What would you have done?

(4 Feb ‘07)

On Sun, 18^th Feb, at 6 am we went for a morning music program at the Ravindra Natya Mandir, Mumbai. We neatly parked our new Swift in the underground lot. Around 9 am, we returned, to find that a grey Santro, MH -1 NA 2227 had been parked beside it in such a way that it was at an angle to our car, and had banged the posterior right fender, broke it, plus mildly dented and moderately scratched a portion of the corner, above the wheel. We couldn’t have moved the car had we wanted to, and in any case, we wanted to see who the offending driver was. Turned out to be a little middle-aged lady who confidently strode up and asked us in Marathi, “Is this your car? I was in a hurry when I came in here, and I’m sorry I parked so badly.” Yes, she apologized without being prodded. We moved our car a bit to untangle the fenders and allowed her to unpark her car. She agreed to pay the damages, said she wasn’t carrying her visiting card, and on a piece of paper wrote out her name, and phone number. We discovered subsequently that she was a doctor, and had a nursing home not far from where we lived. We appreciated the way she spoke. We trusted her manner. And we believed that someone with a background like hers wouldn’t behave the way she did.

On Mon morning, 19^th Feb, my husband checked with the mechanic the estimated cost of the repairs. It wasn’t much, about Rs 2,500/- He called up the lady and guess what?? She outright refused to pay, was abrupt on the phone and made one strange remark, “What if I had run away?” She was arrogant, abrupt and slammed the phone down. Her contention was that we could get money from the insurance company, couldn’t we? Maybe we’d gone to the most expensive mechanic in Mumbai and decided to charge her an exorbitant amount. She could’ve told us that politely.

Hullo!! Maybe we should have created such a ruckus that she’d have been glad to pay us a fat amount to keep out the unpleasantness. Maybe we should have let both cars remained parked and made a complaint to the cops. Maybe decency doesn’t pay after all. That’s what all my colleagues told me. “She took you for a solid ride” was the consensus. “Get someone to destroy her car,” was the advice. (Un)fortunately, we are decent, gentle folk and can’t/won’t retaliate. We’ve got the car repaired and don’t harbour any hopes that the doctor will reimburse anything. I was also told not to pursue the matter for it wouldn’t help any.

But I want to know from readers: what would you have done in our place? Do any of you wonder how she might have treated patients when things went wrong? Was she the street smart professional, or are we the naïve ones that expect decent behaviour when we should be suspicious and cynical? Can one not insist on justice by appealing to the other person’s good sense? Would it help if we ignored this outburst, and nevertheless sent her the bills with a covering letter, and expect her to feel remorse and pay up? It’s triggered a debate in our minds. I really want to know.

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