Ram finished his rushed morning routine and started his dear car to rush to his office about 5 kms away from home. As soon as he started the car he cursed himself for not fueling it up yesterday evening, now he would have to waste another 5 minutes of precious morning time. Reluctantly he turned his beloved car towards the petrol bunk not aware of the fact that this 5 minutes will change the course of his entire day.
Glancing at his watch again as he had only 10 minutes left for the conference call he drove out of the bunk. Just when he was outside he saw a lady a little older than him looking worried and asking for a lift, though he normally doesn’t give anyone a lift something in the look of the lady made him stop. She told him she needs to get somewhere urgently and has been waiting for an auto for the past 30 minutes but none is ready to go… knowing Chennai and its autowallahs he decided to drop her as it was just on the way to his office.
After about an hour, when his wife Shanti was cleaning the dinning table she realised that Ram has left his dabba home and called him up telling him the same. But to her surprise she found his cell phone coming as switched off which was very strange as she remembered him charging the phone yesterday night as they had argued on who will use the point for charging. Thinking he might be in a meeting or something she called his office and let him a voicemail. When he didn’t call back for the next two hours, she called him again… the cell phone was still switched off and the extension still going to voicemail. She decided to call the reception and leave a message for him and then what the receptionist told her shocked her… Ram had never come to office today.
This was so unlike her husband to go suddenly missing but she decided to wait for some more time trying his cellphone every 5 minutes. When there was no way she could contact with till 4 in the evening, she started to get nightmares and get really worried. All kinds of thoughts from an accident to some major health problem started coming to her mind how much ever she tried to keep them away.
She decided to call Ram’s cousin Surya and tell him everything. Surya reached their house and after hearing to everything got very worried himself, after waiting for another hour they decided to go to the police and check on all accidents that have happened in the city near his route. Fortunately there were none but inspite of this being a good news, it frightened them a little more… Where was Ram?
Shanti and Surya took the streets of Chennai and started searching for him. After 2 hours of throughly searching the route he usually takes from home to work, they decided to wait it out as there was hardly anything else they could do and just when Surya was getting really depressed and shanti was just sitting in the corner tears flowing down her eyes, at around 8pm they received a call from Ram saying don’t worry I am on the way home and will be there in another hour or so. He told them he will come and tell them and don’t ask any questions on phone. Surprised but relieved they waited for Ram to reach back.
And when he reached back, they both were shocked… he looked very tired and confused and when asked what happened, he told them what happened in the morning, that he had given the lady a lift for 3 kms and that he doesn’t remember anything after that. He only knows that after giving her lift they didnt talk at all apart from her saying thanks and the next thing he remembers is waking up in his car on Chennai-Bangalore highway near Yelagari and everything he had was with him… his watch, laptop, cell phone, cell phones, cash and cards… confused he just started driving bad and after getting a hold of himself he realised Shanti would be very tensed and called her.
Surya and Ram went to the police station and registered a complaint on what had happened. The police guys looked equally amused as they had not heard of anything like this before, its been an year now and Ram still doesn’t remember what happened on that day. Inspite of trying multiple times he is blank on that day… neither have police come with anything that might have been done with his car on that day…Needless to say he has resolved never to try and help anyone else
PS: The above is NOT FICTION…its a true story that happened to one of N’s cousin in chennai, names have ofcourse been changed but everything else in the story is truth….Ritu’s post return made me write this… strange things happen on the road and I think its important for all of us to be try and be very careful. The incident has left a deep mark on the cousin as well as us… how suddenly something can happen in life which we have no control on and worst we dont even know what happened actually
UmaS said:
FIRST….today’s my big day, I guess… 😉
UmaS said:
Holy God…this is scary, Monu.
If that lady has not stolen anything from him, then why did this happen ??? Did they just want the car to go somewhere and used him ???
Shit…cant ppl do good deeds ??? If this story goes around, how many of us will hesitate to give a lift to a stranger ???? And what if they are in a such a need of that help ???
Quite scary, left me thoroughly shaken…am mailing S this post.
monikamanchanda said:
god knows what u have written and many more options have crossed our minds and some of them scare us like hell…. but there is hardly anything we can do the day is like a black box for us
Phoenixritu said:
Monika, even my post ‘Return’ was based on some real life incident that happened to a friend of my sons, his college id surfaced at a crime scene … that is what freaked me out when I misplaced my drivers licence and pan card.
monikamanchanda said:
yeah i know when I read ur post I realised that I have lost my driving licensce too and frantically searched it all over the house till i found it
incidents like these leave u totally shaken
Aathira said:
This is so crazy. On one side we say we should help people in distress, but we have such excellent actors in place, that trusting anything is impossible. How does one help anyone ?
On the same note, there are so many fwds and FB pages on some grave health issue and asking for support. How do you know any of this is for real? Its not difficult to make a FB page or send a chain mail, but how do we ever come to know which is for real?
I know men who beg from house to house with some medical reports and documents saying their daughter/son is very sick. I have seen the same men at the closest liquor store hardly an hour later.
It is just so difficult to do anything good, even you really wish to.
monikamanchanda said:
oh its a never ending list there… from posing heavily pregant ladies to the heavily maked up ladies with kids always sleeping (doped)…. to a group of people saying they have lost their tickets and need money to go back and dont even understand the language of the city… to people who claim that they need medicine for their child and blah blah blah
u know i have tried to help multiple times and seen the reaity in my face, what a foolish girl I am…. I offered to buy the complete ticket for a family to rajisthan from blore once… they insited that they can do with cash and will book the tickets themselves… i didnt have cash and desperately wanted to help… took them to bda (which was close by) and tried to book tickes thought they suddenly seemed reluctant… the counter guy shouted at them saying madam this is the 3rd time he is coming in last week… one person books for him, he cancels and takes the money 😦
have tried to buy medicines for them only to know that they go back and sell it to the chemist again 😦 😦
i wonder how many true people dont really get help because of these superb actors
Pallavi said:
Gosh!!! This is so scary. And its incidents like these that stop us from wanting to help others. So sad. And I guess from such incidents, we also learn that just being alive and healthy is a blessing in itself! Gosh!!
monikamanchanda said:
oh yes it is… sometimes when i am in a cribbing phase I try and thin of these things and it suddenly makes me value my life more
shail said:
This is godawful scary!
monikamanchanda said:
think of what he went thru shail..l. shudder
Swaram said:
This is so scary! Atleast knowing that something hs been stolen etc.. leaves us a bit relaxed! But these missing links leave us all the more confused! God forgive us for being harsh and not helping strangers then!
monikamanchanda said:
exactly swaram… u know if something was stolen we would have sad and depressed for sometime but finally we would gotten over it but now that incident has left a mark for life
Kiran said:
Have they done a medical checkup? I read a similar incident where the person’s kidney was stolen this way. Don’t know whether to believe it – but you cannot entirely rule it out.
monikamanchanda said:
eeeks ver scary and worst thought but I know what u mean, the first thing they did is after gaining the balance is a complete health check and touchwood all is fine
Prats said:
This is so weird….Leaves so many questions in mind…. I hope N’s cousin is safe… Its really a scary word these days. 😦
monikamanchanda said:
ya one really doesnt know what happens next
gargim said:
My, this really was scary. It’s sad that because of incidents like this, people become more weary of helping others.
monikamanchanda said:
the world is slowly turning into a place where u can trust none
Chatterbox said:
Very scary 😦
Goofy Mumma said:
Wow! I am surprised to see that he was unharmed, and none of his posessions went missing. Thank God for that. But yes indeed, its a strange and scary thing to have experienced.
monikamanchanda said:
frankly it would have been better if something was stolen
PA said:
OMG! Scary!
Ashwathy said:
Eeyikes!!! Thats one helluva warning for others alright….
And yes life can be very predictable sometimes…
Police will continue remain amused 😐 they may not even believe what he says…
Just realised I havent added you ……doing so now 🙂
monikamanchanda said:
yeah they are indian police, they dont bother to take anything seriously
weight said:
yeah my dad will like this
Reema said:
Spooky!!
bench craft company scam said:
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