Too-Sunny Side Of Life

"I don't think there is any hospital here. You must have put the wrong location." The driver says calmly. 

I stare at him in silent stupefaction. What else could I do when I had put the location on the Ola app, traveled in the auto for quarter of an hour and finally the driver arrives at a dead end somewhere off a highway where a lot of construction work is going on and utters these shocking words?!

"There is no hospital here." The driver repeats. I get down and see a security guard sitting outside a construction site. The auto driver tells me to pay. I make the payment, and he leaves me to my fate. 

I ask the security guard, then three more, but all of them quote the driver word to word. 

I realize two things then. 

There is indeed no freaking hospital here.

I am at an unknown place far away from home and somewhere around a highway with no vehicles in sight. 

It is not yet time to panic… I remind myself. I decide to rely on the mobile and start walking in a random direction. Because, why not?! The day has been SO awesome so far. What could possible go wrong when you have Maps to guide you?

So I turn on the map and it shows the hospital is at a walking distance of 21 minutes from where I am. The sun is at its zenith and it is as hot as a desert. I haven't yet decided what to do when the mobile screen completely darkens all of a sudden. 

You know how the mobile's screen appears darker when you try to see it in broad daylight at the outdoors? Yeah, that wasn't what happened here.

My mobile takes pity on me and for a few seconds the screen brightens to display this heartwarming message - 'Your mobile is getting too hot. Some operations may not work. Allow it to cool down.' Then the screen goes dark. 

I realize two things again. (It has been a day of reckoning and realizations).

There is no way for me to book a vehicle to go to either the hospital or home.

I don't even know where I am stranded. 

This probably won't go down as the brightest moment of my life, but panic sets in full force. I look around me and find only construction work going on everywhere. A few vehicles keep coming every now and then but none empty. 

I risk a glance at my screen and see that it has brightened again. I hastily open the Uber app and book an auto for my home. The screen goes dark again and I have no idea whether the auto has been booked. I wait for a few minutes and see a notification in the now-lit up screen that an auto is expected to arrive in 3 minutes. I breathe a sigh of relief.

Then the screen starts acting like the moon. In its bright phase, I see the auto driver has cancelled the ride and that the app is trying for another one. Then the dark phase of the screen sets in. I have no idea what is happening. Then the bright phase resurfaces after a few minutes and I see that another driver has accepted the ride and is expected to arrive in 6 minutes. As the screen goes into dark phase yet again, I only hope that the screen lasts until the driver comes. 

I wait for what feels like eternity and then see an auto coming. I have no way of verifying whether this is the booked auto. 

"Uber booking, Madam? Deepa na?" He says and I swear I almost break down in relief. I rush inside the auto and thankfully the screen lights up in the shade of the auto and displays the OTP. 

The OTP gets verified.

The driver starts the journey home.

I leave the Place In The Midst Of Nowhere in relief and gratitude, but not before I have unloaded all my panic on the driver who keeps shooting concerned glances at me, wondering whether he has picked up a psycho from the highway. (Cliché much? Probably).

Life - lessons from this experience -

- Life will test and how! The challenge is to stay calm and centered. (Emphasis on ‘challenge’)

- Mobiles (and thereby maps) stop working when it gets too hot. Don't rely heavily on these. Not all of us can be Columbus.

- During the return journey home, the weather changed. Gray clouds started gathering in the sky and a cool breeze started blowing, bringing some peace to the ruffled mind. Sometimes, the calm will come in the form of the storm after a burning noon. (‘Calm before the storm’ is over-rated).

- Too-sunny can burn you if you don't find the funny in it!

I am trying to find the funny side of this experience. It has not set in yet. I want to rate the driver who left me in the lurch. But something tells me that this experience was meant to teach me something. What exactly, that probably time will tell. The driver was simply a medium to teach me something.

While this experience was slightly traumatic for those few panic-laden moments when I was stranded in the midst of nowhere, giving words to those moments and searching for humor helps me to deal with its aftermath. And while I hope I do not find such Too-sunny situations ever again, I hope to keep searching for the funny side of life in every instance.