This happened tonight around 11 PM near the 12C entrance/U-turn at Raheja Mindspace, Hyderabad, India.
My wife and I work in the same organisation, and after finishing our work we came out and were waiting for a Swiggy delivery. I had parked my scooty near the pavement and was on a call with the delivery partner, trying to explain my location because he was confused about where exactly I was.
At that point, two guys came on a scooty and stopped nearby. While I was still on the phone, the rider started staring at me continuously with an extremely serious expression. Not a casual glance. He just kept looking at me without taking his eyes off me.
I noticed it and eventually looked back as well, wondering whether he was perhaps the Swiggy delivery person or whether he knew me somehow.
Once my order arrived and the delivery was completed, I sat on my scooty and asked him calmly whether he knew me, because he had been staring at me.
He asked, “Do you know me?”
I said no, and explained that since he was continuously looking at me, I thought maybe he knew me or was the delivery person I had been waiting for.
That suddenly escalated.
He responded with “Natakaalu denguthunnava?”, roughly meaning, “Are you acting or playing games with me?”
Then he said “Kotladtaava raa?”, basically challenging me to fight, got off his scooty and started walking towards me.
My wife immediately asked me not to get involved and told me to leave it.
I was extremely angry, but at that point I realised that I had my wife beside me and a family waiting for me at home. I had absolutely no idea who this person was, whether he was drunk, carrying something, had other people nearby, or was someone accustomed to getting into street fights.
Towards the end, I just asked him, “Why are you so serious, brother? Why make such a big issue out of this?”
He said something along the lines of me trying to provoke him because my wife was behind me.
I didn't respond further. I started the vehicle and left.
I’m home safely, which obviously matters the most. But I’m still genuinely angry about it.
A part of me keeps thinking, Why should someone be allowed to intimidate another person like that for absolutely no reason? At the same time, another part of me knows that getting into a physical fight with a complete stranger at 11 PM, especially with my wife beside me, could have ended far worse than swallowing my anger and leaving.
I’m not posting this to identify the person or encourage anyone to go after him. I just wanted to vent and understand how others would have handled something like this.
Would you have walked away too? And in situations like this, where is the line between standing up for yourself and unnecessarily risking your safety and your family's peace?