...and i lived to tell d tale

p.s.: facts in this piece may be exaggerated. so take it with as much salt as u please.

i'd read a post on Y's blog a long time ago about her near-death experience... at that point, i couldn't really think of anything that i cud say was anywhere near-death to me! no, not that i'm complaining... but i just thought of something which seemed pretty scary to me when it happened. not near-death. but VERY darn scary.

i was abt 15, i guess.. old enough to be think i knew everything and young enough to actually know nothing. my elder bro was pursuing his dream of becoming a pilot and so was living in indore. he had JUST received his PPL when my summer vacation set in. as we know, pilots don't really have holidays like normal people. so mom & i decided that it would be good fun to visit him there. dad being the work-a-holic said he'd happily manage by himself while the two of us gallivanted around central india!

so it was that we reached indore. the first day we were there, bro in tremendous enthu that only he can muster, said he'd take me for a joyride. before my mom could say anything, i said WOW! and grinned from ear-to-ear in total brotherly adoration.

the "airplane" in which i was to go for my "joyride" was a cessna. the 4-seater kinds. it was my bro, another pilot friend of his - mind you, BOTH were students there and had recently got their PPLs *private pilot's license* but as i said, i was 15 and didn't know better.

so there we were... the take off was kewl... and i was rather kicked about it. my bro was probably as excited as i was... the only thing was each time he'd bend over to show me something on 'my' side of the plane - like the lakes @ bhopal... or some famous temple or some such... the plane would actually "dip" to my side... kinda scary. but again, i was 15. and thought this was fun.

after a while, this "look, the plane dips" became monotonous. so, just like that. for fun. he said "let's switch off the engine for a while". now, this was a single engine plane. and i may not have known much, but even at 15, i knew that this meant that the bloody thing had ONE engine... without which it would FALL!
so i said... "WHAT!" this was meant to be like a "why wud we do that?!" kind of what. instead bro thought his stupid kid sister couldn't follow what he was saying. *yeah, now i think we had communication problems.* so he went ahead to demonstrate. he switched off the engine.

in that one moment, must have been 10 seconds or lesser, my entire life flashed in front of my eyes. *yeah, all 15 years of it!* i wondered if that was his plan - to say it was an accident and 'take care of me' in a mafia fashion. i thought of everything i hadn't done yet and wanted to do. like have shikanji, go para-sailing, get a pet tiger, kiss a boy et al... yeah, ALL of it flashed in front of my eyes *i never had my priorities right, did i?!* in the 10 seconds that my bro had switched off the engine.
he switched it back on, of course, coz he only wanted to illustrate what he had said. and demonstrate HOW fast an airplane would fall. yeah, i really needed to learn that. right. of course, i was speechless for 10 minutes after this. after that, we landed.

then, of course, he told me that they were trained to land those aircrafts even if the engine failed. good consolation, that. of course, now my brother is all grown up & stuff and he doesn't do such things. so if u're in india & flying on one of his flights, pls don't be scared.

and now, i feel like knowing about all those moments in ur life when ur life flashed in front of ur eyes. consider this a tag - and if u like it, pls do it. or leave comments, so i'll know.

SINCE i said this is a tag, the follg instructions are for suruchi & galadriel, whom i'm tag-married to. the rest of u - go, think and write. or read the other posts!
ok... u two... IF u haven't had a near death experience, IMAGINE it, and write. and if u did have a barely near death... go ahead namak-mirch lagao it and blog it. :)