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I never entered a car when I was a student at Muthukur...nor in my university years at Vizagh...not even a taxicab...there were so few cars on the Indian roads in the 1950s and 60s that they were a luxury few could afford.
But soon after I joined IIT KGP as a faculty in 1965, I was friends with Prof BCB of AE who was 15 years older to me but was a bachelor living for a while in our Faculty Hostel. He came from an aristocratic family of Calcutta, spent his schooling and college years in London, and was smelling rich. He owned a cute little black Fiat Millicento (1100 cc). It was perhaps the only car in the Campus apart from the Ambassador Staff Car of the Director...now there must be a thousand...even I owned one towards the end of my stay there in 2000.
My new pushbike got stolen the evening I bought it and I was so forlorn that I decided not to buy another but walk to the Institute...a ten-minute walk. And whenever BCB saw me walk, he would stop his Millicento and ask me to get in. And I was scared because I was not used to travel in cars and also because our Hod, HNB, and my Guide, SDM, were walking or going by rickshaw and I felt embarrassed for reasons of false modesty prevalent those days...one never smoked in front of HNB although he would be smoking his Capstan fags relentlessly.
After I got into BCB's car, I used to sit like a sack of wheat, afraid I would touch an untouchable knob or gizmo on the dashboard and jinx it since I was too poor to afford it. This unhealthy fear was because of my bitter experience when I was in my school-final and broke the clasp of the bobbin of a sewing machine of my tailor-friend and couldn't afford to replace it and so had to coach his son for three good months at my home in Muthukur. I then promised myself that I would never fiddle with another's gizmos and step into hot soup.
On the whole this was a good policy as attested by the incident of Prof GLS who had just bought a new Ambassador (Mark 2). I had read a flier of this version of Ambassador that listed its 29 novel features.
The story went that GLS was going to the cremation ghat to see off for good a faulty-friend of his. And saw a couple of his departmental colleagues walking by to the same event and invited them to join him in his brand new car...which they did.
After the four hours that the farewell took, all of them were hungry and eager to get back to their homes...
"Today's lunch subtends a greater visual angle than last night's death"
And while GLS was walking slowly chatting with his HoD, he saw his erstwhile 'passengers' practically running towards his Mark 2 car to escape the boiling sun. And he too started running behind them, shouting:
"Wait, wait, wait! The car doors are locked!"
But his guests didn't care to wait. As the bulky GLS was trying to catch up on them, he watched to his consternation one of them reach the car and turn the handle of the door. It didn't oblige and he applied more torque...and still it didn't budge...then he got wild and turned it with all his might.
The handle broke and came plumb into his waiting hands...
GLS was fuming since he couldn't open that door of his car without its handle..
It so happened that the Mark 2 version of Ambassador had a new handle design...one doesn't turn it but press the button beside and pull it...
Hell hath no more fury than the owner of the new Mark 2 Ambassador whose handle broke like the breached tenth commandment...
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"There's nothing in the manual about 'smoke'. But hold on, I'm looking up 'fire' "
But soon after I joined IIT KGP as a faculty in 1965, I was friends with Prof BCB of AE who was 15 years older to me but was a bachelor living for a while in our Faculty Hostel. He came from an aristocratic family of Calcutta, spent his schooling and college years in London, and was smelling rich. He owned a cute little black Fiat Millicento (1100 cc). It was perhaps the only car in the Campus apart from the Ambassador Staff Car of the Director...now there must be a thousand...even I owned one towards the end of my stay there in 2000.
My new pushbike got stolen the evening I bought it and I was so forlorn that I decided not to buy another but walk to the Institute...a ten-minute walk. And whenever BCB saw me walk, he would stop his Millicento and ask me to get in. And I was scared because I was not used to travel in cars and also because our Hod, HNB, and my Guide, SDM, were walking or going by rickshaw and I felt embarrassed for reasons of false modesty prevalent those days...one never smoked in front of HNB although he would be smoking his Capstan fags relentlessly.
After I got into BCB's car, I used to sit like a sack of wheat, afraid I would touch an untouchable knob or gizmo on the dashboard and jinx it since I was too poor to afford it. This unhealthy fear was because of my bitter experience when I was in my school-final and broke the clasp of the bobbin of a sewing machine of my tailor-friend and couldn't afford to replace it and so had to coach his son for three good months at my home in Muthukur. I then promised myself that I would never fiddle with another's gizmos and step into hot soup.
On the whole this was a good policy as attested by the incident of Prof GLS who had just bought a new Ambassador (Mark 2). I had read a flier of this version of Ambassador that listed its 29 novel features.
The story went that GLS was going to the cremation ghat to see off for good a faulty-friend of his. And saw a couple of his departmental colleagues walking by to the same event and invited them to join him in his brand new car...which they did.
After the four hours that the farewell took, all of them were hungry and eager to get back to their homes...
"Today's lunch subtends a greater visual angle than last night's death"
And while GLS was walking slowly chatting with his HoD, he saw his erstwhile 'passengers' practically running towards his Mark 2 car to escape the boiling sun. And he too started running behind them, shouting:
"Wait, wait, wait! The car doors are locked!"
But his guests didn't care to wait. As the bulky GLS was trying to catch up on them, he watched to his consternation one of them reach the car and turn the handle of the door. It didn't oblige and he applied more torque...and still it didn't budge...then he got wild and turned it with all his might.
The handle broke and came plumb into his waiting hands...
GLS was fuming since he couldn't open that door of his car without its handle..
It so happened that the Mark 2 version of Ambassador had a new handle design...one doesn't turn it but press the button beside and pull it...
Hell hath no more fury than the owner of the new Mark 2 Ambassador whose handle broke like the breached tenth commandment...
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