[iraghava]

Originally Posted by lurker

how can they charge you folks like that ? Is it the bail amount ?

It's also written the cops included the diesel charges .. diesel for their vehicles and for the raid that they conduct is paid for by the State Govt. How can they hold you responsible for ....

diesel charge ?

You trying arguing about that when 4 of your friends have been in custody overnight.

Originally Posted by jyobeb

Obviously, you have never had a run in with the cops! It does not matter even if the bottles were empty. It would not have mattered even if Steer had sterilised those bottles. If the cops want to create trouble and somebody influential you know is not just around the corner, you are dead meat. Don't mess with cops and always humour them.

Bingo! That's the whole problem here, experience with the Khakhi clad swines.

Originally Posted by himanshugoswami

complete and utter Bovine Excreta of the smelliest kind!

We know Himanshu but what to do. It was a Sunday & we were not comfortable with our friends being under custody

Originally Posted by mansidea

it has nothing to do with Nazar or the manufacturer. It happened just due to my irresponsbile driving.

Arrey stop blaming yourselves Manoj, it happens to all of us. As long as it did not cause an irreparable problem, it's all fine.

Originally Posted by mansidea

Zak, Ishan, Louis & Ram. DRIVE showed the beauty of organising a trip. You guys have done a great job, especially the finance minister.

Who was that?????

And the credit goes to Zak/Santosh/Louis etc., I was just busy monkeying around!

Originally Posted by tsk1979

In India cops can do anything they want. We even have a law "Roaming under suspicious circumstances".
This was the best way to diffuse the situation, esp since there were families involved.
Of course you can fight in court, but once a FIR is registered, and you spend years circling courts etc., your whole life is ruined.
The Indian Judicial system is geared to serve the police, and not the citizen.

anyways hats of to the 4 musketeers.
I hope no FIR was lodged on paper.
If a criminal case is registerd lots of things like VIsa/job etc., get in jeopardy.

Precisely, our aim was to end the situation, not aggravate it. Aggression (like I told Steer that morning) is possible but not desired to solve this crisis. Primarily because we had the futures of 4 young men also at stake here & knowing what the Police can do in our country it's a very realistic threat & a risk not worth taking IMO unless there is no option.

Originally Posted by Steeroid

1. Veelubhai episode (small one) if necessary.

Here's my version of this (and mind you I'm the only eye witness to the whole event):

We leave Sarovaram after much delay (blame a certain Mad Mallu Monkey Mullah here!) and in the 8 car group Steer's Safari has the sweeper duty & the second last car is Vellubai's Lancer with the car ahead of him being the (M)4's Qualis!

He's driving too slow & a bit gingerly and I can see Steer getting quite impatient & irritated with his slow & unsure pace. He tried to egg him on by bullying him a bit but we quickly learn that he's still inexperienced & on a learner's license and Steer backs off.

But Veelubai feels encouraged by now & starts to try & follow Zak's well driven Qualis which does not make me very comfortable since I'm riding shotgun in the Safari & the driving style of Vijay does not really put me at ease. Meanwhile I start working on Steer's laptop to post an update on the forum & lose track of the driving ahead.

But suddenly I feel an urge to see what's happening up ahead & I witness a sharp left curve ahead after a really long straight which Zak's Qualis takes without any problems at a quick pace, the car following him is Vijay's Lancer. Now I'm intently watching this for some reason & I see Vijay getting into the turn at a very quick pace but I'm waiting for him to do some last minute braking to check his pace. Now, now, now.......but the braking never comes into the curve!

Suddenly I see a Truck & two cars coming from the other side of the curve & Vijay heading towards at it at a pace which is too fast! Vijay finally realises it's trouble & does something (apparently a downshift) which causes which left side tyres to lock & give out a lot of smoke! Meanwhile the trucker/car drivers from the other side have already realised what is happening & take evasive action which leads to the Lancer screeching past the curve without any impact. At this scene all I can utter is "****" which makes the others in the Safari notice the tyre smoke up ahead.

Steer asks me what happened & I tell him (mind you just 10 mins earlier we had called a member riding in the Lancer to tell him to ask Vijay to slow down a bit as we were not very happy with the way he was driving, it seemed too risky) and he decides to overtake the Lancer & give a piece of his mind to Vijay & I agree with that too. We overtake the car & make them stop.

Steer gets out before I can & gives a real drubbing down to Vijay & when he's just about through with it a biker following Vijay's car at the time of the incident to tell him what he thought of the manouever but Steer's presence dissuade's him from it!

Meanwhile I get out & inspect the tyres to see if there's any damage on them (Insert Tyrewallah joke here!) and they seem to be fine. But we still decide to put KP into the driver's seat of the Lancer since Vijay is now pretty much shaking all over after Steer's rebuke!

As it also turns out a certain other member was also part of this incident since he was actively asking Vijay to push the car more (Bad boy Shabeeth!) and he too gets a earfull from Steer & Me! Needless to say after that the drive goes on without any incident (There's a problem with the Lancer now as it gives out a thumping feeling on turns which I put down to either a flat spotted tyre of the drive shaft) but it's still not a problem as such.

But as it turns out it's a minor hiccup & a lucky escape as after a couplr of hours of this Vijay gets his nerve back & his confidence too & put in some really good driving later on. Way to go Vijay!

And as they say, all's well that ends well! I'm sure this is a lesson Vijay will not forget in a jiffy!

Originally Posted by Steeroid

Now for some pics from iraghava's camera - I had transferred the contents of his cam into mine as he is well known for posting pictures on time. We are still awaiting last year's pictures!

More pictures coming up soon!

Originally Posted by Steeroid

We know where that bottle went....
Attachment 21958

Sigh.............................................

[xinome]

oie i never told him to push the car baba, as for the co passengers in the car they will all say i was telling him to slow down and so was vichu but i was too busy discussing foster bears with mr foster himself and only noticed when the car was going sideways and ducked fer safety!
anyway i am not to argue as my driving skills are hopeless as well!
and who the hell took the black label bottle from the table when it was in my clear sight!

Pic1- The non identical twins
Pic2- one of the triplets
Pic3- If you dare post this.......

[speedzak]

Aah! So, finally our tyre dealer has reached home and started posting something.

We've had a certain moment where the tyrewallahs really went crazy on each other. Coming in some time.

[jkdas]

Bit OT, but can be useful in future

One can carry a case of beer or a case of wine or 3 Lit of IMFL at a time.

[srijit]

I assume you need a bill of purchase for all of the above? I dont think we had that...

ps: I also feel that when its BYOB, it should be BYOB, not BEBTFEKPF (Bring Enough Bottles To Feed Entire Kerala Police Force)
Or was somebody off their drinking game that night? cheers:

[jkdas]

Originally Posted by srijit

Redfire's car was the 2nd in line to tackle the off-road road. We were watching Zak with his rear wheel drive Qualis inch his way up the incline. We hear a "shhhhhhh" noise and instantly roll up our windows.
Steer's Safari roars past us, A S H V I N laughing maniacally from the shotgun seat. They drive through a puddle and we see a reenactment of the Tata Safari advertisement. By the time the water has settled, Zak is midway up the slope, and Steer is at the top, out of his Safari and waving to us.

hehe. Missed it.

Originally Posted by Steeroid

Damn! That Green Storm must be really loud outside - the intake is at the grille so we dont get intake noise inside.

Steer, can we have a short review about the Green. How much did it cost/ photos; ie, if you have

Originally Posted by Sankar

Hehehehe..... Steer you almost had us there. I hear your turbo whistle combined with the green and i take a peek in the passenger rear view mirror and see your beast approaching us through the slush and the mud like a charging bull! And i quickly told redfire and srijit "PULL UP THE WINDOWS PULL UP THE WINDOWS" And they manage it just in time and we're saved. That was one sight though; and who could forget Ashvin's laughter

Jay didn't want to risk redfire's underbelly on the rocks. The car is lower than stock as tyres are of the wrong profile.

Damn, only if I too was there in my Safari.

Edit:

zak aka M4

[Veelubai]

Ishaan Bhai - Guess your take on the incident is very correct as you are the only person who witnessed it from outside.Just a correction though, I never did a downshift. Others in the car can testify this.Never mind .Just one request as well.Lets not blame anyone for this incident and tHe thumping sound is all fine now and the car if perfect now. Did the tyre rotation & alignment as per your directions.,. Hope you reached Delhi safely without any hiccups.

How come there are no drive videos posted yet? And what about the scorpio bashing that steeroid described?

[srijit]

Drive vids have to be processed. About 2Gb's worth of a Blue Swift, a Qualis and I think a red Verna drifting in front of us. Though I doubt that we got the drifts cos we were thrown about in our camera car
They have to be cut into watchable pieces. Will take time

[mansidea]

Louis, that was a beautiful shot from the Wagamon meadows. Keep them flowing.

@ezee123: looking forward for your pics too.

[roopakr]

As questions on drive videos have been raised...
Here goes a short video of the Elantras cruising through the GHATS,from my side

YouTube - Monsoon Drive Kuttikanam (idukki) TBHP

Those are brraj's and Tadus Ride shot from Sathyas Elantra by me.

[Steeroid]

Actually, Veelubhai drove pretty well in the anaemic diesel Lancer of his. I guess it was the 'unknown quantity' issue that got us worried initially - happens when you're a group that knows how each person drives and there is an unknown new entity in that group.

Unfortunately for Veelu, he had an 'L' license, looked VERY tentative and confused in the beginning and then went on to take that curve at 100kmph. Stuff happens, but thankfully nothing went wrong.

On our part, we should also learn to be less judgemental of new drivers and instead watch them for a while before deciding that they're too risky.

I thought Veelubhai drove quite well after he regained enough confidence to take the wheel again - you HAVE to get over the fear after a close shave, and this is why I kept insisting that he drive again.

Incidentally Veelubhai (please ask the mods to change your handle from "bai" to "bhai" - there is a HUGE difference) is a Reverse Raja. The way he reverses and parks his car can put a lot of our BHPians to shame - fantastic car control.

[A S H V I N]

the tyre-wallahs debate-"man if you zoom enough you can see the tread on that car's tyre. any guesses?!" :P




tri-pod try-outs




some of the boys




more boys




Steeroid-

in Action



@ work




The real deal-all the way from U.P

[speedzak]

As requested and discussed by many, there were a lot of Scorpio bashing in this DRIVE. That too taken care of some very well known Safari lovers!

Here, I present you the amateur video clip shot by Maahir using his Sony ericsson.

YouTube - Scorpio Bashing!

ENJOY!!!!