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

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

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

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

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

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