Don't say TATA to TATA!

Why So Serious!!! This is the tagline of Honda that I did not like, because they have picked it up straight from Knight Rider! Now apparantly after someone buys a Honda, they would not be serious anymore! And rightly so, Honda cars are a pleasure to drive! smooth, silent, efficient, and so on!

On my way back home, last friday, I saw just the opposite... a gentlemen in his mid 30s, extremely serious while his driver was at the steering wheel of the brand new red Jazz! his discomfort and total lack of confidence was oozing out of all the windows of that otherwise comfortable car! I really wanted to ask him "Why so Serious?" , record it and send it to Honda!

All of that was beside the point though! The point here was that I was driving a 12000 kms old Indica Quadrajet! and was I pleasently surprised or was I?

The Quadrajet is a FIAT engine, and is expected to run extremely well, however that engine in the TATA body is making that car feel like a different animal on the road for sure! As soon as you rev up the engine beyond 2000 rpm, the car really transforms into a different avatar! The build quality is quite alright of the Indica, much better that the previous versions, though it still looks and feels very plastic as compared to cars in the similar category! AC is alright! Space is NICE, and the legroom at rear is very comfortable for 3 adults!

I was driving the fully loaded version which comes with a CD player and integrated bluetooth telephony system! it basically sucks though! I can do without it!

The ABS would come handy as the car seems to have a more than adequate amount of Body roll!

There is very little engine noise, thanks to the refined FIAT engine, and the throttle response is more than pleasing!

Let's come to a few thoughts keeping in perspective, the closest competition for this car! A fully loaded Swift VDI!

None of the two have a set of Alloys with the fully loaded version... Swift VDI has better build quality for sure, however that comes with a premium of about Rs. 70000 as compared to the Indica Quadrajet. Is it worth it? Not really sure till I drive a Swift VDI, but for now, the Indica Quadrajet seems to be a good value for money!

I also feel that things like

- Tachometer

- Digital Clock

- High mounted rear lamp

- Follow me home headlamps

- Delayed cabin lights

- Headlight on warning

and a few more! Don't see why these have to be included as "features" anymore in car brochures!

Minneapolis and the kabootar and the baby hunter

One of my fondest memories of all times would be driving around in sub-urbs of Minneapolis with Pritam, Deepak, Lakhan, and Sapna with Delhi-6 songs playing!!!

I remember this weekend where we must have heard Sasural Genda Phool and Masakali atleast 50 times or maybe more!!! I think this was the weekend when I met Pritam's baby hunter for the first time!

As per Pritam this was a hunter who was still a baby... not to forget that we are talking about a Nissan Xterra here! To accept that it was still a baby at that size was very tough for almost all of us... And somehow the title baby hunter, tilted towards the car being someone who hunted babies more!!

Nevertheless, the whole Minneapolis downtown gang and the cars, and the drives are some thing worth remembering for a very very long time to come!!

65001

Yesterday, me and Radha complete 65000 kms of our togetherness after a fantastic drive to and in the hills!!! Will write about the trip sometime later though!

She has been like an angel looking after me all these years we have been together!!! Thank you Radha and thank you uncle God for these wonderful times!!!

Like I like to say, Life is great!

Visit to the Memory Stick Town!

Kingston is a name that I have heard only in reference to memory sticks or thumb drives, or USB drives or Pen drives as the janta calls them... an opportunity to visit the place with that name had a different sort of excitement for me... I was feeling very similar when I went to Cherokee too!!!

An evening flight to Detroit and a connection to Syracuse and a 2.5 hours drive to Kingston later I was in the city last saturday! Thankfully the weather was bright and sunny throughout and was warm enough to roam around in a sweatshirt!!!

Kingston has nothing to do with the brand, I guess, and there is not much you can do in the town... You can be in Jail, it has a biiiig correction centre, or you could be in the Queens University, or you could be working in one of the local market places in the city! Pretty laid back, and a relaxed place to be in, with its own set of excitements too I am sure!

The rest below, along with the pictures...

The change of driver pit-stop some 20 miles before the US-Canadian Border. I was driving Jas's Shwanda so far!!! I love that white car... it is so similar to my palio!

We reached Jas's new apartment late afternoon, and after some amazing Chai, with chips and Bananabread Cake, went to the downtown to walk around the place...

There is something very very attractive about old stone buildings with veins all over them. In summers the entire walls can be hidden behind the leaves, but because of this being fall time, there were only veins and some last few leaves... and the red of the leaves against the grey of the walls made a very beautiful sight!

And then we walked towards the downtown...

Being a Saturday here was a farmer's market. Most farmer's markets in the US and Canada sell fresh produce from the farms, Jewelery, Handmade Soaps and other handmade stuff... We bought some dry flowers from Diane (the picture below). Mostly I was attracted to the Dodge Van she had and then noticed the flowers too! It was a 1978 Dodge rescue van, and Diane did mention her fondness for the vehicle in the few minutes of conversation we had with her.

While walking past the city hall, we heard some nice music and thought was it was coming from some speakers in a restaurant, but later realised that it was band of 3 young boys who were playing their songs in a small arrangement. We also picked up a few maple leaves of different colors to make some artwork at Jas's apartment with the leaves!

While walking back, I noticed this shop selling interesting stuff and had a very interesting board outside... They had a shower gel dispenser in the shape of a nose :P, and fart candies, and masks, and puzzles, and riddles and what not... I also bought a small puzzle myself and have been trying to figure out what to do with it for a while now :/

Leaves in Kingston had these strange black dots on them... and only those leaves which had the fall colors. Not sure why, but it was both spooky and interesting to notice! Like the mark of death, as Jas's colleague Al says!

I also saw one of the best beautiful sunsets in a very long time at the Lake Ontario that evening!!!

We finally called it a day as it was dark and getting real cold! Came back home, had some mind blowing dinner (Thanks Jas!!!!), saw Step Brothers and crashed! It was a nice day!

The next day we had to leave Kingston by 1 to catch my flight back... and because I woke up pretty late, there was not much we could do... So we hung around the apartment, while I took a few photographs...

The drive between Kingston and Syracuse has two interesting things, the border, and two very beautiful bridges over Lake Ontario through a place called 1000 Islands! yes... I was excited to be passing through this place, after knowing the 1000 Islands dressing for a long time! Its like I am seeing things which I have known only as objects so far! Its a feeling that I cannot express...

My flight from Syracuse was delayed by an hour, and that made me miss my connection to Milwaukee. I enjoyed my complimentary stay in Holiday Inn, Newark that night, and took the first flight out on Monday. Though I had to wake up at 4:30 in the morning, I was still ok.

In short, this weekend turned out to be very relaxed, de-stressing and refreshing.

One more to the list of memorable trips I have made! Thank you Jas! thank you Uncle!

And I almost forgot... last weekend was the first time, I signed some of my work! A huge moment of satisfaction for me as a photographer!!!!

and today, Jas gave Diane two prints as well!!! :) I am glad!


Life is Good!!!!

The drive that drives me sane !

It was a simple plan... lets leave when we can after we get up when we can and get ready in whatever time it takes... so we wake up at 9ish, get ready in 4 hours :D (there was a lot of catching up to do) and finally managed to leave around 1... the beauty of the entire plan being that we knew it was a day dedicated to driving and food and conversations and we did not really have a place to reach ! truly a journey being more important than the destination...

Atlanta airport on the evening I reached

the GPS has been giving me some trouble lately (I guess needs and update or something) though it brought us back home alright after the movies on Friday... It decided not to work for the first half hour or so, and then was kind enough to give us directions to the mountains just right!


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This part of the drive was not so hilly, but green... full of it...

We were headed towards the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and drove through 3 states, Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee to reach the Clingmans Dome which is the highest peak in the Great Smokies at 6643 ft above sea level. To add an icing on the cake, there is an observatory which is build at the peak to get a 360 degree view from the top... very beautiful view, but makes it very artificial in my opinion.

This was by far one of the greenest drives I have been on... Tall trees both sides of the road all the way, mountains full of greens and shades of it... beautiful!

We took just one pitstop on this 4 hour drive, and I cannot express in words how it felt to drive on the mountains, especially when the roads were wide, and very smooth.

It would be a shame to drive around in the US and not see Harley all around... The owner of this one was kind enough to let me take a picture at the Gas Station...

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This part was all hills and curves...

The drive was especially very rejuvenating after we turned from Cherokee. Its a small town in North Carolina, and can be compared to a Katra before Vaishno Devi or Parmanu before Shimla or Bhowali before Nainital... has a lot of motels, restaurants, gift shops and a small river runs through it, which seemed to be a very popular picnic spot.. there were families enjoying the water, playing around in the stream, tubing, grilling and just being there !!! Nice...

Like I said... Harley and more of it...

Randomly stopped a few miles after Cherokee to enjoy the view... Dense forest, the sound of water flowing, lush green trees, couldn't be more beautiful

The Pontiac GT enjoying her break...

Mamu ki gaadi passing by while I was taking pictures...Mamus get the most powerful cars in the US... India learn !

Like I said before, green and more green... And these leaves would turn into paintings in fall!

A glimpse of where I was driving...

Another hour or so took us to the Clingmans Dome. There is something that happens to me when I drive uphill on curvy roads... I don't really know what, but there is something that happens.. I feel at ease, and am very comfortable... Good for another few months before I have to get out of my base again!

And some more bikes... men and women... on bikes... Jai ho Harley ki... there are more brands, but HD is by far the MOST Popular!

Count the concentric circle and know the age of the tree this block came from.. What is your answer?

Smoky mountains = thick forest all around... What fun it would be to camp and hike around in this area... There are many options and you can spend days walking around the trails in Great Smoky Mountains National Park....

At the top of Clingmans Dome, there is a cement structure which takes you to a high platform so that you can get a 360 degree view from the peak!

This is the eastern side view...Can only imagine how this would look at sunrise...

This is the North View...

And the western view, just on the border of North Caroline and Tennessee...

On our way down we wanted to take this trail, but did not because it looked too deserted and we were afraid that there would be bears waiting for us :P

A picture from behind the glass door of the rest room :)

After a .5 mile hike up to the peak from the parking lot, and back, we were understandably hungry and we had home made Gobhi Aalu, and Shahi Tofu with brown bread for our dinner ! Yumm!

Read more about the Smokies on this board... that half a mile of climb is good enough to remind you of the fact that you have not been working out :P

A few other not so high peaks...

The view from the parking lot after were returned...

We left the dome peak around 1930 hours and this time around the GPS decide to give up on us, the good part, however, was that we remembered the roads we had taken and were ok without driving the entire distance without directions from the GPS and we did! sweet !

Took two breaks, one in Cherokee where we went to a shop to see if there was some memoir that I could carry... I like this name Cherokee, probably because this Jeep brand has been something that I have been admiring for a very long time... I have said this to myself many times in the past, I am going to be in a Cherokee one day... did not realize that it was going to be, Cherokee the town, and not the jeep :)

The man on the left is ready for a small performance near the shop in Cherokee that sells Indian memorabilia... Indian has a different meaning here... not us Indians :) Moccasins if you were wondering are shoes made of leather which were originally worn by hunters. They are super soft and super quiet and helped the hunters walk long distances very quietly...

Our second stop was around 2130 hours, when we were passing through a town and realised that the Independence Day fireworks had started... just parked the car at the curb and enjoyed the fireworks for about 30 minutes before we took the road again... and reached Alpharetta around 2330 hours... 5 hours from Clingmans Dome to Alpharetta with two 30 minute breaks, a distance of about 180 miles, and atleast 60 miles in the hills... Not bad at all... oh, and not getting lost :) The Pontiac GT ran very very well on the entire trip as well, though I felt that the breaking was not as smooth as it should be downhill.

Fireworks in a small town on our way back!!! I can only imagine how the fireworks would have been in large cities around the US if they were so grand in a small town...

Total distance about 360 miles, total trip time about 11 hours, driving time close to about 8 hours, good car, good weather... what a day!

Today is another day and its already about 1030 hours, no plans nothing. And looks like its going to be another journey that matters!

Like I said, Sunday was a lazy day...The first half of the day was spent watching RF struggle against Andy Roddick... Poor Andy was playing to keep RF from winning the match and was not playing to win it.

The view from the flight window... This is Chicago! Did I mention that I upgraded my ticket to a Business Class... enjoyed the seat and the view both...

p.s. this post was written on Sunday, 5th of July.

And one highlight of the trip was this video... I think this is very funny... Have heard it many times now, and I am still laughing about it...