Bijoy Kumar Y: Role-playing Ratan Tata, among others

MY WEEK

It was time to play Ratan Tata. I sincerely believe that Tata and I are different sides of the same coin. He is into building cars and I love writing about them. He likes airplanes and I write about them too. Sure, the scale of things cannot be compared, but there are similar strains. Seriously, if stars were aligned differently, he would have been writing about unrefined diesel engines in a Bijoy for a decade or so.

Last week, Tata made news when he went on joyrides in the Lockheed Martin F16 followed by another jaunt aboard the Boeing F/A-18 at the Aero India show, Bangalore. Of course, me flying in an American war machine wouldn't help any of these firms getting the nod for 126 multi-role fighters that the IAF wants to buy. But another American company, Raytheon, thought otherwise. And unlike Tata, I didn't even have to go to the Aero show. A Beechcraft Premier One came to Mumbai so that, ahem, I could go on a 100-mile round trip. Since I am not called Tata, I couldn't zoom straight to my waiting plane through Terminal Eight at the Mumbai airport. Along with a few journalists, I waited out three hours in the sun and then in a shabby room where corporate fliers are frisked before boarding the flight. But it was still magnificent to take off in a six-seater executive jet and see Mumbai from up there.

TUESDAY
Waking up early in the morning for a Ferrari is fun, but for testing diesel cars? Yawn. Listen carefully and you can hear an alarming clatter approaching. That's the diesel clatter made by cold common-rail engines starting up. As I put two diesels "" the Maruti Suzuki Swift and the Hyundai Sonata "" through their road test regimen, I couldn't help but shudder at the thought of doing it almost all through the year. This year, we will have the Mahindra Renault Logan, a pair of GM India cars, a brand new Skoda hatch, a couple of more Maruti Suzukis, a resurgent Fiat and lots of Tatas all being launched with, you guessed it, diesel engines. Add to that a bunch of luxury cars from Mercedes-Benz, Audi and BMW, and you know that 2007 is the year of the common-rail diesel.

WEDNESDAY
Wanted to meet Luca de Montezemolo and tried half a day to get an appointment. And failed. Sure, Tata got to meet him and as is his habit now, he signed a few more deals with the Fiat Group man who ran Ferrari to fame, edited La Stampa and organised a FIFA world cup. Oh, what a resume, and we have not even listed his married life here.

THURSDAY
Time to put my aviator goggles and road-testing gloves away to play the role of big dad at my five-year old girl's annual day at school. There I was, jostling for space in the aisle with 300 overzealous parents who thought they were God's gift to cinematography. Three years back, there were only a handful of video recorders at a similar function. India poised? Sure. India is making a lot more home videos now.

ALSO...

Come to think of it, I should have invested in a big TV camera. Apart from wielding it at school functions, I could have thrust it at Montezemolo's face and extracted a spot interview. It is amazing how people start talking "" the otherwise media shy Tata included "" when a television camera is inches away from their noses.