Some may come true, some may not. I hope most may not. But remember you first read them here.

• The first prediction: Every blogger who takes him/herself a little too seriously will write about the Nano!

• 90% of the first 1 million Tata Nano’s sold will be bought by those who already have 1, 2 or more cars. And this proportion shall not change for quite some, as the Tata production lines will struggle to cope with the deluge of pre-booked orders. This would obviously lead to a premium being charged, and the car will be available only in ‘black’ (No, I am not referring to the Henry Ford Model T colour!), and therefore only the ‘haves’ will become ‘have-even-mores’

• Pollution will get reduced dramatically after an initial upsurge. Obviously with traffic queues starting right at the doorstep of car showrooms only a fraction of the entire cosmos of cars on roads would actually move. The others would simply switch off. You don’t want to run out of fuel at a 5-hour stop, right? And with most cars thus switched off, pollution would obviously be past its glory days!

• This will trigger a micro-retail boom. Micro-retail is MBA jargon for the universe of vendors who shove anything from balloons, magazines, paperbacks, or smelly backs into your face on traffic signals. More people in cars for prolonged periods of time would mean the market size for micro-retail would go through the roof. Befittingly we would now rechristen it as Nano-retail. And the category of goods that would get sold would now also include clothing, toiletries, soil-bags, batteries, mobile recharges. The next phase would also include McDonalds and ICICI Bank ATMs in the Nano behind you! Sanjeev Bikchandani apparently is already preparing plans for Naukri Nanos, so that you could switch jobs even before you switch signals!

• Nano after having established a record as the cheapest car in the world, would now go on and set the world record for the largest number plates — with most number sequences getting too big for the number plates currently in use! I am also predicting this would give a fillip to national literacy!

• Apple computers will file a trademarks infringement case against the Tatas. This would happen around the same time as Google search results for “nano” returning more cars than iPods! And the NRI cousin on being told, “I just bought a Nano” would stop asking “1GB or 4 GB?” Then next ‘big’ thing would then be to make Nano (the car) so small, as to be able to send it as an email attachment!

• Tata Nano will record more sales the world over than India alone. And this will be stoutly resisted by the locals. “First you took our IT jobs, then BPO jobs and now you are taking away our cars too!” It’s a no-brainer to then predict that every time a Nano hits an Audi on a Sydney road, while the driver may or may not be hauled-up for rash driving, he will certainly have racism charges slapped on him!

• Other predictions include:
  • A movie called ‘Nanoman‘
  • A restaurant menu offering you plain or butter nan-o
  • Sameer (the ‘dil‘ ‘jigar‘ lyricist) going into a ‘nano mein sapna‘ over-drive
  • A Sunny Deol dialogue, “Na yes, Na no. Sirf Nano“
  • A ZEE News programme ‘Nano ya na mano‘