Bhavin Shukla

In the early 2000s, Accelerator, Break, and Clutch were close friends.

Clutch was very proud of the three because the car would not move without its assistance.

Then there was another group of three,  the Handle that was near the front number plate and helped to hand-crank start the car when battery was low, the Fuel that provided all the energy and the Gear rod. They all had important roles to play in the journey of the car.

The Gear Rod was the driver’s closest and greatest friend since the drivers rested their hands on the gear rod.

All the friends seemed happy.

A day came when Handle was unemployed. The design of the car was changed, which meant the hand-crank Handle was no longer required.

Everyone was sad to see the Handle go but there was a consensus that it hardly had any role to play, it had some value only when the car battery went down, and with long lasting batteries now available it was not required.

Handle was unemployed and had to leave. After a few days and years it all became normal, rest of the friends seemed happy again!

One day, an unexpected modification was made to the car’s design, resulting in the new cars being labelled “Automatic” and no longer requiring the Clutch and the Gear Rod. They, too, were made redundant and went.

From the original six, only Fuel, Accelerator and Break remained. They appeared to be quite at ease, believing that all of the negative events and redundancies that were required had occurred. There is nothing to worry about because a car will always require an accelerator and a brake, and it will never work without Fuel.

They just went into their comfort and another disruption took place, the Accelerator was there but its competitor was introduced, who was called Cruise Control. The role that Accelerator was most proud of, namely that the drivers used to love putting their foot on the Accelerator on the motorway to get the adrenaline, was taken away by Cruise.

The Accelerator understood that it would soon meet the same fate as its other friends. 

Brake slowly was coming to the terms that the modernisation and driverless vehicles will eventually eliminate the need for the Brake Pedals.

And with climate activists being seen frequently on the road, it was clear to Fuel that there were difficult days ahead for it too. The new model called as “EV” would not require the fuel.

Those were the days of the six friends, all of whom had been happy but were now unemployed. The world was debating why everyone should keep oneself current and updated, but the six had nothing to enhance; they were designed as planned. They could not be upgraded but their only fate was to get replaced.

Do you think that this story is highly pertinent to our times?

Do you have any ideas on what they could have done differently to save their jobs?