Okay, now don’t think dirty !!

Read the following six statements and the amazing conclusion they lead to:

The sport of choice for the urban poor is basketball.

The sport of choice for maintenance level employees is bowling.

The sport of choice for front line workers is football.

The sport of choice for supervisors is baseball.

The sport of choice for middle management is tennis.

The sport of choice for corporate officers and professionals is golf.

Click here to continue reading ‘Connection between your Job and your Balls’

You have been told and informed about this a zillion times. But here again today, I do the same.

Quit Smoking! It will kill you. Do it for yourself, if not then for others around you.

If it still doesn’t make you change your tobacco tinted attitude, then have a look at this.

According to WHO estimation nearly 2200 people every day and nine lakh people every year die in India due to tobacco-related diseases. The study has stated that by 2030 nearly 10 million deaths may occur in the world over due to consumption of tobacco. [Link]

May 31st is observed as ‘World No Tobacco Day’. So how about quitting today, go on do it. Spread & Practice the Cause and do yourself a huge favor.

Badminton - Not so popular anymore

Finally I got a chance to give something back to a sport that played a crucial part in my growing up days. This week as a guest blogger on Sportolysis, I was invited to put in my views and thoughts on my favourite sport, ‘Badminton’ and its sad decline in India.

I have been labeled as a “Tom-boyish” girl, right from my childhood days. Barely had any interest in sitting at home playing with Barbie look-alikes or fake kitchen sets. I was always out there with the boys and (some) girls, getting myself dirty while playing games such as, ‘Hide-n-Seek’, ‘Chor-Police’ and the likes.

I guess the likening for aggressive out-door activities was built in me right from the start and was further encouraged by my family. Both of my older siblings actively participated in sporting activities in school and inter-school levels. My dad in the early 1980s started a sportswear manufacturing unit in Mumbai and went on to establish a well-renowned brand in India, today.

During my younger days, I skipped from one sport to another mainly cause of my constant need of change or maybe I was searching of my ‘The’ sport. I started with Athletics, moved on to swimming and then finally landed on Badminton. And it has remained my favorite sport till this very date.

During the late 80s and early 90s, one can say Badminton as a sport was at its peak. At that time I used to play with my friends and was also enrolled in coaching practice at Juhu Gymkhana. With only 3 badminton courts and around 50 odd kids cribbing to get themselves on them, it used to really difficult for the officials in-charge, to handle the situation at times.

Continue reading, ‘Badminton - A Dying Sport in India’

You can say my adventurous and experimental nature is what lead me to my next interviewee, Sameer Patange. I met Sameer thru a common friend, while I was doing some R&D work on Tattoo Shopping, couple of months back. And we have been good friends ever since.

Tattoos are a very old form of body art and have been practiced from a very long time in India. However previously it was never looked at with a positive outlook and was practiced only by a limited number of people. I remember watching old Hindi flicks, where young kids would get similar tattoos engraved on their arms during the Kumbh Mela. And later on these very tattoos would be responsible for their coming together after a tragic separation.

Plus who can forget one of Amitabh Bachchan’s all time dhamaka dialogue from the movie Deewar, where he flashes his tattooed hand and yells, “Jao pahle us admi ka sign lekar aao, jisne mere haath pe yeh likha - Mera baap chor hai”.

But those days are gone. Today thanks to positive exposure given by the media and more open attitude adopted by the society, Tattooing is been viewed as a just another well-respected art form.

So on Saturday I met up with Sameer again at his tattoo studio in Bandra (which is in collaboration with famous hair-stylist Hakim’s Aalim), with the intention of getting some first-hand information about his journey as a tattoo artist, things to consider while tattoo shopping and the workings of Body Art industry in India.

Here we go….

Click here to continue reading ‘Master of Body Art’

I am sure many of you out there have heard numerous real life accounts of customers getting duped by Mobile Phone carriers. The bills are tricky and filled with so many technical jargons that it’s really difficult for the lay-man to understand what there are actually being charged for.

Now it seems the land-line service providers are also cashing in on the same trend.

Check these two stories out.

Mid-Day Reports :

Dhiren Shah (46), received a bill of Rs 1,76,661 from MTNL - 600 times more than his regular Rs 300 bill! Shah, who owns a pharmacy, fell ill after he saw the bill and his blood pressure shot up.

Shah said MTNL was not prepared to listen to his story. “They told me, ‘first pay the bill, then we will give you a hearing’,” said Shah. The bill is for the period 1984 to 2006, and includes MTNL’s Internet connection charges. But Shah said he had no pending bill with MTNL.

He said, “MTNL should realize that it offered Internet connectivity only three years ago, not 19 years back, which is what the bill states!” The bill is divided into Rs 1,57,494.70 and a service tax of Rs 18,885.64. Added Shah, “I fail to understand how they have computed the service tax.

Mumbai Mirror Reports :

A radio jockey (RJ) refused to pay up when slapped with a Rs 13,000 bill by a hotel in Mumbai for some STD calls that totalled about 50 minutes. The hotel refused to explain the bill or let her leave till she settled the bill. The stand-off ended only when Mehak Ankar went to the police to lodge a complaint.

“Mehak’s flight to Delhi was scheduled to leave at 7.30 pm. But even at 5 pm, she was frantically trying to settle this issue. The hotel authorities showed no consideration at all. Instead, they were only making it difficult for us,” said Mohan (Mehak’s friend), who works with ICICI bank. “Finally, we decided to go to the police station and file a complaint. Mehak went alone to the police station while Snigdha and I waited at the hotel.”

“When I was in the police station, the concerned officer received a call from Ramee Guestline. The officer politely told them to come in person and have a word with him.”

After the police intervened, the hotel offered to settle the bill as per the rate (Rs 3.50) laid down by Telephone Regulatory Authority of India. Ankar finally paid Rs 1,000 (including taxes).

So the lesson to be learnt here is, Always check your phone bill and never trust blindly the figures indicated.

A tourist walks into a curio shop in San Francisco. Looking around at the exotica, he notices a very lifelike life-sized bronze statue of a rat. It has no price tag, but is so striking he decides he must have it.

He takes it to the owner: “How much for the bronze rat?” “$12 for the rat, $100 for the story,” says the owner.

The tourist gives the man$12. “I’ll just take the rat, you can keep the story.”

As he walks down the street carrying his bronze rat, he notices that a few real rats have crawled out of the alleys and sewers and begun following him down the street. This is disconcerting, and he begins walking faster. But with in a couple of blocks, the herd of rats behind him has grown to hundreds, and they begin squealing.

He begins to trot toward the Bay, looking around to see that the rats now number in the MILLIONS, and are squealing and coming toward him faster and faster.

Concerned, even scared, he runs to the edge of the Bay, and throws the bronze rat as far out into the water as he can. Amazingly, the millions of rats all jump into the Bay after it, and are all drowned.

The man walks back to the curio shop. “Ah-ha!” says the owner, “you have come back for the story?”

Click here to continue reading ‘Bronze Rat’