Past Forward

  Gurgaon has been rated as India’s most prosperous city . Quite unbelievable, with its dust, pollution, concrete debris etc. and add to that traffic jams, potholed roads, rash & careless drivers and what you end up is a city of chaos. The concrete jungle and vertical towers robs the millennium city of its trees. Expansion in road space has resulted in the green cover disappearing at an alarming rate on either side of the arterial roads like Golf Course Road, M.G. Road (no, for the uninitiated, this is not Mahatma Gandhi Road - it is Mehrauli Gurgaon Road, perhaps the only city where M.G. Road does not signify any relation to the Mahatma!). Gurgaon was conceived and given its significance by none other than DLF, one of India’s leading real estate companies. In fact, it reached the ‘leading’ status riding on the back of enormous gains extracted from making the most of the opportunity of bringing to light a cheaper option compared to the rising costs of business and living in...

The very thought of Pandara Road makes your visualize a host of restaurants and an enjoyable meal. Among the various places, Ichiban serves Chinese food and deserved special mention. I have been to the restaurant on more than one occasion. The last time I went there was during the lunch break at the Delhi High Court, where my matter was due to be heard. Feeling hungry after spending the entire morning there, once it was the lunch hour, I stepped out and headed straight for Ichiban, a brisk 10 minute walk away. I had one look at the menu and ordered American Chopsuey. Most you would have seen the dish on every restaurant’s menu card. However, the actual preparation is a far cry from the desired taste and most of my ventures have ended up nothing short of disasters. Nevertheless in hope of finding the right place, I continue to experiment. When the food was served, and their service is pretty fast, it appeared to have the requisite mixture. Without wasting one more second I part...

We keep getting numerous pamphlets on various eating joints each offering the best in town! But rarely does one's expectation match the attractive content or the promised quality. But does that stop us from trying out some of them? And some of them do meet expectations and some exceed them...like Nashta. Being bored of the usual Sunday lunch fare, I was pondering what to do on a Sunday morning 2 weeks back. I wasn't particularly hungry then and was glancing through the usual bunch on leaflets which had poured out of our newspaper. The one inserted by Nashta seemed to stand out from the crowd and immediately attracted my attention. The variety on the weekly menu was simply unmatched. I quickly went though the Sunday fare. Although I tried to zero in on one combo, but was quite unsure, so called up the customer care number. The person who received the call tried to help but I was still indecisive. However within a few minutes, I received a call back and this time the...

  William Shakespeare has said ‘What is the city but the people?’   A city is known by its people. We tend to identify and map a city’s culture on the behavior and attitude of its denizens.   The other day I was in Pune to give a presentation on a new statute for prevention of sexual harassment. The venue for the event was a 5 star hotel close to the airport. After landing in the city, the first thought was to hire a radio taxi, as we do in other cities. However, very soon I realized that there were none that were available. There was a single counter for cabs and that too informed me that I would need to wait for 15 minutes. I had the option to move to the prepaid taxi counter, but the long queue deterred me. I also observed that it moved slowly and by the time the man at the cab counter called me, I would have still been in the queue. Now that I had the cab I took the receipt and stepped out in the scorching April heat. With a suit it felt hotter once I got ...

  My good wishes to u all for the year 2007! Another year has arrived! Wow so many things to do this year, so many targets to fulfill, so many deadlines to meet and so many etc etc the list is endless. Grand plans or new year resolutions as we call it! New calenders, new diaries, new ..............., everything NEW. If it was not beyond our reach we would have got hold of a new sun and moon and stars as well! So what happens to the old and by-gone year? Dumped. Let by-gones be by-gones goes the proverb and we follow it diligently to the last detail! March forward and never look back.   At times when I sit back and think, rarely do I have the luxury of doing that though , I begin to wonder if that is really what we should be doing . There goes a popular saying "In our past lies i n our future". This has somehow caught my fancy for quite sometime now. The simple reason for such a metamorphosis of thought is the discovery of a recurring chain/link in certain events a...

  This is the refrain reverberating on everybody's lips these days. Some make it overt like the people behind the Smirnoff advertising campaign and some guys like us say "We're busy" or have fingers pointed at us "He's a workaholic". We work work and work believing that we are gaining work experience and then dream how cherished our CV will look while applying to the next available vacancy! There does not seem to be any personal goals that we are trying to achieve just working like zombies and expecting our salaries to be hiked in the same proportion. And then we proudly say Im so and so at so and so company and flash out our swanky business cards to prove the point. But dont we ever realise that all this will not lead to anywhere. We are living to survive and not living to thrive! We are ageing at an alarming rate and growing tyres around our tummies proportionately. We have turned into modern mechanics and common clerks and in the process complete...

Hi! Sure he does! One of the most mesmerising Bond flicks i have seen. The opening scene was simply awesome and that was followed up by some really mind blowing action takes. This, being the first novel in the Bond series, the adaptation in today's modern world context was quite exquisite. That cynical look in the final scene when he comes his own with those classic words 'The names's Bond..James Bond' is a reflection of whats coming in the future. One thing you may have noticed that his drink, the martini which he immortalised with his iconic words "Shaken...not stirred" was carefully replaced by "I dont care which" when he had lost his money at the poker round. My sister says she hasnt met anyone yet who hasnt oohed and aahed over CR! R u shaken or stirred? Do let me have your views. cheers!