The Colaba Diaries: Ep 4 - A LOT can happen in just 3 weeks

Ho. Lee. Crap. It has been an insanely hectic 21 days. A complete whirlwind of events and incidents, from some of the best to some of the most unpleasant. Let's get into it, shall we?

Right, so, one of the first big events that happened since the last post, was the cover shoot for awards issue for the magazine I currently work at. And this shoot is like our annual big shoot, a real special occasion. So, yeah, we had a great location for the shoot and some amazing cars coming in which were part of the winners' list, and it was gonna be a full day affair. So, part of being a trainee in this team is that I and the other trainee had to wash all the cars that came in for the shoot, about 10 of them and the two bikes as well. 

Among those ten cars, there was pretty much my dream garage: an Audi R8 V10 Plus, a Ford Mustang GT, a Nissan GT-R aka Godzilla and a VW Polo GTI hot hatch. The bikes included a supersport bike, the MV Agusta F3 800, which isn't exactly what I'd want but it was in the right category to be part of my dream garage. And while I didn't get to actually drive any of these, I did get to sit in the cockpits' of these cars, get a feel for the driving position and the controls, and to be able to do that in three iconic cars that I genuinely am a fan of, was simply brilliant day for me.

Apart from shooting the cover photo, there was the whole affair of shooting a behind-the-scenes video that would be played at our awards ceremony. The work was scheduled to start around noon and we should have been done by like 9 or 10 PM. 

I say should have been done. Because what happened instead was that we had a series of fuck ups starting from the fact a section of the set had been rented out to another crew for their filming by the piece of shit scumbag owner of the studio, which made it impossible for us to use the set as we had planned to. In fact, that screw-up messed our schedule up so much that the other screw up was pretty much overshadowed, ie, the Mustang came to the location 5 hours late.

Anyway, I'll speed through the rest of it to keep this blog post from being way too long. So, all said and done, we worked our way around the screw-ups, and we didn't mind as much, not with the kind of cars that we had around us, and the right kind of people working with us. And after 16 hours of cleaning cars, keeping track of all the keys and observing the shoot, we finally wrapped up at about 4 in the morning. Then, I had to drive one of the less fancy cars to the parking of one of our senior's house, who led the way in the yellow Mustang. And that was one of the best car days of my life.

Following this, there was the usual flow of work, and dealing with my living conditions, where I was growing more and more uncomfortable with every passing day. Also, who knew that if you live on the top floor of an old poorly-built and not-so-well maintained building, you're likely to have issues with your water supply. So, yeah, dealing with shit like that is how my time was consumed. There was another short shoot that took place, also a part of the overall behind the scene video for our event, that was a fun day too.

And, another fun day was when I got to go out for dinner with a close friend of mine who was in town on business. It was my first social outing in this city since I moved, and to spend it with a friend such as her, and with good ale to have, it was quite the pleasant night. Afterwards, we went for a bit of a stroll on Marine Drive and bitched about stuff like we kinda do. I am very grateful for the efforts she made to come and spend time with me and to have such few but tremendous souls as my friends.

Then just last week I got sent to a product launch out of town, where I got the chance to mingle with some of the fellow automotive journalists and people from the manufacturer's side as well. The travel and all was quite exhausting but it was an educational experience nonetheless and I look forward to more such opportunities.

On the way back, our flight was delayed by like 2 hours, and that made things even more hectic because I was flying back on the night before the awards ceremony, meaning I wouldn't have a lot of time to rest. Things got bad to worse as when I got back, I got into a tiff with one of my shit-for-brain aggressive roommates, a matter that didn't help with how much I hated living in these conditions anyway. However, that matter was taken to the owner of the flat and whatever rules he laid out, those are the ones I am willing to abide (but I might move again soon, which may mean that the name of the series would be changed, let's see).

Then came the big day. The awards night. I had barely had any sleep the night before, but I had replenished enough energy for the long day ahead. I reached the venue at like 3 PM and the event was scheduled to get underway at around 7-7:30, just about everyone else from the team was already there, coordinating for all the cars and their positioning at the venue. Again, plenty of wiping to do for the cars, so had to carry the good set of clothes separately to change into later.

And so it was, 14 cars and 6 two-wheelers, all wiped and dusted, tyres made shiny, a team effort. After which, we used the hotel room allocated to us, in turns, to bathe, freshen up and change into more suitable clothes for a ceremony such as this. But the work was far from over for me, as I spent the next three hours sitting in the front row, with a laptop, timing the FB posts as the awards were announced over the course of the event, while a more experienced colleague handled the twitter for it. For all the good that comes of it, I do hold a strong dislike for social media. 

But, it was a work-do after all, and work was done well, after which I had time to grab myself some food and drink and be a bit more social with my colleagues and the guests at the event, most of whom were representatives from different automotive manufacturing companies. It was a fun night, and at the end of which I got to take home two copies of the new magazine and two bottles of wine courtesy of one of our sponsors. 

Oh, also, I got my first published article in this issue, and while I'm not wholly proud of it because I only wrote 70% of it, it's still a big moment in my professional life. Hehehe.

Yeah, a LOT can happen in just 3 weeks. And with the return to work tomorrow, ie, Monday, I don't really know what's coming my way next, but it should definitely be fun. I'll be sure to keep the next episode at a shorter interval, to avoid making them such long reads, but thanks for checking it out anyway. Hope you liked it! Till the next ep, adios!