You do not OWN a cycle !!????
I have spent half a century on the planet so have a lot of friends, classmates, cousins, friends who have spent similar amounts of time on planet earth.
I have a lot of friends who are runners, and cyclists too.
A few days ago one young friend was cribbing about the price of petrol. I had no clue how to react, so ….
Well, well, I do own a car, but it is largely meant for my wife. She does some small time shopping (eeks! 5km rides max), and occasionally for some event where my parents want to go with us. I must hasten to add that in 4-5 years this car has done about 12000 km. Really a waste physically, and even emotionally. It is an Indica and owning this does nothing to ones ego or status – immaterial of what my wife thinks.
Given this background I met a young girl cribbing about the price of petrol – and I made some polite noises and said ‘you know I remember my dad saying petrol costs 0.60 Re a litre…and now it is Rs. 100…blah blah blah
I also knew that she travels to her office – about 1.8km from the house in a mid sized car. She actually need not have cribbed about petrol, but this car is surely a guzzler. I said ‘why do you not bike to work’….and she said the expected things:
a. Mumbai weather is too hot
b. What will I do during the Monsoon?
c. Can I really bike wearing formals and carrying my laptop?
d. You look cool wearing a helmet and flares…but u think it will be ok for me to bike?
e. And hey I do not have a bike!
I was wondering if I did sell of my CAR..and lived without it (I am NOT using it) …and I told my friends..
I DO NOT HAVE A CAR….
I am sure it would be greeted with “OMG!! You do not have a car?” – this is currently (in my circles at least) the equivalent of saying “Congress is not corrupt” or “BJP has clarity”. It will be greeted with complete disbelief.
However, I wonder how many times can I greet my friends with:
“OMG, you do not have a bike????” God what is wrong with you?
……well life is like that…
Kannan
Dear Sir,
The bad habit started with Indians that too with middle class Indians is buying just because of he can buy that. My friend has purchased a car who lives in Bangalore for the past 25 years, but does not own a house still in Bangalore or in his native too. He goes to office by cab. Too much of liquid money with Middle class Indians is the problem.
Regards
subra
there are enough Indians who will be shocked that cycles cost Rs. 25000 – and they are bound to say ‘When a cycle is available for Rs 2500 why should somebody pay 25k’. To each his own.
Siddhant
We live in days where showing off means you are hip.. doesn’t matter that You have only paid minimum amount on you credit card on which you bought that LCD in installments, or that you are negative even before the salary is received, what matters s showing things off…
why i do not now?
koguty
1.8 km from office – why not walk to office? You will save the gym charges that way :P.
On a related note – what is this obsession to look cool? Who defines “cool”? If everyone becomes becomes “cool”, shouldn’t un-cool be the next cool?
Bala
Hey, if you can spent 5-6 lac on the car, you can pay the 3000 per month on petrol too.. If you cannot spend the 3000 pm on petrol, forget the car.
Most guys get their cars from their father in laws.. they dont know how to drive it, neither they can afford to put petrol in it. Just for ego’s sake.
And subra, you should not be taking that young girl’s cribbing too seriously, many girls just like the sound of their own voices – they will keep going on and on.. men’s job is to usually listen & nod – not give suggestions. That is asking for trouble. She feels she needs the car thats why she bought it in the first place – she has given more arguements for buying the car than you could give for not buying.
Listen & nod
I have to agree with Bala above. They’d crib mostly to men, and then gush to their girlfriends how awesome the car is.
You could’ve been direct and asked her “Did you buy the car for status?”, her shocked response would be “Of course not!” followed by a dozen reasons, when she means “Why else would I buy something that looks good?”
Listen & nod, listen & nod.
If she’d thought just a little bit, she’d have known how much the running and maintenance costs would add up to. To most people its just the upfront price of the car and EMIs to be paid.
Thinking about the petrol “Oh rs.3000 a month? Well, if I can afford 20,000 a month on EMI, I can afford the 3k extra without cribbing” *right*.
Chirag
Hi
I completely agree with koguty.
kaps
I have a better idea – at least for delhi.
cycle in winters and car pool in summers. Delhi metro for weekends with family to CP
Anand
need a car for 1.8 km distance???
well, my office is 11 km away and I do cycle to work 3 times a week.
subra
Anand to each his own. There are people who run 21km – and carry water bottles for running. There are women who walk 10km each way (20km total) to BRING water for cooking. That is life. For some people it is by choice, for some people it is by force.
Krish
I was trying to build the corpus to buy the car and started a chit. One month of chit and but strange thing forced me to buy it right away.
On a rainy day in the middle of the night, my 2 yr old daughter woke up with viral fever and very high temp. Hospital was about 5 km distance and as it was mid night, could not find any auto nearby for long time. After watching the kid pain till the morning, admitted the kid first in Hosp and bought the used car by evening. The purchase did burn all my investments but no regrets till today. I can’t quantify the return to my family for the several visits that we had to undertake to OPD/Hospitals during winters and in rainy season.
Santhanam
Krish,
I think instead of buying a car for emergencies, we should always have local/neighbourhood(not Meru or taxi chain groups) taxi/auto numbers. In my case, i always use a local taxiwala who has almost became my family friend. Recently i had severe pain at 3 AM. My wife called the taxiwala. He could not come, but he asked his friend to pick me up. In 5 minutes, his friend’s taxi reached my home and we went to hospital. The taxiwala friend waited till i got admitted and then only went. Morning he again called my collegue/friend and checked whether i am fine.
By patronising a good local taxiwala(s), i feed that i don’t need to buy a car atleast for now.
Thanks
subra
Santhanam
brilliant, simple, practical, unbranded solution. One taxi guy, one auto guy, one good friendly doc, one ambulance, one medical shop which wil open at 11pm to help you….
are brilliant. Car is not of great use ‘just for emergencies’ this is typically buying a 5 bhk house…and saying in case I have one extra guest, what if my guest is scared of dogs, so i can keep the dog locked…I mean people do not lack innovative excuses to blow 🙂
thanks for writing in. Even though it sounds simple it does not mean too many people do it 🙂
krish
Santhanam
This incident occured ten years ago and back then Meru had not started operations in B’lore. In case of local taxi guy, murphy law applies. He won’t be available during the time of our emergency. He went somewhere on long trip.
Agreed that no one would build fire station thinking that fire incident would hit us. It does not mean we should not install fire hydrant system at apartment level and extinguishers at flat level. Infact today law makes it compulsory to do it at soceity/individual level.
Even while we are prepared everything through good planning, I am disappointed more often if I have to depend on the response/delivery from outsiders mostly in my critical/emergency needs. I don’t see anything wrong if we built up various levels of security to protect ourselves/family members. In any case I had an intention to buy the car but emergency forced an early buy. For sure it is not a ‘perfect’ decision but ‘not bad’ as well.
subra
Krish
even in own car case Murphy’s law applies. If your car has gone for servicing does it mean u cannot have an attack on that nite?
u shd have friends, neighbors, etc who will take u. To think u will be able to drive may be wrong. Also to see on example and try to protect is IMPOSSIBLE. IN MUMBAI at the national park a tiger attacked and snatched a girl from her grandfather’s hands – as he was leaning out of the bus. How should the rest of the world prepare for this? Simple by being careful….NOT by killing all the tigers.
Suresh
If we can go slightly back in time, perhaps we can see the difference between becoming a community for a brand which we do now, to being proud of our community as a brand? As the Gujjus say – Your neighbour is your closest relative..
Vandhana Karthick
Now a days more cycles are available and being used in villages alone. In cities and second cities cycles majorly used by small childs to learn and by lower middle class people. Peoples mind is to go bigger in each stage throughout the life. Comparison and luxuriousness never ends anywhere in life to anybody. by increasing petrol cost many people are trying to switch again to bicycles and through public transports some time.
harish
Wow.wow.wow. So many people against the idea of the girl retaining and using the car. The only problem here is the girl cribbing abt the mileage of car. Given her daily usage, the car that too a petrol one makes a huge sense to retain and use perfectly. The comfort and convenience of having one can never be undermined. All these ‘one friendly’ model works rarely in reality and when most needed. And hardly these days cars are retained more than a day in servicing. We have moved on sirs, and for the good. My advice to the girl: go ahead, enjoy the car. Given your low usage, you don’t need to crib about efficiency. And it is definitely a huge lifestyle (not style alone’ but safety, convenience) improvement.
Sanjay
I would tell her not to bother and will tell that cost of car is ‘sunken cost’. The only way to ‘recover’ the cost is to use car more frequently. 🙂