I was dropped off at office earlier than usual today. Shivering because of the cold water i had to subject my body to thanks to the absence of electricity, i trudged to the second floor, switched on my PC and stepped out to the corridor to eat some sun. Thirty seconds later, my cell phone rang. Driver.
He handed the phone over to Dad, who announced that Red had just been in a bad accident half a kilometer away and that i should come immediately. Also asked me to bring A along, who'd been with us through the whole process of choosing and buying Red.
Panicking, i started on foot to the place, calling A who wasn't in office still. Worried that Dad and driver might be seriously injured, i called them again and Dad explained: they were next to a bus at the Joseph's college signal, when an auto came zipping from behind and slammed into the vehicles. The auto brakes had failed.
I reached the place to find Dad splitting blood vessel after blood vessel, and took over. It was a relief that he and the driver were unharmed. Red had suffered a pretty serious dent on the left door, paint scraped off, fuel tank jammed - the works. The traffic police was there, with a crowd comprising passersby and autowallahs. When the autowallahs ganged up and went "Oh, nothing's happened, it's just a dent", i lost my cool and started arguing my head off with all of them. Self-assured pr**ks. There was a moment of reprieve in the middle of the chaos when a smiling old man handed me pamphlets saying, "Jesus saves". I smiled. Jesus sure did.
After an hour of debate and calls to A, we headed to the Ashok Nagar police station. Just as we reached Joseph's Commerce College, the autowallahs stopped for a cup of chai. The cheek! I mean, here we were trying to get this sorted out and these guys had the audacity to drink chai at a kaaka angadi! A finally arrived, took a look at the car and said it would cost at least 7k. Damn.
There was a man travelling with us in the car who i had noticed in the crowd earlier. Dad asked him what he did (yeah, we didn't even bother about him being a stranger before we took him with us!), and he said, "Have you heard of KFD? I'm one of them. I saw you guys, thought there was some trouble, discovered you were one of our 'qa-um', and decided to stick with you for support." Wow.
Things catapulted from then on and we got out of the whole thing after three hours. It was my first visit to a police station. My first accident, but not really mine because i wasn't in the car when it happened. And my first public fight. Hmm.
And in the middle of all this, A took me aside and showed me the side of the auto that smashed into Red. The damage was massive, to say the least. I looked back at Red, glinting in the sunlight, unfazed by the accident. He wasn't in such bad shape. He was strong, which is why there was nothing more than a dent to show for the mishap. Stable, sturdy, reliable. Mine for posterity. And what an amazing feeling that is.
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