Kishore Singh: Motoring to eternity

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My father has a car that is at least twenty years old, bought when he retired, and which is still in gleaming, spit-and-polish condition. It's another matter altogether that even though it hasn't got too much on it by way of mileage, it still keeps breaking down. In the winters, when it gets very cold in the desert, my mother parks it out in the sun and has her afternoon tea while sitting in it, which must make visitors to the house wonder about its eccentric residents.

Every time my father has to run errands, which is often, he heads for his old faithful, though it often fails to crank up. As a further measure of thrift, he runs it on both petrol and gas, but they have extracted their toll on the engine, so it won't be too long before it will occupy space as garden sculpture, and my mother can then consider having breakfast in it instead of just tea.

Because they have another, perfectly serviceable and more recent car, I don't think it will be a loss at all, but my father, I know, will be heartbroken. In recent times, the old car has spent more time at the garage than at home or on the road. Still, my father insists on keeping her in tip-top condition. On my last visit home, when I suggested that he might consider selling it, he was so outraged he refused to speak to me, and so the subject was never broached again.

Till recently, that is. Finally even the garage (and its frustrated owner, no doubt) seem to have given up on the car, especially since spare parts are increasingly difficult to come by. So when the car found itself once more at his doorstep, the owner told my father the only place he could find a pump-operated carburettor was in Delhi. Post-haste, calls were made, details noted, and I was commissioned to launch a hunt for a piece of gadgetry that had become redundant several years ago.

"No," motor workshop attendants laughed me away, "such things are no longer provided even by the company." I called a telephone enquiry service to check if they had anyone on their roster who supplied spare parts for old cars. "Vintage cars?" asked the attendant. "Not really," I said, "just an old car." "For sale?" he continued helpfully. "Er, no," I said, "I want some spare parts for a car that is old but isn't a vintage yet." "I can give you the numbers for people who will trade it in for a new car," he admonished me, "an old car is quite useless these days."

I said I would pass on the message, but could he direct me, meanwhile, to someone who might prove useful.

He did, only the dialled numbers would not respond to our calls, so in every likelihood had gone out of business. Finally, I packed off my son to Kashmere Gate, which was voted most likely to stock any spare parts not available elsewhere in its dreary lanes.

My son called to say he had both good news and bad. "The good news," he said, "is that I have found the pump-type carburettor for the model in question." And the bad? "It isn't an original part," he sighed. Was there any chance of getting the original, I persisted, even from the factory. "If you do get it," laughed the owner of the store, "it will cost you more than the car is worth."

So there is an outside chance my father could have the car on the road again with a part that isn't original. But if all else fails, at least it won't change hands, even though it'll be my mother who'll probably find use for curing pickles in it.