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[b:8994a36bdf]Maruti Suzuki Swift[/b:8994a36bdf]

The first thing you will notice is perfect blend of european style. The roof reminds the new Mini Cooper, bonnet curves like new VW Beetle, front grills and headlight resembles Ford Fusion and the boot, mirrors half matiz and half Getz !

The demo car was available for test drive and while approaching the car I noticed the big tyres. Finally ! maruti and suzuki engineers have grown up. They have fitted a much wider and bigger tyre in Swift.

[b:8994a36bdf]First Impression:[/b:8994a36bdf]

Pulled the handle and the door opened immediately. No additional pressure needed. Thats soo gentle. Get in and you will find yourself inside a wider and roomy car. More than enough space for legs, easy accesss cockpit. Year 2005 design for the Air cooler and controls. The gear lever and knob are unbeleivable for a maruti. The air-cooler is much better. The driver seat is not tough and not soft. Again, unbeleivable for a maruti. The visibility is similar to a tall-boy design cab. The A pillars dont hide the vision. Maruti had done a good sound proofing and you will barely hear any of the outside noises. The model which I drove was fitted with AIR BAGS and ABS braking.

[b:8994a36bdf]Gear One:[/b:8994a36bdf]

With cooler on, the 1.3L engine pumps adequate power to give a smooth start followed by gentle acceleration. Give a quick press on the gas pedal and you wont feel any sudden jerk, but a good response.

[b:8994a36bdf]Gear Two:[/b:8994a36bdf]

A biker was crosssing the 4-road junction when i was about to switch to second gear.. and so I applied the brakes.. whoa! amazing ! i noticed the completely different braking response and absolutely lovable steering control ! So much surprises from swift !

[b:8994a36bdf]Gear Three:[/b:8994a36bdf]

After crossing the junction and entering the zero-traffic street, i switched to three and pressed, accelerated to 40 and soon reached the road end to take a left. THere was a speed-breaker ahead and i decided to check the close-braking and it did passed the test well. The body of the car didnt lift in the back like other maruti’s do, and managed well, the jump was quite good and no sounds.

[b:8994a36bdf]Gear four:[/b:8994a36bdf]

Just for one and a half turn of steering wheel, Swift turns the road 90 degrees. Great for those who are driving in cities. Espicially women may find this very useful. Reached 40 and switched to fourth gear. The gear-lever travel was smooth and precise. No long travels.. only short travels like a sports car.

[b:8994a36bdf]Gear Five:[/b:8994a36bdf]

oops.. I didnt have enough luck in this case. Very soon, we reached the show room and have to slow down to park the car.

[b:8994a36bdf]Conclusions:[/b:8994a36bdf]

The ZXi model sells for 4.75 lakhs on road. The basic model VX sells for 4.3 lakhs on road. Swift is Maruti Suzuki’s answr for Getz and Fusion. This is a car not meant for everyone. If you look for value for money deal, go elsewhere. But if you have passion about driving and wont mind spending some bucks for driving pleasure, then Swift is for you.

It started when BharathB decided to buy two rubber tyres equipped with steel rims and spokes that are attached to coil spring suspensions which is fitted to a tubular frame bolted with a Petrol tank and cushion foam seater, along with a power+performance 4 stroke engine which can be controlled by an arm with clutch lever and throttle assembly. The topping would be a speedo + tacho combo and a 35/35w high power clear prism head lamp ! whew thats a huge thing.

Keeping the above requirements in mind, we came upon several options starting from puny Bajaj Boxer to the mightly cruiser Kawasaki Eliminator.

After some careful analysis we had two options in our hand. Pulsar 150 DTSi and Fiero F2. To choose the best one, we read many reviews and conducted couple of test drives.

Pulsar 150 DTSi

The reason we landed on 150 instead of 180 is, purely budget. To get extra 2BHP, it costs almost Rs.4k more. So we picked 150. Here is the feelings/ impressions i got from the test drive.

Took off the stand and kicked the engine. Vroom.. the engine responded very well. Okay, the sound is not sexy enough to appeal any bike enthusiast. The powerhorse responded immediately to the throttle variations and tacho meter was quick and responsive. Good. “keengg keeeeeengg” .. wow the horn is sound enough.

Clogged the first gear and released the clutch, she moved on with little cough, clutch handling is good. A quick pep to the ride.. she again responsed very well. Thats great. However it felt tight when turning. The chasis has been designed such that, most of the engine weight falls on the front fork and does not distribute equally to both wheels. This is one odd thing i noticed. However, this odd thing didn’t show up any difficulty in riding. The riding position leans forward and holds a good balance giving a sports feel.

The braking is good. Though the read brake is drum-tech it grips enough to stop the horse without any skid. The front disc does a fine job helping in sudden braking. Perhaps the difficult thing to do is park her on straight stand. She is heavy around 160Kgs ( am not sure). So I prefer side stand parking.

On the pickup and power, this is one good arabic-horse.. throttle her… vroooooooooooommmm.. ignore the unprofessional sound and concentrate on driving, you will love her. Responsive braking and efficient pickup without sacrificing mileage, she tops the chart with all bells and whistles.

Ah, did i forget to say anything about the curious design of that petrol tank ? well thats pulsar. distinctive design sometimes looking odd. But everybody likes it !! Go get her if you are into pure driving with performance horses. Dont mind the little bumpy ride and not so good sound.

Pros : Styling and Performance

Cons : Little bulky

Fiero F2

At the first glance, Fiero F2 looks like a mixture of all TVS nonsenses in design. TVS guys should bang their head on napier bridge for making her sooooooo ugly with kanna-binna fitting that never goes with the design. She has the BEST performance engine known so far. No vibrations, pure performance.. something you can say as, silent Thunder. Kick and you will be greeted by the strip-down version of famous Fiero’s thumps. The sounds were muddy like pulsar. But contrary the 150 cc engine pumps out BHP after BHP for every mm of throttle given. wow ! She is tall and you will feel you are riding a real horse. I can see pulsar rider’s helmet below my level. Wow.. thats soo cool.

The suspensions are really good enough and provide a smooth ride. The riding position is same as pulsar, leaned forward. You will get upset when trying to clog her to fifth gear. Donno why TVS guys didnt provide any 5th gear !! Next, the abnormal styling with the exhaust. It is oddly protruding behind the kicker and angles slightly, pumping the smoke to the East-SouthEast direction. So weird huh ?

The windshield or headlight assembly is cool and features sporty ‘n’ trendy rather than masculine like pulsar. The equipments available are speedo, tacho and fuel gauge. Better and cute.

Another thing is you can configure Fiero in 3 ways, Pure performance , Performance+Economy and obviously.. the Economy. In economy she gives brilliant mileage and in pure performance she gives brilliant speed. But people always go for Perf+Economy. Thats the sad thing.

Concluding, I can say Fiero is a top notch performer, which is ditched by TVS’s lack of styling and 5th gear absense.

I always like to go in more detail, but afraid of the length to which this blog might go. so i had cut short the frills and presented the core impressions about Fiero.

Pros : Performance + Refined Engine

Cons : Ditched styling

So the question now is.. what is BharathB’s bike ? well.. you might have guessed now, PULSAR !

Made a quick search in the net to find the windows based free / open-source alternatives to the most commonly used software today.. Here is the list

1. Office Suite : OpenOffice 1.1

2. Zip Utility : 7-Zip

3. PDF Reader : Adobe Acrobat Reader 6

4. PDF Generator : PDF995

5. Antivirus : Avast Personal Edition

6. Page/Layout/Publishing software : Serif Pageplus

7. Browsers, Mail Clients : Firefox and Thunderbird (everyone knows!)

8. Anti Spyware : Ad-Aware, Spybot-search and destroy

9. Mediaplayer : MS Media Player 10, Real Player Gold, WinAMP

10. CD-MP3 Ripper : CDex

11. MP3 encode library : Lame Encoder

12. Download Utility : Free Download Manager, Star Downloader

13. Torrent Client : Bittorrent

14. 3D Graphics/Animation : Blender 3D

15. 2D Photo/image editor : GIMP for Windows

16. Compilers : Bloodshed Dev C++, JDK

17. Database : MySQL, SAP DB for Enterprise

18. Video Editor : Avid Free DV

19. Audio Editor : Audacity, Wavepad, Anvil Studio

I hope the above list is sufficient for casual-to-professional use. The only thing you wont get free is Windows OS. (i just wish there is a open-source windows! )

Finally! fresh milk coffee a.k.a Cappucino is available.

When I was there in the Second floor pantry, there were many people around the vending machine. People love to try new things!

The machine is bit complicated. Water is supplied from a seperate reservoir through a tube. Fresh milk is boiled in a electric cooker and supplied through another tube. The coffee beans tank is located on top of the machine. When you press your choice on the control panel, a series or “brrrr… vrrrr… drrrrr” sounds.. and then grinded coffee beans blended to thick dicoction with rich aroma.. mixed with hot milk…. mmm..finally.. Filter Coffeeeee!

For a normal sized cup, one and a half spoon of sugar is okay. The milk is thick. No water is added. So this gives you a thick coffee and helps the coffee taste to remain on your taste buds for a long time.

About the taste. A typical filter coffee with good taste and aroma. The paper cup spoils the mood. So if you have a coffee mug, go ahead and enjoy the rich coffee.

Thanks to those who made this arrangement.

Enjoy!

When I frist saw the name and logo, I thought it should be a fruit/juice shop like “Fruit Shop on Greams Road”. But soon i found that it is a speciality restaurant. Whenever I had coffee at Barista, I thought of visiting Aiwo too. Yesterday I got a chance.

Introduction:

Aiwo is different. They serve a-la-carte and conveyor meal. The tables are located close to a conveyor belt which carries the food cups. Well yes.. cups, the quantity is less in each bowl. But you get unlimited food. Eat as much as you can.

The A-la-carte serves both veg and non-veg items. The conveyor serves only veg items. Everyday there is a random menu for lunch and dinner conveyor meal. The conveyor meal is Rs.195 with 14 items including a optional complementory white egg preparation.

The Aiwo concept:

Aiwo says “Food for Life”. The food items are prepared in such a way that they contain less calories, less fat and prepared using Olive oil. Strictly no other oils. Every dish is served in a medium sized bowl, which offers you 50 calories of food in average. So this is best suited for those who wish to maintain a balanced and healthy diet.

First Impression:

The interiors are decent and the big attraction is the conveyor belt. You sit on the sides of the conveyor belt and it has 14 number boards. Next to each number board, the relevant dish is placed in 3 or 4 bowls and it keeps moving around the restaurant.

Everyday, there is a random menu with 14 different dishes. Each dish is prepared at regular intervals and served through the conveyor belt. When the bowls come near to your table, you can pick them and enjoy.

Quantity:

Aiwo promotes balanced and healthy food, the quantity of food in each bowl is less, enough to generate 50 calories of energy. This will be helpful for those who are keen about the calories.

Taste:

Taste? well dont expect a great taste. You will be disappointed if you get in expecting a spicy channa masala and romali roti. Go elsewhere. Some of the items are prepared in Barley and low calorie flours. yesterday I had Veg Barley Briyani! . The soup made me to think that i am in a hospital canteen. On the contrary the barley based Moong Dal payasam was something better, it brought me back to the earth. Some other tongue-savers are the Barbeque Mushroom, Gobi fry… and green peas masala.

Should you try?

May be.. but on your own risk. I am not sure everyone will like it. But Aiwo is a differnet experience worth trying once.

[size=18:7487a8d275]Murugan Idli Kadai.[/size:7487a8d275]

The well hyped traditional food chain now speading its outlets all over chennai. Their recent opening is at besant nagar beach.

You need to prepare yourself for waiting to enter into the idli kadai. You cannot straight away walk into the door and pick your table and eat those idlis. You have to wait outside for 10 to 15 minutes. Follow the queue and enter inside.

[b:7487a8d275]Warm-up:[/b:7487a8d275]

Inform the door-keeper and select your chair outside. He will call you once suitable table is cleared. If you are lucky enough, you can get in within a few minutes or wait upto 10-15 minutes.

[b:7487a8d275]Get-in:[/b:7487a8d275]

Once entered in, you will find a modern establishment and no traditional interiors. Granite tables, with designer metal chairs . The place can accomodate upto 40 members, and the other hall can accomodate upto 20 members on the other side. The interiors are air-cooled and you can see neon-lights hanging behind the glass walls. It reminds me that the setup is similar to Subway.

[b:7487a8d275]Ready Start Action:[/b:7487a8d275]

The captain will guide you to the free tables. Noticed there were metal tumblers with holes . I wondered how they will pour the water in. But soon the attender placed a plastic water cup in it and my doubt was cleared. We started with Idli. One Idli costs Rs.4.50. A pair of Idli costs Rs.9.00 plus taxes. The menu listed standard Oil dosai, Ghee dosai, Butte dosai and so on. Nothing special. A Pongal costs Rs.15.00.

They serve 4 chatnis plus one standard sambar. Thank god they didnt bill extra for chatnis. Heard from shuba that their idli podi is really good. But one spoon of idli podi costs Rs.3.50. I dont have a generous heart to pay Rs.3.50 for idli podi. So i didnt try that.

Pongal is available in two flavors. Plain “ven pongal” and Sweet “Sakkara pongal”. Dont mind if your heart misses a beat when the pongal reaches your table. Just a “karandi” of pongal with lot of ghee and few cashews served in a “thonnai” cup with the very small spoon. (business trick! )

[b:7487a8d275]Taste & Quality:[/b:7487a8d275]

The food is served properly and the attenders maintain cleanliness. The coconut chatni is mostly “coconut punnakku” version. Similar to hotel chatnis. I was expecting a good coconut chatni, but didnt find that. Little disappointed in that front. The tomator chatni, mint chatni and the other unknown chatni tasted good. The sambar reminded the traditional madurai flavor. Overall the taste was above average.

Idli.. well the most hyped food and speciality of this shop. The idli is similar to kushboo idli but not big. The soft and non-grainy preparation was lovely. But that doesnt justify the unbeleivable price of Rs.4.50 per piece.

I guess the higher price is specifically maintained to distinguish themselves and position them in the level of upper tier restaurants. They dont want to create a yet-another-crap impression. Clever.

[b:7487a8d275]Conclusion:[/b:7487a8d275]

If you wanna take a break and ready to pay a premium price tag for pakka south indian food, and if you are a ardent lover of idlis, you will find MIK as a good’n’ costly pick. The idlis are very normal except the fact that they are soft and good to eat. These type of idlis can be very well found in your sweet home cooked by your mother or wife.

Bachelors! Enjoy… you may find MIK’s idlis much better than the other restaurant craps.

Finally, in my personal opinion, their idlis are not “out-of-this-earth” quality as they are hyped. But their advertisment screened at sathyams (paravai muniyamma and the car chase) is something that is really “out-of-this-earth”.

Worth visiting once in a month!