Walkathon

They say walking is a good exercise, but what if a few days of exercise is done in one single day?!

Well we did it in one night..few days back, by participating in a Walkathon, arranged by Aarey Milk Colony Walkers Club, Mumbai, on a Saturday night.

Our Itinerary was:
Distance :24-25 kms (approx)
From :Aarey Milk Colony
To :Siddhivinayak Temple @ Dadar
Starting Time :11.00pm
Tea Break :12.30am
Attend Arti :5.00am

We were a group of 150, divided in groups of 10, so as to stay together in the midst of night and talk while we walk. In my group it was majorly ladies and time just flew by… (Do I need to explain anything anymore..? ;-) )

We started walking towards Goregaon station with full energy and excitement, a hundred and fifty people walking together in the night looked like a mass parade, with the city all lit up. That’s the best thing about Mumbai, the city REALLY never sleeps and we could experience that in our over night walk.


Our walk, speed varying every now and then continued; except for the tea break, we dint take a single halt or stood by/ sat down anywhere.

First 17kms went smooth, post that, at least for me I had to drag myself up, but thankfully the good company made me walk the rest of the miles quickly. It’d have been a better feeling if I’d have a flag in my hand. Phew ..!!


We reached the temple around 4.00am and finally we all scattered and sat down wherever we could find a place, lawns, pathways or the playground; like THIS was what we were all waiting for. The Arti was supposed to start at 5.00am, so we all stretched ourselves, left- right- up and down!


At 4.45am we again started forming a queue to enter the temple and that is when we realized that THIS “break” was not what we wanted. Getting up again was the THE most painful thing in the entire Walkathon..!


Comatose we all started moving and then attended one of the most beautiful and serene pooja ever. No pain no gain, right? Proved ..!
Lovvvved the peaceful time spent in the temple, nothing like it..!!


Post the Arti, a bus was arranged for us to go back, breakfast served in the bus itself and by the time we reached home it was around 8.00am. All I could see was my bed..!! Thankfully it was a Sunday morning, so could take rest all day. Was a night well spent. :)


God Bless you all :)

A 'not' so Adventurous Journey

I recently had an opportunity to travel in train after 1000+ days (w.r.t. my last Train journey)
1. Coz there was no option of flight
2. I had to make it to the destination at a pre-defined time.


Managed to get tickets at the last moment, booked tatkal and after changing multiple local trains in Mumbai and convincing the reluctant Cab driver to drop me at the Boarding station and making to the station on time (somehow), I got into the train; where accompanying me where some 40+ aged people whose topic of discussion was big, fat, feral “Rats”. (WOW right…!!)


They enlightened each other and consequently me, about the size of rats in different cities in India and what all harm do they do, where, how, when…and then the worse part, (as they said), was that Rats ate some new born babies in some corner of the country! D-uh..! Till the time I was hunting for my iPod in my purse, the KT (Knowledge Transfer) went on and now “Cats” had mewed their way into the discussion, in some comparison with the “Rats”. May be the uncles had to present a Thesis on “Rats”, and so the healthy “Group- Discussion”.


Thankfully, they got down after a few stations. Later during the night, when I tried sleeping, (emphasis on the word “tried”), I heard a very musical lullaby, sung by various people (Thank you all :-) ), from various corners of the train, in their sleep, snoring as they call it, melodious…but sadly, not my taste of music.


Consequently, I was wide awake and suddenly one of the singers got up (in my compartment) and saw that I was awake, suggested me to sleep as half the journey was still pending and now the only question on my mind was How..!!


This was just one side of my trip, while coming back, it was ‘Ambedkar Jayanti’ and on this day, govt. gives free train tickets to certain tribes and so the train was over-overrr loaded. But again, thankfully as I was in the AC coach, there was tight security and only the confirmed-ticket passengers. Phew ..!!


All I was wishing in my round trip was nothing but an airport..!!


I am not asking for a lot but just some good sleep and also for more Airports to be planned in the country. :-)


Amen!

Confessions of a Shopaholic

"You know that thing when you see someone cute and he
smiles, and your heart kinda goes like warm, butter sliding down hot toast,
that's what is like when I see a store. " - Rebecca Bloomwood

.


There were a few quotes/dialogues which I loved from the movie "Confessions of a Shopaholic" and was able to relate to a lot of 'em.. ;-)


When I was a little girl,


there were real prices and mom prices.


Real prices got you shiny,


sparkly things that lasted three weeks,


and mom prices got you brown things...


... that lasted forever.





When I looked into shop windows,


I saw another world.


A dreamy world


full of perfect things.


A world where grown-up girls


got what they wanted.


They were beautiful.


Like fairies or princesses.


They didn't even need any money,


they had magic cards.


I wanted one.


Little did I know...


... I would end up with twelve. :-) :-)




And............

A man will never love you or treat you as well as a shopping mall/ store. If a man doesn't fit, you can't exchange him seven days later for a gorgeous cashmere sweater. And a store always smells good. A store can awaken a lust for things you never even knew you needed. And when your fingers first grasp those shiny, new bags... oh yes... oh yes.

To Make it Short..

I got my first Cell phone during the first year of my Graduation and then the coolest trend was “SMS”. It sure was fun but 160 char. limit was the only problem and the solution was “Abbr.” aka abbreviation. Addiction to SMS led to its usage even in the exams, wrote ‘thru’ instead of ‘through’ and ‘n’ instead of ‘and’, and so on, but if realized, scrapped and corrected..! Phew..!


Then started YM (Yahoo Messenger), Gtalk and the trend of Chats and hence, more acronyms, like ttyl, gtg, Bfn, Gn, Sd; (Talk to you later, got to go, Bye for now, Goodnight, Sweetdreams) etc. For the trendy tech-literate, nothing was new, but for others, everything meant nothing and they would end up scratching their heads.


Formal usage of words may not be accepted graciously, but is informal usage like C U L8r inappropriate? Now to throw some light, using abbr. isn’t new, but Victorian poets were writing in this manner long before anyone dreamed of mobile devices, as per [1]


Usage of acronyms is not bad. When shortening a message for a telegraph was perfectly legal, so why take it out on SMS?

There are certain acronyms we use in day to day life and don’t realize it, like
• General Usage: ATM, FAQ, PIN etc.
• Officially Used: PS, NA, w/o, B2B, 4GL etc. and some companies just love this concept, like IBM, HSBC ;)
• Science: Laser, radar, (S, Pa, A, V, N, Wb, W), (siemens, pascal, ampere, volt, newton, weber and watt)
• History: AD, BC.
• Entertainment: LotR, RCHP and the list goes on.
• Politics: PM, CM, MPs, MLA etc.


And now that we are educated, we have one acronym in front of our names PhD, M.Phil, Dr., Prof. :)


As abbr. are used everywhere, in every field, would you still consider it wrong to use it formally as well? I know that there are certain limits to its usage, like if a Dr. would message you stating “C me 4 Ur <3 “, you sure would be mad at him. But limited usage, shortening of words OK?

PS: To add a little audio-visual effect to this: check this out.

Empty Mind

“An empty mind is a devil’s workshop”, three out of four people would agree to this statement. I’d like you to think about it once again. Is it really a devil’s workshop or is it a state of bliss?


People think that mind must have something in it and if it has nothing, it is not mind.
Has our minds always been occupied with something or the other and was it always the same?


To make this thought process easier, let us consider the mind of an infant, when he cant speak and does not understand what words like Mom or Dad mean and he doesn’t know the reason for his existence & meaning of life, he does not know the outside world, his mind is pure and empty.


The attainment of pure and empty mind is “Samadhi” and is “Buddhism”.
I do not preach Buddhism, yet, but agree to certain things I know about it.


In Buddhism, during meditation, it is said: “Don’t close your eyes; you will be bothered by your own thoughts. Don’t keep your eyes open; you will be bothered by outside things. Keep your eyes partly closed and meditate upon your soul”


So, if we engage our mind, consciously or sub-consciously, with our arising thoughts and feelings, they do have the capacity to manifest further and if we don’t, they die or fade out and that is when, we can experience “enlightenment”.


So I pray for all of you, for your minds to be empty and enlightened :- )


Any thoughts? :- )

Mumbai and Me

Mumbai, a city which never sleeps, a city of dreams for some and of necessity for others. For me, there has always been a weird connection with it. Why weird? Here it goes…

I have always been visiting Mumbai, from the time it was Bombay; to meet my relatives, to go to Essel World and later.… out of shopping sprees..! And to put some gravity to my reasons, it was Tech Fest at IIT or some or the workshops..! Ahem…! (patting my back :-P )


This city has had and still does have, some spell on me. Whenever I’m trying to run away from it, it calls me back, whenever I curse it..Oh lord…Imprisonment..!! When I had some free time in hand, before joining my job and after my course was over, I came to Mumbai for a while and ran away ‘coz of the huge dirty traffic..!! But, here comes the U-turn, was back again at IDC (IIT Powai) for quite sometime..!! Traveling everyday for 3hrs a day… and brain storming during the rest.

Phew….that was some experience and I went back as soon as I got my joining date (definitely not Mumbai) :- )

Again came to the city to chill out for a couple of days and Bang! 2nd job..!! Definitely a good one, but at the wrong time..!! Monsoons..!! Mumbai rains welcomed me reeaaallllyyy well..!! Oh yeah.. Ask me about my love towards Umbrellas…couldn’t live without it. And I’m still here, with rickshaw strikes, infinite traffic….it seems like you are time traveling when going from one place to the other.

But, looking at the brighter side, now when I’m exploring the city, making new friends, having a blast with ‘em over the Weekends, I’m sorta liking it :- )
Just can’t say anything bad bout it..!! Nah..Neva……..!! :- )
And now, God knows what comes next….in the chapters of Mumbai and Me.

Decision....

Don't you ever wonder maybe if you took a left turn instead of a right you
could be someone different? What if you had a choice, a choice to go back
and change it all? The question is, would you like to change something, a
teeny tiny part and create a butterfly effect in your life or are you sure
that all your past decisions in life were apt?



Sometimes our decision is at the spur of the moment and sometimes we are
into deep cognitive thinking amongst the choices we have, it can be
rational or irrational, quick or slow, but there is always a solution. Both
decisions either right or wrong would leave an imprint in our life in some
way or the other and future would tell us, if we were right or not and then
it becomes a lesson. Enjoying the falling down and getting up?





I just feel that we decide, we act, make mistakes, learn and grow. That is
how it works, right? According to this, we should have lesser confusion in
life as we grow and more clarity of thoughts. Is the no confusion magic
happening…?





Decision making is a continuous process; we all have taken a lot of big and
small decisions in the past and will keep on doing the same in the future
as well. I don’t want to go into the science of it now, all I wish to put
is, no matter what we decided in the past, and no matter what impact it has
on us, it shouldn’t effect us in any negative way “NOW”, as we cant change
it so lets not think about it.


The question still exists, what if we could change a decision, a small yet
huge decision..would you...?