After quenching my first dream of watching a live Formula 1 race in Singapore last year, it was time to satisfy another one, "My First Car". Yes I have got my first new car, a Chevy Beat.
Owning a car has been a dream for all these years, but to get it done, feels really great. Right from the first week of my recent UK trip, I started to check out the specs of most of the hatchbacks, ranging from, Alto, Ritz, Santro, i10 & Punto. But it was the Beat which won my heart not just for the looks, but it was more promising for the price range compared to the others. If there was another car, which I equally liked, it was the Ritz, but then it was a little far from my budget and hence I had to drop that idea. As every other person I started with a modest budget of getting a car around 3-3.5 lacs, but as you see the specs (especially if you like gadgets and electronics) the features in the car keeps you guessing and you tend to get a better one always. The same happened with me as well and I ended up convincing myself @ 4.5 lacs.
I have been avoiding to drive any other cars (my friends cars / any of my relatives cars) all these years just to keep the thirst to get my own car and finally I got to do it on the 25th of June 2010. I was a little nervous to drive the car from the showroom, but I would rather delay the delivery instead of allowing a driver to do the first time honors and I dared it, Not Too Bad Really. I was comfortable quite soon.
Listening to music while driving was always a bliss, and to do that in my own car with my own choice of music, BEING IN HEAVEN. The first few days, I was really busy organising my music collection into different CD's. Right from ARR's latest flick Endhiran, to PBS's evergreen melodies, I managed to get a descent range of music into the deck.
Then came the huge task of giving a Freaky touch to my car by adding a few things to it. The first to go in was the Reverse Parking Camera. This was something that I liked always, whether its 100% useful or not, but for sure, its quite unique and am sort of used to it now, helps while parking in cramped places, how many extravagant / organised / uncluttered parking places do we have in India or rather Chennai.. :-) The next funny thing that was always in my mind was to have a sticker which says "My Other Car is a FERRARI", I got to do some more body graphics, to change the very simple looking white color to something catchy, but can't afford to do all at one go. So my next mod will be to get a side body graphics for my little Chevy.
So far my experience on the road driving a four wheeler has been ok, if not great. But this really needs a lot of patience, especially in our country where no one wants to wait for even a second, thats true only when people drive, they can wait for hours in hangouts or for their girlfriends / boyfriends, no one believes in "Give and Take" its always "Take and Give", you let Me go only then I'll let you go. Having a scratch in my car (or for that matter even in my ex-gorgeous Yamaha Fz16) is something intolerable, but that can happen quite easily, even if you are not driving and simply waiting in a traffic light.
The best thing that I like in my Beat is the interiors, its quite pleasant and the blue backlighting for all the controls in the dash is awesome.
Recently I went for a short drive to Mahabalipuram, and I realised that, after nearly 2 months of city driving am not that bad driving in highways. Hoping to go on a trip to Bangalore sometime next month, I always wanted to go out in Bangalore in my own car, as a reply for all the sufferings and hard times that I have gone through in that city. That day is not too far.
Cheers :-)
iPrasan.
Cheers :-)
iPrasan.
