You can take me out of NITIE. But you can never take NITIE out of me. - Shubham Choudhury* I could not help but (re)post this comment made by Shubham on my previous post. By the way, Junta! I am going to go be in a nomadic life for the next 15 days, so might not be able to post :( References * Choudhury, Shubham; URL: http://my-mind-space.blogspot.com Born July 19, 1980; NITIE, PGDIM-X, Class of 2005 Co-Creator: Arbit Choudhury - World's First B-school comic character

Another Saturday that was; hectic yet fun. Started the day by rushing my bike to the service station in Mulund - rushed ahead to KPMG Office in Lower Parel to attend a training. While the training entered its last leg, I ran away back to Mulund to collect my bike and then braving through the traffic jam, reached home - exhausted! Had a late dinner @ 10:50 PM and then decided to go for a short stroll. So me and Somnath set out on foot to stroll in Hiranandani . It was looking very beautiful - empty but lighted streets with the marvelous structures. Both of us simultaneously had thoughts of taking snaps and incidentally Somnath's camera had just a few strips remaining. So we went back, grabbed the camera and set out roaming on the bike at 1:30 AM to take snaps. We took snaps in Galleria, Olympia, and old-Hiranandani areas; but with a few shots still left, we were both overcome by a wish to visit NITIE and take a few snaps there. So here we were, two souls in Shorts and T-shirts, ente...

This old post by Shubham (and the comment made by Sabya on it) made me realize how much has changed between my entering NITIE and today - within me as well as without. Shubham himself echoed the same thoughts in his mail of which I am posting an excerpt: "This post refers to a lot of things we discussed during our days in NITIE (gee ... doesn't that make u feel it has been ages since we left NITIE). Some of the thoughts expressed there have become even more relevant now, now that we have been earning for some time. When I read some of my primordial posts, I almost feel that they were written by a different person. And that I do not identity with what I wrote there any more .... have u ever felt similar too??" Just the other day me and Somnath (aka Tiger) went to Pizza Hut because ghar par khaana acchha nahi bana tha. When the waiters there recognized us instantly, I was trying to figure out how many times I had visited this place and I couldn't count. Pizza hut is n...

Have you ever imagined if you were merely a witness to this world, rather than being a participant - how would it feel? Would our daily lives - chores, events, celebrations, troubles, tribulations make really interesting events to watch? One would argue, Yes! After all, the movies are made up not completely fictional stuff - they are all inspired from our real lives. But then, why do movies interest us? Because they relate to us, they represent our dreams, our life, our land, our world. I repeat, if we were all mere spectators, non-participating - then would all this make any sense to us. It is unlikely that a Taxi driver would enjoy Wallstreet . Similarly, for ... say ... galactic observer from another galaxy - will the earth not be some chaotic nonsensical place where people are running for goals which do not matter or make sense? We are a miniscule disturbance on the galactic scale - whether in terms of space or time - in all 4 dimensions. Nothing would ever change in the universe i...

Check out the public notice of the trust on Gaurav's blog http://gauravsabnis.blogspot.com/2006/02/manjunath-shanmugam-trust.html Check out the trust's own website: www.manjunathshanmugamtrust.org and http://syg.com/web/manjunath/

Gaurav Sabnis makes a very valid point in this post that - "...it is not necessary to hate* Gandhiji to admire Bhagat Singh ... to hate Gandhiji is not the same as disagreeing with some or most of his ideals". I have reverberated such thoughts in past on this blog . Whether one agrees with Gandhiji's views on Ahinsa or not; we should credit Gandhiji with the discovery of the individual's power. As Louis Fischer put it - 'The individual was Gandhiji's major concern and it is this concern which makes him so intimately relevant to the present day India. Most of Gandhiji's ideas can be ascribed to some inner quality of his mental eyesight that kept him from seeing people as a mass. He never saw or judged Indians or Frenchmen or Christians or Muslims in millions. He considered each human being too holy, too important to be the mere instrument of a remote impersonal terrestrial power called state." Freedom for Gandhiji was not mere political - it was ...

If Mumbai were an animal - Local Trains would be its arteries which would carry blood to major junctions in the body (city). But the more critical function of the nerves (last mile connectivity!) would be of B.E.S.T. buses that run to and from all parts of Mumbai and into the smallest of boulevards. If there is one service that differentiates Mumbai from other metros - it is its public transport system, and with Calcutta and Delhi having 'metro-rails', Mumbai locals are definitely not the suburban transport facilities to rival them. What makes Mumbai comfortable is the Bus Transport services. However slow and unreliable they may in terms of time, they provide the simplest way to commute to any square or boulevard in the city. With a characteristic red-and-white color combination and unusual length, BEST buses are a part of Mumbai's identity. From Mulund to VT, Borivli to Churchgate and Mulund to Borivli - they ply in all directions and take detours to all edges of Mumbai li...

Manish tagged me ... so here go the 20 of the most filthiest kinds I have seen (not in any order).... Drunkards who drink all night and then drowse in the middle of busy roads early morning. People who keep on whinening about their job but do little to either change themselves or atleast their jobs! People who tag along with little known acquaintances for parties etc, just to be a part of free lunches and don't even bother to say a decent 'Thank You' after everything. People who force you to accompany them to the bar or lounge just because they want you to share the expense irrespective of whether you want to drink or not. Acquaintances who keep on complaining - 'Beta aap to hamare ghar aate hi nahi ho!' even when they know that you don't anymore reside in their city and come home just for a week or so. Relatives who ask you the same question - 'Where do you work?' everytime you meet them. People for whom a ticket to the west is the only proof of intell...

Quoting SRK from TOI - "No, I don’t get angry. That’s one aspect of my life that I have really worked on. It doesn’t matter whether you get angry, people will do what they have to do . I don’t even get angry at home. My children think I never get angry. They ask me, ‘papa, do you ever get angry like mamma?’ They don’t realise yet that I do get angry, but that I’ve stopped expressing it ." I myself have realised similar facts over the past 2 years and am myself working on my Anger Expression (rather non-expression). I guess I have mellowed down a lot over the past 2 years; of course its only onlookers who have the right to comment, never the actor himself! (Pun intended!)

Note : This is not a review of the movie but a related comment Blogosphere is full of comments and reviews on RDB - while most junta has liked the movie, there are some who haven't. Most of the anti-RDB posts point out major fact-flaws in the storyline/screenplay; 3 major ones pointed out are: 1. Criticism of an IAF pilot by the Defence Minister 2. Lathicharge on a peaceful procession by Police 3. Gunning down of 'College Students' by commandos Most people claim that a 'democratic' government will not indulge in such 'oppressionist' acts and the parallel drawn between the current government and British Raj is unjustified. After watching the movie I also had similar views, but a revisit to my own post , made about an year ago, made me realize that the comparison in the movie is not completely unjustified. A democratic government too can indulge in acts similar to the (said) oppressionist British Raj and if not RDB, at least these posts [ 1 ] [ 2 ] are to be b...

My Uttaranchal snaps are here! Enjoy them on this Flick r Slideshow or here .

Great Bong has put up two very touching posts [ 1 ] [ 2 ]. Quoting from [1] (GreatBong .. sorry for not asking for reprod permissions in advance :P ) "But therein lay the beauty of it. The beauty of conviction. The beauty of dreams. The fact that this man believes that one day he will make it as a poet . And what's inspiring is that despite the odds he faces every day, he still manages to radiate enthusiasm for his craft---a luminant joi de vivre that comes from believing in what he does. That sales pitch of "a poem for 10 paisa" accompanied with the boisterous recitation---he must be doing this routine about hundreds of times every day, mostly to people who are irritated by his presence (I saw another group on the grass who basically told him to f*** off) and just want this nuisance to leave them alone. Looking at him going about his work, I realized that not once during his numerous sales pitches does his enthusiasm or self-belief waver, nor does he ever sell his ...

Government of India has set up the National Accreditation Board for Hospitals (NABH) and National Accreditation Board for Laboratories (NABL) to strengthen the regulation of healthcare industry in India but the major purpose behind the move is said to be the intent to encourage medical tourism. India is trying to break into the humungous (and growing) global market of Medical Tourism currently dominated by Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. While India might be just a beginner but it has some inherent advantages of being recognized as the land of Yoga, Meditation and other parallel forms of medicine in addition to having doctors well qualified in modern medicine. While the increase of medical tourism and induction of accreditation services will improve the state of existing healthcare in India, it might not help in making up for the shortage of healthcare facilities. Accreditation will primarily be sought by large hospitals, or medium sized clinics in areas where the demand for premium ...