by Himangshu Dutta
I was fourteen when I first realised that our neighbourhood had many cars. Small cars, big cars, and the air-conditioned ones with their window-glasses turned up in the scorching heat of summer. Whenever I would hurry to the school bus-stop, or accompany Ma to a relative’s place, I would look at these cars plying on the road, and often wonder how lucky it would feel to ride inside one of them. I had a particular fascination for the white Ambassador. Its long bonnet proudly cut through the remaining traffic. And its soft cushioned seats reminded me of the exquisite, never-ending sofas that were displayed inside upscale furniture shops which we’d passed by on our walks, but never dared to enter. Those days, it was tagged as the definitive Indian car and was a symbol of rising India, as all the important people from our country seemed to ride in it.
Looking back, I now realise that even my mother had a soft corner for it, for whenever we would walk hand-in-hand and an Ambassador happened to pass by, her eyes would brighten with the colour of dreams and her grip on mine would tighten ever so slightly. My father was a doctor at a nearby dispensary, and each morning, he would walk that short distance to his office. He was a quiet and harried gentleman who preferred hanging his head in shock or sorrow whenever the situation called for action. Ma was the complaining housewife who, often, would use deuta’s love for both of us unfairly against him. One of her favourite pastimes was comparing her husband to the husbands of her neighbours. I remember, one of our neighbours – Sharma uncle – had bought a new white ambassador one day, and we had attended a puja at his house that afternoon. Later that night, Ma had fought with deuta –
“I wonder why I married you in the first place.” she had cried at him.
“B-But what did I do now?”
“That’s the problem. You haven’t done anything. Look at Mr. Sharma!”
By then, it was clear to my teenage mind that people with big cars had big pockets. But over the next few days, I had also convinced myself that people with big cars had big hearts too. Perhaps I had developed this notion after watching an ever-smiling Sharma uncle zip past our front-gate in his new Ambassador, with his daughter in the front seat waving a cheery “bye” to Ma who sat by our doorway, peeling onions and potatoes for deuta’s lunchbox or my tiffin.
Of course, there were other cars in our neighbourhood then. Even Gogoi uncle, another next-door neighbour, had a Maruti 800, but Sharma uncle’s ambassador was larger: “It is large enough to seat five people” as my mother would say.
Perhaps it was this sincere aspiration of my mother to be a part of the Ambassador’s rising India, in spite of my father’s honesty and his absolute lack of moneymaking skills, which makes one particular day – when Ma and I had attended a relative’s marriage ceremony – stand out in my mind…
It was a Guwahati bandh that day, and all the roads were deserted, save for a few rickshaw-pullers, who were charging an exorbitant amount for a short distance, and a few private vehicles which plied on the kaccha road in front of our house.
“No way, Ma,” I had cried, while she was putting on a saree. “You know how much I hate weddings. And besides, I can’t walk all that distance. My legs will hurt.”
I had howled and shouted, and stomped my feet a couple of times but Deuta had turned to me, “Moni, come here.” He said to me. “Do you want your mother to go alone then? What if something happens to her while she is returning at night?”
In the end, reluctantly, I had to go.
The evening was still young when we walked out onto the kaccha road that ran alongside our home, with the last rays of yellow sun slanting over the neighbourhood trees. A lone rickshaw puller, smoking his biddi under a flickering lamp post, looked expectantly at us as Ma walked past him.
“But shouldn’t we take a rickshaw, Ma?”
Ma looked back once but then kept walking. I followed her in silence.
Soon, we came upon Sharma uncle’s place.
“Great.” I said. “So we are not going to the wedding anymore?”
“They are also going.” Ma pointed at his house. “…and we are going with them.”
Suddenly, the thought of attending the marriage seemed bearable.
Aunty was getting ready when we walked up to their door, and Ma rang the bell. There was a hurried flight of muffled steps across their marbled floor inside. We waited. Their daughter, Mimi, opened the door; her right hand on the doorknob; the other one holding her red lipstick. She was looking pretty. She smiled at Ma and opened the door wide. An awkward moment followed, in which Ma went about explaining that “since we all are going to the wedding reception so I thought that…he he…”
“Uff. Not a single free rickshaw.” Ma finally cried, and disappeared into the other room, where aunty was applying makeup. The girl followed her. I sat by the guest-room sofa.
From the other room, aunty’s voice boomed, “Moni baba has come too?” referring to me. “Oh, good. Now we will all go together.”
Minutes passed. And I was all alone in their drawing room, with intermittent laughter filtering in from the next room. Bored, I looked out the nearby window which looked out onto their backyard, down at Sharma uncle. He was busy washing his car. On an impulse, I ran down to the backyard and watched him from a distance. Every few seconds, he would dip a mop into a bucket of soapy water kept nearby and then scrub the bonnet or the glasses or the rear side of the car. Once he even let me open the backdoor and climb onto the upholstered seats. Soon though, uncle stepped back from the car, and observed proudly,
“There. Isn’t she gleaming like a newly-wed bride?”
I nodded.
“Then why don’t you join us on its ride someday, huh?”
Then on our way up, he let me carry the mop and the bucket of water. For some reason, I felt very happy and grateful towards him. Upstairs all the ladies were now gathered in the hall and giggling over something.
“Why, it’s Baideu!” uncle cheered on seeing Ma. “So how are you?”
Ma beamed at him. But before she could reply, his daughter spoke out, “Dad, they are also going to the wedding with us.”
“Oh.”
We reached the reception an hour later – “with five people getting into a car meant only for four,” like uncle joked once. On the way, we overtook a free rickshaw, and uncle wondered aloud, without turning, how we could find none. I looked into the mirror at Ma. But she just kept looking out of the car’s window, refusing to meet any eye. Later as uncle parked the Ambassador beside the reception-gate, and we all got down, I looked up admiringly at the many-coloured lights hanging by the entrance. The entrance gate was festooned with two caned jaapis, and a couple of red-and-white gamosas. A collaged poster of bihu dancers greeted everyone filing past beneath it.
“So we finally reached safely, Moni!” uncle grinned at me.
But when I smiled back at him, he had already taken his daughter’s hand, and their family had disappeared inside the reception-gate. Ma and I followed them inside.
We stayed at the reception for an hour, with Ma getting up from her seat every time aunty strayed near the exit. The bride sat in one of the two upholstered sofas put up at the centre of the hall for the newly-weds, and she kept smiling. Once, she caught my eye and she smiled even more, like I was her long lost brother.
Mimi and uncle were nowhere to be seen. And aunty kept disappearing within wide circles of gathered ladies, or inside open rooms whenever Ma would trot towards her.
Soon though, all the guests were invited inside a big makeshift tent for dinner.
Once our dinners got over, aunty materialized from nowhere and pulled Ma by the hand, “Listen, er-rr, we might stay a little late so…”
“Oh.” Ma hesitated. “H-How l-long will you take?”
“About an hour or more. Actually, my husband has met some of his childhood friends and so…” she looked uneasy.
“Uh-huh.” Ma offered. “It’s alright. We will take a rickshaw then.”
“Really sorry, dear.”
Then aunty went back to uncle, who was now sitting inside a big circle of friends, upon the cane chairs put up beside the newly-weds’ sofas. She whispered something into his ears. He shrugged his shoulders, and turned to the crowd around him. Then he cracked a joke. It must have been good, for his daughter – who stood nearby – burst out laughing.
I was sitting by the exit door when Ma ambled up to me.
“Hurry now,” she said. “We have to catch a rickshaw before it gets too dark, or your deuta will start worrying.”
We moved outside. Once outside, we trotted towards the nearby rickshaw stand. But not one free rickshaw stood there. We started walking back home. The roads were mostly deserted by now. And the distant sound of laughter still rang in my ears.
“Ma, why didn’t we wait for them?”
I could still see their car at the distance, parked beside the reception gate. Two children were running around its bonnet.
“Because…” Ma sighed. “…their car just got smaller for the two of us.”
I fell silent and took to walking. With each new step, the white Ambassador kept getting smaller and smaller. I realised with a shudder that it could no longer seat five people now.
Pic : ttps://www.flickr.com/photos/scalino/
