Swifts and Elephants – who hides what

The Maruti Suzuki Swift has an inherent problem – the visibility to the driver. Reams and Reams of complaints have been made about this problem and the problem itself does not seem to be blown up. Its the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The massive pillars (A, B & C) of the swift are more like those of the Pantheon (the famous roman pillar designs).

You can now imagine what all these pillars would be able to hide! From children, to men, to objects to – YES!! you guessed it – Elephants! This has become so much of a joke in recent times among my professional circle of friends that every single elephant story is now associated with this car!

Just recently when I was chatting with two of my managers (one owning a honda city, the other a swift along with me) the honda city manager told us about his Ooty trip. When driving at high speed, and negotiating a sharp right turn he just stopped short of a big elephant on the road. He exclaimed – “Thank god I could see the elephant in time, so I stopped just short of it”. To this both of us quipped – “You saw the elephant because you were in a Honda city, if you were in a Suzuki Swift, rest assured you would have banged into it” – Ha Ha Ha …

The fun does not stop here. Recently there was an article in the Times Of India about dwindling elephant population being a cause of concern for the Karnataka Government. I could not help chuckling at this news story and I ran to my manager immediately and asked him – “Do you know the reason for this news?” – and pat came the reply too – “The number of Suzuki Swifts sold have crossed a mind boggling figure of 1,50,000. Hence its no surprise that the elephant population is dwindling as a result of this! No Swift owner/driver can notice these elephants on the road and they’re slowly getting extinct because of this!

In fact the Swift is close to zero in visibility during the rains that you would miss an entire elephant herd for sure! I was just waiting for the next possible elephant joke, when I could not help noticing this picture in the TOI. The Swift visibility situation is well represented in showing how many men are hidden from view here !

So the next time you go around wildlife safaris on a Swift, never feel bad that you cant see an elephant, just get down from the car, it would be standing right next to you

Published by Srikanth Eswaran