Five Places…. to Visit.

Well, I felt we underutilized my dad’s LTA! There are a few places in India that we missed before he retired and I would like to continue the journey to these states some day….

– Mumbai! – Yes, I have not seen the financial capital of India and its on the top of my tourist destinations to visit in India. Especially after the Bandra Worli sea link.

– Gujrat! – Apart from the descriptions given by Naveen Anand (My classmate who toured the state entirely for being an ardent fan of Mr Modi) and Superman (My cousin), on the amazing development in the state in the Modi era, I would want to visit this state for being Gandhi’s land and of course for being the land of India’s Operation Flood. And of course add a pending visit to Bhavnagar to make up for missing Prateek’s marriage.

– Hyderabad – I expected this to be my next edu-destination, but Chennai, had the last say. Just want to visit this city to see the vast lakes over there and visit some wierd sweet shop in Punjagutta from where Andy used to get cookies

– Leh/Ladakh – This would be on cards if higher ed would not have happened this year!

– North Kerala – I have seen most of the South Kerala, given my uncle’s acquantances over there. But, North in spite of being closer to Mysore, has somehow missed my radar. I even missed the trip that Aj and Abhi had organized to Kalpetta etc….

Moving Out….!!!!

Another 24 hours, I would be out of my froster home. The city that had been the home to me from five odd years! As I end my saga here, and move back to namma Mysooru for a fortnight or beyond before I venture to write my B School Chronicles in the blog, I am leaving Bengalooru with a heavy heart! Yeah… you are right… the amazing rain outside, the dogs barking, the honking on DVG Road, I am going to miss them all within the hours to come… and all of a sudden after four years they have started to look or sound good.

I have been criticized heavily at home and away for taking a snap decision to vacate my Bengalooru home. I stand by my decision, the moment I have no day to day transactions in this city, I would be moving out of it for its own good! At least, I will reduce its carbon footprint… So so long, Vidyarthi Bhavan, Brahmin’s Coffee Bar, Kamath, MLTR, Adyar Ananda Bhavan, Vinayaka Benne Gulkan, UD, Dwaraka, Iyer’s Mess. I am surely going to miss the area, for the food and ambience and of course people!

Coming to office, Vic was asking me, how I was feeling. Well it was a tough question to answer given that I had been associated with the organization for over four and half years now! There were/ are lots of close people there and it was tough to answer this question from the people centric point of view. But given my plans to go for management education and research from a long time, this has not really been a moving or nostalgic moment. My dissociation with the college was much more emotional then my current exit probably because there was no Money factor involved in the college for me. Once you start earning, you get commercialised. Peoplewise the story is different… Let it stay the same way as it is.

The other part of the story of course, is that I would be unemployed from the day after tomorrow for over more than a year! I probably had been awaiting my first job after the results just for a month. So its going to be the first time after I have started earning that money will sort of make its point in my life! I have tried to avoid posh hotels for the past one week etc etc… But still old habits die hard… Once you start loving money… You wont love anything else in life! :)…. Planning to break those thoughts now… and move further.

Trip to the Outer Space!

Reports suggested that Dennis Tito apparently paid around $20 Million for his unique space trip. He was the first space tourist carried by Russian Federal Space Agency and toured space for over seven days in the Russian Soyuz TM 32 capsule.

The reason for this post was not to augment the knowledge of space tourism or promote it. Richard Branson may have his own Virgin Galactic up and running as the first private consortium to take tourists to space. But that does matter little to me given the affordability ;).

Our very own KSRTC, took me to a tour of a satellite. Other promoters, note given the cost, I will choose our own transport system to travel to space than any other operator! I am not acting funny here, if you are to believe KSRTC bus tickets, then I have traveled to outer space for a mere 88 INR, around a One and Half GBP or Two Dollars for a trip from Mysore to Satellite! Proof: Here you go see the image below:

Ticket to Outer Space

Cool! So Mr. Tito, wanna try out the only profit making transport corporation in our country?

Changing Loyalties…. No Way!!!

Ever since a few blokes got to know that I will move to Chennai, I have been bugged with one question, may be the first question I encounter when people get to know it – Are you now supporting Chennai Super Kings???!!! HaHa no way! Be it the amazing form my team (Read RCB) has shown in the past three matches or not, I will and shall remain a supporter of the Royal Challengers of Bengalooru, until of course a team comes up a full hundred and forty kilometres down south ;).

Its not long since, IPL3, the brainchild of Mr Lalit Modi kicked off and well the whole of the nation is abuzz with the club cricket extravaganza! I have picked up my side to win the tournament as well and well definitely “Royal Challengers Bengalooru” stand a BIG chance. I have even bought an official Reebok RCB T Shirt to support the team! Coming to CSK, they are definitely a good team, but do not have the right combination, Get Dhoni, Raina and Hayden out, they look very very weak. Their bowling is not so great, many players can play Muralidaran pretty well nowadays. Badrinath and Murali Vijay are good on paper, but have not fired till now in the IPL! The rest of the teams are still dependent on individual superheroes, MI – Sachin and Surabh Tiwary, RR – Yusuf Pathan, KKR – My God!, please I definitely WANT this team to lose, KXIP – Haha!!, give me a break!, DC – Gilly and Symonds, DD – Sehwag and only Sehwag. At least until  now, they have won because of individual efforts overshadowing any other acoomplishments!

RCB have a well knit unit. They have Manish Pandey and Kallis firing right at the top! Uthappa is in amazing form, which even bruised his hotel-partner Sreesanth. Wow, what an over that was! Bowling has been top class from Steyn, Kumble and Kallis. Vinay looked good yesterday! The only problem seems to be that RD and Boucher have still not got a chance to bat and that may never be a problem! RD even mentioned that he does not want to until they kept winning! So boys, be it Vijay Mallya’s booze in the stadium or the gorgeous Deepika Padukone/ Katrina Kaif/ Pakaadamane hudugi Ramya in the stands, you have and entire country backing you to win!

Of course the only problem for RCB, would be whom to replace once Taylor, White and Pietersen return! Mark my words, send Peitersen to London directly from Dhaka, he is not worth the place in teh current squad, given his form. Taylor, must be there, probably replacing Eion Morgain in crucial matches and White can susbstitute Boucher/ Kallis whenever they need rest. I am still looking forward to see Abhimanyu Mithun bowl this season. Like Pandey with the bat, he was spewing fire with the ball this domestic season and has amazing talent. May be rest one of the Kumar’s in the squad and try him out Jumbo…

Apart from this, my Loyalty also remains with Mandira Bedi and Charu Sharma. You guys rocked in the Extraaa Innings. The current set of commentators have a long way to go. Samir Kocchar dude, note that its not Robin Singh playing for RCB its Robin Uthappa!!!

Of Getting Tanned…. And Moving Out….

A year down the line, folks, I may be unrecognizable! Well, given all the nightmare I had about Chennai, I have decided to go for higher studies in that city! Though my institute has a sprawling campus near Mahabalipuram, I see no difference in the weather :). On a lighter vein, I am going to have a natural tan for the next one year free of cost ;).

So well, I am soon ending the second longest association of mine with any organization. All is well that ends well…. If the five year rule comes, I might have just qualified for the denizen-ship of Bengalooru. Of course Maddy wanted to throw me out of the city for just coining this term ;). As I move out, I have bitter sweet memories of both the workplace and the city that was my home along with Bristol for the past four odd years.

Posting soon again… Amar…..

Go Green!

I have had great respect for the NDTV network ever since, I understood what the news anchors spoke on Television. NDTV had been producing programmes on the Doordarshan when I was a kid, and well further on they now have their own 24/7 News channels. I respect them, as they appear to be impartial, unlike their closest competitors, who appear to align towards a single hierarchial political party and positively and honestly work towards a social cause!

NDTV has grown big and grown better, with experienced journos like Bharka Dutt, Prannoy Roy himself (I still remember his World Reporter or so on DD1), Nidhi Razdan, Siddarth (CnB fame), Vikram so on and so forth! The amazing stuffs that pop up on the Profit and 24/7 are a different league when compared to other news hungry and politically oriented channels. May be they are yet to catch up in the movie reviews arena (Ahem….)….!!!

Okay, the reason for this post was not to proclaim my love for NDTV, or praise its anchors, but drive a movement that probably was the national attention for the past 24 hours! All the NDTV channels had switched over a programme called ‘Greenathon 2’, an initiative from NDTV and Toyota to fight for a Greener environment. They 24 hours, the channel managed to get almost a near 4Crore INR mark, to light up villages, which they would do with TERI (RK Pachauri fame… Or more to do with their environmental quizzes on DD1). They have got enough money to light up 155 villages with Solar Lanterns! Amazing, at a time, when I have to wait for an interval with power to pen this down on my blog! Way to go….

The initiative has Priyanka Chopra as the lead PR and well the show was hosted by Priyanka, Cyrus (well hands down to his comic sense, I have always believed and stand by the fact that fat people have better comic sense ;)) and of course, dear Vikram Chandra. The event was well supported by almost the entire Bollywood and people from all walks of life. If we can light up some one’s life in a green way, who will say No! May be the other channels have to take a cue from this and stop airing the UP tours or providing the stats on the membership increase of a specific political party after a so-and-so heir toured the UP state! If the CJ show on a channel shows that there is no power, NDTV has the answer, they are giving you the power of Light and that too in a green way!

To be honest from yesterday evening, I have watched NDTV at least for 6 hours, Cyrus was too good in his humor and Priyanka was equally gorgeous ;)! The event had even Milind Soman and Rahul Bose run 100Kms for the cause…Cool!!! I hope the Greenathon does not stop at this effort and moves on towards other aspects such as conserving water, turning dusty lands to grasslands preventing soil erosion, etc etc… I am with this mission and to support, I have even changed my mobile ringtone to the NDTV Green Anthem. Hats off again…..

Gandhi’s Blog!

Hmm… I was just channel browsing while my mother was preparing a concoction to settle my throat which was struggling to come to terms. Well two major discussions on were the Women’s Reservation Bill to be tabled in the parliament and second the Gandhi’s.

Before I move to the former topic, let me touch the Gandhis. Did you know that there were 200 projects named after Rajiv Gandhi?? and 450 after Nehru and other Gandhi’s??? Where is our nation heading! I am tired to see this. Even our dear ‘Madam’ Sonia has told that it was Rajivji’s dream to table the Women’s Reservation Bill. Hope it wont be tabled as Rajiv’s Women’s Bill. It may happen to garner the 3 votes that are required to pass it in the Rajya Sabha!

Tomorrow, the woman’s bill is supposedly being tabled in the parliament. Barring one woman, who I saw manage a team, I support the rest of the women to go for the 33% bill and probably fight for it. Its high time, peole see that gender differences at work, are almost a thin line and treatment at work, must be unbiased from both the genders! The problem for the bill to be passed appearently is it must be first tabled in Rajya Sabha, get 2/3rds majority and be passed without a din. To maintain the decorum, the constituion of the upper house mandates that any amendment can only be passed if there is a din! With policitical parties headed by Lalu Yadav and Mulayam, opposing the bill, I dont expect the din to go down. It was the same Mulayam who had his ‘bahu’ stand for the elections remember? He is now opposing a bill for women’s empowerment.

I am pretty much sure that the same politcial parties who have opposed this, would unite and vote, if the reservation was for a specific caste or religion, dividing the country even further! Well for tomorrow, hope this bill gets passed and India moves towards, something that puts the society at a much more thoughtful level. And well I hope it will get implemented and India will be a free and fair coutry with no discrimination of such sort! And officially, I hope for women who have moved to the top, it helps in not accusing their male counterparts of sabotaging their growth (A one off observation here!).

Denizenship of Bengalooru!

As a kid, I used to visit Bangalore every holiday to my innumerable cousins’ places. Well I enjoyed this city as much as I hate it now, for its traffic, mannerless drivers, bad mouthed crowd on and on!!! There are some things that havent changed, but some have – drastically!

Going by the norms of people applying for PR in UK, I think, officially I can now be a denizen of Bengalooru, given that I have been here working for five years now, at a stretch! I still think, there must be a set of rules and regulations that everyone entering Bangalore must follow, regarding cleanliness, maintenance, etc etc…. Trust me, visit Bangalore East/ North, @ some places, you may decide to give up your denizenship now!

Travelling backwards, I still cherish, my uncles, place near Malleswaram’s marammana gudi, Hanumanth Nagar, Ganesh Bhavan. Aunt’s place in Vijayanagar which used to be my haunt thro’ the innumerable 61s (well that remains the same still). But for all, its still not a place worth spending your days in!