I had never thought I would have my own car. For years, it felt like one of those distant dreams, something other people had.

Our first step came in 2020, with a second-hand Alto. The plan was simple: learn to drive, make mistakes, get comfortable. And that little car let us do exactly that. It wasn’t glamorous, but it gave us our first taste of freedom on the road. Two years later, we sold it. It had done its job.

Anyone who has lived in Bangalore knows the struggle — broken infrastructure, unreliable cabs, and the mental energy spent just arranging a basic commute. We weren’t chasing convenience or status; we just wanted predictability.

By 2022, we were ready for our first new car. We started with a budget of 10 lakhs and, after a few showroom visits and multiple test drives, managed to stay under it. Temptations were everywhere — bigger cars, flashier functions, the latest models — but we resisted. We paid in full, in cash, and drove home in a compact automatic. No frills, no stretching, just what we needed.

The decision for automatic was my wife’s. She had seen me struggle with a manual gearbox in city traffic, and she was right — we wanted driving to feel easy, not draining. That clarity, more than anything, shaped the purchase.

What makes this car special to us is not how often we use it. In fact, our usage is merely 6000 kilometers in 3 years. Some weeks it hardly leaves the basement. But that’s where the philosophy lies: we don’t measure its worth by how many kilometers it runs. We don’t force weekend drives just to “get the value out of it.” The car doesn’t need justification. It’s there when we need it, and silent when we don’t.

“Owning doesn’t have to mean showing off, and spending doesn’t have to mean upgrading every few years.”

And when I think about the money — it cost us 9 Lakhs — I run the math in my head. If we stretch it for 15 to 20 years, that’s roughly 40–50k per year. For mobility, for peace of mind, for the freedom of knowing we can always go where we want, when we want. That feels like a bargain.

A car is usually sold as a symbol of lifestyle, status, or excitement. For us, it has become a quiet companion. A tool that blends into our life design. Just enough, nothing extra.

I sometimes look back at that Alto and smile. It taught us the basics. This car, our first new one, is teaching us something else: that owning doesn’t have to mean showing off, and spending doesn’t have to mean upgrading every few years.

This car will stay with us. Not for five years. Not for ten. Hopefully for twenty. It’s not just about a vehicle — it’s about the peace of choosing once, and then simply living with it.

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