My father loved his cars. First it was the Hillman. Black and shiny, it navigated the potholed roads with a certain elan, which my father attributed to the ‘higher clearance’. He would say higher clearance as if he had engineered it, with pride edging his voice.
Like most things loved unconditionally and that includes spouses, kids and pets, the car learnt petulance. On winter mornings it would refuse to start. And while my mother stood anxiously praying he would not get a heart attack, and we sat inside praying we would make it to school before assembly, my father would crank the handle in front of the wretched machine again and again till it finally relented.
Years later, when the Hillman went down the hill each of us must travel, my father bought himself a Herald. Rich, shiny green, it made him light up with joy every time he saw it.
He would watch anxiously over the cleaning boy in case he should scratch it carelessly, and every time anyone got out of the car, he would remind them to ‘shut the door gently.’ Though not a demonstrative man, I knew the full measure of his love when he allowed himself to teach me driving in his car... gritting his teeth through the false starts and sudden braking and clutch release mishaps.
My mother would joke about his car being his second wife, and therefore more beloved than the first, but I never quite understood his obsession.
At least not till I bought my own car. After the first few months of getting used to driving in the madness of Indian cities, my car and I began to understand each other. If I was gentle with the doors and went easy on the brakes, it seemed to purr happily as we drove along, swerving to avoid a biker, or racing to catch a green light before it turned red.
Eleven years of togetherness with neither having any complaint about the other, came to an end when I was advised to change cars before age caught up with it. My tax consultant agreed too, murmuring words like depreciation to convince me.
To ease my feeling of loss I decided my next car would be a dream realised. Dreams are costly, so I settled for a once-owned purchase. It was in good nick, had not done much running, and the excitement of driving it eased the old hurt.
If anyone tells you cars don’t have feelings… Bosh! This car missed its previous owner. For months it gave me trouble: at times the sensors would fail, other times the tyres would leak air, and it even once willed a tempo to crash into it while it stood quietly inside the colony. Oh how I missed my old car!
Pride and joy turned to anger and dismay. But patience won the day. I decided the steed needed to know I cared. So as I drove, carefully still, I talked to it. ‘Being friends would be a win-win, it would mean safety, and no painful injuries, it would mean feeling the wind on the skin as we rolled along from one place to another.’
It worked. We are friends now, my car and I. Now we hum along, tyres in sur with my voice. My friend asked me last week why I stood watching the man clean my car. ‘He might nick it’, I said. She laughed. And I thought of my father. I understood him now, perfectly.
saran.sathya@gmail.com
