Recommended Read: Ghosts of K2

Here’s an honest admission: I’m not much of a climber. When holidaying in Nainital, I often take a cab to go from the Mall Road up to whatever hotel I happen to be staying in, usually not more than 2-3km away. Forget about mountains, I even take the elevator when going up to my apartment, which is on the 2nd floor of the building I currently live in. And yet, I do have this strange fascination for reading about adventures in climbing, of great exploits in extreme mountaineering. Real accounts of people risking life and limb to get to the top of some piece of rock. I mean, getting to the top of something like Mount Everest or K2 entails suffering extreme physical hardship, tolerating intense cold and freezing winds, facing difficulties in breathing due to lack of adequate oxygen and coming to terms with extreme dangers that include the risk of losing toes and fingers to frostbite. And, of course, there's the ever-present risk of death. More than scaring the hell out of me, which it certainly does, extreme mountaineering leaves me confused. It’s simply incomprehensible to me. Why do it at all?!? But I guess that is what separates a couch potato like me from mountaineering heroes, the people who have astonishing courage, the sheer indomitable will to achieve something that is impossible for 99.99% of the rest of us.

In the context of the above, I just finished reading ‘Ghosts of K2,’ a terrific book by author Mick Conefrey, who has laid out the saga of how people started trying to climb K2 in the early 20th century and how an Italian team became the first to summit the great, savage mountain in the 1950s. Many tried, most failed, some died. Even for those who succeeded, controversies dogged them for the rest of their lives. But the story of the sheer effort – the planning, the massive resources, the logistics, the manpower, the technology – required to go up a mountain like K2, and actually getting to the summit, is simply brilliant. It’s a story that unfolds over many decades and Conefrey has done a very good job of telling that story. If you are at all interested in mountaineering – or even stories of extreme adventures of any kind - I’d suggest you get a copy of this book. The paperback is available on Amazon, for a mere Rs 375.

Book Review: Secondhand - Travels in the New Global Garage Sale

Humanity is drowning in a sea of… stuff. You know, stuff, things we can’t stop buying. Shoes, clothes, furniture, electrical home appliances, kitchenware, digital devices, automobiles. We buy stuff to use, to show to others, to keep up with the neighbours, to give as gifts, to store so it can be used ‘someday.’ We buy stuff for the pleasure that its ownership gives to us, we buy stuff so we can pass it on to our children someday, we buy because we fall for the marketing that makes us believe we need to ‘upgrade,’ and we buy stuff because, well, because we can. But how many of us ever stop to think, even for a minute, what happens to all our stuff once we are done with it, when we no longer have any use for it and when we don’t want to keep it any longer? Where does it go, what happens to it, where it ends up? Adam Minter’s book, Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale is a thought-provoking read that encourages us to pause and think about the afterlife of the things we buy, once we sell, donate or discard those things. It’s an unexpectedly interesting story that takes you all over the world, exploring the world of ‘secondhand,’ which in some ways almost functions like a parallel universe, a shadow economy that barely accounted for.

Motoring: Days of Thunder

I pull a wheelie as part of my 'work' at Motoring, as Shumi, who was then head of two-wheeler content at the magazine, looks on. The pic was clicked by the indefatigable Param

In an earlier post, I wrote about moving on from TechTree to join Motoring, an automotive monthly magazine which was, at that time, published by the Business Standard group. The story continues here...

On my very first day at work with Motoring, the team was heading out for a photoshoot of the Mitsubishi Pajero, an old-school SUV powered by a 2.8-litre diesel engine. The hulking vehicle was parked outside the Motoring office, which is on PB Marg in Lower Parel. Editor Bijoy handed over the keys to me and asked me to drive. There were other cars parked one inch ahead and one inch behind the Pajero and I slowly, carefully, manoeuvred it out of the parking slot, silently cursing the morons who had parked their cars so close to the Pajero, leaving almost no space for the massive SUV to move either forward or back. Thankfully, after a lot of twirling of the steering wheel and inching the vehicle forward and back, I was finally able to get it out of its parking slot. The team trooped in and off we went to the photoshoot location. My first drive/shoot for Motoring went off without any incident and we were back in office by afternoon. After a quick lunch of sambhar and masala dosa at a nearby joint, I spent the rest of the day just sitting around and talking to the team, trying to understand how Motoring functioned and how things worked in the office.

The Mind-Boggling Complexity of Buying a Phone in 2024

Last week, my phone died. It had served me well for a long time, so no complaints there. The only problem is, I hadn’t realised just how complicated it is, in 2024, to choose a phone if you’re buying a new one. Well, I guess it probably isn’t that complicated for the very rich. In that case, you either buy an iPhone 16 Pro Max that currently retails for Rs 1.45 lakh (if you’re an Apple fanboy) or a Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra (if you’re an Android loyalist) that’s currently priced at Rs 1.22 lakh. And that’s it, you’re done, you get the best of everything at a price that’s completely unaffordable for the rest of us.

Bicycle No More

That's me, riding my Avon Buke from school to home, in Lucknow, sometime in the mid-1980s

When I was younger – in school, during my early teenage days in Lucknow – I had a bicycle, an Avon Buke, and I used it to get around everywhere. It wasn’t a fancy bicycle – it was a basic, single-speed bike, like the kind most kids used back then. It did not have a zillion gears, which seems de rigueur these days, but that did not make it any less usable – when you hit a steep incline, you just pedalled harder. No suspension, but you could always pedal around ruts and potholes instead of going through them. And no disc brakes either, but the regular brakes – essentially bits of rubber that would rub against the wheel rims when you squeezed the brake levers – were adequate for the rather modest speeds that my bicycle could do.

Marking Time: My Fascination with Watches

Buying one is well beyond my means, but I do love mechanical Swiss watches. Thankfully, companies like Timex, Seiko and Citizen are also making some really cool watches these days that are vastly more affordable than those high-end Swiss watches

I currently don’t own a watch and haven’t actually worn one for quite some time now. And yet, one of my favourite pastimes is looking at watches on the Internet; watch manufacturers’ websites, used watches websites, Amazon and Flipkart. In fact, I especially enjoy looking at watches on Amazon and Flipkart and my ‘process’ for this is always the same. I first search for ‘men’s watches’ or ‘watches for men,’ and then use the filters provided to fine-tune the results. The filters are everything, they help you separate the wheat from chaff. You can choose which brands you want to see. Band material and colour. Case size and shape, dial colour, display type, movement type. Price range. The permutations and combinations are practically endless.

Book Review: Flying Blind - The 737 Max Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing

One assumes airplanes are safe. As in, totally, completely safe. In recent decades, air travel has become so commonplace, so mundane, we never ever think we might be at any sort of risk when flying. Given the number of accidents that happen every single day on roads – involving cars, motorcycles, trucks and buses – flying seems to be so much safer. And for the most part, it is. Things don’t go wrong too often, but when they do – when planes crash – those who are in those planes don’t usually walk away. Almost inevitably, lives are lost. Sometimes, these accidents in aviation do happen by chance, a freak occurrence, something that nobody could have predicted or prevented in any way. But some do happen because of sheer negligence and/or shoddy engineering. Peter Robinson’s book, Flying Blind: The 737 Max Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing, is the shocking story of how things went wrong at Boeing, an American icon and one of the most respected, trusted aircraft manufacturers in the world.

Driving a Ferrari 308 GTSi in Lonavala

Mr Fali Dhondy's Ferrari 308 GTSi, which I drove in Lonavala back in 2003!

I had dreamt of driving a Ferrari ever since I was a schoolkid and my first shot at piloting a car produced in Maranello came sometime in 2003, when I was working with Motoring magazine, which was at that time published by Business Standard. Srini, the classic cars specialist at BSM was going to Khandala for one of his drives/photoshoots and I offered to tag along. Little did I know then, what was in store for me that day.

A Dream That Came True: Riding the Kawasaki ZX-12R Ninja

The Kawasaki ZX-12R Ninja, one of the fastest, most powerful bikes I've ever ridden!

‘Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly,’ said poet Langston Hughes. And while I don’t think he had motorcycles in mind when he wrote this, it certainly does apply to bikes as well – dreams of riding insanely fast bikes that are, on the face of it, well beyond your means. Let me explain.

Pet Shop Boys: Still Rocking after 40 Years

Everybody will Dance was released in August this year. It's the 1980s all over again

I first listened to the Pet Shop Boys sometime in the late-1980s when their second album, Actually, was released. The album cover – whimsy and eccentric – was what attracted me in first place and I guess I must have paid something like Rs 35-40 for the cassette, which I must have then played on repeat dozens of times over the next few months. I especially loved the songs It's a Sin, What Have I Done to Deserve This? and Rent – all of which I still listen to, to this day, 35 years after I first heard them. The Pet Shop Boys, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe, sure did have one hell of a talent for creating electronica-disco. And the best part is, the duo are still at it, still rocking, still creating music that has the power to move fans of 1980s-style disco. Just listen to Everybody will Dance, which was released in August this year as part of a five-track digital bundle.

Everything about music itself and the ways in which people buy (or not) and listen to music has changed in the last 3-4 decades and the 1980s seems like a faraway place in a distant time, on a distant planet, at least in the context of music. And yet there’s Pet Shop Boys, still making music their way, still weaving their old magic, still making people dance. Making everybodydance. More power to them – may their music never stop.

Jargon Buster: Know your Watch

Ready to splurge on your first expensive watch but intimidated by the barrel of complications thrown in your face? If you don’t know a Tonneau from a Tourbillon, have no fear; this jargon-buster, where I explain 50 terms that are commonly used in the world of high-end watches, will help you go hammer and gongs against the next snooty watch salesman you come across!  

Analog
A watch that displays the time via physical hour and minute hands, which are powered by an automatic or quartz movement. So, unless your watch’s primary display is a digital LCD, it’s an analog watch.  

Automatic
A mechanical watch that does not require its crown to be wound up manually. Instead, the movement of the wearer’s wrist moves a counterweight (also referred to as a rotor), which then powers the mainspring, which in turn moves the gears that power the watch’s hands. Unlike quartz watches, there’s no battery here.

Aviator Watch
An aviator watch, also called a pilot watch, was originally designed for aviators and featured a large, easy-to-read black dial, triangle marker at 12 o’clock and a ratcheted, extra-large crown. While the Cartier Santos, one of the earliest aviator watches, was square shaped, post-WW1 military specs have demanded that aviator watches must only be round.

A Quick Chat with Kevin Schwantz

No. 34, Kevin Schwantz, the most spectacular rider on the track in the 1980s

In 2006, when I was working for BIKE India magazine in Pune, I had an opportunity to do a (very brief) interview with Kevin Schwantz, winner of the 500cc motorcycle grand prix road racing world championship in 1993. While some other riders have won more world championships and have more race wins to their name, Schwantz’s flamboyant riding style and his all-or-nothing approach to motorcycle racing stand out to this day – something that legions of his fans will attest to. I have been a huge Schwantz fan ever since the late-1980s, when I first started watching motorcycle racing on television (and sometimes on video cassettes, whenever I could get my hands on those) and often found myself rooting for the Suzuki rider.

This particular interview with Schwantz, which I did in 2006 on behalf of BIKE India, is super-short but I still wanted to preserve it, hence posting it here, hoping it’ll remain here forever.  

Book Recommendation: Taste - My Life Through Food

Stanley Tucci is a movie star who loves good food. He can act and he can write and he’s written one hell of a food-focused memoir. Taste: My Life Through Food is Tucci’s account of growing up in an Italian household (his family migrated from Italy to the US before he was born), eating hearty Italian fare cooked by his mother. As he grows up, he holds on to the love of good food and makes a conscious effort to eat well wherever he goes. Tucci has a wonderful way with words and writes with a certain flamboyance, subtly dosed with his sardonic wit and dry humour. He writes about the food he cooks and home – for his own family as well as for guests – and about a selection of great restaurants (both big and small, not necessarily expensive, often family-run) across the world, in the US, in the UK and in Europe, where he’s had some memorable meals. Those meals are described with elan – Tucci’s writing has a flair you’ll likely enjoy. In fact, if you love to eat well and like to read books that are all about food, Taste is one book you must absolutely read.  

Taste: My Life Through Food is available on Amazon   

Thunder from Down Under: In Conversation with Casey Stoner

Aussie rider Casey Stoner won his last MotoGP world championship in 2011, with Honda

In 2012, I had an opportunity to interview then-reigning MotoGP world champion, Casey Stoner, a month after he’d announced his retirement from the sport. Here are some excerpts from that conversation.

MotoGP represents the most formidable form of closed-circuit motorcycle road racing. With 1000cc engines that produce up to 330-horsepower, MotoGP bikes weigh less than 160 kilos and hit top speeds of about 350km/h. In recent years, advanced electronics and traction control systems have made it a tiny bit easier to control these machines, but you still need superhuman talent to ride these beasts at competitive speeds around some of the most demanding, challenging race circuits in the world.

MotoGP is a demanding sport – physically and mentally – and those who race in MotoGP are some of most capable athletes in the world. Australian rider Casey Stoner, with his two world championships, is right up there with the best. Riding for Ducati, he took an amazing 10 race wins in 2007, winning his first MotoGP world championship, and repeated the feat in 2011, winning his second championship with Honda.

Now 27 years old, Stoner is widely considered to be the fastest man in the world on two wheels – one of the most talented motorcycle racers of his time. In a shock move, Casey announced that he will retire from MotoGP at the end of the 2012 season. In this interview that I did with him [on behalf of Man’s World magazine], Stoner talks about the sport he loves most, the changes he thinks it needs and his rivalry with Valentino ‘The Doctor’ Rossi. Here are some excerpts:

Esperienza Ferrari at Buddh International Circuit

Being an automotive journalist has its occasional perks and getting to drive a bunch of Ferraris at an F1 track is one of those perks. Driving a Ferrari 458 at BIC was an incredible experience

Back in 2012, I had an opportunity to be a part of ‘Esperienza Ferrari,’ which was held at Buddh International Circuit, where I got to drive various Ferraris. Driving not just one but three Ferraris, all in one day, on an F1 circuit?! Yes, as you might imagine, it was a dream come true for a Ferrari fanboy like me. Here's the article I wrote for Man’s World magazine, about the entire experience.

I have no other way of starting this, so let me say it right away – I love Ferrari cars more than any other. Having spent more than a decade writing about cars, I’ve had the good fortune of driving high-performance cars from almost every manufacturer. But even then, Ferraris remain something exceptional, something truly special. The ‘Ferrari’ name conjures up images of glorious, low-slung, sexy supercars, all painted red. Cars like the 250 GTO, 308, 328, Testarossa, 348, 288 GTO, F40, F50, F355, F430 and the 458 Italia. As a schoolboy, I grew up staring wistfully at posters of Ferraris from the 1970s-80s, which were plastered all over the walls of my room. For many, many years, I always wondered what it might be like to actually drive a one of those Italian beauties.

Past Perfect: The Love for Retro Motorcycles

The Honda CB1000F, a modern bike designed to look like a much older machine. Looks good, sounds even better and goes really hard. What's not to like?!

For motorcycle manufacturers, retro design is definitely a thing right now. The trend is at least partly driven by Gen-X buyers who have relatively large disposable incomes and who are yearning for bikes that look like the ones they fancied in their youth. Nothing wrong with a bit of rose-tinted nostalgia, when some of these retro-styled machines are actually not bad at all.

Please note, the new, retro-styled bikes only look like machines from the past. Apart from the styling, everything else – engine performance, chassis and suspension, tyres, brakes, electricals and electronics – these bikes are fully modern. And that’s a good thing, because these days, unlike how it used to be 50 years ago, everything just flat out works and works well. Engines are more powerful and reliable than ever before, oil leaks are a thing of the past, tyres really stick to the tarmac with the kind of grip riders could only dream of in the way-back-then, suspension is adjustable and actually works without wallowing all over the place, and brakes make the bike stop, period. Also, electronics like ABS and traction control have taken rider safety to a whole new level, which was unthinkable a few decades ago.

BMW M5 Driving Impression

The 5th generation BMW M5 remains one of the fastest, most powerful cars I've ever driven

Back in 2012, I had an opportunity to drive the mighty BMW M5. With its 560-horsepower twin-turbo V8, the M5 was one of the fastest production four-door sedans in the world at that time. Here is what I wrote about the car.

The M5 is one of my childhood heroes, a car I grew up fantasizing about. Unveiled at the Amsterdam Motor Show in 1984, the first BMW M5 hand-built, using a BMW 535i chassis and a modified version of the BMW M1’s 3.5-litre six-cylinder engine. The car weighed about 1,550 kilos and with 285 horsepower, it was the fastest four-door saloon of its time. With just 2,191 units produced, the first M5 is one of the rarest production BMWs ever and, of course, never came to India.

Minimal: Dreaming of a Phone that Does Less

By doing less than most modern conventional smartphones, the Minimal Phone promises to give you back some of your life. I want the Minimal Phone now!

Much as I hate to admit it, my life has been taken over by my smartphone. I’m a slave to an innocuous, 6.5-inch slab of glass and metal. It’s a pocketable supercomputer that allows me to make phone calls (both voice and video calls), access emails, take photographs and instantly share those with whoever I want to, send and receive text messages, photos and videos, make and receive payments instantly (I hardly ever carry cash these days), do all my online shopping, help me navigate across the city, book cabs, flights and hotel rooms… the list is endless. The sheer range of things that a modern smartphone will allow you to do is nothing short of astonishing.

I was a tech journalist until the early-2000s and used to write about computers and technology. This was 25 years ago and if someone had suggested at that time that there would, in the future, be a small, pocketable device – a 'smartphone' – that would allow you to do all of what I’ve mentioned above, I would have probably thought the idea quite preposterous. After all, I was still going to a PCO (anyone remember those?) to make international calls in the early-1990s, when I was in Bareilly. By the late-1990s I had moved to Bombay, started working as tech writer for CHIP magazine and subsequently started using a Nokia 5110, my very first mobile phone. Making and receiving calls was still prohibitively expensive back then, and I used that phone sparingly. Gradually, call rates dropped over the years and the ancient 5110 was replaced by the sleek little Nokia 8210, but usage was still restricted to only making and receiving phone calls, and sending and receiving text messages.

Going to the Movies: Then vs Now

Both, the kind of movies I watch and the way I watch those, has changed completely over the years...

I haven’t been inside a movie theatre in… I don’t know, maybe 16-17 years. I do watch a fair number of movies, but most of the time that’s on my PC monitor, a 27-inch LG unit, with the PC itself being hooked up to a pair of powerful Edifier stereo speakers. And since I’m usually the only one in our house who watches the movies I watch, this setup works just fine for me – I don’t really feel the need to get a 65-inch TV or visit a movie theatre. But it wasn’t always like this. Allow me to explain.

Ducati Monster 821 Riding Impression

Though not the most powerful Ducati I've ever ridden, the Monster 821 was still a lot of fun

Over the years, I’ve had an opportunity to ride various Ducatis, including the hardcore 848, Hypermotard 1100S, Monster 795, XDiavel S and Monster 821. The 821 I rode in 2016, when I was working with Auto Tech Review magazine. Here is the piece I wrote about the bike at that time.

 Launched way back in 1993, the very first Ducati Monster was the machine that kick-started the ‘streetfighter’ segment in Europe, which has now become very popular. Designed by Argentinian industrial designer, Miguel Galluzzi, the first Monster was powered by a 900cc V-twin borrowed from the Ducati 900 Supersport, and had a steel-tube trellis frame that was based on the Ducati 851 superbike chassis. With more than 350,000 units of the Monster having been sold since 1993, the bike remains one of their most successful products for the Italian company and there have been many iterations of the bike over the last two decades. Coming to the 821, let’s take a look at the suite of technologies underlying this Monster, which make it an excellent sportsbike.

Book Review: Arriving Today

I looked up my order history on Amazon and the first thing I ever ordered on Amazon was on 28^th September 2014. That first order was a book, Dan Walsh’s These are the Days That Must Happen to You, which I quite enjoyed reading and which I still have in my small collection of books. That year, I placed a total of five orders on Amazon, all of which comprised only books. Since then, over the last 10 years, I have placed close to 1,100 orders, comprising books, clothes, shoes, watches, mobile phones, chocolates, cookies, headphones, power banks, random toiletries, chairs and tables, cupboards, air-conditioners… the list is pretty much endless. 

Whenever we need to buy something – almost anything – for the house, my wife and I automatically default to opening up the Amazon app on our phones. More often than not, we don’t even think of visiting local malls and markets – buying on Amazon is just so much easier. But I have to admit, I’d never given much thought to what buying on Amazon entails in the context of what happens behind the scenes, in terms of the global supply chain that kicks in when we place an order online, and the mind-boggling logistics that need to be worked out by ecommerce companies in order to get our orders delivered on time. And that is exactly what Christopher Mims tells us in his book, Arriving Today: From Factory to Front Door - Why Everything HasChanged About How and What We Buy.

In Conversation with Dick Powell, Designer of the Rotary-engined Norton F1

Above, from left: Richard Seymour and Dick Powell, designers of the legendary rotary-engined Norton F1, a quite unique motorcycle from the early-1990s, which still has its own dedicated fan base today

Dick Powell is co-founder of Seymourpowell, a well-known UK-based design company with a formidable portfolio of work. Set up in 1984, Seymourpowell has designed everything from cordless kettles mobile phones, cars, trains, planes and, yes, motorcycles. Along with the other co-founder, Richard Seymour, Dick Powell designed the rotary-engined Norton F1, an iconic machine and one that I’m a big fan of. Back in 2016, I had an opportunity to do an interview with Dick Powell and ask him a few questions about the legendary Norton. Here are some excerpts from the conversation.

Land Rover Defender 110 Driving Impression

The Land Rover Defender 110 looks good, drives well and costs the earth!

I had a chance to drive and review the Land Rover Defender 110, back in 2021, for Man’s World magazine. I’m not really a huge fan of SUVs and fast, sporty cars (like the Audi S5, which I love so much!) are more my kind of thing. Still, for what it’s worth, I quite liked the Defender 110 and enjoyed the experience of driving it - more for its sheer size and road presence rather than its driving dynamics. Anyway, here is the article I wrote for the magazine.

What’s an SUV? That isn’t always an easy question to answer these days. Buyers across segments don’t seem to want cars anymore; everyone wants an SUV. So, of course, every car wants to be an SUV, which is why you have softroaders, crossovers, compact SUVs, SUV-inspired hatchbacks and more. Marketing types everywhere know a good idea when they see one; take a regular hatchback, jack it up a bit for slightly increased ride height, slap on a bigger set of wheels, bolt on some plastic cladding on the sides and on the wheelarches, add an extra dollop or two of chrome, give it a fancy new paintjob and a cool sounding name, and there you have it, a brand-new SUV for the unsuspecting masses!

Ducati XDiavel S: Italian Easy Rider

The Ducati XDiavel S remains one of the most beautiful motorcycles I've ever ridden

It’s hard to slot the Ducati XDiavel S into a specific segment or category. Is it a sportsbike? A cruiser? Touring bike? The reality is, the XDiavel S is a machine that dares to defy segmentation – brimming with cutting-edge engineering, design and technology, it’s a bike that looks like a cruiser, has the engine performance of a sportsbike, and with its adjustable ergonomics, it’s comfortable enough for long-distance riding. Even the handling is not too bad, as long as you keep in mind this isn’t exactly a Panigale.

I got to spend a few days with the XDiavel back in 2017, when I was the executive editor at Auto Tech Review magazine. Here’s what I wrote about the bike at that time.

Off the Shelf: The Rise and Fall of BooksFirst

Back in October 2022, I started working on setting up a new website, BooksFirst, which I finally launched in December that year. This website was supposed to be a useful, interesting online resource for people who love books. Or, more specifically, non-fiction books. And the objective was to go beyond just book reviews, book excerpts and book launches – regular books website stuff. I’ve always been an ardent reader and had, over the years, developed a keen interest in the book publishing business and how things work in publishing. And so, with BooksFirst, my objective was to find interesting stories from the world of books and publishing and bring those stories to the world. The site featured writers, authors, journalists, illustrators, designers, photographers, librarians, book publishers, book retailers and many others who were simply passionate about books and reading. They had an eclectic selection of stories to tell – about their work, about the book(s) they've written, about the books they read, about the authors they like – and I did my best to bring those stories to fellow book lovers.