There are always days that you just don’t forget for whatever maybe the reason like I will never forget the day I first met my wife preetu, I won’t ever forget the day we got married, I won’t ever forget the day my daughter Megan was born …..
But then there also those hard knock days which you can’t forget so easily as well
Sunday (November the 16th 2008) for me will go down in history as one of them Hard Knock Days and I will now tell you’ll why
I was supposed to drop my parents to Thane for a christening ceremony at 11:30 am and then head back home, I had asked my brother ajay to come along and he readily agreed
I’ve got a maruti zen and the vehicle was giving me problems for around two months and I would always tell my wife I will repair the car next Saturday and then next Saturday and so on ….. That never happened
The car moved slowly on the ghodbunder road but I felt it had enough strength to go until thane and then back
I was dead wrong
We just crossed the ghodbunder toll naka and the car went
dead, just drop d…
I did not know what to do? , stranded on the ghodbunder road with nothing but forest, vast emptiness of nothing, concrete road and heavy vehicles speeding by, felt helpless
My brother ajay called up hanif bhai our friend \ car expert he said if we could manage to get the car across the dahisar check naka anyhow he could then fix the vehicle and it would go easy on our purses as well
First things first we stopped a thane ST bus and boarded mom and dad on it so that they wouldn’t have to wait with us
Now ajay and I started pushing the car because we knew stranded haplessly on ghodbunder if we call in the towing truck they would charge us a BOMB just to tow the vehicle upto dahisar check naka so against our common sense and in our money saving mode (which was unwise on our part ) we decided to keep pushing the car at least until the ghodbunder toll naka then we would decide on the next course of action
We were on the wrong side of the road so our first concern was getting the car on the side of road towards dahisar our home
We kept pushing and pushing with heavy vehicles speeding past us and making life quite difficult for us , in order to keep our minds off the fatigue, thirst and back pain we kept ourselves entertained by cracking jokes and sharing our lighter moments
We somehow managed to get a spot where there was an opening in the divider but we both knew that it wasn’t possible for us alone to get the car across on the other side of the road
With heavy vehicles, buses speeding by we did not know how the two of us would get the car on the other side of the road, we stood wondering and trying hard that’s when the second Good Samaritan appeared
An old uncle who had past us by in his santro saw both of us struggling and came to offer his support
He sat in the car maneuvering the steering while ajay and I tried to stop traffic and push the car simultaneously and safely on the other side of the road towards dahisar our home
The old kind uncle offered to help us further but we said we would manage from here on as we saw his wife waiting for him besides his santro
Ajay and I then began pushing the car again; taking turns pushing and maneuvering the steering simultaneously
Almost three hours in the hot sun pushing the car with no water to drink ( yet again I should have kept some bottles of drinking water in the car but no I’m 2 busy piling music cd’s to play on the road ) , dehydration, fatigue, bouts of blackouts , you name it and we were experiencing all of those things
We got dead tired to the point that we decided to just leave the car , hitch a ride and get a car expert along with us back from dahisar or mira road or anywhere with civilization ......
.................................... to be continued in The Three Good Samaritans Part II
