Dear Mumbai RTO Commissioner, MMRDA Head and Chief Minister of Maharashtra,

Dear Mumbai RTO Commissioner, MMRDA Head and Chief Minister of Maharashtra,

You owe me an explanation !!!

After having put in an hour of my life almost 5 days a week for the last almost 2 years, finally i see the new FLYOVER constructed and ready for use in MALAD East near the Times of India. This had been a dream flyover for me more than you now. One hour of bumper to bumper traffic, one hour of frustrations, one hour gone from my life when i could have been early home to see my angels, One hour of mishaps, One hour of anger, ONE HOUR of Extra FUEL I spent !!

To give way in hope of a new flyover which will save me time, make my trip to home pleasurable...But ALAS !!! All gone to sheer waste !!! Thanks to your visions !! the flyover has commenced operations !! but the peak hour traffic has been allotted ONLY ONE LANE !!! Sir, I fail to see your insight, but one lane only for a peak hour traffic causes all the MORE bottle neck and traffic !!.

Hence my request for an explanation !

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The New Couch trap

I had been constantly harrowed by my kids and wife - "MOVIE , MOVIE MOVIE". The experience of a movie at a theatre does seem pleasant with the new multiplexes, but @ the same time it does have its own issues to address, Few being Traffic, Parking, Tickets, Crowd, Time... I may be wrong in my opinion.

But finally it struck me "Tata Sky" offers me a multiplex @ home - well almost.. and ordered "Kaminey" @ 75/-.

DVD quality, Gr8 Sound, @ my convenience, without moving from MY Couch.

How convenient !!! Me happy, Wife Happy and so are the kids.

Whats next TATA SKY ? We already have Job Search, Partner Search, Ringtones, Recipes offered on the Home Dish TV networks.

I would love to check out the latest Porsche Boxster, maybe an interactive walkthrough of the interior, exteriors of the monster. Can TATA SKY bring that to me on my Couch? I am sure thats coming soon... well may be by the time thats on the menu , i will be ready to book one too.. again from my couch.

Where are we headed?

“Which movie did you watch over the weekend?” Is the first question I hear on a Monday morning in the office, asked by different people. Information technology has enabled news to be transferred to the common man much faster and through different mediums to the extent that today our lives are ruled by movies, we have nothing to discuss but movies and stars, most of the time. The remaining time is taken up by cricket and reality shows. Open any mainline daily today the odds will definitely be in favor of front page having at least one article on Bollywood/ celebrity or cricket.

I am an avid movie watcher myself, I try to catch at least 2 movies on a weekend and I used to follow cricket passionately but the passion died a few years back (mostly since Tendulkar sort of stopped playing). I have several email ids and I am on msn, gtalk, linkedin and facebook. To clarify further I am only penning down things I have been noticing in the office space over the years and am not referring to any office in particular but something that happens across offices.

Couple of years back I had recruited a management trainee, I showed her to her seat and told her she can use the computer and since she will be working with us for a couple of months she will not get an official email id but she can open a separate gmail id and use it only for office related emails. She first logged on to orkut replied to all her scraps then opened facebook and opened an account for herself sent invites to some friends, checked all her emails and then decided its time to do some work. Today if you are standing at somebody’s desk and chatting with him/ her you cannot have an uninterrupted conversation. Instant messengers keep popping up one after the other (I am also a party to the IM phenomenon) that’s when the cell phone stops ringing. A management trainee once sent my boss (who has a lot of catching up to do on the chat lingo) an email which read “pfa the report 4 ur perusal”. My boss had to call her to his cabin to understand what she had written. Gone are the days when employees used to come to the office make a note of the things that needs to be done during the day, sigh! and begin the days work. Today most people after coming to office checks gmail, orkut, facebook, then sighs! and say “I’ve got shit load of work today”.

I have been part of the advertising industry for around 14 years, gone are the days when visualizers and art directors used to draw/ sketch ad layouts on paper, take approval from a senior before touching the computer. Today we have forgotten to sketch. We rarely get time to chat with each other and choose to communicate with colleagues, in the same office, using msn and gtalk. Some organizations encourage use of instant messengers as it reduces telephone costs and employees can use it to chat with colleagues in different branches. I had the opportunity to work with a leading computer hardware company where with your official email id you could log on to msn messenger and chat with anybody in the company’s offices worldwide (how cool is that!!). Kaam ka kaam, chatting ka chatting, isko bolte hain using technology to your benefit.

I have great admiration for people who use technology to their benefit. They are a delight to watch and learn from as they have everything on their fingertips. Take the computer away and they are in darkness. Cell phones also have become a part us, hear a phone ringing and 9 out of 10 will look at their phones even though they know it’s not their phone ringing. On a rare occasion when we forget the phone at home, we don’t consider it a blessing but worry even more thinking who would have called.

Where is all this leading to, in a day and age when time is of the essence we are taxing ourselves with pressure of all sorts?

I ask again where is all this leading to…? I don’t want to imagine or even take a wild guess. So somebody tell me…

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Article contributed by a friend.

The BRITS fight Back

OH YA !!! U BET.. A spine chilling performance, a great fight back from the English team to gain a great advantage. India needs 256 to win in the last day of the play (90 Overs). Thanks to a splendid performance by Sehwag to give India the start they need. All the best to MSD to gain the momentum need to clitch the series.

Welcome to the BRITS

The England team returns for the TEST battle. Will it be the same scene as the one dayers or do we have a surprise on hand.
Am sure Kevin Peterson would have done a lot of thinking before embarking the plane back to India. At the same time.. we definetly are in for a treat... This sure is some good news amidst the gloom settled since the last 2 weeks.