Traffic rules in Delhi

Recently I thought of learning driving (yes I don't drive yet). This thought occured to me when I was sitting in the cab on my way to office. Suddenly I saw a Qualis take a sudden turn in front of our car and our driver had to apply brakes bringing our car to a sudden abrupt halt. This prompted me to write this post; so this post is dedicated to all the people in Delhi who follow their own traffic rules which is as follows:

- If you have to take a right turn you should be at the extreme left lane and vise versa.
- The moment a Qualis or Travera gives an indicator they will turn. They don't have to care for other vehicles.
- If a bus blows horn its path has to be cleared no matter how far the bus is.
- If your lane is busy you can use the opposite lane.
- There's always scope for another lane.
- Two wheelers can get through even the slightest of space; the other vehicles need to adjust.
- On toll gates you are free to switch lanes and move between the lanes. You don't need a toll card to be in tag lane.
- You can park the car anywhere on the road; the other cars will manage.
- You can stop on the road to talk to someone on opposite lane.
- One who has the loudest horn can honk for as long as s/he wants.
- Lane driving is for learners.

The moment I think of starting driving my mind diverts towards the above rules and I drop the idea of driving. Maybe some day I will learn to follow the rules and drive on Delhi streets.

Furniture hunting

Buying a house is not easy and having bought the house isn’t the end of the trouble. In fact it is beginning of a whole new set of troubles. Don’t agree with me? Wait till the end of this post.

Having bought the house the next thing was to buy furnitures. This required us to make a list of furnitures to buy and then where to put them. We zeroed in on 2 double beds, a sofa set, a dining table set. Not much; are they? Let’s see…

Let’s start with the double bed. I am 6 feet tall; so the normal 6*6 bed doesn’t suit me. Thus one of the double beds should be at least 6.5 feet. And then since we were going for customized bed we thought of getting some design on frames and also some boxes near the top side. The bed length increased to about 7.5 feet. Easy enough. Not exactly. The question that stood in front of us now was will it fit in the room. So we went to the new house with a measuring tape and measured the rooms. One room was about 10 feet wide while the other was 9 feet. We had to have at least 3 feet space. So the beds could not be more than 7 feet and 6 feet respectively. This meant no boxes in the bed on the head side and it had to have just frames. One’s plan doesn’t always work the way they are meant to.
So the size finalized it was time to decide from where to buy. Dad had a known person who had supplied good pieces to office folks. So we had a reliable person and decided to order through him. Now to see samples we had to meet him and the actual makers. That guy lives on the western side of the city while we live in the east. So on Sunday, in a very hot and humid weather, we travelled across the city to meet the concerned people. In between, we had seen a decent offer from Big Bazaar for a double bed cum dressing table plus something. The only doubt was regarding the material of the bed. So we asked our guy (and also the actual makers) about that. One of them told that it is the latest thing and is good but needs to be kept away from water. The other guy said that its not good. Another confusion. We decided not to go for the offer and ordered 2 beds. Things don’t end here. Now we had to chose the design. That’s pretty easy if you have some design in mind; and if you don’t … well … god help you. And to add to that my dad passed the brochure to me to select the design. After going through the catalog a no of times I selected one design. Now I had to select another design which had some specifications. I did manage to select the designs. The double bed chapter got closed.

Next in line were the sofa sets. That was to be ordered to another guy who specializes in sofas. So we went to another place where this guy came with his files. He showed a sofa set and said “I have made these kind of sofas recently and they were liked by the people.” In fact one of them was known to dad. I rejected the design on its first look. The guy persisted with it for some time giving all sorts of logic and I – like I am – refused to budge. Having safely negotiated it I was given a bunch of photographs of sofa designs to chose from. And here I was again doing something which I don’t like doing – choosing. But then whenever I asked dad to do the choosing thing he would say “It’s your house so you decide”. And so I had to do it. I chose a design finally. The design being selected, it was now turn of the material to be used for the covers. Another selection dilemma. To add to it my dad said “You don’t like all the materials, so you chose the one you feel will be good”. So I sat with another set of catalog selecting a material to be put on the sofa. After a few rounds I selected one material (which was later changed to another one). All over. Not yet. Now we had to choose the colour. Another tough task; but made easy as the no of options were less for the material chosen. Here I was helped by others and finally we had the design ready with all accessories.
Things weren’t quite over yet. Now was the turn of the no of sofas to buy. We had thought of 3+1+1 but the seller told it was out of fashion and our guy agreed to it. So we could go for 3+2, 2+2, 3+2+2 or we could add a couple of puffys to 3+2 or 2+2. I called home to ask for some help and got the same answer “It’s your house so you decide”. When you don’t want to decide something it turns out that you are the only one who has to decide. So I went for a 3+2 sofa set with 2 puffys.

The orders were placed. Now with double-bed and sofa set done we are left with dining table set and centre table. These we might go for ready made and so shouldn’t be that difficult. Well… I will get a first hand experience when I do that; and maybe write about it as well.

Furniture hunting is still on. And ya when the furnitures finally come I will have to face the reaction of my mom and sister who don’t have the slightest idea of the deigns chosen by me. Keeping my fingers crossed.

I wish I could be childish more often

Yesterday I was talking to a friend of mine about buying furnitures for my new house (Yes I have bought a house recently). Before I said anything more she jumped with joy. She suddenly became very excited and asked "You would be having fun shopping for the furnitures?". There was a glow on her face and she was beaming. I was kind of surprised and replied "I have left it to my parents to decide on the furnitures". She couldn't believe it. She said "How can you not be excited. I remember when a friend of mine had bought a new house we had spend days deciding the furnitures. We would go places every weekend and search shops for everything right from lamp shades to double-beds and would make a list of what to buy from where. It was so exciting." Her face was completely lit up with excitement as I sat there staring at her. I finally said "Why don't you do the same for my house?" to which she just smiled; still lost in her thoughts from the past. (Here I must say that she was looking tired a little while earlier and now she was so enthusiastic and excited).
I was wondering if it was indeed so much fun shopping for furnitures and I soon came to the conclusion that it was not. It was just furniture and that too would lose its charm in a few weeks no matter how much time I spent selecting it. But watching her I could compare her to a kid who has just received a new toy and is thrilled by it. She noted down the topic in her notepad and said it would be a nice topic to write upon - An empty house (Yes she is a blogger and writes well).

Now as I think about it, it seems quite different from last afternoon. Buying furnitures is an activity. One could do it as a thing to do (duty) or enjoy doing it as if it were a whole lot of fun. It may sound childish but then who doesn't want to be childish at times? And there's no denying that children are happier than grown-ups. Doing things with a child's enthusiasm will make the whole process enjoyable and might lead to a better ending; but no matter what you would enjoy doing it.
I wish I was a bit like her at times ( not always; as she gets excited about small things and enjoys them but then there's another side of her as well :)); not that things don't excite me but its just that I could be enthusiastic about more things. It could just be that different people get excited about different things - which of course is true - or it could be that growing up includes giving up on being enthusiastic about most of the things. I wish I could be childish more often. The kind of enthusiasm I have while playing could be included in many more things. There's no point in missing the fun in the things you do. Of course there's a line to be drawn between doing and overdoing but I guess I have drawn my line a little too soon.
Lets see if I can be a child more often.

Introduction - Joining a new team

Its become kind of a tardition to induct new joinees; and its a good practice. But there is no set pattern and there are various ways of doing so. I have gone through it a number of times. Earlier it used to be a general introduction either in a team meeting or going to the individual seats of the team members. But it seems to be different in my current company; where I have been through it a no of times. Here there is a team intro which is usually in a team meeting and then you are introduced to the entire account is an account meeting.

First time it happened in the induction batch where we were some 15 people. The things to do there was your general intro followed by your hobbies. A simple intro. The following sessions also had a round of intro usually on the same pattern but some had a nice ending (you can call it the desert) like your favourite actor/actress, least favourite actor/actress, etc.

The next time it happened was for a training batch where the batch was a chosen one, chosen from a large no of people. The intro here was same as mentioned above but this time followed by a movie you disliked (a nice idea just to put some fun in the process and it did turn out that way as people actually questioned others how could you dislike it).

This was not exactly an intro but a game involving intro. In this everyone had to form a pair and then your pair was to give your intro in the first person and then the others would ask questions from your pair about you. It was real fun. Here are a few examples -
A boy who paired with a girl was giving the intro of the girl (It was Nitin saying "Hi I am Rashmi"). And one of the questions asked to him (acting as a girl) was "What are you doing this weekend?".
In another case a guy paired with a married girl was asked "What's your husband's name?" and he couldn't answer.
In another case, where two guys A and B were paired, B comes and starts apeaking "Hi I am A and I am very stupid. I have this bad habit of ....". And the poor guy A stands there helplessly listening.

Then in the next intro after the usual thing people were asked to tell about 2 things that were unknown to others (Now this was too much; as it people didn't know much about you and so practically everything about you was unknown).

The next was when people had to sing a song after their brief intro. Now this was fun as this got people involved and brought in a comfort factor. Not many like to sing a song in public but it gives opportunity to people who like to sing but don't find audience :).

So I was kind of getting used to intros and thinking about what would be next. But my recent intro today (I joined a new team and today was the account meeting) turned out to be a plain simple one. And although I wanted it to be like this now that I am writing this blog I feel the previous intros were much more fun.

Hangover - the movie

Yesterday I saw the movie 'Hangover' with a couple of friends. A friend had been suggesting to go for the movie since its release and yesterday I got the chance to see the movie; and I have got only one word for he movie - AWESOME.
The way the movie has been made, the acting, the presentation, the sequencing, the timing - everything is just about perfect. Its a complete laugh riot; although I must say its not for kids (the ticket seller said twice that it is a strict no for kids).
When you watch a movie you wait for the interval to grab popcorn and pepsi but when the interval came for this movie every single person in the hall was disappointed. By the way it was a near houseful for the movie on a Monday evening (at Ambience mall, Gurgaon). And for the entire duration of the movie you could hear people laughing all around.
There was not a single dull moment in the movie right from the word go; and even the minutest details were taken care of. Hats off to the makers of the movie.
The movie revolves around a bachelors party in Las Vegas. In the morning no one remembers what happened the previous night and the groom is missing. As they try to figure out the last night they find things that they never imagined in their wildest dreams. You got to see the movie to see the things unfold. Just to give you a glimpse the movie has a hen, a tiger, Mike Tyson, blackjack, a baby, police car and much more. Trying to figure out how they all are linked? Well go and watch the movie to find out :)
This movie is a must watch and I am sure you won't regret seeing the movie.

A tribute to the champ - Roger Federrer

What a match - Wimbledon finals 2009 - men's singles - Roger Federrer v/s Andy Roddick.

The last three Wimbledon finals have all been epics but this one has made its way to history and that too for more reasons than one - Most no of games in Wimbledon finals; Longest final set; 50 aces in the final; to name just a few.

But mostly this match will be remembered for officially making Fedex the best player of all times - he won the record 15 grand slam; an unmatched feat. Fedex is a great player no doubt but now he has the stats to prove it as well. Looking at his career when you see him winning 15 slams in 6 years its really amazing. At a time when players are rising and falling, getting injured, Fedex has been the model of consistency. Not restricted to any surface he has the best all round game and has the ability to change his game as per the situation.

Lets look at some figures. He won his first grand slam in 2003 (Wimbledon). Since then there have been 25 slams out of which Fedex has won 15, has reached every semi final since 2004 Wimbledon, is only the sixth player to win all four slams, has the record for being no 1 for most no of consecutive weeks, and many more.

Roger is a true champion. It is remarkable how he has managed to keep himself almost injury free for so long and maintain the level of consistency. Had it been not for Nadal he would have won many more slams. He still has a long way to go and many more titles are awaiting him. No one ever has been able to dominate the tennis world for so many years as Fedex has done. And when you look at him play he hardly ever shows emotions and always plays within himself. Off the court also he is a true gentleman. It is no surprise that he has become the best player ever but surprisingly he is still 27 and still playing.

Hats off to the champ.

Smitten by ads lately

There was a time when most of the ads (advertisements) were pretty boring or monotonous. But in the last 3-4 months the quality of ads has improved dramatically; in fact I couldn’t help but praise some of the ads. And for some I praise almost every time I see them. Here are few of my favourites –

Vodafone’s ZooZoo ad
The creatures are cute and their acting amazing. I initially thought they were animations and was surprised to find out that they weren’t. The creators of the ad have done a great job and so have the people who actually designed the dress of the ZooZoos. My favourite ad among them is the one which shows market crash.

Mentos Daddu ad
This one has been around for a long time now but its concept is nice. Nothing much to write about it. My favourite part in this ad is the last line spoken by monkey turned guy – “Daddu” and the expression on Daddu's face.

Maruti’s new ad
The new ad of Maruti is simply awesome. The baby is crying. Everyone tries different methods to make him stop crying but to no avail and he keeps on crying. The moment his mom takes him in her lap he starts smiling in fact laughing. And then the line from Maruti saying - ‘Bring a Maruti to only a Maruti service centre’ – icing on the cake

Havell’s wires ad
This has again being aired for sometime now but I still love watching the ad when the full ad is played. The ad conveys the message – ‘wires that don’t catch fire’ – in the backdrop of a boy’s care for his mother. Amazing.

Tata tea - Jagore.com ad
“Agar aap election ke din vote nahi de rahe to aap so rahe hai”. Superb. No words to express the brilliance of the ad in totality. Be it the concept or the way of presentation, it scores a 10 on 10.

But my favourite ad - Crabtree switches
Action speaks louder than words. Created in the lighter vein of the saying this ad is the best I have seen for a long time. In fact this is the ad that made me write this blog. This ad stresses on the fact that when you like something and believe it is the best you just can’t go for anything else. It also depicts that instead of trying to force the issue with people it is better to make them realize on their own. My favourite line – “A tea is a tea” within quotes. This ad is simply the best

Trip to Palampur – Day 2 & 3 - Triund & Palampur

Its been a long time since I wrote the last post. I got pretty busy and didn’t want to write on anything else till I finished this post :).

We woke up next morning everyone covered from head to toe in the blanket for the fear of the wasps. Ashish woke up the earliest followed by me and Manas. Vikas was the last to wake up. When he removed his blanket we found a wasp sleeping inside his blanket (they would have had good fun the whole night). We packed our bags, had our breakfast and got ready to go. We checked-out from the hotel and reached Macleodgunj. We decided to park the car there and start out trek. We would decide where and how to spend the night once we are back. We just took one bag which Vikas carried. We reached Dharamkot which was about 4 kms from Macleodgunj and the base for the trek to Triund.
The four of us started together. We had walked some distance before I wanted to rest for a while. We rested for sometime. Soon we started again. There was a normal path and then there were supposed short cuts (these were the steep climbs in the mountain ). I and Manas decided to take one such shortcut while Ashish and Vikas decided against it. It turned out to be a mistake on our part. We ended up going backwards rather than forward while Ashish and Vikas had moved ahead. We got separated – I and Manas the two relatively inexperienced people together while Vikas and Ashish the experienced people together. Having taken the so called shortcut I and Manas thought that we were way ahead of the others but soon we realized that we were in fact way behind. The network was also not clear and we couldn’t get in touch with the others. So we kept walking assuming the others would do the same and we would meet at the top.
After walking for sometime I realized that trekking is not my cup of tea but still I kept going. We managed to reach a place where there were a few shops. That seemed to be the last point till which one could drive as stationed there were a few cars and two wheelers. We moved ahead from there and soon met a few foreigners. There was a German among them with whom Manas began talking. He even clicked a photograph of me and Manas. Soon we moved ahead leaving them behind. And we got tired sooner so we decided to rest. The foreigners soon overtook us. We kept meeting each other quite a no of times in the route. We found a large rock and lied there for some time. We proceeded again and soon came across another set of shops. We had Litchi juice and biscuits there. Then Manas said we should cover the rest of the distance non-stop. I said ok. We resumed our trip ad were going at a good pace. But then I got tired and after that started moving with small breaks every few minutes. Manas started getting frustrated.
I said “I can walk this way only. You may go ahead if you wish to”.
Manas replied “If we had to trek alone why did we come in a group”
We had begun one of our usual fights until we both sat down. I was resting while Manas was eating a chocolate. Of course he did offer me but I didn’t want to eat anything till we reached the top. Manas though finished the chocolate. We were almost at the top – about 10-15 minutes were left. But we kept sitting there each wanting the other to start first. We spent some 20 mins there sitting and doing nothing. Finally Manas stood up started walking. (I had won the small battle but knew well that had Manas decided to go ahead alone it would have taken much longer for me to reach the top; and I never told this to Manas). So we reached the top finally.

It was a breathtaking view – the snow clad Himalayas seemed inches away, valley on all sides, everything looked small; everything around seemed as beautiful as anything I had seen only in movies. The climb was worth all the trouble. We had completed the around 9 km trek in about 4 hours (not bad for a novice I guess :)).
Vikas wanted to spend the night there but we hadn’t made any arrangement for that. There was a guest house but they said all bookings are done at Macleodgunj and he couldn’t do anything. But he asked us to wait till 5PM after which no one would be coming and so if any room was vacant we could get that. That was a risk which I and Ashish didn’t want to take as we wanted to get down before dark; while Vikas and Manas wanted the risk. But there was one thing for which we all agreed – food. We ordered daal chawal (Manas & Ashish), Bread Omlete and Maggi (I and Vikas) and tea. I really liked the tea especially the quantity – a full glass. Once done with the food we decided to go a little further to see some snow. We found some soon – my first experience with snow. Soon we started snow fight and it was fun. Vikas and Manas wanted to go further up while I and Ashish wanted to take some rest. So they went further up while we rested there. We had a great time recalling the good old days and old friends.
It was more than 2 hours since Manas and Vikas had gone and it would soon get dark. We decided to begin our trek down in 15 mins even the two of them didn’t return. As we decided to begin our climb down we saw the two of them coming down. They had no respect for time and took there time getting down clicking pictures all the way down. As soon as they reached us I said “We are going down” to which Manas replied “I thought you would have already left”. While Vikas said “Let me speak again to someone regarding staying there”. I and Ashish said firmly “We are going down; you do whatever you want”. And that was the start of our descent.
It was getting dark and so we were moving quickly. But we were late – by the time we reached halfway it was completely dark. There we found someone who was waiting for his group. He was alone and didn’t have a cell phone. We convinced him to come down with us and wait instead of waiting alone there in the dark. We were 5 now and it was totally dark. I had brought my torch along and that came in to help us. I and Ashish used it to climb down slowly while Manas’s phone had a torch; so he and the guy walked together. Vikas seemed like an owl and was walking alone leading the way with no light at all. That’s what is called being brought up in the mountains and he gets all my respect for that. We somehow managed to reach Dharamkot in the dark – Ashish got hurt twice on the way. It was another 4 kms to Macleodgunj and it meant further torture. We somehow managed to reach Macleodgunj.
But alas! The misery didn’t seem to end. There was no place available to stay and it was past 10 PM at night. We didn’t even get anything proper to eat (mainly because of me as I wanted good non-veg food but everything seemed over everywhere). We bought some chocolates and biscuit/namkeens from a store a couple of bottles of juice just in case we couldn’t anything else. We had to decide on our next steps. We could go back to Dharamshala but we didn’t want to. Another option was to go to Palampur but it was 30kms and only Manas knew how to drive. And he was hurt as well (in his and Vikas’s near death experience when they had gone high up at Triund). Manas being Manas decided to drive all the way to Palampur. We were going towards Palampur – driving in the hilly roads and complete darkness at a speed of 60+ kms/hr, all totally exhausted from the day’s trekking. And we were on a fun trip – well it looks fun now as I look back.
We reached Palampur at about 11:30 PM and we found the entire city sleeping. The hotels were all closed – some had even closed all there lights as if to indicate they don’t exist. The reason for this was that all hotels were completely occupied as the city was to host the IIT exam the next morning. We were loosing all hopes of finding a place to sleep. Everything suggested by Vikas’s friends were even coming to nothing. We almost ended up sleeping in our cars as we parked our car in the Bus Terminus. But we came to know about one more hotel which was our last hope and this time we weren’t disappointed. We got a room – finally. We ate whatever we had bought at the grocery store and that was our dinner. We played card for a couple of hours before we fell asleep.
We were finally in Palampur – the original destination of our trip. I was pretty happy at being there but it looked like just another city until we went visiting the city the next morning. We went to Neugal café – it was an exquisite place. I could spend the whole day there doing nothing. We spent some time there and decided to head back to Delhi. On the way we stopped at a tea garden and enjoyed the tea garden. I wanted to buy Kangra tea but didn’t manage to find a single shop selling it. We headed back to Delhi stopping on the way at Nitin’s house.

On our way back I told Manas to stop at a place where we could have great non-veg food. It was past 4 and we hadn’t had our lunch because we couldn’t find a decent restaurant. Manas stopped at a restaurant finally. Whatever I ordered wasn’t there and I got frustrated. Others also didn’t eat there as I couldn’t find anything of my liking. I shouted at Manas “What kind of place have you stopped. You know my tastes and still you can’t find a proper place”. Manas shouted back “Next time you tell me where to stop” We sat back in the car and he started driving back. Everything was quiet for quite some time – no one spoke anything. Then Manas stopped at a dhaba and said “Whosoever wants to eat eat here as we won’t be stopping after this” Everyone got down as everyone was hungry. We ate rice, roti with paneer, daal, rajma and curry. This is where everyone began speaking again and the atmosphere was back to normal. (For those who don’t know I and Manas have this regular habit of arguing but at the end of the day we are back to normal :P). We drove from there to Chandigarh stopping only for a cup of tea. We reached Chandigarh around 11 PM. We stopped there for a break and to eat our dinner.
There we went to Moti Mahal restaurant and we had wonderful food though a bit expensive. Manas had finally taken us to a wonderful restaurant something he couldn’t do in the afternoon :). We had a wonderful dinner and were the last ones to leave the restaurant. Then we had ice-cream on our way home. The three wonderful days of fun away from the routine life were over but the memories remain.