New Ulhasnagar

Today we completed one month in our new home in Kalyan. Our new home is in a area called Khadak Pada. This area is jokingly called New Ulhasnagar, as many persons, me included, have moved out of Ulhasnagar, to this area. It is basically a residential area, not so far away from Kalyan station and city of Ulhasnagar, and has many upcoming projects, and a 2 screen multiplex.

I was apprehensive that my family may not be able to settled down quickly in our new home. I have been proven wrong. They have settled very nicely and like both the surroundings and our complex. My wife, who always wanted an airy and a bigger home, never lose any opportunity to thank me for new home!

I had always thought of joining a gym, to lose some weight, and some inches around my waist. As our complex's club house has an excellent gym, I am being pestered by my children to visit gym as often as I can. I am beginning to make a visit to gym a habit, but it may take some time.

My wife is very religious and she used to feed meethi boondi (sweet boondi) everyday to crows in our old home in Ulhasnagar. It seems same crows have also migrated with us to Kalyan. Every day at six in the morning my wife is woken up by ka ka ka of crows which does not stop until she feeds them meethi boondi. She believes that it is crows who brought us to our new home. Interestingly the name of our building is `Pashupatinath', named after famous Lord Shiva temple. I am beginning to believe that maybe she is right. Thank you crows and Lord Shiva for our new home!

Helpless

I feel helpless every evening. Read on if you are interested to know why.

Every evening, after leaving office, after an honest day's work, my only wish, like any good husband and father, is to reach home as soon as I can, and be with my family. And my immediate aim after alighting from the office bus is to catch my beloved 5:59 p.m. Titwala local train. Well, I am able to catch it on some lucky days and on most of the days I am unable and feel helpless. The reason behind my helplessness are the numerous hawkers who now occupy almost all the available space in the CST subway, which I must pass in order to catch my beloved local train. Take today, it was 5:55 p.m. when the office bus reached, I alighted the steps to the subway and found, as usual, there were just numerous people and some of them were curiously standing in the middle and on the sides of the subway and if you are regular user of the subway, then you know these are the illegal hawkers, occupying precious spaces meant for ordinary walkers like me. These hawkers hamper the smooth movement of commuters. Sigh, as on most of the days, I reached the platform half a minute late and saw my beloved train leaving the platform. Exasperation, wrath and indignation were the emotions which filled my mind, which is subsequently filled in by the feeling of helplessness. And the next train to my destination is in 20 minutes. More feeling of helplessness.

The subway was constructed with a twin aim : to smooth the traffic on the busy CST junction and to enable faster and efficient conveyance of thousands of commuters who must use it to catch train of their destination. While the traffic on the road above subway seems to be smooth, people like me just feel helplessness as it take more and more time every day to cross the subway. Will the higher authorities, Municipal corporation of Mumbai city and the Central Railway take the steps to remove the unauthorized hawkers and enable people like me to catch our favourite trains. Hope they will do. But hope has no relation to reason. Feeling helpless again.

Feed the fish

Just put the fantastic gadget, Feed the Fish, on the sidebar. Just click with mouse inside the blue background and watch the fish. Many such gadgets are available at abowman.com for your Blogger, Facebook and other social sites. Really cool.

Stumped and Out

Today was very unusual day in many ways. A very very wet September evening, with rains, winds and lightening. I thought Gods must be angry today. And He seems to be. Anyway, only god knows what He is thinking.

After reaching home, completely drenched, of course, and a hot cup of tea, I settled down and opened my favourite HT newspaper, I was stumped to see the headline on the first page: Have sex, Indian cricket team told. This headline and the the news story completely stumped me, and made me smile.

And, later while having dinner with family, I was allowed to swap news channels in-between the dreadful soaps to catch some news. I was unlucky to hit Times Now button on remote and watched Mr. Arnab Goswami, Editor-in-Chief interviewing Mr. Raj Thackeray. Only the questions of Mr Goswami were in dear old English and answers of Mr. Thackeray were in Marathi. It made for few minutes of fun watching, most for my children who do follow Marathi, but it made me Out. I know some dear soul will make a YouTube video of it and I will certainly post it. Just to share the fun.

Yesterday

Yesterday I happen to be walking by near the Flora Fountain, Bombay. On an impulse I thought I will check the pavement second-hand booksellers to see if I can get a rare P.D. James book. And I was lucky, I was able to get her first book, Cover Her Face. I had asked a bookseller if he had any P.D. James book, and he replied no, but they had an almost complete set and someone had purchased it just a few days ago. I felt dejected. And the person called me back, as I turned to go back, and handed me over the book Cover Her Face saying that one copy of this book is left and would I be interested? My dejection turned into happiness instantly. I have been on the lookout for this book for many weeks. Barely containing my excitement, I said yes yes, of course, and I purchased it, immediately. Now my P.D. James Library is growing slowly and steadily. The following is the list of books written by P.D. James :

1. Cover Her Face, 1962 (have, and currently reading :) )
2. A Mind to Murder, 1963 (did not have, yet)
3. Unnatural Causes, 1967 (have and read. The first P.D. James read by me)
4. Shroud for a Nightingale, 1971 (have and read)
5. Maul and the Pear Tree, (co-author) 1971 (did not have, yet)
6. An Unsuitable Job for a Woman, 1972 (have and read)
7. The Black Tower, 1975 (have and read)
8. Death of an Expert Witness, 1977 (have, yet to read)
9. Innocent Blood, 1980 (did not have, yet)
10. Skull Beneath the Skin, 1982 (have, yet to read)
11. Original Sin, 1995 (have, yet to read)
12. A Certain Justice, 1997 (have and read)
13. A Time To Be In Earnest, 2000 (did not have, yet)
14. Death In Holy Orders, 2001 (have and read)
15. Devices and Desires, 2004 (have and read)
16. The Murder Room, 2004 (did not have, yet)
17. A Taste For Death, 2005 (have and read)
18. The Children of Men, 2006 (did not have, yet)
19. The Lighthouse, 2006 (did not have, yet)
20. The Private Patient, 2006 (read, but not have, yet)

Hope my own P.D. James Library will be complete soon. In the meanwhile, I continue to enjoy reading P.D. James on my train commute.

45, not out

Today I turned 45. For better or worse, only time will tell. Maybe for better, I hope.

I was pleasantly surprised to know that I share my birthday with Sony Ericsson. SE was established on October 3, 2001. Happy birthday Sony Ericsson and happy birthday to me. No wonder I have a soft corner for Sony Ericsson. My present phone is SE 580i and my previous two phone were too SE (K750 and W610). And so will my future phones be. I always recommend SE phones to my friends.

Now about me. It is bit scary that I am just five years away from half century. Am I not too old to be a blogger! I wonder, but who reads my blog, except me. And sometime even I also don't. But seriously, yes I should now start paying more attention to my health, my attitude to life and watch out what I eat.

This year my daughter gifted me a small glass-cased Lord Ganesha. It it sitting on top of our computer desk. I was quite pleasantly surprised to receive this. Maybe she wants me to turn spiritual or maybe she thinks I am turning old and Lord will take care of me, if I do not take care of me !!

It is W580i now

My new mobile phone is now Sony Ericsson W580i (black boulevard) . I purchased it today. And am quite happy about it. It is a slider phone

My birthday is on October 3, and as always is the practice is with me (gifting myself something), I thought this year I will gift myself W580. Actually I wanted to purchase the big brother of W580, which is W595, but I do not know when it will hit the Indian markets. As is the case with new models, W595 may also be steeply priced for first few months.

I do not had any much problem with my previous SE 610i phone, except that its navigation keys were a bit hard. The keys of W580i, both navigation and numeric, are quite soft. And it has a bigger screen and better resolution of 320 x 240. Also, W50i has built it pedometer, which keeps on counting the steps taken by me. It is quite useful to see much I am walking everyday and how much calories I am burning. So far, I had no problem with my new phone. It is quite good. The only thing I am missing is dedicated media on/off key on the side. Anyway, one does not get everything in a mobile phone.

I purchased it from Alpha Electronics, Irla, Vile Parle, Mumbai. It is supposed to be a landmark for the mobile phone/gadget lovers. My friend Ajay has been to Alpha previous and gone ga ga over it. So I went with Ajay today to Alpha. I was hoping that I may get W595 there. I had read in a SE blog that it is released on Sept. 29. The person at Alpha told me that it has not been received by them as yet. Since I wanted a new phone as a birthday present to myself, I made a quick decision to buy W580. And it seems to have been a wise decision. This phone is too good. I will write my detailed impressions about it later. Let me get used to it and enjoy it now.

Ya Ali

Last Friday, I visited Minara Lane, Mohammed Ali Road, which is famous for delicious food, in the month of Ramazan, for some yummy food. I have been going there, for some years now, but alone. Every year, some of my friends promise me to come along with me, but drop out at the last moment. So I end up going there alone. I look up to this annual visit as an yearly pilgrimage.

I have a favourite place at Minara Lane, called Marhaba, which I find quite good. It is a small place, but the food here is quite tasty, especially baida roti and mutton rolls. This time, I clicked some pictures, which are below. The prices are also quite unbelievably cheap.

[Click to enlarge]

[Click to enlarge]

Since I had gone there quite early (around 6:30 p.m.) and it was not yet Iftar time, I could not eat anything there, and got some items parcelled for my family at home, who also share my likeness for tasty food.

Not to be missed on the Minara Lane is Phirni, which is put in a small earthen pot and Malpua. I clicked this picture of giant malpuas being fried at Suleiman Usman Mithaiwala.

The ambiance and the aroma of yummy food is the reason which takes me to Minara Lane every year. When it comes to yummy and tasty food, everyone stands united, I think so.

My blogging friend, Kusum Rohra, has also visited Mohammed Ali Road last weekend and written a post about it.

A guide to eating places at and around Mohammed Ali Road is here.

A pact

Last week I made a pact (unsigned one though) with my daughter, aged 11, that I will pay more attention to fitness and will walk more. Daughters have a way to get their dad do the right things in life.

She (my daughter) and I go on most Sundays (when it is not raining) for an evening walk to our nearby park. Last Sunday, she mentioned that I am paying no attention to my health and am expanding in the middle. She said at least I should walk to railway station in the morning and evening instead of taking an auto rickshaw. Well, I tried to explain to her that it is quite difficult to avoid taking an auto in the morning as I do not want to miss my beloved 7:20 a.m. local train and the time seems to be flying the morning. Like a good daughter she understood but said what about evenings? Certainly in the evenings there is no hurry and I can certainly walk home. Well this stumped me. She is right. This set me thinking why I am taking an auto rickshaw in the evening and not walking from railway station. The distance is certainly walkable.

Next she asked me how much I pay per trip to and from railway station. Since I take a shared auto it comes to Rs. 5. She made a quick calculations and said if I walk from station to home every evening I will be saving Rs. 1300/- every year (5 x 5 = 25, 25 X 52 =1300), and every penny saved is a every penny earned. She said, or rather ordered me, that from tomorrow I will be walking from station to home every evening, and as a proof that I had walked I will deposit Rs. 5 with her every day, which she will be saving. Well, this seems to be quite good and practical suggestion. I readily agreed and since last Monday I am walking from station to home in the evenings. Now let us see if I am true to this unsigned pact in the coming days. I hope I will be. And I should be.

Together for 18 years

First post from my Mobile

This is my first post sent from my mobile (SE 610i). Configuring it on my mobile and sending was just so easy. Sony Ericsson Zindabad. BTW, the picture above is of my son, who sportingly agreed to be photographed for this post.

My new mobile?

Sony Ericsson has unveiled three new walkman phones yesterday -- W902, W595 and W302. W595 looks to be good. I will certainly buy it when it becomes available in India.

I am quite happy with current Walkman Phone, W610i, but its screen is quite small, and W595 has 2.2 inch screen with resolution of 320 x 240. Hope it will not be priced high. I expect it to be priced in the region of 12 K in India. Or Maybe higher. Let us see.

The other two Walkman phones, W902 and W302, seems to be higher and lower end phones, respectively.

The full product detail about W595 is given here . This phone is successor to W580 phone, which I had almost bought, then I saw W610i and had fallen in love with its good looks.

Adventures of a bunch of keys

This happened to me yesterday. I was late, as usual, leaving home for office. I catch 7:20 a.m. train everyday and leave, please believe me, at 7:12. Catch an Auto rickshaw 7:15 and am at station at 7:18.

Yesterday was no different, except that it was a Friday and I do not bring lunch from home on a Friday, hence no need to take shoulder bag. I transfer all my usual stuff, keys bunch, headphone for mobile etc. to my trouser pockets. I did the same thing yesterday, but was late by a minute and was already in panic that I will miss my beloved 7:20 train. It had happened on many Fridays that I had left my keys bunch at home. So when I felt hot (oh God, when will it start raining again), I took out my handkerchief to wipe my sweating brow and then, I realized that my trouser pocket was feeling light which means I had left my keys bunch, once again at home. Okay, I said to myself, I will call home and get this confirmed and feel stupid on one more Friday. I called home from the train and and my wife informed me coolly that no, the keys bunch is not there at its usual place, I must have taken it and that I should not leave home in such a tearing hurry. Okay Okay, I said I will not do so in future. But where are the keys bunch. It contained my office key, my desk drawer key and also our home key. I began to panic. And started to sweat. I called home again and requested my wife to look carefully at home, I may have dropped it somewhere near the usual place. No, she informed me, the keys are not be found near its usual place.

My only hope was that I must have dropped it from my trouser pocket, while taking out the hanky. If it has dropped out of auto, then it is lost, and if it is dropped inside the auto, then I may get it back. I tried to recall how the driver of auto looked and draw up a mental picture of him. I had travelled in his auto for the first time.

Needless to say I spent the whole day, that is yesterday, at office, in sort of panic and at self-blame game. And left the office early, at the earliest opportunity. I scanned all the autos at station, where I get down usually, for the auto driver of the morning. No luck. All the drivers were fat, while the Man I was looking for was quite slim.

There was only one way, by which I could get back my bunch of keys. The only way.


Today being a Saturday, was an off day for me. But I acted if it was a Friday and left the home at usual time of 7:12 a.m. Reached the main road and, please believe me, after few minutes yesterday's auto rickshaw driver passed by, I could not believed it and the driver also recognized me and stopped. I went across to him said I travelled in your auto yesterday and before I could finish he took out my keys bunch and handed it over to me. He explained that the next customer, after I had left, had spotted the keys bunch and had handed it over to him. I was, of course, overjoyed. I took out some money from my wallet and handed it over to him, as a reward for him. And thanked him many many times.

So miracles do happen. Personally, I do not believe in miracles, I depend on them!

Thank you Shri Honest Autowalla and thank you unknown, alert. he or she, who spotted my keys bunch.

Walking with the Walkman

I have been using till today, Sony Ericsson K750i mobile. Today I traded it for a new mobile which is Sonry Ericsson W610i. I was quite happy with K750i, but wanted a new phone. I was quite sure that my new phone will be a Sony Ericsson and a walkman series. Though Sony has quite a number of phones in walkman series, but some of them are either slider or fold phones, but I wanted a candy phone. And my search ended with W610i. It is quite a beautiful silm phone. It has great sound quality, both in built in speaker and in stereo headphones. So I look forward to walking with the walkman and listening to great music by RD.

Greedy?

Yesterday was my birthday. I turned 44, and I turned greedy too.

Every year, on this day, I gift myself a book, since no one bothers to do so. So this year too I went to my favourite bookshop, The Strand Bookstall, to gift a book to myself. I wanted a slim and handsome book.

I spotted Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote. I had heard about this book but never owned or read it. So I picked it up. It was quite slim volume. I was happy. But soon I spotted also To Sir, with Love by E. R. Braithwaite, another slim volume and Thank you Jeeves, by P.G. Wodehouse, yes it too was slim book, and picked these two too for myself.

I am getting greedy and getting old. But I am enjoying it. I mean, well, both getting old and getting greedy :).