Cab driver Sanjay Yadav, having a lean Friday last week, jumped at the offer from his roommate to pick up a woman passenger from Mulund, not knowing he was about to witness another jump that would be stamped on his memory and make him a social media star for his ‘Spiderman-like’ reflexes.
She wanted to go to Atal Setu to drop some holy icons into the sea.They reached around 7pm, Yadav stopped and told the woman to hurry, but his heart skipped a few beats when she climbed over the crash barrier. The siren of a police patrol made him frantic. And then, she jumped. But Yadav’s hand was faster than the pull of gravity. Yadav’s hand shot through the barrier, grabbed her by the hair, and held on till three cops relieved him. “I don’t think I have done anything extraordinary. Life is precious and one should not give it up so easily.”
The sharp edge of the barrier gashed his hand but he held on, for the next 16 seconds until a traffic policeman grabbed the woman’s left wrist and eased some of the strain on his arm. A week on, Yadav is a hero in Mumbai as well as his distant Jharkhand village. “I had shared newspaper clippings with my family and they are very proud of me,” he says.
Hero without a cape
It was a regular day for 31-year-old Yadav, a cab driver who shares a 15×10 sq-ft room with four others in Thane. He donned his driver’s regulation white shirt and left home at 9am, not knowing he would be a social media sensation within 24 hours. By 3pm, Yadav had completed 3-4 rides and was sitting down for a cup of chai when a roommate, also a cab driver, buzzed him to pick up a woman passenger as he already had a ride.
The 57-year-old woman lived in Mulund, not far from Thane, and wanted to head south to the sea bridge, to immerse pictures of deities. “I picked her up from Mulund around 5.30pm,” recalls Yadav. “As soon as she sat in the car, she said she wanted to go to Atal Setu to immerse pictures of deities. I told her we should go somewhere else as cars are not allowed to stop on the bridge, but she was insistent. She said she wouldn’t take more than five minutes.”
Long route, short fuse
Yadav drove from Mulund to Atal Setu via Airoli, making small talk on the way. “She asked me how I knew the other driver, and I said we were roommates. She then asked about my family… Everything seemed normal until my phone beeped. She covered both ears and asked me to turn down its volume, although it wasn’t set to high in the first place,” Yadav says. “What’s the matter,” he asked her, and she said she couldn’t stand loud sounds: “The volume that is normal for you is too loud for me.”
Not what he bargained for
It was 7pm by the time they reached Atal Setu. The woman told Yadav to stop the car at the earliest. “She wanted me to park it at an angle so that no one would see what she was doing. I stopped near the exit for Shelghar toll plaza and asked her to hurry,” says Yadav. He assumed she had pictures and figurines of deities in her bag which she would simply drop over the bridge, but he became alarmed when she climbed the crash barrier and started dropping them one by one. “I got out of the car and asked her what she was doing. I was panicking because I was breaking the law by stopping on the bridge, and by climbing on to the wall she was taking a major risk,” says Yadav.
Split-second save
The woman dropped two pictures into the sea, and kept looking around. Then, perhaps to distract Yadav, she asked him for some water to sprinkle on the pictures. “I kept telling her to hurry up but she was firm,” he says. The water bottle he had on the passenger side was empty. As he began walking towards the other side of the car, he heard a traffic patrol van speeding towards them, its siren blaring.
“We both heard the siren and panicked. In the seconds that I took my eyes off her to look at the approaching van, the woman, who had been straddling the wall, swung her legs out. Then she jumped. And I stretched my hand and caught her by the hair,” says Yadav.
Cops to the rescue
The police unit arrived just in time. Constables Lalit Amarshet, Kiran Mhatre and Yash Sonawane pulled over at the instant when the woman turned and jumped off the bridge. They climbed over the railing and caught hold of her. Pulling her to safety took more than a minute. They took her to the Ulwe police station in Navi Mumbai and called her family.
Police say the woman told them she didn’t intend to jump into the sea and was immersing the pictures as part of some ritual. “She claimed she panicked on seeing the police van and jumped,” an official said.
Yadav didn’t get a chance to speak to her at the police station, but police and her family thanked him for saving her life. “They (her family) held my hand and kept thanking me. They said I was a ‘farishta’ (angel) to them,” says Yadav. The cops, after thanking Yadav, warned him never to stop on the bridge again. Yadav says if he gets a chance to talk to the woman, he will tell her to not lose hope. After all, hope is what keeps him going in big city six years after he left Jharkhand to earn his livelihood.
She wanted to go to Atal Setu to drop some holy icons into the sea.They reached around 7pm, Yadav stopped and told the woman to hurry, but his heart skipped a few beats when she climbed over the crash barrier. The siren of a police patrol made him frantic. And then, she jumped. But Yadav’s hand was faster than the pull of gravity. Yadav’s hand shot through the barrier, grabbed her by the hair, and held on till three cops relieved him. “I don’t think I have done anything extraordinary. Life is precious and one should not give it up so easily.”
The sharp edge of the barrier gashed his hand but he held on, for the next 16 seconds until a traffic policeman grabbed the woman’s left wrist and eased some of the strain on his arm. A week on, Yadav is a hero in Mumbai as well as his distant Jharkhand village. “I had shared newspaper clippings with my family and they are very proud of me,” he says.
Hero without a cape
It was a regular day for 31-year-old Yadav, a cab driver who shares a 15×10 sq-ft room with four others in Thane. He donned his driver’s regulation white shirt and left home at 9am, not knowing he would be a social media sensation within 24 hours. By 3pm, Yadav had completed 3-4 rides and was sitting down for a cup of chai when a roommate, also a cab driver, buzzed him to pick up a woman passenger as he already had a ride.
The 57-year-old woman lived in Mulund, not far from Thane, and wanted to head south to the sea bridge, to immerse pictures of deities. “I picked her up from Mulund around 5.30pm,” recalls Yadav. “As soon as she sat in the car, she said she wanted to go to Atal Setu to immerse pictures of deities. I told her we should go somewhere else as cars are not allowed to stop on the bridge, but she was insistent. She said she wouldn’t take more than five minutes.”
Long route, short fuse
Yadav drove from Mulund to Atal Setu via Airoli, making small talk on the way. “She asked me how I knew the other driver, and I said we were roommates. She then asked about my family… Everything seemed normal until my phone beeped. She covered both ears and asked me to turn down its volume, although it wasn’t set to high in the first place,” Yadav says. “What’s the matter,” he asked her, and she said she couldn’t stand loud sounds: “The volume that is normal for you is too loud for me.”
Not what he bargained for
It was 7pm by the time they reached Atal Setu. The woman told Yadav to stop the car at the earliest. “She wanted me to park it at an angle so that no one would see what she was doing. I stopped near the exit for Shelghar toll plaza and asked her to hurry,” says Yadav. He assumed she had pictures and figurines of deities in her bag which she would simply drop over the bridge, but he became alarmed when she climbed the crash barrier and started dropping them one by one. “I got out of the car and asked her what she was doing. I was panicking because I was breaking the law by stopping on the bridge, and by climbing on to the wall she was taking a major risk,” says Yadav.
Split-second save
The woman dropped two pictures into the sea, and kept looking around. Then, perhaps to distract Yadav, she asked him for some water to sprinkle on the pictures. “I kept telling her to hurry up but she was firm,” he says. The water bottle he had on the passenger side was empty. As he began walking towards the other side of the car, he heard a traffic patrol van speeding towards them, its siren blaring.
“We both heard the siren and panicked. In the seconds that I took my eyes off her to look at the approaching van, the woman, who had been straddling the wall, swung her legs out. Then she jumped. And I stretched my hand and caught her by the hair,” says Yadav.
Cops to the rescue
The police unit arrived just in time. Constables Lalit Amarshet, Kiran Mhatre and Yash Sonawane pulled over at the instant when the woman turned and jumped off the bridge. They climbed over the railing and caught hold of her. Pulling her to safety took more than a minute. They took her to the Ulwe police station in Navi Mumbai and called her family.
Police say the woman told them she didn’t intend to jump into the sea and was immersing the pictures as part of some ritual. “She claimed she panicked on seeing the police van and jumped,” an official said.
Yadav didn’t get a chance to speak to her at the police station, but police and her family thanked him for saving her life. “They (her family) held my hand and kept thanking me. They said I was a ‘farishta’ (angel) to them,” says Yadav. The cops, after thanking Yadav, warned him never to stop on the bridge again. Yadav says if he gets a chance to talk to the woman, he will tell her to not lose hope. After all, hope is what keeps him going in big city six years after he left Jharkhand to earn his livelihood.
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