Being Social The Indian Way - Another Proof...

on Nov 09, 2012

We at OMLogic have always promoted the spirit of ‘being social the Indian way’. How exactly, is being social, the Indian way different from being just social?

We Indians show up at our friend’s house without calling them first. We talk loudly on phone. We reach out to each other just to share a hug in times of need.

We may love it or hate it... this is who we are!

The recent example of this very spirit was encountered by Mr. Kapil Gupta when he met with an accident yesterday. He shares his thoughts in this blog.

We always complain about unsafe road highways.

Well, I experienced it yesterday. A completely intoxicated guy jumped in front of my car on NH1, in broad daylight around 2pm.

In my attempt to rescue him, I lost control of my Mahindra Xylo (I got a positive and a negative review for it, but more on that later).

My car swirled, tipped on one side, flipped and hit the sidewalk. There were 3 ladies, 4 kids and me in the car.

I was hanging by the seat belt when I looked up and there were 30 odd people standing around the car.

I got out of the car thru the broken glass of the driver’s side window and by the time I got a grip of myself, the crowd had already taken care of the rest of the passengers and helped them get out of the car through the broken windows.

I checked and everyone was fine. No major injuries. By the time I turned back, people had already flipped the car back, the ambulance was there asking for first aid and the cops had come. From SHO to senior officials, there were 3 rounds of cops that came and everyone was fairly courteous.

An Income Tax Deputy Commissioner, who was right behind my car stopped and offered to take my family home. A politician stopped and offered his car. A businessman on his way to Delhi, stopped and offered to drop people home. Someone handed me my tab and said please keep it safe.

Since I was coming back from a wedding party, all I had to do was make a call and five cars came to rescue from my family in another 30 minutes. Soon, the scene was taken over by them and I was left to think about and absorb what had happened.

Here are my lessons from the day:

• If given an opportunity, people would genuinely want to help. All you need to do is appreciate their support. Rich and poor alike.

• There are drunkards on the road. BEWARE!

• Mahindra Xylo has amazing body power. For it to have sustained this kinda crash with no injuries to anyone, just amazing!

• Mahindra Xylo is unstable. It can topple over faster and easier than other cars.

• It helps (really helps) to have a good insurance provider. I have the best person who did my insurance and managed everything today. How much the insurance company pays needs to be seen.