Road trip 1: Of peanut brains and excavators

So, it had to finally happen - people get to know that I can predict the future! It happened at the most unlikely of places, on the apology for a road between Hampi and Hospet.

After that eventful day, I was driving Madhu's car back to Hospet, so we could fill gas and head towards Koodala Sangama. That Hampi is one of the few World Heritage Sites in India isn't a good enough reason for the Government to improve the (only?) approach road to Hampi. The road, though not potholed for a change, is too small and passes through crowded villages and a railway level crossing.

Its not unusual to find a train of vehicles, all at the same speed, on this road. The reason is simple - its not easy to overtake arbitrarily, for want of sufficient asphalt so you can go around.

It so happens that I overtook this guy driving a Versa in one of the decent stretches of road. This was enough to tick the guy off. Accept it, an Versa is no competition for an Accent on a decent road. That the car wasn't mine was reason enough to drive it more cautiously than normal. That was the time I predicted that this guy was going to be in touble.

We get to the level crossing and it so happens that its been a long time since we had a chance to wonder at a passing train (remember the time you'd wave your hands at a level crossing, expecting someone on-board to respond?). There was already quite a few vehicles in front and I promptly parked the car in the existing single file.

The Versa guy's peanut of a brain had a brilliant idea: why not go around all these morons waiting single file? So he did, but only so far as to get rightin front of me, again ;-)

Now his target was the guy in front.. but what he failed to realize was that a land excavator got in, between our car and his. In his eagerness to overtake another hapless driver, his peanut of a brain din't signal early enough that there was an oncoming vehicle; so, our guy breaks.

Unluckily for him, the excavator is driven by another clown who was more enamoured by the surrounding shops than the road in front. So, he promptly ploughs into the Versa in front. Result? Two deep dinks on the back of the ungainly looking car! But luckily the clown stopped early enough and the Versa din't get excavated.

For the next five minutes, the road is blocked - you see, the versa is right in the middle of the road with the peanut brain and clown fighting. Luckily for us, a traffic police constable is at hand and diffuses the situation by accompanying the clown and the peanut brained guy to the police station, and we were off looking for a Reliance petrol bunk for the next leg of our journey.