I received the following letter from Sriram today.

Dear Chandu, Well,wish you the same.Sorry for the long silence.Last week,Gautam has met with RTA near madhurai .His car has hit a bus.By god grace his wife and kid escaped with out any injury.Gautam had acetabular fracture hip.I don't know the details about the injury.But he is safe now and has been shifted to jipmer 2 days back from Meenakshi mission hospital,Madurai.Luckly murali was there to take care.I will be going to pondy next week to see him.I will let you know the details later.One of his wife sise relative,55 yr old female staff nurse from malaysia, died on the spot.Please reply and pass on the message tto our friends. Sriram-Karaikal

I hope Gautam and his family are coping well at this difficult moment. I wish him a speedy recovery.

chandu

-- chandu (chandu.prasannan@ntlworld.com), June 23, 2002

Answers

Hi everyone! I am told there was a lot of talk about me and my accident. It happened on 16.06.2002 at about 2:30 pm near Sivagiri (about 125 m from Madurai)on our way back from Courtallam. Among other injuries I suffered a fractured R acetabulum, vitreous hemorrhage R eye and assorted cuts & bruises on the R arm. My wife suffered some bruises. Both of us were wearing seatbelts or the outcome could have been worse. My sister-in-law, a rear seat passenger, died on the spot. Afte stabilising my condition at Madurai, I was shifted to JIPMER on 19.06.2002 and I was put on Russel's traction till 01.08.2002. I am at home at present hobbling around on a walker as I have been advised non-weight bearing movements for a further period of 6 weeks till about the middle of September. After that starts the gradual weight bearing exercises and physiotherapy. I hope to be back in circulation by October end. According to Dr. Patro the fracture has united very well. Thanks everybody for your prayers, good wishes and efforts to cheer me up. Most of all - thanks for even remembering me. Everyone, please treat this as a personal mail, though I shall try and reach individually as many of you as possible.

-- Gautam Roy (gauty@satyam .net.in), August 13, 2002.

Hello Gauty,

Glad to hear from you. We got some updates on your progress from time to time. The old bboard has changed and it is better you write a note on the new forum. Recover well and quickly, for I intend to have good time in December when I come over. I haven't heard from Mogambo for a while. Keep writing in.

-- chandu (cprasannan@hotmail.com), August 14, 2002.

Hi! Gauty! Nice to know you are back home and doing perfect.Keep writing long letters in this board and try to rope in as many as possible.Chandu will be very happy.Hi! Chandu(Dappy) when are coming over here.Tell us in advance.We will arrange a mini reunion .Reply soon.========Sriram-Karaikal

-- Sriram (ksgs_kmb@sancharnet.in), August 14, 2002.

At present the plan is to visit Pondy from 12th to 28th Dec. I will let you know the details shortly.

I am confident that Gautam will be back to full strength then. Yes we should get-together. More the merrier. But I shall be very happy to see you lot. Lata will be coming too, for her batch's silver jubilee meet.

Sriram I shall send you the details. I am very excited. After all it has been 6 yrs since I left India.

-- chandu (cprasannan@hotmail.com), August 14, 2002.

Dear Gautam, Nice hearing from you. Hope you have recovered from the shock and trauma. What are you planning for December? ramesh

-- g n ramesh (gnram@satyam.net.in), August 14, 2002.

Entha Remeshey, sugum thaney? can you spare a few days in Dec?

-- chandu (cprasannan@hotmail.com), August 15, 2002.

Hi Gautam,

Terribly shocked to hear about the accident. Honestly, I came to know about it only just now. Hope you are recovering fine. Please convey my heartfelt condolences to your wife's family.

I was in Europe when you had the accident. At that time, and subsequently, I was rather preoccupied with certain activities, and circumstances were such that I did not have occasion to scan the Bulletin Board. I had sent you a few general Emails sometime back, without knowing anything about the accident. I was rather surprised when they had bounced back. Now I realize why.

I shall inform Razee here in Maldives about you and urge him to write to you. But persuading him to write is a shade more difficult than pulling a tooth out of grizzly bear!

I wish you a speedy convalescence.We want you to be your usual chirpy self as quickly as possible. Sanjoy

-- Sanjoy Sanyal (drsanjoysanyal@yahoo.com), September 23, 2002.

Hi everybody, I am back. But hey not so fast - I am still walking with a lurch, which is improving with physiotherapy & exercises. Also I get fatigued easily but that too is getting better. I am game for another bash in December 2002, but my efforts will be that much subdued due to my easy fatiguablity. However, if all of us chip in I am sure we can pull it off; I'll find out from the others what they (Hemavati, Parkash Chand, Jegadeeswaran, Sahoo, Vasudevan)feel and then proceed. Till then I'll have to keep recovering as well as I can. So here's wishing all of us the best of luck - Gautam.

-- Gautam Roy (gauty@satyam.net.in), October 14, 2002.