Wednesday, June 28, 2006

ennapa?... walking down the memory road...

A bit of a flash back - this post is dedicated to all my school friends and to profs and teachers who over the years have made this post a possibility!

Oct 1995 - I reached Chennai and joined DAV Gopalapuram - the admission process was a bit of a challenge. It's never easy to get to a school in October, however, with help of a few contacts, could get an appointment with the principal. I was initially declined admission as princi observed that all my 8th standard marks were in '40s'!! It took a bit of explanation to get the message that well, in my school in Kerala, for some strange reason, overall marks were on 50. Anyways, with some luck, I could get admission to DAV, Gopalapuram. Otherwise would have been lucky enough to discontinue my education then.

Strange it was - to be in middle of a year, in a new environment, new people, new teachers - I was a bit perplexed. It was however my 9th educational institution in 9th standard!!! The history till then had just been perfect!!! - The first school that I went to in Lucknow - pre-nursery or so - closed down within a week, the next one lasted a month!! Finally spent more than a year in my 3rd school and then we shifted to Rajkot. Spent 3 years in one school there! School 5 was a 2 year stint in DAV Public, Patna. School 6 was Shivagiri Vidyaniketan in Alwaye, near Cochin in Kerala. Spent good 2 years in that school before shifting to School 7 - Vidyodaya, near Cochin again, for a year. We then moved to Mumbai for sometime, School 8 was Rajhans, Andheri - lasted 6 months there! School 9 was DAV - 3.5 years!!! Ever since, life got a bit more stable - spent 4 years at BITS and 2 years at IIM-A. It took combined effort of 11 educational institutions to teach me something!

Back to 9A, DAV, Gopalapuram - As new as I was then and despite being in a habit of changing schools so often, I still do take a bit of a time to make friends, more so the case then. So, for sometime, I remained the silent boy of the class! - a bit of an extreme deviation given my track record ever since! Before moving on to the teachers and profs., I will first share a very funny experience - I can't stop laughing about it even now.

The class leader of IXA then was Kutral - My first impression was - how is this guy the class leader?! 'coz to me, he did seem to be the naughty-est of the lot! In the first week, there was once a time when some teacher was absent and we had like the entire 40 mins to have fun - okay correction, they had 40 mins to have fun! Being new to the class, there had to be a bit of ragging. So, someone - now I don't remember who, probably Bhatia - told me - "you know our class leader?"... I was like 'Yeah... yess... he is the leader, right?'... Bhatia said "He is also the world record holder for swimming"... I was like.. "Yeah right, tell me about it!" I spent the next 10 mins defending "I might look dumb with these 0.5 power spects on, but I know all tricks of the trade. So, don't gimme this crap"! The discussion went on, almost the enitre class joined in! And Kutral was like - "They are just having fun with you, don't fall in the trap" - For all they told me, I was like "Yeah right... English channel... thats so so cold... I am not that dumb!!"...

Well, as it turned out to be, Kutral was and is the world record holder - for being the youngest swimmer to cross the English Channel and thereafter, my guess is that he managed another world record - "youngest to appear on every television channel as well!"... Funny incident, I still can't stop laughing... but it is all ways is a tribute to Kutral - not just for his achievements, but also for being so modest ab't it - never did he have that air of 'world record holder' around him and even till today, he remains a simple but naughty guy!

Then came the second experience - this was however over a period of time. I observed that most in our class, didn't speak the way they would to the external world! - and I didn't follow anything that they said - apparently it was all Ta Ta Va lingo! "Maditashan... (meditation) was the every second word used in the class then. The interesting fact that still remains is that I never got a chance to sit through a TTV class, but I can still imagine what the class would be like!

Days and months went by, I got more and more used to being with my to-be friends. For most of 9th, I did remain a silent guy - made a couple of friends, but my social studies marks left me with enough in life to worry about. Laloo, our Social Studies teacher was a bit more worried than I was!! To me, the idea was simple - somehow pass 9th standard - I did manage a 59/100 in my final exam of Social Studies, trust me, I was happy with that!! Little did I know that the minimum cut off to be eligible for National Scholorship Exams is atleast 60 is all subjects in 9th!

Life moved on, as I felt more and more at home in this new school, I started with my PJs - the first few days were rocking cool! Everyone enjoyed my PJs - some like Genish didn't follow much!! :-)) Others like Anta, took 2 weeks to understand! However, if an when, he understood, I did have a terrible time the very next break. Short break, Lunch break and 2:55pm break - Anta used to either solve some JEE high fundoo sums or beat me up - with a rather strange configuration - he was a master at hitting with his elbow!!

10th went by, the fun factor in life was still not there that much. However, a year later, I took ED/science group in 11th and the entire class changed. Many of my friends went to 11C, while junta joined 11A. This is when the real fun started. By some strange voluntary suicide scheme, I was the class leader too! However, I was now a chill back bencher. Actually not entirely, I was back-bench minus one, but in the left most column of the class - ideal place, much better than the back benchers in the middle columns (okay, we used to call it row then). And we did have fun! Starting from "my dear boooyz", Kandy our physics + class teacher, to our introduction to ED sir... little did I know, that this would change my lingo for life... even today, when we exchange scraps on orkut, it's often ED lingo "waffor doi litis means temmnow" "bufffalllo" "Good fameley or bad fameley litat" "wat i cen able cho chell u is litat" "pumbock"... and it goes on and on and on... I will leave the exact imitation to Lakhsman's blog - nut thinks I am 'the worrrrshhht' at this! :-((

There is tons to write about Minizaa, but I shall for now keep it to imitation only - I am sure, others have expressed their crushes on her, and since I was not part of that gang (!!!), I shall not blog on the crush part! Pullezzaaa, Anantaramanzaa do the sumzaa... Pullleezzaaa.

Jokes apart, any post on school is half empty without a sincere thanks to Sridhar Sir. We all respect him a lot - apart from the fundaes we got in Chemistry, Sridhar Sir has always been a friend to us. And more so in my case, fun time apart, it was not easy going for me in 11th and much of 12th - it's not easy to keep aims and hopes high when one is scoring significantly below the rest, but in our 1-to-1 sessions, Sridhar Sir always expressed confidence in me, gave me a few tips and that has helped me a lot.

Saitsh, the princi was a masterpiece! 'pooowerful speaker', etc, etc... again, its pure imitation, so shall leave it for other blogs :-) However, till date, the biggest united mischief was 'Paul'! It was an event that took the scales of 'Quit India Movement'. Hundreds and Thousands joined in this noble cause and we went about spreading the message of "One world, One word, One mischief, One tone, One Aim". Paul, an otherwise sane human being, far away from the mischief gang of the class, was blessed with a name, which when 'extruded' out of Kandy's throat sounded like 'Puuoo'!

It was during one of the 11th standard classes that NK started off with 'Paul'... just a hint. There was not much of a reaction to this. He said once more, and now another specimen shouted 'Paul'... it still did sound innocent. A day or two later, we started to 'spread the word'. All that was needed now, was mention of 'Paul' and half of the class would shout 'Paaaul' ' Paaaooo', 'Pol', 'Ppppoooulll'. First couple of times, teachers didn't get it. Atleast innocent Jaya didn't for sure. We now tried it everywhere, from Physics lab to ED room to every other class to Jam's class - and slowly we got to the 'expert status' in this. It was like having a massive stereo system installed, with each speaker distinct - all it needed was a small mention of 'Paul' and the system would go crazy! We even tried it once in Sridhar Sir's class!! Sir was quick to pick it and he said 'boys, comeon'!!!

Something that took the scale of Quit India Movement, wouldn't have been restricted to our class. It went on to other sections of 11th in our school, slowly our juniors and seniors bought this idea! And since we were a decent mass in IIT classes, we did it once before a Govi class. It spread like wild fire there - easy when you have 150 students sitting in a class that should take no more than 40. 'Paul' was now a brand, it was a religion that we followed, it was an 'expression', it was an 'attitude to life'. From IIT class, it spread to other schools like PSBB, I am told. Those guys knew nothing about who Paul is!! So, all of you who have had the patience to read this post till here, say 'Paaaul'!! My friend Paul, you have some popularity index man!

Moving now to IIT classes - we first started with imitating Govi - for his jokes ranged from neighbour's daughter to Bangalore babes! I haven't kept a track of all Govi wise cracks, but was fun! Atleast, I did feel a bit of competition! Then, we imitated Santhanam '...if you don't get the moles right, you misss the bussss' - the last 3 words spoken at the speed of light! Anandan was our fav as well, but I am actually bad at imitating him. So, will leave it for other blogs.

However, the biggest influence on my vocal life and I trust so is the case with many others, is TRS - Great prof for sure, but apart from that, he had the most 's' lingo on this planet earth! 'ennapa, this gets cancels', that sounded like 'ennnaaapa, this getzz canczcels' followed with a sweep of hand with his '1st finger floating'!

Before going on to other famous TRS lines, it was fun seeing him before the class started. He would rub the board with the duster to perfection - with not even a small spec of chal powder left! Then he would pick a piece of chalk, break it and use the last one-third piece of the chalk. He would stand still next to the blackboard facing the board and with a chalk in his hand, almost about to start writing. He would give himself a minute or so. To me, that sight was so so funny - it was as if a computer was booting standing still - those days, I had a 166Mhz at home, so was almost the same speed!

Back to TRS words of wisdom - "Zit on the zitter"... ennnapa plz... che che chek chek... "ennapa Aatraya Vaidyanathan, am I daaaaaancing here" :-))) "A goezzs to B's placzze, B goezzs to C's placzze, ennapaa"... and then for students like me, who were not doing too well to get through JEE, he used to call us "Caat onn the waaooll caze"!!!! "gets cancels..."

This has been a bit of a flash back! School days were fun, college life was equally cool... back to present times, it's still much the same. Till the next post, "ennnapa, plz..." blogging "getzzs cancelzzs"!!

Thursday, June 22, 2006

How right is right?

This post deviates a bit from funny and auto world posts that my blog otherwise is full of. I was reading through the blog of my friend Maharaj and read something on religion and stuff and I was impressed. This post has nothing to do with that, but that did motivate me to put in words something about which I have been thinking for sometime now.

A disclaimer before I go ahead - this is nothing more than just a thought. The real world might appear to be far from this, but nevertheless, it's just another way to look at things.

I have sometimes looked at statements like "Country X is a highly cultured country" and wondered does it mean that rest of the world is not cultured? I thought about many ways of defining culture, but finally bought the one that wikipedia says - "theoretical bases for understanding, or criteria for evaluating, human activity" - in a very broad way, it is the value system of population in general. Now, the definition of culture is not that important to rest of thoughts I have in here.

Let me start with an example. I went on a short 10 day training trip to US in Oct. 2005. As excited I was about being first time in US, I was a bit perplexed as well. Right from immigration counter to taxi to people in general whom I met, appeared to be a fraction arrogant to me. My immediate conclusion was Americans are arrogant and highly extrovert! - based purely on the following observations: 1) People spoke in a tone not considered 'courteous' in India 2) The language used was direct as opposed to some inherent 'respect' that is possibly found in India 3) People communicate every possible feeling and they go on and on and on! Too extrovert for my liking!

Yeah, having seen this, the easy immediate conclusion I could draw was people in general are arrogant and extrovert!

Days passed by, I actually didn't think about it while at training. On my return journey, I had good 20 hours on flight and I was running through the entire experience. And I again said, well it was nice being here, but I found people arrogant and extrovert.

But is that really true? Or is it all my perception? Since then, I have been trying to solve this conundrum and have had little success at this. The interesting aspect comes in when I think 'who would my American friends call arrogant and extrovert?' - That then got me thinking that probably people there too would have this relative comparison among themselves? So, are all these things relative? Or is there an absolute measure to this? Stretching the argument a bit further, is there an absolute good or bad? Or what is good in one society would be totally bad in the other? And if this is true, what is the driving factor to all this?

By no way, have I understood this to any level of comfort, but my take on this is:
  1. Our 'perception' and 'judgement' of 'good' vs. 'bad' is probably based on the way we look at the world
  2. The way we look the world is driven a lot by what we consider as the values that we stand by
  3. Our core values are a direct function of the way we have seen things around us and in some ways what we therefore accept as good or bad based on repeated experiences
  4. Now this is where culture steps in - or in very simple terms, the values, beliefs and representative common thoughts of entire population.
  5. The implication is that 'culture' in one part of the world could be totally different from 'culture' in another part - driven by circumstances, history and a bit based on how leaders and heroes of the land have lived.

Well, this is some ways helped me answer why I thought my American friends were arrogant. I am a big believer of 'law of large numbers' - in a qualitative way though - and the version that I present is that 'given all factors equal one large sample of population should be exactly identical to the other large sample'

However this doesn't seem to be true with my experience - so should I possibly visit again and meet a lot more people? I can, but my guess is that I will come back with a similar conclusion. And this is where the first part of the law steps in - 'given all factors equal'.

To me this is what defines culture. The way we think, our beliefs, our sense of right and wrong is possibly driven by 'culture' or 'cumulative experience of the society that we live in'

Ofcourse, as individuals, we are all different. And these observations are nothing but deviation from the mean or trend in any sample. Qualitative statements somehow don't convey the meaning in an appropriate way. Let me get put in a bit of flavour with some numbers being pumped in.

Let's take "Good" Vs. "Bad" and see how to apply it numerically on different cultures. I can't seem to think of a decent example... hmmm... okay, recently there was a survey conducted by Readers Digest in which Mumbai was rated the 'rudest' city in the world (http://www.rediff.com/news/2006/jun/20mum.htm). Interestingly enough, one of the 3 factors taken into consideration was - how often shop assistants said 'thankyou'. I am not trying to defend Mumbai or India here, but one clear obvious reason is that in India, saying 'thankyou' is not considered a must - there are other ways in which courtesy is recognised, while cities that ranked high probably did have the general 'culture' of saying thankyou.

Now let us say that out of 10 observation points, people in Mumabi said 'Thanks' 3 times while in the 'city A' that topped the list on an average out of 10 observations was say, '8 times'.

So a person in Mumbai who never says thanks is considered rude, may be. Someone who says 'thanks' 3 out of 10 times is average and someone who says it 5 times on 10, is like 'wow! there comes Mr. or Ms. Courteous'

In 'City A', someone who says 'thanks' 6 times on 10 is like considered 'rude', 8 is average and 10 is the 'Mr. or Ms. Courteous'

Now our Mr. or Ms. Courteous from Mumbai happens to visit 'City A'. What reaction would he face there? With 5 thanks every 10 times, he or she would have been 'amazing' here in Mumbai but would be considered 'rude' in City B!

I believe, this is true across every dimension of human behaviour and values. To stretch it further, in some ways the basic sense of 'right' and 'wrong' can also differ on 'culture' that we have imbibed. Well, the implications resulting from this, in my view, are:

  1. 'Right' or 'Wrong' is a subjective issue - it depends a lot on the world we have seen around us
  2. The above difference in perception can result in conflicts between individuals from different cultures or backgrounds
  3. It is therefore important to adjust for these 'cultural shocks' while dealing with different people
  4. The challenge is in doing these adjustments 'dynamically' while interacting with different individuals - would be very tough to implement, 'coz in a split second, we need to consider the world and view of the other person and then respond accordingly.

However, there is a flip side to this. It in some ways implies that we should accept anything and everything? How do we distinguish between the 'perceived bad' from 'absolute bad' is a major challenge that I have been thinking about for sometime. I would welcome and appreciate comments, suggestions and thoughts on this. Please reply to this post or mail me with your views.

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Vrooooom.... test driving the B segment!

This post is gonna be a bit different - well, actually, it's inherently different, not because blogspot helped me with addition of maggi hot and sweet tomato chilly sauce to this post! - It's about test drives of a couple of cars - essentially based on 5-10 minutes of test drive and nothing more. Infact, I am told, Auto India recently did come up with an edition with test drives. I will probably read that up once I am done with this post - to cross check how true Auto India is :-))

Indian automobile market has changed a lot over the years. It started with automobile industry being made open to MNCs - pre-IT boom days (pre-Y2K), auto boom was the only thing that went on positive side of analysis of Indian industry. Things have changed since then. The result is a wide range of models to choose from and the satisfaction that Indian models are launched in parallel with worldwide launch - sign of things to come for our country that aims to become a global small car manufacturing hub.

We were looking to change the Santro, so were essentially looking for a replacement in almost the same segment. Santro has done wonderfully well over the last 6.5 years, however seems to lack the punch on new highways. Although the car would mostly be driven in city, I thought that the new car should probably be a fraction better on highways. So, before I got down to test drives, understanding specs on the ground, talking to dealers, in some ways, the choice was narrowed down to Swift, Getz on one side vs. Santro and Indica on the other. Santro I have driven a lot, have tried the 1.1L version too, so in some ways knew enough about the car.

The first car that I test drove was Hyundai Getz. Internally, it looked impressive, though externally, I am yet to find any major distinguishing element in Getz - was just about okay in terms of looks. It felt like Santro - yeah yeah I know there is a light year of difference, but that's what my initial reaction was. However, as I slipped into the driver's seat, the impression started to change. The engine start was smooth and the gear shift to first was impressive - the gears were real smooth. The real difference was when I managed to get some acceleration going - it was quick! - relative statistics of 0-60 pickup would prove that, but it was real impressive. The engine was very smooth and easy! Driving the car was a pleasure, smooth gear shifts, a highly responsive engine that didn't crib with any high decibel sounds did sound perfect. Road handling was decent. I for one, did not find suspensions to be any better than Santro - though the dealer did tell that there it is supposed to be superior. Space inside was just about okay. Overall verdict - Santro + great engine, great gear shift. However, I thought it was an over priced car and at some stage Hyundai will need to cut prices to compete with Swift and friends.

I did take a round of new Santro - had driven new Santro before, so knew exactly how it would be. The 1.1L engine provides sufficient power, the suspension system felt almost the same. There was not much to know further about Santro, so I kept the observations down to minimum basic - and it therefore takes a smaller proportion of this post! There is one comment that I need to make - 7-8 years in India and I am still not sure if Hyundai has ironed out the air-conditioning system. Getz and Santro didn't feel at any stage sufficiently in tune with cooling requirements in India, more so in Chennai. Its probably a trade off with fuel efficiency, but driving comfort is a lot dependent on the effectiveness of the air con and being a Hyundai fan, I would like to see that corrected at some point in time.

Now over to the next car - the car that I had in some ways decided to go ahead with. It's Maruti Sukuzi Swift. Everything about the car looked perfect till then. The sports shape of the car is obviously a big big plus. In addition to that, it looks overall neat, with certain special design elements that had made Swift the car of the year internationally - launched in India almost in parallel with it's global launch, Swift based on all reviews was the car here to stay for sometime. I have been impressed with other factors that have gone in branding of the car - the fully devoted marutiswift website was a great place to get a perfect overview to the car and the relative comparison of different models. With VX model priced at 4.8L, Maruti, I think has positioned the car perfectly well in India.

With this background, I started the test drive of the car. The interiors of the car looked just right with more than sufficient leg room and head room - did feel a bigger car than Santro and Getz - I might be wrong here, as this perception is based on the design whereas actual dimensions sometimes work out to be different. Into gear 1 and the car did have some pick-up! That was impressive, really was! I am inherently a low rpm driver, but didn't mind pressing the throttle on this car. I was test driving the top end model of the car with automatic climate control - the air conditioning did look very effective and the ride comfort was good. I will look at the stats at some stage, but I think Swift is a bit heavier than Getz. I would feel that as it did glide through the potholes and the suspension response was reasonably good. However, I was not entirely convinced on two factors: 1) The engine smoothness - didn't feel that smooth as the Getz that I test drove 2) In-cabin sound level. Again, this finally comes down to refinement and build quality. This is what my top of the mind judgement was, however reality could be a bit different - it all depends on how old the demo cars where - the dealer told me that it was 6 months old, with every day some auto freak like me trying to push the car to it's limits! Overall I was more of less satisfied with the car. At same price point, would have chosen Swift over Getz for superior design, though engine ride was a fraction better with Getz. However, with the corresponding model of Getz being a good 40K more than Swift, there was hardly any decision to be made here.

This was day 1 of test drives - infact day half to be exact as I spent the first half of the day in travel to Chennai. By evening, I was much convinced that it is Swift. The plan for day-2 was to reach some level of comfort with the car, may be test drive once more and then look to hunt for the dealer that could give maximum discount.

Day-2, I take my Santro out with a list of all Maruti dealers in town - to get the best possible deal. On the way, I happened to visit Tata motors showroom. I wanted to have some understanding of Indica and a bit of Indigo. Actually, I haven't kept pace with changes in Indica since it's early days. Those were times when I used to follow Indica very closely - as it was one car developed from scratch in India and I felt proud that it was just about there in terms of product features and quality with the international competition. Way back in 2001 or 2002, I had gone to Delhi for Auto Expo from Bits with a couple of car crazy friends. We did see Indica v2 and another variant then and it did sound impressive. Now, Indica had changed - the new version XETA was like 'wow'. At 3.6L for the fully loaded version, it was attractive. I took a test drive and the 1.4L engine felt a bit better than Santro. After the test drive, I could suddenly see the price difference between Indica and Swift and the impressive XETA was almost there at the top in my books. However, 2 factors again went against this. 1) Indica till now has a lower resale value - probably due to build quality of earlier models 2) It is somehow associated with taxis, as Indicab has been a huge success.

Confused as I was, thought it was best to visit a Swift dealer again. I test drove Swift again, the 87bhp power, the sports car design and the stamp of international car of the year were reasons enough to pay the premium over Indica. So, it was SWIFT again - now it was down to getting the colours, etc right. Swift comes in with some real cool colours! - I actually like the black Swift as much as the other variants like silver, blue, dark grey, etc. One special feature in Swift that enhances the sports car image is the black A and B columns (or is it B and columns?) - well these are actually the metal panels that front doors close to - this black did go so well with silver that it made the decision a lot easier for us.

Rest of the time in Chennai, I spent on the process part - negotiating with the dealer, booking the car, dealing with finance companies to get the best EMI per lakh, etc, etc. Next morning (day-3), I went to the accessory showroom to get a few extra fittings. I am actually not a big fan of accessories - i so much like the original look of the car and like to preserve it for as long as possible - to the extent that I am a bit against the concept of sun films in cars - I like the original marginally tinted glasses that cars come in with. However, I wanted to fit the SWIFT with a music system that would be in line with the engine power!

SWIFT, as per estimates, should be delivered tomorrow. I am in Singapore now, so will probably have to wait a while before I can get behind the wheels of the new car. A long drive is surely on cards next time I get an opportunity!

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Giving it a start...

First time blogging aimlessly, however, thought its worth a start...

Over the last few days, I have had all the time in the world for myself - to the extent that I have often gone to the nearby beach and have done a bit of google search to find out if is it just time or even tide has come to a standstill?!

This is when the mechanical engineer in me woke up. I have been out of touch for sometime now. There was once a time, when I used to read 'Auto India' the day it came to stalls, I knew the stats of most Indian cars right from technical specifications to monthly units sold - now haven't seen the mag for nearly a century (a bit of hyperbole, make it a couple of years). However, to say the least, it was interesting to get back to my roots.

The first part was a bit of search on passenger aircraft fundaes - at BITS, I didn't take any course in aerodynamics, nor in basics of aircraft. Probably the only funda I knew was pressure difference (Mr. Bernoulli had a theorem for this!) and the resulting lift on aircraft wings. Having done a bit of travel off-late and with a bit of luck, I have managed to get window seat on or behind the wings, got my curiosity going ab't how does an aircraft actually work. Everytime when the engine goes full blast while take-off on the runway, I feel a bit proud of being a mechanical engineer - in an age when innovation has shifted to other fields (Comp Sci, Elec) and the core mechanical has now shifted more towards nano fundaes and materials in general. So, eventually did ghot up some fundaes on aircrafts, wikipedia was a big help. However, with a few questions answered and other avenues exposed, my knowledge gap has further widened - hopefully one fine day will get a chance to speak to a pilot and download all information!

The second stage of getting back to roots happened kinda yesterday. Santro back home is having some pending maintenance and probably its time to change the car. So, I started off with a bit of search on current models in market, tech specs, features, looks and ofcourse the 'cash-outflow'! The final decision not withstanding, I am enjoying this process of learning the stuff all over again. Engine BHP, multi-point fuel injection, inline 4-cylinder, compression ratio and gear ratios is driving me nuts. And when I saw the gear ratios of Swift was slightly taken aback - it was 0.9 for 4th and close to 0.7 for 5th - thats a lot of overdrive - slightly more than Santro and I was thinking how would it have an influence on the performance. Then I saw, the engine is actually a power house - 87BHP of raw power and probably that has helped in higher overdrive of higher gears. I would wanna test drive Swift, coz another interesting part is that there is a huge difference in ratio of 1st gear and 2nd. Probably it implies that is a high speed engine with good lower end torque. In normal english, it implies that for city drive, 2nd gear can have a wide speed range. I need to test drive swift now...!!

I saw ABS somewhere and said, I know I know it all. Its has something to do with braking at turns and it is a bit of controlled electronic braking. Just when I felt confident of "I still understand the basics", my friend Maharaj came on chat - this dude, having done elec and instru in Bits is now doing masters in automobiles - so, its always fun. I thought of 'vibing' about my 'sudden return to form', but was thunderstruck when maharaj mentioned something called 'ESP' - I was completely taken aback! There was a sudden depreciation in my self-worth as a potential automobile engineer! Went back again to my friend wikipedia to ghot up 'ESP'. But...

So, was an interesting day, when once I thought 'I know it all' in Auto and then there was a sudden transformation towards the end of the day when I realised that 'the auto world has moved ahead'. With a dent to my auto ego, I decided to switch off music and crash!!