On 7th June 2008 at about 12.10 in the afternoon my wife Vishakhaveera, her elder sister who lives in Baroda, my daughters Shruti and Shreeya and I myself left our home in my car to see a movie. Vishakha’s elder sister wanted to see the Marathi movie ‘De dhakka’ and so we headed for Cinemax Sion. We were on the Eastern Express Highway and I was driving quite slowly due to the rainy season. We were around Chhedanagar when a strange incident happened. It was a straight road and so the vehicle too was running straight ahead. All of a sudden the steering wheel in my hands veered sharply to the left. I felt the wheel being pulled; I felt the jerk as if someone was tugging at it. I struggled to turn it in the opposite direction but I could not. My forces and strength were just not enough. I thought that perhaps it has got locked, and so tried to apply the brakes. But this again did not work. My daughters in the back seat were yelling out, “Papa, what in the world are you trying to do?” Then I wondered if I had a punctured tyre that was dragging the vehicle to the left. Vishakha was sitting next to me. She kept crying out loud ‘Bapu Bapu’.
- Vilassinh Pandji
