Subir Roy: Wedded to your misery

OFF BEAT/ There is an inevitability in some tragedies

Four years ago, I took on an Indica with great confidence in my ability to take a correct decision and my country's ability to produce a car as good as another made elsewhere in the world. And virtually came to grief. Right now I am in the throes of replacing that run-down Indica and it has all the inevitability of a classical tragedy unfolding. Why I should let myself into this, I do not know. But there it is.

Before deciding on the Indica I had consulted dozens who could have had anything to do with it and the feedback, I shudder to recall, had been uniformly good.

Only one colleague thought me to be a little daft, not because he had handled the Indica but because, he said, who in his senses would go in for an untested entity when a global success like the Santro was sweeping the stakes. I put it down to his innate lack of confidence in Indian manufacturing whereas I was the corporate buff who knew tomorrow's winner when he spotted one.

My first year with the Indica (pre-V2 vintage) was harrowing. First, it was a window that would move neither up nor down smoothly, and when that was set right the door made a little rattle. Unpardonable in a new car, I thought. More serious was the way the car squeaked, ever so gently, every time it slowed down and crossed a speed breaker.

In a huff I took it to the authorised garage and told the dealers that if I could live with the squeak then I could have bought an Ambassador. The insult had its impact and they set it right. Then the glass of the side mirror fell off when the car negotiated a particularly steep speed breaker.

Back to the garage, and I was told that glass was not covered under the warranty and I would have to change the whole fixture, which would cost Rs 900. I went to a small, innovative garage and got a glass ground to shape and made do.

If this was exasperating, what happened thereafter was fearsome. The car was gobbling up tyres as if they were savouries from Hot Breads. The garage was most gracious. Yes, we know it is a problem and we will replace it.

But please pay on a pro rata basis for the new tyre for the mileage the old tyre has done, according to the manufacturer's idea of the life of a tyre, which was far less than mine. Then, with the subsequent free servicing they said they had put in some kind of struts, gratis, and all would be well. And it was!

I narrated all this to an old Kolkata friend who was as cool as only an Ambassador driver can be. Oh, Telco is like that. They debug their products on the customer. Don't worry, your car will be OK after this, and it largely was! How a company could knowingly subject a customer to all this was beyond belief.

Even when the company rectified something gratis, I had to pay a price, by not being able to use the car for the better part of a day. Now if you live in Gurgaon and your office and children's school are in Delhi, the gods will not let you undertake even your last journey unless there is an automobile available.

Then I shifted to Bangalore and thought that all my troubles with the car would be over "" they were already far less "" as now it would be doing much less. But then there was a new wobble every time I applied the brakes at 60 kmph or more.

Not that you can do 60 kmph in Bangalore often, but still. I poured my heart out to a visiting Tata rep, regretting that the car was by now quite old and out of warranty. They were most gracious and took it into Concorde Motors, changed loads of things for free "" as compensation, I presume, for the troubles I faced earlier "" and returned my car.

But the wobble came back. I sent the car back. They set it right and sent it back. The wobble came back again! They finally got it right the third time and I decided, Concorde Motors and Telco of old were made for each other.

Much water has flowed under the bridge between my acquisition of the Indica and now. Automobile historians, the knowledgeable assure me, will write the history of India's first very own car in two eras "" before and after V2.

The model has been going great guns and these days I don't even try to tell anybody about my woes with the Indica because once someone gets to know the details, he invariably ends the discussion by waving his hand and saying: Oh, that was before V2.

And so here I am, ready to go in for a new car and have been doing the same rounds, asking all and sundry, guess what? Last time it was: tell me how is the Indica? Now it is: tell me how is the Indigo? It is the only bigger car I can afford. And the uniform answer has been "great".

It is a repeat of the whole process I went through before deciding on the Indica. I am on the threshold of taking another momentous decision in my life, full of foreboding that I will eventually settle for another round of misery. It has everything going for it, assures another Kolkata friend who been using one for several months.

The fuel efficiency and roominess are fantastic, he asserts. The fit and finish aren't all that great but.... That makes my heart sink. Not again, I tell myself. Not unless I am caught in a divine warp that has ordained: once a sucker, always a sucker.

(sub@business-standard.com)