Yesterday morning a friend from the Press, made my day by sending this lovely photograph early in the morning.

Opening Ceremony BWSL Mumbai Ishtyle

This has been tweeted, long hard & fast….renamed PeeLink etc.

Having been meaning to visit the Speciality Mall Ishanya managed to do so on the recent visit to Pune.

A lovely Mall, with ample of space, set in one end of Pune near the golf course is a very nice piece of architecture. And there ends the good things.

Some points that one notices….

• Directions are a bit vague if you go from any other road
• Security is a bit lackadaisical
• Lots of Parking
• Mall seems to be only 1/3 full

Desperation seems to be evident, because renting out the space in the atrium to churan stalls & some low competition is just not happening.

Yes, the recession can be blamed but there is a lot of catchment driven activity that the mall authorities need to undertake now especially to make it happen for the tenants.

Saturday evening in Viman nagar, Pune - absolutely not happening & had to wait to pickup my daughter from Symbiosis test.

With a bit of asking around on twitter, found Zara - The Tapas Bar.

Directions were a bit lopsided, however reached there quickly. Drizzling, we were happy to find parking, peaceful with OK music, something we were looking for.

Zara, the chennai based new Spanish restaurant, tries to look exactly like you expect with photos of matadors, flamenco dancers adorn the walls. Menu pretty nice, but not quite there, maybe we did not order extensively though it serves nachos, lasagna, Stroganoff. Service was attentive without being intrusive.

We ordered Queso Frito Con Salsaq Pica; Vegetable Nachos & found all of them equally good.

A total of Rs. 1300/- for all of this.

AND yes definitely on my to visit place when in Pune

Lunkad Skycruise , Near Symbiosis International School, Off New Airport Road, Viman Nagar, Pune Tel:40159511

A lovely location; right across the road from Gold Adlabs, is a fairly large place, but the AC section is comparatively small.

Standard Shetty stuff with quick service. Tried out a bit of south indian & north indian.

The mocktails were pretty decent to begin with, but the starters were not too happening. The rava sada dosa was crisp, with good chutney & hot sambhar.

The Amritsari Chole could have been spicier but Dum aloo kashmiri was pretty good. It went just right with pudina & methi paratha.

All in all a nice place to have quick lunch/dinner, but parking can prove to be a nightmare; though the Pay & Park guys can be of help with a tenner.

Fortaleza, Opp. Gold Adlabs, Kalyani Nagar, Pune Tel: 64004965

During my recent visit to Pune, staying in Kalyani Nagar, where I did not see too many restaurants & more so who would do home delivery. However, having seen this a couple of times en route to Symbiosis Campus decided to try it out one night by ordering Home Delivery:

Channa Masala
Lachhedar Paratha
Aloo Cheese Roll
Egg Roll

Delivered in 20 minutes; HOT & amazingly fresh. The order was perfect - where without onions - was remembered, et all.

Try it out because it is surely now on my redial list for my visit to Pune.

Shop No 12, Hermes Paras, Opp Fortaleza, Kalyani Nagar Pune Tel: 020-65226806

A week ago, had Sanjar Imam a foodie friend come over from Bangalore in the afternoon flight, with plans of going to Trident & leaving by the evening flight but wanting to meet up for Lunch.

After exploring but deciding against the usual suspects, decided to try Masalacraft out - in the worst case - Candies is right next door:)

But turned out to be quite a surprise - Not too full at 1.30pm also, we quickly got a table, ordered F/L soda & water, which was served quick enough.

On perusing the Menu, decided to try out starters, main course together as we were short of time. So we ordered

1) Afghani Fish TIkka
2) Burrah Kabab
3) Murgh Lahori
4) Naan & Laccha Paratha

All of them were extremely delicious….in fact as my friend said, it was a long time since he liked meat, chicken & fish all at the same place & time.

The only regrets:

Service: Needs to be a bit more attentive & this when it is not full.
Ambiance: Afternoon had some lovebirds & a group of ladies imbibing, shouting at the top of their voices. In spite of us & another table requesting, no attempt to speak to them was made.
Time: The lovely starters should have been eaten with beer in the afternoon or nice rum when it’s raining outside, but alas Time did not allow us to do so.

But, return I shall with some more friends….

21-B, Santhal ONGC Complex, Opp. Lilavati Hospital, Bandra West, Mumbai Phone: 26452031/26439239

Traveling back from Parel today (Visa on arrival) flickering through Twitter, saw a couple of RT (retweet) on what is now being termed The Kiruba incident by ClearTrip itself; The ClearTrip episode: my experience Part I by Kiruba Shankar and as ClearTrip resolution of a neo-influencer complaint is a case-study by Rajesh Lalwani of Blogworks; besides other comments being tweeted so on & forth.

At the outset let me clarify the following:

• I do not know Kiruba Shankar personally, except having exchanged some tweets & mail some time ago
• I do not know Rajesh Lalwani in any capacity - never having met him, hired him or been hired by him.
• I do not know ClearTrip as an Organization, except Matthew Spacie - One of their founders with whom I worked in the distant past.
• I have not bothered to read/book anything on ClearTrip except Domestic Hotels long ago but found my personal direct rates were superior. Read the rest of this entry »
  

I had been meaning to write this post a while back, but got sidetracked with my daughter’s results, experiment with Twitter so got delayed a bit.

A lot has already been written about how much money all the Franchise, BCCI et all have made; but the common refrain being India did not benefit much. Read the rest of this entry »

I had been on Twitter for a couple of months, attended a minor tweetup organised by Netra before I saw a tweet from @90di that got me thinking.

Trying to find out the methodology got me nowhere, but I decided to run an experiment myself rather to amuse myself and if possible understand what makes Twitter tick here.

From the 5th May 2009 to 13th June 2009 whilst the experiment continued I was No Rank - 90’s - 60’s - 20’s sub 10’s with a final high of sub 03 for nearly 5-6 days.

As @90di commented that “Usual Suspects” contained ShaaqT Gul Panag Keeda Shashi Tharoor amongst others; so was in real august Indian Tweeter company.

Now here is where I presumed the following:

• Some of the names on the list came up, due to followers talking about them
• Some of the names on the list came up because they followed norms laid down by twitter:)
• Some of the names came up the list because they were trend setters/followers like Keeda

Doodle by @keeda on Twitter Trend

My experiment was divided into 3 parts:

1)  Break into the first 100 Indian Twitters

2)  Break into the first 30 Indian Twitters

3)  Finally, break into top 10 for a period of week or more.

1)  Break into the first 100 Indian Twitters

• After analysing my tweets - used some of the applications - but could not make head or tail out of it so finally relied on myself.
• Realized that Twitter advocates being yourself, which is fine but so does Indian Democracy - then why in spite of cribbing et all we elect the same politicians - because in spite of voters changing the politicos remain the same.
• But, how do you be yourself - if the nick is something else & your name is something else - luckily that did not affect me.
• Having been a hoarder of some text; thoughts; jokes or all bundled as gyan decided to share this with the tweeters, of course hoping for a couple of shoutdowns.
• Parallel started following some known names that looked good from their bio - this helped in retweets
• From April 3 to May 25 I jumped from 150 to 400 odd followers that included a whole lot of bots & people based out of India who did not have any kind of interaction with me.
• Slowly I found myself inching up the scale to speak till I finally broke in on the 5th May

2)  Break into the first 30 Indian Twitters

• Then it became tougher to break in with a wide variety of variations floating around.
• Started tweeting seriously - bit of gyan; news with comments; interacting; replying.
• Finally I thought I was ready to conclude the experiment around the 30th May & so the final push began.

3)  Finally, break into top 10 for a period of week or more.

• Had prepared a fair amount of interactive tweets for different days
• Worked on the background that would make people want to RT
• Some completely new thoughts that could be shared with a variety of groups
• Heavy interaction in terms of replies; help; DM everything.

And, hence managed to conclude it successfully. My personal findings:-

• Irrespective of how “be yourself” you are, perceptions matter
• Most of the followers do not read your bio, go thru your blog before deciding to follow you. Only your Tweets matter.
• A great Blogger may not be a great Tweeter & vice versa
• Common searchable knowledge is tweeted by everyone; try something that is personally relevant.
• The pareto principle applies here also.
• Whilst PR; Advertising - online & offline; media; brands talk about Social Media & recently Twitter, fact is how relevant to daily life, work environment are the top 100 twitters that is crucial
• If a chunk keep talking about just technology, crib about government & civic the feeling is ‘Hey we read & listen to this all the time’ Tell us how Twitter can help us.
• Irrespective of whether you may live it, love it, hate it fact remains that it is MLM, with of course no transactions involved.
• Everyone eventually manages to create a pyramid or a banyan tree which helps them & all their connections, mostly always in a positive manner.
• Embrace it as another channel, medium - it shall deliver results. Remember as somebody said “The use of electronic networks and associated technologies is to enable, improve, enhance, transform or invent a business process or business system to create superior value for current or potential customers.”
• AND Finally remember with the right approach, attitude & bit of hardwork you can overcome the System i.e. Twitter:)

Approximate data has been taken from Twitterholic & 90di I hereby acknowledge that I have not been guided by any Social Media Agencies, Gurus; but am thankful to the everyday tweeters who made this possible.

You must have read about my travel on the expressway to Pune here. However the action over the two days is recorded in this post.

Immediately on entering Pune, we had to drop off some stuff at Neil’s aka Colonel sister’s place; but we decided to stop by Marz-O-rin on the way for some nice cold coffee (not cold but still tastes just as good) & chicken sandwiches (why O why can bombay not learn). Upon completing reached her place, woke her up from her snooze, delivered the stuff, chatted for a while before reaching our final destination Sunil Rogers (Neil’s Nephew) at Mudwa Road; Next to Magarpatta City. It was nearly 6.30 pm by then, so opted for a snooze before getting up at 8.00pm ready for some action. Since a couple of more friends were already there, opted for some kolhapuri food from Kaveri (unfortunately closed that day) so had to settle for some butter chicken & naans from another place preceeded by some Haig & budhani wafers & samosas. All in all good stuff. During this time, had got in touch with CNB aka Freegeek who introduced me to the Visa system in Bombay. And so cajoled him also into coming over.

The next day, Colonel had wanted to go on Satara road for some misal & vada, but was over ruled. We slept a little late & then on his insistence finally left for Post 91 where the Pune Jazz Club was meeting. Reached there much before time & except the projector plus the speaker were there. However, soon it started picking up with the who is who of Pune joining in (photography was frowned upon) but managed to get a couple of them.

At nearly 3, with Colonel buzzing thanks to Koch insisting on one more beer, we made our way to ABC farms. The idea was Sheesha - where jazz lovers meet up. Lovely place, though pathetic service - we had to get everything replaced with fresh stuff - they were keen on the firangs rather than serve us. And back home, via a dekho at Magarpatta city interiors. A power nap & we were ready to rock & roll again. Freegeek had called up to plan out something, but visitors had landed up, so had to communicate regrets.

However I had not counted on Colonel & Sunil his nephew, who managed to clear up the house by 8pm. Then pushing me to drive rushed to Kaveri to pick up Kolhapuri Mutton Rassa & Chicken Fry. On the way Freegeek was also asked to report quickly. And the evening commenced. Keeping an eye on Freegeek & Sunil’s age we called it a night early by 1 (the previous day was 3 am & Freegeek had gone to office straight:))

Monday dawned bright & early. With a list of things to pick up from Praveen (some achaar, masala); Budhani; Marz-O-rin; Kayani & bruns from some other place & we were ready to hit the Expressway!!!