Cobbler Buys Nano. His Name is Maruti

A man who has a street stall and always dreamt of owning a motorcycle will soon have a car. Never mind that he can’t yet drive.

Forty-five-year-old Maruti Bhandari has been a dreamer longer than he has been a cobbler. He always wanted a good life, a flat in a good locality of Mumbai, and a motorcycle. The motorcycle seemed within reach. He had saved Rs 1.4 lakh and was all set to buy it when Ratan Tata unveiled his own dream, the Nano.

Bhandari saw the launch on TV. “I knew that I wanted to buy the car. I don’t have parking space near my one-room house in the slums, but I wanted to buy one. Ratan Tata has made it possible for people like me to own a car,” he says. He checked his bank passbook and confirmed what he already knew. That he could afford it. He asked bank officials to help him make out a demand draft. Then he went to the Concorde showroom to make the down payment. “I was scared of losing the draft, so I kept checking to see if it was there in the plastic carry bag. I was uncomfortable entering the showroom. I walked on the pavement for some time and then went in,” he says. Bhandari has now been allotted a sunshine yellow Nano. It will be delivered to him in 2011. But he was not aware of this. When Open called him to break the news, he said he is disappointed he has to wait so long.

Bhandari does not know how to drive and is planning to take lessons from a low-cost driving school. He is waiting to save more before he enrols. His family—wife and two children—is thrilled. They will wear new clothes on the day the car arrives home. There will be a puja, pedas will be distributed to neighbours, and they will ask someone to drive them to the Siddhivinayak Temple, close to the showroom where he had made the down payment, to thank the deity. He knows it is expensive to maintain a car, even a Nano. But he says, “Anything is possible. Petrol bhi aayega.”

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