Blood on a Saturday Afternoon

About an hour ago, we headed out to take a little walk in the park, which is roughly a five-minute drive from our house. But the drive was very different today. Here’s the story in our own words ….

His Perspective

(Thane) We approached an intersection where the traffic lights had gone out, and the result was a level of chaos and confusion that I’ve only ever seen in Delhi. The intersection was gridlocked, with cars trying to go through in all directions and causing a completely impassable mess. As we inched slowly toward the center of the intersection (it took us twenty minutes to go fifty yards), we saw that traffic going our way was completely stopped by a small delivery truck, who was sitting across the intersection blocking both lanes, and who clearly had no chance to get through to the other side. He needed to back up.

A few cars in front of us, there was a very nice and shiny new full-size sedan. The driver got out of the sedan–he was wearing mirrored sunglasses, a sports jacket, and a shirt with wide lapels spread out over the top of the jacket. Mr. Sunglasses walked up to the delivery truck, presumably to ask him to back out of the intersection to free up the traffic. That’s when things got ugly. Audrey and I could clearly see the conversation accelerate quickly to shouts, and then Mr. Sunglasses began to rain down blows on the truck driver. Because the truck driver was stuck inside a small cab, he couldn’t get away, and it looked like the Sunglasses Man was just slugging away.

We were shocked, but the moment passed so quickly that we didn’t know what to do. The assailant walked back to his shiny car and opened the driver-side door. We thought the crisis had passed. But no, all of a sudden he stood back up and strode back toward the truck driver, this time carrying a baseball bat. Audrey and I looked at each other, and we knew without speaking that we had to do something. I killed the car, pulled the parking brake and jumped out of the car; Audrey was already five feet ahead of me. We saw Mr. Sunglasses take one full swing with the bat and pull back for another before Audrey arrive first. She grabbed the bat from behind him, and tried to pull it away.

He turned around, obviously shocked. My heart racing, I grabbed the bat and helped Audrey to pull it completely free from his grasp.

“You can’t do this,” we both shouted.

At this point, the other drivers in the intersection, who had just been watching, also began getting out of their cars. The truck driver emerged from his cab, his mouth full of blood, and another rivulet of blood running from his nose. Mr. Sunglasses realized that he was now outnumbered and strode back toward his car. Had the crisis finally passed?

No, now the other drivers wanted revenge against Mr. Sunglasses. One of them tried to take the bat from Audrey to go after him, and the truck driver, bleeding and apparently dazed, but also furious, pulled an iron bar out of the back of his truck. We stood in his way to stop him, but he shoved past us. I followed him back to Mr. Sunglasses’ car, shouting at him to stop.

Now Mr. Sunglasses popped his trunk, and went around behind his car. My first thought was that he might have a gun in the trunk, so I ran back to Audrey and we quickly retreated away from the intersection (and our car, still sitting back there). Thankfully, by this time passions had cleared a little bit, and the truck driver backed down. Mr. Sunglasses may or may not have had a gun, but he decided there were too many people around to do anything, and he got back in his car. Audrey threw the bat over a fence so no one else would use it. A few minutes later, a cop appeared and cleared the intersection, and we drove back home, still shaken.

A lot of thoughts came out of this. One was that whoever Mr. Sunglasses is, he’s clearly not a good guy. Nobody in India plays baseball, so the only reason you might carry a baseball bat in your car is if you routinely find yourself in violent situations. Add together the brand new car and the “stylish” clothes, and he might have been a gangster, or at least the son of a politician or billionaire who has too much money and no accountability.

A second thought was wondering what would have happened if we hadn’t intervened. Would Sunglasses have beaten the truck driver until he was seriously injured, or even dead? Why were we the only people who jumped out of our car when we saw him charging with the bat? I think it’s hard to say.

Her Perspective

(Audrey) I just finished the single most risky thing I have ever done in India and possibly in my entire life. I intervened in a road rage incident between two men that had escalated to involve a baseball bat. I came out alive, all in one piece, but pretty shaken-up. Here’s the story—

Thane and I are driving in our neighborhood. We are less than a mile from our apartment when we hit an intersection that had really bad gridlock because the traffic lights had gone out. By the time we got there cars are crisscrossing each other in all directions and traffic is at a standstill. After 20 minutes, we are 5 cars away from being able to make our turn when we see a guy two cars in front of us get out of his car, walk up to a truck that was blocking all 4 lanes of traffic on our side of the road, and begin to yell. Yelling quickly gives way to punching, and I roll down my window in order to have a better view of the car guy beating up the truck driver through the window of the latter’s vehicle.

While Thane and I are exclaiming about how crazy this situation was, the guy who began the conflict walks back to his car. He opens up the passenger side door and pulls out a baseball bat.

Can I mention at this juncture—a baseball bat!!! India is cricket land; nobody here knows how to play baseball if they even know what the game is. There’s only one reason any Indian carries a baseball bat in his car and it ain’t a good one.

The guy walks back to the offending truck (still completely blocking traffic), and begins to hit the side of his truck very hard with the baseball bat. The driver’s window is open, and at the moment I have a vision—-the vision is that with one blow, intentionally or not, the truck driver’s brain could be splattered on the street and the guy dead. So I do something very human and probably very stupid—I jump out of our car, run up to the scene, and grab the baseball bat. Thane is right on my heels, about 5 second behind on account of having to turn off our car.

Now only maybe 30 seconds has passed between the introduction of the baseball bat and my intervention. But I should point out that there were several dozen Indian men closer to this situation than we were. Nobody else came forward. I grab the bat as the attacker wound up for another swing, shout “stop!”, and refuse to let go. He turns around and gives me a look of utter confusion and shock. At that point, I began to notice a few things about this guy—he has on dark shades, is well-dressed in Western clothes, and did I mention he carries a baseball bat in his car? My guess in retrospect is that he is a politicians son (i.e. rich spoiled brat who can get away with murder) or a member of the underworld… possibly both.
Thane soon joins me and for a while the two of us are pulling the bat out of the grip of the attacker, while yelling various things in English (“Stop!” “What are you doing?!” “Let go!”).

After not too long, the attacker lets go of the bat and goes back to his car. Approximately half a second later, the truck driver gets out brandishing a thin metal rod and spitting out angry phrases in Hindi through a bloody mouth. I manage to ask “Are you okay?” in Hindi. He responds, “Do I look okay?” and makes for the attacker’s car. Thane and I, by this time reinforced by 10 Indian guys or so, make a human wall. After 10 second of holding the trucker back, I become sidetracked by some third dude trying to grab the bat that I am still holding. His intentions are crystal-clear: he wants to use the bat to go after the first attacker in support of the truck driver. I hold on tight, but barely.

In the meantime, the first attacker gets out of his car again and opens his trunk. At this point, Thane and I ran, thinking that there could be a gun involved. While we were running, I take the opportunity to ditch the bat over a 6 foot fence on the other side of the road where nobody involved in the immediate situation could again grab it. After a minute or so, it becomes clear that there is no gun, the truck driver threatens the car driver for a while with the metal pole but eventually gives up and goes back to his truck, and finally—we return to our car. On our way back to our vehicle, a guy grabs my arm and says in Hindi—”get out of here, go home.” We did just that.

A few thoughts on this situation—Why did we intervene before any Indians? It is a cultural difference? Perhaps we’re simply dumber and took a risk most Indians know to avoid (road rage involving guns does happen here. What if he had turned the bat on us?). Or perhaps we could uniquely intervene because we’re foreigners? There’s nothing to de-escalate a situation like upping the ante, and, it’s sad to say, but there would no doubt be a lot graver consequences for the car driver to attack me with a baseball bat than some poor Indian truck driver. Should we have intervened? Selfishly, of course not, but as humans, how could you not go in knowing that you might save a human life? I hope to never do something like this again, but I have to confess it’s quite a rush. Over an hour later the adrenaline is still pumping through my body. Final thought—India may be a crazy place, but sometimes foreigners make it even crazier.

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Tags: anger, baseball, bat, blood, Delhi, driving, metal road, rage, road, road rage, Rohini