Kizashi Diaries — Chapter II

After a few days of coming back from the adventure Kizi and I had, Delhi just didn’t feel the same anymore. The Kizashi had become my home, Our muscle memory of being together was too intense to ignore. I remember the first morning after returning I woke up, went straight downstairs, sat in the car and started driving, as if it was the only thing I remembered how to do.

It took me weeks to detach from the car and it felt alien being in the city again. Knowing every lane, road, and bend, yet feeling lost. In a way, it felt like kizi and I had reached a safe house where routine life, comfort, and mundanity had taken over.

The journey, the adventure we had together, kept playing back in my head. Not the concept of a vacation or an escape, but the sensation of freedom. Of nothingness.

Delhi felt like a prison i was familiar with. I just felt a little different, in the same place I had

always been, approaching the world differently, hoping it wouldn’t turn my perspective back into how it used to be. Trying to hold onto the feeling of nothingness all the time. Staying alone most of the time. Trying not to let anything distract me from this energy I had found.

Those 3 months on the road felt longer in my head; I just kept processing it. It was something only the two of us shared, the way we grew together, we couldn’t stay away from each other, Kizashi and I. Neither could we stay away from the road and the peace we had found.

So we left again. This time for Uttarakhand, along with two other passengers.

With the trust and confidence the Kizashi and I had built, we wanted to share similar journeys with others just so i could express how it felt, what i felt when i was away, alone. To show them what it was like, how liberating it felt.

Kizi was still struggling with the gearbox, and the clutch had started to act strange. I knew it wasn’t giving up on me, definitely not. But the AC vents started to exhale smoke just as we began the ascend causing a panic. For a moment I thought maybe I had pushed it too much, ignored the signs. Later realized it was just moisture stuck near the air conditioning system. The outer pipe was blocked with dirt and couldn’t let the water out.

We roamed around empty mountain roads, parked, and laid on the quiet mountain grass for hours. Silently roaming, exploring the stillness. There came a point when we didn’t even leave the car anymore, just went to queit spaces, sat on the windows, used Kizi’s roof as our table, and the open starry sky as our roof.

We did exactly what we had always aspired to do. Kizi and I.

It was a wonderful sight Kizashi parked among 4x4s, SUVs That too with a major clutch issue, causing serious hindrance while shifting. Yet there it stood, holding its ground, quiet and calm, as if it too was just happy to be there, on the road again.

We headed back to delhi, with a craving to leave again for good, for a bigger adventure. I came back to delhi to prepeare for it, plan for it.Kizi was in dire need of some repairs, the gear shifting was getting harder with each passing day, and for it to do what we did last time and more, the restoration needed to be perfect. After days of trying to figure out what exactly was wrong with it and months of trying to find the right person to guide me with the technical knowledge I lack. I found one.

A rally driver in his time, passionate yet given up. He once built his Maruti zen from scratch and secured podiums in multiple cups. Lack of recognition for the sport, and the costly passion mad him slowly retire. Eventually he had to reside to running a small mechanic shop to make a living, flipping cars on the side. He was the kind of man i had been looking for a very long time, someone who had seen all kinds of engines, purpose behind every part and every modification, all kinds of fixes to keep em running.

Kizi’s core problem had been the clutch system ever since I got it. It was the first thing I started the restoration with. I thought I had fixed it, but little did i know, it had just been limping, struggling, doing what it could to run its best. But it wasn’t perfect.

The clutch release bearing inside the transmission box was leaking, rusted and for the third time, we had to lower the chassis, take out the transmission, and open it up again. Even after replacing the part and packing everything up, it didn’t fix the problem.

It took me another week to figure out that, oddly, the clutch pedal sat lower than the brake and gas pedal, not having enough room to build the exact pressure to activate the clutch. Without even bothering to find the exact clutch cylinder, I decided to cut and weld one inch of extra rod into the existing one which needed to be very precise since the cylinder was made out of plastic for some reason.

After days of this process and after the fourth time of taking out the transmission and packing it again. I pressed the clutch and realized how much smoother it was.

I had gotten so used to Kizi’s imperfection and romanticized it so much that I had stopped trying to make it better.I could finally tell a difference, and maybe, that had fixed it. But for some reason, I didn’t have enough confidence to make it my escape machine once again.

Even though I was going to the same place where our bond grew stronger, where we learnt to trust each other, where we survived together. I decided not to take it and it broke my heart not to.I had lost the confidence i once used to have in the car for some reason, even though it was working fine. I just started to doubt it. This paranoia that it might break again, or that I hadn’t fixed it properly yet.

As much as it was meant to handle anything, I believed this trip would take a toll on it, and I wouldn’t have the time to tend to it.

I had to leave the next day and it felt like I was leaving behind a part of my personality. I had associated myself with the car so much that it had become a part of my identity.

It was a practical decision. With its wide wheelbase, it became quite a hassle to navigate and maneuver through the tight and narrow terrain in Dharamkot, with the kind of chaos I was planning to put myself in this time I needed something I could rely on without even worrying about. Something that would be able to handle everything I was going to throw at it.

Something small, reliable, and stubborn enough to move through anything and everything.

My journey this time required the car to be just a means of commute, to meet deadlines, to make up for lost time. It needed to carry people, equipment, luggage, through heavy rainfalls, rough off-road terrains, flash floods, and 80-degree inclines every single day.

I needed something I wouldn’t care if broken down. Something easy to fix. Something that wouldn’t demand my heart every time it coughed.Because with Kizi, every breakdown was heartbreak.

Something with whom I had already done all of this before. Pushed its limits, tested its reliability, its comfort, its endurance.

This time I didn’t need poetry, I needed practicality. So I decided to take my 1L VW Ameo.

It wasn’t as powerful, not by any stretch, but it had its quiet determination. Small enough to squeeze through the narrow mountain lanes, light enough to take sharp turns without my heart dropping, simple enough for me to fix on the go.

In some strange way, it felt like returning to an old self the one that moved without thinking, without feeling the need to romanticize every mile.

This time, I wasn’t chasing freedom or stillness. I was chasing momentum.