Travelling along Ulsoor road via Dickinson road at 11-15 PM at night, headed to Indiranagar, the auto I was travelling in turned on its right and fell ,as the driver aimed at trying to swerve to avoid a qualis that had stopped abruptly on the road.
As I was sitting there, within the auto, I can clearly remember the fact that time slowed down for that split second as I shouted out to the driver who was oblivious to the vehicle looming large in front of us, till the time he braked and swerved left, resulting in us falling on our right side.
The auto-driver was unhurt, as was I, though the impact of what happened was quite jarring nevertheless.
Once we made contact with the road, I remember standing up within the auto and looking all around, as it lay on its right side, all around me.
It seemed very much like an accident scene from a movie, though a bit more realistic due to the slight pain that accompanied my superficial wounds. Somehow, I didn’t seem to hear the noise that came with the crash, though the loud sounds of dogs barking and howling loudly once the auto fell registered vividly in mind.
In all the melee, once people established that both the driver and I were ok, there was this good samaritan who actually tended to me and checked on my wounds to see if I was ok. A band-aid strip appeared from nowhere, as did some water with which I washed off the small amount of blood dripping off my right palm.
Mr.Ashok, the person who helped me that day, owns a dry-cleaning store on airport road and was headed back to his residence after a long day, when he witnessed the accident. He was kind enough to drop me off to my destination, though it was exactly opposite to where he was actually headed, and only after ensuring that I was ok did he go back home.
One hears all these horror stories about how people are so uncaring and unhelpful and mostly thoughtless so far as their fellow humans are concerned. I think I have been, touchwood, fortunate enough to have not experienced it when I was in a bad state. The extreme selflessness of the person who dropped me, who I owe a debt to, being a prime example of what I am talking about.
This person, and the conductor on the bus who let me on for free when I had no money. Good people are still around and very abundant. One just has to be lucky enough to meet them.
