09/11/2011, 06:59:58.

It is precisely this time when a white car driving the other way overtakes another vehicle on top of a small hill and hits me almost head-on.

Orchha (Uttar Pradesh, India), 05:53 am.

I'm waiting outside, all patience. I'm early, as usual. It's cold. Evenings and nights are getting colder. Yesterday was splendid. It wasn't too hot yet the sun was shining bright; I met with Mark, a very friendly Englishman and I went back to that cafe down the main road to meet again the nice couple who runs it, Didi and Loyal. Their lemon tart is to die for. Now I mention it, here's an instance of the tart, which didn't last long (it was the third...)

Anyway. Aye, I'm waiting in the cold – the sensory souvenir of the tangy taste of the lemon makes me salivate – for a man whom I met yesterday so that he can rent me a motorbike. He said we'd meet at 6 in the morning, but he'll be late, or he isn't a true Indian.

Orchha, 06:09 am.

I went back to my hotel room to fetch my wind-cutter. The masala chai the old lady is selling at the corner of the road didn't warm me at all, even if it was pleasantly gingery and spiced.

My man is here at last, and he isn't too late. That's good, for I have more than two hundred kilometers to drive today. The bike's here, and it's the same as yesterday's – a Honda Hero – so things start well. We chat for a short time, then I'm on my way in the night, scarved with bands of dawn.

7 km after Orchha, at the crossroads with Khajuraho/Jhansi road, 06:20 am.

There's something wrong with the bike. It's jolting and coughing. I understand the problem as soon as I inspect the fuel tank level. I thought it was broken, but in fact it's working, it's just that the guy's left me with enough petrol to reach the next gas station...which I have already passed. The next one mustn't be far. The bike's running out, so I pull up the lever on the tank and I finally reach the station. I ask for a full tank.

Barwa Sagar, 06:35 am. 20 km after Orchha.

I'm thinking of stopping to take a few pictures, but my conscience tells me to go on, tells me that I'm not there yet. I do have some time, but not all the time in the world. Though I have more than if I had taken the train or the bus, which both take up 5 to 6 hours to reach Khajuraho, if nothing breaks down – which is rare. What I'm seeing looks somewhat like this:

On the road to Khajuraho, perhaps 06:45 am.

The sun is rising right in front of me. The road isn't too damaged, and just a few vehicles pass by, few sheep, few cows, much less people. The landscape is delicate, bedecked with pink and vermillion. Nature's waking up. I can hear some birds singing. The wind, blowing in my face, loses its sharp edge.

There are more and more vehicles. 'Indian drivers are really reckless' is what I think. I have taken enough time to go there and back and be able to visit Khajuraho and its temples carved with erotic figures, like in Konark (among other things, it goes without saying that I didn't go there just for this).

Niwari, 06:59:55 am. 28 km after Orchha.

The road is rising slightly – it's probably flying over a river or another road. I slow down a bit as I can't see what's on the other side of the hill.

Niwari, 06:59:58 am.

I finally spot a small hamlet on the right-hand side; just about a few huts hurdled together as if they had been thrown there, and a small truck coming the other way. I'm about to look on the left-hand side when I see a white car emerging rapidly from behind the truck. I'm pulling on the breaks and I start moving the bike to the left but the car, on the other hand, doesn't break speed, doesn't swerve and honks at me. I know I can't avoid the collision. I don't know if the bridge is over and I can't detach my eyes from the front of the car. I swerve on the left as much as I can. I cannot close my eyes as I crash into the right-hand corner of the car. Nor can I close them as I fall on my right side, the bike still between my legs, and as I skid on the asphalt which apparently broadens at this point. I still cannot blink as I leave the roadway and continue skidding on the dirt by the side of the road. I can at long last close my eyes only when I'm about to crash underneath a truck that is parked a bit further down. I know the impact will be massive. The truck's underside appears to be high enough for me to fit under it – I eventually end up my course against the front tyre.

Niwari, 07:0? am

I open my eyes. I am covered in dust from head to foot. There's dust in my mouth, ears and eyes. I try unsuccessfully to disengage my body from underneath the bike. I can see the fuel pipe has been torn open and spurts jets of petrol over the tank. I asked for a full tank. I kick harder and harder and at last set myself free.

I stand up. It's only then that I can feel the pain. I have seldom felt such an intense pain, it's hissing all over in my right side. The fingers on my right hand wave weirdly, I can sense my heart pulsing like mad. My hand has hit the windscreen. What comes out of my lungs when I cry out isn't a cry, it's a rattle. Guttural, beastly. I'm limping. I look up to spot one of my shoes lying sole down on the road, in the middle of some débris. I know it sounds foolish, but I don't want to know if my foot is missing, if it's still in my shoe, over there on the road, far from me and alien to me. I look down. My foot is still dangling at the end of my leg, it's swollen; blood is dyeing the sock on the right-hand side. I hop up to my shoe, cry and howl with pain. I fall down. I take a look at my right calf: it is burnt black on its side and something oozes from the burns. I can discern shreds of skin, small stones and matted hair. I stand up again. I pick up the shoe and I observe the road: no signs of breaks apart from mine. The guy has lost his side mirror. He didn't stop.

Niwari, around 07:01 am.

I hop back to the bike. Nothing useful to do there. The pain is throbbing. I yell. I shout at the people who lined up in front of me that they must call an ambulance, that they must help me. No one stirs. Their eyes pass from me to the bike and back. Some look to the West and the runaway car. Putting my foot down wrenches rales from me. I'm begging them to help me, but I choke, my vision blurs. I want to faint not to feel the pain anymore. I want to wake up from this nightmare. I implore them. I sit down on a wooden bench, the same one on which they will be sat drinking the piping hot chai, watching the trucks, cars, buses, carts, herds go by. I'm hot. I take the wind-cutter off, it proved efficient protecting my upper body. A shiver runs along my spine straightaway. They scrutinize me with their black, unfathomable eyes.

All of a sudden it hits me: they don't understand me. I take my guidebook out of my dust-covered sling-bag. I ask them in Hindi where I am. Niwari. Where's the nearest hospital? Jhansi. How many kilometers? They discuss among themselves and the word 'Eighteen', when one says it, stabs like a knife. I try calling my friend Ajay then James, in Hyderabad. I know full well that it's too early in the morning, that they won't be able to do anything for me more than a thousand kilometers distant. I decide on calling the man who rent me the bike. He tells me that he's coming to get me straightaway. I know that he can't be here before thirty minutes. An hour at best.

Niwari, 07:30 am.

I can't take it any more. The pain is too intense, I'm hiccuping with pain. I can't stop my hand and leg from shivering. I can feel saliva drooling on my chin. They are still standing in front of me, they haven't moved an inch. They keep quiet, apart from two men who must be commenting, pointing their thumb here and there. One of them suddenly turns his head. He's young and wears a moustache like all the youngsters his age who would like to be considered men already. He rushes to the middle of the road, I can see him from below my eyelids as I double-up in pain. A bus stops by. He chats rapidly with the driver. He points somewhere behind him. The driver steps down from the bus. He comes to me and tells me in English to get onto his bus, that he'll bring me to Jhansi. I don't argue. I hop, he puts his arm under mine. I get in and lie down over two seats. We leave. From his seat the driver tells me not to worry, that we'll be there in half an hour.

On the road to Jhansi, time unknown.

The jerks reverberate in each and every of my broken bones. A new pain appeared and bore into my eardrums and temples.

Jhansi, 08:05 am.

I step down the bus, as it can't go any further. But there's a tuk-tuk (a motor tricycle) that's going to bring me to a clinic. I check if I still have all my stuff. I know that I have to hold on. The drive is, as usual, mad, run at break-neck speed. Few minutes later I am in the clinic, on a stretcher. A doctor comes up, looks at my hand, says something to the nurse waiting next to him, who in turn repeats it to someone out of my sight, somewhere further down the corridor. The stretcher reverses. I try to stand up but the doctor forces me to lie back down. He explains to me that they don't have the equipment to do x-rays here, that they'll send me to another clinic.

Jhansi, 08:15 am.

Another Tuk-tuk again. Another stretcher. Another doctor. Another chain message. This time they keep me. My eyes shut by themselves. I can see a known face peering over me. It's the man who rented me the bike. how the hecll did he get here. He comforts me. Asks me if it hurts. Where is the bike. He looks at me with pity, from head to toe.

I end up in a room painted green. The x-ray table is in here. I lie down on it. People busy themselves around me. There's a male nurse and five or six men whom I have never met before but who visibly don't belong to the hospital staff. They must have come with the motorbike man. My sock is removed. I yell. I am pinned down. A word flashes across my mind: darda. Pain. 'Darda, darda.' The male nurse seems to understand me, nods, taps on my shoulder. Then he leaves the room. I look up at the ceiling. I can hear the men chatting away. An old woman with a wrinkled face leans over me. 'Darda, darda.' She frowns, looks at me intently, taps my shoulder.

Few minutes later, I receive an injection. The doctor is here examining the x-rays. Everything has already been prepared to put casts. He holds my wrist and tells me something in Hindi. I tell him that I don't understand. Someone translates. I have three fractured fingers. The voice says that the doctor is about to do something but the voice doesn't know how to say it in English. In English, it goes like this: he is about to try and set the fractures by flattening my hand in order to put the cast. This I discover just when he puts my right hand in between his, and presses it flat. The men pin my feet down. I have never yelled like this before, I rarely suffered like this. The pain bores into my eardrums, reverberates in echos that don't lose their intensity. I swear. I feel tears blurring my eyes – at long last, those tears who took so long to surface and who, as if shy, hang onto the edge of my eyelids. I insult him, yes I do, I insult this doctor who tortures me, in English, in French, in Italian. 'Darda! Darda!'

I spend the following minutes in a muzzy state in which my hand is throbbing at the side of my body. It is detached from me, I just receive its pain. I know the man is touching my foot now, that there was a bone protruding. He has to set it. The pain that I receive from it is diffuse, like someone who shouts in the wind on the shore.

Orchha, 11:10 am.

I am back to my hotel room, my hand and foot in a cast. I took a taxi to come back. Sai, the man who rented me the bike, came with me. He asks me what I'm going to do. I tell him that I don't know yet, that I have to think. That I'll call him. I lie down on the bed. I fall asleep.

Orchha, 14:30 pm.

This is the time when I start organizing the long journey which will take more than 50 hours, starting the next morning at 8, back home in France. I'll go back at Didi and Loyal's cafe whose help will be more than precious – I thank them from the bottom of my heart, not only for opening their door and their heart, but also for giving me the last piece of lemon tart. I will go back and visit them to return them what they have given me without thinking: human warmth.

Ajay, James, Vijay another Indian friend and my sister will work really hard to make me come back quickly. It took three and a half hours to reach Gwalior's airport. There I learn that the flight is cancelled due to a sandstorm and that I'll have to join Delhi by taxi. More than seven hours later I reach Delhi's domestic airport (it's something like 11 pm). I will take a flight to Hyderabad, where my friend Ajay lives, at 6 in the morning on the next day. It's 10 am when I arrive at his parents' house who insisted on taking me in. There I am really looked after, Ajay's mother visibly moved by my poorly appearance. I eat, wash – wash away the sand in my ears, in my nostrils, in my hair. Wash the blood away. Give a good cry. I thank Ajay, his family and all of my friends in India for smoothing things out and for supporting me.

The arrival in France was simpler, via a medical repatriation that my sister triggered and that I directed from the different stops along the way. I bow my hat at her for not giving up, for understanding that the situation was more serious than my pride was willing to admit. I have always been like this, I don't like people worrying about me. For taking the matter into her own hands and for supporting me in the A&E in Blois, for taking me in her house. For putting up with me every single day. Thanks sis.

She is the one who took the following pictures. I included the most eloquent x-rays. Even if there's nothing gory in those pics, some may offend certain viewers. I publish them because I want people to measure the gravity of the situation, gravity I have myself diminished down to the point of absurdity. I want to restore it to its just degree. The last x-ray of my hand is the one made after the pins were set. Of course you can double-click or right-click on every photo to zoom in (I know few people who're going to like it).

Thank you for taking the time to read all of the above.

P.S. I know the quasi exact time because my pocket watch, which I found at the dusty bottom of my sling bag, stopped at that time.