Tossing between 9 and 81 :-)

Glad that we made it to top-100, the next stage is a lot more competitive. Though we do think, we are probably just as good as anyone else, it finally comes down to luck here, I guess.

The jury is fair - they are clearly not picking 9 names from a lucky draw. However, this is the stage where the criteria used, the preference of individual jury members, what they consider good, etc start to become a lot more important. From our point of view, we have given our best and we have absoluely no regrets as far as our application is concerned - the eventual quality, the effort that has gone in to it and more than anything else the enjoyment we have had in this process.

Top-9 is a tough call - and we will be extremely glad if we make it. If we don't, we have the option of doing the same drive all by ourselves! OR plan a drive to Leh, which was not possible within the rules of this competition.

Choose your pick - is it 9 or is it 91? :-)

Our travel plan for The Great Driving Challenge

Summary of our plan

Our plan for The Great Driving Challenge is to create what we call the “Mitsubishi Constellation". Just as our forefathers saw the stars in a dark starry night and joined them by imaginary lines to form shapes and symbols and called them constellations, we intend to visit various places in Dakshin Bharat which when joined by imaginary lines across the map transform into an insignia of Mitsubishi. The route plan is: Mumbai-Goa-North Kerala-Alleppy-Munnar-Coimbotore-Mysore-Bangalore-Chitoor-Hampi-Belum Caves-Pune-Mumbai. The whole itinerary maintains the maximum limit of 350 kms and minimum of 300 kms on all 12 days. And to top it all, the “stars” on our constellation have been painstakingly chosen to bring out the best perspectives that India has to offer… (We will be exploring India from 15 different perspectives to give you a complete package!)


DAY-1

Route : Mumbai-NH-4a-NH17-Chandoli National Park
Key attractions : Chandoli National park, Mumbai Sea Link
Perspectives : National park, Modern Infrastructure
Distance travelled : 300kms + a few kms inside National Park, easily within 350 km limit

On the first day, we plan to drive from Mumbai to Chandoli National Park, covering a total distance of 300 kms (50 spare kms left to explore Chandoli National Park and buffer for Mumbai travel). We will start off in the morning, driving across the new Sea Link in Mumbai and then head towards Vashi, going through Panvel creek to join NH-4c. After traveling for about 10 kms on NNH-4C, we will take the Pen bypass and join NH-17 to drive down south to Chandoli National park. We plan to visit the following places inside the national park: Kandhardoh, the Kandhardoh Falls, Tanali Falls and Vasant Sagar Reservoir. Would have been a long day by then- we plan to check-in to the guest house inside Chandoli National Park to blog, upload photos and share our travelling experiences on the day-1 of our journey.


DAY-2

Route : Chandoli National Park- NH17-South Goa
Key attractions : Goa beaches
Perspectives : Beaches, Architecture, Cuisine, Education
Distance travelled : 301kms + a few kms within Goa, easily within 350 km limit

We will get up relatively earlier (i.e. before 9am!) to explore Chandoli National Park a bit more, before heading off to Goa. The idea today is to get to Goa as early as possible to give ourselves maximum time to enjoy the beaches at Goa. We will head south from Chandoli National Park on NH-17 all the way to Goa. We will explore the key spots in Goa – e.g. Arjuna beach, Mapusa, etc. Other than the beaches, we will look to explore the cuisine of Goa and understand the intermingled Portuguese architecture and remains in Goa. We will be staying at one of the resorts by the beach in South Goa. We will also visit the BITS-Pilani Goa Campus – a testimonial to modern India’s education systems. As an Alumni of BITS-Pilani, Anupam is really looking forward to visiting Goa campus.


DAY-3

Route : Goa-NH17-NH 206 to Jog Falls from Manki-get back on NH-17-Bhatkali
Key attractions : Jog Falls
Perspectives : Waterfalls,
Distance travelled : 320kms includes travel to and from Jog Falls, easily within 350 km limit

After strolling on the beach in the morning, we will get into our Mitsubishi Cedia, fasten our seat-belts and vroom we go J We will head down South on NH-17, passing through Nagorcem, Karwar, Ankola, Kumta to Manki. At Manki, we will take turn left to NH 206, driving to Jog Falls (at a distance of 50 kms or so). After enjoying our time at Jog falls, we will head back on NH-206, reach Manki again and head southwards on NH-17 to Bhatkali for the night stay.


DAY-4

Route : Bhatkali-NH17-Mangalore-Mahe
Key attractions : Cannore beaches, Bekal Fort
Perspectives : Beaches, Forts
Distance travelled : 325kms

We will drive down from Bhatkali on NH-17, passing through Mangalore. Our first point to visit would be Bekal Fort - spreading over 40 acres, Bekal Fort is the largest and best preserved fort in Kerala with an alluring view of the sea shore. We would then drive down south further to visit Muzhappilangad Beach which is a long clean beach. Its Kerala’s only drive-in beach, one could drive the entire length-4 kms. Driving Mitsubishi Cedia sports model on a beach, would be yet another innovative way to test drive the car! J The next place to visit would be another beach nearby called the Meenkunnu Beach. This beach is a tourist’s paradise with golden sand & surf. We will continue driving south on NH17 to reach Mahe for our night stay.


DAY-5

Route : Mahe-NH17-Kozhikide-Kodungallur-Join NH47 at Cochin-Alleppy
Key attractions : Kodungallur (first Mosque, Church, temple), Cochin, Alleppy
Perspectives : Secular India, Back waters
Distance travelled : 320kms

We will start from Mahe and head south wards on NH-17 all the way, enjoying the green beauty of Kerala, along the coast. We will visit Kodungallur – which has the first mosque and church in India and has a temple also in close vicinity. This stands as a true testimony to “Secular India”. After that, we will drive further south on NH-17, joining NH-47 at Cochin. We will visit key attractions of Cochin (e.g. Fort Cochin) and then head to Alleppy. We would stay in a houseboat at Alleppy (Aditi is damn excited about it!). There will be plenty to blog today – though it will be a tough balance to strike – should we blog and update for the benefit of the avid followers of GDC or enjoy the scenery around, which would add to the overall experience for everyone! Can’t wait to get there!


DAY-6

Route : Alleppy-NH47 to Cochin-right turn on NH49-Kotamangalam- Munnar-Udumalaipettai-NH209 to Coimbatore
Key attractions : Munnar, Eravikulam National Park, Indira Gandhi National Park
Perspectives : Hill stations, water falls, National parks
Distance travelled : 300kms – enough room to visit places in Munnar

Its time to get up early again, Day-6 has a lot in store for us! We will start from Alleppy and head northwards on NH-47 to Cochin. We would need to turn right on NH 49, at Cochin and then head all the way to Munnar – enjoying the fabulous drive on the serpentine roads all uphill. At Munnar, we will visit waterfalls, the highest peak in South India, tea plantations and other key attractions. At around 3pm, we will head out of Munnar all along NH49 to Udumalaipettai through the lush green forests of Indira Gandhi and Eravikulam National Parks, where we will take left on NH 209 and drive down to Coimbatore for night stay.


DAY-7

Route : Coimbotore-NH67 to Gundalpet - then NH 212 to Mysore- Bangalore
Key attractions : Mysore Palaces (e.g. Ambavillas, etc), Brindavan gardens
Perspectives : Palaces, Gardens
Distance travelled : 335kms

We will drive down from Coimbatore, taking NH67 to Gundalpet, where we will join NH 212 and drive down to Mysore. At Mysore, we will visit the key attractions of Mysore – Ambavillas Palace and other palaces of historical significance. The theme at Mysore will be “Historical Heritage” as we explore the great forts and palaces at Mysore. Towards the evening, we plan to visit Brindavan Gardens, and see the fountains post sunset. Later, we will head off to Bangalore for night stay.


DAY-8

Route : Bangalore-NH4 to Chitoor- then NH 18 to Rayachoti
Key attractions : Bangalore, Koral Mines, IT Park
Perspectives : Mines, Information Technology
Distance travelled : 310kms – room to go around Bangalore

On day-8, we will start with exploring the great attractions of Bangalore, the garden city of India visiting one of the key gardens (e.g. Lalbag). We also plan to visit ISKCON - A blend of modern and traditional south Indian temple architecture, the ISKCON temple houses a multi-vision cinema theatre, computer aided presentation theatres, vedic library and a preaching library. We also plan to visit one of the IT Tech parks in Bangalore – (e.g. International Tech Park) to showcase the IT industry of Bangalore. Any perspective to Bangalore would be incomplete without mention of IT industry that has transformed India in general and Bangalore in particular. We will then drive down on NH-4, visit Kolar Gold Mines (just in case, we don’t win the gold medal in this competition, gold dust from Kolar is all we will need to be content with J ). We will further keep driving down on NH-4 till Chitoor (which is one of the vertices of our Mitsubishi Constellation). From there, we will take NH-18 to drive down and halt for night at Rayachoti.


DAY-9

Route : Rayachoti-NH18 to Mydukur, then turn left and head to Belum Caves continue and join NH 63 to Bellary
Key attractions : Belum Caves
Perspectives : Caves, Natural Beauty
Distance travelled : 320kms

On day-9, we will start from Rayachoti and drive up north in NH-18 till Mydukur. From there, we will take left on a less important highway and drive through Proddatur, Gollapalle and then reach Kolimigundala. This is where Belum Caves are located. It is the 2nd largest cave in the Indian sub-continent with a length of 3.3kms! We will spend a major part of our day-9 exploring Belum caves. After exploring the caves, we will drive through Tadpatri, towards Gooty and then take NH-63 to Bellary. Bellary would be our night stop.


DAY-10

Route : Bellary-NH63 – take detour to Hampi and join NH63 at Hosapette – NH 13 to Hungund, Left to Pattakadal and then to Bagalkot
Key attractions : Hampi, Tunga Bhandra Dam, Pattakadal
Perspectives : Temples, Monuments, Dam
Distance travelled : 300kms – inclusive of detours

On day-10, we will start from Bellary and our first stop would be Hampi to explore various monuments of the mighty Vijaynagara empire in ruins. This is a UNESCO world Heritgate site. Our next stop would be at Hosapette, where we will visit Tunga Bhandra Dam – which is the largest dam in Karnataka. From there, we will get back to NH-13 and head towards Hungund. At Hungund we will take a left to Gudur and then reach Pattakadal. Pattadakal is another UNESCO world Heritage Center, it has 10 major temples representing early Chalukyan architecture. From there, we will drive to Bagalkot for the night halt.


DAY-11

Route : Bagalkot-NH218 to Bijapur- NH13 to Sholapur-NH9 to Indapur
Key attractions : Bijapur (Gol Gumbuz), Kollur (Malik-e-Maidan), Sholapur
Perspectives : Architecture, Palaces, Canon
Distance travelled : 300kms

On day-11, we will start from Bagalkot, take NH 218 to Bijapur. The key attraction at Bijapur is Gol Gumbuz which is the 2nd largest dome in the world (nearly 44m in diameter). The other attractions at Bijapur include Malik-e-Maidan, which is the world’s largest medieval canon, Jumma Masjid and Ibrahim Roza which is said to have inspired Taj Mahal. Clearly, we would have a lot to do in Bijapur and we look forward to covering as many of these great structures as possible. Bijapur is famous for hand woven sarees as well. After spending nearly the entire day in Bijapur, we will head off to Sholapur and then to Indapur for night stay.


DAY-12

Route : Indarpur-NH-9 – Pune – Expressway- Mumbai
Key attractions : Expressway, Raja Dinkar Kelkar Museum, NDA
Perspectives : Museum, Modern India Infrastructure, Defence
Distance travelled : 320kms

The last and final day of the trip, we will start with a visit to Ujani dam in Indarpur and then head off to Pune. At Pune we plan to visit Raja Dinkar Kelkar Museum. We also plan to visit National Defense Academy – the only academy in the world where all three forces are trained together. We will then drive through on Mumbai-Pune express way, a testimony to India’s great infrastructure. We plan to reach Mumbai at a time preferred by the trip organizers for the closing ceremony of the drive.

Why we are the best? - 5 key reasons!

Typically, it is sufficient to have one of the following to succeed at a task: Skill, passion, dedication, experience, great idea, support from friends and relatives. What if we try and combine all these factors? The resulting combination would be unbeatable. This is precisely the reason why we are the best candidates! Lets us describe each of the above reasons to you:

1. We have a great idea and a great plan – our route plan “Mitsubishi Constellation” is not just an innovative idea, but also our unique way to highlight the myriad threads that form the richly interwoven tapestry that's India. Yes friends, we have managed to pull through the toughest route challenge! We have made a route plan that showcases India from 15 different perspectives, is all within the daily limits set by the TGDC guidelines and still manages to draw a Mitsubishi insignia when plotted on a map! Please refer to our travel plan and the google map for more details. What’s the point we are making? Well…it proves beyond doubt that when you are in India, it just doesn’t matter what direction you decide to travel in, coz India is sure to surprise you with its beauty at each corner! Nothing else could have brought out India’s richness any better! To be honest, to design the route within the parameters of the daily kilometers limit plus the self-imposed constraint of forming the “Mitsubishi Constellation” was like solving a complex puzzle- the moment you increase or decrease the kilometers here, there goes the aesthetic appeal of the insignia, and the moment you pin down the end-points of the constellation, you realize suddenly that the kilometers got exceeded! Phew! Despite the constraints, we designed the route (a whopping 50-60 man-hours spent on that!) and as is evident from the testimonials, the efforts haven’t gone in vain!
   
2. We're Traveloholics! We have visited 17 countries worldwide and enjoy traveling immensely. So much so that we’ve decided to set up home at one of the world’s favourite tourist destinations- Singapore! The last we heard, the visa offices of the world (and environmentalists the world over) have been pretty unhappy with us…thanks to the rate at which we’ve been using up the pages in our passports! That’s why we believe that this contest is tailor made for us- an exact fit with our travel passion!
   
3. Driving, Driving, And Driving!! We love driving and we love cars, and also anything and everything that comes with being in love with driving and cars. We have driven across 4 different continents, and been on several long road trips world over (in 8 countries). In fact, saying that Anupam loves cars is an understatement- he lives them! What else would you say about the guy whose Mom asks her prospective daughter-in-law if she is prepared to live out of a car after marriage! And Aditi? Well, she has decent driving credentials too although she prefers to enjoy watching the scenery and contemplating on life’s philosophies while Anupam drives! ;) But despite what writers Allan & Barbara Pease may tell you, this woman is out to prove that “Women can read maps”! For us, driving is not just about passion, but it is something that needs the right mix of technique, experience, endurance and passion! Check out our blog for more details on our driving trips
   
4. We love to Jog… err…we mean Hog….oops…apologies, we meant We love to Blog! We’ve been blogging since 2004- about travel, driving, auto, cricket, self improvement, and everything else under the sun. But humour is our forte (or so we like to think!!) and we derive immense pleasure out of unleashing our PJs on the world! Check out our latest attempt at doing that- The Car-toon series called “Puncture ke Car-namey!” on our blog, which we intend to continue publishing while on the drive as well, deriving inspiration from the life-on-the-road. Please also see our Flickr album to get a flavour of our photography skills. Aditi is an artist at heart and some of her shots portray just that- an eye for detail and an eye for beauty in the mundane….
   
5. They say rolling stones gather no moss, but it seems rolling stones do gather a lot of votes! We’ve gathered almost 750 votes so far and we are seriously overwhelmed with the support that our family, extended family, friends and even people who don’t know us have extended to us. It feels really nice to have 750 odd people backing up your application…and we can’t wait to thank each and everyone of them by sharing the stories from our experiences on the drive!

All-in-all, we are not just the best candidates with required "skills and experience", but we will also ensure that all the avid followers of Great Driving Challenge have fun reading our blog posts, photo essays and updates. In short, Entertainment Guaranteed!

We are the best candidates for The Great Driving Challenge! - Our Video

Please see our video for The Great Driving Challenge! We are the best! :-)

Puncture ke Car-namey

A funny sketch from Aditi to help you get a flavour of what our puncture is like! Enjoy!

What's your route plan? Is there something special happening guys?

12 hours and 15 minutes left, before we submit our final application to the great driving challenge.

"So, whats your route plan? Is Mitsubishi Constellation happening guys? We haven't seen it as yet... " - we have heard many such queries over the last couple of days.

Wait a little while longer. Our route plan, credentials and something-very-very special will be uploaded on this blog (and in the application too) in the next 12 hours.

Please continue voting for us, and thanks so very much for your support. Today is the last day - please give us your support!

http://www.greatdrivingchallenge.com/application/1246425248799124

A walk down our driving experiences! :-)

Aditi and I have been on several drives. We are vastly experienced at driving trips - a reflection of our true passion. Firstly, let me start off with listing our key achievements:

1. Driven in 4 continents: Asia, Europe, Australia, Africa
2. Driven in 8 coutries: India, Singapore, Malaysia, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Switzerland
3. Been on several long road trips. Going by distance, the two longest ones are the 3,630 km trip through Chennai - Bangalore - Goa - Mumbai - Pune - Hyderabad - Chennai and the 3,200 kms trip touching Chennai-Hyderabad-Mumbai-Vijaywada-Chennai
4. Achieved "1000 kms of driving in a day" twice. Once in South Africa and once in Malaysia.
5. Maximum distance in a day in India is ~900 kms from Vishakapatnam to Chennai... and many more in 800-900kms range in a day

Having highlighted key achievements, we would like to now highlight, some of our most memorable drives:

1. Auckland to Rotorua, New Zealand
2. Capetown to Cape of Good Hope, in South Africa
3. Stutgart (Germany) to Interlaken (Switzerland) and back, through Alps
4. Singapore to Cherating Malaysia - 2 trips
5. Several trips from Chennai to Ooty, Kodaikalan, Kerala (each ~1,500 kms or more)
6. Chennai to Dandeli Water Rafting, via Bangalore (trip of ~2,000 kms)
7. Separate trips from Singapore to Pangkor Island, Tioman Islands, Penang (in Malaysia) with each trip being ~1500 kms long8)
8. Atleast 15 trips from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur
9. Capetown to Knysna, South Africa (Garden Route)
10. Perth to Margaret River, Australia.
11. .. and numerous others....

Please check this blog for more details on a few of these. I have another blog for the longest trip I have been to: http://wimwi-road-trip.blogspot.com/

Introducing to you "Puncture"

The Great Driving Challenge is an amazing concept. It has been designed in such a way to get everyone excited. While I am kicked about driving and blogging, Aditi has let her creative side take-over.

For our trip, Aditi has designed a new cartoon character - "Puncture"! Puncture is purely Aditi's brain child. As she puts it, "Puncture is a little dumb... recent medical reports suggests that Puncture is suffering from Carotitis - a mental disorder, leaving the patient with the ability to only understand things that are in anyway related to cars.. for rest of worldly matters, our Puncture is totally dumb!"

Ladies and Gentlemen, Unveiling to you, "Puncture" (back ground music goes tain tain, tain tain toden tain, tain tain toden tain tain)

1) This is our "Dumb Puncture" - the natural pose!

2) If you discuss anything other than cars, this is his usual reaction:

3) All you need to do is to mention the word "car" and this is the reaction you get to see!

Mitsubishi Constellation - what's that?

We are all geared up for The Great Driving Challenge. By 17th, we all need to submit our final route plans, our driving history/ credentials and to define why are we the best candidates?

Our route plan is unique - we are creating the Mitsubishi Constellation - what's this? Well, it will all be unveiled shortly - this blog would have all the information by 17th evening. Till then, its all under wraps!

Please keep voting for us at The Great Driving Challenge. We need you support:

http://www.greatdrivingchallenge.com/application/1246425248799124/

Great Driving Challenge!

Aditi and me are participating in the great driving challenge contest. Please vote for us (link on this blog)!

Starting from today, we will be regularly updating you with our plans for the great driving challenge. You can read our profile and our travel plan at this link:

http://www.greatdrivingchallenge.com/application/1246425248799124

We will be updating our profile till 17th July. Please do keep checking - would be fantastic if you could help us get more votes. Please forward to your friends.

Do keep checking this blog... there will be quite a few posts in the coming days!

Tata Nano – the most amazing thing to have happened to auto industry!

All through the post medieval history, any technological advancement has caught human attention – be it Wright Brother’s first flight, invention of internal combustion engine, the first super computer, the discovery of antibiotics, the decoding of human DNA – needless to say, one theme links it all - “technological advancement’. Lately, a new dimension to ‘innovation’ has emerged. Over the past decade or so, ‘cost’ and ‘affordability’ have started to drive changes. A lot of changes are now focused on bringing on redesigned products at much lower cost – be it the $100 laptop, a low-cost mobile phone or an ultra-cheap car. Yes, this post is about Tata Nano, priced at Rs. 1-Lakh or $2,500, it has halved the entry price for a car.

Ever since Mr. Ratan Tata first declared in public to manufacture the 1-lakh car, I have nearly followed every possible news article on this car. To me, this is the most amazing thing to have happened to auto industry, particularly for developing economies and will possibly impact entry level sedan segment world over. Before going in to details of the car and its impact, let me provide the views of a distant observer, from the day the plan became public (~4 years back) till today (just after the official launch of the car)

• Announcement of 1-lakh car project (~4 years back): I thought “hmmm… interesting, but not sure if they can pull it off” I was excited, but didn’t have too much confidence if this would be ever possible!

• My first impression: As more information started to come in, I thought this car would be without doors, possibly with a basic 2-wheeler engine and suspension system, possibly a cloth cover on top instead of a metal roof, no dashboard panel, wooden seats – in short, a car, but possibly not meeting the basic safety requirements and comfort

• My first inference: But even with the above description, 1-lakh car seemed attractive – it would be the same value for money that a Maruti 800 is at Rs. 2 Lakhs. It might have been a success, but Tata would have probably struggled to sell half a million units a year

• At the half way stage: Once Tata announced that it would indeed be a “proper car”, with a cute design, I really got excited about it. For this was not cost cutting, but a complete new invention of "traditional car". In one of the recent interviews, team at Tata Motors described their experience working on 1-lakh car – “we worked towards cutting almost 50-60% of costs for most parts”. Kudos to the team and the leadership – they would have pushed for 1-lakh price tag from seemingly impossible situations at many stages all through the development of this car

• The day before the official launch: The day before the Auto Expo Launch, I was betting my money on the following specifications – a price tag of 1.25 lakh, a boxy design, high proportion of plastics esp. with doors, a basic rear engine not meeting environment norms, two doors with seats folding to access the rear seats, etc

• Tata Nano launch: … and then, you get to see a much better car than a Maruti-800, meeting Euro-IV emission norms (I think engine sensors are a must for this), a killer design, plenty of space to seat 4-5 people, etc, etc – in short, a super car! In my books, if I was to benchmark this car with existing models on the road, it is worth at least Rs. 2 Lakhs

… well, at price tag of Rs 1.Lakh, it is a killer product! A pure market share eater!

Congratulations again to the team at Tata Motors, they have really redefined car designing and manufacturing. With the success that Tata Indica and other models have been, I am confident Tata has the operational capability to put the design to assembly line and manage the entire supply chain from suppliers to dealers producing a consistent good quality product. A big thanks to Tata Motors Team!

Experiencing lateral inversion!

If I was to rewind back to school days, my NCERT science text book would have defined lateral inversion as “The effect produced by a mirror in reversing images from left to right”. In Kerala, I experienced “Lateral Inversion” in a somewhat different way – for some fuzzy reason, in a statistically significant way, most people got ‘left’ and ‘right’ wrong on most occasions. With time, I understood that ‘left’ is ‘left’ and ‘right’ is ‘right’ only as a matter of ‘convention’ and probably there is no strong logic behind that. On the contrary, with ‘up’ and ‘down’ there is some bit of ‘gravity’ rationale that comes into the picture.

To remain attuned to rest of the world, I decided to mentally define ‘right’ as ‘right’ symbolized by a few subconscious, yet logical rules – I started off with “I eat with my right hand”, shifting gradually to “steering is at the right of a car”. Beyond that stage, I don’t quite remember ever having problems with left and right. So in all probability, “steering is at the right of a car” is the ‘internal rule’ that over the years my directional sense has been calibrated too!

Through my existence on planet earth over the last 2 decades and my experience with excel modelling errors, attempts at solving ‘limited-information-case-studies’, trying my luck with Sudoku puzzles and attending structured communication training workshops, I have come to the conclusion that ‘assumption’ is what determines the ‘outcome’!

This is exactly what I experienced on my trip to Europe. Till then, fate had almost cherry picked my driving experiences as purely ‘right-hand drives’ – India, South East Asia, South Africa and Australia. On my trip to U.S., I took a bus from Boston to Capecod. With the intention to experience the ‘left hand drive’, I went and sat next to the driver, in the front. I was left in a state of being ‘zapped’ in a few minutes – possibly a combination of jet-lag and ‘left to right’ transformation on the road left me in that state. It was strange weird feeling – I couldn’t get to terms with the fact that on-coming vehicles were passing-by at 100 miles an hour to our ‘left’!

This November, Maharaj and I rented an E-class from Stuttgart (Germany). Since I had a valid license, I was the one behind the steering wheel. Frankly, I was a bit apprehensive to driving on the right side of the road. I tried various things to convince myself of this transformation, most notably being – ‘driving on the right side of the road, should by definition be the right side of the road!’

My over-cautious side took over for sometime – I drove at the minimum possible speed, shut the music off, kept 100% of my focus on road and tried to follow the arrows on the road. It all looked very weird! Maharaj was trying to give some fundaes and vibes about driving in Germany. I shut him up and said “… and you rustic! Keep shut and utter only when you find me heading on the wrong side of the road!”

Well, it took me probably half an hour to get used to this left to right transformation – with no better phrase to describe this, I coined it as ‘lateral inversion’!

By day-2 of our drive, I had completely lost it all. I had lost the sense of left and right. There were many occasions when Maharaj told me to turn right and I peacefully took the left turn! Given the rusticity of the situation, Maharaj came to my rescue by putting some rustic vibes – finally, we found a reason to cover up this goof-up and blamed it all on the human brain in general. Apparently, human brain can’t distinguish between left and right without any frame of reference, while up and down is governed by gravity.

I am back to the driving convention world that I am comfortable with. Inverse lateral inversion was rather easy – I got my directional sense right on my Avante during the very first minute of the drive. But, wait a minute, is right the right way to look at it when I am myself not sure if right is right and not left? Would Wright Brothers have the right answer to this mystery? Why are right hand drive cars more suited for left side drive? Confusion prevails, so does lateral inversion!

Europe Trip: London, Paris

London

• Met Boopos at Underground station near his house. On Sunday, he was returning from office at 9:45pm, still early by his standards – senti scene followed as we were meeting after 2.5 years :-)


• Reached Boopos ka apartment, had dinner, gen random fundaes discussed, off to sleep


• Next morning, took a bit easy, Boopos left at 8am, I started after 10am


• Headed to Lords Cricket Ground, The home of cricket! – In the last 26 years, histroy has failed to impress me, but for once, it was interesting to know about the history of Ashes, Lara’s record innings, etc, etc


• Had lunch next to the cricket ground, headed to London eye – a fantastic view of the city and places nearby


• Took a few clicks at the Tower bridge (I thought it was the London Bridge, supposed to have been falling down - so said my nursery rhyme!)


• Caught up with friends for drinks and dinner- Challa, Buttler, Anta, Philip Boopos and Bharath


• Next day, got up at 5am or so and boarded the Eurostar to Paris.

Paris

• Toulouse trip cancelled due to non-availability of tickets.


• Checked-in to a hotel, took the day off and slept – It has been 5 days with very little sleep.
• Got up late at night, went for a walk at around 2am near Montparnasse. Enjoyed the chilly cold winter and the light wind that made it even chiller!
• Next morning, took the Metro to Eifel Tower
• Long queue at the tower, so took a city tour
• Went to ….Museum – I can’t appreciate art, just not inclined to any form of art. But, even for someone like me, this Museum was amazing.
• Saw the much-hyped painting Mosalisa. Must say, other painting and the colour combinations used impressed me a lot more
• Visited Notterdam saw from outside and had a good lunch at a typical French restaurant
• Visited another piece of architecture and the region around that. Saw Lido from outside, the show didn’t start till late at night.
• Got back to Eifel Tower – had a chance to go up right till the top (3rd floor) – the view was simply superb. Eifel tower is amazing – build only of iron trusses and it is rock solid, unshakeable!
• Eifel tower was now lighted and was looking fantastic – a true killer sight
• Took night train to Stuttgart – train journey was okay types, perhaps I had expected the train to be a bit better than what it really was
  

Europe Trip: Introduction

The foundation of this post and the basic ingredients were fused on my way back from what had been a fantastic trip to a chosen few destinations across Europe. This post is a brief account of the terrific trip.

Off late, certain otherwise ‘loyal’ blog-readers, have criticized the typical length and wordiness of my posts. Taking into account the ‘recent-criticism’ and my general typing-laziness has resulted in a bullet point account of the Europe trip!

Pre-trip planning

• First thoughts of Europe trip appeared around a year ago.
• Started to plan for this trip in July, applied for vacation and I was politely told “dare not take-off before the end of project” – so mid-October it was!
• I persevered through my allergic response to book shops and eventually succeeded in purchasing a guide to Europe. I had to literally start my trip planning from scratch. – had no clue to the overall geography of Europe; I still wonder how I managed to pass Social Studies exams at School!
• Started with the ‘mugga-process’ on net, found links to typical Europe trips covering major cities, going deep into history of modern Europe, art, etc, etc
• However, that didn't excite me at all. The very idea of going from one museum to the other, from one city to the other, drained me. This didn’t sound to me like a vacation by any stretch of imagination
• Got back to basics, thought and thought about what I really wanted from the trip
• After a few hundred random iterations of possible Europe travel routes, eventually understood what I was looking for – scenery, winter, snow, drives and may be some bit of technical funades –e.g. car museums or visits to manufacturing plants (e.g. Airbus)
• It was a fairly complex plan – had to fit various constraints to my trip. Maharaj’s 6-day vacation schedule, ideally a weekend in London to meet up Junta, attend cousins’ wedding at Delhi, Diwali at home, attend Slippy’s wedding at Udipi, etc
• Hour-by-hour planning is beyond me, except when it comes to challenging long drives. Lack of time to plan out every detail meant that trip had to be like “reach-the-damn-place, search-for-a-tourist-office, … and take it from there!”

The overall planned trip

Singapore ---> Chennai (0.1) ---> Delhi (2.0) ---> London (1.5) ---> Paris (1.0) ---> Toulouse (1.0) ---> Stuttgart (0.5) ---> Switzerland (3.0) ---> Norway (2.5) ---> Frankfurt/ Black forest (1.0) ---> Delhi (0.1) ---> Chennai (1.0) ---> Udipi (2.0) ---> Chennai (0.5) ---> Singapore
(Figures in bracket are number of days spent)

... the journey begins...

A trip to Margaret River and Cape Leeuwin in South Western Australia...

I had a chance to travel to Cape Leeuwin and Margaret River in South Western Australia. My last few trips to Perth had been so well scheduled smack in the middle of the week, leaving me with little chance to explore Perth and places nearby. This time around, the story was a bit different. It had started to tilt towards a frustrating week at work – totally pointless slogging and needless-endless spinning of the wheel…

Mr. Blog Moderator: Take work offline, this is a travel post – keep it that way! You are at the border of breaching rule-2

… to break the shackles, after a couple of hours of googling for places to see, I eventually did find a place that qualified as a “drive-able” destination – the choice had less to do with the scenery and credentials of the location, but more to do with the mileage that the odometer could clock! I did a rough summing of distances to figure out that a trip to Margaret River from Perth could be ~600km in a day – not extremely challenging, but enough to keep me interested! The other option was to visit a place nearby (~200kms trip) – but that failed to inspire me enough! I managed to book a rental car on Friday.

Friday evening at work was easy. I was out of office at around 7:30 or so. I did a bit of a walking tour of Perth. Perth is actually a lovely place. It is nearing summer time, but the temperate is still in that zone of comfort - near that 15 degrees mark that I relish the most. May be, it was not just the temperature that made the city fabulous. There is this laid-back attitude that engulfs Perth making an ideal place to chill out. Add to that, Perth rates fairly high on my ABR (average-babe-rating) scale – in my recent global benchmark study of ABR scale, Perth figured right up there, largely driven by presence of certain specimen samples that were observed to be a unique blend of hot and cute variety! :-)

Mr. Blog Moderator: Focus…focus…my friend!

It was a rather strange Saturday morning - I was up at 6:30am, while the alarm was set for 6:45am! There is something about these long-drives that does the impossible to me – “waking up early”! Anyways, I went to collect the rental car. I had asked for a Toyota Camry but was provided with another car – at first go, I couldn’t figure out what the model and make was (after googling over the weekend, came to know that the car was “Holden Commodore”) I found my way to the expressway navigating through Perth roads.

30 minutes into the drive, I had seen nothing outside other than the road and occasional stare at the overtaking vehicles. I had still not reached any level of comfort with the car, I was still trying to synchronize my driving to this new strange car – it was packed with power, the accelerator reacted to the slightest hint and intent to get going, but overall, it lacked that air of refinement. It is a huge turn-off for me usually. Add to it the traditional rectangular side rear-view mirrors (as opposed to the curvy ones you find in most modern cars) gave me a feeling of driving one of those classical vintage cars. The car had the look and feel of a Contessa Classic. I continued to drive, with every passing minute, it got better. One hour into the drive, I had got a good gauge of the engine and the transmission system. Having reached some level of comfort with Holden Commodore, I stopped by a petrol station to stock up some coke-light.

Mr. Blog Moderator: Dude, this is a travel post. Why on earth are you talking about cars and driving and stuff? You are again all over the place; this qualifies as breach of rule #2. Official warning served!

I took a bit of de-tour from highway to enter a region of marshy land. It was a lovely drive – the reflection of the nearby hill in the blue waters was a great sight. I figured out there was no one in the vicinity – no other cars, no houses, nothing… I got off the car and took a few clicks, just as I had started to feel good about the place and scenery around, a scary realization flashed passed my mind – there is absolutely no one here! …I remind myself “if I survive this, I could be the next recipient of red and white bravery award!” While that was inspirational, I need a practical doze of logic. So I told myself “hah, it’s all fauna, there is nothing to fear here”. However, my brave front lasted for exactly 15 seconds. I heard some strange sound and got a feeling that something was moving behind the harmless-green-plants! I got back into the car in a flash, locked all doors and allowed the engine to roar! Phew! I actually didn’t care to look back if there was something really out there.

I took a couple of de-tours on the way to Margaret River – but made sure to remain in the car with the seat belt fastened! Nah, I was not scared, but just in case…! :-)

I reached Margaret River by around 1pm or so after having made a couple of unsuccessful attempts to reach the coast-line on the way. Frankly, Margaret River had been a bit of a disappointment. There was nothing great to see there, it was all winery and wine tasting tours. I was driving that day, so there was no way on earth I could have done the wine-tasting tour. Even otherwise, wine is not exactly aligned with my non-psued life! As I looked around, couldn’t find any decent scenery worth an “orkut-pic”. I have a very simple philosophy to travel – “Is this a place that's worth a few orkut-pics, if not, I wasting my time here”!

As hunger took over me, I got to this sandwich place that had service time of infinity. I was lucky enough to be served within first 60 minutes. Post-lunch, I did a of customary souvenir shopping and just when I was about to head back to Perth, I saw a direction-board that read Cape-Leeuwin – further scrutiny of the entangled maps that I was carrying in collaboration with my limited geographical and direction sense revealed that Cape Leeuwin was where Indian Ocean and Southern Ocean met. For the disappointment that Margaret River had been, here was a ray of hope to make this day “bloggable”!

50 kms I probably covered in 30 minutes and I reached the town of Augusta. The next 15 kms were fabulous. The road ran all along the coast that had a hint of hilly terrain to it. I stopped to take a few clicks. White beach, vast blue water, greenish shallow sea near the beach, waves splashing into white rocks, temperature around 15-18 degrees mark, couldn’t get any better than this. It was in all a great sight, worth the struggle that the day otherwise had been.

I drove further down to Cape Leeuwin, took a few pics at the lighthouse. I tried to push myself to the limit, but my lack of imagination couldn’t help me distinguish between Indian and Southern Ocean water colour.

It was about 2:45pm, Perth was 350 kms away and I had to get back to Perth before sunset. In Australia, it is better to avoid night drives as Kangaroos often take over the roads post sunset. I actually didn’t get to see Kangaroos at all. My net research tells me that there are 3-4 times more Kangaroos in Australia than humans (80Mn vs a population of 20Mn). Got back to Perth by 6:30pm, had a couple of hours of sleep before heading to the airport to take the red-eye flight back to Singapore. Overall an enjoyable day, nice drive, good snaps…

Mr. Blog Moderator: Time up! Breach of rule-3… some people just don’t learn!

800 rpm at crossroads!

800rpm (my auto blog) was intended to be unique and different in some ways. In the short period of time since this blog first rolled out of the "manufacturing plant", it has already been to the service centre a couple of times with the co-drivers/ bloggers wanting to redesign this blog entirely!

After the fanfare surrounding the initial launch ceremony, Maharaj and I entered a phase of cold war. While I wanted this blog to be christened 800 rpm giving it a refined-and-cool-feel-with-just-enough-power, Maharaj wanted a more aggressive image with name closer to being 6000rpm and the blog’ image around roaring-engines-producing-full-thrust-power. With diametrically opposite preferences and tastes governing how we envisaged this blog to be, Maharaj and I officially declared the war on!

Over the next couple of months, we will leave no stone unturned to prove our respective blog-name preferences. The battle sparked-off with a few rough email exchanges, followed by a chat and call to prove how disgusting 6000rpm as a name was, etc, etc. In the coming few months, we are considering both legal and illegal steps to help us reach a conclusion. On legal front, we have approached IUPAB for the rules governing the latest blogging nomenclature (IUPAB is International Union of Pure and Applied Bloggers). We have also appealed to the wing jurisdiction to come-up with its point of view. Needless to say, 800 rpm is likely to emerge as the winner in the process given how nerdy 6000 rpm as a name is.

On the illegal front, our first instinct was to say “pen is mightier than a sword” and a “keyboard is mightier than a pen” – so let this battle be fought over blog posts. However, that didn’t sound like war enough, so we got back to fighting the battle with a sword instead. In the process, Maharaj ended up with a wounded left hand and had to undergo an operation to set it right.

While this was the opportune time for me to take over and declare 800rpm as the eventual winner, I am a firm believer of war ethics. Maharaj was therefore granted time to recover before we continue this battle further! In the mean-time, I will go ahead and compose a few posts for this blog – And you Mr co-blogger, recover soon buddy!

Launching 800rpm!

This post is to announce the launch of a very special blog - 800 rpm (http://www.800rpm.blogspot.com/) focusing entirely on the auto world.

This blog will continue to be my primary blog - with a mix of funny, 'bloggy' and serious posts (to inject some element of sanity!)

However, over the next few days, I will be devoting a lot of my free time to the new blog to get it up to speed. The interesting part is that Maharaj (Arun) would be my co-blogger for 800rpm.

We will be focusing entirely on the auto world. Though we haven't structured every detail of the content to be posted, very broadly we will be covering the following:

• Car reviews and test-drives
• Auto fundaes
• Driving fundaes
• Auto industry developments
• Others/ Misc

Much of it is going to be dynamic and I am sure with time, the broad categories would evolve as well. Anyways, for more details, please visit http://www.800rpm.blogspot.com/

A journey of 1000 kms begins with a single spin!

Life is a journey, travel it!... it’s the path that matters, not the eventual destination… focus on the efforts, not on the results... da da da

Sounds like a perfect beginning to one of those long boring philosophical posts on life and goals, etc, etc… however, dear readers, don’t be so disappointed, this post is the exact opposite!

I was initially thinking of posting a very objective matter-of-fact review of different cars that I have test driven in the recent past, but decided to instead post about a day that was from my point of view exciting, ambitious, thrilling and entertaining and for someone distant from the driving world, it would have been at best boring and tiring!

The story till Friday, May 4th 2007:

Singapore, a near diamond shaped island, 40kms wide and 30 kms in length when extruded out of complex trigonometry and geometry formulae would probably stretch to 100kms in perimeter. I had driven nearly 1300 kms in Singapore in 2 weeks, essentially implying that there was no major road left untouched. I started off with “lets try this expressway”, two days later I was like “lets try the 2nd lane of the same expressway”, a couple of days more I was like “practice makes a man perfect, so keep driving and repeating the same roads again and again!”…

It was during one of these drives, the music deviated away from “high-bass, side rear view mirror vibrating and floating rock music” to “…I want to break free…I wanna break free…” and I thought, well, I have had enough of driving in Singapore - I actually need to break free as well – probably a drive to Malaysia and experience highway driving. Next step was rather simple – visa application to embassy of Malaysia and I got my multiple entry visa in a week’s time!

Then I started calling up my friends to join me for the trip - while some were direct in their feedback “dude, crazy idea… I am not joining”, other psued specimens like Candy were a bit more refined “would have loved to join you on the trip, but have got work over the weekend and a couple of meetings in the office”… finally after much persuasion, Abhishek and Aparna (K&M from now on, dorm names not used in public interest :P) agreed to be part of my crazy idea – a trip to Mount Frazer and back (~1000 kms) in a day!

Saturday, May 5th 2007…

With no real preparation required for the trip, we decided to start at 5:45 am after a negotiation process that lasted for 30 mins debating the pros and cons of a 5:45am start vs. a 5:50am one! As usual, I had to goof up with the alarm and by some strange configuration of phone settings, the alarm just didn’t ring. I got a call at 5:45 from K&M and I woke up in a state of shock – “What! I am late to get up for a drive?… no way, this is not me…!” However, made some quick recovery and we finally managed to start off at about 6:15am. A quick trip to money exchanger and stocking up a couple of cold drink cans, we were all geared up for a trip to Malaysia.

We crossed the border after immigration formalities by 7:30am and hit the expressway by 8am. The road was excellent with speed limits not as strict as in Singapore. So, I decided to throttle a bit more and see how the car behaved at higher speeds. At 150 kmph, Avante was sailing – well balanced and sturdy, felt in complete control. I will go into technical and driving details in the next post, but to sum it all up, the drive was quite cool and the engine behaved in the exact fashion that fits my exact definition of an ideal engine/ car – packed with power when required, otherwise serene, refined and calm with low decibel levels!

While M free-rode and peacefully slept, K was busy with navigating out goof ups. We had one map to help us – on most occasions we got the highway right, however a couple of times we found ourselves driving down the wrong direction though! :-)

We reached KL is quick time, had a quick brunch – so did the car (petrol refill)! The next stage was a bit more challenging as we found our way to the other end of KL bye-passing the city. We soon reached the smaller highway leading to our final destination. With significant decrease in road quality and width, it took us much longer to get to Mount Fraser than we had initially imagined. We got lost a couple of times, till we found a desi to help us with directions. In typical desi style, the route from his point of view was simple – “keep going straight, no turns”… we were like, “thanks, you are the man!”. However, 200m further down, the road split to two tangentially opposite directions! With not much left to trust the directions we were provided with, we decided to trust our instincts instead - right turn was the verdict!

The uphill drive was a challenge as well, at times the road was a bit too narrow to be classified as 2-way – meant that much more of focus on the road and control at the bends. But Avante behaved very well at turnings and steering through the challenging climb was a pleasure – more on this in the next post.

Finally, we made it to Mount Fraser at 2:30pm and then began the search for a restaurant for lunch. We had to now define the “next steps” – any places to see around? K managed to catch some sort of cold on the way and that was reason enough for him to free-ride. I was the designated driver and therefore I tried to act as if I was too tired. That left M to do all the googling for places to see. Next 5 minutes were completely hilarious – M tried to communicate with a mixture of sign language, actions and Singlish, but that did didn’t help much. We were trying to get the directions to a lake: “ehh… lake, where?”… no reply… “water…?” again no feedback from the other side to confirm if our attempt to communicate had been received and understood… next, we tried showing mineral water, but that did no good too… finally M got the idea of asking for “..boating?” aahaa, our receptionist understood and gave us rough directions to the lake.

We were in more ways that one excited about the lake and boating… our conversation went like:

“… wow, lake would be fun here” … “lets get the camera out” … “we don’t have tons of time, so lets keep the lake visit short, mebbe just cover one part of the lake boating” … “a speed motor boat would be fun here, lets try for that”… and there was a gradual build-up in excitement leading to the lake.

The lake was not too far, we got there with 5-10 minutes of drive. However, we were greeted with a shocking sight: 1) The lake was a bit brown in colour, as opposed to blue that we had envisaged 2) There was exactly one pedal boat in the lake and the other 3 were stacked one over the other at the corner of the lake 3) … and finally it hit us… nooooo… the lake was only a fraction bigger than a bath tub… just a hint bigger! Ofcourse, as M was the navigator at Mount Fraser, K and I peacefully blamed her and added the lake to her list of exponentially increasing list of recent goof-ups!

It was time to lower our expectations – to understand and accept that Mount Fraser is not a tourist spot by any stretch of imagination. We spent half an hour doing time pass at a view-point – it was good, just that there was no view. To limit any further damage to our self-esteem and trip-planning confidence, we decided to erase out from our memories that we ever visited this place! It was unanimously decided that all pictures taken at Mount Faber would be donated to the recycle bin of our laptops, once we get home!

With K down with tons of cold and a bit of fever, M decided to be the navigator on the way back. We started from Mount Faber at around 4pm, stopped at another lake in between in an attempt to search for that one good scenery to make this trip good, but didn’t find any. With not much left to see, we started the return journey back to Singapore.

Next 6 hours was all driving – we stopped once in between for tea and once for petrol, but otherwise I did what I enjoy the most – night driving, a true test of driving technique, stamina and inclination. Avante clocked 500kms in quick time and we were back at the Singapore immigration at about 10:30 at night. There was some visa and passport configuration problem and resulting punga at the Malaysia immigration, but M in her typical style went and gave a big lecture to the immigration officer and sorted it out!!

As we entered Singapore, the odometer read 970 kms for the day. With Newton/Novena being only 15-20 kms from the border, I knew that the decimal system of mathematical numbers wouldn’t let me reach 1000 kms in a day. So, took a slightly longer route, via Tuas to inch closer to the 4 figure mark. Next when I saw the reading, it was 994 for the day – and I knew we were ~5-7 kms from home… was not sure if we would get to 1000, but decided to go ahead with the straight route back home. One traffic signal from home, the odometer read 999… it was close, very close and the meter turned to 1000 exactly when we were at the security gate of the building!

We were all tired after doing 1000kms – but M still had the energy to make some quick dinner and we called it a day soon after that!

This was my second time to 1000 kms in a day, the first being in October last year in South Africa. I wouldn’t want to compare, but this trip was probably a bit more challenging with 3-4 hours of hill drive included. But statistics apart, it was a great trip with K&M. More trips in the pipeline over the next few weekends, any takers? :-)

Capturing a very special moment - the state of Nirvana

This is a very special post, to capture a very special moment that has eclipsed everything else over the last 3 days. I will struggle with words for most part of this post, ‘coz I am currently in a state of Nirvana, a high resulting not from 5 bottoms-up of neat Scotch Whiskey on the rocks, but a high resulting from realization of a long cherished dream come true. It might sound like I am going a bit overboard with this, but it wouldn’t have been a special post otherwise, right?
This Thursday, I got my car! … lemme give a short preview to the events and emotions starting from just before Thursday evening to the time when I started typing this post.

Jan 2007, first serious thought about car ---> Applied for Basic Theory Test to convert my India license to a valid Singapore one ---> Started with understanding various different cars, a trip to showroom almost every weekend to understand the specifications, price, design, etc ---> booked 17th March as test date for driving test ---> 16th evening, got a Singapore traffic book to ghot ---> went for a movie on 16th evening, came back at ~2am and then realized “ohh. crap, haven’t ghoted for the test” ---> ghoted the driving rule book from 2am to 5am on 17th early morning ---> went and gave the test, lady luck helped me pass the test and after ~2 hours of patience in the queue, got my license to drive!

Without even thinking of breakfast or lunch, I directly went to the car dealer, told them, “look, I am legally permitted drive now, so better let me take a test drive”! ---> went to different showrooms – Chevrolet, Subaru, Hyundai, Honda, Nissan, Toyota to check out all possible cars that could fit my extended-extended budget! ---> gave a very deep thought to what I really wanted vs. the risk of taking a huge loan ---> developed an excel model to see if there were any remote cost savings that I could do to fit the monthly installment of car in ---> alas, it made no financial sense to buy a car here in Singapore à so, Mr. Logic said, “don’t be stupid, there is no real need to buy a car, it makes zuk financial sense” ---> then Mr. Unknown told “stop living life so defensively, stop being calculative with things that matter to you most, try being fearless for once, stop relying on logic for every damn decision!” ---> and so… decision was made, Mr. Logic was asked to take a chill pill!

So, after one final round of test drives on 1st April, made up my mind to go for Hyundai Avante ---> surprisingly, it was not even in my initial short-list, ‘coz I wanted a manual transmission only, while Avante came with automatic version only ---> deep thought again, decided to let-go the stigma attached with manual transmission to appreciate the other good things with Avante à booked the car over lunch on Monday, 2nd April

I was reasonably happy with the decision, though felt nothing special as such à work kept me busy for the next one week ---> on 11th April, got a message from the dealer – “your car has been registered and will be delivered this week” ---> I called back immediately, said “please please, asap!” ---> the plead was responded to and I was informed that I could collect it on Thursday evening (12th April) ---> Since then, I have been in a different world! ---> Mr. Logic probably gave up and disappeared and Mr. Unknown has been governing all my actions since then ---> didn’t sleep much on Wednesday night, out of sheer excitement and expectation of a special day ahead ---> next morning, went to work à everyone was like “can you please stop smiling for no reason?” ---> did a bit of work, with half my mind in the fast approaching dream world ---> finished the work and left office early at 7pm ---> rushed to the showroom ---> signed the documents, saw if the relevant papers were intact, and this was it ---> was handed over the key and …

Wasn’t entirely sure of the way back home from the showroom ---> a very tentative drive back home ---> takes a bit of time to adjust to a different car, so patiently drove back home ---> a quick couple of calls back home, started off within 10 minutes to see my cousin ---> lost my way, took the wrong route, but “so wat, I was enjoying it”! ---> drove and drove from 8pm to about 2:30 am, ofcourse with stops in between for a Birthday party and some late night Mc Donald’s visit ---> special thanks to special friends (Candy, Bharti, Bulco, Abhishek) for making the evening special ---> back home at 3am, had clocked ~150 kms by then!

Since then, a few more drives all across Singapore ---> have done 400 kms already! ---> many of these drives were purely “aimless” ---> take any damn expressway, keep driving, will reach somewhere at some stage, take a U-turn back and drive and drive ---> get lost somewhere in between à but I have enjoyed it all ---> I delayed the decision to purchase a road map and since then haven’t looked at the map, ‘coz I am enjoying these “aimless drives with no real motive or destination” ---> Maslow would have seen me drive before he came up with the term “self-actualization”!

Today, Sunday morning, got up à went for breakfast, something that I haven’t done in years, just to drive! ---> came back, did the first car wash here, spent a bit of time near the engine, but frankly, with all technology coming in, I couldn’t understand much

So, this is how it has been ---> frankly, I am in a totally different world at the moment ---> have dreamt of having a car for way too long (~2 decades now probably!) ---> and it is slowly sinking in ---> not sure, if any one else can appreciate it, probably Maharaj who is himself a bit crazy about driving would get somewhere close to appreciating my state of mind at the moment! ---> for others, I continue to a topic of intense research over the last 3 days “… he was okay till sometime back, currently looks like a case of acute mental instability, lets pray he recovers and stops smiling… ” and from my point of view, this is Nirvana!

PS: This post was purely to capture this moment. I will get back to my logical ways soon, hopefully before tomorrow morning; otherwise my boss will give me a tough time!! My next post will be a driving review on Avante. In short, I currently term Avante as “Raw power fused with dazzling curves and calm refinement”

Little boxes, little boxes...

Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes made of ticky tacky
Little boxes on the hillside, little boxes all the same
There's a green one and a pink one and a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same.

…a song by Malvina Reynolds – looks like I am a big fan of Malvina Reynolds, right?

Well, that is however far from the reality. I have known ‘Reynolds’ as a pen brand, I have vague memories of ‘Reynolds number’ from my CDC classes, but Malvina Reynolds... I had little clue about, till I ‘googled’ for ‘little boxes lyrics’.

Okay, with a rather complicated, convoluted and nonsensical introduction to this post, let me jump to the topic directly. This post is inspired by what I would call as the advertisement of the year (in my books, based on sample set of very few advertisements that I have seen in the recent past. I see very little of TV barring cricket matches!). As you would have guessed by now, we are talking about ‘Maruti Zen Estilo’ advertisement. Two parts to this post flowing out from the title – one being Maruti Sukuki and its latest offering Zen Estilo and the other being an outlook to the exciting times awaiting the Indian small car industry – little boxes on the hillside, little boxes made of ticky tacky…

Revival of Maruti’s fortunes

Zen was first launched in India in mid 1990s. I have personally never been a Zen fan – to me, it has always been an over-priced car. Yes, it had the engine power, sophistication and smoothness, yes, it had a bit more of space than a 800, it did look a bit better than a boxy 800, but all factors combined, in my books, Zen was nowhere close to being worth the price tag attached. However, the new Zen Estilo seems different – the styling and designing being the most significant changes.

Within 10 days of launch, the tall boy design had attracted 10,000 bookings and this figure must have gone up substantially since then. It is fairly well positioned with the VX version being close to 4.1 Lakhs on-road Chennai. I didn’t get a chance to take a test drive, so will reserve my comments till I get an opportunity to get behind the wheels, but it does look like a car that’s going to sell a lot.

Let’s zoom-out the camera and shift our focus to Maruti as a company now – with the controversy surrounding the ownership structure behind, Maruti has looked a totally different company, introducing new products and aggressively increasing its capacity in a bid to fight back its decreasing market share. 2006 was characterized by Alto becoming the largest selling car in India, very successful introduction of Swift, a new look lower priced Esteem and then the promising launch of Zen Estilo. Interestingly, Maruti Engineers were involved with Suzuki’s global team in designing Swift which has been a huge success globally. Furthermore, Estilo is almost a 100% Maruti product, with engineers in India renovating the model with very little support from the parent company. It does look like Maruti has started to stamp its authority with these significant developments and I will not be too surprised if Maruti would become Suzuki’s biggest plant, overtaking capacity in Japan, in the early part of next decade. Currently, Maruti has an installed capacity of close to 0.6 million, while Suzuki globally is close to 2.2 millon mark. Maruti accounts for ~25% of global Suzuki sales and this figure is bound to go up. In comparison, Hyundai India has a capacity 0.3 million, soon to be expanded to 0.6 million.

Small Car Industry

The story of Indian small car industry dates back to the time when Maruti 800 was first introduced. Since then, this segment (industry definition being category A and B cars) has grown to become the largest segment in India, while globally Category C cars lead the way (Accent, Esteem, Ikon, Indigo, etc). While all through, new models have been introduced, old ones upgraded, the industry in my view has been through two critical phases and the third one is just around the corner:

1. Early 1980s: Introduction of Maruti 800: A fuel efficient, reliable new product with low cost of ownership and modern features – it was surely a big jump from Ambassadors and Fiats that Indian market had then
2. 1998: For most part of 1990s, the small car industry developed and reached scale volumes, a few new products were introduced (including Zen), but it was all much the same till 1998 when Santro, Matiz and Indica hit the road (these cars really did hit the road running)! It created a totally different segment, providing customers with all the features of mid-size cars in a fuel efficient, compact car. In years to follow, Category B became the largest segment with Santro and Indica emerging as the winners.
3. 2008 and beyond: In about a year and a half, the industry would once again go through a dramatic change. While the previous change was all about offering an enhanced product, this is going to be pure scale game. Yes, I am talking about the Tata 1 Lakh car!

As of now, Maruti 800 is probably the cheapest car in the world. Tata Motors, with reasonable auto design experience and know-how, is trying to beat that by driving the cost down further. I have followed the development of this car closely both from technical and business perspective over the last couple of years. When Tata Motors first came up with the idea of 1 lakh car, my reaction was “wow, wouldn’t that sell like crazy?” Since then, like everyone else, I have had doubts about the success of this ambitious project. It is difficult to get the pure manufacturing variable cost of a car to under a Lakh. Add to it, the amortization of fixed costs, the margin for economic rate of return, taxes at various stages, dealer margin and the puzzle does get challenging.

For all I have read about this project, Tata One-Lakh Car would in all probability have the following features:

1. A bit smaller than Indica, though big enough to seat 4-5
2. 30 bhp, 700cc engine – probably 5-10 bhp lesser than ideal
3. Would meet safety and emission standards
4. Design would in all probability be a bit sleek and not too boxy
5. Automatic transmission with engine at the rear
6. Basic model would roll-out without doors

On a standalone basis, looks reasonable, rather attractive for the magic price tag of Rs One Lakh. But let’s consider the choices that consumers would have to determine the success of this project:

1. Maruti 800 sells at Rs. 2 Lakhs, but apparently, the cost of production is much lower than the final price (achieved due to scale and old fully depreciated dies). Maruti could easily slip the price tag down to ~1.5 Lakh. Given this likely scenario, Tata 1 Lakh car would need to match Maruti 800 as a product to have any chance of getting to the volumes that they desire.
2. The biggest challenge would be the 2nd hand market - to beat a 3 year old Maruti 800, a 4 year old Alto (now that’s not easy) and a 8 year old Santro
3. The car might sell, could do really well, but for Tata to make money on this project, the annual sales need to touch close to a million. That’s 3-4 times the market currently occupied by 800 and Alto.

So, where is this battle heading? Can Tata Motors repeat the success that they have had with Indica and other models or is this project a little too ambitious? Although I have little data and knowledge to back my claims, here is my best guess to the final outcome of this project:

1. The basic version would cost ~1.2 lakhs. This version would be a complete car, however without proper doors. Tata motors needs to be creative with the door part. The minimum expectation would be to have very basic plastic doors instead of an open air compartment. I would hate to see a 4 wheel auto rickshaw as the basic version
2. However, for most practical purposes, the much awaited car would cost ~1.4-1.5 lakhs with proper doors. I think it would look a lot better than a Maruti 800 and with a 660 cc engine, should have a fuel economy of ~25-30 km per litre
3. Tata Motors needs to be clever with positioning of the car. The basic model is a must to get people interested. Perhaps, all advertising campaigns should revolve around the basic model – the true one Lakh car (in 2003 rupees, accounting for inflation) trying to fulfill the aspirations of millions!
4. Once the customers walk in to the show room, show them the benefits of buying a complete car priced at 1.4 Lakhs. What otherwise looks like a difference of INR 30 K, becomes much less significant on a per month EMI basis. People wouldn’t mind paying extra Rs 500-800 a month for safety, comfort and the feel of owning a full-fledged car!
5. Will Tata sell a million units a year? I can’t answer that. However, I wouldn’t bet my money on anything more than 5 Lakh units in the first few years. At some stage infrastructure constraints would come into play. Can our cities take the extra traffic?
   

Well, sounds like really exciting times at Tata Motors. Let’s wait and see where this phase of auto industry leads us to. In the meanwhile, I would go back to the song I started the post with…

“Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes made of ticky tacky…”

… as it looks for now, little boxes could well be eventually made of ticky tacky to further drive down cost!