In my country, buying a car is given a great deal of importance by a major part of the population, if not the most. It is not just associated with being luxurious possession but is also associated with progress, sometimes (or many) a progress which is hollow from within with a money that doesn’t exist yet.
For people like me who have taken care of old people or someone suffering from incurable health issues in the past, the car was a blessing. I have a small hatchback, it’s simply a helpful convenience for me. The engine and the air conditioner are functioning? That’s all I need.
In the early 2000s, EMI or Equated Monthly Instalment started becoming very popular. You could and can buy things with money you don’t have by paying small instalments in the future. A sure convenience when used with thought, but then again, the number of those who will utilise it without any thought is a lot more and I am sure they are the primary aim of this, despite the innocent pretentious smile of the people behind pretending to help people with very good intentions.
So, how do middle class people like me go about buying the first car of the house? No, it’s not the ad’s or the cars on the road or the dangerously distracting hoardings, it’s that friend or colleague who went ahead and bought a car and then you are sitting in it, breathing in the smell of newness, marvelling at its features and comfort and thinking all of a sudden ‘its time to go beyond that scooty of mine, which has great mileage and no problems at all, but still I want a car which would probably hit my savings and budget in manner too bad to digest later.’ A lot of words present here should actually have been in the original thought.
So, the reality of it begins on the car websites going through cars with excitement, almost losing all the excitement when eyes fall on the price and then after a few days later after sacrificing a bit of sleep at night, this person arrives at the best option out there ‘I will buy a second-hand car in EMI’.
And then the planning phase to gather enough to pay a good amount as initial cost like 20-30% of the total cost and rest EMI starts. The car starts becoming important by the day with eyes and mind focussed on all the manner in which the car would be a convenience and one fine bad day, when the body and mind is tired from the grind of the whole day, the words erupt ‘Time to get the car, it cannot be prolonged any longer’
Thus, the next day this person who has no knowledge of the expenditures of a car and is blinded by the imagination of going to office with a nice pair of sunglasses driving the car, rushes to a second-hand car dealer and books probably one of the worst cars at the place because it was cheap which is usually a hatchback and we all know the brand.
Thus, the car arrives and initially lots of dreams are getting fulfilled, going on road trips, enjoying a drive in the rain, a late-night drive, ordering fast food on drive throughs, going almost everywhere, even walking distance in the car and then one day the car has a problem. It’s not just any problem, an old poorly maintained car has been pushed beyond its limit, it’s the beginning of a huge lists of problems which will keep on coming and draining the pocket till even the mechanic says ‘sir, just sell it, there is nothing there, the soul has left the earth and only the body remains’.
Obviously, the car is sold at a loss given all the repair costs that made the car more expensive than its buying price. One would think it ends there but no, now this person is addicted to the comforts of a car and now will start another beginning, the beginning of the plan to buy a new car and not a small one, a brand new SUV with seven years of EMI.
Written by Anuran Chatterji
The Car of Dreams
Early Morning Memories 