Have faith

So, yesterday Yasir was on his way to pick me up from the office. And unfortunately, he drove into this god-awful, larger than life pothole. Then he picked me up, and as we were moving along, his radio started acting screwy, sometimes switching off on its own then on again. So at the traffic light, Yasir decided to turn his engine off, hoping magically that the radio would stop acting funky. Finally, he turned the engine on again, and what else should happen but it wouldn't start. Now, this little situation isn't a huge deal, of course....if not for the fact that we BOTH couldn't call out. I had lost my phone a few days earlier, so I was sans mobile, and Yasir's phone was barred because it had exceeded his limit.

So there we were, in the middle of a three-lane road, with cars honking at us and people shooting dirty looks. We were nowhere near a petrol station, let alone a car workshop. Yasir then tries pushing the car, but we were on an uphill road, so the car just rolled back down again. Great. Then I suggested we try asking for help; maybe borrow a cell phone from someone. Because our car had stopped near a traffic light,we could knock on someone's window and ask to borrow a phone when the light turned red. So Yasir then proceeds to step outside to ask for help (while lighting up a cigarette, of course) and he catches the attention of a motorist two metres away, by making exaggerated hand movements to signal that he wanted to borrow a cell phone. And the amazing thing is, this man (lets call him KS for Kind Stranger, shall we) straight away turns back and stops his bike to help us out. He then proceeded to get behind the car with Yasir and push the car to the side of the road, so we wouldn't be blocking other cars. He then handed his mobile phone to Yasir, who started calling Proton right away. So at this point, KS pops the hood without us asking and starts tweaking around with whatchamacallithowthehellshouldIknow and suddenly the car literally feels like it was 'brought back to life'. At this point I felt the angels from heaven looking down on us, and I swear KS was surrounded by a halo. I tried starting the car, and hey presto - it starts! Yasir then gets in the car to check things out, all the while still holding on to KS' handphone (I actually felt jumpy, scared that KS might have thought the whole our-car-broke-down was just a ploy to speed off with his Nokia), but KS looked perfectly calm as I called my mom to tell her to check in on us in 10 minutes should the car decide to be an ass and break down again.

Finally, when we were confident enough that Yasir's Gen-2 was nursed back to health, I thanked KS profusely, almost kissing his feet. He gave us a warm smile, shook Yasir's hand, said it really was not a big deal, got on his bike and rode off. It really may have not seemed like a big deal to anyone else, but to me, when you read the stories in the papers everyday and you're constantly reminded of how evil humans can get...a random stranger that goes out of his way to help you out of a tough situation reminds you that there is, after all, some good left in this world.