The title of this blog is inspired and borrowed from Robin Sharma ‘s The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari– an inspirational story about Julian Mantle – a high profile lawyer (or is it Robin ‘s own life) who quit his career and came to India searching for deeper purpose of life.
The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari is one of the all time bestseller motivation and self help books and compells readers to think about their life, goals and actions. I first came across this book in my MBA in 1997 and the book had reverse impact on me and I started ‘aspiring’ to own a Ferrari (OK! Ferrari may be an over stretch, but definitely a car!)- One has to own a ferrari to sell one- was the logic.
I bought my first car in the year 2000, it was not a Ferrari but Maruti Zen that felt like Ferrari both while driving and paying the monthly installments! On hind site that sounds funny! Isn’t selling ‘the’ Ferrari about Zen way of life?
Over the next 5 years I started planning and dreaming about a bigger car. I was not the ‘sports’ car kind but more the SUV. I bought a Suzuki Grand Vitara in 2008- I was passionate about driving and off roading. I wanted to drive across India on roads or otherwise- my dream was doing Raid de Himalaya. I could never Raid the Himalayas, however had a lot of fun with Vitara. Here’s a slice of what I loved doing first few years with the Vitara.
Note: Voice over by our friend and Chef Sonal
I have changed over the years in many ways and so has my love for cars and driving. I started spending more time on my Soles and with my Soul in the weekends. Running 4-6 hours on weekends became normal routine and that went up to 10-12 hours once in 3-6 months. I am also on the path of “searching for the greater purpose of life” and weekends and early mornings are great for the soul. To cut the long story short “I was left with no time for off-roading and I did not need a SUV.
One of my 2018 resolutions was to “BeCar”
“BeCar” is an abberation of the hindi word बेकार (BEKAR) which translates in english to “Floccinaucinihilipilification” or ” estimating something worthless” . I think, I first came across both बेकार and floccinaucinihilipilification in middle school. Most people thought that I was “बेकार” all the time. Also, around the time when I was growing there was this huge wave of “General Knowledge” contests. Kids were supposed to know wierd facts, like “Which is the longest non-technical word in the English language?” floccinaucinihilipilification (Attaboy! 10 points to you). Manorma Year Book was the gold standard, I must have picked this word from there.
However, that’s not how “BeCar” is used for in this blog. Here it used as a Hinglish word that means “Without Car” or Car less.
After a lot of discussions ( my mother was really unhappy with my decision) I posted my seller ad on OLX in April and sold the car on July 31, 2018. I do not plan to buy another car.
So, what’s the point? Why did I sell the car? Here are abberations of 4 book titles that explain this experiment with life– Oops! did I borrow that one too?
This is also my Twitter style review of these books:
BeCar Soup for the Sole
Gives me more time on the soles.
I walk to meetings upto 2km
I bike to run errands upto 15km
Our vacations are Runacations
Spend on car insurance goes to running gear
Spend on car maintenance goes to marathons.
Try BeCar-ing Your Soul
I’m a huge fan for Dilbert but I never felt ‘dilberted’ im my life until Inner Engineering happened to me. I always thought happiness is car. However, after Inner Engineering I realised I was miserable inside the car and outside.
So why do I need the car?
Instead, let me try to reboot life with Sadhguru. The car is definitely not the ‘ultimate’ vehicle.
Maybe, I can build a car within.
If it’s shared economy, Go BeCar
As a middle class Indian child I heard adults say that successful people have a car and super successful people have a car with chauffeur.
beacause of you
I have CARS and CHAUFFEURS
you have disrupted my childhood goals.
And ZoomCar gives me the option to drive when I want.
Stay BeCar, Stay Experimenting
For 18 years I have owned a car.
That’s too many years of comfort.
I need to get to a discomfort zone.
To discover possibilities.
Hey there! are you driving my way?
May I hop on?
Signing off note on India’s 72 Independence Day
Shweta still owns a car which I will be using to run errands, get to run starting points at 4:00am and beat Uber surge pricing, once in a while.
All book titles and images are properties of their respective owners.
The बेकार Things About BeCar Things! If you have invested your time reading this, please comment. Will motivate me to do BeCar Things!