Kebab - Accident

All I wanted to do was get a quick lunch and get back to the mountain of work before me but it was not to be. Usually around 7 of us get out of the office at around 1 or so, go to some food joint on ECR or OMR and have a relaxed lunch of around 2 hours (it takes that much time to go there, get the food, eat it and get back). Dont be shocked, we dont do this every day and not even every Friday. If you see the crazy hours we work, two hours for lunch is less.
Today we had only 5 of the usual 7 around and one guy was treating the rest for the completion of his house/flat or something. So we had to go out for lunch. Took 20 minutes to decide to go to Basera on ECR (20 minutes away from work). We could all pile into one car (one of the seven has a new black Elantra CRDI) . He makes full use of the cars power and features in getting us there in a record 15 minutes (as opposed to the 20 it takes other lesser mortals such as myself in lesser cars like mine) . We drove through the Basera parking lot leaving behind a bewildered guard as we realised the place was full by counting the number of cars in the parking lot. Next option go to Kebab Court. This one had just the right amount of crowd. Valet Parking. I was impressed. Wonder if they do that if you go there on a scooter or an old beat up car? We enter to realise that the entire senior management team was already there stuffing their faces. Old Megaphone was there as well. He was with his boss and so didnt talk as loudly as he usually did. He was stuffing face more quickly than everyone else. Guess thats why he was silent.
There was no room in the inn-terior(bad pun) so we were initially seated outdoors under canopies. No actually made to stand for around 10 minutes while they clean the place - with a hose pipe. Finally we sit on wet chairs. No we got them wiped before. Hordes of flies. A pedestal fan close to me is switched off and people sugegst I move my lazy self and switch it on. I try it and nothing works. I hit another switch a bit further off and still nothing. Our soup shows up. But we wanted the flies gone. The waiters carrying the soup attempts to switch on the fan and guess what - gets electrocuted. No that sounds extreme. He got a shock as the switch board and extension cord they had was soaking wet with water from the hose pipe. 5 minutes earlier I had done the same thing and nothing happenned. Good thing electricity cannot pass through rubber solded shoes. :-).
Two meat eaters and three grass eaters at the Kebab place. Fun. Two of us meat eaters pig out on the non veg platter and enjoy ourselves while casting amused looks at the grass eaters struggling with weird kebabs from different roots shoots and vegetables. Dessert was required as well. I had this weird thing from deep fried bread soaked in sugar syrup and then covered with Malai called Shahi Tukada. Yum. Wanted a nap immediately after. Hoped to get one on the short ride back.
We get back into the car. Our man Shumacher inches out of the parking lot looks to the right for oncoming traffic coming down ECR heading to Thiruvanmiyur as we have to head in that direction and then make a U turn back on ECR towards the boondocks we work in. Shumacher lets a bus and a motorcyclist pass by before stepping on the go-pedal turning left. Boom-Thud -Crash ! Aiyyyyooo ! What happenned ? A goofy old guy - a tea vendor on a TVS-50 with a huge drum of tea ran into the cars front and has now fallen. 5 not so hefty not so young men get out of the car and check if the guy is allright. Tea-seller TVS-50-Elantra molester has a nice big cut on his knee with a flap of skin hanging off and some scratches on his ankle. He is all shook up as Elvis would say and so are we. He starts off on some ramble about how "Kadavul" has "Kaapathified" him and us and by His (Kadavul's) "Punniyam" both he and us are still alive. That is ridiculous. We were in a car with airbags & ABS and he is on a TVS 50. Punniyam my foot. Also while falling what does he do? Make sure the tea doesnt spill. Nice Dan3sh should get tea from this guy. He needs a movie called the Tea-Man or something dedicated to him.

Damage done by TVS 50 ? Major dent in the front fender of a car worth around 11 lakhs. He starts attempting to get money out of us by saying we are all "Mothalalis" and so we should take care of him. But strangely there were many witnesses and all came up to say that TVS-Tea guy was at fault and if anything he should be the one making payments. Schumacher in a moment of great thinking asks for money from the Tea-TVS guy as he felt the cost expected would be around Rs 4500. Can TVS-50 guy repay this damage. No. I was scratching my head as I knew this wouldnt work out. Schumacher gets a made up address from the guy to get in touch with and then we head back to work. Of course this time we reach back in 13 minutes. Scary ride that one as we almost hit another TVS-Champ this time on OMR who suddenly decided to cross the road in front of Infosys building (no I do not work there). This is why I do not like being a passenger when someone else is driving.

I also have to put together a rant about TVS-50 riders. So if any one who reads this rides one , be prepared.