Spruce up your ride

I’m pretty much a chocolate-ice-cream guy. I like my biscuit-pudding made with a lot of dark chocolate. I don’t much fancy those orange rinds and cashew nuts which according to my wife, “completes” the pudding. Likewise, I like my car to be unmodified and still be in it’s original condition even after a decade.

I used to make fun of people who “pimped up” their rides. I used to laugh at those ridiculous “spoilers” that so often resembled a clothes-line used to dry your undies than a performance enhancing accessory of an automobile. And those neon lights underneath the vehicle body? Were they expecting the car to breakdown anytime and the neons able to help the mechanic sliding underneath it? How about those things called body-kits? Surely the additional baggage must not be good for the poor engine.

Then came NFS. No Viranjan, not Network File Systems, NFS as in “Need for Speed”. Yes, I’m referring to those awesome series of computer games. In no time, I was an avid player. Sleepless nights hunched over the keyboard modifying my ride. Adding 18 inch alloys, new exhaust systems and complete Nitrous systems to give me that extra boost on the stretch. I was addicted. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any crazier, they started releasing movies like “The Fast and the Furious”… most recent being “The Fast and the Furious – The Tokyo Drift”.

It was like a virus. I’ve got it now. I was pretty much pulled in by the sheer power and adrenaline in the experience. Suddenly I found myself chatting about such modification with people 10 years younger to me driving modified Subarus and Hondas. And I was enjoying it too. Can you believe at one stage I even seriously contemplated getting rid of my faithful Nissan for a two litre twin turbo Subaru Legacy? Not that the thought has completely vacated my mind either. Aren’t humans supposed mature as they aged? Maybe I am not human - I’d like to think I am not as old as some might think.