नानो!

The Nano was unveiled today in India and has been creating tidal waves across the globe. reactions range from admiration to sarcasm laced jealousy. Tata Motors has received it all.

a little background about this car to crank us up a bit... its been called (cliched) the 'People's Car' - VW must've let out a yawn too many already. but then, VW has come a long way now and with its customers acting pricey, so have its cars. but then, thats what the nano is for... the masses who care two hoots to exclusivity and frills - just the basics. a set of wheels for the light-pocketed middle class family of 3/4. one would rather risk their lives balancing themselves on a 2-wheeler than be fleeced by the autorickshaws or minced in the city bus. its really that simple. get them onto something relatively safer. replace the bike with a car. if you look at it, thats one mean feat to achieve. safety, efficiency and mobility in a $2500 package.

but not all look at it that way. the New York Times blogsite writes a rather harmless article but the readers' comments make it interesting. ranging from an overly swollen sense of desi pride to cribs of accelerated global warming and substandard products.

i think its time we cleared some smoke here. mostly by americans or supporters of the american auto industry, they are only quick to pass judgements that a cheaper car meant drop in quality and safety standards - a family casket on wheels, throwing caution to the wind. that would be akin to buying a cheap airticket and expect to be air-dropped from a coast-to-coast airline. wonder why no one has thought of that yet... real cheap tickets. as a bonus, keep the parachute! a cheaper car means a more polluting vehicle. little do people know that BS II had more stringent norms than that of euro 3, now BS III is at par with euro 4 norms and the Nano conforms to both. excessive pollution eh? more than the sputtering 2-wheeler it intends to replace?

and of all the people, the americans complain about this cheap car will only add to the congestion and pollution on the roads - more hazardous emissions, faster global warming. and they feel thanks to all this happening in the developing countries, the "poor" souls in developed countries have to pay higher taxes, environment protection fees and the like to offset this avalanche! now i am all for the butterfly effect and all that, but isnt this theory a little too far fetched? for a country holding a report card like this i must say, some cheek! 5% of the global population contributing to 45% of global vehicular pollution. did i hear someone talk about rising pollution in the east?

for someone who would rather travel cross-country in a 20mpg car burning 15 gallons of fuel than be caught dead in a 50mpg car, should i refer you some books on commonsense? or math rather? take your pick sir. those who inherently travel alone to work are now waking up from their deep slumber to notice rising gas prices. carpool is still an alien concept. and somehow asking their colleagues living in the same neighbourhood doesnt occur to them. they need a 1-800 number to share-a-ride! throw in a dedicated carpool lane to indulge them. never have i seen a populace been so enticed to exhibit common sense!

let not our desi readers be given a clean chit either. one of us gets rather creative in his views... a passionate gujju he comes across clarifies the etymology for the Nano. its got nothing to do with apple's namesake - its नानो which is gujarati for "small" :) and there is this other lady who would rather have Mr. Tata do something for the environment now that he already has done it for humankind. whats wrong with you starting the movement lady? dont see any point in starting the movement yourself? some say a mass transport system is what the world needs and not a cheaper car to add to the clamour. point taken and agreed it adds to the clamour, but it also gets that many 2-wheelers off the road. there's only so much space a car could squeeze into that 2/3 bikes would've otherwise!

free?

this one qualified to shake me from my innards. ad in b'lore times by VLCC for its weightloss and slimming facilities sported this tagline with a fair bit of ease... "Pay Rs. 5000 and get treatment worth Rs. 5000 for free."

huh?

whale sightings

was reading this piece in a daily. whale swam into the Thames and poor thing died as rescuers were trying to take it back into the sea. it seems it was the first time a whale made its way there since someone started documenting whale sightings in the Thames way back in 1913. i don't get this. is it that every year people just fill in a sheet saying "no whale sighted in the Thames this year"...!? is it something one ought to expect to find there but shoot! not there!

NDTV again....

this has the classic NDTV signature all over it! looks like they get trained to come out with er… ‘NDTVisms’!? :)

reporter covers a train accident (did not note where). she goes something like ‘lineman has been taken up for questioning on account of negligence. lie detector tests from forensic department conclude that he’s lying. results of the test are not made public’.

huh!? is a lie detector supposed to tell you something beyond that!?

NatGeo

watching this documentary on NatGeo about hidden amazon tribes. (for once i am watching something informational!) there's this tribe zoha or something that rhymes that way who are kind of close to nature. i mean in every sense of it. naturists, every one of them. male, female included.

woman making a nice headgear from a local bird's soft white feathers. now here's the commentator's interpretation: that is the way the women distinguish themselves from the men. eh? bunch of skinny dippers need to distinguish between the genders through apparel accessories!?

but there was one little thing that caught my attention (no pun intended here!) if the tribe, in its hunt, manages to find an animal/bird that managed to survive their hunting expedition, then catches the creature and makes it their pet! yes, they dont eat it. its brethern are ingested but not the survivor! pet monkey wearing a tiny necklace made of another monkey's teeth. how comforting for this pet!

ok. now i get back to the show. really interesting this channel :) pity its on paid access in chennai.

wha..?

i love taking jabs at the media. ample opps to catch them unaware :-)

there was this news piece by NDTV the other day (i target NDTV the way hackers get at microsoft)... reporter was covering a police firing on unarmed villagers in rajasthan and goes on to implicate the villagers for creating a havoc.

reporter: "it is unthinkable to even imagine..." some emphasis!

this reminds me of one more of their goof ups. it was delhi and in winter.

news reader to live reporter: "so tell me, when will the delayed flights be allowed to leave on time?" .....!? we can question the need for a live reporter some other time. :-)

of course, we can catch all their goofiness when they 'let us know they are goofy' during an end-of-the-year-laugh-your-ass-out snippet.

oxymoron?

heard this from an NDTV news reporter as he was covering the bus service from Srinagar-Muzaffarabad that started off.

"....the security as usual remained unprecedented...."

now 'unprecedented' ought to imply something that has never been paralleled. something that hasnt happened before. and 'remain' implies that something hasnt changed, or rather stayed the same. so we have a security cover at a level that has never been paralleled, but stayed the same. hmmm.