Golf and the Burning Train

 

Golf and The Burning Train

By Gaurav Parab

A piece of advice for everyone. Be very careful when driving golf carts anywhere in the world. This morning my cart accelerator gave way sending the cart with poor old me inside hurtling across the cart path at great speed. 

Now, I may be middle aged and I may have a paunch - but I have done my share of pilates. So I got my feet into a pilates V and glanced down. Oops.

A spring or a screw has come off the accelerator. I slammed the brake, It was as useless as having a scientific calculator with you in an English exam. Clearly, when an immovable object meets an irresistible force, the irresistible force wins if the force is the accelerator and the object is the brake. This cart was not stopping. No way.  

Resigned to my fate, I thought it is interesting that it all ends like this. Not on one of those midnight motorcycle rides through the Himalayas - but in a eenie meenie tiny golf buggy. Never made an Eagle. Or broke 80.  And God I really should have made that last putt for par. I even have a freaking PAR in my name. 

Back to the cart. The second thing that came to my mind was, boy it is such a good stroke of luck that I AM INSIDE this cart and no one else. You ask, lucky how?

Lucky because I am an expert. A writer and a research analyst. A rare combination of one person doing two lowly paid jobs. Let me explain.

I recently wrote a car chase scene where the hero, a Commando a Vinod Mehra fan, is inside an old Contessa chasing the femme fatale when his car brakes fail. Good for the commando that he is a Vinod Mehra fan, for in a display of quick thinking he remembers the Burning Train and how Vinod Mehra's character brings the runaway train to a halt. 

He builds a steep incline. (See the researcher in me proving his utility)

I need to look for an incline. So I swirled the wheel around. Went over a tee box, fleetingly going airborne, image of a top button undone Vinod Mehra smoking a Charms cigarette popping in my head. 

And I saw that we were not going towards an incline. We were headed for a slope. To a nallah. Bad choice. 

Hit the brakes again. No use. The broken accelerator grinned back at me like Hannibal Lecter. "“Well Clarice, Have The Lambs Stopped Screaming?”

Wait. I know a place. I moved the wheel around towards the woods. I have been here many times. Second shot. 170 yards. Always to the right. The ball refusing to draw. On an incline! The cart continued to pick up pace. One tree. Avoided. Second tree avoided. 

I wish those Pro V1s could navigate like I am doing now. Aryton Senna, you live on forever in my heart.  

Anyways, there was no way the next tree could be avoided, I bailed out flicking the wheel. I landed on my feet. The cart did not hit the tree. A second later, Vinod Mehra was replaced by an image of Bernard Hill, the actor who played the Captain of the Titanic. And Bernard Hill said, shame on you Gaurav Parab. With a Par in your name. Abandoning your ship like that. 

Aye Aye. I moved swiftly to the new direction the cart had taken. I stood in the way. Eye to Eye. Eastwood.  Eli Wallach. Lee Van Cleef. The showdown. My playing partners called out, Idiot. Get out of the way. 

Made sense. I did that, missing the cart and saluting it in the same seamless movement. Deflecting it slightly for it to finally go up the incline. Then all of us jumped on it, but the cart - like the Undertaker in the 2007 Royal Rumble  was not giving up, the cart continued to fight. I saluted it again. Someone removed the keys. And with a final growl, the cart stopped.

No scratch on me. After all it is a golf course and I am involved. 

But again, jokes apart, things could have ended very differently for me, even with all my obvious expertise for these situations. The last time I blamed anyone for anything it was KL Rahul. See machines break, even with maintenance. As users we need to do what is in our sphere of control. 

Drive slowly. Dont look at the phone when driving, even if you are in a golf cart. And most importantly. Watch the burning train. Take care.