Nine and Zeroes

Its been a long journey and a bond that has only strengthened over time. Radha completed 90,000 kms recently and is still going strong!



With some minor denting/painting done last week, she is shining like new, and gives a lot of new hatchbacks a run for their money!

Thank you FIAT for making such a brilliant car! Hope you keep doing the same for years to come!

The heart and home gets a BEAT!

So finally after a wait of about 50 days, we got our third car!

First White, then Red and now a Blue... my family tends to stick with the primary colors only :)

Radha and Meera outside the house :)

Let's talk about the good in this car as I observed in the first 5 kilometers of my drive

1. The front of the car is very bold, and aggressive. Makes it stand out well!

2. The lights are smartly designed, though I would have liked a different set of headlights. GM has toned down some styling to cater to the cost conscious Indian market.

3. The rear door handle is cleverly concealed next to the window, and does not show up on the door, giving it a two door feel in the first quick look. The original (which was first seen in Transformers 2 is a two door)

4. The interiors are futuristic... Brilliantly designed dashboard, gives it a sports car feel, and the matte chrome three spoke steering wheel is just adequately sized.

5. The rear lights are big and would be helpful in Delhi fog

6. The head room is great

7. 14" wheels are standard and that gives the car a better fuller look, plus helps a bit of stability

8. The LT version that I got has an integrated music system which makes for a good looking interior and plays my iPOD

9. The seats hold the back very nicely and have a decent lumbar support too

10. The speaker system is decent if you do not want to spend more on thump and sound volumes

11. The paint job is nice and clean and the build quality of the vehicle is good. This is anyway expected from GM

12. The car is extremely silent

13. There are intelligent spaces in the car to keep things

A few things that are not so good about the car

1. The boot space is bad and so is the glove box. Its very small too.

2. The tires are thin... 155/70R4 is something screams for an upgrade to atleast 170/65R14... It would take away a few previous kilometers from the mileage though...

3. There is no left foot rest!!!! What was GM thinking? That will make long drives difficult!!!

And now because I have been driving a FIAT... let's talk about how BEAT feels when compared to a PALIO

1. It feels light.. very light... has both advantages and disadvantages..

2. Palio feels very rich in terms of its interiors as compared to the Beat...

3. The tyre upgrade that I did for Palio makes it feel more stable... I am already waiting for my first tyre upgrade

4. The doors of a Palio close with a THUD... and the Beat closes with a slightly subtle thud... makes me feel strange!

5. Palio has door stoppers which stop the door from swinging open when you get out of it.. you always have to make an effort to open the door... That simple functionality has helped me a lot in the last 5 years of owning the car!

Its great to have two good cars now.. One which is very slick, modern and smart, and the other which feels safe, strong and is still going very strong after 5.5 years of a trouble free ownership. And both bold, aggressive, and very stylish in their own worlds!!!!

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!

Wake me up when September ends!

Knowing how much I love Radha, it would be a shame if I would not write about a milestone in my relationship with her! right?

thank you Vaishali for pointing that out!

There are so many memories that have been associated with her that I would not even know where to start and end...

• The first time I saw her, I knew she was going to be mine
• The extreme personification of something that a lot of people would call just a car
• The fact that most people who know about her call her Radha too!
• That I was using a Rs. 250 radio to listen to music for the first few months because I was totally broke after I got the car
• That I feel the most secure when I am driving around with her
• That she probably has one of the best audio quality that I know of... what else do you expect from a combination of Sony, JBL, and Blaupunkt?
• That it has saved my family from an accident which would have been a nightmare in any other car
• That she is one of the finest machines, one of the safest cars and of course one of the smartest looking cars that runs on Indian Roads
• That she is a perfect example of what friendships should be like
• And that she still looks as beautiful as she looked the first day I met her :)

and a lot more!


This September is a special month for me! a lot of things happened including Chai ki Dukaan celebrating 5 years, some things and thoughts moving at the personal front, and my EMIs for the car getting over! now I can start saving for the Enfield I have been eyeing for a while! :P

Speaking of cars, this weekend I drove the largest SUV I have been in, so far! A Toyota Sequoia. It was a 4.6 litre, 32 Valve V8 engine which produces a mind boggling 310 bhp@ 5400 rpm! The pictures below should tell you something about the size too!

Title courtesy : Green Day
Photographs with me in them, courtesy : Pritam

50000 and still going strong !!!

A lot of people find me and my love for my car crazy... I don't blame them for that passion is close to insanity anyway :)

Li'il do they realize that this probably is the level of commitment that I set for myself :)

About three and a half years after I bought my car, I still feel as great as I felt the first time I went out for a drive...


and this Sunday, we reached a milestone of 50000 kms... a journey worth it !!!


We met people during these years and kilometers, we lost some, we still have some... we saw people who loved us and understood us, and we also met people who did not understand the bond between the living and the non living... At one instance, I was even asked to go to hell and make babies with my car :D hahaha.. how I wish !!! A lot of my friends would not have to wait for the lakh rupee Nano then... I would have given them a lot of smaller cars for free !!!

So me and her when look back saw a lot that has happened in the last 50000 kms and we smile together !!!

It has been a life worth living !!!

and hope it stays that way !!!

God Bless !!!

and Heaven IS !!!!

And I did not mention it before...

Heaven is your darling (read Radha) with you... you two roaming around the roads for no apparent reason... just zipping past some traffic at times, or slowing time just to let some suckers move ahead and feel good...

having the windows rolled up...

listening to your favorite CDs one after the other like there was no tomorrow...

Heaven is when you are with yourself and someone you love from the bottom of your heart... and you can't figure out the different between the two :)

all this really makes me feel that Heaven IS...

Of Curves and Cuts on Tyres...

This year's Auto Expo (one of the exbitions that I love to love) looks like one of the more practical ones in the last few years...

Two things that I have been following and am happy about are...

1. The cheaper Car - Nano... The claims are that it costs a lakh, however when you add things like road tax, insurance, a few accesories etc this should be around 1.25 on-road for the base model... not bad at all for a 33bhp 600 odd cc engine... I think this should be a very practical buy for city driving... The only thing that will keep me away from it would be the poor Tata build quality in cars... except the Safari, the plastics of most cars are cheap, and they can start rattling in about 6 months of regular usage... Indigo is a delight to look at, and has one of the best ACs that I know of in Sedans in India, however the sound that it starts making after a few months is something that is a big put off... Ankur now has a Safari and I am really looking forward to some first hand reviews from him...

The sad part is after I have driven the FIAT, the build quality of almost every car that I have been into seems inferior...

2. The new SUMO... relabelled as the Sumo Grand... though the looks seem to be coming a lot from the LandRover, minus the headlights which still have a dated feeling... the first looks at the SUV made it look impressive... again.. the TATA build quality is something that I would really like to consider before I would recommend this to anyone... Mahindra seems to be much better in their engine refinement and the quality of the vehicles when it comes to a comparision between the Sumo and the Balero and the Scorpio and the Safari...

But with this new good looking Sumo, and the "I so want it but cannot afford it" Safari, things might be a li'il tough for Scorpio and likes...

Another news that I have been waiting for was the launch of SKODA Fabia... Its a premium hatchback, which personally makes a lot of sense to me, and comes with the SKODA tag... needless to say the safety, reliability, build finish and quality are the things that you can assume coming with this car by default... Not sure how successful it would be though in the very cost concious Indian market... We are not too keen on paying a premium for a smaller car which comes with added benefits... If the Fabia 1.4L Diesel engine delivers like the much higher and bigger Octavia does... they already have a customer in line for the car !!!

Honda also had on display the Honda Jazz which is a sleek looking 5 door hatchback... Another car to look forward to in terms of reliability and performance...

Oh, and yes I also saw a few pictures of the new Suzuki Dezire... the sedan version of the SWIFT ( which is a nice car) but Dezire is one of the most stupid looking cars that I have seen in recent times... Looks like there is a competition of sorts about who makes worse car backs between Mahindra Logan and Suzuki Dezire...

All in all, this looked like a good beginning for the potential car buyers, and people who are looking at decent upgrades for their existing vehicles...

I am looking forward to another FIAT though :)

BeSt TiMe !!!

275 Kms...

5 hours flat...

With a break of about 45 minutes...

The best I have done on NOIDA - Delhi - Chandigarh Route...

With a few better roads... I should be able to do better... bye bye the Indicas, the Zens, the Taveras, the Qualises, the Innovas, the Wagon Rs, the Indigos, a few Accents, and Ikons toooo :D

I know what being high is... thanks to my CAR !!!