IndiaKen Wakes Up INTO a Nightmare

The travellers I met at Satsang invited me to join them. They were going north by train. "Sure, why not". Going with the flow was my new modus operendi. I hadn't slept much in my first ten days in India for a number of reasons. Now on the train we moved through Rajastan as the monsoon continued. As night fell, it got hotter and more humid. I didn't sleep a wink that night. At six in the morning I climbed down from my berth and stood at the door getting some air. We had stopped at a remote station somewhere in Rajastan.

The next thing I saw was the train leaving the station. "But I'm on the train, aren't I? I suddenly realized what had happened – I had fallen asleep standing up. As I fell out I must have turned around and fell onto the spears that made the iron fence along the platform.

I was impaled on the fence with my feet dangling two feet off the ground. Jesus. My only thought was to get back on the train, which was now moving faster. I pulled myself off the railing and grabbed one of the door handles and pulled myself back onto the train. All I knew was that I must make it back to my friends but didn’t know which way to go. Thought about it for a minute and then proceeded forward. After five or six coaches, I found them and showed them my wounds.

By now someone had pulled the emergency cord and the train had stopped. They took me by rickshaw to the local hospital where a crowd gathered and stayed with us for the couple of hours we were there. I was treated as best as they could. They were really wonderful, doctors, police, all of them. My friends handed out flashing Canda flag pins, which they all put on with great pride.

They arranged for an ambulance to take me to the big hospital in Jaipur. It was a very bumpy ride for three and a hlaf hours. Every time we hit a bump the pain was severe. But we finally arrived and found a bed. The doctor, looking at my x-ray was surprised I was still alive. "Folks don't generally live through something like this" he said. The upside to this incident was that I came face to face with death. I really thought I was about to die. And  it was ok. Nice to have gotten over that. Shortly after I bought my first Bullet.