Of This and That

For many years I am doing most of my banking with ICICI and have hardly visited the branch in the last decade or so. Almost all the banking needs are managed online or via the relationship manager. I do have to have to visit SBI once a year to deposit some money in my PPF account. While this is just a once a year task, I was still not keen on making even this 1 day visit to SBI and hence thought to transfer the PPF account to ICICI, which is also a government recognized back to hold PPF accounts.  After multiple attempts, but something or other kept coming up, I finally managed to visit the SBI bank one fine Saturday morning. This was the fist mistake. The bank gets unduly crowded on weekends. I reached the bank by 10.15 am or so.  As I entered the bank, there was a queue with about 5-6 people standing at the "May I Help You" counter. Knowing that this will take a while, I approached the security guard, who is seen more within the bank and less at the entrance gate. He t...

Come Summer and it used to be the time to get packing and make the month long trip to grand parents place. A tradition that kept on for many many years and then took a break in between as I graduated from school to engineering and then onto my job. These trips became far and wide. However for the last few years they are back on track, though the destination has changed, for now it is the grand parents for my daughter.  Though climatically this isn't the ideal time to visit Delhi, but can't help it. Fortunately due to the changes in weather pattern, the summer heat has also got pushed along and the initial few days of the month of May aren't as hot as it used to be. Eventually the heat does catches on, but we do get some days of good weather. Interestingly this time, the electricity board was also a bit favorable and the power cuts were less and also not long lasting.  After my typical week long break (that's all I manage these days), I boarded the Duronto Expres...

In today's busy world where everyone is running a fast paced life, I got to re-experience the helpful nature of fellow people I was driving to office on my pulsar, when it started to jerk. A jerk typically associated with petrol line running dry. I switched to the reserve mode, but the jerks continued and to my dismay, the bike came to a stop near Rakshak society signal on Aundh Ravet road. I realized that the petrol had run dry, but why the bike didn't signal this from On state to Reserve state? I asked a person sitting there on his bike for the closest petrol pump and he told me about the one in Pimple Saudagar, which was, I guess, an easy 2 km walk from the current spot. As I stood there, visibly shaken and trying to figure out what to do as dragging the bike all the way would be very difficult, the person came to me and asked what happened. I shared the surprise of bike directly running dry while still being in On state and he pointed out that I had got it wrong. I was...

When my 11 years old daughter was doing her English letter writing homework, I got to explaining to her that we used to write inland letters (recall those 35 paise blue papers , which later became 50 paise and were probably around 75 paise or Rs 1 when I eventually stopped using them) and that it used to typically take 3-4 days for it to reach its destination. The receiving person may or may not reply immediately, so it was easily at least 10-15 days or even a month before we would get to hear from the other side. She asked innocently “Papa, why didn’t you just send them an email or if it was urgent why not just call them on their mobile phone?” It is difficult for my daughter to imagine a life without these technologies and devices and I could not help but smile. It also took me back many many years and comparisons with our lives today just started to happen. In comparison to today, those days seem so simple and relaxed. I capture here a few of those thoughts. Inland letters...

Date 14 th May. Time 7.45 pm. My reliance broadband connection stopped working suddenly. This had happened multiple times in the last few days, so finally I decided to call the Reliance Help desk. I dialed their helpline number and went through the painfully long IVR messages. IVR: Welcome to Reliance Broadnet Internet services. To continue in English… blah… blah… I picked the English option. IVR: Please dial your subscriber ID or blah… blah… and press # I did IVR: In case of issues with your broadband connection press 1 I did IVR: In case you’re broadband connection is not working press 1 What? I just pressed 1 already for it. But it is an IVR system. Cannot argue. So I pressed 1 again. IVR: All our customer service representatives are busy attending other calls. Someone will attend to you shortly. Note that you may be serviced in Hindi also . Hindi? Why? Why did you ask for my language of preference then? Anyway, I wait for maybe about 30-40 seconds with the mu...

The 30 min long serials that we see these days on TV, still manage many breaks in between. No wonder the story hardly moves forward. Spruce that up with some good, some bad, some pointless revenge, some multimillionare families and you can easily build a serial that lasts not just months but years. and if you can't figure out what to do, take a 20 year leap and leave everything behind.. the part that gave the serial its name as well Anyway, this isn't to disect the serials. There is a new serial these days based on the english movies series - Twilight. The serial is called "Pyar Ki Ye Ek Kahani" and comes on Star One. This has a very peculiar tune when it has a break and for reason we keep hearing this tune very often. Seems like as if there are 4-5 breaks that happen in that 30 min time slot. So we were watching this the other evening and I complained about these so many breaks. To this my daughter immediately retorted - 'They probably shoot the next sequence in ...

Indian market hasn't been a very strong customer focused market is something that we all know. Customer is God or never say no, aren't things that work here. It is the provider who usually has the last word. More and more home service is something that we as consumers also seem to like. However that incident the other day made me realize that it isn't really in our best interest. Some Sanjay/Sandeep from ICICI Direct called me the other day and wanted to set up some time to meet me. I said no. He persisted. I said that he must be having some new product to sell and I had no interest. He said, he will not sell anything, and we can just sit and chat and that I can treat him for a cup of tea !! Now that's an intersting customer service. I host him at my home, treat him for a cup of tea and invest in something that I have no real desier, but he wants me to. Wow !! this is amazing

This one dates back about 9 years. It won't sound that funny now, but it sure was a real funny incident then. I was newly married and we used to go out often for dinners. Bangalore had loads of hotels and hence we were never short of trying out new places. One evening we noticed a new place by the name "veneta cucine, the italian kitchen". It sounded very interesting we hadn't ever tried italian cuisine. We were a bit surprised by the spelling of "cucine", but thought it was probably an italian word for cuisine. So one evening we decided to try it out and landed at this place at around 8 pm. The placed looked like it was closed and we were surprised. Anyway, there was a person inside, so we walked to it to ask him and he said - "we close at 7.30 pm, but you can still see our kitchen". I and wife looked at each other and wondered how can be a hotel close to early and why is he offering us to see their kitchen???? As we walked in, we realized it was ...

There is no shortage of funny incidents in our lives, but i feel nothing beats this one. We had once gone to a local exhibition. My kid typically in such journeys, takes one of her many baby dolls along and plays on the way. This occasion was no different and she was having a baby boy doll. There is no doubt that the dolls these days are very realistic, but we realized that day just how realistic these can be. As we got down at the exhibition, I told kid that she needs to leave the doll behind. She agreed and we left it at the back seat, got out of the car and locked it and started to walk away. Just then the parking attendant came running our way and shouted - "Sir, you left your baby behind!!" :-) :-)

Getting my kid to sit and work with concentration is a tough nut to crack. The only thing that she does without getting distracted is watching TV :-) When it comes to homework it is even more difficult. She will remember all the interesting episodes of school, previous evening play time incidents, what other subject work is pending than she is doing, etc. etc. It is very common that while working on question B, she will want to get question A checked and all that. Added to that is the fact that she is in class 4 and the syllabus is getting tough by the day. So many new concepts, facts, figures and hence we can well understand that she finds it difficult to manage the homework on her own. So either I or wife has to spend lot of time with her to get things done. Weekend mornings are usually spent in playing or watching TV. But today (saturday) we had plans to go out for some shopping and hence got her to sit and finish her homework. As wife was busy with morning routine, I ended up helpi...

Earlier I had written about how we try to teach good habits to our kids. I call that model code of conduct :-). However, we all know that things don't always work out as expected and sometimes we are put in a spot by our own code. This one is recent. One model code of conduct that we follow with my daughter is that she should return to home before 8 pm. She is allowed to play downstairs with friends, but by 8 pm she should be back at home. A few min here or there is fine. Sometimes, we allow friends to come and play at home past 8, but usually that is the boundary. If it really extends then she has to listen to the lecture again. Recently, a colleauge of mine had come down from USA and we (the team) went out for dinner. Needless to say that it got delayed and I got home almost by 11 pm. Wife told me the next morning that our kid was questioning as to why the code of conduct isn't applicable to me. She was asking "When papa comes late, why isn't he answerable to us? Wh...

Staying in Pune and not seen Mahabaleshwar is a no no!! But somehow this just wasn't happening for us. Last time we went there, we had return the next day as the weather turned bad (lot of rains and cold winds) and also my daughter fell very ill. We were left with no choice but to cut short the trip and return. After various attempts since then we finally managed to make it this last weekend. Interestingly as we landed there and sat in the hotel garden enjoying the evening cup of tea, we say lots of black clouds gathering above and soon it started to drizzle a bit and there were strong winds. Me and wife looked at each other, thinking the same thoughts - "Oh no! Not again!" Fortunately the weather subsided the next morning and we had a great day. Did the trip to various points in old Mahabaleshwar and boating in Venna Lake and swimming in hotel's pool. Overall it was a really great day. One interesting thing about one of the points is that the guide took us to ...

The other day, we were watching "Jab we met" at home. Not that we hadn't watched it earlier, but just that for lack of anything else to do, we all sat and watched it. Towards the later half, Shahid Kapoor goes back to Manali in search of Kareen Kapoor and after finding her, insists that she leave with him right away. At this scene, my wife commented, "How can she just run away like that? She is a teacher in the school. Doesn't she have to inform anyone there?". To this my kid added a rejoinder - "Mummy, our teachers at CIS also run away like that!" :-) It so happens, that many teachers have suddenly left CIS in past and no wonder my kid feels that way :-). BTW my kid no longer studies at CIS.

A few weeks back some of us from office were on the way to Mumbai to attend a day long summit organized by Microsoft on their latest cloud offerings. Since we had left early in the morning, we took our customary stop at Lonavala for a quick bite. A colleague bought a newspaper and immediately skipped to the section on day's future. We all asked if she really believed in stars/future and she said that she didn't, but what's the harm in checking out and if she could prevent something from happening, why not? We had a bit of back and forth on could or could you not prevent something from happening, if you really knew it would happen. Anyway her future for the day said something like be careful of where you tread and don't wear coloured glasses. I guess it meant something like don't see the world from coloured glasses. Anyway, post the summit, we walked towards the sea shore. It was like our mannat come true, that we were next to Mannat (yes, that's SRK's home) ...

These days many companies have policy for working hours of some sorts. These could be on a per day basis or per week or per month. We have a policy at my office as well and sometimes that can cause funny incidents. The other day my daughter was talking about something and the discussion ended up with her marriage, as always. If you have seen "Jab We Met", then my daughter is pretty much like Kareena, who would say - "Mujhe bachpan se hi shadi karne ka bahut shauk tha". So anyway, my daughter commented that Papa (i.e. I) is so particular of completing his working hours that even on my day of marriage he will first go to office to complete his working hours and only then join for the marriage :-)

In this era of connected world, internet, online websites, emails, sms, social networking etc etc, news can be accessed from almost anywhere. However the physical newspaper still has attraction, possibly because that experience of holding the paper in hand and skimming through the pages is still very engaging. I have seen people desperate on getting their hands on the newspaper, so much so that their day doesn't really start till they get it. I recall, in hostel, my brother and another friend of his used to have a run for the paper, though it was more because whoever would get it will finish solving the crossword for the day. The best example of desperation, however I saw the other day. There was this person riding his bike at fairly good speed and reading the paper while driving, and unlike those who have talk on mobile when they drive and have at least one hand on the handle, this person was holding the paper with both hands. I hope he was able to read all the news before he hims...

Many years back there was an ad about prestige cooker. A couple enters a shop and asks for cooker. The shopkeepers asks the husband how much he loves his wife and they are taken aback. Eventually the idea was that "jo biwi se sachmuch karte pyaar, woh prestige se kaise kare inkaar" (those who really love their wife will never say no to prestige". So, I was at this friend's house for lunch and he was into his initial months of marriage. While eating, this ad was playing on the TV and as it finished, he retorted "let's buy Hawkins!". Hawkins by the way is a rival brand to prestige cookers. This was said while his wife also sat there. Need I say more?? :-)

The other day while driving I noticed a person on the wrong side of the road and causing traffic disruption due to this. This is a sight pretty common these days and makes me wonder, why do people do that? Driving on wrong side of road or zipping past in full speed, is surely not safe and so don't they value their life? In this specific incident, there is road construction work happening outside a society. People coming out of it could usually cross the road from the road divider right outside and go on. But due to this work, they now need to drive about half a km extra, take a U turn and then come back. So net is about 1 km extra. This person, in order to avoid this, went in the direction opposite to the traffic as the road divider there was much closer. So is the life really worth just that 1 km that the person saved? Or given a 10km/l average, and Rs 48/l petrol cost, that's just about Rs 5 saving. Is that the value of life? Or is it roughly the 5 min (depending on the traff...

Yes, it is that time of the year, when you find people all around you really colorful. But in recent times, it hasn't really been happy holi, but more to run away from. The colors that people use these days and in the extended celebration, people getting violent... all this spoils the festival spirit. I recall a few incidents from my hostel life about holi. The first year in the hostel and I got caught right outside my room and there was gulaal, there was bucket full of water and there was even a hose pipe with running water supply. I probably hadn't got so much my entire life as much as I got wet that day. Our hostel had a fountain right at its entrance. So the next year, I went and sat in it before anyone could get me wet and somehow that killed everyone’s spirits and I was spared. It was like the fun part of forcing something on someone was suddenly taken away. Similar policy we had applied many times at our dinner tables to protect the sweet from prying hands. If you wanted...

I was reading this blog of Shalini and could not help go back in my own memory. Valentine's day isn't something that I ever really liked to celebrate. Main reason being I could not really understand why would I need a specific day to go to someone and say I like you or I love you or whatever they say on that day :-). Anyway, things change after marriage, so after mine, I decided to gift something to my wife on our first valentine's day. My memory fails me of what exactly I got (my wife can surely tell even now :-)), but I did get a greeting card. During the day a friend came home and the card happened to be lying around and he picked it up and read it and then asked me - "hey, you never celebrated valentine's day before". And I said "yeah, so did you expect me to celebrate it with you earlier?"