Raja's Blog Space

When I landed in Kzoo, a small town in Michigan state, little did I know about this country's over dependence on cars. Once I reached the university's off campus apartments, I realized we needed a car to go out anywhere, except for walking to the school. I still remember walking to a K Mart 3 miles from my apartment, to buy my first electronic organizer. Don't ask me how I used it. I hardly did! I once tried for a hitchhike (lift), the driver in that car hastily raised the window glass, I felt like a thug and soon realized people are terrorized by such requests in this country. For each and every grocery trip, we had to depend on some senior student with a car. Frequency of the buses were not too friendly for us to rely on.

I lived with 3 other roommates, and my neighboring apartments were also filled with university students, of which the apartment with 5 desi students had this very interesting person called Swami! Swami is famous for his daring adventures. The only thing he has not attempted so far is jumping of the rainbow bridge in Niagara. Within the first few months of college, one evening, Swami showed up in my apartment with a car sale ad from the university bulletin board. I asked him whether he was joking. But he seemed quite serious about that car ad. It was a red color 1987 Ford Escort hatchback model listed for $400. I told Swami that I did not have much money to spare for a car. Swami came up with a very innovative partnership venture to reduce the financial burden. He suggested, we split the price of the car and use it on a sharing basis. I felt that was a brilliant idea, considering the financial situation we were in and bought into the idea. We wanted to test drive the car, oh man, talk about it. Swami and I went to this seller and asked him for a test drive. He gave the car to us without knowing that both of us had very little driving experience! That test drive was our very the first adventure. We were driving like two blind men behind the wheel, not following signs or directions. Of course, we were proud of our effort. We found the car in drive able condition and wanted to have an expert opinion and took it for another test drive with one of my seniors, who had a much nicer car. My senior friend drove the car, and he initially felt the car was great until we checked under the hood. He opened the hood and there was a gush of smoke, as though someone had been cooking burnt appalams, sitting inside the hood. He suggested we do not buy the car. Swami and I had a discussion that night, and decided we buy it only if the price was much lower than $400. The seller was a student from turkey, going back to his home country. We took that opportunity to low ball it and he agreed to sell it for $300. After that Swami pulled his extreme bargaining tactic from his magic hat. He grabbed the sellers pet parrot on one hand and asked him to sell the car along with the parrot for $300 or just the car alone for $250. That fellow, who apparently loved his bird, succumbed, I wrote the check for $250.

We both agreed and registered the car under my name and I paid the basic insurance for the car. I had already obtained my learners driving permit. The story of passing that driving test deserves a separate blog post. I did a few hours of practicing in the parking lot and then around 11 PM, my room mates who were all excited about the car, wanted to take it for a long drive. It was such a spontaneous drive, one of my roommates was in his lungis as he squatted on the back seat like a vegetable vendor in the farmers market. We drove on a route that was familiar to us, and then came the problem with traffic rules. I made a left turn at an intersection with blinking red light, without coming to a full stop. Within the next minute, there was a cop car right behind me with responder lights on. Funny part was, no one in our car knew that we had to stop for a cop car with responder lights. In fact, I told my friends that the cop car was trying to stop someone else and obediently moved to the right most lane (the slow lane) and slowed down to 35 mph. The cop car also slowed down and followed us for a while. Losing patience the cop pulled to my immediate left lane and flashed his torch on us and blared on his speaker to pull over, which is when we realized the chase was for us! I put the indicator and pulled over the car. My roommate sitting in the passenger seat walked out of the car as though we do in India. He saw the cop yell at him with a hand on his holster. My room mate rushed back inside the car and buckled up. Man that was a scary moment for him. I am not sure what the cop would have thought when he saw the guy in his lungis in the back seat. That must have been a scary moment for the cop! He asked for my drivers permit and performed some background check, pointed the mistake I had made during the turn and thanked us for practicing during night time before letting us go. From then on, the car became a Draupadhi of cars. It was shared by 5 room mates and I would hardly see it parked. It was either used for somebody's grocery shopping or dropping someone in the university or someone's driving lessons. We made countless trips to Dunkin donuts during the weekends for the late night coffee chats. Almost 10 guys in the neighborhood took their driving road test in my car. I think the car became an artificially intelligent car, programmed for road tests. When I was driving the car during the test, I realized the brakes were not that good. In fact, the examiner hinted I stop well in advance of the stop sign to avoid last minute halts. I told him I was trying my best to stop the car! The max speed the car would do was 55 mph. Which meant we could not take the car on freeway adventures. We enjoyed the car to the fullest extent on local roads itself.

About 3000 miles into the life of the car, we had trouble with the brakes. We thought we could manage until that winter. The car saw its first snow and skidded all over the university streets, like a drunkard on ski. We had the first semester break. Swami left for NJ to visit his family friends. I dropped him in the railway station and drove the car for another week or so and realized the brakes were too low. I decided to take the car to a Midas brake service shop. The shop was closing at that time and we had to go back home. Not being able to stop the car properly, I carefully slowed for traffic lights and got home somehow. The next morning, some of my friends wanted to take the written exam for obtaining the learners permit. I had to take them to the DMV office. 3 of them were reading for the test in the back seat while I was driving along with my other friend in the passenger seat. I realized the brakes were totally gone when I stopped at a turn signal. I could hear the brake drum noise. I turned right and started driving the car straight to the DMV. When I tried to slow down after going downhill, I realized the brakes had gone totally dead. I floored the brake pedal and realized it did nothing to stop the car. I told my roommates about it in the back seat who were busy reading for the road test. They asked me to stop joking and started gigling. I reached for the parking brake and realized it was nothing but a useless lever. I put the car in parking mode which did not help either. I was even tempted to stick my foot out and stop the car like the way bheem boy stops the car in the 80's Kamalahasan movie - Micheal Madhana Kama Rajan. I saw another red light ahead with lots of cars stopped, thanks to my unusually good presence of mind, I made a right turn into a strip mall with a bunch of restaurants and other shops. I made a grand prix style turn at 35 mph into the parking lot and tried to swerve into a bushy area to bring the car to a soft stop. I could not manage it and stopped the car by hitting a brand new minivan. The owner of the pizza shop came out running yelling, "that is my brand new caravan!" I called the insurance and took care of the rest. Every one in our car walked out without a single scratch. Thanks to those safety belts. The car was towed back to my apartment parking lot and one of our seniors gave us ride back home. I bet my room mates who appeared for the driving test in the DMV after a week would have answered one question correctly. The question - "What do you do when your brakes fail?"

The car was parked in the apartment for a while. I somehow eluded to Swami's request for a station pick up, when he got back to town. I took him out to the car park and told him the story. All he did was just laughed. We were deciding on the fate of the car, as we could not have it parked without operating for more than 3 months in the university campus. One day I saw a note on the car windshield. Someone had made an offer to buy our car. We could not believe it. We called the number and realized it was actually a junk yard offer. We negotiated up to $50 and had them tow it away. So the final price of the car? $200. The brakes had come down by 100% though! For the price, the car had served its purpose.

I have owned other cars since then, but the memories from the first one are evergreen.

On a serious note, there were some lessons learned from this adventure -

1. Always check the brakes, before they fail!
2. Wear your seat belts, it can save your life.

Posted by Raja at 11:02 AM