My Fun filled sunday with Indibloggers and Ambipur :)

Hey everybody, it has been a while since I blogged. Wanna start over and I owe it to indiblogger for the invitation to their blogger meet, where I got a chance to meet hundreds of bloggers in my city. It was a great feeling that you are not alone; there are so many others as geeky as u are!!

When I started blogging, the entire blogging community was at its nascent stage. Witnessing the indiblogger event was a reality check into how the entire blogging community has evolved over the years. For starters, a blog is a tool for communication and the reach it has obtained over the years is simply astounding.

Without a proper platform to write about, my blog posts varied from global meltdown to sorcery. I just had a feeling if I go to this blogger meet, then I might be able to settle on a platform to write about.(Yes, I was able to settle on writing a tech blog for helping people understand their requirements to buy a suitable mobile). Okay I guess that’s enough of me yapping about my blog. So this is how it happened.

Indiblogger Meet @ chennai
The bloggers met at Hyaat regency, it’s a Star hotel and a big hall was booked for this event (yup!! Luxuriously sitting under the chandeliers). The blogger meet started off with the registration. By then everyone started tweeting with the hashtag #ambipurfreshnhappy, and then the tweets would automatically appear on the projector display. It was fun to see our tweets on the big screen. By then our hosts took the stage, all dressed in black tees and Jeans.

30 seconds to fame
Everyone was asked to introduce themselves and describe their blog. It was a good stage for new bloggers to meet the main stream bloggers. Like everybody else, I got my chance to speak. I didn’t know what to talk first, and then settled for talking about my blog. Wherslifetakinme.blogspot.com as the name suggests, I started this blog when I was doing my engineering. As everybody, I was totally clueless about my career. Simple enough was the reason to name my blog. More than hundred bloggers had introduced themselves (gave a rich insight into the diversity of the topics which people blog about), and then we proceeded to the next event.

Expecting lunch :P but surprise surprise
This was the time I started feeling hungry and was expecting lunch. But little did I realize a treat was awaiting us. So it all started with some huu haa huu haa noises made by a voice expert I guess. We all shouted in sequence, then it turned to Scooby dooby doo kind of noises, yes it was all for exercising your vocal cords they said. So we did. Then picking of the numbers game, getting rewarded with movie tickets, spot cash Rs500 (really!!) and one lucky winner to get the rock itself (Lol it was worth nothing). I won myself a couple movie ticket and going to the movie Fast & furious 6 at Inox cinemas. Then prizes were given for bizarre things like the loudest table, for not wearing collared shirts, torn jeans (seriously!! for torn jeans??)

Lunch time
I must say it was a sight for sour eyes. The food ranged from salad to briyani (both veg & non-veg), bread varieties, papads, desserts & ice creams (my favourites). Free food never felt so free. Thanks to ambipur & indiblogger for filling our stomachs with mouth watering foods & more of desserts and ice creams. This was one of the best sessions in the meet, as I could talk to many experienced bloggers and got lots of ideas for my new tech blog. Food for my stomach and the brain happened simultaneously. Also, made a few business connections in the process.

Being blind folded
The greatest gift to mankind is the ability to see the world. The thought of being blind folded momentarily didn’t seem like a bad idea. Then after being tested that I was completely blinded, I was taken to the back seat of car (filled with garbage, which I didn’t know). It was like a paradox, it was there but it wasn’t there. To know that it was there, I should be able to sense it. But I couldn’t sense even the faintest smell of the garbage or the shoe. After removing the blind fold, I saw all the garbage and walked out of the car immediately. Then I started thinking how I could not sense any smell of garbage. Is ambipur really that effective solution for turning smelly air to smiley air?

Questions Answered at last!!
This question kept ringing in my mind for some time. By then, the lunch time was over and everybody went back to their seats. The best tweet was chosen and the girl won herself a brand new Galaxy S4 (too bad she was an Iphone owner, but worry not; her lucky sister gets it from her). Then the marketing executive from Ambipur took the stage, he was explaining the chemistry behind all the smelly to smiley stuff.

(Skip this part if u don’t like chemistry or tech stuff)
Inside any car, there are lots of stuff which can create bad odour, these odours can be give us a very unpleasant driving experience especially on long drives. From shoes, gym clothes, pets, foods, etc create odours which linger inside the car despite using car fresheners. Ordinary car fresheners try to mask the smell with some pleasant scent, a temporary solution I would say . After that, the bad odour lingers on. But this isn’t the case of ambipur, which kind of neutralizes the odour by adsorbing using a chemical bond. The chemical bonds are pretty strong and very hard to break. It would be safe to assume that once ambipur neutralizes the odour, the car actually turns from being smelly to smiley. Owing to the kind of confidence the product inspires I m pretty damn sure that I will use it myself (I will need to buy my car first of course)

It was good to know how it really works. I didn't realize P&G owned this product. Then there was Q&A session with the ambipur executive, who was patiently answering everyone. One question sure to have tickled his senses was “Why hasn’t ambipur invented a product for bikers? As a biker I have to travel a lot in pollution. Are u planning any?” Well guys, there isn’t any product right now for bikers, but probably this feedback will be given to our R&D team.

Skit time
Then we all got ourselves a pack of ambipur. It comes in different flavors (ohh wow!!), I got myself a Lavender flavor. Then we were asked to shift our tables according to the flavours (neat way to make people move from their friends). Then a leader from each table was invited on stage. Then a skit was to be performed by each team. Our team was to perform a Malayalam art film (what is it by the way??), thank God we had a malayali in our group who could share some knowledge about it. Then rapidly ideas were being generated. But the final idea chosen was that of a Kerala style boat race (vallam kali) consisting of two teams. We exhibit the effectiveness in improving the performance of the team when using ambipur and without it. I must say, we were a close 2nd. But the winning team was better, hats off maties!!! Aargh!

Call for help
Well there should be a good cause for every blogger meet. In this meet, certain good initiatives were being explained and help was required for improving them. I really wanted to help the dark is beautiful initiative, which helps to fight a growing socio-economic issue in India. Being dark skinned isn’t a crime, unlike the way fair & lovely markets it product. Fair skin doesn’t make a person beautiful, what is on the inside which really counts (inner beauty).

Finally, the event was coming to a close. We got ourselves free T-shirts which had Indiblogger and Ambipur logos in red and blue. I liked my t-shirt thanks to indiblogger. Everybody left the place followed by a little photoshoot and lots of new friends & lasting memories.

Album link

That’s All Folks!!

The Angel that walks

From small I grew up hearing fairy tales and lived a life of fantasy. .. . in virtually every story, there would be a fairy god mother or an angel or someone ( I guess that's y they cal them fairy tales :P ) .. . okay lets come back, have u noticed one thing in particular ?? The fairies and angels are always flying :O hmmm so I asked myself, why are they flying in the air ?? Cant they walk like me ??
Then I was trying to solve this, then finally ended up convincing myself that “fairies and angels watch over us”. . . . so they are always up there flying ;)

Then I wondered, why cant I see my fairy anytime. . . .. I must say, I strained my neck so much that it started to pain looking up ( was checking whether she was actually up there :P ) this is something which I have observed in many. People always want the one which flies rather than the one which walks.
















People look up and strain their necks instead of seeing their loving mom, whom I wish to call. .. . “The angel that walks”. . . ..



(A tribute to my loving MOM....just love u sooo much....u'l never know coz i'll never show:D )

The Dream!!!

Today was an usually boring day, it was all wet on the outside due to sudden spell of rains and the fact that no one was at home made it even worse. So I was just wasting time watching movies in my laptop, I saw “Meet Dave”. I don’t know y I saw such a crappy movie. It was stupid, but sometimes for the sake of killing time we do all crappy stuff.

As I was wasting my time, it was nearly 4pm when mom told me to have my lunch and I m a really slow at eating my food. If someone were to ask me why I eat slow? I just tell them I got this tonsils in my throat that makes it hard to swallow :) he he. Most of them fall for that pathetic lie :) lol.

Mom then left for shopping, leaving me in charge of the house. I was getting tired of doing nothing today, so I thought I would take a nap for a while. So I went to bed at 5.20pm and dosed off in a couple of moments.

Usually I don’t get dreams in my sleep coz of the weird timings I go to sleep. But every once in a while, I do get some. Once when I was in the 9th grade, I had a dream where in I was writing exam with a girl sitting next to me, she was a north Indian girl with milk white skin and had black hair with a brown tint, and I was there in my school uniform. (sounds usual does it?) Actually I was in a boys school, and I was wondering how a girl was sitting next to me during exam. I couldn’t ask anyone too, because they would think I m stupid.

As time passed by I was in my 10th grade, one of the toughest times in life. Before I knew it, it was the day of the 1st exam. I was nervous, because I had this language (tamil) on that day. Even though I loved the language, I hated memorizing the poems.
I was seated at the corner of the hall. Then as soon as I got the papers, I started writing madly, fearing that I may not finish the paper on time. After 1hour, I noticed that someone was sitting next to me. Voila!! It was the north Indian girl:-O

Today I had a dream it wasn’t about some girl walking towards me and the whole crowd watching her;) No not at all, it was about a little girl, may be 8 years old. I dream't like I was playing with her, and I was chasing her all around the house.

Well the dream was little hazy, so I can’t be very clear. She was tiny in size compared to me. She was fair, and had really big eyes compared to her tiny round face. Actually she was a really cute looking girl, she was wearing a pink colour dress. Definitely not cotton, it felt like some kind of synthetic material. As I was chasing her(I don’t know why?), she was giggling all the while( I think she was enjoying it, as much as I did). When I did catch up with her, she was all smiles when I started tickling her.
But suddenly she gives me that “who are you mister?” kind of looks!!
Then I get down on my knees and give her a tight hug, saying its me your brother. She doesn’t react. Why doesn’t she recognize me? She was smiling when I chasing her, but now why doesn’t she recognize me?

Then suddenly I woke up. I didn’t care what time it was, but I wanted to see her again. I didn’t see her face clearly, so I wanted to go back to sleep. I tried to sleep again, but couldn’t. Then I was cursing everything in the room, from the fan to the tube light everything. Then I just got up and washed my face.

Usually, I forget my dreams before I wake up, but this dream was rather special coz I remembered it. I couldn’t get my mind of the my little sister’s face, it looked very familiar :-o surprised. So I thought harder, trying to remember who she was? And whether I met her before? In reality, I have never seen her before. She was just my mind’s master piece. I was only certain about her eyes, it was the eyes from a girl in my college. But the others where mere guesses, but still it gave me a faint picture of her. She’s an angel.

All I can say is that, this dream is a proof of that strong inner desire to have a younger sis. Even though I know its utopian. But one thing’s for sure, if I really had lil sis. I would have pampered her like anything. I would have even won an award for being the best brother in the country :) lol.

P.S: I only have an elder brother, now working at TATA MOTORS and no sisters.

My big day out!! PART II

(continued...)
While coming out of the shop, to my surprise it was raining:-O wow it always happens whenever i come to T-nagar.......surprising isn't it?? but its true.....

Everyone wanted to eat in a restaurant (P.S :that doesn't mean their mom's are bad cooks, but just for the completeness of the whole shopping experience).......During all the excitement in the shop, one of my cousin had to go to a friend's house to get her assignment, and he also promised to give me an intro with that girl.....he he rather interesting :D
According to my cousin, she was a cute girl......but i cant promise u anything about her looks, until i actually see her in person......but it was already getting late, it was around 9pm, so we dropped the plan of going to her house :(

So then uncle asked me do u want to have a pizza, the usual full meals or a slitzer(sorry if i had spelled it wrong). I havn't even heard of it, so my uncle said ok we'll have that, and that he knew a good restaurant in Nungambakkam......so we drove to the hotel, it was a short ride and everyone took the menus and all set to order......oh man it was an Italian restaurant, and this is my 1st time, lol......so i just kept the menu card down and left the other scholars to decide what i eat :(
We started off with tomato soup, to which boiled babycorn was added......i must say, it was damn good :)

Then it was pasta time, lol......we just ordered 2 pastas n everyone shared the lot........now for the main course, i was deeply searching the non-vegetarian items whereas all others except 1 of my cousins(the karizma guy) were vegetarians for today(its a saturday, so the other guys didn't eat non-vegetarian food), the waiter brought a steaming something(my chicken slitzer) which i m seeing for the 1st time in my life......it must have been brought rite from the oven, it was so hot that my tongue got roasted, he he :D
u missed it guyz, the chicken slitzer was a marvel.......especially the fried piece of chicken, it was really delicious......but to tell the truth i didn't like the other stuff in my rectangular plate......lol

The noodles was rather soft, there was large pieces of potatos(Really good at creating gastric problems), it had boiled carrots, peas, beans, etc. All boring stuff, didn't feel like eating. But still had a nice time at the table with my cousins, whom i m meeting after a really long while.....it would have been years since we all went out together......

Finally it was time 4 the grand finale, my cousin offered me the keys to his new Karizma.....It was my 1st time to ride a 235 cc bike, wow the bike was so smooth.......excellent handling, the bike had perfect balance which u would never find in a TVS STAR CITY :P

The road was slippery due to the evening rains, so had to drive slowly to avoid skidding......reached home at 11pm

there it goes, one whole day :)

It was an awesome 1st time experience with my cousins, besides the fighting and stuff.....it felt great to be with them after such a long while.....Nowadays people are more interested in earning money rather then spending some quality time with their kith and kin....so just reserve sometime for your loved ones :)

My big day out!! PART I

Today was interesting rather than my monotonous life at college, i was at home thinking about the losses in the share markets n stuff like that and counting the number of zeros for $8trillion..... and today I didn’t get a call from morning and it felt really odd, I felt so odd that i wanted to give a missed call to my mobile from the land line......just then my phone started ringing :D
It was my uncle who wanted me to come to his room in the 1st floor, whereas I live up in the 3rd floor.....

We were supposed to go for shopping cause he's getting married next month......as usual i forgot all about it......by 3pm we were all set to go :)

My uncle and the other cousins boarded my uncle's car, whereas I ended up as a pillion in my cousin's new Karizma :( anyway it was a racy drive to Spencer......where v went to pantaloons, to check out their latest collections, to our disgrace there was a power cut from 3 pm.
The place was all dark with minimum lighting, which wasn't good enough to check out the true essence of the fabric......so v decided to have a snack at sri mithai( my fav chat shop ).
There I ordered my usual favourite Dahi poori, wow its fun coming shopping with my cousins, lol.

I wanted to finish my order as soon as i got the plate, too greedy to share lol.....but my cousins where rather cautious and took scoops of my chat before I cud even taste it.
Now the fun started, as i was eating i saw a girl standing at a corner table, she was as tall as me......slim, pale skinned, with a white t-shirt n a black pant(even I wore the same combination), she had a friend with her. They both were in some type of conversation. It was rather odd that our eyes met every now n then......and one of my cousin started saying that she was staring at him, he he:D

And we waited outside the Sri Mithai for at least 10 more minutes because one of my cousin was caught up in traffic, who was coming from Perambur.......while waiting I was happily ogling at the girl, and my cousin claiming that she was looking at him, lol......n just then the power was back.

So we were back on our shopping spree, we checked out pantaloons but we didn't get a majority acceptance to their designs, because we all chose to wear the same design pattern of kurta for my uncle's marriage.....so after an unsuccessful search, we came out......on my way out, i saw a girl whom I've known for quite a while.......not that I know her personally, but rather heard so much about her, she's a girl from my college.......who was cute, with her twin-like sister, its their eyes that catches my attention.....but didn't dare to talk in front of my cousins.

As we were coming out, my uncle said we can find better designs at RMKV in T-nagar. This time I decided to go in the car......that's one wrong decision I made, the car was so cramped with my little cousins.....these guys have become really fat and it was hot inside the car besides having a so-called air-conditioner.......

We reached our destination, but a new problem arose!! we didn't have a place to park, now being a festive season for the shops filled with diwali shoppers......so we where circling Panagal park for about 15 minutes till we found a parking slot near the opening of a small street......

We then went into the shop, it was crowded but we didn't mind......we started off searching for good designs, it was human tendency that each one wanted his own selection to be worn by the others too..... so we fought for a while, in the end my uncle himself selected a kurta which was orange-golden-yellow mixed cocktail..... I was the 1st one to oppose it, then he asked me to try it on......I must say I looked pretty good;) , so from then onwards I started campaigning for the same..... This is a typical situation that happens in offices where in you have to convince all of your colleagues to win a majority......here I faced a similar situation with my cousins.

Despite my efforts, everyone was convinced except 3 of my youngest cousins, who were just too dumb and stubborn to listen to what we told them. We didn't want the little guys to feel left out, so we went to another shop, checked out the designs......but they weren't better than what we saw earlier in RMKV, so we went back n thought of ordering the same design for everyone.......but just then one of my elder cousins(the one who happened to claimed that the girl was staring at him back in Sri Mithai) started to oppose the design, this amused the little guys.....who where just too happy that we have to start all over again......by then everyone got exhausted, all they wanted to do was to sit n relax, so we just convinced my elder cousin......and then my uncle ordered 15 sets of the same in different sizes......
(to be continued...)

Global Meltdown

Well the day started like all saturdays.....everything was habitual, i woke up at 10am n my mom scolding for waking up so late.....ate my breakfast slowly, nibbling n playing with my food ( which i m not allowed to do in front of my mom ;) lol)

After enjoying my delicious meal, i took the newspaper.....wow it was the global economic meltdown that caught my eye......man these share markets are falling like deck of cards . The newspaper has quoted the losses in european, US, canada, australia , India, etc. But i was searching for china, there wasnt even a single report on china in the newspaper.....

It kind of made me think. Y isnt china, an asian country and also a developing country like India didnt plummet??? So i switched over to check the world markets(share market)
Most of the world markets where hard hit in the past 2 weeks, the badly hit where not the US markets, which where actually the cause for this global meltdown.......actually a stream of selling forced exchanges in Austria, Russia and Indonesia to suspend trading, and those which remained open were hammered. The Australians called it the "black friday" because of the heavy drop in the stock prices. At the start of friday's session, losses for the year totalled a staggering $8.3 trillion as measured by DOW Jones Wilshire 5000 composite index which tracks almost all the companies traded in the US. Whereas the Indian markets, the bombay stock exchange(BSE sensex) dropped by 800 basis points to 10527.85 and the national stock exchange(NSE) dropped by 230 basis points to 3279.95.

If followed closely you would notice that the BSE (30-share sensitive index) has lost about 50% from its all time high of 21,206.77 recorded on jan 10th 2008 by closing at 10527.85.

I was sure that definitely the chinese market would have plunged, ya it did happen. The shangai market dropped by 9%.

U might think what is our government doing?? Well the answer is ur seeing our finance minister P.Chidambaram nowadays on a daily basis addressing the investors. The government is trying really hard to gain the trust of the investors, just dont panic when the other markets fall is what the government is saying. Prime minister Manmohan singh claimed that our markets are not very susceptible to the fall in global markets, but he was proved wrong. Now the final option being to reduce the Cash Reserve Ratio(CRR), which pumps more cash into the monetary system there by increasing the liquidity of the market. So the government decreased the CRR by 50 basis points which effected on last monday. But still the markets failed miserably, so the CRR was further reduced by another 100 points which comes into effect from saturday(today).

All these selling pressure forced the weakening of the rupee which plummeted to its all time low of Rs.49.30 against the $dollar. The rupee has dropped from Rs.46.53 on Oct 1st to Rs.49.30 on Oct 10th.

The one thing which surprises me the most is that, (US markets) the DOW fell by 2.9%, the Std & Poor's 500 index was off by 2.87%, while the NASDAQ composite index was down by 1.16%

All these weakening markets have slow down the economic growth of developing countries like India, china, and other asian n african countries. The manufacturing sector is badly hit in India, as a result other sectors have also not faired well.

Now everyone is saying all these damage was caused due to an improper global financial structure, but no one is saying how to repair it!!!

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