"I am not buying the Nano," said my wife on the evening of the day it was launched. I had got home after battling heroic crowds on New Delhi's roads, stuck for what seemed like hours as crowds surged for a look at the car that would redefine the way the country commuted to and from work, even though, for the moment, it seemed to have stopped all commuters in their tracks. |
"Even if you do," I retorted, "you'll probably be part of a queue that stretches for months. But," I asked her, "why wouldn't you want the Nano in the first place?" "At first," explained my wife, who has been wanting to trade in her old car for a new one for some time now, "I thought I could buy not one, not two, but three or four Nano cars for the price of another hatchback. That way," she explained to my incredulous look, "I could match the colour of the car with the colour of my clothes, which would be a better fashion accessory than a Louis Vuitton bag," she sniffed. |
"It would have created parking problems at home," I reminded her, for we are not allowed more than two cars per apartment. "Problem-shroblem," my wife shrugged off the responsibility. However, I realised I need not feel faint at the thought of a long line of Nano cars crowding our garage, for hadn't my wife said she'd decided against the car anyway. |
"But everyone is calling it cute, and saying they want to buy it for themselves," I reminded her of the adulatory TV and newspaper reviews the car seemed to be enjoying, rather hoping that she might opt for just one car, thereby saving us a lot of money in the process. "I did not say that I do not like the car," said my wife, "but that, you see, is the problem." |
It appeared that when they went down for a walk, my wife's best friend Sarla told her that she had decided to buy two Tata Nano cars for the household. "But she and her husband both already have new cars," I said to her. |
"Precisely," exclaimed my wife, "but it is not for themselves that they want to buy the two cars." "It must," I pointed out reasonably, "be for their two daughters then." "You are not listening to me at all," shouted my wife, "the reason they want to buy those two cars is to give one each to their driver and their cook." |
I must admit that I was flummoxed. "Isn't that," I asked tentatively, "rather indulgent of them?" "They're doing it just to spite me," said my wife, "they know I'm unlikely to drive the same car that their staff does." |
"But why would they want to give their staff cars anyway?" I asked. "It was a mystery to me too," agreed my wife, "till Sarla explained that the driver commutes in a bus, and is all sweaty and grimy by the time he reaches her home. As a result, no matter how much freshener she uses in her car, the interiors end up smelling too." |
By providing the driver, and the cook, who similarly smelled up the kitchen, their own commuting cars, she was doing herself a favour, Sarla apparently told my wife. |
I would have taken no notice of my wife and Sarla's perhaps notional ambitions had a friend not called to lament that he would now have to increase his driver's monthly salary, and all because he would have to compensate him for the petrol used for commuting in "" you guessed it "" his Nano car. |
Which is why, Mr Tata, you will have to excuse us for not buying your excellent car. |
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