My Brown Beauty

A quick pitter patter of footsteps. A surge of excitment and a sharp gleam of sunlight bouncing off the hood. That is how I remember that afternoon of the oppresive Gwalior heat. I was 6, the year 1986 when she rolled into the driveway. My mother's excited shouts got me and my brother running across the house and into the sun bathed balcony. I stood on tip toes and bent low over the railing for a good look at her. My father stood beside the car in uniform waving for us to come down for a drive. We rushed, with me forgetting to wear my slippers even, and in a trice I was sitting and surveying her wide eyed, unbelievingly.

The drive was smooth, almost like I was on air. Everything seemed so unreal. They say seeing is believing but for me then it was touching and feeling that would bring home the reality. So I let my fingers feel every bit of the car from the seats to the roof, the tiny locks on the door, the handle to roll the windows, the speakers and the dikkie which seemed so spacious that I was almost tempted to jump in. That is how far I could get by sitting in the back seat. The front portion seemed more complicated and enticing. The small controls and and lit signals looked something like the tiny controls in my toy plane. I was happy, cosied up, leaned back and smiled.

I felt secure - a feeling that I was to associate with her for years to come.

She was something. A chocolate brown Maruti 800. The old model. Infact the oldest now of all the models that have sprung, each better than the previous. Our car was the first amongst the batch imported from Japan. She was talk of the battalion then. None had seen a sleeker, lighter weight car after the ambassador, the fiat and the faithful army vehicles like the jonga and the three ton!

Time passed and after that heady afternoon I almost forgot about her. Afterall, during those school years, my everyday mode of transport was the army school bus. I remember waiting for it to lumber up that turn in the road for a bumpy ride to school and home.

Till then she meant just that to me - a car till my father got posted to Srinagar and she turned into a house on wheels. We drove from Gwalior to Srinagar for 10 days through the mountains and ghats stopping for the nights at the transit camps. The landscape gradually changed from the plains to the steep Himalayan ranges with the Chenab thundering below in the valleys. And I always felt secure inspite of the sharp drops, the landslides, the steep climbs and the huge trucks, whose tyres reached our windows, labourously overtaking and spewing exhaust.

When we reached Srinagar I was ready for another long road trip.

Months rolled into years and I finally learnt to drive when I was 23. By then we had bought another car and the old Maruti stood under the Gulmohar tree, unused for months till she found a new driver, me. As for me, I found a new companion. My friends, a new joke, us. I was Raikkonen driving a Ferrari.

She looked every inch an old vintage albeit a bit battered with dents on the door and the paint peeling off but she worked fine. After 22 years of service she still ran as good as new. To top it all she was the most conspicuous on the roads. I loved her.

One of my best times were because of my Brown Beauty. I not only learnt to drive on that car but for years she formed my own little world. Driving to office, back home, with mummy on our shopping trips, dropping and getting Bharat from the airport, with friends. She had been with me all along. I could continue with Aptech's night shifts because of her and could go places knowing she wouldn't let me down. And she didn't.

Last year when I went home I felt a pang when I saw the empty space under the Gulmohar. We sold her. She didn't have me. 'Maruti 800. Old model. Chocolate brown.' read the advertisement. The calls started coming by 7 in the morning and by noon she was gone. With her, a part of me.

This I write as a personal tribute to a car that's no match for any other. I doubt whether any car today would give the excellent service she did after 22 years. Santy's BMW and Corvette might leave a trail of fire behind but if given a chance I'd drive my Brownie to the oscars!

She let me be me. I have sung, cried, laughed, talked to myself in that car and come away feeling happy. She gave me the freedom and most of all a deep sense of security. I can still hear Tracy singing 'Fast car' and see myself making that turn while the song played loud from the stereos:

I remember we were driving in your car
The speed so fast I felt like I was drunk
City lights lay out before us
And your arm felt nice wrapped 'round my shoulder
And I had a feeling that I belonged
And I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone ...