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Spice of life | When an ingenious herder saved the day
We started early so that we could reach Chandigarh before sunset. We had hardly travelled 20 kilometres, when the car suddenly came to a screeching halt at a blind curve bang opposite a railway station
Every summer, my wife and I drive up to tourists’ paradise Kasauli – where my wife has inherited a two-room tenement – to escape the oppressive heat. One sultry Sunday evening, we set out for Chandigarh to collect my monthly pension, and attend to sundry household chores that had lined up.
We left for Chandigarh around 5pm in our Maruti 800. The downward journey through the rolling hills, with the fresh mountain air wafting through the pine trees, was exciting and invigorating. We started early so that we could reach Chandigarh before sunset. We had hardly travelled 20 kilometres, when the car suddenly came to a screeching halt at a blind curve bang opposite a railway station. Much to my dismay, one of my front wheels had deflated.
I opened the boot of the car in a huff, and found the spare wheel. My wife and I, are both septuagenarians and suffer from arthritis, so replacing the wheel was an uphill task for us. But, as it is said, “What cannot be cured must be endured.” Mustering courage, I took out the spanner from the toolkit and took out the nuts and put them in the wheel cup on a berm. No sooner did we take out the wheel to be replaced, an HRTC bus zoomed past, and passengers showered loaves of bread, cookies and other eatables for the monkeys sitting along the road. Soon, a ruffian monkey came near our car and set the nuts rolling down the hill!
I was in a dilemma about to what to do next, when I saw a lad in his early teens steering his cattle home after a day of grazing. I waved to him, but he took no notice. Then I shouted to him at the top of my voice. This also yielded no response. Finally, I threw a small pebble in his direction and got his attention. I gesticulated to him to come closer, and he reluctantly agreed. As he drew closer, he told me through sign language that he was deaf and dumb.
I also pretended to be deaf and dumb, and without wasting a minute, asked him if he could to come up the hill. He obliged me with a beatific smile. I told him the wheel cap and nuts had rolled down the hill. Like a young calf, he went galloping down and came back with the cup and the one nut he found. Alas, the others could not be traced.
Seeing me caught up in a whirlwind of thoughts, he took me around the car and told me through sign language to remove one nut from each wheel to make the car road ready. The innovative idea clicked and we succeeded in our mission.
As I stood transfixed, heaping praises on the ingenuity of the boy, I saw a man, presumably his father, coming towards us. I told that his intelligent son had appeared there as a messiah for us and gotten us out of major trouble. Expressing deep gratitude to both of them, I took out ₹200 from my wallet and gave it to the boy as a token of love, for the timely help extended by him. He declined the money and took his father aside and told him through signs that the “driver uncle” was also deaf and dumb like him. If he could drive, why could he (the boy) not?
I patted the boy on the back and gave him my visiting card, and asked him to come to me when he was 18. I promised to help him get a driving licence, so that he too could drive a car like the ‘deaf and dumb’ gentleman, he met that fateful day!
khkumar46@gmail.com
( The writer is a Chandigarh-based freelance contributor)
