Chetak....

Once more, I can't explain why I write about "him" now...

Anyways, attached at the end is an email that wrote to my friends on June 14, 2005. Interestingly after the car puja, there has been no accidents, eventhough twice, it could have gotten bad- really bad

* Once after dropping my friend in CRC, was driving back in the rain, and may be I was a bit fast.. at a T junction , as I braked, he skid, and to my horror, there was a car coming in the main road.. Thank God, I could turn the wheel a full 90 degrees, and he missed the other car, by may be a centimeter !

* Last weekend, was driving some one home, and I took the "short cut" .. Twas raining and its a road with crazy turns and up and downhills. In the "S" turn (that too downhill), suddenly he lost control and did a full 360 degree turn around, using both the to and fro lanes... had there been any other car coming on the other side, a sure accident it wud have been..

Got me thinking.... makes u rethink about some things you always struggled to believe, or at best wanted to be indifferent towards.. For a year and half after owning Chetak, I never thought I needed to do a car Puja - after all I take him every week to the temple with me... and then an accident on Jan 1 2005 - did not involve any injury thank God- .. and a week later I call home (I never told my parents about the accident) and they tell me that the astrologer told them to ask me to be extremely careful with my car until Sep 2005. A chill went thro' me and whatever little thought i had about telling my parents about the Jan 1 accident, vanished .. even then I did not do the car puja

Come June 4, and there was another- once more- did not involve any injury..

I could not hold on anymore... not only for my sake, but most times Chetak carries more people in him than just me !! .. And so I did, and here's the email I sent.. (well,now also I cannot be careless myself, just because I have done a car puja.. and I better be careful ... )

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As one after the other, the four wheels of my car crushed the lemons placed below them, something kept telling me from within... "Chetak"

For those who have gone through the car Puja at SSVT, you know what Iam talking about. But for those who do not know about the latter half of the first sentence, for a change, it was not a name invented by me for my car, but Arundhati, my "sanskrit friend"!

And very interestingly, June 10, was "Maha Rana Pratap" Jayanthi... Ido not know about myself, but my car surely deserves a Chetak title,having saved me from many a situations which could have been worse ,and taking all the toll on him!!And what times I have been having in it.... mostly withfriends, sometimes all alone making me happy from being sad , one of the rarest of the places where I have sung songs , danced, withoutinhibitions ......

And perhaps both of us have something in common... uncertainties about future :-)

So folks, now u know what to call my ..well

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