20th May 1984, Comes Once

Dear Diary!
Wow! It is a Sunday today. I am eagerly waiting for my Uncle to come in his new brown ambassador car. He has promised that he will take me for a ride. It will be my first car drive and I am really thrilled. I can hear a car honking at our gate. It must be my Uncle. I better rush down.  Diary, I shall see you when I come back. Bye for now.

Hey Diary!
How have you been? I am back after a day loooong ride on the brown ambassador.  I had a time of my life today in my Uncle’s car. But I missed you. I wanted to take you along, but you see I could not write in a moving car. And also what if I would have smudged my Uncle’s new car seats with my colour pens! How miserable would he have felt? 
But I will narrate everything that happened today. You remember how I stepped aside from my study table and peeped out from my room window.  That’s because I heard a beep of a car. There it was, my date waiting for me.  The solid chocolate brown colour ambassador car was waiting for me to gobble it. It was my Uncle’s new flashy and sparkling car.  From my room on the first floor I could clearly see the arrival of the posh car. My Uncle had parked the car at a perfectly dramatic place.  The brown mechanical jewel was in the center surrounded with roses, marigold and full blossomed petunias. From my room it appeared like a nosegay. The crystal clean window paned glittered like the polished African diamonds.  The deep black tyres looked to have recently got delivered from the Hindustan Motors showroom. And of course there was so much more about that brown ambi ( as we started to call it) The tail lights, the head lights, the tyre radial, the boot, the bonnet everything was perfectly manicured and pedicured.  I thought; if this is how it looked from outside wonder how plush the interiors would be. I sighed and went back to my room and packed my bag and rushed down.
Upon reaching to the living room I observed that my parents had stepped out to the lawn to admire the new car and Binni and Archie were arched up on the diwan.  They noticed my arrival and we shared a very diplomatic smile.  Both the sisters are my cousins but very snobbish. And today of all days I assume they were even more snooty.  Well why wouldn’t they be?  My family does not own a car.  The car drive was a long desired dream for me. When my Uncle purchased the car, he invited us for a drive.  But my parents had some prior engagements and could not come but I did not want to miss it for anything in the world.
My parents returned after marveling at the aesthetics and the mechanics of the car. My mother packed some finger food for our car picnic in a huge cane basket.  Triumph and joyous I went to the kitchen to collect the basket. Least expecting in my rush I stepped into a puddle of water in the kitchen floor and slipped and spoilt my clothes. My mother gave be an arched eyebrow look and I felt humiliated in front of everyone. I abhorred the jagged looks that Binni and Archie passed at me. But very sweet of my Uncle to say – Don’t worry dear. Change your dress, we can wait for you.
Without taking any help from anyone, I retreated to my room and changed my dress as fast as I could.  As you would know Diary that I had kept a special pistachio color dress for today’s car ride. But nevertheless….
I reached the living area and upon my arrival everyone alightened and walked towards the car. I was the tail ender. I wanted to run and sit in the car but I did not want to explicitly show my eagerness to Binni and Archie; and land up in some muddy mess of my lawn. So I was steady in my steps. But there is no denying that I was experiencing an adrenalin rush in myself. Also, I must confess that somewhere within myself I was dreading my cousins. They were complete brats and took no mercy at anyone.
I reached the car.  The time I stood next to my dream ride, I started to feel nervous. This nervousness was because of many reasons. Foremost I did not know how to open the door of the car. Secondly I was unaware about car etiquette. Next I was dreading my stint with my cousins. They really knew how to pull down the other person. And amongst these things, I was hoping that I did not soil the new car with my lunch basket and my filthy shoes.
Now when I stood next to the sparkling metal piece, I did not know which way to go in. Both the seats of the rear window were occupied by Binni and Archie. None of them were courteous enough to help me open the door. Instead they both passed looks and winked at each other. I did not know if it was decent to sit on the front seat. I was left with no choice and I waited for my Uncle to come and guide me. Uncle bid adieu to my parents and started to walk towards the ambi, he appeared like a superstar of a magnum opus movie. He flashed the car key with the miniature Ganesh oscillating as the key chain. It was the same key chain that my mother and I had got for him from the new market.
Uncle stopped at the driver’s door and unlocked the car and then walked across to my side and opened the door for me. OMG ! I felt like a princess at that moment.  He guarded my head from the frame of the door, exactly when I stepped into my maiden car drive. As I perched myself on the seat, I bounced; the seat was so cushy. It felt to have been filled with the fur of a rabbit. I cleansed and tapped my shoes outside the car, just to ensure that the carpet of the car remains clean. I pushed myself back on the seat and relaxed. I could stretch my legs to any length and it was a great feeling. I was enjoying myself. The car ceiling was way above me. I rested the picnic basket on my laps.
 It was out rightly a royal feeling for a girl who had always been travelling in the public transport. Honestly Dear Diary! Now I know why Binni and Archie were such big snobs.  Why would they pass smirks at each other whenever they spotted me? Why did not budge to help me with the car door.  Of course they belonged to “haves” and I belonged to “have not’s”.  I had my answers now. Nevertheless, I did not want to spoil my date over petty tiffs.
I was enjoying a magnificent panorama from the front seat.  It was like a live moving cinema. The clarity of the sparkling windscreen was sparkling. There was a vista of lives, hawkers and passerby’s in the backdrop of the crystal blue skies. It was WOW!

 My Uncle was driving very carefully and cautiously. He was seated next to the steering wheel. The front seat of the car was like a three seat sofa. I was at one end and Uncle was on the other end of the seat. In between the two of us there was a spiked inverted golf stick kind of a tool with one, two, three and four embossed on it. In one direction of the inverted golf stick there was “R” mentioned.  I was tempted to ask Uncle, but did not, since I did not want to bother him at the juncture of driving a car. Both his feet were on a steel plate kind of a thing. Uncle told me that the inverted golf stick was the gear.  The three steel plates were the clutch, brake and accelerator. Gear was used to help the car move from high speed to low speed or vice versa. Clutch plate was pushed whenever the gear had to be moved. Brake was self-explanatory and accelerator was pressed to increase the speed of the car.  His left arm was either on this spiked inverted golf stick or on the steering wheel. His eyes were looking ahead on the road. His mind and ear were constantly vigilant and alert to any noise, passerby or any other indication on the road. Uffff!!!  Was he a superman or something? How could he do so many things at the same time?
In the midst of all this multi-tasking, he stretched his hand to the cassette player which was artistically engraved below the windscreen and in the center of the dash board.  He asked me to pull out a cassette of his all-time favourite “Kishore Kumar sings for Dev Anand” from the cassette stacks. As soon as the melody began to play Uncle started to sing along. He asked us to sing along. Well I was a little hesitant. But Binni and Archie were humming along with their father. 
Hmmm Diary are you having fun?
Uncle was driving slow. We were within the city and probably the busiest market area. There was choc-co-block traffic on the road. The traffic was caused by the tonga’s, state buses, cycles, rickshaws, bullock carts, two-wheelers, motorbikes and very sporadic cars.  Our brown ambi was among the very few cars on the road. The other two cars threading there way, were two white ambassadors ferrying some minister or some dignitary. Our brown ambi fortified the look of the mundane, robotic road with a dash of spark. The windows on my Uncle’s side was rolled down and I was making music out of the sounds coming from the road
bang-bang, clitter-clatter, vroom zoom, beep-beep
sounds of machines, echoing from the mechanical heap.
side walkers make no sound, no hurry to leap,
their movie is mute, impact more deep.
No sooner were we out of the city limits, my uncle accelerated the car to seventy kilometers. The road was smooth and congestion free. I witnessed that there were three large circular panels right below the steering wheel. Uncle observed me and told me - Beta, these three panels tell me essential things about the car. The first tells me the speed at which I am driving.  When I went closer to the panel, it was pointing at seventy. Uncle interrupted - Yes, this means , that I am driving at seventy kilometer per hour, the second panel tells me about how much petrol is available in the tank. Is it Full, Half or Empty. I thought how clever the person who invented the car was.  Lastly beta, the third panel tells me about the number of rounds the car wheels make in a minute”.  There was also a small rectangular rear view mirror that Uncle would often look into. This was to monitor the traffic coming from behind.
Out of ignorance, I had not rolled down the window on my side. Honestly Diary, only because I didn’t know how to do it. I was undoubtedly feeling hot and cluttered. Uncle observed my discomfort and taught me how to roll down the window. He also said  - Dear, you must be also feeling hot, because you are holding the hot tiffin case on your laps . When I told him the reason, he burst out laughing and passed on the tiffin to Binni and Archie on the back seat. They pouted but held it firmly on the empty space.
After being in the car for more than an hour, there was no conversation between me and my cousins. They were busy looking outside the window. And I was busy too, ogling at the stationery world outside from my temporary ride of pride. I could feel the waft of the air touching me on my face and rustling through my black hair. I loved to experience brushing my hair back with my small hands. I waved at the street urchins who were running along with the car. As I was lost to the world outside, I did not realize that the car had stopped at the gate of my compound. We were back home.
In a short span of time, I thought I was more superior to my cousins. What if they own the car? They were not aware about the functionalities and mechanics of the car. I had more knowledge to show off at school and to Binni and Archie. I am a Winner! 

Yawn! Yawn! I am sleepy and tired.  Good Night Diary.