Micromax to Maximise my reading pleasure.

My new year’s resolution is to ensure that I catch up on my reading. Reading is my hobby and my passion. One way by which I can definitely ensure that I am able to pursue my passion would be to use the Micromax canvas tab P666. The 8 inch screen would give me an edge and would enhance my reading pleasure whether it be to write my blog or read through a novel while traveling.

The Micromax Canvas tab P666 has an Intel graphics media accelerator which would allow greater media interface.

I personally believe that photographs, maps, graphs and other pictorial representation of facts and figures give an extra dimension to what I am reading and enhances the pleasure that I get from what I am reading exponentially. I believe the Micromax Canvas P666 with its high 800 X 1280 pixel resolution would be an ideal tool that would enable me to view photographs, maps or graphs with greater clarity and would hence be an ideal tool for the bookworm that I am.

As an avid reader one thing that is critical for me is space to keep my books and the quality time to be able to read them. In this the Micromax Canvas tab P666 is a world beater. With 325 hours of standby time and 6 hours of browsing time the Micromax canvas ta P666 is a great friend to have to read through an entire novel or an important editorial piece at one’s ease. With almost 6 hours of browsing time one is able to devout one quarter of the day to one’s pleasure. Since this device also provides a standby of 325 hours we can stagger the manner in which we read throughout the day.

This is extremely important especially those who are frequent travelers and need a device whose battery has great performance both in stand by and in browsing mode.

The Micromax Canvas tab P666 also has great storage specifications. With an internal memory of 8 GB which can be expanded to 32GB I would be able to store my favorite novels as well as save any recent post which I find interesting for my later reading. Sometime due to work pressure I am often unable to read current publications but now with the Micromax Canvas tab P666 I will be able to save these interesting publications which I can then then read later on.

Since the tab also comes with a whole host of preloaded apps, booking a ticket for the movies or checking on my insurance premium payment would no longer be a hassle and this would free up much needed quality time for reading.

The high performance Intel Atom processor (1.2 GHz) which comes with the latest burst performance technology would ensure that I am able to download and read through articles, publications and editorials seamlessly. Gone would be trouble of the tab hanging and the frustration of closing other apps when I want to concentrate on reading something which I find pleasurable.

Visit the Mircomax Canvas Tab P666 page

This post has been written for Indi Happy Hours in association with Mircomax

Be truthful, be brave :

“Satyameva Jayate”, these two words synonymous with our freedom struggle are as important today as they were during our fight for independence. We are taught in school the importance of “Satyameva Jay ate” or “truth alone triumphs” and indoctrinated to abide by it throughout our lives.

However, the reality is much more different.

Quiet often we are faced with the predicament of either speaking the truth or facing the consequences or to tell a lie to save our skin. There was this one specific occasion that I recollect vividly where I had to face this test.It was in class ten when I was around sixteen years old.

It was a hot sultry summer day when the results were announced for our final examinations which determined whether we progressed from class ten to eleven and more importantly the subjects we would be entitled to choose which would be the key to determining our career.

 Having put in months of effort, I like all my fellow students was expecting good scores. This would also enable me to choose science and become a doctor which I always aspired to be since I was a kid.

The scores that I got finally were abysmal! I had barely passed in Mathematics and had scrapped through Physics and Chemistry.

As I was pondering the best combination of subjects that I could select for my pre university classes, I was suddenly stuck by the thought of what to tell my parents on the results.

Would I lie to them about my scores or do I tell them that I did not want to take up science any more.

Or even better tell them that I was cheated out of good scores due to the favoritism of the teachers.

I tried to weigh the different options in front of me.The pros and cons.I felt that telling my parents that I had been cheated from what I deserved would be the best way out. Yes , blame it on the teachers  I said to myself !. Were there not amongst us those who took private tuition with the intention of getting better grades in the school exams.

As I fine tuned my lie while plying home from school to my home I was suddenly struck by the fact that in the end I would be lying to no one else but myself. Who would gain from this lie?

Could I face my teachers many of whom slogged it out to help us attain good scores in our exams?

No. I could not do that.It was not the right thing to. I needed the courage to stand up to my parents and more importantly to myself.

And So I did. Yes, the consequences were severe, I got a sound hearing from my parents, escaped a beating but realized that by running away from the truth would not solve my problems.

It also ensured that in the future I could always relate to this incident when I was a teenager and get strength to tell the truth.

There is a saying that we learn from our mistakes. In my case I learned from the day I had the courage to speak the truth as I thought it was the right thing to do.

As the great Rabindranath Tagore has put it so eloquently "Facts are many, but the truth is one.”

source: Kinley

This post is written for Indi Happy Hours in association with Kinely

Wanderlust with Family and Kids

The English dictionary defines wanderlust as the urge to travel. The human urge to travel to unknown places, to explore new worlds and seek new adventure is as old as the human civilization itself.

This “urge to travel” is imbibed in our very genes and this ensures that we often take a break, pack our bags and visit near and far places.

As many of us have families it is imperative that we are cognizant of the wishes and desire of our family members when we plan and eventually undertake travel. This is especially important when we travel with kids. The perception of kids to life is totally different from that of us adults and this spills over to their perception to travel as well. While we may travel to get away with from our dreary desk jobs, kids on the other hand look at travel as an opportunity to visit places they have either read in the books or have viewed on the television, to explore uncharted territory and to seek adventure.

Hence I believe, it is a great idea if we allowed them the responsibility of choosing the place where would visit as it is important that they are made a part of the travel right at the stage of  its inception. Further apart from choosing the place that we as a family would visit we should also allow them to share their ideas on planning the trip. For example they can research on places that are to be visited in the course of our travel. This would not only make them excited but the research they would need to put in would also increase their knowledge.

Kids seek enjoyment and it is important that we allow them freedom and the chance to have fun during our travel. Once must be careful in today’s world but at the same time ensure that the fun aspect of travel is not lost at the altar of fear. Let the kid enjoy, let them run up a hill if they want to , smell the wild flower or  splash in the cold sea water. These are small little things but they will cherish these moments for the rest of their lives and will thank you for allowing them too forever.

Laughter they say is infectious and soon we will start to enjoy the pleasures that the kid is enjoying.Their inquisitiveness should not anger us or irritate us, it is in their thirst for knowledge that we should appreciate and understand. Instead of try to shutting them up we should try to understand their innocent questions and in this way we will gain knowledge as well.

Trust me kids do not cause problems during a travel if we trust them, encourage them , give them responsibility and allow them to enjoy and have fun.It is our perception and misconceived ideas that is the roadblock.

This post is written as part of IndiHappy hours in association with
http://membership.clubmahindra.com/TeddyTravelogues/index.html.

Rising above Fear - It's okay to beat fear sometimes!

As a child I remember going on various holidays in the hills. No Bengali vacation is ever complete without a trip to Darjeeling or Gangtok. This was back in my childhood when I visited Darjeeling. The Mall Road in Darjeeling is quite famous for some great restaurants, scores of handloom shops and quite a big population of horses!  Going for a horse ride through the entire stretch of road there is the favorite past time of all tourists in Darjeeling. And I gave in to it and went for a horse ride. I must be some 6 or 7 year old that time.

This horse riding is nothing like a horse riding that we understand from the movies or anything. They simply strut and walk in the slowest pace possible and you get to enjoy the scenery of the lush green hills around you. Now these horses have this uncanny habit of walking on the extreme edge of the road. I don’t know if they are trained that way to give you a scare or something else. So every time I pushed it towards the road it came back walking on the earthen stretch that you have between the road and the deep gorges. And the sight of the depth of green scared the hell out of me. It was a scary horse ride of the life where any moment you could have fallen down the slopes.

When I came to Bangalore later with work we used to plan several weekend trips with friends. Bangalore is a lovely place with great connectivity to many tourist spots. We went rock climbing at one instance. The fear of height was like a latent force in my mind and I had forgotten almost about it. We trekked for a few hours and then climbed up this hillock. As we started climbing up – the first moment I saw down I felt the fear rising through my body. Can I do this? What if I fall? What if I broke my legs? Too many thoughts clouded my mind. But I held on to my nerves. It’s best to resist looking down or looking back. And without shifting my eye sight anywhere other than the top of the hillock I climbed up along with my friends.

Reaching the top gave a huge joy and boost to my morale. The light breeze the morning sun shine calmed us down. I dared to look down the depth from top and it definitely was scary. But now that we were on top the fear was little less. May be I had just risen above my fear. We sat there chatting on top for a long time and the trainer explained how many groups of youngsters came climbing there and how some of them always waited at the base and never muster the courage to climb up!

And guess what I have done. Much later when we were planning to buy our own apartment in Bangalore we picked up one on the 12^th floor!! So now I don’t mind looking down from my 12^th floor balcony and enjoy the awesome view.    

Check out this video by Mountain Dew on a very similar incident

Visit https://www.facebook.com/mountaindewindia for more awesome videos. 

This post of mine has been written for Indi Happy Hours in association with Mountain Dew India.

Let us clean our Neighborhood

So everyone is taking up the cleanliness drive these days – from celebrities to politicians to sports personalities and even corporate houses. That’s a good initiative. But is it okay to take a drive for 1 day and leave it at that? I was going through some celebrity photos of their cleanliness drive and the only dominant element in their large bins of garbage were dried leaves!!! Now the question is  - do you just see dried leaves on the streets?? I see a whole lot of things – old clothes, stale food, wrappers, vegetable peels, scrap metal, dead rats and just about everything. Definitely much more than just dried leaves.

Our apartment community had taken a cleanliness drive in our neighborhood in Bangalore once to free our streets (the then pot holed roads) of nails and metal parts. Many of our residents had participated in the drive and there was an incredible amount of metal junk collected from a stretch of 2 km road! Think about all the cars that have been plying on the busy road. We went up against the odds and started this drive early morning on a weekend so that commuters didn’t have a problem. We could do that because we stood up. The corporation, municipality turns deaf and blind in these situations. But should we stop at just that? Isn’t it our responsibility too to take up the responsibility of cleaning up. We don’t have a problem in cleaning our own house, terrace or balcony. We only use the roads – then why can’t we help in cleaning them?

When we travel abroad we take care not to throw a gum wrapper or a coffee cup on the roads, we take care to throw them in the designated bin, but as soon as we reach our own country we don’t think twice to throw a coffee cup on the roads, or spit on the roads. We learn to do what we see around. No one is throwing a single thing anywhere other than the bins so we don’t litter. We behave like a responsible citizen as we step into London, Paris or Singapore. And back here we don’t mind throwing the cigarette butt anywhere – because everyone around is doing the same. Wrong. We need to learn to a responsible citizen in our own country first. What legacy otherwise will you leave for your next generation – a country full of filth (pun intended)!

Let’s drive a campaign to clean our neighborhood. Let’s be responsible citizen. Strepsils India has come up with this campaign to encourage Indians to speak up against all the wrongs that we see around us. #AbMontuBolega. Join the campaign and lets stand up against all the wrongs – harassment of women, or littering roads. Lets strive to make the society a better place to live.  Visit their webpage, FaceBook Page orTwitterHandle 

http://www.abmontubolega.com/

This post of mine has been written as a part of Indi-Happy hours  on Indiblogger in association withStrepsilsIndia #AbMontuBolega