“A ship is always safe at the shore, but it is not meant for that”, Albert Einstein
After all, what is there in an old and abandoned car?, some one may ask . But, believe me, I am not exaggerating or fabricating when I say that I cannot forget the 1980 model Honda Prelude car I had used from 1989 to 2003 . I am not supposed to disregard it as a negligible and rusted equipment since I had learnt several lessons from it. Once I asked an auto mechanic why one is upset when his or her car has some problems . “ A car, though it is an equipment, is like your family member”, he replied .My eldest son while he was schooling used to conceal and cover up the age of this car, let alone the discomfort of getting into it, by projecting and pinpointing its single door specification as a unique and rare feature and claiming that it was found only in a few cars . My wife still relish in narrating the story of my adventure with the car a few months after obtaining my driving License when I tried to drive to the 4th floor of the Q-post building in Doha describing how I failed in it , how another driver came to my recue when he took over the steering from me, drove my car and thereby averted an unpleasant situation as there was a number of cars waiting in a row behind me.
After all, what is there in an old and abandoned car?, some one may ask . But, believe me, I am not exaggerating or fabricating when I say that I cannot forget the 1980 model Honda Prelude car I had used from 1989 to 2003 . I am not supposed to disregard it as a negligible and rusted equipment since I had learnt several lessons from it. Once I asked an auto mechanic why one is upset when his or her car has some problems . “ A car, though it is an equipment, is like your family member”, he replied .My eldest son while he was schooling used to conceal and cover up the age of this car, let alone the discomfort of getting into it, by projecting and pinpointing its single door specification as a unique and rare feature and claiming that it was found only in a few cars . My wife still relish in narrating the story of my adventure with the car a few months after obtaining my driving License when I tried to drive to the 4th floor of the Q-post building in Doha describing how I failed in it , how another driver came to my recue when he took over the steering from me, drove my car and thereby averted an unpleasant situation as there was a number of cars waiting in a row behind me.
When I see people struggling to start their cars in the mornings of winter season in Doha, I pause for a while and start sharing their difficulties. The broken down cars lying on the road side create a feeling of discomfort in me and I begin to feel the dilemma their drivers might have experienced.Despite its poor technical condition, my car had stopped only once on the road during the period of 13 years it had served me incessantly. That too when I began to visualize and worry about a situation in which my car broke down in the middle of the road and started speculating the ensuing embarrassment it might create for a person like me. One evening the car did stop at the beginning of the Mannai roundabout in Doha as if it was conducting a test to teach me how to deal with such situations. My face did not turn pale as it used to be on similar occasions and I did not panic nor did my pulse rate increase. I went out of the car and pushed it a little bit towards the road side, returned to my seat and turned the key once or twice. The car consented and I drove off to my destination. It was a matter of a few minutes , neither did the incident disrupt the traffic nor did it let the other drivers celebrate the occasion by blowing their horns. Thus I learned that for every problem God has prescribed remedies and that I was not to wreck my brain brooding over such matters. Once a reader in Doha wrote to the editor of an Arab daily reminding the people that when some one’s car broke down on the road, the other drivers should assist him rather than multiplying his grievances by sounding their horns and shouting at him.
Every one knows that I am a very slow driver. However when I see a car moving slowly in front of me, I begin to loose patience and try to overtake it though I know that the other driver may be faster than me. My car then told me to conduct a self –examination before trying to be impatient about others’ behavior and then I realized that there were many such contradictions in my life which could be eliminated easily if I was serious about analyzing them.
I am very poor in driving skills and I am always happy when I see less cars on the road. I even dream of a day when the road will be empty so that I will be in a position to drive my car fearlessly. My car had reminded me that when I nursed such an idea in my mind, I was in fact expecting in vain a life without any problems and that just as there were vehicles on the road which I considered as hurdles there would be problems in one’s life. Man has to confront and overcome such difficulties and not flee from them like a coward. “A ship is always safe at the shore, but it is not meant for that”, said Albert Einstein
When I go to the petrol station to fill my car with petrol and watch the petrol level indicator moving and reaching the letter F, I feel that my belly is full. The same was my feeling when I used to graze the goats and watch the ducks reared at home when I was a young boy. I used to watch the goats eating grass and the ducks swallowing fish and share their feeling of satiation and satisfaction. Those were the days when the children were endowed with a “serene and blessed mood” that empowered them to derive ineffable pleasures form the nature: from the sprouting seeds, singing birds, the blooming buds, the hatching eggs and from the calves and lambs when they run and play. Those days of simplicities and innocence seems to be dead and gone.
In Gods own country, Kerala, the car has begun to symbolize its owner’s social status and has unfortunately intruded into the marriage market as a pre-requisite even for the middle class parents to market their daughters at the “best price”. Even if the dowry includes lakhs of rupees and ornaments weighing one or two kilograms of gold , the demands of bridegrooms do not end there but extends to a new model car. Those who can afford to meet such demands have no problems but others have to sell their possessions or borrow money from local financiers known Kerala as “blade companies” due to the very high interest they charge and the throat cutting attitude they adopt towards those unable to repay the loan in time.
People are crazy about the worldly pleasures and they chase them at any cost. A famous Sufi scholar said” the worldly pleasures are like a carcass and those who seek them are dogs”. He meant those who chase and compete for these pleasures. One fails to understand how a man can amass wealth by hook or crook, be arrogant based on it and view those unfortunate people around him as inferiors, when he knows that he may fall dead any moment like a ripe jack fruit falling from the tree and if it is not removed or consumed by others it will be rotten. Just as we wait for jackfruits to ripen so that we can eat them, there are worms waiting for our dead bodies in our graves.
By the father
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