Life Is A Highwayyy!

So there I was, minding my own business, walking to my car during diseprsal when another one of those MG Windsors slithered past me — silent, soulless, smug. I got so mad. It almost touched me and I couldn't feel it. Hazardous af. I swear, it’s like these EVs are designed to make you feel like you’re in a dystopian sci-fi film where cars no longer roar… they hum. And that’s when I knew — this conversation was overdue.

Let’s get one thing straight: Dad never bought me Barbies. I had a box full of Hot Wheels and LEGO sets that were not castles or dollhouses but helicopters and aircrafts. I still do. My love affair with cars started the way most 2000s kids got into romance — animated fiction. Cars the movie. Lightning McQueen was my first crush. Then came Ford v Ferrari (which basically injected octane into my veins), then the Fast & Furious franchise (all of it, yes, I still crush on Brian's R34 with the blue rim lights), and then the big leagues: classics like Gone in 60 Seconds, Le Mans, and Days of Thunder. And of course, the full-blown Formula 1 obsession. (I'm a RedBull through and through)

Dad never let me even consider an EV. One fine day, 13-year-old me, curious, asked him,
“Dad, yeh EVs kaisi hoti hain?”

The look on his face. The disgust. More disgust than when Mumma makes gobhi ka pulao. It wasn’t even a pause-and-think kind of disgust. It was instant reflex disgust.

See, people think it’s cliché — that you like cars because your dad does. No. I like them because they’re alive. I don’t think they’re pretty because they’re “hot” in a model-on-a-ramp way. (which they are, there ain't no debate) They’re pretty because they growl at you. Because they breathe. Because the sound of an engine is a conversation you can feel in your chest. Even now, the moment Dad fires up the engine and gives it that first deep rev to warm it up, my skin tingles. Every. Single. Time.

 It’s not just because I “like what he likes.”(okay even if I do, my man's got taste.) It’s because EVs, with their fake racecar sound systems, don’t have the one thing that makes a car feel alive: The vibration in your bones. The engine rev that tells you you’re holding back a beast, not operating a dishwasher on wheels. (TESLAAAA UGHHH)

I’ll never forget the moment I truly understood this. We were in Grindelwald, Switzerland, buying yet another hot chocolate while waiting for the train. There was a Škoda station wagon idling next to us. It wasn’t a Ferrari, it wasn’t flashy, but when it pulled away, it rumbled.

I went, “Oooohhh.”
Mum looked at me, baffled: “Kya oooohhh? It’s not a Ferrari, koi bhi gaadi dekhi nahi ki oooohhh.”
I turned to Dad. He was already grinning — that 'you get it now, kid' grin.

Mum tested me: “Why did you oooohhh?”
I stammered, “Pata nahi how to describe it… but that rumbling sound… It’s not very usual.”

Dad nodded vigourously, “It’s the engine, not the exhaust.”

And I jumped, “EXACTLY! That’s what I was trying to describe!” I was smitten — not with how it looked, but with how it sounded, and yes, the faint smell of fuel that followed.

 I loathsome-waggle the fake race car sound systems that these iPads have. They make that terminator sound, and it gives me the ick. I hate how they smell of nothing. I hate how they accelerate like a video game but have no soul. And don’t throw pollution points at me. You know what’s more polluting than an old sexy V8? The battery production and disposal of your “eco-friendly” EV.

People love to say, “Your car should give you enough luxury to make you feel at home.”
BHAI, if you want home luxury — STAY HOME. Don’t demand cars that come with eight televisions, nine massage modes, and a small army of robots guiding your GPS like you’re driving to Mars. A car isn’t supposed to tuck you into bed; it’s supposed to make you feel something — adrenaline, thrill, maybe even a little fear. If your car drives itself while you sip on green tea in your climate-controlled cocoon, congratulations, you’ve bought a sofa with wheels and that, folks, is the true definition of a couch potato. 

Give me a 1967 Mustang Fastback. A Porsche 911 Carrera. A Shelby Cobra. An Eleanor. A Bronco. A Land Rover. A Jeep. A Mercedes 300 SL Gullwing. Give me the deep, low growl of a Chevelle SS at idle. Give me something that makes me glance over my shoulder because it’s alive, not because it silently crept up behind me like a stalker in an Apple Store.

HEHHEHEHEE THIS FELT SO NICE TO EDIT AND RE- READ! HAHAHHA! 

To the Mustangs and the Porsches and the Broncos, I LOVE YOU 🤟

Peace out y'all, see you with another one pretttyyyy soonnnn!

As Ever,

Ambika