Beetel Mania

I don’t know if she still remembers me, but I do…! She had a beautiful body…smooth and curvaceous, with big eyes that could see through you. Her presence would make you lively and joyous. All the guys were jealous of my yellow 1968 Beetel, with original interior, fog lights and rear spoiler.

It used to be a private school on the valley road where I studied. Coming from Westridge you had to go down and then up the hill, to reach the gate at seven thirty sharp, every morning. Our faithful batman, sufi chacha, who laughed more than he talked, would go very well… until the last uphill task. For that, I would put my bag on the bicycle and both of us would do a one, two, three… go, sprint. Sufi chacha with the bicycle and bag and I, with my Tiffin box. I would make a bump or two before I reach the finishing line. Kids would come out from the cars or drop from their bikes, neatly dressed up. Would hold their bags and go inside the school. Our laughing sufi chacha would confer me the bag, wave, and go.

“I DON’T want to go to school on the BICYCLE anymore”, I finally shouted one day. So it started another long family discussion. “Ok, we are buying a car” my mother told me one evening.

I couldn’t sleep all night. And when I did, I dreamt about bright, shiny cars taking me to the school, faster than any other kid.

The next morning I ran out in my pajamas to the porch to see our shiny sports car, faster than any thing else, on the planet. Whatever I saw cracked my heart and I almost felt like crying. Perched under the mango tree was an almost rotten, dented, ugly yellow car with a twisted bumper and stupidly over-sized head-lamps. It had a round logo in the front that said, I think…VW. I thought my luck played a trick with me and my parents have been fully involved, in this planned humiliation.

I didn’t say anything, even to myself.

Seven-thirty sharp. Ring, said the school bell, when I closed the door of my errrr…car and went walking towards the gate. I could see the kids standing in the front, facing me. They included my head mistress, a teacher a peon and a girl that I would try to impress. They were looking at me, well not me, beside me. To this car which had sound squeaky enough to wake the whole neighborhood up.

Anyways, she took care of my uphill tasks at least and for that matter I was kind of… thankful!

It was getting late fall in Pindi. People of this area know that out in those extremely cold mornings, in mid-80s, even humans failed to start. And we just got ourselves…a foxy. But it tried hard. Hard enough that king Bruce of the Scotts would have alter his fable of trying again and put a beetle than a spider.

I noticed that it had everything different from most of its competitors. Shape, Color, Engine, Lights, Logo…even the feel. When it was there, it was just not there like others, It said something. All the dents would tell a story. The bruised steering, accelerator, back seat, all of them had a silent language, which explained how she had been driven. Love, Pride, Care… anger at times.

She seemed to mind if I would say something bad about her and would leak a tire or something to let us know. It took me a while to really adjust to her slow pace. Well, she was not the best, but she did have the charms of a princess. She liked to get things done her own way and there were a lot of things that I have to take her as my teacher and obviously I had so many of my firsts with her. My first major trip, first time in the rat race, first girl friend…

It is really hard to admit but I think its true. She taught me the real meaning of trust, something I least expected of her. The train had to leave in ten minutes and we just put our stuff into the car. She not only started on the first go but also took us there with a minute spare. We had to go all the way up to Murree.

It's rainstorm, muddy slides, all the cars are stopping by but our faithful foxy got us there with out a bad breath. My brother tied up in the car duel with the neighbor hood boys. They had mark II. We had to go up to the bakery chowk and back, and she did it. She did it with style and a lot of margin. She just did not fell short of any thing. We had a few close calls on it but she managed and I got to know the use of the safety bar at the dashboard.

She too had her mood swings but not at times of trouble. The one typical was the backseat catching fire. Sometimes she would turn no lights on and sometimes she would just refuse to start even with a new battery but I think she did it all to get taken care of. After all, she was a beauty.

It stayed with us for over ten years before it finally got sold. I was away for studies and when I came home after a month, she was not there. I could not expect my life without her; there was a better car in the porch but that yellow thing, it just got me thinking about it. I would turn my head to every foxy and each of them sounded like mine.

I never got to see her again.

I am married, and have two of the cutest and the funniest kids in the world. It was an arranged marriage, as I don’t really argue with my mother. Well… not much.

In college, all of us buddies used to really dream about a beautiful girl to get married with. On the engagement day I strongly felt that my wife-to-be is really chubby. My dream about ‘that girl' seemed broken.

My wife likes to do certain things her own way and she is not all that pretty that she once was. But I think I have fallen in love with her. All the seven years that we have been married, I couldn’t spend much time without her. She has never broken my trust and never disappointed me. Sometimes she refuses to talk to me but I think she does all this to get taken care of.

After all, she is a beauty.