The thing about death is that nobody wants to think about it though it is all around us.  I got a reprieve from death or grievious injury, just last night, and the manner in which the whole incident unfolded could well be funny, had it not been so terrifying. After a less than fruitful day at the office had stretched to 2330 hours, I was riding my bike back home.  The traffic was sparse and I made good time.  I was barely a kilometer away from my residence and I was looking forward to hitting the sack.  There was a lone car on the road, heading in the same direction as I was, ahead of me.  As the car was not moving fast, I decided to pass it and closed the gap.  Now, I was probably preoccupied with thoughts about the disappointing day at work, but I’d still seen that there was no lights headed my way, as I prepared to pass the car, but before I could pass, the driver of the car suddenly veered left.  Now, I’d increased my speed in order to pass the car and was wondering why the car veered off, when the cause for the sudden move presented itself: it was a charging cow, horns and all.  It was probably just meandering on the road, as us commonplace in India, when it got spoiled/angry for some reason. The absence of street lights on that stretch made things tricky, but the car ahead had completely blocked the cow from my view.  It would still not have mattered, but for the fact that it was charging now, in my direction.  The left side of the road was in a bad shape, to compound my woes, but skidding/falling off the bike seemed a lot better than getting skewered by the cow’s horns.  I pulled away, but the cow was too close already. Her horns caught my rearview mirror which stuck out some way, and sheared it clean off.  Had the metal been stronger and provided more resistance, I could have been knocked right off, instead I only felt a twitch, and I was able to regain my  balance and managed to pull away.  The car ahead of me had seen the whole thing and had pulled over to the side and enquired whether I was ok.. I told him that I was only shaken up and went my way. 
Looking back at it, it does seem a bit funny, getting charged at, by a holy Indian cow, but it was anything but funny when I was living those seconds.  I shudder to think what might have transpired if I’d even been fractionally slower, but I suppose that is what life is like, at times.Posted via LiveJournal app for Android.