Humanity Still Survives

In today's busy world where everyone is running a fast paced life, I got to re-experience the helpful nature of fellow people

I was driving to office on my pulsar, when it started to jerk. A jerk typically associated with petrol line running dry. I switched to the reserve mode, but the jerks continued and to my dismay, the bike came to a stop near Rakshak society signal on Aundh Ravet road. I realized that the petrol had run dry, but why the bike didn't signal this from On state to Reserve state? I asked a person sitting there on his bike for the closest petrol pump and he told me about the one in Pimple Saudagar, which was, I guess, an easy 2 km walk from the current spot.

As I stood there, visibly shaken and trying to figure out what to do as dragging the bike all the way would be very difficult, the person came to me and asked what happened. I shared the surprise of bike directly running dry while still being in On state and he pointed out that I had got it wrong. I was running the bike in Reserve all along, without realizing, and hence the tank eventually just dried up.

Now what? I was in for a surprise again, when he said, do you have a bottle or something? I can give you little bit of petrol so that you can reach the pump. Wow! I am reminded of the dialogue from Munna Bhai MBBS movie - "Now, these are men of honor!". As I stood there, cursing myself as to why I didn't have a bottle, the man suggested that we move to the side road, the road that leads to Pimple Saudagar (via the defense area) and we will see what to do. I pushed my bike there and parked it.

We then tried the typical Indian start method... tilted the bike almost horizontal and then tried again, but the petrol had really run dry. No amount of tilting was going to help. I saw a six-seater standing by. Thinking of trying my luck, I walked up to it and in my broken Marathi asked the person if he had a bottle. He asked why and I told him the short story and that I needed if for the good Samaritan to help me with some petrol.

He looked at me, at the bike and then back to his six-seater, and pulled out a water filled bottle from under his seat and started drinking it. I was taken aback and for a moment thought that this guy was making fun of me. Then he walked to the back of his six-seater, opened some lid and poured some water in there, drank some more and eventually threw away the rest and handed me the empty bottle. I was again speechless. The person whom I just thought was making fun of me, was actually trying to help me. On this warm sunny day, he gave his only source of water (his bottle) to me for my use, which he knew very well, would be useless to him after we fill petrol in it.

I thanked him and went back to the other guy who was patiently standing near by. He took the bottle, took out some petrol (maybe a quarter of a liter) and handed over to me. I poured each drop of it very carefully into my petrol tank and tried to start the bike. It didn't seem to make any difference. The tilting technique was tried again and eventually I turned on the choke and the bike finally came to life. I had big sigh of relief and thanked the good Samaritan profusely. I offered to have his tank also filled up, but he just drove away. As I drove to the petrol pump, on the way I could not help but recall how these two strangers had helped me this day without expecting anything in return, and saved my day.

So.... Humanity surely still survives. 

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