!AutoMobile!

Life is fun isn't it. You just can't get enough of it. When you are happy the whole world smiles, or they just seem to be smiling, but who cares as long as you are happy. The worst part is that you know that good things come in small packages whereas the common perception is that "Size does matter". The two conflicting points-of-view almost got me admitted to a psycho-ward.

There was a time when public transport was the way to go. Familiar routes, empty streets and the same old Ticket Collector every day. Ofcourse, the bad part was that you had to wait at the station for a long time for the right "MOVING BOX" to arrive. The good part was that you could get accross the town at the price of peanuts. Well things do change, and so they did and I started to detest public transport for all that I could see in them was the CONS. The crowd, the sweat, the crawling speeds and the same faces everyday. I thought this was not for me and that I had to do something about it, and so I did. I started to patronize the AutoRickshaws.

This small 3-wheeler has the capacity to cut the road anytime and anywhere and anyhow the driver likes and there is no dearth of power in this vehicle either. So you get the excitement and save time too for a little extra burden on your pocket. But I could live with that as long as I liked it. The matter of fact was that I started to hate them too.

I began to see all the bad things about them. Sure, the waiting time had reduced at the stops but still there was a waiting time. Sure, the Rickshaws were omni-present all over the city but not everyone would go where you would want them to. The agony of a stupid AutoDriver turning your offer down as if you had asked him to take you to a place that is below his dignity to enter was getting too much to handle. But above all what annoys you the most is the exhorbitant prices they demand, and in cases where they don't demand anything the Meter does the trick on their behalves.

So finally I decided that I had had enough and that I needed a car. All my life I had been thinking why do people think so much while buying their cars. I used to think, whats the big deal about getting a car. I felt as if buying a car was like buying any other commodity, like soap or soda or something like that, you go to the shop choose what you like and just pay the price and get it home. Now that, after I had myself decided to buy a car, all that became clear as a crystal to me. I understood that it is really a big deal, probably the biggest deal that you will ever do in your life of course after a house deal for sure.

Now that I had decided that i needed a car, I had to take a series of decisions one after the another. The first and the most crucial decision one was which one did I want to buy. I will tell you one thing about cars, if you ask 100 people for their advice on buying a car you will get close to a gazillion answers and everyone will seem to be giving the right advice. You will get so confused that you will actually start to regret the fact that you even thought of buying a car, leave alone asking so many people. But the dream of having your own car will be so attractive that you will get over all those thoughts pretty easily.

After a long, and I mean a really long thought process that included inputs from my room mates, my friends some of them experts in this field and some of my long forgotten relatives I finally decided on which car I was going to buy. It had to be a Mercedes and that too C-Class. I knew that this was a bold decision but I never had a thing for hatchbacks. I was more of a big car type guy and by big I mean really BIG. So the decision in the end was pretty easy and seemed to be logical considering the fact that I had a budget which helped me narrow down on only one or two cars that I actually liked.

I would like to tell you 2 things that you should keep in mind before buying a car. First and the most important, decide your budget. By that I mean, decide the least amount and the maximum amount that you can put in. I am putting so much stress on this because without you having decided on this factor, only one sentence will keep ringing in your mind "Dude, let me stretch a little bit more and get a better car", and beleive me, this, by far is the most horrifying thing that can happen to you. So bettler learn to avoid it and once you have decided on the limits of your budget, you are good to go.

The second most important thing to note is that once you have decided on what car to buy, you should, rather you must become totally deaf. This because you will hear so much criticism from so many people that you will actually think for a moment that you have commited some crime. Still, this is not as tough as it sounds to be, only that its a bit tricky as in how you handle so many people speaking about your decision at the same time, while half of them have nt even seen the car that you are planning to buy and the other half has never sat in one.

In case you survive these two gruelling periods the car that you decided upon is almost half yours. Well I say half because you still have nt paid the money yet, remember. I have already said that a car deal will be amongst the biggest deals of your life and this is bound to affect your economic condition whether you like it or not. Whether you go for a loan or for a lease you will definitely end up having lesser bounty in your hand each month than you used to have previous to buying the car. Still what makes it worth it is the fact that the car is all yours, atleast you have the pleasure of driving a vehicle of your choice and this feeling, beleive me is not surpassed by too many other things in life. I can promise you that the moment the dealer gives you that key in your hand and says that the car is all yours, you are bound to have an emotional breakdown, and thats just the lull before the actual high that you will get once you sit in the car and drive it away from the showroom.

Finally, what's most important to remember is that a car is a car, but your car is "THE CAR". I would recommend all the people who are reading this to actually own a car once in their lifetime and see how it feels like to drive a new baby out of the showroom for the first time onto the streets, to a place will be her territory for the rest of her life. A car is one of the most prized things a man can have and it's very deeply attached to his emotions. I would like to end this with a beautiful thought from one of my friends. It went something like "...a car's a car, it's the feeling that you own that marvellous piece of machinery that is unparalleled..". Happy driving.