Car Misadventures (Contd.)

Ladies & gentlemen, here is another part of my misadventures behind the wheel, for your viewing pleasure. You’d have thought that I was done with my ‘car’-naame, but no sirree! There’s no way I can be done when I have around 3/4ths of my life left. (As you can see, inspite of all my teething problems, I plan to live a LONG time!)

So, I am in Belgium now (… in a manner of speaking, I guess. I am NOT in Belgium right NOW, but most of my stuff is in Belgium… no that’s not true either.
Yes, my CAR is in Belgium, and since my heart is where my home is where my car is, I am in Belgium. (If this convoluted statement didn;t conclusively prove that I am a consultant, I don’t know what would have.)

And we’re back to the story after a long and pointless detour with a word from our sponsors: Free Broadband Access at Dubai Hotel.

I was back at the company’s office in Brussels and sitting down demurely for my training. Looking down at the schedule, I saw a time slot with the fleet and facility manager, Pip. I knew his speech by heart now. Here it is in bullet points (neat and concise)
• Accident rate per consultant per car per year in office: 2.2 (One asks what a .2 accident looks like)
• No matter where you run, where you hide, you cannot escape the long hands of Pip!
• He shall hunt you down like a dog. This merits another bullet point in itself.
• Keep car clean, or else.
• Repeat Bullet point number 3.

So, the first time I had heard this speech I had been quaking. This time I looked around at the others to see their reactions. Some of them had looks on their faces that said “I am NOT taking the car out!”

It was cool though. I was a relatively safe and cautious driver, if that may be applied to speed demons and I HAD notched up quite a few miles under my clutch-brake-accelerator.

That Wednesday, we went to Louvain-la-Neuve for some extra training since we needed every bit we got. On the way back, the other girl, Neeta, amongst the five new IIM-Brussels new hires asked me to sit with her while she learnt the ropes driving.

I settled into the front seat and promised myself I wouldn’t yell like last time. After 30 minutes of driving, we were about to reach the office when Neeta took it on the curb and overcorrected, landing plonk in front of the car on the side.

Bang.

In the long silence, I looked at her, and looked out the the Audi to see a French man gesticulating. Neeta parked it on the side and I went out to meet the victim. By the time, the guys had joined us from the other car (which was MY car being driven by the owner of the car Neeta was driving. His name can be Rohit. Yes, I know… It is complicated). Rohit was almost near tears. Two days and one long scratch and one dented bumper on his car.

Everyone pushed me to talk to the gentleman. Lucky me. Apparently I was the only one who had cared enough to understand French in the first place.

Both of us nodded amicably.

Neeta burst out, “It’s his fault”

The man retorted, “You want to go to the police?”

Maybe it was not THAT amicable. He was looking daggers at us.

So I called Pip to enquire what was to be done. “Fill in the mutuelle accidente”

After 10 minutes of discussion about whose fault it was, we decided to fill in the accident report for the insurance.

Guess who was elected to fill it in since she knew French? You guessed it.

In the middle of filling the form, Neeta’s boyfriend, my ex-cointern turns to me and says, “By the way, we didn’t take our licences. Can you put in yours instead?”

WTF?!

Like the idiot “Can’t-say-no” people pleaser I am, I wrote my contact and told the others that if this was the reason I didn’t get my licence, I would personally kill all of them.

The story is NOT over. The next day, Rohit and the other guys wanted to take my car because it was an automatic while the girls followed in Neeta’s car. Quaking in my stilettos, I gave them the key and begged them on bended knees to be careful. I am very scared of Pip, you see.

We got safe and sound to the office and sat down for another session of training. When at 9:30, my Blackberry beeped.

Email from Pip Everheard

I opened it gingerly.

Message subject: Your car’s headlights are on.

God just isn’t fair to me.

It’s My Way or the Autobahn

I have had my share of adventures behind the wheel. Curious folks may see how I had close encounters of the kanoon ke haath bade lambe hai variety by speeding in Belgium and stopping in Trivandrum. This is one of those adventures…

The story begins innocuously enough. I was at the fag end of one project (the middle of my internship) and champing at the bit. The next project was supposed to be in Luxembourg and I had long due weekend plans with other humans finally!
I’d asked one of my friends who was in Germany at the time if we could make plans to meet up in Cologne, which was around 200 odd km from Brussels. I shall call this friend Abhay*. He’d agreed, provided the other ‘fraud’ interns at Germany agreed but he didn’t see that would be a problem since none of them had come to Cologne. Not thinking this would be a problem, I agreed with alacrity.

In the middle, I got a phone call from Avis who informed me that they’d like to take the VW Golf Plus I had been driving around for a month and give me a Volvo C30 instead. I had visions of driving a large airbus. Time proved that these fears were indeed true.

But I am getting ahead of the story. This had been one week ago and on the Wednesday of the long awaited weekend, I eagerly asked Abhay what plans had been made.
Abhay very brightly answered, “We’re going to see the Mercedes showroom in Stuttgart. Cologne next week pakka.” (All thanks to GTalk archives)
I reproduce my exact words, “WTF? F*** You! This is my only free weekend.”

The next 5 minutes were spent cyber-yelling at each other, trying to pin the blame of wrong assumptions and stupidity. Till of course, I pulled out the greatest weapon known to womankind… guilt.

“TWO FREAKING DAYS! I HAVE BEEN ALONE IN BELGIUM FOR ONE WHOLE MONTH. Do you GET that? I was looking forward to meeting you @&$*@@& for at least two days.”

Abhay was nonplussed and totally wrong-footed, “Whoops. I know, darling,” said he, “Let me see if we can change plans or something. It’s just that there are 6 other stakeholders and I can’t make plans alone.”

I was just getting started, “Never mind. I’ll do something else. It’s not like I am wanted anyway.”
Abhay was rapidly feeling sorry for me, “What exactly were you doing all these weekends?”
“Sitting at home, walking through Brussels. What else?”
Abhay felt like a total heel, “You should have told me! Maybe we can do Stuttgart and Cologne. Can you drive till the Black Forest?”
“I said no need. I will go to Paris alone. I might even enjoy it.”
“There are wonderful places to drive.”
“Yeah. I love driving ALONE, which is why I am walking around Brussels alone. Forget it now, I have other things to do.”
“Shut up!” But curiosity got the better of Abhay, “What better things, busy Maharani Georgy?”
“I need to find something about the cosmetic industry**”
“Google?”
“Idiot. Company intranet. We are pah-sood.”
“So when can I get an appointment next?”
“Whattttteeevvvverrrr”, I drawled.
“Mochu, did you lose weight?”A complete change of subject.
“Yeah, I have been taking 3 km walks everyday because my *friends* don’t have time for me.”

A long silence ensued. Suddenly Abhay piped up, “Can you drive to Koln?”
“It depends, I have to adjust my schedule you know.”
“We have adjusted our schedule JUST for you”
“No thanks, I will stick to my old plans. Walks in Brussels, here I come! You go to Stuttgart or wherever, which is, incidentally 800 km away.”

Abhay was getting more and more depressed. The others had rejected his fine notions and I was being pigheaded. He couldn’t handle my depression any more than he could handle me kicking him. He was yet to figure out which was worse.
On the other hand, I was having a jolly good time guilting him out. Finally, it came to this…

“I am coming to Cologne, no matter what ANYONE says.”
I informed him I had no enthu for any more plans. And would he kindly get lost?
Abhay continued insisting and I finally told him I was doing this JUST for him. He thanked me profusely.
I was smiling the broad grin of a woman who had her way done.

A mail sent the next Monday sums up the weekend succinctly.
“Abhay nearly got me killed on the Autobahn. Drove 1100 km in 2 days. Conked off at the Hilton Luxembourg. Nice green place. Crappppy hotel.”

This is the story in excruciating detail…

That Friday, I got the keys to my Volvo C30. I spent 10 minutes (I kid you not!) searching for a place to insert the ignition key till I realised it was by the right side in the middle of the dashboard. The next 10 were spent staring at the road in front and gauging how exactly I was supposed to take the car out of parallel parking.
[Totally Unnecessary Aside: Incidentally, I found out something even more interesting about the car two weeks later when its battery was dead. It was this- Swedish cars only have three modes for the headlights- Dipped, Dim/Bright (Both of which are On while driving, Off while parked) and Park lights (Off while driving, On when parked). There was no way you could turn off the headlights without putting it on Park lights... this, of course, killed your batteries. The travails of using a Swedish car in countries with even minimal amounts of sunlight!]

The start to the weekend did not seem auspicious after all.
However, the irrepressible self bounced back and I packed in a week’s worth of clothes into my suitcase. I was planning to go to Cologne first and pick up Abhay. Go to Stuttgart with him, see the others and go to Weinheim for the night. The Sunday would be spent in lovely lovely Baden Baden with its Roman baths and prettiness before moving onto Luxembourg. (Bill Clinton’s comment is remembered here…”Baden Baden is so nice, they had to name it twice”)

This just goes to show something they keep saying about the best laid plans of mice and men…

I woke up well and early at 5:30 AM. Abhay had informed me that his train would reach Cologne 8:12 AM and I was supposed to be standing at the Hauptbahnhof (fancy German name for Station) with my arms outstretched and preferably some flowers. (He’s a romantic young man after all). I looked outside and it was raining merrily. I swallowed the last bit of the Orangina in the mini-fridge in my apartment and clattered downstairs in the rickety 2-man (or 1-man and 1 strolley) lift. After a bit of shuffling with my access card, I took the car out for its first long drive.

Armed with the ViaMichelin maps for Brussels-Cologne-Stuttgart-Weinheim -Baden Baden-Luxembourg, I felt reasonably happy about life. After all, what more could an intern want? Again, if fate had her way, loud bells would have been heralding the beginning of my foolishness.

The journey onwards was not too bad. It started raining heavily, but I sped forwards at crazy speeds that would have made the folks back home ground me for an entire year. At 8, I’d reached Cologne. Abhay called.
“Dude, so where is the Bahnhof?”
“It’s near the cathedral .”
“Where’s the cathedral?”
“Near the river. The whole town IS the cathedral. You can see it from the road.”
And I could. A huge Gothic monstrosity- the facade had turned black in the pollution. And somehow it was strangely moving.
I parked the car in an underground parking and ran up the stairs looking for the bahnof. And there, in an ugly concrete square, set right next to the biggest structure in Cologne, was the Bahnhof.

After some more phone calls, Abhay was found. After 90 minutes spent in the Cathedral, a walk along the Rhine (and over the opera house) and the Starbucks on the Cathedral square, we rushed into the car to ostensibly leave to Stuttgart.
All the way through the autobahn, life was fine. Abhay was having the time of his life, ribbing me about driving in Europe and scaring the locals. His words? “If you can do it, a wonderful driver like me can do so well. It’s like child’s play. Pshaw.”
Little towns whizzed past, we bid adieu to large cities, till on one of the exits we saw written- Koblenz.

On a whim, we took the exit out into the quaint little university town and fell in love with its prettiness.
We parked the car (mini-bus) along the lots near the river and paid for the parking. Abhay kept the chit in the pocket and walked away, feeling smug. I called him back, amidst laughter and pointed to him the advantages of leaving the receipt tagged to the windshield. It had been a lesson learnt the hard way after all. Abhay puffed off, a mass of hurt dignity which could only be soothed by free Indian food!

After lunch at a Pakistani restaurant (paid by me, that cheapster), the usual checking out of the local church and ramble along the Rhine, we took the car out of the parking place and drove off to find Stuttgart. But now, we suddenly realised that the ViaMichelin directions were useless.
No matter, the soldiers strove on bravely. The roads became weirder, we followed the course of the river for around 30 minutes till we figured out that we were heading in the wrong direction. After backtracking, we went on the highway and found ourselves on the way to Frankfurt AM and after over-correcting back to Cologne. Things were going weird FAST. We were completely lost.

At around 3 PM, I felt tired. It had been around 500 km later and I was rubbing my eyes. I parked on a shoulder off the autobahn and after filling some fuel at a Shell station, turned to Abhay, “Dude, can you drive? I am really tired. It’s actually quite simple, only that’s it’s a left hand drive.”
Abhay nodded his head eagerly and sat in the driver’s seat, pushing it back (I am quite short!) I collapsed on the passenger’s seat, wholly prepared to enjoy life.
The rest of the story is vividly etched in my mind… Abhay took the car by fits and starts onto the road. He was averaging around 30 kmph on the friggin’ German autobahn, where Mercs, BMWs and even Peugeots whizzed by at average speeds of 180 and the lowest legal speed was 70. Mentally I was groaning, this was a switch- getting caught for slowing on the highway must be a first.
Abhay felt confused, his machismo had evaporated and I was yelling at the top of my voice, “ABHAY, DRIVE FASTER. I DON’T WANT TO DIE.”
The car shook a little as a car zoomed past at 200 kmph. “ABHAY, TAKE THE EXIT NOW. NOW. NOWWWWWWWWWW.”
Abhay was confused, “Which one?”
“RIGHT.”
He took it onto the railing.
I started screaming as if I was on a roller coaster, “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.”
Abhay joined me in screaming.
“PUT ON THE INDICATOR.”
Abhay obliged, unfortunately for left hand drives, the levers were interchanged and the wipers started moving. He’d found his way onto the exit back to Koblenz by now.
“AHHHH. ABHAY STOP THE CAR NOW!!!”
And he did. Right on the Autobahn, he stopped the Volvo C30.
There was pin drop silence for one second. A whole line of automobiles piled up behind us, blowing on their horns as if to ask, “Which kind of MORONS stop on the autobahn?”
I started yelling again, “TAKE… AHHHH… THE… AHHHHHHHHHHHH… CAR… OUT OF THIS MESS.”
Abhay obliged and we went to a Burger King next to a fuel station. I took a deep breath and wiped my clammy hands on my jeans.
“Maybe I ought to teach you the basics. You know you nearly killed us on the autobahn?”
Abhay shook his head silently, bravado suddenly coming to the fore again, “Maybe you ought to have TAUGHT me.”
“Maybe, but you said you knew and it was easy.”
There was another silence.
“You don’t have to thank me for this. Since on the positive side, Abhay, I am sure no girl will ever scream this way for you ever again in your life.”

PS: We finally got out of Koblenz at 4 PM and had no time to go to Stuttgart, so found our way after 90 km of wrong turns at the beautiful university town of Heidelberg. Abhay regaled our classmates with stories of how he saved my car from destruction from women drivers. And of course, he drive 10 km in Baden Baden with the hand brake on.
He’s still a good friend

*Name unchanged. Abhay never needs privacy.
** Industry name changed to protect privacy.

How they Drove from Ghent to Aix-La-Machelen

Excerpt from an email to my fellow interns (who were so busy they never read it!!)

So here I was, at 9 pm, driving back from Antwerp to Brussels after a marathon session of completely getting lost on the Antwerp Ring road. There’s something very scary about coming to Antwerp and seeing two different boards, one to the east and other to the west both proclaiming “ROTTERDAM, DEN HAAG” and you have to go to the south and suddenly you are on the road to Amsterdam! No, NO. BRUXELLES!! I need Brussels.

A full day of driving through Belgium and shopping behind us, I begged my friend to keep me awake. And so we were spending our time regaling each other with information assimilation which guys condescendingly refer to as gossip. The constant flow of chatter was repeatedly punctuated by squeals of “Oh! That’s a CUTE dog!!” How endearingly girly!

So like I said, there we were travelling at a comfortable 160 kmph. And then there was this pesky car behind whose lights were filling up the rear view mirror. “Argh. Some commuters have no consideration for my eyes.” So, I went right to let them pass. And the dratted guy cut me off!!!

Whoops. Blue lights on top, red somewhere… POLICE! (“Darling! have we hidden the stolen goods?”)
The lady in the striped shirt, Pingu, volunteered, “I think it’s for someone else.”
And he’s flashing a STOP sign at us.
I took a nice deep breath and willed my clammy hands to steer to the emergency lane, “I think it’s for us.”

And so there we were 14 km from Brussels, parked on a shoulder of the road with two macho looking Politie monsieurs striding determinedly to my poor self to see how much money they could take off me.

#*$*%((^ = That was him talking French
*snort* *cough* *gargle* = That was him trying Dutch.
“Uhm, I am sorry I don’t know French.” (I can swear if you want!)
“Oh. You know Dutch.”
“No”
“Ah. So you don’t know French, you don’t know Dutch, you ONLY know how to speed, huh?”
(“Uhuh”) *blink blink*
“You know you were speeding at 180 (!!) We tried to stop you and you did not NOTICE. (“Ohh, the poor guy is hurt because of that!”) Then we had to give you the STOP sign. And we saw you laughing and chatting with your friend.”

Hmm, I wonder what “Lack of notice”, and “Laughing while on Expressway” can get you in the slammer.

“Give me the papers.”
So there went the red book and there went up a mutter “AVIS!”
No, the only birds on the expressway are the both of us.
And I COULD NOT find my licence!
“Your papers.”
“Uhm.. Well I can’t find them.”
“Oh, no licence, no drive.”
Whoops!

And to Pingu, “Do you drive?”
The poor girl looked so horrified about the prospect, the guy changed the idea, “Passport please.”
And they took it, spent sometime glancing at the visa stamps and laughing at my passport picture. (DUDE! I am young enough to be your daughter! Don’t laugh)
A general cry of “Pfaw. Indians.” went up in the air.

Meanwhile I had finally found my licence. They looked disgruntled and spent some 2 minutes comparing the two.
“I think her picture in the licence is centered better.”
“I did not know underdeveloped countries had cards for licences. We should not have shown them the way. Sigh. The march of progress is a cruel thing to us.”

For all I knew they were discussing the weather in Dutch/French. To calm my wildly beating hear, I ventured a few words, “Would you be needing anything else?”
“Nahh.”
“Of course, your money!”
I laughed politely, sounding a bit like a very upset dying cow.
“50 euros please.”
“Uhm. Do you accept a credit card?”
The younger policeman looked like he was going to burst out laughing, “Hard cash and nothing else.”
“Different currencies perhaps! I have a 100 USD with me.”
They looked flabbergasted.
“Okay we will go to the wall. (“The WHAT?”) and you can withdraw money!”
“ATM?”
“Yes.”

The guy flashed his torchlight into my eyes a few times to see if I was honest, upright, had good eyes, and well, was actually sober. Since I was all the above, he was upset. Again. Man. The chances are slipping away.
“Err. My passport?”
“NO”
Okay… You don’t have to get TETCHY and all.

So off the car went, lights all off, and here I was frantically trying to call my boss man (After all, hadn’t he said I could call him everytime I had a problem?). Did not get him. So Mr.Cointern, who was in the Middle East by now, got a nice little freaked out call. Poor chap, the only speeding he had ever done was on the ship of the desert and I was having it all: car chases, macho looking policemen playing good cop, bad cop. Etc.

Anyways, we went to the local KBC to get money out and yay! what does it say “Not authorised to withdraw 20 euros”
Sigh.
Boss Man had called by then and said “Fine, I will come to Mechelen.”

So I sidled to the duo and informed them my boss was coming and they better be scared, MISTERS.
“Oh, you don’t have money!”
I tried to look suitably shamefaced. “My boss is coming from Brussels.”
“With the money?” (For FIFTY EUROS?)
“Yes. He will be here in forty five minutes.”
“But Machelen is 14 km away!”
“Yeah, but he has a baby.”
The bad cop piped up, “No. His WIFE has a baby.”
Dutiful laughter again sounded. Ha-ha-HAH. (“MALE CHAUVINIST. I HATE being old enough to be your daughter.”)
“So this place is Michelen?”
“It’s MA-CHA-LAN, Woluwelaan 55. Tell him to come to the HQ.”

Ooooh. A Police station and all, I must be moving up in the criminal pecking order.
So after 10 minutes I found myself at the station and the bad cop grimly telling me to ring when I got the money. (“What about if I want to attend nature’s call?”)
Boss Man called back. “Shruti, are you SURE it’s Mechelen? I can’t find this on my GPS”
I ringed, got in and asked the good cop, who was looking suitably busy with some coffee, doughnuts and paperwork to spell it out. So I dutifully spelt W-O-L-U-W-E-L-A-A-N to him. On the way, I also had to spell M-A-C-H-E-L-E-N to him. (Different places, A and E, don’t ask.)

So I was back in the slammer. In this case, my Volvo C30.
After 30 minutes of general laughing and calling people up, Boss Man arrived. In shorts and slippers ) And asked for the nearest ATM.
“They’re fining me 50 euros”
“What was your speed?”
“180 apparently”
“Lady, you are lucky. If you were Belgian, they’d have confiscated your licence by now!”
So, after Boss Man putting in 40 and me giving them 10 in 2-euro coins, I was finally free to scare the locals of the place.
The parting shot came from Good Cop, “We’re letting you off easy. Next time, don’t speed! And drive to the right of the road.”

If life gives you lemons…..

Make lemonade….?
Wrong!
The lemon in question is the car I keep zipping (or trying to) across the city in!….
It’s a Fiat Uno, diesel and no power steering. Yes, it handles just like it sounds.. Like a damned mini truck.
“I don’t want to take that car anymore.” I whined to my mother. “Can I have the Palio, please?”
“Take that car and feel grateful that your cousin is letting you drive his car around Trivandrum for 3 years….”
“Well I would feel more grateful if it didn’t wrench my hands off its sockets everytime I want to turn the car around college. I’d worship it if it had power steering. I would have given it the red carpet treatment inside and out if it’s ac and stereo were working…”
“It takes you to college everyday.”
I was continuing unabashed “…. of course, it sometimes feels like a bus too…. especially when all the girls pile in!”
“Then you deserve the Uno.”
“WHAT?? I have been driving for soooo long! You still treat me like a kid…”
Minor tantrum follows!
“Mom! You never sleep when I am driving. You keep looking at the speedometer and I hear coughs when it hovers around 70-80! You want me to drive like a granny at 55 on the NH!”
I looked around and my mother has vanished into thin air. I picked up the car keys all the while grumbling about my perceived problems.
Before I stepped into the elevator, mom popped out with a final warning “And remember, never switch off the car for a small interval of time. It doesn’t start once the engine has overheated..”

The car reached college without thankfully going into its characteristic outbursts(!) of sputters and false starts.
Eighth semester has been a blessing of sorts. After contemplating chocolates handed out by the wayfarers of S8,AE, the girls spent some time playing games and then, realising we need to “shift ho” in the immortal words of Mr.Wooster, did just that.
(If the previous sentence made your head ache, I recommend aspirin!)
Things went swimmingly till the Driving Miss. Crazy crowd reached Overbridge. Seeing 70 seconds on the clock, I switched off the car (to do my bit for the environment!) and began talking to my friends…
At the 50th second mark, I realised that the jig was up and the car wouldn’t start! I suddenly realised how a bank robber might feel when his getaway car didn’t get away as quickly as he’d hoped he would!
“Err, girls, the car will not start.”
My poor friends, they had so much trust in me!
“Nah, Shrutz, we have so much trust in you. The car will start.”
I was praying for a miracle of St. Lourdes now. “Please god, you and I have a deal, remember?”
3…2….1….
I shifted the car into neutral and hope the natural gradient of the road was steep enough for it to glide past the bridge and onto some space where I could park.
“Yay! It’s working.” was on my lips as the car rolled to a standstill on that treacherous piece of land over railways line known to all and sundry as Overbridge.
“Dratted car!!!!”, said I.
“PAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRPP PARP PARP” went the KSRTC bus behind me.
All four of us were the shade of red that most tomatoes aspire to be.
“Please, let there be a policeman.”
And, voila! One materialised and demanded if I didn’t know how to drive a car.
I was hoping he wouldn’t ask if I was old enough to drive and make a fuss “Err, the car’s not starting.”
“Not starting? Did you try to start it??”
“No, I tried my new Vedic hypnotism method on it…”
I swallowed of my sarcastic retort and mumbled, “Well, I did.” To accentuate my point, I turned the ignition again and stared at the temperature gauge that was steady at 110 celsius.
“Okay, we need to push it!”, the policeman took charge.
The girls looked at each other, sighed and climbed out of the car, while I shifted gears into neutral again and disengaged the clutch.
The car rolled gentled along the bridge as the city bus accelerated past with a disdainful puff of smoke that made pedestrians cough and gathered momentum down the incline.
The guys were watching the spectacle of girls pushing a car and I was wishing I was somewhere else, like maybe with them, laughing at spectacle of the girls pushing the car.
People came up with innovative ideas. “Call a mechanic!”
“Duh?”
“Well, the car will start properly once it has cooled down.”
“Is this a car or a steam engine?”
“Uhm, I’ll ask the Fiat guys?”

All I can say is, parking a steam engine must have been a b*tch!