The Importance of two proper legs..!

I never gave a thought to my two legs all through my life or the blessing of having them in place until I fell into an open sewage canal..!  As luck would have it, it was December and the sewer was dry and clean.   But the sudden going down into it and hitting the cement bottom gave me a broken right leg with the meta-tarsal broken into two. 

Next six months were time for thought..!  First few days were pain and trauma coupled with a plaster.  While lying flat with an up-raised leg on big pillow, it made me think.  I was totally immobilized and for any thing, had to depend on others!  After five days, I had a new hard plaster and a walker on which I could limp around very carefully.  I rarely thanked God for having my proper two legs or for that matter any other body part.  At times, in a Retreat centre or in a Sunday sermon the Priest reminded us and then of course we thanked God for all such gifts, but once out of that, we are back to normal, the normal life in which we forget these gifts! 

Now, here I was looking at the ceiling fan, with the up raised leg and have all the time in the world to think about it and thank God! I prayed to God and most of the Saints I knew, especially, St, Mary, St. Joseph and Arch Angel St. Raphael for their intercession.   That was a solace  for they helped and it was wonderful to be able to pray like that, which is possible only when one is free from other disturbances of every day activities, especially, the TV, Internet and other general activities!

Time went by and after two months I was out of the plaster slowly learning to walk with a walking stick and being able to thank God for his bodily gifts!

A drive from Kazhipattur to Adyar..!

Kazhipattur is just near Kelamnakkam in the OMR road of Chennai.  The road goes on and on to Old Mahabalipuram.  It is a heritage site where there are some age old temples of great fame. On the way comes Kaxhipattur where from I drive my little Alto.  Alto is a little car by The Maruti Suzuki company.  The little car is good for four and a cramped five in extreme need!  We turned onto the north in the Rajiv Gandhi Salai which is also called the OMR.  Roads are called ‘salai’in Tamil.  There are so many salais in Chennai or all over Tamil Nadu.  The initial part of the drive is simply nice as vehicle concentration on the road is less, but slowly increasing as one drives on.

On our trip too, it kept on increasing and was in top from by the one kilometere at the Sipkot turn.  Driving on I came to the Toll plazaa where every body suffer not only the toll money, but also a toll of time.  Vehicles queue up in five lines and some curious guys drive on the extreme left shoulder to come to the front-most point to the entry of the toll check or toll-payment point and push themselves in front of those coming in queue.  This is considered to be an expertise by many especially the taxi drivers and many private bus drivers.    It is good to be tolerant with these guys as they have their own reason to hurry in front of others.

Slowly our turn to pass through the toll channel came near and in a couple of minutes we were out of the Toll Plaza and was slowly rushing past Navallur market to reach our destination.  The drive from Navallur is good through the great Sathyabbama College (By the way, Sathyabhama is St. Mary, Mother Mary of Velamkanni called in Tamil 'Annai Velamkanni'), with a couple of red lights at Kumaran Nagar and Infosys Computer Company turn and reaching the great Shols Red light which takes a good amount of time to cross when the traffic rush is too much.  Once Shols is over (by the Way, Shols is the short form of the great name Sholinganellur) we have two three more red lights to pass before we reach the Kandanchavadi Toll Booth which won't take as much time as the one at Navallur.  Now we have two more big red lights before we take the Adyar right turn.  All through, the road is a great market place on either side.  The Rajiv Gandhi Salai has changed a lot in the last ten, fifteen years due to the computer boom. Once the turn to the Adyar is taken our destination is not far.   We reach our dispensary where we were heading without much problem after covering one and a half hours.!