I was worried about parking the car as its not easy, very
little space and everyone double parks – much easier if the driver had been
with us. The shops are alongside a major road but have a single car lane and a
low kerb that seperates them. You can just turn in off the main road and park, which
is what most people do. So I just park in the first space I see directly
beneath a no parking sign. I don’t think anything of it as there are no parking
signs the whole length of that stretch.
We head off to Time Medico and take our time getting pasta
and wondering what we don’t really need but just fancy having. We walk out to a
busy scene of people walking around, balloon sellers, beggars, the traffic
zooming noisily, hectically along the main road.
The moment we walked out of the shop a young lad about 10
years, old possibly selling balloons, I couldn’t see, said ‘your car is over
there’??
First thing you think, Who are you? How do you know where
are car is?
And then Mum says ‘the car has gone!’.
All I can think is that has been knicked and all I can say
is ‘but I locked it didn’t I’ repeatedly, like an idiot. I walk over to the
space I thought we had parked in and sure enough the car wasn’t there. The young lad keeps following us and pointing
to the space beneath the flyer over and continues to say ‘your car is over
there’! At this point I didn’t know where over there was and couldn’t see the
car.
Then a rickshaw driver sitting quietly crossed legged in his
parked vehicle suddenly says to us ‘your car is over there under the bridge’.
Everyone knows what has happened to the car but us!
Mum finally reveals that it must have been towed! Thank God
it wasn’t stolen!
So Mum and I head toward the flyer over.
Two steps later another rickshaw driver says, ‘You car is
under the bridge where you can read the words ‘bahadurabad’. Which of course we
can’t see in the dark
Who doesn’t know where our car is?
Its pitch dark and we head towards the fly over, which is
only a couple of hundred yards away. We walk along the side lane away from the
main road and a random motorcyclist, driving on the wrong side of the road
slows down alongside my mother to tells her ‘the police have taken your car but
its over there’!
Excellent the whole neighbourhood knows where are car is!
I get on the phone to Tanvir sahib who works for us, luckily
he is at the house and I ask him to meet us at the junction where the houses
meet the main road.
In the meantime, some jerk walks past us then stops right in
the middle of the pavement ahead of us. I have to sharply tell Mum, that we are
not going to walk past him and begin walking back. Then seeing everyone else
walking in the main road into oncoming traffic we decide to do the same. Luckily
he knew he was sussed and he started moving away.
We turn into the lanes where all the houses are and past the
guards and gates that are stationed at all the entrance roads into the housing
area and find a patch of light on the
pavement and wait for Tanvir sahib to come to the rescue.
He arrives moments later and Mum decides to continue walking
home with the shopping while I sort out the fine and get the car back.
I jump on the back of Tanvir sahibs bike – not side saddle –
shock horror – and we tentatively cross this main road with the traffic coming
from our right and nip under the flyover bridge.
Here is the Bahadurabad Traffic Police – a three roomed
single story concrete building under a flyer over with a fork lift truck and
driver having a blast picking up cars illegally parked at the nearby shops. I
head toward the car, cover my head with my dupatta, thank god I wore one to the
shops and wait in the dark. Tanvir
sahib comes out about 5 mins later and tells me to drive the car away! My fine
Rs500 – less than £5.
I get home to find out that Mum had been asked by the guard
at the end of the street, ‘Why are you walking? Where’s your car?
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