Our Baby Austin

 It was a beautiful, verdant green thing with silver coated headlights mounted on the front mudguards and wheels with sparkling steel spokes.. The grill in between with a dangling handle at its bottom and the emblem on its top was of particular attraction.

The dangling handle  posed a veritable litmus test for my muscular strength.. It had to be pushed inside a little and then rotated in quick succession for ten minutes  and only then  the engine spluttered  and burst into a roar.

Though the name of the lovely thing was Baby Austin, my father christened it Raja Hamsa, the divine bird when it entered into our house and became a member of our family.

It was two door, five seater and it never grumbled, even our father sat before the steering on a rainy morning.

My father was a doctor and it carried him faithfully where he wanted to go to visit his patients mostly on catcha roads.

On week-ends it was a grand treat for us to have a ride in it.

I should be callous if I referred to it as just a car without any warm sentiment.

It was a small car of multi purpose. During a cold morning it gave us hot water and its back seat served as a warm mattress when need arose.

During a chilly morning when the barometer touched its lowest, my elder brother ignited the engine and kept it in idling position for five minutes. Then he unscrewed the bottom lid of the radiator. And the wonderful thing would happen. Hot water gushed down which I filled in an aluminum bucket. In those days cooking gas was unknown and this device hit upon by our eldest brother saved us the trouble of lighting the firewood oven to boil water for bathing.

Once it so happened that on a winter night a short, plump cousin of mine dropped in unexpectedly. Naturally he was asked to stay that night with us. But to our embarrassment the spare cot was broken and the carpenter would not turn up despite repeated requests. And no mattress could be borrowed from any neighbor as it was already half past  twelve in the middle of the night. My brother who devised hot water from the car, cried, `Eureka.’

Before we could recover the shock of his sudden, shrill cry, he ran down the stair-case. In less than ten minutes he was back with a four feet long back seat of the car on his head. In no time a decent bed was made with the back seat of the car and my cousin slept on it like a log.

As the baby car was thus serving us in various ways, Nature struck a discordant note and pathos set in.

On that fateful day, father planned a trip to a  village in the car. The occasion was buying a buffalo for our dairy needs. It was a family trip because all of us wanted to enjoy the greenery of the countryside for sometime away from the bustle of the city.

We got up early in the morning and got ready to embark upon our thrilling journey. My elder brother who thought of himself to be a co-pilot in commandeering the car beckoned at me His order was that I should go to the garage and twist and tweak the handle of the car till the engine warmed up and ignited. I was eager to please him so that he would be magnanimous to make a little room for me in the front seat. During running, the gear of the car always slipped from the second position o the front seat. During running, when my father pressed the clutch and shifted the gear into the second position, it would slip into the third one. It was my elder brother’s job to hold the gear-rod as long the gear was to remain in that position. Hence he was co-pilot.

I rolled back the sleeves of my shirt and set upon my task. The car was kindly. In less than five minutes the engine roared.

After elaborate rituals of checking the level of the oil in the engine, extent of water in the radiator and fixing of the terminal wires to the battery, our golden chariot found its was onto the road with father at the steering wheel.

Our car carried us to the destination without a grumble and towards evening the deal was struck.

As soon as the cattle owner arranged for the transportation of the buffalos by a truck, we started on our return journey.

The car was sliding on the road smoothly, with our co-pilot brother warning father that the gear in second position might slip at any moment and give the car violent jerks. I was sitting in the front seat, enjoying the beautiful scenery. The road was flanked by a row of tiled houses on one side of the road  and green fields on the other, some three feet below the  road –level.. Each of the house was bordered by a pyol and little children were playing on them while the aged ones watched over, munching fried ground-nuts.

Father at the wheel was enjoying the scene. He was also dreaming his hot-cup of coffee in the early morning with the fresh milk from the  newly bought buffalo. We children also engrossed in mouth watering thoughts about curd with thick scum and payasam with the unadulterated, fresh milk from the next-day.

Then! Putting a sudden, violent end to our thoughts, a little boy jumped onto the middle of the road from the pyol to catch a cut-off kite hovering on a tree in the fields opposite.

There was no time left to think. The distance between the car and the boy was hardly three feet. Father’s reflexes acted very sharply. To save the child from being crushed under the wheels, father turned the steering to extreme left..

Before we could realize what was happening, the car rolled into the fields and came to a grinding halt after hitting a boulder.

The accident would have been fatal had not my co-pilot brother switched off the while the car was rolling into the fields. Soon a crowd gathered at the sight and a good Samaritan  broke open the jammed door lock.

As if to save our lives, our car took the full impact of the accident and but for the trauma, we were safe with minor cuts and bruises. We left the car there and reached home in a taxi-cab.

It took us two weeks to get over the shock.

As arranged, the crushed remains of our car were brought back in a truck.

As father could not bear the sight of the dead car, he told my brother to pay for the freight and take charge of the  vehicle. were brought back in a truck.

As father could not bear the sight of the dead car, he told my brother to pay for the freight and take charge of the  vehicle.

On seeing the heaped material that had been our car, my brother broke into sobs. I also joined him with a violent cry.

Father realized that the unfortunate thing was beyond repair. Accordingly the truck assumed the duty of a bier. And it was led to its final resting place where its uncrushed parts were to be dismembered and put on sale. My brother and myself followed the funeral procession with tears.

A post card sized photograph of the car in a silver stand adorned father’s writing table. He used to gaze at it with tears in his eyes everyday till he left for his eternal abode in ripe old age.

Now everyone of our family members have a photograph of  that verdant  green  little thing.