Sigh!

Day before I made landmarks in more than my blog.
Marks is so APT. Sigh!

Just some few minutes before it happened, I had been running my hands lovingly over the steering wheel of my Alto(having driven to Kerala in a different car for the weekend) and telling him ( I think of my car as a he, I dunno why) I had missed him, and was glad to be back with him.

I drove expertly in and out of the teeming traffic on MG Road.
And then, while the traffic came to a stop, I put brakes on, put the car in neutral, put the handbrake on, and leisurely eyed a white top with blue stripes that was looking oh-so-smart on a young woman my age ...(ok,ok, maybe she would have been some years younger...) Then when the traffic started moving, I changed gears, and started forward idly, with my eyes still on the blue-and-white top wearing girl... when,
KKKKKERRRAASSSSSHHHHH!!!!!!

The next thing I knew was that some 4 men were jumping out of the blue Indica in front and dashing to the back of their car. Which I had banged into (SIGHHHH!!) and dented the bonnet, cutting it too.

Never again will I be able to preen in front of my hubby and BIL, saying that I had never been involved in an accident and that I was a s-a-f-e driver, albeit a woman.

I smiled apologetically and said an abject SORRY to the men. Who gave me dirty and incredulous looks. I mean, if we had been in a mad dash or something, it was understandable. But this??!! In stationary traffic which was just starting to move??!! I could sooooo read their minds. B***** women drivers!!!

Then I got out of the car and went across to them and said I would pay for the damages, whatever. They muttered and mumbled amongst themselves all the while giving me those looks. Crowd support was with me- a poor wee woman and pitted against 4 big hefty men... and they suggested we move to the side, so we moved, while the rest of the traffic flowed on , unconcerned.

And at the side, was where I saw that my covetuous look had led to dents on my front bonnet too. And considerably more than it was for the Indica. (Maruti really should make sturdier bodies).

The man told me it would cost about 5000/- for repairs. The mind boggled. A few hundreds, I could settle easily, maybe even upto 2000/- I wouldn't have batted an eyelid, but 5! The hand went immediately to the pocket and the fingers went to the Hubby's number and dialled. The sweetheart that he is sometimes, he said he'd be right over. So I conveyed the message to my 4 men and waited. And all the while I heard comments from the onlookers... some not so complimentary, some commiserating, but almost all of them admiring... at the many dents in my poor car. Me not knowing Kannada well enough to get pallier with them, I just gave them occasional pleasant looks, after all, the commiserating ones could be counted on to be on my side when the bargaining began.

Finally the hubby landed, assessed damages to me (none) and the car (plenty) and went over to talk to the men. He couldn't really agree with them that his wife was a b****y IDIOT, so he just played on their sympathies and told them that we had puh-lenty more damages to our car than they had to theirs, and why didn't they come down a bit. To their credit, the 4 toughies didn't retort that it was not their fault that our car had more damages- guess their sympathies were totally with the poor guy who had a loony wife who went around banging into cars at the sight of a blue top...

Finally we came down to 2500/- to be paid to them. And we went our separate ways- them followed by my husband to the nearest ATM, and me onward to office.

And you won't believe it, after I had turned around and gotten into mainstream traffic again, THERE was that girl again, in the blue top- walking in the opposite direction this time. Grrr! If she had seen it, she would have been totally puzzled by the dirty look I gave her.

It was all HER fault!