*crash*

I’ve been going on and on over at KMB about motorcyclists in the wonderful(?) city of Karachi… Little did i know, i was gonna have my first run-in with one… that too.. driving at over 60 MPH!

This happened while going to the airport to drop my brother and mother for their flight to ISB, just as you cross the last signal before climbing up the terminal. I was barelling down that road, saw a green signal, people waiting at the intersection, and floored the accelerator thinking i’d get through before the signal opens……. (Before i go on, one point to note is that the intersection is surrounded with a lot of tree’s/shrubs which ofcourse makes it impossible to see more than one car deep if your coming up the road. The cars i saw were stopped…. Anyways…) then i saw it! A bike with two passengers breaking the signal and crossing the intersection! I swerved right, trying to avoid them, cursing under my breath…. they cleared the road and i breathed a sigh of relief… almost!

Then i saw the SECOND bike breaking the signal and crossing the intersection!!!! this time, there was no time nor room to manouver out… in what seemed like a split second… i jammed on the breaks (which on a mehran are pretty non existant) and almost prayed/cursed in the same sentence!

Then we collided!

Luckily for him (the bastard!), he wasnt hurt…. nor was i or my brother (Thank God!!) his bike was kind of battered by then and my car was pretty much totalled from the front…. i was pretty thankful and sane till that moment, then i heard a strange noise coming from within the engine comparment… and lost it! For the second time in my life… i wanted blood! HIS blood!!! I got out and started shouting at him! Wo tou he was either too shocked or dazed (probably he’s an imbicle) to say or do anything back, to bach gaya! Just at that time, my mom came over in the other car… the moment i saw her, i kind of cooled down… a cousin of mine also got out, and went brutal on his ass! (i love you for that cuz!!). After a couple of punches.. and the crowd trying to break us up… i sent my mom n the other car over to the terminal, the flight wasnt gonna wait for a phadda afterall, got my brothers luggage from my car, transferred it to a third car which was thankfully there, left my car at the intersection and went to see them off. It took me a futher half hour to really cool down! The adrenaline rush doesnt go down easily.

What a send off they had from karachi! Sorry mom… Sorry bro!

Damn motorbike drivers!!!

On top of that, he had the gall to say “gaari dekh kar chalao”!! that was enough to get him two three more punches!

Damage assesment: Bumper gone, Bonnet dented, both fenders dented, right axle damanged, engine foundation broken, radiator assembly pushed inside, headlights broken, bumper lights broken.

vindication

Its so nice to hear from someone else that you do something well. Its a great ego boost!

This time, it was about my driving. Both my parents have declared i’m a rash driver, don’t pay attention to the road, and try to break every rule in the book. I, ofcourse, say otherwise. Thankfully, a lot of my extended family agrees with me, so i’ve still got my car and driving privileges. When i drive, i dont consider the car anything separate, rather, i consider it an extension to my body. This is especially easy with my mehran, since its small enough and im large enough. But i digress.

This time, it was my dads elder brother, technically my tia, but who i call chachu. No reason for that, except that the name’s stuck since childhood. Anyway, his daughter enlightened me a couple of days ago that her father thinks my driving is “safe”, and that i “pay attention to the road”. You have no idea how good that felt!! yayy for me. *touchwood*

On a side note, now im paranoid that i’ll have an accident pretty soon, which follows every time i have someone compliment me. I didn’t write on this as soon as i heard it for this reason alone.

Anyone know how to perform ‘nazar utarna‘?

Late for office……..

This morning, i woke up at 8 went through the usual routines, got ready by 8:45 and was about to leave when i remembered i had to take my brother with me. Tried waking him up, but he wouldnt… so waited…. n waited..

n guess what!! he woke up 20 minutes later saying, “bhai, you go, i’ll take the bus!” (aarggghh!!)

so i grab the keys, go down to my car, put the keys in the ignition, turned it, and….

nothing! :S

WTF?!? did some initial diagnostics, and learned that the battery had died over the night! which was pretty weird since, nothing was left open!!

two days ago, the car battery had died as well, the lights were left on by my brother. It started a while later though, but the battery water had depleted quite a bit. I did ask him to refill it, but being my brother he didnt and i also forgot about it.

Now im in a fix.. its 11:30, im still at home, and the car wont start…

What a car fuse should NEVER look like

On the left, is what was left of the fuse after a wiring short which happened on my car earlier.

On the right, is a fuse as it should look….

*sorry for the blurness of the image*

POC #1: My car

My latest term to define a lot of things in my life, POC means a piece of crap. This series is dedicated to the myriad of gadgets around me for which working is considered to be a miracle, hence they as useful as… well… crap!

Starting off… my car! damn thing is a POC! no wait… even a POC is more valuable than it! if i even GIVE it to be scrapped, they’ll ask me for money to even take it!! aarrgghh!

As you can pretty well imagine by now, my car has been giving me trouble.. AGAIN! recently i spent almost 3 grand on its maintenance, today, i find myself short of another Rs. 500!

The wiring shorted out last night, after my dumb mechanic (whom i vow never to go2 again!) made a last minute adjustment to sort another problem. Shortly after the fix, smoke started coming out of the bonnet, and i found that the wire powering the fan has burnt to the crisp. The overall current got so bad that it literally destroyed the fuse (next post… What your car fuse should NEVER look like).

This morning, i spent the first half of the day getting all the wiring fixed, this time from another mechanic. He opened up all the tapings, checked the wiring right from the source, and changed all the bits and peices that, in his opinion, were a disaster waiting to happen. Plus, added another relay to cut off any future power surge to help protect the wiring. This brings up the total number of additional relays in my car to 3!

Pak Suzuki, the manufacturers of the Mehran, are IMO the most disgusting people ever to grace the face of the planet! They build their cars just so they run, nothing more.. definately a lot less!

damn you!!

This i say, with my whole heart and soul, to both my mechanic and my car!!! Did i ever mention, its difficult to get a even halfway decent mechanic around here?!!!

Well, okay.. he’s not that bad! but when your car keeps breaking down after 12 hours of coming back from the shop.. thats who you’d wanna blame. When i say you, i mean me!

My car has a problem with its generator.. for the non-techies, its the power generating unit inside of your car which supplies electricity to all the rest of it. Then whats the battery for you may ask? The battery is there just for the start-up, after which the generator takes over… Somehow, my generator is producing less energy than the car needs (like i have my own personal KESC here!!!) and hence keeps draining the battery. Therefore, no start-up.. and i have to dhakka start it every once in a while (read while as hour). I sent it off to the mechanic today, to have it fixed, but he informed me that i should replace it, since the old one would break pretty soon anyway, i thougth to myself, what the hell.. lets just replace it! After giving him the go-ahead and authorizing a spend of Rs. 1200, i got a new generator in my car and was pretty pleased at myself.

But for only a short while… i learned that the new generator was somehow faulty, and had to be replaced… no problem, i had a warranty which said it would be replaced if it becomes faulty in a month, and i just had a couple of hours on it.. so the mechanic went back and got a new one… tested it.. and brought the car home. i was so excited to see it…. my baby was back home again! and my mechanic assured me that the new generator was good and would run. I gave him the bill amount, and went off to drop him at the shop.

But, to my dismay, a shock awaited me there. The mechanic said that he’ll check the outputs once again, just to make sure its okay… and discovered a problem! The 2nd damn generator wasnt working either!! I needed to have the car today, as i wanted to goto the shadi.. and had errands to run, which would’ve cost me around atleast rs. 500 if done by taxi.. so i said, i’ll run the car on as low as possible, and send it back in the morning. He agreed saying he’ll replace the generator with a new one in the morning.

It ran fine till about 8 pm, when i parked it at my nanis to goto the shadi hall. When i came back, thats when hell broke loose! the new damn generator just wouldnt supply electricity even when it was dhakka started. Which meant, no car for me anymore! I got a ride back with my mom in her car, so atleast im back home.. .Right now, its 5 AM in the morning, i just got home a half hour ago, and my car is standing outside a banglow in defence and im really pissed off! Hence no sleep and this post!

There goes a perfectly good sunday, cuz i have to wake up in five hours, take the mechanic to the car, get him to start it up somehow, or tow it back to his shop (around 10 kms away) and pray the third generator works!

p.s. the shadi was today, and it went great! i’ll post a detailed account of it next.

Chai paani…?

Known as chai paani, mithai (loved that one) and the most recent incarnation i heard.. ‘daana paani’, the cash under the table never ceases to amaze me at the sheer amount of work it can get done!

My first and foremost experience of people ‘asking’ for a bribery was with Karachi Police when my stolen car was recovered. I get a call in the afternoon from this policeman asking me if it was indeed my car with engine number so n so and chasis number so n so. When i confirmed it here is his reply

Sir! Buhut mubarak ho aapko! Aap kee gaari mil gaye hai humhe XXX thanay kay pass. Aap aakar lejaayein apney gaari. Aur iss khushi mein mithai lete aayega
(Translation: Congratulations! We’ve found your car from the jurisdiction of XXX station. Please come and collect your car and being dessert)

Being the naive and excitable kid that i was back then.. i actually contemplated getting a box of mithai for the policewala’s like i had seen people take to each others home! What did i know that by mithai they meant cash! LoL! I even asked the policeguy once i had reached his station if there was any mithai shop near by. I still remember the funny expression he had on his face then.. (thinking maybe i was asking for an ATM machine? i’d never know). Anyway, after repeatedly being asked for mithai by a variety of policewala’s did it dawn upon me that they were asking for a bribe! The fact that i had about Rs. 200 in my pocket at the moment also didnt help. Thankfully though, through applying some pressure’s from their superiors.. i managed to get my car released from their custody at a mere Rs. 1200. (yes… i was given the directions to the ATM machine eventually. lol).

At that time.. the going rate’s for getting recovered car’s released from police custody (unless you have high connections) were something like this.
small old car – Rs. 5,000-7,000
small new car – Rs 10,000-15,000 (this was the category mine fell in)
big old car – Rs. 25,000-30,000
big new car – Rs. 40,000-50,000

Otherwise, they impound your car, and you get it through the court system. That costs pretty heavily both in terms of money and time.

Oh yea.. what prompted me to write this post at this moment!! Before i forget! I took my car to the suzuki showroom to get fixed, the service manager told me that it’ll take about 10 days to be fixed since they had a lot of load. Given previous experiences of waiting 10-15 days extra, from whatever time they gave… i decided to take the proactive approach, trying to get the guy to do the work early for me. That’s where i got the line

Mere saab, bachon (workers) ko daana paani milay ga, to khushi say kaam karein gay aur jaldi kaam karein gay, warna to aapko pata hai kitna time lagta hai innkaamon mein
(Translation: Sir, if the workers get a little incentive, then they’ll work fast and happily on your car, since you know how much time these things take).

I agree’d to his proposal, and my car is now ready in 3 (thats right THREE) days!! Im getting it back tomorrow! And if any of my reader turns out to be a staunch muslim turning their nose down to giving a bribe, i’ll say to you what i said to an office colleage on the issue. “I’ll probably end up in hell anyway, atleast i get to drive in peace while im on earth.”

Good night karachi!

Public Transport…

I banged my car a week ago.. i thought i’d post a little on that.. but its not that interesting, just a little bump, a damaged bonnet, fender and door. Plus, it wasnt like i rammed head first into a wall or anything.. so its not that interesting.. but what *is* interesting is that yesterday i gave my car to be fixed at the showroom. And since then… im without transport :S

And like many other karachite’s, i took to the public transport since yesterday. Oh yea, by public transport, i mean the taxi and rikshaw’s.. not the busses/coaches. One thing i can definately say about it… it is very.. very… very expensive to travel on public transport here. In just two days, i’ve managed to be short by Rs. 600 which i spent hauling myself from point A to D (and various points in between).

Not that i havent travelled much on it… infact, i’ve been travelling via the karachi busses for almost 6 years before i got my car. But now, it feels as if such a long time has passed since i did it… i just cant bring myself to boarding a bus anymore, and hence now take the taxi everywhere i wanna go .

So summing up,

1. its expensive, and
2. it feels like i used to do it centuries ago.

Thats been my experience with it. All those words just to say two small sentences! lol! but i had to.. i *do* have to justify a post too you know. lol!!

The phenomena that is the Mehran

You go out in any street of Pakistan, and there’s one thing you’ll definately see! yes.. its even more pervasive than… roads. Thats right.. im talking about the good ol Suzuki Mehran! This car is really something! Why i say this? because i drive around in a Mehran (wait for my next post which will chronical the events with my car) and its fun (completely blacked out for a better word to describe the experience)!

So why blog about it all of a sudden? Two reasons.. or rather two posts by jamil sadik and rehan alvi about their expriences with it. So instead of writing anything new.. i’ll just quote from their posts (here and here).

Jamal writes

My ride (The Mehran) cost me a cool $5000, with about $600 of upgrades (A/C, stereo and speakers, alarm system…yeah, the same stuff that is standard in the crappiest Geo Metro in America). However these facts are all irrelevant, because the car gets me from point A to point B, which is alot better than my situation one week ago. It should be every man’s (and woman’s) prerogative to have a sweat-free, music-filled ride to work/school every morning. I mean, seriously, is that too much to ask? With my new pimp mobile, it certainly is not. This bad girl does 0-60 km/h (0 – 37 mph) in a lightning fast 17 seconds. That’s 35 stallions under the hood thrusting the futuristic, light-weight body of this Japanese/Pakistani hybrid forward.

While rehan starts off his post with

The car is basically a 4 door go-cart, running off a lawnmower engine which provides a stunningly awesome 35 horsepower drive. Now if that doesn’t sound like much, it’s because it isn’t. Want to know what comes standard on it, along with the one year warranty (yes you read that correctly) on parts? Well it’s basically four 12″ wheels and a windshield, making the Mehran the most stripped down car I have ever seen mass produced and sold commercially. Besides not having air conditioning, it has no power steering, no power windows and no power mirrors. Actually, it has no power whatsoever. The body is reminiscent of a 1970s assembly line production flaw and the ride comes with the free added bonus of force-feedback. Just like the latest joysticks of today, the Mehran lets you feel every bump, every vibration, every jolt as you chug along the road

but then moves on to describing just why its so damn popular

as crappy as it is on paper, this car is the Pakistani Pimp’s preferred ride. As I said above, the Mehran has sold more than any other car in Pakistan or India, EVER.

First off, this car is so small, you can park it anywhere. That doesn’t suck. Second off, it is the cheapest car you can buy in the South Asian sub-continent. Sure it’s overpriced, but that is due to the lack of competition along with crazy government taxes, two problems which plague more than just the automotive industry. Third of all, and arguably the best reason for owning one: the amazing fuel economy. Not only does this car have the option of running off of regular unleaded or natural gas, but also it gives you the option to switch between the two fuel sources on the go. Natural gas is so cheap and when you’re running off that, you can drive wherever the hell you want. It’s just that cheap. Also, the last great reason why Mehrans kick ass is that they are dirt cheap to maintain. Parts are incredibly cheap, labor is even cheaper, and the simple design of the car makes it repairable by your local village idiot mechanic.

And about sums it up! the reason’s why the mehran is an experience! They are dirt cheap to maintain! Let me explain… a side view mirror on a mehran costs roughly about Rs. 75 (i know because i’ve bought about 4 of them so far..) while the same mirror on a Honda or Corolla runs to about Rs. 800. Similarly, a side window on a mehran costs about Rs. 150 (local made) to about Rs. 600 (for imported) while the same on a larger car would start from Rs. 2000!

So above all, mehran rocks! (till i get a new car )