The car crash took place after we dropped off Maheshbhai and his family at Harshupur around three in the morning. We were in the outskirts of Surat city. For a moment, I thought that a truck or a bus had hit our car. But we were rolling down a ditch as Sunilbhai who was at the wheel for many long hours had dozed off. It felt like being tossed inside a can. Finally, the roller-coaster journey came to a halt and we lay in a state of stupor. I heard Sunilbhai and his wife moaning in pain. We called out and assured one another that we were alive. I cannot remember how long we lay there till farmers in a tractor ferrying vegetables to the city spotted us and pulled us out of the mangled car. They took us to a nearby medical centre and woke up a man, probably the compounder. He attended to our wounds and administered injections. I remember being worried about the authenticity of the ‘disposable’ syringes and the lack of cleanliness of the place. Maheshbhai was contacted and he rushed from his village in his neighbour's car. When he saw our blood-stained faces, he hugged us and wept like a child. All of us had been travelling together for two days to attend a large-scale Svadhyaya programme on the banks of the Narmada River. For us, the journey ended with a jolt.

More help was mobilized and we were taken back to Surat city. When I woke up the next morning, my body ached as though it had been put through a wringer. The physical trauma was matched by emotional turmoil. The ‘subjects’ of my investigation were now busy nursing me, as I lay immobilized in pain. The accident had changed the balance between the observer and the observed. Soon I realized that the traumatic event had established a new bond. When I went back to the villages, I was introduced not only as a researcher from Delhi but someone who survived a car crash while travelling with the members of the group. Though I did not share their religious beliefs, I did share their misfortune! It evoked empathy: a vital precondition for acceptance.