The concrete path

There is a concrete driveway of sorts that goes around our house in India. When it rains, it gets slippery and can be quite treacherous to walk on. It has been raining a lot lately.

Which reminds me of an incident that occurred when I was still in high school . It was a dank and gloomy day with dark clouds dominating the sky. It had been raining off and on for a few days and that particular day, it had rained quite heavily. The concrete path was wet.

A friend of my father was visiting us that day. He was a tall and lanky man with a balding head. My father and he sat in the front porch, shielded from the rain, engaged in conversation. At some point the rain stopped and our guest stepped out on to the concrete path, to pluck a fragrant flower that he had spied on a tree in our garden.

To the unsuspecting visitor, the path was fairly benign. My father and I knew better and we warned his friend to be mindful of his steps. Our warnings were of no avail. For the next thing we heard was a sickening thud. He had slipped and lost his footing and had fallen back on his head.

I ran to assist him, which was probably not the most prudent thing to do considering how slippery the concrete path was. He lay on his back and for a moment I feared the worst. We rushed him to a doctor, but after a few minutes of incoherence he seemed to regain his composure and was back on his feet.

There are some incidents from the past that stay with you and I cannot explain why. This happened some twenty years ago. And it is something I remember in vivid detail today.