Nano

I can't quite explain why, but the release of Tata's Nano makes me happy and proud.

Baby you can drive my car

Yessss! An article on the Palio, now? Bravo, Shreenand!

In other news, Montezuma strikes back. My stomach has given up all fight.

Car dicky out completely

Big heap truck went bang bang against car today. Son of a gun driver drives merrily away. Rs 21,000 estimate from workshop. Insurance likely to cover only half, given age of car. Heart failure. Stop.

Blah blah

Just can't be bothered to post much these days. I'm entering that oh-so-familiar phase of LJ withdrawal, where I drawn in my keyboard, tuck away the mouse and surf the web for porn.

I was composing an LJ post while watching Laksyha the other day, but just didn't have the energy to convert it into bits and bytes. I liked the movie, Hrithik is a very underrated actor, Amitabh was miscast, half an hour could have been shaved off, there are too many cliches, the cinematography is excellent, the climax is brilliant and Farhan Akhtar is on the way to God-hood in my book.

I feel so blah about LJ I don't even feel like talking about the small accident with the car. My brother was driving, no one was hurt, got the car back yesterday, insurance is taking care of 80% of the damage.

Wanted to talk about the first night-out I had at work in five years, but blessed are the blahs: I will stop.

Whats up ?

A few updates:

1. I took the red pill on Sunday and have been feeling great since. My mind is finally free.
It really is a relief to read the Hindu after the Times

2. The first quiz on is up. This was posted on quiznet once by himself, but what the heck. Its a good quiz, just perfect to start off.

3. Sindha, Rachu and I are off to Mysore tomorrow, to attend a friend's wedding. This is the first time we'll be going on a relatively long drive with the kid; hope everything turns out well. Planning to stop over at Srirangapatana and Channapatana on the way back, if we have the time. I would like to visit Ranganathittu as well, but my guess is that we won't have enough time to do all of this and be back in Bangalore by 7pm.

4. The battery of the car conked out on Saturday, the first real problem I've had with the Palio. Got a new one fixed today. Funny, it should have lasted for at least 2-3 years. The guy told me its because I didn't get it serviced regularly. Hmm.

5. And oh, here's a pretty decent photo of el kiddo:

Offsite and off the road

Organized an offsite session for the team yesterday, at Eagle Ridge. Went off pretty well. Used the six thinking hats technique and came up with a nice long list of issues and ideas.

I wanted to return home early, so hitched a ride with Narasi, a co-worker. His car broke down in the middle of nowhere, also known as Bommanahalli. We were trying to avoid the Silk Board junction and had just entered a river cleverly disguised as a road when the car stopped and refused to start. We pushed it, we pulled it, we murmured sweet nothings into its bonnet but it just dug in its heels and didn't move.

Narasi calls the Hyundai Mobile repair folks, who assure him they would reach the spot in 45 minutes. This is at 7:15pm. We get a call at 8:30 reassuring us they were on their way, they got held up at Tumkur Road. In between these two calls, we witnessed a fight between two cows who had come over to examine the car.

We decide to get a mechanic and hail a passing auto. The passing auto has a passenger who has almost passed out, drunk. He very kindly gets out and ushers us into the auto. He then proceeds to walk away without paying the driver. The driver reaches out and slaps the guy twice. The guy shouts. The driver yells back. We sit in the auto, looking at each other. Eventually they kiss and make up and the driver takes us to Hosur Road, informing us there is a service center for cars very close by. There sure is one - a Maruti service center. The car we have is a Santro.

After much coaxing, we get the Maruti repair guys to come over and look at the car. The autodriver hangs around as he has nothing better to do. Its 9:30pm now. Narasi gets a call from the worthy folks at Hyundai saying that they are very close to Silk Board junction and should be at the site any minute now. We tell the Maruti guys to hurry up. They do and get the car to start. They advise Narasi not to jerk the car as the fuel connection to the engine has a loose contact. Narasi pays them, I pay the auto guy, the cows finally get some sleep and we drive off into the moonrise.

PostScript - Narasi gave me a set of chocolates today, thanking me for sticking with him. Nice of him, really.

In other news...

Kichan cleared the mains exam of the civil services, surprising everyone and making all of us very proud. The final stage, the interview, is on April 10. Went out a few days back and bought him clothes to wear for the interview. A pink shirt, red tie, black trousers and brown shoes is what he is going to wear, in spite of his brother & sister-in-law's advice to look sober and serious. Apparently, he wants to be himself. It has worked so far, it should work in the interview as well. Insha Allah.

The baby is extremely active and kicks his/her mom at every opportunity. Sindha says her insides must be black and blue by now. I can also feel the movements very clearly, its as though the kid is practising karate inside. Or maybe trying to bend it like Beckham. Sounds like its more of Sindha's kid than mine. But then it appears to be hungry all the time, so maybe its got quite a bit of me too.

Gave the Palio for its first service today. The dealer I bought the car from - Manx Auto - had closed down, as predicted. Sundaram - the other dealer - will service the car, but they will also charge me for it. I'm supposed to take the bill and the warranty coupon, go to Manx and convince them to reimburse me. Great. On the positive side, the car hasn't given me any trouble so far. Its a great drive and the mileage isn't all that bad - I get about 11 to 12 km in the city, without a/c.

Stephen King's Everything's Eventual sucks. Kichan tells me From a Buick Eight sucks worse. My next book is most likely to be Llosa's Feast of the Goat or Gunter Grass' Tin Drum. Yum !

Played Serious Sam - the Second Encounter on Saturday. Went to the second level after vanquishing the Mayan firegod, Whatshisname. Sam rocks. However I don't like the jumping around and clicking on levers stuff thats been added in the second part. The first episode was a pure shoot-em-up. One of my all time favourite games.

Whats a good program to convert mp3s into .cda format ? I was thinking of burning audio cds from my mp3 collection. Tried out some shareware stuff from the net, didn't like it very much.

B2B

Back from Leh - had a great time. Will put up a detailed post later.

And yes, finally got the Palio - hurrah !! Remind me to tell you the whole story sometime...how I almost went to court and how I was described as a "thorough gentleman" ....

My parents are home for a week, they've brought yummy chips and halwa from Kerala....aaah !

Current book - Candyland by Evan Hunter and Ed McBain

Married again

Sindha is back home. She is right now busy getting the house straightened out, trying to undo three years of bachelorhood. Out go the wine and beer bottles, in come the atta powder, the jeera packets, salt, pepper and garam masala. The kitchen cleanup took all of yesterday and if reports from the eastern front are to be believed, the living room and a bedroom ate up her entire day today.

She plans to start applying once she gets the house back in working condition. Or rather, living condition. Ha ha.

On the rant front, our Palio has not appeared yet. The story put out by the dealer is that Fiat India has recalled all red Palios due to a manufacturing defect. He can oblige us with a silver one. I asked him to give this in writing which was when the call turned ugly. Ultimately, we need to wait till end of the month. *sigh*.

And hey, hats off to the Indian cricket team. Outstanding stuff.

On a rainy evening...

Headed to GRS Water Park (or some such) tomorrow, along with the team from office. This is close to Mysore, so another long bus ride in store. Should be fun, though.

My bike refused to start today morning. Sindha says this will be a thing of the past once we get the Palio. But what if the Palio doesn't start ? I know zilch about cars. I know zilch about anything mechanical in fact. I don't have a black thumb.

Checking hotmail is bliss now that I have filtered out everyone apart from the folks on my address book. And since my address book contains just three addresses, I don't get any mail nowadays. I wonder why e-mail harvesters haven't started on my yahoo id.

Did it !

Yeah, went ahead and paid the advance booking deposit for the Palio. 1.2 ELPS, preferred colour being red and secondary colour silver. The red is more like maroon, its going to match the colour of my Hero Winner.

The negotiations with finance companies never cease. Just when I thought I'd zeroed in on ICICI, I get calls from Citibank and HDFC, both offering better rates. Monday is going to be a bloodbath, when I pit them against each other.

Books and booking

Stopped reading Anil's Ghost, found it very boring. By a strange coincidence, a recent episode of Seinfeld was about The English Patient. I thought both the books (by Michael Ondaatje) were quite overrated. Didn't get around to finishing either.

Started on The Information by Martin Amis. Gave up after a dozen pages. This typically droll modern British writing doesn't do anything for me.

Now I've started reading The True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey, this years Booker winner. Promising beginning, lets see how it shapes up.

And oh, we've decided to go for broke - finalised on the Palio 1.2 ELPS. Currently negotiating with finance companies to get a good deal. Expect delivery only by end June though, as it takes 6-8 weeks after booking.

Current book - True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey

Chennai in the summer...

Had a great weekend. Sindha and her parents were home, so pigged out on food. Checked out a few cars - Santro, Indica and Palio. The dealers actually bring the cars to your house these days, to give you a test drive. Talk about customer delight.

We are trying to chose between the Indica and the Palio. The former is slightly bigger and has a cost advantage of Rs 60,000. However the Palio is classier and appears to have a smoother finish and better engine performance. The mileage is lousy for both the cars, so I'm screwed either way.

My cousin Anu is getting married in June, at Chennai. Everyone is feeling extremely excited. This will be the second marriage in the family since mine five years back. (Has it really been five years ?? Maaan....)

Sindha wont be able to attend, but I am thinking of taking a few days off and be there from the 14th or 15th. Thought - how about driving down ? Heh heh heh....

Current book - Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje

Of nifty tools and cars

Did some TP (time-pass) over this. Couldn't come up with anything very funny, so left it at what you see below.

Sindha and her parents arrive tomorrow. Look forward to eating some home cooked food again ! Yum !

I also plan to start looking out for a car. Narrowed down my choices to:
- Fiat Palio
- Second-hand Esteem
- Tata Indica
- Hyundai Santro

I'd like to arrive at a decision when Sindha is around, so want to finalize at least on the make over the coming weekend. I can worry about the money part the next week !