My Mother — Page 70
70 some physical injury, and would achieve high rank through the favour of Sir Fazal-i-Husain. During the Christmas recess of the Tribunal I went to Lahore to be with Mother. On the morning of New Year’s Day, 1932, I was preparing to drive back to Delhi, when I perceived that Mother looked distressed and occasionally wiped away a furtive tear. I became anxious and enquired, ‘Is anything worrying you?’ She answered with a wan smile, ‘No, except the parting from you. ’ I suggested that she might accompany me, and she said she would follow me after a few days. Leaving Model Town, I stopped for a few minutes in Lahore to see a friend. On saying goodbye to him, I was about to open the rear door of the car when he sug- gested that—as my journey was long—I would feel more com- fortable if I occupied the front seat, next to the chauffeur. He opened the front door and I got in. Soon after 1:30 p. m. between Kartarpur and Jalandhar, a car ahead of us left the metalled part of the road and swerved onto the unmetalled part, thus raising a thick cloud of dust wherein our car collided head on with a bullock cart, killing one of the bullocks. The radiator of the car was smashed—the centre shaft of the bull- ock cart shattered the windscreen and hit the left side of my face. The impact stunned me for a moment. The skin over my cheek- bone was torn and the bone was exposed. The socket around the left eye was cracked but the eye was not injured, the nasal septum was bent, and my upper lip was cut open. I lost several teeth and bled profusely. The chauffeur fortunately escaped unhurt. A passing lorry was stopped and conveyed me to the civil hospital in Jalandhar, where the surgeon stitched and dressed my