...shoOOonya...

It is strange how memory works and how can random things trigger nostalgia shots. Two things happened today which reminded me of my college days and my best friends. First thing is i saw a Reynolds ballpoint pen. In my late school days and all through college days, i always used the Reynolds Bold ballpoint pen. I just loved them. Black, Blue, Green & Red ... all four would always be in my bag inside a small compass box (which was with me since 4th standard and still had the Mowghli sticker on it) Well, I spent quite some time during my junior college days in the library (no no no no .. not studying. It was the favourite hangout for me and my 2 best friends). AND we used to keep our Reynolds pens standing on the library table. It was a sort of game and something that became a part of the lovely memories we have of our college days. The sight of the Reynolds today brought back a flood of memories of my college days and my best friends. Those wonderful days !! Another thing was a ke...

Well … in the previous post, I wrote about my bad experience at CSIA and the problems/inconvenience that millions of passengers face while travelling through the airport. I shared the link to the post with the Twitter account of CSIA (@CSIAMumbai) hoping that someone might read it. What happened next 24 hours was something that is blog worthy, share worthy. Within an hour of sharing the link on FB, I got a feedback from CSIA that they are looking into my feedback and will receive a response soon via email. I shared my email address and indeed an email arrived within an hour with detailed explanations to why the problems existed and what action was being taken to resolve them. For the telephony and wifi problem, they said that they were recognized problems and they have been working on it already. For the baggage trolley problem, they said that the matter was being taken up strongly with the trolley contractors and trolley retrievers had been briefed. I was pleasantly surpri...

I have been travelling international for past 6 years now and so I have been in the Mumbai International Airport extensively. I have never been happy with the Mumbai airport. Having travelled to Zurich, Geneva, Mumbai, Kuala Lumpur, Chennai, Hyderabad (new), Bangalore (new) … Mumbai airport really disappoints in terms of infrastructure, facilities etc.   Now coming to my recent experiences …   I have travelled several times in past 6 months on the Dubai-Mumbai sector and my airport experience in Mumbai has been extremely bad (not unsatisfactory but bad). I faced problems with telephony, wifi internet and last but not the least, baggage trolley.   Public phones are such a basic facility. In an international airport, many people do not have their mobile phones. Non-Indian passengers arriving will most probably not have a local mobile number. Indian passengers might leave their Indian mobile number at their homes in india since they would not want to incur the 'way-tooo-hig...

I am sure you must have read this several times as email forward ever since you started using email.  I am putting it here on my blog so that I can read it as and when I need some inspiration to see life and its problems differently Once upon a time, a daughter complained to her father that her life was miserable and that she didn't know how she was going to make it. She was tired of fighting and struggling all the time. It seemed just as one problem was solved, another one soon followed. Her father, a chef, took her to the kitchen. He filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Once the three pots began to boil, he placed potatoes in one pot, eggs in the second pot, and ground coffee beans in the third pot. He then let them sit and boil, without saying a word to his daughter. The daughter moaned and impatiently waited, wondering what he was doing. After twenty minutes, he turned off the burners. He took the potatoes out of the pot and placed them in a bowl. He p...

Warning :) Long post ahead ! I just couldn't make it short. When you write from the heart, words flow! I had heard about Devdutt Pattanaik from my best friend who is my guide for reading material J I was looking forward to reading some of his works when I came across the Blog Adda Book Review program. I registered and waited for something interesting to come up and voila … 7 Secrets of Shiva comes up next and I grab the opportunity! Well, all fine till this point. I receive the book and unfortunately have to travel for work as a result the reading of the book gets delayed by almost a phenomenal 20 days. I come back and the first thing I do is pick this book up. 2 surprises even before I begin reading the book. First one is the size of the book , the book is sized unconventionally (at least I haven't read a book in this size for a loooooong time). One may not realize but the size of the book changes things. You hold the book in your hand and it feels different. This cha...

Have you played this ? I had seen this earlier in some movie and in the gaming zones of malls but never quite tried my hand at it. Recently, I got a chance to play and it was addictive. It was so much fun and entertaining and engrossing. Time just flew by and it got pretty exciting. I am sure if and when I see this again somewhere, I am sure to play this !! The pain in my shoulders and arms after the evening on Table Hockey was worth it !

  I travelled by Kingfisher for a change on the Dubai-Mumbai circuit. I have travelled Emirates, Jet, Indian Airlines etc earlier and this was probably my first experience (or maybe second) with the King. And it was NOT a good one.   I was disappointed by the Food. I was very disappointed by the In-flight entertainments system.   Of course, IA was no better but one doesn't really expect too much from IA. But Kingfisher is supposed to be Good. Why then have important things like food and in-flight entertainment been ignored? The food also left much to be desired. Quality as well as Quantity, both were not adequate. Food across the different airlines is pretty standardized in terms of the components etc though the quality varies widely. The king fell flat on the first step itself. The tray gave me a feeling that some things were missing and after having dinner, I felt dissatisfied J Thankfully, a bad in-flight entertainment only meant that I could spend the time readi...

I completed the Volume 2 of Feluda stories yesterday. There is a sense of satisfaction. A big fat volume read and enjoyed. All the waiting and travel time put to some very good use. चित्त  शांत  ! मन  प्रसन  ! Literally and loosely translated as "Conscious self at peace … Heart pleased"  

I am currently on a Marathon Reading spree of Feluda ... targetting to complete practically the entire volume of Feluda stories (about 15 in total) within a span of 20 days spread across Nov-Dec ... (and reading some other stuff also in between) Feluda stories are not only entertaining from the story point of view but they give you more than a story. They take you around. Reading Feluda stories is like doing 'Bharat Bhraman' … touring the country with each case taking Feluda and his companions to a different city / town in India and then later even abroad; and you, the reader, tag along as a co-passenger on the tour of the new city. It's a delight to read about those places in the middle of the story. Satyajit Ray ensures that through the Feluda stories, readers get a chance to experience exotic and different places. Ray talks about the place and its beauty. He gets the reader interested in places (be it Jaisalmer, Banaras, Haridwar, Darjeeling or Hong Kong & L...

Received this short story as email forward and I felt like posting it here ------------------------------------------------ There was once a wise man who lived simply. His spartan food habits reflected this. He had a friend who, being a sycophant of the king, lived in great luxury. One day this friend called on the wise man while he was eating. Looking at the food, the friend said, "My friend, if you can please the king like me, you will be free from this wretched food." The wise man smiled and replied, "My friend, if you can be pleased with this simple food, you can be free from the wretched job of pleasing the king." -- Anonymous ------------------------------------------------- In a very few words, the story relates a significantly crucial facet of life. We spend our lives running after money (working our ass off or in some cases taking the corrupt path of amassing wealth) so that we can enjoy the so-called luxuries of life which constitute dining in...

Feluda Marathon ahead … 8 Feluda stories back-to-back … Lugged around the heavy big fat Feluda Volume and read at every opportunity I got. Not having read Feluda in past several months, I was determined not only to read but also try and attempt to FINISH the entire Feluda Series by Dec 31 st 2011 … that's about 750 pages of small print while reading other stuff also.   6. Feluda: The Mysterious Tenant A case where Feluda discovers the real culprit of the crime, which is a murder incidently BUT does not reveal his identity to others - The murderer eventually meets his death Also there is the case of a smaller crime of theft which is also solved by Feluda BUT again the culprit is not handed over to the police but asked to return the stolen object.   7. Feluda: The Criminals of Kathmandu The case of the look-alikes A man comes to Feluda seeking his help about a person who looks like him and has been using his identity and doing mischief. The case of the sto...

  A couple of trips to Pune and also a trip to Dubai for 2 week in this month; meant that I had an increase in Travel time which boosts my reading. Reading score for this month's is a fabulous 13 !! Started off with regulars - Sherlock Holmes and Three Investigators and also picked up a novel by James Patterson. BUT the highlight of the month was the 'Return of Feluda' .. I read a total of 8 Feluda Stories to break of jinx of 'no Feluda' since several months ... it was like a Feluda Marathon at the end of the month. Just FYI - November Reading post is in 2 parts. First part will talk about non-Feluda reading whereas the part 2 will focus on entirely Feluda reads.   1. Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Six Napoleons by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle The story has a culprit who goes about breaking (or to put it in a better word … smashing) plaster busts of the great Napoleon. And in due course, even commit a murder. Sherlock is able to see what no one els...

Strange title you might wonder. Well, this post is about an incident where my 'so called' sharp mind came to my rescue and my fiery tongue helped me create an impression of a life time. They actually helped me not only in getting out of a sticky situation but coming out with flying colours (Warning: Long blog post ahead) The incident dates back to my Engineering days. Those 4 years were pretty awesome. I used to participate in school drama events but somehow during junior college years I did not get   chance to do it. In engineering, I took the chance again to be on stage. I participated in the class skit for our annual function and it was a great experience. Well, the incident is related to my performance on-stage and how a dreaded situation worked to my advantage because of some quick on-the-feet thinking and a few timely words J I don't really have a good memory so I always had the challenge of remembering my dialogues on stage. But, I would work out a way of...