Saturday, March 12, 2005

Accident

Last Tuesday I was sitting beside my balcony, just looking out on to the road, at nothing in particular. It was raining, and I was quite pissed off, because I wanted to go out to watch ‘Page 3’.
My eyes fell on a truck, which was being driven quite fast and seemed to be heading straight for the footpath. I was wondering why the driver wasn’t slowing down, when it suddenly swerved and ploughed right into the bus stop right outside the building adjoining my apartment building. For a second I couldn’t believe at what had just happened. There was a loud crashing sound and a plume of dust flew into the air. Most of the dust settled on to a Hyundai Accent parked in the building’s compound, and at that moment the thought that ran through my head was, “The guy who owns that car is not going to be very happy when he sees it covered with dust!” I don’t know how I could even think of such a trivial matter when someone could have been seriously hurt!
People started running towards the crash site, mostly men. One man tried to open the truck’s passenger’s side door. But it seemed to be stuck, then another man stepped up and bracing his right leg against the side of the truck pulled the door open after a lot of tugging. Then he went into the truck and pulled out the driver. He seemed to be unconscious, but I couldn’t see him properly. Some men flagged down a taxi and took him to a hospital.
My attention then turned towards a Sardar wearing a bright yellow shirt. He was talking on his cell phone; it seemed, to the fire department. Soon enough I could hear the wail of the fire brigade truck. Two of them came on to the site.
Then I noticed that a small crowd was gathered some distance away from the crash sight. They were around a young man and woman. The woman seemed to have fainted. And some people from the adjoining building brought a bottle of water, which the man sprinkled on to the woman’s face. Another woman came up to them and supported the young woman. She started pouring some water on her head too. The woman seemed like she was in shock. An old woman came out of the building and took the young woman up to her flat.
This accident occurred roughly at a quarter to one, the time when school going children waiting for a bus home, crowd this particular bus stop. But thankfully, as it was a holiday, it being Mahashivratri, there was no one at the bus stop. Maybe the young woman who had fainted had been standing somewhere close by, though I hadn’t noticed her before the accident occurred.
I don’t think anyone can accuse Bombayites of being self-absorbed after watching so many of them coming to the rescue of the truck driver and the young woman.
Last I heard, the truck driver was recuperating and was on his way to a full recovery. So many people could have been hurt in this accident, but thank God not many were.And I did get to go and watch ‘Page 3’, as the rain stopped soon after the accident had occurred.

3 comments:

:..M..: said...

How strange that the rain should've stopped soon after the accident.

Urvashi said...

I too thought the same thing. Almost as soon as the accident occured, and the driver was being helped out, it stopped raining and the sun came out from behind the clouds!

Anonymous said...

when is yr next entry??can hardly wait:-) (s)