Petrol vs Diesel: Which Car to buy?

If you are amongst the many urban dwellers making a beeline to book a diesel car ‘before it’s too late’ to save on Fuel cost, please STOP!

Did you ask the quintessential question ‘Kitna Deti Hai?’ before making up your minds on which car to buy? I am 100% sure you did.
Did you do the math on the per km running cost to decide which fuel should power your car? I am 60% sure you did.
Did you then assess your annual usage (in kms) to understand the recovery period for the extra capital expense in buying a Diesel car? Hmm..now I’m just 40% sure you did..
And now, did you also factor in the cost of Interest on the extra Capital expense for buying a diesel car? I’m pretty certain most of you didn’t!


Anyone with moderate MS Excel skills and about 10 minutes to apply it would figure that Petrol cars are in fact a better option. In fact, for those of us who plan on funding our diesel car through banks, chances are you are never going to recover the cost of extra capital expense.


Current day cost difference between a Petrol and Diesel variant of the same model is about Rs.1.5 Lacs. A car giving a mileage of about 15kmpl will have to be driven almost thirteen thousand kms each year for the cost to be recovered in 6 years.

But if you consider the extra interest you pay on the Rs.1.5 Lacs, the recovery period shoots up to 19 years! Yes you read it right!

Well, what can I say.. the government isn’t so stupid after all.. your choices are limited between giving your money to the oil companies or to the bank :)


PS - Leave your e-mail ID in the comment section if you want me to mail the excel sheet to you.

At Last The Maharaja Grew Balls!

I am not a fan of Air India or it's management, but I loved the fact that they did not shy away from taking some firm steps in showing the striking Pilots the doors.

The book 'Freakonomics' authored by economists Levitt and Dubner carries a whole chapter on the economics of a 'Job'.
Loosely reproduced, they say that how much a job pays depends on:


- How scarce or abundant the resource pool is of talented people wanting to do the job.
- The nature of the job itself, in terms of difficulty and criticality
- Stigma and distress associated with the job. For example a prostitute's job might not be the most difficult to carry out but the stigma attached to it, might make it more lucrative than similar easier jobs that are perceived to be 'cleaner' by the society.

Going by this, I think Pilots are the most overpaid bunch of people.
It's an awful lot of money to pay someone just to get the damn equipment off the ground and back down without breaking it.
As if that weren't enough, they need a partner to help them do it.
And might I add this whole process of taking off and landing takes about 10 minutes for each flight.. Everything between is usually done by a bloody machine called the 'Auto Pilot' while our 'Human pilots' are busy sipping martinis!


I say get these fuckers to tally the book of accounts in their idle time..

It's obvious these Pilots are just using our lack of knowledge on the subject and hyping up the whole flying thing. It's a Commercial Airliner for God's sake! It's not as if you are trying to dodge a Surface to Air Missile or an F-16 on your tail! Infact, you've got a bunch of hardworking guys who are clearing the road for you down at ATC!
And whoever said, pay them well coz the lives of the passengers depended on how the pilots performed!!
Well...the life of the Pilot too depends on how he performs, so he bloody well make sure he flies the damn plane right!
All the management has to do is take away the pilot's parachute.

And if getting killed in an accident was such a big worry, we should be paying the cab driver a helluva lot more, coz statistically we are more likely to meet with an accident on the road than in the air! And the cabby doesn't even have someone clearing the road for him!

Besides, there are so many aspiring pilots passing out of Flying schools.. Waiting in the wings... about time they get inducted into this trade at reasonable salaries!

Someone needs to THINK!!