The most common car in India is an Indian made Suzuki Swift called the Maruti. It cost about $5000 US, and you get what you pay for. One model, the Zen, comes with a few features, like choice of color, a radio, and optional air conditioning with the larger engine (I hope). The Sally Rand model comes with pedals, I think. Yabba dabba do.
In probably the most ill-conceived marketing campaign since General Moters tried to market the Chevy Nova (No va means “It does not go” in Spanish), the TV blitz’s catchy music is a person whistling Pete Seeger’s “Little Boxes On The Hillside”. For those of you who are too young or are non-American, as you approach San Francisco from the south, on the hill in South San Francisco, were built in the 60’s lower income apartments. These were plain, low quality, pastel colored shoeboxes. Probably, they are expensive now. Malvina Reynold’s wrote these lyrics. Now whistle along….
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same,
There’s a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
As we travelers caught in the cultural divide often say, “Well, this is India.” If I ever write that book, I may call it, “Well, This Is India”.
My apologies to those of you unfamiliar with sometimes arcane American iconography. You can take the boy out of America, but you can’t take America out of the boy.