Last Saturday while I was at my MBA classes, I had parked my bike outside the college gate as there was no parking allowed in the college premises due to some construction work. I have been attending the classes since last 3 weeks before this past Saturday and during the 1st week itself I had asked the security guard whether it is safe to park outside the gate and he said there shouldn’t be any problem. So as usual, last Saturday I parked outside my college gates at my designated spot. My friend also parked outside the gate but on the right side of the gate, while I was parked on the left.
So our lectures are going on and all of the sudden the professor gets a call from the college admin authorities saying that the police towing vehicle is here and they are towing vehicles parked outside the gate. As soon as we got to know this, we all ran down to the gate to check on our bikes, cars etc. In the mean time it had started to rain heavily. I came outside the gate and saw that my bike was parked where I had left it and it wasn’t towed, while my friend was not so lucky and his new Royal Enfield got towed away. We asked the security guard where they had taken my friends bike and he said that they have just left like 5 mins back and we should be able to see them on the main road. Since my bike was still there, we decided to give chase to the towing vehicle. By this time, it was pouring cats and dogs and we were totally drenched. After riding the bike in the direction pointed by the security guard, we saw the towing vehicle on the road. We chased the vehicle, overtook it and parked it right in front of the towing truck.
With the rain pouring very heavily, the traffic was already very slow moving and with me parking right in front of the towing truck and not allowing it go any further, traffic started piling on the road. While I waited on the bike, my friend went to negotiate with the traffic cop and requested him to hand over the bike to us. At first he refused and asked us to come to the police station and take the bike from there. But my friend not relenting and the vehicles honking from behind probably made him change his mind. He asked us to move a little ahead so he could park on the side and give us the bike. After parking the towing truck on the side, we were asked to pay a fine – which we duly paid and he handed over the bike to us. We took the bike and brought it back to the college.
The scenes at the college was chaotic at the best. There were many students and professors who had got their vehicles and were scrambling to find a parking spot and wanted to park in the college premises. Some of them even went and met the principle of the institution, but she didn’t give the permission to park the vehicles in the college campus. In the meanwhile, another towing truck passed by and we stopped the truck and asked the traffic inspector to tell us where do we park. He told us simply to look at the parking board. He said you were parked in the no parking zone and hence your vehicles got towed away. He asked us to park on the opposite side of the road where we could park without having to worry about our vehicles getting towed away.
We parked on the opposite side of the road, but kept checking our bikes every 2 hours just to ensure that it is still there and not towed away. Least to say it was a very interesting Saturday.
My thoughts...My story 