Lost in translation...

After Barcelona, we caught a flight to the party capital of Spain – the island of Majorca.

We landed, and went to the Car rental agency where ‘She who must be obeyed’ had booked a car. After watching ‘Zindagi na milegi dobara’, I pleaded with her to book a fancy open top car, but she just brushed me off like an insect.

She patiently explained her logic to me

‘You are not a rich investment banker like Hrithik Roshan, neither do you have a rich dad like Abhay Deol, nor do you have rich and gullible friends like Farhan Akhtar did ; and you are very very definitely not going to get it on with Katrina Kaif. You are stuck with me, and with the cheapest car that is available, because both are just what you deserve. Got it?’

I nodded my head. Couldn’t find any fault with the logic.

‘Good. Now cock up and drive.’

As it was a left hand drive car with manual gear, and we were driving on the wrong side of the road, ‘She’ could freely indulge in all the back seat driving which I would never allow her at home.

‘SLOW SLOW SLOW....there is a car coming 3 kilometers  away....drive on the RIGHT on the RiGHT on the RIIIIIIIGHT....we are coming to a round about....go SLOW go SLOW go SLOW....OH MY GOD...WE ARE DEAD, WE ARE DEAD, WE ARE DEAD....oh, we aren’t dead...er...thats good....now go straight,,,,go STRAGHT....GO STRAIGHT...STAY ON THE RIGHT..... OH MY GOD, THERE IS A PEDESTRIAN 5 KILOMETERS AWAY....BE CAREFUL...AAAAARRGGGGHHHHH!!!!’

The roads were bloody narrow, with a free fall on the side,  no shoulders at all, and to add to the fun, the roads were bloody full of cyclists, all looking like they were on trials for the Tour de France. There were literally hundreds and hundreds of them on the road. All dressed in expensive skin tight clothes and riding expensive skinny cycles – they depress you by being far more healthy AND far more wealthy than you.

I admired them for some time – their strength and endurance, their healthy pursuit, their expensive bikes, their tight and colourful costumes.... but after slowly and irritatingly passing some hundreds of cyclists, I got heartily sick of them. They were as irritating as a parade of cockroaches.  You can’t overtake them on the skinny roads, you can’t get too close to them in case one of them falls over, you can’t honk at them because you are not in India, and most of all you can’t even abuse them because ‘She’ has a fraternal affection for them, because she has also pedalled  - once in her salad days, she had pedalled Bombay to Pune, and quite recently she did Mangalore to Trivandrum.

 ‘She’ kept babbling about her cycling trip to Kerala...’these hills are OK, but can’t compare with Kerala....these cycles are good, but I did it with an old Atlas doodhwala cycle with one handlebar and  half a tyre missing....these cyclists are OK, but they won’t be able to handle mad Kerala traffic, especially the cattle copulating on the roads...Oh, coconut water is so good...Oh, I wish I could see a pair of hairy black legs  sticking out of a lungi....those guys have pubic hair all over their body....it looks so virile...’

The hills out there are called ‘La Tramuntana’  and an Italian engineer called Paretti made a winding road across them, which was a great technical achievement in those days. The road is very beautiful, as is the surrounding scenery – but if you try to see the scenery, you will end up in the ditch – because Signor Paretti apparently scorned shoulders on the road, and his successors have behaved in a very Indian fashion by raising the height of the road to an alarming level over the edge, and keeping the road narrow enough to accommodate one car and no more.

Between negotiating Signor Paretti’s roads, Senora ‘She who must be obeyed’s back seat driving and the pestilential cyclists, my BP went up 20 points.  ‘She’ tried to cheer me up by pointing out beautiful sights, but after nearly becoming part of the scenery myself a couple of times, I found out that the only way to see the scenery was to drive so slowly that even the cyclists were cursing me and overtaking me with pursed lips.

‘So Madame’ I asked after some time ‘Now that we are in the party capital of Spain – where are we going?’

‘Oh, we are going to a monastery.’

‘A monastery?’ I was stunned.

‘That’s right.’

‘We are in the Party capital – with nude beaches, wild revelry, midnight parties in every nook and corner – apparently you can hardly toss a Sangria bottle without braining a drunken reveller...and we are going to a monastery?’

‘Yes.’

‘!!!’

Well...I could hardly go to a nude beach without scaring the whole population away, and partying with a teetotaller who considers sleeping after 10 PM to be heights of loose living is unlikely.  So we went quietly to the Monastery of Lluc and checked in.

It was very nice – we attended Maundy Thursday Mass and Good Friday Mass in Spanish and heard the Childrens Choir which is the apparently the best choir....in the whole of Majorca..., and heard a fine performance of how Mary felt about the death of Christ – in Spanish (or was it Catalan) – which would have been great fun if we had understood it.

The good thing about Christianity is that no food is taboo – unlike other religions who ban Beef and Pork and Booze and god knows what else. The good Christian eats anything that lives and breathes, and so the restaurant in the Monastery served some awesome food and wine, which we imbibed gratefully. I posted all kinds of food shots on facebook to get people worked up.

After two days of this, we were out to leave.

‘Get up early in the morning you lazy sod’ said ‘She’. ‘We have to see Cap de Fomentor as early as possible – because weather might be bad.’

It was so hot that I was melting, and so bright that I was blinded by the sun.

‘Bad weather?’ I said meekly ‘But it looks fine.’

‘She’ turned on me in a fury. ‘I have spoken! Bad weather it will be!’

I quailed before her fury and set the alarm for 6 AM. We got up and packed, and went to the car.

But when I pressed the remote,  instead of greeting me with a cheerful ‘chuck chuck’, the car remains morose and silent.

‘??’ I thought and pressed the buttons harder. It’s an Indian thing – if anything doesn’t work, press the button harder. It rarely helps, but we do it all the time.

No reply.

Thinking that the car might be sulking because we ignored it for a couple of days, I opened the door with the key, and tried to start the car.

Dead.

Oh shit.

Battery dead. In the middle of nowhere.

‘She’ started to weep and wail and beat her breast. ‘OOOOOOO AAAAAAAAA OOOOOOOOO AAAAAAA.....mar gaya.....mar gaya.....what shall we doooooooooo’

‘Easy easy’ I said ‘Dont worry – all it needs is a jump. I will call the car hire company and they will send somebody’

‘Send somebody???? OOOOOOOOOOOO ....this is Europe....they will charge so much money, we will have to sell ourselves to pay it.....AAAAAAAAAA....our vacation is over.....OOOOO.....our life savings have gone....AAAAAAAA......’

‘No no – I am sure that roadside assistance is free.’ I said soothingly. ‘Don’t worry – I will call them right now.’

We trudged back to the Monastery and called them, and they promised to send help within an hour.

We killed time for an hour and soon help arrived in the form of a genial repairman in a tow truck. He took a look at the car and raised his eyebrows at the dead battery. As I had predicted, all it needed was a jump – he attached the jumper cable and cranked the self start, and the car was back.

‘You drive for 1 kilometer’ he said, holding up a finger ‘before you switch it off eh? Charge the battery.’

OK, I said and went on a very pleasant little drive, which was all the sweeter because of our lightened hearts and unlightened wallets,  and came back to the parking lot. Before switching it off, I hesitated a couple of times, but then I switched it off, and we went off to have a lavish celebratory breakfast.

After a huge brekker of cereal and bread and orange juice and coffee and all kinds of sausages under the sun, we again picked up our packs and went back to the car.

This time the remote worked, and the car greeted us with a merry chirrup and opened its doors hospitably. I was immensely gratified – the charge had held, and the battery was working fine.

Full of confidence, I sat in the car, inserted the key, started my favourite radio station, fixed my seat belt, nodded to her, put the car in neutral and turned the key, all ready to zoom away.

Nothing.

No response from the car.

What the fuck?

A cold hand gripped my heart. This shouldn’t be happening... the remote worked, the lights worked, the horn worked – why shouldn’t the car start?

I turned the key again – no response. I looked carefully at the dashboard. There was no ammeter, so I couldn’t tell the battery level, but when I turned the key, the words ‘Pise del embrague’ came up.

Pise del embrague?

 I didn’t want to Piss – nor did I want to embrace anybody. That message didn’t help much.

I looked glumly at ‘She’ and ‘She’ gave me a snooty look.

‘Another fine mess you have got me into.’

‘Hey – I don’t get it...everything else electrical is working. The car is in Neutral. I don’t know why its not starting.’

‘Should I get out and push?’ she asked.

‘No no...Don’t be silly.’ The thought of that tiny little wolverine pushing a car was hilarious, and anyway I didn’t think that the MPFI cars could be started by pushing.

‘Well, back to the Santuari then.’ She said. ‘Call them again’

C’mon....I didn’t want to call him again. I would look like a fool of the highest order. Imagine an idiot who had to jump his battery twice in a morning. The whole of Majorca would be laughing at us. And he would probably charge money for a second visit.

Glumly, I turned the key again, and again the message came ‘Pise del embrague’

What did that mean anyway? Then suddenly it struck me – I didn’t have to guess. I could easily find out.

 I fished out my mobile and fired up Google translate, and entered ‘Pise del embrague’ in Spanish to English.

In a second, the answer came – ‘Depress the clutch’

I looked at it in disbelief, and pressed the clutch.

VROOOM. The car started!

WHOOPIEE! YOOHOOO!

We both screamed in delight and hugged each other!  We were back in business. Thank god for Translate!  

I love Google.

I hate these idiot car manufacturers who make cars that won’t start until you press the damn clutch even though you are in neutral, but I love Google.

Muah!