AUDI A4 2.0 TDI - A For A4

Home. Yes, I-am-going-to-be-at-home. Yipee! Dad, mom, good food... wow! What a perfect picture which, one would say, cannot get better. Really? It was after so long that I will be visiting my place. Mom's constant pummelling for me to come home for a few days would finally stop for sometime. Or would it? I were to find that out later...

0500 hours. Argh... I am bloody late. Rush, rush. Get in the cab. "Bhaiya, airport. Jaldi" this said, we shot off for the departure lounge of Mumbai airport. Just in time for my flight, the glutton that I am, my imagination was already running off the rocker on what all mom would have prepared for me! Just a couple of hours and I will be gorging on the delicious 'ghar-ka-khana'.

0600 hours.Barely five minutes into the flight and it gets boring. Hell, how much on earth I love to travel by road! Still, I try and keep myself occupied by reading the in-flight safety manual and ruining the iPod furher by scrolling from one song to another even before the first one got over! As the famous saying goes, "it is lonely up there", is so true when I am in sky-transit!

Land the flight finally does and I speed my walk towards the exit like one does on a dark, silent night by hearing footsteps and seeing a shadow approaching towards him! Okay, yes, that's an exaggeration perhaps, but you get the picture. The hour long cab-drive gave me some time to have a shut-eye for a while.

At home finalyy, and food awaits! So jumped I did like a hungry lion to stuff my mouth with whatever i could grab! Some stomach-packing, thirst-quenching and frantic calls later, the car arrived at my gate, with a gleaming Robert of Audi behind the wheel. My usual practice followed. I walked around the car, looking at it from various angles, in process exercising every muscle of my body. The 'Bulgarian beard' which is a characteristic feature of all the Audi cars of today surely gives the A4 a distinctive look but does not gel as well with the overall design as it does on the A6. Still, the 'corporate beard', as we love to call it, does its bit to endow the car with an unmistakable identity.

The single-frame grille extends upto the chin (what's the need for an air-dam now!) and that slat-like thing at the bottom looks interesting! The head-lamps and tail-lamps have a curvy look to them. Had it been a straight-forward, sharp-looking affair here (something like the Toyota Camry), I am sure the A4 would have looked a lot more aggressive. The A4 showcased at the Frankfurt Auto Show will have a sharper head-lamp unit and we might see that car hit our roads by August next year. Audi's strong-hold is it's reputation for making cars with a tank-like build quality and the A4 proves that with flair. Audi makes use of special steel of variable thickness and strength for A4's monocoque while aluminium is used to save up on weight and enhance sturdiness.

So, now that the exterior inspection was dealt with, I seated myself on the captain's chair, inserted the key and a twist of the wrist later the oil-burning motor started breathing. It has that emblematic diesel clatter and if standing outside, you are bound to get offended by the noise. But once nestled in the cabin, on those aptly cushioned and beautifully designed seats, the decible limits of the engine do not intrude inside. Then you start noticing the switches and knobs which are places perfectly on a simple looking dash and exude quality feel.