💬 One old song and I'm back in a car with my friends

In 2011 five of us drove to Nagarjuna Sagar in my friend's old Maruti. It was built for 4 people. The tape player had 1 cassette stuck inside it. A Kishore Kumar one. Side A, over and over. We heard that side 9 times on the way there. Nobody was allowed to touch the button. Whoever tried got hit on the head by the person in the back, so we all stopped trying. The friend who owned the car sold it in 2014 for 18000 rupees. He still talks about it like a dead relative. The horn only worked if you hit the dashboard with your palm. We did that at every toll gate. Once the engine stopped near Miryalaguda and all 5 of us pushed it, singing the same song to keep time. Strangers stopped to watch. A boy on a cycle followed us for 1 kilometre, laughing his head off. Last month I was in a shop in Tolichowki and the same song came on. I stopped with the bag in my hand. For 3 minutes I was back in that car. Windows down, a friend's elbow in my ribs, the smell of petrol. I remembered the roadside hotel where we ate at 4 in the afternoon and the man who gave us extra onions. The shopkeeper asked if I was okay. I said yes. I paid and left without looking at the price. I sent a message to our old group, which had been dead for 2 years. I wrote, guess what song just played. Within 10 minutes 3 of them replied. Same song, no explanation needed. One of them just wrote, the tape. Then the group went quiet again, the way it does. One of them lives in Toronto now. I never play it on purpose. If it finds me by accident, fine. That's the deal I've made.

Side A played 9 times, and nobody was allowed to touch the button. That is a proper road trip. My friends and I had a cassette of old Hindi hits stuck in a Tata Sumo on a trip to Srisailam, and I still cannot hear Rafi without smelling petrol. Did the horn that only worked sometimes get fixed before the car was sold?

Mine is a song from our college farewell. I only play it once or twice a year. Last time it came on in a cafe by accident, and I sat there till it ended. The waiter asked 3 times if I was ready to order.