Divine vision

The year I remember correctly was 1998. I had accompanied my dad on a work-related trip he had to make to Delhi. With his meetings for the day done, both of us were strolling around the Connaught Place shopping area taking in the sights and sounds of the hub of the capital city. Delhi, setting aside for the moment its reputation for housing the not-so-rare irrationally or criminally ill-behaved citizen, happens to be the only Indian city truly deserving of being the capital of our nation thanks both to its historical importance and the imposing architecture & infrastructure of New Delhi. 

-

So there I was, a small town boy wandering through the endless rows of alluring shops and restaurants, eyes peeled for all of the details, all of 13-14 in impressionable age. It's hard to say whether it caught my eyes first or my dad's but it can be said that we reacted simultaneously, hard core car enthusiasts that we were. A board over a newly opened showroom on CP said "Hindustan Motors-Mitsubishi" and both of us moved in its direction, mice uncontrollably drawn towards the cheese (if Tom & Jerry cartoons are to be believed)

-

India was still a very bad place to buy modern cars or even spot them on the road back then, and cars like the Daewoo Cielo and the Ford Escort had just arrived to add some colour to the road traffic. The richest of the rich could still afford the 200% flat import duty on BMWs and Mercedes, which were visible on the streets of Bombay and Delhi but few and far between. For the common man, the only option for a modern car was the Maruti. Any new car launch was a breath of fresh air. Both my dad and me were extremely curious.

-

Stepping inside the showroom, I took a sharp breath in and let out a wolf-whistle, instinctively and unashamedly. Ask any genuine car fanatic, and he (here I am discounting any similar lunacy in the opposite gender) will tell you that cars are not cars, they are people. Every car model has a story, a character and a reputation. What I saw there was a modern day legend. The room's interiors were purposefully poorly lit and in the centre on a slowly rotating dais under a perfectly sized spotlight, stood a red as blood Mitsubishi Lancer, gleaming with intent and begging to be raced away.

-

Reigning World Rally Championship champion (in its Evo avatar), the Lancer was a car that every car magazine worth its salt devoted pages to praising. How it looked, how it drove, how it stirred the soul as it roared and skid through snow, sand, gravel and tarmac; through mountains, deserts, forests and cities was all what I had been reading about dreamily uptil now. Now that dream had been physically manifested right in front of me, out of the blue, on my home turf. I desperately wanted to possess it and I wanted it to possess me. It was as strange a sensation as could be. I was in love... with a car!