The TATA Nano will be on display in showrooms from All Fools Day, 2009. For an outright Nano critic like me, this announcement was the height of accidental irony. yeah right; they say it is safe an environmentally friendly and economical and all that. But it is gonna be made of chart paper and some glue for the kind of price tag it has and I don't see a point in every single car being kinder to the polar bears when you can possibly replace half the motorbikes on our city streets with it.
Besides it is quite an ugly looking thing, far from being an original (as touted by Dilip Chhabria; who in my view cannot design anything more subtle than Govinda's boots); a Mitsubishi i rip off; a populist slack of the UPA government; soon to be scourge of every city commuter. Soon we will all be in our nanos, sitting pretty and getting nowhere at all.
This morning though, there was a full page ad that appeared in TOI. Beautiful blue and green water coloured theme. Nice font I thought, with the tagline; 'Yes you can'. Bit of a rip off the ad as well, I thought. But for only one fleeting second I thought I could really see the other side of the argument. For the next second, I considered the possibility that this car could be pretty clever, and not just in a replace leather with foam kind of way. It could make every vehicle, right from the Honda Dio I have now to my future Aston, better.
For another second, I hoped that maybe when I drive it, the car WILL surprise me. That I will go in with my nose pinched and I just might come out a fan. I am not so sure, but this car can be the Indian car industry's first 'look at what we made' moment.
Agreed the advertisement, like the car, was a bit of a rip off. But it was good enough to let me see something I'd rather not. The world of reality is too often not as good as the world of imagination. Lets just hope this time around, it isn't.
All the best to you, tiny car.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Even Better than Crusoe
"Father
I need a lend of 500 pounds
'Coz we are gonna go over to London
And get ourselves a record deal
And when we get the record deal
We're not gonna stay in London
We're not gonna go to New York City.
We're gonna stay and base our crew in Dublin.
Because these people. This is our tribe."
The crowd explodes into a cheer, loving fans; and as the most ridiculously optimistic lead singer
of the showiest band in the world picks up the song where they left it off a minute ago; Bono
shouts 'I'm out of control'. Watching it some years later on a laptop, I am, Irish. Thats U2.
The words 'this is our tribe' weren't familiar, but felt familiar. Words that smelt of proud
comfort; of being around people you understand and know. The sort of comfort that hems you in a kind of blanket of warmness; lulling you to sleep.
There is a saying that my dad used to tell me often when the prospect of leaving home to make a
life during my teenage years seemed too taxing. It went like no seed can become a tree unless it
leaves the side of the one it was born of. It had the kind of bitter sweet ring to it that parently
sayings usually have. Sweet enough to sound good, hard enough to be ruggedly realistic. And like most parently sayings, I soon realized that every ounce of it was true.
Over the last 6 years that has happened progressively with me. And I think the process will end for the time being when I leave for Australia next January. Australia; the word fills me with delight and fear at the same time. I am happily standing next to the beautiful Flinder Street station, eating my crocodile pie when a herd of goggle wearing kangaroos driving big blue Monaros runs me over; and all of this happening while Men at Work's Down
Under plays on a radio somewhere. Crikey!
I feel a bit like Robinson Crusoe must have had he been a real person. I know in some sort of
bizzare (and scaaringly, maybe contrived) way what I am getting into. It should let me do what I want to and hopefully get into what I want to. But I know there is a very high chance it will do me no good; and that I will spent my entire life trying to love something that I have consigned my whole life to. But like Robinson Crusoe, the luxuries of the middle order of life are not for me.
The sea beckons and I need to go.
I love my tribe. There is no doubt I will miss it. Terribly. But I can at least do better that
Robinson Crusoe and hope it will all work out fine.
I just hope Melbourne is on U2's next tour.
I need a lend of 500 pounds
'Coz we are gonna go over to London
And get ourselves a record deal
And when we get the record deal
We're not gonna stay in London
We're not gonna go to New York City.
We're gonna stay and base our crew in Dublin.
Because these people. This is our tribe."
The crowd explodes into a cheer, loving fans; and as the most ridiculously optimistic lead singer
of the showiest band in the world picks up the song where they left it off a minute ago; Bono
shouts 'I'm out of control'. Watching it some years later on a laptop, I am, Irish. Thats U2.
The words 'this is our tribe' weren't familiar, but felt familiar. Words that smelt of proud
comfort; of being around people you understand and know. The sort of comfort that hems you in a kind of blanket of warmness; lulling you to sleep.
There is a saying that my dad used to tell me often when the prospect of leaving home to make a
life during my teenage years seemed too taxing. It went like no seed can become a tree unless it
leaves the side of the one it was born of. It had the kind of bitter sweet ring to it that parently
sayings usually have. Sweet enough to sound good, hard enough to be ruggedly realistic. And like most parently sayings, I soon realized that every ounce of it was true.
Over the last 6 years that has happened progressively with me. And I think the process will end for the time being when I leave for Australia next January. Australia; the word fills me with delight and fear at the same time. I am happily standing next to the beautiful Flinder Street station, eating my crocodile pie when a herd of goggle wearing kangaroos driving big blue Monaros runs me over; and all of this happening while Men at Work's Down
Under plays on a radio somewhere. Crikey!
I feel a bit like Robinson Crusoe must have had he been a real person. I know in some sort of
bizzare (and scaaringly, maybe contrived) way what I am getting into. It should let me do what I want to and hopefully get into what I want to. But I know there is a very high chance it will do me no good; and that I will spent my entire life trying to love something that I have consigned my whole life to. But like Robinson Crusoe, the luxuries of the middle order of life are not for me.
The sea beckons and I need to go.
I love my tribe. There is no doubt I will miss it. Terribly. But I can at least do better that
Robinson Crusoe and hope it will all work out fine.
I just hope Melbourne is on U2's next tour.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
My first poem in years: It rained last night
it rained last night and what do i see
there is a bit of it still hanging about in every other tree
this queen of all mornings
under a cream full of sky
you can almost hear the quiet sun smiling
the most radiant beauties, we all know
are always a little shy
like the laughter of a girl
with a husky kind of voice
the morning rids me of myself and
this queer kind of day world
of too little hope and too much choice
it rained last night and what do i see
there is a bit of it still hanging about in every other tree
as if by my gaze alone
the morning seems to be going and heaving
(like a strange girl who is on a train (i'm on the platform)
and as her train is leaving)
the burdens of all mornings before
of when your heart sees no light
and your soul shuts the door
on your hopes and dreams and your stead
but i know this morning, this very one
will once again smile on my sleepy head
it is a pretty morning and many more can be
makes my grateful, tearful soul bend down on the knee
what a sky, what a day, what a chockful of joy
reminds this man about that little boy
who once was the dreamer, far from in vain
who maybe was lost, but can be found again
the morning now, quietly, it departs
leaves hope thats a tiny twinkle
like that of a little star
on some lucky and awaken(ed) hearts
it rained last night and what do i see
there is a bit of it still hanging about in every other tree
there is a bit of it still hanging about in every other tree
this queen of all mornings
under a cream full of sky
you can almost hear the quiet sun smiling
the most radiant beauties, we all know
are always a little shy
like the laughter of a girl
with a husky kind of voice
the morning rids me of myself and
this queer kind of day world
of too little hope and too much choice
it rained last night and what do i see
there is a bit of it still hanging about in every other tree
as if by my gaze alone
the morning seems to be going and heaving
(like a strange girl who is on a train (i'm on the platform)
and as her train is leaving)
the burdens of all mornings before
of when your heart sees no light
and your soul shuts the door
on your hopes and dreams and your stead
but i know this morning, this very one
will once again smile on my sleepy head
it is a pretty morning and many more can be
makes my grateful, tearful soul bend down on the knee
what a sky, what a day, what a chockful of joy
reminds this man about that little boy
who once was the dreamer, far from in vain
who maybe was lost, but can be found again
the morning now, quietly, it departs
leaves hope thats a tiny twinkle
like that of a little star
on some lucky and awaken(ed) hearts
it rained last night and what do i see
there is a bit of it still hanging about in every other tree
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
