It has been fun working with MMT for last 4 years. It is the time now to allow my entreprenurial juices to flow and dreams to take concrete shape. I have co-founded www.GetMeCab.com along with a couple of my friends.
GetMeCab.com offers cab rental booking services online. We offer car services for outstation as well as local usage. As a customer you can book from a wide variety of cars (from an Indica to Mercedes Benz) online.
Do drop by and have a look. Would be glad to hear any feedback from your side!
First of all, lets complete the formalities. It has been really a loooong wait, a wait of about 21 years since the performance of Kapil's devils upstaged English team, that the Indian team won a test series in England. The series have been a real turn-around for the Indian cricket team. For probably the first time in last 20 years, India won without depending upon the performance of a single individual. None of the veterans of the Indian batting echelons scored a big score, yet we scored heavily as everyone came up with glittering performances. Everyone stood up and got counted when it was necessary.
Karthik, who was expected to be a sitting duck kind of an opener played with a lot of grit and determination to play wonderful innings in all the test matches. He needs to cultivate a habit of converting his fifties into bigger scores, before he can be counted amongst the big names. Sachin played with a great poise and determination to build platforms for towering scores in last two test matches. Boy, I miss his flamboyance and his knack of dominating the bowlers around. Probably grown seeing him murdering the bowling attacks makes it difficult for me to digest the accumulator role which he is content to play currently. Dada was the best Indian batsmen showing a great positive outlook as well as steely resolve to score runs. Dhoni played contrasting innings in Lords and Oval, with both of them played keeping the match situation in mind. n i dare not miss the century of tireless Kumble who milked the tired bowlers to get his first test century. Zaheer Khan became the brand ambassador for Jelly Beans. I am pretty sure tht the sale of Jelly Beans would have sky rocketed after the 'free ki' publicity which they got in the first test match . I just hope tht it doesnt become a precent for every mom to be give her kids Jelly Beans instead of Horlicks and Bournvita for helping them to do better in acads. Similarly the bosses might start contemplating to give their employees JB to improving their productivity :)
But as they say, Opinions are like asses and everyone has got one. I too like millions of other cricket fans have been shocked and perplexed by Dravid's decisions in the last test match. First of all he did not declare a follow on even with a lead of 320 runs. Probably he felt tht India cud lose even with such a huge lead and with opposition on the mat. In the whole history of 130+ years of test cricket it has happened just thrice tht a team with 300+ runs lead have lost. Its hard to understand tht how Indian bowlers with just one day in the field and previous night of sound sleep were deemed 'tired'. Somehow even a kid cud hv also figured tht out with less than 170 overs left and English team already on its knees, it was the time to go for a kill. But somehow Dravid took a defensive, retrograde and confidence-lacking step of not declaring a follow on on a pitch which was offering assistance to the bowlers and tht too in an overcast, bowler friendly atmosphere. The worst case scenario wud hv been tht England wud hv batted 120-140 overs and scored about 450 runs in the same. This scenario looked complete bleak given the English performance in the series and even in this case we wud hv been required to score about 100 odd runs in 20-30 overs....easily gettable.
But even this decision was sumehow digested. Everybody hoped tht India is going to score quick runs and give England a target of about 500+ runs with about 140+ overs to bowlers. But we failed to achieve any of these goals. n probably the person responsible for the same was the WALL himself. It was really sad to see Dravid playing with a single digit strike rate and wasting a number of crucial overs. 12 runs in 96 balls...man tht was totally unpardonable n unexplicable...If tht was the team strategy, then i guess he might be contemplating of dropping Ganguly in the future as he scored runs at a brisk rate. Indian already have a pathetic record in dismissing the opposition team in the final innings and the captain himself blocked any chances of doing so. This 'go-slow' strategy left us with too few overs to dismiss the English finally .
was it tht tough to digest 2 victory in the series. Why were we scared to even lap up the win which was there to be taken. why do we need to hv such kind of 'loser' attitude in the team when we had performed well in the whole series. Is this the way we need to deal with the opposition when they are totally down and out tht we dont even try for victory. I remember Manoj Prabhakar and Nayan Mongia dropped once for not playing for victory in a one day match against victory in a difficult situation. n in this match which was their fr grab we lost the plot due to the lack of attitude of the captain. Dravid needs to take responsibility of this decision. He is the captain and he cant hide behind the excuse of 'team-decision'. Had this been the Aussie team, i guess the action against the captain wud hv been taken ruthlessly. We cannot develop the habbit of winning if we keep on living with such an attitude. I seriously dont know whether it shud be deemed as a victory or a loss.
Song which is rocking everyone and everywhere these days
This is the famous Pakistani singer Annie performing Mahiya. Please wait fr a while while the video gets loaded. n i wud certainly promise tht the video is really worth the wait..lyrics are below
Lyrics: I wish you could see, the way i see you You shine just like a star mahiya Cos your my only pyaar mahiya
Why don't you tell me mahi How do you wish to see the loyalty in me
Mahiya you** set my soul on fire I felt just like a rose mahiya When I was in your arms mahiya
I can't imagine life without you AIB I'm your lady, i'll go wherever you take me
Mahiya you** set my soul on fire I felt just like a rose mahiya When I was in your arms mahiya
I don't care where we go or what we do I'll take your pain Cos I love you
I guess most of u already know how to download videos from youtube. But for those of u (like me) who are simply bowled away by the charm, innocence and beauty of the lady singer and dont know how to download this video, use video downloader plugin from the mozilla site. In layman terms, install firefox ( another browser similar but better than Internet Explorer). u can install it from the button on right hand side of this blog as shown in the adjacent figure or go to http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/ and download it from the website
Then download the video downloader plugin in firefox from https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2390
Once the necessary setup has been done, then open the song in firefox on youtube (http://youtube.com/watch?v=A_HTP3i594o) and click the icon on the status barand just save the file on ur local drive. Using this mechanism, u can download any video from youtube on ur local drive. In fact after this plug in, I have become more and more addicted to youtube. It has become so easy to download videos from youtube now
Chalo guys...enjoy the song and happy youtubing :-)
Well all of u must have heard the turn around story of Indian Railways. In fact, Lalooji got IIMA certification for the same when he visited the campus last year. The kind of attention it generated in the media circles was nearly unprecedented. Even my nani who stays in mumbai n hv no clue of wht IIMA is also realised tht i was a part of sum decent college when she told me that 'beta tumhare yahan laloo aaya tha...tumhara college koi bada college lagta hai !!!". After tht branding exercise, a lot of ink & paper has already been put to use to sing paeans by different media channels & magazines. The 'Laloo khyati' transcended borders & reached international levels. Students from Harvard, Stanford & similar colleges started coming to Laloo Yadav to get sum real life management fundas. To cut short, Laloo became a much bigger & touted brand after he visited this campus & Railways were a success story which no one could ignore.
In fact, most of us are also very impressed by the way the Railways have started functioning. At one time the delays were an acceptable baggage which came with the railway journey. In fact i can remember that my Aunt used to come from Calcutta in summers. Her scheduled arrival according to railway timetables was 2 pm in the afternoon & I can never remember going to pick her before 2 am next morning. This 12 hr delay was considered to be a benchmark. We cribbed only when the delay used to get longer & this cribbing used to be more often than not.
Now all of you wud be wondering why I am doing so much of 'Rail pranshansa'. Theek hai guru, i wont do it any further now. In fact two very wierd incidents in the trains happened last week when i went home. naah re, there was no pretty gal sitting besides me in the compartment. she always seems to get the seat in the next compartment :(. While going to Delhi, I was sitting with that mucch waale uncle & a aged guy who kept complaining abt everything in life. The train started moving & now suddenly sum action started. A teenager came running into the compartment shouting tht sumone from his family was left behind and he pulled the chain. n the train stopped !!!! i always thot tht this chain was nothing more than an ornamental accessory, but it did work. Tht guy said thanks to us and just vanished. We were just debating abt pros & cons of individuals pulling chain when a battalion of cops arrived in seconds.
u talk abt cops always coming late, but their speed surprised all of us. More surprises were there in the offering. Now they mistook us as the people who pulled the chain & immediately threatened us with dire consequences. All our protests went unheard. n one of the lady cop took my ticket n vanished. These guys needed a bakra for stopping the train & coolly zeroed down on me. After all the passengers protested, the cops came directly to the point. wohi 'bakhsheesh/chai-paani/chunnu-munnu ki mithai' ki baat chaalu ho gayi. but i decided tht i was not willing to pay anything of tht sort.. actually jeb mein paise hi nahin the n these guys were still not technically gud enuf to accept credit card payment :) u know with all those ATM machines everywhere these days, the tendency of carrying hard cash has reduced. after these guys realised tht i was not going to pay and an hour of haggling, they filled an excuse in sum form n went away
The rules of the game - If sumone comes n pulls chain in ur compartment, u r legally responsible - U can pull chain only if sumone is left behind or a luggage worth Rs 10k is left behind - You need to hv sum cash in ur pocket, dont always bank on ATM/card etc
Similarly while coming back, i booked a tatkaal ticket fr the same. In case u r not aware, this is a kind of ticket which u can book just before the 5 days of travel & u need to pay railways a cool 150 bucks extra for a sleeper. Railways recently announced a scheme to reduce this amount by half during the off season travel, n i got my ticket at ticket cost+Rs 75 only. But after the train travelled sum distance and TT arrived, i came to know tht this train was not covered in the discount scheme. Seems some manual error occured while updating the railway computer system for the list of trains coming under discounted fair. all the passengers like me who had tatkaal tickets like me were asked to shell 75 bucks extra and the poor TT was asked to repeat this explanation to each & every tatkaal guy. So it still seems tht Railways still need to continuously monitor their processes & need to come up with improvements regularly to avoid such kind of errors creeping in.
I am back...back after a long break, it has been almost 8 months since i posted on this blog. This lack of activity from my side has been mainly due to my unhindered laziness ( induced by the 2nd year of IIMA). Its a bit humorous, that when I was in the first year out here, when free time was available only on a premium, i used to find time to post at least thrice a month. but in my second year, when i had ample time to waste, i rarely visited this blog.
Last 6-8 months have been like a roller coster journey. I developed a number of new interests, the primary being travelling. The new year began with a bike trip to Diu( around 450 kms one way from Ahmedabad). This was my first long distance bike trip which was made pleasant by a slight cold weather, wide & clean highways, & the company of an amazing set of friends. We spent the new year eve out der lazying around. Diu is one of the places which has got a gud set of beaches which are still untarnished by a human actions. The downside being tht we did not notice any gal in the skimpy clothes as u generally expect on a beach despite buying a couple of binoculars fr the same purpose :-).
The visit to Diu was followed by a number of smaller trips around Ahmedabad. Then the dorm guys planned a trip to North-East after the final term exams.This was the best trip of my life. This visit was so gud tht describing it in the same post wud do a lot of injustice to it. So i wud describe it in detail in one of my later posts.
Then i moved on to mumbai to work fr SEBI. Immediately i noticed tht i started to get a number of phone calls from the people with whom i lost touch a long time ago. Probably bcoz, if u r working fr SEBI, people expect u to know which way the markets r goin to move. n then people treat u as a key to the goldmine. n i certainly luv all the newly found interest of these people in me. We indians tend to have a mentality tht stock markets r the shortest way of making quick bucks & its really difficult to make people understand tht stock markets r like a two-edged sword... if u r not goin to tread carefully, u can certainly lose a lot of money quickly. paisa aata bhi jaldi hai...n jaata bhi jaldi hai
Then i went to Goa fr another se of vacation. The excuse given to the parents was the engagement of one of my dorm mates. Its really nice to hv such frnds who can provide u with excuses to go to all kind of exotic places. We did enjoy the beaches with all the 'stuff' which we missed in Diu & also indulged in a number of water sports. I went for parasailing which was a very enjoyable experience & certainly less frightening after i did para-gliding last year at Manali.
I hope to be regular now on this space of mine. I missed most of my blog friends during the same period. In fact some of u wrote to me egging me to continue writing. Thanks fr those mails guys... Tell me whts goin on in ur life these days... n i hope to shed my laziness, at least on this front.
This was ruthless... this was brutal... yet everyone enjoyed it to the hilt....Well this was totally unexpected...or shocking, though not fr the WIMWIANs, but for the 85+ IIMB sports contingent who descended down the hallowed portals of IIMA for Sangarsh 2006- the first sports meet between the two campuses. the team fought, not literally, for 3 days for winning majority of 11 games which were played during the period.
It was a time for us to prove to IIMB as well as the others that this place is not only about acads, but certainly more than tht.... the people here do squeeze out time frm their time tables for other pursuits like sports, art, music n even social welfare activities. While the IIMB wanted to just prove the reverse. The slogans on their T-Shirts said it all....' Lets teach the NERDS how to play ball'....
tht was provoking.... anyways....sumone called me a NERD finally :)
In reponse we also prepared 2 banners whose slogans were
Congrats, u made it to IIMA,, finally :)
&
Sangarsh 2006: What u cud not achieve in CAT 2006
The IIMB contingent got a grt start when they chased 147 runs score by us in just 17 overs with 8 wickets in hand. But as more games unfolded, they realised the depth IIMA guys had even in the sports. In the badminton, they were swept away with IIMA winning 6 out of 7 badi matches, they lost tennis games 2-0, looked clueless in football match where the final scorelines read 4-1. IIMB guys fought well winning both chess as well as swimming, though both of them were really close & could hv gone either way.
They lost badly in table tennis, losing 6 matches n winning only one ... n when the volley ball started we had taken a lead of 5-3 in 8 games played so far. Both teams egged on by vociferous supports fought on, but in the end it was IIMA team which prevailed. IIMA basketball team was not able to match their team, but by then we had already taken an unassailable lead of 6-3. The tempers rose on both side during this match, but both teams took care to prevent any untoward incident.
The final rubber was the gals throwball match, which incidentally brought maximum number of crowd (:P) despite being a dead rubber . The massacre continued & IIMA gals won this match easily, though IIMB gals did put on stiff fight in patches during the match. One thing worth noticing in the final ceremony tht the original IIMB T-Shirt wasnt there to be seen :)
Overall, it was a real gud experiences. I believe tht more of such kind of events needs to be held among different IIMs & other B-Schools, sumwhat on lines of IIMC-XLRI annual meet. These meets help in making more friends, building networks & building fraternity among different colleges. This also provides sum free time in the gruelling schedule of B Schools.... though second year in IIMA is much more relaxing & worth enjoying as compared to the first year :)
Headlines in various newspapers screamed a couple of days... 'Mumbai drowned in heavy rains in just 2 days' ' Mumbai rocked by blasts..200 killed'
n just the next day, the headlines are ' Mumbai, back on track' 'Hats off to Mumbai's resillence' 'Mumbai bounces back'
Sudden change of headlines within a spate of 24 hrs.. with pics of people going to offices, paying tributes to offices with 100% attendances, singing paeans of people who again crowded the same local trains like vegetables in a subzi mandi. Speaking volumes of mumbai's resillience & ability to bounce back from a desperate situation has become a norm of the day. n suddenly all newspapers jumped on this band wagon of 'Mumbai appreciation'. Me too initially thot it was really gud.. but there are 2 factors which started to bother me.
First of all, why this special focus on mumbai. we saw bomb blasts on diwali eve in Delhi but city behaved normally. Yes magnitude are simply uncomparable, but what was common was the shock factor & ability to generate terror n panic. Isnt this pretty obvious that people in other cities wud hv also reacted in similar manner
Second & most important, I feel tht it is not resillience, but just a complacency. This was seventh major blast in Mumbai in last 12 years after 1993 bomb blasts. n because of this strength of resillience or ability to move over, this phenomenon is getting repeated again n again.
We are not learning anything from these crisis. No wonder they are happening too frequently for comfort. The city is getting bombed regularly & rather taking some strict action we are busy praising the indomitable spirit of the city. I was ashamed to hear the innane platitudes from the mouth of our spineless PM about not bowing to terrorism & maintaining peace. These situations bring out the best in leadership & our PM was not even able to lift himself from the mundane template. After all the same govt revoked POTA sumtimes back & some of the constituents openly support SIMI..... couple of ministers went on extent of blaming this on RSS n others. ... clearly reflects on the leadership vaccum that hv currently engulfed the nation.
I feel tht time has now come to realise the importance of an Indian life now.. on one hand i can see Isreal showing its clear determination to root out terror when just 3 of its soldiers are caprured, here we hv 200 innocent civillians dying n no one even bothering to even think of taking an action. Our neighbouring state sent its condolences after the blasts n the time may not be far off when we recieve such condolences in advance, just before the incidents even. I fear the authorities will soon start taking this 'spirit' for granted and not do even the little that they are doing at the moment. I wont support all US policies against war on terror, but point worth taking a note is tht no terror incident happened in US after 9/11. Someone said
'Khasma shobti us bhujang ko jiske paas garal ho uska kya jo vishrahit, vineet or saral ho' ( Forgiveness can be shown by only those snakes which have venom & can bite. Those who are weak dont deserve to give forgiveness to anyone) So rather than mouthing innane platitudes about restraint, criticism & looking towards other nations for help. probably the time has come for indians to take charge of their own destiny
Computer Engg from NSIT,Delhi. pursuing MBA from IIM-Ahmedabad, India -.....fun loving guy.... good sense of humour....
enjoy being with friends ... yes ....insanity is fun
