What Eye sees, ear hears, Mind Believes

– Gebrial Sheron (Ex-Mossad/CIA Agent)

The above quote is very much true with most of us. Based on certain facts/things we hear or see, we have a kind of preset frame of mind about everything. It could be a any commodity or movie or even a place/country, person etc…

This holds true very much with the image of India as well. I have seen many people from west coming and taking pictures of things which put us still as a poor country. Like three people riding on a bike, cow/buffalos on the road, road side pavements, beggars, daily wage workers and the list goes on and on… There are blogs which talk about the accent of Indians, about the eating habits and talk about the hygiene factor as well.  With recent incident of Delhi gang rape (I will talk about its effect on the image of India in future write up), there has been lots of discussion about India in foreign media and these things have definitely taken out “Feel-Good” factor from us.

Not only visitors (not everyone, but few of them) by putting a kind of a bad picture, make us feel low, but even writers who love to portray India in a poor fashion. Few award winning novels have put India in a very bad shape with less facts and more and more fiction. An Oscar winning movie, which has portrayed us in a very poor and ill manner, got plenty of applauds abroad. And unfortunately, we feel that it’s an awesome movie which got us Oscar. Well, I am more proud of Gandhi (1982, Dir : Richard Attenborough) rather than some movie which shows Indians as slumdogs.

Well, but all these things are what few people feel, there are still more and more people who come to India and fall in love at first site. There are still plenty of people who love to visit India again and again. Who have loads of good memories about India and that makes us to feel really proud.

When I came here to UK on a short trip, as usual I was having a preset mind about the place and people. It was sometime in office when one of my colleagues Girish, who is from India and was also on short visit told me that his navigation was stolen from the car in a parking area here by breaking the glass with a stone (Bargate drive in Wolverhampton, be careful guys. It’s better to be safe than sorry!!!). This thing really made me think as there are good people everywhere; there are bad people as well. And the same thing was told by my British colleague. Similar incident happened to my colleague Rajesh as well, in exact same manner but it was a famous shopping mall in Bangalore.

After this narration from Girish, I made sure that I don’t leave anything valuable in car or atleast to be visible to others from windscreen.

But there was one incident which really made me to change my perspective.

It was around 8 in evening and I wanted to refuel my car, and was driving on the Bridgenorth road with a speed limit of 30 miles an hour indicated on navigation and couple of speedcams on road. I was still not feeling very comfortable to drive on UK roads at that point of time. The traffic is not very chaotic here like home. People are quite strict about lane discipline and speed limits. Honking is strict “NO”, unless you break the rule or cross over lane. Simply honking is treated as rude gesture equivalent to scolding. Speed cams here and there made me scary about traffic rule violations and possible tickets which come with heavy fine. Also there was a scare of getting the license cancelled and need to take a drive test all over again to be eligible to drive again. Getting the license cancelled is not considered to be a nice thing here.

Unlike home, where we have a RTO officer sitting in a corner and asking us to take a drive, here it’s almost 2-3 hours test with an officer sitting beside you and taking you through a really thorough test. I have a couple of friends who have failed thrice and still attempting to get a license.

With all these things poping up, while driving to the fuel station (petrol bunk), I was followed by a yellow Nissan Micra, flashing high beams on me frequently. Initially I was thinking my speed is low, but when I saw the speedometer, I was driving at right speed limit. Subsequent flashing really got me worried and I took turn at the Bridgenorth road Shell bunk. As I was waiting to get down to fill up the fuel (Well, again there is no one waiting to fill up the fuel unlike home, need to get it filled self and pay in the counter), the same Micra was standing on the other side of the road. There was a chill in my spine, but somehow I was in confusion and also kind of a scare as what exactly is going on. Also I recollected about an incident which I read in paper about how a women was robbed in petrol bunk. I was about to move my car thinking that something is not correct and in the meantime a tall guy came and knocked the window of my car and signed me to lower the glass. I thought for a while and before I could think, he again told me to lower than glass. Hesitantly I lowered the glass and also I was under surveillance cam and also quite a few people in bunk. So it gave me strength that, I was not alone if something goes wrong.

“You have forgotten to put on the lights mate.. Just wanted to tell you to put the lights on before someone hits you from back accidently… put on the lights mate before you drive, as urs seem to be a new car. This is why was flashing the lights on you” the guy told me in a heavy English accent. At a moment I really felt sorry for imagining all the things about this guy without understanding what actually the intention was.

I got down from the car and thanked him before I put on the light.

He just smiled and said “No probs mate, take care,, cheers” and got into his Micra, waved and drove off with his friend (I assumed so).

I may never see him again to return back his favor, but this incident will remain in my mind forever as one of nice experiences here.

Thanks so much pal… Hope to see you again… Cheers…