Who is what? (JNU, Ravish, ABVP, TimesNow, Lawers)

It has been 2 years since I have started taking a little bit interest in Indian politics... Thanks first of all to Mr. Modi, his brilliant campaign before elections, promises during & after elections and currently Hopes of him making the difference... What has been most disturbing in last 2 years is the Media and esp Social media that is spoon feeding us with 'opinions' & 'truths' rather than providing us the 'news/information' of what happened and allowing us to make our own opinions. We have also become quite happy 'liking' and 'debating' over these 'opinions' most of the times without even knowing what exactly has happened. With so much of news, debates, Nationalist calls (and vice-versa), I am again in the same situation. I am so tired of this media and overload of 'opinions' that here also I almost failed to understand what happened; saw one video on FB saying JNU guys are anti-nationals and they had footage of some people saying anti-india slogans... then i saw another video (below) and kept trying to find even a hint of anti-national comments and got further confused.... But at the same time i saw a lot of super mature and intelligent friends of mine passing judgements one side or the other with so much conviction as if they were there at the time these events unfolded.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21qExVVuhhk&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxHp6XDH1SM The video tells us exactly what Kanhaiya spoke which led him to Jail and to being punched and kicked by the Lawyers inside the court premises. Wait a minute; since childhood i always thought that at least inside the court premises there must be law and order. At least inside the court premises people can expect to be safe until proven guilty... at least inside the court premises people expect the appointed Judiciary to decide who is guilty and who is not... and at least inside the court premises people expect Judiciary to decide who should be punished and how... And then to make matters worse there were several other videos showing only the clippings or parts which would help respective parties push their own opinion. Mostly the channels prefer the part of the clippings which support their sponsors OR which create some sensation to get more TRP. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bn2OpRMLF8Y Thankfully I came across above link (thanks to same social media) and could relate to every word spoken by this person Ravish Kumar who some how manages to speak out like an 'ideal' media professional... His interview with Kiran Bedi was hilarious without him being an obnoxious host like some other prime time debate guys are... His Hindi is super impressive and more than language, what he speaks impress me... and makes me think... and i am so afraid to speak/think-aloud with my friends OR in forums for the fear of being judged.... Where is this taking us... to a place where it would be easy for any one to declare anyone anti-national and shoot him/her, and 'people of the country' fully supporting it without even knowing who that guy was and what actually happened.... What if this guys was 'me'.... What if some day 'i' decide to give up this convenient life and stand for a cause... probably i wont for the current situation scares me even talk in open about a particular issue/person. As a society we have become so judgemental, so busy and so 'gullible', thanks to media, we all feel most powerful and wise... We like passing judgements day in and day out, we are so 'trained' (by whichever media we follow) that just by seeing the headline we are able to decide and pass judgement...

Ungli Cricket - Cricket me Ungli

I am a cricket lover... not two thoughts about... one of the mad fans of cricket who doesn't mind watching a few advertisements during the break just so that I do not miss even a single ball played by Sachin if I am late coming back to the cricket channel.

Watching IPL, however, is another ball game. Yes, I am a cricket lover but there has to be a limit to what I can bear... here is the list of some tortures that I have to go through...
- Irritating Abhishek Bachhan in an even more irritating Ungli-Cricket Ad.
- Another addition by Set Max to ensure maximization of revenues - Advertisements between two balls. << these guys are making thousands of crores and if only they were a little bothered about the quality of cricket telecast, i don't think it will hit them badly to sacrifice a few crores of revenues coming in from those ads between balls>>
- Logo's : Just looking the Matches and I am bound to compare IPL with EPL or other popular and rich premier leagues around the world. my findings; while I could not see more than 2 logo's on footballers jersey, I could see an average of 4-5 logos if I see any of the cricketer in IPL... and this is just a cursory look around... then I see umpire's Hat... grass in the ground.. cheergirls clothes (of whatever they wear)... stumps... commentators clothes and accessories... ohh, the shoes, the boundary boards... this just reminds me of a movie called "Fir bhi Dil hai Hindustani" where they have brilliantly (?) shown a prisoner about to be hanged and you can see that every single thing right from the rope being used to hang him to his uniform to the people around are all wearing atleast an average of 7-10 logos.
- Contests :
- Karbon Kamaal Catch... huhh,
- DLF Maximum sixes... Ok
- Ungli cricket- need to mention twice for the irritation if causes.
- Meet the cheer-leaders - well this is not required... spend some x money on some thing (some SMS contest) and get a chance to meet the cheer girls... this clearly tells what IPL and (junta trying to meet them) think of them... i think they deserve a little more respect... they are cheer-girls and not bar girls...
- Toss ka boss.. what the hell..
- Vodafone some thing that gives the match ball signed by winning captain to one lucky winner - actually very lucky.. i would love to get that...
- Ohh... time for a Max mobile strategic time out.. fuck you...
- I am sure I have not even started and if you try to find out the contests and logos, you definitely will be lost and I will give all my savings to some one who can find one thing which is related to cricket and is not branded/commercialized

I was just wondering what these cricketers have to go through and I really respect them for putting such a fantastic show after being subjected to so many tortures before actually getting a chance to 'play'. Day 1 of IPL and I found some stupid guy and in 2 min I was sure my wife knows more about cricket than him... and ohh, I had seen him somewhere else as well.. and yes.. he is hosting another brilliantly conceived and executed 'reality' show which is rightly called 'emotional attyachar'. What the hell is this guy doing here... but hello.. there are 3 more such guys... one of them a proud winner of some other reality show and is hosting so many reality shows.. and now this grandest of the reality show... In one such interview some guy was talking to Kieron Pollard of West-Indies and that was his first day here in this tourney and he was caught totally unaware as we could see... he actually took a few minutes to understand what is happening and I am sure he must have felt the urge of kicking the interviewer a million times for the disgusting questions being asked.

And then those irritating celebrities. One another difference I spotted when I compared IPL to NBA league where I regularly find a lot of Hollywood stars. I have some reasons to believe that these guys actually know about the sport and go there for the love of the game (ofcourse they also make money out of it, and a lot of it). But when I see the likes of Katrina Kaif watching IPL I am a hundred percent sure that this girl doesn't know the spelling of cricket. And then a lot others who go there and are themselves branded completely in some team's jersey. Ohh c'mon... dont tell me they are there 'just' for the love of the game. Not that I dont see many celebrities there just to enjoy cricket but they are outnumbered by a lot of dumb-ass celebrities whose movies are about to release or who have been out of the 'circuit' for some time.

If I start talking about 'Extra Innings', I am sure not many people watch it. Just to confess, I do... I am such a fool that these organizers want entire India to be like... I watch extra innings coz i look for some more of cricket... Dont want to miss even a single adjective people used for Sachin, DADA or for that matter anyone. even tho i hate to listen to those losers talking about cricket and most of the time just repeating those cliches being used for more than a couple of decades and then they have this strange habit of assuming themselves to be the coolest people around... yo sunny bhai... yo ravi bhai... yo sachin bhai... 'dude, if you were not a son of this great cricketer of India, you might not have been able to even get the passes for watching IPL... and you might have spent your entire lifetime to get an autograph of these greats you so easily call yo ravi bhai'... so gimme us a break or rather go you take a break... you are more suited for 'Emotional Attyachar' UTV Bindass is right place for you.

Infact... talking about mismatches... i think Set-Max is the biggest mismatch. Would have loved to watch IPL on ESPN/Star sports...

No doubt its an amazing tournament and I am all mad about it and in-fact have missed my gym more times than I have attended after the start of this wonderful tournament. I am fully satisfied as I said I can endure anything just to watch Sachin score runs. However, the is coverage is pathetic, non-sense and Unwatchabe and at times I miss Cricket. How much I miss those ESPN/Star Sports and those days of pure Cricket with a little bit of ads to keep the sponsors happy -- just so that they can keep bringing much more of "cricket" for us. This also keeps me busy wondering how do these EPL guys make money... I don't see many advertisements there... no logo's in their beautiful green grass... even the ball is not branded and the jerseys/boots display not more than 2 logos... I don't mind them making money, in fact I am a firm believer of Capitalism... all I wish is a little more of 'Only-Cricket' and a little better coverage... and all they need to sacrifice is a few crores out of the thousands they are making...

btw... another jinx at work... i should switch this laptop off if I have to see Mumbai-Indians winning... focus... don't do anything else when Sachin is batting... 3 wickets have fallen since I started writing... My Bad... Back to cricket.. yo

Tet-e-tet with a Rickshaw driver saa'b

A normal day at office, spent the second half roaming around in the market getting the feel of the market mood and checking out the display of our products in the stores. Its always a fight for space in Mumbai and if you are in FMCG/Retail sector, your entire life is about fighting for space. That space later...

Just after coming out of Inorbit mall, satisfied that my products are moving fast from there and praying at the same time that I get an autorickshaw without much delay as normally i have to ask 10 drivers before one agrees to come to Kandivli (E). This time I was lucky (like in the morning when I got the bus as soon as I reached the stop and on top of it got a seat also inside -- lucky day for me, i wish i had a job interview at HLL today.)... where was I... ahh, the auto.. yeah, the first rickshaw driver i asked agreed to take me home. I told him dude, my wife is waiting for me at home for a tea and take me from the shortest way possible. Dont ask me and decide yourself. He said OK, "will take you from the shortest route". Life was good and i was singing my way back home. Suddenly I saw a huge traffic jam, or so i thot. The driver told me its not traffic and its a long que of auto rickshaws waiting for their number to get Gas refilled in their gadi's. Ohh, i casually asked, do you need to refill your auto's daily? He simply said yes if its a single owner rickshaw or if two guys are sharing it they need the refill twice a day. I was surprised to note that a normal auto runs more than 1000 kms a day.

"These two stroke gaadi's are such a waste of fuel, i donno why these fools (he used the term which the fake ipl player uses for s. srisanth)prefer 2 stroke when in a 4 stroke auto they can make 500 Rs. on 100 rs. gas and currently they make only 350 on 100 Rs. gas." He started another conversation with this long sentence. How much do you refill daily? i asked, "around 300 rs. if the vehicle has to run 24 hrs" if two guys are using it in two shifts, each one fills around 100-150 for a shift and there is enough honesty to give the auto to the other guy in the evening shift even if the gas tank is full.

"So how much do you make every day?" I asked him.

"when I reach home after the full day work I have around 600 Rs. in Hand out of which I keep aside Rs. 250 for the hafta savings and remaining is my saving" he said.

"Hafta, but you said its your own auto rick, then whom and why do you pay hafta" I asked immediately.

"Arre saa'b, this auto is mine only and since I have purchased it on loan, i Have to pay the installment every month which is Rs. 5000 for a month" explained the meaning of hafta.

During the conversation he told me that he lives in 'malvani' and that his wife is from mumbai itself and his in-laws have a couple of shops in "Dattani Park in Thakur Village" which is quite close to my home. He is from UP and stays here with his brother and uncles while his father and mother are comfortably living in Jonpur.

Quite impressed I asked him whether he stays in a rented house.

I think this time he got a hint that I am treating him with some sympathy and therefore he replied quite strongly; "Sir, I have my own house, we have 6 autorickshaws here in mumbai and we give auto's on rent also. Apart from that we have one Scorpio, one Esteem and One Indigo which we drive during marriage season coz we can make a lot of money then. Per day the driver only makes 400-500 Rs. apart from the car rental charges. We ask for tips when the bride is getting down from the car, when the groom is getting down from cars etc and these tips only make 300-400 rs a day and at times it goes upto as much as rs. 2000 a day when the marriage party is rich and emotional. We make good money then. After that we go to our village, give Rs. 1 Lac to father every year. We enjoy full one month in village and go out to some hill stations or some tourist place and do no work in that one month. Apart from our big house and farm, we have one extra vehicle there kept only for us so that whenever we come on leave we can enjoy our time fully.....

And do you think i dared to ask more about him...
- 1 lac per yr contribution to father in the village while I have never seen 1 Lac in my account till date.
- A Scorpio, Indigo and Indica while My dream is to buy a Scorpio by 2010 which doesn't look to be happening as of now.
- One month holidaying while I have to think ten times before planning a 3 wk vacation.
- One extra vehicle at home so they can enjoy their holidays while I keep debating with dad whether to buy a car in mumbai as i need it more or to buy it in Raipur so that the family can enjoy the luxuries of a 4 wheeler...

and then... he calls me saa'b... why? because i wear good clothes, i pay for his scorpios while him calling me saa'b gives me an ego boost, i carry a laptop and multimedia phone while he carries a tata indicom lowest model, i party at the pubs and the launges while he sleeps at home peacefully (twice a day), because i am more educated than him but he knows the funda's of the loans, depriciation, resale, returns, seasonality of businesses, profitability of ventures etc better than me... and the list goes on...

an interesting evening comes to an end when i reach home and tell my wife that we are going to goa shortly and have booked the hotel and an "Innova" has to be booked.

The AC Vent... Went

Sitting in this plush AC bus while travelling from office to home I feel really comfortable and good. I was really happy with my rare achievement as I finished the 'taxing' version of Mid-do-cu (Mumbai Mid day version of Sudoku) in flat 15 min. So... half an hour more and I will be home. What a wonderful thing BEST (acronym) has started in the name of BRTS Bus service (Bombay Rapid Transport System). Wow man... this is India, can watch some really wonderful buildings on my way home in an AC, soundproof comfortable bus. What else can I ask for. I am really a proud Indian.

10 more minutes passed watching a couple having fun with each other sitting just in the next row. Wait a minute... the AC is really strong man... I am feeling the chill... again a proud moment... feeling cold while travelling from work to home in Mumbai was like day dreaming a couple of years back.

Now starts the magic. Like every other AC bus this bus also has Vents on the roof on top of every row. This bus also has. Like every Vent in the AC Bus has a closing mechanism where you can close the vent if you are feeling really cold this bus also should have it. Happily pushed my lazy hand above to find to my surprise the closing mechanism doesn't exist. Some one broke it and no one bothered to repair it or complain about it.

Person sitting next to me says as a matter of fact "Indians are the most innovative bunch of guys... we have solution for every problem... just push this Mumbai Mid-day (complementary copy for all AC Bus travellers) into the vent and your problem is solved... look how good Indians are... "

Really man... look how good the Indians are... In this case it was some one amongst us who broke the vent for god know what reason... There is no Government to blame... no MNS/ShivSena/NCP to blame... No BMC to blame... and once you do not have any one to blame for a problem which you offcourse have created... you become innovative and a proud Indian... Ahh.. I am a proud Indian too...

Ishqiya.. honest effort

Ishqiya... starts with a bomb and ends with it... a salender bomb...

10 years back when I first went to Indore for my engineering, i met a lot of new friends and learnt a lot of new words there... bhopali lingo, indori lingo etc etc... thats where I first heard and used the words like Makde, Chu*&^@m Sulphate, Gel*&^%$ etc etc. Watching Arshad warsi using the bhopali language with almost every alternate sentence having Makde in it reminded me of those days. Such is the style of movie making of Vishal Bhardwaj (I think Abhishek is also influenced a lot by his style.. as evident from the film) that the people who know about those places really really love his work. A couple of reasons why ; 1) he is actually very authentic and 2) he is very honest. Its not that people who have not been to gorakhpur/bhopal will not love/understand the movie, Its just that a lot of hard work has gone into every minute aspect of the movie making and to capture the eccentricities of the particular setup where the plot is based. And people who know about those places will vouch for it.

Having said that, the accents and dialogues were not very consistent through out the movie. May be the accent is so different that the actors might have forgot inbetween and at times (particularly Vidya Balan) the characters swing between being the original bihari/UPite and a bombayite (not arshad warsi though). The setup and location are just perfect and camera work is fantastic. Screen play is tight (altho at some places I found it a little slow but that would be being extra critical of the movie) Some people think the characters are flat, I feel thats what the director wanted to do. He never showed a great chemistry between the two crooks and the sultry balan for a plain reason that the three of them never trusted each other even though they were in love. There was always a doubt somewhere inside them. And still the director has managed to create some beautiful scenes between khallu jaan and vidya balan. Vidya was very good in the movie and so was her on screen husband mr. verma. Even the 5 kam 20 saal ka nandu was brilliant in his small little cameo.

There is nothing left to be said about the music. Everyone knows that when Gulzar and VB come together, they are in for some magic. The magic it was. Even a two songs apart from the popular ibn-e-batuta and dil to bachha hai were good. I used to skip them before watching the movie but they have been used brilliantly in the movie and i could sense that i was tapping my feet while these songs were on.

Over all, its a wonderful attempt and i left the theatre completely satisfied. It is not one of the pathbreaking movies or great movies, it is one honest effort from quality film maker and it deserves applause for the honesty and feerlessness the makers have shown. Given the potential Arshad Warsi has, I think he deserves a lot of such roles which do justice to his potential. This movie must have given him a lot of satisfaction as an artist/actor. Naseeruddin shah as always was good and so were all other characters in the movie. Even the Industrialist that is kidnapped has done a good job in those 5-10minutes. I would call it a must watch film purely because of the efforts gone into making it deserve it. Not that it is not entertaining, Tuesday night 10pm show was full and i could hear a lot of laughter all through the movie and there were some pin-drop moments as well... one of them was a hot and long smooch scene.

Replublic Day... What a fucking joke...

26th January 2010, all my friends (me as well) are so happy, its 60th Republic day anniversary. More important than that we have a day full of sports action... India taking on Bangladesh, then Australia taking on Pakistan (my cable guy says 80% of his customers watch that too, "cricket is god in india sir...).

So I get up early in the morning, take bath and go down at the society lawns to salute the Indian flag and sing the national anthem along with all the oldies of the society. The younger ones offcourse are either sleeping or most of them have got their cricket matches fixed; society A vs. B, the middle aged one's are sleeping while their kids are carrying tricolors to the ground and are being taken care of by the maids. So I enjoy this small ceremony and tea-biscuit session after that. I find all those tricolors in the floor or in the garden while on my way. A few years back I used to get very emotional watching such disrespect to the tricolor but i guess i am used to it or seek comfort in the fact that those tiny piece of papers are not our flags but just some toys or some replica of my national flag.

When I come back my wife also has woken up and we are all set for a wonderful holiday with breakfast and TV. I got Dhokla, Jalebi, Khandwa and Fafda for breakfast. I search my TV for some time but could not find Star Sports. Ohh my god, yeh to klpd ho gaya... today is rafa vs. murray, how can i miss it. Fight a lot with the cable guy who tries to explain me that in India no one watches anything but cricket and so he can give only two slots for sports channel which are showing cricket right now. Somehow I convince him to give another slot so I can watch Australian Open. One of the decisions I regret till date is why I disconnected my TATA sky connection in favor of this local cable guy.

Anyways the cable is on and I am enjoying the australian open. There is nothing which gives you more satisfaction than tennis match where the two opponents are as good as rafa and murray. The kind of tennis they play is much different than any of the non-top-10 guys play and thats probably why i start watching the matches after pre-quarter final of every grand slam.

The match is going fine and all of a sudden the cable goes off. I call up the cable guy and he says there is some problem and wait for half and hour and cuts the line before i can ask anything else. My wife who is quitely passing her time till now asks for a small favor and I shout at her like a maniac. Thats not because of this cable problem. But because of this bigger joke called the republic day.

I am always so scared of these government holidays that I pray to god that days like 15th aug, 26th jan and 2nd oct should be deleted from the calender. All the jokers of the world, be it NCP or the Shiv Sena will blabber on their loudspeakers for the entire day and kill the entire day for me and reduce my immunity even more. For i can bear any kind of pollution but when it comes to noise pollution, i get really really crazy and irritating. I start behaving like a moron. Shout at any one and every one coming my way and try to cut off myself from the world. The effect is so much that I am not enjoying the tennis match also and I hate this fact.

There is a stadium just behind my housing society called the Thakur Stadium. I used to be proud of this place for a simple reason that once 'my god' Mr. Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar had graced this stadium with his presence. Today, I hate the fact that there is a stadium near my house. As if the loudspeakers in the nearby societies were not enough, some local congress leaders have organized a full day... yes a FULL DAY kushti pratiyogita aka dangal (wrestling competition) there and since 9 AM in the morning and till right now i.e. 6pm I can hear a lot of local leaders shouting at the top of their voices. I dont know who is there to listen to them since morning. but I am totally screwed, my day is screwed and so has my wife's day. She had planned a lot for the day, including shopping but all for fail coz she knows once my mood is off there is nothing in the world that can make it better. I call up the local police station and shout at them but I know in advance that they can not do anything coz this 'dangal' is being presided over by Mr. Sanjay Nirupam an ex shiva sena now in congress (and big boss's house) and some of the names in the organizers list is Some bhai thakur (thakur village, thakur complex all are named after him and i hear are owned by him and i hear he is a dangerous guy and a ahh a 'leader' also) So now I am sure no one can do anything to cheer me up and save the day for my wife. I still shout at the cop at the local police station and some one at the anti pollution helpline but I am sure no one has the balls to do any thing.

all i can do is pray to god that some how god ji do some thing that days like 26/01, 15/08 and 02/10 do not come again. these days no longer excite me and if there is something i really hate and do not want to see is these dates in my calender. let me sign off, biwi has a dictionary in hand... she is checking the meaning of 'republic' there...

Hafta... Chanda... Car Logo's and Lift glasses

Somehow i dont like the saturdays... atleast the first half of it. I have a pact with my wife because of which I have to go for vegetable shopping at the nearby Samta Nagar market every saturday morning. Which means no sleeping late :(.

Like every other saturday, Santa goes shopping this saturday also. This time i notice a placard placed in front of every stall saying (in marathi) 'birthday gift to saaheb, no more plastic bags to be used'. Even though most of the stall owners are from UP, they all follow every thing ordered by the local Shiv Sena branch. Offcourse they followed this one also, no plastic bags. Thankfully we always carry our own bag while vegetable shopping so it didn't affect us.

I ask the guy from whom we buy vegetables daily, "kitna hafta dete ho is jagah ka shiv sena waalo ko? (How much tax you pay the shiva sena guys weekly for allowing you to place your stall in this place illegaly). He says zero. The local shiva sena/mns does not take hafta. He has to pay 'hafta' only to the BMC guys and the local cops. I was impressed, seriously. How much I ask (hafta)... 800/1000 rs per wk, which makes it around 3500 per month... 'not bad at all man, you will have to pay around 15000 as rent if you have to have a legal/proper shop of this size' i say. He says yes but they are still paying around 8-10K per month. 'How?'. He Says this month was a walking rally of around 2000 devotees to shirdi so all the vendors had to pay "chanda (donation)" which was collected by Shiv Sena. Like wise there would be Diwali, Holi, Ganesh chaturthi, durga pooja, etc etc etc and therefore their rent (?) remains the same every month. Wonderful I say. And I was thinking so nice of SS/MNS that they dont take 'hafta', spread the word of 'no plastics', organize huge ganapati stalls, shirdi walkathons and so much for the community. I thought my perception of these guys was really biased coz of the books i read or the people i met. These vendors, though, are still happy... "who pays rent when you get the same space for almost 1/3rd the cost if you are smart enough?"

A few minutes later when our shopping is done and we are about to pay the potato wala, the guy just runs away. We are standing in front of his stall and no one is there. We've already bought our potatoes and when we want to pay this guy runs away. for a moment the wicked santa overtook the nice one and I was so happy that I wont have to pay and i thot of running away with a bagfull of potatoes. When I looked around, all the vendors were gone with their stalls full of vegetables, fruits etc. I was so happy, it was like dream come true, entire market in front of me and no one to ask for money. I can pick up anything and just go to home. Actually. Then comes a Police Van with around 15-20 cops running around and catching any one they can, which mostly consisted of fruit/vegetable vendors who were old/female/handicapped and could not run away. Health is Wealth you see, All the fitter ones ran away and avoided Rs. 1250 fine which the ones who got caught had to pay.

I stand around to watch the drama. I can see a couple of people doing what wicked santa was trying to convince me to do; picking up grapes, oranges, capsicum and filling their bags and moving away. Another 10-15 minutes and all the vendors start coming back one by one (offcourse the police van is gone with those unlucky ones). Within 120 seconds, the business is normal as it was before the van came. People are buying vegetables and vendors are selling as if nothing had happened. I ask the same guy "Gopal, what is this happening? you said BMC/Police take hafta's and you dont have to worry" He says " arre sahab, paise kamane hain to mehnat to karni hi padegi na, ye hota rehta hai har 10-15 din me, ho pakda gaya uska 1250 Rs. loss jo bach gaya wo shana" He says this is an exercise he does almost every alternate weekend. The cops come and take their fitness test, the fitter ones save 1250 rs. that ways establishing the fact that health is fact. The cops will come again in next 10-15 days and some other guys will be caught, some will manage to run and hide and things will go on like this forever.

Well, a good outing. We come back to our cozy and safe housing society guarded 24 hrs by scores of security guards. The first thing I notice is that the glass that is normally there above the lift door handle (so we can see when the lift has come to our floor) is missing. I thought some repair work. When I am going for a small picnic with society friends, one of them tells me about this new business model. Go to all the societies and just remove the lift door glasses and you can make good 10-15K every month (with so many housing societies in small areas, you wont have to go many places). Business innovation...

Then while we are on our drive to Manori, a wkend get away we see a BMW overtaking us swiftly. The friend driving our santro tells us about another business model. He tells us to observe the rear of that BMW and tell us what is missing. We find the car logo. On our way, we could see that in as much as 50% of the big cars (BMW, Merc, Corolla, City etc) the car logo's (normally of steel) are missing. Then the other car of our own group over takes us, and we can't stop laughing "See, Manish ki car ka bhi logo gayab hai". Manish owns a Honda City and has paid 2500 twice to get the car logo pasted and now he manages with Ben10 stickers instead of the 'H' logo of the honda city. He say's although he doesn't like it but it works for him. His dealer only told him while replacing his logo the third time "Manish sahab, ho sakta hai ye logo aapki hi car ka ho". He means to say that there is high probability that the logo he is putting up on his car is the same one stolen a few days back". There is a gang of guys who employ school/college students and remove all the car logo's from the big cars in day time and sell it to the dealers at around 500/700 Rs. each. They say the logo's of merc/bmw etc can fetch them as much as 5-7K (which the dealer will sell to the customer at 12-13K.

I now know the real meaning of this song... "zara bachke, zara hatke.. ye hai mumbai meri jaan"