Ganpati Fiesta with the Ford

The Drive

With the celebrations to start on a Monday, I cranked up my Fiesta on a cloudy Saturday afternoon. The route was Mumbai-Pune-Kolhapur-Amboli-Kudal-Mhapan (550km), driving on the NH4 (I know NH17 is always a more entertaining option for a road-trip, but this particular one included my family and unfortunately the saner route). With goodies safe in the voluminous boot, and all the ‘pre-drive’ checks done, we were set to roll and once again with the customary Morya! 

It took me less than an hour to join the Expressway. Since I was touring with family, testing the Fiesta’s economy was my mind and hence my speedometer read 80kph and the instantaneous economy feed showed an encouraging number of 4.8 litres to 100 kms. But then I realised that I had to cover a total of about 550km and at these speeds, it will at least be dawn before I reach my native place. So the floating economy figures dropped and I galloped ahead weaving my way through the unruly traffic. 

With the sun about to say goodbye I made it to Pune and just remained there till dark, thanks to really slow moving traffic. Ford’s audio system came to the rescue; it is surprisingly good and with the USB, auxillary and the Bluetooth streaming inputs, I had my favourite songs playing all the time. 

Things eased out after Katraj-bypass and while we munched twice on the way at McDonalds – first at Shirwal and then at Kolhapur, the Fiesta kept eating away the miles the rest of the time. I was driving consistently about the 100kph range and the car never felt out of breath. The turbo spooled in about 1700rpm and the surge in power was evident without actually hitting, making the drive a lot smoother. My parents were comfortable in the rear seats and my mother, who won’t let me go beyond 100, didn’t even know that we were doing 120s until I told her so. The brakes had a nice progressive bite and the tyres gripped well on most surfaces. The diversions and the bad stretches up to Satara did not seem that bad as the Fiesta’s slow speed comfort was pretty much evident.

The final stretch for the day started at about 10.30 pm. Getting to Nipani was easy, the real test for the Fiesta started once we were off NH4. The famed handling of the blue oval was evident on the narrow flowing twisties as we cut through the darkness. The car’s suspension though soft for a comfortable ride, held up pretty well on the bumpy corners of the Western Ghats. I was cruising through the twisties, rowing through the five-speed manual to maintain my revs at about 2000rpm for a mix of power and economy.

The Amboli Ghat was covered in a dense fog and though fog lamps helped increasing the visibility, it was frankly not much. Negotiating the tight bends while holding your lane was made easy thanks to the Ford’s accurate steering and stability under braking. The final stretch of about 170km took me to my home almost an hour past midnight.

The Fiesta

Sunday morning started early with the preparations for the Haritalika puja to be done by the women in the family, which also meant many of the not-so-routine stuff were part of ‘our’ to-do list. As we went out to pluck flowers, fill up drinking water from the well and running errands, the preparations for the Puja were finally done. After a quick lunch the actual decorations started. Golden grass, mango leaves, betel fruit and a lot of stuff went into decorating the ‘Matvi’ or the roof-piece before we brought the idol home in the evening. The idol was placed and then further decorations with oil lamps and flowers ensued.

The day of the festival dawned and the preparations for Ganesh Pujan were in full swing. The offerings of Modak along with other delicacies were being made. The Puja started after the arrival of the pundit followed by aarti where a lot of neighbors joined in, who were also curious to know about the silver Ford in the courtyard. After a tasty meal at home, we set off to pay our regards to the Bappas in the neighbourhood. The bhajans started with nightfall. It is a tradition in our village to sing bhajans at every household that hosts the Elephant God. The bhajans are supposed to be melodious and that is why I let myself loose on the cymbals and that was real fun.

We celebrate Ganesh festival for only a day and a half and so the second day is quite busy with Puja in the morning and right up to the immersion in the evening. I woke up a bit late after the long night, but soon got engrossed in the preparations to bid adieu to the Lord. All were a bit sad as we were to celebrate Ganpati for two days only. After the Uttar-puja, when the life from the idol is taken away, we carried the idol to the visarjan place. Though the sea is only a couple of kilometers away, traditionally we immerse the idols in a small rivulet. I tried to capture these last few moments in my camera. Feeling a bit lonely on my walk back, I was wishing that we could have continued the fiesta for a week. But soon, I was charged up for another night of Bhajans and forgot my woes at the feet of the Lord.

The Retreat

We left at about 8.30 am and after tanking up the car and checking the tyre pressures, I did what I had to do! I calculated the fuel economy I had got. I had covered 734km in 40.8 litres of fuel thus getting economy figures of 18kmpl to the litre. Feeling a bit disappointed as I was targeting the 20s, I started off with a deft foot on the throttle. We had to take the same route back. On the way I realised that I was actually going slower on the interior roads of Konkan in daylight as compared to my drive in the dark a couple of days back. With people, cattle and sundry rickshawallahs making you start from the first gear, I was set for a tiring drive ahead.

Amboli was filled with dense fog near the top and I stopped by a couple of real nice spots to click photographs. After tea at Ajra, we cruised to Nipani. After a semi brunch of sorts and tea at quarter to 12, we were set for the final onslaught towards Mumbai. As the sun upped its ante after noon, the climate control seemed to fight a losing battle keeping the temperatures in check. The temperatures were not helped by the toll-booth at every 50-70km where every time we opened the windows, we were at square one. We cruised through the Deccan plateau with forts of Shivaji Maharaj strewn over the landscape.

The final stop was at Pune for lunch – I know we already had brunch, but I think people get hungry when they have nothing to do but sit idle in the car. After a delightful lunch of pithla-bhakri and dal-rice, we were back on the road for the final stretch of the tour. We reached home at about six in the evening bringing the spiritual and exciting journey to an end.

After thoughts

Resting peacefully with frozen slices of cucumber cooling my eyes – you must have noticed I was the only person driving all the time, I was thinking about the whole trip, the journey and the car. It is really surprising that I could not point out something really bad in the car except for the bad design of the tail console and the stiff horn-pad that had my thumbs aching within 15 minutes of honking through Kolhapur traffic. 

Most people in my village had come across this car for the first time and the ones who knew something about cars, were interested in knowing how it fared against the Swift Dzire or the Ford Classic. Due to the shorter wheelbase, the car does look more like a plush hatch/notch-back than an executive sedan.  They thought the car sat below the City/SX4/Verna bracket and that is where I feel Ford missed the bus! What my neighbours liked most though, was the Voice-Control function, something that they had heard about only in James Bond cars!

The Fiesta was a great choice for the fiesta! (I swear this is the last time I am doing it!) It was big enough for the comfort of my family, yet small enough to plough through countryside by-lanes. The best bit was that this car is a niche and brilliant conversation starter – especially for my mum who actually didn’t know much about it but was still happy to talk about her ‘son’s office car’, smartly deviating from the fact that I was working with it!