The car was speeding away from a small temple town in North Kerala. The name of the town is a tongue twister even for a few of the native speakers. When written in English it starts with a "P", from there it travels to a "Sh" and finally settles down in a "U" (which is not quite pronounced a "U" but more a combination of "A" and "E"). The town houses an unorthodox temple for a tribal god who has over the years been brought into the fold of Hinduism. The temple is crowded, at most times, with people requesting their deliverance to happiness (or other's deliverance to misery).
We got out of the temple town at around dinner time. The driver was engrossed in reciting the legends associated with the temple, its deity and the town. Soon, the car reached a fork with the left of the fork curving away and another going straight ahead. The driver did not notice the road to the left and continued towards the road ahead. He did not notice the bike coming from the left either. In a few seconds, the bike was right in front of the car. We were jerked off our seats as the brakes were hit. The squealing of the tyres coincided with the noise of the car hitting the bike. The bike and the rider disappeared and the car came to a halt.
The driver gave out a "Oh my Guruvayurappa" and got out. I sat in the car and could not force myself to get out. I looked around and saw a few people running out of the few shops in the area and crowding around the car. To my relief I soon saw the bike guy getting up. He seemed to be in a reasonable shape and I could not see any obvious damage on him. By then, a bus from behind started honking. The driver got into the car and moved it to the side. He was invoking Guruvayurappan's mercy non-stop. He apologized for the inconvenience before getting out to deal with the situation.
Soon, a drunkard came by and started asking questions. I thought this to be an appropriate time to get out and be with the group. As I walked towards the group, I could hear a lot of talking but no shouting. The discussion seemed reasonably calm. I saw the bike standing besides the crowd. It had a couple of scratches and a broken mirror. The guy who was on the bike stood in the center of the crowd holding a wound in his hand. In the middle of the road, food lay scattered from a torn plastic cover. The discussion was on how unfortunate it was for the accident to have taken place but everyone seemed glad that nothing much had gone wrong. They blamed the government for not having put up warning signs and not taking care of the lights on the road. My heart skipped a beat when someone mentioned on how the guy in the car had directed the driver not to take a turn in the last minute and that it was not the driver's fault. Fortunately, that comment went unnoticed.
I walked back to the car and stood in a shade to be out of sight of any drunkard. A few minutes later, the driver came back, got into the car and mentioned that the bike guy is being taken to a hospital to ensure he had no internal injury. Just as he started the car a face peered in from the driver's window. The faced apologized profusely to me for the inconvenience caused by this event. He said I will be taken to a restaurant and while I had my dinner they would visit the hospital. I had not expected an apology and this unexpected blow made me incoherent. I answered with something that sounded like "eh ah no bobem". By then a crowd had gathered in front of the car and they were all trying to determine how to fix the broken bumper. The driver cursed and got out. He had a brief and patient discussion with the others. They brought in a rope, tied a bit here and a bit there. Then they looked at the bumper and discussed some more. Another piece of rope came out of someplace and some more tying up took place. They then looked at their achievement with a satisfied expression on the their face. As the driver got into the car, the drunkard came by and started questioning the driver. Fortunately, someone from the crowd came by and took away the drunkard. The driver now started the car but saw the way ahead blocked by some remnant of the bumper fixers. He called out to Guruvayurappan in exasperation and backed his car.
Soon I was dropped outside a good looking restaurant in a 3-star hotel. The driver asked me for a thousand Rupees for the hospital expenses. My mind gave out an "Oh no!" before parting with the said amount. All through my not-as-good-as-the-look-of-the-restaurant food, I was thinking of how much more money should I shell out. I came out of the restaurant after paying the not-as-expensive-as-the-look-of-the-restaurant-but-still-expensive-for-the-way-the-food-tasted bill and stood on the road a bit before the car arrived. The driver informed me that all was well and that I had to part with another 500 Rupees. Some more "Oh no!"s went through my mind. A little later, we were zipping through the road towards home. From time to time, we heard scrapping noises from the front and the driver stopped to check. Every time he came back with a no problem smile. He continued with his amusing legends right through the journey, which by god's grace took place with no further incidents. But the nagging thought of "1500 already but how much more" in my head made the journey seem tiresome.
When I reached home, I asked the driver about my dues. He calculated an amount and subtracted from it the 1500 rupees I had paid for the incident. To my mind this seemed like indecent behavior; he should have asked for more money instead of reducing it from his tariff. I did not expect him to take the complete responsibility of everything that happened. I thought he will hand it over to me and ask for more money. That thought had been with me all through the journey. Now, he was making me feel ashamed and I tried to fight my tendency to fall into it. I took out my purse singing in mind "I shall overcome right now". But my mind caved in just as I was taking out my money and I said "No, its alright. I will pay the whole amount."
