Heading to Hyderabad for the Tata Hexa Experience

‘You are the 60 Most Influential Indian Bloggers from various genres,’ announced Ashish Sahni, the Digital Marketing Lead for the Passenger Vehicle segment for Tata Motors.

We were gathered in the Ball Room of the Novotel Hotel, Hyderabad Airport on a Saturday evening, having flown from various cities across India earlier in the day. After checking in to our room, the afternoon was spent meeting other known blogger friends from various cities including Manjulika, Arvind Passey and Shrinidhi. I had already met Aziz and Sanjay at the airport and was sharing a room with Ashwini.

We spent some time clicking fun pictures of the Hexa parked in the lawns of Novotel, with the sun setting in the background. Well, we were all bloggers at work.

We were 60 bloggers in Hyderabad on invitation from Tata Motors to drive and experience their brand new soon-to-be-launched car- Tata Hexa- and were gathered in the ball room for the briefing regarding the car and to understand what to expect from the drive early next morning.

#Bloggers at work!!!
I am sure the pic conveys our excitement of being in hyderabad for the #HexaExperience pic.twitter.com/OXZV8xVp9o

— Pendown (@manjulika5) October 22, 2016

The presentation by Ashish, Vivek Srivatsa (Head, Marketing, Passenger Vehicle), Richard Winsor (Design Lead) and Ravindra Jain took us through the entire conceptualisation and designing process of the car that was built in a period of less than 2 years across 3 design centres- India, UK and Italy. The Hexa was test-driven for lakhs of kilometres across 3 continents in the harshest of road and weather conditions to make sure it delivers what it promises to the end-user.

We were soon asked to group ourselves into teams of three. Arvind Sir invited me to join him and Sam and lead the team. We were registered as Team A5. The presentation was followed by the opening of the cocktail bar, food and the activity zone on the lawns of Novotel. Everything was designed in blue, red and green colours, following the Hexa’s 3 features- Power-packed, Feature-loaded, Adrenaline-pumped. The special drinks were not to be left behind.

There was a comedy session by Biswa, followed by a caricature session. I look no where close to my caricature for some reason.

A slight chill could be felt in the air and along with the Indiblogger team and members of the Tata team, the fun continued till about midnight, before I decided to head to bed so as to wake up on time early in the morning for the drive.

Before I could call it a night, a new package from Tata Motors awaited in my room that included a power bank and a pack of red-blue-green macarons.

Day 2

After a super quick breakfast at 6 in the morning, I was headed to car A5 just in the nick of time before the drive began. Arvind Sir and Sam were already there, inspecting the car. Atul, a representative from Tata Motors, met us and gave us a quick technical briefing about the car and its features. Following a group picture of all the bloggers, it was drive time.

I opened the door and took the driver’s seat so as to get a little comfortable before the drive began. I looked down and exclaimed in surprise ‘There are just two handles here’, before realising it was an automatic and that I have never driven an automatic car before.

Atul gave me a quick overview of the controls. It was actually a lot simpler than a usual manual car. Not having to control the gear brought an unprecedented relief on my face. I hate the gear, always have and perhaps always will.

One by one the cars took off and we were signalled to move to the flag off area. With paparazzi everywhere focusing on us, we were flagged off from Novotel. The drive had begun. Since I didn’t have to ‘unlearn and relearn’ due to lack of much driving experience, in less than a minute I was sure I was driving the car comfortably- the ‘automatic’ part no longer a worry.

I stayed behind the wheel for a majority of the onward journey, way more than I had expected. The journey was nothing less than adrenaline rushing- not just for me, but also for Arvind Sir, Sam and Atul- and for a moment there, if I can say it, ‘life threatening’.  The following post shall detail my experience of driving the Hexa and my verdict. Click here to read.

All in all, like all IndiBlogger events, this too went superbly well. We came back richer with knowledge and a lot of new blogger friends. I met some bloggers for the first time but whose blogs I had been following for a long time. In the rush of things, I couldn’t meet a lot of other bloggers and still don’t know the names of some with whom I had a lot of conversation on and off. Hoping to connect with them all here.

Mumbai bloggers back from Hyderabad after the amazing #HexaExperience with @TataMotors @indiblogger pic.twitter.com/QE4kyYZSyF

— Antarik Anwesan (@antarik) October 24, 2016

Tata Motors and Indiblogger invited me to Hyderabad to experience driving the Hexa as part of a bloggers drive. All views and opinions in the post are completely personal.

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