Oh! lord, why dont you gimme a Mercedes Benz

Here is my first shot at automotive journalism....well, sort of.... From the time I've been in Mercedes, I have always wanted to drive one, doesnt matter which model or which configuration. Hell, Iwould drive the most anaemic of the lot, the 1800cc engined C class and probably love it. But unfortunately, as a saying in Kannada goes 'Guy with teeth has no grains and guy with grains has no teeth' I didnt have a 'Führerschein' or a DL. And fuck! these guys drive on the wrong side of the road which is pretty upsetting to say the least. Nonetheless, I did get a chance to sit around in a few models and be driven around. And must I sayI was mighty impressed. The build quality is so impressive that you would have to look for defects with a damn Hubble's telescope.I am talking about the C class here which is like their low end model or a poor man 's merc.

As we go higher in the pyramid, the quality level goes higher too. The E class and CLS ( I nurse a semi everytime I see one) is just a pleasure to be in. Its like sitting in the on a huge and highly fast leather couch. The the seating position is just perfect, the ride comfort is fantastic, very little body roll, exact amount of body stiffness so that the ride is fantastic yet does not upset the overall balance. The interiors are tastefully done especially the Alcante leather ones...my word, that just borders fetish. The engines are fantastic, but I loved the way the 3200cc diesel pulled off the line. Very smooth and refined. The NVH levels are non exsistant. The 320 engine is a gem for long cruising, especially highways. No need to downshift for overtakes. The 7G tronic gearbox is just marvellous.I saw a cut away of the 7G and must I say that thing looks terribly complicated (or in other words I am a bad engineer) but does it wring the engine beautifully or what.

Coming to the CLS, these things are just a joy to watch. Its just floats by on the roads and you have to look twice. This after 3 years of being on the road. Beautiful piece of design this thing. The interiors here are a bit cramped at the back,but hey! I wouldnt sit at the back if I had one of these, especially the AMG ones.

Taking about the AMGs I had the pleasure of taking a ride in one of them. It was an E55 AMG station wagon and my god was it menacing. Those fat bridgestones and those subtle changes like the bigger air intakes or hugher brakes discs. I used to always wonder what that power would feel like and there are not many things in this world than a surging big engined AMG merc. Holy hell what a surge it was. It hit hundred in like less than 5 seconds and the way it shot forward, amazing.... it was like kick in the kleister. It was like sitting in a roller coaster except the punch to the stomach is even stronger. The gearbox here was a manual (because the AMG engine would just eat the 7G tronic for breakfastwith so much torque). The exhaust note is just orgasmic.... it just is....The deceleration was also mind blowing...

The CL is the real showboat in the merc lineup. It is just insanely luxurious inside. The Bang and Olifson music system, the plush leather seatss with massage options and innumerable settings and the damn power of the thing. Its a damn luxury line than a car..this.With the huge bonnet before the driver, it may lead the driver to believe he (PS: I am not a sexist..might be a she too) himself has a huge bonnet ;)

Coming to the favourite of the lot the daddy of the mercs...The S class, the car one day I dream to own..the car I know is safe to take my children (dont have yet..in future..if interested contact me) will be safe and happy no matter what. The car which is the definition of bullet proof. The car whichhas technology today which other cars will have 20 years from now. The car which when you look down upon the 3 pointed star from the driver's view from the inside, know that, this is what automobiles should be. The car which massages you as you drive along or which has a theatre surround sound system. The car which can calm your pulses (medically proven that an S class driver has lesser BPMs than a 7 series driver). A car which everybody dream to own but cant. A car which has a tradition of 100 years. Pinnacle of perfection and costs a bomb. but fuck it...I'll sell my kidney to buy one.

(PS: my aim, atleast own a C class by the time I hit 35...highly impossible I know but hey there so many banks to be robbed)

Silver arrows

Wohoo!!!!!! I am going to mercedes benz!!!!! wohoo!!!!! yeah! I am lost for words!!! My childhood dream comes true!!!!! I will be taking snaps and updating it on a regular basis.....It wont be difficult because I am in the HQ of merc and also in the end assembly and rework optimization (blah blah) so....spy photos here I come! Nokia 5200 with 1Gig memory card to the rescue...

PS: All this depends on the availability of internet at my place

33% of my life

25 years of existence on this earth.....whom should I thank (or not) for that "achievement"
1) parents - who sacrificed a lot of their comforts to make sure I had mine....god bless them!! especially my dad who has been through a lot.....fight on dad!! I have always derived inspiration from you and I know I have those genes in me which helps me struggle and persevere.
2) Uncles and aunts - you know who you are ......my second parents....always been there for me....through thick and thin....looked after me like your own....especially in times of need (you know those times) I am always grateful for that....
3) Friends - who help me forget the difficulties.....school friends to engineering to my master's friends and also random friends who helped me develop as an individual and become more of a badass....
4) Music
5) Cars
6) money
7) cars again
8) chicks
9) alcohol
10) arts and other bohemian lifestyles...


(PS: I am writing this in an inebriated state)

Feelings

The feeling of going inside your home after getting fully drenched in the rain.....The feeling you get when you see your childhood friend.....the feeling you get when the old gang is back together....
the feeling when you clear 12 subjects in one semester....the feeling you get when you are on your motorcycle on an empty road on a warm sunny day.....the feeling when you eat home food after a long long time....
the feeling you get sit by the window and watch the world go by........the feeling when your old man buys his first new car with his blood sweat and tears gone into the money and your there with him to take delivery......
the feeling when you pound the living daylights out of the guy you despise.....the feeling when your alone in your car with pink floyd in the background, huge mountains on the right of the road and an ocean on the left.....the feeling of drinking a cold beer after a long hard day.......the feeling when you realize you just avoided a huge mistake......the feeling when the lines you used on a girl actually works...the feeling when you have a warm shower on a bitterly cold day...
feeling when you wake up at 6:30 and suddenly realize its a sunday........feeling when you realize that your german is good enough to actually make jokes........feeling when you realize your old man is really really proud of what you have done......the feeling when you realize cool people think you are cool........feeling when your on the dance floor and realize that you know that song........feeling when you know you have done it.....
feeling when you have begun to realize the magnitude of the success you can achieve........the feeling when you realize how far you have come in life......the feeling when only you know the solution to the problem......
feeling when you get what you really want....feeling when you get who you really want......feeling when you realize you are being missed by somebody......feeling of solitude.....feeling of belonging.....feeling of inner peace...feeling of detachment.....
feeling of owning the damn world.....Simple yet so on an other level......

Meine Indien

Well...60 years of independence. 23 years of my existence in that place. And what a place! It has been an extreme ride of sorts. No half measures whatsoever. Cities with huge population exceeding 10 million. People with varied cultures. We may look them same but we are culturally different. But we are Indians. Unity in diversity. Democracy which actually works (trust me on this I was really cynical till the last elections but now I do believe in our system) and biggest at that. Sea of people at the crossroads of the cultural boundaries. A country with 1.3 billion, well represented by all major religions of the world. Country which got its independence through non-violence. Country which was plundered right from Alexander the great of the ancient Greeks to the Chengis Khan to the Arabs to the Europeans. Country which in the 17th century was the 3rd biggest economy in the world was reduced to a 3rd world country by 1950s. But, but.....we were taught to believe in circle of life (what goes around comes around) and its coming back for sure. In all this economic boom and money hype, we will not lose the core of existence. We were happy with whatever little we had and in future too we will be happy with what we have. A country which sees more terrorist attacks in one year than the whole of west Europe and US collectively. But we will never back down or seek help. We will achieve our goals on our own. No one can deny the fact that its difficult but not impossible.
In the end, We are responsible for what we are, and whatever we wish ourselves to be, we have the power to make ourselves. If what we are now has been the result of our own past actions, it certainly follows that whatever we wish to be in future can be produced by our present actions; so we have to know how to act.
Thanks, Marcela for letting me realise the value of my country.

Just random thoughts

In Sam's words "Mac when did you become so philosophical!?!?" Why the fuck have I become so philosophical nowadays? Why am I taking life so seriously? The other day I was walking back to my place from my work / internship. Ok, Firstly the background, my internship is in a research institute where I will have to "design" (hahahahhahahaha) a self centering system for a CNC machine. This involves interfacing a laser sensor and an actuator. As boring as it may seem, it is made worse by the fact that nowadays weather here is awesome and it is hard to sit inside 4 walls. And also since I invented procrastination, all I do is browse the net, chat with people (damn windows messenger and google mail talk!!), day dream or drink coffee. So all this idleness coupled with caffeine from 4 cups of coffee has kind of scrambled my brains. Hence I tend to do "out of the box" thinking, or so it seems. Yeah, while walking back from Fraunhofer Institut I started thinking generally about the reasons behind this whole engineering charade of mine. Who would be so anal to worry about the offset of a workpiece and a chuck by 1 micron? Am I the right person to be so fucked in the head to think about such details? Do I need really need this? Am I a real engineer?

Serious Advice

Kids...... today I will teach you how to get drunk and by that I mean totally smashed so as to not be able to remember what happened to you during those hours. Firstly you will need to take some necessary steps before "putting a major booze session". No sharp objects around. No loose footwear(especially chappals or sandals....ever wondered why there are single pieces of the fore mentioned footwear lying on the road.....here is the answer). Next, no wrist watch. Always drink out of a plastic cup. Make sure nobody has a camera around so that they dont take pics of you when you' re making an ass out of yourself. Better yet, get the camera person smashed.



Now lets talk business. Firstly, the golden rule, know your limit and do not stop there. Its the biggest mistake one does, which, if otherwise would mean that we would be in an utopian world.

Next, always mix and this advice, kids is not only in life or parties but is gold even when it comes to alcohol. And I mean not in tuity fruity "oo!! look at me I am drinking stuff with umbrellas in it" kinda cocktaily way but in a manly (disclaimer - me not an MCP) way. Something like beer with vodka for starters. This is an awesome drink where u chug half a bottle of beer (500ml bottles) and then fill it up with 60ml vodka. Then James bond style "shaken not stirred" the bottle. This is for beginners.

For the kids in "mittelstrufe" another good concoction is single malt whiskey with vodka. 60ml of whiskey with 60ml vodka just topped with some sweet drink to blunt the bitterness. Believe me this drink is lethal and it fuckin kills you. You will wake up the next day with your clothes dirty and your socks missing and no way in hell will you figure out what exactly happened. But the major advantage here is you will talk to smokin hot chicks who if you were sober wouldnt have even had the "eier" to talk to them. Ofcourse you will end up more spitting than talking, but in your head you will be thinking you're fuckin Stephen Hawking's cousin.

The next and the most dangerous mix is vodka with absynth. Now this absynth alone has been nemesis to many a people. Now mix it vodka and boy!! its a fuckin killer. But hell!! it kicks you in the hypothetical gonads so hard that you will wish you would rather stand in the way of a fired canon ball. But my advise here is please drink this in the confines of your house or a that of a friends otherwise there is high probability that you might end on the next flight to Antarctica.

Anyway kids lastly keep in mind this famous quote by the one and only Homer Simpson "Alcohol is the cause of and solution to any problem" and to that i would like to add "Prost".
(Disclaimer: Author is not an alcoholic and in no way is encouraging anybody to drink although they are the biggest losers if they dont)