White Ambassador

Thursday, September 1, 2016, Sharjah.

5 Pm.

I am driving my kids to their Carnatic music classes and ironically English music is blasting in the car, incomprehensible lyrics, but clearly the children’s favourite. My son is not happy with the car I drive, and he wants me to upgrade it to a bigger one. I feign ignorance of the model that he is referring to and he painfully explains, “you know amma, the one with four circles”, of course, that one, which would leave as many holes and a dent as big as its rear into my savings.  I smile, listen to the crap music, their complaints, and muse.

It was early eighties. And I was seven or maybe eight.

My father was driving the whole family – my amma, brother and me from Trivandrum to our village in the neighboring state of Tamilnadu, in our white Ambassador. You know the old 70s model with its enormous and perfectly circular headlights, which looked like an old man staring with his eyes wide open, the radiator grill suggestive of a wily man with thick upper lip. The white ambassador stayed with us for a long time, until my marriage, and witnessed many happy trips with the family. The white ambassador was an upgrade from the previous herald car,  which I always felt was a beautiful but spiteful woman annoyingly calling it a day when we were about to set off for a happy trip to the beach.

I drop my kids at their classes, KS Chitra’s sweet voice now filling my car with Enna Thavam Seydhanai yasoda; I drift to the white Ambassasdor that had no stereo, no AC and not that I missed any of it, not for the lack of knowing advanced things then, but the wind blowing on my face with my neck craning out of the window, when dad was at the steering wheel was one of the best thing in the world of an nine year old girl.

A visit to my grandparents’ house always excited me. I loved being around my thatha who was the village head of some sort and was always busy but still tagged me along to sit with him while he pompously chewed the betel leaves and resolved the disputes, not all of them were trivial. From extra marital affairs, property issues, sibling rivalry, water problems, festival dates a whole lot of issues were discussed and consensus arrived. My thatha, the sole unquestionable arbitrator indeed of Melakkaranthai. I would sit hiding behind him, pretending to be invisible, sniffing his sweat and sometimes scratching his back, twisting his mustache.  I adored him - his mustache, his bellowing voice, his walking stick, his crispy white clothes. Everything about OSP, as he was affectionately called, invoked a lot of admiration in me. He was so regal in his mannerisms which reflected even when he would fart most impertinently amidst a group of people. His loud farts were with such impertinence that was shocking to the little girl from the city. Today, there is a lot of dispute surrounding his possessions, who has inherited what, but there is no debate that it is my fortuitous mother who inherited his thundering farts.

A few days into my village and few annoying questions was all it required to undo the excitement of being with my grandparents and prompt me to get back to Avittom Road. At the village, regardless of the young, old, male or female everyone would openly ask my mother or me if my eye risked meeting them, me if I got my first period, attained puberty ( vayasskku vanthacha) and in a fashion that appeared it was a goal that I had to achieve, and not a natural course of events. I would cringe with embarrassment and hold my breath for some time believing that would make me drop down dead. It must have been one of these questions that got Sita sunk into the earth, I was convinced at that time. People at city never asks you these questions. But then there are no secrets in a village. Everyone is into everyone’s life. That is what they do for amusement. Life is one big soap opera. I vowed to live in city when I grow up ignoring that thousands of little women in the villages have lived more gentle and equable lives than those in the city.

I park my car and return home. I acknowledge my neighbor in the elevator with a nod and a smile that fails to reveal the lines around my mouth. She has been my neighbor for 7 years but I barely know her, I mused, save that they are from Lahore or is it Karachi? Isn’t it funny, at Melakkaranthai my grandfather knew every single family in the village, how old their children were, what was their crop valued, the margin,  how much was their debt, whether they had money to marry their daughters, where their children studied, down to every detail which would put the detailed calculations of my space scientist dad to shame.  He took ownership and accountability of the every family, the education of every child, the marriage of every girl, bailing out the odd one. Maybe that is why city life is preferred for the solitary. The city reflects the sadness of sophistication. Of Privacy. Of solitude. Secrets kept in compartments. No one wants to know because no one cares.

My father’s ego never overstayed at my grandparents’ house. And despite being told by my thatha to travel next morning, he insisted that the journey in the evening hours was better and …would be in time home before midnight. Nothing is more pleasurable than an opportunity to out conform the leader. Dinner at Thirunelveli, beat the rush traffic from Nagercoil by 10pm,  he would say as though he had all planned to the fraction of seconds, like his space launch vehicle. Funny, how we think we know better and fast forward thirty years he is the recipient of similar adoration from my kids and rebuff from his son in law.  The saturnine karmic cycle continues to do what it has to do.

That journey, ominous to my thathas words took much longer than my father’s scientific calculation. On our way back, we lost our way and kept circling in the middle of night to find the high way to Trivandrum. My father was furious, he blamed it on my thatha’s ill-omened words. My father, known for his intellect and his temperament, each outdoing the other, was not known to be calm. His paranoia caught on to all of us and that night, all of us were frightened out of our wits. It was late and there was no one to ask the direction. Father was banking on the fuel pump in the high way to fuel his journey. My mother took out a book with picture of Thirupathi and began to murmur fervently . We got lost and I was terribly frightened.

Predictably, we ran out of fuel and we were stranded in middle of nowhere. The only thing to do was switch off the engine, lower the windows and wait for dawn, for help to arrive and pray that the night passes by safe. It was terrifying. There were stray dogs, bandits, and it was not a safe place to be in. My brother is 18 months older than me and he can’t have been more than 10 years, when he volunteered that night to go by himself looking for help. His words and the bravery on his puppy face would have prompted courage to any timid man. Dad told him to stay and he left us under the care of the 10 year old boy. After what seemed an eternity, he returned in a TVS 50 with a man and a plastic can of petrol. 

The white ambassador eventually brought us home by early hours of next morning.  We learnt a new route joked my father, trying to lighten up things. I did not find it funny. Not then. The road less travelled is peaceful because it is deserted, I thought. It is not always safe, because when you need help the travelers are on the road frequently travelled. 

As always at the end of a long journey, when we returned to Avittom Road, the following day, dad would give the white ambassador a good wash and wipe till it shone and would turn to his little helper and beamingly ask me “So how was the journey” Out of sheer fear of his temper, or maybe the longing for more trips to hometown, I would tell him exactly what he wanted to hear, the development of early ostensible appreciation aka interpersonal skills.

Its time to pick up my kids. I drive back to Symphony. 

My own journey has taken unexpected detours, I muse. As I sit in the parking lot, listening to songs from Punnagai Mannan, waiting for my children, I realise that I am no longer afraid of being lost. I am no longer afraid of new journeys. Because it always reveals something new, and this is ultimately life changing.

There is a time in the life of every girl when she for the first time takes the backward view of the life. Reflect. Perhaps that is the moment when she crosses the line into becoming a woman? The new journey that I have embarked upon last year revealed me to myself, that all I wanted was to live a life where I could be me, and be okay with that. I had no need for affirmations, material possessions, or company with me on my journey. Yet, at times loneliness largely looms ahead like a scary destination. I have to shrug it off. Eagles don’t flock, they fly alone, and that’s fine.  All I want is the chance to be the creator of my own world, my own reality, my own journey.  I want the open road and the new beginnings every day. I know, that is a tall order. My stupidity has no limitations sometimes.

It is past sunset.

My children are back from the class. They have now forgotten that they want a new car. Gautam opens the roof shield and wistfully stares at the moon.  At moments like these, when I catch my son staring at the stars, talking to himself, I know he is creating his own childhood, travelling his own journey, picking up some marks and leaving others… It scares me, yet can’t wait to read his journey someday….

My journey or yours.

Aren’t we all forever travelling?

Seeking other states, other lives, other souls? Some of us in White Ambassador, some of us like the eagle, some us in flocks...but arrive at the same end.

Good night.