Of This and That

Every time I was on the Pune Mumbai Expressway, I would notice the huge Ganesha Idol and make a point in mind to visit it, but such points don’t always convert to reality easily. Finally last weekend, for lack of anything else to do and after a failed attempt to find ourselves a place to stay at any hotel/resort for a night, we decided to revisit open points in our todo list and picked the Ganesh temple. It is a short drive from my home, given that I am close to Hinjewadi, Pune, so I was quickly only to the express way by-pass and the passed the expressway and went on ahead to join old Pune Mumbai highway (NH4). The idol pretty big and hence there is no way you can miss it, but even then you need not worry till you hit the toll plaza near Shirgaon. You need to cross the toll plaza. I wonder if that was intentional to have made the toll plaza just before Shirgaon? Anyway a return toll is for Rs. 39 and having paid this we crossed the toll plaza and took the immediate left. The roa...

Over the years I have looked at various SUVs and Jeeps and always wanted to get one, but when it comes to family needs, smaller cars or sedan usually take preference. When I had decided to upgrade from my first car, a Santro, I was exploring Scorpio, but wife finally narrowed down to Honda City. Driving it has been a pleasure, no doubt and it has been an absolutely hassle free car. When Mahindra launched XUV 500 the desire to buy an SUV resurfaced again and the price point and the feature packed alongside where the key pulling factors. But unfortunately for me, the booking closed almost as soon as it started (within 8 days). I went around and looked at loads of other SUVs, but they were either too costly or lacked some of the features. XUV was almost like the ideal combination of price, looks and features. At one point I had almost given up hope of buying it, but then in July 2012 the booking opened again and this time without any lottery and I promptly booked one. They had said 3 ...