THAT’S LIFE Sanjoy Kumar Satpathy
That however was the last time the professor had gone for a secondhand gadget either for himself or for his wife
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Antaryami Mishra was a perfect gentleman and an excellent human being. After his PhD, he was promoted to the post of professor. Subsequently, he opted for a job with UGC in Delhi. He used to travel daily by Delhi Transport’s crowded buses to his office.
The travel was a bit too much of a strain for the learned professor. After a long delay and months of persuasion from his wife and friends, he decided to go for a secondhand fiat car. It was a white one. The professor was not aware, however, that Delhi was such a dangerous place to live in. That too, while going in for a secondhand car, which was still dangerous with the tempered odometer and its polished exterior.
There was every chance of getting cheated by brokers. Prof Mishra thought himself to be an expert on all moving things. He did not consult anyone but fell into the trap of brokers. The result was that after the purchase of the vehicle, he would spend hours every weekend in the same garage from where he bought the car — ‘National Garage’ — to get the car back in proper running condition.
The mechanic had told him, “You are lucky to have got this car at such a good price. Its engine is in excellent condition. Just pour petrol and you can freely travel to Shimla or Nainital on weekends. No problem.”
One such weekend, the professor decided to travel to Shimla during the X-mass holidays with his family. But that journey took them nowhere. They had to return after a distance of travel due to the silencer pipe noise which ultimately got detached from the engine. The next day, he had to purchase a new silencer pipe as per the advice of his reliable mechanic Anwar.
After a month, the clutch plates had to be changed as the pickup was slow. Prof Antaryami, however, had tons of patience, he being a man of science. It turned out that his car repair bill was overshooting his grocery expenditure, month after month. With the salary cut for the car loan he took, and the repair cost, as also ever-increasing fuel consumption made his modest living difficult.
One day, while coming home from office, Professor Mishra’s car was waiting at the traffic island, waiting for the green signal. For a moment, the professor thought someone threw a bomb at his car but very soon he realised that it was a 407 Tata truck which had dashed against his car’s back. People gathered around him, so also the traffic cops. A serious accident; that too at peak hour.
People were getting annoyed over the resultant traffic jam. The truck driver came running, along with the traffic police, and fell flat on the feet of the professor. He apologised profusely for the damage. “It’s alright you are excused,” the kind-hearted professor told the truck driver, and drove off.
The next day being a Sunday, the professor took his car to the same National Garage for denting the car’s painting work. For two weeks, he was back to the Delhi Transport bus. A bill of Rs 1,700 was paid after a lot of bargaining with the garage owner. That amount was quite costly in the 1970s. “Your car is as good as new. No problem, sir, we are there to help you any time,” said the mechanic.
In a week’s time, the car developed another problem. The steering wheel was not functioning properly and the car was losing its balance. The professor was having sleepless nights over the problematic car. His wife and sons started criticising him for his wrong choice and his simplicity which they said was being exploited by the mechanic.
This time, he took the car to “Singh automobile repair shop”, another garage. The mechanic drove for an hour, and exhausted all the petrol in the car. He said, “The problem has been diagnosed and tomorrow, while coming from office, you may take your car back.”
The next day, the professor went to the garage to pay for the repair charges. He was charged only Rs 90 – “twenty for the used cement bag and 70 for the sand.” The sand bag was packed on the left side of the car’s boot/luggage compartment to “bring a heaviness” to neutralize the professor’s “under-weight” problem, the mechanic explained.
Well. Prof. Antaryami Mishra carried that sand bag in his car for a few more years when the news came that “cars more than 15 years older or more would not be allowed to ply on Delhi roads.” The car, with the sand bag intact, was immediately disposed of at the Haryana border through a broker. The professor got a sum which was less than the cost of an ordinary two-wheeler.
While narrating his story over a glass of whisky at a Bhubaneswar club, the professor said, “There are plenty of people in our society who carry others’ sand on their back without realising that they are the jackass of the society and people exploit them.”
That however was the last time the professor had gone for a secondhand gadget either for himself or for his wife. Now, retired, he uses the 207 city bus in Bhubaneswar.
