Serendipity
“Can I please park my car here?” Reya rolled down her car window and hollered to the driver of another car, as they both headed towards the same parking spot.
“I actually need to remove my car a bit early tomorrow. Can I park it in front of yours?” the driver suggested.
“Okay,” Reya agreed. She got off the car and noticed that the other driver had left already.
The next morning when Reya got ready to go to her office, she noticed that the other car had not been removed. She looked around to see if there was someone she could ask. Spotting the guard of her building she approached him.
“Do you know whose car this is?” she asked pointing towards the car parked in front of hers.
The guard informed her that possibly it belonged to someone on the third floor and gave her the apartment number. Reya hopped on to the lift and reached the apartment only to discover that the door was locked. When she returned, the other car had left.
Furious that she had wasted almost 10 minutes just to ensure she was on her way to work without a hassle, she steered her car to the main road. Her anxiety grew to observe the mounting traffic in Mumbai, which usually multiplied by the minute, during office hours.
That evening she decided that she would not let any other car block her passage for the morning. When she approached her spot, she noticed that the other car was already parked in the spot that she had left in the morning. Letting out a grunt she drove around the parking area to look for its driver. Defeated, she returned to the spot and parked her car in front of the other and returned to the apartment on the third floor. She rang the doorbell and was met with an old portly man.
“Uncle, is that silver car yours at the parking in D35?” she inquired.
“Why?” the man was not amused to be inquired by some silly young girl who did not even bother to introduce herself.
“Sorry uncle, I am Reya from the fifteenth floor here,” she quickly recovered. “I just wanted to know if someone in your family has a car parked at D35 because I have that spot taken from Mrs Hirani.”
The man paused to consider his response and then refused. He flashed her a smile and quickly closed the door.
Reya was not one to give up, so she returned to the guard, only to notice that the person who had left the car was having a chat with the guard. She was about to approach them when the latter left quickly.
“But you told me the flat no. was 304,” Reya argued with the guard.
“No madam, I said flat no. 302. Why would I lie about this?” the guard was convinced he had not faltered. Reya decided not to get into a squabble with him.
Fuming, she returned home. For an instant, she thought of complaining to Mrs Hirani but soon realized that Mrs Hirani would simply shrug her shoulders and flash her toothy smile at her predicament. She finally decided not to involve her.
The next morning she reached the parking spot later than usual and realized that the owner of the silver car was already waiting for her.
“Hi, can you please remove your car from here? I need to rush to my office and I’ve been waiting for a while now,” he flashed a forced smile towards Reya.
“Do you realize that this is MY parking!?” Reya tried masking her annoyance.
“The guard told me this is open parking,” he stated, trying to be pleasant.
“Oh, so now it’s the guard who is the decision maker here?” Reya snapped.
“Look, I’m sorry. I had no idea this parking spot was yours.” He paused briefly, for her to calm down. “Now if it’s okay, can you please remove your car so I can head over to my office? The traffic towards BKC is awful at this hour.” He almost pleaded.
“BKC, you said? Oh, I work there too. TCS,” Reya blurted.
“Oh great! I’m at Citi. How about we take a ride together?” that came out as an impromptu query at which Reya was surprised. “Really?” she asked.
“Yeah, we’d save some fuel and you could give me a mindful on the way,” he jested.
Both of them laughed, kicking off a beautiful journey together.
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