The Perfect Flat Tire

Today we drove from Puri to Bhubaneshwar, our last stop before a week in Kerala. A bustling city of almost a million, this is the capital of Orissa. It's the usual Indian urban mix of slums, shops, colleges, mansions, and chaos.

The drive was the usual honking horn-cow-countryside-colorful sari thing until we got to the edge of town, a noisy boulevard with dingy shops on both sides. At that point our driver Kuna pulled over and stopped. Our guide, after a few words with him, announced that we had "a leaking tire."

Kuna stopped at a large bucket of suspicious-looking water...

I figured we'd be stuck here for somewhere between eternity and forever. And there was absolutely nothing I could do. We told ourselves we were having an authentic Indian experience, and had some food we'd brought along (bananas and bread from breakfast, cashews from Puri's market, dried apricots from California).

Meanwhile, Kuna methodically took a jack from the jeep, jacked up the front end, unscrewed each lugnut, and hauled the wheel off the car. I figured we'd be here for an hour or two. No, said our guide, less than 30 minutes. "30 minutes real, or 30 minutes Indian time?" I asked. No, 30 minutes really, he said.

We had stopped in front of a dark, ugly shop that sold auto parts, including tires. By the time Kuna had the wheel off we'd attracted a crowd, not to mention the shop's half-dozen hangers-on out front. Somehow or other, the tired got fixed or replaced while we ate (off to the side, leaning against a broken doorway 30 feet away). It really had been just a half-hour--a tremendous feat in this land of ineffable delays, incompetence, and fatalism.

Our snack over, the wheel mounted back on, the car jacked down, we gathered ourselves to reboard our again-trusty mount. Kuna walked toward the shop to pay someone, and on the way back stopped at a large bucket of suspicious-looking water to rinse his hands. I quickly reached into the car, pulled out the towel we'd been using for this and that, and raced over to the bucket. In front of a dozen men, I held out the towel and dried his hands. He looked confused, embarrassed, and pleased, all at once.

I then walked him to the repaired tire, gently kicked it, and took his right hand in mine. "Good man," I said loudly, smiling at the crowd, "good man." He beamed.

He deserved it. I was nobody. I knew nothing of value. And it cost me nothing to admit it.