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Words. Wisdom. Winners.
go…Indigo..
life as a consultant always gears you up for an alternative career as a hotel and airline critic….! and yeah…ofcourse…rental car service critic too..! which reminds me…why do all the cabs…even the ones running in the evening, carry yesterday’s newspaper..! and why do i still read them..?
anyways…so yeah…hotel and airline critic. hotels are for later…but recently i realized that i have flown all the airlines in the indian skies…! so here…
Indian
I strongly protest the name firstly…! given how they perform…all that we will hear is…Indian food sucks…Indian is never on time…Indian women are old…and rude…and well…at times you need time to figure out that they are women…!
that said…who am i to complain of the name. but for hevens sake..if i buy a ticket…plz…plz…dont jst give me a craft to fly in..and a seat to sit on..! give me some respect as well…!
“Ummm…could I have today’s financial express?”
“we dont carry all the newspaper in this country”
“some water please?”
“can i first finish giving everyone their food…”
“please dont disturb me for the meals. i am full and would like to sleep”
“sir…sir…sir…(shaking me left and right…GET UP YOU BUGGER)…ma’am..he is not getting up…sir…sir…ah yes…sir…would you like veg or non-veg…?”
please…please…dont fly those…! please….
Jet
Has got to have the best frequent flier program..! fantastic upgrades….and beautiful service..! ofcourse…sexy flight timings…and great confort. so my personal first choice…
but then….they overdo it…
“sir…veg or non-veg”
“no i am fine…wont have anything”
“are you sure sir?”
“yes…pretty much…thank you…”
“can i get you some fruits”
“no please…thanks”
“sure sir..?”
“(mataji…maine kal chacha ke chole bhature khaye the….aur mujhe dast lag gayi hain. agar maine kuch khaaya…to yahaan nadiyaan beh jayenge…and u know of what…so plz…can i not have anything…) Yes…thanks again”
Air Deccan
i hereby declare the eighth wonder of the world. Air Deccan landing each time it takes off…! with the state of their crafts and the way the pilots run those machines…its sheer miracle at play. maybe we should call gopinath a saint..!
I remember…while at ISB…AD was my fav airline. one cause that was the only one i could afford from hyd to delhi for my home trips…and two cause i handt flown anything else except jet. and that was at a time when the del-mumbai return ticket used to cost in numbers as bappi lahiri has gold in kgs..! basically shit loads…! until AD arrived and changed everything…
but then it jst lost it mid-way. if you arrive at any airport…the only passenger counter with the max passengers…and the max chaos will be it.
and recently…i read this as an Advertisement for AD.
“We have 99% OTP (on time performance)”
the fine print….which was in a font size smaller than all roles of rakhi sawant in bollywood put together…said…OTP measures if a flight has arrived/departed within an hour of its scheduled arrival/departure time..!
holy friggin shit…! this means that 1% of all AD flights actually land an hr after scheduled time..!! and they fly some 350 flights a day….so 4 flights daily with this statistic…!! horrible…!
Spicejet
a late entrant in the no-frills space…but has done itself a lot of good..! decent airlines with great potential. have only flown it once…so cant really comment…
Indigo
This has got to take the cake. an absolute delight to fly this. one thing smart that they do is to allow buffer time on their stated arrival time. so even though its factually incorrect…psychologically it works wonder. so all the times that i have flown Indigo….they have always landed much before their scheduled time..!
plush aircrafts…extremely friendly staff…brilliant comfort. right from the bus that takes you to the craft from the terminal…to the leg space and the seats itself.
funny is how these no-frills airlines dont expect business travellers at all. i boarded an indigo…to go to ISB last week…and was in my business suit. firstly…people couldnt stop getting amazed and amused at my attire…so much so that i checked myself if i still had my pants on….
i board the craft…and out of habit give my jacket to the airhostess. she politely…and quite regretfully informs that they dont have a provision to keep jackets…! nor did they have any business newspaper on board…! but i can live with these….
Kingfisher
always…and i mean…always…ask for the aisle seat. and if you have flown kingfisher…you know why…! great service…horrible food…and no concept of cost cutting. i appreciate them handing that passenger kit..but frankly…why waste that bit. has any customer research been undertaken to see what all frm that kit is actually carried out by the passenger…? i see the pen used a lot…but thats abt it..!
i hv written abt the airlines previously as well…so will attach an excerpt…
and then…we hv to give to mr mallaya. i mean…u get balls of steel to get yana gupta to speak hindi…let alone show how to unbuckle a seatbelt. the words tht she used were last used in 2000 BC…when the aryans were taking their first bullock cart ride…! i mean…who in gods name…uses “sunishchit…!!!” nowadays. i am sure in some part of the plane…a lady wud hv gone….”there…thats the name of my 1st kid…!!!” and the funniest part was blowing the lifejacket. it looked like a lipstick ad…! guys who travel kingfisher…watch out for this…! funny…
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recently have bid adieu to a lot of close folks at ATK. all of which have left for fantastic opportunities. Shintu left for his MBA…and why wouldnt he be happy…his school tops the FORBES list this year for the best RoI…! friggin shit..! a school has to have balls to have the best RoI on USD 120K..!! all the best dude…will surely miss u….
and then rintu…(for those who dont know…rintu…shintu are not brothers…but could have easily been so..! nor are these their real names….shintu is basically shambunath…and rintu is known as rinkle khanna…ok…kiddin..!)…left as well…in some ways back to where he belonged. it hurt…cause not only is he a true gem..he was also quite close…!
then today was the last day of one of my fav people at ATK. AC surprisingly isnt a consultant…but an executive assistant. so limited to our interactions…i struck a great chord with her. you know…its days such as these that one realizes how imp the admin people are in an org…!
you enter office and you have VJ…the face of ATK…with a smile…! and then the security guards…with that goodmorning sir…and again..a smile…and then you pass RM…who ofcourse is perpetually married to her life patner. who comes in white color and measures 2 inches…and NO…i am not talking about that..!! so anyways…RM is always all so lost to see me…but then an occasional…katrina kaif smile comes by…and then comes AC. always cheerful…always smiling…! and always ready to offer a helping hand.
and this makes me feel…is this a phenomenon that beats the law of averages. how can everyone in the firm be likeable..and be just at the right wavelength for you. how can everyone be so approachable…and so dependable…! but so be it…who is out there to disprove this….
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came back this sunday from a fantastic trip to srinagar. loads of pics to share….will do so by the next post…
till then…keep the faith…
life’s good…
~a
THIS…had to be it…
THIS…is inspiration….
THIS…is music…
THIS…is the strength of the human mind…
THIS…is what made me cry last night…
THIS…is Paul Pots
i love music….and the world will not be wrong if they saw me in my car…by myself…and my ipod…and termed be unfit for human contact.
but it rarely makes me cry…
games people play….
since the day i was born…i have been observing people. i noticed the mole on the doctor who gave birth to me and the fact that her stethoscope’s left earpiece was bigger than the right one..! but then thats not observing people…so nevermind…
i find it as a good pastime…! even mre so when i see some dudes doing stuff that i just dont get…
for instance…picture this…
4 elevators in my office building..! 9am…5 people waiting on the lowest floor to go up…! a gentleman arrives from behind…makes his way through the 5-body crowd…and presses the up button…AGAIN…and AGAIN…!!
wtf was he thinking..! that the 5 of us are long lost buddies who are staring at the elevator walls trying to remember the day we played football in the rain…? or we are just zombies who have been working so hard that we stand infront of elevators wishing and praying that it comes down…u never know…u seee..!!
bugger…!!
and picture this….
mumbai airport…the new delhi flight is ready…all lining up to the bus that shall carry them to the machine of tight haristyled women and emotionally poisoned food…! and there you see Aamir Khan…! note that he is not trying to hide him….so if one has been born in the last year…there is no way that you cant recognize him…
a gentleman…mid 40s…comes up to him…and goes…
“are you aamir khan?”
no sherlock…i am bappi lahiri and i have been gyming for the past 6 months. but the friggin gym was so expensive…(bipasha basu also comes there u see)…that i had to sell off all my gold and thus u see me now in a body tight tee…and jeans…and no gold..
this is worse than the pre-historic habit that has engulfed motherkind…of asking…“tum aa gaye” when she saw er son come back from work…
people…i tell u….
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work has been crazy lately….but awesome fun. helping shape the future of media and entertainment in india…and its somehow orgasmic to sit back and think that the room you just stepped out of…after your discussion with the CEO…was witness to something that will change the entire landscape forever…
and u urself will get to witness it…
bliss…
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lately i have been itching myself with a lot of b-plans. dont know when and how to take the plunge…cause at some level you know that inaction right now can be suicidal…someone else will surely pick up your idea…and there….gone….
any people who wanna fund me…?
~a
WTF…
this is it….ladies and gentlemen…this is it. mankind has finally found a negative IQ species….and like everything else….this too lies in India…
presenting…
the former human friggin development minister of india…
He viewed that sex education will transform student teacher relation into that of a man and a woman. “I think the government wants to import the western culture of sexual relation between student relation to India,” he said.
He said introduction of sex education was what multinationals did to create the desire for sex among teenagers to sell their products. “It is not sex education. It is education to sell condoms,” he alleged.
Catch the story…at your own risk…
and if this wasn’t enough…we have UP teachers (crap…how did Bihar lose out!!)…crying out loud…
“The books on sex education supplied by the government should be promptly withdrawn,” “If they fail to do so by July 21, we will be compelled to make a bonfire of these books in public.” “We have decided to take this extreme step in the larger interest of both students and teachers,” he added.
ummmm…whose interest….again…????
I have an idea…
why dont we get all the politicians together….
actually…you know what…
i give up….
~a
education….crap…!!!!
am a disillusioned person lately…
i have always believed that education is the solution to a lot of problems facing the world today. ofcourse…arjun singh also believes so…but he takes the entire concept a little too far…! and yah…even with a world of only PhDs…we might still have bappi lahiri composing music…and going…”pyaar beeeena chaaaeeeennnn kahaan re….yaar beeenaa chaaaaeeeennn kahaan re…”
anyways..so yeah…education…everyone felt that…and so did i…and i didnt think i was wrong. typically you would have the educated class as the one who thinks the way humans shud…with a constant struggle to educate the society…and ‘better’ it even further…
and then…my hypothesis was tht people who fall into bad hands are the ones who are vulnerable…who are soft and weak..! imagine a dude…born into a poor family…for him struggle is his destiny…! he will hv to work a lot of things off…to get to a good level in society. some might succeed…many probably wont…
and then will come the easy way outs…the underworlds…the robbers…the petty thieves…the peddlers…
F***…NO….thats not true…!!
“…The first Indian national known to have participated in a suicide bombing outside the country…”
he is a friggin nuclear physicist….a friggin PhD…a product of cambridge university…who had everything working for him…! he had a family that cared for him…a country that respected him….foreigners who trusted and let him in…
and he is a terrorist today….
why dude….why….? what wasnt right…?
why…
~a
HuhCorp…and DuhCorp…
I submit….this is the best consulting firm ever…
www.huhcorp.com
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Livemint.com covered SecondShaadi.com yesterday. Nicely done.
http://www.livemint.com/2007/07/04154115/Paradise-Regained-Tying-the-k.html
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~a
its an ‘almost’ adults blog…
so…its official…your eyes, as of this moment, are witnessing an above 17 blog..! if i hadnt used shit 21 times…or ass 8 times…or my fav word gay 5 times…or omg the friggin adult word slap 4 times…things would hv been very different…
this basically means that if my kids were to be gay…they would ofcourse use the word ass a lot…and will hv to be born 17 directly..!
CRAP..!!
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SecondShaadi.com has generated a lot of press interest..! I had PK calling me frantically informing me of the Indian Express frontpage..! and a google search on SecondShaadi generates quite a few results..!
We are very close to 1,000 profiles now…23% of these are females..and only 15% of these are never married. Which basically proves that the site is automatically attracting the right audience…
BTW…did you know that India apparently has the lowest divorce rate in the world..at 1.1%
but we still believe that the idea will work…! it will…
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am in manali this weekend…nowhere compared to mussoorie…! will post some snaps…
~a
boss…mumbai mein ek hi airport hain…
8.30am
Friday
Mumbai Airport
tringgg tringgg…
hello
haanji sir…u hv reached
yes yes…where r u…?
at the exit itself…should i go and fetch the car…?
yah yah..plz do…where should i wait…
i will come where the laal peeli start
(figuring out where that is)…alright…i will wait…
After 10 mins
where are you boss…?
sir…right there…can you see the 2 media vans…right behind that…
boss…there are no media vans that i can see…where are you…?
sir…just where the passengers get out…am on the road…directly opposite…
i dont see you dude…ok…am standing right infront of the premium parking
ok..i have gone ahead of that…will come back after taking a round…
another 10 mins…
boss…its been 20 mins…where the f r u…?
sir…right there…premium parking…
yaar…either i am blind…or you dont know the airport well…are you at the jet arrival terminal
sir..i have been coming to the airport for the past 15 yrs…
you are at the domestic airport…rite…?
haan sir…are you at the right airport…
boss…mumbai mein ek hi airport hain…
MUMBAI…???? sir…i am in delhi…!!!!
WTF…!!!!
so…this friday morning…i spent 30 mins of my life trying to convince someone in delhi…that he is in mumbai…!
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but i give it to mumbai..! cant repeat it enough..but this was my first rendezvous with prime traffic in mumbai. it took me a mind numbing 2.25 hrs to reach the airport frm nariman point. a whole 2 hrs…! in the cab..! hands numb…mind zonked…life paralyzed..! i shudder to think the potential loss in national income that happens in the city cause of simply being on the road driving…when you could easily be working and far more productive than listening to radio mirchi and “pal pal pal frm munnabhai” for the godforsaken 586976th time..!
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VP and I finally launched our site. We have been working on the plan for the past 2 odd months…! its completely VP’s baby and I am simply an external advisor devoting time towards the strategy of the product over and above my fulltime ATK committments. Its been a fantastic ride so far…and atleast for me last thursday, when the product was launched, was a special moment.
for VP though…having handled the complexity of www.desimartini.com already, this was jst another site..!
our business plan…a matrimonial site specifically targetted at remarriage.
www.secondshaadi.com
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my routine browsing this afternoon took me to this show called ‘Britain’s got talent’…and a certain Paul Potts. at the end of his performance…i was sobbing like a 5 yr old…jst couldnt contain myself. i hv figured that singing has a spiritual connectiong with me. ever since i went to the US…music has become my meditation. unfortunately…my voice can allow me to appreciate it vocally…but i remember when i spent simple hrs…jst listening to music with tears in my eyes…!
this was yet another instance…and totally deserved…(in my limited capacity)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDB9zwlXrB8
Life’s really good right now…
~a
shootout at lokhandwala…
good acting….tight storyline…no time wasted in unnecessary details…not many songs…(can they please do with none!)…and if you ignore the sequence wherein sanjay dutt says no to the bullet-proof jacket when there are atleast 100 rounds being fired at that precise moment…the movie was overall quite good…
but the real question lingered…especially once i saw the parting comments…
- crime in mumbai declined by 70% in the 2 yrs that the ATS (anti-terrorism squad) was in operation
- it was abolished in Jan 1993
- dec 1993 were the mumbai blasts…
the real question…is an encounter a preferred way of handling terrorists, even when you have caught them alive…precisely because their relationships with the ‘decision makers’ will ensure that they are out on the street the very next day….
personally…i am in favor of the theme…jackshit to human rights and jazz…! they didnt show any mercy when dealing with their business…and we will show none instead…
but am sure the arguments will challenge my chain of thought…let them come if you have any…
~a
crap…where did the month go….
no seriously…where did it jst go.
shit loads has happened in the last month…and each time i reached out the the laptop to blog about it…darn…forget it…how am i kiddin… i jst didnt feel like writing…thts it….! :)
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Media and Entertainment totally sucked me in last month…work was awesome…and painful…long hrs…no social life…weekends jst went by trying to think of how i cud hv used them better….and weekdays jst didnt exist. as my Gtalk status once said…”its like pregnancy…lots of pain but you like what comes out in the end” (courtesy PM)
but tht was then. things changed last week….when we met the client…and he was like…superb…sold…very well done…why dont u start working on the vision now. think of something that has never been done before…
and we were like…WTF
now dont get me wrong…these vision-mission stuff are good…companies hv survived on them…and am sure bal thackeray had one too when he ordered his warriors to storm cafes in protest of orkut…! but after 6 weeks of high rigor…and market interviews and business modelling and what have yous…when one asks you to start thinking of vision…it sucks…
or in other words…the phase of ‘intellectual masturbation’…begins…
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was reading a newspaper article on the environment day. if the screw up that we humans indulge in isnt enough…the paper had conducted a survey…with some startling results…
witness this…
Q. A shower for 5 mins consumes more water than a bucket of water
a certain section of society (naming them cud hv a bal thackeray lookalike run after me…and i am too young to die!) had 55% replying yes. which is good…! however…45% said no…! whattttttt?????? half the population in that particular area thinks that a bucket of water and a 5 min shower are equal..?????
i really hope that their showers are the ancient ones…u know th sorts wherein some shit dirt particle has blocked all but one pore in the shower..!
there is more…
Q. Brushing your teeth with running water consumes less than a litre of water
55% yes…45% no…and you know what. THE SAME FRIGGIN SECTION…!! what retards live in this world that believe this shit…and screw not jst their life but the rest of the world’s too….and then if the government says that we are raisin water bills…go on a violent bandh….kill some people…and continue to bloody brush under running water..
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but then the government is not the best either…
a hate community on orkut gives some bastardos the right to barge into cafes and destroy private property. and if that wasnt enough…the government sets up a committee to decide whether orkut should be banned or not..
why dont we do something simple. create a separate world for them. i know of some reclamation experts…who can easily recreate land on water. there is lots of space in the arabian ocean. lets jst build a sweet sexy world…where guys and girls are never together…15th feb comes right after the 13th…there is no internet and thus no hat communities…and oh…a news channel that always talks of the indian cricket team winning…so as to keep them under control. now that would work..
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and hey you guys…tell me something…whenever you apply for a competitie examination…do you call yourself ‘general’ category…? how are you sure..? can you show me a certificate proving that you are general…! if not…i suggest that you pick up the nearest kerosene tank…and burn your neighbour’s cycle. control dude control…the bus will be next…but jst practise before…!
everyone is fighting for a community status dude…i think we should too..!
what…what…national damage…? social inconvenience..? death…? dude…what are you…a moron..??? jst call some news chanels later and ask for an apology. over..!
and hey…if any news channels attempt to cover your violence…dont feel ashamed..! smile right in the face of the camera…
there…now u deserve the general status…jai hind..!
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strange thing happened today…was on my way back home talking merrily on the phone…when the traffic cop stopped me. now…i admit…my car is a traffic cop’s dream come true. i always talk on the phone…(its a long story why i dont use a handsfree…but hey…am still a nice guy!)…hv dark tints…and play decently loud music.
and plus…i am an honest tax-paying citizen
so this guys stops me…and starts off…2K for cellphone…2K for tints and 1K for pollution certificate. am keeping ur RC…plz come and pay this at the traffic center within 15 days….
whooaaa….hold on mate…! so first…show me the fine sheet…tht states the amt…
he didnt hv tht…
ok…fine…i will trust u on the amt…and am ready to pay it right now. give me the receipt for tht and let go off my RC
no sir…cant do…u hv to pay at the center. we dont accept challans here. this is not haryana law. i will hv to keep ur RC.
give me the number of ur ACP traffic..will ask him abt this law.
dont hv…cant share…
show me ur ID card
haryana govt stopped issuing them in aug 2006…
which means that i too can wear the same shirt / trouser as urs and start collecting moolah…
what do u mean moolah…u think we are here to take a bribes something…
oh u r not…great…so either u take the entire challan right now and give me the receipt..or u jst get the big shit out of my car…
i wont…
fine…let me take you to the traffic headquarters there…we will discuss the matters there…
ok ok..leaving…but get these tints off in 2 days…
Conclusion:
1. Most of these guys…i was later told by a frnd…do not position themselves on the location they ought to be. which is why they dont have those challans books with them. So always ask for their ID…always ask for the challan…and plz use bribe as the last resort…not the preferred one..
2. I did commit a mistake…and i ought to have paid. but i didnt…! and i cudnt care less…because of the way he conducted himself…! dont if i am wrong here…comments invited…
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went to naukuchiatal for the weekend…fantastic lake place 25 kms frm Nainital in North India. stayed in an awesome private cottage…and had a much needed break.
here are some snaps…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/warikoo/sets/72157600321509929/
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will be back soon…surely within a month…
~a
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