This week I come to sing the praises of car brands that use every tool of persuasion at their disposal to sell you a particular brand of vehicle. The marketing and selling effort in a highly competitive field, with several Indian and imported brands vying for the customer’s eyeballs and attention, cannot be overpraised. You are prodded and seduced over every available media channel from television, print and social media to buy that brand of vehicle that will add to your swelling pride and win your girlfriend’s heart. (Advertising invariably targets the younger aspirational age group.) The engine will purr like a satisfied cat and envy will be writ large on the driver of every other vehicle that you will overtake with effortless ease. In short, a real head turner. As a former advertising professional, I am fully in sync with claims and counterclaims that are part and parcel of the marketing mix. Unique Selling Proposition? That is old hat, now resting peacefully with the late advertising guru who coined the term, Rosser Reeves’ soul.
It matters little which brand of car or model you might be feasting your eyes on, because pretty much every brand makes the same claims. A bit like toothpaste. You can go for the petrol or diesel, automatic or manual gear option, though the salesman will convince you to take the automatic, adroitly avoiding mentioning the extra moolah you have to cough up for the privilege. ‘Less work for your legs, Sir.’ The mileage factor will be talked up. ‘14 km per litre in-city, Sir,’ which is a crock of ordure, but he has a job to do. A rainbow choice of colours will also be available. ‘I think Madam is keen on the Cherry Cerise, Sir. An excellent choice.’ Ah well, a sucker is born every minute, as P.T. Barnum said. Now here comes the caveat. Notwithstanding all that, your shiny, new pride and joy could, without so much as a by-your-leave, suddenly stall in the middle of the road, inviting a cacophony of blaring horns all around you, to say nothing of the choicest invective and killer looks directed at you. I will come to that anon.
One such brand claimed me for its own just under a year ago in our garden city of Bangalore. Just in case you get the wrong impression given my opening remarks, the car I purchased was not a luxury model, though the brand is well known in India. It is a decent model, not quite common or garden, not quite ultra-premium, but somewhere between and betwixt; shorn of ostentatious frills, meant for an average middle-class household. I shall refrain from naming the brand because it will be invidious and not relevant to the discussion. Furthermore, I still have issues to sort out with the authorised dealer from whom I had bought the vehicle.
It was a Sunday and we had agreed to lunch with friends at a restaurant approximately an hour’s drive from where we lived. Accordingly, I opted to hire a driver, the more to arrive at our destination in a relaxed frame of mind. There was also a decent chance that good wine was on the menu and the return journey would have inevitably involved a much-needed shut eye. So off we drove, into the wild, blue yonder to this fancy eating house anticipating a hearty repast, made all the more enjoyable knowing mine host was footing the bill. We were barely half way through the journey with nary an indication that anything was amiss when, ‘ayyayyo,’ the car came to a complete halt. Dead in its tracks. The driver tried everything he could to wake the vehicle up – moved the gear up, down and sideways, turned the ignition key clockwise and cursed freely. Nothing doing. The car had downed tools and that was that. Naturally, the air-conditioning system went on the blink and our misery had barely commenced.
It was just a matter of fortuitous happenstance that the car did not halt at a traffic junction. Instead, we were stranded next to Bangalore’s famed leafy, tree-lined Cubbon Park, across the road from the equally famous Chinnaswamy cricket stadium, home to Bangalore’s IPL darlings, Royal Challengers – RCB. (Oh look, there’s Virat!). The weather in March was just beginning to turn warm but it was still bearable. After a few more futile attempts, it became clear that our brand-new car had struck work and decided that it was a stubborn mule and not a mechanical cum technological wonder, as the advertising campaign had so seductively claimed. We were in a mulligatawny soup, good and proper, and my thoughts turned to lunch where our hosts will be mulling over soup and starters, while the vino, red or white, flowed freely. All the while wondering what had happened to us (‘Waiter, another refill please’). As you may have observed by my rambling on incoherently about wine, soup and starters, we were beginning to get disoriented. I was seeing mirages. Like Peter O’Toole reprising Lawrence of Arabia in the desert. It was now clear our lunch was a non-starter, like our car, so we called our hosts to give them the bad news. They offered their sympathy and were deeply saddened at our plight. We wished them bon appétit.
About now, my throat was beginning to get parched and the gastric juices in my stomach, deprived of its lunch time inputs and craving a plateful of Ceasar or Waldorf salad, was beginning to swish around noisily like a bathtub gurgling when you pull out the stopper to let the water drain. We were stranded in a pleasant place but the nearest roadside eatery was miles from nowhere. Not even a bottle of mineral water in sight. Curious passers-by stopped to look, as passers-by tend to do, tut-tutted sympathetically and went on their way. Just then a young couple, cooing sweet nothings to each other, strolled past us. They were carrying a backpack, an integral part of today’s accoutrements, which I was sure contained a bottle of drinking water. Despite my wife’s protests, I waved them down and inquired if they had the bottled H2O to quench our thirst. Bless their tender hearts, they not only handed over their Bisleri but insisted we keep it for ourselves. Their hearts bled for this septuagenarian couple. I made a feeble, insincere protest but they weren’t having it any other way. Mind you, we could have ordered something from Swiggy or Zomato who would have reached the comestibles to our location instanter, but we literally didn’t have the stomach for it.
Time passed. Very slowly. My good wife, the driver and I took turns in diverting the burgeoning traffic away from our car. A passing cop was impressed by our traffic warden act. It was now past 3 pm. We had been stranded there for over three hours. The car service agent sent round a chap in a two-wheeler with a spare car battery to try and fix things, but he soon gave up the ghost after much fiddling. There was nothing for it but to arrange a tow service. The tow van was coming from the other end of the city and finally arrived an hour later. By now my mobile phone battery was showing 15% life left. Crisis loomed. Our car was then winched up by its rear wheels (‘hind legs’ as the late British comedian Tony Hancock memorably described it), photos were taken of the vehicle from all angles and it was driven off as we bade a tearful farewell. Thank heavens the car was fully insured.
We still had a bit more drama to face. The free car service arranged by the company to take us home called at the last minute citing some flimsy reason for not being able to come. It was Les Misérables come full circle! We then managed to hop on to one of Bangalore’s ubiquitous autos to drop us home at extortionate rates, citing Trump and Iran, but we warmed to the driver who spoke perfect English and kept us occupied on the long, bumpy, bone-rattling ride with a sob story of his own – successful business ran aground, family in strife, children to educate and marry, medical issues, no insurance, had to take up this leased auto to keep body and soul together. My eyes welled up. We gave him double the amount we had negotiated. P.T. Barnum surfaces again!
At last, home again, home again, jiggety-jig! When will we get our car back? Who knows? Who cares? I am staying put till the cows come home.
Suresh's Corner 