The journey gave us happiness, not the destinations!

On 23 february 2010, I realized why Kerala is called 'Gods own
country'. The most important things that struck me while our stay in
Kerala were the simple living high thinking people, everyone right
from the waiter at a small tea shop to the manager of a big hotel have
the same sincerity towards their work, the people give you respect,
the state is exceptionally clean, almost everyone there can speak
English, the people are trustworthy, they don't cheat foreigners when
they shop, They absolutely love their culture, you go to any shop and
you will be given a splendid service.
The things I loved about Kerala were the elephants at Guruvayur temple
and everything about the Guruvayur temple is huge like the elephants.
They say heaven is for understanding your life on Earth and when I
entered the temple I had a feeling that after death the heaven will be
like Guruvayur and i will be a worker in the temple serving the
devotees. Some of the other things I loved were the use of wood in
homes and hotels, the spice gardens, the tea gardens at Munnar, the
boating and cycling experience, the walk through the outskirts of
Munnar, the coffee, the numerous fish-surmai, tuna, paplette, black
fish that we had, the typical Kerala style roti, the local markets,
churches, the sunrises and the sunsets seen from the top of the tea
gardens, the periyar lake boating and the wildlife there, Sonia and
Lea - the German girls I met at the cruise, the loving nature of the
people, the serenity of the nature at allapi, the boat houses, the
way manoj, our bus driver and his cleaner got me dressed in a lungi!


If god gives me a chance I would love to buy a small home at lake side
and stay with these simple and content people!

Some of the memorable moments of our tour will be the way I got
freaked out at the local temple of Tekkadi because of the firecracker
and the way a foreign lady laughed at me, the sight of the elephant
eating just the leaves leaving the rest, the interior wooden design of
the Westwood hotel and ofcourse the wonderful time we all had
together- the jokes, the songs, the journey...it's like every part of
it has some unforgettable and beautiful memoirs which have been carved
in our hearts by this place, it's culture, it's people and their
cuisine!
I have learnt a lot from this place and I would make it a point to
visit kerala atleast once in two years.

I think everyone of us no matter who we are always crave for peace and
I think peace has to gained one piece at a time. I just found a litle
piece of my peace in Kerala and it will always make this place special
for me!

There are some places that make you fall in love with them the first
time you see them. 'The Oven' was for us such a place. It is on the
corner of a crossroad near Marine Drive at Cochin. The place is fully
air conditioned and beautifully decorated. There were beautiful
paintings on the walls. They serve numerous pizzas, burgers,
pasteries, milkshakes, juices, sweets and loads of other delicacies.
We went there three times in a day! In just a single day The Oven
became so familiar to all of us. The best thing about the place is
that the rates are very reasonable and the ambience is just awesome.
The service is superb. And the coffee, well what to say it's just so
perfect!
We all had a really good time there, we took pictures, fooled around,
tried different food and most importantly we enjoyed ourselves at that
place. When we left the place in the night, we knew we were going to
miss this place a lot and as I am writing this I am craving for their
filter coffee!


The last event of our tour was the cruise at Cochin. We cruised for
two hours and enjoyed the experience thoroughly, though some of were
so tired that they slept on the cruise itself!
We saw the oil refinery of the Bharat Petroleum, The Taj, the Indian
Navy warships and the fishermen along with kingfishers, seagulls and
eagles trying to catch the fish.
We had set for cruise at 4 pm and around 6 pm we were amazed by the
beauty of the sunset. It was perfect orange and the reflection of it
in the water enhanced it's beauty further...truely it was a sight
worth watching.
The whole scene of the sunset made me realize how insignificant our
existence is in this humangous universe and yet we are so worried and
self occupied by our little problems...we have forgot to live and are
only busy in running behind things that don't matter much in life.
While returning I saw a fisherman who was returning back to the dock,
he was alone in his small boat, he was washing his boat with a bucket
roped to the railing, and while he was doing so I was observing him
and I just couldn't miss how affectionately he was washing his small
boat.

While returning to the cochin railway station we had a blast in the
bus. We danced as if we were going to die the next day! We also gave a
"salaami" to our bus driver and the cleaner.
The last two hours that we spent in Cochin were amazing. I finally ate
vegetarian food after like 5 days! We all gathered at the bridge near
the dock where our loving Baba had set up a "sabhaa". We talked about
the wonderful time we all had together. And finally our photographs
have gone to about 50GB! it's going to take a hell lot of time to edit
those.


We reached Pune station at 4:45 am. All were exhausted and were sleepy.
But in the end it was the journey that gav us the happiness and not
the destinations!

1411

emaN-Game

Shakespeare said, "Whats in a name?" but the irony is he wrote his name under it!

Our college starts at 9:00am and ends at 4:15pm. And being Engg. students we sleep late and wake up later! Almost 60% of our class is always late, most of us barely manage to even bath so you can imagine the rest. So somehow we make it to the class by 9:15 to 9:30am. (My worst timing till date is 9:37am). The teachers are also used to it and have given up on us. But in all this early morning rush we forget or skip the most important meal of the day a.k.a breakfast! We Engg. students are known to "manage" things really well, no wonder 70% of us end up doing MBA! OK so my point is we somehow manage to survive the first two lectures from 9 to 11am but the last 15 mins seem like eternity, but then we start warming the thoughts of a hot steamy coffee, frappe and numerous iced teas and not to forget the veg puffs that we get at the Nescafe outlet at the Cultural Center(CC). And this is the story of not only our class but the whole college. So at 11:00 am hundreds of us rush to the petite 10 * 12 ft Nescafe outlet. Often we are left at 11:05am so we barely have 10 mins to walk all the way to the CC, "fight" to get our order and make it back to the class.

To make things worse even some other colleges in our campus have their short recess between 11-11:15am. The Nescafe has 3 staff to serve hundreds of us. The scene at the Nescafe around 11:07 am is like this: people are throwing money at those 3 guys, shouting their orders at the top of their voice, often pulling their shirt in a rude manner and it doesn't end at that we give 100 rs. bill for a coffee worth 7 rs. so those 3 guys have to do the math as well!

This semester i have been lucky as i always got the Frappe in time but for the past couple of weeks all my efforts went in vain. Usually the small boy used to attend me but these past 2 weeks even he was ignoring my order!

I was wondering what was wrong with him? Or was something wrong with me!

Then it hit me......

I went to the small boy whom usually all call by the name Chotu. I asked, "What is your name?". With a big proud smile on his face he replied, "Naresh."

The next day, as usual, the lecture got over at 11:05am , i was at CC by 11:07am, the rush was full on, people were shouting, tearing those 3 guys apart, i somehow made my way to the counter, Chotu was close. I asked(with a smile on my face),"Naresh, can you please give me a Frappe?"

What happened then was that Naresh ignored all the others, smiled back at me and got me a Frappe!

I got my answer. From that day onwards till now i have never failed to get my Frappe. I get Frappes for my friends Alok and Vishal as well!

Dale Carnegie has said, "Remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest & most important sound in any language."

And i read somewhere that, "A man without a smiling face must not open a shop."

I have improvised it, "A man without a smiling face must not go to a shop!"

And if you are wondering about the title, its NAME-GAME!

What Road Are You?

What do Mumbai, Pune, B'lore and Delhi have in common?

-M. G. Rd.!

Everyone of us has favourites. A favorite perfume, book, song, ice-cream. How about a favourite road? Do you have one?

I think everyone of us has a favourite road. A road that is familiar to us, a road we can relate to, a road on which we like talking with ourselves when walking alone, a road which we know inside out!

When i was in school i was the road from my home to the bus stop in Mhaisal(my native place). I used to love walking on that road. I used to leave home at 6:00 am and reach the bus stop by 6:10 am. I used to enjoy those 10 mins. I even remember the stones i used to purposely step on while walking. I still remember those!
So i was wondering what makes these roads so special?

Now-a-days i am the Fergusson College Road (F. C. Rd.). It is literally at a stones throw from my place. So when i get bored or have nothing to do i just go and walk.
Whenever i walk on it i always feel that there is something "young" about F. C.
Goodluck is the place where youngsters enjoy eating, Vaishali and Roopali are favourites among the senior citizens. The Chaitanya Parathas are awesome. There is CCD and Barista for coffee(I prefer Goodluck for coffee!). Manmeet is famous for its 'Chaat'. There is Subway and now recently Venky's have opened a take away chicken outlet. Theres Yana for sizzlers, Haka for Chinese. If you want to shop you will find every brand you want on F. C.

Come weekends and F. C. will be packed. It has a festive mood on weekends. Especially the winter evenings make it even more enjoyable. Me and my friends enjoy playing pool at 147. Its so much fun!

So what road are you? Leave a comment.....

Express yourself!

Ever wondered why Airtel is so popular in India?

I think the reason behind that is the way they 'express themselves' and that's what their punchline says 'Express yourself'! Look at their brand ambassadors SRK and A R Rahman. One is the Badshaah and the other is a maestro when it comes to expressing themselves. No wonder we all love to see the Airtel ads. They are full of expressions!

Sometimes i feel jealous of artists, babies, musicians, sportsmans and of course Airtel because they can express themselves so well! Artists can bring out their emotions through paintings, acting, singing, dancing and loads of other such things; babies can cry, laugh and scream and get what they want. How well Sachin Tendulkar expresses himself through his batting skills. They are so lucky...

Well what about the hoi polloi? How can we 'The aam aadmi' or 'The mango people' express ourselves? Rather why don't we express ourselves?

An Albanian proverb says "A tailless dog cannot express his joy". And that is so true. Are our tails cut too? Or have we forgotten that we humans also have a "tail" for expressing ourselves?

I have some friends whose tragic love stories came to an end even before beginning. The reason being they couldn't express themselves to the girl they loved. And of course i have a group of friends who expressed themselves, but in a wrong way and got slapped!

The importance of expressing oneself need not be explained. If we look at the worlds most successful people, we can be sure of one thing they all have in common and that is their power to express themselves or their product to the world. Rocket Sing could create the Rocket Sales Coop. because he was good at convincing people through his power of expression. No wonder such a simple quality can be so important for success.

The big question:

Why don't we express ourselves? or why do we fail to express ourselves? I've come across some people who can't or who are not so good at expressing themselves. Most of them are shy, some are of reserved nature, some have ego problems. Their can be so many reasons.

What if we don't express ourselves? What can go wrong? Well a lot can go wrong! Most probably people can get misunderstood(Happens a lot with me!), a guy won't be able to express his love to a girl!. Eventually we will end up becoming someone who always wants to become like someone and never be that someone just because we couldn't express!

So people, if you feel like complimenting someone, proposing someone, thanking someone, criticising someone just do it! Don't think what the other person will think when you express yourself rather think what he won't feel if you don't express yourselves, right?

And why did i write this blog? Well theres this saying about some bloggers...Those who can...do, those who can't...blog!

BUY IT, FORGET IT!

Hi everyone,
Its been quiet a while since i wrote my last blog. The last few months went so fast and the decade too!

I have a habit of observing people and understanding them by their behaviour. And any shopping mall is an ultimate place to observe all kinds of people. The idea of this blog hit me today morning when i failed to get the tickets for the 11:15 am show and instead bought the tickets for the 2:00 pm show, so i had lots of time for observing and understanding the Indian consumer behaviour!


How many times has it happened with you that you bought a pair of jeans or sunglasses or any mobile device on a split second decision or purely based on instinct and then later regretted over it?
I guess most of us have had that kind of a experience once in our life. And that feeling is really bad. So then why buy the wrong thing in the first place?


I have categorized shoppers into the following :

1. The ones who just want to shop to spend time/ they'll die if they don't shop every weekend/if their friend buys a new phone they'll buy the next model of that phone..i think you got it.

2.The ones who are cautious shoppers/ they'll save money if they don't have it but eventually will buy the stuff they want/they'll buy the things which they need not the unnecessary stuff.


3.These are the ones who like to check the price tags of everything/ usually just curious, most probably they won't buy anything/like to spend time at the malls without shopping.

Lets call these cat1,2,3.



This blog is about understanding what goes into the mind of a cat 2 shoppers when they go out to buy things because the cat 1 people don't think much when they buy things because a month has 4 weeks! The cat 3 people are out of the picture here.
Confusion, money, quality, quantity, liking, need, greed are some qualities related to cat 2 shoppers.

Interesting thing is a cat 2 person can sometimes behave as cat 1 and viceversa!

Lets face it, we all want to be content with the things we buy because crying over spilled milk is no good right? So if we shop smartly and logically we will end up buying the right thing.

Recently i was planning to go home for holidays and was not getting the bus tickets so postponed it but then this agent called me and told me that the bus leaves in 2 hrs. So that gave me just an hour for packing.
But theirs more, i was so disappointed to find that i had no travel bag(old one got ripped off!)!
So i decided to buy one and then come home and do the packing.
And when it comes to buying things i always go for quality not quantity.. Its like if my dad gives me a 1000 bugs and tells me to get myself 2 T shirts i would go for 1 T-shirt worth a thousand bugs.


OK, coming back to the travel bag thing, so i went to this Nike store and i saw what i was looking for. I found a huge travel handbag. It was awesome but then i also saw the travel sacks and found them cool as well. So there i was all confused whether to go for the huge bag, the one which i needed the most right now or to go for the sack, for which i now feel i was infatuated to. And i had to make that decision in about 10 mins.

And guess what i ended up buying the sack, came home and to no ones surprise it was too small to carry all my clothes and i was in a hurry, so a friend of mine helped me out and i borrowed his bag.

I still don't know why i bought that bag. When i came back, i exchanged the sack and got the handbag i needed (Thanks to Nike!). I felt so content after that and that was because i could exchange it.

I have learned some things about shopping which are:

• Think a thousand times before buying anything and not after you buy that thing.


• Don't let the temptation get on you.


• Go for quality.


• Don't let the shopkeeper/ sales guy influence your decision, listen to what they are saying but in the end buy what you think is right for you.


• Study all the features/ specifications of the product you want to buy before actually buying it.


• And last but not the least, ask for the bill!

So that's it people, hope you have liked this blog, and hope it will help you when you go out for shopping! If you would like to add something then please point it out in the comments. Cheers!

KYA KHOYA KYA PAYA?

The title might seem stupid but if you just keep saying it a couple of times, it will make you think!
Well thats what i did when i read it on my friend Omkar's pouch back in II year. When i first read it i found it stupid but when i actually kept repeating it, i found it interesting!

And why am i telling you this?...read on..you'll find out in a minute!

So it was the 'Kojagiri Poornima', a Saturday, and it came during our prelims.

Now before i tell you this story i would like to tell you something about our college..

Have you ever heard of a test?

Sure you must have....OK then what about a "re-test", now anyone with an average common sense would be able to guess that too but here i am talking about a "re-re-test", yes thats SKNCOE(our college) for you!

And it doesn't stop at that, if we fail in the "re-re-test" we are supposed to "donate" a couple of thousands of rupees per failed paper!

Now i don't know how serious other engg. students are about their internals but we at SKN take it as a war!

So as i said it was a Saturday and the next war was on Monday with VLSI(Very Large Scale Integration) so we had a Sunday in between..

And theres this thing about every "normal" engg. student. I'll call it the Rocket Science concept. So the concept of Rocket science is that until a rocket gets fired at its bottom it just won't take off, similarly until and unless the 'derriere' of a "normal" engg. student is on fire he/she just won't study!

So on the Kojagiri eve i was at home doing nothing when my Friend Swapnil called and told me about the Kojagiri night out plan at Omkar's bungalow. So we all gathered at his place around 10:30 pm. There were 12 of us. Classmates and a junior.

Now only an engg. student can understand what happens when 10-12 "normal" engg. students get together on a night out...they follow the famous '80/20 principle' i.e. 80% of the talk comes from 20% people in a group and it is those 20% people who make engg. so damn fun when one gets tired of mugging! Take the example of the famous Chetan Bhagat novel '5-point someone', now imagine the novel without Ryan. I think you got what i am trying to say here.

Wondering who were the 20% in our night out?......there was just one....

KYA KHOYAA KYA PAYAA!

Looks LEGEN-WAIT FOR IT-DERY doesn't he!

I mean just look at him the guy has 'KOLHAPUR' written all over his face! And when he gets going even the tough start laughing like hell! We adorably call him 'BABA'. That means if during a lecture someone says BABA, the whole class reciprocates by joining in and chanting "BABA BABA!!"

So after some Gyaan by our BABA, some of us were playing poker. And if you come in BE E & TC classroom and say Poker, you'll be directed to the left corner bench of the classroom where our LEGEN-WAIT FOR IT-DERY Poker master Alok sits. The guy reached some 10s of millions of dollars in the facebook Zingaa poker. It was like for months Poker was his life, his girlfriend, he literally was 24*7 on facebook playing Poker...so thats Alok for you!

US PLAYING POKER

The highlight of the night out was the prank we played on our friend Bhusion. BABA called him pretending to be a neighbour and told him that he had lodged a complaint against us making a lot of noise late night and said the Police were on their way to check....poor guy Bhusion went out at 3 am to meet the victim whom we called Nitin Gaikwad only to find that he was fooled!
The next thing i still remember of that night was the sweet milk that two of my friends, both named Mahesh, had prepared.....

MAHESH IN ACTION

So after the Poker, the sweet milk, the prank and the hilarious BABA jokes it was around 4 am when we went for breakfast at an exclusive students place called 'Sweekar'. The place opens at 4 am everyday and students are there at 3:45am. And believe me, the breakfast we had there was awesome.

After the delicious breakfast everyone departed...

It was Kojagiri night, none of us slept the whole night, so when the Goddess Laxmi came asking "Who is awake?", She must have showered some wealth on us and some knowledge too cause on Sunday most of us woke up like in the afternoon and the remaining had gone for a movie and guess what , we won the war on Monday!

So when i ask myself 'Kya Khoya Kya Paya?', all i remember is BABA's smiling face and the good time we all had that night!Cheers!