Listen to your Books. Literally !

Many times I have come across audio books in various sources like Amazon, various torrent sites etc but never once did download or listen to one. I had very poor opinion on them as it felt blasphemous to hear a book rather than to read it; well why don't you go watch that dumb movie adaptation then? For me reading a book is travelling to a world where to walk among the characters, involve in the events and soak in the emotions and live every moment of it. 

Last day while the internet for free E books, I happened upon  http://www.openculture.com/. To  my joy there was a huge collection of books in it along with a promise of 900 audio books. On a normal day,  a smirk and a click of the close button would have happened but on this occasion I went through the audiobook collection. There is a really impressive list with lots of classics in them. Well why don't I try out an audio book?  It is certain that I will not like it and will not be able to complete if a novel is attempted, so lets try a small novella and chose The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. Its a story of a guy who wakes up to find himself transformed into a bug over night. No it doesn't involve him putting on a mask and kicking criminals but mostly creeping around the house, scaring the followed by a lot of depressing description of the bug-man's life till he dies. I tried to read the book once and was unsuccessful so I chose to download and to listen, after all with the free Jio offer what do I have to loose? 

The biggest problem I faced was time. Normally I read 3 books at a time. One at my house, one at the clinic and one at college where I work, so where can the audiobook be wedged into? Of course the commute time. For someone spending at least 12-14 hours driving every week, an audiobook is perfect. Last Saturday I plugged in my earphones and  dived headfirst into Austria-Hungary of 1915. Being skeptical, initially I found the story telling distracting, but as I endure for a few minutes, I could feel the apartment rise around me with the metamorphosed Gregor Samas and his family shimmering into existence. It was just like reading the book but something was very different.

I could picturize the story just like how its done while reading it but the sensation was not quite the same. It was as different and as same as the taste and smell of some exotic spice. The smell is lovely and the taste is heavenly; both taking you into a state of elation but the routes are different. The audiobook did just that; I was experiencing the book through a different sense yet the soul of the literature remains same. It was at that moment that I knew that I was hooked to this new addiction.

Since then, few works of Edgar Allen Poe, first part of Dante's Inferno and now Joseph Cornad's Heart of Darkness is being listened to. There are few books that have been tried but unsuccessful in reading due to may reasons and now I have alternative medium to try them again without the fear of being abridged. Audiobooks did open a whole new vista of literature and a better way to spend my time in commute than listening to the yammering in the FM's. Couple problems that could creep up includes getting lost in the real world while driving if you get lost in the book and the distraction that may lead to dents on your car. Another thing is the quality of the voice in the audiobook, you really don't want someone with a voice of chalk on the blackboard to scream into your ear for couple hours. Apart from these minor issues, an audiobook is just another book but from another dimension.

For those who want to try out audiobooks,https://librivox.org/ is a public domain site with the worlds largest collection. Go on, give it a try.

Thoughts of a Broken Man

The jeep in front of me grunted and crawled its way up the mud road treacherous with loose stones. I am peddling off my saddle panting to get in front of the vehicle as it was obstructing my view ahead and to ride blind on an MTB is suicidal. I could not overtake him through the right as the single track was bound on that side by the mountain slope while the left side was a deep ravine of thick vegetation. Then I saw a small opening on the left side and with a mighty effort pushed myself ahead of the vehicle to find myself on a steep slope, panicking I saw a small distance of flat track followed by a much steeper and longer down hill and a blind right-hand curve. The combination of both the slopes will increase my speed beyond control and I will go down the ravine at the curve.

I need to stop the bike now.

I need to crash.

And crash I did. Just into the flat section of the trail, I jammed the brakes and steering rightward slamming my bikes handle into the mud slope. The impact threw my right shoulder backward and my arm scraped the slope. The bikes front wheel twisted inwards and I went flying over the handle bar landing on the combination of my helmet, face and left palm. Through the pain, salty taste, dust and the mud in my mouth I saw the jeep coming to a stop besides me and couple of old farts shouting. I felt amused. I was confused that even after spitting a mouthful of blood my tongue could feel all the teeth intact. I zombie-waked toward the jeep silencing them all and checked my face in the mirror. Everything looks to be in the right place; the right arm was completely messed up and the lower lip have cut itself against the teeth causing the bleeding. The jeep took off and my co rider Dr Louis reached me looking bewildered.

"You also crashed ?" 

"Looks like that !"

"Can you walk?"

"Ummm..."

Checks face and hand again, the shock is starting to wear off and here comes the pain. We stared to walk back to the base. Patrick had already crashed couple kilometers before and was taken to the base by a friendly group in a jeep. He had ripped open his eyebrows and had a pool of blood to show for it. I had pain but no blood. No show off for me. After a quick clean up, and loading the bike into the car we left for home via the casualty at Medical College to get Patrick sewed up. I washed my wounds again and found that I have lost quite an amount of skin from my forearm, abrasions on the upper arm and face and cannot lift my right arm. A shoulder injury. Awesome.

The rest of the procedure went pretty quickly and I was staring to feel more and more sleepy by the minute that got Dr Louis worried. He suspected a head trauma. I suspected a lot of things and I wanted to rest my head somewhere. In between while Patrick is being sewed up I heard a huge noise outside the room. Someone  doused themselves in kerosin and immolated and that human barbecue is being wheeled in, one look at it, my pain vanished and I wanted to get the hell out the hospital pronto. Even with no appetite to speak of I manged to stuff in some chicken and went home bracing for the storm awaiting there. There was no storm but there was no sleep for me, the analgesics were woefully inadequate.

I grunted and squealed the night to pass disturbing the significant other's and son's sleep.

The very next day I cleaned up my wounds and my wife packed me off to my parents house. People say "home is where your heart is". I think "Home is where you heal" is much more appropriate. I spend a week on my couch nursing the wounds and eating spice-less soft food as the wounds in the mouth ulcerated and anything in the mouth was a painful affair. Mummy dear was quick with her threats of burning the cycles and whipping me if I ever go out on a cycle while Daddy was throwing looks that was equal part murderous and pity. I am sure if I was not this banged up, he would have made it so. Sister as always sister with her pity, sarcasm, threat and "Are you  going to eat that butter bun or should I?". It was childhood back in my so called adulthood.

One week later the pain in the wounds have subsided and scabbed up and now I notice that my right shoulder and left wrist is pretty uncomfortable to move around. The bigger difficulty I was facing was I haven't seen my son for the last five days. Wifey brought him home and myself tagged along when they went back.  So here I am, the broken man introspecting about life, cycling and stuff. I lost a week at work, still cant drive,  gained new scars (in fact the only scars I have until today), suffered a great lot of pain (still going on). I also learned that my abilities on a bike are not that great and being overconfident just because I have done the same hill successfully is no guarantee for a safe ride every other time.

Do I want to ride a cycle again? Definitely yes, cycling saved me from being a middle aged Mallu man. Without it I would probably be a overworked diabetic, hypertensive obese drunk who smokes every time some junk food is not obstructing the mouth. Cycling made me what I am and I am happiest doing it. Will I MTB again? I don't know. The shock of the fall and pain is too fresh in my mind as so is the discomfort that I cased to the ones around me. Modifying what Sherlock told, "Your life is not your own, it is not just you who gets hurt when you fall, its the ones who share it"

I may perhaps ride those gravel roads, fly down those downhills seeking to burn the adrenaline and find thrills where you find inconvenience but that day will have to wait.

First I need to find my balls which I lost in that forsaken forest slope at Rosemala.









Pssss... I thank all those beautiful people who called, messaged, FBed me wishing a quick recovery, you people were better than any painkiller I had :)