There has been this story going around on the Rediff business section about a new electrically operated car that is being planned to be launched in India at a price of 99,000 rupees. The article, even by Rediff standards, seems short on journalistic integrity and appears to be nothing more than a blatant advertisement of an apparently substandard piece of crap. But the obvious amateurishness of the article doesn't take anything away from the fact that it's hilarious. Everytime I go on Rediff, there is a part of me wishing that it would still have that article so that I could go and have a good laugh at how completely stupid and self-unaware some people can be. And well, Rediff messageboards are always great fun if you wish to find more about how the bottom of the barrel in the IQ market thinks. Here is a photo of the abomination they are trying to pass off as a car:
I do not have words to describe it except maybe, 'You've got to be freaking out of your damn mind !'. I mean look at the bumper. It seems that the designer, not quite satisfied at using a crushed coke bottle for inspiration for the bumper, scratched his balding head, heaved a few discontented sighs, concluded that his creation is not radical enough, and went ahead and provided the car with the greatest idea he could come up with: heart shaped headlights. The car is named 'Tara Tiny'. Tara!. Mr. Tara Ganguly (entrepreneur par excellence) perhaps got inspired by Mr. Ford. He must be a happy man. In a world where the only people who are happy are either those who know precisely how good they are or those who do not know how much they suck, Mr. Ganguly definitely is a shining beacon of the latter category.
Rediff goes on to mention that the maximum speed of the car is 55 km/h which puts it somewhere in the middle of the speed spectrum punctuated by a snail on dope on one end and an energetic cyclist on the other. A few days ago the reported top speed was 45 but maybe Mr. Ganguly got a slight inferiority complex when he noticed that creatures of all kinds including cats and dogs and horses and donkeys and runners and kids and possibly some handicaps kicked his car's ass with a humiliating ease and a disconcerting regularity.
Shown above is another model from the company, unfortunately (personal reasons) named, 'Tara Titu'. I am not even going to start as to what is wrong with the design.
According to Rediff, the only thing that Mr. Ganguly finds wrong with his cars is the fact that they are left-hand drives as "they are meant for the markets in US, China and California,". Notice how Mr. Ganguly implies that California is a country. In a world struggling with the realities of a bipolar distribution of power between US and China, it takes an acute visionary like Mr. Ganguly to point out that all this while we have been ignoring the steady progress of California and lo and behold, here it is now, ready to indulge in some rampant ass-kickery. Move over India, give space Russia, California is the country that will provide the much needed multi-polarity in this world.
Rediff also mentions that Tara has a factory in Lucknow. I am from Lucknow. There is no factory. I am not saying that there 'happens' to be no such factory. I am saying that Lucknow cannot play host to any factory, atleast not a successful one. I mean look at me. I am a representative example Lucknowites. Our extremely slothful nature, a general ineptitude at things mechanical and a severe reluctance at getting off our asses makes us humungously unsuitable for sustaining a factory culture. On the one hand, I am unwilling to accept that the factory could be based in Lucknow, on the other, the photo shown below of the staff at 'Tara International' dwindles my resolve a bit:
I mean, I am not going to demean anyone, but these people do look like the best Lucknow could have offered. They have a distinctive look of confidence. The go-getter attitude, especially found in Lucknowites, that is so necessary in today's cut-throat competition. I think 'Tara International' is after all in good hands. And I stopped being sarcastic when I turned 20 :).
I do not have words to describe it except maybe, 'You've got to be freaking out of your damn mind !'. I mean look at the bumper. It seems that the designer, not quite satisfied at using a crushed coke bottle for inspiration for the bumper, scratched his balding head, heaved a few discontented sighs, concluded that his creation is not radical enough, and went ahead and provided the car with the greatest idea he could come up with: heart shaped headlights. The car is named 'Tara Tiny'. Tara!. Mr. Tara Ganguly (entrepreneur par excellence) perhaps got inspired by Mr. Ford. He must be a happy man. In a world where the only people who are happy are either those who know precisely how good they are or those who do not know how much they suck, Mr. Ganguly definitely is a shining beacon of the latter category.
Rediff goes on to mention that the maximum speed of the car is 55 km/h which puts it somewhere in the middle of the speed spectrum punctuated by a snail on dope on one end and an energetic cyclist on the other. A few days ago the reported top speed was 45 but maybe Mr. Ganguly got a slight inferiority complex when he noticed that creatures of all kinds including cats and dogs and horses and donkeys and runners and kids and possibly some handicaps kicked his car's ass with a humiliating ease and a disconcerting regularity.
Shown above is another model from the company, unfortunately (personal reasons) named, 'Tara Titu'. I am not even going to start as to what is wrong with the design.
According to Rediff, the only thing that Mr. Ganguly finds wrong with his cars is the fact that they are left-hand drives as "they are meant for the markets in US, China and California,". Notice how Mr. Ganguly implies that California is a country. In a world struggling with the realities of a bipolar distribution of power between US and China, it takes an acute visionary like Mr. Ganguly to point out that all this while we have been ignoring the steady progress of California and lo and behold, here it is now, ready to indulge in some rampant ass-kickery. Move over India, give space Russia, California is the country that will provide the much needed multi-polarity in this world.
Rediff also mentions that Tara has a factory in Lucknow. I am from Lucknow. There is no factory. I am not saying that there 'happens' to be no such factory. I am saying that Lucknow cannot play host to any factory, atleast not a successful one. I mean look at me. I am a representative example Lucknowites. Our extremely slothful nature, a general ineptitude at things mechanical and a severe reluctance at getting off our asses makes us humungously unsuitable for sustaining a factory culture. On the one hand, I am unwilling to accept that the factory could be based in Lucknow, on the other, the photo shown below of the staff at 'Tara International' dwindles my resolve a bit:
I mean, I am not going to demean anyone, but these people do look like the best Lucknow could have offered. They have a distinctive look of confidence. The go-getter attitude, especially found in Lucknowites, that is so necessary in today's cut-throat competition. I think 'Tara International' is after all in good hands. And I stopped being sarcastic when I turned 20 :).
4 comments:
who did they select for the test drive? popeye the one-eyed sailor?
seriously, these things look like they have been made out of old chewing gum.
This was the reason I used to read this blog. After a long time... I can use adjectives and all that, but that's not my strength; let me just analogize, "Viv Richards". The alternative title for this post should have been, "Return of the King"? (that phenomenal ms-paint image of yours)
As to the article itself, I didn't give it much attention earlier. Now that you are forcing attention on it, how stupendously obvious can they get??? I am not against the garage-level innovativeness that you find in all Indian towns, those huge autos and all that, in fact that's what gives most of us the hope that desis are awesome (managing to be awful at the same too). But an attempt to pass-off someone else's product (Chinese) as ours, just to dilute the praise for a great effort (Tata), should not be confused with innovation. I can say this much: "The thing that makes this car run is Chuck Norris's piss, it makes it run away actually!"
Thanks for referring to him as `Mr. Ganguly', I don't want any confusion involving such lepers and 'Dada'.
Good job Ankit! I enjoyed reading this one. Have to say the cars (or so called) looked so pathetic and flimsy that I feel it can't even pass a collision test with a bicycle. And look at the design!!! I will have to concede that beauty and aesthetics lies in people's mind but goodness gracious they are trying to sell that piece of junk to others and not to themselves only. So they should have looked at it from design perspective but they didn't ofcourse. But did you look at the all the small cars entering into Indian market these days? They pretty much all look the same, a tall hammered piece of coke can with a flat back on very small wheels without any safety features.
lol! good take on Rediff and their pathetic news-writers. Are you kidding me when you said Lucknowites are slothful? I see you everyday in the lab and I look up to you as one of the most hard working guys :P
Bow Bow: now you know that you are still being sarcastic :P
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