My thoughts

Friday, June 6, 2008

It's Raining! It's Raining!

The first rain hit mumbai on June 4th. The flashes in the sky signalled its arrival. Somewhere around 9:30 pm rains started.
Today (6th June), It was raining heavily before I left the office at 7:00 pm. There were thunders and lightning all evening. While I was driving back home the rains brought back happy memories of past years. We used to get drenched during the first rains in mumbai and urge others to get wet too as if it was a ritual to do so. It's a great experience to raise your face towards the sky and let the rain droplets hit you. Today's downpour would have brought smile on faces of millions of mumbaites who have been facing the extreme heat and humidity for a few months now.
One thing which concerned me was the demolition drive just a week before in Matunga West. This demolition drive left many people homeless. Although most of the people moved to other places, many were still living on the pavements. They had made makeshift roofs which I am sure would not sustain the mumbai rains even for a day. Suddenly, the government policy of giving houses to slum dwellers started making some sense to me.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Kiss me Baby!!!

(Citi Center mall, Vashi)

Guess What? Last saturday I sang at the Citi Center mall, Vashi. I was not nervous Singing Karaoke even though it was my first time. One reason could be because it happened very fast. Moreover, the crowd at the mall was a little smaller than usual.

As I came out of Food Baazar, which is on ground floor of the mall, I noticed that my sister and niece had walked down towards a Karaoke podium. The person compering was urging the crowd to come over and sing a song, but was not getting many takers. Esha, my niece was called over on the podium as she was dancing to the music being played. Later I too was called on the podium to accompany my niece. Little did I realise what was about to come. The person incharge handed over the mic to me and before I cud say anything, he asked my name over the mic. And then he shouted "Rahul jee ke liye jordar taliyan..." . I knew I was doomed....

I started reading the lyrics on the screen. Yes reading! However, quickly i picked up the tune and started singing. It read "Kiss me baby! Kiss me baby! Tu hai mera garam masala". As I started singing, I was trying to recollect if I have ever heard this song.
I still can't believe that I actually got up on the stage with a mic and prompter screen in front of dozens of strangers. Now something about my luck. To my luck, the person compering was singing along with me. The guy was a pro and was singing beautifully. I somehow managed to sing along with him. After sometime I handed back the mic and was glad to hear the crowd cheers as I was Thanked.
It was an exhilarating experience!

Monday, May 5, 2008

3 of the Worst Advertisements

1. HCL's Technology - touches life everywhere
( Click on the title to watch the video )
Punch line - "By the way, that... is a bull not a cow".
2. HCL - Technology that touches lives - The Sequel
( Click on the title to watch the video )
3. SBI - 25 Cheque leafs, Anywhere banking, ATM Card...

(By the way one of my best advertisement is Center Fresh ad... "Bhai thaab.... Aapka shoe lace...Jo aaya hai woh jayega ... khul gaya hai".. )

Mumbai - Pune Expressway - The Sad Part

(Snap taken by me from the Khopoli flyover)

Today morning, it was very distressing to read the Times of India headlines "16 killed in Mumbai expressway mishap". This accident occurred on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway when the jeep in which the victims were travelling rammed a trailer early on Sunday. The overloaded Trax Jeep got stuck in the rear axle of the trailer with 14 wheels and was dragged for seven kilometres as the trailer driver did not realise what had happened. The speedometer of the jeep was stuck at 130 kmph. Initial investigations by police reveal that the driver had falled asleep at the wheel. This news made me wonder if the trailer had it's tail lights working? Nothing has been mentioned in the news about the trailer's tail lights. The reason why this thought came up is because I have always felt these kind of mishaps are waiting to happen on the expressway, looking at the number of trucks travelling at night without tail lights. I have been a regular traveller on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway. For any person who has travelled from Mumbai to Pune on NH-4, before the expressway was built, would realise the enormous difference the expressway has made to travelling. The frustration of getting stuck in Lonavala ghats for hours is totally forgotten now. It now takes close to 2 hours to reach Aundh (Pune) from Mumbai Suburbs like Chembur or Navi Mumbai. The road is beautifully built and one can even cruise at high speeds in the ghat section. I have known this expressway for quite sometime now. There are 3 things which have irked me during my travel on this wonderful road. No... The toll cost of Rs 118 does not figure in this list :)

1. Truck and their tail lights
While I was working in Infosys Pune, I would generally travel every weekend to Mumbai. Many a times I had to travel during the night. The thing which annoyed me was that there were Trucks with really slow speeds on the expressway. Worst, they had no tail lights. My guess would be that an astonishing 80% of the trucks on the expressway do not have working tail lights. And many of these trucks are even without a reflector. A person driving at night needs to be really vigilant to spot these trucks. You need not overspeed to encounter this kind of situation. Even driving at 80kmph (official speed limit, which I believe can be pushed to 90 or 100 kmph :) ), you can suddenly come across a truck moving at snail's pace without reflectors or tail lights. The Traffic police could do us a favour if they fined these trucks along with the speeding cars. Pretty often the traffic police with their radar/laser guns crack down on speeding vehicles on the Mumbai Pune expressway. Its time they even start cracking down on slow moving vehicles without tail lights.

2. End of the Road
The end of the expressway towards Pune is one of the most dangerous places and I think the most prone to accidents. There was a time, when while travelling back to Pune every Monday, I used to spot a vehicle rammed at the end of the road. Sometimes the count used be even more than one. The curve is too sharp for people to realise and contol their vehicle. Also travelling for almost 2 hours at high speeds people don't realise that inspite of reducing their speed towards the end of the road, the speed at which they are travelling is still very high to make that curve. The authorities had to put tyres all along the curve to reduce the impact of accidents. There are ample of signs suggesting you to slow down like the yellow lines across the road which give the driver a small jerk as well as the sign boards. But still these signs are failing to get the attention of drivers or making them realise to not just slow down but slow down drastically.

3. Landslides
The landslide problem during the rainy season slows down the traffic a lot. It now seems to be a ritual every year to close down one side of the road for a particular stretch. I don't know what is the solution to this problem but would be glad if its resolved. The sign board suggesting "Drive carefully - Landslides Ahead" is of very little help.

Sunday, May 4, 2008

Esha and Turtle

When will you walk Turtle?

Hey! It's walking...

My darling Esha !

Esha, Esha's Mom and Turtle

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Esha over the phone

Esha Dancing

Getting Listed in Google Search

Day before yesterday I was damn thrilled since my blog was getting listed in google search. I searched using various combinations and some or the other posts on my blog would be shown as the result of the google search. However, today mysteriously google has decided not to list my blog. I tried using the same words for which my blog was listed only day before yesterday but invain. I somehow need to understand how the search engine behaves.

I had used the first technique of the below mentioned 3, around a few weeks back to get listed on google searches.

1. Submit Direct To Google
The first method is to submit your web site via Google's free submit your site form. Just submit your home page and Google's crawler, Googlebot, will crawl the rest.
However, Google does not add all submitted URLs to their index, and there is no guarantee as to when, or if, your site will be indexed.
2. Get Linked From A Site That Google Crawls
The second method is to get a site that Google already crawls to link to your site. So when Google recrawls the web site, it will find the link to your site and crawl and index it as well.
This is Google's preferred method of finding sites to index.
To get another site to link to yours, simply look for a site that links to your competitors and ask them to link to yours. You may have to offer a link back to their site in exchange.
You may like to read my link popularity article, "How To Quickly Improve Your Link Popularity." In this article I show you how to find link exchange partners.
3. Submit Your Site To The Yahoo! Directory & The Open Directory Project Index
The third method is to submit your web site to the Yahoo! Directory and/or Open Directory Project index, which is owned by Netscape.
As far as I know, this is the only guaranteed method of getting into the Google index.
Google has agreements with Yahoo! and Netscape to include the sites indexed in their directories in the Google index. So submit your site to either, or both (recommended), of these directories.
For more information, visit Yahoo!'s How to Suggest Your Site page and the Open Directory Project's How to add a site to the Open Directory page.
Once your site is included in either of these directories, it will appear in the Google index in about 4 to 8 weeks.