Of This and That

Bachelors not allowed Is a sign that greets you at the entry of many societies in Pune, especially in areas like Aundh, Pimple Saudagar etc. that are closer to the IT Hub in the city – Hinjewadi. Isn’t this like stereotyping an entire set of people? And I used to believe that stereotyping isn’t a good idea. One must not have a prejudice against anyone and must allow the other person to prove himself/herself. If not here, then Where do I stay? It is unfortunate that some of our bachelor friends are forced to ask this question every now and then. The various industries (mostly IT) in Hinjewadi area today employ upwards of 1 lac people. This is the floating population that comes in to work daily and returns home in the evening. They do create traffic problems, but this isn’t about the traffic issues. It would be safe to assume that about 30% of this population are bachelors (given the average age of the IT organizations) and many of them have come from out station to create a l...

This is something that I have observed in many of the conversations around me that gives a sense that of the three generations including our parents, ourselves and our kids, we are the best. While talking about our childhood and how our parents managed us, the usual statements that I hear are – We were good kids. We would listen. Our parents didn’t have much trouble due to us. If they told us no once, we would not ask again. We understood the importance of studies. And when talking in reference of our current parenthood and our kids, it is – Today’s kids are jet age kids. They are so very fast and very aggressive. It is very difficult to manage them. We keep telling them, but they just won’t listen. We faced such a challenge in bringing them up. Our kids are nothing like us, we were so well mannered. You feel the same?

The other day while washing utensils at home, wife asked me to use Pril. Yes, I do help wash sometimes, especially when it is about our special expensive utensils. Can’t let these to be handled by the maid. Anyway, but to washing and Pril. I reminded her that we didn’t bring Pril this time as there was a scheme at Big Bazar and we had instead picked up Vim liquid soap instead. We did realize that Vim liquid wasn’t as effective as Pril liquid soap was. We got talking about how some of these schemes are on items that aren’t that effective in use and wife stated, “Yes, like that Clean Mate Harpic. That isn’t also very effective and doesn’t clean well”. In a moment we realized what she said and we both had a good laugh. But this made me realize that there certain products/company names that have become the words of daily usage and replaced their functional names itself like Harpic gets used more than toilet cleaner. Few more that come to mind are Xerox Dettol, though with Savlo...

Every time I was on the Pune Mumbai Expressway, I would notice the huge Ganesha Idol and make a point in mind to visit it, but such points don’t always convert to reality easily. Finally last weekend, for lack of anything else to do and after a failed attempt to find ourselves a place to stay at any hotel/resort for a night, we decided to revisit open points in our todo list and picked the Ganesh temple. It is a short drive from my home, given that I am close to Hinjewadi, Pune, so I was quickly only to the express way by-pass and the passed the expressway and went on ahead to join old Pune Mumbai highway (NH4). The idol pretty big and hence there is no way you can miss it, but even then you need not worry till you hit the toll plaza near Shirgaon. You need to cross the toll plaza. I wonder if that was intentional to have made the toll plaza just before Shirgaon? Anyway a return toll is for Rs. 39 and having paid this we crossed the toll plaza and took the immediate left. The roa...