developed a bond with it so that it now responds to my slightest touch and I know its sounds and senses. So when I moved some 10 miles away from my office, I picked out a small, narrow inner country road that takes me from my house in Reston to my office in McLean, Virginia in exactly 25 minutes regardless of the hour of the day. Shadowfax took to this road like a fish to water. I’m sure that I would not be able to drive on that road as comfortably on anybody else’s car.

The reason I say this is because this road is easily one of the challenging ones I’ve driven on in my life. I decided to take this road only because the main highway is blocked badly in the morning rush hour. It’s a road that passes through forests so dense that the cell phone network goes away although it is just a few miles from the nearest town. It has a couple of streams along the way where deer, ducks and swans can be seen everyday. Tracts of farm land touch this road where a couple of houses breed horses. And all throughout, the road has so many sharp twists, turns and steep slopes that if I go at 10 miles over the speed limit, it makes u feel like you are sitting in a rollercoaster at a theme park. This road is in short everything that a “morning commute” is not. And I was very happy to have found a road that leaves me feeling fresh and alert as I reach the office rather than sitting in bumper to bumper crawling traffic snake-lines inhaling emission fumes.

And I can tell you that Shadowfax was extremely adept at navigating those sharp turns and slopes. Even with the speed limit being 25 miles an hour, I’ve driven on those slopes and turns at around 45 mph and times even at 50 miles an hour. And never once did I feel the car showing a lack of confidence in itself.

That Monday morning too, I was driving down that same road. I was quite late for my office and was trying to make up by driving a few miles above speed limit. I was listening to my favorite CD and wasn’t going too fast at all. When something totally unexpected happens, in retrospect, sometimes people do feel that they had some kind of an extrasensory perception or a premonition before the event which they ignored at that time. I admit now, that I did have something of that sort, but I attributed it to my being late for work or something.

At one spot on this drive, the road turns very sharply (about 90 degrees) to the left and also slopes downward with about a 45 degree gradient at the same time. The road was wet that morning with last night’s rain and the morning’s heavy dew. As I completed half the turn, I felt Shadowfax shaking. The next moment, he slipped – all four tires losing traction. The steering wheel twisted out of control and I saw myself being dragged into oncoming traffic head-on. There was no lane divider in the way and the car was careening out of control to the left.

Let me tell you that at such times, there are two things that happen. First, oddly enough, your mind goes blank – not blank as in thoughtless, but blank as in there’s no sense of any tension, no chain of thought or any of it. It comes down to its very primary and core level – the survival instinct. Secondly, something queer goes on between your mind and body and you get an odd sense that things are going at a slow pace. It’s like you are watching things happen in a slow motion film replay to see what went wrong! May be it’s the excess adrenaline in our system at such times that makes our brain extra fast, but I remember now that I could see things and process them as they happened.

The car was being drawn to the left – I could see some sort of a space to my right – the car turned left down that slope with amazing speed – I rammed the wheel to the right without any particular plan but just to get the car in that space I could see – that space turned out to be the driveway of a house – the driveway was made with gravel – the car further lost traction in that – something in the gravel burst my left front tire – the car further lost balance as the wheel hit the ground– it hit a upward slope in mud – it crashed through the fence and I saw a tree in the front – the car hit the tree full head-on and the tree cracked and fell – I put my left hand against my face as the windshield cracked and a loud THUMP! And crunch of metal against wood as the hood caved in and the juggernaut of my car stopped abruptly…

I remember shaking – shaking a lot – as I got out of the car. The door seemed broken by impact and I had to shove it really hard to open it. As I got out, I could hear a hissing noise and looked back to see my rear left tire fast loosing air. The front had fully caved in and the metal was sticking out at a weird angle. I held on to the car for a couple of minutes to stop myself shaking.

And then just as suddenly as the mind had gone blank, surrounding sounds and thoughts rushed in as if someone had opened a plug somewhere. I saw the owners of that house – an old man and his wife rushing out to see what had happened. I realized I was safe and unhurt. I also realized that I had just either lost Shadowfax or incurred a huge expense. I remembered I had a meeting at work which I was not going to be able to make it to. I had to call 911 to get the police here. Will the insurance cover this, how will I reach work, will the owners make a police case, I take out the phone in my pocket and dial 911, just then the old man asking me –

“Are you hurt?”

“No I don’t think I am, just shaking… but I think my car’s a goner…”

“Don’t worry son, as long as you are safe…”

“911 emergency response… can you tell me your name and emergency Sir?”

“Yes, I just had an accident in my car – I hit a tree…”

“Are you alright Sir? Is anybody hurt?”

“No nobody’s hurt.”

“The police are a few minutes away Sir, please wait there.”

And then suddenly things were sort of happening in fast forward. Before even my shaking had subsided, I heard police sirens and Fire and Rescue truck horns in the distance. Two police cars stopped along with the ambulance and fire and rescue truck. The officer walked up to me and again asked if I was hurt or needed medical attention, the fire and rescue was inspecting the vehicle and had declared that it was not fit to be driven to the garage. One police was taking down my details and license while the other was calling the tow truck company. Before long, the fire truck departed and the policemen left too. The tow truck had come and was hauling the car on to it.

The whole incident from the moment my car skid to the moment I saw its battered form hauled away had taken probably not more than an hour and the actual accident not more than 20 seconds. But it was one of those events that you remember not for their length but for their depth. It was my closest brush with something that had all the markings of going horribly wrong. What was remarkable was that of all the things that could have gone wrong, none actually did. On coming cars, people on the street, garden walls, other cars in front and back… even the slightest change in any of those parameters could have scripted a totally different story. It was certainly an event that makes you wonder the intercession of a divine force on your behalf.

As I stood there in the cold watching my car being hauled away and waiting for my office colleague to pick me up, I chatted with the old man about the accident and I told him how close a call I had today. One thing he said to me then with an ancient smile on his face has stayed with me still. He said “Don’t worry son, when you live long enough, you see these things happen.”

Was this a miracle? Well, “C’est la vie”.