Brilliant day!

Yesterday was a very fruitful day in the sense that a lot of plannning for the New years finally started to happen. Actually everyone is "in" for it but no one wants to take the initiative. So finally I called up a resort in Goa and asked for the tariffs and mailed everyone the iternary that we can have and now, all of a sudden, there has been a pretty decent activity in this account. This is a nice thing coz I now think that finally some plan is on! So I did some groundwork on it in the morning and in the afternoon went for a lunch to Status! Well the only reason I go all the way to status is their wonderful "Cheese pakoras" which I can assure you are totally out of the world.
But it was the evening that took the cake. Shefali came over to Kodak House and from here we went to Sterling. I had a quick soup and then we took a cab to Nariman Point. It was very pleasant and walking all the way to the end of the road was one of the most chillaxing walks in the recent times.
We decided to have dinner at Atria. Atria used to be one of my fave hangout spots in my early days in Mumbai, but somehow it became a far second to most of the eating spots. But yesterday was nice and pretty filling as well!! 2 Nans and a plate full of Kebabs were more than what I had in mind!! That followed by some Cappuchino was a brilliant end to a brilliant evening!!!!!

English August!

This is one book that I wanted to read since time immemorial!!! Finally I have laid my hand on this one and hope to finish it quick enough to move to a better one!!!

just do IT!!!

Just Do IT!!

Well i have always been regarded as one of the most IT challanged guys while on campus in a technical college like DCE. Well people regarded IT knowlege as one of the key essentials for success, but I have happy with my more than sufficient knowledge of "ctrl-alt-del". It solved problemsa and that too Always!! Though I did give in to the pressure of the academic life and did join C++ classes, but that did not go beyond a couple of classes and all I was left with was a knowledge of #include iostrem.h or something as weird as that.

When I moved on with my life into the IIM's I was plesanatly surprised to find that this was truly ne place where people with far lower IT Quotient existed than me! There were loads of non-engineers for whom computer was a cheap replacement for TV, CD player, music player all combined into one.Also I came across Aman who happened to be one who was/is cursed by IT! Two years in IIM L, and there werent too many days when his computer was in fully functional mode.He carried his illuck with him after college as well with his IBM thinkpad nearly crashing and then getting a new laptop where the internet console doesnt fit!!

But what I did not know is that I might be also becoming prone to such ordeal myself. I just crashed by new laptop and all the data has been erased and now the IT experts beleive that there is some hardware problem associated with it. The lotus notes take hours to open and i am having one of the worst times with reagrds to IT!!

Where have the days gone when abacus ruled the roost!!!

:)

Well as they say!

Just do IT!!

Joker in the Pack: A Review

This is a novel I picked up primarily because it is co-written by an alumni. And I am damn confident that I have not been disappointed by them. Well, mainly because when I picked up the book I already knew that I wasnt picking up a classic. It had all that I knew would be in store for me. The regular campus life, regular normal characters and finally the regular setting and the scenario. But I must say that I really connected with the life at the campus, having been through the rigours of one quite recently. Although I couldnt relate too well with the characters but yess, with the life and times of an IIM, I could nearly see myself being there.

One thing that I generally do is to picturise the people of a story and make up a movie in my mind. This novel was like having myself and my friends as characters. the summers scenario was like sitting in PGP room and waiting for shortlista and finally interviews.

This is one of the many books that have followed Chetan Bhagt in trying to recreate the magic of Five point someone. This book though not quite ground breaking as the original, still manages quite well by itself.

So my verdict is:

Strick yes for MBAwalles
Strict no for Non-Mbawaale!!!!

Joker in the Pack

Hey!!
Well this is the book i am currently reading. pretty decent read!!
Hope to finish it by tomorrow!

Day well Spent::The Bowling Game!!

Yesterday was a good day!!
Well came to office on time only to find not too much work on me!

Met Shefali, Aman and Murarka over lunch at Shiv Sagar which for a change served mouth watering cuisine which literally left us licking our fingers. Well lunch time was well spent by Murarka and Aman who stared at each and every girl and chose to write 2 minute thesis on each !

Left office early and wet off to DB-PCP in Lower Parel which was my first office on DB! It really felt like coming home. Had a sandwich and a granita at the CCD followed by a coffee with Nachiket at the canteen there. One thing that really ticks me off is the fact that there is no canteen at either Kodak House or DB house! Also saw the new place where Ram, Nachi have shifted in. I did not like that new set up a wee bit. A surprise was meeting Abhijit Mishra, the guy responsible for the my hiring and program designing. Also met Vikas shetty which was also a good meet up. But the toast of the evening was meeting Ashwini. She was sitting on her seat and as usual working very hard on something. Spoke with her for a long time wherein she was telling me about all the projects that she was working in.
That was the end of my small rendezvous at PCP

I had already made a plan with Dipu and Aman about meeting up at the Sports Bar at the Phonix Mills for a game of Bowling. It was a good hour and a half spent there. Its always nice to see yourself do well and so I was pretty impresses by myself especially in the second game

The Bowling score in the two games were

Name 1st Game 2nd Game
Aman 125 97
Shek 91 123
Dipu 90 85

Dipu was a little not-so-happy with his performance while Aman was ecstatic especially after the first game.!!!
I was damn happy with the first game but two strikes in the last throw totally threw me overboard and I was stunned beyond the point where I could react!

But if you thought we were done for the day, there were more surprises to come.
As we were walking back we bumbed into Niharika who was with a girl who I think is one of my seniors from DCE. She was shopping in Atria but had come here for dinner as the food plaza there was shut down in event of a party. She had mailed me in the morning and wanted to have coffee with all of us in the evening. I had conveyed this to others and Dipu was to call her, which he obviously forgot and so here we were again!
But we decided to meet later sometime and say our good nites and tatas

Well the dinner thoough was the lowest point of the day. We ordered from a new place and beleive me the food was totally inedible. Without the Coke to run it down, I doubt if we could have even managed a single bite.

So twas a nice day! I mean I hope i spent more days like these ( except for the dinner fiasco!)!!

Trip to Kashid-Murud #3

Today we planned to go to Marud and see the famed Fort Janzira and then head back to Mumbi.

We resumed from where we had left and after getting up, quickly changed into our swimming trunks and without delay went and jumped into the ocean. This time we knew was the last time we would go into the sea this trip and so we spent most of the time letting the sea sink onto us. We swam far into the ocean and then came back riding the waves. After a quick swim we went back to the vada pao centre had our fill and took quick baths. We packed and settled the dues and finally caught a bus to Murud.

Murud is an old fisherman town with one very nice beach...with calm water and Janjira is a famous fort in the middle of the sea near Murud. The setting for the fort is perfect for any film shooting.

Murud, though was unlike Kashid and lacked the cozy and laid back feeling of Kashid. We bought some juices and some chocolates and decided to book the tickets for Mumbai before we started exploring. It was in the end one of the most brilliant decisions that we took because by the evening when we got to the bus stand, all the seats were full and there were scores of people wanting to get a seat.

So after booking our return bus at 1800 hrs, we decided to go to the famed Janjira fort. Janjira fort is bang in the middle of the ocean and is perhaps one of the only forts that did not fall to the English forces as well. We took a ferry to the Fort. It was filled to the extreme and was a little unstable as well. But the feeling was very good. It reminded me of the scene in “Swades” in the song” Yeh Jo Desh hai mera”. We reached the Fort in about 20 minutes and took it on ourselves to explore the place. I wanted to take the guide but the rest of the gang was more for exploring the place by ourselves. Well to fight off the blaring sun I bought myself a Sun Cap and was happy to wear it throughout for the rest of the trip. The fort had a wonderful history and some of the salient points were:

1) No army conquered this fort because they could not get to it
2) There was an underground tunnel 40 ft underwater connecting the fort to the mainland
3) There was a main barrel gun (tope) which was made of an alloy which did not get heated up even in the afternoon
4) There were 120 guns in all and were positioned all over the castle
5) Although it was covered with salt water, it had sweet water lakes inside.
6) It was made of natural things only. The main ingredients were
a. Jaggery
b. Salt
c. Sand
d. Lead
e. Chuna


Well I had not really had my full of the fort, but then everybody was tired and so we decided to head back to the mainland. Since the only way back was through the boats, hence there was a huge crowd waiting for the boats. We had to wait for nearly an hour before we got a boat, again full to the brim, and headed back.

This time Dipu decided to use his Rough Guide and then found a restaurant which had got a mention in the book. We took an auto to that restaurant and after waiting for a while got a table and finally had loads of food again! It was still 4 when we finished another eating marathon and since the bus was at 6, we decided to take one last walk along the beach. We went to the beach and saw a lot of people playing a lot of different sports there and wished we had got some as well. Dipu (who wanted to play cards and was anguished when we refused) retired into one of the benches on the shores and read a book, so the rest of us walked the beach and admired the beauty of the sea in the evening sun. The difference you will find in the both beaches are, Murud has got clear greenish water whereas Kashid has clear blue one.
We finally made it to the Bus stand all set with sweets and bottles of mineral water, waited for the bus for over an hour, sat in a very crowded bus and finally made it to Mumbai at about 12:30 at night.

It was a trip that was nice, cool and most importantly cheap. I am sure looking forward to loads of them!!