I can still recall the dull, sickening thud — the sound of my forehead hitting the concrete pillar. I had been running forward and looking backward all at the same time and had turned around just in time to see this giant looming right in front of me. All the momentum of a giddily running six-year-old was transferred to that inanimate, immobile, tall mass, and my skin paid the price: there was a tear a couple of centimetres apart.
Years later in medical school they told us that scalp injuries bleed the most. There are a lot of tiny blood vessels stretched out in the area with not a lot of cushioning around. Had I known this as a six-year-old, I wouldn’t have been so shocked when I found my palms soaked in blood just from touching the gash. I saw an ‘uncle’ rushing to my aid — he held the back of my head in his palm and applied pressure to the cut with the other. By then, my mum and chikkappa had heard all the commotion and arrived on the scene.
I was a bit in shock and was made much of… We went to the local nursing home, all the while my mother holding a towel over my cut. The towel was soaked and dyed red by the time we reached the place.
It was decided that I needed sutures, a couple of them. I remember lying on the board in the minor operating theatre and thinking to myself that this was not what I had expected when I’d decided to attend my cousin’s birthday party!
The doctor chatted me up all the while as he worked, telling me they had to stitch me back together again. “ Hmmmm ok”, I say with my eyes closed (that was his instruction).
I can feel the bright shadow of the operation theatre light on my closed lids. “Can you feel the scissors and needles on your skin?” “No”, I say. The local anaesthesia was their own private joke, apparently.
Next he tells me to be sure to eat a lot of green veggies to replenish all the blood I had lost. “ Hmmmm ok”, I say again with little enthusiasm, the fussy eater that I was.
After patching me up they told my mother I had to take the tetanus toxoid (TT) shot. So we went to a side examination room and waited.
The nurse arrived and told me to lie down and close my eyes. Again, with the eyes closing!
I wondered about it but tried to comply. She clattered about a bit with her instruments. Then suddenly, I had had it. I sat up and told her, “I know you are going to give me a prick. You don’t have to cover it up or make me close my eyes. I would rather you tell me directly.” She glanced at my mom, who probably thought I had reached the limit that day and that this was the beginning of a tantrum! The nurse gave me the shot — it hurt, but I was able to prepare for it.
When it was all over, we rejoined my cousin’s birthday celebrations. Earlier in the day we had had the cake-cutting, after which my cousin and I as usual had begun to play ‘catch-catch’. The crash had occurred during the course of the game, when I was running ahead of him and looking back at him at the same time, to see how far ahead of him I was!
When we returned, most of the guests had left and it was only the family. They welcomed me back like some wounded soldier I was given a plateful of the goodies I’d missed and the first bite of juicy jalebis made me forget all about my little mishap.
I was in kindergarten at the time and tried to cover up the white plaster on my forehead with my hair for a few days, and then slowly forgot it was even there.
The sutures came off without incident. The scar still remains, although it’s now very faint.
I kinda like it — it still reminds me of childhood... and to always look forward.
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