Jhaji - Aur Kya !! (Mr Jha , what else)

from blogspot to selfhosted

2010-06-02T15:42:00.003+05:30

Ok, so this has been waiting for a long time and finally I took the plunge. For a long time I was thinking that whether it makes sense to have a self-hosted blog which gives you more flexibility, control, (vanity) or to continue with the blogspot one.

And then the tough call of , what to name such a blog.

Well, its in action now so from now onwards, I am at nandanjha.com

This blogspot site remains, at least till it starts to get very few visitors but for all new updates, point your browser to nandanjha.com

Shantaram By Gregory David Roberts - Book Review (5/5)

2009-11-29T13:06:00.004+05:30

The big tome was gifted to my wife by someone about 3 years back. I think it came in 2005 and I finally picked it up from the top shelf of my wall clinging shelf-mesh-cum-library last month. Its 900+ pages and I am not a big fan of such heavy books, being a lazy reader I often take few life-times to finish one but of all the gambles I have taken in picking fat books (including 'Zen and the art..') I have been always able to finish.

So I finished this a while back and waited for couple of weeks to settle my oozed-out wonder-stuck eyes, gives some rest to my often-excited lower left pump and sort of let-it-sink before I attempt to write a quick review. Often the initial excitement dies down to a more informed insight and time makes you better.

My overall rating for the book is 5/5, after a long time. The last one I guess was 'The Kite Runner'. Here's a short scoop

Its based on Robert's own life in Mumbai, an Australian fugitive who is on a run and finds Mumbai interesting enough to hang-on. Its not an auto-biography but its a fact based fiction , now that sounds like a lawyer-lingo. Well, the protagonist is the author himself and he goes through his life in Mumbai as an expat, as a slum-dweller, as a mafia and finally finding himself amid Mujahideens. The plot is brilliant and characters are juicy and full and David ensures that the narration is engaging, novel but at the same time full with thrill.

The book is a Philosophical fiction by someone who takes us into those areas where a bulk of us have no access viz. Jhoparpatthis (slums), Black Markets / Mafia, Jails, Drugs and what not. Its a great read for academic purposes since it deals with today's world and while it would have its own share of writer's creativity , the details around Arthur Road Jail, Durgs, Cold Turkey are something which doesn't look far from reality. And mind you, the book is not about the main character, Lindsay aka Lin Baba aka Lin Bhai but it gives equal justice to all the others and doesn't make it into a self soul-search saga. Too many things happen all the time and all the characters go through a lot of transformations, in the end it almost reads like a suspense thriller where you would want to know, what would happen now.

There is a plan to make a movie where Johnny Depp is going to play the lead role, directed by Mira. The latest plan for release is 2011. For more than few times, I felt like doing a movie playing Lin and after some deliberation with myself, I settled for Nazeer.

Here's the wiki link and there is also a official website here.

Shantaram is the 2nd of a quartret which David has planned but I dont think other 3 ever made it or made it so far.

The book is also greatly recommended for folks who are looking beyond thrilling-engaging-edgy reads, some of the lines are exceptional.

I know with 900+ pages, it may sound thick but read it for 'Character Building' and one which you would enjoy unlike the traditional 'Character Building' activities. If you read the book, I would be delighted to read your views about the book in the comments section. I am hoping that if you chose to read this after my recommendation, I didn't let you down.

I just finished 'Outliers' by Malcom Gladwell and that review should happen shortly.

5 Steps to create a series of posts at Ghumakkar

2009-09-19T17:01:00.008+05:30

Often, we are in a situation where we have visited a number of places as part of some long vacation and when it comes to writing a trvelogue at Ghumakkar, we do not want to write all of it in one single story. In fact the vacation may not be long and you may want to break your short vacation story in few parts. Breaking not only helps you to better focus on each location/place in the right detail but it also helps the reader since not everyone would want to do the same vacation with the same itinerary.

In all these cases, wont it be nice if a reader who reaches any of your stories through a 'Google Search' or while browsing the site, is presented with a small 'Table of Content' with links of the all the stories of that particular vacation.

Well, you can do this at Ghumakkar and here's a small tutorial to achieve this. At the end of this post, I would also give you some links where this is being used at Ghumakkar.

5 Steps to create a series of posts at Ghumakkar

1. Write first post and Save it. Once saved, Edit the post and go to the bottom of the page. You would find two boxes like this

In the left box, choose "New Series" , click 'Start' and input a name. Click Save at the top right to save this.

What you have just done is that you have created a new Series and attached your first story with the series. Lets say that you create a new series called "Delhi - Sangla - Kaza - Manali - Delhi"

2. Now go ahead and publish the post.

3. Assuming that you would want to write another post for the same series, write another post/story and after saving again go to bottom.

This time, instead of choosing 'New Series', pick the name which you have created last time. See the snapshot below. And select 'End'.

4. Now suppose you want to add another story, simple repeat the 2nd step. What the software does in the background is that it would make the current 'End' as '2nd Last' and the latest one as 'Last'. It all works on the dates so the latest becomes the newest. 'Start' is the oldest in the series but in 'Table of Content' it appears first.

5. Nothing and enjoy your series of posts and send the link to your best friends. This is what a reader of your story would see if he finds any of your stories.

hope this is useful.If you have any questions please write a small comment below and I would promptly get back to you.

Till then, happy Ghumakkari and happy writing !!

Writing a Story at Ghumakkar

2009-08-23T09:24:00.003+05:30

Time to summarize few things so that its more accessible and makes it easy for me to redirect new Ghumakkars here than writing again, lazy me.

How you can keep contributing.

1. Try to write the story at the site itself or in a notepad and not MS-Word. Microsoft puts a lot of formatting information in its documents which are not well understood by web browsers, so simple text works fine.

2. Pick all your pics and then resize them using any image editing program. A smaller pics makes the story load faster, especially on bandwidth challenged places in India. I use http://webresizer.com/resizer/ to resize my pics. A width of 550 pixels works great in current layout. It might look like a pain but all good works involve some pain.

3. Insert pics. Here's a short tutorial http://jhaji.blogspot.com/2008/08/how-to-insert-photos-in-wordpress-25.html . Skip the part which talks about resizing since you have already done it using 2.

4. When done, after first para and a pic, click this [more] button.

When you click this button, it inserts a break-point in the story which ensures that the home page only shows a fraction of the story and one has to click on the title or on 'Click here to read full story" link. When someone does that then the real story page opens, e.g. http://www.ghumakkar.com/2009/08/23/walking-tour-of-isle-of-arran-scotland/ and 'views' gets recorded. If you look at the left corner, you would see 'Recent Most Viewed' so if your story gets enough views, it reaches there hence any new visitor would have a greater chance to find your story and read further.

and finally, never ever hesitate to write to me for any and everything. If all of the above sound like a big hassle then just write your story, collect your pics and send both to me over e-mail and I would get it done.

Happy Ghumakkari and Happy writing.

'Its Greek To Me' - Restaurant Review

2009-07-19T19:09:00.003+05:30

I found myself at this joint last week and thought that I would write a small quick review. Right opposite 'Deer Park', this place is a food-cum-drink place in Safdarjang Enclave. Very well located if you are somewhere in South Delhi else its a bit of a distance to cover. Here's an interactive Google Map for directions.

View 'Its Greek to Me' in a larger map

Its a Greek-Roman style of frugal seating with clean, light wooden chairs and tables , a light music in the background and no rush anywhere at all. I was there on a Sunday Lunch and the fact that I didn't see many people makes it a good place, who needs the ever crowded Gulatis on a hot summer day. Its on two levels with an open kitchen. Its a good place for a group of 4-6 people who just want to enjoy a gulp over lots of conversations.

They have a very decent collection to wet your throat with the usual Beer to more sophisticated Wines. You can get a Wine by glass and thats really very practical. The food is Greek/Italian/Roman class with baked chicken etc. I do not understand much about food so I would skip this part but you do get a rich collection to choose from and it seemed and tasted good. You do not get North Indian or Mughlai cuisine.

I dont think there are any happy hours because I didn't see any obvious mention of it anywhere but I wont be surprised if they have special deals for weekedays.

Price wise it seemed right priced. Mocktails at Rs 100 a piece are a steal. A lunch for two where we ordered two mocktails, one starter (Roast and Toast Lamb), one main cuisine (Vasilikos) set us back by Rs 1100 and the potion was enough for two people. You replace a drink/cock-tail in place of mock-tail, and it wont go beyond Rs 1600 which is nice.

The staff is courteous, effective and they dont sell which is good.

All in all, a place worth trying. My next goal is to convince my boss to take us out there so that I can have my share of bubbly at someone else's pocket.

Hope this is useful.

Mera Yaar - Jogiraj Sikidaar

2009-07-01T13:07:00.004+05:30

There was a time when I used to stay with friends , who were my colleagues in my previous company. Jogi, an old college friend, came back to Delhi and was with Zee. Since Zee was in Noida and we were in Noida, we had many evenings together.

He would steal an hour or two from his evening shift work, drop by, have a glass of beer and go back. Incidentally he would talk very little during that time because he would enter singing, sing-drink-sing, and exit singing.

Here's a MP3 of his work, old recording from some live concert. also he misses a note here/there because none of these were in a recording room. bad/no monitor at times, you almost sing on instinct. :-)

He is now in Dubai and i miss his songs.

Tuborg Pint has a tin kind of opener

2009-06-13T18:27:00.005+05:30

Most of the beer in India have non-twistable or non-screw caps which means that you need a bottle opener to open them. While this may sound perfectly logical and right way to do, you would find a lot of (esp of American origin) beer pints in America which can be just opened using hand by twisting the cap. You open them the way you open a half-a-litre Coke Pet Bottle.

Recently I found something which I have not seen so far here so thought that I would write a small blog. Well, I found a pint which has a cap which can be pulled off. The beer is called, Tuborg and for the pint (dont know about the full regular bottle) you do not a bottle opener. You simply pull it, the way you open a Coke or a Beer Tin, and it pops out. Happy.

Let me click some pics and show you, how it looks.

Here I am. The first two are the ones when its bottled.

And here's when its gone.

hope you like this information and by the way, I was saving the caps to shoot them some day and write this blog, the ones where the cap is intact are getting chilled for the evening.

'Most Watched' User Generated Video

2009-05-10T08:50:00.003+05:30

I bumped into this last week and I thought I would share this with you. A cute funny video of two kids.

There is lot of talk about this video on the internet. UGC (User Generated Content) was the backbone of Web 2.0 (with podcasting, blogging, review and commenting, rating and what not) and a video with millions of views probably validates that.

Watch it since its cute. Very cute.

Go Slow ....

2009-05-04T11:12:00.002+05:30

This was sent to me by Abhijit (http://www.ghumakkar.com/author/Abhijit/) and I thought that this makes so much of a good reading that one should simply spread it. I do not know how much of this I have personally been able to do. Thanks Abhijit for the gracious permission.

-----------------------------------------------------

It's been 18 years since I joined Volvo, a Swedish company. Working for them has proven to be an interesting experience. Any project here takes 2 years to be finalized, even if the idea is simple and brilliant. It's a rule.

Globalize processes have caused in us (all over the world) a general sense of searching for immediate results. Therefore, we have come to posses a need to see immediate results. This contrasts greatly with the slow movements of the Swedish. They, on the other hand, debate, debate, debate, hold x quantity of meetings and work with a slowdown scheme. At the end, this always yields better results.

Said in another words:
1. Sweden is about the size of San Pablo, a state in Brazil.
2. Sweden has 2 million inhabitants.
3. Stockholm, has 500,000 people.
4. Volvo, Escania, Ericsson, Electrolux, Nokia are some of its renowned companies. Volvo supplies the NASA.

The first time I was in Sweden, one of my colleagues picked me up at the hotel every morning. It was September, bit cold and snowy. We would arrive early at the company and he would park far away from the entrance (2000 employees drive their car to work). The first day, I didn't say anything, either the second or third. One morning I asked, "Do you have a fixed parking space? I've noticed we park far from the entrance even when there are no other cars in the lot." To which he replied, "Since we're here early we'll have time to walk, and whoever gets in late will be late and need a place closer to the door. Don't you think? Imagine my face.

Nowadays, there's a movement in Europe name Slow Food. This movement establishes that people should eat and drink slowly, with enough time to taste their food, spend time with the family, friends, without rushing.. Slow Food is against its counterpart: the spirit of Fast Food and what it stands for as a lifestyle. Slow Food is the basis for a bigger movement called Slow Europe, as mentioned by Business Week.

Basically, the movement questions the sense of "hurry" and "craziness" generated by globalization, fueled by the desire of "having in quantity" (life status) versus "having with quality", "life quality" or the "quality of being". French people, even though they work 35 hours per week, are more productive than Americans or British. Germans have established 28.8 hour workweeks and have seen their productivity been driven up by 20%. This slow attitude has brought forth the US's attention, pupils of the fast and the "do it now!".

This no-rush attitude doesn't represent doing less or having a lower productivity. It means working and doing things with greater quality, productivity, perfection, with attention to detail and less stress. It means reestablishing family values, friends, free and leisure time. Taking the "now", present and concrete, versus the "global", undefined and anonymous. It means taking humans' essential values, the simplicity of living.

It stands for a less coercive work environment, more happy, lighter and more productive where humans enjoy doing what they know best how to do. It's time to stop and think on how companies need to develop serious quality with no-rush that will increase productivity and the quality of products and services, without losing the essence of spirit.

In the movie, Scent of a Woman, there's a scene where Al Pacino asks a girl to dance and she replies, "I can't, my boyfriend will be here any minute now". To which Al responds, "A life is lived in an instant". Then they dance to a tango.

Many of us live our lives running behind time, but we only reach it when we die of a heart attack or in a car accident rushing to be on time. Others are so anxious of living the future that they forget to live the present, which is the only time that truly exists. We all have equal time throughout the world. No one has more or less. The difference lies in how each one of us does with our time. We need to live each moment. As John Lennon said, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans"..

Congratulations for reading till the end of this message. There are many who will have stopped in the middle so as not to waste time in this globalized world.

'Tasveer - 8 X 10' - Movie Review

2009-04-15T16:54:00.003+05:30

It was a free lunch and I happily grabbed it, since wifey was out and Pihu (my , I am 3, going on 4, kid) was at Nana's place. I am a big fan of Nagesh and would love to pay for my lunch anyday for Iqbaal, Dor, HB so the decision was made so much easier.

The movie is mostly shot in Canada and that's refreshing. Watching the greens, sparkling water bays, upmarket houses and what not. 'Precept' which produced the movie along with T-Series is not a great name to reckon but they did spend some money by shooting in Canada.

The plot is around Akki who can look beyond a photograph and can go back in time when the pic was shot. He is usually seen going back by a minute since by then he gets unconscious and is usually taken to a hospital after such a act. The film moves very well in the first half, tight editing, no-fuss dialogues, good locations, clean camera work and no distraction (Sorry, Akki doesn't bare. Ayesha looks beautiful and thats about it).

So far a good movie but come 2nd half and it falls apart. Let me give you the plot.

Akki's dad is murdered (a oil baron) and he makes his wife as the sole winner of the fortune. He has some friends and they were all there on the boat from where he fell and everyone thought that it was a case of accident. Come Javed Jaffery (He is Super, he acts as a HYDi, super) , a dismissed cop who claims that the dad was murdered and that starts Akki's journeys into past life.

Actually before the accident happened, a group photo was clicked by Sharmila (Akki's mom) and with that photograph he now goes behind the scene (1 minute past) and tries to figure out. I wont give you the complete story but once the truth is out, the film still goes for another 20 minutes. It reminded me the grueling last sequences of movies like Dar (KKKK....) and Bhoot where director/script-writer just got carried away.

No great music to write about. Javed shines brilliantly. Ayesha does well and Akki was pretty good.

My high point in the whole movie was to find old TV stalwarts on big screen after a long time viz. Benjamin Gilani, Anant Mahadevan and Girish Karnad.

Not recommended.

'Sa Re Ga Ma Pa' Lil Champs audtion at Delhi and me

2009-04-12T20:52:00.006+05:30

It was in far north of Delhi, as far as Rohini sector 3 at 'Mother Divine School' and from Indirapuram, Ghaziabad where I stay, I had to first go to Paschim Vihar to drop my 3.5 year old daughter and 19 year old niece in the safe custody of my in-laws (Joke time - Outlaws are Wanted) but if that is what, that be it and it took me close to 2 hours to do all of this.

Driving through the Darya Ganj, Jawahar Lal Nehru Marg ,watching the tonga-wallahs and leaving NDLS before you take the Paharganj flyover and meandering through ladder neon signs of hotels is a good fun on a Sunday since the market is closed. Rohtak road has still a lot of character left which is so difficult to find in new-age super-shiny-surfaces with routine signs and all that.

It is never hard to find what you are looking for in Delhi as long as you do not shy asking around. As we entered 'Mother Divine School' in Sector 3, Rohini, we took a good sweeping look and were pleasantly surprised to see a real large number of kids looking fwd to be next sensation.

There are kids who have come from as far as Jhansi for their pie of fortune, some kids really sounded well but were rejected and a couple was taken just to get some entertainment factor in the initial rounds.

We moved towards the registration kiosks and after the usual pleasantries, were ushered in an 'Audition Room'. I was there for about an hour or may be 45 minutes.

While sitting there, there was more than one instance when you have 3 cm dia goose bumps and you say, Voila but then judges have a different opinion. Later when I was a part of a bigger conversation with few people around, including Ashish Golwalkar (apparently the boss of the program from 'content' side and my motivation to be there, old friend) I realized that there are kids who would memorize few songs so well that you do not know whether its the play of a good gala-n-sur or just plain mugging. So while someone may sound super to you for few songs, they may not make the cut.

Then there was a single lady who wanted to make her kid do well and tell her husband that she can bring up a kid better, can't blame the mother entirely but not sure whether the 8 year old kid understood all of this.

Here's a video of a promising chap called 'Ankit'. He started with a Sufi and did very well. Later he took out a 4 times folded notebook sheet where he has written the 'scale' information of the songs he has prepared :).

The food was at Metro Walk, Pind Balluchi. @ 135 a mojito it sounded like a steal but it tasted more like Shikanji, a detailed review on that later.

Picked a carton of KF pints, Picked the dropped ones from P Vihar, picked a mutton-keema potion from Anand Restaurant (from the bylanes of CP), picked the weekly quota of Classic Verve and Regular for the clan and polished it with a saada paan (At Rs 6, its the best you can get) from Bengali Sweets, I was home before it was too dark and in time to not miss our cook.

So far so good.

'Aahar India - 2009' - A quick run

2009-03-08T19:32:00.013+05:30

On a Sunday afternoon, if you have nothing else to do then probably you pick up anything. Its not that bad and probably I am glamorizing it more, as all times. Today's HT edition had this little government kind of b/w advt which said that 'Aahar - 2009' (Aahar means food) is on at Pragati Maidan. So we decided to check it out. It came out to be pretty nice and I thought I would write a small note with few pics which I shot.

As per susta.org (Southern United States Trade Association), AAHAR, a premier exhibition for food, food processing, hotel and restaurant equipment and supplies, has been recognized as one of the leading events of its kind in Asia. SUSTA invites southern U.S. suppliers to participate in a trade mission to exhibit at AAHAR and meet with important industry players at the show. Pre-arranged one-on-one meetings, a guided tour of major retailers/food service organizations, and a market briefing are included in the mission, as well as free shipping for up to 100 lbs of product samples.....

Pragati Maidan is this vast unlimited exapanse of exhibition ground which has large (rather huge) halls and a good number of them, a cinema hall, few open-air theatres, few good large big restaurants and n number of food kiosks, fountains, lawns and what not. No wonder that during 'IITF' (India International Trade Fair), this place is easily able to manage a 1L+ crowd every day.

So after having our share of parking wows, we went it. The exhibition is spread in Halls 7-11 and in Hall 18. Hall 7-11 is more aimed for serious, professional folks. We could see machines which would sharpen knifes, pasteurize eggs, make cofee, juicers which could give gallons of juice and what not. Look at this pic, the machine was called 'Fire Coffee' maker or something like that.

Apart from equipment makers, there were folks like Sula Wine, probably they just bought space for good-recall factor since big names from hospitality sector must be visiting.

There were a lot of kiosks who were just displaying a specialized stuff, though a lot of them were showcasing fine and eye-catching crockery stuff. These were not for sale but to get leads or to invite potential buyers for a discussions.

Eager to say something

Polka Dots

We also noticed few cake-makers kind of kiosks, where they were making cakes right there using a mix of machine-n-man. Check this pic, its a cream-flower, notice the yellow lines (kinda stamen/pollen heads)

Yummy

Hall 7-10 are in continuation so you do not need to step out. We kept going. Apart from food folks, there were folks who give furniture, mattresses, other hospitality related stuff as well but mostly it was about food.

Waiting..

There was this interesting thing. Check it out.

Then we moved out of 7-10 and headed towards Hall no - 18 which was more popular among touristy types like us since it had ice-cream places, masalas, frozen foods and with some of them allowing you to have a taste as well.

Perils of a Digi-cam. This I shot while on the way, its the place which has food-kiosks. During bigger fairs, this place is full to brim but today we could pass through it.

As we entered, my little one was very excited to see these large sized fruits (of course, fake).

There were many stalls who were giving you a little cheese or a tea-spoon-scoop of ice-cream or chips and so on. Of course, good enough reason for 'gelato ice-cream' to gather a good crowd. We had our bit as well.

Hall 18 was spread over two levels. We looked around, did a bit of shopping, bought some frozen stuff and came out. It was close to 6 when we were out but Delhi Summer has started to set in so days are getting long. The light was pretty good to take a shot at our tri-color.

Thanks for reading this far. Its time to have a couple of KF pints.

How to put 'More' Tag in a Word Press Powered Blog Post

2009-02-02T14:11:00.004+05:30

Unlike Blogspot, Wordpress gives you a nifty way to show a excerpt of you story on the home page. This is very useful when you would want to show multiple stories on the home page, trying to accommodate as many above the fold.

Here's a quick primer on how to do this.

There are two modes in the edtior viz. Visual and 'HTML Code'.

If you are in visual code, then click this button, look at illustration, to insert a 'break point'. This would ensure that wherever multiple stories are displayed, only the part which is before break-point would be shown.

Same thing can be achieved by clicking [more] button if you are in 'HTML Code'.

Hope this is useful for fellow bloggers.

"Imagining India" - By Nandan Nilekani - Quick Review

2008-12-11T19:39:00.002+05:30

If you are a subscriber of Outlook, that now iconic weekly news magazine, then you would know that you get a mini-book kind of thing every few weeks. A very good concept from the point of readers since now they can taste the book and then decide whether they want to buy or not , as well as from the stand point of Author, since now at least they have a bigger chance to reach more people.

The last book-excerpt which I got was for Nandan Nilekani's book, titled "Imagining India".

The book reads like an essay and talks about various issues around development, IT, policies, population and likes. Since this booklet is of a size of a mini-book (5 inches BY 5 inches), its not the complete book but it has 100 odd pages so I would think that it has good enough to introduce you to what the real book would carry.

I think 'Imagining..' borrows heavily from the works of other people and they tries to distill that information with his own opinions in a essay or factual kind of way. There are interesting things which you learn like 'Population Dividend'. Essentially a concept where large population is not a bane but a boon. This concept is not Nandan's but he has incorporated this in great detail by including the works of lots of economists, with due credit given at multiple places.

In another chapter it talks about various programs which Government of India is pursuing in the areas of land reforms, BPL subsidies, information dissemination , electronification of rural India. Again most of the text is not his but a great collection and a good amount of hard work must have gone to research this.

The book is not very easy to read since its neither a story, nor a travel log, not even a piece of opinion. The closet this book reminds me is 'India ' which Publications Division, Ministry of I & B, used to publish every year. That book was like a bible to all IAS aspirants and it used to have all the information about government policies, all the data and likewise. I am also not sure whether you would want to keep this book as a reference material because its not a reference material book.

I was talking to someone the other day and I found out that the famous title of Thomas Friedman books was actually Nandan's line, viz. 'The World is Flat'. There is a mention of Thomas at few places in the booklet.

The byline of the title is "Ideas for the new century" and that would make one expect that the book would talk about clear, crisp, implementable ideas. In the booklet, Nandan touches upon the need of having a common identifier for all Indian Citizens. He informs that there is a PAN no for all Tax Payers, there is a Voter Id card for all 18+ registered voters, there is a ration card for BPL folks and then there are Passport IDs, Driving License Nos and so on. Though the need for having a common ID is well felt and people understand that we would get benefit from it, Nandan fails to address the need through a simple idea.

All in all, I would think that one should probably wait for another book from Nandan.

The New "Honda City 2008" is going to be a rage

2008-12-06T18:37:00.008+05:30

The news was out almost 6 months back but Honda would not make it public. "Honda City 2003" model still looked very new and stylish and probably no other car has been able to move them from the top position. Whether its the design or the finesse, so much so that at my workplace, Honda City was the de-facto standard car for anyone who wanted to buy a sedan which is plush, valuable, has good post-sales service and overall a value for the expense.

The new one is not bigger or powerful rather in terms of spec its a tad below than the previous one but it deliver greater performance, power as well as fuel efficiency, and thats something which is credit worthy.

Interior is plusher and have been designed to keep the Indian home maker in mind who prefers to have boxes, small packets and what not when she is taken out by her better half or goes out by herself with her family.

In terms of audio capabilities, there is no CD Player. Instead you get a USB connector and that's a bold step assuming that iPods are now household items, at least for the junta who drives a car like Hondy City.

The boot is bigger because the fuel tank have been moved. Infact the boot is now bigger than the Civic.

The greatest thing which I liked was the safety. All the models have air-bags and have ABS. Unlike all other vendors (leaving Skoda), they are not restricting the option of Airbags to a particular variant, rather they are setting this as a benchmark. I still remember that when I bought my first 4-wheels, there were no seat-belts on the back seat, now its mandatory. I hope that government makes air-bags as mandatory at least for > 1000 CC segment.

And before I windup, one more salute for the Arrow design which looks so much ahead of its times. Great work Honda Team.
Check more at Honda website

Posting in Hindi on Word Press

2008-11-29T13:42:00.004+05:30

Its been a while I had this travel blog site called www.ghumakkar.com and for some reason or the other, I was not able to post a story in Hindi. I looked around but found no help. While hunting around, I could see numerous blogs in Hindi and a lot of them were on Word Press and that made the life more difficult. I asked around and somehow it worked for everyone except me.

Then one day, after a ghumakkar asked me this question again, I hunted again and could finally fix the issue. I found the answer here. So I thought that I would probably write a small post detailing the solution since the above forum post can be a little cryptic.

Problem - I am able to get Hindi Text and when I paste it in Word Press Post, it appears fine, but when I save the post it becomes '?????'.

Solution - The relevant property of the SQL fields which decide the encoding for the post body doesn't have the right 'collation' property.

Solution in Detail
If your problem is exactly what I have described about then you can do following. This actually means tinkering with your Word Press database so I would advise against getting adventurous.

Do Following.
1. Find a tool which gives access to your database. In my case its phpMyadmin since I am on www.hostmonster.com.

2. Once you are inside phpMyadmin, click on the relevant database of the wordpress installation. If you have just one site and only one WP then just choose the one which you see. The typical name in the default installation is something like '_wrdp1'.

3. Once you click the database, you would see a list of tables.

4. One by one, Choose the following tables
- wp_option
- wp_comments
- wp_posts

and click 'Edit'.

In Editing mode change "Collation" setting to "utf8_unicode_ci" of following
1. in wp_option -> option_value
2. in wp_comments -> comment_content
3. in wp_posts -> post_content and post_title

Hope this works for you. Happy Blogging.

Who is M S Dhoni and why everyone loves him

2008-11-19T21:52:00.002+05:30

The title of my story doesn't finish with a question mark. Try reading this

Who is M S Dhoni and why everyone loves him ?

and you realize that something is wrong with the composition.

There is no question behind everyone loving him, its so apparent and clear that no one would have this question and may be thats the precise reason behind every one loving him. The trigger for this story is a 'pari-charcha' (panel discussion) I heard the other day on the government FM channel. India had won their 2nd ODI against England and most of it was because of Yuvraj Singh who played like hell (batting as well as bowling). But surprisingly, the panel expert attributed the win to Dhoni since he thought that it was Dhoni who gave the ball to Yuvi and Viru and that decision turned out to be a winner. I am sure if Yuvi and Viru would have failed, that expert would have still commended Dhoni for trying new faces and for being brave.

For the benefit of some of my readers who may not know enough, Dhoni is the man everyone has his eyes on as far as Cricket is considered. He got us the 20-Twenty World Cup, led India to series Wins in ODI and recently was made Captain for the Test side and there too he gave us a Series Win against Australia.

As per Wikipedia, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (born July 7, 1981 in Lavali Vilage Almora, Uttarakhand) is an Indian cricketer and the current captain of the Indian team. Initially recognized as an extravagantly flamboyant and destructive batsman, Dhoni has come to be regarded as one of the coolest heads to captain the Indian ODI side. Under his captaincy, India won the 2007 ICC World Twenty20, CB Series of 2007-08 and IDEA Cup India-Sri Lanka ODI Series of 2008, the first ever bilateral ODI series win of India in Sri Lanka and The Border-Gavaskar trophy 2008 in which they beat Australia 2-0 thus letting India regain its spot at No.2 in world test rankings(fallen to No.3 after Sri lanka tour). Dhoni is currently ranked the best ODI batsman in the world by the ICC. [1] Mahendra Singh Dhoni was awarded the ODI Player of the Year award in 2008, the first Indian player to achieve this feat.

Now add to this the fact that he also happens to be largest Tax Payer in his home state of Jharkhand. With so many endorsements and so much of new-age cricket (IPL, Champions' League and so on), I am sure that he is going to keep that spot for some more years.

Having learned enough of him, I still wonder that why everyone loves him. I attributed my fan-ship to the fact that I belong to Bihar and he seemed like a nice small town guy from the next town. But then its not only me, its everyone.

And after lot of thought, I guess the reason is that he doesn't come from a existing bastion of Indian Cricket. He is no Sachin (Mumbai), nor Rahul (blr) and definitely not Saurav (Bengal). He is from a place which is probably as in-significant from Cricket perspective that it doesn't matter whether you lap the place or ignore it. And from the same perspective, if I own him as a Marathi or Kannadika or a Punjabi, I do not feel odd. To me he is like from my little town. The disguise has acted as a blessing.

I was brought up in the age of Kapil Dev and I was a huge fan of him till late, and later I lost all interest in the game. But recently that interest has again re-kindled and I love watching Dhoni.

I somehow think that this is our best chance to get the 'World Cup'.

Go Dhoni Go !!

"The Mickey Mouse Show" in Delhi, India - Quick Review

2008-11-10T21:28:00.003+05:30

My little one went to this show with her mom the other day which was very well marketed and publicized over TV Channels.

I thought I would write a quick review, so here it is, based on my interaction with my little one's mother.

The show had a very simple set, to the extent of being not too impressive at least in the beginning. It was in Siri Fort Auditorium which can house at least 600 people and it was a full house as per the ticket sales. The show started almost half an hour late and interestingly the house was not more than a third full of its capacity. But during the show, people started trickling in and it was a full house by the end.

The audience was mainly the young moms with the small kid, often with a maid. The show started with two anchors, who were very impressive. After the initial ice-breaking and warm-up they introduced Mickey Mouse. That was high point of the show when Mickey came on stage, super production value. They did a 30 minute performance with Mickey hosting a TV Show (Jay Leno sorts) calling Goofy, Minnie, Donald and Pluto. They had lot of fun with each other and Kids loved it. From the TV Show the crew moved to Bolywood and they danced to Bolywood numbers like Nagada-Nagada, Jhoom Barabar Jhomm etc. While this change was happening, they switched to Indian dresses, Lehnga n all. There was this dance troupe as well. As the part of Bolywood Premiere , they also introduced Romeo and his lady love Laila. As expected kids got more interested in Romeo than the Mickey. All in all Kids had fun especially during the end when the anchors dropped their hair among Kids.

All this lasted 30 minutes. The ticket prices were Rs 500, Rs 1000 and Rs 1500 and one can book tickets at http://www.bookmyshow.com/.

Now the big question, do we recommend. Well, its not a value-for-money for Rs 1000. Probably a NSD powered Children's festival like Jashn-e-Bachpan at Rs 40 a show is much more killer but then this one is from Diseny. So dust your address book to see if you can find some Jugad. One of our friend's found one and took us in for free, and for a free ride, its definitely more than worth it.

Community Site for Nagars - www.nagarwara.com and more

2008-11-08T13:05:00.007+05:30

An old colleague pinged me sometime back. He was with Adobe India for couple of years and then moved out of India for greener pastures, taking a position in IBM, USA.

He wanted to build a website for his community. While looking at various solutions, he was not sure whether he should use a "Content Management System" like Joomla which is feature-rich and appear more suited or rely on something like Word Press which is rather thin but quick to setup. I had tried my hand at Joomla and from his initial set of requirements, it seemed to me that its the right thing to invest in but I also warned him that Joomla has a steep learning curve.

Few more chat sessions and he settled on Wordpress and with in couple of days, he was up and running. He has always been a very active and energetic person, a Go To guy, but setting a website that quickly needs lot of hard work. Though he attributed that to his family being back to India leaving him with ample time to work on the website.

The website is called www.nagarwara.com and has picked up well in the short span of its existence. Being a Gujrati community site, its not very surprising that he quickly received offers for hosting advts.

This post is not entirely because of him starting a website for his community, rather this post is for a wonderful work which www.nagarwara.com has been able to do in its short span.

Recently they ran a story about a person in need, who was undergoing medical treatment and would have tremendously benefited from any help. Though now the site is only open for its community members, but here is the link of the story : http://www.nagarwara.com/2008/10/23/urgent-medical-help-for-mrs-indira-naresh-dave1/

It was not long before lot of Nagars came forward and helped him. My bro-in-law's brother works at Vadodra (Reliance) and my bro-in-law often visits him, and one observation which he made about Gujjus is that they really help each other, esp when someone is in need. I had this thought in my mind and when my friend, Nimesh Nagar, told me about Mrs. Dave's case and how a short post helped her, I was not surprised.

I think its so much nice for Nimesh to create a platform and once you know that the platform is being used for these deeds, you can only wish them more luck.

All the best and good luck.

iWoz - Autobiography of Steve Wozniak - Book Review

2008-11-07T15:10:00.003+05:30

I picked this book from Khan Market about a month back and from the cover, its a easy decision since this book is about Steve Wozniak who created first computer or so the cover claims.

It was a easy and quick read since its been written in first person and has tons of events. Even though there is a co-author, it doesn't appear like ghost-written book. The style of expressions is very frank, fluid and on the face. It starts with Steve growing up as a child, getting influence and impressed by his Engineer Dad, doing pranks and all that.

Later he meets Steve Jobs, and Apple is formed. As a co-founder of such a impressive and change-leading organization, probably you would start to have great expectations and you would keep discounting the author for the so much I-I-I kind of statements in the beginning but as the book matures, it seemed to me that if Woz would not have met Steve Jobs, he would have been another hard working bright engineer. And somehow the book doesn't focus much on that. A better part of the book covers the time when Steve was designing Apple 1 and later Apple 2, the computer which sort of introduced computing to home users.

He was instrumental in starting Apple and till the point it created Apple II computer and after that he was getting disconnected and later moved out (though he was still on payroll). Later Steve started another company called CL9 (Cloud Nine) and they wanted to create a 'Universal Remote' and that didn't work. He had three marriages, first two didn't work too well. Finally he spent lot of time teaching kids.

For one thing, this book doesn't sound like a piece of inspiration. Rather it might piss you off as you read claims after claims of being first in lot many things. Its a good read and one should read it for the facts and to get Steve's side of story. But beyond that, its just another book.

"Kabab Kings" in Shoprix Mall - Sector 61 is GOOD

2008-11-04T11:05:00.003+05:30

We had lunch at Food Court in Shoprix Mall, which is located in Sector - 61, Noida. Its right on the road which connects the GIP with NTPC and goes all the way till Flex. I never too much admired the 'Food Court' of Shoprix because its very noisy and overall ambiance is more like a open food street. I like that ambiance but it has to come at a cost which suits it, at Shoprix the prices are still of that of a restaurant. So anyway, it was a large group and some of us chose to have Indian Mughlai.

We ordered food from Kabab King and it was awesome. These days they are giving a deal where 3rd dish is free. We order a chicken-based platter, a mutton-based platter and we got a ghost-biryani free. For each platter, we got 2 rotis/naan , a bowl of Dal Makhani, a small potion of Kabab (Burra or Kathi) and a small potion of Tandoori chicken/mutton. We ordered more Rotis since we were a group of four and we had a full meal. The total damage was Rs 420 including tip. Not only it came with a reasonable price, the food quality was super, it was served in clean plates and it was very fresh. Interestingly, it was funny to see that people who have ordered thing like Pizza from other counters had to wait more.

I am going to go there again soon.

Website Links for Indian Railways

2008-11-02T11:42:00.003+05:30

I am an old user of http://irctc.co.in, the revolutionary Indian Railways website through which you can book rail tickets, get PNR information etc. I remember that there was this website called Indianrail.gov.in which would give you the latest 'Time Table' and all that. Recently I learned about a new website which is really a high speed functional side, though the user-interface is a little geeky, its called erail.in. With these thoughts, I think
it might be a good idea to pick the important ones and put them in this post so that it can act as a a quick reference.

Top Websites for Indian Railways
1. http://www.indianrail.gov.in/index.html - This is the official website and is a decent site but overtime other sites are offering better features. But its still the offical site, so you want to check 'Ticket Cancellation Rules' or 'Break Journey Rules' or want to know the websites of Easter, Western or other zone then visit this site.

2. http://irctc.co.in/ - This is the ticketing site and is being managed by 'Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Limited'. Beyond ticket booking, probably I wont recommend this site for anything else. I heard that now you can book tickets at some of the private websites (likes of make my trip, Yatra etc) as well but this is still the so called 'official' one. Its excruciatingly slow at times but still functional.

3. http://erail.in/ - This is my pick these days and I keep folks referring to this one. Its a no frill but very complex website which is meant to give you the information you need in no time. Its a feature-rich site and it may take few visits to really understand the user-interface but once you have a good hang of it, just visit this. You can get train time table, seats availability, trains between two stations etc in a jiffy.

4. http://www.trainenquiry.com - This is one website which seemed to me ahead of time when I discovered it. This site gives you the running information of any train in real time. If enough awareness is spread, it can save lots of calls which people frenetically make to Railways to find out the running information. This is maintained by CRIS. I think they should get into with some kind of deal with telecom providers so that I can get SMS for any train, if I register. It could be a simple alert service where I can ask myself to be notified everytime it has a new information for a train. For a 18 hour journey, usually the status is not updated more than 5-6 times, so if I need to go to station to pick someone, i would have the latest info.

5. http://irfca.org/ - Finally the website of rail fans. If you are one then you dont need to know what is Rail fan. If you are a Rail lover then you must visit this site.

I would close my list here but I know that I must have missed some so let me know (post a comment) and I would add them here.

Turning 35 and looking back

2008-10-31T16:32:00.004+05:30

I am now 35+ years by my biological age. I wanted to write a small post here, mostly to read it again when I turn 40 or at some greater age.

First 22-23 years were mostly dedicated to formal education with some sprinkles of extra-curricular like theater, public speaking, writing. In terms of education it was a very regular one, with a graduate degree from Kirori Mal College, DU , in pure sciences (B.Sc) in 1994. Then a PG Diploma in Computers after my attempts to get into a MA (International Studies) at JNU failed. The high point of this phase was the time between 1992-1995. During this period I got exposed to a much bigger world doing lots of theater, learning lot many things and shredding so much of baggage which any avg middle class study-driven boy keeps. This meant going to various college fests, winning acting awards and so on. I was almost staying by myself after my class XI so I had more time and little or no family-pressure. After I finished my college in 1994, I enrolled for a evening course in Urdu. Did a program with National Museum and spent lot of them in their huge library. :). I also started to write as a Theater critic for a 'Sunday Mail' publications. Lots of things happening during this time. I stayed at JNU for probably 3 odd months.

Later a new group of friends in the PG course. My school life is not the high-point of my first 22-23 years of life since I didn't do much in school days, more so because there weren't enough avenues. My father had put to the best school which he could as per his means so I am really lucky to get what I got but as a school it didn't indulge in any genuine extra-curricular or things of that sort.

Next comes the work life. With my first job in a garage firm ACPL in early 1996, writing anti-virus TSR programs in assembly language was fun. My first salary was Rs 3600. When my daughter starts her school from April'2009, I would probably be paying more than Rs 3600 as her monthly tuition fee. And she is not going to a new age, new world, 20 students a call, international, all air-conditioned school. Its a regular school. But Rs 3600 were enough to pay for room rent, conveyance expenses, food etc. I was also taking some tuition which used to give me another Rs 650 - Rs 900 and most of that were getting saved. My next job was with Newgen (1997 - 1999) and Newgen was indeed a large firm. Then a brief stint at Quark, followed by Legato and finally at Adobe for last 7 years, since January 2002.

The high point of this period was 2000 - 2004 when two things happened. At a first level, this was the first time when I started to live with friends. Some of us took a large duplex flat in Noida and that bond is still very strong. I spent about 4 years there (2000 - 2003) and they were simply out of the world. I also bought my first car while I was there i.e. in Oct 2001. It was a WagonR and I still have it. We were at house no 437 in sector 37 and sometime back, we even attempted to have a blog on that.

Meanwhile I reconnected with some of the old college friends and met some new people in the process and we had a gang. We made numerous outstation trips and it was simply a blast time. Later I got married in Oct 2003 to a real old friend who was part of that gang and we had more parties. In fact there was a party almost every other day. We bought our 2nd Car, a Mahindra Scorpio, in 2004 and that meant more outstation trips.

By the mid of 2004 things started to move a little away. I had moved to my own house after my marriage so the connection to friends with whom I stayed with was gradually getting weak. The old college friend gang was also getting thinner since one of them moved to London. Others got occupied as they got married.

In 2005, Pihu came into our life. While Pihu was coming, our outstations trips reduced, gradually coming to zero. Parties stopped happening since we can't any long have a a drink-all-night-smoke-any-where scene. By the time Pihu was 2 months, we started our outstations trips to break the monotony. By the time Pihu was an year old, we moved to a new house and setting that up was keeping us busy. By this time, parties have almost stopped or probably they have taken a new form which meant less people, more clam and all that.

I would think that this is the time when the 2nd golden era finished. This was the time between 2006 begining to 2007 mid.

Smita took to work again and that pepped up things. Pihu started to go to Play School. And by the beginning of 2007, things started to change. We were again going out. Later I started Ghuamakkar in July 2007. Later in the year, I drove to Jaisamler. Things were again bright and chirrupy. In 2008, I drove to Allahabad and later all the way to Darbhanga. My work at Adobe was going steady and after a few changes, Smita was back to ZEE which she was enjoying. Zee gave her the freedom to work at flexi time. We also booked a house at the posh ATS, Paradiso, Greater Noida in early 2008. Last summer my niece has now started to live with us as she has taken a program at a nearby college.

Last month we went to Dubai, first international trip for the family together. I would guess that 3rd era has started from early this year and would probably carry on for some time. I would guess that we would most likely move to ATS house in 2009 as we complete 3 years in July 2008 in current house. or May be it would happen in March 2010.

I dont know what lies in future and probably I would want to write this kind of note when I get to 50.

Bravo M. S. Dhoni for enrolling to a Graduate Program

2008-10-30T15:33:00.004+05:30

For a while I have been wanting to write some thing on the latest cricket sensation, Mahendra Singh Dhoni or MSD and I didn't want to just write about his cricket scores. So when I learnt that he enrolled for a Bachelor of Commerce program , to be a graduate, it made me to pause and think and probably share some of my observations.

MSD enrolling for a graduate program is not a normal thing to happen. He is too big a star and I wont be surprised if down the line, he would actually be awarded honorary degrees by the high-n-mighty of the academia world.

His enrollment is to be seen in the context of the millions of fans, mostly growing kids who watch him in Boost advt along with Sachin and want to become MSD one day. Imagine that each one of them would understand that leaving studies entirely is not the thing to do. Dhoni did his class X and XII from DAV School,Shyamli, Ranchi scoring 66 % and 56 % respectively. Both of these scores are ok scores, if not good or great, esp if ones sees them in the light of him spending almost all of his time on playing professional cricket.

He enrolled at St. Xavier's College, Ranchi and probably he wont have to attend as many classes as other folks but he would still need to write his exam. Its a really bold step and it wont come easy. Bravo Dhoni.

I keep telling everyone these days that someone should make a movie on him, name the movie as 'Inspector Vijay' with Dhoni in lead role. Believe me it would be a hit.

Use 'Copper Tank' Geysers instead of 'Steel Tank' Geysers

2008-10-29T11:19:00.003+05:30

I noticed that my lone Geyser is leaking when we tried using it on one of those rainy but not-so-cold days. We ignored the problem since it was still not winters and later thought that the temperature regulator knob which is at the base of Geyser might be the culprit.

Meanwhile to mitigate the risk (Wow, what a phrase) I installed another one in my 2nd loo which was lying in my store, feeling left out. You know, just to have a backup. The leaking continued. Finally I had the time (rather inclination) to call a plumber but he was not of much help. Later I got hold of an electrician and he told me that the tank is leaking, there is no problem with the knob.

So far so good. I was relieved to know that now we have isolated the cause and now its a matter of just fixing the tank. But as you would have guessed, it was not that simple. After looking at the tank, I was told that I have been a stupid person to buy a steel-tank Geyser. Steel-Tank Geyser can't sustain the high pressure water which most of the new-world high-rise apartment gets and if for some reason they leak, they can't be repaired unlike a Copper-Tank one. Also Steel-Tank-Geyser are not known to handle too-hot or too-cold situations, both of which is fairly common here.

Well, I didn't know that there is something called a Steel-Tank Geyser and a Copper-Tank Geyser. I just worried about buying one of reputed brand. I had bought a Usha-Lexus which is like one of the better ones.

Anyway, that electrician gone and more time passed. Meanwhile my wife fitted a LPG-Gas-powered geyser in the 3rd loo (yeah, we have so many of them), giving me more time to put my act together.

I asked around and found out that I may be able to get a Steel-Tank from Usha if I work hard. A more worldly solution is to junk this and buy a new one, this time with a copper-tank.

I am yet to make up my mind on what would I end up doing but I thought that I would spread this advice since the winters are zeroing in. Always buy a Copper-Tank Geyser.

Troubleshooting "Header Image Rotator plugin" for Wordpress!

2008-10-26T19:35:00.004+05:30

For a while I was looking at a way to change the photos on my travel experience site with least effort. Not that I finally found a good answer but I did find a WP Plug-In which seemed to be doing the job. This plug-in is called "Header Image Rotator plugin for Wordpress!" and here's the website of the author.

So I quickly downloaded and set it all up but it didn't work. Then I put a post at the forum but unfortunately I didn't hear back. I searched around and I could not find any answer.

At the same time my brother-in-law and myself were thinking about it, not the plug-in but about the fact that we should write the necessary code to change header-photos on its own. So recently both of us sat together and thought that before we write a new piece of code,lets see if we can fix this wp image rotator plug-in. We were doing everything as per manual but somehow it was not working.

Let me give a brief of how this plug-in works.

1. Normally any WP template, worth its salt, would have a style-sheet.
2. Typically they would have a header-image.
3. Header-image will have its own div or its own descriptor in the .css file.
4. Normally, header.php file would be using this div to set the header-image.
5. When we use this plugin we copy certain photos at a location and then tell the plugin the div which the header.php is using.
6. Ideally, the plug-in would replace the div with its own code.

After not making any headway, we though about looking at the executed code which the browser was getting. So we loaded the home page on a browser and did 'View Source'. What we found was that the plug-in was indeed setting the right div to a random image but after that statement, the original template was again setting the same div to what it usually sets, so what was indeed happening was
1. Plugin sets a random image from your collection as header-image
2. Then, the original template sets the default or what-so-ever header-image to that div.

End result is that for a user, the world is all same.

Here's how we fixed it
1. We copied the style-sheet div section of the header-image in the .css file and created another one with a different name. In my case the header-image css was . I created another called .
2. In plug-in settings, I mentioned as my css id for header-image.
3. In header-php, we used instead of

And Voila it worked.

If you are having some problems here, you can try your luck by doing above.

"Govindam Prasadam - ISKCON Noida' - Nice and homely food

2008-10-23T21:21:00.004+05:30

Someone suggested that we try 'Govindam Prasadam' at ISKCON and being a sporty lot, most of us said, Why not. The other reason besides us being sporty was that on thursday, office food is a little drab in comparison to other days and 'Govindam Prasadam' was just of blocks away from our office in sector - 25A.

It was a group of 7 and after a 10 minute stroll, we found ourselves at the modest looking, 15 X 20 eating joint of ISKCON. The ISKCON at sector- 32 (right opposite the towering NTPC office in sector-23, on Atta-Flex road) is a new thing and probably the construction is still on. I would guess that the restaurant would get a bigger home once the construction is complete.

As of now, its a humble little place with polymer chairs and tables. Unlike the one in 'East of Kailash' this one doesn't give you many choices but I guess thats a matter of time. It can probably house 25 odd people at a time so it might get a little busy during peak time, also it may not be a great idea to enjoy this outing with a large group.

There are two Thalis which you can take. Rs 35 for a mini-Thali and Rs 45 for a normal Thali. In a regular thali you get unlimited supply of chapatis, two vegetables, one raiyta and rice. You also get some basic Salad and a sweet, both of which didn't seem to be under the 'unlimited' category. I think in mini Thali, you dont get sweet. Staff is polite and alert. They are usually the first ones to spot a need for another offering and are generous in their servings. All of us liked the food very much and would recommend it any day. Its light, fresh and very very homely. I would bet whether you can get this much at this hygiene level at Rs 45.

Since now the weather doesn't demand cool confines, I would suggest that you must try this on one of those boring office days. If you do try then please comment here on your experience.

10 Point Guide for Cracking Nursery Admissions

2008-10-20T11:16:00.002+05:30

This is from a personal experience and incremental learning which we underwent while trying to get our little daughter admitted to a school in Noida. Initially we were not panicky over the whole situations but after the some what initial unpleasant interactions, listening to fellow parents who were as pained, getting frustrated over the opaqueness of the whole process, we had to put our head down for a while and we started to think beyond the normal.

Both of us work at very reputed organization, at socially impressive steps of the rat-race corporate ladder (if anyone really cares), are young and honest, our offices are in Noida, we stay closer to Noida and so on. It seemed to us and our well-wishers that we would sail through but as you could imagine that it was definitely not very smooth.

So, cutting the crap, here's my personal 10 point guide for fellow parents. This is just out of my head and there is no data but if we all collaborate and share our information (write a comment) then we can refine the points over time, making it more effective.

10 Point Guide
1. Plan early. Read blogs. Join discussion forums,www.nurseryadmissions.com is really good, collect information about dates/names of school/criteria etc. Having this information would help you to do those extra things like getting a lease-agreement etc.

2. Make a list of 10 schools and put them in order of your preference. I would suggest that you must try 10 and probably that is enough.

3. Working Parents + Day Care (Creche) doesn't work. So if you can find a way to have your baby go to grand-parents then have it. If you can't then plan for it and when you fill the form, mention that they go to grand-parents.

4. Parents' educational qualifications count a lot. So if you have done a PG Diploma in HR while you were not doing much in life and are now a creative head of an Advt. Organization and think that writing PGDBM in HR is low-class then dump the thought and flaunt it. Schools love these things, probably because they are in education business, so mention all those courses esp if they are PG courses.

5. Schools do not understand corporates. So work-at-home is a sort of new-age thing for them, so be a little careful when you claim that you are mostly at home or at beach. Its always better to be a conformist and say that your work timing is 8 to 5.

6. Some professions do not work well. So if you are a lawyer, a media professional, a cop then you are not one of those good people around. Find a way to hide it. For example, an environmental civil lawyer is still a better one than a criminal lawyer. A safe way to portray would be to show your job as a dull-back office-insignificant one by adding necessary designations. So if you are a cop, say that you are posted at Head-Quarter's PF Wing or some such crap. I know cops dont read blogs but you get the idea. If you are a business-man, then probably you can say that you are a consultant and so on.

7. Some Job functions doesn't work well. One such job is Sales and Marketing. Somehow I have a sense that anyone who is into 'Sales' or into 'Marketing' is perceived as 'Miss Chamko' of 'Chasme-baddur' fame. In simpler words, if you are in 'Marketing', you might be looked down, more so from folks in Academia. Hide it. One advice would be to change your Job Designation, add something academic to it. For example, add 'Research' or 'Analysis' or some such crap. Try reading 'Head of Marketing - North' and then read 'Head of Marketing Research - All regions', somehow the later sounds more academic.

8. Stay in Noida. If you dont or can't then get into a Rent-Lease agreement and claim that you are in Noida. Except Somerville which insists on interacting with you through 'courier', everyone else would need a proof only at the time of admission. They would accept 'Rent Least Agreement' as a valid proof.

9. This is a little tricky but dont behave with school as equals. You are not as equal as them and thats the reason they dont treat you one being equal. Always go with the assumption that anyone with whom you interact (more true for big brothers like DPS, Apeejay, Amity, Cambridge etc then the newer ones like Khaitaan which is really polite) is your school principal. Even the nursery teachers who would take your interview (yeah, I know it sucks when they ask you those big questions about parenting) would love you, if you bow a bit and wish them. Be submissive, Yes Mam Yes Sir. They love it.

10. It would be harsh to be know-all so I leave the last to you.

I know some of the schools are not going to like this list and I would really encourage them to being some open-ness to the whole system. Its really a painful exercise for a Kid and parents and one thing with which we can all benefit is getting some transparency.

All the best and good luck !!!

Father Agnel, Noida - Quick Notes

2008-10-19T16:42:00.002+05:30

For our Kid's admission, we applied for Father Agnel as well. I visited the school couple of times and one of my friend's son studies there. Here's some info about the school which I learned during this time and which might help fellow parents.

Location - Sector 62. Its on the road which connects Labour Chowk to NH24. The other way is to find Fortis hospital in Sector 62 and then go West from Fortis, its right at the end.

Father Agnel is located very well for residents of Sector-62 which has a large no of apartments, Indirapuram which is just on the other side of N24 and Sector 55,56,57,58.

View Larger Map

The above is an interactive map so you can move the mouse and can also get directions from anywhere.

Father Agnel is a convent school and they have other schools in Delhi and elsewhere. Its a convent format but its a CBSE board. The one in Noida where we applied, seemed to have decent infrastructure, with clean small lawn in front, a moderately big play-ground in the back and not-so-large main school building.

What really impressed me was the new auditorium which can really give a run for the money to some of the bigger schools. I could see some more development happening which is a very good sign for folks who have more years to spend here.

The staff was very polite and methodical. They didn't take any money for the form and when we submitted it, we were charged Rs 100 (Thats what I remember, but it was definitely not more than 150).

Our first interaction was on Oct 14th. They were very organized and all the parents were requested to wait in the auditorium. It was a little warm inside but this was much better arrangement then what we saw in Somerville, Cambridge, Vishwa-Bharti etc. All the information regarding results were very clearly projected on the big screen which was also sort of very good, not very common in most of the interactions we had.

The results would be out on Oct 23, but since we got another school, we couldn't wait for these results. I was very impressed overall with the school.

'Superstars Noida' - Pub, has lost its sheen

2008-10-18T12:40:00.002+05:30

I was at Superstars the other day with a large group. We had some business guests from the other side of ocean and the team wanted to have some fun time together.

Superstars with all the great reputation was not a difficult choice. There were about 40 people and we had lot of fun since we could get hold of some free space to let loose. For about 2 odd hours almost every one danced to the desi (Ashok Masti to be more precise) tunes belted out non-stop by the DJ. We had got into a deal where we were to be served any Indian Beer or hard liquor, unlimited, a buffet for snacks and a buffet for dinner. All this at Rs 900 per person. It didn't seem like a expensive deal considering that Superstars has always been expensive (but valuable).

But the euphoria started to get a taste of real life when a colleague of mine was refused Fosters Beer, for no good reason since it was covered under 'Indian Beer'. My experience with these events have made me more mature and I let it go. Then I was refused any cock-tail, even though it could be out of Indian liquor. I failed to understand that if Bacardi is covered, soda and cola are covered then why can't they spare some lime, a little mint and some crushed ice to make Mojito. I was not really asking any Belly's or Cointreau or a triple-sec or a tequila. They did end up giving me one but it started to get unpleasant. I moved on and ignored and decided to have my share of fun with RC Beer, the only Indian Beer they were serving. Its such a shame to just stock one Indian Beer and that too a RC (I love RC though), when we have Cobra (UK fame), Tiger (Singapore) and Carlsberg (again available locally) around. Its not a Rs 100 a beer pub, its a Rs 200 a beer pub which we are talking about. Anyway, ignore.

Time to look at snacks buffet. It was a fairly Kake-Da-Dhaba kind of arrangement with 6 choice to choose from. Then came dinner which was a truly a flop-show. All this was understandable since they could always tell us that you dont get a fortune out of Rs 900 per person and I would not have any argument.

But can you explain following
1. The balls at the pool table were taken away.
2. Bar counter was closed much before time for us.
3. The guy who was supposed to help us serve the food was himself found chewing the green salad, picking his favorites every few minutes.
4. They wont put enough Vodka since they wont use a 'measure'
5. Some of them were im-polite

Enough was enough and even though I was not doing anything, a fellow colleague could not stop and he got into a chat with the super visor, one Mr. Rawat. Mr. Rawat listened to us and it was very clear that he had no intention to do anything and he was just trying to be patient. I would not blame him since it seemed that he had no good control. On being told that a gentleman called 'Jeet' has been rude, he summoned Jeet and challenged him. Contrary to what one would want to believe, Jeet refuted and challenged Rawat back :)

The only thing they could think at that point was to offer me additional beer, after 11 PM, and some ice-cream scoops for the handful who were still hanging around.

No sweat but I am fairly sure that I am not going to blow up my organizations' hard earned money on these folks. I am not a regular pub-hopper but some of my close friends have been and we always looked at Superstars with respect.

It seems that it has lost its sheen and at this rate probably its a matter of time when it goes down further.

Adobe India enthusiasts put together world's largest jigsaw

2008-10-13T13:35:00.002+05:30

Last week, few jigsaw enthusiasts at Adobe India did something magnificent. They pieced together world's largest jig-saw puzzle. As per Aditya Nagpal, who led the effort...

"It gives me great pleasure to announce that we've assembled the puzzle in 108 hrs 43 mins. This puzzle has been assembled for the first time in India and non-stop for the first time in the world."

This has earned the team a 3-way entry into the WLP Hall of Fame. Look at following links:
http://www.worldslargestpuzzle.com/hof3.html and
http://www.worldslargestpuzzle.com/hof-049.html

It took me a week to publish this but better late then never.

Congratulations Team. Great work.

NSD Children Play Festival. 'Deewar' - Play Review

2008-10-12T20:43:00.002+05:30

Just back from watching a play at LTG Auditorium. NSD is celebrating its golden jubilee and they are hosting a children play festival called JashneBachpan.

This is not really a review, its more of a small snippet :). I do used to write review for 'Samachar Mail' (A 'Sunday Mail' publication) about 14 odd years back.

"Deewar" is a short play, 1 hour one act, about two communities (Reds and Blues) which are separated by a wall and lot of mis-conceptions about each other. Over the course of play, some of the members of the community interact over-the-wall and seeing the limitation decide to break the wall. There are two Sutradhars (Bholi and Laali), one Watchman and one Neelu.

The high part of Play is its interaction with audience, kids in audience. They have been able to do it without making this whole thing too chaotic. Great. Also the performances are brilliant. I would think that Bholi needs some more sound lessons.

The play is directed by Vibha Chhibbar (remember Kamini jee of 'Chak De India', same girl) and she has done a very good job. Its by 'Fun..toosh' group of Mumbai. They are sort of cousins of 'Samskara Rang Toli' which is active in Delhi.

Pihu enjoyed it. At the end scene one of the Sutradhar invited 10 kids but they could not stop any one and there were at least 50 Kids on the stage ;). Great show.

Jashne Bachpan - National Theatre Festival for Children

2008-10-10T14:30:00.004+05:30

National School of Drama (NSD) is celebrating their 'Golden Jubilee' and as part of celebration, they are organizing a festival for children. This is being managed by TIE (Theatre in Education).

As per their website, Jashn-e-Bachpan showcases the works of theatre groups working with and for children. These groups represent various regions and languages from across the country. As a special feature, this year we will also be inviting theatre groups from abroad to participate in the Festival.

Important Information
Venue - NSD Campus (Abhimanch, Sammukh etc), Sri Ram Centre, LTG etc.
Date - Oct 10th - Oct 20th
Ticket - Rs 20 for children and Rs 40 for Adults

Interactive Map

View Larger Map

There are two plays every day at 1730 and 1830 hrs. On weekend its at 1530 and 1830 hrs. Here's the schedule. There are plays in various languages.

Click this photo to see a bigger version of it.

I am just back from there and they have put this structure (a Cycle oozing out of a back-seat of a car) on the gate so you can not take your car in. Parking is available in 'Bhagwan Das Lane' as in previous years. I saw 'Rajesh Sharma' at the gate, one of those regular actors 5 odd years back , my 2nd innings hang-around time :)

We bought tickets for the play on Sunday, its called "Deewar".

Age and Distance Criteria for Nursery Admissions in Noida Schools

2008-10-09T14:10:00.003+05:30

This post is a result of a conversation between two colleagues, one who’s Kid is trying to get admissions for the academic year 2009-20010 and the other whose kid might be ready for 2010-2011 and would need to start the process around September 2009.

I initially planned to include more schools but thats taking time so here's the one which i have been able to compile so far.

1. DPS Noida - Between 3 & 4 on 30th Sep- 2008 - Residence With-in 8 KMs.
2. Amity Noida - Born between 1st April 2005 - 31st March 2006 - Residing in Noida
3. Somerville - 3+ as on 01.04.2009 - Residing in Noida
4. Cambridge - Born between 1 Oct 2004 – 30 Sep 2005 - Residing in Noida
5. Vishwa Bharti - 3.5 years on 31st March 2009 - No restriction on residence
6. ApeeJay - Between 3 and 4 on 31 March 2009 - No restriction on residence
7. Khaitan - 3 on 1st April 2009 - No restriction on residence

For aspirants who would want to seek admission for 2010-2011, probably add one year to these days and they would still hold good.

Pre-Paid Booth at IGI Airport-Delhi and our readiness for interanational tourists

2008-10-06T21:01:00.004+05:30

We were coming back after a short holiday at Dubai. As we touched down, we called three Radio Taxis. Routes, the first one didn't pick up. Then we called Megacab and they refused to give one for Noida/Indirapuram. Then we called Easycab and we were told to ask for the Taxi at the airport since they have a counter there. One of our friends has already tried Quickcabs (or somthing like that) and they also do not cover Noida/Indirpuram. So we waited for the counter.

After our share of immigration, where strangely the guy who was manning the desk asked me that why I came back early, he was bluffing to make me say something odd, dont know why. It was a 3 day simple trip and probably I spent less time to really make good value of the all the expenses, but it was none of his business. Anway, I told him that the plan was to come back so I didn't really come early and I looked sorry to disappoint him.

We finally got out of Customes and headed for EasyCabs counter. We were told that we would need to wait for 15 minutes. Being alert and frequent travelers, we guessed it that the guy doesn't really know, when a Taxi would be available. If its indeed available in 15 minutes then they would say that its waiting at the gate. So I went to Pre-Paid booth which is run by 'Delhi Traffic Police'. I was non-politely refused when I asked for a cab for Noida. After thinking for another 40 seconds or so, we decided to take one till Delhi-UP border and request my brother-in-law to fetch us from there.

So much for so called NCR, where one even can not get a TAXI.

I paid , it was to be Rs 405 till Ghazipur. We exited, went to another counter. A guy there wrote a Taxi no. Located that Taxi. It was the old classic Amby which has lived its good times. The driver, Ashok Kumar, was courteous enough to open the boot but stayed away from my luggage, such show of respect of privacy was not observed when you are dealing with Radio Taxi, they would rather snatch your valuable heavy luggage. Anway, we got in. It was a non-Air conditioned vehicle with unclean seat-covers. But getting Delhi air after Dubai was still great fun. He dropped us at Ghazipur in 45 minutes, that was very quick. We got out, took our luggage out ourseves, this time he gave me the opportunity of opening the boot. As you would have guessed, I took the luggage out, gave him the pre-paid slip, thanked him and headed towards my bro-in-law's car.

This was a experience of a localite, imagine what can happen to a new person. Incredible India. I hope someone reads this and may be takes some action.

Our Nursery Admission Score Card

2008-09-29T12:00:00.010+05:30

This is more for us then for anyone else, something to look back later and relive. We had decided to apply at 10 schools, hoping that we would get one at least.

. Amity (Round 1 - Pass, Round 2 - No)
. Apeejay (Round 1 - Pass, Round 2 - Yes. Admission Taken)
. Cambridge (Round 1 - Pass, Round 2 - No)
. DPS (Round 1 - Application not shortlisted)
. Father Agnel (Round 1 - Results on Oct 23)
. Indus Valley (Only one Round - Pass. Selected)
. Khaitan (Only one Round - Pass. Selected)
. Ryan (Round 1 - On Oct 10th. Skipped)
. Somerville (Round 1 - Application Shortlisted, Round 2 - No)
. Vishwa Bharti (Only one Round - Pass. Selected)

Khaitan School, Noida - A primer on Nursery Admissions

2008-09-29T10:38:00.003+05:30

Khaitan is a new school but its gradually getting more popular and is seen as one of the better schools in Noida. It doesn't figure among big-bro schools in Noida like DPS, Amity, ApeeJay or among the new age modern swanky ones like Step-By-Step, Lotus Valley etc but is gaining ground.

Location - Its in sector 40 which is a little away from the old main Noida but a very handy location for Sector 50, 51, 39 etc.

Age Criteria - 3 years on 1 April 2009.

Form Availability - We applied in 2008, for 2009 session, and forms were available from 15th Sep 2008 - 23th September 2008.

Last Date for Submission - Form submission was on 24th, 25th and 26th.

Admission Process
There is only one round of interaction for parents as well as the kid. We were asked to fill a form which had the usual questions
- Why KPS
- What do you expect from KPS
- Why its important for Father to spend time
- Nuclear family or Joint Family
- How much quality time you spend

Kid was taken to some interaction room and it seemed that the session was exhaustive as my Kid was back after 30 minutes or may be more. She briefly told us that there were puppets (may be they do some sort of role-playing games) and that she was given a banana to eat.

Our interaction was about 60 seconds. We were asked about our education and thats it.

We were fairly impressed with the way the whole process was executed. Staff was very polite (not a usual scenario at schools, they are very teacher-ish) and was smiling (again not a usual thing). School was very clean and I could see lot of work going on, probably some infra additions.

Result would be out on October 3rd.

Update on Oct 6th
------------------
330 odd students were selected. We also made in. We need to submit fees by Oct 7th. We tried asking for an extension, hoping to get a result out of APJ, but no luck. Monthly fee is Rs 2.5K and fees at the time of admission is Rs 33.5K. Nothing is refundable out of 33.5 K, should we choose to change our mind later.
We would most likely go and submit the fees.

Website address of good schools of Noida

2008-09-28T20:16:00.008+05:30

This is a simple list of the website of some of the well known schools of Noida. To keep it simple, I am not adding any more info and the list is arranged alphabetically.

. Amity International School - http://amity.edu/ais
. Apeejay School. http://www.apeejay.edu/noida/home.htm
. Cambridge School - www.cambridgenoida.com
. Delhi Public School - http://dpsnoida.org/
. Father Agnel School - www.fasnoida.org
. Khaitan Public School - http://www.kpsnoida.ac.in/
. Lotus Valley School. www.lotusvalley.com
. Mayoor School - www.mayoornoida.net
. Vishwa Bharti Public School - http://vbpsnoida.com

If I am missing any good one and you would like me to add it then please write a small comment and I would update the post. Hope its useful for some of us.

Somerville School, Noida - Nursery Admission primer

2008-09-27T20:08:00.004+05:30

Somerville is one of the better schools of Noida. It doesn't feature among big brothers (DPS, Amity, ApeeJay) or among new-age modern-thinking swanky ones (Mayoor, Lotus Valley, Step-By-Step etc) but is a decent school.

Location - Its in Sector 22, not the best of locations since its just next to 'Chauda Village' and there is a 'liquor shop' right at the gate, but thats fine.

The forms were out in early september and were available for a week. I think it was first week of September. They only allow Noida residents and all communication happens through courier.

Admission Process
1. Apply if you meet the age criteria. You need to be a resident of Noida, preferably a close-by sector.
2. In first round, they shortlist some of the cases (we dont know the criteria and it would be anyone's guess) and send a letter through courier. For this year, they used DTDC so please ensure that you keep a tab on that.
3. In 2nd round, you interact with a very senior person. In our case, it was the Principal herself. She asked on
- how do we get time
- what stories she likes
- why Somerville

For the kid, they had some plastic fruits and animals. They call out names and the kid is to identify the animals and fruits. Non-torturous and pretty good for Kids. 3-4 minute interaction at max.

We were called on Sep 25 and successful candidates would get the letter via courier by next week. I would try to find from DTDC on whether they have started dispatching.

I would update on what I get.

It was a hard day's night and I was working.....

2008-09-21T17:36:00.003+05:30

A indeed hard day's night for all to celebrate. Some of us were seen last stepping out from the local Chinese bar-restaurant (every time I go there I promise myself that I am not going to visit that place again) at mid-night.

I am getting that feeling which you get when you reach your destination on a really long drive, what next. The adrenaline suddenly plays truant, no issues to chase (there are some, to honestly share with you), no early-morning late-evening same day meetings, even my cell-phone has started feeling like a left-out.

Amid all this melancholy, I tried looking for some good-funny act and look what I found.

Some smart-alec shot this while the team was busy doing last chores. And he even made it public. Dark times, I am warning you. One thing which we must do for next year is to put something around security-n-privacy. If you like the video then do comment. I read somewhere that bloggers love every comment (even a track-back, what rubbish) and they are often seen reading and bragging about them. Bye.

Amity Noida - A primer on Nursery Admissions

2008-09-16T11:38:00.006+05:30

Amity is not very old and for a long time it was perceived as a rich man's school but over time that has been changing. Right now its considered as one of the better schools and probably a infrastructure which very few can challenge.

Location of School - Sec 44. This is almost on the South-West corner of Noida. Very apt for Sec 37, 28,29, 39,44, 41 etc. Also good for Sarita Vihar and Greater noida since its right on express-way.

Age - Born between 1st April 2005 - 31st March 2006 (This is for admission seekers in 2008)

Location Criteria - They only allow Noida and Gr. Noida since there is a Amity in Vasundhara (for Vaishali, Vasundhara and Indirapuram residents) and one in Mayoor Vihar.

Dates - For this year, the last date for submitting online was Sep 7 2008.

Website - http://amity.edu/aisadmission/

Admission Process

1. Round 1

Round 1 has two parts. They call all the parents and kids for interaction. For parents there is a 11 page extensive question paper. Its very time-consuming and you would need to really focus and work hard.

If I remember correctly then there were five sections.
1. There are about 5-6 questions around school/office details for parents and grand-parents, annual income, whether the children has any visual/hearing or other disability etc. The other questions were

- Why you think your child is ready for school
- Whats your expectations from Amity
- Why Amity
- Describe your child.

2. Part two questions
- How do you bridge work/home gap ?
- something around communication. Why its important and how do you encourage your kid to communicate ?
- how do you tackle a restless child.
- how to ensure that your child is not aggressive and impatient
- how do you handle 'defiance'
- What skills are needed to make your kid good during his/her nursery class
- what are your child's expectation from you
- Something around setting high-standard and whether thats good or bad
- how do you handle morning scene where you had to say bye to your child

3. Part 3 questions
- If your child misses school bus
- homework not done
- bully in bus
- loses his bag or tiffin-box
- scolding
- Are dads different than moms
- if kid gets his friend's stuff (by mistake)

4. It was a short section and I think it had 4-5 questions. One was subjective and rest were objective/multiple-choice

5. This section was also mostly tick mark kinds
- a truth/myth section where there were thins which you had to mark either as 'Truth' or as 'Myth'. Some examples are 'working mothers are not good', 'children should be given enough money' and all that.

As for the the kid.

They take the kid to a different room and they are asked to color and probably a poem. Whenever I asked my daughter on what she was asked, she very intelligently distracts me. I have a guess that she didn't like whatever she was asked there. She is otherwise a very cheerful and talk-loving girl.

The results would be out on Sep 18 on the website.

Amity results are out.
http://www.amity.edu/aisadmission/index.aspx

My kid made it, All the best.

2nd Round details
It happened today morning. Very well managed. We were met by two very senior people. My kid was taken to a table nearby where I think they asked her that , what do you call a dog's kid, and some other things.

Most of the conversation happened with my spouse. They asked her the name of the principal of her school (probably they knew the principal). Both of us work so they asked on how do we manage time. Since my spouse is with Media, they asked here that how watching too much of cartoons affect a child. Pretty in-formal and relaxed.

One of my friend was also there and as his husband did some analysis on the number of kid's who were called for Round 2 and the availability of seats. It seems that they called 900 odd people and they have 650 odd seats so assuming that there is a lot of overlap and some people might choose other schools (like DPS Noida), the chances of us making in are more.

The results would be out on Sep'24, two more days of anxiety.

Update on 27th Sep
-------------------
Sorry, we flunked. Now when we reverse-engineer the whole thing, I think being a nuclear-family + both-working thing worked against us. Anyway, no worries. We are still trying to influence upon our way since its a good school.

I would try to write a post on 'how to crack this thing' later. So far I have been to Somerville, Cambridge, ApeeJay, Indus Valley and Vishwa Bharti. Tomorrow it would be Khaitan and then we go to "Father Agnel" and "Ryan" in 2nd week of October.

Apeejay School Noida - A primer for nursery admissions

2008-09-16T11:05:00.005+05:30

Apeeyjay is one of the highly reputed old schools in this small town and even though it lacks the glitter of some of the young schools like Lotus Valley, Greater Valley, Mayoor, Step By Step etc, its still one of the favorites among admission seekers.

My daughter has also applied here. Here are some details.

Location - Sec 16 A (very close to Delhi-Noida border, very well located for people residing in Mayoor Vihar, Eastend apartments, Vasundhara Enclave and some of the sectors of Noida)

Age - Between 3 and 4 on 31st March 2009. (This is for admission seekers in 2008)

Location - There is no location constraint but I would assume that they would give preference to kids who live close-by.

Dates - Forms were available from early september and last date of submission is Sep 16,2008

Process.
1. They meet every kid so unlike DPS and some of the other schools, you definitely get first chance. In my case the interaction date is 27th Sep. But I know someone who went through this.

It was a 4-5 minute interaction where they asked couple of questions to parents viz.
(i) Why Apeejay ?
(ii) How do you balance/manage your work and home. My friend is working and probably for a home-maker, there would be a different question.

Kid was also in the same room and she was asked to recite a poem first. After that she was asked to walk on a set of bricks/blocks which were lying a little apart. Kid actually got down, moved the bricks so that there is no gap and stood on that :)

They are awaiting results.

I have heard that Apeejay relies more on lottery and less on actual interaction.

Update on 27th Sep
------------------

We had our first interaction today. It was pretty well organized from what we have seen so far. We were asked to wait in a room. Later we along with the kid were taken to a room where there was a lady who interacted with us. Kid was interacting with another teacher on the next table. I could not observe clearly but they had some sort of puzzle.

We were asked
- Why Apeejay
- My wife is working so how does she manage her time
- What do we expect from school

5 minutes odd. It seemed that we were meeting a junior teacher (and I sometime wonder that whether as part of their teacher-training, were they ever taught on this aspect but anyway). It was not evident whether she was impressed or not.

Results would be out on Oct 2nd.

Update on Oct 6th, 2008
----------------------------
We made it in the first list. Today morning, we had our first interaction. It was a 2 minute interaction. Principal first confirmed our names , then our salaries from the form which we have filled (he confirmed that its indeed a monthly figure), asked for our schools and bade us bye. My daughter was invited to a table side by and was asked to recite a poem. I am not sure whether she was asked anything else later.

I noticed that Principal had this register on which he was writing marks against each name. I dont think that those 2 minutes are going to decide. Also our schools are not too great or flashy :)

Anyway, its over. The results would be out in a week.

Update on Oct 16th, 2008
------------------------------
We called school on Oct 13th and were told that results were not yet out. On Oct 14th, they said that results are out but we didn't make it. We found a contact and he told us that the list is not complete. We called again on Oct 15th and we were told that we made it. We were lucky to find a contact otherwise we had planned to take admission in Vishwa Bharti and that would have made us poorer by 16 K odd. So please ensure that you visit the school and probably do it few times. Their front-office system needs a lot of improvement. Unlike Amity, DPS and some of the other schools, they have no infrastructre to publish results on their website.

Today we took admission.

'A Wednesday' - Movie Review

2008-09-15T16:04:00.002+05:30

A low key movie which was released couple of weekends back have failed to evoke much excitement but somehow I was recommended this movie by a my half-brother. Also incidentally I wanted to watch this movie since it has Naseer and Anupam, one of the two all time great artistes. I was eye-ing the poster for a while.

I did get a chance to watch this on last weekend and what a delight it was. Its a tight, not so long, thriller which keeps you almost on the edge, has stellar performances from everyone, brilliant editing and camera work and most importantly a fine piece of overall cinema. A great story and screen play, a small dose of humor and a high-impact social message.

The story is of 'A' Wednesday when Anupam who is playing as the Police Commissioner of Mumbai receives a call from Naseer for releasing some of the terrorists. I wont give you the story so that I dont kill the fun. Anupam is ably supported by a team which is led by two Sub-Inspectors Arif and Jai. Neeraj Pandey as a director has done a great job and I am certain that big assignments must be on his way. Right from character establishment (esp of Jai and Arif) to continuity to timing, everything has been really spectacular.

Some things which one of my colleague mentioned and I agree with him is that we as a nation are still not doing a good job in terms of researching the topic and trying to make the movie more real. There was definitely one thing which could have been handled with more maturity. This was around finding a hacker who could geo-locate Naseer. There were other small things which probably could have been done better, like managing to get the convicts (I would argue that in the current system it would be next to impossible to arrange four high-profile convicts in one place in a matter of 2 hours, the paper work would probably eat half a day if not more). We do not seem to be doing research the way Hollywood does. May be as a nation we work more out of guts then a real planned data-driven decision. Anyway, dont read too much of this.

All in all, a must watch. If you can't catch it on a theater then wait for the DVD and do watch it. If you watch it and have things to share, then please write a comment.

DPS Noida - A primer on Nursery Admissions

2008-09-11T21:00:00.008+05:30

DPS is one of the reputed schools in Noida and as per the school website which is here, during 2007, they received 30 forms for each single seat. DPS uses more of a lottery system to select candidates, this is what they sort of say. I know few parents who validated this since they could not figure out a reason for their ward's selection or rejection.

Anyway, lets move on

Website - DPS Noida
Location - Sector 30. Its on Atta-NTPC road. Very well located.
Infrastructure - Good
Reputation - High
Recommendations - Very good (first hand recommendations which I got)

For 2009 session, one could fill Online forms by Sep 4th. Thats the only way to fill forms. There is no fee for filling this online form. The website is very tacky so keep clicking on the home page to get rid of that irritating flash animation.

We filled the form. Results for some of the cases were out on Sep 10th as per schedule. One of my friend got in and they have been called for 'first interaction' on Sep 12. I would update on what I hear from her.

I am not yet lucky and for my daughter, the website shows "Under Process".

-----------------------------------------------
Update on 12 Sep 2008, through a friend who made it to the list.

There were 30 parents in one batch. Two batches were scheduled for 12 Sep, 2008. First a form was given, a simple one page form, personal data sort. After that you get prospectus against a payment for Rs 400.

Then another paper was given and that had two subjective questions viz.

1. What the milestones or landmarks during your child's development in life ?
Answer - She answered it by mentioning things like
- when the child started walking, speaking
- her first day at school
- first eating , first x and first y

2. What efforts do you make the bond the family together ?

Kids Interaction Rounds

1. During this time, they started taking kids away to a room where there was a teacher. Kids was asked to do coloring while parents were busy answering questions. Her kid was asked to fill a duck. Then parents were asked to be with the child.

2. There was a puzzle where different pieces of a butterfly was to be assembled, jig saw puzzle. Not very difficult since a pic was there. To practice at home, take a large page and then draw a butterfly on it, paste that paper on a card-board and then make 4-6 pieces and ask Kid to put them together so that it looks like a butterfly.

3. In another puzzle, there was a strip of wood which had dots of colors of a particular sequence. Kids were give a string and beads and they were to put the beads in the right sequence. Its a little tricky for a Kid to hold the string and the bead but it seemed that Teachers gave kids enough time.

Parents were allowed to interact with the during this but I think they dont expect you to help them do this.You can hint or give verbal instructions.

4. There was a paper on which they had blue color at the bottom, then brown, then black and then light-blue. Kids were told that blue is water, brown is grass, black is road and they were to guess the meaning of 'light-blue'. As per my friend, those colors were not looking like real water or road or grass (no gradient or shade or texture difference in terms of colors, dont know but someone should tell them that color has meaning if its of one single shade). So difficult for a kid.

Then they got some items from a box like flower pot, boat, car, dog etc and one has to put those things correctly. There were funny things like a man having a parachute. How many kids have seen a Parachute in real life.

5. Finally there was this Poem round. Kid were asked to recite with action. They asked two poems. Then she was given a toffee (eclairs and Kids HATE eclairs because it sticks) and were expected to say 'Thank You'.

Another thing which my friend noted was the energy level of the teacher, that energy level also decides how the Kid does.

Whoooooooooooof. And they say that they select randomly.

Parents Round 2
Parents were called in a group (10 parents) along with kids in a hall. They then asked parents to introduce themselves. People generally talked about their qualification and their job and all. Funnily, neither the Principal nor anyone else form the school introduced themselves. There was no session from school where parents were told about the school, its education system etc.

Results would be out on 15 the Sep, 8 PM. Keep tuned. Feel free to ask anything or post any comment.

Since these results are out on 15th Sep, I am assuming that they might call some more kids and I hope that I get called.

Wish me luck and comment.

update on Sep 16 morning
----------------------------

My friend's kid did not make it. The language which was their on the site was pretty rude. I haven't got a call so far and I don't think that I would get one now. Anyway.

DPS Management - If you ever read this then here's a request from a parent. Make your process transparent and publish it on your website. If its lottery then have it in presence of select group of parents. If its interaction then please assign marks and publish merit list.

one more update
--------------------

My Kid didn't make it to even short-listing :). It took DPS five days to come out with that status. The website says that the shortlisting is based on random-selection and I believe them :)

A Victime of CERN - Big Bang Experiment

2008-09-10T10:19:00.002+05:30

I have heard about CERN before. So when I read news about CERN trying to re-enact 'Big Bang', I read that as another science project. Later I came to know that is a 10 Billion USD project and there are many countries who are supporting it, including India. We supposedly have close to 30 scientists there.

I knew about CERN not because I have a deep interest in big-bang and the making of universe, you would never find me discussing this over lunch-table or in airplane aisles but I knew about it since my bro-in-law (or half brother) has been to this place. He was at Geneva for some office work for few months and he accidentally discovered this place. This place is near Geneva and I can bet that all those hazaar honeymoon couples who change their flights at Geneva on the way to Interlaken or Zurich, have not heard about this place.

Apparently they have build the deepest/largest tunnel in the world where they would do these experiments. It is essentially a atom smasher mixer-grinder where protons would travel at a lot higher speed from different direction and would collide, making the big bang. There are dig-cams (weighing more than a ton) which would take millions of snap-shot when this happens.

So far so good.

All was well today morning. I prepared tea, my daughter was cheerful (she had very high fever the other day, tonsillitis) before my wife found out few missed calls. Our maid has called and missed us. She called back and found to her horror that we would be do our chores by ourselves, maid has learned that today's the world is going to be finished and so she was not sure whether she should spend those precious hours with us or with her family. No prizes for guessing that she chose later.

I am now in office and would get into a tele-call a moment from now. We are going to discuss whether we are on track for releasing our s/w or not. I hope someone mentions about this 'Big Bang' thing and I can crib more, after all no one likes to clean utensils before coming to office.

An evening with Debojit Dutta, the singer

2008-09-07T16:44:00.008+05:30

I would let do the video do most of the talking but writing some text to give you a little context. Debojit was at Noida to perform for a event at 'Great India Place' mall. Yashita and Pratibha were also there but I spent more time with Debojit.

Debo is 23 year young lad from Kolkata and at times he sings like god. There have been at least two performances where all the 'Sa Re Ga Ma Pa' judges came running on the stage after he finished. A little less worldly-smart, the son of scientists parents, Deb is now participating in the now iconic show 'Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2009' which airs on Zee TV every friday and staurday at 10.00 PM.

After having a sumptuous dinner at Rajdhani, the famous Thali joint of Mumbai, at GIP, I had a little chat with him, while we were waiting for some of the other folks, here are some bytes. There is lot of background noise and I have further down-sampled the video to make it light enough for quick loading, so please raise the volume up.

This is what the reporter looks like in his new moustache look, these days.

And one more video to wind-up.

My first E-commerce transaction and my recent one

2008-09-04T09:44:00.005+05:30

I am probably one of the earliest Indian in India who might have exercised E-commerce to buy a book. I really wish that some day someone hunts me down and I am felicitated for this act at some mega event. It was in year 1998 or may be 1999 (I guess), at that point of time I was working with 'Newgen Software, Okhla, Delhi', a small software company with great promise, testing their flagship product 'Newgen Omnidocs'. I had recently read 'The Midnight's children' and became an ardent fan of Salman Rushdie, have also read one more of his book called 'The moor's last sigh'. A new book has recently come out by Salman, 'The ground beneath her feet' and I ordered that book at rediff.com

I chose to pay through VPP (Value Paid at Post), which means that I would pay once I get the goods. I did the transaction and my wait started. Interestingly nothing happened so I mailed the relevant folks at rediff and I remember that I was asked to wait for some more time. I dont exactly remember but I did receive a call from some bookseller in Bangalore confirming my order. Finally one fine morning, I was called in by my front office staff at Newgen and there lay the hard-bound edition of the book. While I looked at the the packet with novelty in my eyes, the world around me didn't notice anything. History was being created in that office.

I asked around to see if there is anyone waiting for me to collect the money but I could not find any one. I even left a note at office security which is at the main entrance of the office to contact me if someone comes looking for money and me. But no one came. My first e-commerce transaction turned into a gift. I was never charged anything. In fact if I remember correctly, the guy from Bangalore said that since they can't source a paperback edition, they are sending me a hard-bound edition without any extra charge. It turned out to be without any charge.

The book is still lying on my huge 6 rows , 3 columns end-to-end wall mounted book rack.

Over time, e-commerce caught up. VPP became a thing of past, now you punch in your credit card no and you are good. In less then a week you get a book at your doorstep and they never forget to charge you.

My most recent purchase has been a technical book. Its called "Programming in C" by "Ritchie and Kernighan". My niece is now going to college and she would start learning C in her first semester so I gifted her this book. This time the process was very simple, do a search, find a seller who is in India and who sort of looks trust worthy, order it and you are done.

I bought this from www.flipkart.com and they delivered the book in 5 odd days including weekend, not bad. It was a Rs 125 worth transaction, shipping included. All done over a matter of 15 minutes.

The world has changed a lot in last 10 years. If you are an E-commerce expert then please try to find out that whether I am one of the first e-commerce customer or not.

Better Channel Navigation in TVs

2008-09-03T14:55:00.002+05:30

Out here in India we used to have just one TV channel, when we were growing. TV Remote was something which we have seen when we got old. I remember that when we bought our first Color TV in 1987 (A Bush model), we chose to buy the one without remote since we thought that it doesn't make sense to pay Rs 1000 just for a remote.

Then came the satellite revolution, around 1991 odd, and suddenly 100s of channel were visible. When I read a report in Time magazine in 1991-1992, I didn't believe it. My college library used to get 100s of magazine and I thought that this is not about India. After some weeks I was seen working with local cable guy to fix things, apparently a couple who has just moved in a close-by apartment has agreed to pay 200 or whatever for this satellite connection. When we first watched MTv we were as good as dead. We could not believe it.

The result of all this ensured that TV Remote became a standard fitment. Now you could flip channels. Then about 2 odd years back, we got DTH (Direct to Home) where in you get a set-top box and the beauty of this system was that there is no cable-wallah in between, the signal reception is good and you can access TV Guide.

So if you are on "Tata Sky" or "Dish TV' or recently launched 'Big TV', you can find out much more about the running and future TV programs. Life is simpler, better and more richer now.

So in this life, while browsing or surfing channels, I thought of something. In Tata Sky, there is a way through which you can find out 'whats playing' on next channel and you can browse the list, without actually changing the channel. So if Star, Sony and Zee are configured one after the other then while watching Star, you just press some keys and you can see a text information of whats playing on Sony. At this point you can either chose to change to Sony or go to next Channel.

What occurred to me that whether it wont be killing, if I can also see a small video preview of next channel. This small preview would help me further since I can figure out whether they are playing any ads or not. Sometime these small previews could actually help me to find out the details of the 'content' rather then reading it. Especially if I am familiar with that particular program. A small preview is enough for you to register whether the program is "Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2009" or "Big Boss" or "The Great India Laughter Challenge". Over time it may happen that you only video previews since those are much more easier to register.

PIP (Picture in picture) is already a solved problem. This is just another good use case of using PIP technology. TV makers ??? Can you do it.

Admissions for Nursery in Noida is now on

2008-09-01T20:35:00.005+05:30

Pihu is now 3+ so we join the game of trying our luck and use our skill in getting her admitted in a good school. We just had the counseling at her pre-school and we were told that we must apply in at least 7-10 schools.

While me and my better half are into this, I thought I would try to capture my experience and any information which I gather so that it might be useful for other people in the boat and may be for future aspirants.

I would try to update this blog post every now and then, so that there is a single post on this subject. If you visit this and have things to add then I encourage you to comment and I would add that info in main post.

Lets go school wise.

1. DPS, Noida
Website - www.dpsnoida.org

Click on 'Admissions' and then proceed.

You can apply only online so no alternate methods. Available From 1st Sep - 7 Sep. After that shortlisted candidate would be called for assessment from 10th - 16th Sep.

It seems that they dont accept applications from Indirapuram residents because there is a DPS in Indirapuram as well. Children residing with-in 8 KM radius would be accepted and age should be between 3 and 4 as on 30th Sep'2008.

2. Amity International School

link - http://www.amity.edu/aisadmission/

Fill the form online, pay Rs 300 through credit-card and you would get an invitation for 'first interaction'. We have been asked to be there on Sep 8th.

3. Lotus Valley School

Forms are out. Link is - http://www.lotusvalley.com/download_form.htm

Unlike Amity and DPS, you can't fill the form online. So take a print and submit it in school. I didn't see any end dates on the website.

4. Greater Valley School.

Its in greater noida but me and my wife were very very impressed by their Principal, Sangita Chima, who was there in the counselling session at Pihu's pre-school. So we would probably try this school. If we shift to Gr Noida, this admission would come handy.

link - http://www.greatervalleyschool.com/

Its run by the same organization which runs the famous 'Vasant Valley School'. I also think that a women principal is a better principal then a man principal :).

5. Somerville School, Noida
Forms were out on Sep 4 and there was this 10 KM line. We skipped that yesterday, today it was like a breeze. They only accept candidates from Noida and form is free. Once I fill the form, I would update on what happens next.

I would add more as I learn more. If you have any queries, then dont hesitate to ask, I would try to find an appropriate answer.

"It Could Happen to You" - Watch it

2008-08-31T19:35:00.005+05:30

A lazy hot sunday afternoon spent watching this fabulous movie, It Could Happen to You. We have 'Tata Sky' at home so there is this handy little option which gives you a snippet of the movie. I have seen this movie before but I didn't remember the name, but after reading the snippet, I remembered and made the good call to watch it.

I wont spill the beans but its a movie about a Cop which promises a waitress to split his lottery ticket fortune in lieu of the tip. As luck would have it, he wins the lotto and a cool 4 million USD. The man keeps the promise (A promise is a promise), his wife doesn't like it and so on. Its not a court-room drama, its neither a emotional essay or a moral lesson movie. Its a very simple and easy watch movie, with brilliant acting by Nicholas Cage and Bridget Fonda.

If you have watched this movie and liked it then comment, we share something in common , if you dont like it then too comment :), for all the good reasons. And if you watch this based on my recommendation and then like/hate it, then comment for sure :)

'Bachna Ae Haseeno' - Quick Review and my gripes

2008-08-31T10:27:00.005+05:30

I was at Fun cinemas, Pitampura, Delhi, the other evening, watching the new block buster 'Bachna Ae Haseeno'. We were there in a group of 6 since we got some free tickets for the show, so owing to large group, overall mood was peppy and there were reasons to be busy other then just watching the movie. Fun Cinemas, Pitampura is not in the best of locations with a ad-hoc parking and a foul-smelly auditorium.

Bachna is a movie around a 'killer' (why he was termed Killer and how he miserably failed there, later) who has two affairs and he dumps the two girls. When the 3rd girl tells him that she doesn't want to marry him because she doesn't , then his past haunts him, he goes back , finds those two girls who are now shattered to death and are living a recluse to bit**y life, says sorry, peps their life up, comes back and gets happily united ever with the 3rd one.

Ranbeer Kapoor plays the killer and Minissha Lamba, Bipasha Basu and Deepika Padukone (is the surname something to do with a shuttle cork, kone) are the three Haseenas. There is a friend of the Hero, played very well by Nitin (I guess I am having the right name) , son of legendary Paintal. Except Puneet Issar who plays Mahi's (Lamba) dad and Kunal Kohli (brilliant as a surd) who plays Mahi's hubby, there is no one else.

The story starts with Switzerland (Minisha episode) where she misses her train and then she and Raj Sharma (Ranbeer) drive to Zurich on a scooter. She falls in love, he falls in loves (pretends) and just after a lapse of 24 odd hours when she realizes that he has been kidding, she is devastated.

I have two problems at this point. First Ranbeer didn't do a single trick to be the 'Killer' so as a story writer, add more meat and juice to his character, work hard, think of twists and work on this character to really make him look like a 'killer'. My 2nd probelm is that Mahi (Ms Lamba) who is already engaged , she finds this junkie and likes him, they kiss couple of times, there are no intimate moments, and there is no time which really nourishes this love, it was a one-night-stand with no protection (since there was no need of one, since it never happened). Why this minor interaction leaves her into a lady who disbelieves love, goes into a semi-recluse and what not is hard to understand. Do you really think that such a mild and minor encounter would make someone into like this. C'mon. Director was more busy with shooting exotic locales, designer dresses that noone really cared a shit for character-establishment.

So that was Swiss. Then comes Mumbai. Ranbeer now works for Microsoft , earns well, has his own small apartment, finds the hot Bipashu as his neighbour. They get close. Again reels were spent showing the glamorous Basu then 'killer' Raj, they get into a live-in relationship. Later Raj has to leave for Syndey for some long term work and he is not ready for marriage, so on the d-day when they were to assemble at the courts, he plays truant. Basu is devastated. This devastation was better managed then the earlier one since they were together for a long time but all the while no time was spent to even shoot a single sequence where their relationship was explained.

Anyway, then comes Deepika. Deepika Padukone is a Icchadhaari specie. She is first seen as a cabbie, then she is also from B School , later she is seen as a super-mark. Love happens, she quits, Raj remembers what he has done in the past.

So far the movie is about promiscuity, skin, exotic locations, more skin, bright and happy faces, good cars, more exotic locations (Rome - Italy n all that). After this you get some sanity and content in the movie. He comes back , says sorry which has been managed so well. For the first time, it appears that someone is thinking, there is some real story.

It finishes pretty abruptly, Raj comes back to Sydney, his friend shows him a new car which they never drive (why the hell was that scene), comes back home, meets Kone, they get together.

Ok. so that about 'Bachna'. Dont spend too much money to see this movie, if you want to see Swiss, Cote d Azure, Sydney and some of other good beaches then watch it.

'Adopt' - You never know who you will bring home

2008-08-27T16:02:00.006+05:30

There are hazaar brilliant ads but occasionally you hit into something which you really like. While I dont hate the ones which try to play around your emotions (by showing a impoverished child for example) but they dont sort of click.

I just found this in my mail box and I tremendously liked it. It gives such a big + spin to Adoption without adding any angle of charity to it. Brilliant. I dont know who conceived this but if you know then let me know. Great work.

Title: Encourage Adoption
Headline: Adopt. You never know who you'll bring home

How to insert Photos in Wordpress 2.5

2008-08-25T12:00:00.010+05:30

I have this travel website which is powered by Wordpress 2.5 and occasionally I get queries around adding a picture to a post. So I thought that I would write a small primer which may be helpful for a wider community.

1. Collect all your photos in one single folder on your local machine. This would save you time when you are uploading since you wont have to pick and choose. So if you have shot 80 photos (just 80) on your last trek, and if you want to share 10 (just 10) then identify these 10 photos and copy them in some temporary folder. Remember to copy these 10 files, and dont move them. Always keep your originals safe.

2. Once done, re-size them using some Image Editor program. Usually pictures shot from a digital camera are pretty heavy, large in size. The actual size depends upon the site design. For Ghumakkar, 500 pixels BY 350 pixels look good. This would help to have your story come up quickly. In general choose something like 1024 X 768.

2.1 In Windows XP and Windows Vista, select all these photos, do a right click of mouse and choose 'E-mail'. You would get an option to resize. Choose 1024 X 768. After a while you would notice that all the pictures have been attached to an e-mail message. Select all of them, Right click, copy, paste in the original folder.

I am attaching the screen shots for Vista. On XP, it would be similar though it might look a little different.

Select all the pictures. Right Click and choose e-mail

Choose a lower size like 1024 X 768

Attaching to an E-mail

I use Microsoft Outlook for e-mails. So here's how it looks.

2.2 Download a free s/w like Google Picasa or Adobe Photoshop Album Starter Edition and use it to resize.
Google Picasa - Click here
Adobe S/w - Click here

Even if you dont do this step, you would still be able to move ahead, its just that it would make the page heavy and readers of your story would need to wait a little extra time to view all the pictures.

3. Now lets come back to 'Compose' window under 'Write'. click the 'Add Photo' icon which is just after 'Add Media' in the top icon-toolbar.

Click this button.

You would get a new window. Click 'Choose Files to upload'. Select all the files in the folder where you have copied all the pictures in step1. The window would look like this

Now you are done with uploading all the files.

If you would notice then there are three options on the top in the above window, viz.
1. Choose Files
2. Gallery
3. Media Library

First is for adding more files. 2nd is for accessing the files associated with current post and library is for all the files which you have uploaded so far.

Now go to 'Gallery' and then click 'Show' against the file which you want to insert.

Add a relevant caption , notes. Choose a size. For Ghumakkar I would recommend that you choose 'Full Size'. Word Press Administrator can control this size. And you are done.

There is another good feature in WP which is about 'Inserting a Gallery' and I would briefly talk about that later but as of now, we are done as far as inserting a picture is concerned.

Let me know if this write-up is missing or confusing or could benefit from some more clarity. I would act on that and would try to improve it. Of course, if its works for you then leave a happy comment. So enjoy and happy photo-showing at your next WP Post.

A good website for Kids, for Internet enabled parents

2008-08-25T11:25:00.005+05:30

It all started with Google Image Search. It was so easy for me to tell my 3 year old about any animal, any bird, any plant, in fact almost any thing by doing a image search at Google Image Search. As with many things, fad ended after a while. From Google Image Search, we moved to youtube.com since we can pull any music video on demand. My home wireless is good enough to let us watch a song video with not too many buffering-buffering distractions. This carried on for some time and like many things, it also stopped happening. Though we still use youtube, to show her, her own videos and to show her videos to other people.

While all this was happening, we also happened to browse through some of the other sites which plays kids' jingles and poems and have lots of lessons around primary English, Alphabets, Counting etc. Most of these were forgotten as quickly as we have learned about them.

So amid all this, my wife hit on to a site which we have been using till now. I realized this today morning that I have probably been here for last 1 year, I think more. And my 3 year old, loves it. So I thought that it makes sense to share the link with fellow internet-enabled young parents.

This site is called 'Starfall' and is at www.starfall.com. The home page is not really new-age design but very clear and not cluttered with million things. When you choose any lesson, you are taken to a small Adobe Flash based program which is interactive and is much more richer (music, sound, videos, animation etc). I am mostly on Mozilla but I would think that this would work on IE and Safari, on the assumption that Flash programs are pretty much browser agnostic.

I really like the 'Alphabet' section since all the 26 letters are shows in big sizes and when one chooses one of them, you see pictures and sounds of animals/object with that letter. There are also some interesting exercises like 'Make the Match'.

I guess, I would close here. If you do go there and like it then let me know, write a small comment.

iPhone and us

2008-08-21T15:47:00.004+05:30

Finally, Airtel and Vodafone announced the availability of iPhone in India. Just like lots of wannabes I was also waiting for this. I work for a IT company and its not uncommon to find colleagues who are traveling to US for work.

About 3 months back, two persons (Ram and Krishna - yeah, the gods)in my own project bought an iPhone for them. It cost USD 440 to them and it was fairly easy to have them work with our local GSM cards. All was well. I had almost made my mind to buy them and asked one of my friends (Manish) to bring it with him. He was visiting Desh. The friend, a great money minder, thought that buying a iPhone at USD 440 is a bad idea and prices would come down. Also in terms of technology, features its not a great buy.

So, I deferred the decision. After a while iPhone supplies went low and everyone knew that Apple would release a new one , a better technology and a lower price. All this happened. iPhone 3G was launched and you can get it at USD 200 and then you have to pay more for getting the service. As of now it costs around USD 500 in America (I might not be updated here, it might be for less).

Our local boys announced that they would launch it soon and on being asked on the price, they played silent.

Finally it was announced yesterday and boy, at RS 31000 its a steal. I mean it only makes sense to use a iPhone if you can managed to steal it. I dont know whether its Apple who is making money or its Mr. Bharti or Mr. Vodafone but its definitely a high high price for a gadget like iPhone.

I do not plan to buy it any more. A price like INR 15000 is a better price. If you want to lock your customer then have him upfront pay somthing like Rs 10000 and then adjust that against his monthly bill but at Rs 31 K, its a straight case of fleece.

I am sure there are people out there who would have this kind of money to blow it here but I dont see iPhone getting the success it got in US. By the way, today morning my friend Sudhir sent me a mail citing some of the reasons for not buying iPhone. Incase it matter here is the list

1. You can only sync music and video through iTunes. Want to drag-and-drop content from your hard-drive? Would like to sync music from another store -- from Amazon, for example? You are out of luck.

2. You can only install apps through iTunes. Never before has a cellphone maker slammed the door to an open development enviornment and received nothing but praise for doing so. Imagine Microsoft creating a gated software ecosystem and installing themselves as the gatekeeper. They would be eaten alive by the press. Apple gets a free pass.

3. Apple deletes useful applications. Nullriver's modem app went to the grave with no reason stated. Apple's digital business is dependent on the music and movie industry's whims. How long before the industry dictates which applications we can run?

4. Apple might not accept apps which might be detrimental to its own business. We won't hold our breath for competitive products to appear on the iPhone anytime soon.

5. You can only run one third-party application at a time. An instant messenger that runs in the background and collects messages while you are away? Not happening.

6. Apple might not allow app vendors to open up their apps. The terms of the NDA that potential application developers for the iPhone need to sign, effectively restrict redistribution of the source. Apple has created OSX on the back of FreeBSD; Safari on KHTML, SproutCore library used in MobileMe, and now they have built a layer on top that excludes others. Nik at TechCrunchIT laments that "the same community who demand all from Microsoft, feel gifted and special when Apple give them an inch of rope... Applications can only be installed from a single source, iTunes, and open source applications and distribution is near impossible. How do you install an iPhone application without iTunes? Where are the community advocates arguing for a standard interface, openess and free code?"

7. Limited Bluetooth use. The iPhone 3G has Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR but can you transfer files over Bluetooth? Does it support A2DP? Stereo Bluetooth? No on all counts. As of now, all you get from Bluetooth are headset voice calls, and that's it.

8. No copy-paste. This might be more of an interface issue that Apple is seeking to solve, than anything else. But it only underlines the drawbacks of a walled garden. If development was as open as say, it is on the Palm platform -- you would have a hundred different solutions by now, and at least one you could actually use. This also underlines how much the innovative spirit is killed by a controlled development environment. The iPhone ecosystem doesn't encourage software tinkering and probably won't spur garage breakthroughs that drive the industry forward.

9. No MMS. While you can e-mail photos, multimedia messaging is absent from the device. And speaking of videos...

10. No video recording. In the world of YouTube, the iPhone 3G does not offer video recording.

11. No voice command. For a touch-screen-only phone, voice controls would have been a huge plus for hands-free or one-handed control. Can we expect this functionality to be added by a third-party app?

12. Hardware locked to carriers. You cannot use any SIM card with this GSM device. How stupid is that? Hello monopolies, goodbye competition. Thanks to carrier lock-in when the phone launches in India, the iPhone 3G might not even enjoy 3G until months afterwards. How do you like them apples?

Sorry Airtel, Sorry Vodafone, you guys disappoint modern India. Either you are trying to make some money by selling handset which you didn't create or you are letting Apple make money through us which you can easily handle, after all building these millions of telecom users should actually mean that we should be getting things for lesser price then otherwise.

My new hair-cut and new look

2008-08-18T17:50:00.003+05:30

I think my wife is right when she says that Pihu is a attention seeker like me. For last many many years, I try to change my look by sporting a new hair cut or a new beard cut. It may be difficult to believe but in 2000, for 3-4 days I used to shave just on one side of my face and that left a little stub on the other side, not strong enough to notice from a distance but if you are in a conversations with me then the beard on on of the sides were pretty conspicuous by its absence.

This is nothing big to feel about, I think people like me just try to flaunt too much. Probably we live with some complex which makes us do this minor crazy things.

My current look is a very clean and tidy military man look, though I am sure I fail in terms of muscle and brawn but here it is.

This is a self shot pic so haven't come out well but you get the idea. Not long back, I had long hairs, long enough to tie. My saloon guys tells me that I am losing hair and I need to get careful, put more oil, do a steam etc. Very soon I would be on the wrong side of thirties and time to get into action.

The Cosmopolitan Lunch

2008-08-16T09:55:00.005+05:30

Its a very unusual post-independence day morning, with no sun and un-relenting rains, it doesn't make a good day for a holiday like saturday. As I sit here in my home-office with the large glass wall in front of me, I see a gray unending sky. It helps to look far and beyond when you are on 8th floor, its not really gloomy gloomy but its definitely not sunny. I need to step-out and visit the other corner of Delhi on preferably a public transport and I needed some motivation to sustain that, so here I am sharing with you a lunch conversation, a cosmopolitan one, I had the other day.

It was a usual office lunch, the table occupied by young and daring engineers as well as some of the old and daring ones like myself. Only the other day, on one of the train stories by my friend Karthik (read here), I commented about my only-big-train-achievement of my numerous routine train travels, the one where I took a bath on a station mid-way i.e. while the train re-filled and re-rejuvenated to get enough power to take us further 500 Km of the total 1400 odd KM journey, I sneaked to the waiting room, took a shower and was back. As luck would have it or rather as Paulo said that the whole world conspires to make it happen, there was a train conversation on the table.

C asked me on how far Darbhanga is from Varanasi, since she would be taking a train which goes till Darbhanga. Being from Darbhanga, my curious question was about the train name. It was to be 'Swatantara Sainani Express', a real tongue twister name for the IAS aspirants who horde from numerous North Bihar towns and villages and come looking for that dream and stay put in dingy, poorly list Katwaria-Sarai holes. Anyway, I told her and its not one of the best trains to take since its mostly running late and the conversation carried on.

I did't want to be looked down as someone who would use the zeroth opportunity to flaunt so I waited for the train conversation to mature. I was trying to time my best line at the best juncture, the point where the audience could just feel the tension growing and make the most of as I said before, the only-big-train-achievement. Its one of those things we were taught while doing endless theater workshops, its called timing, you need to deliver at the best time.

So the conversation went from trains to personal experiences. As expected the experiences were around failed engines, flooded rail lines and delayed trains. C shared that she and her family were once stuck at Guwahati for 2 days since the Brahamputra decided to play high. I also addded some of my lesser-achievement experience so as to help to conversation to gain mass and momentum. A shared that how some villagers-farmers blocked the traffic while he was coming from Aligarh. While all this happened, V had to tell us that how they, a group of 9 young engineers, were really lucky and brave to make a long journey with having just 5 confirmed tickets. This was booed down by all so-called non-Delhi wallahs, lead my your truly (which is so bad, really) and ably supported by A and C. After all having 5 confirmed tickets is a luxury on which an average Samastipur-ia or a Gorahpur-i would take his whole of family of 20, 9 is like a free ride.

While all this was happening, I did find time to share my bomb which got a lukewarm response. But thats not the intent of writing this. The intent was the sheer divide between the rail-traveled and locals, in current case Dilli-wallahs. One of my close friend who stayed all his life in Delhi, has never traveled overnight on train till he started working. There are so many of them. In all the train conversations, this outside group tries to look and sound smart. I think I just realized that I am the biggest of those smart-alecs. Not that I really repent it but thats what been these train conversation been going. This group of smart-alec would know things like how to release the vaccuum to stop a train, what is shunting, what is crossing, how you can just take a platform ticket and board a train and then ask for a ticket, and so on.

Having stayed in Delhi for last three decades, I fail to acknowledge being a Dilliwallah when train conversations happen because every year, my mother with her two young kids would take us to this real long ride, while our friends would either head for Nainital in UP State Transport Bus or would rather spend the summer doing nothing. But probably that would halt for a while, if not stop, after this so called awakening. :)

Coming back to cosmopolitan lunch, A C V and myself are from different places and we had our own stories while we all ate typical north Indian meal of Roti, separated boiled rice (khilay khilay chawal), daal, sabji and so on.

Another of those interesting lunch notes. I now need to get up and head for the other corner of the city where my wife and 3 year old are waiting for me. My biggest motivation to do this is that I would be able to buy some good beer pints on the way back, as I drive back to our home in this sub-urb in her car.

Olympic Gold, What next ?

2008-08-13T13:01:00.003+05:30

Abhinav Bindra finally did this for India, a country of over a billion people. What a tremendous feat. First for India since we haven't had a Gold by an Individual performer so far. When Hockey gold medals stopped, we stopped getting any. Though there was this occasional tennis or a weight-lifting one.

Now, when we have got one the big question is that what next ? So while I was brooding on this topic, I got an idea and over last two days I have spoken about it to few people and everyone agreed. And I thought that I would rather share it here, may be it really make sense.

The idea is that we should start to focus on ONLY skill based games. In other words, we should not be spending money on Athletics or Soccer or any of those high stamina, physical power games. Rather spend time and money on Archery, Chess (I think its not part of Olympics as yet), Shooting, Badminton, Table Tennis etc and dont do 100/200/400 m races, swimming, boxing etc. If we have to choose athletics then may be get trained for Marathons and not 100 m sprints.

The logic is that probably our body is not built for those sports. Even our hockey was more skill and less power. Ramesh Krishnan who did some wonders was mostly on touch-play rather them power-play like Pete Sampras. May be the kind of climate we are in, the kind of food we eat, may be the kind of philosophy we all grow with is not suited for these sports. We are a tolerant lot and probably you need a much aggressive guy to make that 100 m sprint, which as a society we are lacking.

Just an idea. If you like it then comment. May be its the golden idea we have been waiting for :)

Where do I host my websites ?

2008-08-10T10:38:00.004+05:30

This is a question which I am asked many time and then I give them the name and they forget and ask me again. As part of this conversation, they also ask me queries like

* how many e-mail accounts I can have ?
* How much space
* How much data transfer
* Is the service good
* How long you have been with them and how would you rate them
* and so on

So I thought that I would write a small post.

I host my sites with
Hostmonster and its been almost one and a half years. I was referred this place by someone who has been running a site for a while.

My requirement was very simple. I wanted a host which can allow me to do almost everything by myself. The worse thing which one has to do in this business is call someone and then ask them to publish something or get DB access or whatever. Also, it has to offer a rich set of tools like databases, blogging s/w, billing s/w, e-mail clients, scripting support and so on. I had setup many sites at my work and the most frustrating part is when you can't install a new Perl Run-time because the server belongs to someone else and he would want you to port your code in Php or Python.

Hostmonster has all of this. I pay USD $ 100 every year and as part of that I get unlimited domain hosting, hundreds of e-mail id and so on.

You can also get shell access which is really handy. Though I haven't used that so far since I am able to get everything done through the UI itself.

I have not used any other hosting directly in the past but my experience so far makes me recommend this provider. Click on above link to know more, also if you do sign-up then I get a cut :)

Making a file with no extension acccessible on IIS

2008-08-10T10:02:00.007+05:30

We were doing some tests and as part of one of the tests, we had to access a file which was hosted on a server running IIS 6.0. The program was making a http Get request and was getting 404. Yeah, the fabulous 404 error. What was really happening was that server was returning 404 for all files which has no extension.

We searched around and asked local experts and almost everyone could tell us on how to add a file extension but almost every one had no clue on how to add a Mime type with no extension. We tried many crazy things.

So we searched and searched and finally were able to get past. Since it took some time for us to find a relevant info on web, I thought that I would write a small post on this. So here's what you need to do.

Go to IIS, then Server name and then the domain name where you need to make a file accessible with no extension. Click 'Properties' and go to 'HTTP Headers' and then click [Mime Types]. I am not giving step by step as I am assuming that you would be able to figure this out.

Now comes the real part. In the 'Mime Types' dialog, click [New]. You would get following.

Enter the following information:

* Extension - *
* MIME type - application/octet-stream

Remember the screen-shot has some other extension. Just ignore that and enter '*' for file type and application/octet-stream for MIME type and you are good. Hope this information is useful for you.

Setting a meaningful WP sender e-mail

2008-08-08T14:50:00.004+05:30

I have a blog which is hosted on Wordpress. Its a travel blog and I wanted that Authors be notified when a new comment is made on any of their posts. So I did the relevant settings but funnily the sender e-mail id is host#.hostmonster.com. I have taken the hosting from Hostmonster.com.

This was my first experience with a website so I sort of let it go. Once the site was old and I had more information and time, I started looking for a solution. I found the solution here

http://riteshsapra.net/wp/2008/06/05/wordpress-sender-email-incorrect-hostmonster/

and it worked. In a nutshell the solution is
1. Look for a file called php.ini. Its usually on the root
2. Look for a following command and add -f option followed by e-mail id.

sendmail_path = /usr/sbin/sendmail -t -i -fusername@domain.com

3. Copy this file to WP blog root.

You need to ensure that the e-mail id which you are using is correctly configured in cpanel.

This did solve the initial problem. Now users were getting e-mail from a relevant id. But still it was not looking very elegant as there was no sender name. I wanted to see if there could be a way where I can set a 'Sender' name instead of an e-mail ID.

I asked Ritesh and he was not aware so I did some research and buoyed by the initial success after Reading Ritesh's article, I found a solution.

I did following

sendmail_path = /usr/sbin/sendmail -t -i -fusername@domain.com -FfromGhumakkar

I was expecting that it would set the Sender name as 'From Ghumakkar' but WP actually now setting the real commenter as the sender, which is all the good.

If its useful to you then do write a small comment.

India in slow motion - By Mark Tully - Review

2008-08-07T14:19:00.004+05:30

I recently read a book by Mark Tully, its called 'India in Slow Motion'. This is the first time I have read anything by Mark Tully, the famous BBC man and I am very impressed by the narration.

The book is about 'Poor Governance' and talks about social/political/cultural issues around governance. To me the book also sounded like a travel book and I picked a lesson or two in detailing things from Mark and am gradually applying them in my recent travel stories at Ghumakkar . There are about 14-16 chapters with chapter talking about a issue ranging from Carpet makers in Mirzapur to Gujrat rain harvesting solutions to Cyberabad and so on.

Mark and his partner Gilly have traveled extensively to capture the story at grass roots, the real reason behind the poor governance and even though it may appear that it would be a tough and a boring read, its not. Probably because the narration is super, the detailing amazing and most importantly its a real experience book and not a gyan by someone.

What greatly impressed me was this non-judgmental style of writing. Mark comes out as a great man of tact as writing against a particular government or person could get one into a problem but he handles it with so much of tact that its sounds convincing, true but yet very much un-biased.

I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to know about India. Its also a great read from travel point of view.

I have just picked up 'City of Djins' by William Dalyrymple and I hope to finish that in next 2 odd months. Yeah I am a very slow reader :)

The Asia Kitchen - Noida - Review

2008-08-06T15:21:00.003+05:30

There was a time when everything would happen at Sector - 18, whether thats shopping, eating out or movies. Then over time, we had more malls and more development. I still remember that 10 years back, sector 62 used to appear so far. Over time the other side of NTPC has seen lot of growth with the mushrooming call centers and software development centers but one thing which was greatly lacking was good dining options. Shoprix Mall in Sector 61 has a food-court and there is this quickie joint called 'Pulse' but nothing impressive so when we heard about 'The Asia Kitchen' in Sector 63, we were pretty sure to check it out.

We went in a large office group. Its located on the road which connects Model Town Chowki (on NH24) to NTPC, sector 62 is on one side and 63 on the other. Close by milestone is Hospital Fortis.

The place is spread over two floors, basement and ground floor. I may have failed to notice it but may be there is first floor too. We went to basement. There is a private room which can host 16 people and then there is this rest of area which can host 40-45 people.

Ambiance is pleasing, well lit without being too bold and nice and clean setup. There are sofas and chairs as seating and the table is a little high so a more formal, fine-dining kind of place.

Food is nice, good preparation. I had Thai Chicken with green curry and that was nice. We had lots of starters and overall food was well praised.

Service is prompt and good. May be there weren't enough people on that day but we found that they have put at least 3 people to serve us, a group of 8.

Variety - This is one area where they greatly lack, there are hardly many choices, esp for vegetarians. I think they would need to work on this since no one goes to a restaurant to have Dal Makhani and Aaloo Jeera. For Non-Veg as well there are not too many choices. They claim to server Indian, Thai and Chinese but frankly I could not find more then a couple of Thai dishes.

Price - Its a bit pricey. Not too expensive but can hurt so watch out while you order.

Alcohol - They do not have permit so no alochol. Mock-tails were pretty ordinary.

So Overall here's my report card
Ambiance - 5/5 (not extraordinary but clean, appropriately lit, fresh, spacious setup)
Food - 4/5
Variety - 2.5/5
Service - 4.5/5

Since there are not too many great new options in Noida so if you have exhausted the usual list then you must try this place.

Aaj Pehlee tarikh hai

2008-08-01T11:43:00.002+05:30

The charm of Pehlee Tarikh is gradually disappearing for me since I get my pay check on last day of a month. Also the money goes to bank and even though the e-mail alert from my bank is a pleasant mail to look at, the old world charm is sort of gone.

One of an old friend reminded me of this im-mortal song by Kishore, the number is called 'Din Hai Suhaana, Aaj Pehli Tarikh Hai'. And here a link of a site where you can listen this.

http://www.esnips.com/doc/f2358e14-e8a2-4456-a173-f65046065e82/Din-Hai-Suhana-Aaj-Pahli---Kishore-Kumar

I used to get cheque in my first company, that was in 1996. It was a small company being run out of a garage of a large bunglow in 'New Friends Colony'. Even though from my second job (which was at Newgen Software) the money used to go to Bank but it was always in first week so there used to be a little buzz around this. I think some part of it is also to do with the fact that back then the monthly salary was much more critical for minor day-to-day grocery expenses, now that sort of affects less.

Anyway, enjoy the song and let me know what you feel.

'In Xanadu' by William Dalrymple - Short Review

2008-07-25T12:09:00.002+05:30

I recently read a book called 'In Xanadu'. Its by William Dalrymple and is one of his early works. WD now is a very famous author and has written the popular ones like 'The last Mughal', 'The city of Djinns' etc. I was given this book by a friend and I think I was really lucky because otherwise I dont see myself picking this book from books-shelfs and reading it.

'In Xanadu' is a travelogue of WD and his friend where he tries to re-trace the route which was taken by Marco Polo (an old merchant and traveler) on his visit to Xanadu. WD was in college and he managed to get just enough funds to sponsor this trip as a educational trip. Marco was going to Xanadu to meet the great emperor Kublai Khan who controlled most of west and east Asia, Xanadu is now in Mongolia. The idea was to get pally with Khan and sort of use his friendship and power to influence control over muslims.

The journey starts with Jerusalem and ends at Xanadu and it takes you to Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Karakoram, China and finally Xanadu. Its all real account and young WD expressed it so well that you feel like doing the journey with him. Its a modern book and you would be able to empathize with lots of things. The narration is splendid and journey is one hell mix of adventure and fun.

I wont spill too many beans here but anyone who loves travel writing must read this. Its also a great source of history and once you read this, you would come out as a more learned and traveled person. Its not too thick and should not take many months to finish.

I am currently reading 'India in Slow Motion' by Mark Tully and would try to write a short review once I am done.

Fill Passport form online

2008-07-10T16:18:00.002+05:30

My passport is expiring, been 10 years and I needed to renew it. About 2 year back, I had really harrowing time dealing with things at Ghaziabad Regional Passport Office, getting things done. So I was expecting something similar but it seems that I had my share of passport office pains. So, while talking to a colleague, I came to know that one can now fill the passport form online. Wow. I still could not believe it but it worked for me, at least so far. So I thought that I would share this so that it might be helpful for other people.

The process is simple. Go to http://passport.nic.in. Not all passport offices have this facility so find out whether your passport office is covered or not. As of now 36 office are covered under this. Click here to see the complete list.

Fill the form. Choose 'Cash' as the option for fees. After you are done filling, you would be asked to choose a time for appointment. They do not give me many choices but its still much better then the past when you need to be in queue. After you are done, you would notice that a PDF filled form is opened in the browser. Take a print. Check it again to see if there are un-filled sections. Take supporting documents.

Go to passport office on the day/time as per your appointment and ask for the queue of 'online'. Submit and you are done.

AVOID - 'Dhanaulti Woods' Camp of Wanderlust

2008-07-04T15:49:00.002+05:30

I went to Doon couple of weeks back and we had planned to do a night at Dhanolti. We had a bad experience and I thought I would share it here.

We have booked a tent at 'Camp Woods' which is run/managed by Wanderlust. This was the first time, we have planned to stay at a property of 'Wanderlust' and probably it would be the last time. The camp was sold to us as a wonderful place with a swiss tent and all those things. We were asked full advance (Rs 3800 for two people for a night) and even for a swiss tent, it was quite a premium. We spoke to one called Uma at their Delhi office.

Initially we were refused as there was no place but surprisingly when I e-mailed them, they readily agreed. We were told to pay the full money in advance. It was something which should have alerted me and we really paid the price for that lapse.

So we reached there and what we really saw was a small piece of land, next to road having some tents. The tents were not swiss ones as they didn't have the attached loo and were not as big as what the standard swiss tents are. It was all vacant and spooky. There were three punters who claimed to be the ones who would provide services. From a distance, we could guess it that we have been taken for a ride. The tents were not swiss and at best they looked like a concoction built to survive a traveling-camping group. The infra was really poor. Not that I haven't been to such place but I have never paid through my nose for this kind of infrastructure. When I confronted with the guy at the camp who was more like a poor-chap who works for 2K a month and handles the cheated travlers, he really had nothing to say. He had no phone (only BSNL phone work so our phone was not working) and there was no office. We were promised that we will get the invoice at the camp and as you could have guessed it, the guys there had nothing like that. If not for that worn-out board at the road which has the name of the camp, the place could be called anything w/o any change, say 'The great Dhanulti Camp' or whatever. They were surprised when we told them that we were supposed to get an invoice :) They genuinely were.

Photo from the road. Its about 20 steps away from the road, though the other side opens out into a valley.

Row of tents. There is nothing else there and its not child safe.

It looks good in photo, as long as you dont get cheated for the price.

We went back to Doon and stayed there. We called them from Dhanaulti and told them to refund our money. Even after repeated calls and follow-ups, I am still to get the refund and I hope that they realize their mistake and I dont have to resort to legal ways :) which I am fully prepared to , if need be. It was really amusing to hear back from Uma and Anuj (someone at Wanderlust) that its our fault since we were looking for a luxury holiday and tents are not like that. May be next time, I book something I should go with my log of travels. I didn't even feel like responding to these remarks :)

I know some of you must be thinking that why dont I write this at www.ghumakkar.com and alert other ghumakkars. I thought about it and I was so pissed off by this experience (they actually ruined a vacation) that I didn't want to spread that.

Still I am writing it here, just to vent. If you do go, then negotiate hard, from my camping experience, those were not more then 1000 Rs including meals. Infact if you can drive about 20 KMs further, there is this camp called 'Whispering Pines' (there is another one with the same name but thats more like a hotel, this is true-blue campers place) where you can get one for a night at Rs 600- Rs 800. And mind you, we were in off-season :) It was all empty, not sure whether other people did the same thing as what we did.

So AVOID Wanderlust. I waited for four weeks to write all this and probably if they would have apologized and returned my money by now, I might have not done this.

So Avoid them and dont ruin your much earned vacation.

Chopper Ride - A memorable experience

2008-06-13T16:38:00.001+05:30

Last month, I got an opportunity to be in a chopper. It was a four + two (driver, co-driver) seater one and we flew from Delhi (Indira Gandhi International Airport) to Faridabad (Escorts' some Factory) and then back. About 30 minutes of air time + 20 minutes of snack break at Escorts.

From the terminal 1B, we were taken in a Innova to the embarking point. The chopper was all ready. While its difficult to explain the experience, here are some pics.

Me and Aditya.

Thats the chopper

Look at the no of those circles. Its a tough job.

Trucks lined up at some construction site. They seemed like ferrying stone or something like that.

Some housing apartments.

Golf Course

Gurgaon Toll Point

Hope you enjoyed the trip.

Lazzez in Kanchan Junga Market, Sector - 53 Noida

2008-05-26T17:42:00.003+05:30

The corner butcher shops are difficult to find. Even though there are some which still exist (like the one in Lal Market, Sector 37 or in Sec-12, Sabzi Mandi) but gradually big boys with swankier shops are taking over. I like to eat home cooked mutton and I prefer to buy from a shop where I can see the mutton being chopped. That helps me to gauge the quality and also allows me to choose, i.e. whether I want from 'pichli raan' or I need 'chaap' or 'boties' or may be some 'kaleji'. I somehow is yet to be get comfortable with tinned mutton.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I discovered a shop in sector - 53 which off late has become to point of choice for buying mutton. Though I have bought stuff from this shop for many years but I was not making any attempt to go to this particular shop. I used to either buy it 'Shipra Sun City' since it was close to my house or in Tot Mall, Sector 62 as it used to be on-the-way to home.

This shop is called 'Lazzez' and they have a wide choice of non-veg ranging from all kinds of kebabs, to chicken nuggets, lollypops, mutton etc. They also have a food counter where one can get some quick snacks. The prices are ok , not expensive.

They are located in Kanchanjunga Market, right in the centre of it, behind 'Mother Dairy' milk-n-vegetable shop. The shop is open on all days except the last tuesday of every month. They do home-delivery as well.

Here is some pointed information.

Directions and Phone no.
Its on the Road which connects NTPC to Flex. Its the same road which starts near the film city, then Great India Palace, then Vishwa Bharti School, DPS, NTPC, Shoprix, Flex. If you are coming from NTPC side then take 2nd right (just before Shoprix). If you are coming from Shoprix (sector 61) side then the cut after shoprix.

Address - Lazzes, Kanjunjunga Shopping Complex, Sector - 53.
Phone No - 9811608901, 0120 2584222, 0120 2585584

The Tea Shop, Sector - 37, Noida

2008-05-14T15:41:00.007+05:30

Its been a while I have been wanting to write a small note on a very special shop in Noida which serves different kinds of Tea. So here it is. I stayed in Sector 37 from 2000 - 2003, almost 4 full eventful years i.e. from beginning of 2003 to end of September 2003. Moved to my own house in October 2003, got married on Oct 4, the same year. This was the first time I actually stayed in Noida. Was working with Quark, Chandigarh, when I decided to move back to Delhi and picked a job with 'Legato Systems' (now called EMC software).

Anyway, so while we were there, there was this small shop in a garage, just on the other side of 'Lal Market' which used to have quite a big collection of Tea viz. Darjeeling Tea, Black Tea, Ginger Cold Tea, Ice Tea and so on. Since it was not really a hotel/restaurant there was no seating arrangement so people used to hang around the place using stools or muda-s (thats like a round roped contraption, soft). It used to be a place for young college goers or old school boy-n-a-girl kind of place.

Recently this place has shifted to a market place in Sector 37 itself. There is this dilapidated place at the end of the sector and its called gulmohar or some other flower named market which has a Indane Gas Agency and nothing else. Its on the back side of 'Army Public School, Sector - 37'. Just ask around for the market behind APS and someone would help you to find it.

I still see the same gentle man behind the small counter where you order. In its old avatar, the lady who owns the place used to be at the shop in the evening herself but I dont see her any more. There are about 15 odd choices for drinks ranging from Ice Tea to Hot Tea to some cool options. You can also get a bite of sandwiches, momos etc. Next time I visit there I would try to get a snap-shot of menu and would paste it here. Its worth a visit for sure. Go in evening but before it starts to get dark since its not a very busy market and can get a little lonely.

And here's the bonus pic for reading this far. There is a halwai shop just round the corner so while you tea is brewed enjoy a Samosa, they are really good. Incidentally , this Halwai had a shop in a close-by garage when the 'Tea Shop' was near 'Lal Market' :), I think its called 'Ram lal' ke samose, does any one from 437 gang remember this ?

enjoy and if you make then do share your views.

Shoprix Mall Bowling Alley, Sec 61, Noida - Review

2008-05-09T15:36:00.000+05:30

Noida has only two Bowling alleys. Yeah, read it again. Even though Noida has seen tremendous growth in terms of Malls and 'BPO Call Centres', there are just two bowling alleys. Out of this two, one of them just opened a few months back at 'The Great India Place, Opposite Sector - 18' and the other one which is been there for some time is at 'Shoprix Mall', Sector - 61 and is called 'City Bowl'.

There are four lanes and if you go on a week days there is a fair chance that you would find a lane for yourself. The charges are Rs 100 for a game in week days and Rs 125 in weekends and that includes Fridays. If you are 12 or more then you get a 10% discount or a free game.

The quality of the lanes is decent and the infrastructure is also ok. It is not very uncommon to ask for help (pins not being picked by the picker, the system just get stuck , whatever) once for one game. But thats fine.

Apart from Bowling, they also have two pool table, an ice hockey table, couple of video games and snacks to munch. Its not very big but usually its not crowded as well. So all in all, a decent neighborhood joint to enjoy a game or two.

Here's contact info. citbowl@airtelbroadband.in and contact no is 0120 - 4334477

Squabs at my house - Pics of a Pigeon babies

2008-04-28T17:26:00.000+05:30

Its been a while, infact a long time I wrote something here. So better late then never.

In my house, we have this long tunnel kind of thing just next to our bathrooms. This is the place where you have all the plumbing things going on. I stay on 8th floor. So in this place, me and my wife recently discovered that a Pigeon has hatched eggs and we could see two little squabs.

Over time, I tried to take some pics. Notice that how they are growing bigger over time.

Shot on - 24th Feb, 2008
You can see the egg crusts and the mouth of the babies. They are still under Mother pigeon. I have more pics of this time.

Shot on Feb 29, 2008 morning. I know that I should have taken more pics and should not have waited for a week. Now you can see babies very clearly, also mother Pigeon is away.

Shot on 8th March, 2008.
Now the skin/feather color is getting closer to what a Pigeon looks like.

Shot on 15th March, 2008

Shot on 19th March, 2008.
The interesting thing that both remain together.

Shot on 24th March,2008.

That was the last time, I saw them.

I wished I would have clicked more pics. The interesting news is that about 2-3 weeks back I again observed a Pigeon and after some time I saw two eggs. Till this morning the eggs were not hatched. I have clicked some pics, so hope to share more over time.

The Kite Runner - Book Review

2007-12-28T17:59:00.000+05:30

After a long time, probably after I read 'The Life of Pi', here's another book which keeps you engaged till the end. Its a sad and tragic story of a boy from Afghanistan. Its a work of fiction by Khaled Hosseini and his first one, did this in 2003. He is from Afghanistan.

The book starts with a story of a boy in Afghanistan in a well-to-do family with access to English DVDs, good food, Mustang, a influential father and most importantly a divine friend. The book is named 'The Kite Runner'as this divine friend is a great kite runner. A kite runner is someone who runs and loots the cut kites. Amir, the rich kid and the Hasan the poor kid. The story moves easy and well in the beginning with details on Afghan life and mostly about Kabul before Russian war era.

It all funny and good-read till Khaled makes the first blow where Hasan gets badly treated by a group of rowdy boys. Wont tell you the actual thing but I was very shocked and I actually stopped reading this for a while. It seemed like a big effort to again pick the book and resume. From then on the story turns and more tragic thing start to happen. Amir gets into that guilt mode since he could not save Hasan. Then the war happens and they have to flee to Pakistan and then later to US. Amir has lost his mother very early and his Dad was never too excited about Amir for he was more of a creative kind with little or no interest in sports or more manly occupations.

The story then moves leaps n bounds with Amir finally moving to US, finishing his school there, finding a girl, comes back to Pakistan to meet an old friend of his Abba. Its a not a thick tome but Khaled has been able to add so much that you keep engaged and connected. Infact in last 100 pages, there are many new twists and discoveries. Its not only a story of a boy by now and rather takes you to society and a country. In last few episodes so much happen that you start to get nauseating at times.

The finish line has not been decorated too much, it sorts of end on a subtle note. Nothing great happens in the end, probably a realistic end to a heroic story. If you dont like reading tragedies then avoid but if you are interested in reading human relations, those secret aspects of ourselves, the innates then do read.

There is movie on the book and is getting released shortly so read the book first before watching the movie.

Overall Rating - 4/5

Fluid Lounge Bar - Mosaic Noida

2007-12-12T10:37:00.000+05:30

There used to be this old hotel called 'Shipra' just opposite sunehri market or Atta as more popularly known. In its place has come up a new one called Mosaic and withit comes a new lounge bar for Noida-ites called 'Fluid'.

Its on the back side and has a very trance-party kind of entrance. Not a very large place, at two levels. Its all white with plush sofas strewn around giving that top luxury feel. Infact there is not much furniture apart from these plush sofas and chairs/stools. Basement is more suited to have a private party but I doubt whether they would give you the whole space.

I always had beer so really can't say on how they do in terms of cock-tails but the collection is decent and you get all the usual ones here. I went as part of group and for a conformation of 35 persons, we got it at 1050 per head for unlimited drinks + snacks (two veg, two non-veg). Staff is polite and responsive. For additional 250 you can also club in the dinner but for a normal walk-in they wont offer the dinner and you would need to walk-up to their another restaurant called 'Latitude' to have food. Snacks were average.

They play all kinds of music, usually loud but nothing special about the music so Superstars would still beat them fair-n-square on music and food quality.

All in all a place with a different decor, same liquor, expensive but worth one visit.

How to reach - Reach Sector 18 of Noida, NCR. Ask for Hotel Mosaic and then ask for Fluids.

Om Shanti Om - Review

2007-12-08T17:46:00.000+05:30

Rating - 3.5/5

Ok. So finally I managed to watch this movie. Probably one of the most talked movies in recent weeks. SRK himself admitted that there is not a single TV Channel, Radio Station, News Paper, Magazine etc etc where he has not given interview or has not missed any opportunity to promote the movie. So much so, that when he was there in T20 World Cup Finals early this year, there was hue and cry on him using (abusing) every appearance of his as a promotional event, he was reported to have been distributing music CDs, which is fine I guess. I always happened to find this amusing piece on Saakshi's blog which I feel may not be enough researched. To read it click here.
http://sakshijuneja.com/blog/2007/11/23/marketing-strategies-featuring-shah-rukh-khan/

Anyway lets come back to movie. Movie is doing very good. After beating 'Saanwaria' heads-down its doing brisk business and would do better then SRK's last movie viz. 'Chak De India'. I also wrote a review on that. Seems like I am getting to watch all this new movies :)

OSO starts with a well edited song sequence from 'Karz' where apna SRK is watching the shot being done by Subhash Ghai, it was really delightful to hear Kishore in his full steam, singing 'Om Shaanti Om' (the old, more popular tune). First 30 minute of the film go really really well, the quality of production is excellant, Farah seems to have a good control in the beginning, Shreyas is impressive, SRK is all overwhelming. Good comedy. So far so good. Next 30 minutes or so are sort of average. I personally felt that during this part, they were trying to establish this point of '.....you want to do something really from your heart....entire world conspires to make it happen....'. Paulo Cohello must be a happy man. During this time, when SRK has a close-time with Shanti (Deepika, she is fabulous) , somehow those real deep emotion handling was , you know, not really happened well. I was expecting to be SRK during this time, a time when actor does something really close to what you feel and then you start to live this life. Farah just gave away, SRK was not giving much time to Shanti and the whole '.........when you love something.....' philosophy doesn't stick too well. I think this is the time when the movie would ideally have stuck with the audience but it was sort of lost.

The next 1 hour or so is pretty Bollywoodish, not much fun except that song where you are served with so many of yester year starts. Its really fun and satisfying to see Dharam Paaji, Jeetu, Rekha and almost all the new breed, wonder where was AB. SRK dies, comes back, is a star, usual stuff.

And then finally time for good to win over evil. So the villain is trapped, old Shaanti comes back as new Shaanti, those spooky stuff. Last reel. The actor-Shaanti is caught by villain as the fake Shaanti so he challeges her and finally the real bolywood happens. Old Shaanti who died comes back and makes the chandelier fall. You tend to real wait to have a finish.

so all in all a decent entertainer, more so because of SRK, Shreyas and Deepika. Some of the things which were really odd were

1. SRK1 dies when he was young but not very young. So his mother must be 50ish. He comes back after 20-25 years and his mother doesn't look more then 60.
2. Shanti1 is a super star. When Shanti2 comes, no-one really says that she looks same as Shaanti1.
3. SRK2 is at least 30 years younger to Villain, his prev-janam Mom, his old friend. But after couple of reels he start to again talk-behave-boss like SRK1.
4. Villain kills Shanti because he fears that he would be bankrupt. Later he makes more money by getting much more insurance cover and marrying Mittal's daughter. Mittal was shown to have agreed to get his daughter married because he has put tons of money in the movie. So if he is killing Shaanti (which means he is also killing Mittal's hard earned money), how come he gets all.

If you can think of more, add your comment.
But then its bollywood :)

'Do Disturb' Regsitry

2007-12-07T15:36:00.000+05:30

A country which has more phones then water hand-pumps or clean toilets or almost every other thing really needed a 'Do No Disturb' registry. This is effective from Sep1,2007 and all telecom service providers need to maintain this registry. If you are registered and you get a call then you can complain and there are fines for first fault and greater fines for subsequent faults.

So far so good.

There is no single registry so its a sort of pain, more so when in future we are talking about no portability and so on, but better then not having any thing.

So why I am writing it all here, we all know it, whats new. Well, couple of weekends back I was driving at about 100 KMPH on a not so great highway, between Ambala and Zirakpur, the other important thing was I was driving a big car and the power-assist of brakes were not working. Which means that I was much more alert and tired because it used to take lot of effort to stop the car at times. It was early morning, other passengers were either sleepy or dis-interested, so amid all this a bulb flashed and I thought that why not have a 'Do Disturb' registry. Instead of asking everyone to get added, we would rather do the opposite. It would be nightmarish for tele-callers since the default would be NO, and I doubt how many of us would take the pain to add them selves to 'Do Disturb' registry.

Noble thought.

The other aspect of this could be that there could indeed be folks who do not mind an occasional call for a bargain-deal or about an exciting housing project. And probably by adding some inducing-factor, we can actually motivate people to get added. This inducement could be in the form of
- Get added to 'Do Disturb' and get 15 SMSes free
- Or Get added and receive three caller tunes free

Once such a database is up then we can give access to this DB to telemarketers for a service fee. Also mechanisms could be put in place such that a subscriber to DoDisturb doesn't receive more then 3 calls a month or a some golden no. To scale this system, we can have ip-telephony software and one can call only using that s/w so we also rope-in telecom providers. I am sure if I create such a registry today, we would definitely get some good ideas and can evolve and refine this.

But I think its a decent thought to be pondered more.

Caspian Bar and Restaurant - Noida

2007-12-04T09:28:00.000+05:30

Overall Rating - 3/5

We had lunch at Caspian Bar and Restaurant, a not so old chip in Sector 50 market in Noida. This market is gradually coming up to speed but its still looks and feels like old-world (pre mall area) shopping complex with blaring gen-sets, all kind of vehicles, cartons, congested alleys and so on.

Since its close to my place of work, we were there to celebrate a colleagues birth day. We were 11 of us. This place has two level, lower level being more of bar and the first floor as a family restaurant. I think the restaurant can house 40 odd people, not too many but not too less as well. The decor and interiors and not impressive but decent. The staff is polite but not polished, probably they would benefit from some hotel-training.

Some of us had beverages (alcoholic as well else) and the report was not too great. They have happy hours but no happy hours for cock-tails, which sort of takes the fun out of happy hours. The drinks are otherwise priced ok. 150 odd for a bloody-mary is not exciting but thats what the market price is these days. Indian beer bottle costs about the same.

Food is right priced but the potion size is small. It hits all the more since its served in this real deep containers which actually is a set of two containers , the top one being not too deep.

Service is ok. It still takes them quite a white to fetch that extra butter naan, probably kitchen is a little afar.

All in all, a not too bad place to go but nothing great to write home about.

Eden Kitchen & Bar at Noida - Review

2007-08-23T11:15:00.000+05:30

In recent years Noida has seen many malls coming up. It all started with a small tiny mall, which noone now remembers though, at Atta Pir junction called SAB Mall. And then came the big one called Centrestage mall. All the action was on Sec 18 till Shipra Mall opened in Indirapuram and then we had Shoprix Mall in Sec 61.

I am giving all this background just to better understand the overall setting. Shoprix mall has a food court with Otik, Sagar, Domino's and others serving hot dishes and then Pulse opened, a express restaurant. Incidentally even after about two years of its opening there was not a single water-hole so no beer vendors and one section of eating-out public would always had to do with Juices and Colas.

In this setup, a new restaurant-cum-bar opened called Eden and boy, it started getting folks, for the simple reason that it serves alcohol. So thats the long background :) and here comes quick review

1. Liquor is good since they dont make it. So if you are stuck in Shoprix and want a few chilled beers head for it.
2. Its very expensive with a bottle at Rs 175 and cock-tails at Rs 199 with no happy hours for Cock-tails.
3. Ambiance is dark and sort of hmmm, something like 'Ice Cubes' of Sector 18 but thats ok, a personal choice.
4. Food is just ok.

So go for liquor, if you are really looking for a new place, else the joints in Sec 29 are still very good.

'Chak De India' - Movie and more

2007-08-21T21:34:00.001+05:30

Last week, I watched 'Chak De India' at Spice PVR. It was an evening show, there were 9 of us, all from the same company, same team, and we carry a damn good rapport within ourselves, a swanky plush setting, large popcorn packets, nice and clean setup, terrific air-conditioners, pretty girls and lots of same-team humor-fun and more. Probably a brilliant starting band setting, we were already euphoric, before the real band came on stage, the one with so many girls and getting-old SRK, Shahrukh Khan, along with some good games of our national sport. Everything just fell in place, infact I missed to mention that it was on 16 August so all of us were just out of 15th August, the 60th anniversary of Independence Day and with the advent of still-counting TV channels, a sense of patriotism, a sense of being on the verge of doing big was already pushed-in these tiny minds of 9 people, everything was in place, just everything and it would have taken something really earth-shattering for us to not like the movie.

So did I not like the movie ?

No, I did. Its a wonderfully made movie, it caters to Mass Market Indian sensibilities, its quick, there are no songs (did we have songs in Ab Tak Chhapan ? ) , lots of sports, beautiful girls and most importantly SRK.

So did I not like the movie ?
Well, to be honest I was as engaged and as engrossed in those 2 and half hours that I didn't think of anything else and for any film-maker, that itself is a decent barometer of success so I must have liked it.

So did I not like the movie?
I did, c'mon, its a good movie. But its just another good movie and probably nothing beyond that.

Oh, so you didn't like the movie, haan, say it, c'mon, did ya or did y not ?
I did but would it have done equally well if it has not been SRK ? Probably not. SRK is god in these times and he did so well. He should more of these roles, more of Swadesh, more of Paheli and certainly more of 'WE-can-do-it' kinda roles.

To cut this (read to cut this crap), I liked the movie and I can watch it again. I would recommend it any day. Lets talk more about the movie now.

CDI is a movie about loss of face and resurgence of a young man. Kabir Khan misses a Penalty stroke against Pakistan in a world-cup match and loses the trophy. Being a muslim, he is blamed for being with them and loses his esteem. After few years, he gathers his lost esteem, gets courageous and offers to train the Indian Womens Hockey team and claims that he would actually make them win the world cup trophy. An offer which non one can refuse (remember Godfather) so the management buys into that and He actually does that in the end. Losely based on the life of Mir Negi, a goalie who conceded as many as 7 goals in a similar match and then goes to train India women hockey team which actually wins a gold at Commonwealth tournament.

The movie runs like a charm with SRK in full control and probably everyone is hinged on to see what magic this guy will do to pull this off. This is one big thing where Shimit (director for this movie, has done Ab Tak Chappan) has been wildly successful, even though there is no secret, it keeps you thinking on 'how will this bunch will do it'.

So far so good, no songs, some real beautiful tracks played in the background. I liked the one which is ".... maula meri le li meri jaan..." or something like that. No lady love, no skin, minimum to zilch action, lots of sweat and lots of hockey.

Ok. Why did i sound like someone who was not impressed ?

So here is the reason. When you go and watch a movie, that movie stays with you for a long time and as you think more about it, you tend to discover things which probably you have missed while watching it.

CKI has done so poorly on developing the 'Characters' , not a single 'character' has been established well enough. Lets start with Kabir. Who is kabir ? Just a captain who lost a penalty stroke and everyone started to dislike him, so much that he was not only thrown out of team but no one knew where is he and what is he doing. What did he like, where were his team mates, it was just ONE penalty stroke. Shakil was India's one of the greatest Penalty Stroke specialist ( I am talking about the era of 1985 - 1990 or so) when Pargat was captain and boy he missed too at times. He was a muslim as well. Mir left as many as 7 goals and thats really too many. But for one goal or one miss. Where did he go ? Was he someone who we all thought as a resilient quiet guy or a one who would joke around and is a team person. When Kabir comes back, he is shown as gritty, firm and a hard-brain person, remember how many times he said OUT in first workshop. If he is someone like that then why didn't he fight when he lost that goal. Was he tamed, or was he shooed away, or was it just that some Tom Dicky Harry-er called him a cheat. What was the reason which director would throw to the movie watcher to like the character. Probably none.

Lets go further. The team which played had so many girls. If we leave Preeti, Komal, Vrinda and Vidya, who were other girls. The only thing which was told was they come from various states. But what do they carry with them. If you have someone from Sundargarh (Orrissa) then how many of us know that you have someone who knows hockey by heart because everyone plays hockey there, with bamboo and those wooden-cloth-padded balls. When Preeti takes the ball, did you feel assured that now the ball is with the champion, we will get the goal. Or for that matter, why and how Vrinda break the man-to-man shadowing in the game against Korea. If Kabir was so certain of not dropping Vrinda from the squad then was it just her seniority or something else. What did each one of these players carry home, who was Aaliya aur Nethra reddy or Soi-moi or Prasad.

calm down, calm down.

I would possibly save my further thoughts for some other day but probably down the line people wont remember the details of the movie and the big reason for which you feel the excitement is because its a movie based on a game.

Yes, I did like the movie but then I wont buy a DVD of it. :)

Independence Day - 15 Aug 2007

2007-08-18T20:21:00.000+05:30

Everyone was making a big thing out of this year's ID. It is our 60th independence day so that would make it two generation old. In my apartment block, we had the traditional flag hosting and I clicked some pics. This is from my 8th floor so its not clear but nevertheless.

And here is the video, courtesy youtube. I do not have the complete thing but the guys actually did fire from guns, so as to salute and then did a small march.

There was sweets (Jalebi) distribution to each household later.

Lovely Complete Rainbow

2007-08-02T16:51:00.001+05:30

Smita was driving back home when she called me on my cell to look out of my office window, I work for Adobe India and my office has this large glass windows which overlooks the fields between Adobe and Spice World Mall, So I looked out and after some directional tuning, I could see a Rainbow.

I went out and I could see the whole bow, guess for the first time in my life, I have seen such a complete thing. Being in Photoshop Elements group, we have some of the better cameras so some of us rushed to the terrace and Swapnil clicked this.

Lovely. There are two of them. This is shot from Adobe Sec 25 A Noida and the road which you see is the one which connect NTPC with Chauda Mode.

Enjoy !!

Donnie Brasco - Movie Review and more

2007-07-29T20:01:00.000+05:30

Last weekend, I watched 'Donnie Brasco'. I have not heard about the movie before and so did Smita who picked the DVD since the cover had Al Pacino and Johnny and she thought that I would like it.

And boy, I liked it like hell. Brilliant work by Mike Newell. Its a 1997 movie about a FBI undercover Agent Joe Priston (played beautifully by Johnny) who gets into mafia, gets close to Al Pacino who sort of acts like his mentor, falls in love with Al and after a while he finds himself so much into mafia-dom that it gets difficult to get out of it, for the simple reason that if he does then Leftie (thats the name which Pacino carries in this movie) gets whacked. Its so simple out there.

Mike is an old chap and one quick search on google will let you get up and think more about him, off late he directed 'Harry Porter and the goblet of fire' and I just came to know that recently he finished 'Love in the times of Cholera', an amazing love story by Garcia Marquez, king of reality-n-illusion. To read more about Mike, click here

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001565/#director

Coming back to movie. It starts with Joe trying to get inside the gang by feigning as jewel-guy. After the usual tricks (where Al Pacino tries to validate his jewel knowledge), Left (Pacino) starts to like him and introduces him into the gang. He gives him a new name 'Donnie'. Some of the gang terminology

"....while introducing if I say.... meet Donnie, a friend of mine..." then it means that you are a in-guy or someone to be trusted and all that where as if you say
"....meet Donnie, a friend of ours......" then you are a made guy :)

So Donnie joins the gang, unlike hindi movie he doesn't have to do any stunts to win hearts. The movie goes with usual Mafia killings, new bosses, whacking etc etc. Over time Donnie gets more and more involved, his relationship with his wife starts getting bad, then to worse. Donnie is now a big cat among them, he starts to neglect FBI. His wife wants to get out of relationship and goes to a counselor. All this while, Donnie and Al Pacino gets closer and closer. When Left's son gets admitted to hospital (because I guess he took more coke then he could possibly swallow) Joe spends time with Left.

The beauty of the movie is the gradual change in character of the agent, from a normal agent in the beginning to more of a Mafica guy in the end, Joe fights the battle. The character has been developed so well that at all points of time you can feel the dilemma which Joe is having over whether he should expose the mafia and get 'Leftie' whacked.

Finally in the end, FBI catches him, gives him a reward of $ 500 for his good work. FBI reached out to Mafia to tell them that its all over. They don't believe that Donnie was a rat and think that FBI is bluffing them. In the last shot, Left gets a call, he tells his wife that it might be a long evening, gets off his ring, watch and other stuff, most likely he is....

Its based on a true story and if you search on Joe Pristone or Donnie Brasco, you would find lot of text.

Watch it

The Google Story

2007-07-23T16:47:00.000+05:30

Recently I wrote a review on 'The Google Story'.
Over last few weeks, I read 'The Google Story', yeah its an old title but Google is still hot I guess. Its very well written and reads like a fiction. I personally do not know much about David A. Wise, author of this book but a quick google search yields good results and after reading 2 minutes, it comes out that he has done big things to write home about.

Read the full story at
http://booksvoyage.blogspot.com/2007/07/google-story.html

Cobra - What a fine beer

2007-07-02T19:03:00.000+05:30

My little daughter Pihu was off to my in-laws last friday and that gave me and Smita a valid reason to check out a smoky eating joint. She also had some work where she has to see how the 'HT Interacts' event is going on (she works for Zee and it was sponsoring some part of it) and that was in Deshbandhu Gupta Apartments, Kalkaji. I am familiar with the city but that in no way means that I can find some place quickly, though it does mean that it would take a much worse traffic to get me frustrated then someone who is not been here. So we found the place, saw the event and then started to scour for a good eating joint.

We zeroed in at Ego's at New Friends Colony, referred as NFC in eating-out circles.

Egos is one of those old places who have lot of old wooden furniture and those old sofa-seats, round low height wooden tables and bar stools with non-granite table tops. They serve continental, italian, sort-of-indian food and a have a very decent collection of wine and liquor. The staff is not-very-young, much more calmer, they play Eagles (Hotel California) and not ver well lit, a very good enough setting for a dinner-for-two.

A cock-tail costs 270 bucks so Smita ordered a Cosmopolitan and I chose the easy option of Indian Lager Beer (Rs 155 a bottle). We told the guy and he asked me whether I would like Cobra instead of Kingflisher which I asked for to start with, after a brief non-decisive-gestures I asked him to get that.

And BOY what a beer it was. Simply amazing. I am not sure that whether I have had Cobra before or not (I was in UK for about two weeks few years back and its a UK based beer and we had beer every night but I was young and stupid so I dont remember whether it was Cobra or Corona) but it was well worth it, it really drove me home and I guess all the international awards which it has won are all real. Its a UK based beer but I checked out the bottle and it seems its avail for Rs 40 a piece and is being bottled somewhere in Alwar. At Rs 40 a piece its a steal and my hunt to get few cases of this beer is on.
go and have a glass of Cobra beer and enjoy it. - http://www.cobrabeer.com/

- jha (Read my travel blogs at www.ghumakkar.com )

Did Himesh always look like this ?

2007-06-25T23:25:00.000+05:30

Did Himesh always look like this ?

Strange thought. I am now used to of finding Himesh in his traditional stuff and a cap, always and I often used to wonder that when this guy gets his cap off, probably never.

So I thought more and my common sense, whatever of it is left after all these years of testing all kinds of code (you can read some of my software testing tips at http://test-software.blogspot.com), tells me that there must be a time when this middle class born Gujarati would not have spotted a head-gear.

So I hunted and found what, well the old Himesh look. Look at some of these pictures and you would get a good break from the monotony of this current look.

Just this and I actually wanted to write this as a post, well I thought why not. He is riding really really high and with every new day I am growing a liking for his songs, my two year old daughter Pihu now recognizes him, probably I taught her that as part of ever-educating-juvenile-dad, and also knows that he is the guy behind songs like 'ek baar aaja aaja aaja aaja aaaa jaaa' and 'a aa ashiqui mein teri'. He has been around long enough to carve a world for him, infact he directed music as back as 1988 (Bandhan) but was hit only by 1998 with Pyar Kiya to Darna Kya. He did few TV sops as well for Zee and our motherly channel DD. So its not an overnight or couple of years of hit movies to get where he is now. Enough of my justification for liking him.

Coming back to my daughter, I really wonder whether she would be able to recognize him w/o his head-gear. Enough Himesh, go get a shaver, you look much kewl-er and neat without this.

It happened in India - By Kishore Biyani

2007-06-06T21:10:00.000+05:30

It happened in India is a candid and close book by Kishor Biyani, the king of retail as often called by lot many with every growing day. This book which is sort of a young biography of Kishore is co-authored by Dipayan Baishya.

Kishore or KB as often referred to in the whole book starts with telling the Big Bazaar story esp the 'Sabse Sasta Din' campaign of 26 January 2006 and it reads like one hell of a fiction. I wont leak the story but how much you can imagine a grocery store can make by selling Atta, rice and low priced tops and jeans. They do sell TVs and Washing Machines but these are not the ones which get picked up in large nos. Ever heard someone who wanted to buy one AC, actually ended up buying three of them. This happens all the time for folks who go to Big Bazaar to buy a T-Shirt or a Juice can or even a shampoo.

Coming back to fiction, the first story is very well sold to readers and that sort of binds you to read the remaining book. Some of the things which KB talks about are how there store are never a few steps up guarded by a inhibitive security person or on how not to have long aisles and how the concept of having mini-bazar is so much common sense. One of the things which everyone keeps telling us is that when WalMart or other such biggies come here with their expert inventory systems, people like KB will go bust. Well after reading it doesn't seem like as KB tells us stories and stories on how we need to Indianize things.

After the big bazaar story, KB tells us about his background, how his parent came from Bikaner and setup shops in Mumbai as traders. He is a Marwari like some of the other big businesses but he didn't chose to do what his parents were doing. He dabbled in many things, from tailoring patlooons (yeah thats what it was called way back) to setting a fabric factory.

You would be surprised to know that KB even produced a movie called 'Na Tum Jaano Na Hum' followed by another flop and decided to stop. He talks about the future and the 'future group'.

Pretty easy and good read for all. He finishes with another equally fascinating fiction which they pulled off next year on 26 Jan 2007.

Read it.

2007-06-06T20:47:00.000+05:30

More land development near NH58

2007-05-27T13:53:00.000+05:30

More land development near NH58

Just back after a 2.5 hour drive to a new area which is being developed. Its near NH58. If you are coming from Delhi and going towards GZB towards Anand Vihar, Dabur, Vaishali, Vasundhara or from the Shahadara side then you hit Mohan Nagar (yeah, of Mohan Meakins fame). From Mohan Nagar, drive towards GZB and you will hit Hindon, cross the river and look for a exit on the left. Its a kuccha road, sustain the drive for 7 odd KMs and you would start to see the development work.

This kuccha road is billed as the swanky 6 lane expressway which will connect to NH58, the road that leads to Roorkee and then to Haridwar. It will take a while to get this work done but once thats done, you would be able to avoid a better part of GZB. Currently there is nothing much in this area, some villages, couple of re-hab colonies and an Ashram here or there or few nurseries.

Some of the builders are Garg builders (River Heights), KDP Infrastrutre, Grand Savana from someone, Ashiana etc. There is no big builder of repute (ATS, Supertech, Unitech, Ansals, KrishnaApra etc) who is active as of now. The quoted price is Rs 1750 per sq feet. I guess if you go with the money in your pocket, you should get it for Rs 1500 and withs other goodies thrown in like Free Parking etc.

Does it make sense to buy - Well, it depends on your risk appetite. My personal safe recommendation to first time house buyers would be to avoid this place for some time. It might be worth buying the same flat for 1800 per Sq Feet, 6 months from now if that means more clarity, bigger builders or simple more peace of mind. But if you have a house and if you are not in too much of loan then do evaluate it. I still think that the big realty boom is yet to happen, so if you have got some spare cash, then go and take a look yourself. You might get rich :)

Photos of Pihu and her travel scene

2005-11-03T16:10:00.000+05:30

I am yet to figure out a way to post my photos. For the record I work for a consumer level photo management and sharing software product called 'Adobe Photoshop Album Starter Edition' and am still a dud on how to configure google picasa "Hello" to upload the photos to Google site and then put one such link here so that you can see the snaps of my little princess. Holy Cow !! and I guess before the people who give me hefty pay-check on every 30st/31th find this out I better find that out.

Pihu would turn 5 months on Nov 10 and by this time she has already travelled four times, out of station trips.

Travel 1: Went to a farm house post Doon, 250 odd km drive, ok roads, really bad accomodation.
When: 14-15 Aug 2005. Mode: Scorpio (indian SUV)

the farm house was really huge, when we saw the main gate we were sure that it can't be the one we are heading to. a big gate which opens to a long driveway, with flower beds and tress and what no. But the acco was real depressing. She managed pretty well.

Travel2: Subathu. A small sleepy town near Dharampur, Kalka, Himachal. Its a gorkha regiment training centre, army cantonement. nice and clean. 300 odd km
When: 19-21 Aug, 2005. Mode: Scorpio (now you know what this is)

it was a family outing. acco was beyond comparision. been there before so knew. a bunglow which overlooks the hills and valley(ies). simple amazing. yet to figure out how to post photos :) and work for a digital imaging consumer product. i know who can find out what and what i need to do.

Travel3: Amritsar. Golden Temple. Indo-Pak border town. 500+ km (long drive)
When: 15-16 Oct 2005. i might be wrong. Mode: Scorp

Primarily a golden temple visit. realized that 2 days are too short when you are on wheels for 18-20 hrs. Thats right. I drove in excess of 1000 Kms during that weekend. Missed Wagah, reached late. Missed Jalianwalan, some rally, running short on time. Golden Temple is simply breathless. Must go. Would visit again.

Trave4: Udaipur. Venice of India. 700 odd Km
When: 28 oct night - 2nd nov morning 2005 . Mode: Train (Mewar express, i think)

Wonderul lesire trip. small city. would try to write one on this trip separately.

ooofff.... less then 5 months and already 4 trips old. good going Pihu. I know apart from her the major effort credit goes to my beautiful wife - dhall -. She simply makes it so simple in the end that you dont realize that you are with a young baby. If you are a mother of a young baby then you will realize what it means to be like her. ;)

now next where. hmmmm

Pihu Arrives !!

2005-11-03T16:07:00.000+05:30

I wrote this on 21 June--------------------------
Its been a little over 10 days now. If you think blogs are really instant then I guess I am really really slow.

I write this today i.e. 2 Nov
I guess I know whats the future is going to be. I was very true when i wrote above about 4.5 months back. I logged in again today to tell myself that I better write something on whats been happening around. So I am posting this particular one and would write a new one. Incase you dont know whats over 10 days on 21st June, its the arrival of my daughter, Pihu, on mother planet as an independent human being. For last 9 months (prior to 10 June) she was in the womb :), and you tell me that my sense of humor is no more cutting. its bleeding instead.

Getting Ready - For the big day !!

2005-05-30T21:00:00.000+05:30

Ever wondered how does one feel when one is going to get a new member in the family. Imagine getting a new live creature with you all the time, all the while, someone who will show you what growing old means, right from day 0. Someone who will teach you what it takes to hand-hold someone to walk. Someone who will let you know that how hard your parents worked to make you good enough to blog. :)

The due date is coming closer, a little over a week, i.e. 6/10. Theortically it can happen any day, just about any day. My last visit to doc was normal. The next visit would be this saturday (6/4). Well, well and well.

This is blog no 2 and I promised to be regular but believe me there was not enough motivation and no reminder-system :) which could send an e-mail which I can flag as a 'Follow-Up task' so that I can finish it. My work life is now revolved around flagging mails in Microsoft Outlook so that they can be tracked. Amit Singh taught me this. I thank him but believe me, its a pain working on Outlook the whole day and then sometimes in evenings and some more times in the weekend. Guess I should either get a different PC for working on e-mails which can be kept in some other mails, not in office, so as to not get distracted. I will try to shutdown my e-mail program every 1 hour for 30 minutes. May be I can write a program which automatically does this and may be a reminder in Outlook itself.

What else, waiting for Avinash, Preeti, Ravi and the little kid, have invited them for dinner, Want to know the real reason, well, My mom been around for Smita (going to be mom) and she somehow has always thought that baby will come out by 5/25 :) and hence she is getting a little impatient. And Avinash happens to be an old friend with whom mom would be more comfortable, at least she will get an avenue to express things different from the going-to-be-mom talks. :)

Well, he is here so better to get it go !! Catch you all later.

Jhaji ka Jham

2005-04-29T16:23:00.000+05:30

After my attempts at making blog successful in companies like Newgen and Legato, I realized that its the ones like google who understand it better. It must have been the same time when blog was getting popular and some of us were trying to figure out how to make an internal mail system work at Newgen. :-) . Poor souls !!

This is my first blog at blogger and i really dont know that once i save this how its gonna be accessed by my folks so i am not gonna write much.

can't stop

its been a dusty week so far with sand storms, squalls, rains, dust smudged car wind screens and broken window glass panes. its a time when you stop liking summer any more, and its also a time when you start hating yourself. its like trying to evaulate your worth and then realizing that its not worth it, not you but the act of evaluation. its a different matter that your manager would do this and based on what he thinks, will award you few more bills.

I am feeling pretty worthless especially when one of my office colleagues did a presentation on photography and after seeing the equipments he has and what he has captured, i have started feelling like what-the-hell-i-have-done-so-far which i can brag and may be blog.

with amitabh singing in the background on the radio which rahul tewari got for me :Meray paas aao meray doston...: I guess, i should close. hopefully i will be regular and would get some readers. :-)

write back, if you know me !!!