The Automobile

Well, this being my first public piece of writing, i will stick with topics that i am comfortable with. For the time being. And what is more comfortable to me than that erotic, heart warming, lung searing, eyeball attracting combination a few kilos of rubber, some more of plastic and lots of steel (or, for the really exotic kind, Aluminium) that we call the automobile.

I am stuck in a horrible, low paying, self-depreciating job (more on that later). and this is primarily because of this disease that stuck me probably around the time i was sitting on the ground looking up at the underside of broken down Maruti Gypys that were lying in the repair yard of some godforsaken place. I might add that at the same time, my buddies were lying around looking at the undersides of other, albeit not man made combination that has the same erotic, heart warming, lung searing, eyeball attracting effect as the aforementioned automobile. Yes, i am talking about the female of our species, an attraction that i migrated to a little later in my life(more on even this later).

But well, about the automobile. I can launch into a lengthy lecture into the different kind there are, why they are and how they are different from each other. But I'll let that pass. I will, instead, concentrate on the very different, albeit equally boring topic of what effect they have had on me, and others around me. Me, there's no other way to describe it, but to say that the automobile that 'drives' every aspect of my life. I am watching the latest Bond flick, bad guys chasing Bond, shooting and there are things falling apart all over, and all i am wondering is whether the second car after Bond's Aston Vanquish is an Alfa Romeo 147 or a 159. There's this movie going on, comic scene with the actors in an open top car, cracking some funny, and many not-so-funny jokes, and i am wondering if the bus following them is a Mercedes or an Iveco.

I was a kid once and we lived in a sleepy, secluded mining town called Noamundi, about 3 hours by road from Jamshedpur. When you wanted to visit civilisation, you either took a slow passenger train or drove down the slow, potholed road. My earliest childhood memories are of those rides, especially those in the night, where i used to play a game of identifying cars, as they approached our car, by their headlights. Then i wanted a bike. This, i remember, is right after i saw Kamal Hassan rev his bike up in front of the heroines house in Ek Duje Ke Liye. I guess this was also the time when i my preferences shifted towards the non man made combination mentioned earlier.

Well, this is all for today. Not too bad for the first time, i hope.