The Saki Vihar Road and Saki Naka include my regular road to the current client . . . And probably the best places to see the MUIP ( Mumbai Urban Infrastructure Project ) project in full swing. This project started by the Deshmukh government aims to create an infrastructure akin to Shanghai in Mumbai. I was most enthused when I had first heard of this project but now that the project is halfway and heading towards Phase I completion, it has turned out to be a mere mirage! Why weren't the roads repaired? Hell! No. They very much were. Oh! So the new roads also lack quality. No - they are fantastic - all cement roads able of lasting a 50 years if not 100. Then?? In spite of the roads being widened and rebuilt the traffic situation has not improved a bit. In some areas it has worsened. Reason?? Lack of Civic sense. All along the Saki-Vihar road you will find vehicles parked. Almost 50% of the width i.e. 1 lane is eaten up by stationary vehicles parked all along. In places where the ve

Well that's Good Morning translated to in German :) But this post is titled as : Guten'tag' = Gutenberg + Tag MaDaN a fellow student of NITIE, tagged my blog with the Book Tag- MEME . The chain came thus (I tired to trackback it) Thomas Luongo -> Knappster -> Ken -> Kevin Carson -> BradSpangler -> Yazad -> Nanopolitan -> SilentEloquence -> Pramod -> Madan -> Me!!! Guess the significance of 'tag' is clear - but what about Gutenberg?? Well this Tag is about Books - a concept that could never have become a mass audience subject but for printing technology. Gutenberg was the inventor of the printing press and hence the father of knowledge management - the Gutenberg Press and Gutenberg Bible are the most celebrated terms in history of Books. A perfect obituary to Gutenberg is the Project Gutenberg which aims to digitize, archive, and distribute cultural literature works. Enough about the title - lets get on with the post!!. Tot

I boarded the local train to home from Currey Road as usual - but as soon as the local left the station some hustle-bustle started in my coach. On one end of the coach, a group of people gathered into a circle and slowly I could hear someone singing. A few more voices joined in soon and slowly a drum (A special kind of drum called Dholak in India) started - and them came a rejoinder of manjeere , a musical accessory. This is also called Taayl in Marathi ---> <--- Within a few seconds the group gained tempo and started singing in unision - I could hear the word 'Tuka' and 'Vitthal' in their songs and I realised that these people were singing Abhang !! Click the image below to know about Abhang India by and large is a religious country - we have a illustrious history and a great culture. Religious movemements have always been the seeds of social gathering in India (the trend remains so even today when Ramdev Baba conducts Yoga sessions for 1000 people at a ti

Today while passing through Kurla, on the side of one of the busiest roads in Mumbai, I saw a man lying flat on his back [the photo above is just for the sake of it - not the actual] . On first sight I thought he was dead! But when I realized that his eyes were open staring at the sky and the passersby gave him nasty looks - I realized that he was drunk. This is as of 7.00 PM in the evening! This man lying as if dead will not rise until early morning when he slowly gathers sense and faces a tumouronic hangover! There are millions of such people in India - they die everyday!! Isn't it better for us to grant them a death-wish? Isn't it more inhuman to allow them to die everyday than to kill them in a homicide at one go?? I wonder ........................... Meanwhile it has been another day to call off!! The proceeding to shift to a 'new home' are in full swing - gave an advance of Rs 4000 today. So its going to be right there in Hiranandani - one of the most beautiful t

The song 'Ek pyar ka Nagma hai' is running on my comp, the other window open on my desktop is the transcript of my NITIE interview [ http://kulkarninet.tripod.com/tscript.htm ] . The song currently plays the following lines (I am typing as the words play)- 'Kuchh paakar khona hai, kuchh khokar paana hai, Jeevan ka matlab to aana aur jaana hai. Do pal ke jeevan mein, ek umra churaani hai, Jindagi aur kuchh bhi nahi teri meri kahaani hai....' One of the questions asked to me in my NITIE interview about my entrepreneurial aspirations was - "As an entrepreneur what will be your starting budget – 1 crore, 10 crore?" I was simply overwhelmed by the figures and could only blurt out that I would start small. But today I understand that for succesful venture I would have to atleast be prepared for these figures and I really might start with such figures. NITIE has helped me to understand, comprehend and respect financial figures and other details of business. I have d

I haven't written much about my younger brother Abhishek. Well .... a fantastic person who has achieved his dream of getting into the National Defense Academy (NDA). Today he returned home (Bhopal) after his first semester at the academy. Dainik Bhaskar covered their homecoming. Below is the photograph of the occasion- I have drawn a faint green circle around Abhishek. A few words from my father also form a part of the article in Bhaskar [ http://www.bhaskar.com/defaults/bhopal_newshindi5.html ] . Dad said he doesn't remember when the reporter asked him all that stuff !! Even I had a similar experience the other day. I got a call from a college friend late night congratulating me for getting my name in the Advancedge magazine by IMS learning. I was dazed for a moment thinking when I had given an interview to IMS. It later dawned that our Press relations committee IMpress had once asked me for a quote on our placements - they had passed on this to IMS. If anyone is interested in

I was cruising through the Western Express highway (in Mumbai) when I noticed the road broadening work going on alongside the road. Giant excavators were cutting through the cliffs on the sides and the rubble (actually large stones) was being removed by other gigantic off-highway trucks. I could't but appreciate the 'might of man'. My thoughts moved to the wonders on the world - the pyramids of Egypt, The Great Wall of China and our own Taj Mahal. The gigantic structures made in ancient mediaeval times are a but a reflection of not only engineering skills but more so of hard labour. The city of Mumbai in fact is a wonder in itself - a group of 17 small islands being made into the most happening city of India. In fact 50% of South Mumbai ('town area' as people here call it) is built on reclamation land. It is difficult to imagine such monuments and cities to be built in the present day world. How did the ancient civilizations do it? The answer probably lies in the wo

Shubham is a great punster [ http://my-mind-space.blogspot.com/2004/05/my-experiments-with-pun.html ] and I have borrowed the term 'pun'dit from him. The one line that I would write about my friendship with him would be - 'It goes beyond emotions!'. Both Shubham and Me are strong believers in reason and absence (or insignificance) of emotions. But this attitude should not be confused with being selfish - it is 'beyond' emotions not 'devoid' of emotions! Shubham is very practical - perhaps the most practical person I have met; but what bonds us together is that both of us are hardly ever affected or bothered about what 'others' are doing. An internal locus of control is integral to us. We have our hobbies, our passions and our secrets too and we do not believe in poking our nose in affairs that do not relate to us. Some more hygiene factors bonded us better - the fact that both of us wanted to get into IT, both enjoy old Hindi film songs and we b

Long time no c! This blog was untouched since 22nd May. That was the day when G7 (our gang in NITIE) members started arriving for their final presentations. Since then I have had little time between making my report/presentation, attending the National Practice meet of KPMG, IRM and going out (just once!) with buddies! Finally, the campus is again getting empty. Most of G7 is gone and once for all Shubham has left NITIE. Shubham - a character who has been with me almost day-and-night since the last 2 years. I feel compelled to write a few words about him today. Shubham and I belong to the same engineering college - BIT. Yet, had anyone asked me or him about each other just a month before leaving BIT and we would have asked - Shubham/Nikhil?? Who?? Oh he's in Comp Sc/Elex?? Hoga koi! When I made it to NITIE, I was the sole person from BIT to get in. I had known that one Shubham Choudhury - 'the geek topper of Comp Sc' was in the NITIE waiting list and had cleared XLRI. Ever

Discovered this Marathi Blog http://paamar.blogspot.com The latest post Lord Vishnu's performance appraisal [ http://paamar.blogspot.com/2005/04/celestial-appraisal.html ] is very hilarious ... The spirit of conserving one's language and culture online is really worth appreciating !!! Cheers to this dude!!! I wish to support him .. but sulk! I am not that good at writing Marathi .. probably would try out Hindi text someday.