For a boy who learnt to cycle in high school, life virtually threw me into the deep end when in the first month of my professional life I was asked to write on vintage cars for the much acclaimed The Statesman vintage car rally. The gentleman who was bold – reckless? – enough to have that faith has since moved on to other pastures in the journey of life, but on that day, I could have grabbed a steering and driven far, far away. A mixture of timidity and wisdom –– interchangeable, aren’t they at times? –– forced me to stay put and file something about a nawab from Matia Mahal who had two cars when it was considered royal to travel by a personal tonga, or horse carriage, as many prefer to call it. I wrote something about Plymouth and Austin. The piece stays in my mind. Once in a while, I dust off the cobwebs to revisit it. When? When I see a much devalued vintage car rally nowadays. No, not The Statesman vintage car rally that still lives on nostalgia but those faceless ones where participants drive some 20 kilometres and treat it as a marathon!
Nostalgia though may be a fine companion once in a while, but life, like that early editor, moves on.
So, often reluctantly, at times quite professionally, I find myself at these races. Sorry. Shh. Call them not race. That is belittling love, care, warmth. But rally? We will come to that another day, but sufficient to say, that today, contrary to all the official intentions of banning cars more than 15 years old in the Capital, Delhi presents quite a feast when these vintage beauties line up. Some to take guard and relive those glory moments once again; some to tell themselves that they are still around and running. Who wants to run when you can walk? Who is into 0 to 100 km in 60 seconds when you can amble, yet have the world gaping at you in unabashed admiration?
Who will look at a SUV or a modern sedan when you can stand, stare and admire an MG car of 1948 or a 1930 Stud Baker? Or take in a Morris 8 on a leisurely Sunday, not to forget, the ever faithful Austin of 1922?
Hey, that word Austin again! I wrote about it when life was young. Today, autumn beckons in life but Austin? It stays the way it was.
