I posted this in an another thread as well, but sometimes asking a stranger for a lift can leave you with the most beautiful of stories.

https://www.amazon.in/Wasted-Hour-Je.../dp/B075MBVCSG

This (free) short story by Jeffrey Archer might warm your heart up, in all this cynicism.

In this case, the tendency to look through rose coloured glasses is highly inadvisable, because the consequences are too dire, either in India or abroad.

A case of a person who did something no localite would do was when an ex-pat professor of a prestigious university in Bangalore continued his regimen of going cycling every morning, on the state highway. Sadly, his family had to be informed of his being mowed down by a bus.

This thread brings one funny slightly off topic thought to my head.

How boring and non existent would the Jack Reacher book series be if no-one gave him a lift !!

The trick is to make contact with someone who knows the landscape, has years of experience in the situation and tap into that experience.

During a recent holiday, we went to the Bouqueria Market in Barcelona with a friend. After drooling over all the expensive fruit, we returned to his flat where he brought out trays of cherries (the size of golf balls!) and peaches (like Dwayne Johnson’s fists!), all bought from the friendly neighbourhood Pakistani grocer, at throw away prices. The tip? They are all past expiry date! Have you tasted cherries and peaches over ripe? Like my personal fruit supplier in Lucknow used to say, “Amrut! Nectar! Food of the gods!”

Next, in Paris, we were lined up outside a Vietnamese restaurant for lunch, when a Frenchman, on a bicycle, waved us over to another queue, saying, in English (!): “This one is better!” He was right.

So it is not about strangers, per se. It is about the wisdom of assessing the situation, about not being clueless. Don’t ask me about the horrific experiences of road rage in the US! Hint: they involve guns...

Just providence. But, this is today's article on NDTV - https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/us-w...-lateststories

My God that was an amazing story and a great read!
What a stupendous series of concatenations of circumstances and tenuous connections!

Too much risk nowadays in helping others on the road!

By continuously reading and seeing videos of how people trick others, it has become even harder to sell a vehicle and give test drives to potential buyers. It's that risky these days.

I remember once I gave a lift to a guy, and after he got inside the car, it became clear that he was drunk. He started talking excessively, and in a few minutes, his behavior turned rude as he began abusing people and later even became aggressive with me, attempting to touch things in my car. I had to stop the car in a crowded place in Padappadi near a tea shop, and I told him it was the last stop. Thankfully, he left, but it made me realize that continuing the journey might have led to a big fight. That incident made me reconsider being a good Samaritan, as it could have landed me in jail. Nowadays, it's hard to trust anyone; the risk is just too much in India.

I noticed something in India 5 decades ago when asking strangers for help. I wanted to go to the American Express in Madras at Mount Road. I asked at the hotel where the Amex office was. He said 2 furlongs straight on, so I decided to walk.
I walked about a kilometer and asked again and got the same answer, 2 furlongs. Many "2 furlongs" came and went until I finally took a rickshaw and he used about 30-40 minutes to drop me off. I started walking about 09:00 in the morning and I got there at about 13:00 in burning hot sun.
It seemed a common answer at that time. I experienced this all over India. Even when I went to Thakhazi I asked a guy at the bus stop where Ettil House was and he told to walk 2 furlongs on a road.
In Delhi where ever I was, the Indian Coffee house at Conaught Place was always 2 furlongs away.

I used to hear it back when I was a kid, especially from grandparents. From what I understood back then, a furlong roughly translates to a 4-5 minute walk.

Officially, a furlong is:

Source: Wiki

So here it goes, for me asking a help from a stranger Which in the end was Kind of funny;

We were driving to Jordan for the vacation and my SUV was completely packed with camping stuff, which we were supposed to use at Wadi Rum. Evening we reached at the border and soon after crossing the border/doing the immigration, I noticed that I have a rear flat tyre.

Then I realized, I have to remove all of my luggage from the boot to retrieve the hydraulic jack which was in the seat well below and I was in no mood of doing that.

I noticed a small car adjacent to me who's driver was looking at our condition and meantime his passengers had gone inside the terminal for immigration. I reached out to him (Since he was already waiting for his passengers) and requested to give me his jack, so that I can quickly change my tyre and as a good Smartian he gave me his jack. It was a screw jack, Installed the jack in the right position and started picking up the SUV. While the car went up almost 90% (tyres still sticking to the ground), the threads of his jack gave away. And now the Jack handle was rotating freely, it was neither going up, nor coming down. Jack was Stuck in place.

So, what next now, I have to pull out all of my luggage from the boot (Which I never intended to in the first place) and retrieve the hydraulic jack underneath, raised the car with the hydraulic jack which will be above the screw jack level, and removed his jack out. Saw that threads weren’t damaged, but it had reached at the extreme limit of his jack, gave back his jack.

Eventually asking for the help made us lose some considerable time at the border and also for him and his passengers to wait till he got back his screw jack. And the whole saga ended with a waste of couple of hours at the border.

Negative stories are more intriguing