An Ideal Vehicle

Pune is second largest city after Mumbai in Maharashtra (big/strong state…if translated).

But moving around Pune, poses several challenges, some internal, while a few externally imposed.

It has several roads…….and innumerable potholes on them. It also has “speed breakers”, of unspecified heights. Some are barely noticeable, some burn a hole in your pocket if they rip apart undercarriage of your car. These potholes and speedbreakers can be classified as shallow, petty, deep, semi-lethal and fatal.

If this were not enough, environmentalists are complaining about pollution from cars, and want greener vehicles. So polluting vehicles are heavily taxed. As everywhere, the prices of fuel are skyrocketing (heard some murumur from Canada too). We do not have an option of electric cars here. Electricity is pretty scarce…we have regular powercuts on Thursdays. Quite a few villages on outskirts of Pune (and almost everywhere in Maharashtra) have to live with 12 hour powercuts everyday, sometimes more.

We do have expressways, which are smooth, but hills too…where roads are not so well (almost non existent…well they do exist on paper in government offices). When on camping trips, fuel stations have not reached nooks and corners of my countryside, in case one runs out of gas.

In cities too,
a) roads are overcrowded,
b) to manoeuvre vehicles around is a problem
c) traffic jams render us immobile.
d) a lot of time is spent in commuting (coz of jams)
e) we are stuck in cars,…lack of exercise is turning us obese.

I can go on cribbing. :( Oh…too many issues to recount.

“And how does one come out of it?” I was thinking. And some meditation, led me to a solution.

I needed a vehicle :

• that was all terrain
• consumed less, cheap fuel, preferably biofuel,
• whose emissions were environmentally friendly/ biodegradable,
• low on maintenance,
• i could hitch a trailer to, and
• one that would get me some exercise.

And….I have found a perfect solution.





Come to think of it….if I put on some shining armour….i could even be of help to some DID (damsel in distress) <<< damsel with a broken down car…or a pretty one stuck in a traffic jam :D


talldarkman