I
swung the wheel to the left to avoid the water-logged potholes on the causeway.
Suddenly, without warning, the offside of the van tilted wildly and sank into
the earth with a tremendous crash and a thud and explosion. Everyone screamed.
When I stepped out, I realized the driver's side was unnaturally higher than
normal and the front wheel was jutting out of the wheel bay at an unusual
angle. 
I
walked around the front to have a look. Deepa was already out and examining the
damage. The left hand side of the bumper was resting on the concrete. The
concrete under the offside wheel had caved in. The vehicle was balanced on the
lower suspension arm resting on the concrete. As the wheel crashed through the
concrete, the good Bridgestone tire I had on that wheel had burst leaving a
gaping hole through which I could push my hand through, which also explained
the explosion we heard.
And
the crash of the concrete giving way, and the thud as the suspension arm hitting
the concrete with the total weight of the fully loaded van plus the forward
momentum, and the explosion of the tire all accounted for the blood curdling
noise. The van was stuck in the concrete.
And
what I saw next brought me out in a cold sweat. I was standing on a steaming
heap of elephant dung.
We
were stuck in the middle of an elephant crossing! And, this was the time they cross!
This
incident took place two years back. We were visiting ‘Yala National Wildlife
Park’ in the southeastern tip of the island. Actually, we were on one of our
‘road trips’, where we plot plans on the go. After visiting Kataragama, we had decided
to visit Yala as well.
Those who
have been to Yala National Park must be aware that only certain classes of
vehicles with enough ground clearance are permitted in the Park. Actually the
4X4 are the ideal vehicles for that terrain.
They form convoys of about ten vehicles, which are accompanied by a
guide. As it was the end of December, the trails were damaged by the rain.
There were huge pools of muddy water in the middles of the rutted tracks.
And we were
very much disappointed as that day there weren’t enough wild animals to be seen
as we expected.
And, if you
have had the experience you would know that driving in the middle of convoy presents
certain problems. If you drive alone, over a track with an uneven surface full
of potholes, you wouldn’t speed over them. You would use caution when crossing
the muddy pools with unknown depths. However,
here the leading 4X4 light vehicle with the Guide onboard would speed over the
broken track forcing the normal street vehicles like ours, which are fully
loaded also to follow suit at the same speed.
So, the
vehicles suffer a lot beating hurtling over the broken trails. My fiber engine
guard underneath the engine dislodged on one side knocking on an edge of a
pothole and was being dragged along all the way. I couldn’t warn the guide as
honking, stopping or getting out of vehicle is not allowed. The engine guard had taken quite a beating as
I later discovered.
It was after
dusk when we returned to the ticketing office where I crept under the vehicle
and removed the guard and put it into the back of the vehicle. By the time, we set
on our 12 kilometer journey over the rutted track through the wild to the main
road, all the other vehicles had left and we were alone. And on this road,
there are several causeways.
I swung the wheel to the left to avoid the water-logged
potholes on the causeway. Suddenly, without warning, the offside of the van tilted
wildly and sank into the earth with a tremendous crash and a thud and
explosion. Everyone screamed. When I stepped out, I realized the driver's side
was unnaturally higher than normal and the front wheel was jutting out of the
wheel bay at an unusual angle.
I walked around the front to have a look. Deepa was
already out and examining the damage. The left hand side of the bumper was
resting on the concrete. The concrete under the offside wheel had caved in. The
vehicle was balanced on the lower suspension arm resting on the concrete. As
the wheel crashed through the concrete, the good Bridgestone tire I had on that
wheel had burst leaving a gaping hole through which I could push my hand
through, which also explained the explosion we heard.
And the crash of the concrete giving way, and the thud as
the suspension arm hitting the concrete with the total weight of the fully
loaded van plus the forward momentum, and the explosion of the tire all
accounted for the blood curdling noise. The van was stuck in the concrete.
And what I saw next brought me out in a cold sweat. I was
standing on a steaming heap of elephant dung.
We are stuck in the middle of an elephant crossing! And, this is the time they cross!
First, I
tried to calm everyone down although I didn’t feel so myself. That day in addition to my family, there were
others like my sister’s family, my mother, a cousin, and a friend of our
son’s. So, we had enough manpower and
woman power as well!
Though I was
asking everyone not to panic, my subconscious mind was screaming that we were
stuck in an elephant crossing at the wrong time.
And let me explain,
for the benefit of those who know about Sri Lankan causeways and wondering how on
Earth could a causeway collapse. And
also for those who don’t know what a Sri Lankan causeway is in the first place.
Causeway is
a bridge where a waterway and a highway cross each other at the same
level. In other words, the water flows
across the road in the middle of the causeway.
The road descends downwards a slanting
concrete ramp to meet the water flowing across over a flat bed of concrete and
then ascends along another upward slanting concrete ramp on the opposite end.
The water flows over only when the water level is high in flash floods. In
normal dry weather, the water is tunneled across under the flatbed.
So the chances
of a flatbed collapsing is very remote as it rests firmly on the earth and not
suspended like a normal bridge.
In this
special case, the zero maintenance of the ancient concrete, together with decades
of constant exposure to the elements had led to structural failure. Not only were
there potholes on the flatbed, the flash floods had also carved under the
concrete slab leaving it suspended unsupported at certain places. Unfortunately,
my front offside wheel was passing over one such weak point when the concrete
gave way resulting in a cave in, trapping it there, making us stranded in the
middle of an elephant crossing!
After I got
everybody to calm down, we thought of the operation at hand.
“First we’ve
got to take the vehicle out of the pothole freeing the wheel,” I said. “It’s dangerous to push it forward. So let’s
push it backwards.”
So while
some of us heaved the van out of the hole others it pushed backwards.
It didn’t
work. It was stuck.
Then we
changed the strategy.
“Let’s use
the engine power, “I said. “Few of you please get into the back of the van to
weigh it down for better friction as the back is up.”
“And as I’m
all muscle like Schwarzenegger, I’ll try to lift the wheel off the hole, who’s
going to reverse the van?” I joked.
Chunji, my
brother-in-law said, “You get to the driver’s seat, We’ll do the lifting.”
So Deepa,
being the muscle man’s wife, gritted her teeth and went to lift the van. While
a few were pushing back slightly, others were heaving the front left side of
the van by the edge of the wheel bay, window and door frames and all the
surfaces possible to take a grip on. While they rocked and heaved, I shifted
into reverse and let in the clutch while stepping smoothly on the accelerator.
At the beginning,
nothing happened.
But, in a
few seconds, the wheel climbed out of the hole. I was careful to hit brakes as
soon as I was safely out of the trap as our guys were all over the vehicle body
in various postures. After they moved out of the way, I backed the van up over to
a safer place.
One major step
was over. So far, so good.
Next is to
change the wheel. I had recently bought this sporty alloy rim set and to my
dismay, the rim of damaged wheel had also suffered some scratches.
I shone the
flashlight on the undercarriage and checked for visible damages. The brake
hoses and pipes were intact and no visible brake fluid leaks. The sump was not
leaking oil. But the lower suspension
arm was dented. The wheel alignment must be shot. So once the wheel is changed
we’ll be on the move.
Chunji and I
brought the spare wheel, wheel brace and the jack and lever to the front.
Just then, a
tractor came rattling along out of the dark and pulled up parallel to us. The
driver climbed off. We were jubilant
about this god sent Good Samaritan but this feeling didn’t last long as the
dude seemed to be drunk like a skunk and could barely keep standing.
“What’sh the
problem shir?” he asked.
I kicked the
heap of elephant dung out of the way so that I could kneel down to place the
jack underneath and explained the situation to him.
The dude
punctuated my speech with his swearing.
“You need
any help, shir?”
“Yeah, you
could have been a lot of help if you arrived a bit earlier. We practically lifted the van put of that
hole.” I said while Chunji was placing chocks under the wheels. I loosened the
wheel nuts.
“Can you
shine your headlights on this job?”
“Ooopsh,
these lights are not bright enough,” he said.
“Okay. No
problem.”
“Holy shit,
This is the @$%$#& elephant crossing. You’d better change that fast and get
the hell outta here”
“Dude, that’s
what I’m trying to do,” I said looking for a suitable spot to place the jack.
“Shtep back
shir. I can do it.”
“Don’t
worry. I can do it.”
“Shtep back
shir. I’m @#$%&^ mechanic.”
So I ‘shtepped
back’ because he was supposed to be a mechanic. All I wanted was to get the job
done, by hook or crook. However, I was watchful because the dude was stupid
drunk. And of course he was trying to jack up the engine sump.
“Dude, don’t
jack up the sump. It’ll be damaged. Jack
up the axel.”
“There
ishn’t enough room under the akshel.
“But don’t
jack up the sump. That jack must be lowered. Give it to me”
“I am a
@#$%&^ mechanic. Don’t try t o teach me about @#$&^% jacksh!”
He pulled
the jack out, clung on to the side of the van for support and climbed on to the
jack to weigh it down. The jack didn’t budge. A stream of abuse poured out of
his mouth.
“But when
you twist this valve and get on to it, it won’t do the trick because this is
not a hydraulic jack. It is a mechanical one. You have to twist the handle the
opposite way to lower it.”
“Are you
bonkers shir? When you looshen this
thingy and get on to this, thish, it’sh gotta
come down. I know my jacksh.”
We persuaded
the dude to step back and chunji and I got the wheel changed.
He was
becoming more of a hindrance than help by the minute. If it wasn’t for him, we
would have been through by this time.
“Where are
you from shir? Colombo?”
To dudes
from these remote parts anywhere in the Western Province was Colombo. Moreover,
it was a convenient answer, too.
I put
damaged wheel in the back of the van.
“Cool. Where
about in Colombo?”
“Anderson
Flats, Narahenpita.”
“Fantabuloush!
I’m planning to come to Colombo neksht week. Gimme your phone number, shir.”
Come on.
Gimme a break!
“456123,” I
invent these kind of numbers for situations like this for its easily repeatable
pattern.
“What the
hell kind of number ish that? That’sh a fake number ishn’t it?”
“Why the hell
should I do that, when you stopped by and volunteered to help us?”
“Okay, Ish
thish Mobitel or Dialog?”
I returned
the jack, wheel brace and levers to the back of the van and slammed the door
shut.
“That’s Tigo
072.”
The dude
pulled his cell phone out and was fumbling with the keys to add it to contacts.
“072… where
the@#$% ish thish goddamn zero?”
I was now
getting pissed off at this dude for his swearing and cursing, irrespective of
the ladies and children. And the kids were broadening their horizons on their vocabulary
and language usage.
“Hang on a
second,” I said to my sister. “Would you
please write this number on a piece of paper for him?”
“Okay tell
me,” she said with the pencil poised.
“Why? Write
my number will you? 072 456 123.”
She wrote it
for him.
“Shir, gimme
a ring to check if this is genuine.”
“What the
hell is this? Dude, my phone battery is dead.”
“Okay, as shoon
as I arrive in Colombo, I’m gonna call you, okay.”
“Sure dude,
I’ll be there to pick you up.”
I walked
around the van to check if we were leaving anything behind.
I sighed
with relief when the engine started.
“Shir, then
I’m gonna call you. And when you were shtranded in our territory I helped you,
and when I come to your territory, you return the favor, okay?” he screamed.
“Of course,
why ever not? Consider it’s done. Thanks
very much dude. Then Bye,”
I shifted
into first and let in the clutch. The van started climbing the concrete ramp.
“Oh, my god.
The wild elephant would’ve been better.
He was a real pain in the lower regions.”
“That’s
what. And the way he was cur…” Chunji’s voice was drowned because everybody
started scolding that dude at the same time. Only my mother who was hard of
hearing when she is not wearing the hearing aid, and she lacked the technical
knowhow to understand what damage the dude was really trying to do said,
“There
are still good Samaritans like that, who would go out of their way to help the
needed.”
I realized
the van was pulling to s side as soon as we were on the level road.
I later
realized it was just because I had mismatching alloy and the normal wheel at
the front, though I wanted to mount the spare wheel to the alloy rim, all the
tire workshops were closed for the night.
Actually
what I should have done was to have exchanged the spare wheel to one of the
rear alloy wheels and have matching wheels at the front. I didn’t have the right mentality to think
this up partly because of that wild elephant threat and partly because that
dude was driving me nuts.
Finally, we reached
home in the small hours of the morning. And I love that vehicle for not letting
us down, no matter what.
 |
| And this heron must be it! |
And what my
mother said later, “Tch, even though you underwent all that trouble and spent
so much to go to Yala and see the animals, all I saw was a common heron”
This immediately became a hit with my son.
|
| The tire a few hours before the incident |
