PRELUDE TO THE CAR JOURNIES !

During our serving days we never had the pleasure nor the problems of owning a car . It is not that we did not have the need for it . With two growing sons and only a Vijay Super as a mode of transportation at Shillong , a four wheeler was definitely a necessity , but those were the days when other necessecities had priority over owning a car !

After retirement we settled down in Nagpur and when the younger son got admission in an aided engineering college , without capitation fee we were quite happy and used the dough ( kept aside for that very purpose , in case we ever had to pay the capitation fee ) , for buying a second hand Fiat for 55,000/bucks . Now with both the sons away and only two of us around the "necessity" part of the car was no longer an overriding factor.It was got for the convenience and the pleasurable part of it . What we had not bargained for was the problem part of it .

The engine used to over heat even after a small distance . As rectification we changed the four bladed radiator fan for five bladed one . It did not help much . Then the radiator it self was changed with a copper tubing radiator .

The battery was always down . It was difficult to get manpower for a push start at any and all places or times . So dynamo was replaced with an alternator . During our limited distances drives those problems did not bother us after these rectifications but they were spread over long period of time and had taken considerable amount of cash :-( .

At speeds above 45 kmph the nose wheels ( front wheels for the uninitiated) used to "shimmy" badly and the steering wheel used to vibrate and shake uncontrollably . Reducing speed was the only solution . No matter what we tried and how much we spent ,we could never get rid of this snag as long as we had that car .

In the mean time what with re-employment , pension , both sons away and one son earning , our finances were , for the first time in our memory , looking up . So , finally when the problem parts of the car far out weighed the pleasure part , we sold it off for a princely sum of 23,000/ bucks and actually considered ourselves lucky to have got that price !! With improved finances , a bit of bank loan and those 23,000/ bucks we got a base model brand new Maruti 800 car through the canteen on the 10 th of May 1998. It was a car from one of the very first lots to be received in Nagpur to be fitted with "catalytic converter" for better emission standards .The "pilots notes"("user manual" to the uninitiated )were replete with warning that "ONLY UN-LEADED " petrol to be used to prevent damage to the "catalytic converter" .{ a new one cost about 10 - 15000/- :-( } Those days un-laded petrol was not easily available any where as only few petrol pumps and that too only in bigger cities stocked the un-leaded petrol . It became quite common to hear people asking "where is un-leaded fuel available" , not to find the answer,but to boast to all within hearing range that he / she had latest model of Maruti 800 :-). The boasting was not misplaced . What a difference between our Fiat & this maruti ! It was like chalk & cheese !!!

It was the very first brand new car we had ever owned . I was 56 years old when that happened. Today the officers are owning better and bigger cars and that too at much younger age !!

We did not know it then , but this car was to bring us lots of pleasure and adventures !!

Velu.

EUREKA ! EUREKA !! EUREKA !!!

During the years 1999 to 2007 we had traveled extensively by road to all corners of India . I had prepared a road map on which full details of every journey under taken by us were recorded . All those who had a look at that map were suitably impressed ! My son suggested that I put them on the google "My Map pages " . It was a grand idea and helped me in spending considerable amount of my time in a very pleasurable hobby :-)and so the maps were duly made and posted on google "My Map pages " site after completion of the journey .

We are now in Gurgaon and have been for the last month plus to help out our DL (daughter -in -law)by doing some baby sitting and generally trying to be helpful . I have doubts about my contributions to both these tasks but I am sure and have no doubt that the DL will also agree that Priti has been doing both the tasks wonderfully well . In the mean time Google , Googgle maps , the Blog , the Gnat 50 years site and generally speaking the internet has been great help in getting me through the days and nights :-)

With time on my hand I thought of putting those maps on google earth . When trying to do that ( put my google maps on the Google Earth ) , I accidently discovered ( now you know the reason for the title of this blog:-)that google "My Maps "can be imbeded in the blog . After lot of trial & mostly errors I finally got the hang of how to do that .

It is a fair warning to all those very few followers of my blog { are there any ? :-( } that the next few days they are going to be over loaded by google maps and descriptions of our road journeys under taken through the years by car .

velu

Nagpur - Bangalore . June 1999 .

My reemployment at HQ Maintenance Command was to expire in November 1999 . By June of 1999 I had already asked for an extension of one year . However as I had already completed 5 years of re employment so the chances of getting another extension were rather remote ! However to our surprise my posting came to Hq Training Command Bangalore in that month . During those days there were rumors that in cases where Air Hq did not want to give extension to an officer without saying so in so many words , he was posted out to a faraway place . This automatically solved the problem of extension , as in most of the cases the officer did not want to move away from his selected place of re-employment and quit on his own :-)

So far as I was concerned , I was not playing the share market , doing side business in real estate or share brokerage during working hours , a routine practice with quite q few number of officers particularly those posted at Delhi . We had no school going kids and no over riding interest in staying at Nagpur so there was nothing holding us back from proceeding on posting! In any case we had decided that I would do my work to the best of my ability and not willingly let go of the IAF, unless they did not want me no more and said so in so many words with reasons as to why !

We thought about the posting . In the best of circumstances , that is if my extension for another year comes through I would then retire from The IAF from Bangalore in November 2000 maximum an year and half stay at that place . In the worst case scenerio I would retire in November 1999 that is after a stay of five months . Under these circumstances we decided to go on posting with least amount of luggage and go by car . It was a daring decision as I had never driven our maruti more then 40 odd kilometers beyond Nagpur and Priti had not driven even that much !! Our complete luggage consisted of 4 packing cases and one TV which we sent off to Bangalore . Priti's niece was married to a Naval Officer who was doing a course at that time at CDM in Secundrabad . Hyderabad being half way we decided to spend couple of days with them before proceeding to Bangalore .

Then the preparations for the car journey began . Got the maps studied the distances and asked various people about road condition, places to stay etc . We asked experienced travelers if we have to break journey and stay over night on the way to Hyderabad . We were assured that reaching Hyderabad from Nagpur on the same day was no problem at all . In fact we met one odd fellow who claimed to have made the journey all the way to Bangalore in one go as they had some emergency at home . After so many positive feed backs we we were assured and started feeling confident that "yes , may be we can make it to Hyderabad on the same day without any hitches ." Now , after all these years and having trapised all over India in our car we feel that all those ghuta hua travelers must have had a good laugh at our anxiety fears . Any way with all these experienced travelers we discussed the sun rise , sunset timings and also the discussed the best time to start . Due to bad habits of most of the Indian drivers and particularly of long distance truck drivers to drive with head lights on full beam I used to be almost blinded and found it most difficult to see the road ahead and on many an occasion had almost gone in a ditch or hit some thing by the road side . So It was decided to drive only during day light hours and call it a day & make night halt at which ever place we were before it became dark and made use of head light necessary . So the rule followed was start as soon as it becomes sufficient light in the morning and stop at any place before sunset . It was a wise decision which was to be followed in all future journeys.

During my morning walks I started going earlier just to check light conditions during dawn and day break to arrive at our wheels roll time ( starting time to the un-initiated ).

Finally the departure date as decided approached .

( TO BE COMPLETED )





View Nagpur - Bangalore , June 1999 . in a larger map