Jetta joyride: VW Jetta midnight drives

Words: Aatish Mishra

Photography: Gaurav S Thombre

A car is only as good as it makes you feel. And the VW Jetta was making me feel bloody good. Hands around the flat-bottomed, leather-wrapped steering wheel, the clock well past midnight, the streets of Kalyani Nagar in Pune all quiet and deserted. How had I managed to get my hands on the Ed’s long-termer and sneak it out for a joyride in the middle of the night? Well, that was mostly his own doing.

Most people think that the life of an automobile journalist is nothing but a high octane, testosterone infused holiday. That all we do is drive fast cars, wheelie exotic bikes, #getmuddy (shameless OFF ROAD Expo plug), and get paid to do so. They’re not wrong, we do have our fair share of that. But it isn’t all we do. In reality, a lot of our time is spent at a desk, staring at our laptops, wondering how the hell to put what we felt the previous day in to words and give you something worthwhile to read. It isn’t the driving and the riding that pays our bills, it’s the writing. Earlier that afternoon, the boss had stormed into the office and said that he wants all of my stories that day itself and that I can’t go home till they’re done; it’s at times like these that I really don’t like my job.

A lot of grumbling, a lot of Red Bull and a lot of writing later, I was finally done with my stories. I had skipped dinner, but on the bright side, I didn’t have to brave rush hour traffic. Rummaging through the drawer with the long-termer keys, I was deciding what I could drive home — the Gixxer? It’s too cold outside. Ouseph’s Thar? He’d murder me if something happened to it. Wait, what? Are these the Jetta keys? Peeking out of the window I see the Jetta parked on the street below, beckoning me to take it home. I dropped a message to the Ed that I was taking the Jetta and I was off before he had time to respond. Of course I didn’t go straight home. And though the Jetta looks bloody good, I hadn’t taken it so that I could just stare at it in my driveway. Oh no, the streets were empty and I was going for a nice, long drive.

Pune isn’t like Mumbai. No sea-link. No Marine drive. Sure, the expressway isn’t too far away but I was in no mood to drive to Lonavala and back. And a mundane drive through the city? Nah! The Jetta deserved much more. I did something which would be neigh impossible to attempt during the day — take the Jetta to the old part of the city. The streets are horrendously narrow and overflowing with cars. In the day, it would take nothing short of a miracle for me to return with the Jetta with bumpers and wing mirrors intact. However, at night the traffic would’ve subsided and I’d have the place all to myself. Hopefully.

The Jetta’s 2-litre TDI engine makes a respectable 138bhp. But it also makes 320Nm of torque — plenty of grunt that allows you to make quick overtakes in traffic, and reach scary speeds on open roads. Like right now. For all you non-Puneris, Kalyani Nagar is the swankier, more modern part of Pune. Driving past the oasis of life that are the malls and restaurants that remain open so late, I approached Koregaon Park.
Koregaon Park goes one up on Kalyani Nagar when it comes to being swish, some of the fanciest cafes and pubs in the city are housed in its seven lanes. It is also where the Osho ashram is located. Acharya Rajneesh, commonly referred to as Osho, was a spiritual leader who started the ashram. His revolutionary ideas on marriage, sex, family and relationships made many revere him, and many hate him. Today, the Osho ashram has been converted into the Osho International Meditation Resort, and is frequented by people from all walks of life, looking to understand this man and his teachings.

Pune’s roads aren’t the best — with potholes and badly made manholes galore, the roads themselves can be classified as hazardous to bikers. But inside the plush Jetta cabin, I had no complaints whatsoever. With coil springs up front and an independent suspension at the rear, the car had no trouble breezing over whatever Pune threw at us. Every bump that I expected to go clattering through was flattened out with nothing more than a dull thud.

The more I drove the Jetta, the more I was beginning to enjoy it. And I’m not just talking about the way it drives. We wax eloquent about that all the time. I was beginning to appreciate the way it makes you feel. Slide inside the leather draped cabin and you instantly feel more suave and sophisticated. The car pampers you. It feels way more expensive than it actually is and those tight lines and sharp angles exude nothing but sheer class.

As I approached the heart of the city, the roads got narrower and the buildings more dilapidated. And right at the heart of it all, lies Shaniwar Wada. Pune’s tryst with the Maratha empire stretches back to a time even before the empire’s inception. The ruler of the Ahmednagar empire, granted a man called Maloji Bhosale a small fiefdom which included what is now Pune, to rule over. Shivaji, the founder of the Maratha empire is his grandson. Shivaji was born in the Shivneri fort not far from Pune and was brought up in Pune itself. It was in 1645 that he founded the Maratha Empire. Shaniwar Wada was the seat of the Peshwas (rulers) of the Maratha empire and was built in 1746.

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The narrow lanes and gullies were desolate, the Jetta silently gliding through, bright headlamps slicing through the night. It’s something else, exploring a city once everyone’s comfortably tucked into bed. You see things you just can’t in the day. And when you have a car like the Jetta, you wouldn’t mind doing so all night long. I now understoood why the Ed kept this car all to himself. A quick lap around the fort and I turned the car around and headed back home. I had to work the next day after all. And was I complaining about it earlier? I take that back. Drives like these make it all worth it.