Club Mahindra: Demystified

A few days back, the devil took me over, and I stepped into Club Mahindra's office for their "presentation". It was hardly a presentation, it was a systematic brain-job, geared up to make you fall into their trap. Some key points that make Club Mahindra's presentation an absolutely disgusting (in-hindsight) experience:
1. They make an absolute fool represent them, the guy I was speaking to had zilch knowledge of inflation, costing and was so retarded, that I simply gave up reason within 3-4 mins into the session.
2. Take now, or fugget-about-it policy. This is akin to crying out loud, "about making the worst decision of your life".
3. The sales guys' guts to say that reviews written about their company are false and lies.

Finally, I decided to signup, only after knowing that I had the option to back-out within 10 days. I took a total of 1 hour to back-out. No sooner did I hit the following sites: mouthshut.com, consumercomplaints.in and blogs of folks that had been duped, that I made the call. I got the money after a lot of headache, which I don't wanna recall at this point.

However, the more important thing was that, I did a thorough cost-benefit analysis of the holiday scheme that was on offer, and was surprised to find out that on an average, Club Mahindra charged its members around 3.5 times the price they would charge web-customers for a stay at their resorts. Please see attached for the calculations, and pass the word around. It is nothing short of a loot!

2G Scam: Getting murkier by the day

The $33bn swindling by Telecom Ministry, better known as the 2G scam, has got even murky today. Mr. S.Swamy's of the Janta Party took this scam right into international terrorism waters, by naming LTTE, ISI, Hawala and Dawood Ibrahim as co-conspirators in this scam.

Any new revelations relating to new/old scams hardly come as a surprise these days, but ISI and Dawood Ibrahim are not names to be taken lightly. Did Raja practically fund the Mumbai / International terrorism operations that took place over the last two years?

Definition of Corruption

Picked this from a British web-site:

Corruption: Putting self-interest above social interest.

Simple, concise and very deep. It'd be a long time before Indian society weans itself off Corruption. If ever.

SUVs guzzling cheap diesel criminal: Jairam - The Times of India

SUVs guzzling cheap diesel criminal: Jairam - The Times of India

Jairam Ramesh is a top-of-the-line Politician that this country so desperately needs, and hence I'm a bit peeved when the above statement gets criticised by ambassadors & on forums (team-bhp.com).

To anyone who complains about subsidies or about the 1xx% tax on imported cars, know this - the food-grains we buy in India are about ~1/5 their fair market value. This artificial abysmally low sales-price is achieved by keeping the cost-price (to the farmers & traders) very low through subsidies in seeds, fertilizer & fuel. This equation will be altered substantially if diesel guzzling vehicles become commonplace in this country, as it's next to impossible to create a differently priced fuel infrastructure.

The only option left with the government is to remove fuel subsidy entirely and make up for the increase in fuel prices by providing more money in the hands of the common public. This task is again next to impractical, as there are not enough channels for the government to put money in the hands of the people, as hardly 15-20% of this country file their returns. Another point to note, is that fuel sales in India are still seen as a source of revenue by the states and are also responsible for the significant price-escalation in the hands of the consumer.

So how do you curtail the bleeding loss caused by diesel sales to the private car/SUV segment? Banning it outright, would be a desperate measure, especially given that Tatas and Mahindras of the world derive a significant portion of their revenue from this segment. The problem is clearly mani-fold, and the statement made by Jairam Ramesh, can be looked upon as merely a probe into getting the fuel-subsidy equation back on track.

My only criticism of Mr. Ramesh, is that there is no need to name manufacturers, especially foreign reputed companies like BMW & Audi, as that will send a very bad message to the world at large, who on its' part is hell bent on cornering India over its' protectionist policies.

I would love to see the day, when Indians, put country ahead of themselves, and act with integrity - i.e. Buy petrol vehicles for personal use.

Manhattan - It doesnt get better than this!

I'm currently in New York - Midtown Manhattan to be precise. It's been the best month "Away from home" ever in my life - in fact, the only month I've ever spent away from home.

The sights of New York - Midtown Manhattan, Times Square, Broadway, Wall Street, South Ferry, and Brooklyn are mind-boggling. New York is a showcase Pinnacle of Human Achievement, its' street smell success and its' people are by far the most amazing I've ever come across. There is a lot written about New York, so I'll leave the exclamatory remarks to that literature, but if there is one place that is closest to Urban Nirvana, it is New York.

I Love New York, as much as I love my Home - Mumbai.

Mumbai Sinking: The Failing Law & Order

Once upon a time in Mumbai, the city police was respected - not for their uniform, but for their impeccable public service in law & order maintenance. Kids loved dressing up as policemen in fancy dress parties, and invariably 1 out of 2 kids wanted to be a cop.

Not anymore!

The city is rampant with recklessness, lawlessness and total disregard for the spirit of Mumbai. Rickshaws ply with complete disregard to air-pollution, spewing thick cloud of exhaust in the already-choked city. Licenses are being granted to rickshaw based transport vehicles that emit loud sounds, two-stroke rickshaws continue to lead to maximum noise and air pollution.

Traffic signals are flouted, two-wheeler riders show no respect for the red-light, every other vehicle stops way beyond the stop line at signals, more often on the zebra crossing itself. Gone are the days, when the stop line was carefully watched and respected.

Garbage is dumped in the middle of roads attracting cows, signs warning of fines for such acts are put to shame. Cops are reduced to spineless, hapless individuals who appear helpless more than gutless.

Shanties are being spread where life-saver mangroves once existed opening the doors to catastrophic consequences witnessed during the July floods of 2005.

Politicians are defacing the city by splashing the ugly faces of themselves and their cronies, every light-pole, every corner now bears an ugly face of an politician trying to celebrate his, his wife's or his son's birthday. Their contribution to society is more words than action. Political class has clearly managed to find the elixir of winning inspite of the middle-class votes.

There's corruption on the streets, in police station, in government offices and just-about everywhere.

Water has disappeared from the taps, electricity bills are hitting the rooftops, grocery bills are sky-rocketing, yet the poorer section somehow seems to ride over this easily, but the tax-payers are being put through immense hardships.

Mumbai - is turning into UP/Bihar and no one can reverse it.

Team Mumbai : An ideal lineup

Fixture: Team Delhi v/s Team Mumbai (17-Mar-2010)

Playing XI
SR Tendulkar*
DJ Bravo
KA Pollard
AT Rayudu
JP Duminy
AM Nayar
AP Tare†
S Dhawan
SL Malinga
Harbhajan Singh
Z Khan

Reserves
DS Kulkarni
CRD Fernando
R McLaren
C Madan
I Malhotra
AG Murtaza
GR Napier
R Sathish
KS Sahabuddin
R Shukla

1411

That's the number of tigers left in India.

Do chinese (or Indians) really need aphrodisiacs? I mean can the chinese government not do anything about seriously acting against the medicine resellers / users? Here is a animal that guarantees an ecological balance, is so magnificent and above all is highly endangered.

If there is zero demand for tiger carcass, wouldn't the poaching end naturally? Theres' already enough awareness about tiger skin-sale that it really cannot be the reason for the decline, which puts a lot of onus on the Chinese government to act.

Sachin Tendulkar: First Man @ 200 in ODI

Simply the Best!

The King of batting has already showed us all - why he is the greatest batsman India has ever produced many times over in the last two decades. But today, he achieved what NO man has ever done before - Score a double-ton in a one-day international cricket match. The next best was by a Saeed Anwar who had cheated his way to 194 runs by using a far younger runner very early on in that inning. Besides, Saeed Anwar is hardly a guy any one even remembers, leave aside even using his name in the same sentence as Don Bradman!

Today was clearly Sachin's day, and he so beautifully gave it back to every cricket fan (big, small or marginal ones like me).

Congratulations Sachin - You are a hero, in a nation so devoid of them.

Uttaran: Indian Soap

If television programming were a barometer of society, then Indian society is feudal, schizophrenic, sexist and downright disgusting...

I cannot begin to compare the chasm between Indian prime-time serials / shows to something I grew up watching. Fox Mulder, Friends gang, Benny Hill, Simpsons, Jay Leno - to name a few. The degradation of Indian serials seems complete with the currently ranked #1 show - Uttaran.

Its' a story of a girl who lands up in a soup thanks to her psychopath elder sister. Then to make matters worse, the characters possess deep amnesia and exist in an alternate reality. Law & order do not exist, nor does morality, gratitude or plain divinity. All characters in this serial possess one and only one value which has not changed for the countless episodes that have aired. There is no remorse, no love, no clarity.

To add to the mayhem of this non-sense is the cliched cinematography that does not believe in airing 2 minutes of narratable content per episode, insists on multiple angle shots of dumb expressions of every actor reacting to tidbits that happen in each episode and above all the horrendous pieces of sound effects that accompany them.

So far it does not get offensive, but when you see the feudalistic mindsets of these writers, is when you lose reason. Its' indeed a shame that such grisly content is being served to the audience, which is primarily women who are mostly married - judging by the ads shown during the breaks, soaps, cleansers, fairness creams et al. My only request to the writers, directors and whoever is responsible for this non-sense - You dont' have to! If money is the only criteria then prostitution is the best profession, and yours currently ranks only a shade higher.

If there are any values at work in your heart, body or mind, then go ahead and walk out - unless there is stand taken against this horrid broadcasting, there is little hope for the future...

...thank god, the society I belong to is no where close to what the writers of this serial seem to have infested.

Windows Vista SUX

I finally got an answer to why everyone HATES Windows Vista, it simply fcuks up without a clue. Lost a few of my girls' 1st birthday photos to this quirky piece of shit they call Windows Vista!

Possible triggers to the mess:
a. Windows update ran yesterday night for a long time and added a lot of security patches to Office 2007 apps.
b. I ran Dell MediaDirect today and accessed the "My Pictures" folder for an admin a/c (mine).
c. Left the laptop running for the whole day today.

The consequence:
a. Lost a few folders that were created in the last 36 hours, which included a few of my girls 1st birthday snaps.
b. Networking failed completely
c. AVG stopped working
d. Funny errors started showing up every 2 minutes
e. USB ran at a snail's pace
f. Scans reported errors but expressed inability to repair it.

After a thorough fight for 60 minutes, I decided to do the inevitable - run a clean restore using the Dell partition which everyone had recommended as junk.

Lessons learnt:
a. Backup
b. Vista will fcuk up, just a matter of time.
c. Backup!

SX4 ZXi MT – 2010 – Nuevo Ownership Review

The Easy Part – Choice
When SX4 made its’ debut in 07, I was swept away completely by her looks, features and value offering. However, my old car was doing fine then, and I was in the market for a new flat thus ruling out the possibility of a buying a new sedan. I did however promise myself to relook at the SX4 once things settle down a bit.

Around mid-December-09 I began the hunt for a new sedan, the SX4 was naturally at the top of my list. Amongst the newer cars, the Linea had also set my heart racing, so I took a test drive, but came back disappointed. (Linea owners - my objectives and their weights were possibly different - for what its’ worth, my vote for COTY went to Linea).

The SX4 test-drive however was overwhelmingly positive, hence without any further hesitation our decision was done.

The specific parameters I was looking for in my next car were as follows:
1. Safety Features : ABS, EBD & dual Airbags were a must.
2. Cabin Space : Let me just say this, the one shining feature of my Indica was Cabin Space, and my next car, had to better it.
3. Petrol : Done with diesel at least for the near future.
4. Indianization : Turn-indicators on the right, bad-road compatibility (GC, alloys, tubeless tyres) and tolerance to harsh weather.
5. Boot Space : Boot space needed to be adequate, as my Indica rear-seats had a split-fold, and we often made most of that feature.
6. Engine Performance : I am not comfortable with the concept of a hatchback-engine in bed with a sedan.
7. Value for Money : Needless to explain.
8. Low Cost of Ownership : Cheap & widely available spares, good fuel economy and reliability.
9. Superior After-Sales & Support : I’d owned a TATA vehicle for 6 years. TATA has improved lately, but the initial suffering left a long-lasting impact I guess.
10. City Drivability : I think I am around 25:75 on highway:city, hence, my new car needed to be easy to maneuver in City as well as comfortable on the highway. Chances are that the ratio might get pushed to 40:60, as my daughter is approaching her first birthday.

The Buying Process
My first car was bought without me leaving my house, courtesy JMD, a direct-marketing-agent. However, after team-bhp.com, that option was ruled out. The dealer – Spectra Motors, Borivali and more specifically the sales executive, Rahul Gangwani made the entire process quite smooth. Had to visit the dealership only twice, once to exchange my old car, and once to submit all the documents for my loan. The deal was stuck as follows:

On-Road Price ((SX4 ZXi Manual BSIV)): 854,747
Exchange Price for my 04' Indica DLS (bonus included): 137,000
Corporate Discount: 3,500
Cash-back: 1.25% of loan amount
Interest Rate: 10.00% for 5 years
2-yrs Extended Warranty: 7,990
Free Accessories: Front, side & rear sun-control film (Garware), leather steering cover, body cover & transparent carpet mats.
Paid Accessories (planned within a week): Seat covers, reverse sensors, under-body anti-rust treatment and engine treatment (safety from rats).

PRI-Check (Pre-Registration Check) at the dealers’ stockyard
Spectra was kind enough to allow me a PRI check at their stockyard without having paid a single rupee, nor having signed on any dotted line. The stockyard is located at Vasai, off the Mumbai-Ahmedabad highway. The inspection itself was detailed, and folks at the stockyard didn’t mind my checking. Odometer reading was 4 Kms, no patchups visible and no scratches either. Overall, I think I was simply thrilled to see my next car in [i]flesh[/i].

D-Day::05-Jan-2010
Took AM off and went to the dealership at about 11:20. Undertook the PDI check – quite lenient this time – and completed the formalities. Was able to drive out of the dealership at about 14:40, as the Tax-Receipt was awaited from RTO. Distributed ½ kilo of sweets at the dealer, and gave a small token to the folks who’d helped clean and prepare my car. A small Lord Ganesh idol was given free along with two keys to my car. I got a beautiful surprise when a song wishing “Congratulations” was played out for me, with everyone smiling and wishing luck. Later, a customer service executive asked me to rate the quality of service received and general feedback. Another person explained the tiniest bits of details relating to the plethora of switches inside the SX4. A photo commemorating the day was taken and a print given immediately, got a few other snaps too which they happily saved to the USB I was carrying.

Gyan: I’ve heard some folks complain about SX4 having a single reverse light. That’s incorrect – the truth being there’s one automatic reverse light, and one manual. The manual one can be turned on at the flick of a button, thus giving you rear illumination at both sides, if needed. The manual one, for some reason, is called the rear fog light, which might explain the ambiguity.

As noted by other owners, music played via USB sounds much better than disc or radio. I do have an unlimited broadband, so works for me.

The first trip to the petrol station bought me to my senses, a full tank cost 2500 bucks for 48 litres of speed! The interesting bit was getting the tyre pressure checked, as the dealer had set all tyres to roughly 50 which irritated the guy as all he had to do was lower it to precisely 30.

Odo reading at full tank: 38.

First Drive Review & Heart-break
In the evening, we decided to take her for a spin, and left home at 20:45, the obvious route was a round-trip across Bandra-Worli Sealink (BWSL). First impression of my car was quite amazing, the gear-shift was smooth, the car & tyres made no sound at all ( "outside noise seems to be on mute" – Wife) and the engine was almost hungry to tear the road apart. Over-taking trucks, ricks and old taxis was a breeze – no down-shifting. The 3rd gear has a great range tried from 25-50, no worries. 4th was again neat, could go from 30-60 without much (if any) clutch. The 5th was not tested much as the BWSL had a speed-limit of 50 and I was hell-bent on sticking to it. Hence I stayed in 4th all the way, even while going over those subtle but not insignificant speed limiters.

ACC is a boon, as it means NO touching the knobs once the car is set in motion, and the ACC cools very efficiently. However it needs to be tested during the day, before a final verdict.

The handling and ride-quality was excellent, the WE Highway has quite a few surprise craters, and I was able to dodge most, however the max speed I had set myself was 65, and barely crossed it during this drive. So this remains an open item pending evaluation untill the running-in period is complete.

While being south-bound, I had noticed a jam on the other side stretching from the TOI flyover right upto Jogeshwari. Fortunately for us the jam had receeded upto Goregaon by the time we returned. Unlike signal-jams, vehicles were moving intermittently between 1-10 kmph. This was my first taste of city driving in my SX4. The car was quite easy to drive in the bumper-to-bumper traffic, at no point did I feel that the engine would stop due to excess clutch-release, nor did the 2nd gear complain about being used at 4-5 kmph. At various points, I had to stop on inclines, but despite having four adults+1 teeny weeny child and ACC on, there was no lack of power, in getting the vehicle moving in the forward direction. I got so comfortable, that I could ride the clutch on stop-go traffic on incline, without braking! (For some reason, I consider this as one of my better driving skills)

I was getting the feeling she is coming out with flying colors, when a motorist, who was clearly imbalanced (due to his body size) tried to follow a teenager on his bike. In doing so he did the most heart-wrenching thing, he grazed my stationary car at its’ left-rear corner leaving a couple of long ugly lines of rubbery black marks. A slight scratch was found later on the tail-light assembly as well. Nothing serious like a dent, and I'm willing to accept it, as long as it proved to be my good-luck tika.

That said, any suggestions of car cleaning compounds / brands that would help clear it off is always welcome. They do appear to be smudges rather than paint coming off, as they seem to wear off slightly, when rubbed with water-soaked cloth.

Initial Verdict
Most of what was hinted in the test-drive was found to be true., hence one more satisfied customer in the kitty for Maruti.

PS: Regardless of the advt punch lines, I really cannot relate to associating the masculine gender with cars.