Alibaug (Trip 2 - The Best Adventure)

Everyone now had a weird smile on their face, a mixture of fear and excitement in their mind. Somehow, the timing of the tyre getting flat couldn't be better. Now, we're in the middle of a jungle and have no idea what to do. The terms we had decided upon were broken by all when one of the discussed dangers actually took place. The time now about 11 in the night, we asked a few people if they could help us by leading us to someone who could work on the punctured tyre. One of them told us that there was one just on the corner of the road. Feeling lucky, we unloaded the Optra and reached at that place within seconds. The place wasnt far at all. There, we saw a person working on a motor-cycle tyre under a tube-light, the only light available at that moment. We told that person about the tyre and he said that he couldn't help us then because he didnt have the utilities needed to fix that puncture.

Now again we all panicked in our minds, not knowing what to do. One of us asked the person about the nearest garage that could help us. He said that we could get help from any petrol pump. The nearest petrol pump was about 60 kms away. We thought that one car could take the tyre there, get it fixed and come back, but then we were also scared about letting just one car go on its own. Anyway, with no options left, we decided to do just that. Using the jack of the hachback, we got the flat tyre off the car, loaded it in the third car, and 3 to 4 people left in that car. Now that they left, we kind of had a light moment there, joking around, doing some masti or the other, so that we don't get any negative thoughts in our minds because there were some, who thought about what happened, and thought that more was there in store for us. So we were all fooling around and then all of a sudden, we noticed that there was NO signal, NO network whatsoever in our mobiles. Abh if we have to contact them, we wouldn't know how to. Even if they were to try contacting us, then even they wouldn't be able to.

We all had assumed, that the third car, after leaving us, would take one hour to reach, half an hour to get the work done, and another one hour to reach back. Just in case our work was not to be done there, then we friends would have to spend the rest of the night in the jungle. They left at around 11:30 and we assumed them to come back by 2. After they left, we had good fun, shouting and partying for a good hour or so. The man who was working was working just outside his house. He was to go to sleep after he was done with the tyre. Just when he was finishing his work we started panicking a little more because his light was the only light available there. If he goes to sleep and switches his light off, we would have to stay in the dark, and that is when animals can come to venture out. He kind of read our mind and brought out some parts and started assembling a bicycle. He told us too that if it wasnt for them, he would had gone to sleep after he fixed the tyre of that motor-cycle. We were veryyy thankful to that man.

After an hour or so, everyone ran out of steam. Some were playing cards, some got out breezers, some ate, some wanted to puff some hukka. With every cars headlight that came our way that night, our spines went upright with excitement, hoping that it is our SX4 on our rescue, but it use to turn out that it was some truck or jeep or other car. That is when one of us said that our car had fog lights, which kind of gave a distinct way of knowing if it was our car. Now we were looking for all cars with fog lights, but there was no success. At about 2 in the night, we had waited for more than 2 hours till now, and everyone was getting impatient by this time. They were also scared because we couldn't contact them at all. The person working on the cycle did not have a landline either. Maybe he had but to us he said that he didnt have one. Anyway, hoping nothing went wrong, we were expecting them any moment now. In the meanwhile, a few of us hopped in the blue hachback and roamed a few kms to search for mobile network, but we didn't find any signal in that dark jungle. The jungle was scary. We were very lucky to find this man working here with a tubelight on, warna if the puncture was to happen after another half an hour, we would had been screwed royally. Here atleast v knew that the petrol pump was 60 kms ahead. If we were stuck in the jungle with no lights, no one to help us, no mobile networks to keep us connected, we would had been screwed badly. Thanking our stars, we thanked the man a few times while he was working. He just gave a small smirk. Not even a smile. He didnt even look at us, he was sooo engrossed in his work. Anyway, our hachback driver took the car within a radius of 2 or 3 kms both ways, scared that his car would get a puncture too and with the jack in use for the other car, he would b helpless. Everyone was panicking now, thinking that they should had been here till now. Some thought that they could have met with an accident, while some thought that they didnt find that petrol pump and would have to go further ahead to find one. If that was to be the case, then we would have to b in that jungle till ATLEAST five or six in the morning.

Thinking all those things, at around 2:30 or 2:45, one of them shouted, heyy theres a car with a fog lights coming straight towards us. Like animals, we all jumped on the road dancing with joy on the return of our "heroes". We weren't even sure if that was our car, but what could be the chances of that car not being ours?? We didn't care now who it was because we just got too exhausted by this time. Luckily it was them and we people, the people of the jungle, shared a group hug, a hug filled with joy, filled with relief, filled with joy and relief again. They then told us their part of an adventure to us. It went something like this.

They left from the jungle and started a little journey of theirs. The driver was exhausted already but then, he had a lot of driving to do for the night, so he had mentally prepared himself for that rough and tough mental journey. They completed about 60 kms in an hours time and as rightly said by the man, they saw a petrol pump. They went in and asked some official there to help us out. He said that the worker to fix the puncture was out and there was no one there who could fix the puncture. So they panicked at that moment, maybe tried calling us but then we jungle people had no network there. So they left that place and searched for some place there nearby. They again entered some jungle and finally saw a man, just like we had found earlier, again, working on a tyre. They saw some hope there and asked him for help. He said that v should get it done at the petrol pump which was just a kms or two away. They told him what the official told him and the man, in a furious tone, told them to come with him there and he'll get their work done. They claimed that he had come in the form of god, because if he wasnt there to help us, we would had taken the entire night to get the tyre fixed. So they went to the petrol pump again, that man woke the other officials and workers in the garage, and made them fix the tyre in their sleep. They were even more thankful to him for coming with them and getting their work done. Then after getting the work done there, they headed back to the jungle where we were situated.