The day a bull hit our car

The bull came out of the blue … well out of the bush … and slammed into the side of our car. Bouncing off it tried to scramble away as we slammed on our brakes, so it then caught the front bumper as it flew over the bonnet and back out in the bush on the other side of the road. It all happened in an instant, and no occupant of the car was injured. A rather large dent was made in the back right hand door, and on the front right hand bumper, but apart from the that the car was fine. After checking all was OK, we carried on our way and on returning to Delhi the bumps were bashed out and a respray given to the affected area. It was almost as good as new. Almost. Looking around the traffic in Delhi, I could plenty of evidence of similar knocks and scrapes, and if you’ve ever experienced the Delhi traffic, you’d not be at all surprised.

But the bull incident happened many hours drive south east of Delhi, on the road to the Taj Mahal. We were crossing some farmland on a small road bordered by trees and bushes. We were not going very fast (luckily for the bull and us) so I suspect the dear animal was more shocked than injured, and more than likely it lived to run another day. By the time we got to the Taj Mahal, they had shut it down for a visit by some local dignitaries. I had to wait a year until my next Indian trip before seeing it properly, but it was worth the wait. However, the day a bull hit our car on a dusty country road somewhere in Uttar Pradesh is a day I’ll never forget.