Birding ! Driving ! Soul-searching !: Drive List

When I started my career in 2005, my only objective on the pay-day every month was to save enough to buy a decent car as soon as possible. I won't understate by calling it my objective, rather it was a dream. Being born and brought-up in a lower middle class family, my parents never owned a car. Forget a car, we barely managed to meet our ends as a family. Car was a very big deal in my childhood. So when I got my first job in 2005 with a decent enough salary, the first materialistic thing which I started to dream about, was a car. Finally in 2006 I got the chance to own my first 4-wheels - The Ford Fiesta 1.4 EXI.

My 1st Car - Ford Fiesta 1.4 EXI

So if you dream about something every day and night, how can you not love it. And when you finally own it, you won't make it sit in the parking garage all day, isn't it. That is how my passion of driving started to build. Moreover my first job required me to be on the road all the time. Maybe that was another factor which added as a catalyst into building my hobby of long-drives into an all-round passion, which I'm going to cherish for years and years to come.

So, after driving that car for almost 14 years without any trouble, we finally decided to buy a new car. Now I was standing at the crossroads of making one of the most difficult decision of my life. Last time when got the Ford, I was unmarried, the car was just recently launched in India and it was a stunner. I still remember their TV commercial with Abhishek Bachchan - the tagline was GO FIDA! In 2006, my budget was 6 lakhs and there weren't many options at that price to choose from (Hyundai Accent, Chevrolet Aveo), making it very easy for me to choose. This time in 2019, I'm married, we had a budget of 50 lakhs and we were spoilt for choices. Whether to go for those 30 lakh sedans which are feature rich (Camry / Accord / Elantra / Superb), or go for 50 lakhs German sedan which are way too good to drive (Audi A4/ BMW 3, Merc C). Go for 40 lakh SUV, the most popular one used by all politicians (Fortuner / Endeavour), or go for entry level SUV by German names (Audi Q3, BMW X1, Merc GLA). After a lot of deliberation and comparison and heart vs mind conflict, we finally decided on Audi A4.

After getting this car, it was like I got a new vigor or a kick, as if on a dope. In the last leg of my previous ownership, I started feeling that maybe I'm getting old. I started doubting that maybe now my passion is not enough to cope up with my age. I was finding it increasingly difficult to complete those 600+ km trips. And I was coming to a self-induced opinion that I might have to do less of driving and focus more on my second passion of Birding. But Audi A4 changed all that perspective within a matter of days of its ownership. Now I'm again doing those 1000+ km trips, driving at a stretch for 14+ hours, and trust me when I say this - I don't even get tired. After this pandemic, Audi literally became our lifeline for every vacation. Now it is always a combined trip of driving + birding. Yes, I'm not taking the flight any more, so I'm missing out on the North East Birding, but other than that, I'm not complaining anything. We are enjoying every long drive that we are taking and we always find places to continue with our second hobby of birding.

Our 2nd Car - Audi A4 35 TFSI

After disposing the Ford Fiesta and driving the Audi A4 for all these years, we decided to get a hatchback for our regular city commute. The Audi was too big for the congested traffic. Although no other hatchback comes closer to the Mini Cooper S, but it was way beyond our budget. So the next best alternative was Hyundai i-20 N Line. Surprisingly, there's no hatchback between 15 lakhs and 50 Lakhs available in India. Either it is i-20 or Mini Cooper S. i-20 N Line is a fun car to drive and has decent enough stock features available. Of course. I'm not comparing it with the Mini, but out of all the other hatches available in India, I'm sure i-20 stands right at the top.

Reverse chronological list of all my long drives:

2024

2023

2022