Toyota Etios test drive..

No matter how hard I try, it is hard to keep the Logan out of my mind everytime I see the Etios on the road, in the paper or on TV. The lines, the wheel arches, the same cubic centimetres of the engine, the flat boot with a ‘in your face triangular rear lamps’ and the plain-jane front can't all be co-incidently same.

The Logan-ism is re-instated as I set my eyes on the sparkling new Etios at the Toyota showroom. The interiors are spacious. In fact, the boot claims to squeeze in more bags than the big-bro Corolla. The interiors are smart and simple. The peculiar Air-con vents and the instrumental panel at the centre of the dashboard reminds that something is new and ummm.. different. The quality is not all that great, but the plastics have been smartly used and make an agreeable sight.

Now the test drive started. The acceleration is good and there is ample torque at lower revs. The words ‘Smart and simple’ pop up yet again in my mind. The next thing that pops up is ‘Remembering the Logan, are we??’. The handling is fine and the steering is little too soft; something like the previous-gen Honda City ZX. The transmission is mated brilliantly and though there is no need for shifts at lower speeds, the power peaks at mid range. The low range torque set-up makes it a lovely city dweller. The vehicle is light and Toyota has removed anything and everything it thought was unnecessary. They even upgraded the brake casing to better it for the Indian roads where bouncing pebbles, stones are not uncommon.

As I step out, I feel peculiar as I am happy but not impressed. There is nothing missing here. It is a great deal which smartly packages the right elements to optimize comfort, power and space. Some will pay that price just for the Toyota emblem that comes along with it, because in India, hasn’t Toyota always been enjoyed only by the classes? I would love it some 10-15years later, when I need a nice sedan to haul a family and value proposition is paramount. But today, its different. I don’t want to be that sensible and no-nonsense fellow today. And this is where the Toyota lets me down. It has all the right elements; it maintains that perfect balance. The power is just enough to haul itself, there is ample space and the steering is very practical. However, most will agree that Practicality of the ideal good boy/girl has never impressed my generation. Even a fool can tell that the Etios will be a big hit, the 3 month waiting period post booking points in that direction. Yet the mean looking Fiesta, the street smart Swift and the gorgeous Linea will still attract the youth as the Toyota sadly might be too ‘nice’ for them.
The way Toyota has played with the price with the Etios has got all the competition on its toes. Suzuki is shortening it's Swift Dzire to get the tax advantage and slash its price, Hyundai &Ford are looking for replacements for their existing models. If Toyota manages to maintain similar pricing, God save the hatchback market once the Etios Liva is launched..

The Social Network.. (## friends hate this post)

The rise of 'Whatsup' relationships caught my attention and inspite of my efforts, my brain wandered thinking about what actually fostered such casual relationships. For there are some of us out there who detest this trend and still like friendship the old fashioned way. Not long ago, the universal definition of a friend had a couple of words such as dependable, harbinger of happiness, help in need, etc. While the words have stayed on and perhaps their usage has been accentuated, the real meaning remains lost somewhere.. Let me attempt to explain this with the help of examples:

Example 1:

Situation: I am suffering from some wretched infection and am bedridden for a couple of days.

Part (a): Friend in need

An unexpected visit from my dear friend: for no scientific reason at all. Of course everyone knows I’d be fine in a couple of days, so why did my friend bother? Reasons are beyond the realms of practicality and rationality. It is difficult to gauge the benefits with my loneliness evaporating, the reassurance, the small talk. Why, one can’t (neither my friend nor I) even advertise this fact to others. Precisely the reason why this old friendship has lost limelight.

Part (b): Now consider another form of friendship (my friends on FB)

My status message: Recovering from a bad infection.. Doc says I’ll live!!

Friend#3, Friend#43 and 12 others like this!

Friend 1: Oh dear, get well soon!! :O

Friend 32: Da virus’z all ovr the place man.. Life’s a bi**h.. Get well soon dude!

Friend#21: Haha! Hen in a coop.. Chicken pox :P tc..

Post comment [____________]

Short lived as it may be, but a few words of jest or expressing concern are a shot in the arm for me. I may be so consumed by the pride that I often forget that:

1. Friend#3 is a very very distant relative who I have never met and chances are: never will.

2. Fact: Friend#32 ain’t no African American. He’s just a guy from my old town who has taken great pains searching for some cool words/ slang over the net before construing that comment

3. Friend#43 is an acquaintance who’d be wishing that I were dead.

4. Friend #21 is actually a very dear friend but warmth of friendship will have to make way for words that will help him step up the ‘cool ladder’

Having said this, I wonder what all that effort of posting, tracking, re-commenting, liking is all about. Sure, the social networks help us get in touch with our near and dear ones, but if you ask me: If they really are near & dear- I’d like to keep them a notch above the rest. This is where fb doesn’t go very well with me. If they are indeed are that important, I don’t want our communication to be lost inthe public domain amongst theacquaintances and well wishers who may feature lower on the relationship scale. So I ought to take that extra effort: the trips, the calls and being there when it actually matters to build relationships.

It is seen that the word 'friend' has been somewhat corrupted by the social network later part throws light upon a more interesting aspect. We always complain that social networks are platforms where voyeurs can have a ball. After deep thought, I feel that the matter be turned around to see who’s lambasting the culprit. Astonishing as it may sound, the accuser is the culprit here. In the second case, the fact that my status message invites a number of responses from all over the world gives an instant high and satiates my ego with that little airtime and audience. So it may be safely assumed that in spite of whatever I tell the world about my indifference, actually I’m actually looking for people who will are concerned with my online image. Not necessarily voyeurs, but someone to watch me, exclaim or brood aboutme. And this; my dear friends is precisely what the game is all about. P.G. Wodehouse’s creation: Jeeves the Butler always doles out reasoning to such complex circumstances accompanied with the curt words: “It’s a game of Psychology, Sir.”

The Social network brilliantly capitalizes this aspect. Look at it:

1. It feeds your ego. Why, not everyone has a 1000+ friends on Orkut+ Facebook! And not everyone gets instant comments / likes on their pictures, comments etc. It is I…. 8 people like MY comment.. 2 people responded to MY status message update in 45 seconds.. My crush likes MY picture.. It is always I…. Hence Me is now ME the great..

2. Somewhere deep within we are all voyeurs ourselves and just love to know what is happening in someone else’s life. With facebook, Yes we can!

The obsession with one’s virtual image can sometimes be scary. Instead of chasing things we like, we often find ourselves living a life which will grab attention on facebook. For eg: some people might like quiet evenings, but go out to the club xyz just so that they can upload some pictures that are bound to invite comments. More astonishing is the fact that people have seriously started judging you based on your online profile. Kummooon!!

The painful thing is how the social networks have managed to fracture relationships. I maybe imagining things but I’ve sometimes felt that that casual commenting, on and off behavior creeps into our real life without our knowing: and becomes a habit. The phenomenal paradigm shift is apparent with the behavior of some I’ve seen in real life:

- Race to meet (& keep in touch with) as many as you can (quantity quantity & quantity)..

- Consumerism triggered by updates (or in the want of new ones!)
i. Yes we party tonight (Party=cool pics=comments from interesting click pics, post and await responses<- responses of others often becomes the key driver fuelling party plans)

ii. Yes we buy that new Gadgetizmo (and post a status update belittling frnd#345’s shopping status)

- The behavior in relationships. The flick Social Network features a dialogue by the creator of fb: “What do people mainly want to do? They want to hook up!!!And he immediately incorporates ‘relationship status’ in the first version. By making it public and providing a flirting platform, it has truly created an ocean of hope and dreams for many. The felicitation of the same has paced up things a . Why, many people think they are in love coz their virtual profiles hit off very well thanks to those smart comment-recomments. (Not kidding!! Contact me or look around for yourself if you want real life examples: there’r a lot of desperate souls out there) This is not me, but a lot of people I talked to think that fb is the one responsible for the casual relationships.

Definitely there are a lot of other changes in the environment and cultural shift responsible but social network is a powerful catalyst. The scary thing is that sometimes it is impossible to get my friends’ minds off facebook. Picture this: We are on a road trip and everybody’s drunk on the nature’s fresh air and dew. The photographer of the group clicks masterpieces of the dew drops on the leaves and the sun rising over the horizon. One friend rushes to a rock and starts posing: eager to create a new profile picture. Nothing wrong with that but we’re concerned as he is totally missing the present experience; being too concerned about his online image. It would be apt to say that the mind has never got disconnected from the internet.

Having said all this, I have to bow down before facebook. My concern is about the souls who have centered their lives and relationships around facebook. Deception might be a controversial word here but I’d like someone to debate on it. I salute the social network for the power it possesses. Keeping in touch, humour, sharing info n thoughts and of course killing time at work: FB does it all. And there’s one incident that changed my perception totally. It proved to be a champion of free thought when it hosted the view point of a few and led to a nation coming together against anarchy. Who knows it better than Hosni Mubarak and the people of Egypt J

PS:

Thought process initiated by Kartikay’s line: “And the disproportionate activity on a female’s so-so witty one-liner status message. “ Check out the master’s write up: http://mochachilo.wordpress.com/2011/03/26/the-facebook-de-addiction-project/#more-712

Mahabaleshwar ahoy..

People told me that my journey would be worthless. “Mahabaleshwar? In the April heat? The best time to go there is after the rains!! That's when blah blah blah.. extract maximum fun out of the place. We could all go there together when the time is right and when we have achieved...blah blah blah...” In retrospect, this indeed has been one of the biggest challenges for me whenever I try to escape from Mumbai and more specifically: my competition battered MBA campus. If there is a small thought pertaining to freedom, to do what I like, it is soon trampled by the cacophony and the pressure to comply (to ‘normalcy’- they claim). Thankfully my desperation and the disgust for the filth I’ve seen in my routine pushed my heart until it emerged victorious over the mind.

Slowly even logic was with me: Past experiences have proven that the very same critics and those promising to accompany me to Mahabaleshwar later in ‘better times’ would in all probability back out later.
So Mahabaleshwar was the destination and at 5:45am, I set off. After crossing Pune at 9, I stopped at the McDonalds beyond Pune at the NH-4 (Satara road). Some 40 Kms beyond Pune is a right turn to Mahabaleshwar. Now the greens, the winding roads start and this is a relatively slower but pleasurable drive. One may witness a jam at the toll collection centre at Panchgani, but otherwise the drive is wonderful with some serious climb and beautiful view-points 9including the confluence of rivers). The road between Mahabaleshwar and Panchgani is surprisingly full of ATV and go-karting tracks. They are not quite for the die-hard racing types, but I was alarmed by their sheer number.

I reached Mahabaleshwar at 11:15am and checked out the Mapro products (Jams, squash, etc) at the company outlet. Thereafter I headed to Arthur point: a lake with option of boating and horse-ride at the edge. Mahabaleshwar is famous for strawberries and I was ordered not to miss the fresh ones available here. Dutifully, I stopped at a restaurant and ordered the famous Cream-strawberry. I was not at all disappointed: the strawberries couldn’t have been fresher and the delicacy was quite filling. Another attraction of these small ‘garden’ restaurants is that they are literally Garden restaurants. The one I visited had a rich variety of plants and flowers. Though an illiterate in terms of identifying plants, I was nevertheless floored by the captivating landscape. I checked out hotels (for so called future plans). The tariffs are around what you’d expect at a tourist destination; slightly on the higher side.

I reached Pune around 4pm and headed for the Pune cantonment. Hard to explain; but I felt I was falling in love with the city. Great apartments, the glamorous yet spacious M.G. Road and the weather. Maybe because it reminded me of Bangalore J

The evening was spent in chatting, catching up, exploring the cantonment, the golf course and the snazzy M. G. Road market. The next morning I headed towards the other end of the town where Vaibhav bhaiya and bhabhi live. Again the heart felt heavy when I spotted the lovely airy housing societies and the clubhouses. Reminiscing the past?

The conversation never ended, there was so much we had to catch up on. The self imposed time boundaries were annihilated and I left Pune at around 5pm to greet dark clouds.

And soon after I crossed Hinjewadi road, the clouds started in full fury.

When had I last experienced this intoxicating smell of the wet earth? Nature has powerful forces and today I wanted to indulge. After waiting for the downpour to ease out for a couple of minutes, I decided to carry on in the rain. I had to clear the ghats before sunset. More importantly, when was the last time I had been this happy about my surroundings? How can I let these moments of joy pass by?

Traction on the wet tarmac scares me. So I deflated the balding tires a bit and set off. On a normal day in a city it would have been chaotic, but today it was ecstatic! The raindrops thumping your chest, the cool winds making you shiver and the vast shades of green, brown and grey skies in the horizon: feels heavenly. Thanks to the pouring rain, the traffic was disciplined. Erratic pedestrians, carts, etc were absent and mine was the only bike to be seen.

Reaching Lonavla was the sore point. Somehow the acrid smell of Mumbai was apparent from there itself and the desperate crowd killed the high given to me by nature sometime back.

My mind was laden with doubt and apprehension before making this trip. How would it be like to meet old friends? All of us change over years, so will our meeting be remotely close to the old times or will it be awkward?

Upon meeting everyone all these doubts vanished and I was overwhelmed by the love and affection I got from people. So I urge you to put such thoughts aside. To meet an old friend: make that trip..

Trip logs:

Total distance travelled: 612 Km

The route via Pune is not the shortest way to get to Mahabaleshwar but it is definitely the fastest. If you are taking a cab and the odometer reading is crucial, take the NH-17

Fuel filled: Rs 1000 (15.9L)

P-200 Mileage: 38.5 Km/L

Route notes:

The drive is spectacular throughout. The NH-4 is well surfaced throughout and you can manage speeds of 100+ for most of the journey. The last 40 Kms off the NH-4 has narrow semi-mountainous drive. You might need 1.5- 2 hours to cover this leg.