A Date with the Cars


You say electric cars are the future when there would be no more petrol left? Or would it rather be the flying Ford Anglia from Harry Potter so you can take off your car from a traffic jam and just rush to your destination flying? Or probably, you would prefer staying on the ground and go for the next best Audi, Volkswagen or Nissan convertible model? After today’s experience, I would probably like all three of the above options and if possible add a bit more to that as well! :D

What happened today, is that what you are wondering? Well, I had my day 1 of semester 4 of my BJMC course and it was great to see my 1st semester teachers back teaching us. Ok, coming to the point: I live in Delhi and after some discussion regarding cars in the class, was one of the above 70 thousand visitors to the 11th Auto Expo at Pragati Maidan today and that is where my fascination for cars was observed by me for the first time ever in over 20 years of my existence! (Another first time was the 150 bucks I paid to enter a fair- well, I won’t deny the fact that it was worth it!)

No don’t worry, I am not going to bore you by mentioning details of the many car (and the female homo-sapien) models that I saw there and which might take as long as 3 years to hit the roads in our country. I would in fact prefer focussing on the fun and awesome parts only. Mind it, some of these are weird!

The Flying Chevrolet Beat
After visiting the BMW, Tata, Toyota and Audi halls (yes, the Audi Q3 as well), a long queue leads us to the Chevrolet and Ford halls and we take a glimpse around. The Chevrolet people have set up a stage and there is some kind of cultural activity going on to keep the crowd entertained. I am least bothered as I am focussing on the red car and the two-seater battery cell. And then I hear the words, “Put your hands together for a ‘flying’ Chevrolet Beat”. Flying?? I turn my head towards the stage and behold the moment. The Beat was actually rising above the ground! I think: there ought to be some wires somewhere holding the car! Or probably they have attached the bottom of the car with a hydraulic balloon or something which they are controlling by remotes! Well, no! The car rose two metres above the ground and started rotating and then it moved towards the other end of the hall, towards us! It was FLYING! What the hell? I video shoot the complete 2-3 minute demo and when the car moves back to its resting place, I wonder why the windshield is so dark? It’s completely black, as if painted! And, well, yeah, it was painted!! In fact, the whole car was painted! I told my friend, “It’s a dummy!” And the reply I get, “Of course it is!” Well, that was a wonderfully awesome exact look-alike of a Chevrolet Beat. The whole thing was a remote controlled hydraulically pumped up and moving inflated balloon that I, a science student two years back, failed to notice! Now laugh! :P
BMW. The model..well, no idea!

By any chance did you notice that I wrote ‘the red car and the two-seater battery cell’ above? Any idea what they are called? Do let me know if you find out. I wonder if anybody at the Expo was aware of the names of the cars on display. Clicking a picture and if possible, ‘touching’ the dream-cars was what everyone seemed to be busy with. Aakhir naam mein kya rakha hai sirji? (What’s in a name after all?)

From the makers of
Tarzan- The Wonder Car
Next stop, the Mercedez Benz. Well, the queue! 40-minutes in the queue lead us near the entrance of the hall. Not long now, we think! And there is an announcement: Due to excessive and unmanageable crowd inside the hall, the exhibits were being closed for the day! How would you react to that? We moved to the Mahindra and Maruti Suzuki stalls. If not Mercedez, they are still the same ‘M’ at least!

The Audi Q3
Entering the Maruti hall the first thought that struck me was ‘An Apple Store?’ That was probably due to my recent concentration on the Steve Jobs biography. But, the area bore such a startling resemblance to any Apple Store! It was pure white- The colour that the first Mac was back in 1984 and the colour that has become the trademark of Jobs’s company as a result of his ‘unusual’ thinking! Coming back to the Maruti hall, the crowd at the huge hall didn’t actually let me have any second thought! The superbikes were stunning though (I wonder where the Yamaha V-Max was!) Another important fact we couldn’t help but notice was that this seemed to be the only stall where all the models (I mean the ‘humans’) were Indians!

I have been to Pragati Maidan previously on many occasions (precisely, thrice) including the trade fair and the Delhi book fair, but for the first time today I realized how big the area actually was. By the end of the day, my friends and I were struggling to keep our legs moving as we had focussed on seeing the wonderful cars so much that we hadn’t had any food since morning (except a lunch box probably)! Due to the lack of proper food intake during the day and having to follow a schedule after more than a month (including waking up 4 hours before my scheduled time- that is 12 noon, if you were wondering), I am having a severe headache right now, but still I am sitting in front of my laptop (something which I ought to avoid) and typing this entry just because I feel so exhilarated right now!

Hope you enjoyed! :)

Comments

  1. lol to the balloon!!!but till i read that line..i was like "shit!why am i not in delhi to see this! :p"
    n i m so sure that auto expo would have been too less visited had all the "models" been indian!!:D
    n congrats for the g8 start of 4th sem!:)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Haha...that's the kind of reaction I wanted to create with that para :D
      I think u caught just the right chord with the models part :P
      N thanks :)

      Delete
  2. u forgot to mention that models(human) of maruti were much better thn the all other models nd how can u forget about piyush:P
    :D

    ReplyDelete

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