The Datsun redi GO

Tell me a person who is not crazy about cars? I don't know anyone who isn't. My wife a big car enthusiast though. Not just for riding, for driving, in fact. But you know, Ferraris and Lamborghinis remain a dream most of the time! My current car is going good but sometimes I think I settled for less. It’s almost six years that I am driving my hatch back. But what I want now is something different, something that will give me power, will look sporty yet I’ll have room to park it almost anywhere!

I was going through several sites for checking on the new cars that are getting launched in India. A lot of them are promising power, some promising good sleek looks. But it’s important to have all of it together.

The Datsun redi-Go is looking promising at this moment. It’s an urban cross – a bit of the both worlds. I like how sporty and wide it looks – almost gives a feeling of driving a SUV. It looks like it is going to provide a unique combination of style and comfort with the best of technology for the land of Japan.

I like the YUKAN DESIGN.  It’s smooth and sleek, the dynamic side character lines gives it just that necessary edge over others in the same class. The best part though is the GROUND CLEARENCE. If you are driving in India you know how bad the roads are so good road clearance is what you need in a car. The Safety features look cool too. A reinforced crash protection shell, which means the strengthened Datsun body structure, is optimized for Torsional Rigidity and stiffness and better Frontal Offset Crash performance. The H shaped Suspension System is also pretty good. It has double pivot arms to give high stability and cornering performance. A car that looks good and feels good and you also know at the back of your mind that it is going to keep you safe.

Feature wise this car looks power packed. It has the front airbags, power windows, sporty interiors, good legroom space. I like how the exterior looks – wide and sturdy – pretty much a man’s car. I think it will be quite spacious for the family as well.  

If I had the choice I will straight away take it to Mumbai Pune highway and drive for a few hours. It’s just pathetic to drive in the city these days specially with all the traffic and the auto rickshaws and bicycles who do not maintain their lanes nor any traffic rules. And I simply hate the traffic lights. Some elevated roadways in Bangalore gives you that peace of driving traffic lights free – but still Mumbai Pune Expressway is a dream to drive on. I should try and get a test drive at least to see how it feels and performs. That will boost my deciding factor. I’ll keep you guys posted.

Fun. Freedom. Confidence. The ultimate Urban Cross - Datsun redi-GO - the capability of a crossover with the convenience of a hatchback.

Try out Honey for a healthy life

When you are completely worked up with your daily routine of getting ready for work, going to office, working the entire day and coming back home just in time for dinner – which is the thing you give least importance too? Yes, food. We are hardly bothered about what we are eating or even eating at all or not?

There are times when we skip breakfast – most of the times, to be precise. May be a toast or a fruit or a glass of juice is maximum that we tend to have in the morning rush hours. But is that the best way to start the day? With flour, sugar laden and preservative laden juice or cereal? Why are we working so hard? Is it not for a better life for us and our family? But most of the time I find we are slogging to prove ourselves and to climb up the ladder and in all that we are missing out on so many things – quality time with family, rest and most importantly our health.

Half the time we spend our lunch times in meetings or calls – grabbing a quick bite – a mayo laden sandwich and a cup of coffee. But is that what the body is happy with? No it is not. I have trying to experiment with my lunch and pack it in such a way that I can have it in my desk while working – but I still want to have some nutrition going inside.

I have cut down on the use of sugar considerably and switched over to honey as a substitute. It is healthy, fruit glucose and it helps in digestion. Check out the Dabur Honey 3 Click Diet Planner. It helps in simplifying your worries about diet. Don’t just follow a diet fad because people are talking about it. Check what your food intake is.

Crash dieting, surviving on salads can make you lose a few Kilograms but you will end up losing muscle. While what you need to lose is the fat content. Proper nutritious diet and exercise should be the key to your healthy life.

I make sure I visit the gym at least thrice a week if not more. It is really important that you are exercising along with your healthy diet. Coming to healthy diet you can check the Honey Diet which encourages usage of honey in your food instead of sugar. Intake of honey will help you in weight management, digestion and ladies it’s good for your skin too. So next time you are having nimboo pani – have it with honey instead if sugar. Sometimes I have honey on a bread slice – its yum!

Did you know you can enjoy your chicken fingers and lamb with honey and they are really delicious. Check out the Honey Recipes specially chalked out by Vikas Khanna. 

Check out http://www.daburhoney.com/ for more information. 

Power of Togetherness

What is the good part of life – you know you are well educated, you have a secure job, you are getting a salary and you are living. What is the bad part of life? You know you have to keep working for the next 30 years to enjoy that good part of life! Yeah thirty long years… muddling in the corporate world! Not that everyone needs to sweat it out in the corporate rat race but those who need to you know what I am talking about.

Sometimes you envy the guys in HR depts or other departments where they have it relatively easy and are home on time. But month after month when you have fight with the deadline you feel like you are losing it, you are just on the verge of insanity somehow. Does that happen with you?

I have also seen myself and many more colleagues who don’t take our mandatory paid leaves. When you have responsibilities on your shoulders you seem to forget totally about the leaves. And when they get lapsed you brood over it.

Now this happens often with me that I am working round the clock and sometimes even over weekends! The family sulks over it that I am forever missing from all the important dates. And when I get sometime over the weekend or a national holiday I don’t have the energy to do anything, or go anywhere, forget about visiting a relative!

All you want to do in such times is sleep over and get yourself charged up for the next day. But that always doesn’t help. It does nothing to uplift your mood. It might just relax your body – nothing other than that.

A few months back my friends decided we should make a trip. When you are planning a trip with six or seven people it’s difficult to get everyone ready on the same date. But after the initial hiccups and shortening of the trip plans we decided a same day trip to a nearby fishing camp. How’s that for some time off.

I purposefully left the phone back home. [Wife never leaves her phone, so its okay]. We were so close to nature and so far away from the bustling city – it was enough to calm myself down. From having a hearty south Indian breakfast with friends to jumping in the river without thinking anything it was pure fun and bliss.

I was meeting my friends and their spouses after a long time but you know when you meet your buddies you just pick up from where you had left without a trouble. We gorged on fishes and took the coracle ride and spotted wild crocodiles. By the end of the long day instead of feeling tired the only thing I felt was happy, relaxed, rejuvenated.

Was it the break? Was it the friends? Was it the nature? Was it being close to my wife without worries of next day’s work? What had worked? May be it was just the togetherness.

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This post is part of #Together campaign by https://housing.com/

A decision to #StartANewLife

There are some traits in Bengalis which you just can’t miss - their passion for education, interest in cultural activities and being a foodie. Being one myself I don’t miss a single trait from the ones listed. Bengalis give a lot of respect to education – for any respectable Bengali family knowing where your son or daughter is studying and what is he studying means a lot. Same was the case with me. Physics, chemistry, mathematics – the subjects which are not favoured by a lot of people were very dear to me. Being a science student is a prestigious thing.

My dad has been a gold medalist engineering student from one of the most prestigious colleges in Kolkata. It has been an inspiration for me through out. I wanted to follow in his footsteps too. And I was pretty sure I would have done well.

But things are always not that rosy. It was also a time when there was a huge slowdown for all engineering students. Engineering colleges were mushrooming up across the country but there was a big lack of good faculties. But the aftermath was even scarier – no jobs. I have seen engineers’ applying for job posts with as meager a salary as of three thousand a month!! That is not a situation I wanted to be in – nor would anyone.

It was a time I had to decide my future. Which stream would I choose? And there I was, leaving the dream of studying science and taking up commerce instead. Believe me it wasn’t an easy decision. It meant focusing on numbers and figures and no experimentation – which originally I wanted to. But I had to choose a path which will secure my future.

It also meant I had wake up and start college at 6 in the morning! Those who are aware, St. Xavier’s B Com department functioned early in the morning earlier. Now they have an evening dept. too, I have heard. But that was a boon in a way because we had the entire day free. When some guys proffered to take up sports I took up courses for Chartered Accountancy. I had enough time in the day to go for my CA classes and the eventual articleship.

It finally helped me to clear all the CA papers at one go without losing a year. It was practically graduating and becoming a CA at the same time. It also opened up opportunities to take up lucrative job in one of the most prestigious auditing firm which brought me to this beautiful city of Bangalore.

Sometimes I do feel that I missed out on studying science, but mine was not just a decision that I had taken – it was a practical decision. The situation of majority of engineering students in the country has not changed much ever since. At least I secured my future.

It is just right sometimes to deviate from your path and #StartANewLife

This post is part of #StartANewLife campaign by https://housing.com/.

Home sweet home

When you decide to buy a house for your self in another city which is not your hometown you know what is up for you – long conversations with builders, weekends and weekends of house hunting, increasing your budget from where ever you can manage to compromising on what eventually buy. Since I have done that not so long ago things are afresh in my mind.

Me and my wife had set to out check prospective homes for we had decided to move in to our own home – an apartment which will be just ours, no tension of rent, landlord, separate rules for tenants etc. We wanted to be the landlords for a change!

But we were met with several builders, brokers who promised something else and showed something else. We were looking for a spacious apartment and not a match box like one since this would be our home for a good period of time – but we were surprised to see the size of apartments which were advertised as 1900-2000 sq ft and looked like not more than 1400-1500 sq ft.

I can’t even count how many apartments we had checked. In every corner of the city may be. The ones we liked little bit were not favorable for distance or amenities, something or the other always came up. I was losing hope. I had given up for some time. Thought of not wasting any more weekend over this.  I was actually getting frustrated. But my wife held her cool. She declared, till we are satisfied 90% with the house we’ll not buy anything random and waste money. Now when you are buying a property in Bangalore you know how much you have to shell out.

She kept looking at property ads, visited property fairs, went through online ads without letting me know all the hassles. We finally arrived one day to check an apartment in a huge complex. I was initially wary of staying with 1000 more families. But frankly when we stepped inside the apartment it was bliss. It was a ready apartment and just like what we had wanted – peaceful, serene, private, large balconies, large rooms, airy and spacious. And more technically – clear titles, reputed builder, hassle free bank loan from nationalized bank. Without wasting any more time we simply picked it up.

We built our own home sweet home with baby steps. Getting the interiors done, getting our own furniture and electrical appliances. Our apartment today has turned into a home today – home sweet home. A home that I will cherish for life. A home that both of us have built up with lot of love and affection.

It is true, you need to believe in your heart you will get what you want – it feels my home sweet home has always been in our destiny.    

Source: peloruslearning.com

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This post is written for the #LookUp campaign by Housing.com. Visit https://housing.com/lookup.

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