Near Death Experience...

Of late I seem to be courting death a lot, though the latest episode left a few casualties other than yours truly. Now that I have your complete attention, here's the low down on how I escaped certain death and the upshot of it all...

My office colleagues and I normally eat at the office canteen or at restaurants in and around Hiranandani Complex, Powai. I'm especially fond of Subway, Gloria Jeans, Rodas Cafe (it has closed for renovations, but they had the most amazing sandwiches and the pastries were to die for) and Aromas (the Sicilian Risotto and all kinds of Pastas are absolutely divine). However that fateful day we decided to go to R City Mall, a couple of us wanted to try the new Italian Restaurant Cassamia (P.S. - You must have guessed by now, I'm crazy about Italian food) but the others hate Italian food so we ended up at the Food Court which gives a wide range of foods to choose from. After Italian food, I like Chinese and accordingly made a beeline for the Chinese restaurant and placed my order. I'm not judging anyone or anything but after eating the food I started feeling a little queasy and the next day it resulted in a full blown case of a badly upset stomach.

I would have pulled a sickie, but for an interview that was scheduled for a six month project in Hong Kong and I really wanted to land the same. I somehow managed to drag myself into office and do the interview (FYI-I got the project) and went home early as I really was of no use to anyone in that state. Late that night, rather at three in the morning I woke up due to intense pain in the tummy, the pain seemed to be following the motion of waves, it would start like a dull pain and at its peak it was like my intestines were being wrenched by an invisible force and then ebb away into nothing, much like labour pain (not that I have ever experienced it, just that there is too much information on the said subject thrown in your face these days and it seems quite similar). I got out of bed and went into the kitchen to look for some medicine to alleviate the pain and was looking through the cabinets when a fresh set of pain waves hit me and this time it was by far the worst set, I just couldn't stand, also started sweating profusely, that is when I decided to get my mom involved and I knocked on the bedroom door and collapsed in a heap right outside the door.

Things got interesting after that, when my mum opened the door and saw that I had fainted, she called out to me a couple of times and she herself collapsed. All this commotion had by now woken up the entire house hold. My mum soon came to and there were four near blind people (everyone in my family except me needs really high powered glasses and in the commotion they couldn't locate the said glasses) trying to revive me. Apparently I made a strange gurgling sound and stopped breathing for a while. Water was being sprinkled, my name was being shouted and there were worried looks all around and finally I came to my senses and started responding to them. It all happened in the span of a few minutes and is quite funny when you think about it now but my family went through hell while it was happening.

The upshot of this event is that I had to pull out of the Hong Kong project. What with my sister's wedding in October, my mum wasn't very pleased with me going to Hong Kong in the first place and thing fainting spell rang the death knell. She put her foot down and made herself quite clear that living alone in Hong Kong wasn't a good idea. I could have still accepted the project but that meant giving everyone at home extra tension as if the tension around the wedding preparation isn't enough. My mom for sure would worry her head off thinking about me fainting in Hong Kong with no one to revive me, so after careful consideration I decided to pull out of the project.

The only request my sister had the next day was "Incase you feel the need to faint anytime in the future, please ensure that you breathe !!!".