we're all in srijit's baleno and cruising thinking of a suitable place to eat
Srijit: You know its a funny thing. After i bought it , near kowdiar, its light suddenly stopped working. the flasher would work, but nothing else. Funny thing, but it was working by the time it reached home. Was quite weird
All of us: yeah lol!
........
suddenly it goes dark
.........
srijit: $%$#$ it happened again

!
and then we're on the side of a dark and deserted highway. we called up the numbers on the hercules sticker. the guy there literally washed his hands off us. We called around some folks we knew. went to all three maruti centers - popular/hercules/indus. not a soul.
then we thought of calling the maruti 24 hour service line. we asked them were to go. he said the folks who would be calling us back would tell us.
..........
we're looking at an open fuse box. HL domes 20A, FRH 15A, FLH 15A.. lit by the glow of a white iphone screen.
"its the blue one"
"no, no, its the yellow one"
"are you guys sure ?"
"I cant see anyway. who cares!"
we tried swapping out stuff, no luck. started flashing the lights.
At one point it started working! Hallelujah and we're off!
five minutes later, we're back to square one.
............
jkdas: Give me the keys!
.........
and there we are being thrown about at 120+ speeds in a car with semi functional headlights. jkdas uses the emergency flasher to rip the baleno dodging buses, cars and potholes alike as if he's driving a pregnant lady about to have a kid.
I on the other hand was on the verge of having a cow! Somebody should have told him , just because you are flashing the lights does not mean he has to drive like that ( oh well, i guess he was looking for an excuse anyway)
..........
jkdas: green, stop pushing my seat forward.
me: *gulp, sucking air through his teeth* ok. (stops pressing his feet forward , bracing for impact, and grabs onto the grab rail harder)
( for the record, srijit's rear seatbelts seemed to have been buried under the carpeting, and had resisted our attempts to excavate them)
You know the bit till now where we drove from tvm to alapuzha, and from there till here ? That was not a drive.
now this , THIS is the damn
D R I V E !!!!
..............
finally we get a call from maruti on road service. locate the chaps who spend an hour and a half underneath the steering column, and confirms jkdas's theory that it was the HL relay that caused it.

100 bucks later, we're back on our way. I'm impressed with maruti A.S.S . That was cheap!
jkdas: shall we do it again then ?
err, not today!
