It is surprising that in an industry that relies on human contact & touch point, most of my colleagues rely 90% on email and get really upset when I refer it to playing billiards. Email is the safest way of pushing things off your plate, not taking responsibility, accountability, because the moment you click ‘Send’ your job is over.

Of course there is always the Tech team, India’s connectivity problems etc that can be blamed for non receipt of information, further compounded by GPRS, EDGE, dropping signals etc.

But once out of office, on weekends, chatting with friends and all connectivity works perfectly.

Pani Puri Act-1984

One free puri to be served minimum against every six puries, puri may be dry with boiled potato/ ragda and salt on top.

Misal Act -1966

Misal always to be served in a small plate kept on a larger plate.

Limbu Sarbat Act-1955

Empty glass be placed on glass containing limbu sarbat and both be shaken vigorously, at least 10 times up and down.

Rava Dosa Act 1988

A small portion of the dosa may always remain stuck to the plate.

Thali Act -Udipi restaurants of Mumbai-1989

A minimum of 6 vaatis(cups) always be on the plate, at least 4 dishes be recognizable, additional miniscule vaati for Shrikhand.

A couple of days ago, some men took away covers from the drainage in our society. Whilst the watchmen chased them, they ran away & nothing much could be done, since it was 3.30 am

The very next day one of them returned to do some more damage & was caught by the watchmen on duty. Being the chairperson of the society was called down to decide what could be done with the person who was caught….since he claimed to be a “Khabri” (informer) of the Oshiwara police station.

Salim - the so called Khabri of Police

So I called 100 from my cell phone - took 3 tries but managed to get through. Impressed with the efficiency of the constable who took down the details & said somebody would be there within 10 minutes.

Whilst, the druggie kept shouting, I decided to call the local police station - Oshiwara - in this case, just to be on the safe side, After 15 rings some constable picked up the phone. Upon explaining, he asked for the address & then began my problem - we supposedly fell into Amboli Police Station - No amount of arguing, cajoling, GPS, Google convinced him that it was not the case.

So finally took the number from him & called Amboli Police Station, which gave the same run around, with finally telling me that both the police stations are next door to each other in the same compound!

Back, to Oshiwara & managed to convince them to send someone.

20 minutes later finally a cop walked in & started firing questions to everyone generally:

• Who is this?
• Who called?
• Why did you waste time unnecessarily
• These druggies are useless

When I spoke tough with him, saying that the said druggie also claimed to be a murderer & asked for his ID, he said Ok Ok, I’ll take him, but send the watchmen to write a complaint.

Just as they were going out, a police vehicle came up, sent by 100 control inquiring about the incident, upon which our man tried to impress that he had everything under control.

The entire episode took an hour & half, but I was most impressed by the control 100…..with just a bit of more manpower & automation, they can do wonders.

Keep it going Mumbai Police

I have been a advocate of being critical of the variety of Day’s launched, copied, created by Marketeers (moi included).

Some questions that occur:

Does this day mean that the other 364 days you are not a friend? And of course the Archies, Telecom companies coffers are filled up thanks to all of this.

However, playing the devil’s advocate another thought occurs to one & that is - A lot of us are not emotional, lack the necessary courage to communicate face to face etc. this in whatever form is the right opportunity - 25 years ago - there were friendship bands, followed by cards, then email forwards, text, facebook, twitter et all now are the medium to announce.

YES, a lot of people have cribbed about waste of time, money & why should I respond - It is indeed a personal choice & I do not respond to those idiotic forwards complete with the spelling mistakes….But once in a way some original stuff makes its way, that I like & definitely want to share. Some gems that I received today from people who have not communicated for quite some time or have lost touch…

The first today at 8am

A friend in any language means Trust forever -

Afrikaans - vriend

Albanian - mik

Chinese - pengyou

Danish - ven

Dutch - vriend, vriendje

Estonian - sober

French - ami

Georgian - megobari

German - freund

Hungarian - barat

Indian - dost

Irish - cara

Italian - amico

Japanese - tomodachi

Korean - jingu

Latin - amicus

Manx - carrey

Old English - freond, wine

Persian - dust

Russian - prijatel

Sanskrit - mitra

Spanish - amigo

Swahili - rafiki

Turkish - dost, arkadas

Cheers on Friendship day !!!

BP

This was then followed by

Things may change From Classroom to Office, Books to Files, Jeans to Formals, Pocket money to Salary, commission to profit sharing. CEO to partnership.

What will not change is “YAARAN DI YAARI OYE” happy Friendship day Samit.

Yaad nahi karoge toh karwayenge;

Roothe honge to manayenge;

Udaas honge to hasayenge;

Mano na mano hum dost hai apke,

Yaad karne ka haq nahi gavayenge, HAPPY FRIENDSHIP DAY - GOD BLESS Madhurie

So, hate or love these days, they are here to stay….so Accept them!

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.

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 »

An article written by Namita Bhandare forwarded by Kapil Joshi set me thinking.

• Even today more than 85% households in India still believe that a male child is preferable.
• So called Reservation in education takes care of everything including girls, but where is there a followup.
• Politicians appointed as HRD ministers have no clue about what to do? Yes, talk about IIM/IIT & remain in the news is right there on their agenda.
• Yup Girls schools, colleges, are great photo op, after which we meet next year.
• Earnings, Savings are decided by the father & later husband even though they may have no clue of finances.
• They need to constantly thank their father, brother, husband…..is this a trade off to allow them to study? work? In which case why not their mothers, sisters, daughters??
• Can we not portray girl with her mother in advertisements that are relevant & not cosmetic.
• And to top it all, the regressive serials that enjoy high TRP

Expecting Manmohan Singh to do something about it is pathetic. It has to be initiated from every home, every individual for it to gather momentum.

Having worked 80% of my life with lady bosses and enjoyed working with them; superbly supportive wife & daughter (who always join forces to keep me in control) I can say that the first couple of times it is difficult, then it becomes a way of life.

To begin with try supporting www.goonj.info

I am sure, Gandhiji must be smiling his gentle smile up in the heavens.

Just imagine the kind of difference he made for Capitalists during Recession.

Orkut, Chirkut, Facebook, all the social media gurus, bloggers (including yours truly) climbed on the band wagon to write about him - thereby leading to free content, advertisements, subscriptions & what have you.

Debates, calls made money for the phone companies.

Media had a field day for a while when there were no news around….so some jobs were saved for a couple of months.

Principles, Values were/are being heavily debated, so probably some more jobs would be saved since some employers would want to be considered gandhian.

AND just like the reality shows…..post acquisition of the items by Mr. Mallaya….who did not/does not claim to be gandhian follower, so on & forth (enough has been written about him already) there are a lot of text messages floating around….

Sushmay, Dilip, Ashwin, Suresh, Ian, Manny, Vijay, Deepak, Anil, Mohan & many others have been contributing to the coffers of Airtel, Vodafone, BPL, etc.

Gandhi hated liquor his whole life, but liquor king brought his memories back to India. What a contribution from people who drink alcohol. Three cheers

Gandhiji advocated Prohibition, But we needed a liquor baron to bring back his things to India! JAI HO for the craziest place on earth!! 02 Oct NOW KINGFISHER DAY

Dr. Vijay Mallya should now lead a “Malt March to Sabarmati Ashram to lift prohibition in Gujarat. JAI HO!

Gandhiji hated liquor for whole life. But liquor king brought gandhi memories back to India. What a contribution of our people who drink. Thanks for drinking…..Sar uthake peeo.

After Mallaya’s heroic rescue of India’s honor, 2nd October will no longer be a dry day…..:)

Besides the coffers filling in, it was interesting to see the creativity, communication skills employed & at least this year he shall be remembered for more days!!!

Also how does it matter what business Mr. Mallaya is???? Personally I did not hear/see any of the so call principled, gandhian hypocrites trying anything remotely…..maybe I am not privy to such things; maybe they sponsored Mallaya….one does not know.

But this one conveys my thoughts clearly

Indians want Gandhiji’s valuables, But not his VALUES

And Bapu has the last laugh:) after all NALAYAK BETA HI KAAM AATA HAI..!

For the past 35 - 40 years, except in schools, text books & government offices, MKG; Gandhiji; Bapu; Father of the nation either remained in textbooks, songs, walls & part time teachings.

In the school, text book had chapters devoted to history of independence, teachings of bapu, values, which neither the teachers acknowledged nor students remembered after the bell signaling the period was over.

The songs were practiced & sung during the assembly, a week before republic day; independence day or 2nd October & then forgotten.

The book sellers made merry every year.

The portraits hung on every wall of the government offices made many a painter, photographer, frame maker wealthy. A lot of good, bad & evil was conducted beneath his eyes, which accepted everything, just as it probably did when alive.

Whatever the reasons, government, relatives, friends, foes, well wishers fought over his meager possessions, not giving a damn whether he would have approved of it or not.

Then OTIS struck…….All of a sudden, everyone who had forgotten him, relegated him to the background for 350 days in a year started acknowledging him, his worth, claiming that they were following his principles, values ready to bring back his possessions back to India!!!

In the heat of the moment, money was pledged, collected, social activism armchair, online, offline gathered momentum (hey, I was also a part of it, but for no other reason than a friend Tushar’s passion).

Some people raised questions, relevant, irrelevant…..

Why did we not plan?
Why does the government not intervene?
What purpose would it serve?

so on & on……..

But watching from the sidelines, Bapu was laughing at all these hypocrites……because he never believed in keeping his possessions close to his chest, remember he gave all of it away.

Unfortunately, nobody asked him but he would have said ” Vijay, save your money - either do good with it or keep enjoying life, but do not waste it on my possessions”

T. N. Shanbag - the name invokes memories of a gentle man, who I first saw & met in 1982 when I had the good fortune to visit his store for the first time.

Over the years, though we did not meet, a visit to strand on my visit to Bombay was a must. A bit of small chit chat, the polite push towards reading more things than fiction & then left in peace to browse around.

1995 was when I met him again. He had come over to my office across the road from Strand with a guest for subscription. Business done, he reminded me that it is now close enough for me not to offer excuses. And till 2000 the saturday visits resumed.

For the past couple of years, it was always at the back of my mind to visit Strand, but something or the other ensured I could not.

I am sure, he would have gently smiled & taken up from where we had left. Just as he would with the almighty after his journey.

R.I.P my friend.