One wrong move and it was all over....

Was in Mumbai over the weekend. Amit called up and said we shud go to this new resto-bar in Chembur. So it was a typical Saturday evening every married man loves to have once in a while. Go out with your buddies, have a drink or two (now that's just the way to say that. nobody really stops at a drink or two do they?). Shraddha had gone to her mum's place. I called up AD and he was taking the 3:15 train to Mumbai. All three landed up at Acres, Chembur by 9:00. Had a few rounds of the stuff an left the place at about 12:15 something. I knew I was on a high but was still sober enough to drive back home. AD was flying a mig21 this time around. We left chembur and crossed the first flyover and there it was.

A red ford mondeo under an rear axle of a 6 wheeled dumper. The car came down the flyover and had banged the backend of a truck a bit too fast. It seemed the accident had happened just moments before we came down the flyover. The driver was still in the car... It was a horrifying scene. The car was totalled from the front end and the hazard lights were still blinking in the rear.

So there I was on an accident scene. My three and a half large smirnoff's suddenly seemed to have no effect. Suddenly I was alert, but still had this numbness. I decided to park the car a few metres up ahead and see if I could help out. It had probably just been a couple of minutes. Medical help was yet to arrive.

I went near the car. A bunch of people were trying to free the driver from the front seat. But it was almost impossble. The car's bonet was under the rear axle and the winshield and the dash were under the rear end of the dumper storage. I could see his leg hanging outside the car window... He had probably passed out by the knock of the air bag or had died an instant death. To add to the horror, the dumper contained concrete blocks meant to be laid the dividing pavements on the highway. Each must be weighing atleast 200kgs.

Then some of us suddenly realized that there was a long queue of vehicles just behind the accident scene. 2 lanes were virtually blocked due to the accident and there was only 1 lane to getdown from the flyover. Everyone was stopping by to catch of glimpse of what had happened. We decided to mind the traffic and started directing the vehicles to go away so as to avoid a jam. Soon a firetender, an ambulance and a bunch of traffic police cars came and took control of the scene.

I went back to the car and sat for a couple of seconds. All this time Amit had been calling to see if were back home safe. AD was hardly able to grasp anything that had just happened. He was just sitting in the car with his head resting back. Called up Amit and told him about the whole incident. Then started back home. The effect of vodka suddenly felt like it was back. But this time I was extra careful, not driving beyond 70 and crawling across intersections. We were home in about 20 minutes.

It was all over.... I was thinking about the person who was in the accident. One wrong move and it was all over. Only if he was not drunk, only if he were coming down the flyover at normal speed...
And then I thought about the other side. Someone at his home getting a call about this horrific accident. Probably his wife; or even worse: probably his mother or father...
Only if he was not too drunk and was driving at a sensible speed that day...