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Published: April 16th 2008
Jammu and Kashmir or J&K as they call it. As long as I live may I never set foot in that place again, for so many reasons but the worst being we ran over a 5 year old boy with our car. We were leaving to head back home to Punjab, while driving through a small village in the Himalyas a little boy darted across the road. It was totally unavoidable. Laura was sitting in the front seat and I was in the back seat behind our driver. I heard Laura scream, I felt the brakes slam on and then 2 thuds. I could tell by the way Laura was screaming that it wasn't a dog we hit. Two men, the boys father and uncle grabbed our driver, pulled him out of the car and started beating him. For a second I thought about helping him fight but I knew he could handle it himself and he did. Instead, I grabbed my jacket and ran to the other side of the car scared to death of what I was going to see. My heart was pounding the loudest I've ever heard it. The mother and 3 other women were holding the boy and he was a bloody mess, BUT ALIVE!! HALLELUJAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!I had been so scared that we might have ran over his head. I don't think I could have handled it if I had come around the car to find a dead child.I wrapped the boy in my jacket and tried to take him from the mother. She was yelling something at me in Hindi and I was yelling at her in english HOSPITAL!!!! Then I was in the back seat with the bloody boy, his father, and uncle, we sped off to the hospital leaving Laura and Sukhi on the side of the road with the villagers. The hospital was 4km away. I had the boys head in my lap. HUGE gash across forehead, I could see his skull, NOT GOOD!! But I couldn't see his brain. THANK GOD!!! Big gash next to eye and another below his nose. He was screaming his little head off but that's actually a good thing, screaming=alive. As far as I could tell his face and head were what made contact with the car. Head wounds bleed like crazy, it looked like a masacre. Mom, you wanted to know what an Indian hospital looks like? It looks like a dungeon, a dimly lit, 3rd world, fly infested, sterile-technique-means-nothing HELL HOLE!!! But it's not their fault, they're dirt poor here and they do what they can. The doctor didn't speak english but somehow we communicated perfectly. I assisted him with suturing the boys wounds, it was gorey. No lidocaine, no nothing. The boy was screaming the loudest blood curdling screams I've ever heard, my hands were shaking so bad, I asked God please give me control of my hands and he did.
We got the little boy straightened out THANK YOU GOD!! THANK YOU!!THANK YOU!!!THANK YOU!!!!But this is where things got ugly. In India if you get in an accident you go to the police station and negotiate retributions to the family and the police, but it's more like extortion. There was absolutely no fault in our driver whatsoever. If anything he did the best he could in the worst situation possible.The boys father, uncle and police tried to get us to pay $10,000 rupies. Pay or the consequence is jail time for our driver. Are you kidding me? Are you f*cking kidding me? NO WAY!!! After all I'd been through this was just unacceptable to me. What kind of f*cked up show are you running here? That's what I thought. What did I say? NOTHING!! 10,000 rupies equal $250 USD, small change for us but still, it's the principle of the thing, and why do the police get a cut? Laura reminded me to choose my battles and she was right, let us just pay the $ and get out of here. But it's funny how things have a way of working out. Remember I said how I left Laura and Sukhi in the village when I raced off to the hospital with the boy. Well they hitch hiked to the hospital and the man who gave them a ride after hearing their tale of woe called one of his friends who was a very high ranking. . . someone. To tell the truth I have no idea who he was but he had more power than the corrupt police and when he walked into the station he commanded respect, the atmosphere changed quickly. He was very kind to us. He had someone fix Laura and I some tea, he talked with Sukhi and our driver in hindi with kind sympathetic tones as opposed to the threatening tones used by the police and boys family earlier. I can say one thing in hindi and it's good morning but just from observing their conversation and body language I could tell this man was a friend. After tea the man asked us to follow him outside to a small courtyard where the boys father and uncle were standing with some police. In the flash of a second this composed, well dressed, professional looking man turned into a lion. He started yelling very loudly (in hindi), ripped some papers out of the boys fathers hands, threw them on the ground, and then struck the father in the face full force. Whoa! I didn't see that coming. Whoa! The father staggered backwards and almost fell to the ground. It took him a second to steady himself while the other man continued to yell and gestured as though he was going to hit him again. (Picture me and Laura standing there with our mouths wide open and totally traumatized for life) Later Sukhi translated that what our friend was yelling at the boys father was something to the effect of why are you extorting $ from these people? and if they pay you then tomorrow you will throw one of your other children in front of a car so you'll get paid. The look on the fathers face was certainly that of someone struggling with his pride because he just got decked and there's nothing he can do about it, defeat, because from the second the boy got hurt this mans priority was not his sons best interest but money, how much $$$ could he get, even at the hospital while I was holding his son still so the doctor could suture him this man was busy harassing our driver for $$, and then finally I'd like to think I saw just a little shame, but I'm not sure. The 4 of us, myself, Laura, Sukhi and our driver all left the police station together shortly after. That was the longest most stressful scariest day of my life. It's taken me 3 days to write this entry completely. I was feeling pretty upset, certainly traumatized and slightly depressed over the whole ordeal but I'm okay now, in the 3 days it took me to write this out India has shown me enough wonderful things to set me straight again.
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Alex
non-member comment
wow.
That is messed up on so many levels. Thank God the little boy survived and you avoided any entanglements with the law. Your car misses you. :)