In a previous life, about a year or so ago, I hitched a ride home from work with my then boss. The four-wheeled steed that he rode was this incredibly sexy 6th generation silver grey Mitsubishi Lancer. He also happened to be the kind of guy who would just as easily open the car’s bonnet, press down on the clutch, crane his neck through the open window and figure out if there was play in the clutch. I’m digressing, as usual. The high point of the ride was Kyril Bonfiglioli’s Mortdecai Trilogy, read by someone with the right kind of clipped British accent, who also made all the right kind of funny noises at all the right times. This, announced my boss with much satisfaction, was how he managed to maintain his calm in the face of the suicidal manic rush that was traffic on Pune roads.
Cut back to the near past. I learned to drive around six months ago, and promptly bought myself a silver-grey Swift (on hire-purchase, I hasten to add – lest you think I’m related to Croesus). Even though the Swift came with a competent Blaupunkt and four reasonably good Sony speakers, I refrained from using these weapons of auditory destruction while I drove, much to the consternation of my passengers. This arrangement was simply because the audio distracted me from the road, consequently causing my blood pressure to spray out of my ears, rather than having the opposite effect. My musical better half, a much better driver than I ever could be, always drove with the music on. I never could understand how the other folks managed to do it. I thought back to that ride from another life, and shook my head in incomprehension.
And now we are at the present. A few minor dents, scratches and scraps later, I had acquired The Knowledge (so there, London Cabbies), and now consider myself a reasonably competent driver, though I occasionally have trouble half-clutching my way out of a really long signal. And so it was that I found myself on the road from work to home one evening last week. It was misting lightly, and I had the windows rolled up, and the blower on. It struck me that the interior of the car could do with some cheering up. As if by reflex, my left hand snaked its way towards the Blaupunkt [1] on the Blaupunkt, and switched on the radio, hoping to catch something other than the Hindi trash that most radio stations in Bangalore seem to belt out. And what a pleasant surprise it was that awaited me! Intelligent machine-creature that the Blaupunkt was, its PLL tuner found its way to Bangalore AIR’s Amritavarshini-Sangeethavahini on 101.3 MHz – and the interior of my Swift was drowned in Balamurali’s incomparable voice rendering Sundari Ni Divya Roopamu. On any ordinary day, Kalyani would be my favourite Raga, with Lalitha/Vasantha being a close second-third tie. What more could I ask for to cheer me up on a grey rainy evening, my favourite singer singing my favourite raga? And thus it was that I began to appreciate the presence of the Blaupunkt on my dashboard. Like Twoflower’s Luggage, it always seems to know what I need. The other day, I was about to pull my window down and yell at a biker who’d cut across my path from the left when Radio Indigo kindly belted out one of my long-lost favourites:
Now this life that we live in
It’s so wrong
Shout out the window
Do you know that
There is nothing worse than a man-made man
Still there’s nothing worse than a foolish man, hey
Virtual insanity is what we’re living in
Yeah, it is alright
Oh, Jamiroquai. They were interesting times, the mid- to late- ’90s. Memories came flooding back, most of them pleasant. Now, I can hardly think of driving without the Blaupunkt belting out something pleasant. The thoughtfully placed hollow in front of the gearshift is now occupied by half a dozen CDs, ranging from Beethoven’s 9th to Santana to L Subramaniam. And I couldn’t agree with my ex-Boss more about facing traffic with the music, instead of the other way around. (OK, in his case it wasn’t music, but an audiobook – big deal.). Once in a while, I do let Hindi trash waft through the cabin – especially when my better half is with me, or if she’s driving. Truth to tell, not all of it is trash. I particularly like R. D. Burman’s seventies pieces, the stuff from Bluffmaster, and recently, my better half was as surprised as I was when I caught myself swaying to the beats of Heyyy Babyyyy and wondered how I would wash this sin off me. Thinking out loud, is it some kind of rule that English Titles in Hindi Movies always have to be misspelled so badly as to make the reader cringe?
I can hardly end this piece without mentioning the dream that I had last night – that I was driving one of those heavy transport trucks, chasing the insane moron who had left his mark on my bumper – with a Blaupunkt in the cabin playing – you guessed it, Enter Sandman.
Aferthought
I got the bumper fixed yesterday. And Amritavarshini-Sangeethavahini on Noora Ondu point Mooru Megahertz is a national treasure, I get my fix of Carnatic/Hindustani if I’m driving after six in the evening.
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[1] Blaupunkt – from German Blau meaning Blue, and Punkt, Dot/Point. To illustrate, 2.2 would be zwei punkt zwei. The main control also happens to be a big blue dot. The name has an interesting history – the company was founded in 1923 or so as Ideal. The equipment they made was subject to random quality checks, and the ones that were QC-inspected would be marked with a blue dot of paint. It so happened that people were especially fond of the stuff with the blue dots, and used to ask for them in particular – and then a lightbulb must have flashed above somebody’s head, and the rest is more or less history. Now, I have no idea as to the truth behind this story – it’s something I heard in a Quiz ages ago, and like most things you get to know in a quiz, it’s probably true, but you never know. I miss Chuck.
