Of empty petrol tanks and blows
I was the ILUGC meet on April 8th. Nice talks on programming Mozilla by Gopal, on USB by Shakthi. By the time I reached Gajendra circle at IIT, my vehicle gave up. My brother had warned me that the Scooty was low on petrol, but I did not know it was so close to being empty. Throughout the meet I was thinking of how to get back. Getting out of IIT itself would'nt be possible I thought.
I took a peek into the tank. There was considerable amount of petrol. But apparently it could'nt force its way down to the engine. Remembered my Dad's words of blowing air into the petrol tank to get some petrol flow going. One or two feeble blows into the tank got me till the Peeliyamman temple. I thought I would be better served by the remaining petrol on Sardar Patel road than inside IIT. So, I started pushing the vehicle myself. Chennai was at its humid best. I was drenched with sweat in a few metres. Another blow into the tank took me till a Sivan temple. Then another push session took me to the gates. The security guard commented in philosophic sarcasm; most of the times it carries you, you will have to bear it some time.
The signal at the Kotturpuram junction was red. This gave me ample time to tilt my vehicle enough and blow hard into the tank. As soon as the light turned green, I was off. Talk of timing :) This spell lasted till the DOTE office. From there to Raj Bhavan it was another push session. At Raj Bhavan, inspite of some real hard blows the vehicle did not start. It took a while for me to notice that the key was not turned to the fullest extent. After cursing myself, I took off again only to be stopped a mega traffic jam. At the end of the jam there was relief in the form of a petrol bunk. Tired and mouth smelling of petrol, I filled the tank and returned home. All this meant I had to miss T.M. Krishna's kutcheri at Ayodhya Mandapam.
The harder you blow, the further you go :)
I took a peek into the tank. There was considerable amount of petrol. But apparently it could'nt force its way down to the engine. Remembered my Dad's words of blowing air into the petrol tank to get some petrol flow going. One or two feeble blows into the tank got me till the Peeliyamman temple. I thought I would be better served by the remaining petrol on Sardar Patel road than inside IIT. So, I started pushing the vehicle myself. Chennai was at its humid best. I was drenched with sweat in a few metres. Another blow into the tank took me till a Sivan temple. Then another push session took me to the gates. The security guard commented in philosophic sarcasm; most of the times it carries you, you will have to bear it some time.
The signal at the Kotturpuram junction was red. This gave me ample time to tilt my vehicle enough and blow hard into the tank. As soon as the light turned green, I was off. Talk of timing :) This spell lasted till the DOTE office. From there to Raj Bhavan it was another push session. At Raj Bhavan, inspite of some real hard blows the vehicle did not start. It took a while for me to notice that the key was not turned to the fullest extent. After cursing myself, I took off again only to be stopped a mega traffic jam. At the end of the jam there was relief in the form of a petrol bunk. Tired and mouth smelling of petrol, I filled the tank and returned home. All this meant I had to miss T.M. Krishna's kutcheri at Ayodhya Mandapam.
The harder you blow, the further you go :)