| So many friends!! And so little time?
17th April 2004 evening, I stopped the car somewhere close to my house. Needed to pick up few things for daily living. One of them was the current issue ‘AUTOCAR’. It was more a habit than looking at anything in particular.
I don’t remember the cover. I don’t remember the scoops. I don’t remember what all they had tested for that issue. But I remember a small box item, about TBHP. Also it mentioned, the site may look little complicated but you’ll get used to it soon.
Opening the world’s most coveted communication tool with the support of my regular whisky…I got into the world of a bunch of auto freaks. Small it was the group, but not lacking any energy. It was a hallucinated trip for me to travel from topic to topic. Well, whisky did help me feel like that. Pouring the second drink and with better focus, I went deeper and deeper.
Feeling relaxed mentally (cause it was Saturday and next day holiday), I poured my third drink. Gathered enough courage to go through even further… By the time I was clear in my mind and with my glass, it was next day the 18th. And I became a member of Team BHP.
My stupid profession forces me to travel. It seems to be the situation for so many years. As a result one looses the perspective of a normal life. Sure enough, due to these official activities I didn’t get any time to get back to TBHP. 20th late evening, after coming back from Bombay, I logged on again to post my Introduction. My 45 years (then) of rusted automotive life started with a new lease of life.
Surprisingly, the first TBHPian I met was GTO. The founder, and Super Administrator.
We missed one date and made up for it the very next day. He told me in some context during the talk: You don’t look your age. Instead of feeling NOS triggered, I felt like a failed turbo charger with miss-matched ECU. The feeling, which rushed down through my spine was really scary. By and large this forum is full of 20/30 years age group. HOW THE HELL DO I FIT IN?
Frankly, while checking the thread of my introduction… 5th post down the reply line, I saw this: Hi At last another over 40's person to keep me company - welcome aboard! ajit.
It was like getting into an actual habitat after seeing miles long mirage. But alas, this guy named Ajmat aka Ajit took his own time to give me any time. The second TBHPian in my life, Ajmat was busy with his work and more importantly, his Sunday golf.
We actually got introduced one evening to celebrate the true Bangalore’s pensioners trip…Talking with a drink in hand. He floored me with his bank of knowledge of cars. It’s as strong as Fort Knox. Later we met again for lunch…And now we (read I) try to meet as regularly as possible.
Time to meet a big great gang came really soon. In May, we made a trip to Panchgani.
GTO, Rev, Dippy, Stratos, Shan2nu, Aditya, Rehaan, F50 and myself.
Rain slashed hills, winding roads with two cars. Strawberry with ice cream and great fun with some cinematography. All the high tech guys were busy with their digital cameras and laptop. Me, from old school had nothing much to contribute. So I tagged along with them, tried to take few snaps and sat (read sandwiched) in between GTO and his sub woofer right through the journey. Immediately after coming back to Bombay, I had to go back to Pune for a meeting with a numb bass heavy feeling in my head. Exactly the kind of feeling one experiences while flying with a bad cold.
Right through last year, I had to make plenty of trips to Bombay. In any other circumstances it would have been a disaster. For me it was like less of work and more of meeting TBHPians. We met at Worli sea face. We had dinner at Bade Mia and Noorani. We watched F1 at Sidewok (hope the spelling is right) and in turn I made an incredible bunch of friends.
I have met all the moderators except V12. For some reason he is always missing when we meet in Bombay. For the benefit of the other unfortunate TBHPians and newbies, let me introduce the band of brothers. This set of introductions is purely my observation and any similarities to actual characters are purely coincidental. If there are any factual errors, please pardon me as the second oldest member. So here goes.
GTO: Founder and super administrator. Likes to take charge (for obvious reasons) of everything. Appears most prominent and vociferous during every meet. Currently spending very little time on board. Sometime he adds the suffix ‘touring’ to his name to tell everybody that he’s watching everything.
Rehaan: Super moderator. Fan of technology and gizmos. Tyre /alloy wheels expert. Digital camera consultant. Currently devoting a little of his precious time by guiding me to the technology rich future world. His location also says providence along with Bombay. I can see what he means.
Revvmaster: Super moderator, super communicator, ex green Matiz driver. Deeply disturbed with the choices of choosing a career at this point. Automobile, advertising and journalism.. Man, it’s a tough choice.
Aditya: Moderator, Jaguar and finance guy. Off and on scares people with his huge Conti. Waits for everybody’s comments to get over and puts his final one. A very logical though.
Dippy: Moderator, hard core Ferrari evangelist outside Italy. Outside his web designing world, keeps chasing cars to shoot all over Bombay. Some people really go out of their way to keep us informed.
Rtech: Moderator, motor sport enquiry man from this part of the world. Takes a long time to decide on any acquisition. I need to learn this from him. Loves big hearted two wheelers and often, shed tears about his last one abroad.
Stratos: Moderator, spokesperson for TATA and Mahindra. And all surely for right reason. He loves to talk and talk and…
Shan2nu: Moderator, artist, photographer, Photoshop expert. Known as VTEC MAN in the forum. Possesses a great amount of aesthetics and often corrects this old man’s views.
As mentioned before, I’m yet to meet V12 . Next time I’ll make an extra effort to meet him in Bombay.
Meeting people, as I see is very important. As an advertising professional, I find it a must. Little over a period of 11 months I met a large number of TBHPians. I can go to the extent of saying that I probably know the maximum number of members. In my office all seven (creative department) computers have TBHP logged in permanently.
My home Macintosh has TBHP as home page. My mobile has more TBHP contacts than my business contacts. Many a time I’ve failed to complete my pending work because I was on the forum. Most of my evenings in Bombay are with TBHP members. In Bangalore, we meet very often. In many cases my relationship with them has gone beyond just automobiles.
It’s such a great feeling to have a huge number of friends. One doesn’t need to be introvert or extrovert. The feeling of understanding everybody’s view. The feeling of having so many like-minded people around you. I’m sure they also see it like this.
No wonder I get calls from GTO and the gang at 1.30 in the morning.
When Bombay was packed with visitors and all the hotels are full, I get to sleep in GTO’s house.
In Bombay, Rtech comes to hotel and after dinner he finds his bike key missing. He walks all the way to the restaurant and then takes a cab to his house to get the duplicate key at 1 in the morning. Three months down the line he finds his key in his bag… which incidentally, he carries everyday. Oh man, I love it!
He pulls me down to the sleaziest place in Bangalore in search for a bike and ends up with no result. Reluctantly he buys my advice to refrain himself from dealing with those shady characters.
Normally_crazy sends me a pair of wiper blades because I had posted something against Indian wiper blade quality. That was the beginning of a life long friendship. We fight, we talk, we kick each other, we meet in Bombay, we hug each other in the middle of congested bus stand in Bangalore.
Ported head comes to processing house to see what the hell I’m doing with Mercedes.
It is more like a preliminary investigation. After getting fair amount of assurance he asks me to join him for a drink. To continue the link, he lands up in Bangalore with Turbolader . We had few days of good time with fellow TBHPians… Chatting, pubbing and some high speed driving in Psycho’s car.
Yet to meet, but in touch over the phone..Speedsatya (mails me whatever he can’t on the forum), Khaddu (dying to go to his farm), Adityapd (god knows when..he’s just got married), Gordon (with his insatiable hunger for photography), Team-Fiat (don’t know where is he at this point but cool) and lastly V12 .
In Bangalore it’s Psycho, Jaggu, Tom (rarely though), Iceman, Domnic (most of the time elusive), Anoop, gkrishan. Killjoy, aggressive Anush, Amitoj, Mohit, pepper, occasionally Shan2nu (with his 0-100 mania), wolf ,who's howls Dont Echo and the new set of members I met few weeks ago…the list is almost endless.
It may read as the most boring write up. It may get a five star rating for that. It may sound totally unconnected to anything do with the forum…
But at the end of the day, it’s one hell of a pleasure to know you guys and be a proud member of TBHP.
Last edited by Rudra Sen : 22nd February 2005 at 07:07.
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21st February 2005, 22:58
(13)
Thanks
...edit maadi....waaaaaa......
