Night life: Mumbai!

When you start your day, most people do not expect anything different from what they have been doing for years, months or at least days, such is routine. Why change things up, when everything is working fine and you are happy to live the way you do? Unless, the change is definitely going to be for the better, like a pay rise, a promotion etc, one may never hug a situation that brings about change. Be it professional life, moving to a new city, changing jobs, or getting married, history can easily prove me right. 

And now I am part of such change, for last few months, got married, changed jobs, moved to new city and now I am looking for a new place that I can call home. Home is where Heart is, and there should be at least 1 loved one be it a friend then, to meet after days work and cool your head, get rid off that stress, may be by a can of beer, a stroll on near by street, or a good movie. Each one, his/her own thing.

Living with one of my best friend, and watching Mumbai's night life on weekends has become high light of my stay here. Juhu PVR is my chill out place now and Novotel, even later in night. Till I came here, I had seen celebrities perform on screen or on stage, but never as normal people walking, having fun time with friends and watching a movie.

So till now the list of people I have seen are:

Anushka Sharma     Band Baaja Baaraat (New Comedy Hindi Film / Bollywood Movie / Indian Cinema DVD)

Bani

Tushar Kapoor (I did not identify him, for he looked too fare, compared to his screen image.)

Arunoday Singh

Sameer (1 from Big Boss)

Various TV stars and few models too.

This apart, I overheard a conversation between 2 models, and....

Model1: (Unable to balance on pencil hills, while getting on escalator flicks her hair on gaining balance.) 

Model2: "Oh! WoW! Where did u get those hair extensions from? They are looking good!"

Model1: "X place" 

Yes! She shared her secret. But point is, she took that as a compliment and the other model was actually complementing her, and my 1st thought was, "This might get bitchy!" but it did not. 

I guess, different circles in society do react differently to certain questions.

P.S.: No, I did not click any pics, or get autographs, but few smiles and my friend got stunned by flawless skin of Anushka.

Band Baaja Baraat (2 Disc Set) Bollywood DVD With English Subtitles

This is stupidity!

It was one of those days when you wake up and just want to get away from all of what is there on your plate, aaahhh, on second thought one does have those thoughts on every working day! But this was different! It was already a holiday!

So I wake up, not so early, actually not at all early and certainly not on wrong side of the bed, you see my bed has only one side, I have blocked the wrong side by a wall, walk around lazily, going through morning chores and its lunch time.

And a brainwave occurs on lunch table, I say it out loud:"I am going to Kolhapur!" and my parents only question is "Why Kolhapur?" I have no idea, so I say:"I am going to meet a friend over there." In totally unconvincing voice of all.

So I am on bus, going to Kolhapur when passenger next to me starts chatting, at first I am annoyed, after all I was reading Sidin's Dork, but then his story became interesting. Here it is, as told by him.

"I am an engineer in LG Mobile on floor, and I earn about 15k per month, as such I am married but I am unable to keep my wife with me because she can not get a job in Pune, but she has one in Kolhapur. You being a finance person, can you advise what should I do to quickly overcome my poor state?"

I was taken aback at this question, no one would discuss ones financial status with a complete stranger, and that was my first advise, but he persisted. So I asked him whats his Investment status.

"I have an investment of Rs.2 lacs in various large cap companies in share market, my parents had taken care of insurance so I have enough of it. Thats all!"

Me: "Thats pretty good, so where is the problem?"

"I have a loan!"

Me:"How much?"

"The loan is 4 lacs Rupees, as personal loan."

Me:"Why did you take out personal loan? It has highest interest rates, about 20% interest in any bank."

"To invest in share market! Unfortunately market fell after that and now its value is half the original investment!"

Unfortunately, I could not utter a single word, knowing that average returns from market over the years had been 20%, this way of investing did not make sense in any way I looked at it.

My advise to him was, to take a loan on his insurance policy and pay off most of the sum that was remaining of loan from bank, first of all this will reduce his EMI burden as interest rate on life insurance policy is 10 to 11%, thats nearly half the interest on bank loan, next plus point is that, it gives an increase in tenure, as he was facing deadline and did not have money to pay up.

And that was the most meaningful thing that happened on that trip, think that was the only purpose of whole journey.

Are you Serious?

Many people would have come to face with stupid, irrelevant questions or statement in their life, so have I. Here are handful of them, enjoy and add your own in comments section.

1. Faculty was discussing "Consultancy firm" how it is different than others, how it is useful for people who do not have expertise in the field and types and started giving examples. Marriage consultancy, Legal consultancy, Investment consultancy.....etc, when one student stood up and contributed his own example- Illegal consultancy! Madam just laughed it off, so did other students, but this guy stayed his ground and started debating.
2. Our Insurance professor was discussing Reinsurance when one student got up and asked, Student: "What if Reinsurance company goes bankrupt?" Prof: "Well, same scenario, when an insurance company goes bankrupt?" Same Student: "What is Bankrupt?"
3. A young faculty joined college and was taking her first lecture, she was pretty young. She was teaching statistics, and there came a question that had cricket in it and hence used some of the cricketer's name. One Girl raised her hand, to ask a doubt, which was "Madam, can we use Yuvraj's name instead, don't you like him, I love him."
4. A well known investor had come for a guest lecture, no it was not @jhunjhunwala , but he talked about how to judge a security, what all should be considered. One professor stood up and asked "This all i have taught the students, but what really needs to be done to choose stocks like you do." Well the investor did not smile it away, and answered it very logically, "Don't take it as a part time hobby, but full time job."

Well those were some moments I came across recently. Add some of yours.

KalYug

Yesterday, had a late night conversation with @nehamehta09, @Har0on & @trivedipankaj on twitter, and realized what i know was not all that's there to the subject. However few lines to come to mind thinking about this era-yug.

Kali kare vinash

Manush bole bhasha tol mol ki

Ram se kachu na hove

Ab Kalki hi jug uddhare.

Kali: Is the demonic part/negative manifestation of Vishnu, who is the ruler of this era. And hence refers to all the negative characteristics of humans, namely- Greed, Lust, Envy, Pride, Gluttony, etc, you get the picture, the prevalent of this era.

Kalgi: He is the positive incarnation of Lord Vishnu, and hence nemesis of the Kali, who would come on a white stead and destroy Kali, to bring an end to this era, and world as we know.

World as we know is based on materialistic wealth, it does not mean that capitalism is bad. It only implies, having more than what we need, hoarding it , whether it is Food Grains or Money, well it is what our economist also suggest, hoarding can falsely move the market, and cause various distortions.

When will world come to an end: It would not, like the Mayan calendar, currently in news thanks to movie-2012, the era will end and new circle will begin. Hence again, Satyug-the golden era of truth, followed by Treta and Dwapara yug and again Kalyug will follow and circle of life will continue.

So when will this era-Kalyug end: It will end when people will get the flowers and fruits of their doing, and it will rain unseasonally. Hence, it might be close to an end, looking at November and December Rains of this year.

However, if we look closely it does have some connections to other religions too, like sins in Christianity and some other religions Judaism etc, link below.

http://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070109171206AAQvS0k

Further, the story of Manu and Noah are very close to each other. And Bible and Quran both say the same story.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manu_(Hinduism)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah

Interesting story, that it is Manu or Noah's children all we are, one origin, which can be traced by genealogy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_recent_common_ancestor#MRCA_of_all_living_humans

After going through all this, only thought that comes to mind is, why did we drift apart, when it was already foretold that we would?

For more details on Kalyug.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kali_yuga

http://www.answers.com/topic/kali-yuga#cite_note-sacred-8

What can I say?

Today being New Years Eve, there are going to be lots of parties in town, it is quite obvious, most would be going to one. Had a chance meeting with a friend, kind of party rocker, and asked him,

Me: "So you must be going to some Party to night."

He: "No, yaar, I am staying at home."

Me: "What? You are not going to party, but it's New Years Eve!"

He: "So what, even you are not going."

Me: "Well, I am not a regular to parties anyway, but you are one who does."

He: "Well, it is not easy to explain, I rather tell you an analogy."

And he began:

You know P. L. Deshpande had written a story, there is a character in the story called Antu Barve, a Brahmin from Ratnagiri. Well there is a small conversation there, it goes like this. "Mahatma Gandhi never visited Ratnagiri, why not?" Asks Antu, and answers also, "There was nothing for him to see here, and nothing to show to people of this place too. See, most people here wear lesser clothes than him, eat lesser than him and do their own work, so they would never have understood the importance of him and his sacrifice. On other hand people from the other place were well to do, in sense they were used to eat good things, including ghee and all. Hence, the reason."

Similarly, people like me do not see any difference between New Year’s Party and normal party, in fact it's worse. People who have been starved for fun, liquor and good food end up on these parties, and increase the chance of some bad incident. While for people like me it is like taking a bath every day, for them it is a bath at sea, once in blue moon.

I was left standing, speechless.