77899

Some of my most cherished moments have been behind the wheels of my Palio!!! 77899 kms strong, and still with years to go!

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...