A Military Collision

Does the heading sound like you will get to read in the below lines about some world war or India's fight against terrorism...... No ...... The title of this blog is as deceptive as a Gossip magazine

My weekend started very lazy, had a good sleep friday night and woke up only by 8AM, to find Ajith equally having a good sleep. Went on to get ready to get to work, there was an inner voice that said I should log-in from home, but did manage to drag myself out of home towards office (i call it drag cos it literally is so since it is weekend and what adds to the spice is when your spouse is enjoying the holiday)

Reached office by noon and went on with my work, this went on till 4 PM and i decided to get towards home. Entered my car and realized that my daily prayers was half done, so went on to complete it and i put on the stereo and began chanting the pending 'Vishnu-Sahasranama', less then half a kilometer away, i saw slow moving traffic, so slowly went on to get myself a place on the left corner

Now comes the reason for my so called appropriate heading, the traffic was across a narrow lane that was to join the main road, and I found myself amidst 5 huge military trucks and 3 jeeps, and a few seconds later, there it was the 'collision'

My car was rammed in by this huge military truck..... 'Bhaaam.... creeeeek... creeek...... dhaaaaak'. GOD i cannot forget this sound, it still lingers in my ears

My Husband calls it 'My 1st wife'/ 'My baby' and there she was rammed by this monster truck.....

Did not know what to do, it took me a moment to realise the event, Got out of the car, to find my leg in a puddle of filty water..... i was thinking 'what more can go wrong'. I couldnt move, my hands were trembling and my voice was loud, i screamed at the top of my voice and was very very shakey.... it got from bad to worse when i noticed about 50 huge Army men started to talk against me.... i felt i was some terrorist being questioned, later came the man with a pot belly and a white shirt and kaaki pants talking in my local language. For the first time I found solace on seeing a cop (as you know what the situation in Bangalore or any where in India), but all in all it was a feeling of finding water in a desert, In the mean time, i was reaching my partner for life to partner me in this war against the army, he gave me an affirmation on the phone and it calmed me a lot, it made me realize i was not a terrorist and i would not be taken away by these army men for no fault of mine, I still continued to scream, now it was more stern (I did keep in mind not to use swear words, as they were army men and i did have a lot of respect for them, esp after the show on NDTV that I used to follow called 'Jai Jawaan'), I screamed as much as possible to prove my point, but i couldnt out number a truck load of Army-men. The pot belly local lingo traffic cop tried to calm me down and my at the moment enemies. He initially appeared to have taken charge, but it was not for long, the arguements went on and on and my husband arrived to see his first love scratched, scraped, dented , the head light had popped out like a frog, the car looked wounded and was in tears, trying to say 'see what this truck has done to me'

He was very calm, he was disturbed, i could see it, on seeing him I burst out to tears, looking back at this, i feel like a fool, crying in the middle of the road

The arguments continued, the pot belly friend tried to calm us down and asked us to settle for some compromise

Compromise = Money, it did not occur to me they will even offer money in compromise as it was Army truck that caused the accident, me (in my own Alice in wonderland ' world) was expecting to get the vehicle fixed by the army garage or whatever at a good price or no price at all...... but that was far from happening .....Can you guess how much was the compromise offered?? just take a wild guess?.... this will freak you out.... Rs 200..... We went mad listening to the figure, the repair estimate would easily be around Rs 16000 - Rs 18000, and a freaking Rs 200 in return

The argument went on till 6PM, the cop said, you can lodge a complaint and surrender the vehicles, the arguments were still continuing...... the scenes of 'Jai Jawan' kept striking my mind, for the poor army jawaan, even make an offer of Rs 200 must be a rip from his pocket. The humongous respect i had for them had become the size of a peanut, but again NDTV show had left a mark on mind, The 'Alice in wonderland' mind dropped down to Mother earth.

We left the scene, calculating the probable expense for the repair and how to manage the next month.....

The collision left a mark not only on our car, but also reminded us of we could aford for the repair and the 'Jawaan' who caused it would never have

That said, i still cribb and cry on recollecting the event, but I also thank God, that it ended in a small way