On Sunday we witnessed one of the worst nightmares of the highway driver.
Cruising around 90, I notice that all electronics(Blower, clock, stereo) are erratic and losing power.
I stop the car, check out the battery terminals etc., and decide to drive towards Delhi(already crossed Karnal toll booth).
Stop at a garage at Panaji. By this time power is all but lost. Nothing is working, no lights etc.,
The guy says, alternator totally gone. Its a sunday and past 5. At that moment I am in a true dilemma. Delhi is 100+kms away with home still 150kms away. What to do?
Take a bad decision. Drive towards delhi and find a taxi stand close to border.
Soon its getting dark. The car is without power. I am sweating. tucked behind a truck without lights, I don't know how far can we drive like this.
when the battery fully goes, the car will also shut down because alternator is totally dead.
Then it happens, the car shuts down and I coast to a stop about 300mts ahead of a dhaba. Its dark, and scary. News reports of cars being looted haunt me. Luckily there is a steady stream of trucks going by.
I manage to stop a truck, but he has no tow rope.
I push the car 300 mts back, to the dhaba. the owner is a helpful guy who offers to call up mechanics etc., but sunday evening, all shops are closed.
then he suggests we wait. His dhaba is 24 hours and if we want we can wait till morning. He tells us lots of Sumo taxis stop by and maybe we can negotiate with some guy to take us till Delhi border from the taxi stand there we can hire a cab to tow us.
Unfortunately nobody is agreeing. The border is 35kms away still.
At that point a Tempo traveller comes loaded with families.
We both go and explain to them our dilemma. all of them agree to help us. I get the tow rope ready.
Once we are going to tie and all, one guy in the party disagrees. He says their speed will be reduced.

The dhaba owner tells us that 10-15kms ahead there is a taxi stand.
I request him to tow us till there atleast, its only 10kms, at most it will waste their 10 minutes.
But he insists on being a jerk.
"We are doing 90-100 speed, with you we can do only 60, so even 10km we lose time".
At that point I know he is of that category of people who abhor helping others.
The Dhaba owner tells us that he will try contacting taxi guys from his village, meanwhile we can try asking others from help.
Many sumo's etc., come there, but nobody is willing to help us.
Then a veera from Faridabad comes, and he cheerfully tells us, why the border, I will tow you till noida, tie your indica to my alto! He looks like our LBMs twin brother with same style of talking too!
Unfortunately he has no tow hook at the back of alto. He offers to take us home, and we can pick up the car next morning.
home is 90kms away and I am not too keen on leaving the car like this in the middle of nowhere.
We thank him, and he goes on his way.
Its past 8 and we are desperate. Meanwhile the dhaba owner has arranged for an indigo who will tow us home for 1700rs. Bargain hard and he agrees for 1500.
20 minutes later the indigo comes. Its a brand new car, with no tow hook!
Again its a fix. those guys make more calls, and finally around 8 we have a Mahindra bolero with two blokes.
They are ready for 1300rs.
We tie the car, and off we go.
The tow rope is a make shift one made from fence wire(plain one) so only 5 feet long.
the two blokes don't know abcd of towing and are speeding away to glory.
And I am at the steering wheel, 5 feet away from the rear of a bolero, with no power in the brakes, my ankles paining as I have my eyes glued to the brake light(one is working in the bolero).
Every minor brake by the guy means I have to literally stand on the pedal.
When he pulls away it means a harsh jerk.
After 30 minutes I am badly drowsy an fatigued. My legs are aching like hell, and home is still 2-3 hours away.
Thankfully we reach the bypass without the rope breaking. But I am fatigued like crazy and the red lights help me regain some composure.
Its midnight when we finally reach noida, thanks to the two blokes who came like angels out of nowhere!
In 85K kms of driving this is the first time the car has broken down like this. Before this we would go to himachal uttranchal on a whim, but I guess now I'll try to make it a point to avoid driving in evenings.
she has a new alternator now, and hopefully things will be better now from reliability front, but what a scary drive.
Few years ago I saw Kurt Russel's movie "Breakdown". Memories of that movie made the whole thing even scarier!