Of This and That

Over the years I have looked at various SUVs and Jeeps and always wanted to get one, but when it comes to family needs, smaller cars or sedan usually take preference. When I had decided to upgrade from my first car, a Santro, I was exploring Scorpio, but wife finally narrowed down to Honda City. Driving it has been a pleasure, no doubt and it has been an absolutely hassle free car. When Mahindra launched XUV 500 the desire to buy an SUV resurfaced again and the price point and the feature packed alongside where the key pulling factors. But unfortunately for me, the booking closed almost as soon as it started (within 8 days). I went around and looked at loads of other SUVs, but they were either too costly or lacked some of the features. XUV was almost like the ideal combination of price, looks and features. At one point I had almost given up hope of buying it, but then in July 2012 the booking opened again and this time without any lottery and I promptly booked one. They had said 3 ...

When I had watched the female feticide episode of Satayamev Jayate , I had felt anguish within. Why would someone do this and I had shared some of my thoughts here . However with the recent rape incident of the 23 year old girl in our capital city and her tragic demise, I suddenly cannot help but wonder if it is worth bringing girl child in this world? Does a girl deserve this life? Last few days, having read in papers, watched the news in TV my heart goes all out for this girl (who unfortunately is no more). While news of rape isn’t new, this one caught one and all by the sheer brutality of the incident. We all were shaken from comforts of our ‘chalta hai’ attitude into action and the country almost came to a standstill. This girl showed remarkable fighting spirit till the very end. But it is so ironical that media is still full of more such episodes daily, but then is it really a surprise, for the statistics show that a girl is raped almost every 20 min in India. Almost eve...

I was searching for a good place for a short weekend trip and found this reference to Hadshi temple. The pictures looked good and my mind was made up to visit this place on the weekend. With my birthday on 1 st December, family had no objection to visiting a temple. In fact they were more than happy. The place is about 45 km from my home, which is close to Hinjewadi. I took the Pune by pass till Chandni Chowk and then got onto the road going to Paud/Mulshi/Lavasa. The road till Paud bus stop is good. You will cross over many resorts on the way, will cross the Pirungut ghat, and continue straight past Pirungut on the way to Paud. Cross the Paud ghat as well and reach Paud ST bus stand on your right. Immediately after this take the right turn and drive about 15 km, crossing Girivan on the way, to reach the Arch on your left for the Pandurang temple. The arch is on bang on a right turn and very noticeable. You would need to be sleeping to miss it. Another landmark on the way that y...

I was searching for a good place for a short weekend trip and found this reference to Hadshi temple. The pictures looked good and my mind was made up to visit this place on the weekend. With my birthday on 1 st December, family had no objection to visiting a temple. In fact they were more than happy. The place is about 45 km from my home, which is close to Hinjewadi. I took the Pune by pass till Chandni Chowk and then got onto the road going to Paud/Mulshi/Lavasa. The road till Paud bus stop is good. You will cross over many resorts on the way, will cross the Pirungut ghat, and continue straight past Pirungut on the way to Paud. Cross the Paud ghat as well and reach Paud ST bus stand on your right. Immediately after this take the right turn and drive about 15 km, crossing Girivan on the way, to reach the Arch on your left for the Pandurang temple. The arch is on bang on a right turn and very noticeable. You would need to be sleeping to miss it. Another landmark on the way that you...

With little else to do on a weekend, we decided to add another mall to our list of visited malls in Pune and so Inorbit it was. On Nagar road, cross the Pheonix Market City mall, cross the signal and then take a U turn to get to Inorbit mall. Like multiple other places, the Exit comes before Entry and hence you need to drive a bit ahead, and then get into the mall’s parking, which fortunately has ample parking space. Our main attraction for the day was ice skating and we headed directly to 3 rd floor for the Freeze Zone. It has the Arctic Zone where you get to ice skate and the North Pole zone where you get to play with snow. In case you go for ice skating, they will provide the skating gear and the guards, but no jacket etc. so you may want to be prepared with some jacket etc. For those who don’t know skating, they have a penguin like support available that you can use to help with your skating. The ticket allows 30 min time, but we came out in about 15 min, as the ring is small an...

The new program which started today, 6th May 2012 on Star Plus, anchored by Aamir Khan has touched many a minds, as is clearly evident by the large following on the Facebook site . The topic of female foeticide is not new and we have been plagued with this for many many years now, but the program did force us to think again with some fresh data in mind. Here are some of my thoughts on it It was an eye opener to note that roots of this evil actually somehow reside in government’s own policies. Who could even think of controlling the increasing population by having families opt in-out of child birth based on gender? I always thought that hum do humare do was what government used as a way to get the masses to understand population issues and look at controlling it. However there also, some families seem to have taken it too literally and while not having either time or energy to spend on kids, they do want to have two of them. Anyway, the question at hand is female foeticide. The ve...

Election time in some parts of the country and this is the time for flurry of activity (election campaigns) and inactivity (due to code of conduct). Lot of public grievances which are long pending, are suddenly resolved with lightning speed. One wonders if it was possible now, why wasn’t it possible all along. But then it seems ministers cannot function if there is no absolute majority . I wonder why it needs absolute majority to do basic development. Is it that all the ministers will lineup and give "shram daan" and only then things will work? The main promise one hears during elections is “vote us in and we will provide good roads and power and water”. However if I recall my Civics 101 correctly, government’s basic functions are building roads, providing power, providing drinking water, providing good infrastructure etc. and that’s what we pay taxes for every year. So shouldn’t at the time of elections we should ask the candidates of what else they will do which is really a...