Choice

Choice can be a good thing. Like when you walk into a bar or a pub and find 30 different kinds of beer on tap. Choice can also be a bad thing. Like when you order your favourite drink off the menu of a restaurant knowing full well that they're going to come back with "It's not available at the moment sir." Seriously, what is it with Delhi restaurants and the lack of Guinness? (On that note, this has to be my favorite Guiness commercial) Delhi needs more choice in beer. I'm tired of Kingfisher and Sandpiper. I can't stand the insipid, uninspiring Castle lager. No, I will not drink any of the extra strong types! Excise department, beer barons of the world, get to it!

Buying a car used to be an easy thing to do. You made sure you could afford it and then you went down the closest Maruti dealership and picked out your favourite color. If you were middle-class you ended up with a Maruti 800. The slightly upper middle-class got themselves a Zen and the hoity toity types could go for the Maruti "Esteem".

Well those days are gone. Choice and car loans have done away with the simple process I just described. Now there's more than one car for every budget type, sometimes from the same manufacturer. And then there are the variants for each car. These vary by the size of the engine, the type of the engine (diesel or petrol), even the number of valves in the engine! For some reason, the perfect package is always a breath away from what you can afford. Of course, with the availability of car loans, what you can afford isn't exactly easy to decide either.

Having overcome all these obstacles I finally managed to buy myself a car. Its a Hyundai Accent. Black. The cheapest model they had. I had to play deaf and blind to various people at various times to finally be able to settle on this one car. I'm sure they all had my best interests at heart. But I had to make a choice damm it! And this is what I want. As I drove into the petrol pump hailed by a chorus of hurrahs and congratulations (okay, so it was just that one guy) a couple of idiots chose the opportune moment to show me a few teeny tiny (read 3 cms. exactly) scratches on the front fender. Thank you, you frigging idiots. For your next act, why don't you cut each other's heads off Daniel Pearle style.

I'm cool though. I'm the cool customer who bought the black accent. Of course the old dog (my Maruti 800) needed to be driven home too. As I drive home ye olde battered jalopy (with my dad driving the spanking new acquisition) the poor old thing croaks. No, croaks isn't a good enough word. It smokes. Plumes of grey wispy stuff spew out of the sides of the hood. So I stop, work up the courage to open up the bonnet and am greeted by some more of the aforementioned smoke. I figure all it needs is some water. Its 44 degrees, I know I need water, so it must too. My dad parks and walks back to take a look. We agree on my brilliant prognosis.

Just then, Mr. Arsehole Mechanic From Race Car Care stops by on his crap ass scooter with half an engine and tells us that no, it doesn't need water. What it needs is the fan hardwired. And he promptly proceeds to do the same. When you're hot and sweaty, idiots look intelligent. Must be some sort of mirage effect. We pay him and he promply "scoots" off. I start the engine, put the jalopy into first and give it a little gas. It moves forward exactly 6 inches and promptly dies. Three more attempts yield another few feet. Of course, home being a good 6 kms. away doesn't help much. In comes another mechanic (I still think this was some sort of conspiracy). This one doesn't even posess engined transportation. No, he's on a bicycle. This time I am adamant that we feed the poor old thing (the car you idiot!) some water. So we do, and after a bit of fiddling on the unmotorized mechanic's part it appears to break the 2 meter barrier. Huzzah! We're off and home. I miss an office party. No worries. I'm still cool. In a sweltering 40 degrees sort of way.

Today, I drove my new car to the office. Much showing off. As much showing off as you can do in a dimly lit basement garage that is. I reach home driving more carefully than usual. Taking the longest route possible just so I can avoid the rowdy traffic. Get home. Dad shows up and says he sees a puncture. I go down and look and there is indeed a distinct flattening on one of the circular rubber appendages. Still cool. In a must get the puncture fixed, bridgestone is crap, japs must die sort of way.