Special Car, auto, cars, vehicles

Our gala dinner at the fancy Taj West End hotel, where that evening Hotmail founder Sabeer Bhatia was holding his wedding reception, provides further evidence that Bangalore is brimming with rupees. Most of the attendees are local elite and two of the not so bashful, who apparently had no plans on being shown up by a pair of Scagliettis, arrive in matching F430 Spiders—an interesting phenomenon seeing that there is, let’s see, not one Ferrari dealership in the entire country (Is the India tour Ferrari’s way of laying groundwork?) “I had to import mine from Singapore and he brought his in from London,” one tells me. But after two days behind the wheel, in which triple-digit speeds proved as accessible as Tri Tip, I felt obliged to ask, “But where can you ever really drive an F430 here?” After all, hustling a Ferrari around India makes about as much sense as Paul McCartney passing on a prenup. “On Sunday mornings we take them to this empty highway where we go 280,” he boasts. That’s kilometers per hour, but, at around 170 mph, still damn fast.

The following morning we depart Bangalore at seven, a time when the city is still waking up, treating our convoy to light traffic that feels as normal as snow in L.A. En route to Hyderabad via Kurnool, a town in the west-central part of Andhra Pradesh, several sections of the two-lane are under construction, so it is slow going due to myriad dirt detours pockmarked with stones and divots. Much of the 400-mile stretch is made up of hilly terrain drenched in hues of creamed coffee and olive green, an otherwise drab, arid vastness of rocks and sparse vegetation. Construction, of both highways and bridges, turns out to be the theme of the day, and a definite sign of impending progress and growth as well as potential demise of the rice fields, small lakes, and roadside villages that we pass along the way.