ganpa's rants

The world as we knew it has ceased to exist. Well it actually did in December of last year, when, in Wuhan, the capital of Central China’s Hubei province a   small cluster of about 40 odd patients were diagnosed with a mysterious pneumonia. This was subsequently connected to a Novel Corona virus and the Huanan wholesale seafood market. Lots of speculations about its origins, transition and eventual transmission to humans, its reproductive number R-nought, have been made, but none conclusive and with substantiated evidence. They are at best educated deductions made from extrapolating past similar data and at worst conspiracy theories of a Hollywood addict on a weed inspired high, Truth be told, we are now sailing in unchartered waters. The Wuhan virus has thrown the most meticulously planned strategies of nations, into the dustbin. Just the other day, we were debating about Countries with the largest GDP’s, trade wars, etc. The favoured topic of discussion from boardrooms t...

At a very early age I knew I was wired differently from most of my friends around me. Those days we did not have television. The radio itself was quite a novelty. The Indian print media did not boast of an auto-based magazine to the best of my knowledge and even if one did exist, I am sure it must have been way above my financial stratosphere. Our only access to “foreign magazines” which would host photographs of motorcycles and cars would be at British Council Library or some old magazine shops. Even then, when my friends would excitedly pore over glossy images of Ferraris and Lamborghinis, I would be frantically searching for images of brawny stripped-down Land Rovers, Pajero’s or Land Cruisers. This unique area of interest extended to naked bikes and cruisers as against classy fully faired sports bikes. This however is a story for another day.  The bare truth was that ever since I set my eyes on an automobile, I always favoured brawny Jeeps or SUV’s as they are more ...

. Ruminations of an aging wannabe Biker. Hi Guys , I have for a very long time now, been thinking of sharing my thoughts and aspirations with all of you . For too long I have just sat on this thought and done nothing about it. In many ways the story of my life, until a few weeks back I just decided that enough is enough and I decided to act on this thought of mine , The result is the article below. There comes a defining stage in every one’s life, wherein, one single incident or news could trigger off a stream of thoughts, a wave of emotions and then suddenly the finiteness of life hits you. This happened to me a few months back and I sat down on a Saturday morning staring vacantly out the window as my thoughts culminated in a stroll down Memory lane. Let ‘s start at the very beginning , A very good place to start ( As per Julia Andrews in Sound of Music), I remember more than 4 decades ago in my teenage (I can hear the gears clicking in your head as you do the...