Mumbai:An Acco nightmare!

Well,I don't intend to bore you with the details of life in Mumbai.I am sure there are a lot of blogs in the blogosphere who can provide you with the details.
Bottom line is,life out here is hectic,tough and at the same time filled with masti.
All that said and done,one of my friends came over to Bombay(I keep switching between Bombay and Mumbai) so that he could attend a course and if possible,try to find out a good job here.I thought it was a good move,Mumbai is after all a city of opportunities.
Since he was planning to stay for a month or so,he wanted me to check if there was any good accommodation available out here.The thought of that made me a bit anxious.Being familiar with the intricacies of Bombay life,I knew that real estate and money were the two areas where the city can screw you really hard(pardon my language).
So I started off with an 'accommodation hunting' spree in the internet.I searched for a hotels,lodges,guest houses etc etc.
Him(my friend) being a newbie made things only worse as he came with a budget(which would have provided him a 5star accommodation in any other city) that wouldn't get him past ten days in a city like Bombay.And since he was keen about having an independent room,the only option available were budget hotels(since Paying Guest accommodation meant you had to share the room with total strangers).
Now,(here's my favorite part),there are two types of hotels in this world-
1)The illegitimate kind that charges you by the hour.(The kind you would want to avoid at all costs)
2)Then the ones that are comparatively safer.
We categorized these 'budget hotels' into three on the basis of daily rental-
(1000-1500)-The rundown kind, located in some narrow gully, where the cleaner is also the receptionist and the cook.
(1500-2500)-Pretty decent ones near the main road,where you are given a room that rivals a jail cell.
(2500-5000)-Not much different from the above,except that there is a doorman who opens the door for you at the entrance.
How would you justify a hotel that charges 5000 bucks a day,as a budget hotel?
Ans: The hotel's in Mumbai.

My point is,if you ever plan to come to Bombay for a long duration,it's highly recommended that you do some research and fix your budget accordingly.Some of the options that you can look into for accommodation are as a Paying Guest,Budget hotels or a serviced apartment.
But be ready to spend a wad of notes.
Or better still,call up that long lost distant cousin of yours from Mumbai and stay with him.


Image source: http://www.amren.com/ar/1999/08/broke.gif

My first Job!

Well,I finally landed up with a really nice job,whose profile sounds very exciting and challenging.I'm hoping to put in my best effort and live upto the required level of expectation in that organization.
I'm well aware that this is just the stepping stone and the journey towards charting a good career is just starting.
All that said and done,I'm glad to see a lot of happy faces around me,people who care and love me.They've always been my support and source of strength.And I owe them a lot.
Anyway,I'm a bit nervous about the first day at work.I'm sure it'll be like the first day at school all over again.Lots of new faces,an environment that you're not used to,and the usual anxiety about how to handle things generally.
Then again,my solace in lies in the fact that there will be others like me to give me company in the first day.
For now my plan is to get myself a haircut,polish my shoes,buy a brand new pair of formals and put on that winning smile and walk in through that door.
As they say,the first step is always the difficult one. :)

How (not)to deal with a Rhetorical question?

This happened when I was in the 6th standard.Well,I didn't know the concept of rhetorical questions(I still don't)back then..


Teacher:Do I look like a fool to you?
Me:*silent*
Teacher:Answer me!
Me:No
Teacher:What?!
Me:I mean,Yes
Teacher:WHAT?!!!
Me:I meant, Yes I will answer you but you don't look like a fool to me.
Me: *Uh oh,that came out wrong*

This was just the beginning..Rhetorical questions still continue to put me in a spot even today!

Keeping my fingers crossed!

I owe you all an explanation for the long period of absence and inactivity.Well,I'm at a different city now and closing towards the point of taking up my first job(the keyword being 'closing').Being a fresh graduate is a bit tough in the current job market,mainly because of the fact that you have to compete with experienced professionals for the same job.A whole lot of my friends tell me that we graduated into the worst possible conditions and are a bit paranoid about it. I don't blame them,being a fresher means you're new to everything which in turn induces an unintentional sense of anxiety and nervousness.The most dreadful feeling comes up when you think about the 'Countdown'.Basically,it's a fancy term I coined to describe the shrinking number of days until the next academic year.A lot of people are scared to even think about it.Because with the beginning of the next academic year,you tend to lose the 'fresher' tag which you have to admit is a way of shielding yourself from questions thrown by interviewers to curious relatives.

I'm lucky to get my offer letter and an exciting job profile,but as i said earlier there are a couple of formalities that have to be completed before I land on my dream job.People around me have started the permature celebrations and I would hate to disappoint them if this thing doesn't go through.It's kind of tough when people look upto you and think 'He got a job,so can I.'

So there's a whole lot of weight on my shoulders right now,and I hope I come through well.

Pray for me.

Oops!!

Sorry..Won't be here for sometime..Something important came up..Will be away for a couple of days!!!!Thanks for dropping by!!! :)

God's own Coundree!

Chances are that when you meet me for the first time,you would assume that I'm a north indian least of all a keralite.Coming from kerala does not mean I have to have the heavy malayalee accent that people uniquely associate us with.During my first year of college,a couple of my malayalee friends mistook me for a north indian and started conversing in hindi as best as they could.I cleared all their doubts with my version of weirdly accented malayalam which i have since then been uniquely associated with.The trouble is,I'm in no man's land.My hindi isn't perfect enough and my malayalam is an abomination.
Moving ahead,a good friend of mine gets a kick out of watching Lolakutty in Mtv decided to pick on me(i fondly refer to her as a mallu basher)by giving me a list of words and asking me to read it out loud for her.All these words were carefully chosen(i bet after weeks of research) so as to bring out my hidden malayalee accent which she firmly believed was in my blood.I'll list some of the words for you-

1. Cauliflower
2. Goal
3. Knowledge
4. College
5. Jumped
6. Loving
7. MBA (apparently she was expecting me to read it out as Yem Bee Yay)
8. Going
9. Boeing
10. Coming

Well,she was right.I did have an hidden malayalee accent afterall,somewhere deep inside me.In the process of reading out these words,i faltered.I never heard the end of it ever.I still get calls fom her,late in the night asking me to say 'Ford' out loud or making me hear the endless malayalee jokes that she came across.It doesn't quite annoy me,after all I am a malayalee and chances are that we are there at every nook and corner of the world.

Late night TV: Hijacked by infomercials

I'm more of a night person,and being so I find that most of my free time is after hours when everyone goes to sleep.With nothing productive to do during that time,I turn towards the idiot box for some quality entertainment.It was during one such exercise that I came across the world of infomercials.Almost all the major channels are hijacked by these infomercials during the late night slot.Although i never bothered to stay up and check till what time these never-ending commercials go on,It was on till 3am before I lost patience and fell asleep!
My tolerance level is quite high and i can usually gather the patience to withstand a lot of irritable stuff(having a younger sibling helps in this regard).But the kind of infomercials and their style of advertising is so full of utter nonsense that even I started to squirm in my seat.After a point,I decided to sit through it and rant about it in my blog(Reason:Recession,nothing better to do).
Almost all major TV channels had given their late night slots to these so called infomercials.Although it does make sense in a business point of view(in terms of revenue generated from ads),I wish they had the sense to realize that there are people tuning in even during the night time. The channels that air these commercials run disclaimers warning that 'the following program is a paid advertisement so as not to mislead the viewer.
But most importantly,this kind of unmoderated kamikaze style advertising tend to dilute the brand image of the channel telecasting it,I lost respect to a couple of so called 'educational' channels this way.
Coming back to the topic,Infomercials are long-format television commercials, typically five minutes or longer. Infomercials are also known as paid programming (or teleshopping in Europe). Originally, they were a phenomenon that started in the United States where they were typically shown overnight (usually 2:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m.) --- outside of peak hours. Some television stations chose to air such programming as an alternative to the former practice of sign-off. By 2009, most US infomercial spending is during early morning, daytime, and evening hours. Stations in most countries around the world have instituted similar media structures.(Source:Wikipedia)
Most of the ads that they are in India are the dubbed version of the US/UK ads in vernacular languages.The lip syncing and the translation can be hilarious.The locally produced ads aren't that better off either,they are equally funny with their presentation. The products that are sold through this channel includes shoe soles that claim to increase your height to slimming equipments to tone your bodies.Not to mention the 'discounts' and 'freebies' that they have to offer if you place the offer 'right now'.
Although I agree that I have no authority to judge the validity of their claims without trying them out,I am not in favour of such forms of aggressive advertising that encashes on people's shortcomings.Most of these ads,start off with underscoring people's shortcomings and making them sound as if one's life revolves around it and is responsible for all of their miseries.Then they introduce their product as the magic wand that drives all of these miseries away.The tall claims and effectiveness of the product is backed up against a number of 'real life' narrations.
Here is an interesting take on the pitch lines uses by these commercials (Source:Wikipedia)

• "Would you pay..." (lists large and outrageous amounts that quickly decline before the announcer rejects the past prices and hypes the lowest price possible)
• "This revolutionary product..."/"Introducing the revolutionary (product)"/"It's truly revolutionary!"
• "Are you tired of..." (announcer goes into list of faults of other similar products, which are avoided or solved by their product)
• "But wait!", "But wait there's more!", or "But that's not all!" (after pitching one deal and before pitching another, better deal. For example: "But Wait! Call in now and we'll knock off one payment/make first payment for you and add (product)"
• "Supplies are limited, and this deal is available for only (number of minutes before end of program)..." (Note that these supposedly time-sensitive deals are usually not time-sensitive, as these infomercials are almost always videotaped, and air at different times on many stations nationwide.)

Now imagine all this in Hindi and it gives you the content being churned out by the domestic players(with equally bad actors).
I'm not against infomercials,as it gives you an oppurtunity to get to know our product and make a decision from the comforts of your home.But I wish it was limited to that,instead of this 'your-world-is-going-to-end-without-this-product' approach thaat is widely telecasted.In addition to this,these ads must be monitored for false claims to prevent the gullible from getting cheated.

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