Marise came over this morning to spend the last few hours before I left for Bangalore. We took a rick to the airport. One stark difference about Mumbai and Bangalore airport is the security checks. Bangalore airport is a lot stricter (They didn’t allow me to carry my bottle of water past the security point!). For a change, am actually taking a good lot back to Bangalore and so had to improvise by carrying a bigger suitcase which I checked in.

At the check-in counter I was told that the flight will be delayed by yet another 20 minutes. This was in addition to the rescheduled 35 minutes. I usually reach the airport well in time, and so this meant a wait of over two hours

The two hours wait just got extended further when the flight actually took off post 9.20pm. The original booking was for 7.35pm. Go Air flight to Bangalore has been rescheduled to 8.10pm, so even then it meant a delay of well over an hour!

Had already rescheduled the Airlift cab that I had booked for 10pm to 11pm.

The last time I flew to Bangalore I noticed the well lit, extremely beautiful Mumbai skyline. I was a bit disappointed this time since I got a perfect view of the wing of the airplane mainly!

Grabbed dinner on the plane, since the next time I eat is for breakfast tomorrow.

Just had to pick up the one bag that I had checked in and rushed to get the cab. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make it on time and had to take the 12am cab which got me home by 1.30am

I resume work in another few hours. A new day in the new year! Will just take the bike in to work tomorrow. Am hoping it is a short day!

Once again, I wish you a happy and prosperous new year. Keep on reading and if you haven’t already, do subscribe.

Visit: Techtites - Your Daily dose of all things tech!

“You’ve done very well so far,” said Amitabh, “but for Rs. 1 crore, you’ve only got one lifeline left – Phone a Friend. Everything’s riding on this question… will you go for it ?”

“Sure,” said Juze. “Aum ek last chance, marta!”

“OK ….. The QUESTION is ….. Which of the following birds does NOT build its own nest ? a) Robin,(b) Sparrow,(c) Cuckoo, or(d) Crow”?

“Heje maayinchem caazar … I not knowing dat,” said Juze, “so better use my last life line, and phone to my friend, Pedru Pochok (actual name: Pedro Pacheco) from Mumbai. He’s East Indian, but a Bandra boy, & born & brought up in Mumbai, so he’s too smart-a real shaana buggar.”

Juze called up his friend in Mumbai, told him the circumstances and repeated the question to him.

“Arree Baba Anton !” cried Pedru, “Sarko Endo Mure Tu, Simple it is .. it’s a cuckoo.”

“Ah-vois, sure mure Pedru ?” asked Juze.

“Arre Baba, hundred percent sure re ! Pakka !”

Juze hung up the phone and told Amitabh Bachan, “I tell Cookoo.”

“Is that your final answer ?” asked Amitabh.

“Sarkem sure, Sir !”

There was a long, long pause, then Amitabh Bachan screamed, “Cuckoo is the correct answer ! Juze, you’ve won Rs..1 Crore ! !”

The next night, Juze threw a big party for all the people from Moira, at the Moira Club. Pedru was specially flown in from Mumbai, as the Chief Guest.

Time for speeches …

Juze takes the mike and asks Pedru, “Saang mure, Pedru ? Foo told you ? How you know cuckoo isn’t building its own nest ?

Says Pedru, “You’re sarko bondo re, Juze. Everybody knows a cuckoo lives in a clock! ”

Clipart from Clipartheaven.com

Met Sneha on Wednesday for dinner. Dinner was at the Happy Singh, which is a part of Pop Tates. Decent enough joint, but the long island iced tea was ice tea!

I met up with Idea Smithy for tea on Thursday. We met at Crepe Station in Lokhandwala which has recently opened. IMO, while the place is decent and the food too, it is over priced. So, you need to pick and choose what you would like to eat. The conversation resolved around blogging, writing, education and a bit of food.

I met up with Marise after this and we headed over to Bandra to Sheesha. We ended up sitting at the same place as we had during our last visit. The food is definitely good and so are the mocktails, however they really need to put a few fans and lights in that place!

Went over to Marise’s place on Saturday afternoon. Before that we stopped at the Airtel “relationship center” in Bandra. The relationship center is a real joke because for any support you need to call up the customer. For all users of Airtel, make sure you check your bills carefully. I was billed Rs. 100 for downloading two games which I never did and more, don’t even know to download from where. This isn’t the first time I have seen Airtel incorrectly bill users. Had to yell at the customer care dude who promised that it would be rectified in 24 hours. I am totally clueless as to which planet this 24 hours belongs to. I have decided to discontinue this account. I’m not sure which is worse, Airtel or Reliance! At least Reliance didn’t try to bill me incorrectly!

We also went over to the Vodafone center, which in my opinion is a much better service. I guess that is what differentiates a multinational company than a company run by a bunch of greedy Indians. I guess this is one of the things that pisses me off about my country. If this was the US or UK, you could take the company to court and win! Out here, you don’t have the years of your life to do that.

Marise and me, along with her family and Rixon, caught the late night show of Ghosts of Girlfriends Past at PVR in Phoenix Mills. I will write a review of the movie sometime later.

I stayed over at her place and we returned home the next day. I spent the last few hours at home getting an haircut and a shave. Set off for the airport to catch the Go Air flight to Bangalore.

The flight was perfectly on time, unlike on my journey to Mumbai. Mumbai looks really beautiful from the air and even better at night. The new Bandra-Worli sealink has beautified the landscape and it was my first view of the link.

If you haven’t seen Mumbai from the air, then check out some beautiful pictures of the same. But at night, it is even more beautiful. I could see the entire shape of South Mumbai. The journey was comfortable except for the occasional bit of turbulence that we faced.

The Airlift that I had booked was already at the airport. I had to wait a while for the remaining passengers and we headed back. Reached home in about an hour. Did a bit of blogging and then went off to sleep.

And, Monday, work began as usual!

However, Monday was a bit eventful. Vincent managed to get the road tax for my bike done on Saturday and so we set out on our bikes to the Bajaj Service Center which is in HSR Layout. They did a good job on the bike and it is running beautifully! We both headed home after work at about 12am and I froze in the cold. Didn’t have my jacket, but I also realized that I need to pick up a thicker jacket.

Yesterday, I was the only person in my cab so I reached home rather quickly

Was surprised to see a whole new menu on offer. There have been several good additions to the menu, but there have been equally bad ones. Going to check if the menu has been updated in Bangalore as well.

I headed off home soon after dinner. Marise came over on Friday as well as Saturday. Friday and Saturday both turned out to be extremely rainy days. However, the newspapers claim that it rained everywhere except the lakes!

Marise and me went over to her house on Saturday evening, so that I could meet the family. Attended mass as well, after quite a while, at the Sacred Hearth Church in Worli, had a quick dinner and set off in the rain back to Andheri.

I wasn’t able to find a single cab but was lucky enough to find a 39 that brought me right up to Nelco, where I caught a 333 back home.

Began packing for returning to Bangalore this morning. It doesn’t take much time when you have minimal dumping to do. Got a rickshaw to the airport. Asked for the row number 6 seat in the airplane, since it was the same row with ample leg space on my journey to Mumbai. Wasn’t disappointed and one of the cabin crew turned out to be the same one on my flight to Mumbai! Decided to grab some grub in the plane itself, since it is cheaper to eat there than at the airport.

The journey was rather peaceful, with minor turbulence. I caught one of the A/C buses from the airport that dropped me off at Koramangala 1st block, where I caught a rick home. Have finally settled in. It’s work day from tomorrow, which means reduced updates out here!

This blog post will take you three weeks back. I’ve had three weeks which have been so filled with work (yes, that is a usual statement I make) that my initial plan of updating the blog took a back seat.

Anyway, three weeks back, I met up with Maria, who, along with her sister, has been complaining that I’ve spent more than two months in Bangalore and hadn’t even seen them! The main reason has been my prolonged effort to settle into the city that I haven’t yet called home and the lack of a full weekend out here yet. I haven’t seen much of Bangalore yet and I don’t know when I will be able to. The few places that I have visited have been Church Street and Brigade Road area on two separate occasions.

Maria picked me up from near my house in Koramangala on that Sunday morning and we headed over to “The Only Place” in Brigade Road. “The Only Place” is famous for its steak and I decided to try one of those. Well, it was also a while since I had some good meat. We then walked down Church Street to the Levi’s store at Brigade Road. My current pair of blue jeans had started to fray and rather than make a fashion statement, I decided to pick up a new pair.

From what I have seen, shopping in Bangalore seems to be more expensive than Mumbai. I’m going to verify this on my trip back to Mumbai as I hunt for some clothes. Anyway, I found a decent pair of blue boot-cut jeans for a little more than 2K and picked them up. It turned out to be a smart thing to do because my jeans finally frayed and well, they are now a pair of torn jeans that many people pay so much extra for!

After this, we walked over to one of the Cafe Coffee Day’s in Brigade Road, where they insisted that we have to take addons on Saturday and Sunday. I have definitely not seen this at any other CCD and we told him that we refused to do that. Why should I take chocolate sauce in my coffee, when I don’t want it?

We didn’t spend much time there, because we decided to drop into Garuda mall for a while, which is supposed to be one of the biggest malls in Bangalore. Well, I still prefer InOrbit in Mumbai, which is not only bigger, but definitely better planned than any of the malls here in Bangalore.

Anyway, I decided to go window shopping for suits. Saw some excellent ones which were 7K and above. Decided to check the same out in Mumbai over this week. I need a good business suit for work. The one we got in college was good for college and the one I got at home is too party types.

We hung out at Garuda mall a while and after that tried to find out the mass timings at the nearest church out there. We found out that we had to wait for at least an hour for mass and so decided to rush back to the one near Forum. It turned out to be a mixed language double-feast mass where we found ourselves standing far far away in the dust and the dirt and the crowd. We just gave up hope and headed back home.

Stay tuned for yet another post with the events of the last two weeks. Until remember you cankeep track of updates of my blogs and me of course by following @ajaydsouza on Twitter.

Two days prior to that Sneha got placed. It was also the same day that Namrata manage to break a leg (and I?m not talking show business) while shopping. She sure got fussed over for two weeks.

My first written paper was for World Class Management on 26th of March and the paper turned out to be a real bouncer for the entire batch. We still await results, which are due in June / July.

On 26th we all set out for Sneha?s treat at Sigri in Dhole Patil Road, Pune. I had been to Sigri last year for one of the many admissions treats and liked the place. This time we went with the Barbeque buffet and it was simply fabulous. I stuffed myself up with fish, prawns and chicken and washed it all down with three triple scoops of strawberry ice cream.

And, the next day, I went out with the Admissions Team, viz. Anoop, Maria, Radhika and Ravi. Rashmi also joined for dinner. We went over to Rajwada, which I had visited once. The service at that place is painfully slow, but the food is decently edible.

We intended to stop off for ice cream and stuff but rushed to catch the last bus back to college.

The remaining days at SCMHRD were two more papers and a viva, lots of clearance forms and final packing as I headed back home to Mumbai.

The last week in Mumbai was actually just a few days as I got my belongings ready for transportation to Bangalore. Marise was a real blessing as she helped me a great deal with all this. During the time we manage to spare some time to visit Tunga?s Something Fishy, where we drew up our highest bill ever over prawns and fish and Zodiac, a place I haven?t been to since a very long time.

The transporters picked up all my stuff on Saturday and I dropped my bike over on Sunday before I flew down to Bangalore. The driver who received me at the airport was a very chatty guy and pointed out quite a few places as we passed them during the 90 minute drive to the guesthouse.

Today was the first day at work and was an excellent day. I like the place here. This week, I plan on searching for a good 1BHK in Bangalore.

BTW, in all likelihood, this may possibly be my second last post to be filed under College. The last possibly be the results, if I have the time!

This is in fact the first time I?ve ventured out of the safety of Mumbai into the unknown. Two years back when I set out to do my MBA in SCMHRD, Pune, I knew that I had everything planned and fixed with no need to worry about food, clothing or shelter. This time, it?s a question of shelter. So, if any of you reading this in Bangalore, know of a good 1BHK in Koramangala area at reasonable rates, please do drop me an email.

My office is located in Bellandur, so any suggestions regarding where to stay are also welcome.

Another purpose of making this post is regarding support for my WordPress plugins and themes. I?ll be tied down at least for the next two weeks and I?m pretty sure for two weeks after that as I hunt for a place to stay, get accustomed to the new city and job and get all the basic connectivity, which includes a decent internet connection. I do have my Airtel GPRS connection and a Reliance data card, but I hope I get a good signal to ensure I don?t get too frustrated to stay online.

Hence, for the next month, I won?t be able to fully and completely provide the support at the speed I have that I have for so long. Please do post your support requests in the forum. I?ll try to check in once a day or at least once every two days and respond to queries. Sending me an email won?t help. Read why.

So until then, do wish me luck. I?ll try to stay active on Twitter as well as Facebook (at least in the nights).

My parents were invited over to Marise’s house for lunch. I came down from Pune and went over to her place directly, while my parents came from my home.

The food was well prepared and delicious as usual. Everyone spent a good number of hours chatting about all topics under the sun.

We finally left the place post 6pm and took the 39 home. Got home and got down to work immediately. This is what would dominate the rest of the week.

I spent a good portion of last week working on my plugins. I released updated to Contextual Related Posts and Top 10. I also released a new WordPress Plugin called Add to Footer.

Lastly, I’ve taken over development of the highly popular WP Ajax Edit Comments from Ronald.

The last week wasn’t all coding. I spent a good amount of time with Marise. We managed to catch Pink Panther 2 and also made two visits to Dynasty, our favorite eating joint. We also dropped in to my Grandmom’s place on Tuesday. Our original plan was to order from Subway. However, the outlet in Bandra wasn’t running the offer that is being run at the outlet here in Andheri.

So, we dropped the plan of Subway and instead ordered chicken tikka and chicken sheekh kebabs from the local joint opposite National College.

Spent all of yesterday at home on account of Holi and coding a brand new version of Top 10. You should see the release post in a few hours. Remember to deactivate the plugin before upgrading.

Also worked on my report for Research and Reporting. Have a submission in a few days. We’ve just be lazy at finishing this. Who said, we don’t believe in JIT ?

Dad and me plan to visit an Amway meet in the evening. I came to know yesterday that I have 100 persons in my network. Can’t take any credit for it. I do plan on buying more of Amway’s products, simply because they are excellent. I’ll probably make a post about this in the future.

Here’s a softcopy of the article as it appeared in the newspaper.

Mumbai Mirror is a newspaper focused for Mumbai that comes along with The Times of India.

Though, I must say that I didn’t see much traffic coming out here because of the article, I am pleased that my review was considered newspaper worthy

Thank you Mumbai Mirror! And, thanks to @rahuljrark of Cool Tricks N Tips for pointing this out to me.

Very few movies have created a craze among viewers worldwide and more importantly in India. The movie proves that even though it is directed by the foreign director, viz. Danny Boyle, it had the support and the hopes of a billion people of this country hoping that India’s shot at the Oscars is successful!

The story of Jamal Malik, an 18 year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, who is about to experience the biggest day of his life. With the whole nation watching, he is just one question away from winning a staggering 20 million rupees on India’s “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?”

But when the show breaks for the night, police arrest him on suspicion of cheating; how could a street kid know so much? Desperate to prove his innocence, Jamal tells the story of his life in the slum where he and his brother grew up, of their adventures together on the road, of vicious encounters with local gangs, and of Latika, the girl he loved and lost.

Each chapter of his story reveals the key to the answer to one of the game show’s questions. Each chapter of Jamal’s increasingly layered story reveals where he learned the answers to the show’s seemingly impossible quizzes.

But one question remains a mystery: what is this young man with no apparent desire for riches really doing on the game show? When the new day dawns and Jamal returns to answer the final question, the Inspector and sixty million viewers are about to find out. At the heart of its storytelling lies the question of how anyone comes to know the things they know about life and love.

Written by Fox Searchlight Pictures

In one word the movie is Excellent. I won’t say I can relate to the movie, because, I can’t. However, the filming of this took place around 10Km from my place and considering the Mumbai has a good portion of it’s surface covered by slums, you can actually see a lot of commonalities between the reel life and real life.

While, Dev Patel does take up a good portion of the movie, without doubt the best actors are the tiny kids who play the Jamal and Latika in their early days. One scene that everyone talks about is the young Jamal rushing for Amitabh’s autograph.

The movie depicts a scary life of a young boy in the slum. It’s well known and rather unpublished about the begging mafia in Mumbai, but you get a first hand experience of this in the movie.

The music is fantastic. A.R. Rahman has once again done a fantastic job and he has been well rewarded by the two Oscars.

If you haven’t yet watched it, got to the theatre, grab some pop corn and watch it!

And, to close, here is a question for you. As @cheth asks:

Slumdog Millionaire won the Oscar for best film, How did he do it?

a) He cheated, b) He’s lucky, c) He’s a Genius, d) It Is Written!