PRELUDE TO THE CAR JOURNIES !

During our serving days we never had the pleasure nor the problems of owning a car . It is not that we did not have the need for it . With two growing sons and only a Vijay Super as a mode of transportation at Shillong , a four wheeler was definitely a necessity , but those were the days when other necessecities had priority over owning a car !

After retirement we settled down in Nagpur and when the younger son got admission in an aided engineering college , without capitation fee we were quite happy and used the dough ( kept aside for that very purpose , in case we ever had to pay the capitation fee ) , for buying a second hand Fiat for 55,000/bucks . Now with both the sons away and only two of us around the "necessity" part of the car was no longer an overriding factor.It was got for the convenience and the pleasurable part of it . What we had not bargained for was the problem part of it .

The engine used to over heat even after a small distance . As rectification we changed the four bladed radiator fan for five bladed one . It did not help much . Then the radiator it self was changed with a copper tubing radiator .

The battery was always down . It was difficult to get manpower for a push start at any and all places or times . So dynamo was replaced with an alternator . During our limited distances drives those problems did not bother us after these rectifications but they were spread over long period of time and had taken considerable amount of cash :-( .

At speeds above 45 kmph the nose wheels ( front wheels for the uninitiated) used to "shimmy" badly and the steering wheel used to vibrate and shake uncontrollably . Reducing speed was the only solution . No matter what we tried and how much we spent ,we could never get rid of this snag as long as we had that car .

In the mean time what with re-employment , pension , both sons away and one son earning , our finances were , for the first time in our memory , looking up . So , finally when the problem parts of the car far out weighed the pleasure part , we sold it off for a princely sum of 23,000/ bucks and actually considered ourselves lucky to have got that price !! With improved finances , a bit of bank loan and those 23,000/ bucks we got a base model brand new Maruti 800 car through the canteen on the 10 th of May 1998. It was a car from one of the very first lots to be received in Nagpur to be fitted with "catalytic converter" for better emission standards .The "pilots notes"("user manual" to the uninitiated )were replete with warning that "ONLY UN-LEADED " petrol to be used to prevent damage to the "catalytic converter" .{ a new one cost about 10 - 15000/- :-( } Those days un-laded petrol was not easily available any where as only few petrol pumps and that too only in bigger cities stocked the un-leaded petrol . It became quite common to hear people asking "where is un-leaded fuel available" , not to find the answer,but to boast to all within hearing range that he / she had latest model of Maruti 800 :-). The boasting was not misplaced . What a difference between our Fiat & this maruti ! It was like chalk & cheese !!!

It was the very first brand new car we had ever owned . I was 56 years old when that happened. Today the officers are owning better and bigger cars and that too at much younger age !!

We did not know it then , but this car was to bring us lots of pleasure and adventures !!

Velu.