End-of-life for a mechanical being can be more than machine learning
- The Ramones This week, I lost a love of my life. Like loves of your life that you take for granted, I realised that Batmobile a.k.a. Bat was a love of my life only after I let go of him on Monday.
Finding out on Thursday that Delhi had second thoughts about hunting down petrol cars over 15 years old (and diesel cars over 10) - 'end-of-life' vehicles, they call them as if 'dead' wasn't poetic enough - and sending them to the scrapyard, brought with it a kick in my already-numb juggernauts. But honestly, I was ready to let Bat go, without having to put him through some tortuous BS-IV emission standard enhancement procedure that's made Madonna look what she does now.
Bat was a grey 2009 Honda City SV Petrol MT beauty. Driving him was like flying the Millennium Falcon, before Lando Calrissian lost the YT-1300f light freighter in a card game to Han Solo. Sure, over time, he stalled, more than a few times - once, after midnight on way to the airport. The battery needed recharging more frequently than usual. Its automatic locking system went rogue like a malevolent AI in a Kubrick movie, and I had to change it for a manual lock. And by the time I got Bat over from Delhi to Kolkata's roadscape that makes the lunar surface seem an autobahn, its low clearance and bucket back seats had started to break my spine - and his chassis. But this was more a function of my age than his. And yet, here I am, and here he - so giving on the smooth, so forgiving on the rough - isn't. Of course, if you are with someone, inhabit some thing, from June 21, 2019 to June 30, 2025, you become hybrid: part-Hazra, part-Honda. It was only after he left that I had the courage to reread Subodh Ghosh's sparkplugs-tearing 1940 short story, 'Ajantrik' (The Unmechanical). In it, we encounter Bimal, and his 15-year-old Ford, Jagaddal. (In Ritwik Ghatak's finest film, a 1958 adaptation of Ghosh's Agantuk, Jagaddal's number plate is tellingly BRO 117. Bat's is DL 4CAH 9453.) Jagaddal is of 'prehistoric shape, his whole body marked by shambolic decay,' and he hardly gets customers in the taxi stand. And yet, Jagaddal is Bimal's 'valet, friend and provider' - his life. For the misanthrope, this machine provides what human companionship never can. While rubbing kerosene to remove rust from Jagaddal's weary bolts, Bimal snarls back at a person who asks him why on earth he's 'fixing a broken mandir', saying it's his private matter. Fellow driver Pyara Singh laughs and asks Bimal [in Hindi], 'Private? Gari bhi ghar ka aurat hain kya?' His business is on the verge of folding up. But Bimal won't give up his beloved Jagaddal. Until one day - 6 pages into the 9-page story - the car breaks down while going up an elevated road on the way to Ranchi. Jagaddal's piston is broken. A few days later, the bearing melts. Then it's the fanbelt, then it's a blocked carburetor. Finally, the sparkplugs short. 'No, I'm here Jagaddal. Don't worry, I'll get you up and running again,' Bimal promises the teenage geriatric. Soon enough, he gets parts, fixes him, and plans to get Jagaddal a new hood, paint, and burnish. But overnight rains seep through the shambolic garage delivering a final blow to the car. To cut a short story shorter, Bimal is unable to revive him - 'He doesn't understand love, he doesn't understand my words, son-of-an-iron, inanimate ghost!' he shouts while kicking the car in anger, frustration, and grief. Jagaddal is soon sold as scrap. Ahe end of the story, we find Bimal getting progressively drunk, as he hears a 'thong thong thokang thokang - Jagaddal's burial spot is being prepared. As if the sound of a shovel and a crowbar.' The chap who came to take Bat away, told me that in a few weeks, he'll send me a WhatsApp video clip of him being turned to scrap. It's apparently company policy. Elevate your knowledge and leadership skills at a cost cheaper than your daily tea. Zepto has slowed, and Aadit Palicha needs more than a big fund raise to fix it
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