Ee desertum kadannu

Talk about being jobless! Just because you own a 4-wheel drive doesn't mean you know how to drive one, properly that is. Well, here goes one of the many mistakes that I've committed down the line. Sometimes, it's just better to sit at home and #$@#$.... you know what i mean..

I came back home from work in the afternoon when a work call came up and I had to go to Seef Mall to get the job done. It wasn't much really. Nothing got done, so i had nothing to do. heheh.. as usual..
So I checked the time, it was around 5pm. The time around which Soney, a very good friend of mine, gets off work. He wanted to check out the prices of some portable music players. SO.. we went around Manama to check the prices. All the while , I was thinking why don't we go for a drive somewhere. It sounded like fun so we called the few other people who would be interested in hanging out, namely Rajesh and Shilpa, two other very good friends of mine. They were interested. So we picked up both of them and set out. No direction really, but the basic bearing was south. We were on the usual route that led to the Tree of Life. So we decided why not make that our destination, and we all agreed. Big Mistake.. My fault really. By the time we reached there, I was already in a good mood. So I decided to test my vehicle. It's a 2002 model Hyundai Galloper. Not bad but not good enough. heheh. So we're off-road. Soney and Shilpa get out. It's just Rajesh and me in the car. Looks ok so far. Take the car for a few sharp turns in the sand, up a few dunes, and down some more. So far so good. In between, all this I try to engage 4WD. No use. Doesn't work. Must be stuck or something. Now I get even more stupid. I take even more turns and end up in some very loose sand. Heheh.. Now starts the real drama.. I put the vehicle in drive, and accelerate. I hear only the sound of sand flying away. The car doesn't move an inch. Great!. Reverse gear time!. More sand flying away. Forward! Reverse! Forward! Reverse! Nothing helps. We just keep throwing out more sand. All this while, Rajesh is holding on to the dashboard, thinking," Shit! What the hell have we got into now?" And finally,I turn around and look at his face and say,"Dude, I think we're stuck!" and he's like, "Fuck! man!". I'm like," Yeah, man".Also the 4wd doesn't work, so shitto dot com man. SO.. I get out and start pushing the car.. Me and my weird ideas.All the while, asking Rajesh to shift the gears back and forth. So I call Soney over and he starts to help me, before which, I think what must have been going on his mind, was the thought " Why me?".. Because, I'm sure I heard Soney swear some sort of profanity when we were practically eating sand that was being thrown out from under the wheels. We do some more reverse gear driving, all the while listening to the transmission screeching, trying to balance the load and the drive. My heart sank while thinking about the cost of changing the transmission and automatic gearbox.

SO.. After a few push-pull scenarios and with Rajesh directing the driving, we managed to pull the car out of the loose sand in reverse gear. And Soney got in and took it a far away spot, just to make sure everything's ok .heheh..

We take the car out a little more back to the highway and I started to get a very weird smell. I got out of the car and see animal droppings all along which kind of got mixed with the real smell, which I'll be telling you about soon. So we got confused as to what the real smell also. To add to the confusion with smell, there was a gas conversion plant just close to where we had stopped the car. So with accusations flying everywhere, as to where the smell had originated from, we got back into the car and started to head home. After I dropped the others at Rajesh's office, they got into Rajesh's car and headed home. I,too, was on my way home, when I stopped at a cafeteria to get a bite. When I got out of the car, I heard a hissing sound from under the bonnet. I thought the car was doomed. So I opened the bonnet and the sound got louder. Due to the previous history of over heating, I checked the radiator and overflow tank, for tell-tale signs of steam or boiling water. Nothing.. Shit! Then I resigned to the fact that my transmission has got really screwed, and that it was heating up really bad. And thats what the smell was really about. The burnt acrid smell of a really heated up gearbox. It's a wonder that it didn't break down. I took the car out for a small drive and confirmed the fact that the sound was really coming from the gearbox. Because you could feel the heat from inside the car by touching the area under the gear lever. Oh man! Now I'm in trouble. But there still is one thing, which I cannot understand. Even with all this, there is no leak from anywhere. Anyway, the vehicle is going back to it's workshop, for changing of the gear oil and transmission oil. Hope it lasts for that journey. And as a personal note to Soney, Rajesh and Shilpa, I deeply apologize for any trouble that you faced. I was just bored out of my brains and wanted to have some fun. My only intention was for everyone to have their fun. If I caused you guys, to have a bad experience, I'm really really sorry.
Maybe I'll think of a better idea next time.

Pathetic attempt at a blog.

Looking at my previous posts, those that were posted on the fly and as a minor attempt at learning how to post a blog, I feel that I've learned nothing as of yet, and am still a beginner at something I should have mastered a long time ago.

While travelling, I get lost in my thoughts, and i always feel that I should have these thoughts penned down somewhere. But at that time, you neither have the pen, nor the paper to make it possible. Now with the advances in technology, you find that you can post blogs directly from your mobile or PDA ,with no hassles. And still it is difficult for some to do so.

So the question is, does the difficulty arise due to the sheer complexity of this technology or due to the sheer laziness of these people? I would like to use myself as an example. As a modest member of the so-called IT society, I would find it easy to make it possible to pen your thoughts as I'm always carrying around a mobile phone or any kind of writing instrument. In my case, it's just the thought that makes it sound good. But,when I try to do it , I find myself blank for words.

So why is it so difficult to put your thoughts into writing? Is this what the sages called creativity? The ability to create something valuable out of nothing. If you can repeat the words in your head, you should be able to put down those words on paper, shouldn't you? The more I thought about this, I found out that the words in our head are also associated with pictures, memories, feelings and other things that are stored in our mind. So even when you put down the words, you are not able to put the other things associated with them into writing, to make the reader FEEL what you are trying to tell him.

Communication, is a weird concept. Be it in any field. From electronics to the visual media. How to enable two devices to "talk" to each other. To share information.
When we talk to a person face to face, we are able to show facial actions, eye movements to give stress to certain words to enhance the meaning of the conversation.
The same kind of communication would be difficult to perform over the telephone, but still enhancements can be provided by way of tone of speech, or interjection of various sounds to alter the method of speech.
and I guess the most disabled kind of communication is that of the "instant messaging" kind. Where you can not be absolutely sure as to who you are talking to, and you can never be sure as to what exactly the conversation intends to tell you..It all relies on intricate guesswork and past experience with the person who you are conversing with.

But even with all these disadvantages, the most obvious point is always ignored. Due to these advancements, we are ABLE to communicate. It is made possible. The global village, it is called. Where distance is considered negligible, and the people might as well be next door or in the next country.

I had the good luck to be able to travel to India this year during the rainy season. I had visited a few places, mainly with the intention of meeting up with people I had studied with or those who I grew up with.

It is a good feeling to know that you are in someone's thoughts somewhere. Now they are all grown up with jobs, responsibilities. These were the same people, you used to play soccer or cricket with, or watch movies together. It is pleasing and saddening thought. One that they have moved on with their life, as is the true purpose of life - change. Two, the good memories will always be that, memories. Probably someday, we will be store these memories in the actual form, along with the feelings which we had at the time and not just in the form of video, audio and photo.

Whew! Well atleast it's a start, maybe I'll be able to put down something more the next time.