Scary Thoughts

I had examination today…internal examination for around 25 marks and had four chapters. I had prepared for it and it was 9.30 am when I met my friend, Sangay at the gate 2. Three days in a week, we had our class at Max Health Care in Saket which is around 4-5 KMs away from University campus and today we had to go there for the examination. We crossed the road and reached the auto stand.

“Max Hospital, Saket” I asked the auto driver

“60 rupees”

“Okay” and the two of us sat in the auto and headed on the Mehrauli Badarpur road. Usually the auto drivers proudly say “80 or 70 rupees” and I had to bargain and bring it to 60 rupees because it used to be the correct rate if we put on the auto meter. We discussed few topics on bleeding on our journey meanwhile. Heavy traffic on the Mehrauli Badarpur road is a normal scenario and today too, it was no different. We crossed Vayusenbad bus stand and the road after that is always heavy with traffic as the numerous vehicles pour on the highway from the Devli junction. We usually enjoy a very smooth traffic once we crossed that junction from Devli in Khanpur. We were relieved that we did and as we were venturing on, a group of men in 10-15 numbers came in sight and stopped all the vehicles right away. They didn’t say anything. We were in the front of the line of vehicles that were halted. They stopped and didn’t say anything. I looked around studying the situation and became very scared immediately.

I was searching for any sort of weapons the men might be carrying or I was scared if they come to rob us. Of course I wasn’t carrying my purse and I had only around 300-400 rupees carrying in my bag. But what made my heart rate racing was what if something happened to us. I had seen so many Bollywood movies and this is how people rob in India. I immediately asked the auto driver, “Kya huwa Bhaiya(what happened)?”

There was no reply from the auto driver and this was scaring me more but I consoled myself saying that he may not have heard probably. My pair of eyes kept looking around with great fear if something would come up and we would be in danger. All those dangerous thoughts and scenes came to my mind which I had seen in movies. The men in front of us seemed very dangerous and soon our auto driver too got out of the auto and went towards the group of men increasing my suspicion level. Crime patrols I watched had given me enough lessons and what I saw there was something I could closely relate to the stories.

More than five minutes passed since we were halted there and seriously I couldn’t figure out what was happening. Is India really this unsafe for students? Will they still kill us if we said we are students studying here and we don’t have money? Will they actually listen to what we say? They will directly come to us and place their swords on our necks. All these thoughts wandered in my mind and I was shaking inside. I looked at my friend and he seemed very confused seeing around but he didn’t seem scared. I didn’t tell him anything about my thoughts because it might have scared him. I kept myself strong and believed in Lord Buddha.

After few moments our auto driver came to us and said, “They are bringing a dead body towards this side and so we are stopped. It must be coming.” He then pointed his fingers forward to the ambulance which was headed by an ambassador car heading steadily towards us. They then turned right on the junction and drove on. It was a great relief and I took a deep breath. Someone died in the hospital and we were stopped for the ambulance to bring the dead body. After the ambulance was gone, the men asked us to leave. I then exclaimed, “Thank God!” All those scary scenes and thoughts had proved to be wrong and I was happy.