motorhead

Japan : Through the eyes of a maverick - Part two

2006-08-23T16:56:00.000+08:00

Tokyo for sure is a great city. But I am not out of Thailand yet, and just like the previous part, this story too begins at the Bangkok International airport. The traces of the parallel reality that I was talking about can be found in larger quantities in Bangkok. You begin smelling the Japanese culture from Thailand itself, as you get to see Japanese people in far larger numbers when compared with India.

A room in the Hotel Amari Apartments

I was supposed to stay at the Hotel Amari Apartments in Bangkok, which is directly connected with the airport through a covered overbridge above the road. It’s like the Bangkok Airport’s official hotel. I was not aware of this fact though and ran around the entire airport to enquire about the distance of the hotel and the taxi fare. When I finally managed to reach the check-in counter, one of my fellow journalists (who was supposed to share the room with me) realized that he had lost the hotel vouchers.

These are the regular facilities. If you want to watch movies on the TV, you have to pay extra. A fellow journo committed the mistake and ended up paying 600Baht the following morning

Now comes the interesting part. The hotel vouchers had JAL (Japan Airlines) written over it, and we had visited the airline’s office while still huffing and puffing around to work our way to the Hotel. At the counter was this deific fairy clad in an immaculate black suit to attend to us. She undoubtedly was one of the most beautiful women I had ever witnessed. No, actually she was THE most beautiful woman that I had witnessed. She was not gorgeous or hot or glamorous as one might assume. She was beautiful – in the most dignified, tranquil and innocent ways. I’ve managed to see more beautiful woman after that though, but it’s something that keeps happening to me.

She had this divine aura around her, a spotless fair complexion and skin that appeared to be the richest source of vitamin E on earth, with that alluring tinge of pink to it. Her black eyes twinkled through the golden locks that kissed her face in the most tender way possible. And as she said ‘may I help you’ in that soft, polite, heavenly voice I couldn’t help but stumble for a moment. While Mr Fellow Journalist inquired about the whereabouts of the hotel, I focused my vision onto what I won’t mind calling the human incarnation of the Maserati Quattroporte. Beautiful, subtle, proper, potent, desirable, almost flawless – but not draped in lust and libido.

While she told us the way to the hotel I kept watching her like an owl – mesmerized. We headed for the hotel, and now that I evaluate the proceeding of that day in retrospect, I realise why some people forget or lose things only at certain particular places. The height of selfishness is breached when they don’t even ask for assistance from their friends before heading out to help themselves. I kept hitting the walls of the gallery with my fists till the time I saw the wicked (obviously not) man coming back - grabbing the vouchers in his hand, bearing an ear-to-ear smile.

Other optional facilities include, uh..water!!

In the hotel room, lay a 1-liter bottle of water on the table between the two beds. Thirsty as I was, I grabbed it, and just as I was about to tear the seal off savagely to gulp down the entire contents in one go; I noticed this tag with a scary note over it. ‘Poison’? No. Nobody can force you to drink that bottle of course, so you won’t really mind a bottle of poison in your hotel room as long as it’s free. It said -‘You can buy this item for only 120 Baht (approx Rs150)’. Won’t say any more – every beautiful (or ugly) thing in Thailand is meant to make the tourist shell out some extra bucks of his pocket. Period. And these beautiful things are quite readily available. Read between the lines.

I also noticed a very interesting fact about the Thai women. Their voice is somewhat harsh on the ears, similar to that of Donald Duck, if I had to cite an example. The poor things end up sounding rude to foreigners even if they try their best to sound polite. Some credit goes to their language as well, in which the last syllable is more pronounced and prolonged, making it sound strange to the people who are not accustomed to it. So, while the announcer on the airport tried her best to say ‘Good Morning’ or ‘Afternoon’ or ‘Hi’ or ‘Bye’ in Thai in the politest way, we (yea, I forgave the fellow journo) couldn’t help laughing our pants off. I tried the best I could to stop myself, but I couldn’t. Finally I left Bangkok. (say Phew! All of you!)

The first glimpses of Japland

Narita International Airport - Airline counters

As I came out of the Boeing 747 onto the Narita International Airport, Tokyo, Japan, I realized why they talk about this city and this country so much. The airport has been constructed seamlessly. I won’t blabber about it much though, and let the pictures speak for themselves. What, however, I would like to talk about here is the human face behind that techno-gadgetry and the opulent lifestyle.

Conveyor belts across the entire airport - great aid for the handicapped

Inter-terminal tram to commute between the two terminals

Inside...

Fab body - one of the best I have seen in flesh

I had to wait for an age to pass before I boarded the domestic flight for Obihiro town from the Haneda (Domestic) Airport. Now the Narita Airport is no less than a mega mall, so I opted to have a look around. I don’t exactly know why, but irrespective of where I am in the world, beer bars are built in such a manner that they fall in my way. The Japs too, just like my fellow countrymen conspired against me and I ended up having the taste of a large mug of sparkling golden Japanese beer. Then I had one more of it, and since it was amazingly refreshing and totally different from what we have here in India, I opted for yet another.

A mall that they prefer calling airport

The food that you'll order inside a restaurant is exhibited outside, along with price. The replicas are so unbelievably close to reality that you feel like touching and and making sure that it's dummy and not real food. The food is served in EXACTLY the same manner as exhibited

It was when I thought I’d had enough to keep my sensibilities in place, that I realized that the menus for food, beers & wines and other hard liquor were different. Now I am a curious person, as my parents told me when I was a kid that curiosity is the source of all knowledge. I swear I opened the menu for hard liquor only to have a look, at that time at least. But the thinking man in me told me that it wouldn’t be right if I missed this opportunity to know how these Japanese whiskies tasted. I didn’t want to miss this opportunity to increase my knowledge. Who knows –the aircraft I was about to board might have crashed, or the entire airport might have come crashing down in some time. Knowing that earthquakes are no big deal in Japan, I finally decided that this historical opportunity shouldn’t be missed.

The Japanese conspiracy

I had two large pegs of a Japanese whiskey, the name of which I don’t remember – so I just know the taste and not the name. Which in effect means that while the knowledge in my head still remained as poor as it was before I drank it, I grew rich in terms of dumbness for some time. Under the influence of the patriotic Japanese whiskey, every Jap woman looked like Drew Barrymoore to me, while every Jap guy looked like the Cupid – dressed in diapers and ready to get me smitten with all the babes around with that little bow and those tiny arrows in his hands. I was honestly out of my wits.

Waiting for the beer

Beer....

Jap whiskey....

And then sudenly everything starts appearing creamy and gorgeous :D

The time had ticked by in the meantime and only a few hours were left in my flight from the Haneda Airport, which is about 60-odd km away from the Narita Airport. I went to the foreign exchange counter to get some more Dollars converted into Yen, as the Limousine service that takes you from Narita to Haneda charges 3000 Yen. I got the money exchanged, only to realise in some time that I had forgotten a folder which contained the Hotel vouchers for Bangkok (return journey), some documents and around 200 Dollars in it on the counter. I swore not to drink again, just like I do everytime, and rushed towards the counter –panicking.

Now most Japs (read 99 per cent) don’t know English and they don’t even want to. So I tried to tell the old man on the foreign exchange counter, in sign-language about the folder that I had forgotten (lost) some fifteen minutes ago. He replied by banging the ‘Closed’ plate on the counter window. Obviously, taking care of the idiocies committed by fools like me was not his business. He had more important matters to worry about. Moreover, he was handling such a big exchange counter on an International Airport like Narita all by himself. I rightfully deserved what he did.

But wait – the next thing I see is the same old man coming out of the office and escorting me to the JAL counter. The old man had noticed that I had forgotten the folder; he checked my details on the documents and submitted it to the JAL office, which happened to be the airline for my next flight. The JAL personnel in turn had proactively prepared to send the folder to the JAL personnel at Haneda, from where I had to catch the flight.

I was astonished. Luckily the folder was not dispatched yet and I got it within my grasp at the Narita Airport itself. The most interesting part of the story being, the old man was around me all the time, doing all the talking with the Japs, and acting like the folder was his, not mine. Just think about it – two hundred dollars, ten Grand worth of money in Indian currency. The first thing anyone will do here in India is put the moolah in his pocket and then make sure that the rest of the documents are burnt to ashes or flushed down the drain. Amazing people! And this doesn’t have a thing to do with their development. It is all about their ethics, their culture and their upbringing. And these, according to me are the things that actually make a nation great or respectable in the truest sense.

I had read the story of Swamy Ramteerth’s Japan visit in textbooks when I was a kid, and here was proof that what I was taught was absolutely right. The Japs are the most patriotic people around. More evidence was to come very soon to substantiate the fact further for me.

The old man rushed back to his office the very moment he made sure that I had my belongings with me in right shape. I saw him run away to take care of his duties as I stood there and watched –zonked! The two words ‘thank you’ couldn’t even have half-reach his ears. He didn’t want them either apparently.

The limousine (that’s what they call a bus!) took around 45 minutes to take the entire pack of the Indian journos to the Haneda Airport. The rest of the bunch had joined us at Narita. They had their flight from Delhi via Singapore, so they were a little late. I’ll let the pictures do the talking about the streets of Tokyo, as there wasn’t anything too captivating that I observed. It’s a happening city mind you, just that we were taken through the highway, so we couldn’t witness the clogged streets and the cleavages which are known to be the pride of Tokyo evenings and nights.

There are many such giant wheels in Tokyo. And they are big.....really big!

Tokyo on the streets

The HanedaDomestic Airport from the outside....

And from the inside

The flight took almost an hour before we landed at the outskirts of Obihiro, a small and beautiful town. Obihiro is a cold place but summers were on at this time of the year, and you could manage to roam around in a tee, even at nights. We were driven for 60-odd kilometers again before we hit the downtown Obihiro. I was expecting far more concrete structures on the way than I did, since Japan is one of the most densely populated countries in the world, but all I could see was never ending greens with only some farm-establishments in the name of artificial structures.

This is all the construction you'll ever see, once you hit the highway

The Obihiro railway station - see the flowers in the pots?

The Indian gang

Entering the hotel

Obihiro is like a dreamland –at least for a commoner like me. It’s a small town with wide streets and no traffic at all. It has all the facilities and amenities that a modern town needs to have, there is no pollution and there is no crime. The boulevards are decorated with small flower pots (like the ones you have at home). These flowers also work as dividers on the road, and it’s hard to believe they don’t get trampled even though they are level with the road surface!!! The town is littered with quality restaurants and shopping joints, but I never saw any crowd. I remember the first time I came out of the hotel –the slightly chilly breeze made me reset the definition of the word ‘fresh air’ in my head. The best air-conditioner in the world wouldn’t have matched up.
You have a look at the streets in the night, and there’s hardly anyone – you get into one of the food or entertainment joints and there’s a party going on everywhere. It’s such a nice, beautiful and well equipped place that you at times tend to rub your eyes in disbelief. Life seems to be so worth –living at such places.

That's rush hour in Obihiro - bliss!

A bridge on the way to the town

You visit Obihiro once and you’ll know that while it’s impossible to eradicate the hardships in life, it’s really easy to bring them down drastically if everything is planned properly. And that life can be really exciting in small towns as well, minus the crowd and the rush. I was in my hotel room, when I thought about this, and then suddenly I started thinking about the Mumbai streets –littered with people, pigs and paanwaalas. This country is no less densely populated than mine, and still it’s so much better to live here than back there. Why? I thought, as the tired eyes gave way to sleep.

Thats how the metro-bridge looked like during the day...

And thats how it looked like when darkness fell....from the hotel window

The next part will be about a freak night in Obihiro. About boozing, driving, singing, dancing and making some friends ;)

Japan : Through the eyes of a maverick - Part one

2006-07-28T16:47:00.000+08:00

I was told that I had to go to

Japan

, a month back. Glad I obviously was, but I wasn’t particularly keen on visiting a land which no one told me was interesting or exciting. The perception of the country that I had in my mind was that of a tiny and developed island with automatic (electric and electronic) everything. I visualised button eyed miniscule white geeks whose noses were on the brink of extinction. I was told that all they do is tinker with the keyboard for the whole day, with soldering nano-electronics under a microscope as their favourite pastime. The people who enlightened me about Japan as a country also revealed that producing those super fast machines needed a degree of clinical commitment, and while riding/driving them might be an interesting affair, the people responsible for producing them are extremely dull and boring.

Perceptions, however, are much different from the truths of this world, and I was soon to discover a parallel reality. All the apprehensions were to be melted into nothingness and I was soon to witness the most wonderful and the most remarkable human beings alive on planet earth. I realized that the idea of having a completely mechanised world with a human face is not a farce. I discovered that machines don’t essentially kill sentiments and electronics don’t have anything to do with the dignity of labour. It was an incredible universe out there, surreal, unrealistic and just too rosy to be true. It did exist though, and I found that a world which we Indians would so love to be a part of, maybe after some centuries, does exist in today’s date.

Here then, I have for you a phased description and visualization of whatever I got to see, live and experience. I’ll keep posting about the extraordinary things that I came across, and how it helped me grow astonishingly - both as an individual and as a professional in a mere span of six days. Hope you like and enjoy it…

A COUNTRY INTRODUCING ITSELF – THE PARADOX

Bangkok International Airport, Air-India’s flight lands onto the strip, the five over-enthusuastic Punjabi youngsters stand up and start taking down their luggage from the overhead luggage compartments, even as Captain Ranvir keeps requesting the passengers to not to do so. They are somewhat tired. It’s been an exhausting journey for them. They have drained themselves out of the last Joule of energy left in their bodies in making sure that every single person in the plane has pathetic stories to tell to his people about Indians once he reaches his own land. Lessons in indecency have been imparted to everyone aboard. Snide remarks in the loudest voice possible have been passed onto everyone who apparently didn’t understand Hindi and Punjabi. While the tiny Jap who sat beside them had to bear it all in his face, the two German girls who were sitting behind were lucky, as it was not so easy for the hunks to stand up, turn behind and bring some more shame to their country. They made sure that their journey was as adventurous as it ever could be, by doing (or at least trying to do) everything that was prohibited in the safety manual. They reclined their seats at take-off, used digital cameras and mobile phones at critical junctures, shouted aloud and argued with the air hostesses at the drop of a hat. Everyone else, however, maintained a dignified silence, while our Punjabi Mundas kept rocking the floor, stamping the seal of their machogiri over everyone else in the flight. An illiterate, derisive laugh for one of the lady officials at the Bangkok airport, and their job was done. They had clicked and distributed the dirtiest picture of their country across the world. They made sure that we Indians have even more problems in attaining Visas for any country and they are treated with even more disrespect the world over henceforth.

Bangkok International Airport : It's Thailand slightly disguised

The air-hostesses too, on their part were not to be left behind. From throwing the food (plates) onto the retractable table rather than serving it, to sneering upon the innocuous Indian guy who unknowingly stuck his leg out of his seat while being asleep. They even called him an idiot! These women acted like how the wife of a minister in the Central Cabinet would if told to serve passengers in an airline. Apparently, what they were doing was too demeaning for their high stature. Wonder why they chose this profession if they had such swollen egos. There was a clear hint of pretentiousness in that doctored smile. It appeared as if it was a veneer to shroud the contempt within, there wasn’t the slightest hint of friendliness or intent to assist. The passenger, on his end, doesn’t feel happy or content for being served, he instead feels guilty for corrupting the dignity of the noble ladies.

The facilities at the Bangkok International Airport are pretty much in line with the best in the world. Made me feel bad though, as we are a bigger economy and the government could definitely do better

I was so ashamed by the time I got off the plane that I can shamelessly admit now that I was. You could see the disappointment and anger in the eyes of the fellow passengers, especially foreigners, and you just have to admit that they’re properly justified in looking down upon us, since what has just happened is plain pitiful, simply pathetic.

From Bangkok, I had to change flight. JAL (Japan Airlines) flight 710 (I guess) was supposed to be the next plane for the rest of the journey. The transition in treatment and the level of professionalism was apparent from the very moment I presented my boarding pass to the personnel at the boarding gate. Genial smiles, thoroughly genuine, on the faces of people who actually, authentically want to assist you, make you feel comfortable from the very first moment.

A Boeing 747

A trijet plane with one of the jets on the tail at the Bangkok Inetrnational Airport

It was a technological shock that I withstood the moment I stepped into the plane, no, even before that actually. It was a Boeing 747 – and I hadn’t seen a moving piece of machinery so gargantuan in my entire life. Other planes like the one that carried me from Mumbai to Thailand lay scattered in the field around it like toys. Inside, it was expansive, tastefully lit, and equipped with features in the economy class which are absent in the business class of India’s national air-carrier. You could choose to watch a movie on the LCD screen from a list of around 300 choices, listen to a wide variety of songs, watch how the world looks like from the plane through an on board camera located outside, track your journey with detailed mapping, play games, use the remote as a phone, call the hostess, buy jewellery and do scores of other things. The plane that took me to Thailand, in contrast, just headphones to listen to music, the only glitch being, there wasn’t any music to listen to. These headphones were some sidey make with the cheap quality of materials easily perceptible – the ones on JAL flight, however, were SONY. Bewildering enough for a newbie like me.

You feel snugly cossetted and properly served in most international airliners. The picture is that of the economy class of JAL. IA and AI flights simply dont match up.

The route tracker : Outside temperature, altitude, distance, time, maps....you just have to ask for some info, and you have it at hand.

There was a dignified silence in the plane; except for the occasional, careful whispers, I couldn’t hear a word. There weren’t any naively amplified laughs or inconsiderately high decibel conversations. The air-hostesses kept visiting every ten minutes, repeatedly asking for how they could assist me. Even when they know very little or no English, the communication barrage never translates into the slightest hint of frown on their face. They’ll refuse to buzz off till the time they’ve made sure that you are happy and content. They’re young, pretty and polite - unlike the middle-aged, emotion-proof and almost deaf hostesses on Indian planes who more often than not appear to be sleepwalking. With the Japs, you could see that there is an intention to serve, an inherent urge to prove that the money that’s being paid to them is worth every Yen of it, unlike the Rupee that gets mercilessly wasted. You have an assortment of wines, beers, soft drinks, crackers, snacks and meals to choose from and the crew will insist you have it, to drive away any inhibitions that you might have breeding in your head.

While I prayed for the plane to land down as early as possible for the time I was in the AI carrier, I wanted the journey to last forever while being aboard the JAL aircraft. Honestly, had I been from a neutral country, I would have loathed India like a scary nightmare and would have vowed never to try set foot again in the country. I am so sorry and ashamed to say that, but that’s exactly the way I felt.

Airports are the face of a country – to a foreign traveller who’s on the airport only for transit, airports represents the whole of the nation; and this fact becomes so very palpable when you travel abroad. All the impressions about a country that a transit foreigner takes home have their roots connected with the airport in some way or the other. From the way the officials and the people behave with you to the cleanliness and the facilities, every single thing paints a picture of how good or bad you are as a nation. Going by that yardstick, the state of the Indian Airports is pathetic. The official at the customs told me to not to declare any possessions since it meant more trouble and work for him. He even sneered at me when I took a little long in filling the form. The security officers almost snatched the bag from my hand to check what was inside while the immigration officials seemed utterly uninterested and uneducated by the way they talked.

The road under the bridge that connects the airport with Hotel Amari Apartment. Tourists are insulated from the harsher realities.

A railway station under the same bridge.

Bangkok as a country-on the streets that is, might be as backward or as pathetic as India, but tourism is a big industry, and these guys have made sure that their airports at least are in line with the best in the world. The facilities are A-class and all the officers talk with you in a thoroughly professional and polite manner. On the streets it might be as nightmarish as our own country, but then, transit passengers are bound to take home a very good impression. Till the time I got out of the airport (which happened on my way back), even I had an immaculate impression about Thailand. Obviously, the airport was Thailand for me.

And this, my friends is Thailand on streets - looks much like India eh?

Talking of two-wheelers, Thailand is primarily a scooter and step-through market. These things look puny, but are packed with technology. For valved engines (which are yet to be seen in India) coupled with ultra-slim tyres mean that these puny-looking things go like a stink in a straight line!!!

Tokyo is leagues apart - an exponent of foolproof systemization. A miracle realized by man. More on it, however, in the next post…

Jaipur and its motoring Janta

2006-07-22T19:06:00.000+08:00

If ‘Pulsarasm’ like orgasm - was a word in a dictionary, it surely would have meant ‘a state of mind where one strongly believes that anything in name of Splendor, Passion and Glamour is a mirage, a non-entity’. Sad that the word does not exist, it’s gladdening that the state of mind definitely does for some. You’ll find a thousand youngsters vrooming around in Jaipur streets, having defied their father’s insistence to go for a 100cc trundler and opting for a proper bike. People riding econo-misers are either uncles with punctured mouths having a set of dentures to puff things up, or they are the modern day 'Forrest Gumps' whose mom told them that ‘Life is like a Hero Honda CD 100, you should never expect anything above 80 Kmph or anything less that 70 Kmpl until you die’.

This common bunch of mortals also includes the relatively prosperous farmers belonging to rural areas around Jaipur who still don’t have a clue about what the word ‘motorcycle’ means. They simply want a ‘Hero Honda’ as a dowry-item for their son’s marriage. One must pay a visit to this small village called Bassi near Jaipur, where every bike is called Hero Honda irrespective of its make or size, and booking a Hero Honda on the engagement eve is simple indispensable.

Jokes apart, every bike has its own set of virtues and vices, but the youth of Jaipur has a great penchant for speed and power and bikes like the Pulsar have been instrumental in providing them with the required arsenal. However, I feel sorry for these youngsters who’re muddled in their mind as to what to do with this newfound passion of theirs. There’s nothing much on offer for the enthusiasts in the cty except some sidey biking clubs. All they do therefore is to twitch their way dangerously through the traffic at high speeds, or race around big round-abouts like the Statue Circle to land their own as well as other commuters’ life in serious jeopardy. An over-spirited exhibition of not-so-honed skills therefore often results in broken legs and busted heads.

Interestingly, helmets are a compulsion in Jaipur. However, young revolutionaries with pretty faces and bulging biceps have declared a war on the unjust governance which’s told them to put their lids on whenever they ride. They have transformed themselves into a band of outlaws who are on a mission against this barbaric government that has deprived them of showing their beautiful faces to the fairer sex. They don’t mind treading narrow, crowded, stinky and potholed streets, or hiding behind smoke spewing trucks and buses, or halting 200 meters before the red traffic light to beat the vigilant cops, but helmet is not to be worn. End of discussion. Shelling out a couple of hundred bucks to the policewallah or a trip to the local court is a price too low they pay to celebrate their freedom.

The streets in the city are well levelled and neatly finished. There isn’t much for the hardcore throttle-basher who likes to bend it like Rossi, but just step your foot out of the urban jungle and you come across a sidewinder of a snake in tarmac. Leave for New Delhi without taking the bypass and take the first left as soon as you start your ascent in the Amber valley. What you’ll come across is what we Jaipurites call ‘Motorcycling Nirvana’, a poem written in coal tar, sheer bliss for the two-wheeled petrol head.

The road to Nahargarh Fort

Start devouring this 9 km long feast and once you’re done, you are sure to be baffled for a couple of days about what was more fun - getting up, or rolling down. Riding an RD350, or Karizma or a Pulsar 180 on these yummy switchbacks is perhaps the most ecstatic experience that a middle-class motorhead may ever have. One needs to be born and brought up in the city to know what it feels like being with your friends on Nahargarh on a rainy day, with a bottle or two of beer. Jalmahal, the old palace surrounded by a beautiful lake, now reduced to rubbles, sets the picture right in the distance for you to savour the spirits in the best of err - spirits.

The JalMahal Palace

Though average performance bikes like Pulsars, Karizmas and Fieros are visible aplenty on city streets, absence of other big and classy bikes of global repute often leads to a sore heart. I still remember the chaos that ensued when the Yamaha Drag Star was launched in India and was put on display at one of the company’s showrooms. People wanted to get inside the showroom and have look at the bike, no matter whether there was space inside or not. For the week that the bike was on display, the staff at the showroom talked to thousands of ‘prospective customers’ who were interested in and admired the beautiful bike. The company, however didn’t manage to sell even a single machine. No wonder, I haven’t been able to spot anything worth description except a Honda CBR 1000 Fireblade, a couple of RD350s, some old BSAs, and a Harley Davidson Fatboy for the 22 years I have spent in the city. Sometimes, you may also come across the ‘Saahas’ guys riding their dirt bikes on road, but more or less, this is all the spectacular stuff that you get to see on two wheels.

Humdrum though, is not the only word that describes motoring in Jaipur. The moment your focus turns to four wheels from two, the state of affairs changes drastically. X -series or 7-series Beemers, Porsche 911 or Cayenne, S-class Mercs or astonishing Astons of yore - you name it and there’s a good chance that you might spot it. Once it gets late in the night and the cream of the city populace pours on to the city streets, it's time for all the car aficionados to draw their binoculars out and get ready. The stars from the sky step down to grace the roads in their respective exotics so as to tickle their taste buds at the famous paan-joints of the conurbation. You could have a look at these beauties which otherwise are seen in motion only on TV or in car flicks. You may pose against them or perhaps even touch them if the owner doesn’t have a problem. Besides, don’t be too surprised if you spot one of the paanwalas stepping out from one of those exotics. Known for having varieties of paans that may cost as much as a thousand bucks apiece, these Paan shop owners are no less opulent than their customers.

Talk about cars, and the city doesn’t stutter behind anywhere. Several times in the year, the rich collection of city’s vintage and classic cars is exhibited to present a grand salute to the old times. From Studebakers to Buicks to the grand old grannies of modern day Mercs, you’ll find most of those gracefully aged beauties that you ever wanted to see. All of them in an immaculate state of being. And when these cars line up to pose against historical monuments like the Albert hall museum, the hearts of people like me start pounding with pride and respect for this royal, classic, opulent and yet so humble city called Jaipur.

The Albert Hall Museum

S for Smitten

2006-07-22T16:06:00.000+08:00

The E-Class, the Audi A4 and the C-class - luxurious, expensive and feature packed. Known to be good cars, all of them. It’s a different experience they say to get your hands behind the wheel of one of them. My personal thoughts were different though. A drive in a ubiquitous Honda City VTEC was as fortifying, both as a driver and a passenger, as it was in a much coveted and hyped Audi A4 - perhaps even more as a driver. As a passenger too, I never felt too cocooned for hefty price tags of the luxo-barges to be justified.

I therefore had my own set of apprehensions before I entered the so called ‘best car in the world’. I gave it a good look all around. I figured that it’s enormous, but it’s moulded in such a manner that it very subtly conceals the fact till the time you get really close. As I got in and dug myself into the wide, plush, perforated beige leather seats, I wasn’t expecting anything out of the world. I had been betrayed by the Germans a couple of times earlier, and I wasn’t to be trapped this time around.

Look at the central console and you won’t witness a thing that shouts aloud of being a part of a car that spells opulence. It’s plain, simple, uncluttered – neat and sophisticated. There is an element of class, grace and dignity about it. While the dashes and central consoles of all the other ‘Classes’ and the ‘4s’ and the ‘6s’ of the world have the maximum possible buttons peppered liberally onto them, this one scares you. For once you start thinking whether you have been fooled, as there barely are any buttons. The central console comprises only of a big screen with a row of 9 silver coloured buttons under it with a round knob protruding under the armrest. That’s it. Genuine hand-stitched leather over the instrumentation cluster blends seamlessly with every other component of the interiors. It’s an airy, comfortable, friendly place to be in which lets you breathe. It’s very unlike the wannabes which attempt to match up in vain, ending up intimidating you. You don’t have to be scared before you press a button just because you are sitting in the world’s best car. The technology is there, and it works in the most understated manner possible. You don’t have to press any buttons since most things get to work automatically when required, you just have to sit back and enjoy your lucky self. The gates will be sucked in, if you forgot to close them in properly with a thud, the vipers will get to work the moment the first drop of rain hits the windscreen, head lights will turn on by themselves much before it actually gets dark enough to get dangerous to drive.

When you buy an S-class, you don’t have to worry about the features. If there’s a critical safety or stability feature, you just know that it’s installed somewhere under the bonnet, between the door walls, below the floor or somewhere in the boot. It’s equipped with electric everything - from the moonroof to the rear window blinds to the RVMs to everything that needs to be that way. The OE list of this car is as liberal and contemporary as it gets, and if you want to have a peek into the future, you have an endless list of incredible options to both amaze and impoverish you. In a nutshell, there doesn’t remain any ambiguity about the fact that the future of the automobile starts from the options list of the Mercedes Benz S-class.

The S-class, as I reckon then is a class act. It won’t ever try to impress you from the moment you get in - it rather grows onto you - slowly and delicately. From the air suspension that cuts you off entirely from the jarring realities of the world, to the wide, supremely comfortable seats which can be warmed or cooled at your will, to the amazingly easy to operate COMAND (Cockpit Management and Navigation Display) system that needs you to be just English-literate to operate it, this car cossets you, pampers you, spoils you without you having to ask for it. It gives you a reason to fall in love with it every time you demand something of it.

While I had my own set of apprehensions while I got in the car, I was completely smitten by the time I stepped out. The hair on my arms bristled up for the first time in my one-year stint as a motoring journo. There isn’t an atom of doubt in my mind that if I had the money, this would be the car that I would buy for a day when I was not in a mood or situation to drive - for there couldn’t be a better place to be in on four wheels for the money.

A virgin beach and a vagabond

2006-01-05T14:11:00.000+08:00

The New Year’s Eve, friends planning different things and inviting you to join in. A lame excuse like you don’t have time doesn’t work and the activities that they are too excited about to pursue don’t interest you at all. You want to hit a virgin beach and there is none in sight close enough for the time allowed. Enter Arnob, the man who know places which people have never heard of like the lanes of his muhallah. Guhagar is the name he utters and I do have some reasons to trust him.

The only long-termer kitted with disks on avail is the Yamaha Fazer, not a very lip smacking option but definitely better than the alternatives that begin with the letters CD and CT. Tank the thing up, put a tank bag over it with a pair of jeans, a couple of t-shirts and a toothbrush inside, and you’re ready to go.

Now any trip from Pune via road is bound to start on a disappointing note. The traffic would make you feel that you’ll never get out of it and even if you are the more optimistic kinds, the trenches in the road will make you feel as if there’s a war going on. You’ll shudder to hit the highway as the enemy planes can hit you far more easily in the open. Quite seriously, you don’t really understand what degree of danger are you subjecting your poor little self before you actually hit the so called highway. That’s because as soon as you leave the city, a small ghat section greets you which doesn’t have even a single square meter of road without a pothole. You can’t ride slow on these roads, because if you try to, you’ll land into one of the innumerable craters, disappear and would never come out. So you actually have to ride extremely slow.

The suffering doesn’t last for long though and after some 20-odd kilometres you suddenly realize that there is a wide grin on your face when you see the wide, smooth road ahead of you. Illusion I prefer calling it, and it could turn out to be a fatal one if one just gets too happy and goes the ballistic way. What may look like roads to you are just strips, stretches and patches that lead to death. Complimented with the trenches they render our country perfectly ready for a war. Try hitting 100 on them and you end up hitting your head on the road, as one side of the road invariably keeps ending abruptly without any warning whatsoever. I knew the fact as I had been on the stretch earlier. Anything for my country though.

Broad, wide roads are a curse for an enthusiastic biker. They are, at least for me. They don’t ever offer any challenge to you and you cannot but feel frustrated when someone on a bigger capacity machine whizzes past you looking at you as if you don’t deserve to live. My miseries ended after thirty kilometres though when I took a right to the narrower, windier and more rustic road to Mahad through Bhor village.

The drive after Bhor upto Mahar is a treat for a biker who wishes to put his riding skills to test. The seventy kilometer stretch has a never ending array of sharp turns and a yummy feast of uphill and downhill sections that only the ghats could offer. The road was tattered, not to my disappointment as I never expected anything better for my own good. But an amazingly blue and large lake, and a particularly pleasing weather that accompanied me on the stretch ensured that I enjoyed every nanometer of the ride for the entire seventy kilometres. The road was in bad shape, but even the rough had an element of predictability and homogeneity about it. There’s no loose gravel on the surface, so you could actually perform some antics without much possibility of having to see an orthopaedician who isn’t available in a radius of 50 kilometres. Now Fazer is a pretty sad bike for someone who’s used to Karizmas and Pulsars, and there is no way you could enjoy riding such roads on it in the fourth gear, I wonder if I shifted to fourth even once for the entire stretch. You have to ride in third, look at the coming corner with that wicked smile on your face, lean, shift into second and feel the rear sliding out. Since there is no gravel, it sticks and you realize that you are perfectly pointed now to make an exit, so you open the throttle fully and pull out, ready to do it all over again as the next corner is right there in sight. The speed keeps adding on and so does your belief that you could do it even better. It’s an ecstatic feeling keeping the bike in the power band for seventy full kilometres and not giving the engine a moment to relax. Try this stretch if you know what I mean, you’ll get enough dose of your dopamine with any 100cc trundler that you have on avail.

Once I hit Mahad, I happened to hit the Mumbai-Goa highway as well, which meant that I had entered into the boring zone. The cynic in me kept cursing the government for making such a smooth, straight and wide road till I reached Chiplun, where I had to turn right. The road ahead was pretty smooth, and windy but since the darkness had embraced everything I decided to preserve my hooliganism for the day.

It’s a 40 kilometre ride from Chiplun to Guhagar, which didn’t take much time. I reached the town and looked for accommodation. The night being the New Year’s Eve, everything was booked. I found a place for myself though after trying a bit, and for a price that I could never have believed, and which I prefer to keep to myself lest you think of me as a cheapskate.

I didn’t wait much before I hit the beach. And I must say, the number of people around, particularly for a New Year’s Eve deemed the place as virgin as a beach in India could ever get. There was group of local men clad in lungis dancing to the tunes of Kajara Re near the chaupati on one side, while the other half had some twenty people who belonged to a more restrained category and were there just to enjoy the serene evening. I spotted a group of five Australian students, with three guys and two girls and promptly joined them after a short introduction. The next five hours I spent on the beach eating, dancing and drinking. They were shooting with their own camera, which was far more advanced than the one I had and which doesn’t produce too good a result in the night. We had decided to share the photographs at some cyber café on the next morning. But as we were drunk, we didn’t have the wits to figure out that this was a remote town, at least 200 kms from the nearest big city and to expect a computer, forget Internet was being an optimist of the nth order. Obviously I never got the photographs that I would have loved to keep with me.

The following day I took to the beach on the bike, and boy, was it fun. The beach stretches for around 6-odd kilometres and the experience of riding a bike on the soft sand is something totally different. You have to be some 15 to 20 metres away from the point where the water last hits the shore and you’ll be almost as good as being on a tough tar surface. Stray more than five metres to your left or right and you could clearly hear the engine dying down, as the tyres dig down into the soggy and dry sand on your right and left respectively, if you have your right towards the sea that is. I rode some fifteen times across the beach and never found myself satisfied. I was looking forward to my sixteenth trip when I stopped to make doughnuts. And trust me, there isn’t anything more fun than sliding the rear wheels, kicking sand violently off them and still not having to put your legs down for support. The best part being, you never have to worry about falling down, as you would stand up again and start sliding even if you landed on your chin. The time I had was a blast and I left endless circles and slidemarks on the beach before I gave in to hunger.

The seafood was exotic, delicious and above all, cheap. I ate like a Bull and swallowed six Surmai fish as a snack, and ended up paying not a penny more than 200 bucks. Bring me the people who want to be at Goa on their next New Year’s.

I did whatever I could with the beach and the bike while also giving myself time to get wet into the sea and being laughed upon by an eleven year old kid who made out at once that I didn’t know how to swim. I also visited the beleaguered Enron Power Project which is in the process of revival, being undertaken by NTPC and GAIL now. I wasn’t allowed in, but the view from outside gave me a fair idea of why there was such song and dance about the project in the parliament. Further ahead, I met a river which was peppered with countless number of boats. It might be a common sight for the residents of coastal areas, but for someone like me who belongs to the drought stricken land of Rajasthan, it is something that is good enough to leave you gasping in awe.

After a day and a half of unprecedented fun, it was time for me to head back. In a quest to see more, I took the route through Poladpur, Mahabaleshwar and Panchgani. On my way back, I met this black Nepalese guy on a paragliding peak. His name was Ram Bahadur and he offered me this strange looking little thing for 180 rupees. Not interested, I declined. He put one of those bean-like things in one of my palms, told me close the fist and asked me to rub my other palm wherever I liked. He said it was musk. I rubbed it at a couple of places, and every single place where I rubbed my palm - from the bike’s handlebar, to the camera bag and even the seat under my bum smelled fantastically. I negotiated for 30 rupees a piece and I still have the woody bean with me. It is as devoid of fragrance now as a piece of wood could ever be, but I still keep rubbing it around hoping I was not fooled. Actually I know I was not, as the memories of the trip that it brings across are worth much, much more.

Love at first ride

2005-12-07T13:46:00.000+08:00

The work that a biker has to do in the office is like eating broth. You never want to eat it unless you are ill. But you don’t really have any option since the doctor has ordered you to do so and your mama stands right above your head to make sure that you finish the plate completely. While your mommy would settle after mumbling for some time and maybe complaining your dad, your boss won’t mind landing his Bata on your behind to see you flying off the window if you didn’t finish the project report which was meant to be sent to god-knows-who. That makes even an easily pursuable and economical passion like biking look like a candy for a five year old. He knows it lies right there above the cupboard, but won’t dare use the stool and climb up to eat it, since mum would find out anyways, and the pain that follows a tight slap is incomparably more than the taste of a candy. Now when you have the Bossy analogue of mum around, with a Veerappan moustache and a fat belly, with forearms good enough to render him fit for a weightlifting championship and a Mogambo voice, you never even think about being a kid and stealing the sweet thing.

Sometimes it happens though that there is a celebration, and the kid is allowed to eat as much as he wants. The advertisements of Pepsodent and the disgustingly ugly looking germs which would unfailingly attack the teeth and eat them up overnight are ignored for a while and the child is treated like a king. Working bikers like calling that day a ‘Weekend’. On that festive occasion, the road is like a tubful of candies and the five year kid aka us cuts loose on the sumptuous feast.

It was one such weekend, and I hadn’t slept for the entire night in anticipation. This dates back to the time when I was new to Pune and didn’t have a clue that this city had a variety of steaming hot barbeque for the wheels of my bike. All they needed to devour it was to travel 60-70 kms, in any direction they wanted to. I am not sure whether I would have lived for the next day had I known these facts at that point in time. I definitely lived then, and from what the chowkidar of my building had to say, I looked like what Shakti Kapoor looks like when he is left all alone with Lalita in an abandoned house. I fathom he must have seen the glimpse of the villain in me as I approached the bike, rubbing my hands in anticipation with a broad, wicked smile of my face.

It’s clinically proven now that the size of my brain is exactly equal to that of a pea. It’s been six months since I came to this city and I still don’t remember any other way except the one from the office to my home. To make things worse, I’ve heard that the pedestrians, bikers, rikshawalas, drivers and the likes in Pune these days are especially wary of a guy who usually rides a Fiero, wears a chequered helmet and doesn’t know Marathi. He is reported to stop them in the middle of the road. He starts by inquiring about the way to someplace and then keeps asking weird questions the answers to which have either been given already or the answers to which don’t exist at all. He keeps torturing, tormenting and emotionally blackmailing them until they faint or run away. So, you know, these days it takes me nearly triple the earlier, usual time for reaching one point to another. All because of a psychotic dunderhead. I don’t even know why my colleagues start fearfully running around in the office, grumbling nonsense the moment I ask them the way to a landmark in the city.

I started off to nowhere that day. Somebody told me that Paud was a nice place to visit as it had plenty of waterfalls and there was a nice, winding road that led to the spot. I was surprised by the fact that it took me just two hours to come out of the city and find the road that led straight to the place. My brain was seriously outperforming that day. I am not sure, it might just have been the result of the excessive anxiety that I had to endure the previous night.

I cannot just stop telling you how much I loved the place once I reached there. I never knew that Pune would be so beautiful. I never knew that the opportunities to scrape footpegs could be so plentiful. I never knew that i would fall for this city at the very first ride

Haria's Story

2005-11-30T22:52:00.000+08:00

Haria stands silently near the Ganesh temple. He is purposefully clad in the dirtiest and the most tattered clothes in the world. His filthy and wounded hands in conjunction with his robe produce disgust which force the bikers on the red light to pop out some coins. They do it before he touches them and lends them the fatal infection which would render them lifeless in no time. Haria is jealous of Pappu though. The moment he throws the remnants of his amputated arm towards someone, he shrieks in horror and shoos him away by giving him whatever he has in his pocket. People like Pappu make Haria wonder as to how lucky people could ever get in their life.

I know you must be wondering about the particulars of Haria and what you have to do with such a disgustingly wicked creature. Well, nobody actually knows anything about his father. The identity of his father is a raging controversy among the shopkeepers surrounding the temple. The owners of prasad shops think that he is an offspring of Jaggu Bhikhari who used to keep his mother along with him in the city corporation’s unused sewage pipe. Before he was killed and thrown in the gutter by the policewallahs of course. He had committed the crime of not paying the weekly security charges to them and went pretty vocal with them on the issue.

The flower vendors on the other side of the market, however, have different views. They are quite sure that Haria is not Jaggu’s son. Haria’s mother was taken several times to the police station at late hours in the night after the incident. The Sipahis and the incharge are the more logical probables for them. This uncertainty about Haria’s origin had, at one time, led to another serious ambiguity, as nobody knew what to call him. While some called him ‘H******’ others differed by calling him ‘Bh****’. There were other adjectives also, which he was offered to adorn permanently, but before he grew intelligent enough to make a choice, his mother interfered quickly to give him his proper name.

Haria is a professional. Ever since he started walking, he was taught how to sift through the waiting traffic to ask for alms. He is pretty adept at his job. His height is around 3 feet, which puts his field of vision is exactly in line with the commuters’ pockets. This helps. He could easily make his choice among the scores of prospects which he is supposed to interact with. Very professionally, he makes his choice. He draws close and puts his gammy hand in front of the riders, acting as if he was going to touch them. Once the rider reaches a sickened state of mind, he tries to reach out for some exposed part of his body. Most of the times, Haria immediately gets a coin or two from the frightened rider, but in case it doesn’t happen, he quickly switches on to another prospect without wasting any time. He doesn’t even approach cars as he has been told that it won’t be as rewarding since he won’t be able to intimidate the passengers through the glass of side windows.

Haria has grown up among a jungle of steel rims and rubber tyres. Nothing on the road could ever hit him. The live things which fall at the altitude of his vision are usually hips and bellies. Fat bellies, slim bellies, normal bellies, abnormal bellies, male bellies, female bellies, bellies that are full, bellies which are suffering with constipation, bellies with non-vegetarian food inside, bellies with ice-cream inside, bellies that are never full, bellies that could never be filled. There are all the types of bellies in his view. None of the bellies is like his though. In fact it’s hard to make out whether he has actually has a belly. It’s so small and slim that people sometimes think of him as an alien and give him the money even before he extends his arm.

Haria starts off from one side of the road as the red light turns on, with a perfect ticker running above his shoulder. He exploits innocent people with his wicked idea of earning money and then hits the footpath on the other side of the road exactly before the light turns green. He has never failed at doing that, because he knows that the day he does, he would be history, just like his closest friend Ballu.

Ballu actually had the advantage of not having a leg. One of the times Ballu got trapped for a bait of 5 rupees. He waited for the money as the plump, fat, red and kind youngster struggled to take the currency note out from his front pocket even when the lights had turned green. Though the money involved justified the risk taken, Ballu, with just one leg, wasn’t as quick as most of the vehicles on the road. Ever since the incident happened, Haria is particularly conscious of his timing on the road.

On the other side of the road, there is a chat shop. It’s embellished with all sorts of fruits and other tongue tickling delicacies. As evening draws, tastefully dressed, overly pleasant smelling people huddle around it. This used to be the spot for Haria and Ballu in their good times for some of the most enjoyable feasts of their life. People who came to this stall were especially kind. They threw paper plates of chat in dustbins without licking it even once. Both friends shared the best times of their lives near the dustbin, licking plates which tasted so good that one wouldn’t have minded dying if he got to eat a full plate.

When Ballu was alive, he told Haria that he once found a completely uneaten plate of Bhel Puri in one of the dustbins. In the first instance, Haria didn’t believe him. “C****** banata hai sssala”, he had exclaimed. He was quite logical in not believing Ballu. How on earth could someone throw a full plate of Bhel Puri in a dustbin? But once Haria realized that Ballu had actually managed to get lucky, he didn’t talk with him for two full days. He resumed talking with Ballu only when he promised that if he finds something as good, he would share it with Haria.

The fun that the two guys had together, however, didn’t last for long. One day Haria’s maa spotted him licking plates near a dustbin. For her, this was totally unacceptable. She held Haria by his hair and dragged him right till the sewage pipe, their home. There she slapped her continuously for half an hour till the time he understood that it was suicidal to be so unprofessional. For his mother, she luckily caught him in time. Had he continued with what he was doing for some more days, he would have started looking normal in size. In Haria’s profession, size and state have serious implications on your daily collections.

Haria’s mother is especially particular about the daily collections of her son. She is not as practical as some of her other counterparts. She doesn’t want Haria’s hand to be severed if the collections fall below a certain limit. Nobody understands why she doesn’t want that to happen even when the earnings simply double after it happens. Even though Haria has been pretty strong on the collection charts so far, she doesn’t want to take any chances.

Haria keeps working day in day out. His mother, however doesn’t even rest in the night. Haria simply doesn’t understand where she goes with so many people every evening. He finds her sleeping by his side in the morning though. He doesn’t even bother anymore as he is accustomed this practice now.

With every passing day, Haria’s complexion turns even darker than the day before. With every passing day, his belly turns slimmer. With every passing day the wound in his hand gets pulpier. With every passing day his eyes protrude out one more nanometer, the layer of skin over his ribs gets thinner. And still, surprisingly Haria lives to see another day and goes through the entire scheme of transformations all over again. It’s no big feat though.

Lakhs of Harias are produced everyday. People like you and me who are not Harias exist only in residual proportions. These Harias continuously, untiringly wait on the roadside for the light to turn red. They know the art of doing nothing perfectly. Those who are not as perfect get trampled, beaten or are thrown in a gutter. Those who survive to suffer become a vote. The production of such Harias is always encouraged. They play a vital role in country’s development by helping the greatest leaders in finding a chair for themselves. Even the thoughts of forcing a law on family planning are hushed.

To get through the never-ending traffic and ever-demanding Harias is a must for every living Indian now. We now honk horns, eat smoke, get frustrated and shake our heads in disgust at places where we used to test the top speeds of our bikes. Some Harias turn criminals too. It’s always better to bear the batons of policaewallahs as they are later followed by free chapattis with dal.

Are we in any way responsible for the production and proliferation of Harias? Ideally we should all ponder. We never give it a thought though, because we are not the ones who are concerned. It’s the government’s job.

Government, which loves Harias, as they keep it in power. Power, which everybody wants. Now who is more ignorant, the government, Haria, or us? You tell me.

CRazy Devil from LML, good power, no leash!

2005-10-16T01:17:00.000+08:00

What do you expect an enthusiast to do if you tag him as a motoring journo and then make him buy pens, crank the generator, carry computer cartons and hang around cars and bikes without being able to touch them. This! Exactly what you see in these pictures, the very day he gets to put his hands on a driving machine. The poor thing was a 100 cc bike which I had picked up from the LML warehouse, some 20 Kms away from Pune.

The moment I saw it, I thought LML was done for. A pitiful, powerless skinny little bike with fairing, in the land where mortal battles are fought between the likes of Hero Honda and Bajaj? From a manufacturer like LML? Holy shit! Sounds like having lost all your money in a casino, having borrowed more, lost more and getting drunk finally to lose sense before being reduced to pulp by the bouncers. When would these idiots get logical and come out of their 100cc realm which forms their entire galaxy. Peabrains, wags, dunderheads, asses, fools, buffoons… the adjectives went on for some fifteen more minutes until I placed myself on my good old Suzuki Fiero and whizzed past the pathetic thing. Poor Bunny Punia who rode it back to Pune was seen losing himself in the distance when I tried to spot him in the rear view mirrors.

But I had to wait for him, the bike was a responsibility for both of us, and it wouldn’t just have been right had I zipped all the way back home. So I lit a cigarette and waited for him. The disgusting machine was seen crawling its way towards me after some 7 months and 25 days when I had already finished smoking two cigarettes. Just the way I expected, he began telling me about my responsibilities, a technique to smoothen engine parts called running-in and sensibilities that needed to be practiced while riding a new bike. I listened all what he had to say and told him to lead. It’s a different matter altogether that after some five-odd kilometers, he was seen monkeying around in the abundant potholes, no, craters, no, not even that. For all these thing to exist we need something called road, made of tar and little stones and which are nowhere to be seen in their proper form anywhere in this country except in places where you have to shell out some ridiculous amount of money to use them even after having paid the road tax while buying your vehicle and not getting anything of such sort ever after. One more thing, even after you have paid that tax and born the torture of not being introduced to the concept of roads, you will not be allowed to see them if you are on two wheels. Why? Because you are not fast enough to keep up with the over laden trucks which when let loose on full throttle can attain the searing speeds of 35km/h and which have a legal permission from Duke Pinhead III of the Indian kingdom to use the fastest lane even while being stalled. Balls to speed! Those trucks can be overtaken by Atal Bihari Vajpayee even in that age and with those operated knees if you let a couple of dogs loose behind him.

I am from a city called Jaipur. There is a zoo there. In the zoo there is a female chimpanzee called Radha. Radha had a mate some seven years ago, but he somehow broke through the bars only to be reduced to ashes as he hugged an electric pole while it was raining. But that is not important. What is important is Radha’s behind. It looks swollen, and it’s kind of pink. That behind looks exactly like mine whenever I fool myself into believing that it’s possible to ride more than some 400 Kms on state highways in a single day and do it.

Now, I have also heard that some hundred thousand crores of rupees are being spent on ‘improving’ the state of roads that don’t exist at all. I have even seen some overhead sign boards with a picture of the above mentioned leader grinning and pointing his index finger in some direction over the so called highways. One of the days when I was riding through one those ‘highways’, I halted to observe what Mr. Prime Minister was pointing towards, only to realize that there was a roadside dhaba straight at angle zero with a dozen cots peppered outside for the travelers to rest their broken backs. Thank you very much Mr. Prime Minister, I know that scores of them are spread every kilometer and I can walk into any one of them whenever my behind is sore even without your guidance, permission or hospitality. What you are supposed to do, in fact, is to prevent my posterior from turning into a tomato and not grin and tell me where to rest it.

So, we were talking about Bunny who was very comfortably springing around in the valleys and ponds around Pune which my ignorant fellow countrymen still believe are roads. He was doing all sorts of antics, taking some air sometimes, then landing perfectly, twitching the poor little thing sharply and then landing the front tyre straight into one of the countless abysses. To my surprise, the lamentable thing was still holding together, even while my colleague was getting increasingly enthusiastic, which was simply not understandable. He owns a 250 cc 18 bhp bike which is really strong and good for some 135 Km/h. And he is millimeters away from turning it into a piece of crap. Believe me, he is really good at thrashing bikes.

Genuinely baffled now, I tried musing myself by laughing on his idiocy and pitying the woeful bike. He kept on kicking the crap out if it until it finally stalled. There! I smiled wickedly. I knew this machine was crap, I knew there was no sense making such bikes, and most important of all, now I knew I had a chance to make that rascal pay back for his words. I approached him, rubbing my hands in anticipation with all sorts of derogatory statements and words ready, both for him and the bike.

Lousy, as the LML people have always been, they hadn’t put enough gas into the tank, and it was a lack of fuel and not a mechanical failure that had caused the bike to halt. Bereaved of the golden opportunity now, I handed over the keys of my bike to him and told him to get some fuel for the distressing piece of metal.

Waiting for him, I was sitting outside one of those impermanent roadside hotels that the honourable Prime Minister was pointing towards with that hospitable grin on his face. I was smoking a cigarette. There was a small cigarette shop near the dhaba from where I purchased it. While I didn’t really have any interest in the shop itself, the owner was quite an interesting character. For all the while I was absorbed in squeezing the most out of every flake that comprised the stick, spewing clouds of smoke, he was seen observing the bike with the keenness that befits the technical director of the Honda Racing Company. Suddenly he turned his head towards me and in a very inquisitive manner asked whether I had bought it new. Well, he didn’t really know that he was talking to a man with a brand new sticker reading ‘automobile journalist’ over his forehead. So he didn’t understand that this man had the right to ride pristine new bikes from the company showroom to his office. The fact that perhaps he wouldn’t be getting a chance to ride it ever again in his life is a different matter altogether. To make life simpler for him, I replied in the affirmative. Now, even before I had finished, I knew the next question that was about to be popped at me. It came just the way I had presumed. “What mileage does she return?” I didn’t really know, and so did I tell him. “Looks nice” was the next phrase that he used, to send that electric pulse of utter rage throughout my body. Ok, I thought. He is an uneducated mortal from the suburbs, who perhaps hasn’t even ridden a bike in his entire life and has been running this small ‘paan’ shop for most part of his existence on this planet. I don’t really need to give a shit to what comes to his unimaginative little brain. Moreover, I had already spotted Bunny with that bottle riding his way back towards me. And I was just beginning to cool down when he braked to stop the bike near me, bringing that wide, ear-to-ear smile on his face he uttered those words to infuriate me like hell- “This bike rocks!” I couldn’t have endured any more. So I snatched the keys of the pitiable piece of crap from him and placed myself on its puny little saddle. For the entire 4Kms that remained in our way to the office, I must say, I was impressed.

It’s one of the cheapest bikes available, and it has a fairing. Ok, you might not care, but a lot of commuters who want to call themselves ‘executives’, and for the bulk of whom some 26400 tonnes of steel are converted into moving machinery every month do care a lot. This little thing does 0-80 km/h in some 8-odd seconds, putting to shame some of those bigger 125 cc bikes. But that is again not important. If the speed and acceleration really matters to someone, he wouldn’t even look at that bike, owing to its detestable amount of cubic capacity itself. What is more important is the fact that it still manages to return a mileage of 68 km/L in city. Now that’s no bullshit. It’s not a claimed mileage. It’s the mileage that she returned to me after days of spirited riding across the road-less streets of Pune.

Its rear suspension is stiff, real stiff. So stiff that it’ll make the thing start bumping off the ground the moment you get anywhere close to 70km/h. If you have a pillion on, and you try to be an exhibitionist on a smooth looking surface with even minor unevenness, which I exactly did, you could feel the bike bumping into the road and bouncing back. You could clearly feel the chassis wriggling at the bottom, panting to free itself from the torture. It feels like the chassis in creaking, crying for mercy under high speeds. Make no mistake though, it is extremely well balanced and takes those turns and twists with unmatched aplomb until it’s pushed on the bends after the 60-70 territory. It is perhaps the sportiest bike in its class, if you simply want to play around, weaving your way through the traffic. But, and if it’s a big butt, this bike would leave no stones unturned to break it. The rear suspension is like an iron rod. It should have been softer, far softer. It lends the machine amazing balance at mediocre speeds, but just don’t try to push the envelope any further. Those tyres are a victim of malnutrition. They don’t really have a clue what one means by genuine grip and that little engine is a stressed member of that pathetic looking chassis. Even the brakes look like an embryo, with a puny 110mm diameter, they’d never be enough to bring you to a standstill in even double the required time or distance. So hold your horses when this little wonder urges you to act like a gymnast.

Engine sounds harsh, but isn’t actually. It won’t stall at anything. I could tell you that as I have done some 350kms in a day with a pillion on. 200 of which were without roads. I repeat, no roads. Literally. And I must tell you, my behind looked worse than Radha that night when I saw it in the bathroom mirror. So while this bike won’t be sore even after those 350kms of ride, you’d sure be for the next two days. You’ll be spotted on your bed, with a couple of pillows under your Radha-ised bottom. Or you’d rather sleep on your chest, because even the pillows won’t help.

You get a bikini-fairing, you get an economy-power indicator, you get telltale lights, you get a neutral indicator, you get a fuel gauge, you get a side-stand gear-lock, you get a very respectable amount of power and you also get a considerable mileage. But I know that you still want more for that price? Ok, you get that ass breaking suspension, those useless tyres and those ridiculously small brakes. Oh, and you also get a horn that throws more decibel intensity back to you rather than to the traffic on the road. It’s placed right behind the bikini fairing, so all that is emanated crashes with the mask and attacks your own ears, it’s crazy. You have to experience that to believe it.

Finally, this isn’t a bike suited for Mr. Narayan Das who has a wife and two children. Mainly because there are ample better bikes around which are more comfortable and return better mileage. Secondly, Mr. Narayan would be seen hovering around the courts to avoid a divorce if he ever tried to take her wife to dinner on that bike. The reasons may vary from a Radha-red ass to a child that got popped on the road from the lady’s lap when the vehicle hit a mild bump on the road. This defeats the very purpose for which it is made. But if you are an enthusiast with a rock-solid Shwarzneggeranian ass, with very little money to spare, with an obsession for speed (read danger) and with no love for life while being at it, go ahead, buy it.

Just Jokin'

2005-10-15T01:03:00.000+08:00

Kartikeya Singhee, colleague of course, bragged about the benefits of Yoga and how he has literally kicked the seasonal diseases out of his body by following the magical gudelines of the 'way of life'. May be i am wrong, perhaps he told me about the benefits of Ayurveda. He is seen here with his set of antibiotics exactly three days after he uttered the words and on the very day of launch. YOGA, MR AYURVEDA SINGHEE.

GOLD PLATED ARTILLERY FROM IRON AGE

2005-10-10T14:24:00.000+08:00

You might have loathed Bullets for you entire life, spat venom whenever a discussion about this bike surfaced, ridiculed scores of those blokes who don’t deserve life and yet get to ride a bike. “They’re worse-off riding that bike than die!” you’ve very wickedly mused yourself so often on their pathetic state. You don’t really need to tell me how much a Bullet appalls you. Or how much you adore it. For there doesn’t exist a third classification of humans, right?

Wrong. For, whether someone has lost a couple of dropped jaws, being bowled over by its classic old-bike charm; or whether someone doesn’t even bother to look at this prehistoric piece of evolution, this still is a bike. It still has two wheels connected to some material machinery, and it leaks oil real bad. So the romantics don’t need to write poems in its praise. And it still does its job of commuting from point A to B (“to” sometimes being in excess of a 1000kms) pretty well, so those space-descended aliens can stop cribbing and shut up for the moment.

With all my sanity in place, I vow not to let any jaundiced thoughts to creep into my psyche and stride towards the spanking, sparkling new Bullet Electra that waits for me in the garage. With all the smugness in the world that I could bring upon my face, I position myself on the bike. Trying to justify the macho pedigree of the thing, I crook my face, straighten my spine, try to look as expansive as I can, and push that newly incorporated electric-start switch with great pride. The electric motor tries its bit to bring that titanic piece of machinery to life. It fails. I try again. It fails again. After some half-a-dozen attempts, I find myself unable to carry that bogus expression of pride on my face. So I turn my head around, make sure that no one’s there to see, peel off all the forged expressions, get off the bike and start fiddling with all the little accessories that Royal Enfield has so humbly offered. First I try the decompressor, positioned in the place where you usually find a choke, then the idle screw which is so loose that you don’t really need a screw-driver to adjust it, then the fuel cock which is impossible for a novice to comprehend. Some more bits here and there and I finally land onto the choke. Located on the right, above the cylinder head, this piece is akin to the pull-stop switch for the old Mahindra Jeeps. I pull it once, push the starter button again and the engine comes alive, emanating the age-old thump from the exhaust which is music to a million, cacophony to a couple another.

Being from Rajasthan, the state of Maharajas, I can understand why the Rajputs like riding Bullets so much. With that towering amount of torque at avail, that exclusive feel of surge when you wring the throttle, that distinct thump and those connecting vibes, anyone is but bound to find his face paralysed enough to express any other feelings but those of pride. Something that these descendents of the royal families are obsessed with. Add to that the clearly audible clank (call it clatter when those gears gets stuck, which they do pretty often, though far less than their ancestors) that you hear when you shift. It’s very unlike the Bajaj’s explosive shift sound. It’s a clank, and by that I mean it’s a clank. You can very clearly hear pieces of metal colliding and making a sound, like two heavy (and blunt) swords have clashed in the air. I am not sure whether this sound, reminiscent of medieval battles fought by the likes of Maharana Pratap is one of the reasons behind the eternal love affair that the Banas seem to have with this bike.

Once on the move, the Electra feels quite nimble footed. You shift in the first and the generous torque begins casting its spell on you. The bike surges ahead with a thrust and confidence which I am very sure is unique to the Bullets. These days you have the luxury of having the shift lever and brake pedal in the right places, so, you can handle that force with ease. With those large, discontinued chunks of power at avail, you find yourself pitching ahead with great force and little assurance. Or at least you genuinely feel that way. Move out you pint! Every ounce of your body now sings in chorus with this savage-looking thing. And they actually move out, once they hear that legendary thump. Managing the bike in the city traffic is a breeze as enough torque is available even in higher gears to keep the bike rolling at low speeds with that lazy, low revving engine punching you mildly from down under. The bike manages to roll at speeds as low as 25-30 km/h in fifth gear. One glitch, however, is that the machine sometimes suddenly dies down for a moment and gets the life back in the very next one. This gives you a sudden jerk which is not a good thing to happen on the road; moreover, a newbie may get fooled to believe that he’s soon to run out of fuel. Addition of a fifth cog has made it really easy to keep the post-ton territories inhabited.

Ride quality on an Electra is on the firmer side. Gas shock-absorbers don’t help the stiff ride for a solo as the coils are too stiff to flex under the weight of a normal mortal. With a light rider on, they will officiate only in extreme cases of the bike landing in a deep pothole. That damper in no way helps your belly from being badly disturbed by those commonplace potholes. Ride improves dramatically once a pillion finds his place on the rear and the advantages offered by that damper become pretty evident.

The bike we tested came fitted with a large front disc. These discs are an optional accessory on a 350cc 18 bhp bike which is very capable of achieving speeds in excess of 100 km/h in a pretty short time and isn’t known for its deftness in handling. So the customers are given a chance to go ahead and play around with their lives. How such a big bike can do with drum brakes, which wear out at an express pace and go almost useless in rains is beyond my realm of logic. The disc installed on our bike provided it with a good stopping power, however, you feel like being on the hump of a camel if you firmly press-release the front brake lever. The front fork keeps rippling under the tank for a couple of following seconds. The rear suspension of the bike is too stiff, while the front is just too soft. This mismatch needs to be corrected as it renders the bike very unstable in the situations of emergency braking.

The two tone paint job doesn’t make much difference to those who realise that it’s a Bullet and won’t make you any more exclusive than that old standard bullet from 80’s (Except causing a little more trouble for Bullet bred Banas to shift gears). For those who look at the bike from a fresh perspective, it looks nice. There isn’t much aberration from the traditional classic Enfield styling. The curves and carvings are all the same. A whole bunch of body parts including front forks, crank-case cover, exhaust pipe, headlight, front and rear blinkers and RVMs have been treated with liberal amounts of chrome to keep that classic, retro style alive. The front headlight is now an all new multi focal, clear lens unit, improving the visibility at night many notches. The switchgear is of very good quality and seems to be borrowed from TVS Fiero.

To me, except of a few things like front disc, shift side, shock-absorbers, fifth cog and electric starter this Bullet doesn’t differ much from its ancestors from the 80’s. Mainly because it still has the same technologically hoary mill which leaks engine oil like men leak water. It is as refined as an Assamese’s English accent, keeps stalling for all the weird reasons in the world and makes an absolute waste of that enormous 350cc. But you know what? I have friends who own Bullets from late seventies and those machines have as healthy an engine as the new ones we buy from the Royal Enfield showrooms nowadays. That speaks about the strength of that archaic looking but almost indestructible mill.

I still don’t have any complaints with this Bullet after riding it thoroughly for days together; neither do I find it all that impressive to say a few good words about it. If you believe me when I say that I was an unbiased rider before I tested this bike, I am sorry to disappoint you by saying that I still am. Very honestly, everyone knows what virtues or vices are associated with this bike. Nobody in the world bought a Bullet because it returned great mileage, was very refined or handled beautifully. He did that for his passion for that machine, a feeling that is just too emotional to be governed or described by logic. For all that I could expect from a Bullet, I find myself back to square one with no complaints or compliments for this bike. So, now that you know how I feel, you can decide for yourself how good or bad the bike actually is.