Pay Hike for Member Of Parliments

Happened to be seeing a debate on one of the channels on this topic. Only 5% people feel that there should be a hike. The current salary is Rs 16,000 per month. I am wondering that with this salary how are most of the MP's having assets worth crores?? and the value is only increasing every year, and yet they want a pay hike. This is the height of hypocrisy. The MP's seem to be taking the people of India for a ride, which they have been doing for the last 63 years. 

There was a very interesting point raised by one of the participants, he was of the opinion that since the MP's are supposed to be public servants, it should be mandatory for them to use all the facilities in India that a normal middle class Indian uses. They should use the health facilities, Education and all other facilities that any normal Indian would use. This is a pretty interesting take and I strongly feel that a law in this regard should be passed. I also feel that it should be mandatory for all the politicians to make their Income tax returns public. 

ScribeFire for Chrome

Just now configured ScribeFire extension for Chrome. It is so much better than the extension for Firefox, or maybe I am checking scribeFire after ages. Anywayz, hoping to blog a little more regularly from now on. i think this is a blog entry after over a year...

Summer King

Dollops of creamy Vanilla & Mango ice creams with Alphanso slices,
topped with Mango crush & whipped cream... Absolutely Mangolicious!!
Another sundae @ Amul Ice cream, Koregaon park, Lane 7.
Last time I enjoyed their Strawberry Sundae.

Lets Play TT!!!

played TT after a very long time today... was tiring but major fun.... looking frwd to playing more TT from now on..... :-).....

WATBlog Wednesday in Pune

I had attended an event called "WATBlog Wednesday" yesterday. The concept was, an informal networking event of developers over beer(which happened to be free) and some snacks. I was actually skeptical about the idea but was pleasantly surprised when we reached the venue. There was a decent crowd already present. As the evening progressed more people joined in. I was told that there were about 120-130 people which was roughly half of the people who had registered. The open air ambience was perfect with enough open space for people to form groups and get to know each other and have some interesting conversations, over beer. Every one was pretty enthusiastic about the entire concept and was intereacting animatedly with each other. I did meet some interesting people, and realised that pune is fast becoming a hub for startups and entreprenuers and like minded people. There were people from all sorts of companies, startups, product based, services based and free lancers too. You had enginners to founders and CEOs of a few companies. Looking forward to more such evenings in pune. :-)

Rajiv, founder of WATBlog has a blog entry on the same here and has shared the pics on facebook here.

Urja : Masters of percussions

I had gone for this show yesterday. This was the first time that I was listening to Ustad Zakir Hussain live. The show also had Vikku Vinayak Ram on Ghatam, Selva Ganesh on Khanjiree(Kanjira), Pt. Bhavani Shankar on Pakhwaj and Vijay Chavan on Dholaki. The program was supposed to start at 6 PM but started around 6:15 PM. The evening started by felicitation of a few brave hearts from the 26/11 Mumbai attacks(Chotu Chai Wala, An announcer at the CST and a Martyr from the Police force, I am not able to recall the names of these people.) and a few other personalities form the world of cinema (Mugda Godse and Madhur Bhandarkar)and education(Mr Mazumdar, founder of the Symbiosis group of Institutes and Mr Jadhav , VC of Pune University).

Finally around 7:30 PM Ustad Zakir Hussainji came on stage and began the proceedings for the evening. He took some time to settle in his rhythm and check the audio settings and all. Once he settled in his groove it was sheer pleasure listening to him. :-). he played solo for about 40 minutes. After this he was joined by Pt. bhavani Shankar on Pakhwaj. he played solo for a while and then there was some amount of jugalbandi between him and Ustad Zakir Hussain. I was for the first time listening to someone play pakhwaj. I have listened before I think but never bothered much. They were later joined by Selva Ganesh on Khanjira. Selva ganesh played solo for a while and then the three of them played together and towards the end Vikku Vinayak ji joined them on stage and continued to play solo. and again after Vikkuji's solo performance the 4 of them joined in to play together. Now Vijay Chavan ji joined them on stage and continued solo. Vijay Chavan ji improvised quite a lot with Damru, which was pretty cool. Towards the end Zakir Hussainji was leading the way, he would play a piece and after that each one would play the same. Ah I forgot to mention when Vijay Chavanji was playing the dholki, Zakir Hussainji was giving him company using Ghungroos, which was again amazing.

We(Me, Kundu and Gaurav) were feeling that we should have got the 1000 bucks tickets. That would have been more closer to the stage and we would have enjoyed more.

Have decided that from now on I am not goona be missing any such show. I have totally become a fan of Indian Instrumental Music.

Update(04/02/09):- The Martyr from the police force to be honored posthumously was Sub Inspector Tukaram Omble.

All about looking young

This is part of a conversation me and rosh had 2 days back... As usual we became senti and all  :p  :D ....

me: http://fitness.scoobysworkshop.com/
  man was able to do the entire set of that 100pushups for today
  feelinghappy
  plus been going walking/jogging since yest

rmathews: nice nice
me: yeah man
 am gonna lose the fooking tummy and all excess body fat this time arnd
  gonna work my ass out this time arnd
  bohat ho gaya bc
rmathews: this time around you'll change things?
me: yes dude
rmathews: this time around you'll be more serious?
me: yes :)
rmathews: this time around you'll stick to the plan?
me: as in won't feel lazy and give up mid way
  i will
rmathews: this time around it will all have a happy ending?
me: man ppl think i am a 35 yr old uncle
  :p
rmathews:  :p
me: that sucks
rmathews: on my 26th birthday, this guy in office asked me if I was 30.  :(
and I'm sure he was being polite
me: i don't want ki main ek ladki dekhne jao and she is like.. ladka kahan hai bhaiya..(she assumes me to be the elder bro)
 ppl assume that i am married and have a kid also
  thats sad man
 really really sad
rmathews: or the dad?:D
me: that wud be pathetic
 she touches my feet ssa uncle ji
  :p 
rmathews: hahaha ... :D

Talli Hua!!!!

This Saturday, Vikash and Appu(Vikash's cousin bro) came over to party at my place. We had gone to see this photography exhibition in the evening called India Explored(more about that later)

On the way back we got about 1.25 Kgs of fish. We got a Rohu and 4 small Bangda fishes. Appu was to make fish fry and fish tawa fry in his style. I had half a quarter of old monk, Chantili white and red wine at my place already, so we got a quarter of Romonov red and a half of Royal Challenge(RC) along with the fish.  The plan was to have a blast that night. I wanted to get high that day cos I had never, before this,  got high. Never ever, so I was all set to get a little tipsy. :-P

The Stock

We reached my place around 9 PM.  Appu immediatly got to the task of cleaning the fish and marinating them. The ingredients for marination were salt, turmeric powder and chili powder. The main ingredients for the preparation were mustrad and black pepper. The fish was cooked in Mustard oil. I have to admit the fish that day was one of the tastiest fish dishes that I have had till date. Just thinking about that makes my mouth water. :-P It was yummmyyyyyy.....

Marinated Bangda

Marinated Rohu

Fried Rohu

Tawa Fry Bangda

We tried various cocktail combinations that day. We started with RC on the rocks. Then tried  a combo of soda, old monk and RC, then soda, Romanov and RC, Also red wine, Romanov and RC. But the best was the Nirala peg made by Appu, soda in the glass, add a little RC, then Romanov and finally red wine(I don't remember exactly, this was the last drink and we were all pretty high by this time. :-P)  and this we had bottoms up. By the end of it were all a little tipsy and high. But in our senses. :-D

The Nirala Peg

Cheers!!!!