Representative image showing a worn down car.
Credit: iStock Photo
It is quite common to find a small sticker on the rear of one’s otherwise run-down, tattered car that announces, “My other car is a Mercedes,” an apology for exhibiting this contraption when you have a better one back home, all in good humour.
However, in my case, I actually have another car, which is a Mercedes, in a condition that is nothing to write home about and, as a matter of fact, several notches lower than the car I drive. Though it is not well motorable and spends most of the time parked in front of my house, it helps my ego, if not my purse.
The children in the neighbourhood know the market better and rightly guess that I must have bought this old girl for a song and quietly put a handwritten sticker in my Benz saying, “My other car is better than his.” Added to this, the scrap dealer has his eyes set on this car. The neighbours heaved a sigh of relief when the car had to be towed away as it refused to move.
The road looked wider in its absence. But it came back, reminding me of the situation R K Narayan got himself into in Malgudi when he won a derelict road roller in a lottery. The only difference is that Narayan was not ready for a hole in the packet, paying taxes and labour charges, etc., for moving the monster, whereas I plunged into the deep water knowingly.
But, why not? All of us do a bit of show off knowingly, like my friend who showed off a ‘Mont Blanc’ pen, which showed its real metal when its colour faded, or people wearing zirconia hoping others would think it is a real diamond. The same applies to German silver, which is neither German nor silver. Worst is, people calling themselves so and so followed by ‘oxon’, while they might not have gone to Trinity or the likes in Oxford, but to one of the lesser-known dozens of schools in the Oxford village. Who can verify?
So, what’s wrong with my showing off the Old Merc? Given its antiquity, it must have been fully made in Germany. Amidst the frolic adventures of neighbouring kids pasting unsavoury stickers on my Merc, I had the last laugh, pasting a sticker saying, “My other car is the Latest Maybach, the Rolls Royce of Mercedes.”
Yes, sir, it is true, but should I mention in a small under-script that it is a 1:20 scale model bought by my granddaughter en route to Frankfurt duty-free? She knows my weakness.