How I survived my childhood

The actors in this post are non-fictional and do bear resemblance to people we know. These are all witness accounts as I have little memory of these terrifying experiences.

My first out of body experience was on a balcony. I was only about a month old, and had decided that I wanted to be superman after I grew up. Destiny could not hold my aspirations much longer and when I was at Ruchi waali nani's place, I took my first shot. The balcony railing were wide enough for a month old baby like me to slip through. And we were on the 1st floor, so jumping from the balcony would have given me enough time to find out if I could actually fulfill my destiny. So, when nani and I were sitting outside, and nani was reading her magazine, I took my shot. I slid through the railings and got my feet and hands off the ground and was about to find out the truth, when one hand grabbed my frock (yes, babies wear frocks. shocking isn't it?!). For a few seconds I was hanging mid-air on the first floor balcony looking straight down at my destiny.
A few years later I came to know about this phenomenon called 'gravity'. They told me, I never could have flown...well now i will never find out!

My second tryst with near death experience was at Nalini aunty's place. I was standing behind the 12 inch gap between the sofa and the wall. And Akshia was jumping up over the sofa. Even though we were only 1 and 3 year olds, no heavyweights, the sofa gave in to Akshia's enthusiastic leapfrogging and broke two of its legs. Akshia was still on it, wondering what had happened. Oh and me? I was in action too! I was right underneath the broken sofa!!
I am told I cried like a baby! Well!!! There is not much a 1 year old can do anyway (there's peeing around too, but that probably does not count).

The third time, I was playing around with unidentified military equipment. Akshia, as a veteran 5 year old toddler, was in lead supportive role this time too. We were at a neighbours house where there were humongous wooden boxes to pack heavy equipment. As soon as there were no adults around, we decided to check out everything in sight. I decided to peek into one of the open boxes and crawled half way into them - legs in the air and head inside :-) The boxes were made of wood that is used in the sleeper class cabins in India railways. Trust me they were big, hard and heavy. At about the same time, Akshia decided to close the box and as heavy as they were, he managed to push the cover, so it slowly started to slide down - you guessed right...on to me.
24 years after that incident, papa's friend (name un-disclosed; err...actually i don't remember the name), told papa what had happened, how he could not forget the incident in so many years, and what he would have done if something had happened to me. After 24 years, he told mom & dad that such a thing had happened. How he shouted my name when he saw the box cover sliding down, and how i was lucky to have jump off the box just in time without hurting a hair on my body.