Monday, July 17, 2006

Sunday Revelations

Yesterday, my dad told me the secret about our family. He said, I know, I have hidden this from you for a very long time and I am sorry for it. At this moment, my palms and brow turned sweaty, my butt-clenched, my heart raced faster in anticipation; I was going to know the secret about my family. After mulling over the thought for five minutes or so, with a sigh of relief, he said, Did you know we belong to the fair-haired, blue-eyed, superior and noble Aryan race? He continued saying, We belong to the fifth Root-Race and spring from one single progenitor and hail from Caucasus Mountains. It was his duty to pass this family secret onto me, which technically means, I-am-the-only-dumbass-alive-who-cannot-share-this-piece-of-information-with-anyone-because-I-will-get-stoned.

My wife is a member of the not-so-prestigious India Today Book Club. Every month, she gives me a catalogue of books that are available at 40% of their original price to choose from. For my readers, who are NOT members of this illustrious club, the selection of titles include ALENTEJO BLUEA Story Of Jealousies, Passions And Disappointments… Monica Ali, A Life Less Ordinary, A Story Of Courage And Grace…Translated By Urvashi Butalia, HARRY POTTER and the Half-Blood Prince, Now In Paperback... J.k. Rowling, India’s Legal System: Can it be Saved? A Frank And Thought-provoking Book On India’s Legal System... Fali S. Nariman, Faith Renewed... Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, Flat & Office Vaastu... Guru Kuldeep Saluja, Barron’s Creating Calm Meditation In Daily Life... Gill Farrer-halls, etc. I have to make an arduous yet simple decision every month to throw away the catalogue without viewing its contents.

Incase you did not know the secret to a happy marriage, here it is. Have two cars and one with a chauffeur. I have to admit, I learnt this technique from Teachings by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama. Yesterday, my car dealer had a customer education program at his showroom followed by lunch. The owner called me personally to attend the CEP and support their cause. Since, I had particularly nothing to do, I decided to go for the meet.

  • I was surprised to see so many cars of the same make at one single gathering. Present at the showroom were a number of proud owners along with their wives, children and grandparents. The owner of the place was more than glad to see us. (wife and me)
  • The meet kicked off with the owner thanking us for endorsing their brand. He continued his never-ending speech with details about how the showroom started with a small capital of ten crores and fifteen employees and now has grown into a multi-million dollar money swindling conglomerate conning a number of customers to buy their products since their cars do not run on fuel.
  • I was appalled to see the kind of people who bought these cars. I am not snooty but I wasn't particularly happy to sit along with pan-chewing, thumb-impression, dhoti wearing, Bata slipped-on baniyas with torn Rupa baniyans. Accompanying them was their entire village population that had arrived the night before in a matador.
  • The company's technical staff provided us with all the information that we already knew about our cars. They did not provide us any tips on how to get to a safe place when your car conks off in the middle of the night and the closest gas station or workshop is farther away than the distance traversed between Mcleodgunj and Kanyakumari and the only possible form of communication is a carrier pigeon.
  • He gave us tips on driving the car, ignition, maintenance and a whole lot of unnecessary stuff only to be replaced by their sales head who was trying to sell me another car. He showed us a comparison chat that included cars like Maruti 800, Santro Xing and Indica V2 and highlighted how their brand was far superior in all aspects. He also pointed out that their car had a hood.
  • The next in line was the finance and insurance head who spoke about how insurance and finance companies had their asses covered and any damage to our cars was not going to be covered. He was absolutely refreshing and reassuring.
  • He was followed by their accessories division head who told us about the dual-tone painting works, fancy stickers like "1 01d y0ur 515 1n 7h3 8ack 53a7" and public address music systems.

Just when I thought we were done and I could head to a pub to down a stiff drink to neuter the CEP effect, the vice president of the organization declared an open house. None of the questions have been made up. I had written down every question asked at the meet on my conference pad; verbatim.

  • The manual clearly instructs us to use, this is true, Water for running our car. I thought this was absolutely ridiculous. After consulting my wife and the impending costs of petrol price hike, we decided to use Vanaspati instead, for the first one month. This has caused engine chocking, jerky motion, knocking and misfiring of the engine. As a result, our ECM has failed. What do we do now?
  • We bought the car in the month of March. After tank-fulling till the top, we went on a long drive. On our way back our car stopped abruptly. We do not know what happened and our car is still on the road for all these months. Your 24-hour call-centre could not come up with an ingeneous plan to recover my car. What do we do now?
  • A robber stole our left front tyre. Since that day I have been trying to replace my stephnei* unsuccessfully. What do we do?
  • I thought car fuel was covered under warranty. You cheated me. Now help me sell my car.
  • This one is absolutely true. Kya hai isme ban****? pandra lakh liye ho. bishaap maare tho bhi nahi chalti. Paise nikhalo maaki teri bhos****.
  • Then there was this one. I want to personally thank Mr.Singh for his efforts to organize this one-of-a-kind CEP. I am very satisfied with their service, beginning from pre-sale service, after-sale service and workshop maintenance. They have carried out their work in a professional manner. I wish Mr.Singh and his family all the very best in their future andivers. He read it out of a piece of paper that he extracted from his coat pocket.

I did not have the heart to say yes for the lunch that followed the CEP. Is anyone interested in buying my car?

Yours carfully.

* A french bar-maid who lives in the neighborhood.

6 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dear Non-Rahul-Dravidian,

Heh Heh ... They sold you an Accord and now, want you to buy a Civic?

Thieving Bastards!

We must discuss automobiles one day. Or at least their ads.

1) Smart Hain, Santro Waale Hain.

2) Kya karoon papaji, pitrol khatmi nahi hoti.

3) DumDumDumDum, Maybe you should try the Bitch Cafe.

4) Mind blowing, Mind Blasting

5) We are going to Ooty.

As you can see, they need better ads to sell their wares.

Yours HenryFordly,

2:51 PM  
Blogger Ekta said...

vansapati for the car!!...hehe ..id like to see that...car running on pure ghee...asli doodh se bana!;-)

3:37 PM  
Blogger qwerty said...

hi riggs,

Yes. That's what they want to do.

I am always interested in automobiles. Infact, I have named my car after a woman, because that is the only porsche i'm gonna ever get.

I am not kidding you but I read that has HenryFondley.

4:00 PM  
Blogger qwerty said...

hi ekta,

Don't be silly . I do not buy my cars from Maruti Udyog Limited.

4:03 PM  
Blogger qwerty said...

hi rums,

Are you married and availabe? Please say yes.

If
married and available
Then
let us vamoose.
If not
married and avaiable or married and unavailable or unmarried and available or unmarried and unavailable
Then still
let us vamoose.

I learnt C-language programming, 20 yeas ago when computers were the size of a Maruti 800. I fear the above program will NOT execute.

12:21 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

heh heh Rums,

You think you're addicted because this was the first blog you checked after getting onto pkblogs?

Beat this. I found out about pkblogs from a friend of mine who found out about from his wife. I don't know where she found it from.

I am telling you this only because we went searching for something like pkblogs ONLY because we needed to access Qwertyworld. Heh.

12:54 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home