Car-shopping, Gurgaon style

A visit to Delhi is always an eye-opener. To me, it has always been a city of the rich and the powerful… a city where money and power are flaunted.

This time, I spent a day in Gurgaon, and was thrilled to find that some of the farmers who have sold bits and pieces of land from their huge holdings in the area live the high life in palatial homes. And for them, the first symbol of their new wealth is a high-end luxury car.

The local billionaires

Among the heart-warming stories I heard about the simple billionaires was about an ex-farmer, who turned up at the showroom of a luxury car dealer on the very first day of its opening a couple of years ago.

Being the lone customer, even though dressed in a crumpled white shirt and ill-fitting trousers, he got prompt service. “ Bhaiya, mujhe woh Olympic wali gaddi chahiye (I want to buy the ‘Olympic’ car).” To the sales executive’s blank look, he elaborated: “ Woh gol-gol ring wali safed gaddi… jo Tata Sumo jaisi lagti hei (White car with lots of rings which looks like a Tata Sumo).”

The penny dropped, and the executive realised that his customer was referring to an Audi SUV. But that costs a lot of money, he warned the customer…about Rs 50 lakh. Unfazed, the man said he had the money, and took him and his colleague to his worse-for-wear car, opened the boot to reveal cloth bags stuffed with cash; the three of them moved the money to the showroom.

The shutter was downed and a couple of hours went by counting the money and with the formalities of car-buying.

I was with a group of women living in a high-rise luxury apartment complex in Gurgaon with three swimming pools and two gyms. One of them recalled her teenaged son being invited to a party attended by the boy’s extended family. “The relatives came from nearby villages and these kids were shocked to find that the cars they had come by were all Audis, Beamers or Mercs.”

The women then discussed how some of their neighbours, from farming families, had initially started their morning walk “wearing expensive saris and heavy gold jewellery.” But slowly they changed, and now “we find them in branded walking tracks and matching shoes, minus the jewellery.”

Another tale was about the driver of a CEO who has a Rs 7-crore offer for his parcel of land. He belongs to a family of dairy farmers, but has learnt driving.

“He refuses to sell his land saying, ‘what will I do after that? I am illiterate; at least now I have a job. Once I get so much money I won’t be fit to work as a driver either. My brother has sold his share of the land, can’t do dairy farming without his land and is now sitting at home’.”

But the driver of a Delhi IIT Professor had no such problems. The professor, on transfer from IIT Guwahati, had a Santro and engaged a driver from Gurgaon, who would come each morning in his own car — a BMW. His advice to his boss: “ Aap ek acchi gaddi kharid lo! ”

Hopes belied

But the best story was about the son of another farmer sent to study in Australia. He agreed to come home during his break on the condition that his father would buy him a BMW. After getting him home, the father dismissed this request. The boy spent a month at home driving around in a slick BMW which he said was a friend’s. After a few months, the father discovered a huge hole in his wife’s savings bank account. Confronted, the woman said coolly: “ Bacche ko aapne na kar di, toh gaddi maine dilwa di. (You said no, so I bought the car for him).”

> rasheeda.bhagat@thehindu.co.in

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