Unforgettable encounters with strangers

An episode from a Kannada movie from the 1980s.  The rich, old man Sampath is travelling in his car but the car comes to an abrupt halt with a screeching noise.  Sampath comes out of the car to find that one of the front tires is punctured, or as we say here in the US, had gone flat.  Unlike here, Sampath has no access to AAA to come to his rescue.  It so happens that Sridhar is riding on his bicycle and is coming in the opposite direction.  Sridhar sees Sampath on his haunches and make an enquiry.  Sridhar offers to help and fixes the tire using a couple of tools that he happens to carry with him.  A five-minute conversation takes place between Sampath and Sridhar, on the following lines:

Sampath: “Hello dear young man, where do you work ?”

Sridhar: “I am working in a small shop in the city.  Just trying to see if I can get a better job.”

Sampath: “What made you stop here and help me ?”

Sridhar: “Nothing really.  I saw you standing outside the car, looking helpless so I thought I could help you if I could.”

A few more routine, life situation exchanges take place between them, and finally:

Sampath: “OK, youngster, here’s five hundred rupees for you for having helped me.”

Sridhar: “Thank you Sir, but sorry, no need for you to pay me and I will not take money from you.  Whatever repair I did was trivial.  It’s getting late for me, I need to go home to take care of my family, bye.”

Sampath then gives Sridhar his office address and asks him to come to his office the next day.  Sridhar turns up at Sampath’s office the next day, and Sampath hands him an appointment letter designating him as a Senior Manager.  Sridhar is perplexed: “But Sir, how could you give me this job without having interviewed me ?”  And Sampath’s response is: “Whatever conversation happened between you and me yesterday on the street, that was the interview.”

While you may not take the above incident or anecdote seriously since it was in a movie,  encountering strangers and getting help from them is nothing unusual, and one can be certain every person would have received some unexpected help from a bystander, without the latter expecting anything in return.  And I take this opportunity to quote an incident from my childhood when a good samaritan’s presence of mind and positively desperate willingness to take proactive action saved my life.

This unforgettable incident took place when I was about seven years old.  My mother, sister and myself had gone to a distant provision stores to buy some groceries.  Since it was 8:30 p.m. and the weather was like freezing cold I told my mother that I would run home, and darted off.  I came to the main road opposite Navarang theater, that is popularly known as Tumkur Road.  I decided to dash across the street despite the heavy traffic but unfortunately a jeep coming from the left knocked me out all the way about ten to fifteen feet.  I fell by the wayside and started bleeding.  Thank my lucky stars or whatever you call it, there was an young man, around 30 years old who saw me crash.  And the next thing I remember is that he lifted me, carried me and started running to the nearby hospital managed by one Dr. Kasturi Rangan.  The doctor immediately attended to me, and it was a happy coincidence that this doctor knew my parents.  He immediately sent word to my parents, and what I remember next is my dad and mom anxiously sitting by my bedside, and I having wounds and stitches near my forehead and right eye.  I still have those marks.  Just pause for a moment and imagine what would be my fate if that 30-year old gentleman had not been present at the scene of the accident at that moment.  To this day I wish I could meet him and thank him but that’s never going to happen, unfortunately.  Wherever he is.

Let me recall another unique, and ultimately humbling experience one fine day long, long ago in 1992. I was working as Technical Support Engineer for Zenith Computers in Bangalore, and had gone to Indian Institute of Management i.e. IIM in Bangalore on the outskirts of Jayanagar on Hosur Road. I completed my work, and as I was coming out of the campus I realized that it would be difficult to get an autorickshaw to go to Jayanagar complex where I had to visit another customer. I happened to see a gentleman getting into his posh car and requested him if he could drop me at the complex. He readily agreed and I got into his car. I asked him his name and he told me that he was Professor B.K. Chandrashekar. We travelled the distance, say about 10 miles, all the time having a conversation on what I had studied and what work I did. I kept thinking that I had seen this gentleman somewhere earlier but could not recollect immediately. And then it flashed across my mind. I recalled that I had seen him in pictures on Deccan Herald along with other politicians. And I immediately asked him: "You are an MLA, right ?" And his cool answer was: "Yes, I was". And I am thinking: "Oh, my goodness, me, a nobody and a non-entity is asking a Professor and an MLA for a ride in his car." However Professor B.K. Chandrashekar was as cool as ever, extremely dignified. We had a great ride, a wonderful conversation about various aspects of life, and when it was time for me to alight, we shook hands with each other and exchanged pleasantries.

Needless to say I felt more proud than embarrassed for having met such a great human being. Later on, Professor B.K. Chandrashekar went on to become the Minister for Primary Education and also Minister for Information Technology for Karnataka. If I were to meet Professor B.K. Chandrashekar I hope he recognizes me as the person who asked him to give me a ride, once upon a time, 25 years ago!!!!!!

Fast forward to 1998, and another of those experiences that not everybody is destined to encounter.  I had come to the US and been here for a very short time when I got a contract opportunity in downtown Boston.  I had set up my residence in Nashua, New Hampshire, and had to drive from Nashua in NH to Lowell in Massachusetts before boarding the train in Lowell to go to Boston.  And in the evening I would leave my office at 5:00 p.m. to head to the train station to catch the train to Lowell.  On what was perhaps my fourth day on the job I left my office in the evening, came to the Boston station like everyday and got into the train hurriedly.  The train started moving, everything outside looked green and rosy as before.  However before long I realized that something was wrong.  The two stations that the train stopped at did not seem like I had seen those during the three previous days.  And it only started getting worse with every passing station.  It took me a while to realize that I was heading to the wrong station in an entirely different direction.  Instead of traveling north west from Boston I was traveling north east.  Feeling totally helpless I started to panic.  Forget having a mobile phone, I did not even known at that time that such a device existed.  I chanced to see an elderly couple, probably in their mid 60s, well dressed, and looking totally dignified, and since I was still new to the US I did not hesitate to speak to them about my predicament.  And being new from India my accent was, oh my goodness, let me say that they could understand whatever I said,  I was able to speak to this couple who were nice enough to tell me that I was headed to the wrong destination.  However to my utter bewilderment they asked me to accompany them to their car. 

Once we got to their car at the final destination of our train journey the elderly couple asked me to get into their car and the gentleman started driving.  He had a few AAA maps in his car, and with some help from his wife who was equally gracious they decided to take me all the way from whatever that station was, all the way to Lowell.  To this day I cannot fathom where I had landed, it was probably Bradford.  I do not know how much they could understand of whatever I spoke on that day but they were absolutely friendly to me, and they made sure they dropped me at the Lowell station, and even had the courtesy to get down from their car and shake hands with me and wishing me good luck, with the usual: “Nice meeting you, dear gentleman.”   I cannot help feeling that they took enormous pleasure in helping a stranger completely lost in an alien country, and in an indirect way I feel blessed to have given them an opportunity, although inadvertently, to do me a big favor but expect nothing whatsoever in return.  May that couple live for ever!!!

The three instances I have described above show that there is a great element of truth in the statement: “Cometh the hour, cometh the man!!!”.  Call it fate, call it luck, call it destiny, call it whatever.  Yes, getting help from a stranger is not something that you see only in movies.  It happens to every one of us in real life, and it could be something trivial or it could be as drastic as making the difference between life and death.  Like it happened to someone once upon a time.   What would have been my fate if this amazing act of kindness were to not happen on that cold, wintry, chilly night 45 years ago ?  Sometimes I sit down and ponder over what would have been the repercussions if that good guy had not been present at the right place at the right time for me.   All I get is an answer that you would not want to hear.   The answer is a frightening void.