Darr ke Aage Jeet hai.

"I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear."
    Nelson Mandela.

It is OK to be afraid, it is not something to be ashamed of because we all are afraid of something or the other. Few are afraid of heights, few of water and it could be anything. But that fear is not or should be not the main concern instead what we can do to win it should be our concern. And who fights back and takes risk to overcome the fear is victorious. We all come across such moments in our life where we stand face to face without biggest fear and yet we have to do something because it is either us or the fear we have been facing. I would like to share one of my real life situations where I had to risk not only my life but the lives of my whole family in order to get over the fear we were in and this incident is a recent one and true.

It was a sudden decision that we were going to Bodhgaya for a short vacation of a week. Bodhgaya is approximately 270 kilometers from Deoghar my current city. So we were supposed to leave the town by 7 in the morning because we didn’t want to be caught in the heat of the scorching sun. We packed our bags, food for the journey and fueled up our vehicle and were all set to leave for Bodhdaya the very next morning. I could hardly sleep that night because had to finish few of my pending works before I could leave for the vacation. It was around 1 in the morning that I decided to wind up my work and thought of taking a short nap as we were leaving at sharp 7 in the morning.

My alarm ticked at six and I was fully awake within no time. To my surprise everyone was ready and we stated our journey by 7:15 almost at the time we decided. Suddenly the car stopped nearby Kodarma and refused to start whatsoever we tried. We opened the front panel and found that the engine was fried and the reason was that the radiators coolant pipe leaked and the engine was on fire (not literally) and it needed to cool down and the coolant pipe needed to be replaced before we could have moved any further. It was so tough to find the required parts but we manage to get them anyhow but this all took around three of four hours of our precious time and we ran late from our schedule. But that wasn’t the only problem there but the biggest problem was the “Rajauli Ghati” which was in our way. This is a 21 km ghati consisting of twisted roads and sharp turns. This ghati is also feared due to illegal activity that is carried out somewhere between the forest and every night many vehicles are looted on this way. So we were about to be in some serious trouble. There was no going back and there were no hotels to stay too. Thus only way was to cross this ghati.

We were half way in the ghati and it was so dark and dense that it felt like 8 at night although it was just six in the evening. Suddenly we heard multiple gunshots and according to my assumption the shots were fired from the direction we were traveling towards. I pulled up the car and was so confused what to do next. Before I could think anything I heard few gunshots again and more clear this time. It suddenly felt that we were all going to die here today. I don’t know what got into me and I enchanted “Darr kea age hin jeet hai”. Join the Campaign at Facebook here https://www.facebook.com/mountaindewindia

Within no time I was using all my skills and experience about driving and was playing need for speed in reality. Although it was too risky but had no other option anyway we were going to die so why not we die trying. Within no time we almost crossed the ghati and found few police vans at the ending of the ghati. We were asked to stop and so we did. After a few questions and answers the policeman said that he salutes my courage but it was a very risky thing that I did. All I said him taking sips of my mountain dew was “Sir kaleja sab ka sukhta hai aur darr sab ko lagta hai per darr kea age hin jeet hai”.

Although my words didn’t impress him too much but we were safe and sound and all because of the risk we took. And our safety was all it mattered. We rested that night in a motel and continued our journey the next morning.