Single hand drive

My car is a single hand drive and literally so!

Its rare that I use both my hands for steering.. One of them is usually on the gear stick!

Do Not Disturb me PLEASE!

"The Telecom Commercial Communication Customer Preference Regulations, 2010" comes into play today! and looks like it that some processes are better defined that the last time it was enforced!

What it also does is that some important communication, e.g. from your online shopping vendors, the Delhi Traffic Police, etc would not be sent out to you. However, there is an option of partially blocking the unwanted communication (SMS and Telecalls).

Here is what you need to do to stop all unsolicited calls...

To stop all commercial calls/SMS, write START 0 and send it to 1909

To start some calls and SMS, these are the codes :

Health - 1

Education - 2

Tourism and Leisure - 3

Banking/Insurance/Financial Products - 4

Consumer Goods and automobiles - 5

Real Estate - 6

Communication/Broadcasting/Entertainment/IT - 7

To start any of these, write START followed by the category code and send it to 1909, e.g. if you want to get SMS/Calls related to Health Services, the SMS that you need to send to 1909 is START 1

If you want to deregister from the DND registry, send STOP 0 to 1909

In case you'd like to check the status of your requests you can click here.

I personally feel that its not completely thought through from a SMS perspective, and here is why :

• Logically, if I want to stop the unwanted calls/SMS I should send a STOP message and a START message otherwise. The current process wants me to send a START if I want to STOP all unsolicited communication
• 
  
• Also the categories should have atleast 1 State related SMS category, e.g. the Delhi Traffic Police SMS. I do not understand what category it falls under right now!

It is a good start though. I am hoping that the number of SMS that I get reduces to a minimum (I get atleast 30 messages and 5 calls per day)

This information is written with reference from all major Telecom Services Providers and the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Portal of TRAI.

Rains

Raindrops bring so much from within the soul that its hard for words to capture... Here are a few photographs from a rainy day, taken in my balcony...

 



You could visit my photography website And Pictures by clicking here or the Facebook page by clicking here.

Infographic - The Genealogy of US Airlines

Lovely infographic on History Shots showing how airlines in the US have been launched/merged/operated from 1920s to 2000s.

Absolutely must!!!

Please click here to learn and enjoy!



You could also buy this as a poster by clicking here.

Marriage is

Marriage is = Wife carrying Meena Bazaar bags + Husband carrying Big Bazaar bags!

सिस्टम की कहानी (System ki Kahani)

मेरा होश सँभालते ही, मासूमियत के समझदारी में बदलते ही

एक दुश्मन से मुलाकात हुई

क्या नाम दूं उसे ये समझ पाने की मुशक्कत में

रात से दिन और दिन से रात हुई

फिर एक दिन शाम को आवारागर्दी करते हुए

एक दोस्त से एक शिकायत सुनी

भाई बोला - यार गलती मेरी नहीं है| ये साले सिस्टम की है||

अगस्त में पढ़ाओ, फिर दश्हेरा, दिवाली, क्रिसमस की छुट्टी दो,

अप्रैल में परीक्षा लो, और पास नहीं हुए तो गाली दो|

अब मैंने थोड़े ही कहा है एक साल का इंतज़ार करो

पढ़ाओ, और पूछ लो

ना बता पाएं तो पीट लो

पर नहीं, सिस्टम ही ऐसा है के साल भर पढ़ कर ही फेल हो सकते हो पहले नहीं

ये साला सिस्टम ही ख़राब है

तब समझ में आया, के स्कूल एक सिस्टम है

सिस्टम का जो दिल करे जब दिल करे,

कर सकता है और करवा सकता है

पूरी बाल्टी पानी की खाली करके, फिर भरवा सकता है

ये समझ में भी आया के सिस्टम ज़्यादातर ख़राब ही होता है

न किसी की सुनता न समझता है

सिर्फ अपने कायदे और अपने कानून से ही चलता है

सोचने समझने में शाम से रात हो गई

सिस्टम और उसकी तानाशाही आई गई बात हो गई||

चायबाज़ श्वेता (Chaibaaz Shweta)

Unbelievable! The last chaibaaz post on this blog was way back in April 2011! Not acceptable!

However to break this long break, is a beautiful photograph from an equally lovely photographer Shweta Verma, based out of Switzerland! I love going through her work, and I am sure you would do! Please do go through The Creative Lens and make sure to book a slot in the Autumn Promo she is currently running!

Thank you! Shweta for letting me use this photograph for Chaibaaz series, and welcome to the Chaibaaz family :)

Oh and if you are still reading this post (I wonder why though :) You should be on TCL already), do check out the rest of Chaibaaz posts by clicking here.

Nissan Sunny missing from the official vehicle list

The internet world is abuzz with news of Nissan launching Sunny at an ex-showroom price of about 5.67 lakhs!

As an internet user, its normal for me to go to Nissan India's website and check out the details of the car.... and what do I see? Nothing! The car does not appear the list of vehicles showcased on the website yet!

I do not know what went wrong, however it feels that during the launch project planning, someone failed to mention website update and comprehensive testing as a critical checklist item! Even though there is a dedicated website built for the new car, and a link on the homepage, vehicle list and other related areas are not updated! A test plan failure maybe?

To make things worse, the contact page "OK" button does not work either, and obviously Sunny is not in the list of models on contact form either!!!

7 Years young today!

Its Chai ki Dukaan's Birthday today!!!

7 years and still going strong! Could not have happened without all the people who have made Chai Ki Dukaan a part of their lives in some way or the other!!!

A big THANK YOU!!!!!

of today!

सुना था के एक वाकया काफी है ज़िन्दगी बदलने के लिए |

इस मुल्क में न वाकयों की कमी है न जिंदगियों की ||

मुझ पर एक एहसान करना, bodyguard ज़रूर देखना|

Salman Khan does it again! No! no! let me correct myself right there!

His shirt does it again! The connection of his shirt with elements is the USP of Sallu Bhai's latest, Bodyguard!

In Dabangg, it was the element Air which connected well with his shirt and took it away!

This time around, it was water!

I am sure in the next one, its going to be Fire!

• Bodyguard is a pain to watch! It was a sheer waste of time and money, and I am glad that I took with myself DIY cotton earplugs, or else I might have come out deaf thanks to the super surround sound at the Big Cinemas, GIP Noida

• Bodyguard is senseless! it was beyond my level of understanding!

• Bodyguard is slow! it made time stop!

• Dobyguard, I mean Bodyguard is edited by idiots! Scene transition from one to the other does not make sense a lot of times!

However ignore all of that if you are not a big fan of cinema that is not just about passing time! Let's talk about why Bodyguard is a hit!

• It lets you disconnect with the outside world for a while, while you are either enjoying the senselessness or trying to figure out how it took the heroine's father a few minutes to cover a distance worth about 9 hours! (not my mistake, 9 hours was quoted in one of the previous scenes)

• It also lets you laugh, at yourself and people in the theatre who are wasting their money alongside you, and also eating the super expensive pop-corn and cold drink combos! Ok, there are times when you can laugh because of what happened in the movie

• It makes you feel proud that Bollywood is going to have competition for Rajnikant! What Sallu bhai does in a few scenes is almost as comical and awe-inspiring as Rajni true-to-life work! e.g. how Sallu bhai, the bodyguard, jumps out of a Mumbai local, sways around on the ropes or wires or something, jumps to the train going in the opposite direction, and then defies gravity to get off the train to a bridge! WOW!

• It also inspires you! Irrespective of how you look, and to be specific if you are fat without any comic timing, and have the right connections, and can speak hindi and broken Punjabi, you can be a side-kick to a hero! and I forgot to mention that you have to wear t-shirts with funny slogans! that is what would compensate for your horrible comic timing! If you are lucky, your writer would give you a name like Tsunami as well along with an opportunity to share what it means sometime in the movie!

• It lets you oogle at Kareena! No! honest! She is looking nice in Manish Malhotra designs! and for Salman Khan fans, its a treat too! 

• It makes you humm a few songs as well! Aaaya re aaya bodyguard is one of my favorites these days! and guess what! Its Himesss Bhai's music! :) It has that typical beat which you can observe in a lot of South Indian masala songs; something that caught my attention in Dhinka Chika Dhinka Chika (Ready)

• It lets you enjoy the masala which has been well associated with Bollywood! Like they say, स्टोरी में ड्रामा है, एक्शन है, रोमांस है, म्यूजिक है, थ्रिल है! और क्या चाहिए!!! The story has drama, action, romance, music, thrill! what else do you need?

• It also gives you a very interesting (and this is the first time this movie caught my attention) twist to the story

• It will let you bond well with your friends, if you are going in  a large group! For some reason I also feel that such movies are great to enjoy with a group of friends!

However the fact of the matter is, that you should watch movies if you like to, and not because someone else like it or not! So my suggestion, go watch it!

And enjoy my favorite song from the movie :)

An old calender

I have this old calender on my office desk! I recently shifted desks, and got this calender as a part of the package! Though its a 2010 calender, it has a few things which are worth reading over and over again, and my guess is that this content is the reason why I still see it on the desk... Read more to know what this calender is about...

January:

"You gotta fight for every breath and tell death to go to hell" : The Motorcycle Diaries

February:

"It ain't over 'til it's over" : Rocky

March:

"show me the Money" : Jerry Maguire

April:

"This is your life and its ending one minute at a time" :Fight Club

May:

"To make something special you just have to believe it's special" : Kung Fu Panda

June:

"If you don't run, you can't win" : Chariots of Fire

July:

"Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get" : Forrest Gump

August:

"Get busy living or get busy dying" : The Shawshank Redemption

September:

"There is magic in fighting battles beyond endurance" : Million Dollar Baby

October:

"You should never take more than what you can give" : The Lion King

November:

"Never tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon" : One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

December:

"If you want something',go get it. Period" : The Pursuit of Happyness

Don't think I need to share why this calender is still on my desk, and why this post is on Chai Ki Dukaan!

Nine and Zeroes

Its been a long journey and a bond that has only strengthened over time. Radha completed 90,000 kms recently and is still going strong!



With some minor denting/painting done last week, she is shining like new, and gives a lot of new hatchbacks a run for their money!

Thank you FIAT for making such a brilliant car! Hope you keep doing the same for years to come!

I'm Free - Picture it!

Freedom I believe is perception,

Freedom I believe is understanding of rights, and acceptance of responsibilities

Freedom I believe is to express

Freedom I believe is to grow independently

Freedom I believe is to know, and share!!!

The Global Times, a biweekly newspaper of the Amity Group of Institutions, gave Amity students an opportunity to express what freedom means to them through one of my favorite mediums! Photography!

This competition saw some real good moments through the camera of students of all ages, and what you see below are winners of this competition!

Freedom to smile, freedom to be with someone who makes you laugh, freedom of expression, and freedom to be is what I see in this delightful photograph by Harshit Walia...

Freedom of space, the freedom to enjoy, freedom to do without controls! That is what gully cricket has been for me always! Shashank, who is in Xth standard has been able to capture the mood just right in this photograph!

Dance like no one is watching! Bhuvan Ravindran, in his photograph, has been able to capture this expression of freedom so well!

Birds and Free are two words that go together! While it always hurts to see birds in a cage, I can spend hours watching birds enjoying their grains in many corners of the city, and flying around! Manas, in his photograph, has captured this free flight of birds!

These were the winners of this competition! and trust me there was no dearth of absolutely amazing photography in this edition of The Global Times! Do enjoy some more photographs on their website : www.theglobaltimes.in

Lane Driving is inSane Driving!

There is a 90km roadtrip that I do every day for work, and pass by a bottleneck which was initially supposed to be a flyover to ease traffic movement! Please welcome the RTR Flyover, or Rao Tula Ram Flyover!

Delhi has its fair share of flyovers, and they have really helped the traffic movement! The number of vehicles increasing is what causes the jams! not these flyovers! This one however has a history!

When RTR was inaugurated, traffic was allowed to move from Subroto Park/Gurgaon/Airports towards RK Puram! Someone in the Delhi Traffic Police realised that it was causing way too many jams, and reversed the traffic flow... So now this 3 lane flyover was for people moving from RK Puram/Vasant Vihar/Munirka towards Subroto Park/Gurgaon/Airports, and started causing the jam on the other side!

Some more brainstorming made it a time bound flyover... mornings one side, and evenings the other side! So jams now moved from one side to the other!

And finally, they have now allowed traffic from both sides to use the flyover, the middle lane is used as a the imaginary median, and there is enough space kept at the entry for a single lane traffic on both sides!

All of these approaches had their followers and critics both, but what boggles me at times is that why could they not build a wider flyover like the 1000s others in Delhi!

But this post is not about what you have just read! this post is about what you are going to read, if you have reached this far!

There is a trick to get onto the RTR... I have labelled the approaching traffic lanes as

1. Sharafat Lane (This is the right most lane)

2. Badmash Lane (Second to the right most)

3. Badtameez Lane (Third/Fourth to the right most)

4. Pencho Lane (Any other lane)

Now as the names suggest, the Sharafat lane is the slowest of them all... If you are stuck here, you are probably going to enter the flyover after 3 vehicles from Pencho Lane, 2-3 from Badtameez Lane, and 2 from Badtameez Lane have zoomed past... Let's see how this looks like from the top usually!

More from the phone!!

I am starting to like Android (but not as much as I loved the iPhone)...

A few good apps on the App store such as Evernote, Google Gesture Search, and Dropbox have made today interesting as well...

What you see below are two pictures that I took using the phone and then edited+uploaded using an app called littlephoto...

Phone Photo Phunn!

Trying out how photographs from the phone work out.. a few look nice so far..

Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara

There is such a significant change in the movies from about 5 years ago to now! I get to notice it and appreciate it a lot partly because I take pictures!!!

Ram Gopal Varma ki Aag was a flop, a ridiculous movie, however it was a movie with one of the best photography examples! Take any shot from the movie, and it could be used as a reference to how pictures should be taken! I loved it from that perspective... Could have watched it without sound too!

A lot of firang movies are extremely good examples of well managed lights, nice subtle colors or loads of them when you need'em, brilliant depths of field and what not!

Zindagi Na Milegi dobara scores a lot of points from me on the photography front! I am sure there is a name to it in cinema language (Cinematography to be exact), but I would call it photography for it to register well in my mind!

Absolutely delightful light, brilliantly shot under the sun, happily exposed scenes (both indoor and outdoor) and not to forget lovely editing!

Add to this

1. a nice light combination of multiple stories running in parallel

2. interesting dose of humor and right proportions of emotion

3. SPAIN and a filmy version of what to do when in Spain documentry

4. moments that you would have wanted to live and would have lived too! I have had the doordarshan scene in my life a few times already

5. affection and love and honesty and trust and lack of it stiched almost perfectly well

6. sequences that would make you ask yourself about when you are going to do them (because most of it is definitely doable)

7. a nicely fast paced, still slowing down movie which would make you breathe in the moments you would want to... the deep sea diving or the long drive in a vintage, or the breathtaking skydive...

8. comedy where it should be, and beautiful poetry where it should be. I thought it was Farhan Akhtar who had written the poetry in addition to the movie, however it turns out that it was Javed Akhtar who did! not surprised!

9. an honest real to life friendship and moments

And what you get it is a movie that you should watch again... because Zindagi mile na mile dobara, is movie ka show dubara ho sakta hai :)

What I did not really like about the movie though..

1. it missed a bit of name calling.. there are moments where good ol' friends do not resist the macho pencho language... this movie was too clean to be true

2. part of the skydive was clearly fabricated... though it did seem that these guys had jumped, I would have loved to see the first tandem jump or atleast a mention of it before they make a solo jump... It is IMPOSSIBLE to have your first jump as a SOLO jump! that kind of was messy!

3. Hritik Roshan gets to kiss Kat! not fair! :P

A lot of us could compare the roles of the three, and say Farhan got a better role than Hritik or Abhay did a better job than Farhan or similar things... I however feel that the three were so good in what they were supposed to do that I would not really want a change if given a choice!

Here is a little about the two festivals that you can see in the movie too..

1. Tomatina Festival : An annual festival (last wednesday of August) held in Valencian Town of Bunyol! Approximately 40000 kilograms of Tomatoes sees the end of day on that last wednesday. The great Spanish tomato fight starts around midday for an hour or so in Valencian... The small town with a population of about 9000 is a host to over 30000 people during the annual Tomatina festival, so its best to stay in nearby towns and take a train to the festival!

2. Pamplone Bull Run : Again annual in nature, this is held every year mid-July in the city of Pamplone, Spain. It is a part of the San Fermin festival, held in honor of Saint Fermin. The bull run starts every day at 0800 hrs and continues from 7th of July through the 14th of July. Participants have to be 18+ years of age and can run a total of 826 meters from start to finish, unless they are finished early by the raging bulls! :)

Back to the movie! Myself and Pooja really enjoyed it! and I would love to watch it Dobara!

Oh, and did I mention that Farhan Akhtar, more often than not, sounds like he is about to cry!

Who are you gonna be?

One of my online friend's recently asked a question on FB about what people remember of their childhood dreams, what did they want to be when they grew up!!

Some pretty interesting answers could be read as responses, and what I see if that after a certain time in your life, money stops playing a role and becomes a necessary accomodity, and satisfaction and peace starts moving towards the top of the "wanted" list! Does it happen because people have earned enough, or know that they have enough capability to earn for their current and future needs, or anything else, and it could be answered in many ways! What is for sure in all of these answers is that with time we tend to set our priorities right, and have enough clarity or atleast we feel that we have enough clarity to move in the direction we "want" to move in, and not what the society or peer pressure or competition "makes" us move in!

And I believe its never too late to be what you wanted to be! or to realise what you really were, what you have become and what needs to be done to be what you've always been or wanted to become!

That's all that I have to say about that!

With that line from Forrest Gump, here is another quote from it!

Jenny Curran: Do you ever dream, Forrest, about who you're gonna be?

Forrest Gump: Who I'm gonna be?

Jenny Curran: Yeah.

Forrest Gump: Aren't-aren't I going to be me?

Long break!

This has been the longest that I have stayed away from Chai ki Dukaan... Unbelievable actually... there is so much that I want to get out of my system, but am not really finding the time or energy to do it that it has started killing me inside!

But that would continue happening, there would be something or the other that is going to be an issue, something that would be a challenge, something that would not go the way I want, or something that I would not be able to resolve or even think of a resolution! that happens! will happen!

What is important, and extremely, is that I continue to remind myself that are better days ahead! There is something nicer about everything that is happening! there is!

I need to repeat this to myself a number of times these days!

On a brighter note...

Saw a few good movies in the last few weeks!

Delhi Belly! How come I did not know that it was partly an english movie dubbed in Hindi? I ended up being confused for the first few 10 minutes of Delhi Belly trying to understand why the lips were not in sync with what was being said!

Also there is a certain music and flow in in how Delhi junta swears, and it was totally lacking in this movies irrespective this movie being capable of killing someone with an OD of onscreen swearing! Vijay Raaz is the only guy who is delivering the hindi Pencho Maacho words the way they sound like more often than not! Infact he did that brilliantly in "Pran Jaye per Shaan na Jaye". If you have not seen that one yet, you should!

Delhi Belly made everyone laugh! and hard! Mostly the situational comedy part, and at times the swearing part! but it did make everyone laugh! It was a through and through fun movie to watch, almost at the same pace right from start to finish! and post this movie, we were wondering as to where did the time go!

A plot that has been repeated a number of times in one way or the other, and still was as entertaining as it could be!

I also saw X-men First class! For people who have not seen the first 4, this might not make a lot of sense, however it was a movie which is full of action, and is not loud at all either! Very fine crafted action is what I like about all the X-men series and this one was no different! Needless to say, a must watch if you are following the series so far!

Also saw a total waste of time, Double Dhamaal, and its not really worth talking about here!

More later....