THIS or THAT Episode 3: Road Rage

This year my theme for the #MyFriendAlexa campaign is “This or That”. Here, I’ll be putting up a day-to-day scenario that mostly all of us face sometime or the other, along with two different ways in which we can react towards those scenarios – either “This” or “That”. So, let’s look at today’s scenario!

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The clouds were scattered in the sky with slight drizzling while four friends drove in their car with soothing music “…Ilahi mera jee aaye aaye…” playing along. Sameer and his college friends had been planning to meet and catch up since the past three months, but as we all know, “something or the other” kept coming up. So, finally here they were, as Sameer drove carefreely, they shared the nitty-gritty details about their respective lives. Suddenly, an SUV overtook them with blaring horn and the driver screamed at the top of his voice, “abey gaadi chalani nahi aati kya &#$@*?” (Don’t you know how to drive?), taunting Sameer on his slow driving pace.

Let’s see the two possible reactions Sameer could choose from:

THIS:

Sameer gets offended and feels embarrassed in front of his friends. He thinks he would look like a weakling in front of them if he didn’t answer back the guy who overtook them. He speeds up his car to come parallel to the SUV and wails with, “abey tu apni driving pe dhyaan de @%!^#!!” (You focus on your driving!!). The exchange of “sweet words” continues until the road gets narrower and Sameer has to give up on following this guy. Sameer stays outraged for the entire time while driving and almost ditches ramming into a vehicle, twice.

THAT:

Sameer takes a second before reacting and shuns the words uttered by the SUV driver by being understanding and says, “he must be in a hurry”. As he comes parallel to the SUV, he passes a warm smile to the driver and gestures a “sorry” as if apologizing for getting in the way. The other driver too calms down and drives off. Sameer and his friends continue talking about their work and life and it’s a happy evening.

Well, I’ve been an outraged driver for long. I can’t stand when people don’t follow rules on the road and often blame others for being on the wrong side! These people still annoy me, but I’ve come to realize how I increased my blood pressure, and none of what I said in anger made any difference to them.

Once when a stranger apologized for being wrong on the road when I was behind the steering, I was amazed! His politeness caught me off guard and I didn’t know how to react to that! That’s when I realized, being polite can leave a deeper impression on people than blurting out “sweet words” in outrage.

Do let me know if you’ve been caught in such a situation, and if yes, what was your reaction – THIS or THAT?

You may read other episodes here:

Episode 1: Late to the Party!

Episode 2: Crisp White Shirt

Episode 4: Out of Love or out of Fear?

I’m taking my blog to the next level with Blogchatter’s #MyFriendAlexa!