When the sun goes down....

The lights go up and the Marina Bay Street Circuit is set for the first ever night F1 race. Italian Giancarlo Fisichella steering his Force India car onto the streets of Singapore started free practice session followed by his team mate Adrian Sutil.Now the drivers will get to know what happens under street lights specially when its raining :)!

Delhi...

Delhi got shaken and stirred last evening with 5 bomb blasts within 30 mins at top notch places like barakhamba road, ghaffar market, central park, GK1 M block market. After bangalore, jaipur, surat and ahmedabad Delhi was always on radar as suggested by earlier alerts sounded in capital. On that basis, it was about time!
Heart goes out for family members of those 30 who are no more and those 90 injured, who will think more than twice before entering any market place.
Get going Delhi!!!You have done this before!!..question is how many times you need to do it all over again!!?

Rock On concert...

The FM channel BIG 92.7 decided to cash on the mania and organised an all star concert of Rock On at Select Citywalk, Saket this Staturday. Got to know about this on Friday only since am not a regular listener of 92.7, so obviously didnt get hold of those " entry passes", however on the concert i realized that it would been lot more frustrating if we had passes, because there was some major miscalculation from organizer's part and many people with passes didnt get to enter the designated area. Now since the whole thing was open air, the balconies and other places were put to good use, and Eva actually got hold of a really good place with a good enough view on the front balcony.

It started with Shankar, Ehsaan and Loy getting the crowd on their feet and then the start cast joined in. As expected crowd was going nuts for Aditya, Joe, KD, and Rob :). Every inch was jam packed and in that Eva somehow managed to capture some videos and pics, everything shaking though, and i dont blame her, you cant get a stable video or a pic if you have jumping and screaming and dancing guys and gals around you. The above one is the only "still" picture available :P.

Over all a fun filled evening :)

Rocked...Totally!!

If you ever liked Bon Jovi with long hair, with his guitar on full song and fire blazing in background on a high mountain and singing blaze of glory, go watch this movie.....
If you ever enjoyed Bryan Adams putting that guitar to good use and creating an all time smash hit, Summer of 69 , go watch this movie...
If you ever enjoyed banging your head up-down on realy hard beats of Limp Bizkit, go watch this movie...
If you ever enjoyed Dil chahta hai, go watch this movie....
If you ever enjoyed real campus flavour rock, go watch this movie...
If you ever liked any kind of freshness in any movie ever, go watch this movie.....


Go watch this movie....and you will start believing in Magik...
I bet you will come out of theatre humming...tum ho toh

Rock On!!

R1 - Dreams

when u were a kid u wanted to fly
u wanted to go faster
u dreamt of speed
of wind and know how one can touch it
when ur young ur told to stop dreaming
but you still dreamt'
now u've grown up
and all those dreams have got u this far



where you go now is upto you!!

Coming soon..Fireblade

India Debut in Honda Showrooms...Q4 2008. R1 should watch out.

Bad Review

I have never written a bad review ..ok let me rephrase this as , i have never written any review if it is bad but i have to write this one and i will keep it simple...
Don't watch Mission Istanbul, its horrible!!
Thank God my card gave me a 100 Rs discount on the tickets.

Happy Birthday Jim

To Someone who lived under the shadow of man-eaters and enjoyed it....
Happy Birthday Jim Corbett !!


A click from my last trip to JCNP

The Great Road Trips

My plans for road trips...well..i always planned..but somehow-someway...everytime at the last moment roadblocks appear. But there are many people who actually succeed and hit the roads for a trip...a road trip..long one.
Was going through the XBhp site and found these three fascinating triplogs:
The Great Indian Road Trip 2006-
18,780 Kms, 108 days, 4 bikes, India all the way.

This pic is my personal favourite
The Great Australian Road Trip 2007-2008-
3 Indian, 2 Bikes, 1 Van, 20,500 Kms, 72 Days
The Great New Zealand Roadtrip 2008-
23 Days, 1 Bike, 1 Indian

Talking about plans...there is one more roadtrip planned with a friend in furure..lets see how that goes.
Image Courtesy: http://www.xbhp.com/
Links Courtesy: http://www.xbhp.com/

why so serious?...

Have been in a unsettled frame of mind lately...so decided to unwind a bit and we decided to catch "the dark knight" on sunday.
It turned out to be one very fine Batman movie, and i think the best i have ever seen.


Heath ledger raised the bar significantly as far as "Joker" is concerned, infact the person sitting next to me in the theater was talking to his friend and i overheard it, he said "Jack Nicholson is nothing", and i second that. Jack played the "Joker" last time the character appeared on the screen.
Action sequences are getting better and better on Batman standards and that was awesome.

Rock On!!

Was listeing to the songs of "Rock On!!" last night. Its a Farhan Akhtar movie...this time he is Producer/Actor of this movie not director.


Two songs caught my attention.."Rock On" the title song which actually reminded me of the rock climbing sequence of Farhan's Hrithik Roshan movie "Lakshya". Another song was "Yeh tumhari meri baatein". These two songs actually score higher than the "janne tu..yaa jaane naa" soundtrack for me.
Lovely!!

Parking...going hi-tech

necessity is the mother of invention.......

Problem: too many cars..space crunch in the basement parking of my office building!!

Solution: increase parking space...

How:

They deployed these!!
these are six slot two level parking bays. One unit provides 5 parking bays as one slot is blank to move the cars around...yes...they can move the cars around in a circular fashion. it is similar to that number shuffler we used to play with in which one slot was always empty.

What they achieved:
Now we get 10 cars parked in a space of 6 cars. There are slots of separate dimensions for large sedans. SUVs dont fit anywhere..so they go on different basement level. Small cars like santro and i10 with extra height go in the middle slot or on the upper level of the unit.

Peregrine Falcon

It is a bird capable of achieving speeds over 200 mph (322 km/h) -- and predator of (perhaps not coincidently) the common blackbird. In japanese its name is translated to Hayabusa. For our reference we will take it as suzuki hayabusa.
Now what about the blackbird?...
well that was clear reference to Honda's hawk models and this war goes back to 1999 when hayabusa was launched and it overtook Honda CBR1100XX Super Blackbird as the fastest production motorcycle. Now as Peter Parker says..."with power comes the responsibility"...and i rephrase it as.."with power comes the response". The power and speed war amongst the super sport bikes eventually led to Government response and that prompted use of timing retard and rev limiter to reduce the max speed and limit it to 299 Km/h from the earlier 319 Km/h (what!!!??..319??..nuts!!??). In 2008, competition again saw this falcon raising the bar and engine size went to 1340 CC from 1299 CC.

The Click from the auto expo:


The rivalry between the falcon and hawk..moves on.....but i must say one thing...people (including me) with machines in category of 125-225 CC....names like devils, hellraisers, beasts....doesnt suit on our machines!!

William Arthur....or should i say

From a really funny looking design in 1907



to a really serious design...muscled up and with lots of attitude..fat bob.



starting from 1902...William Harley and Arthur Davidson....105 years of pure genius...and glory....!!
That's Harley Davidson with 105th Anniversary!!

Revenge of the fallen...

Its a sequel.....
First one was called...The Transformers....
No trailers available....
No pics available....
Script...a well guarded secret.....
Transformers 2 - Revenge of the fallen!
June 2009!!

can you hear me..

was driving back from delhi today....this song popped up on one of the radio stations.. caught my attention...nice video also whn i checked it.. It is also the official anthem of Euro 2008. This one stands right up there with Ricky Martin's old one..."the cup of life"



Don’t you mean that you’re my vision
I gotta make a decision
Do I go, do I stay?

You’ve gotten into my system
You are in control of my mental
I need to mean for a stay

I’m on a coaster-collision
Am not about to give in
Can’t explain my position or the condition that I’m in.

Where I am is no limit, no walls, no ceilings
No intermission, so let
Let the party begin


Hey.. Hey.. Hey all the way
DJ let it play.
Hey Hey Can You Hear Me?


Hey.. Hey.. Hey all the way
DJ let it play.
Hey Hey Can You Hear Me?

Band of brothers

Got hold of this Tv mini series few days ago...one of the finest i have ever seen.
This 10 episode series went on-air in 2001 and was a huge hit at that point of time. Story of "E" Easy Company, 506th Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division from their initial training starting in 1942 to the end of World War II. They parachuted behind enemy lines in the early hours of D-Day in support of the landings at Utah beach.
They also participated in the liberation of Carentan and again parachuted into action during Operation Market Garden. They were the first to enter Hitler's mountain retreat in Berchtesgarten.



This high budget series had some high profile Directors and Producers including Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg.
10, 1 hour episodes, a perfect war epic.

Respect..

It was another bike service day.
Considering the last two horrible experiences at Bajaj service centers this time i tried a third party one since all warranty-guarantee issues are finished ages ago for my bike.
Center's name : Bike Care
Customer care: Better than bajaj
Turaround time : 2 hrs, however the heavy rains and some issue with there electricity circuit caused delays on that particular day.
What was wrong at Bajaj service:
I think they are concentrating too much on 200-220 segment and in that they are ignoring the 150-180 segment specially when it comes to giving attention to customers at service center. 200-220s are obviously getting the attention they deserve but the kind of careless attitude that comes out for others is totally rubbish and unacceptable. Last time they delivered my bike 1.5 hrs behind estimated delivery time and that also with half the work done. I think they lost one Bajaj fan that day :)
well, today its 200-220 which are getting the attention, tomorrow they might be among "others" and a 350 or a 500 will be enjoying the attention. Quite natural i would say, but still..others also deserve some respect.

Lets do this....

Encouraging....

Name: Barack Obama
He is most likely the next US President.
He said something in one of his recent election campaign speeches:
"Revolutions in communications and technology have sent jobs wherever there's an internet connection, that have forced children in Raleigh and Boston to compete for those jobs with children in Bangalore and Beijing!"
This is definitely encouraging for India.
Full Story

Why....?

Question is.....Why?

Why R1? -
May be because....
-Size does matter...
-Weight counts..
-A 998 cc, liquid-cooled, 16-valve, DOHC, inline four-cylinder machine means something..
-6 speed transmission has one above the rest..

Why R15? -
May be because...
-errr....
-ummm...
-hmmm...

I'll again try tomorrow....!!

Debut....in 6 Days

Called up a prominent Yamaha Dealer in Delhi today. My queries were regarding the YZF-R1.

My Findings:

Booking amount: That guy said...it wud be good if you can pay 3 Lc...down.

Total Amount: 11,16,000. (Round figure)

Delivery time: within one week from total payment.

bahut mehnga hai bhai!!....:(

but not impossible though!!....:)

Now....coming to the R15....6 days to go to its debut .....the teasers on Yamaha's site are looking good..!!

Exhausted

Totally....
Mentally....
Physically....

Going Black

I got inspired by this

Driving vs Riding...

Riding :
The uncomparable 360 view,
the feeling when the boot touches the ground after an hour of continuous riding,
raindrops dripping through while riding in rain,
that one irritating bug on the neck in night,
feeling exhausted after that long ride in that 40ish temprature and feeling that the vision is going blurt due to that exhaustion but eventually finding that the helmet visor was dirty,
feeling the heat of the engine near your ankles,
riding on the footpath when stuck in a dead jam,
taking the splash head-on when a car speeds past on a rainy day on a waterlogged street,
turning blue after a ride on 2 degree winter day,
never need to worry about parking as there is always space for one more bike,
using that well kept vocabulary when forced to drag the bike on foot for a couple of kMs in case of a puncture,
cursing yourself for not taking the car along..when it comes to adjusting all the stuff after a good shopping spree,
suddenly realizing that you forgot your wrist watch at home then confirming time to the biker standing next to you on the traffic stop and finding that even he forgot the same.

Driving :
The safe and secure feeling,
rain...potholes....splashes....heat...winter...who cares.
Scorching heat? ...AC rocks!!
Freezing winter?...Heater rocks!!
...the luxury....but you cant feel the ground anytime you want.....
...the space....but you cannot drive on the footpath when in a dead jam.
...the comfort..but you cant just drag it along when its puncture.
...cursing yourself for not taking the bike along instead of car when forced to get in the long parking queue,
...listening to dozens of FM channels and that particular favorite MP3 CD...but you still have to get in the queue on the toll counter...
...

Damn ...i confused myself...!!!

Diamond..is forever?

Competition..Competition everywhere!!
People thought that the Apple iPhone will just be a one-off breed...and will die like that only....but i guess they were wrong. It has got company now...and its called Diamond

With Qualcomm processor and Windows Mobile 6.1, this one is pretty much poised to shine.

Processor: Qualcomm® MSM7201A™ 528 MHz
Operating System Windows Mobile® 6.1 Professional
Memory
ROM: 256 MB
RAM: 192 MB DDR SDRAM
Internal storage: 4 GB
Dimensions 102 mm (L) X 51 mm (W) X 11.35 mm (T)
Weight 110 g (with battery)
Display 2.8-inch TFT-LCD flat touch-sensitive screen with VGA resolution
Network HSDPA/WCDMA:
Europe/Asia: 900/2100 MHz
Up to 384 kbps up-link and 7.2 Mbps down-link speeds
Tri-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE:
Europe/Asia: 900/1800/1900 MHz
(Band frequency and data speed are operator dependent.)
Device Control TouchFLO™ 3D
Touch-sensitive navigation control
GPS GPS and A-GPS ready
Connectivity Bluetooth® 2.0 with EDR
Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 b/g
HTC ExtUSB™ (11-pin mini-USB 2.0 and audio jack in one)
Camera Main camera: 3.2 megapixel color camera with auto focus
Second camera: VGA CMOS color camera
Audio Built-in microphone, speaker and FM radio with RDS
Ring tone supported formats:
MP3, AAC, AAC+, WMA, WAV, and AMR-NB
40 polyphonic and Standard MIDI format 0 and 1 (SMF)/SP MIDI
Battery Rechargeable Lithium-ion or Lithium-ion polymer battery
Capacity: 900 mAh
Talk time:
Up to 270 minutes for WCDMA
Up to 330 minutes for GSM
Standby time:
Up to 396 hours for WCDMA
Up to 285 hours for GSM
Video call time: Up to 145 minutes for WCDMA
(The above are subject to network and phone usage.)
AC Adapter Voltage range/frequency: 100 ~ 240V AC, 50/60 Hz
DC output: 5V and 1A

hmmmm.....HTC is not that bad after all!!:)

Specifications Source: HTC Corporate Website

Guess whos this....

You know him very well.....:)'

21

winner winner chicken dinner....

blackjack players know what the above line is all about.

Caught this movie named 21 a couple of weeks back. Its about a bunch of MIT students..a group of card counters cracking the game of Black Jack and robbing the vegas casinos on weekends.



They did well till the time they faced another counter :)

...A very fine movie with some really good background score and fine performances from everyone including Kavin Spacey.

Snow, T5 and FA Cup

There was this confusion of terminals for BA when i took off on saturday. BA used to work from Terminal 4 at heathrow and they are shifting it to the new terminal 5. The news is that its pure chaos at T5..flight cancellations, baggage misplacements etc. So not surprisingly my co-passengers were also worried and not sure which terminal we are heading to, but cabin crew confirmed that its going to be T4 till this month end. Another thing that added to the T5 problems is the snowfall. My first experience with the snowfall has been amazing....but its sometimes scary to see cars covered with snow :)..

another big news in this part of the world have been Cardiff city making it to the FA cup final after some 70 years..and i thought only the indian cricket team takes years in doing things.

Street Kings

KR is back!!

The Jag comes to india...

TATA goes shopping and brings home...Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford.

Now can we expect a hatchback Jag??!!! :)

Image Courtesy + More Details: Economist

Good Enough II

Good Enough

Good Enough to qualify for my next bike!

Engine and transmission

Displacement:346.00 ccm (21.11 cubic inches)
Engine type:Single cylinder
Stroke:4
Power:18.00 HP (13.1 kW)) @ 5600 RPM
Torque:27.50 Nm (2.8 kgf-m or 20.3 ft.lbs) @ 3500 RPM
Compression:7.3:1Bore x stroke:70.0 x 90.0 mm (2.8 x 3.5 inches)
Fuel system:Carburettor.
CVFuel control:OHV
Ignition:Digital TCI
Starter:Kick
Lubrication system:Dry sump
Cooling system:Air
Gearbox:4-speedTransmission type
final drive:Chain
Clutch:Wet mulitiplate

Physical measures

Dry weight:163.0 kg (359.4 pounds)
Ground clearance:140 mm (5.5 inches)
Wheelbase:1,370 mm (53.9 inches)

Chassis and dimensions

Front brakes:Expanding brake (drum brake)
Front brakes diameter:178 mm (7.0 inches)
Rear brakes:Expanding brake (drum brake)
Rear brakes diameter:152 mm (6.0 inches)
Speed and accelerationTop speed:110.0 km/h (68.4 mph)
Power/weight ratio:0.1104 HP/kg

Other specifications

Fuel capacity:14.50 litres (3.83 gallons)
Color options:Black, red
Comments:Available in India. Optional electric starter and front disk brake.

Twin Wins

Congratulations to both the teams, Under 19 and the senior team for their wins on this real super sunday.



Sachin finally showed his capabilities in a final against Australia, in Australia. 1 down, 2 to go!!

The Under 19 skipper Virat ("Why-rat" as an oz commentator calls him) Kohli, is quite at-your-face kinda guy. South africans were quite zapped by the whole indian team going after them...verbally i mean to say!!:)



Image Courtesy - rediff.com

Vantage Point

Caught this one on saturday..had no idea about the storyline etc so took a chance basically. It turned out to be real cracking one. Nice strong crisp storyline and a "8 Strangers. 8 Points of View. 1 Truth." thing going which actually creates a certain kind of suspense.



It was nice to catch a near perfect thriller after a long long time..!! Dennis Quaid and Forest Whitaker creating magic as usual..!!
And by the way, just in case if you have just been bitten by the "Jodha-Akbar" bug recently, this one is only 90 mins long. :)

A Long day....

The day started just like any monday. the expectations were also just like any monday. There was a meeting planned for monday which was supposed to stretch over 4 hrs...and it actually stretched to 8 hrs...longest meeting ever for me. It was supposed to be more of a fusion meeting that we generally do for Requirements Analysis and after that design starts. My head is still ringing with that meeting. Someone called up in the morning..i said "am in a meeting" ...same person called up in the evening..same status "am in a meeting"....in came reply.."how many meetings you guys have?"....answer "thats the same meeting!!".....

Damn... its tough to lead five tracks....3 websites... 2 web apps...1 CRM tool and few (forgot the count actually) microsites!! Insane!!

GrandCentral

not the station in New york..no not even the London one.....its Google's newest acquisition!!
So what is GrandCentral ??......
its a free service from Google, through this we can receive phone calls and post voicemails right on our blogs. GrandCentral is currently in a private beta test, and also within US only, however an invite regsitration is on with Email and Country so whenever its up for a particular country, an invite will be sent.

An accident and a vote out

For the first time in 5 seasons there is an accident on Roadies. Rider - Ayaz, Pillion - shambhavi.....injuries - bruises and scrtaches nothing serious..damage done - immense on Ayaz's part as people are questioning his riding skills and riding is a major part of Roadies. I won't be surprised if moving onwards or may be from next season they introduce proper riding gears which is missing right now specially considering the fact that they are using HH Karizmas, pretty fast ones right?
Right at the time of accident is became almost certain that Ayaz was going out next..but Roadies is never that predictable and Snehasish along with Sonel played a game which came down heavy on someone least expected to go out this early, Vikrant (Vik, as they call him). There was an advantage task played and 5 of the roadies, including Vik, got the advantage. the advantage actually was that only those 5 will vote in the vote out, others were not allowed. Vikrant got 3 of those 5 votes. Vik, not my favorite kind but also a very overconfident kind, even i was surprised of this vote out.
This season is going right along with roadies theme:



ghar se hum chale
bas ek backpack aur ek guitar
paison ki fikar nahin
bike pe hum sawar

raahon ki hai khabar
na manzil kaa hai pata
phir bhi chal diye
jaane ab hoga kya

woooho
ohhhh..yeah
okkk....
jeet lenge aaj

ab kisi bhi baat kaa mujhe darr nahin
mushkilon se hi toh hai himaat meri
khelni hai aakhri baazi yahin
humsafar hi ban gayi manzil meri
raaste wahi..raahi naye
raatein wahi.. sapne naye

jo chal sako..tum bhi chalo yaaron
choo lenge hum assman
h
wooowho ohyeah okkk....
jeet lenge aaj

At 23....

am not talking about someone's age...not even some batsmans's score. yesterday my bike clocked 23Ks and my car clocked 2.3K today.

Hows Bike doing: the way a P150 is supposed to do. kicking B**t!! One Km of warm up lap in the morning and then ready to rumble. Amazing mileage added with a smooth ride. Even after numerous servicings spanning over 2.5 years the service center guy always tells me "sir, this time you must get that leg guard up" ..my reply as always remains "kidding me?"...that reminds me..its service time again!! Someone suggested, its high time to sell your bike....get a new one..may be go for a exchange...i somewhat agree with that.....lets see how it goes. A phone cam pic taken in 2005:

Hows Car doing: the way a new hyundai i10 machine is supposed to do. kicking B**t!! Few meters of warm up and its ready to make my day!! After first service mileage actually improved a notch as expected, amazing balance and dynamics are worth mentioning. Went out on a trip to jaipur with that and that also straight after first service......a memorable drive!!

I hope both of them keep kicking....:)

the heat is on....

The heat is on and blazing in Roadies 5.0.

This time Vibhor ended up on the receiving end..and Prabhjot got lucky...whatever they plan..whatever they decide .....eventually every individual does whatever he/she feels like. Thats the beauty of roadies. An interesting conversation from the latest episode:

Host: Vote out is the worst part of roadies ..right?

All contestants: Yes.

Host: Get used to it... :)

another hike...

well...another one....this one is a bomb....real one.....petrol price hiked by Rs.2/Litre :((



Now am seriously considering to take the "Fill it up" approach and that also from delhi not in gurgaon where the prices are higher than delhi. Another factor supporting my thoughts are the quality of fuel in haryana. There is a distinct performance difference, i sometimes actually feel my bike/car coughing when fuelled up in gurgaon and the case is totally different when fuelled up from delhi.

memories....

a song very close to heart....some very sweet memories attached with it....



A very happy Valentine's Day to everyone.

Roadies 5.0 ..The journey begins...

The Roadies were in for shock of their lives even before starting their journey on those new sparkling HH Karizmas. They have been divided in two teams, Blue and Red. Blue team lost heavily in the activities and lost the immunity. That meant..someone needed to get voted out from the blue team. All types of typical Roadies groupism and regionalism happened and right at the time of vote out...the roadies got shocks..2 to be more precise.

First, someone came back to haunt them......none other than Raghu.....

Second, Raghu then disclosed the news, 2 to be more precise: Good news - There will not be any ONE voted out. Bad News - There will be TWO to be voted out........and that cracked the whole scheme up. ...

Man!!its getting crazier than ever...!!

Now the two voteouts: First a guy, and i dont remember his name .....second, my favorite ..Ankita Sehgal...:(.....damn she got thrown out in the first vote out itself. .......

nazar....

this one surely stands out as one of the best from Atif

its tough.....

talking about its being tough another thing that comes in my mind is the MTV Roadies 5.0 auditions.....the judges Nikhil and Raghu are literally kicking some serious a**es. I get goose bumps while watching every episode.

Reason: Some real dumbo candidates....and two really pi**ed of judges.

I actually saw a signboard in the delhi audition episode or i think it was kolkata...it was placed right outside the audition hall and it said "Beware, judges are in a bad mood today!!"....seriously...the craziest thing to do right now is to show up in a roadies audition right in front of Nikhil and Raghu!!

More Auto Expo Coverage

A little bit more of Expo

National Institute of Design showcases their designs.

Image Courtesy: A very dear, sweet, young lady..!!:)


Rahul puts up his pics taken from his N series nokia

Expo ..reloaded

I have been to pragati maidan before in the last international trade fair.so i knew it's a tiring task to visit a big expo there. I parked my car at CP's MCD parking and took the metro to pragati maidan...considering the traffic jams that any kind of event triggers at pragati maidan. i was there from Gurgaon in 45 mins...a good start!!

Looking for pics?...they are right here!! Tried my best to get close shots everywhere and somehow managed to achieve that. However quite of few of them were blind shots luckily coming good. My personal favorite is the angle i got for the MT-01's dashboard. Again, there sre some pics in portrait mode, please flip them to see becuase that was the only way i could have got what i wanted in the pic.



all-in-all a nicely managed expo considering the daily turn-out there. TATA's pavillion was raising hell as expected.

Talking about TATA and NANO, here's what i have heard ....a survey was conducted with Auto-Rikshaw drivers/owners, most of them said, if given permission they would like to replace their Autos with Nano. The reason, an auto rickhsaw costs around 3 lakhs(i wonder how) and this car goes for 1 lakh, with seating capacity a bit more. Now did i hear someone say "Nano..The People's Car" :))!!

Skoda and Chevrolet did some nice presentations, Hyundai was spot-on and meant business, Maruti was a bit messy but it was really nice to see M800 phoenix.....they are raising it from ashes or what?? SX4 sport is really sporty.

No one was allowed inside BMW area...touch me not huh?....anyways..nice cars!! Volvo cars with their really heavy duty engines are making inroads for sure. Mahindra goes for an automatic transmission scorpio.

Honda was good and nicely arranged. Hero Honda pavillion was a bit strange ..and kind of disappointing....bajaj was quite modest but right on...suzuki, yamaha, honda all went all-out on bikes.

Mahindra and Renault were doing quite good....The long queue for GM pavillion was awesome...and they didnt disappoint once you are in. Missed the Yamaha Roxx concert..it went house full in a jiffy.

Royal Enfield's Small outdoor stall fitted right in the Enfield Spirit with dirty and rugged looking bikes put on show.It was nice. I'll wait for the day when Harleys make their debut at an Auto Expo in india.

I was supposed to visit the expo on saturday itself but some work popped up in office for saturday. So re-planned it with Rahul and Nishit for sunday. Will share more pics as both of them put their cell phone cams to good use.

Ads ....without stars....

now.... on TV nowadays its pretty hard to find an ad jingle without a Movie or a cricket star in it..so when you actually come across such ads (without any star).....you actually cant help noticing it. I came across a couple of them recently..and they made me realize how we blindly follow stars and whatever they say in those ads. They become icons through them and what they do for us ..is actually make us buy those stuff and add some overhead on our monthly budget.

First one:

Its new on-air and has that indian appeal and emotion blended in it..in short ...the right stuff for indian masses. There is another interesting thing with this jingle...many reliance mobile users were surprised one fine morning to find this jingle set as the dialer tone for their numbers. Many liked it ...some got annnoyed..but a nice marketing idea!!



one of the finest jingles ever...i'll put it right next to the "Humara Bajaj" and Cadbury's "kuch khaas hai" jingles.

Second one:

This one traces back to 2006 and was termed one of the funniest ads ever..a must must watch....!!

Nano technology

well..well...well!!

there goes the neighbourhood....

....india now has a car with ex-showroom price of 1 Lakh. Now thats some Nano technology.

Ratan Tata drove this baby in front of a packed media crowd at Auto Expo in New Delhi. An emotional Ratan Tata drove the car to the podium and said, “This is what I have for you. A promise is a promise, it will cost Rs 1 lakh ex-showroom.”






3 variants: 1 base model which actually costs 1 Lakh and 2 Deluxe models.

three-cylinder 624-800 cc petrol engine with 33 bhp of power.

30-litre fuel tank and four-speed manual gearshift.

air conditioning, but no power steering.

front disk and rear drum brakes.

The company claims mileage of 22 kmpl in city and 26 kmpl on highway.


Now this is supposed to really put some black clouds over new upcoming hatchbacks and small segment cars like Skoda's Fabia. Maruti already looks like surrendering, Huyundai is strangely silent and bajaj has already announced a similar concept car. Now thats quite a hussle!! Whats gonna happen to 2-wheeler market is hard to imagine going forward. What i can imagine is that every "second" car if there is any in any indian middle class home will be the Rs 1 Lakh Car. There will always be a doubt in anyone's mind whos planning to buy a two wheeler or a 150-200 CC segment bike, whether to buy the bike or go for the lakhtakiya.

Image Courtesy: http://www.zeenews.com, http://www.rediff.com

Wanted!!

A sheep or a wolf!!??



Love the swinging bullet sequence!!...Amazing!!

Suzuki.....bringing it on...

Now Suzuki goes the yamaha way but with a different attitude.....the CKD approach.....hmmm...interesting...
Read more

Coming soon...2008!!

Its 1.00 AM, 31 st december 2007, when am posting this on. In all probable cases this is the last post of an eventful and fruitful year 2007.
Achievements wise the year went by quite nicely. Work has never been an issue for me so professional achievements take care of themselves. But the actual achievement is felt when people around you at workplace look upto you for guidance, advice and help. This increases reponsibilities but i think you need responsibilities to keep raising the bar.
Another small achievement is actually related with this Blog. Its now over 2 year since it went online. 2 year and 4 months to be more precise. Wow!!..it survived the lack of creativity that i usually suffer with.
The year actually flew by, very fast. A home, a car, increasing responsibilities at work, feel like everything just pounced upon me. Still, there is a feeling of restlessness...may be there is more to achieve, more to conquer.
Talking about the car...first 400 Kms went by pretty smooth. No hastles, no fuss. Got the registration no. couple of days back. The driving experience is amazing, specially the electronic power steering. Fuel consumption is pretty neat and the car as whole is living upto my expectations so far.

Watching heads turning towards the car is becoming a daily routine, since the model is new on india roads. A couple of days back i was waiting for my turn on a fuel station and a girl waiting in the next bay was looking quite curious about the car. she got off her santro (same company, different model), walked upto my car and asked about the fuel efficiency of the car, well..she got the answer but that was just one of the incidents. There have been quite a few of them and everytime a new question from every person. One funny example:

the person: How is this car doing?
me: very good
the person: shall i buy one of these?
me: what are you waiting for...??!!


Now few questions:

1. Do you follow Formula-1?

2. If you follow, then do you know there is now and indian team on the circuits?

If you dont know then you should know and be prepared to back

force-india in the 2008 season.

Wishing everyone a very happy new year!!

COMING SOON, YEAR 2008!

Splash

Maruti is launching this in the upcoming Auto Expo in January:

Its named "SPLASH". There is also another concept car launch from Maruti itself. Its Called "A-Star".



Its an A-segment five-door hatchback equipped with new Euro 5-compliant 1.0-litre aluminium petrol engine with CO2 emissions lower than 109g/km.

The production is scheduled to start in October 2008.

Now!!Do i see some "inspiration" in SPLASH?, i mean something like this is already on indian roads!!

taare zameen par

Planned to catch a movie yesterday...and had options like "welcome", "jab we met" and "taare zameen par". Picked the last one and i really didnt regret choosing that when i came out of the show. For the first time i saw some other actor really acting much better than Aamir himself and that also while acting opposite Aamir, a child actor, Darsheel Safary playing the character of a dyslexic boy named Ishaan Nandkishor Awasthi. Hardly any masala and pure touching emotions with a very sensitive theme.

The songs are good, and Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy does a kickass job, as does lyricist Prasoon Joshi. One can actually feel the frustration of little Ishaan when he goes through his daily ordeal while the song Maa plays in background, touching really touching!!

No wonder there was a small round of applause from audience in the end!!

Aamir the Director actually makes the audience wait for Aamir the actor and then he bursts on the screen with Bum Bum Bole. Not bad!..not bad at all!!

This one is going for Oscars...and i cant help being a bit over-optimistic..TZP can actually bring an Oscar home!!

w00t!!

Thats webster's word of the year!w00t!

used very heavily by Gamers and originally has the meaning as "we own the other team"!

2 Bikes....Indian Roads.....and The Indian Pocket...

I can easily say now that hitting the top gear will never be the same again.....or..?

Yamaha in a desparate effort to really have a firm ground in the passion and emotion driven indian market, unleashed its two warriors on indian roads.

The YZF - R1 : Talking about expert opinion, Rossi tested the 2007 R1. And you can't have a better expert than the "Doctor" himself.

Displacement 998cm3
Maximum horse power 177.5 bhp @ 12,500 rpm
Maximum torque 112.7 Nm @ 10,000 rpm




There is a certain buzz in the air about both of the machines. I would say a good catalyst that was much needed for indian market which was waiting for something like this to happen to really get going and really get at par with the 4-wheel market.

The MT01

Engine type Air cooled 4-stroke,OHV
Cylinder arrangement V-type 2-cylinder
Displacement 1670cm3
Maximum horse power 88.9 bhp @ 4,750 rpm
Maximum torque 150.3 Nm @ 3,750 rpm




Talking about high expectations, both of them have already been termed "flagship" ones for indian market as far as Yamaha is concerned and are supposed to change the face of the 2-wheel market, or at least try to do that. Technology wise, you can hardly quetion Yamaha's specifications..both having displacement range of 1000+ CCs and everything that a indian bike enthusiast dreams of having in his/her machine.

Now here comes the ultimate factor that eventually drives the market, Price Tag. Both as far as i know have a 10+(Lacs) Price tag on-road. Now,what instantly flashes in anyone's mind is that "Bloody Hell!!in 10+ one can own a Honda Sedan or a Hellraising SUV!!" Again, as far as am concerned, buying something or even planning to buy something of that range is out of scope. Even for buying a small car with an on-road price half of my annual CTC, hell lot of planning goes in. But being a biker at heart, i would still make an effort to someday own one of those pieces and that will need saving over the savings.....sigh!!

Even after buying one of those...its hard to think about the effort and money that will be spent on maintenance. This makes me think, is the indian market ready for theses machines?, well..you would say, Hell Yeah!!....But still you might rethink on it.

So to really buy one of these, as Rearset once said...GO OUT AND MAKE POTS OF MONEY NOW!

dhan dhana dhan...goal!!

Hardly had any expectation from this movie, i guess thats why i really liked this one. Two lead characters..an indian and a pakistani......a team consisiting of indians, bangladeshis and pakistanis fighting to save one football club, a coach with memories of a horrible night before a final....nice mix for a good movie!! ......


Go catch it!!Halla Bol!!

Think!!

Think slow..!!

Slow is smooth!!

Smooth is Fast!!

Think about it......

Dodge this!!

One of the 2008 models is actually named "Dyna Fat Bob".

i10 Magna

Had a test drive this morning on this little powerhouse.




This one is already been said as a replacement to Santro and i think Hyundai might close down shutters on Santro eventually. i10 is really interesting: a little lower on RPMs and higher on torque in comparison to Santro xing and almost at par with Getz 1.1 GLE. Wheelbase and height is more than Getz and body is much lighter also. the catch in the end is lower RPMs and higher torque, and it actually showed up when i tested it. I also tried a tight U turn with it and it actually made it clean without any stop-back-stop manouver. Electronic Power steering makes it even more effortless. The mascular and sporty looks are creating quite a craze.

Overall....quite a Car and is priced interestingly too.




Only problem with this beauty is its Website. A bit too flashy i guess.

ENGINE - iRDE 1.1

Configuration
Displacement (cc) - 1086
Maximum Power (ps/rpm) - 66.7/5500
Maximum Torque (Kgm/rpm) - 10.1/2800
In-line, 4 cylinder

Old Old...Classic Rock

Irritating camera angels, irritating hair styles.....but some really cool music....nothing 2 minutes of pure fun!! thats Creedence...

Happy Diwali

A very happy and rocking diwali to everyone

Thats the diwali snap-shot from my floor. Actually that was the day before diwali.

And this one is my favourite...

whats the point?

Hero Honda rolled out "Hunk" from their stables......

a 149.2 CC air-cooled engine...

alloy wheels...

front disc.. rear drum

5 speed manual

hydrolic shocks....

what comes in my mind instantly is..."whats the point?".....i wud call it a twin to CBZX....the only "old is gold" factor comes into play when you actually get the 2-1 combo of speedo- rpm-fuel gauges...no not the digital ones...the dial ones!! its a different feeling looking at the dial going wild on a twist of a bar in your right hand!!

prices around 55,000 INR.....will there be many takers....when we have CBZX (which is altogether a different mistake from HH stables) standing next to it in the showroom??!! look wise it reminds me of P200 but its hard to beat P200 designs.....

really..."whats the point?".....

talking about P200..a collegue in office bought it the other day and in the morning next day whispered in my ear..."dude...there is a P2....down at B3" ...in my biker gang we actually have short names for bike models..P2 = Pulsar 200, P1.5 = Pulsar 150..getting the drift??

it was time for a mandatory welcome ride on the high way.it was my third ride on P200..after the ride....i realized...its a biker's bike...you really need to know each other well..to ride well. That friend of mine is already worried about "winter morning blues"...lets see how the winter goes on P2s.

Descend

Love this sequence.....specially the background score....

break?...speed up??

was one heavy traffic monday and i was in that traffic...on the MG road towards delhi. Other than heavy traffic the last thing you actually want is a 350 CC Royal enfield with a rider with some very bad attitude come falling over you. and when this actually happens and before your mind goes numb...only option you have is to avoid it.

Speed was a smooth 60 at that time...i was over taking a sedan which was on the slowish side and gave me way the way it should do. I took a glance on my rear view mirrors and went ahead with the over take. half way through the overtake my left mirror showed a noisy electra 350 moving very dangerously towards me and that sedan. i thought of trying the only easily available and quick communication medium.. "telepathy" to tell the bastard that "you better not be trying to take the narrow space between me and that sedan!!!". Obviously there was a connection error and he didnt get my message. He actually went for that narrow passage!!

I completed my overtake and after overtakes i generally change lane and let faster vehicles go by but since this bastard was in the middle, lane change was temporarily not available. Meanwhile i somehow avoided a pothole and that bastard didnt have any room to avoid it and went through the pothole and lost his balance eventually and came dangerously close to me. His front wheel started brushing my rearsets. This impact actually made my rear skid a bit sideways and i felt "few more moments and this one is gonna lock my rear". Breaking was also not an option otherwise he could have crashed into me. So i just hit the topgear and let the throttle roll. Few noises from my rear and i was away avoiding the lock. When i moved off i heard sound of metal crashing and few words of concern (swearing) from behind and my left mirror showed and electra down on road. ...

...i was on my way!! did a quick damage check after a while..couldnt find any!!
phew!!..damnnn that was close!!

breaking is not always the right option!!you see what i mean!!??

Goal

Chak De..went pretty well.....and i get the feeling that this one too might go the same way...

There are cars and..

Have been going through some car specifcations....found this little one from chevy family...

with...

Cylinder count - 4

Max. Power (PS) - 76/5500

Max. Torque (Nm) - 110/4400

Valve and Camshaft type - 8V SOHC

Fuel Injection system - Sequential Electronic Fuel Injection

Transmission - 5 Speed Manual

and of course good enough ground clearance and wheel base. On one hand you have cars like these...and on the other hand you have these...

and again..there are people like Gaurav jani who inspire you for something else...