Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Tata Bolt Review By @Tweetologer #GetSetBolt







I had been to a couple of centres in Chennai, to understand where I could see the Tata Bolt. I went on the 25th of January to the Tata Bolt promotional showcase in S.P. Infinity in Chennai, after quickly checking with the twitter handle of Tata Motors. I was able to see the car first there at this centre, and took some photos of the car's interiors and exteriors I could not however use it for a test drive, so I had to wait till the republic day passed, as it was a long weekend in Chennai. I called up Tafe Reach in Chennai's outskirts in Pallikaranai, to get a car at 5:30 pm, post which I managed to review the vehicle, and also click a couple of videos. There are 2 parts to this review. I have done a review in text and images and another one showcasing the same items as part of a video review. 











Looking at recent history, we notice that in the era of Phones and Tablets, the Phablets have evolved. So a similar cross between a hatchback and sedan, called as the compact sedan is evolving as an important segment for Indians buying cars. Tata which came out with the zest, around the IPL last time, has come out with the Bolt, a little ahead of the cricket world cup. Tata seems to be focussed on developing smarter cars for the segment of the market that seems to be quite the cash cow for car manufacturers in India.


Why should you buy the Tata Bolt?

It’s a car for the smarter youth of today, where you drive in tandem with with your social world, keeping the safety intact.




Usually Tata’s smaller cars like the Vista are used a lot for commercial driving by taxi drivers, where the focus usually is on the back seats rather than for the front seats. That image has been steadily changing in the Zest and more visibly in the Bolt with quite a  beautiful front seat and digital display. It feels like the car I now own-Tata Manza, my own little cockpit, but actually its better than the Manza. I actually find it a little sporty given the finish. At least on first perceptions the finish looks premium on the outside and the inside.


The Engine called Revotron for the Petrol and Quadrajet for the Diesel, mimics our day to day lives with its Multi drive option. The earlier engine for the hatchbacks, in the Petrol variants used to be a Fiat engine.



Lets start with the resemblance it bears with something as easy to relate as our heart, and that’s what makes this interesting. Just like you have the heart pumping more blood while you are on a short but quick run, the engine here in the TATA bolt has a sports mode that just mimics a short burst of power. The surge in power you get once you use the sport mode is clearly visible.

The next feature is the econo mode, which is geared towards fuel efficiency on a long drive, where the engine mimics the movements of a marathon runner in pumping blood in a regular and synchronized manner. Finally the last mode of the multi drive feature, the city mode, which is a combination of a sprint and a marathon and has best of both the features to help you on your drive.

Also where the Revotron engine is beneficial is flat torque curve, which basically helps if you are a little lazy on shifting gears in your city drive, which by itself are great features to help the person driving as it gives more power to the person in front. Not to forget are the safety features such as the ABS and the Air Bags. The ABS or the Anti-Lock-Braking system, helps you release the brakes in a systematic fashion, helping the vehicle to not lose control when turning on sharp curves. This feature from a safety standpoint is what differentiates the modern day cars from cars that were bought a few years back. I myself have a Tata Manza Safire (2010) and a Hyundai Santro(2005), and very clearly see the difference the ABS makes to a safe drive. 


Things to keep in mind while trying out the drive.


  • a)    Twist the steering- Show the Active return feature, where the steering returns to about 95% of the original position, post a turn. But hey, its suny outside, lets say its raining now, and I have switched on my vipers, here’s an interesting feature. When you reverse your vehicle, the vipers at the back also get activated during the rains, enabling you clearer vision of what’s happening behind.

  • b)   Jadoo Ki Jhappi /Body Hugging Design- Remember this line from Munnabhai MBBS? That’s exactly what the seats tend to do you with its body hugging design to support the shoulders and back. Their shape basically symbolizes the broad shoulders of a Rugby outfit. While I don’t have them, maybe the Tata Bolt should do well to remind me that I should get to the gym!

  • c)    Talk about reminders, the Connectnext Audio system can remind you of the right tempo for a song with its SPEED DEPENDENT VOLUME feature, based on how fast you are driving your car. Didn’t we always associate loud music with high speed. Quite an adrenaline kick right, and that’s a good feature because I don’t have to take my attention off the road or fiddle my hands around the steering to search for the volume control.

  • d)   Connect-Next We aren’t done with the entertainment system yet, since the 5 inch LCD touch screen in the TATA Bolt here, helps you navigate your way around, but there comes a caveat. You need to have an android phone, and to download The ConnectNext app from the playstore and connect it to your car infotainment via a cable. Maybe there’s an easier way in having a Tab , Phablet or at worst a mobile, that can be fixed to your car glass, allowing you to navigate through maps. The good part however if that the app does not take data from the phone for driving directions as that is done by the GPS inside the touch unit. Note of caution on the expectations on the touch unit, is that it doesn't look to be made of capacitive touch, but more of resistive touch. While this can be a dampner, its far better than dealing with buttons in different parts of the dashboard. 




  • e)    Feedback for Tata Motors-A quick feedback for folks at TATA. If you guys could make apps for the dashboard, it helps if consumers can use their existing tabs or devices in the slot or work with a tablet vendor to produce tabs for the car, which consumers can take out also and use as a normal tab.



 OTHER STANDARD FEATURES THAT LOOK GOOD



A)   Great spacing for the legs in the back seat. You are able to stretch your legs and sit comfortably. The vehicle easily seats 5 people on the car, without being cramped. In addition, your under thigh support and back feel very comfortable while in the car, with decent headroom.








B)   Front Cabin and Glovebox- Pretty good. Can house easily 4-5 beverage cans, and a couple of bottles if you need to keep. Very spacious.




C1)   Boot Space-210 litres, can be slightly enhanced if you can flip the backrests, if it’s a 2 person trip. Otherwise the bootspace is the only limiting factor in what reminds you that this a compact sedan and not a sedan itself. 



C2) Smart Vipers- How cool is it to have back wipers getting switched on when you are taking a reverse and having your front wipers out it in the rain? Very thoughtful feature addition.






D)   Design elements- The gearbox unit is very slick, and light and easy to operate.





I also quite liked the suspension, as it feel reassuring when you take the car on a spin. The design is pretty unlike its Japanese and Korean counterparts.

Black and Out headlamps strikes you first, as you examine the car on the outside, and as you go to the backside, there’s a huge chrome strip which reduces the bulk of the car. For a Premium hatchback, this stands out from its competitors.








This post is a part of the Get. Set. Bolt. activity at BlogAdda.

This is Tweetologer sitting and reviewing the car from the backseat- 

498A= The ticking time bomb in our midst

“The quality of a nation’s civilization can be largely measured by the methods it uses in the enforcement of criminal law”. – -The Supreme Court Of India, 1994.
The concept of democracy in India is as porous as India’s border, with respect to loopholes being present. There are fronts where democracy is strong and there are fronts where democracy is turned a blind eye. While India as a whole is deemed better than many countries for having an active exchange of opinion and freedom of speech, the loopholes sometimes make a mockery of what constitutes a democracy. One such is something that even the Supreme Court has taken cognizance of, on it, being a burgeoning problem in Indian society. Welcome to the farce that democracy is with respect to not having gender-neutral laws.
The new legal cocaine/ecstasy pill, which bypasses and leaves no strand of democracy is a law called 498a, which is called the Domestic Violence or Dowry Harassment law. It came by in 1983 to protect women from dowry harassment.  An aggrieved woman just needed to get to the nearby police station and file a 498a if she faced harassment, and her husband and his whole family would be arrested and by the police. So far so good as this meant power to the women in a country that was largely seeing a lot of crimes against the fairer sex.
The moot point was all a woman needed was just to complain and they did not need any proof at that instant. Slowly women realized that they could actually use this to their advantage to settle scores with their male counterparts, if there was any dispute. A new wave of legal terrorism and extortion followed until July 2014, when the Supreme Court passed an order to not have automatic arrests for the 498a unless an investigation was done. But an investigation can just be another reason for harassment, another step for money to exchange hands. 498a is still around and staring at you from the corner, even though a barrier has been put in place.
Here’s how this law was abused over time. When a husband disagrees or fights with a woman, the woman walks over to the nearby police station and files a 498a. Very few policemen actually enquire what’s the problem and are usually paid off by the woman or her family. The husband is then usually pulled out in front of society or office and dragged to the police station. Not only that, in some cases the whole set of distant relatives are pulled in too, including children. The husband is beaten and harassed in a police station and an FIR is filed against him and his family. His job sometimes is lost, his kid taken away by the mother, his parents subjected to mental and physical cruelty in the police station and in the society. By the time the man/husband gathers his composure and finds a lawyer, having suffered harassment in the jail does the damage mentally. The ones who makes it past this stage slowly find their feet, while some men succumb to suicide.
The ‘so called accused’ in these cases might have been on bail – but the injustice of pendency of trial for long periods is the uncertainty and the concomitant anxiety suffered by the under-trial. The under-trial is inhibited in making future plans for his life or executing present ones due to the uncertainty which pendency of trial brings. His confidence starts to erode and at the end of the trial, even if he is honorably acquitted, the scars of the long trial remain. He feels condemned despite the acquittal. Democracy never reaches the man, or it reaches very late when the damage has been done.
Now to add some salt to the wounds, the woman/wife has now gone on to file for divorce pressing huge compensation claims in the forms of alimony and maintenance. With the FIR on the man’s name, he has to pay huge sums of money to the lawyer and the police to get his name off the FIR. If doesn’t go to the FIR stage, the wife extorts her husband for money, otherwise she will create more trouble. In these false dowry harassment cases the husband is a sitting duck waiting to be extorted, for the crime of being a nice husband and a good father.
As any lawyer would tell you, husbands can only mitigate the extent of damage but cannot fight an equal battle legally with a woman. Due to India’s archaic laws women can never be aggressors or perpetrators of crime, but can only be victims, so women can never be brought to book in a mental/physical harassment case. Not only those, the police see each FIR as a means of milking money from the husband and the wife over time. It’s a standard formula for harassment legally possible as an option, and nothing but money can solve the problem.
“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. She will have her revenge and your family will collectively bear the brunt of it. The 498A Wives have a soft corner for your mother and your sister (s). Prepare your mom and sister(s) for special treatment. They may very well see the inside of a prison”-  from http://www.498a.org
Lets look into some specific examples and stories to see how ineffective democracy is in a case like the one below with Rupesh Savant, Varshini Swaminathan and Nitish Shivrayan (*names have been changed to protect identities)
Rupesh was married to Varshini and they had a 2 year old baby boy.  While Varshini always showed traces of evil when she fought, Rupesh’s calm and patient nature somehow kept the marriage from falling apart. Rupesh was paying the EMI for a 3 BHK flat which was also in Varshini’s name. Once the flat was in her name, Varshini drove her in laws out, slapped her mother in law and then decided that in that state of being drunk on woman power it was okay in having a relationship with Nitish, her colleague. Varshini and Nitish used to have sex in the office lift, office basement, at Nitish’s place and even at Varshini’s place, with the 2 year kid kept in the other room, when Rupesh was away on work. Sometimes the kid would need to wait an extra hour at the day care because his mother was having an illicit relationship. When Rupesh discovered this one fine day, when he came earlier than expected, Varshini showed no sign of remorse or regret. She went over to the police station and filed a 498 a along with Nitish for company (acting as her brother). Rupesh and his family were jailed, despite showing proofs of the illicit affair that Varshini had. Varshini also got Rupesh sacked by filing a false FIR of dowry harassment and going to his office and crying. Rupesh is without a job, and the house he paid EMI’s for is now possessed by Varshini’s parents (who are also fighting a court case for misappropriation of funds from their former employer). Varshini and Nitish have settled in the USA working for an Indian company that supplies cheap software coolies to be rented by the hour. Rupesh is literally on the streets and with some help from friends stays at their places for a fortnight and keeps changing places as he has no home, and all his savings had been taken away from the joint account by Varshini, when Rupesh was remanded to police custody. Rupesh has been summoned many times in 2 different cities for false cases against him. Rupesh’s parents died on seeing him in mental agony. All of this because a false 498a was filed and the Indian laws make it comfortable for a woman to get away with crime which in this case is adultery). Rupesh has no sympathy, from his extended circle, as the world believes men must be brave and women cant commit crimes. The only way Rupesh can come out of this non-compoundable case is if he pays off the police and pays of his psycho wife for maintenance, and basically funds his wife’s next marriage, for a crime he has not even committed. Just another day in the life of the extortion racket, being played to the court’s galleries by the tri teams of evil women, corrupt police and greedy lawyers.
Rupesh’s story is one of the thousands of stories lost as it does not conform to the general script templates that news media has a daily orgy on. Rupesh’s minority story wont make it to ‘Satyameva Jayate’, nor will Arnab Goswami question Varshini that ‘The nation wants to know’. Rupesh doesn’t have money in his pockets as he has been out of a job for 6 months now. He has developed a fear psychosis and spends his day staring at his bail papers wondering what percentage of the ordeal still remains. His home, his child and his parents have vanished away because one woman decided to make a mockery of the law 498a. This is just one case. A law meant to protect our women, has armed the women with a nuclear weapon that is spoiling harmony. More than crimes against women, its crimes against humanity that needs to have a proper mechanism for justice. This article however, focuses on the part of democracy that’s a vacuum for crimes against men.
Whether its Rupesh, Peter or Farooq, thousands of such men are subject to crime by women. Like the ‘Farmer Suicides’, the ‘Husband Suicides’ too are on the rise. Every 9 minutes, a married man who is affected by the 498a, commits suicide in India. 64,000 married men commit suicides a year, double that of married women. Complete stats are provided here.
The government in order to appeal to a section of the female vote bank is mulling on a bill that gives an ‘aggrieved’ woman rights over the husband’s ancestral property also to make the extortion racket seem more evil. While we men and women rise up in unison, to fight the men who rape our sisters across the country, its time we raise up in arms to fight against these characterless women and the corrupt section of the police.


Democracy is almost naked and is dancing to the tunes of ‘Munni Badnam Hui’. You get to decide if you would like to disrobe democracy further or join the fight to cover it up. It’s never too late to dream about #betterdemocracy, is it?