Reporter’s Notebook -- Deepa Bharath

There are some lessons you learn early in life.

My first real lesson was on falling down. It was more of a lesson in

stoic acceptance as I learned to succumb to this powerful force of nature

we call gravity.

Let me begin at the beginning. Coordination was not one of my

strengths, even as a kid. In fact, the utter and complete lack of it made

my existence as a child rather miserable. I can recall several days when

I spent hours in the school nurse’s office getting my bruises and bloody

wounds cleaned and dressed as my friends snickered as they stood by the

door in a so-called show of support.

“We need to have an ambulance on the side if we play with Deepa,” they

would say mockingly.

And idiot that I was, I’d play catch two days later, trip over the

same rock I did a couple of days before and knock on the nurse’s door yet

again, this time with a bruised elbow.

It was really embarrassing too. A mishap that occurred during our

midterms in sixth grade still remains branded in my memory. This time,

all I had to do was walk up to the teacher to get more paper for my

answers. There was a wooden platform that I had to climb over to get to

the teacher who was supervising the exam. As I took the paper from her

hand and turned to go back to my seat, I tripped on the edge of the

platform and landed flat on my face.

For a second, there was a stunned silence in the classroom as they

seemed to watch the episode in slow motion. That was, of course, followed

by a roar of laughter. The supervisor tried hard not to laugh. Teachers

in neighboring classrooms, intrigued by the loud thud and the laughter,

stuck out their heads to see what was going on. Soon I earned a

reputation as the comic interlude during exams.

“Hey Deepa! We have a tough history test tomorrow. Could you do one of

your double somersaults just to ease the tension?”

My war with gravity was not restricted to school grounds. At home, I

often slipped on spilled water, fell down in the shower or twisted my

ankle climbing the stairway.

I took a lot of grief before I realized what I was doing wrong. The

realization came to me during one of my falls while playing badminton

with my cousins in the frontyard.

I was going for what I believed was going to be an overhead smash. But

the feathered shuttle flew way over me and my cousins watched in horror

as I arched back and fell. But this time, I didn’t resist the fall. I

gave into it. I did not try to support the fall with my elbows or hands.

I just fell back and landed on my back on the hard concrete floor.

It was a miracle! I didn’t get hurt. I wasn’t even aching or hurting

anyplace. I got up like nothing happened and prepared for the next game.

After that day, I didn’t stop falling. But I stopped counting my

falls. Because it didn’t matter to me anymore. I fell happily, with

confidence and abandon, with resignation. This continued even after I

grew older. With age, I learned to fall gracefully.

“How do you look so good when you fall?” a friend sincerely asked me

once as I was dusting my clothes off after I took a fall. I merely

smiled. It was a Buddha kind of smile -- benevolent and enlightened.

Although I don’t have any emotional scars from my childhood accidents,

the physical scars on my knees, legs and elbows still remind me of those

cuts, bruises and painful gashes.

This truth would’ve forever remained buried in my subconscious if my

colleague hadn’t brought up the subject, although indirectly. She was

talking about how much she enjoyed the rock-climbing wall in the gym that

keeps moving like a treadmill as you climb.

“I would never try it,” I said.

“Why not?” she asked.

“Because I would fall down,” I said as a matter of fact.

“No, you wouldn’t,” she said with disbelief.

“Yes, I would,” I repeated.

“You know, it’s hard to fall down from one of those things,” she

reasoned.

“That’s fine,” I said. “But you don’t know me. I’m a faller.”

And a seasoned one at that.

* Deepa Bharath covers public safety and courts. She may be reached at

(949) 574-4226 or by e-mail at o7 deepa.bharath@latimes.comf7 .