Cannot Cheat Fate

When the stocks are down, you must reminisce, thank the Lord and enjoy the ride downwards with a couple of chilled Kingfisher Ultras?bang-on in the morning. Anyway sympathies for all who are 5 per cent poor today, they can survive on beer, for those on 20 per cent harder stuff might be appropriate. I will start with my usual confessions. In all of 60 years I have bought just 2 cars for a consolidated sum of Rs 8.00 lakh. The first was a Premier and the second a Ford. Maybe the fact that I was born in the twilight years of India had something to do with it or and now that I am in my twilight years what mattered at some stage in life, now does not matter.

The Premier was a marvel, Vijay sir had the displeasure of being forced to sit in that car numerous times. The thing was the car spent more time in the workshop than on the Road. There were a couple of other advantages, you could decide?before-hand whether you wanted the aircon to run or you wanted the car to run, the car was superb it gave a mileage of a Mercedes.

So you could sometimes feel you were doing quite well in life, the pleasure of a Merc for Rs 1.3 lakh. Some small extras were there, just before monsoons hit Delhi the average temperatures rise to 48 C. In these precise months, the windows wont open, if you tried hard the window may open but it will not close again. So Vijay sir and me lost quite a lot of pounds sitting in that car, politely swearing and fuming.

The Ford was better it was a 2000 CC engine and zoomed all the time. The good thing was I would get caught over-speeding all the time, but the press card came handy as was the liberal usage of Atal ji's name and my supposed hurry in reaching 7 Race Course Road.

But like I said I grew up in India's twilight years and Horse driven carriages called Tongas were common. The most famous route was from Clock Tower to Bara Hindu Rao which I frequented regularly. I would sit at the back as if it was my personal 2 wheel, highly unstable chariot, driven by a animal who could barely see and always struck me as one with a mind of his own. No cajoling by the master would make the horse speed up or change tracks.

As I mentioned I bought this brand new Premier and smashed it to bits on Day 1. I had ample time to sit in the workshop of Premnath Motors in Moti Nagar, where an octogenarian manager fell in love with me. In the idle hours at lunch time he would narrate a story to me. This one was about three brothers Allah Rakha, Allah Ditta and Allah Baksh.

All 3 were mortally afraid of their father who possessed a well-oiled sheesham baton (oiled bant ki lakdi, rather a sota) which was named Maula Baksh. Anyone falling out of favour with the Dad, would never forget there was a Maula Baksh at home. The thing was the 3 brothers worked in the garage, the ageing father ran his tonga daily but wanted someone to take over. I privately felt that even the horse felt the same way.

The chap would simply not move. One day the father threatened the kids. The 3 hatched a plan to speed up things. The next morning while they were harnessing the horse, one of them put a clip on the testicles of the horse-you know the ones you need to hold your clothes on a drying line.

The horse went berserk, while the 3 laughed the whole day, Maula Baksh was lavishly used upon them in the evening. All three were now convicted of the crime, but the horse did speed up after that. That was a positive.

Moral being never forget the Maula Baksh in life and the guy who holds it. Coming to the Ford I had it for a long time and having completed 100,000 kms I sold it. My temporary support said he could sell it for Rs 40,000 and so I thought with that kind of money I could really Buy a lot of shoes. And there the money went.

Now the shoes have outlived both cars and my life and I still have them. Which makes me wonder the love of men for bigger and bigger cars even when everything around them is a bubble and the pleasure of sitting in a BMW is just about equal to that of a Premier.

People have their reasons, of which I see none except that God has been kind to them and they have splurged. But it is on 2 days like Today and Yesterday you are reminded not to cheat the Maula Baksh and neither your luck.