Tata Indi-gone

Our beloved car, the Tata Indigo, had an interesting experience of its own last week. Andi and I had decided to check out one of the new malls that are springing up across Hyderabad. We parked the car and went inside to do a little shopping. Once done, we went up to the top level and had ourselves a relaxing lunch in one of the restaurants there. Finishing our food we decided it was time to head back home, so got down to the ground level, walked outside and....the car was gone!

Mild to not-so-mild panic set in. Where was it? Did we park somewhere else? Had it been stolen? If it had been stolen, who do we speak to?

There was a security guard standing near where we were and we asked him if he had seen anything. Although his English was not great, we were able to decipher that indeed the police had been in the area and had picked up a car. We inquired as to whether that car was a Tata Indigo and he gave the affirmative. It sounded like our car had been towed.

We jumped in the nearest auto and asked the driver to take us to the traffic police (which is different to the regular police). The first policeman we spoke to said that the shopping centre was actually on a border of two different police jurisdictions, and that our car was not with him, but could be with another office. So we jumped back in the auto and headed off again.

Once we got there, we saw our poor little car abandoned with two other cars that looked like they had been there since biblical times.

Now, in the UK, if this sort of thing were to happen, there would not only be a mountain of paperwork/admin, but also a hefty fine...not so in India...I signed two different slips, paid Rs. 300 (about £3.50/$7) and we were given the keys. We weren't even told "don't do this again" or "be careful next time", we were simple given a "here are your keys" and "thank you"!