Arshid Malik

arshid-malikSurprisingly, I am writing again. Not that I doubted that I would be able to write anymore but somehow the metaphysical quintessence of the flood waters that gushed into our home on that particular night (I have consciously wiped out the dates from my memory) washed me clean off all words and sentences. For a particular time, my muse turned into my ruse, till now. A few moments ago, I grappled with the pitch black alphanumeric keys on my laptop while the tides of catastrophic memories of the recent floods mitigated my joys, attempting to write something and suddenly it started and took shape. I am not sure what I am writing and I am definitely not sure what I want to write for there is so much in my head right now that the best I could afford right now would be to hug a tree and scream at the top of my voice, which I can’t as I am well aware of the situation in Kashmir right now which is on a boil and a high pitched scream would send people hurtling into chaos so I am going to stick to my words.

Well, now that I am on it I better write better than what I presume I can write right now. There is a lot to write about, the elections for instance, the recent floods and the aftermath of that, the civic unrest in Kashmir, the local loot and plunder that is going on as always despite the fact that we were hit right in the face. What is it going to be? I remember sometime back I wrote a piece on “topic-less-ness” and even though I have a plethora of topics haunting me I am absolutely “topic-less”. I beg your pardon for my over-the-fence frankness but I have always believed that I should be truthful and open with my readers (I am assuming I have readers for my column for otherwise I am sitting duck for writer’s cramp).

My concern here concerns the welfare of the people of the Valley, who have been devastated by the recent floods. The particular topic of concern is private transport. Almost all of us have a privately owned vehicle or two, don’t we? As the flood waters gushed first in we managed to salvage a few oddities which we figured we needed for basic survival till the recession of the flood waters. The least bothered about commodity, I guess, was the vehicle we owned. Very few people managed to drive their vehicles to safety, while the larger chunk did not even remember that they ever owned a car. Well, I guess it is a survival instinct. As the flood waters receded, the roads of Kashmir were strewn with locomotives, covered in slit that the flood waters left behind as a reticent memorabilia. By the time Kashmir and its people was on its feet again, the flood-affected vehicles were towed to workshops and service stations, where they began to pile up like over-ripened cabbages. People were running around in circles, trying their best to get their vehicles on their feet (oops, tires it is) again. Instead of the flood, “ECM” was the catch word. “ECM” which was locally referred to as ACM and sometimes LCM by few, was a much needed spare to get almost every flood-affected vehicle started. In all actuality and ECM is the acronym for Engine Control Module also known as ECU which stands for Engine Control Unit and by all purposes it serves a purpose akin to that of the CPU (Computers) which we might be more familiar with. The ECM or the engine control module basically controls the intersection of the engine’s necessary ingredients to make energy – fuel, air and spark. That sounds simple, kind of in the same way an engine itself sounds simple if you break it down into really basic terms. But the ECM accomplishes its considerable chore by constantly monitoring a vast network of sensors around the car to ensure conditions are within normal operating range. When something goes wrong, the ECM adjusts conditions or, if it can’t, the car won’t run properly or at all. When there’s a problem, the ECM stores a trouble code so it can be diagnosed by a mechanic (with a scanner specifically designed for that purpose) and triggers the check engine light so the driver knows something’s wrong. With our cars flooded by water the ECMs blew off and by all means it was the first thing needed to be replaced to start a flood-affected car. Now, on an average, if there are around 50000 cars plying on the roads of Kashmir, average chances are that the ECMs of a couple or more vehicles may accumulate faults on a given day. Which means that at least a dozen or even two motor workshops would be available and happy to rectify the faults with these couple or more vehicles. That is the basics of it so we generally did not even know about it. But when thousands of ECMs say no to everything, the scene turns quite cumbersome. There was an anticipated shortage of ECMs, and vehicles with damaged ECMs would not budge. I would like to point out here that I am not referring to luxury cars, which had more sordid stories to tell, but I am talking of the car of the common man, a budget vehicle. Thus the hunt began. On Eid ul Adha, while people would generally be seen out on the streets with mutton in their hands, this Eid was different with people carrying ECMs in their hands. The ECM somehow turned into the “code for survival” of the four-legged metal beasts that take us places. I was one of the inflicted. Oh no, not the four-legged beast, the ECM of my car had also melted. It suddenly turned into a battle of have and have nots. The ones who had the ECMs had basically acquired them in bulk from outside the state dirt-cheap, and most of this procured quantity was faulty (a fact which dawned on us consumers much later), and sold them at very high rates almost equivalent to the rates of new and under-warranty ECMs. Logic would prevail and people would purchase the new and warranty-covered ECMs but since there was an acute shortage people settled for the refurbished ones. You should have seen the delight on the face of a car owner who after somehow acquiring an ECM for his vehicle got it installed and bloomed as the engine roared. People were happy that their vehicles were up and running. Little did they know that the ECM only controls and leverages room for diagnostics for the rest of the gear that goes into running a car? Ever since such vehicles have been ranting for attention.

The point of writing about the ECMs is that people in Kashmir paid small fortunes for these control units which were not even covered while no one thought of buying a self-inflatable 6-person boat which could come in handy the next time a flood strikes. We Kashmiris are very hard leaners.

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