A TRIBUTE TO DEAR WEGU

It feels like someone in the family is due to depart on her final journey to the scrap yard, the ‘her’ here refers to our beloved hatchback Wagon R LXI, purchased twenty years ago in Feb 2006. This association has been a cherished one, as she covered the length and breadth of the country in these past twenty years, moving along with us. It was lucky, no doubt, with its registration number being ‘7867’.Life of our (fauji fraternity) cars are like that, for most of us, especially the ones who are newly minted veterans or the seasoned ones, the current generation is of course a little different where use and throw model is more prevalent and such long associations may not even last with their respective spouses.

Be that as it may, this one is highly nostalgic, after all she saw our kids grow up, when Ananya, my daughter would plonk herself right behind the driver’s seat and sing her nursery rhymes into my ears to driving the car herself as a doctor while in Delhi. My son, Abhijat, took his first driving lessons on this in Secunderabad managing to crash it into a tree, its first of the many brushes with minor and major accidents. Memories of our pet Labrador ‘Buddy’, who was brought home in Wellington and finally took his final journey too while in Delhi in our dear ‘Wegu’, as my children lovingly called her. She is widely travelled, from Chandigarh to Patiala, thereafter to Simla, Kasauli a number of times and then it braved the arduous route to Badrinath, Kedarnath via Dehradun, Rishikesh. When it was time to move to Wellington, she enjoyed the curves, as much as we did. In Secunderabad, she successfully managed to keep herself safe from the two wheeler borne fidayeens, who emerged from any and every angle. While in Delhi she suffered the traffic jams, as my better half Preeti moved from tutoring the inder privileged kids to training the budding Air Hostesses in Frankfinn, but except for minor brushes here and there, she survived without any major blemish. Soon we moved to Ranchi, her stint in Dipatoli Cantt was quite relaxed, as being in a small town, she enjoyed the well deserved retreat, after a hectic Delhi stint. It was back to Delhi soon and once again she was on the road crisscrossing the length and breadth of NCR, generally attending to social dos, weddings etc, as official travel was now in the Staff Car. It was time to move to Udhampur, once again, she was back in the hills and enjoyed our drive to Katra, at the feet of Mata Vasihno Devi, as also the not so frequent jaunts to Jammu, Patni Top etc. Although she was getting on in age, nearing 15 years, when she could have opted for a VRS, we chose to stick with her, getting her registration extended for another five years.

 When we moved back to Delhi, she participated in the fight against Covid, as Dr Ananya was required to report for duty in the Base Hospital. But then Delhi cops are not the ones to indulge in any nostalgia, so one fine day, when we were taking a trip to Manesar, they caught up with us, despite my pleas of being an army officer, a DIG in NSG, which fell on deaf ears, I was asked to return to my residence and not drive the vehicle in Delhi. I had written about this vehicle discard policy earlier, (https://thesuyashsharma.com/kar-bekar/#comments). So, a decision was taken to bring the car to Indore, my hometown, leave it with my parents. We drove down this 17 years old convertible (in human years about 70 plus) and not once did she create any problem en route. She was the mainstay in both the weddings at home of my son Abhijat and Ananya, in fact both of them chose to be driven in their ‘Wegu’ after the rituals, wanting to make their spouses also part of this family tradition. 

She has braved the Indore-Mhow road which of late has more potholes than flat pieces of ground, which in fact helped us decide in favour of settling down at Indore rather then Mhow. Now with more than 100000 kms on the road, I think it is time to give it much needed rest. Incidentally, she has a younger sibling too now, though she is much bigger in size, a Kia Seltos, who joined the family in Jun 2023. Although in hindsight a newer model of dear old reliable Wagon R may have been a better choice, given the condition of traffic in the city and unlikelihood of any major road travels in the foreseeable future. Hopefully she will see us through for the next twenty years. Adios Wegu, RIP.