Reluctant Roameo's adventure with buying his first car - The Hyundai i10

gomzi · 21st September 2009, 00:38

I ended up missing this lovely thread for such a long time! This is lovely set of posts you have written Roameo and i'm looking forward to more

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roameo

Rapid reaction time to a visual and auditory stimulus
Rapid gross motor movement response to a stimulus
Eye hand coordination
Anticipation timing
Precise sequencing and rhythm
Proprioceptive memory
Kinesthetic response
Good dynamic visual acuity
Rapid visual processing
Binocular vision
Occular motor movement,saccadic accuracy and speed. What?!
Rapid accomodative facility
Perceptual size and space consistancy
Peripheral awareness
Balance and integration

I got my drivers license almost 10 years ago and have been driving a lot since then. I consider myself as a decent driver, but I cannot even imagine what half of these terms mean!

All I manage to do when driving is to keep the car moving, try to follow traffic rules while at the same time avoid hitting others and dodge them from hitting me - at various speeds.

rxpaul · 21st September 2009, 01:33

Man, your intro true Wodehouse stuff. Just great ! So do you finally have an i10 or what ?

McLaren Rulez · 21st September 2009, 18:26

Its been a while mate. We're waiting for that novel to end before this thread is locked.

Roameo · 21st September 2009, 19:12

It is cooking and will be served piping hot for dinner tonight

Roameo · 21st September 2009, 20:39

As promised. Bon appetit!

Part 10
Of Clutch,Gears and Algebra (continued)

It is said that the car speaks to the driver. The one in which I was learning refused to exchange more than a few words with me. We simply didn't sync in spite of Hanu's putting in a good word for me. Consequently, I struggled no end with the clutch and gears. The experience on the whole was akin to simultaneously trying to Algebra and Calculus, and ancient memories from my school days returned to haunt me.

I always dreaded the mathematics periods and slunk low behind my desk during these torrid sessions. The teacher in charge of the subject always arrived equipped with a fine, well-oiled bamboo cane with which he freely distributed lashings to anyone who could not keep pace with his lofty teachings of Algebra and Calculus. While he would have loved to display a board above the classroom door on which was written "Let no one ignorant of mathematics enter here.", ours was no Plato's Academia but only a humble government school that aimed to modestly raise the education levels of the district's young populace. This explains his gall and frustration which he vented by wielding his cane systematically on the back benchers in whose august company I was offered a seat. The prolonged use of the cane did eventually have some effect : I cleared the related papers in the secondary school examination although not exactly with flying colors.

The wounds, however, have still not healed completely after all these years and I still cut a sorry figure whenever my wife my asks me to coach Sonny in these subjects on Sunday afternoons. She has often caught me napping with the rather bulky text book deployed as a make shift pillow. At any rate, Sonny at his age is a far better mathematician than I am at mine.

At first, the car sputtered, shuddered, lurched, jerked, and made angry whining noises much like a woman scorned. I was in fact totally out of gear in my dealing with her. I was at my wits end.

At the dinner table on the fourth day, I shared my frustration with my family and declared that we would go for a car equipped with automatic transmission. While my wife didn't care one way or the other, there were howls of protest from Sonny. He maintained that mastery over manual transmission was the hallmark of all great drivers. He said I shouldn't be throwing in the towel so easily. Soon after dinner, he searched for websites that provided step-by-step learning guides on how to drive stick shift cars. He made sure I studied them daily for at least an hour over the next few days and even simulate the steps they described.

Sonny's mentoring greatly boosted my confidence. The next morning, I returned to face the shrew with a new resolve. She probably felt the change in me and after continuing to play the wooing game for another week, she coyly permitted me to gently engage her clutch and gears with relative ease. Hanu approved of my progress and with the use of many positive and motivational words, encouraged me to persist in my efforts. I really do wish my math teacher was inclined to deploy a similar approach at school.

My career path then would have been entirely different and so would have been my car.

evo · 22nd September 2009, 11:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roameo

As promised. Bon appetit!

Part 10
Of Clutch,Gears and Algebra (continued)

My career path then would have been entirely different and so would have been my car.

Career Path - Author!

ElantraGT · 22nd September 2009, 12:21

Romeo.. that was a fantastic narration. you got me hooked to your post. I am waiting for the next installment (part11)

tortoiseNhare · 22nd September 2009, 13:46

This appetizer of a thread has worked wonders! Roameo, Give me a full South Indian Thaali of a travelogue of a trip in your self driven car, I'm hungry.

Roameo · 22nd September 2009, 22:27

Part 11
Bunty aur Babli

That's how I call Sonny and my wife ever since the movie was released some year ago. They are birds of a feather. Like in the movie, they display excellent team work and co-ordination when they want to get something out of me, and I invariably end up getting conned in the ingenious schemes they keep cooking up. The car, as I have already mentioned, was never my idea to start with.

Babli has a great zest for life and the name fits her like a glove. A hard core health freak, to the best of my knowlege, she has hardly missed her daily exercise regime in the last 7 years and has additionally taken to yoga like a fish to water since an year. She refuses to eat out, especially street food which I and my son sometimes indulge in, and is as selective as a nutrition specialist in the choice of ingredients that make their way into our daily nourishment.

She has mastered the art of dressing up well without spending a fortune and fine tuned the skill of making sure there is fair value returned for every penny we spend. A good part of Babli's day is spent in a series of skin, body and mind care rituals which she performs with unswerving devotion. My lady whole heartedly believes in the adage "Health is Wealth" and will go to any extreme in its pursuit. She finds it hard to believe that Sonny has outgrown her in height and neighbours are often heard to observe that the two now look more like a brother and sister pair when they are out together.

Although the idea of a car started out more as a practical week-end necessity in her original master plan,there have been realignments thereafter: she now loves the idea of driving out of the city to visit new undiscovered places, or just be cruising on the highways for hours on end. I have on a few occasions caught by surprise the two schemers engrossed in the inspection of the year's calender to identify breaks of suitable length, or searching the net to plan our next sortie to explore the beautiful wilderness with which our state is so generously endowed by nature.

But for them, this story would have never started, nor ever featured on Team-BHP.

Ravveendrra · 23rd September 2009, 01:48

Welcome to TBHP, your Ramki aka Hillram guided me to your thread when we met over the weekend. I did notice one or two of your other posts but this thread is a work of art.

Cheers,

Roameo · 23rd September 2009, 11:56

Thank you Ravveendra and welcome to this thread. Those were fun times when Ramki was still in Bangalore. Be meeting you sometime when I visit Hyderabad.

Roameo · 23rd September 2009, 16:58

Part 12
Sonny

Winter of 1998, Bangalore. Yes,there was still something resembling winter in this city back then. It was customary for us to take little Sonny to the Jayanagar Shopping Complex on week ends as we stayed close by. Following a severe ear infection due to the chill,Sonny's doctor had strictly prohibited him from consuming ice cream and chocolate. He had to make do with boiled peanuts to pass time as we strolled around the evening market.

On one such Sunday,a small car, bright yellow and shining, swung into a parking lot in front of us. The Santro had been newly released in the market and it made heads turn. Sonny stopped in his tracks and refused to budge. He even pulled out his thumb from his mouth! The sparkle in his eyes and the smile on his face spoke more than words. After a brief pause, he simply pointed and said "Let's take it home".

We had some difficulty dragging Sonny away from the spot. He would not stop talking about the Yellow car for the rest of the evening and finally fell asleep, but only after extracting promises from me that we would bring home one soon.

Sonny took to driving early. The Pentium MMX had been released some months earlier and I had brought one home a few months before the above incident took place.A few games the vendor was kind enough to bundle ensured Sonny was hooked, one of which was an edition of F1 Racing. Tired of waiting for me every time he fancied racing, Sonny decided to take matters in to his own hands. Upon returning home later than usual one day, I found him perched on the chair, power driving a McLaren. He had no doubt been keenly observing how to operate the system so he could be on his own. It wasn't too long before our little champ started displaying far better control over those mean machines than his father and was soon winning races while his dad trailed behind.

My friend Ramki, who was then based in Bangalore, presented Sonny with a scale model of a F1 car. It seldom left Sonny's company thereafter, and even traveled to Singapore a few years later where after a visit to the cineplex for a viewing of 'Batman Returns', was subjected to an extensive mod job.He still has it!

Reluctant Roameo's adventure with buying his first car - The Hyundai i10-beetle-002.jpg

I cannot help wondering at the reality I lived in as a little boy, and the one Sonny has been living in. My world revolved around kites, marbles, Tops, gilli-danda, kabbadi, Cricket, Raleigh bicycle,climbing trees, mangoes, ice candy, puffed rice, Yakshagana, Arjuna, Krishna, Abhimanyu, Amar Chitra Katha, Tent movies and Temple festivals. Sonny's encompassed Gameboy,Tamiya Car, Beyblade, Crush Gear, Yo-Yo, Pentiums, NFS,PSP, Firefox bicycle, Tom & Jerry,Samurai Jack, Batman, Spiderman, pizzas & burgers and real cars. My world somehow seemed more solid and real, and his appears fleeting and virtual. But then it may just be a matter of perspectives.

Different times, Different worlds.

Majic · 23rd September 2009, 17:05

Absolutely fantastic, actually i was looking at new faces and i was really very surprised to see a star rating for this posting, i just wanted to check out what was it that is making so much waves on the introductory page and then i come across this beautifully narrated piece of introduction. At some time in between i was thinking of what profession that you are off, making me wonder whether you are literary genius or with all the narrations of medical lingo whether you are from the medical side. All said and done i really enjoyed going through your narrations and welcome you to Team BHP. Cheers! Many more happy driving days ahead!!!

vrprabhu · 23rd September 2009, 17:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roameo

My world revolved around kites, marbles, Tops, gilli-danda, kabbadi, Cricket, Raleigh bicycle,climbing trees, mangoes, ice candy, puffed rice, Yakshagana, Arjuna, Krishna, Abhimanyu, Amar Chitra Katha, Tent movies and Temple festivals.
Different times, Different worlds.

Come on, Roameo - it is not fair on Sonny boy - they can't even dream of these things. You took me back to my childhood there - the thrill of flying a kite (and cutting someone else's) can only be experienced and not described! I really regret junking all those A.C.K., Chandamama and Phantom comics - must be priceless today. Ever remember reading comics like Sad Sack, the back pages of the Illustrated Weekly of India and surreptitiously flipping the pages of debonair in the bookshop? Tent Movies - aah, we used to stand outside to listen to the dialogues - strict parental control on which movies to watch!!

Can I suggest something - to make the plot intriguing, introduce some teasers about the car which you bought. May be we can even turn this out into a competition!!

McLaren Rulez · 23rd September 2009, 19:24

^His profile has the name of his car and has been revealed earlier in the thread. I won't reveal it though for those who do want to play the game with Roameo.

21st September 2009, 01:33	#77
rxpaul BHPian Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Pune Posts: 365 Thanked: 127 Times View My Garage	Man, your intro true Wodehouse stuff. Just great ! So do you finally have an i10 or what ?
	() Thanks

21st September 2009, 18:26	#78
McLaren Rulez Senior - BHPian Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Mysore Posts: 3,390 Thanked: 5,107 Times	Its been a while mate. We're waiting for that novel to end before this thread is locked.
	() Thanks

21st September 2009, 19:12	#79
Roameo BHPian Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Bangalore Posts: 127 Thanked: 39 Times	It is cooking and will be served piping hot for dinner tonight
	() Thanks

21st September 2009, 20:39	#80
Roameo BHPian Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Bangalore Posts: 127 Thanked: 39 Times	As promised. Bon appetit! Part 10 Of Clutch,Gears and Algebra (continued) It is said that the car speaks to the driver. The one in which I was learning refused to exchange more than a few words with me. We simply didn't sync in spite of Hanu's putting in a good word for me. Consequently, I struggled no end with the clutch and gears. The experience on the whole was akin to simultaneously trying to Algebra and Calculus, and ancient memories from my school days returned to haunt me. I always dreaded the mathematics periods and slunk low behind my desk during these torrid sessions. The teacher in charge of the subject always arrived equipped with a fine, well-oiled bamboo cane with which he freely distributed lashings to anyone who could not keep pace with his lofty teachings of Algebra and Calculus. While he would have loved to display a board above the classroom door on which was written "Let no one ignorant of mathematics enter here.", ours was no Plato's Academia but only a humble government school that aimed to modestly raise the education levels of the district's young populace. This explains his gall and frustration which he vented by wielding his cane systematically on the back benchers in whose august company I was offered a seat. The prolonged use of the cane did eventually have some effect : I cleared the related papers in the secondary school examination although not exactly with flying colors. The wounds, however, have still not healed completely after all these years and I still cut a sorry figure whenever my wife my asks me to coach Sonny in these subjects on Sunday afternoons. She has often caught me napping with the rather bulky text book deployed as a make shift pillow. At any rate, Sonny at his age is a far better mathematician than I am at mine. At first, the car sputtered, shuddered, lurched, jerked, and made angry whining noises much like a woman scorned. I was in fact totally out of gear in my dealing with her. I was at my wits end. At the dinner table on the fourth day, I shared my frustration with my family and declared that we would go for a car equipped with automatic transmission. While my wife didn't care one way or the other, there were howls of protest from Sonny. He maintained that mastery over manual transmission was the hallmark of all great drivers. He said I shouldn't be throwing in the towel so easily. Soon after dinner, he searched for websites that provided step-by-step learning guides on how to drive stick shift cars. He made sure I studied them daily for at least an hour over the next few days and even simulate the steps they described. Sonny's mentoring greatly boosted my confidence. The next morning, I returned to face the shrew with a new resolve. She probably felt the change in me and after continuing to play the wooing game for another week, she coyly permitted me to gently engage her clutch and gears with relative ease. Hanu approved of my progress and with the use of many positive and motivational words, encouraged me to persist in my efforts. I really do wish my math teacher was inclined to deploy a similar approach at school. My career path then would have been entirely different and so would have been my car.
	() Thanks

22nd September 2009, 12:21	#82
ElantraGT BHPian Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Chennai Posts: 441 Thanked: 12 Times	Romeo.. that was a fantastic narration. you got me hooked to your post. I am waiting for the next installment (part11)
	() Thanks

22nd September 2009, 13:46	#83
tortoiseNhare BHPian Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Guwahati Posts: 536 Thanked: 90 Times	This appetizer of a thread has worked wonders! Roameo, Give me a full South Indian Thaali of a travelogue of a trip in your self driven car, I'm hungry.
	() Thanks

22nd September 2009, 22:27	#84
Roameo BHPian Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Bangalore Posts: 127 Thanked: 39 Times	Part 11 Bunty aur Babli That's how I call Sonny and my wife ever since the movie was released some year ago. They are birds of a feather. Like in the movie, they display excellent team work and co-ordination when they want to get something out of me, and I invariably end up getting conned in the ingenious schemes they keep cooking up. The car, as I have already mentioned, was never my idea to start with. Babli has a great zest for life and the name fits her like a glove. A hard core health freak, to the best of my knowlege, she has hardly missed her daily exercise regime in the last 7 years and has additionally taken to yoga like a fish to water since an year. She refuses to eat out, especially street food which I and my son sometimes indulge in, and is as selective as a nutrition specialist in the choice of ingredients that make their way into our daily nourishment. She has mastered the art of dressing up well without spending a fortune and fine tuned the skill of making sure there is fair value returned for every penny we spend. A good part of Babli's day is spent in a series of skin, body and mind care rituals which she performs with unswerving devotion. My lady whole heartedly believes in the adage "Health is Wealth" and will go to any extreme in its pursuit. She finds it hard to believe that Sonny has outgrown her in height and neighbours are often heard to observe that the two now look more like a brother and sister pair when they are out together. Although the idea of a car started out more as a practical week-end necessity in her original master plan,there have been realignments thereafter: she now loves the idea of driving out of the city to visit new undiscovered places, or just be cruising on the highways for hours on end. I have on a few occasions caught by surprise the two schemers engrossed in the inspection of the year's calender to identify breaks of suitable length, or searching the net to plan our next sortie to explore the beautiful wilderness with which our state is so generously endowed by nature. But for them, this story would have never started, nor ever featured on Team-BHP.
	(1) Thanks

23rd September 2009, 01:48	#85
Ravveendrra Senior - BHPian Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Hyderabad Posts: 1,391 Thanked: 446 Times View My Garage	Welcome to TBHP, your Ramki aka Hillram guided me to your thread when we met over the weekend. I did notice one or two of your other posts but this thread is a work of art. Cheers,
	() Thanks

23rd September 2009, 11:56	#86
Roameo BHPian Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Bangalore Posts: 127 Thanked: 39 Times	Thank you Ravveendra and welcome to this thread. Those were fun times when Ramki was still in Bangalore. Be meeting you sometime when I visit Hyderabad.
	() Thanks

23rd September 2009, 16:58	#87
Roameo BHPian Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Bangalore Posts: 127 Thanked: 39 Times	Part 12 Sonny Winter of 1998, Bangalore. Yes,there was still something resembling winter in this city back then. It was customary for us to take little Sonny to the Jayanagar Shopping Complex on week ends as we stayed close by. Following a severe ear infection due to the chill,Sonny's doctor had strictly prohibited him from consuming ice cream and chocolate. He had to make do with boiled peanuts to pass time as we strolled around the evening market. On one such Sunday,a small car, bright yellow and shining, swung into a parking lot in front of us. The Santro had been newly released in the market and it made heads turn. Sonny stopped in his tracks and refused to budge. He even pulled out his thumb from his mouth! The sparkle in his eyes and the smile on his face spoke more than words. After a brief pause, he simply pointed and said "Let's take it home". We had some difficulty dragging Sonny away from the spot. He would not stop talking about the Yellow car for the rest of the evening and finally fell asleep, but only after extracting promises from me that we would bring home one soon. Sonny took to driving early. The Pentium MMX had been released some months earlier and I had brought one home a few months before the above incident took place.A few games the vendor was kind enough to bundle ensured Sonny was hooked, one of which was an edition of F1 Racing. Tired of waiting for me every time he fancied racing, Sonny decided to take matters in to his own hands. Upon returning home later than usual one day, I found him perched on the chair, power driving a McLaren. He had no doubt been keenly observing how to operate the system so he could be on his own. It wasn't too long before our little champ started displaying far better control over those mean machines than his father and was soon winning races while his dad trailed behind. My friend Ramki, who was then based in Bangalore, presented Sonny with a scale model of a F1 car. It seldom left Sonny's company thereafter, and even traveled to Singapore a few years later where after a visit to the cineplex for a viewing of 'Batman Returns', was subjected to an extensive mod job.He still has it! I cannot help wondering at the reality I lived in as a little boy, and the one Sonny has been living in. My world revolved around kites, marbles, Tops, gilli-danda, kabbadi, Cricket, Raleigh bicycle,climbing trees, mangoes, ice candy, puffed rice, Yakshagana, Arjuna, Krishna, Abhimanyu, Amar Chitra Katha, Tent movies and Temple festivals. Sonny's encompassed Gameboy,Tamiya Car, Beyblade, Crush Gear, Yo-Yo, Pentiums, NFS,PSP, Firefox bicycle, Tom & Jerry,Samurai Jack, Batman, Spiderman, pizzas & burgers and real cars. My world somehow seemed more solid and real, and his appears fleeting and virtual. But then it may just be a matter of perspectives. Different times, Different worlds.
	(1) Thanks

23rd September 2009, 17:05	#88
Majic BHPian Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: Kottayam Posts: 588 Thanked: 8 Times	Absolutely fantastic, actually i was looking at new faces and i was really very surprised to see a star rating for this posting, i just wanted to check out what was it that is making so much waves on the introductory page and then i come across this beautifully narrated piece of introduction. At some time in between i was thinking of what profession that you are off, making me wonder whether you are literary genius or with all the narrations of medical lingo whether you are from the medical side. All said and done i really enjoyed going through your narrations and welcome you to Team BHP. Cheers! Many more happy driving days ahead!!!
	() Thanks

23rd September 2009, 19:24	#90
McLaren Rulez Senior - BHPian Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Mysore Posts: 3,390 Thanked: 5,107 Times	^His profile has the name of his car and has been revealed earlier in the thread. I won't reveal it though for those who do want to play the game with Roameo.
	() Thanks