A Car Named For Thee

As most of you know, India's economy and standard of living (for some) are growing rapidly.  The typical signs of change are everywhere, from fancy new hotels to an explosion in car ownership.  Suzuki, Tata and Hyundai lead the charge with Honda, Ford, Skoda and Toyota also having a presence.  But there's one car that sticks out.

Ladies and gentlemen, presenting the Ambassador:

Affectionately nicknamed "The Amby," the vehicle has been in production since 1948.  Its design remains largely unchanged, save for some interior tweaks and perhaps a small horsepower bump.  As it is, the Amby is a slug with an 85hp engine.  You can forget about any modern features starting with A/C or anything electric.  Safety? How about a seatbelt.  Price?  About ten grand.  The attractive points that keep the Amby in production are its ease of repair due to its ubiquity (duh) and a good suspension that can handle India's tough roads.

How do they still sell this thing?  We don't know.  It's got history and tradition on its side.  And a government that generally still buys them by the parking lot full for its various agencies.  It's known as a politician's car.

The icing on the cake is when the car is clearly marked as a G-Man mobile.  It sometimes displays this flag:

You could not make up a better ID if you were producing a James Bond film from the late 60's!

Street Side View-Master

HTemp:  36c

Rain:       0.0cm

`-$:         44.04

Murals are big in Chennai.  Any empty stretch of wall along a street that's a block or more long is ripe for a series of murals. Usually, they are organized around a specific theme.  Landmarks, nature, landscapes, energy, famous people.  When driving by a set of murals, one only gets quick glances of them flashing by, giving the sense of flicking through a View-Master disc.

Near our house is a set of murals devoted to a landscape theme.

Here are some highlights.  This one is quite accomplished -- perhaps it's the valley at Yosemite?  What other guess do you expect from an American?

Sometimes you get lucky and have (what we in the film biz call) foreground action that fits perfectly with the mural.  We hope the tree provided some relief.

Then things get a little weird.  Maybe Van Gogh-like psychosis takes over.  We'll call this set the "Water From Nowhere" series:

How about romantic sunsets tripping into surreal apocalypse fantasy?  Bring it on:

Peacocks are always a good way to show off all the colors in your paint kit. Why not?  Finally, let's just combine everything we've learned from wildfire backgrounds to strange foreground palm perspective. And then there's (mis)appropriation of the cameo style for our little boaters.  Excellent!
Don't forget to click the pictures to view them larger....