UPDATE: Crash Bang Ow Resolved

Two posts ago (Crash Bang Ow) I discussed a car accident the Mister and I had on the way to work.  I ended with a bit of a complaint about how the lady who hit ole Bassy promised to pay and then reneged and I compared her unfavorably to Ms. Lynn Eccleston of Baraboo, Wisconsin, who hit my car, promised to pay and never did.  I think I sounded a tad pessimistic regarding whether or not we would see our car repair money.  That would be because I really didn't think we would.

However, happy news, Readers! The lady who hit our car did pay for the damages, though after quite a bit of cajoling and badgering.  We joked that we had Vicky shakedown the lady, which, I mean, she owed us the money so it really wasn't a shakedown.  But I guess he bothered he so much that finally she was like, "Alright, already.  If I pay you can I get a recipe and signed statement saying you will cease and desist with the bothering." Which we were more than happy to pony up.

Regarding all this, Mr ATK and I did have a bit of a moral quandary. You see, the car repairs really weren't that expensive--about $160.  (Side note: It constantly amazes me how cheap labor is here.  The damage horrible person Lynn Eccleston did to my car was not nearly as bad as this and that cost me $800.  For some scraped paint and a small dent. Crazy.)  Now it's true we could have paid for the repairs ourselves with relative ease (thought $160 isn't exactly chump change.)  The lady that hit us was a teacher, so I feel fairly confident in saying we probably could afford it more than she could.  But, you know, she hit our car.  And it was completely her fault.  Like, if it had been close, we probably wouldn't have pushed it, but it was just so blatant.

Anyways, we decided to donate our shakedown money to Vicky's church, since he actually did all the work in getting the lady to pony up.  Although it's not much,  I'm sure the money will be put to good use.

Indian Independence Day Mubarak Ho!

Happy August 15 everyone!

As you may (or may not) know, August 15 is India's Independence Day.  Mind you this is not to be confused with Republic Day which is January 26. What's the difference you ask?  Well, Republic Day celebrates the ratification of the Indian constitution.  Now at first I thought, Isn't that kind of double dipping?  You know, celebrating independence and the constitution? Isn't that a little much? 


Then I started reading Ramachandra Guha's book India After Gandhi.  I checked this out of the library, like, last year, but didn't get around to starting it until we went to Australia.  Mr. ATK was not too keen on hauling around a 900 page book in our shared backpack which he generally carried.  Especially since I had a nice light Kindle I could have brought.  I sympathize, but I always do the most reading on vacation and I had been wanting to read it, so along with us it came.

Me in Melbourne starting the book at the beginning of our vacation. Thanks to Mr. ATK for the flattering picture.

So why the two holidays? Apparently, on January 26, 1930 the Indian National Congress passed the Purna Swaraj declaration--the Declaration of Indian Independence from Britain.  Seventeen years later, when the British finally agreed to leave, the Congress wanted the handover to occur on January 26 as that was already their Independence Day.  The British chose August 15 because it was V-J day.  So when they finally finished writing the constitution in 1949, they chose for it to come into force on January 26, 1950--the twenty year anniversary of the Purna Swaraj declaration.  So it's not just about double dipping holidays--it has a very important historical significance.

Anyways, this book, its fairly in-depth book and I'm not going to into it here (apart from the previous paragraph.) But I will say that reading the book, while living here, has certainly given me a better of understanding of India today, by teaching me about the path India has traveled over the past 66 years.  Mr. ATK and I have traveled quite a bit around India and I've really grown quite fond of this insanely chaotic yet spectacular place.  But in all honesty, the longer I live here and the more I read about India, the less inclined I am to say I truly understand it at all.  Such is India. What I do have is a much greater appreciation for all of its complexities and idiosyncrasies.  It's development as a free, independent democracy is truly amazing especially considering the incredible diversity (in race, religion, language, culture) and the challenges of developing economically and socially with an ever-increasing population.  That is not to say I agree with every decision or action India has made or continues to make (not that India is particularly concerned with my opinion anyway).  But considering the prevailing (and pejorative) wisdom in the "west" in 1947 was that India, and Asia in general, just "wasn't ready" for democracy and that it would undoubtedly crumble into chaos before becoming an authoritarian state (or perhaps break apart all together), it is nice to see India has defied the odds and proven the skeptics wrong.*

And so, in honor or Indian Independence Day, I would like to sign off with a quote from Nehru's excellent "Tryst with Destiny" speech:

It is a fateful moment for us in India, for all Asia and for the world. A new star rises, the star of freedom in the east, a new hope comes into being, a vision long cherished materialises. May the star never set and that hope never be betrayed!

And I would also like to share this awesome Bollywood video from the movie "Chak De India." I haven't seen the movie (it's about field hockey), but the song is awesome. They were dancing to and singing this song at the India-Pakistan Patriotic Border Competition** which I have previously discussed here. 

 


*So far. And hopefully for years to come. जय हिन्द!
**Again, not the really name of the event.  I just made that up.

Crash Bang Ow

Yesterday on the way to work, Mr. ATK and I were in our first car accident in India.  On one hand, it’s amazing that it has taken this long. On the other hand, this wasn’t the first accident Bassy the Ambassador was in.  She had been hit by an Indian general in one encounter when we weren’t in the car. The General made sure to repeat the fact that he was a general several times on the phone with Mr. ATK.  He did not pay for the damage to the car. (But it was only scraped paint so it wasn’t a big deal).  The other accident occurred with MamaTK and Best FriendTK in the car.  Bassy hit a motorcycle who turned in front of her.  It was from a stop so no one got hurt.  The car just knocked the motorcycle over and scraped up our license plate a bit.

This time the ATKs were on our way to work when we drove through an uncontrolled T intersection—we were in the part that has the right of way, by the way.  As we were just passing the intersecting road, a car turned right (which is the equivalent to a lefthand turn for us) and hit us in the back right tire.  Luckily, neither car was going very fast, but still there was the big *crunch* resulting in a dented wheel well for us and a cracked headlight and busted bumper for the other driver.

So we pull over and Viki gets out of the car to go confront the other driver.  Mr. ATK is about to get out too, until I reminded him that security briefings tell us to always stay in our car.  You see crowds gather quickly at accidents in India, and even at 7:30 in the morning, ours was no exception.  People pulled over and got out of their cars even—just for a little fender bender.  Folks who were going about their morning business stopped what they were doing and came over.  In our case, since it was really a minor accident and no one was hurt, there was no animus from the crowd, just debates on who was at fault.

Before I get into this any further, let me present Exhibit A—a diagram of the scene of the accident (courtesy of Microsoft Paint).

See? 

I think this shows the whole story. I guess the point of contact may have been up a smidge on our car, but it’s Microsoft Paint. It’s not an exact science.

So, Mr. ATK and I are sitting in the car while Viki the driver is out arguing with the other driver.  He comes back to the car and is like, “She says it’s my fault. She won’t pay.  What do you want to do?”  Now, I cannot think of one example in America where the above situation would play out and the turning driver would not have been at fault*—perhaps if there were a light or stop sign that the non-turning driver ran through.  But this was uncontrolled, so that certainly wasn’t the situation in this case.

Mr. ATK gets out of the car (I stay in, despite the fact that it’s like 100 degrees in the car) and he starts arguing with the lady.  She is all, “I had started my turn when you came through. (If that were the case, I imagine the fronts of our cars would have collided. Not the front of her car with the back/side of ours.)  …More arguing… until finally Mr. ATK calls the Embassy roving patrol to stop by.  So they show up to take pictures at the scene and talk to the folks.  Meanwhile, cars are still trying to drive on the road where this large crowd is gathered.  Hilariously, two different police cars passed the scene but neither stopped. 

In the end the lady who hit us called her brother as she continued to maintain that we were at fault.  I suppose she wanted her brother to come back her up.  I think for a second she was trying to pull the whole, “Well, we were both at fault” thing, but Mr. ATK was unyielding.  He was all, “Nope. You hit us. Not our fault.”  When brother showed up (and he brought their mom too) he was like, “How much do we owe you?” So I guess it didn’t go her way.  

They really were very nice people, though.  They are now doing all sorts of ducking and weaving to get out of paying. Well, she is.  We don't have the brother's contact information.

This reminds me of when horrible person Lynn Marie Eccleston (alias Lynn M. Klug; alias Lynn Rogers) of Baraboo, Wisconsin hit my brand new Ford Focus while it was parked on a residential street in Sun Prairie (driving recklessly, I assume). She did not have insurance and promised to pay and stupidly I trusted her. (She did leave a note. Though in retrospect, I imagine she only did that because people saw her hit my car.) I didn't contact the cops or my insurance (god, I'm an idiot.)  Guess who never paid up the $800 worth of damage she had caused?  Horrible person Lynn Eccleston, that's who. And she strung me along for a long with promises until she stopped returning my calls.  And then I got married and moved to India.

Still I wish I had checked her out on CCAPS before taking anything she said at face value.  Alas, I looked her up too late.

*If you can think of a similar situation where we would have been at fault, feel free to post in the comments. Mr. ATK and I have been trying to come up with some and we've really only come up with two pretty weak  possibilities.