[sandeep.menon]

At the very outset, I would like to thank Team-BHP moderators for approving my membership, and permitting me to contribute to the forum I respect the most.

My name is Sandeep Menon, and I am the founder at Wheels Wisdom.

I worked previously at Wipro, i-flex Solutions (later acquired by Oracle), and Goldman Sachs. My professional experience is in the Information Security (Technology Risk) space.

I was born in Kerala. My father was an employee at Hindustan Copper Ltd at the time, at Khetri in Rajashthan. So right after birth, off I went to Khetri!

Thereafter, my father moved jobs, and joined ONGC. My younger sister was born around this time. Life then took us to Baroda, Ahmedabad, Nazira (Assam), and finally to Chennai, as far as schooling went. As a result, I can speak many languages fluently, like the're my mother toungue!

Schooling happened in Kendriya Vidyalayas in different towns and cities of India for the most part, with Classes 11th and 12th completed at Padma Seshadri, KK Nagar, Chennai (known as PSBB in the academic circles).

Getting into PSBB via an entrance test into class 11 was supposed to be a precursor to getting into the IIT's (PSBB produced many IIT'ians every year). Spent more time with my father's Premier Padmini (classes 8 through 12), and less with my Maths, Physics and Chemistry books. And so, made it into Govt. College of Engineering, Trivandrum into Electrical Engineering (Kerala's number one engineering college, on par with REC Calicut (now called NIT, of course).

With my beloved Premier Padmini (8th Grade student / 1992):


The college gave me two invaluable gifts - a placement with Wipro, and my wife.

Work took me to Chennai, Hyderabad, couple of cities in the US and Europe, and finally to Bangalore, over a period of 20 years. I now live in Bangalore, with my wife Jaya and two kids - Vaibhav and Varun.

Cars I Bought:
After I started working, the first car I bought, like millions of others, was a Maruti 800. I bought it from Varun Motors in Hyderabad, in 2003. It was a True Value car. Non AC, carbureted.

Taking delivery of the 2000 Maruti 800:


With the 800, at one of the forts in Hyderabad (picture credit - Jaya):


A couple of years later, changed jobs and relocated to Bangalore, and bought a new car every couple of years.

With our 1998 Toyota Corolla LE, in Stamford, Connecticut (Circa 2007):


With a BMW Motorcycle, somewhere in the Netherlands (Circa 2006):


While I was blessed to have a great professional career, something was missing. Larger purpose in life, as they say? Who knows! But I did have a huge desire to start a business, run it ethically, create jobs, build an institution, and so on. And thus was born Wheels Wisdom in 2015. Time will tell what it will become, or achieve. Starting the company stole away time I used to spend with cars, and forced me to deploy it on building the company and finance, for the most part.

But my team keeps me connected. They get to drive all the cool (and the not so cool cars), and I quench my thirst for touch time with cars, by spending time with them.

I'm humbled, and privileged to be part of the Team-BHP community, which collectively holds an abundance of knowledge, experience, insights, advice, support, and a lot more, for people who see cars as more than just cars. People who perhaps, think of cars as livings things, a member of their family, have mechanical empathy, talk to their cars, smile at them when they give us beautiful ride, listen to them, say tearful goodbyes secretly when the new owner drives them away, and more.

Love being here! I hope to be of help, and look forward to learning from all of you.

[ChiragM]

Hello Sandeep,

Welcome to the forum, great to have you here.

Your 800 bought back memories of our 5-speed 2000 800 in the same shade as yours. Love that car.

Do tell us about the cars/bikes you own now and share pictures of the same. Why not write an ownership review as well of your vehicles?

Look forward to reading your posts on the forum. I am sure you would have lots to contribute.

Stay safe.

[Jeroen]

Hi Sandeep,

Welcome to the forum.

Interesting career you have had so far, can you tell us more about your company Wheels Wisdom?

Originally Posted by sandeep.menon

With a BMW Motorcycle, somewhere in the Netherlands (Circa 2006):

Nice to see you have visited my home country, the Netherlands.

This is not just "anywhere"! You are in Amsterdam and I also know exactly where. You are facing the museum of contemporary art & design and next to it the van Gogh museum. The large building behind you is Amsterdam famous concert hall. This whole area is known as the museumplein as it faces the Rijksmuseum. There is a very large car park underneath and you can see the entrance/exit behing you as well.

My dad’s office was right opposite the van Gogh museum and my parents first apartment was only a few 100 meters to the left of the concert hall. I was born in Amsterdam and lived in it’s suburb Amstelveen till I was about 20.

Looking forward to your contributions.

Jeroen

[sandeep.menon]

Originally Posted by ChiragM

Hello Sandeep,

Your 800 bought back memories of our 5-speed 2000 800 in the same shade as yours. Love that car.

I loved the 800 too Chirag, and had lots of fond memories with the car! Plenty of drives as a newly married couple, bringing our first child home from the hospital, and many more such memories . I guess, being the first car to many Indians, the 800 holds a special place in everybody's hearts.

Originally Posted by ChiragM

Do tell us about the cars/bikes you own now and share pictures of the same. Why not write an ownership review as well of your vehicles?

A Celerio AMT ZXI (O), and my Hero Honda Splendor from college days occupy my parking space these days. Bought the Celerio towards the end of 2017, when I wanted to switch to an automatic, primarily for city use. Owned a couple of sedans and MUV's prior to that. The number of long drives significantly reduced after I started up on my own, and decided to part with the bigger cars, due to lack of use. I will post an ownership review thread on the Celerio AMT. I bought it with very low expectations, but the car has impressed me on many counts. Thank you for the warm welcome Chirag!

Originally Posted by Jeroen

Hi Sandeep,

Welcome to the forum.

Interesting career you have had so far, can you tell us more about your company Wheels Wisdom?

Jeroen

Thank you for the warm welcome Jeroen! Since Wheels Wisdom is part of the auto industry, I will not be able to discuss it on the forum. Do look it up on Google though, and it will only take you a minute to discover it!

Originally Posted by Jeroen

Nice to see you have visited my home country, the Netherlands.

This is not just "anywhere"! You are in Amsterdam and I also know exactly where.

Jeroen

Felt very happy reading your detailed description of my exact location in that picture! That was just out of this world! I lived in Amsterdam for a few months in 2006/2007, and visited many museums and attractions during my stay there (including a visit to Brussels!). I vividly remember my visits to the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh museum. I must have taken that picture during my visit there!

I will try to post a thread on my stay in Amsterdam soon. I remember, I used to take pictures of cars in Amsterdam, which were also sold in India, like this Suzuki Alto!



Looking forward to my time on Team-BHP!

Already enjoying the ride!

[Rajeevraj]

Welcome to the forum Sandeep. Great to see you here. Since I have been a customer of your company for quite some time now, used to seeing the company related emails from you. Good to connect to the person and background now. Thanks for sharing.

Interestingly, I also started my car purchase with a Maruti 800 from True Value

Wish you all the very best!!

[sandeep.menon]

Originally Posted by Rajeevraj

Welcome to the forum Sandeep. Great to see you here. Since I have been a customer of your company for quite some time now, used to seeing the company related emails from you. Good to connect to the person and background now. Thanks for sharing.

Thank you Rajeev! I'm really excited to be here.

Originally Posted by Rajeevraj

Interestingly, I also started my car purchase with a Maruti 800 from True Value

Wish you all the very best!!

That's great to know! True Value did give me the peace of mind, that I was buying 'directly from Maruti', and the car they sold me was indeed good.

Looking forward to my time here at the forum!

[woodstock3001]

Welcome to Forum Sandeep.

Man, you've been fortunate to travel so much. That is so good. Since I come from typical North Indian business family, all we could travel was to North Indian hill stations & since all my relatives are from Delhi, even holidays meant in Delhi only. Not like travelling to Bombay, Kolkata or Sydney, US etc like some friends of mine. :(

Travel to other cities was not much for us.

However, post marriage we have started travelling to different places & we try not to repeat the place again. I still have a long list of places that i want to visit. Yes, travel bug has bitten me as well & I hope to travel most of India if not outside.

I also visited the website & found out that it offers Used car inspection however physically available only in Bangalore (Virtually everywhere) & i think this offering has got a huge potential.

All the best for your business venture & please do share more details about it.

Welcome once again.

[sandeep.menon]

Originally Posted by woodstock3001

Welcome to Forum Sandeep.

Thank you for the warm welcome, and sharing your travel experiences with us, woodstock3001!

Originally Posted by woodstock3001

Welcome to Forum Sandeep.

I also visited the website & found out that it offers Used car inspection however physically available only in Bangalore (Virtually everywhere) & i think this offering has got a huge potential.

All the best for your business venture & please do share more details about it.

Welcome once again.

Thank you for your best wishes! I will not be able to share further about the business because Wheels Wisdom is part of the auto industry, and our forum rules require that members from the auto industry not write about their own business (which is a very fair and important rule, to keep the forum absolutely unbiased).

Really touched by all the welcome I've received so far, and looking forward to learning and contributing at Team-BHP!