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.

A Mother Outside the Emergency Room

By Gaurav Parab

From dozens of hospital visits over the years, the most heartbreaking scene that I have witnessed remains an old mother wailing outside the Emergency /Casualty room for a son or daughter wheeled in after a road accident.

Relatives surround the mother, afraid of telling her, avoiding her eyes by looking elsewhere, dealing silently with their own grief - a combination of missing the departed and seeing the plight of the mother who has had the very air taken out of her.

Unfortunately, it is a scene that is invariably played at every visit. Such is the devastating toll road accidents take in India. And unfortunately, most happen because someone is speeding, going the wrong way, or not wearing a helmet or seat belt. Little, trivial things that save a grand total of two or three seconds yet amount to a lifetime of sorrow for the mothers who remain.

Nothing will change by this post as thinking one is bullet proof is part of our upbringing. Most parents themselves teach their kids 'chalta hain' and by demonstrating the same atrocious behavior. Setting them up for a moment in the future that they never imagined possible and was always supposed to be a newspaper story about someone else's kid.

Get into a good college, getting a job, save money are the major problems that occupy the mindspace for majority of our citizens.
Till that screeching of the brakes, the shattering of the windshield, that call from the hospital, and that moment outside a glass door when a doctor approaches shaking her head as relatives embrace you in a meaningless hug.

#india #roadsafety #thatwriterfromindia #gauravparab

A Writing Update

 Fade In.

The last year or so have been hectic, and my apologies for not staying in touch. This blog has not been updated for a long time, but to those who care for what I have had to share over so many years - It is not that I have not been writing.

I have been writing. More than at any point in my life.

And thanks to whoever is in charge of the writer destiny department up there, there have been a few wins.  So this blog as an update, an apology for not staying in touch, and for showing off. 

A few months back, Rustom and the Last Storyteller of Almora movie rights were acquired. Congratulations to each one of you, who have believed in the book more than I ever have. This has been sometime coming, with multiple false starts with multiple producers but like always I was lucky that I waited, and more importantly I noticed an email from the producer who had been writing to me for a long time - but his email were going to Spam. No thanks to Gmail which lets all the email from Pooja about my Tax returns come in with open arms and blocked the email that can possibly change the direction of my life. 

Long story short, I read the last email that producer (now friend) sent, one thing led to another - and we had a deal. It has found the most lovely home, and more importantly has someone who is championing it and has the same creative vision like I do. Someone who gets IT. Like hopefully, most of you did.

But wait. I did say I have been writing a lot.

3 Webseries and 1 movie.

The good fortune continues. All 3 stories I co-wrote with my buddy - an accomplished novelist- have been optioned by producers - who are guilty of making the most critically acclaimed movies and the biggest blockbusters in India. These folks have come to become our friends, and we all are super excited about the future once they get greenlit. 

Now, not sure if you are aware in real terms this is significant but the journey of a story from a writer's mind to screen is long and often is but a false start. Getting Optioned or rights being sold does not mean that you will see it on a screen anytime soon. There are many hurdles, from getting a OTT on board to getting a showrunner, cast etc. and most projects do get shelved.  But these are kickass stories, and I have no doubt that they will get made at some point. And I hope when they do, I will continue enjoying your love and support and not be abandoned in the manner that I have perhaps abandoned writing to you. 

I will return to my roots. I will blog more often. I will lose weight. 

Thanks so much friends. Do leave a comment, write to me at gauravparab@gmail.com. My biggest fear is out of sight, out of mind like characters tell one another in YA books. I hope this is not an empty hall I am addressing! Would be good to hear from you. Any thing. Any word. 

Warm Regards

Gaurav