As I look at life

Facebook making us Bruce Almighty | The ICU Syndrome

My blogger friend Varsha just posted:

"All those updating from bus stands....railway stations...airports...just what do you want us to do with this information??"

She seriously got me thinking! Some of the people on Facebook really make us Bruce Almighty!

We know everything about at least 10 friends on our Facebook profile at any given moment:

When they woke up
What kind of morning beverage they had - tea, green tea, dark coffee, beer, water in copper vessel...
When they left for work
Which train they boarded
When they reached office, where it is located, if they reached before or after their boss
What they had for lunch
Did they have a 4 pm snack, what exactly

From Written Words to Inspiring Voice | Meeting Author of The Bankster

The First Open BAR (Blogger Author Rendezvous)

It was a bloggers’ meet of sorts arranged by Indiblogeshwari Vinita Bahl and Ravi Subramanian, author of The Bankster.

Ravi Subramanian

Firstly, for the first time I was the first one to reach a bloggers’ meet (obviously I will force the word ‘first’ too many times here!). I cannot explain the wonderful feeling when I entered Chocolateria San Churro, Bandra, thinking the meet was at 12 pm (it was scheduled for 1 and thank God I was mistaken) only to find that no one had arrived by then! Alright, I travelled and reached with Varsha Bagadia, but I am taking the liberty here as I climbed up the stairs before her ;)

Where you go,
what you see,
who you meet,
is a mystery.

Who joins you,
who you join,
as time travels,
is but destiny.

'Life is busy' is a contradiction in terms. Life moves at the same pace every year. We grow an year older exactly in one year, not sooner, not later. We are busy, willingly or unwillingly is a different question altogether. And we conveniently take the liberty of replacing "We" with "Life"!

And while our focus shifts to the bigger things in life, the smallest and least time-consuming things take a back seat.

Blah, Blah, Blah... Waah Waah Waah!

Chatting, when introduced for the first time, changed a lot many things. We were reconnected with many long lost contacts. Catching up with friends, near or close, became easier and frequent. It made life more interesting.

Initially, I used to chat a lot. But as years passed and with the advent of Facebook, I started finding chatting online pretty boring! Until recently, when WeChat was introduced. Its contest on the IndiBlogger platform seemed really cool - If you could connect with 5 or more people in a WeChat group - who would they be, and why? What would you talk about?

Well, it made me think which real or fictional people from past or present would I like to chat with. And it got me thinking a lot! Intestingly, these people can chat with each other too in the WeChat group!

How about Newton? Isaac Newton. I always wondered what kind of person he really was... Serious nerd or a funny creative genius? What would have happened if instead of an apple falling on his head he noticed a feather flying by? Would he have then invented some "Newton's law of flight?" Would he have invented the concept of humans traveling by air instead of the Wright brothers' invention of airplane? Did Wright brothers exist before or after him? Well I can Google it for sure but it would be interesting to discuss with him on WeChat instead and poke his brain ;)

How about Rajinikanth! Oh he is one interesting personality of our times! I always found it fascinating how he managed to attract such a huge fanfare! They are crazy about him and his style. And no other Indian film actor in the past 2 decades have managed to have such die-hard fans. While some might find his style and supernatural onscreen powers funny and hyped, I guess he has the maximum number of fanatic fans in India! Did he imagine in the initial years of his film career that he will reach here? And what about the famous Rajinikanth jokes? The are awesome! Whether you watch his films or not, you will always enjoy the jokes!

The third person I would like to add to my WeChat group would be Alice (of the Alice in Wonderland fame). Falling into the rabbit hole and getting a different perspective of life must be real fun. But no one ever asked where the magical rabbit hole is! I would most certainly ask her and maybe join her in yet another fall into the rabbit hole.

Next would be Tom and Jerry! I just want to hear more of their catch and chase stories. And when they are connected by a chatting platform, where they cannot actually run behind each other, I would love to see how they can bother each other even when they are not nearby!

Now if only my wish is granted and Newton, Rajinikanth, Alice, Tom and Jerry come to chat with me in a group, I promise I will share everything about it. And if you comment out here with your queries for these people, I might even add you in the group!

Until then, you can vote for this entry here while I start creating some new WeChat groups with those I have met in real life :)

K is for Kindness and the random act!

I do not know where I read / heard about it first, but it was long long ago when I was in college. And I have been following it ever since (if only I was so committed to post my entries to the A-Z challenge in time!). Recently, I was watching my favourite show Dharma & Greg and I heard it again. Dharma's random act of kindness. That's when I realised that I have been following it religiously almost everyday! Feels good. Seriously, try it!

If one day, or every day of your life, you decide to do at least one random act of kindness, it makes a quite some difference in the happiness quotient of the world. It's really simple and it brings a smile to someone's face. And it is loaded with goodness. It's about some really small or really big acts you do that might not mean much to you but will make someone's day.

Let me leave you with some small and big examples for the random acts of kindness:

Tell your househelp that she can skip some utensils / cleaning a room on a day she looks tired.
Offer your seat in train to someone even if the person is not old, sick or pregnant. Don't let the person know that you offered your seat to help. Just walk towards the door.
Thank your cab / rickshaw driver while paying by the meter. In Mumbai, tender good amount of change (notes of Rs 10 / coins) even when your meter says Rs 98 and you have a Rs 100 note! they will be so happy!
Offer to babysit your neighbour's kid for a couple of hours so that she can rest for a while.\
Tell your vegetable vendor that you really like how he/she brings the freshest veggies.
Bring special cookies or pastries for coworkers even when it is not your birthday / festival.
Compliment someone every single day. If you are home alone, just look at the mirror and praise yourself ;)
Volunteer for a social cause.
Call up a distant friend or relative you have not been in touch with or only Liked their wall posts on Facebook.
Speak nicely and patiently with a customer service caller who tries to sell you a loan or scheme.
Visit my blog and leave me a nice comment ;)

J is for Jaisalmer in Rajasthan, India

I just love the nicknames some cities have! The Big Apple (New York), Sin City (Las Vegas) and back home The Golden City of Jaisalmer.

While in school, I found remembering these terms really tough to score better in exams. It's tough to build logic with these things unless you have been there. And I need logic to remember anything. So my scores in history always pulled my final exams' percentage down (who was born when, where... please don't ask me names and dates!).

But once I started visiting place, I had a whole new perspective. Like when I visited the beautiful city of Jaisalmer (named after the founder founder Maharawal Jaisal Singh) in Rajasthan. Once you reach you know why many call it The Golden City. The hues, sand, forts and havelis, they all are so beautifully golden-ish.

I have no idea!

I am generally not short of ideas, whether it is arts and crafts, cooking, blogging or creativity required in my advertising profession. Thankfully, most of my ideas have turned out to be good.

The surprising thing is that when I am really upset about something or when I have a really tight deadline, the ideas I come up with are better than what I have when I am relaxed and at leisure. That is actually very helpful in the highly demanding and creative field like advertising.

But this once, when I decided to write a post on ideas, I am really clueless. Maybe since I started pretty late after missing the deadline for the 'I' day of the A-Z Challenge. A few back to back stressful events in my life within a span of 4 days might be affecting my thought process.

Makes me think:

Why is it possible to come up with ideas for everyone else but yourself?

Why setting a deadline and trying to meet it results in the best ideas, mostly at the last minute?

Why I am so clueless when I am thinking of an idea to write something on ideas?

I have no idea! So this time, I will end this right here to prevent myself from losing my blog readers. I guess there's a better idea - I will move on to 'J'!

PS If you thought I wasted your time with this post, you might want to read the title again; I had warned you much in advance!
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This post is written by me for the A-Z Blogging Challenge where I will post every day (except Sundays) all through the month of April. Most importantly, I will blog thematically on topics from A to Z! So for April 1, I chose a topic starting with the letter A, for April 2 the letter B and so on.
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My A-Z Challenge Entries: A B C D E F G H I J K...

If I am not born Maharashtrian, it does not mean I can't ask you to keep the state clean

I AM A PROUD MUMBAIITE WOMAN AND ALWAYS STOOD FOR MY CITY. AND MY COUNTRY. PLEASE DO NOT MAKE ME REGRET IT.

My best friend is Marathi. It was my favourite subject in school and the language still is. Some of my closest friends and favourite people speak Marathi. I am the only Mumbaiite to run a Mumbai local trains blog to help Mumbai commuters. No one is paying me for that, yet despite fibromyalgia, I manage to keep you all updated because I want to help people of this city and suburbs. I hardly see hardly see people switching off the fans in local train compartments if it is the last stop at a non-peak hour so that some power can be saved. I have politely asked commuters throwing rubbish in /out of trains to discontinue this practice almost every single day, so that the city remains clean. Once a foreigner in Rajasthan told me how she found it strange to see Mumbai people littering on the streets. Even knowing that she was right, I argued and defended Mumbai's pride.