So much has been said and written about cars in the West, that it would leave the normal Indian rather bemused. Cars have been associated with your lifestyle, your personality and even with sex. The drivers of the rusty Beetle and sleek Ferrari are said to make equally powerful albeit different statements about themselves. They declare themselves to be particular kinds of people, and so define themselves in society. Thus from being purely a means of transportation, the car can actually rise to the exalted status of the human alter ego.

This latter utility of the car seems to have been sadly denied to the Indian consumer, who till very recent times never had much of a choice. The average Indian in the first place can - for the best part of his life - only dream of purchasing a car.

The car in India, therefore, remains what it ostentatiously is - viz. a means of transport.

Will the Tata Indica change all that? Will the advent of the Matiz and Santro whip up a new craze in the Indian consumer?

Given several factors it is very much doubtful. Due to the sheer size of the population and the sheer poverty in the country, the car is unlikely to be easily accessible to the common man. When Henry Ford brought down the price of the Ford to its lowest ever $260 in the early 1900s, proud existing owners suddenly found that people in a strata of society below theirs owned the same car, prompting a few to switch to other models.

A people's car in India never was. Unless we see competition drastically reducing prices, owning a car will be always be beyond the reach of most Indians. However that small fraction of our population, who can afford to purchase cars, is a big enough market in itself, for the worlds car manufacturers to fight for.