Ex-Men Origins: Ajmal Kasab

Ajmal Kasab, best known for his involvement in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, died sometime in the night on 2nd October 2073 of natural causes. He was 86 years old. Kasab spent the last 63 years of his life in a high security prison, his every need being taken care of, while the Indian government decided on a final date for his execution. Sadly for the government, that date will never come.

Kasab was kept in solitary confinement where, unbeknownst to most of his jailors, he had access to over 500,000 friends on Facebook, and regularly twittered his thoughts on the Indian penal system. It was later discovered he received constant motivation and encouragement from his Lashkar-e-Taiba mentors back home. The Pakistani government was glad another one of their citizens had found a good life in India, where all his expenses were taken care of by the government. In the light of these discoveries after his death, the government started realizing that keeping Kasab alive had cost them a lot of money, and with pressure from the press and mass-media companies, finally arrived at a final execution date of 29th February 2079, which, it turns out, is not a leap year. Also unknown to most of the leaders in power, Kasab made deals with the prison warden, allowing him conjugal visits with his mistress from Mumbai, who he met in the train-station just prior to the shooting. He had many sons and daughters by this mistress, most of whom have been trained by his mentor’s children in the ways of Lashkar-e-Taiba. One son, Basak, (his name has been changed for (my) protection), is a member of Parliament, a eager young man endeavouring to rise up the echelons of power. A recent search of his 500-acre land and 40,000 sq. ft. mansion in the outskirts of Delhi revealed nothing incriminating. All that was found and confiscated by the horny officer was 3 Terabytes of pornography. Also found in his room were autobiographies of Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Saddam Hussein, along with a life-size poster of Osama bin Laden adorned with a garland of fresh flowers…

Coming back to the present, and to Kasab and the Indian government’s love of spending money on keeping terrorists alive, it is regrettable that the Indian government seems to lack the balls to do what is necessary, and instead finds solace in bickering amongst its members trying to figure out who has more power and more money that they can never use-up in this lifetime. Terrorists captured and had a couple of planes crash into a couple of buildings in United States. What do they do? The start a war. A few terrorists kill hundreds of Indians. What do they do? Feed the creature they caught; keep it alive, in prison. Negotiate with Pakistan to have him returned to his country so that he can return to complete the Mumbai massacre. At least keep him in a cage and charge people to see him as in a zoo… and maybe you’ll recover the money you spend keeping him alive. One bullet is way cheaper than the cost of keeping one man alive for so long. Take him to the India-Pak border, stand him facing his country and shoot him in the back of his head so that his corpse falls over into Pak territory…

“Here, you can have him back!” said the Prime Minister to loud cheers from the soldiers standing behind him, and returned home that day, a smile of satisfaction hidden under his bushy beard.

2011
06/21
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CATEGORY
Ex-Men Origins
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Ex-Men Origins: Joseph Stalin

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin held the much coveted seat of Premier of the Soviet Union for a little while, which everyone still alive from that period remembers only as a time when mimicking Stalin by being constipated could save your life. Stalin was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries, a small group that believed in shaving their privates (and sometimes even their lieutenants and captains) every morning before breakfast, which was the same group that brought about the October Revolution in November.

Stalin brought about the dark-grey revolution, which transformed the agrarian economy into an industrial one. However, to accommodate all the people into the newly advanced industrial culture by providing enough food which was no longer there, he sent millions of people to penial labour camps, where most men died from being castrated- it was cold, and shaved privates shriveled and died. Because of all the problems involved in changing the whole country’s outlook towards industry (without any support from Microsoft, whose customer service then- as now- left much to be desired), Stalin had to learn to suppress all opposition, but little did he know that suppressing urges too often leads to constipation, which eventually culminated in the Great Purge, the only known solution to his condition at the time.

In 1953, a mild stroke left Stalin unable to move, with no control over his bowels, which solved his stomach issues. Four days later, he was to die of a cerebral hemorrhage, but only in his final moments did he realize that all the deaths he had caused could have been avoided if only he had found a better solution than the Great Purge. A paralyzed Stalin’s last words to Peter Lozgachev, the Deputy Commandant of Kuntsevo (another faction that believed in shaving their privates) were “Xmplrtyxmly!”

2011
06/20
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Ex-Men Origins
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Ex-Men Origins: Saddam Hussein

Tyrants have common traits: rise to power by ousting existing governments with their own parties formed of personal religion, some form of facial hair, a penchant for killing a lot of innocents (although some would argue as to the innocence of those involved), grandiose plans of conquest and domination, wearing uniforms night and day (because it’s easier to get women that way), completely and utterly failing in their ultimate goals, and dying at the hands of others. Saddam was no different… with his Ba’ath party focusing on personal hygiene, a mustache that would have shamed Hitler into becoming an effeminate transvestite had he been around…. being executed by ‘those meddlesome Americans’. And just as Germans killed the Jews, and the Italians killed the Jews, and the Russians killed the Jews, and the Arabs killed the Jews, and the Yugoslavians killed the Jews, and the Poles killed the Jews, and Slovakians killed the Jews… Saddam killed… Kurds. He wanted to be unique. One could argue his dislike of Kurds was quite logical: he was lactose intolerant, and misinformed about what he could and could not tolerate.

After a failed attempt at conquering his oil-rich neighbour, and a series of ferocious golf matches with Kuwaiti president Jaber Al-Sabah that ended in both their mistresses mud-wrestling, which the media typo-ed as the Gulf War, Saddam was eventually captured by the Americans while he was doing laundry, handed over to his own people, tried and convicted and executed. His last words before his execution, captured on videotape which was later destroyed, clearly aimed at the Americans, were, “I would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn’t been for you meddling kids!”

2011
05/16
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Ex-Men Origins
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Ex-Men Origins: Adolf Hitler

One of the more infamous personalities in history, Adolf Hitler, born one and half pounds underweight, grew up to be a fine young man and a natural leader of brainwashed soldiers usually high on beer and pot. He was a talented man, with interests ranging from art to war. He was particularly a fan of Charlie Chaplin, and tried to emulate his looks on more than one occasion. However, his barber found it especially hard to copy the mustache as is. His barber was a Jew, and the rest is all history. Adolf’s other interests as a boy included boxing (watching the sport was all the pale boy could manage, however), throwing rotten eggs at Prussians and he was particularly a sucker for English pound cake and Vodka. Part of his grandiose plans of world conquest included monopolizing production of both.

Adolf had a second cousin twice removed named Rudolph, but the mad scientists hired by Hitler during the Second World War experimented on him and he grew antlers and ran off to the north-pole where he was drafted to serve as a carriage puller for an extremely corpulent man that likes to dress up in a red fur suite.

Sadly for Adolf, his plans for world domination came to a premature end when his brain-dead soldiers (too much pot does that) sunk an American ship and incurred their wrath, which resulted in bombing of two cities thousands of miles from Germany (the Perl Harbor incident was merely coincidence). So finally, surrounded by enemy soldiers, Adolf, in his haste to try and escape, slipped on a banana peel lying on the floor and pierced himself in the heart with a letter-opener. (The media somehow convinced people it was suicide) His last words as he died were “My Precioussss!”

2011
05/16
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Ex-Men Origins: Osama bin Laden

Osama bin Laden was originally a U.S. Citizen, born Oscar. B. Lacey, from the suburbs of Washington D.C, trained in various military schools. He was taught bomb-making, Arabic, torture-techniques, leadership skills, how to control itching of a terribly long and dirty beard, how to keep multiple wives (that’s why he was so thin and stressed out, no doubt) etc. He was then sent off to the Middle East with the specific purpose of heading Al Qaeda and to later destroy WTC so that U.S of A could get a foothold into the oil-rich country of Iraq. And when finally his job was done, he was taken out by U.S. Navy SEALS to erase any evidence of his origins. That was when Oscar, a.k.a Osama, learned a final, valuable lesson: “Beauty isn’t everything. Get fatter wives to stop the bullets!”

2011
05/16
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Traffic Rules for Pune Fools

Pune: a city where things are slightly… different, to put it mildly. People of all sorts live here, work here and drive to and fro from work and home. Then there are some who just drive around for fun. What is common to most of these city folk, however, is the way they drive. And in Pune, it is somewhat unique. By observing Pune traffic, I have figured out the traffic rules that shouldn’t be, but are applied in this city. Here are some of them:

Rule #1: Follow rules… only when the cops are present

This rule may not be that unique to Pune, but it is the most important rule if you want to get anywhere. Own the road. You have the right of way. Signals at crossings mean nothing… as long as no officials are watching, waiting to catch you. If there’s no one to stop you, you better break the rules because if you don’t, you aren’t going to reach anywhere. People will keep getting in your way, forcing to move aside, or to let them pass, and there’s no end to the number of people who want to get ahead of you on the road, if only for a few seconds.

Rule #2: Drive carefully… when driving the wrong way

If you are driving on a one-way street, be careful and be on the lookout for people coming the wrong way. If you block their path, they’re going to get angry. They have right of way. If it’s an auto-rickshaw coming the wrong way, steer clear, even if it means hitting the car besides you; better the car than you, because the rickshaw driver is surely going to start attacking you if you get in his way.

Rule #3: Use footpaths… when the roads are congested

Generally- not always, but generally- the footpaths on the side of the roads are meant for people travelling on foot. But when that traffic gets going, the footpath is the two-wheeler’s friend. And if you’re walking on the footpath, you better be careful, because if you get in their way, you’re going to get hurt.

Rule #4: Use indicators… just after you start turning

This is something I always watch out for. People don’t like indicating which way are want to turn. They do it, but grudgingly, and only after they have already started turning. And if you aren’t careful, you’ll end up standing in the middle of the road fighting with the guy who believes he was right and you were wrong.

Rule #5: Overtake from the… wherever

It’s very easy to drive a car. Anybody can drive. The real skills is in driving while anticipating what idiots around you will do. One always overtakes from the fast lane. But that is difficult to do if you have half-a-piston-engine cars stubbornly driving from the fast lane unwilling to give way to the cars behind. What do you do then? If there’s no divider in the road, then you can move to the fast lane in the other direction to overtake from there, or you can overtake from the slow lane and vindictively cut in front of the slowpoke to scare him or something. And if there’s cars parked on one lane, just bang the meathead driving like your granny walks.

Rule #6: Observe lane discipline… just observe. No need to actually follow it

I don’t think most people here have ever heard of this concept: Lane Discipline. If you find a gap in between cars, take it. Don’t bother with which lane it is in or how closely you’ll have to cut in into the other lane. If you don’t drive that way, you’ll surely get stuck behind some idiotic slowpoke driving in the middle of road, blocking two lanes of the road. Most roads in Pune are two-lane roads anyway.

Rule #7: If in a minor accident… stop in the middle of the road to argue and fight

This is the most observed rule in Pune. With so many cars on the roads, none of them observing lane-discipline and basic road-etiquette, minor scuffles are unavoidable. A car bumps another, or a bike scratches a car, or a bus takes off a mirror; these things are so common most people expect it to happen now and again. So what do these people do? They could move their cars to the side of the road and peacefully come to a solution to their mutual problem. But that’s to grown-up. It’s always better to stop your vehicles in the middle of the road and fight and curse loudly while everyone around you tries to get through.

Rule #8: If witness to an accident… pelt stones at the offenders

Minor accidents happen every few minutes, but every now and again, there are accidents in which some are seriously injured, and some are killed. If you see such an accident, I used to think the first thing that would come to your mind would be to help the injured. Not so in Pune. No one cares whose fault the accident actually was; it is always the one with the bigger car that is the offender. Instead of helping the injured, you should pelt stones and beat up the people in the bigger car. The bigger the car, the more the stones, the harder the beating. If it’s a bus, it’s not enough to destroy just one bus, but you must destroy a few more. That is the set protocol. Join in with the mob. Release the pent up anger inside you. Why you are angry and frustrated is a topic for another day’s discussion. Just don’t get arrested and you’ll have a lot of fun… at someone else’s expense. Forget the injured people. Someone will come along eventually to help them.

Rule #9: Use horn… all the effing time

Traffic abounds in Pune, and it just keeps on increasing. No one observes lane discipline and everyone gets in everyone else’s way. So it is quite obvious that people honk horns. But with some people, it is partly a habit to honk horns even if the roads are virtually empty and partly a licence to drive like crazy idiots. Maybe these horny (pun intended) people think it’s better to be loud and obnoxious and fast than safe and quiet and slightly slow?

I wanted to come up with ten rules, but I can’t think of any other rule that won’t offend someone or the other .This article is meant to be humorous. Don’t read too much into it. At the same time, don’t read too little into it either. Rules are meant to be broken so that those who make the rules can make money. There are rules and there are etiquettes for driving. Following just one or the other won’t make you a good driver. And no matter how good a driver you are, if you can’t drive in accord with the rest of the crowd, then you’re just another idiot on the road.

2011
01/06
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CATEGORY
Second Gear
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Firecrackers, Footpaths and Fools

Come every October is the Indian festival of Lights. It is a five day festival, signifying the triumph of good over evil within an individual. If you want an exact definition, Diwali is the celebration of this inner light, in particular the knowing of which outshines all darkness (removes all obstacles and dispels all ignorance), awakening the individual to one’s true nature, not as the body, but as the unchanging, infinite, immanent and transcendent reality. With the realization of the Atman comes universal compassion, love, and the awareness of the oneness of all things (higher knowledge). This brings Ananda (inner joy or peace).

It’s funny, even if a bit sad that I found the meaning of Diwali on a wiki page after watching it being celebrated all around me for a quarter of a century. Realization of inner light is supposed to bring peace and joy, and Diwali is a celebration of that, but in all of my twenty-five years, I have never felt that. To me, Diwali has always been a mindless session of multicoloured, blinking lights and loud firecrackers.

I am no Grinch; I do not object to people celebrating. I do not mind the lanterns and the lamps. I do not mind the food and the sweets. I do not mind the fireworks displays. What I do mind, though, is the noise. What I do mind is being rudely woken up at one in the morning because some blithering idiot wanted to burst particularly loud crackers to celebrate the realization of his inner light, and do so again at five in the morning. What I do mind is reading about fires at firecracker factories killing tens of people, or about people’s clothes catching fires while playing around with them. What I do mind is trees, houses, cars burning down because the ‘rocket’ variety crackers didn’t fly right. What I do mind is waking up the next stinky, smoky morning to find tonnes of firecracker litter all over the roads and footpaths.

Where in the definition of Dipavali (row of lamps) do firecrackers come in? Where in that definition does it mention that you should make lots of noise that can raise the dead at ungodly hours? Where in the definition does it mention that you can kill people or set things afire as enjoyment of the festivities? What part of the definition states that you should bring out your inner light as sound?

Religious festivals like Diwali and Ganesha Chaturthi have become exactly like the religion they belong to: misinterpreted and decadent. The religion these festivals come from are full of idiots with twisted notions of right and wrong who think they are the ones meant to interpret the meaning of the religious text passed down by word of mouth for generations; of power-hungry freaks who wilfully misconstrue the meaning of already corrupted content to suit their own needs. The festival of Diwali has become but a shadow of what it was meant to be, with this custom of lighting 80dB bombs late in the night. I mean, I can understand the lure the visual displays and fancy patterns they generate, but I cannot understand people’s attraction towards hearing exceptionally loud farts every few seconds for hours on end. It benefits no one.

I could spout reasons for you not to buy crackers. I could tell you of all the child-labour. I could tell you about the pollution. I could tell you of the all the dead people, of the fires and explosions, of all the suffering and trouble surrounding this custom. But you know what: I don’t care about all that. Sure, in a general sense, in some deep down place in my heart I feel for all this, but that’s not the overriding reason I hate this festival of lights.

I hate Diwali because it is just bloody annoying.

I hate Diwali because the people who celebrate it in this insensible, overly-loud way are imbeciles.

Oh, I don’t mind the sweets. I don’t mind the lights. I don’t mind the decorations. I don’t mind the parties. All I mind is the custom which supports mindless cretins bursting crackers at whatever time they jolly well feel like. I have some sane advice for those vacuous, cracker-busting, insipid retards: take a large cracker, push it up your ass and light it. Silencers always help.

Boy, do people think I complain a lot! They think I am a sad little fella who doesn’t know how to enjoy life. What’s a few days of noise, yeah? What a few days of senseless, ear-splitting, heart-bursting, music, interspersed with loud crackers, yeah? Relax, go deaf, and enjoy the asininity of the whole exercise. It’ll build character. Well, I have some sage advice for people who think that: jump off a tall building. That’ll build real character, momentarily.

And this loud habit isn’t limited to Diwali either. You’ll find it observed in weddings, after cricket matches India wins, when politicos make a social call, when a new shop is opened, in fact, whenever anything happens, there’s a good chance somewhere some monumental moron will be bursting crackers.

Wake up. Open your eyes. There’s no grace, no aesthetics in sounds that go bang. There’s no purpose, no reason for existence of such a mindless custom. You may think you’re living life when you burst crackers, but all you are doing is killing yourself, bit by bit. So wake up, listen to the sounds, smell the sulphur, and open your eyes to the truth. Think why this tradition was started, think about the necessity of continuing with some aspects of it in this day and age. Don’t stick to the past and follow things thoughtlessly like the shit trailing a goldfish.

I may complain, but who’ll listen? Because come next Diwali, who’s going to remember the whining of one little kid? Who’s going to remember this little piece of writing before going to the shop and buying a year’s salary worth of firecrackers to raise the dead who died while being forced to make them? Who’s going to remember those empty ramblings of a concerned boy trying to raise awareness among people? The pollution will disperse. The smell will go in a few hours because you’ll get used to it. Well, come next Diwali, remember these words:

Live life moving forward. Don’t leave it behind.

–

Seriously,

-jdranade

2010
11/08
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
The Critical Reviewer
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The Forgotten Gift

I lived life thinking how life should be lived

And thus was never alive. Such folly did I score.

An old man I lie in bed, weary of what lies ahead,

What life gave I did not take; soon I’ll be no more.

On my deathbed I lie, and wonder why

I did not live my life. Why did I so err?

Now regret fills this old man’s mind

And a troubled heart with terror.

Death comes, rushing headlong towards the end

And I cling on to one thought. Why didn’t I live?

It comes to take me but I do not wish to cease,

Why must life stop when I have so much to give?

In and out of death’s embrace I reach

Now fear now hope in my heart springs.

I wish to go on, to live my life

I wish to see and do so many things.

Yet, the end that was near is now finally here,

And I can dally no longer. Why must I wither and die?

I wish to live life I had imagined myself living,

Yet at this final moment I can but cry.

I remember my life, the way it was lived

I recall it all in a blink of an eye

There were moments both happy and sad,

Angry and calm, and low and high.

I had lived quite well, the life I had lived,

Though I had lived in a future that could’ve been,

And now as I died, I relived the past,

What was, had happened, had been lived unseen.

I lived in the future while my life did last,

The present was a gift I had squandered away,

And when it was at an end, I lived in the past,

And lived and died regretting the entire stay.

—

This is really a poem about dreams. Do you have dreams? Not dreams of sleep, but dreams of being, of accomplishment, of success? If you do, cherish them; if you don’t, find them. If you can’t find them, talk to me. I’ll find your dreams. Work towards your dreams by living in the present. Don’t spend your life wondering what could have been. Be it. Live it. You have only this one life, you’ll get no more. Work towards your dreams. Don’t fantasize having fulfilled them. Use that time instead to fulfill them. That way, you’ll live it, not dream your dream. The old man in the poem, as he is dying, regrets not having worked towards his goals. He regrets having wasted his life by living in the world of dreams. He regrets not having the guts to fight for his dreams in the real world, because in the dream world, they were already realized. If you don’t live life, you’ll regret it as you end. And that will be sad.

-jdranade

2010
07/16
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CATEGORY
Poems
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The Car With The Hole

You look at her with envy, love and pride all mixed together into a single emotion. The smooth curves, the dashing looks, the confident personality, they all charm you into infatuation. Her attitude is visible in her eyes as they stare unfalteringly at whatever they look at. She has style, her shiny red dress caressing her form, highlighting her alluring figure. You want her then and there. She knows how to walk, how to dress, how to look. Her makeup’s on just right, and her attitude says take me, take me now. How can you ignore her!

She’s been through finishing school and has taken lessons in modelling. She is stable, with feet planted firmly on the ground. She’s well groomed, suave, well educated and equipped to take on anything you throw at her. You know she can do all she says she can when you look at her. You just know it. But can she?

She is a beautiful creature as far as her species goes. I am, of course, talking about a car. The VW Polo is a recent addition to the Pune market, and it looks just fantastic.

So naturally, everyone wants one. It gorgeous, it’s affordable, and it’s German: all qualities you need in a car. But the car lacks something. Something integral to it, something that reduces or even removes your lust for it: it’s soul. Its soul is weak, diseased, dying. It cries out to you as you sit in the car. Save me, save me, it whines loudly, and that’s pathetic and sad, but that’s ok. Nobody cares for a soulless car, or so Volkswagen thinks. I don’t blame them entirely. It’s quite likely their thinking has been muddled by other soulless cars in the market. So then, what is the car’s soul? Is it the comfort with which you sit in it? The way you look in it when someone on the street sees you? The way you feel when you are in the car? Well, it’s something like that. But more importantly, it’s the engine. The heart. Because you see, without the heart, if you possess every other organ, you’re still dead, and that’s what this car is. There’s a big hole in its engine bay. Someone shot the engine with a twelve-gauge. I mean, look, it’s missing a cylinder.

With one cylinder gone, so has a fourth of the power. If you are an optimist, you’ll think that that gives people on the street much more time to admire your car since you can’t get away very fast, but the truth is, little boys who drool at cars would rather see big cars that roar past them at breakneck speeds than see a good looking car that has been shot in the heart.

So then the engine is rubbish and high speed and acceleration are just a dream, but how is the rest of the car? In short: it’s a dream… a dream come true. The interiors are spacious for a hatchback, the seats are somewhat comfortable, although I must admit that I got a backache even during the small test drive I took of the car. The tilting and telescopic steering wheel available right from the basic model is good although it would have been much better had they added a height-adjustable driver’s seat as well, and the boot space is the second-largest I have seen in a hatchback. The feel of the interior is clean and simple, and undeniably German.

The handling is decent. The car is low slung and quite stable, the tyres are large enough to give good grip, the short-shifting gearbox is simply delightful, and the brakes, even without ABS, are responsive and actually work, unlike some of the other hatches I have driven. The engine is noisy, but then with one cylinder gone, the whine it makes is understandable, if not excusable. Since the 1.2 litre engine is known to be frustrating and boring, I’ll not talk too much about it. Of course, if you like getting from point A to point B in style and speed, then you can add an extra cylinder to your car, but that’ll cost you almost as much more as the car itself, and that’s not worth the money.

So then, should you buy the car? You can lust for it, but cannot love it. You can admire it but cannot tear up the road. You can sit in the simple, elegant interiors of the car but with a backache. You can look good in it but cannot speak to others over the whine of the engine. It’s good, it’s bad. It’s good, it’s bad. It’s good, it’s bad. What do you do?

If you have that much money, but only that much money, buy it. If you are the kind of person who doesn’t like big cars because they are too large but still want a spacious small car, buy it. If you are afraid of big cars then you’re also afraid of speed, and sudden acceleration (in Pune, mostly) means nothing to you, so buy it. If you are all about looks and don’t care about performance, buy it, it’ll be the best buy you make in the hatchback segment in Pune. If you are deaf and don’t care about the whiny engine, buy it.

But if you are a speed-freak like me and enjoy a good sporty drive, don’t. If you enjoy power and love that beautiful engine roar that sounds oh so much better than anything on the radio, don’t buy it. If you like pulling away from a signal with squealing tyres and burning rubber, don’t buy it. If you have a little more money, there are other value-for-money cars out there, and while they may not look as good as the Polo, they’ll be cars you can admire for other things, so don’t buy it.

So then, should you buy the car? Yes, no. Yes, no. Yes, no. It’s cool, but a little boring. It’s hot, but a little dumb. It’s inexpensive, but with a dying little soul. Yes? No?

I wouldn’t. But no matter what decision you make, you won’t have made a mistake.

—

Specifications:

(Will be adding shortly)

My Ratings (1-10):

[1-3: Poor; 4-5: Acceptable; 6-7: Good; 7+: Amazing]

Speed:

Acceleration: 2

Deceleration: 4

Comfort:

Driver: 4

Passenger: 4

Design:

Interior: 6

Exterior: 8

Cabin Space: 6

COOLNESS: 8

OVERALL RATING: 5.25

—

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The Transvestite Car

2010
05/27
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Second Gear
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The Transvestite Car

All Maruti Suzuki cars have two problems. First, they look bad, and they drive to match. Second, they are all in the same segment of hatchbacks, which means they are competing with themselves. So when they came out with the Swift Dezire, which was just a regular Swift with Jenifer Lopez’s* butt attached to it, I thought they were just trying something new. Then they came out with the SX4, which was their first proud sedan. All was well and dandy, but there were some obvious problems.

It was as tall as a hatch and as big as a SUV while it tried to look like a sedan. It failed at all three. This car is either a SUV that decided one day to wear the clothes of a sedan or the other way around, but lost heart midway and ended up the way it is: tall and large with wheels from a monster truck and the clearance of an airplane in flight.

Looks wise it is worse than the Hyundai Verna. It is taller, wider, and heavier with bigger, thicker wheels driven by a same size 1.6 litre engine.

When Suzuki came out with the concept of having a hatchback disguised as a sedan, I wasn’t too keen on seeing the result of that. They didn’t prove me wrong, and I am not happy. While from the front it is not bad looking except for its angry headlights, from the side it looks like it has stomach cramps and is tortured, as if under constant braking, maybe from all the constipation.

With its tall, bold body and the massive rear, this huge car makes a person sitting in it feel like he’s the driver of a Volvo B9R.

So, the car’s not that great to look at, but a person sitting at the wheel can’t see the outside of the car. In this case, however, it is not a good thing. There is no way to see or even guess where the bonnet of the car ends and the next car begins, and that is especially a problem when parking. The rear isn’t any easier either. The narrow backside and the boot the height of a Redwood Oak make seeing anything but the sky nearly impossible, and with the boot lid curving down, there’s no way to figure out how much of the car is jutting out behind you either. The solution to that is to buy parking sensors for the front and back which will cost around seven to eight thousand Rupees.

With a measly 1.6 litre 100 odd horsepower engine the acceleration isn’t that great either, especially since the car weighs the same as the Earth. The gear shifts are hard, but the transmission is much better than that of the old Suzuki cars. The steering is quite heavy and slow to respond. And while the fat car has side view mirrors the size of elephant ears, one can’t argue their effectiveness in providing good visibility and their possible use as air brakes.

The interior is a mixed bag of good and bad. No warts blemish the dash of the car like the A-Star. The steering wheel is small and sporty and feels good in my hands even though it has other problems. The seats are slightly better than the Hyundai, and there’s enough head room for the Great Khali, but only if you cut off his legs. And if a tall person is driving with the seat pushed back all the way, then you’re better off in another car. Also, three people will sit in the rear seat but they’ll be mighty uncomfortable, which makes it a four people car, like all new ones. The gear lever is uncomfortable and boring while the cheap plastic dashboard surface is curved and unusable.

All of the above can be forgiven if they make available this same car with its 2 litre 150 horsepower all wheel drive model, but that version is not available in India, with no prospects of it arriving anytime soon. Well, whoever makes Suzuki’s marketing decisions in India is quite the tool.

What we have here then is an over-sized, overweight, underpowered monster with nasty eyes, a grim face and a big butt- did I say butt, I meant boot- which is at the same time overpriced, unbalanced because of its height and clearance, and uncomfortable to ride in. As a result, my test drive wasn’t much fun. The acceleration in the first three gears was merely acceptable, while that in the last two really took all the fun out of driving the car. The mileage of this beast is understandably low, but I don’t care about mileage. If you do, the Sx4 claims a healthy mileage of almost 35 miles to the gallon, but it will rarely deliver that. It may have a boot that needs to go on a diet but for that size of rump it isn’t very spacious and that’s a bummer. The resonating cavity created by the tall roof allows for a noisy interior and listening to a small Suzuki engine’s whine is not a happy experience.

So then what do we have here? A cross-dresser trying to look like a sedan when in fact it is a huge hatchback is not a good look for the sucks 4- did I say sucks? I meant SX4. With the four-wheel-drive option it might be a sturdy off-roader, but it is nothing of that kind. If they lowered the clearance and the height of the car and reduced the wheels to normal sized ones it would look much better, but then, that’s not the concept behind this vehicle, because then it would look like the Verna. So, priced in the range of seven to eight and half hundred thousand Indian Rupees, would I recommend you buy it? Well, being almost as good as it is bad, I would say if you like it for some strange reason, if you prefer its thick looks over that of the slimmer Hyundai, go for it. But when people complain about an uncomfortable ride, especially in the backseats, don’t come to me, because I’ll only say: I told you so.

* Disclaimer: I am not talking about the singer/actor Jenifer Lopez you are thinking about. It’s someone else.

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Specifications:

Model: SX4

Company: Maruti Suzuki

Version: Zxi

On Road Price (Pune): INR 875,025

Kerb Weight: 1200 kg

Engine:

Displacement: 1586cc

Cylinders: 4

Valves: 16

Type: DOHC

Power (HP): 102

Torque (Nm): 145 @ 4100 rpm

HP/tonne: 85

Mileage (as claimed by sales person):

City: 9-10

Highway: 13-14

My Ratings (1-10):

[1-3: Poor; 4-5: Acceptable; 6-7: Good; 7+: Amazing]

Speed:

Acceleration: 4

Deceleration: 4

Comfort:

Driver: 3

Passenger: 3

Design:

Interior: 4

Exterior: 3

Cabin Space: 3

COOLNESS: 2

OVERALL RATING: 3.25

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Previous Article:

Auto-Rickshaws, Accidents and Assholes – II

2010
02/19
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Second Gear
4 comments

Random Thoughts

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Principles of Jdism

1. Life is full of dukkha. It doesn't have to be yours.
2. Your life is your own. Live it.
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Computer Fundamentals

1. When in doubt, reboot!
2. Still, if nothing works at all, reinstall!
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2. Public before private and country before family... but remember, charity begins at home.
3. Talk doesn't cook rice... unless you are Sanjeev Kapoor.
4. Bold rabbits die scarred.
5. Monkey see monkey poo.
6. A perfectly executed plan was obviously not a big plan.

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