How I escaped death!

I never wanted to catch up with death at least not when I am just twenty years old.

We are planning to shift to Coimbatore and so to get info about the place n basics like house etc we went to the place in a cab last weekend. The hero of the plot, our driver, turns up at 0545 hrs in the morning. A pleasant looking young man of late twenties or early thirties. As soon as he sees us, he goes ”sir I will take your luggage..Sir I will do that... I will do this...”. my dad n I are like this trip will be just fine. At least this guy is very enthusiastic. So there we began the journey.

Journey with my dad is always been a comfortable experience. The first signs of this guy’s ignorance came up when he started deviating from main road claiming short cuts only to find every time that the road is either having work going on or blocked. Stupid guy, in spite of our insisted demand to travel in the highway, he turns to every turn possible and returns to the main road!!

We reach Coimbatore. If you have been there, the Trichy road turns right to the station. There are three ways right, centre and left. This guy is told “rightila ponga” (it means –go in the right side road). Believe it or not, all of a sudden he starts moving in the second (central) lane and we are almost under a bus! First escape from death!!!

We were alarmed. This guy has the potential to kill us. So we now try to explain things to him as if we were talking to a child with mongolism or dyslexia. We tell him “inga stop pannunga”(it means-please stop here). This celestial creature stops the vehicle-an indica- right in the middle of the road in front of Coimbatore junction!!!! I was reminded of the elephant. You know how the elephant stops wherever it is, the moment you command it to do so! Anyway, Second escape from death!!!

Now this is ridiculous, we think. Should we abandon him there and take another cab?! Chuck… we decide to carry on. Yeah then in Coimbatore city near the cantonment area, we ask this guy to turn right into the lane that cuts the main road. You know what he does? He takes a perfect U-TURN!!! Damn it, we conclude, this guy is Deaf too!

The petty ones I don’t want to mention here. We finish our work in Coimbatore and start towards Madurai. It starts raining baldy. We are now very skeptical about his ability to drive in the night that too in the rain! So we follow his turns and moves very meticulously. First thing he does is to turn right and in the process go in the wrong lane. A transport bus is coming in the opposite direction but all the noise we make from inside just manages us into the correct lane. So, our Third escape from death!!!

At one point the indication says right. This guy turns left! So he has a poor sight too!!! I know it is getting dragged. So now this mega one.

The rains aggravated. Visibility is poor. We are kind of tired after patiently keeping track of the route. All of a sudden my dad and I observe none of the milestones have Madurai!! We are shocked and definite there has been a mistake somewhere. We ask our beloved Durai, that’s his name, “ennappa, maduraiye kaaname. Wrong routeila vandittte pola irukku. Check pannikkalame?”(it means-what man, no mention of Madurai? Why don’t we check if the route is correct). With all the pride in his so called experience on road (which I still suspect to be false), he assures us that this is the right way. Every milestone reads Tiruppur. Just then, I see a Madurai-Tirupur bus going past us. Eh?!! I try to explain him all logics possible that if the milestones say we are moving towards Tirupur, then the bus must be coming from Madurai. This guy kind of gets pissed off and says if you are so doubtful we can clarify your problem. We ask a few people on the way and they say, “You are 20 km away from the point you should have turned the other way”. Shit! This is my reaction. I have to get back to Trichy before next day morning.

We divert in the right direction. Our hero is dejected. He says he is sad! Anyway, I decide to get down at Dindigul and take a bus to Trichy. Then again I am afraid to let my dad alone with this moron. So we make sure that he gets off dejection. Have dinner and I get down at dindigul.

I tell my dad “keep callin every 15 mins. I have no peace of mind”. My dad gives me kind of cool I will manage look. Fine.

Next day he tells me, that the driver slept off in the middle of the way!!! Wtf!??so that’s the Fourth escape from death!!

So basically, we happened to scrape past death not once but four times on the same day. All credits to the great driver!!