The Accident
It happened some time back.
We had a meeting in Mumbai which was to start sharply by 9:30 am. It was four hours journey from the place where we work. I left the housing colony in the early morning with one of my colleague in a car. It was still dark, and very cold outside.
Accidents, overturned trucks, smashed cars are very common sights on the highway. It will be a surprise if we don’t spot any of these on any of our trips to and from Mumbai. We were discussing on product yields and productivity, while KJ Yesudas digitally tried to enlighten our spirits by singing some of the morning ragas. There was a sharp right turn after crossing the police check post outside the town.
Five minutes after crossing the police check post, we found an overturned truck in the left side of the road. It’s headlights were still on. The indicators were also on. It was still dark, and there was nobody around, the place was quite far away from the town.
We already had crossed the accident spot by a few meters. When, we realized that accident should have happened just a short while ago, we told the driver to take the car back to the spot to find whether we can do something.
There was a lean guy, few yards from the spot, waving hands on any vehicle that crossed him. He was carrying a small bag, and was sporting a red color shirt and a folded dhoti. By his looks he seemed to be doing some odd jobs for his earning. Raju, our car driver, asked the person in local regional language, Marati, “is anybody inside the truck ?”. The person, replied there was none.
Raju didn’t understand. But I did.
It took me one full minute to realize that he replied in Tamil.
Then, we stepped out of the car, and had a look on the overturned truck.. Oh my God…It was horrible… The truck had run over three or four cows. May that’s why, the truck overturned.
The driver’s cabin was the hard hit. There was no sight of human being around other than, four of us. It seemed that the driver fled the spot.
The person we met requested me in Tamil to drop him near some Railway station, as he wanted to go back to his village somewhere in Tamilnadu. He told that he is running away from his current employer due to exploitation and wanted to flee the town before it dawns. I took pity on him. Though I declined to take him with us, as we were on an official trip, I gave him some money so that he can reach the nearest railway station. I don’t know why I wanted to help him.
As, we can't do much on the situation, we started moving on. Raju asked on the way, “Saab, I think the person we met should be the driver of the truck. What do you think?”. May be he was right. But, I personally didn’t want to have any opinion on this.
By the way, we reached Mumbai in time. And the meeting started sharply by 10:30 am.
We had a meeting in Mumbai which was to start sharply by 9:30 am. It was four hours journey from the place where we work. I left the housing colony in the early morning with one of my colleague in a car. It was still dark, and very cold outside.
Accidents, overturned trucks, smashed cars are very common sights on the highway. It will be a surprise if we don’t spot any of these on any of our trips to and from Mumbai. We were discussing on product yields and productivity, while KJ Yesudas digitally tried to enlighten our spirits by singing some of the morning ragas. There was a sharp right turn after crossing the police check post outside the town.
Five minutes after crossing the police check post, we found an overturned truck in the left side of the road. It’s headlights were still on. The indicators were also on. It was still dark, and there was nobody around, the place was quite far away from the town.
We already had crossed the accident spot by a few meters. When, we realized that accident should have happened just a short while ago, we told the driver to take the car back to the spot to find whether we can do something.
There was a lean guy, few yards from the spot, waving hands on any vehicle that crossed him. He was carrying a small bag, and was sporting a red color shirt and a folded dhoti. By his looks he seemed to be doing some odd jobs for his earning. Raju, our car driver, asked the person in local regional language, Marati, “is anybody inside the truck ?”. The person, replied there was none.
Raju didn’t understand. But I did.
It took me one full minute to realize that he replied in Tamil.
Then, we stepped out of the car, and had a look on the overturned truck.. Oh my God…It was horrible… The truck had run over three or four cows. May that’s why, the truck overturned.
The driver’s cabin was the hard hit. There was no sight of human being around other than, four of us. It seemed that the driver fled the spot.
The person we met requested me in Tamil to drop him near some Railway station, as he wanted to go back to his village somewhere in Tamilnadu. He told that he is running away from his current employer due to exploitation and wanted to flee the town before it dawns. I took pity on him. Though I declined to take him with us, as we were on an official trip, I gave him some money so that he can reach the nearest railway station. I don’t know why I wanted to help him.
As, we can't do much on the situation, we started moving on. Raju asked on the way, “Saab, I think the person we met should be the driver of the truck. What do you think?”. May be he was right. But, I personally didn’t want to have any opinion on this.
By the way, we reached Mumbai in time. And the meeting started sharply by 10:30 am.
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