My Window Seat

I was shocked to hear the news today evening, about the boat that capsized at Thekkady due to weight imbalance created when the tourists on board moved to the same side to view elephants on the lakeside! What is so strange in this news it that, exactly a week ago I was there at the same lake with my family enjoying my vacation. Not only that, I have captured this same boat named "Jalakanyaka" owned by KTDC. I took multiple snaps of this new boat which followed our boat during the 2 hour long journey around the lake.  You can see the elephant behind the boat in the picture I took... Some strange coincidence???

Took off to Kerala for 5 days (21st Sep to 25th Sep). I have been planning for a Kerala trip for quite sometime and finally got a chance to do it! Kids were at home for pooja holidays and I got my leave approved for a week. What else? We travelled to Kerala - Munnar, Thekkady and Alleppey. I didn't want to drive from Bangalore and hence decided to take the air route to Cochin and then a package tour option through CocoKerala! All went well and the rain gods didn't interrupt us too much. Day 1: Bangalore to Cochin by Go Air, no frills airline. From Cochin to Munnar by road (Tavera, SUV). Day 2: At Munnar. Took a whole body massage, very refreshing! Then to Mattupetty, Kundala dam. Day 3: From Munnar to Thekkady. Elephant ride and Spice garden visit Day 4: Early morning boating at Thekkady. Spotted some wildlife up-close. Elephants, fox, deer, wild-pigs etc. By road to Alleppey and checked in to House-boat at Punnamada, Alleppey. Ride along the paddy fields - breathtaking! Stayed...

You can get "LADISH FINGER" only at Spencers, Jayanagar, Bangalore. :)

It's long time since I went to a movie hall to watch a movie. The comfort and convenient cable TV, CD and DVD movies have changed the habit of waiting in a queue for a movie ticket, first-shows & late-night shows a long time ago. But the release of a new tamil movie "Kanthasamy" and the reviews made me decide on "going-back to cinema hall" for the weekend. I clicked through the BookMyShow website and could book a ticket and choose my seats too, easily! I chose the A-row for my kids to watch it from the middle seats, without hindernace. Alas, I reach URVASHI THEATER near Lal-bagh today only to find that the seat number A-32 is near a pillar and hence will not bend backwards, like the other seats will. I was disappointed and had to settle with the uncomfortable straight-seat posture! To add to that, the airconditioning was pathetic at this cinema hall that I eneded up with head-ache, in spite of an interesting movie. These guys charge a good amount of money f...

ELEVATION PLANS...

If selecting a flooring material from various options is an experience by itself, slecting your favourite Granite texture might be another adventure! God's creation, this natural material not only has different colors and designs, but bring in loads of names from the place of their excavation! Rawsilk pink, Ivory, Colombo Juparna, Madura Gold, Ivory Fantacy, Indian Juparna, Amber White, Black Galaxy etc. etc. We finally selected "T.Gold" (Picture on Top) and had it delivered on Friday! For inlay we picked up "Lakha Red" too. Eagerly awaiting to see them laid in the new house!

Drive your car in to any street, wait for green signal and enjoy music, the only option to burst stress :) Leave your wife inside a nice cloth Shop and wait for her to select her choice :) Guarenteed time pass! Take a long walk in Cubbon or Lalbagh! Free Oxygen and good personal time with family members. Walk along streets, watching some of these crazy signs. (This I sent to Bangalore Mirror, and they published it last week ). Taste some mouth-watering "Pani-puris" along any street in Jayanagar, Commercial street etc.

I am amidst too many activities at this moment! The construction tasks are hectic - selecting flooring options among Granite, Vitrified tile and Marble, electrical options, bathroom fittings, elevation details, cladding of walls etc. FLOOR OPTIONS: This is something that takes a lot of time and energy to visualize and decide. Marble for Bangalore is a "No" from many due to its cool nature and porous nature. Granite and vitrified tile provide a wide variety of options to choose from. Vitrified tiles pricing starts from Rs. 60-70 per square feet to 120+. Granite is "natural stone" and gifts amazing nature-made designs and colour shades! Started "Googling" out details and found that India is one of the key granite exporting country. Tamilnadu and Karnataka granites are very popular. Got in touch with granite dealers (Bannerghatta road has many) and also some links through friends. Based on research zeroed down on - Rawsilk Pink, Ivory Fantasy, Lavendar Blue...

2009 is year of enhanced activity for me :). First some travel, acquisition tasks, release planning etc. In February I started the gym habit (FitnessOne), and surprisingly continuing it successfully for more than 5 months! IIMC-Senior Management Program occupies my week-ends completely! During exams, the entire week would be filled with reading activity. Construction of my duplex house also gathered momentum around the same time. (I have been blogging the stages in detail, whenever I had time). On the personal front, we celeberated the 10-th wedding anniversary on 1-st July! Wow... that's amazing journey so far this year! I also visited a dentist, did complete executive health check etc amidst all these! I am sure that the rest of the year too will keep me active for good! I would have completed the IIM course, did grihaprevesham, released another version of CRM, started something new for 2010 :). May be I should join keyboard classes in Q4. I am enjoying this year of "increas...

I have been very particular about being treated like a "KING" when I am a customer. It's quite natural as I treat my customers and respect them for their business, always! But I am not fortunate enough to get a good customer experience, most of the times! Just today, I got the bad taste from 2 of my interactions. One, when I went to A2B food joint with my management program classmates and Two, when I tried reaching Apollo Hospitals for fixing my health check-up appointment. At A2B (Adyar Ananda Bhavan) we ordered 17 plates of Mini Tiffin, and after first 6 plates noticed that Sambar Vadas weren't there and instead they were placing Pongal twice to compensate for it. I got wild and had to yell at the service guys at the counter for not informing me this! Finally we had to settle for additional Masala Dosas instead of Vadas! Inventory-Dmand mismatch :) I have been trying to get an appointment over a weekend for executive health check @ Apollo Clinic. Last week I left my...

The house looks awesome with the Blue-Sky above! It will take another 2-3 months to complete the pending tasks like plastering, plumbing, flooring, teak doors etc. Just started hunting for a good granite, tiles and cladding materials etc.

Wow! I and Rathi are married for 10 years now! The fruits of our marriage - 2 kids gave us a great start today with a deep kiss and a nice greeting card, signed and worded by them nicely! :) Took the day-off from office and spent the most part of it with the family. Enjoyed the "payasam" and "vadai" and a heavy lunch. Though not in office, Blackberry kept updating with minute by minute happening. I will be writing about the 20th anniversary in the same space with more enthusiasm and accomplishments!

Hey, Progress being made well. The electrical conduit laying work is in progress. The brick walls bear cuts and lines all-over :) And the grills for all doors and windows were fixed over last week. As per the review with the Architect and Engineer today, the plastering work will get completed in a month's time. Have to select the tiles, granite, marble etc in next few weeks.

Today was auspicious day and we fixed the main door frame and did pooja. It coincided with my kids' school re-opening day and we had to rush them very early in the morning to complete the pooja at 7:30 am!!! We performed the pooja as per Hindu customs, in the presence of almighty Ganesh!!! We placed Panchalogas and Navratnas under the frame. We also got a Vastu Bhagawan printed on a small sheet of silver.

The structure is almost complete with roofing done for all floors! Now the walls, flooring, wiring, plumbing all will start! Hoping to get it done in another 4 months! Let's see what my Engineer and team is thinking :)

Visited construction site with kids. They were very happy to see their rooms getting shape... particularly it is as big as my room :)  One more level of roofing the building structure would be almost complete in few weeks. 

It took so many weeks before getting back to this topic... Hmm! I have some good and bad resaons behind it. First and foremost... My learning - Never approach Private banks for home loans. PERIOD. Always go to your near and dear public sector banks like SBI, Canara or Corporation banks. It's not a suggestion that  I am giving. I beg you not to travel the bitter paths that I traveled already. It all started with my application with HDFC bank, Bangalore. I applied for this loan in November 2008 and was promised a 10-day flay processing time. They quickly took away 11k from me for processing (?!*) the loan. Then they asked me to submit documents after documents after documents after documents after documents after documents after documents after documents.... Never ended. The XEROX shop guy near my house would have built his dream house with the copies that I ordered from him :)  Whatever processes they have, I am sure these banks give loans to crooks and cheaters who will default. Th...

Just came back from "Loyalty Summit 2009", Mumbai. This was a 2 day event focusing on Customer Loyalty. The key for me to attending this summit was none other than "Paul Greenberg" alias "CRM Guru". This young man traveled all the way from US (24 hours of flying), reached hotel at 3 am and was speaking through the day presenting his views and suggestions on CRM. Amazing & Inspiring! I and my colleague could get some quality time from Paul to discuss various things around CRM. ("Thanks Paul!"). Paul is still fighting with his accident-hit left-leg, but didn't show any signs of slow-down due to the same. And when I heard from him that this accident happened while he was hurrying to safeguard his Cat, I was really moved. (I too had many cats in my childhood as pets...) The Loyalty Summit had a good attendance and was well organized. The active participation from the attendees was encouraging. More such summits on CRM are most welcome!