Chronicle Of A Fall Foretold.
June last year, I was walking with my friend to college. Someone wise said, “If you’re going to talk the talk, you’ve got to walk the walk”, and that is precisely what we did. She wasn’t aware of my dubious reputation of falling unnecessarily. But then, surprisingly, I walked so far without meeting the ground — until I didn’t…
Der Untergang / Fall In Love.
So, I was talking about research. When we reached a bakery in front of our campus, my hippocampus remembered my habit and as soon as I touched a rock, I slipped and fell down. She was walking ahead, listening to me half-interestedly. When she couldn’t hear my voice, she turned back and saw me on the ground.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Oh, nothing. I was conveying my regards to the ground.”
“Hmmm. Whatever.”
She looked at me, I looked at her. We continued our walk.
A few minutes later, near the parking area, our topic of conversation shifted to movies. At that time, my spider sense was tingling — I knew someone or something was behind us. “Something’s wrong, I can feel it,” said the Rap God inside me, but I decided not to bother about it as I was engrossed in the conversation.
I was saying, “And the funniest thing is th-” The feeling persisted. I started getting goosebumps and was quite sure we were being followed.
Breaking the conversation midway, I turned back and found another friend walking in close proximity, trying to overhear our conversation (and later it was revealed that there was an agenda to scare me also.) From the side of my eyes, I could see that she was frustrated at the sight of him. I guess she was thinking “Do I have to talk to this weird guy also?”
Recognising him, I said “Ahhh. Nee aano?” [“Ah, it is you!”]
He smiled and suddenly seeing something amiss, he was alarmed. His pupils were dilated.
“What happened?” I asked.
I found the answer a few microseconds later.
After turning back, I walked a few seconds in that same position, failing to notice a motorcycle that was parked out of line. My friend was trying to warn me that I was going to hit it, but by the time I got his signals, it was too late.
I rammed into the bike, lost my stability and fell down. The bike was more stable than me and it stayed in its position. Between grabbing either of my friends for support and falling to the ground, I chose the most obvious option — the ground.
“You okay?” she asked. The other guy has seen me falling a million times (so much that he has inherited the same disease from me), so he preferred not to ask the same question.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said, dusting away the sand from my shirt.
“You fell again.”
“Yeah, I am a pretty grounded fellow,” I replied, in a matter-of-fact tone.
She looked at me, I looked at her. We continued our walk.
“Err… okay,” she said and all three of us walked into the college building.
Halfway to our class, the bell rang. After that, we are not supposed to enter the classroom. But, counting on grace from the teacher, we ran to our halls. But, again, the floor played the spoilsport. I ran the initial distance fast, and using the momentum, I skated on the smooth floor and fell down head first.
“You fell again.”
“Yeah, I am a pretty grounded fellow,” I replied, in a matter-of-fact tone.
(20)22 Jump Street Gate.
Again, she asked me, “Hey you really okay?”
She looked at me, I looked at her. We continued our run.
No, it really hurts. “Yeah yeah yeah.”
She then saw a lift being closed and jammed herself in. Being health-conscious (ahem, trying to be), I took the stairs. Just then, our very strict teacher appeared. Even if we were a second late — and even if the subject teacher was fine with it — he would banish us to ~Azkaban~ the library. And that’s before hearing a 10-minute monologue whose contents still escape my mind. Knowing that I would be caught, I took a turn and ran to our fire exit stairs (a. k. a. our forbidden stairs). Between getting caught AND sent to the principal and getting attendance, I choose the latter. I went four floors up.
And there came the next hurdle (literally) — the gate to the floor was locked. Now, the only way to go to class quickly was to jump the gate. Channeling my inner P. T. Usha, I considered the gate as a hurdle and jumped.
My amateur athletic skills really came to the fore: I jumped, but my leg hit the bar and I fell face-first. IT HURTS. My glasses again fell from my face, slid a few centimetres and automatically folded itself. And I fell just in front of my friend who had used the elevator.
Staying true to the phrase “Veenidum Vishnulokam,” (nope, not this one) I smiled and struck an Anantha Shayanam pose in a bid to hide my pain.
Déjà Vu.
Really she looked stunned. In the four months that we knew each other, she had never seen me fall this many times. It was a record for me too.
But something else too seemed to trouble her. She stared at me as she remembered something. Closing her eyes and putting attendance as a secondary objective, she stood there thinking something. She looked as if she was concerned about the fall (and not about me falling.)
Now, it was my turn to ask her “Hey, you okay?”
She looked at me, I looked at her.
“No, I mean, yes yes yes uhm, it is just that…” she stammered. I waited for her to complete the sentence. She continued “It is just that I kinda saw this coming.”
“Like a déjà vu?”
“Huh?”
I switched on my mansplaining mode. “It is a situation whe-”
“Shem, you won’t understand. I have to go to class. Bye.”
El Secreto De Sus Ojos.
And I stayed on the floor for a few more seconds analysing her words and looks and got bored and got up and went into my class.
The teacher didn’t notice the sand in my uniform or the redness on my skin. Ma’am asked me to get in, and dragging myself, I somehow got into the seat. I felt like Mohanlal coming out of the house in Vandanam in that climatic phone call scene (https://youtu.be/EafM_EFK-DA?t=196). That was quite exactly how I reached the class.
Her stare stayed with me more than my wounds. What did she mean?
La Belle Dame sans Merci (“The beautiful lady without mercy” in French) being concerned about something other than herself? No way!
I replayed the scenes all day, and wondered, without ever finding an answer, what this emotional reverberation behind her confused look could be. I thought about it throughout the periods. No answer. A few friends said, “She must have been scared by the falls.” True, but something told me that was not the case. I searched for the meaning of an inconsequential thing just like Dan in October (2018) (though in entirely different circumstances and motives.)
I finally found the answer when I reached home. I had left my phone at home. Wanting to check that day’s messages, I opened WhatsApp and later checked the Status section.
She puts Bible quotes as her WhatsApp status daily. That day’s quote read:
“So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! (1 Corinthians 10:12)”
“ആകയാൽ താൻ നില്ക്കുന്നു എന്നു തോന്നുന്നവൻ വീഴാതിരിപ്പാൻ നോക്കിക്കൊള്ളട്ടെ. (1 കൊരിന്ത്യർ 10:12)”
Now I understood what perplexed her. It wasn’t my Buster Keaton-esque performance or the number of falls. She kinda foresaw what happened to me earlier that day — it was just that the realization hit her moments before she entered the class. Maybe it did increase her belief in The Bible even more.
Yes Pain, No Gain.
Hey, what hurt me more was not my fall. It was the fact that all of my pain was in vain: the usually strict teacher, that day (AND ONLY THAT DAY), allowed my friends who were 20 minutes late into the class. AND I, who did all the gymnastics, WAS ONLY LATE FOR 2 MINUTES!!! Why did I even put in those efforts? Why did I need to fall multiple times during that day in front of multiple friends on multiple floors?
Is it to show me that my life has already been foretold in The Bible? That whatever was written in it is supposed to happen in our life at one point or the other? Could what was told about The Mahabharata be applied in the case of The Holy Bible too: “What is here is nowhere else; what is not here, is nowhere.”?
Maybe.
I don’t know.
More on it:
P.S. I think I found the answer: “Who can say? Only time,” softly sings Enya in my Spotify.
P. P. S. The title is a pun on Gabriel García Márquez’s novella Chronicle of a Death Foretold.
P. P. P. S. This is Part 2 of my “The Fall Guy” series where I talk about instances where I have fallen down dramatically. Read Part 1 (How I Fell in Love) here.
