Re: The Joy of Living a Dream - Honda Civic S MT (Pre-Owned) Though it is not very explicit as I have tried to post something or the other, some of you might have noticed that I have not been as active in this thread. A close pal of mine met with a severe accident on his way to Trichy from Chennai for no fault of his. It was the stupidity of a truck driver who dared to brake right in the middle of the highway for some reason. As a result of this unfortunate incident, 2 precious lives were lost, 2 of my closest buddies are still recovering from the physical and mental pains and a Tata Safari (that you could see in the first page of this thread along with a Baleno) was badly-damaged and sold off.
This happened in the middle of October last year. Ever since, I have shunned away from long drives all these days and was only driving the car inside the city. With the advent of New Year, I decided that life should move on and what a better way to begin a year than visiting temples and offering prayers with your family? When it comes to temples, there is no better place in South India than Kumbakonam and its surrounding villages which have a temple or two in literally every street.
As usual, it all started with a drive to Trichy in the ever-beautiful and the increasingly-dangerous NH45. Just when we were taking a break mid-way, we noticed a huge shadow passing above our car. And, before we could realize what it was, we see this.
The right rear-tires of the truck lost contact with the road and the whole truck almost toppled. Despite alarms and cries raised by other road-users, the crew of the truck had the audacity to stop (again right in the middle of the road), inspect the precariously-hanging load and move on with scant respect for the safety of other road-users. How many more lives do these guys want to spoil before they realize the importance of road safety?
It was a beautiful morning the next day and we started to Kumbakonam from Trichy. Superb roads greeted us until we crossed Thanjavur and it was only the last 34-odd km to Kumbakonam that bothered us. Pothole-ridden and with TNSTC buses driving as if they own the road completely, both us and the Civic were shaken and stirred when we reached Kumbakonam. There is something about this beautiful little town that endears it so much, not only to me and my family but also apparently to many people in South India. The beautiful sunrise, the agricultural farm-lands that stretches as far as your eyes can see, the peace and tranquility of those marvelous temples and deities - Kumbakonam is rural India at its developed best.
We covered 4 of the Navagraha Temples and 3 of the 108 Holy shrines of Lord Vishnu and returned back to Trichy the same day. After spending the next two days with my parents in Trichy, it was time to start back to Chennai for the regular and monotonous urban grind. At the end of the drive, the statistics showed that it was a 980 km drive in which I was constantly maintaining speeds of 100 km/h and above when the roads were good. The Civic returned a mileage of 14.19 km/l for the first part of the drive while I am yet to calculate the figures for the second part of the drive. Again, its nothing great compared to what many other Civic owners in the forum achieve but I am happy nevertheless because I know I was not going easy on the pedal. |