brainwave

Maya Arts and Crafts

2011-09-29T22:54:00.000+05:30

Check out Maya Arts and Crafts. You can place orders for custom made items for personal use or for gifting.

Links:
http://www.mayaartsandcrafts.com
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Maya-Arts-and-Crafts/158547724227040

Tts a bit different kind of shopping. Ideally, people like to see and feel and judge if its worth the price before buying any item. Here, you have to describe what you want and you get it. Yes, most people find it difficult to describe what they want. I have that same issuse. When multiple options are given for colour or shape or design, I don't know what to choose. Probably because I never knew there were options available for such minute details.

Well, consider it as a priviledge. Say what you want and watch it take shape, a shape better than you imagined at first!! And.. you'll find it worth the price.

How to create a 3-bit colour palette in Gimp

2011-09-29T22:42:00.000+05:30

I wanted to use a 3-bit palette in Gimp. Why? To preview images for Nokia Sleeping Screen.

Gimp does not have a 3-bit palette by default. But it has a nice feature where you can add your own palette. So I created one.

Start the Palette Dialogue with Windows -> Dockable Dialogs -> Palettes

You'll see this box:

Click on the "New Palette" button higlighted above.
You'll see this box now:

Save this image and open in Gimp:

I found this image on a Wikipedia article. This shows the 3-bit palette.

Now click on the 8 colours in the image you opened in the previous step. You'll see the colours filling up in the 'New Palette' window. Give a name to the palette so that you can identify easily:

Click the save symbol.

Well, thats it. You have a 3-bit palette now!

Okay, so how do I use it?
I'll describe it in the next blog when I show how I created images for Nokis Sleeping Screen.

For short instructions:
Image -> Mode -> Indexed
Click Use Custom Palette
Click the colour symbol below this and select 3 bit colour palette
Select a Dithering option
Click Convert

Community behaviour

2011-09-21T20:50:00.000+05:30

One of my old relatives said that they did not have so many anti-social-elements in the society. Nor did they have so many mannerless and misbehaving kids. Or grown-ups for that matter. Now the number is growing, and fast.

Me: "Really! How did you manage to keep the numbers so low?"
Old guy: "Because, we had the liberty to punish any misbehaving kids, and not just your own."

He went on to highlight a few more differences:
Then: If you are caught stealing mangoes from a mango farm, anybody who caught you would scold/chase/beat you. The person who caught you could be you parent, the farm owner or some passerby.
Now: If you are caught stealing mangoes, the farm owner only chase you away. Everyone else don't care.

Then: If a complain reach your parent, your parent would severly punish you. Complaining to parent was the final straw!
Now: If a complian reach your parent, the parents just try to trivialize the issue. Nobody has time to listen. "whats the big deal man", "yeah whatever", "okay okay, it'll not happen again". If a kids see his parents supporting him, his activities would only grow. Be it good or bad. Especially bad.

Then: You were the maintainer of the society. You would make sure you keep the society in such a way that your kid would safely grow and live in it.

Now: You don't care about society anymore. All you care is how much wealth you can create for you and your kid.

After the discussion with the Wise Old Man, I was bought into his argument.

Unfortunately, this is not something one person can change.

Perceptive opinions

2011-09-18T23:48:00.000+05:30

Some time back, I was having an argument with a relative over child behaviour. She happened to mention "you used to throw away your plates while having food when you were a kid".

I was surprised! I don't remember throwing away plates while eating. Obviously, I refused to believe it. The response was 'Ask your mom'. My mother was not there and that was the turning point of the argument which, obviously, I lost.

Back at home, I asked my mother about it and she said that I did throw my plate while having food. I said I don't remember. She said "you were a little baby then". I asked her how many times did I do that. She said "Oh! I did not count, maybe a couple of times".

What the ...!!!

I must have had food at least three times a day. Everyday. For so many years! That did not count at all. What did matter was the two or three times that I threw the plate away. My mother said she happened to mention this during a casual conversation to that relative. But now my relatives think I *always* used to do it!

"You always ask the same question again and again"

I have heard this many times, especially during arguments. Oh! why would I ask the same question again if it was answered the first time? That logic, for some reason which I am yet to fathom, is not valid. Especially during arguments.

Oh boy! I find it strange that people just create opinions about others and spread it as well. Strangely, these created opinions always seem to be favourable to the creator.

The sad spider

2010-11-07T20:54:00.000+05:30

Found this spider in my garden. I first thought its carrying its egg case. But this is the spider's body!

This looks like a very sad spider.

Influencing Ads

2010-11-05T20:45:00.002+05:30

   I did not like the ad of a particular biscuit brand. In that ad, the younger brother eats all the biscuits and entraps his elder brother who gets scolded by their mom. There are a few more ads from the same biscuit brand in which kids cause problem for others and get away with it.

   There was a detergent ad where kids splash dirt on another man and then tell him that it can be washed for free because that brand is giving some percent extra for free. What about the inconvenience caused to that guy. The detergent may be free, but what about the effort and time required to clean it.

I have seen similar ads for other products which hint that being bad is OK, entrapping others is OK, being troublesome is OK, causing problems for others is OK.

Yes, kids are mischievous. Kids are troublesome. They do mess up stuff. But that should be for learning. Its must not be a right.

Oh, how I hated those ads. I striked all these products off my purchase list.

Then I saw the Mahindra bike ad by Aamir Khan. There he his making pun of all other bike ads. Thats when I noticed what other bike ads were hinting at. And I was buying into their hints all this time!! I realized its not just kids, but even grown ups mind can be easily manipulated by such ads.

Thats it! All those bikes are off the purchase list as well! From now on, I won't just watch ads. I'll also watch out for what they are hinting.

My favourite ad is a person sleeping on a chair at an airport when another person wakes him up and tells him that his hair oil is spoiling the chair. When the first person asks whats his problem the second person, while wiping the chairs, says that he has paid enough tax to sponsor at least 7-8 chairs for the airport.

   A bike guy hits my bike from behind and then shouts at me. I see a bike guy jump a signal and is hit by a car but the car guy is forced to pay. A student gets thrown out of the class for misconduct but the teacher is forced to apologize.

   I don't think these guys are getting influenced by the ads. Its these kind of behaviour that is depicted in such ads. And it propagates. Because of both ads and what they see around them.

   Looking at the trend in human behaviour, my list of not-to-purchase-items may grow for ever. Maybe I should prepare a people-to-avoid list as well...

Compulsive Honking Syndrome

2010-10-27T16:43:00.003+05:30

Compulsive Honking Syndrome is an acquired syndrome. Mostly fed in by the driving school or whoever taught driving. Most people are very scared when they handle a car's steering wheel or a bike's handle for the first time. Honking is least of their priorities. The trainers then scare the learners about potential consequences of causing any damage. So much so that honking gets embedded in their survival instinct.

There are two types of CHS.

1. Periodic honking

2. Obstacle honking

Periodic honking is timer based. Every 'x' seconds the a mental timer fires and the driver honks. One day I was following a guy on a bike who would honk every 9 seconds. The road was 100 ft wide, no vehicles, pedestrians, potholes or humps in sight. But he would still honk periodically. This guy's trainer must have forced him to honk so much that it is now programmed in his sub-conscious mind. Even though he appeared to be relaxed, the pressure would slowly build in his sub-conscious mind and hearing his own vehicle's honk would release all the pressure. Like a pressure cooker. The pressure is created by his survival instincts.

Obstacle honking is very simple: "Honk at any obstacle or at any potential obstacle that may move in your path or in any of your path options (if you have multiple options) if you were driving 20% faster than your current speed". That means you have to honk at that pedestrian that you see few hundred meters ahead who would definitely move out of your path by the time you reach it. This is also a trained minds job. The trainer would have jumped out of the seat everytime he sees an obstacle. This would appear to the trainee as if this is a mandated requirement to honk at obstacles.

Conscious driving happens only during the training period. After that the sub-conscious mind takes over the driving. Thats leaves the conscious mind free to to talk about politics/cricket or ogle at large posters across the city even while driving (almost) safely. If the training triggers CHS, that gets programmed in the subconscious mind as well.

Well, the good news is: CHS is completely curable. It requires conscious observation and re-training the mind.

Bangalore Traffic

2010-10-27T16:40:00.001+05:30

After observing the evolution of Bangalore traffic and driving through it for considerable time, I proclaim myself as an expert on traffic analysis. I can now give free traffic analysis, just like the way most people analyze cricket. I'll start writing a series of blogs in this regard.

Watch out for BlrTraffic label.

Watchmen movie

2009-04-01T21:56:00.004+05:30

I saw Watchmen today.
Did not like it at all :-(.

What a boring movie!! Well, I think the problem was expectation.

I like to see superhero movies. In this movie there is more of boring dialogues, violence and nudity than action. Out of two and a half hours, only the last one hour has some story and action. Most of the time we only get to see the dark side of superheros.

imdb rates it at 8. I wouldn't even give it a 1.

Afterall, it is set in an alternate world...

One Time Sale

2008-08-19T22:24:00.001+05:30

What is One Time Sale?

In simple words: Sell it. Forget it.

Well, thats for the seller. Not for the consumers.

In a city like Bangalore, there are so many customers for any establishment, small or big, that some unhappy customers does not matter to them at all. So, they happily go about cheating the customers and stand by their behaviour.

I had been to a departmental store and bought an item which had a Rs.75/- discount. A week later while cleaning my drawer I found the bill and noticed that they had not given the discount. I went to the store again and they apologized and asked me to pick
up anything for Rs.75/-. This is a very large store and they sell thousands of items every day, mostly consumables.

I had also been to an electronic showroom looking for a LCD or Plasma TV. There was a good discount on one of the LCD TV. I asked for more discount and the kind salesperson was very happy to give me and additional 5% discount! Thats when my instincts told me something was wrong. I postponed the idea and walked out.

I asked one of my friend who knows a lot about these and he told me that particular model of LCD TVs is not being manufactured at all! The salesman told me it was a brand new model and this was an inaugural offer.

What the departmental store sells is consumables. I visit this store once a week or maybe once in two weeks. But thats not the case with the electronic showroom. I will not go there again. I am not going to buy another TV for another few years at least. If that person cheats me, it'll be too late by the time I find out. Or worse, I may not find out at all.

How do I prevent such people from fooling others? I can tell about such people to my friends, my colleagues, my acquaintances on social networking sites, my colony people.

What percent of Bangalore did I cover? Negligible. I can ask all of them to forward the mail to their friends and so on. But once such info passes the circle-of-confidence, people will just ignore such mails. Or they might get cautious but still visit that particular store. If I do get cheated, I can file a case against them in Consumer Courts. But that is still not going to prevent them from cheating others.

Well, with this many number of consumers and the fact that they are not well connected, such salesmen and stores will continue to be in business forever....

My garden

2008-03-09T22:27:00.007+05:30

I have a small garden. We maintain it ourselves. Thats why its always in poor condition :). We have around 25-30 hibiscus plants. The number varies as some of them dye and we get new ones.

We have a couple of hibiscus plants which flower two different coloured flowers! Here is one of them:

There is a bonsai hibiscus. In the last 4 years, it has grown around 6-7 inches. It flowers only during rainy season and since the plant is very small (around 1 feet) with only two branches, it has only 1-3 flowers every year. Here is a picture:

I had never seen hibiscus seeds. Last weekend I was surprised to see a pod and it had seeds in it. I went to google to search about this. It appears, I was the only one who did not know hibiscus plants can have seeds.. he he he... :D.

Some time back I saw a photo in a local newspaper of a 'rare occurrence' where there were 5 pomegranates in one bunch. Just a week before that I had 5 pomegranates in one bunch on my plant as well. I was not aware this was a 'rare'. Here is a picture:

One problem with having a garden is lot of spiders and ants in them. Its not only in the garden, these insects wander into the house as well. But thats ok. The spiders don't mind me destroying their nets while moving around the garden. We also have lots of butterflies and tiny birds that visit us regularly.

Our neighbours have hired experts to maintain their garden. And its turned up beautiful. We get time to maintain our garden only on the weekends. Thats why its not in good shape. Well, its not in bad shape either. I feel so happy to see every flower that blossoms, every fruit that ripens. I don't think I can get that satisfaction if I had paid for the effort and had a well maintained garden...

Centralizing address and phone.

2008-03-09T22:16:00.007+05:30

I shifted my residence. There is a change in my residential address now and also my fixed line telephone number. I then had to update my new address and telephone number with:
1. My company
2. My mobile phone service provider
3. Insurance company
4. Another insurance company
5. My friends
6. My relatives
7. My passport
8. I had to cancel my voter's ID card and get a new one in my area
9. My bank
10. My another bank
11. My credit card provider
12. My home loan finance provider
13. etc,
14. etc....

My colleagues, who are bachelors, keep shifting their house every few years or so. I wonder how they manage all this. I asked them and they say the address is changed as and when the need arises.

What is necessary is maintaining a central database for addresses and telephone numbers. I control which service provider, friend, relative can see it. Of course, address for passport and other government related orgs can get it by default.

It should take care of permanent residence address, temporary address and office address. For telephone numbers I should be able to provide my fixed line number, my mobile number and mobile numbers of other members of my family. I should be able to link to my neighbour's, my friends, my colleagues and my relatives address and telephone number as well.

All the service providers can pull the address and telephone number from the database to contact me. In case of emergency, they can reach me through my neighbours, friends, colleagues or family members.

For security reasons, I should be able to control who can link to me (my address and/or phone numbers) and who all can see this data. I should be able to alter this info at any time. The telecom company should have the facility to verify this updates. For addresses, maybe the policy should be involved to verify.

There should also be a mechanism to prevent telemarketing callers from making those pestering calls.

Implementing this may not be very difficult compared to making entries for all existing people and educating everyone from using it....

Missing from voter's list

2008-02-11T22:05:00.000+05:30

Every voter's id card has a unique number on it. You can verify this number and the entry into the voter's list at Election Commission of India's website. For Karnataka, see the website of The Chief Electoral Officer of Karnataka.

I had got my voter's id card and had verified its presence on the voter's list. Recently, some people from the local govt school visited us and asked us to fill the application form again as our name is not there in the voter's list. Now that was surprising. I had read in the newspaper the same day that so many lakhs of duplicate entries have been removed from the voters list. How come they removed my name? They had no answer. Only thing he said is that my name does not appear in the voters list and if I want to vote, I have to apply again.

To verify, I went to the above link and searched. Indeed my name was missing! Obviously, I applied again. Wasn't any verification done before removing the names from the list? I just hope this does not become a repetitive task....

The Last Mile of travelling

2007-12-22T10:03:00.000+05:30

There was a time when Bangalore did not have any one-ways. But still the traffic was not mentioned in any news. Now with so many one-ways its still in the news.

When the number of commuters increased, the public transport (BMTC) did not wake up. People started buying and using their own vehicles. Now it has woken up and introduced very nice services. But people are not going to change because:

We have gotten used to the convenience of using own vehicles.
We can now afford to buy/run/maintain own vehicles, despite increasing fuel and steel prices.
We don't have time to walk the last mile of polluted streets after getting down from a bus.
The buses are never on time. Thats because of the amount of traffic.

I was very happy when BMTC introduced Volvo buses. I hate driving in Bangalore and would love to go by the Volvo.

But there is a major problem. The nearest volvo bus stop from my home is 2kms away and the nearest volvo bus stop from my office is 1km away. I tried going by the normal BMTC buses to cover for that distance. But the timing is always not right. I've to wait for a normal bus near my house and then wait for the volvo bus. Too much time wasted in waiting. I even tried walking the 3kms.

They had introduced the YI services for some time. It would show the current location of the bus you are interested in by SMS. That way you can plan your travel to the volvo bus stop. This service has been discontinued now :(.

BMTC had also introduced Gramantara bus services. They were minibuses which would go to remote and less populated areas. The advantage was that they could go through narrow and winding roads of villages. Now I see very few of those buses.

That did not work out and I'm back at using my two wheeler :(.

I read an article in the newspaper today (22nd Dec) that BMTC is introducing taxi services for those going to the new Bangalore Airport. The taxis will pick up the passenger from the house and drop at the nearest Vajra bus. Vajra (volvo) buses are being planned to pickup/drop commuters from and to the new airport to different locations in Bangalore. They are planning to use GPS to synchronize the taxis and the buses.

Now that is a brilliant idea. That covers the last mile of traveling to the airport!

If they could introduce something like that for local transport as well....

Sahasi Arjun - Kannada Comics

2007-11-24T20:40:00.000+05:30

I was fascinated by Sahasi Arjun when it appeared on a Kannada Weekly Taranga. Artwork is ok-ok. But the story line is what impressed me.

This comic was created by T.G. Shetty and was printed from 1st Sept 1991 to 31 Jan 1993. Only two stories were printed by Taranga.

According to this comics, all the mythological stories (Ramayan, Mahabharat etc) are true and they were actually super humans. Earth had a huge earthquake+flood. They left earth and settled in a very distant solar system called Apoorva. Here their race grows to occupy multiple planets in their solar system.

There is a war going on in the Apoorva Solar System and the good guys are loosing. The princess of the good guys sends a robot, Wamba-2c, to earth to recover a Vajra. Wamba-2c is accompanied by Oshira's (a yogi) spirit. The Vajra (diamond) belonged to their leader Indra, which they had to leave behind when they left earth. This Vajra had enormous power which can help them to win against the bad guys. Wamba-2c lands on earth and meets Arjun. Wamba-2c, Oshira's sprit and Arjun hunt for the Vajra.

I had never heard of T.G. Shetty before or after. I don't know who this cartoonist is, how many comics of Sahasi Arjun did he create or if he created any other comics.

I was very dissapointed when the comics suddenly ended. I don't know why. Probably the idea that all the gods and mythological characters were highly advanced humans rather than gods itself was not acceptable. Or maybe T.G. Shetty ran out of ideas.

I had saved most of the comics pages out of Taranga. Here is the first clip out of it:

My mother bound all the pages into a book. I lost the book in my mother's collection of compiled books all these years. I recovered it a few months back and read it again.

I'm still impressed by it!

Aesthetic Pollution

2007-11-12T21:03:00.000+05:30

What is Aesthetic Pollution?

Spoiling the visual beauty. Its also called Visual Pollution.

Advertisements on buses, bill boards, overhead wires, buildings etc, cause Aesthetic Pollution. Its hard to define what causes Aesthetic Pollution as beauty is in the eyes of the.. err. spectator .. observer.. .. whatever. Ask the company which put up the bill board and they'll definitely tell you that the bill board is adding to the Aesthetic Beauty. Of course, its the money speaking. Isn't it always the money which is speaking? How many businessmen (or customers!) have ever heard of Ethical Business Conduct?

I remember there was a plan to build a larger building next to Taj Mahal. It came up in the news, became a controversy, some blame games and then all news channel fell silent. The point raised was that it'll spoil the beauty of Taj Mahal. Valid point. Apparently the project was dropped.

One of my friends recently visited Badami. He says, as you enter the town you can see the beautiful and ancient caves and buildings along with three mobile towers in the background! That totally spoils the beauty. No photos taken!

Why don't we think of beauty being spoilt in our city or in our neighborhood? I was just reading another news: São Paulo has banned outdoor advertising. Many other cities around are considering the same.

Can we do that in our cities as well?

Well, we don't even have decent roads or footpaths. For the last one week, Times of India has been showing pictures of bad roads all over Bangalore and nothing is being done. We have garbage dumped all around the bins. Nobody throws wrappers in the dust bins. I don't see a sense of cleanliness itself.

I saw an ad of a property developer which said something like "are your neighbours spoiling your happy moments?". The accompanying picture has a cute little girl in a fairy dress posing for a photograph and somebody is fixing a dish antenna in the balcony of the flat of the adjoining building in the background.

People take a lot of care of their house, their personal looks, their cars, their 'happy moments'. Its just a mater of extending the same concept a bit more....

We have to first understand the importance of Aesthetic Pollution. Its a new concept around here and it'll take some time before people accept that its not a nice thing. It'll take even longer to take any action.

We definitely have a long way to go....

Deepawali Crackers

2007-11-05T20:34:00.000+05:30

I'm against crackers. Its over 10 years since I burst any crackers. Reasons are not very difficult to guess: Noise pollution, air pollution, soil pollution, dirty roads, child labour, unhealthy and unsafe manufacturing practices, careless bursting without any considerations for others.... Thats enough reasons I guess?

Apparently not!!

I just read the news about 7 children dying at an illegal cracker factory in Hyderabad. Another news said forced child labour is used in many such factories. The prices of these crackers are sky-rocketing! Surprisingly, so is the demand for them!!

I have told my friends why I'm against crackers. Everybody agrees with my reasons. But nobody is ready to give up bursting them!!

We celebrate Deepawali every year. Its one of our major festivals. We do pooja, hang up the Deepawali lantern, decorate the main door and mainly light up the house with diyas!

Why can't we celebrate Deepawali by showing some social responsibility?

Celebrating at others cost

2007-10-17T22:22:00.000+05:30

I pass through a market area everyday while on my way home from my office. The market road is a bit less than 1km. It takes less than two minutes to cross it as its always busy with people and there is a bus stand as well.

Its a very busy road. I would say around 150 people in different vehicles (bus, two-wheelers, cars, autos etc) would cross this road every minute during the peak hours.

Today, it took around 20 minutes to cross this road!

They have put up a pandaal and some people are occupying half of the road and beating drums. Well, its festival season and everyone has the right to celebrate it. But it has caused a huge traffic jam there. The road is completely blocked for the entire stretch. It was just the beginning of the peak hour. Imagine what would be the state during the peak hour!

There were less than 200 people there celebrating the festival. I didn't find it reasonable to inconvenience thousands of people just to entertain a couple of hundred.

I do understand the feeling and the excitement to celebrate any festival. Its perfectly justified. But it should not be at the cost of other's inconvenience. There is a large ground available quite close to where these people were celebrating. Why not use that?!

So many vehicles spewing out smoke. Such a waste of petrol. Such a waste of time.

Code For Freedom

2007-09-25T20:17:00.000+05:30

Sun Microsystems has launched Code For Freedom contest for students in India. The above link has all the details about this contest. My earlier blog has some tips on how to contribute to OpenSolaris. This contest has four other open source projects: Project GlassFish, NetBeans, OpenPortal and Apache Derby. But I can't say much about these technologies as I work only in Solaris.

This is a good opportunity for the student community to build their knowledge and show their talent. It also a stepping stone for them to build their career.

Child Proof Computer Table

2007-09-22T13:02:00.000+05:30

I have been searching for a computer table. I have visited many furniture shop and online furniture shops as well. But I have not found any that meets my requirement.

One of my main requirement is : The computer table must be child proof!

I have a one and half year old hyperactive kid in my house. Currently, I spend a lot of time keeping the kid from destroying my computer and the accessories.

About the tables I saw at different furniture shops, everyone tells me the same thing: "these computer tables are imported (from Malaysia) and we just assemble and sell it". I wonder who designs these computer tables. They are highly non-ergonomic!

The keyboard tray must hold both the keyboard and the mouse. Many of them say, keep the mouse on top of the table.
Some models have the monitor at an angle to the sitting position. You have to keep your head turned at an angle to look at the monitor.
Many of them do not bother about the wirings and cables. They show the printer being placed at the top, but there is no provision to run the cable to the computer. The assumption is that the computer table should be placed two inches away from the wall and you can run the cable behind the table.

We take so much care in ergonomics for our office tables and chairs. But why don't we think about this for our home tables? Surprisingly, all the furniture-walas say, their computer tables sell like hot cakes!

Well, I spend considerable time in front of the computer from home. Most people use it just to browse. Well, I wouldn't want to settle for a poorly designed table just for browsing.

Well, you don't require a very creative brain to design an acceptably ergonomic, child proof computer table. I designed a couple of them myself. I decided to hold off when I found that the custom made tables cost more than 3 times the assembled ones...even if they use same amount of wood.

I don't know what to do...

Hero Honda Pleasure Review

2006-05-30T17:30:00.001+05:30

Bought a Hero Honda Pleasure last week. Here is my experience with the whole buying process and the riding experience.

I have been riding a Kinetic Honda (March 2001 model, 2 stroke) for the last 5 years. I just dumped it and went for Pleasure. So, most of my comparison of Pleasure is with Kinetic.

I was in two minds about TVS Scooty Pep Plus and Hero Honda Pleasure. I visited a TVS showroom and the person there was not even interested in giving me the details of Pep Plus. Then I visited Hero Honda showroom. The sales person that struck the deal is a totally ignorant lady. She has no clue about the pricing, spare parts, cost of spare parts or anything else for that matter. Besides, she totally misleaded me. She said "I'll give you 5% discount on accessories". Only after I booked the vehicle did she say that I've to be a member of their club which costs Rs.250/-. She also said that the foot mat is a standard part which will be given at the time of deliver. But at the time of delivery she says I have to buy it. Best of all, she confidently denies saying any of such things. She even said she is fed up of convincing me! I haven't heard any sales person talk like that to a customer.

Anyway, I test drove it, got impressed with the pickup and decided on Pleasure.

First of all, its overpriced! Also, the saree stand and the side stand (which are standard with Pep Plus) is not included with Pleasure. The sales lady gave me a list of accessories. I enquired at other shops and found the prices there 40-50% lesser than the Hero Honda prices. The helmet (another accessory) does not have a face cover. I decided to use my old helmet. Its slightly big and does not fit in the space under the seat, but thats no big deal.

The seats are wide. The controls are similar to Pep Plus. Pick up is very good. Engine sounds better than Kinetic. Probably, I got bored with Kinetic's sound after 5 years. The handles are not as wide apart as Kinetic. So, I find a bit uncomfortable. Its just a matter of getting used to I guess.

On both wheels there are two marks which show the status of your break wear. When the two marks meet, its time to change your break shoe. Also, there is a mark on thread wear on the tyres. It is not seen on new tyres. When the thread wears, the mark is seen and its time to change your tyre. The head lamp has a nut below it which can used to adjust the focus (no need to open the head lamp assembly to do that). I found these after I read the manual (Yes, I read the whole manual!).

There is no engine oil indicator. Kinetic had a red indicator. Here you have to manually check the oil and fill it when it gets low. The manual says if the engine oil is too low, the engine will get screwed. And you are supposed to check the engine oil level everytime before starting. The manual also says that if you do not follow the instructions on the manual, the warranty is void! A simple oil indicator would have solved this problem. Or is that very expensive to implement?

The sales lady blessed me with Rs.250/- worth of free accessories. So, I decided to go for a side stand(Rs.80/- + bolt & spring Rs.20/- = Rs.100/-), a buzzer (Rs.55/-) and hand grip (Rs.65/-) (Total Rs.220/-). The side stand looks sturdy, but the spring is very delicate and loose. The stand moves up and down too easily. Parking on the side stand on a slope facing downwards can bring it off! The buzzer feels like its crying every time I turn on and turn off and the hand grip is made of some cheap rubber and smells very bad. I have to wash my hands after every ride. Was it all worth Rs.220/-? Well, when they are giving it for free, they can quote any price and you can't argue!

Hero Honda claims powerfull halogen lamps for Pleasure. At the time of delivery, I checked the head lamps. The power comes only at full throttle. If you lower the throttle, the head lamp's power dims. The mechanic who fitted the accessories says, the head lamp is not connected to the battries and runs on the "coil" directly. Thats why it does not even turn on until you start the vehicle. The battries are used only for the indicators, break light and buzzer. I had the same issue with my Kinetic too. So, I had asked about headlamp dimming at low throttle to the sales lady. She had confidently said "Pleasure has no such issues". But I still have my fingers crossed. I am hoping that the mechanic was wrong and when the battery charges fully, it'll power the head lamps too.

It also has tuff-up tube which are punchture resistant. Holes upto 3mm are automatically sealed by the liquid in the tube. This will allow the vehicle to run for 5-6 kms. You have to get the puncture sealed by that time. The puncture can be sealed by any roadside shop. There is a small nit though. While sealing the puncture, the rest of the tyre has to be below the level of the hole to prevent the liquid from coming out and spoiling the sealing piece. According to the mechanic at the Hero Honda showroom, you can't refill the liquid. At every puncture, some liquid inside will get used. So, with every puncture, its "puncture resistance" will decrease. Sounds logical. He also said that there are no replacement tuff-up tubes. Its only one time. That does not sound logical. This the first machine from Hero Honda with tuff up tube. Probably it'll take time for the spares to arrive. Also, the sales lady told me that spare tuff-up tubes are available. I don't know if I should believe her...

The rear view mirrors are too small. It covers a very small area behind you. I always use both mirrors. Without two rear view mirrors I find it very uncomfortable to ride. The rear view mirrors are a dissapointment. I wish they were expensive accessories. Then I could have bought a better one from some other shop for a lesser price.

While booking the Pleasure, the sales lady asked me if I want to get "teflon coating". It costs Rs.350/- and they would polish once in 3 months for free for a year. I was not interested. Thats it. They did not even clean my vehicle during delivery! It was all dirty. The silver coloured plate on the silencer and the hand grip over the tail lamp had scratches and the paint had gone off at some places. I had to ask them to replace it before taking the delivery. The delivery process took 3 hours!

I had to fill out a survey. One of the questions was "I am buying from Hero Honda because.." and one of the options was "Low prices". I felt like ticking it.. just to mislead them in their data analysis..he he he... Anyway, I didn't.

So, the buying experience was very bad. The sales folks are ill informed and they are ready to mislead the customers. Be careful of what you hear from them.

The riding experience was good. Now that is a new vehicle, I have to drive below 40km/h and I should not accelerate very fast. I have not driven with a pillion till now.

There is a difference in how Pleasure and Kinetic handle the neutral gear. In Kinetic, reducing the throttle to zero is like neutral and the vehicle glides on neutral. In Pleasure, reducing the throttle to zero does not shift to neutral immediately. It takes some time. The higher the speed at which you stopped throttling, the more time it'll take. The feeling is somewhat like engine breaking in my car. Its like, the neutral is choosen only when the vehicle is running below a particular speed. I had driven Honda Deo once. It also had the same property. I guess its the same with Activa too.

Today there was a traffic jam. I had problems with this engine breaking property of Pleasure. The traffic was moving very slowly and it was an upward slope. If I reduce the throttle, it breaks and if I increase it, I suddenly pulls. Then I had to drive down another slope. The vehicle finally fell to neutral and it was going down smoothly. I decided to increase the speed and slightly twisted the throttle. Suddenly the vehicle slowed down with the familiar engine breaking sound!

I don't know the advantage of this engine breaking property. Was this design intentional? I think I need to get used to that critical position of the throttle to make the vehicle move smoothly in variable speed traffic. Also, I still don't know how to smoothly drive down a slope.

Well, its only the first week of Pleasure. And it hasn't been very pleasurable. I couldn't even enjoy the pickp as I am not supposed to until the first service.

I'll update after I drive around with a pillion and after I get used to this vehicle.

Introduction

2006-05-23T11:04:00.000+05:30

I work for Sun Microsystems and I love Solaris.
(All the thoughts mentioned in this blog are my own and not of the company I work for)
I am located in Bangalore. I drive in a Maruti Wagon R and a Kinetic Honda.

My interests include comics (Calvin & Hobbes, Tintin, Asterix & Obelix), going on long drives (which is difficult if you are married and have a kid), and photography. Now-a-days, my photography skills are mostly directed towards my 2 months old baby.

More later...