Fortune favours the brave!

 

Interesting start to the day. TL;DR - power socket to the dash, and ignition sabotaged.

 

After I arose in the morning, and had my cuppa char I went to the car. My intent, obviously, was to head outdoors. There were several items on the list to do. 

 

As the saying goes, man proposes, god disposes; the car wouldn't start. Not a click from the starter, not even the faint whirr as the petrol pump sucked petrol from the tank and sent it on it's way to the injectors. I was surprised. The battery being relatively new, there appeared no reason for it's sudden demise.

 

To add fat to the fire, my multimeter battery too gave up the ghost. I threw my arms up, then did what any sane person would do. I dug out the battery papers, to confirm the battery was in warranty. Then I placed a call to the battery company for support.

 

The support staff turned up - with tools. He hauled with him a gigantic battery - perhaps to be using in a tank. He also had the thickest pair of jumper cables I ever laid my eyes upon; as thick as my wrist! But when he looked with his multimeter at my battery his eyebrows - as incongruously bushy as his glistening bald pate wasn't - went up. "12.6V. The battery is fine", he pronounced, continuing to set up the jumper cables - positive to positive, negative to body. Then he tried the starter.

 

The first miracle; hardly ever does a problem with a car duplicate itself  in the presence of a mechanic. Not only did the problem I faced duplicate itself, it made it's cause fairly obvious. There was no power to the dashboard, or to the ignition. He was more observant than I; I apologised. He kindly refused recompense for his effort, and went his way.

 

My thoughts caught up with me. I reached out to open the cover to the fuse-box in it's niche next to the driver's knee. It was an awkward movement to make. The only real way to do so with even a modicum of ease was to open the door, get down on the knees, and do the deed pretending to be a south-paw. 

 

That was the blessing.

 

Getting down on the knees gave me a view of the bottom of the dash, and the steering column. A bunch of wires and an attached jack were hanging loose. Recently loosened too. The socket was nice, and shiny in sharp contrast to the dust on the wires. It's articulating pair was likewise. I connected the two, and with a mental prayer - turned the key in the ignition. Fortune favours the brave I was rewarded with lights on the dash, the whirr of the pump & injectors, and finally with the engine firing up. 

 

The bottom line is the one word interrogative sentence - Who?

Take it easy ...

Almost everything is more expensive now than it was a couple of decades ago. More expensive, and more affordable. Thanks to liberalization and the gumption of the common man he can now afford that new model car, the wide-screen plasma TV, the home theatre, the washing machine, the vacuum cleaner ... the list is long. In a nutshell, life is a lot easier these days.

This new found affluence is most visible on the streets . Cities that grow taller, denser, and (paradoxically) sprawl ever wider. New vehicles pour out of the factory by the thousands onto roads easily older than the age of the average indian. Even 20 years ago, the engineers who designed these roads could not have anticipated the spike in vehicle population. Whilst I do not have figures, I'm quite certain the average speed of vehicles on the road within a city today is slower than it was earlier. And yet the vehicles themselves are powered by more powerful engines, driven often by people with less patience. Driven by educated persons who fail to realize that catching the signal will gain them at best a few minutes, or so.

Seated in a cab in a snarl-up, I'm almost thrown against my baggage when the cabbie accelerates wildly to cover the gap in the bumper-to-bumper traffic before another vehicle sneaks in from the left! Good for me the driver was alert; I could have injured my back. The driver in the car that almost sneaked in, a young couple with their small baby looks at me and grins ruefully. Most people drive like this these days. Looking around it is common to see infants and toddlers in the passenger seat of a car. Cherubic infants and babies can be seen enjoying the rush of wind against their faces seated in front of a motored cycle with their little legs astride of the fuel tank. Still others stand on the floorboard in front of a scooter, or even stand between the scooterist and his/her pillion rider as it zips through narrow passages and squeezes through seemingly impossible gaps in near-stationary traffic.

Equipped with an air-bag, crumple zones, monocoque frame, seat-belts ... a car is so much more safe now that the driver often chooses to take risk. The risk of injury is scarcely there any more. Even if he is in an accident he'll probably survive to walk away from the crash ... and perhaps regret it.

Babies, and children are delicate creatures. An acceleration that would not budge an adult from the seat can catapult a baby out of the protective arms of it's parent head-first into the windscreen, or into the dash-board. The phone placed on the dash-board can rocket into the head of a baby. An impact against the back of the vehicle can throw a baby against the shift-stick, or on it's head against the floor. The air-bag that protects an adult can smother an infant. The seat-belt that helps protect an adult from being thrown into the dash-board, can crush a baby against the body of it's parent. With a motored cycle the injuries can be worse. A baby seated happily on the fuel-tank of a motor-cycle can slip and, by way of the hot engine and exhaust pipe be dragged beneath the vehicle ...

Sooner or later (hopefully), in India too, a legislation will make it mandatory for babies/children to be seated at the back of the vehicle with a parent. But why wait for legislation, and subsequent enforcement? Be careful, young parent, when you drive with your family. Let your precious one sit in the back... and let prudence take the front-seat.