Boss.
Hello Sharan.
Heard you heading to the Casino to one up on me. Hows it going?
I'll see you at work tomorrow. It was great. I won.
Ladies and gentlemen welcome to PowerDrift.
Whats really going on out here. Well don't wonder for too long, I'll tell you the story.
When we first saw the Audi A8L at PowerDrift, we half wondered if it was a concept purely
born out of excess. For it looked nothing short of a man-made island. One sure way to
find out the purpose of a two tonne, two crore rupee car was to put myself in the shoes of
those who really owned this car.
People who go around buying these uber rich cars,
they don't just do it to make it to casinos or hi-fi parties. You see they are successful
business executives. So they do this to even use this place as a place to work from.
And so I shall be working one full day out of this car like a hard working professional,motivated to work well on the road.
Mutually exclusive for an automobile enthusiast like me.
And unlike the hard working, organised, successful executive sitting in one of these
cars to go attend a government meeting, I was going...well I don't know. I'm too busy
for such trivial things. Besides that I have a chauffeur. I'm not your chauffeur. I test
cars at PowerDrift. And I'm just driving in what I am today, so that he can live his dream
of working from an uber-rich car. But yeah, that's my life at PowerDrift. I get to drive
the fancy limousine, while he works from the rear seat. While Sharan was driving away merrily,
I had begun to fall in love with my new office. The back seat of the Audi A8L sent me back to my mom's womb.
So what exactly are you working on man? What? What are you working on?
Well, I'm about to set up my work laptop right over here. And I get a call, a work call from Varun.
Ten Hut good morning Varun. Are you headed to Goa with Ritwik? I'm out of office,
on a work trip Varun. Sorry. Sorry boss sorry. Oh and by the way my new office is the Audi A8 L for long wheelbase.
Audi says whether you are coming or going, are seeing or being
seen this is the top of the drawer stuff from the German automaker obsessing with the art of progress.
Now we have all heard a lot about the Audi Matrix headlamps. But what really are they?
Ladies and gentlemen, the Audi Matrix headlamps as seen through the eyes of PowerDrift.
With over a hundred thousand hours put into testing and a million LED permutations to
light up the streets in a thousand different combinations, these are one of worlds best.
The car's front looks like it were designed to be kept in a technology museum.
Subtle, understated but extremely elegant. The whole car is made of aluminium space frame for being light and yet strong.
And this isn't an alien in the car, it's the Bang & Olufsen tweeters.
Dude this car is very fuel efficient on the highway, but in bumper to bumper traffic, how fuel efficient
will it be? Leave all of that. The car is very long and there is a lot of traffic. Concentrate on driving.
It is long and wide but when I drive it in comfort mode, it's perfectly maneuverable.
Listen, 60 TDI is not a 6 Liter engine? No dude, it's a 4.2 Liter engine. Then why the 60 badge?
Say one of these guys on the streets want to find out, which of the two Audi cars
standing right next to them is going to be faster. The one with the higher number is going to
be a faster accelerating car. A 60 TDI is to accelerate faster than a 35 TDI.
You know this shit or are you just making it up? Leave it, it is very complex for you to understand.
Of course I know this shit. I own this car. No bro, you don't. You're just role-playing.
Yeah and then so should you, just drive me around like a chauffeur. Hey Satyen! What's up?
Is Sharan with you? Yeah yeah Sharan is with me. We both are in our new office.
Its our first day. What? He has to be in Delhi man! Oh I did not know that.
Tell him I'm leaving. I'll be there. How will you be there? He is asking you to go to Delhi.
That is why I brought us here. Here where? Airport.
What? I'll call you back. Woah woah whats happening dude?
I made you and myself, drop me to the airport in the Audi A8L and I now fly to Delhi
for the Ford Figo Aspire launch. Well what about my work day? Didn't I just tell you?
I'm not your chauffeur buddy. I test cars at PowerDrift. Well you can't just leave your boss alone!
You live your boring work-life alone... Boss.
Was it Sharan or was it the car that had taught me a lesson for trying to be who I wasn't?
The car could set things right. I knew that. But if only I was listening to the story that was being told.
The back seat of a two crore rupee car, yes was full of surprises. But if I knew where I was headed,
the front seat would feel in control.
With that learned, everything in life would look like in perfect order,
whether I understood it or not. It would just take some time to connect
all the dots.
Ritwik, I've decided to play it big.
I'm coming.
Staying under the radar didn't look like winning. Playing it hard did. It was settled then.
I was piloting the Audi A8 to where my gambler friend Ritwik was, one of India's finest and largest casinos.
Now if I'm going to win, that is to say, have a better work day and party harder, in general
have a better life than Sharan, then I am gonna have to live my day like a confident young man.
Who is cut out to win. Like this car is. And to be honest, I'm not having to
try too hard to be of the conviction that I am going to make it. And I believe,
it has something to do with the magnanimity of the car, and it's 4.2 Liter engine.
The 4.2 Liter engine which when switched into Sports mode, turns itself into gob gibbling,
hole smashing, gut wrenching twin turbo monster! Capable of delivering death and destruction
to the tarmac, more powerful I feel, than Genghis Khan himself. The only problem is,
that I don't feel in control of it all, because if I want to stop this cavalry charge,
I'm gonna have to brake and there is still too much weight everywhere. You see, yes when
I step on the gas, there is a whole lot of adrenaline dose in me. And the speedometer,
look at it, it stays more spectacular than a new year's party! Yeah!
But then, the hangover is clearly felt moments after that, when you want to slow the car down.
I'm not complaining about the weight or the handling. This happens to be one of the better handling cars of the segment.
But yes, its in the nature of the beast.
There is the Mercedes S-class, the BMW 7 series in this segment. And then there are the Jaguars. And yes,
the S is something special, its nothing like anything else. But then this car, it feels like its in the competition
not to prove a point to any of the other cars. And for the first time I feel sitting in this
seat with my hands on the steering, I feel like a...like a content king. Really content,
not bothered about the question, If my kingdom were the biggest.
While things look serene on the inside, I was sure outside it looked like an asteroid with race fuel,
traversing across the length of planet Earth. Violently, hugely, massively I was going faster than I needed to.
But so was the Sun at the horizon. As an automobile enthusiast I have been chasing
sunsets since my childhood. But everything about this particular sunset was special.
And with the darkness already setting in, the Audi A8 felt like indulgence,
nothing short of a casino on wheels.
If there is any place in the world where a win counts the most, it's a casino.
I had never been to one before, let alone walk into in a two crore rupee car,
but my friend Ritwik, would show me around before we let the games unfold.
He had been playing all through the day and lost. But there wasn't any time to judge him because he's sinned differently.
No time to lose, I had my own role to play on the stage tonight.
You see everything has its first time and that's when lady luck favors you they most.
Once again, I had to listen to the story that was being told.
The wheels could indeed change our fortune to gold.
This truly was like the best work-day of my life.
All I now needed was to bet big and win big.
My winning plan was simple. I was going to play all the games,
indulge in every sin and at the end of it all, I was going to bet on my favorite number.
Thats how I would get back at the world. The car had gotten me this far Audi A8.
This should be it. All in on 8.
The dealer was going to spin and if my number came, I was going to win.
But today was indeed more special. When you lose track of time in a car,
that's when you are working and playing you hardest. I didn't need to put myself in the shoes of
anyone else to find anything about this car like I had set out to begin with.
All I needed to do, was to be the man I saw in the mirror and quit getting back at the world.
And so I wasn't going to bet my favorite number and the Roulette wouldn't be spun,
for the car had already taught me a thing or two about how winning is done.
Hello Sharan. Heard you're heading to the casino to one up on me. Hows it going? I'll see you at work tomorrow.
It was great.
I won.