A Pleasure Ride In A Car
A Pleasure Ride In A Car :
Riding a car is a pleasure. But riding an old car is an experience. My father’s old car is a good show-piece for an old curiosity shop. Its paint peeled off and its body seems to be plague ridden. Its doors are kept intact with wires. Ther is no windscreen. The bonnet has so many dents that it looks like the shield of a great warrior. Of course, it has fought many storms and rains. Rust coats its body. The springs of seats are raising their heads like the snakes from the snake charmer’s basket. It moves at will and stops at will.
I took out this car for taking part in a vintage rally. We started it by sweating our bodies. My friends pushed it up and done but it seemed to be doing nothing. I turned the handle but to no avail. After an hour we were about to give up the effort when it obliged us. Its whole body shook as if it has an epileptic fits. I pressed the accelerator and we all shouted like Galileo “O, it moves!" The uncomfortable seats did not dampen the spirit of my friends. They hummed tunes which were drowned in the rattling sound of the engine.
Suddenly it stopped. We pushed it, looked at it and felt disappointed. One of us slipped under the engine to check it up. As he toched something the mobile oil blackened his face and clothes. We could not recognize him. All the handkerchiefs could not remove that dark hue. He looked like a baboon peering atus. But the car started. One held the door which fell on the road.
The car moved smoothly. There was red signal. I applied the brakes. The car did not stop. “Oh God, brakes have failed!" people shouted at me. They absued me. But I was sitting helplessly at the steering wheel. It came to a halt after striking the red light on the opposite side. The traffic cop issued a chalan desite my apoliges.
By this time we had come a long way. My friends decided to proceed further forgetting about what had happened. They asked me to drive at a very slow speed. One of my friends sat on the bonnet waving a red handkerchief, it was an abrupt descent and we could not discover it. The car started moving at a speed. My friend lay on the bonnet which heaved up nd down. We held our breath. Everyone blamed the other. In front of us we saw the jammed traffic.
“What could we do?" one asked. We stretched our legs out of the doors and tried to stop it. But it struck against a truck. People were amused to see the car. The traffic was jammed due to the vintage rally. Passers- by took it sportingly and a truck driver even offered to tow it down to our home.
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