Buying his first car

As he was tossing and turning on the bed trying to sleep, I realised it will be quite some time before he could sleep. The excitement was too much for him. After all, he has booked the first car of his life - a gleaming white Hyundai Verna CRDi diesel sedan - only a few hours ago. It was the top of the line model that caught his fancy. His mother and I said, so be it and went straight to the car showroom in the evening arriving minutes before it was closing.

I had to take care in arranging everything in advance. Fortunately, I had a friend in the Hyundai showroom whom I had called up last week giving him details of the desire of our son. I also told him that we would come to the showroom on the day after Biswakarma Puja. Thus, everything had been arranged.

It was my friend Aniruddha Deb, the manager of the shop, who greeted us at the door. The actual work was done in five minutes. Deb had pulled out a form and asked my son his name and address. He had carefully written them down in the form and placed it on the windscreen tucked under the wiper of the car my son had chosen. Deb had also given a few piece of paper to our son, apparently acknowledgement of the booking. After that we were offered coffee, which we had, and then we left for home. Simple!

Kabir was toying with the idea of booking the car (the white 2010 model Verna, not the earlier model)for almost one month now. Hyundai has upgraded the earlier model with a new one this year. The new car has a completely refurbished engine, new front design, new headlights and some other cosmetic changes. He used to like the old model too, but according to him the new model was better. Although car companies do not come up with new variant too often, he was apprehensive that Hyundai may bring out another variant of the Verna or may altogether stop production before he can actually arrange the finance to buy it. He realised it would be prudent to immediately book one for himself till he can arrange the money to buy it.

There was nothing wrong with his idea. In fact, I found it perfectly logical. Book the car you want to buy, and then arrange the finance. The only problem I was worried about was that it would be at least 12 more years before he could even apply for a driving license and another five more years before he could actually think of arranging the money to buy it. The predicament for the car company would be that this effectively meant that they will have to book the car and keep it for him for the next 17 years!

Because, as you all probably know, Kabir is only six years old now.