Share your ‘Amby’ memory

“how sad and bad and mad it was – but then, how it was sweet” ― Robert Browning

With the recent news that Hindustan Motors has suspended production of the Ambassador, India heaved a collective nostalgic sigh. After all, this mightily rotund tank of a car has been around forever (1957 is forever), taking up much space on our mostly narrow, potholed roads. And for those of us old enough to remember our pre-liberalisation days, the beloved ‘Amby’ is slotted with Things From Childhood — NP chewing gum, Chitrahaar, Disney Hour, VHS Tapes, Tinkle comics, Bournvita, Thumbs Up. Items endowed with mystical weight, bearing the insignia of youth, of sepia-tinted memory, of simpler, more innocent times. Naturally, we feel a tug of loss.

Pragmatists will point out the inevitability of the situation, of course. The Amby’s a fuel-guzzling monster with high maintenance costs and little technological and design changes. What chance does it stand against the (infinite) snazzy vehicular options of today? ‘Aggressive appearance with Furia design philosophy’ versus ‘chubby’. Or ‘New facia with larger kidney grille, sporty front bumpers and Xenon headlights’ versus ‘stays intact, mostly’.

And yet, and yet, as Proust reminds us, remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were.

So while I may not be able to tell you the price of fuel in 1988, I do recall clambering into the Amby and feeling like I was getting into a ship. While I didn’t change a tyre, or tinker with its engine, I do remember my cousins and I sitting atop my Uncle Darryl’s grey ambassador, playing pirates. (Until we dented the curvy ceiling almost all the way through. He was not pleased.)

My dad owned a string of Ambassadors, from 1978 to 1989—leaf green, off white, grey, and blue—and I suppose the reason I’m exceptionally fond of the rickety thing is because it was my vehicle of escape. Yes, I know what you’re thinking, not quite the sleek, streamlined conveyance that that term brings to mind. Every winter holiday (in Shillong, three endless months), my mum and dad would pick up my sister and I from our grandparents’ place, and we’d drive to a tea estate in Assam. And if you have the slightest idea of what the roads were like in that part of the world in those days (nay, until now), you’d know the lowly Ambassador is a thing of miracles. Roads like river beds, and the Amby, if not quite sailing across, then definitely staying intact, bouncing along on ridiculously resilient suspension. Roomy enough for two restless children, picnic baskets, must-have toys, Bata chappals lost forever under the seats, and once, even a box of pet rabbits.

Admittedly I haven’t gathered a vast number of Amby memories; by the time I was old enough in the 1990s, dad had switched to a Contessa (remember those?), and the Gypsy (Love! These could cross river beds, I swear), and eventually something by Maruti. But we dug around and found photographs in which our faithful stands aside like a beloved part of the family. In these images, my parents will always be young, my elder sister knee-high, my grandfather alive and smiling, donning his favourite flat cap, the ambassador quietly gleaming in the sun. All living is loss, yet how much greater the depletion when the props of our memories also drop away.

Let’s raise one to our old friend.