Freedom

I had to live 5 more years with my dreams before the final moment came and I was set free to decide my own future. I had been waiting for this moment for ages - that's how I felt like. Summer of 96, I graduated and with first class results, my dad gave me an option to either pursue PG or join my cousin in New Delhi and pursue Chartered Accountancy. I gladly took the second option and June 10th 1996, I reached Delhi with my brother, who came to see me off. The very first thing I wanted to see was to go to "India Gate" and check it out in real. Had seen it so many times in movies and television that I just couldn’t wait to see it in real - but that had to wait - as we took a bus straight to Noida from New Delhi station. I totally loved that ride - that's one memory I fail to forget - not that - I want to forget but it’s always fresh in my memory as if it happened yesterday. I still cannot forget the sight of "Noida Gol Chakkar" (Noida crossroad was a big circle) as it was called earlier - a huge round about right at the entry point of Noida. It’s no more their now as a traffic signal has taken its place now and Delhi metro goes on an elevated surface now a days. I tried but couldn’t even find a picture on internet of that time. I would have loved to put it here.

Anyways, with so many dreams I finally landed in my city of dreams and a great future awaited me here, so I thought. My cousin who was already running his own company had some plans for me too. Although I was more interested in the fleet of cars he had at that time, it included one Ambassador, a Fiat, his favorite old boy Padmini Premier 118NE was still there in his garage and was one of the most frequently used car. We all loved that car so much because it was the only one with air conditioning. It was a little too old for its age and was slowly and steadily moving towards its retirement and soon enough my nephew who I guess was hardly five or six years old dropped a bomb on him one day and that was that.

I still remember that day when me, my cousin, his wife and my cool nephew were going on a Saturday evening outing to Connaught Place (Delhi) in his worn out Padmini Premier 118 NE and as we stopped at Noida roundabout, The moment traffic signal turned green a couple of cars whoosh past us and my cousin was still flooring the paddle hard to run, only after a couple of kilometers we did manage to overtake some of them as he usually loved driving fast and mind it! We never met an accident till he kept sitting on the driver’s seat. My nephew then was hardly in class 2nd asked him “Papa, why do all these guys keep on over taking us? Is our car khatara? (Obsolete)” and that was it. I could see that in his eyes that this car is going to be trashed soon as soon as he can get a new one.

Oops, what a mistake that child had done that day unknowingly, it almost cost us all the savings my cousin had for the second floor he was planning to build. It hurt his ego very badly and he being one of those guys who can do anything under the sun for his son at whatever cost. Next day morning I saw him gone past me in the office telling me that he will be back by evening and I was ordered to collect some 8 – 10 good old classic songs cassettes and pack the bags as we were going out for a long drive, I had no clue why and how and where? Anyways we packed our bags and waited eagerly for the evening – as there were no cell phones at that time, so we actually couldn’t call him and ask – what was he up to. He came back around 5 O clock in the evening – driving a brand new car. I can never ever forget his bright shining eyes that evening with that 800 watt smile he had on his face when we were really shocked, happy, thrilled, jumped and touched the car as if it was a new born baby and needed some cuddling and loving from our side. My cousin was quite over weight and used to sweat a lot. He took the then top model available which was a deluxe one with an Air Conditioner which was hardly effective in Delhi’s summer; still the current model of the same car too isn’t having that great Air Conditioning.

We were all proud and happy with our smiles flashing from ear to ear. My sister in law performed a quick prayer and we set out on our drive to Simla overnight. My nephew was thrilled that his dad was overtaking almost all the cars on the highway and my cousin was always making sure to look at our faces as he beat all the cars, trucks, buses - took special care that he didn’t go overboard on speed. Now, with 37 horse powered engine that the company had given to this small car was more than enough to carry our small family of 4 to places, mileage was not at all an issue – although he never bothered to check, but it gave us more than 20 on the highways with his driving and close to 16-17 on the city roads. We easily clocked 100 KMPH in no time at all. Almost with 37 horses pulling the load they have put in the car, I was surprised by the cars pick up and the sound it will make once we really race it ahead on the red lights. While he drove it with ease but I had issues of pulling up the car once he was on the passenger side, I found that car was dragging once he was in and without him I used to feel as if it was flying. May be he was too heavy. Although we never felt a need to have a power steering in such a small car, but the shock absorbers were good being a brand new car as I remember I will always ignore that there were some speed breakers on the road and we almost jumped so many of them, car did land with a mild thud but we never broke anything anytime, yeah he always complained that the alignment must have gone out after all those high jumps. But me being a new driver was given a benefit of doubt.

Surprisingly the brakes were better than our oldie as it had front Disk and rear drum brakes. In the history of my driving – I never got an opportunity to skid or scramble both – but with this new baby – I did some skidding to show off friends – I loved that screeching sound – thanks to the disk brakes and did some scrambling too – thanks to the nice pick up. At that time it always felt as if I am driving a Ferrari cause of its pick up when almost all of my friends had either a bike or a Scooter to their credit. Mine was still a Car.

Air Conditioning was not at all efficient as I could see my cousin sweating profusely even after turning both the AC ducts towards his face and this was one point where we used to miss our good old NE as its AC was a lot better than Maruti’s, getting inside the car too was an issue for him – as he was maintaining his huge pot belly throughout the last 20 years, the moment he will sit on the driver’s seat, the car will tilt to the right side and he will instruct us to sit on the extreme left side of the car, me, my sis in law and the little angel to keep the balance. Stereo which we got fitted was good enough to play the cool songs. And the dash board glove compartment was quite ok to hold 10 – 12 odd cassettes and the car documents. I still remember the Compact Disc Players were a luxury at that time and no one had them fitted in the car yet.

It came with puny tyres but with my friends help we got them all replaced with Radials at a very meager exchange price right then and believe me it looked so cool to reverse park it with the steering positioned on extreme right, when the front right wheel will be out and will be showing its width proudly, at that time it was a thing but pretty soon every other car came with a company fitted radial tyres.

Boot was nothing great to talk about but just about OK to hold a couple of normal family size suitcase – we always used to put in the suitcase first than close the boot door and rest of the hand bags and air bags we will stuff from inside - that ways you can make the full utilization of the space and later we will beat up the hang bags so that my cousin could still see the little bit of traffic on his cabin mirror. Fuel tank capacity was 28 liters and Maruti has still maintained the same capacity tanks for their all 800 models even today as they knew its going to give good mileage, hence no point putting a big tank and take up much space. Easy to drive and maneuver in the congested city road, parking it was a kids game – as after learning driving on a Padmini Premier that too, a quite wider one – this was like a left hand task for me.

Maintenance wise it was a clear winner – we spent nothing in the initial couple of years – apart from the regular service and a little things I used to break but that will be inside the bracket of a thousand rupee per service including Engine, Oil Filter, Washing, Vacuuming etc. One of my very close friends happened to be a spare parts dealer in the city and I was glad to know that almost all the parts of the car were so damn cheap and easily available. With so many authorized service centers in almost every city. We had no issues in driving it down to any part of the country. We almost visited Simla, Mussorrie, Nainital, Chandigarh, Amritsar etc in it and never faced any breakdown or any issues at all.

That sums up my first hand experience with a car right after I learned driving.