The love affair with cars

My love affair with cars goes a long way back, right into my childhood.  Some of the old-timers in my family, a few of my surviving uncles and aunts, swear to a rather, funny story that when I was a young boy, perhaps, 6 or 7 years old, fervently pleading with my dad to drive home the cars that were parked on the road-side, when the owners of these cars were not around!  I was told that my dad had slyly remarked that since we do not have a garage at home, where do we park those cars.  Lucky for me that, in later years, I didn’t end up being a car thief and locked away for good!  Another of the family secret is out.

It was the early eighties.  We had no inkling that a car revolution was just around the corner.  The Ambassadors and Fiats (later Premier Padmini) were on the verge of disappearing into oblivion.  As a fresh recruit at the Head Office of our Bank, we young employees were awe-struck to watch the spectacle of the Bank’s senior management (or executives as they were commonly referred in my Bank), arrive in their Ambassador or Fiat cars and walk up the few steps at the entrance of the Head Office to reach their respective Offices or Departments on different floors of the Head Office building wherever it is they worked.  These senior gentlemen started arriving, one after the other, as if on cue, in a space of few minutes just before the clock struck 10’o clock (the Bank’s start time). The liveried drivers opened the rear door of their cars for these gentlemen and carried an assortment of files, hurrying after them.  This parade of the senior management arriving in their Ambassador or Fiat cars was a great spectacle to us young employees (we were in our early twenties then); we stood aside respectfully near the stairs or the entrance of the elevator mutely watching after them with some sort of reverence.  A few of the fresh recruits, who were slightly brazen enough, threw in a smile and Good Morning salute at them, while some of the timid ones like me, hurried furtively behind the top executives, avoiding their eye.   After the executive had vanished inside the building,  some of us looked pensively at the cars in which they had just arrived.  The cars, freshly washed and cleaned, gleamed in the sunlight; would be parallel parked and lined up as if in a fashion show, in the ample parking space by their respective drivers.

The executive cadre was considered a creamy layer in the Bank hierarchy because each position carried with it many perks and powers.  The allotment of a car was the foremost perk that attracted us, the younger Bank recruits.  The highest aspirations of the younger lot of us recruits those days were measured in terms of being provided a car by the Bank along with a liveried driver.   The lure of the Ambassador or Fiat car as a perk drove some of my colleagues to seriously think of taking up the tough promotion tests for getting promotions to higher cadres.  There was also a mad rush (considered premium posting) for getting a transfer to such of those branches which had a Bank car attached to it.   These cars were considered branch property and the senior most Manager or Senior/Chief  Manager was most likely to use it as his personal vehicle!

I remember a time, when the Bank’s Chairman & Managing Director had been provided with a Contessa sedan for his personal use.  Some of us youngsters, had rushed out in the middle of our office work with other like minded crazy colleagues from our work places, just to look at this car and feast our eyes on the new offering from Hindustan Motors. We were just used to watching with wide-eyed wonder, a Rolls Royce or some fancy, glitzy Italian sports car in glossy magazines or newspaper posters.  Not in real life, mind you!  The sight of a Contessa sedan in real life, right in front of us, was considered, indeed, our good fortune.  Anyway, for Hindustan Motors, the Contessa sedan was not a success, and it bombed badly at the car box-office!

Alas, my biggest aspiration of those days, to drive a Bank car, remain unfulfilled!  I was never promoted to the Bank Executive position.  That's a story for a different context and, perhaps, a different timeline.  Nevertheless, my love affair with the cars had ended, rather sadly, not unlike our story of Contessa from Hindustan Motors!

Even if, perchance, some dumb-minded benevolent philanthropist was to offer me a Ferrari or a Porsche now, I wouldn’t want to go anywhere near it!  I am writing this piece, read posthumously, as my love affair with cars has long ended, rather prematurely, don't you think! I am still very much alive and kicking.

P.S:  Tell me, who in his right mind, would like to drive a car in this crazy Bengaluru traffic?

Circa 2030, Bengaluru!

Circa 2030, Bengaluru!

There were numerous successful tests conducted by big tech companies on ‘Driverless Cars’ in US, that set of my imagination! Fast forward to Circa 2030, Bengaluru.  Population of Bengaluru has reached a cool 2 Crores; with the number of vehicles plying on city roads having crossed a Crore mark. Google, Apple and Volvo have come out with beautiful models of gleaming driverless cars; with several on-board computers and guided by satellite and GPS systems; each basic car costs a couple of Crores or more depending on the accessories; However, as India is recording a double digit economic growth every year for the past few years, the expanding middle class population is able to afford any number of such fancy cars. Not a far-fetched idea, is it? Would be an extremely likely scenario.

Looking at the other end of the spectrum, would the pace of development and infrastructure in Bengaluru have kept pace with the technological innovations of 21st century? I hardly think so.  The parties in power would have taken turns in ruining the State; further taking back Bengaluru to the brink of disaster. Roads would be more pathetic, covered with potholes; garbage and stink strewn everywhere; banners and posters of political leaders and their cohorts staring from every wall and pole, wishing and greeting each other; trees would have been replaced with huge concrete and glass structures dotting the city; existing few lakes would have given way to industrial waste and garbage dumps; stray dogs and cattle could be seen everywhere; summer temperatures would be seen hovering around 45-47 degrees centigrade, due to global warming, no doubt.

Tech engineers and specialist doctors would be back in India from US with the hopes of a good quality life in their home-country; no doubt impressed by the invitation given by the young Prime Minister of India!   Our Techie (let's just call him that, the hero of this piece) could be seen driving (or ghost-driven!) to his office in a silver gleaming driverless Apple car, from JP Nagar to White Field. The entire BTM layout Road stretch up to Silk Board is dug up on either side (for construction of Metro or widening of the roads or some such activity); the traffic is inching across every few meters and coming to a halt at every traffic signal. Our Techie’s driverless car with numerous built-in ‘sensors’ and computers on board is hardly moving; coming to a stop after moving every inch; no doubt ‘sensing’ some obstruction by way of pedestrians crossing the road, two wheelers criss-crossing his car, stray cattle and dogs strolling on the roads, mud-strewn dug-up roads; potholes coming up now and then. Our Techie sitting inside his AC driverless car is pretty ‘cool’ glued to the music playing on his headphone and the large TV screens in front of him; occasionally he is seen dozing off having woken up in the very early hours of the morning (8 AM) by his over-indulgent parents! The regular drivers in ‘driver’ driven cars that are following this Techie’s driverless car could be seen honking and gesticulating, urging him to move forward at a faster pace; no doubt not realising that this is a high-tech ‘sensor-driven’ driverless car! The car has a mind of its own with built-in intelligence; it doesn’t respond to any kind of pressure tactics including honking, gesticulating or shouting; whatever the external provocation or road rage, the car doesn’t respond! Cool car!

Our Techie’s driverless car weaves its way through heavy density traffic along the way, stopping for nearly 30 minutes at each traffic signal at various places on the entire stretch of its way towards White Field. Countless obstructions as already narrated above is encountered on the way, but our Techie’s expensive driverless car, being extremely smart and intelligent, navigates safely and reaches its final destination, White Field (no doubt, name of the destination has been tapped into the on-board computer by our Techie). Once the destination is reached, a voice-activated system (very much like Siri, Alexa) announces arrival of the destination. The doors automatically open; our Techie exits from the car and hurries into the office; the doors of the car get auto-locked! Beautiful. The car then moves on to park itself into the allotted parking slot inside the office parking garage.

No doubt, our Techie reaches his office very late; almost evening, the office closing hours of most offices in Bengaluru, India! But very much right on time to service his clientele in the US! It is still early morning in the US. No doubt, the cars were designed and built by US Companies based on their UTC time format! Fantastic!

The following day morning, our Techie is ready to leave his office (after servicing his US clientele) heading towards his home in JP Nagar. He taps the related app in his smartphone; commands his driverless car to pick him up from the office entrance. The car no doubt, activates itself, moves out from the garage and slides into the office front entrance. Our Techie is ready to embark on his journey back home. He has already tapped the destination in his smartphone app. The door automatically opens. He slides into the comfortable seats. The journey back home begins. The driverless car weaves through the wonderful Bengaluru traffic and safely delivers him home in the evening. After a wonderful rest and deep sleep in the comfort of his driverless car, our Techie feels nicely rested and happy! What a car! Technology is wonderful, isn’t it? Life is beautiful!