India - My Life within and without

When you thinking too much, you miss what happens in the present moment, like I did. Okay, let me come directly to the story...Today morning, I reached to work like any other day, while I was thinking too much like the night before. I parked my car, locked and went in to office to clock in. I clocked in and suddenly I felt my hands are empty. I checked my pockets, they were empty too. I was holding only my coffee tumbler and nothing. Shit!!!

I rushed to my car, and my guess was right. Car was still running, keys were in the ignition....and car was locked!!!!

Oh yeah, smarty pants. I don’t know what to do now. Went to see my co worker and told her the situation, she said, "oh no biggy, do you have triple A (AAA), Call them" I said, "the number is in my purse, and purse is in my car." She said, “call 411." "Smart", I thought.

I called 411, got the number for AAA, I called AAA, and explained the situation, expecting the operator would laugh at me, but nope...she didn't. She got the situation and within few minutes, AAA guy was at my work's parking lot. He used a bag in between my car's passenger door and door wall. He filled air in the bag by pumping the air puncture. With in few seconds door was a little loses, he put a wire in it, and in few more seconds the door was unlocked. Car was still on, keys were in ignition. I turned the car off, took keys out and boom!!! Done!

This whole process took less than 15 minutes. I was damn impressed. Hee hee Well, I had never gone through similar situation in my life, not even in India. Oh that put ideas in my head...

Now if I imagine the same situation in India, it probably will be the funniest, weird and crazy. Okay let's imagine the same situation:

I parked my car, went in to the office, clocked in and suddenly realized that I forgot car keys inside the locked car. The second I would utter these words out of my mouth, rest of the staff will start laughing at me. They will call me stupid, yedi, dimaag kharaab hua hai etc etc. Finally, if I will get a chance to ask someone about what to do with car now, I will get suggestion of breaking the glass or pulling the door so it might pop up open. When I will refuse these crazy tricks, they all will walk to parking lot and will make a group around my car, leaving behind their important work and life. The space will feel crowded so much that my baby car will have no breathing space. Some one will suddenly start pounding on door hoping it would open. I will have to jump up to stop him. Then within few minutes, stories of someone's aunt's son or uncle's daughter etc etc will eat my brain. These stories will contain nothing but some stupid mistake made by other people in their innocence. These stories will make me feel more stupid and I will finally give up. By the time it will be 11 AM, everyone's tea time. Everyone will leave me wondering what the heck happened, and what to do now!!! Then some security guard or laborer kind of person will give me suggestion that I should call his uncle's brother's son's grand daughter's husband as he is a key maker and will open my car with master key. I would surely do so without thinking.

By this time car would be sounding awful cos battery will be getting dead. In a while someone will tell me to call emergency vehicle, some copy of AAA stuff in Mumbai. I will call that and they will inform me to be there in 5 minutes. Two hours later when my car's battery and gas will be done, I would be informed that car is not running anymore. I will try to concentrate on my work, leaving car worry to my co-workers. By then it is lunch time. I want to do some work but nothing will be manageable...I will then wait for either key guy or copy of AAA company.

5 hours later and after 20,000 phone calls key guy and copy of AAA will show up in the office parking lot at the same time and complaining the hardship of their life. Key man will have a deep argument that he reached first so he should be allowed to perform his tricks on my car and copy of AAA will fight with him stating that he reached before him. Finally I would decide that key man should leave and copy of AAA should fix the problem. Now new fight will start that I had called key man and I wasted his time so I should pay him blah blah amount of money cos he came to help me. Finally after negotiations and arguments I will pay him something to leave my life alone.

Now, copy of AAA will give me his price for the day instead of his price for the job. New negotiations and new arguments will start, obviously other party will win. They will open my door while scratching my car door and making it mess around my car. I finally will get my keys after 7/8 hours of struggle, arguments, annoying behavior and negotiations. Now I will try to turn ignition on. Due to dead car battery, it won't start, and I will ask the copy of AAA to jump it. He will say that I didn’t ask for jump cables so he didn't bring any jump cables....by the time it will be the end of office day. My all co-workers will join me in finding jump cables. Finally one of my co-worker will go to market and will buy me new jump cables. I will jump my car and finally after wasting a lot of money, time, energy...and basically all day I will drive through crowded streets of Mumbai only to find that the spare key of my car is in my office drawer, not at home.

Now you know what happens when we think too much :-P

:-)) Live life king size…

VJ