He hailed an ambulance, which sounds strange to a Westerner, although in India, one hails an ambulance like a taxi, a practice sometimes abused by wealthier citizens, who use the stratagem to avoid epic traffic jams. The ambulance drivers would not, at first, take me to a hospital unless this Samaritan — Sunny Kumar Kangotra, an aid worker at a private foundation — came with them.

They were concerned about being blamed by the police for a thrashed-up foreigner, and they wanted Sunny to take responsibility for me.

But doing so meant he would have had to leave behind his motorcycle, one of the two most valuable things he owned. After a lot of haggling, he offered to follow behind the ambulance, but the crew worried he would race off.

So Sunny negotiated a compromise in which he would give them his second-most valuable possession: his smartphone, as a guarantee that he would stay with them until they got to the hospital. Since the phone meant a month’s salary to him, he did not give it up lightly.

The driver for the New York Times bureau in Delhi, Jagmohan Singh, had already realized something was wrong when I had not returned within the hour I had promised. Jag, as we all called him, has worked for multiple bureau chiefs over the past 20 years and he remains friends with many of them. He began doggedly ringing the cellphone I had in my pocket until finally someone answered it and told him I was on my way to Moolchand Hospital.