Dusted away

There's something inherently dissatisfying about a morning if you sleep before 2 in the morning, the night before. Now why does that line sound so grammatically off?

But yes, wake up, read around, get the blood pumping with some weights and squats and you're good to go. Oh yes! Before that, some coffee would be splendid. Next, you call up a car dealership and ask if there's a vehicle for test driving. Actually, you could do the calling part on the evening before so that you don't need to wait next morning for the dealership to get ready and clean his bottoms. Either way, what a fantastic idea; the whole bit about car dealers bringing their test car to your doorstep! You don't need to get out of your place and go hunting for the showrooms. What a bloody relief, specially when you want to test-drive a Renault. These folks churn out solid cars and then retail them through their sparsely located showrooms. What a shame. Then again, when I talk about solid cars from Renault, the list doesn't include their Scala and the... umm.. what's the smaller, fancier looking Micra called? Aha! The Pulse. What bollocks! I don't know if it is any good, but not that I honestly care.

Phew! It's alleviating to not think about the opposite gender for over an hour. Anyway, moving on... No, actually wait! Why can't you understand these creatures? See, cars are so simple as long as you know how to use the clutch. And in case of automatics, you don't even need to know that. Is there an automatic transmission on ladies too? So that all you need to do is prod the throttle. To many, I might already be getting too graphic. And besides, automatics are no fun, specially since in the manuals, the stick is purely in your control. That again, is not purely metaphorical, mind you.

So yeah, finally, I'm getting a hang of driving. But now, a bit on test-drive vehicles,

It's usually customary to test a car on your potential purchase list, unless of course, you plan on buying a Rs. 2 crore limousine, which in all probability, will be driven a lot more by your chauffeur than by yourself. In that case, you can waltz into a high-end car manufacturer's showroom, do eenie-meenie-minie-mo, pay the jaw-dropping amount on the car's price-tag, and tango out in your fancy new set of wheels.

But just in case you happen to go up the rungs of life like normal people do, you go to the car showroom, pester the salesman about how many kilometers to a litre of petrol or diesel the car in contention will take you before displaying an empty fuel tank. If the above mentioned distance is anywhere below 15 kilometers, you'll outright tick the car off your list and move on.

I learned that trick from my dad, well almost. But  here's the deal. Your car is an extension of yourself. it's like an oversized pet, if one may. It can be a beast when you want it to be, while also being happily sedate when you want it to. So please don't judge it on Miles per gallon.

Today's car was the Duster. I like as well as dislike the way the backside of the car looks like a baby's bottoms. Smooth, but a bit frog-like. Even the eyes look a bit frog-ish.. Something like this... Oo<>oO

Rrrrrribbit...

See? The "<>" is obviously the Renault badge, or the best I could make of it with the keyboard. So yeah, on the outside, it's a little excessively round. But nevertheless, it feels tank-like to look at. Another thing... I don't know why I am writing all of this. Chaps from my workplace have already put the car through its paces, and have also come out with a verdict. To that, I say... Big deal.

(Damn, I hope my boss doesn't read this. And I'm not going to tell you his name.)

So that was the outsides. It's a progeny of a frog and a battle tank. Or to be a little unsubtle, the Duster's exteriors are what you get when a frog has sex with a battle tank; a crossover in the truest of senses. Goodness! That line was a weight on my chest. So since that's off, I shall move onto the interiors, which are staid-looking at best. All functional and everything, but it is built like the car is on sale for the year 2000.

Okay, what the hell am I doing? Am I reviewing a car or something? Well, actually, the seating position is bloody amazing. Big seats, slightly hard to the touch, but in a very reassuring way.

Hold on, the best bit about the car remains. And it is the drive. Save for the slightly notchy gear lever, it drives like a dream. I am reiterating the fact that as a driver, I am a beginner at best. And hence, if I say it's easy to drive, there's hardly a moron out there who couldn't drive the Duster. It is proportionally up on a big chunk of cars out there on the road, but strangely, it doesn't let you feel so, except for maybe its wheel-arches that extend a mile on each side; something worth paying attention to if you are to wade through a lot of traffic. But give it a clean stretch of terra firma, or for that matter, even an undulating one, and this one will seldom fail to make you smile. Just that all its grunt surges out in a bit of a hurry post 2000rpm on the rev meter.

Summing up the car in about two lines is actually simple. If you like to drive and have a penchant for straight forward, uncomplicated things, the Duster is your baby. It's not fancy like the Creta from Hyundai. But it is safe and comes with everything that you will need on the road, or even sometimes off it, just in case push comes to shove.

I'll try describing a woman in such detail next time. I'll maybe try to be a little succinct.