The brand new car, Mahindra Thar Roxx, which recently rolled out of the showroom (window; quite literally!) in east Delhi’s Nirman Vihar is one miraculous escape that the internet just can’t stop talking about. But alongside all the chatter and chit-chat on how a woman was behind the wheels comes the survivor’s truth that it was actually not the case.
“I was not driving, my husband was,” says Maani Panwar, 29, a make-up artist by profession. However, she couldn’t escape the barrage of sexist memes that followed, blaming the “female” driver for the car’s fall.
Also Read| Woman wanted to crush lemon under new Thar, ends up toppling it off Delhi showroom
What happened?
Indirapuram-based Maani went along with her husband, Pradeep to the showroom to get the car on her birthday, September 8. While performing a traditional ritual, the couple placed a lemon in front of the wheels of the vehicle and drove forward to crush it but accidentally the car sped up and jumped from the first floor smashing the window of the showroom and landing on the road in a toppled state. Fortunately, all those inside the vehicle — Maani, her husband, her sister, and a salesperson all came out safe without any serious injuries.
“Maut saamne dikh gayi thi,” recalls Maani, adding, “Family mein bhi first two-teen days everyone realised ki kya hadsa hua hai.” However, now she adds on a lighter note, “Ab toh sab bahut mazak bana rahe hain. Sab aise keh rahe hain: ‘Nimbu zinda hai ke nahi’ or ‘Didi ki galti nahi, nimbu ki galti hai’. I feel what had to happen is over, and we cannot shut up everyone.”
Misinformation and meme-fication
Setting the record straight, Maani tells us, “Main logon ko batana chahti hun ki ek galat video viral hone lagi thi, which alleged that a person died due to the accident me and my husband were involved in. To address that, I had recorded a video and uploaded it on my Instagram clarifying that no one was hurt because of us.”
Her post, however, received comments like: ‘Papa ki pari hawa mein udi’, ‘Nimbu zinda hai ke nahi’, and several other harsh jibes. Eventually, she “turned off the comments” but felt it was required to keep the video online to inform people about the truth. Still, Maani is upset that a girl’s face has been super imposed on the video of hers.
“Mera face release nahi hua tha pehle lekin dusri videos se ek ladki ka face add on kar rahe hain. That girl has also reached out to me about this situation. Maine isko clear karne ke liye ab video bana rahi hun,” she says, adding, “We will claim insurance and hopefully it won’t be a problem because we have all the documents in place.”
