Past Forward

It was a similar Sunday evening 24 years ago. A 10 year old boy’s imagination was aflutter with a miniature dream built carefully over a period of 1 month. His father’s enthusiasm had touched him and kept him awake for late hours almost every day. And that Sunday was the finale.   Italia ’90 was my introduction to the world’s greatest sporting event. I had kept a track of all the matches in the colourful poster which my father had gifted me. Yes, in those days such simple stuff was very precious and I carefully noted the goals against each team right from the play-offs till the semi-finals. I had collected as many player cards that I could from wrappers of a certain confectionary company, which was quite a craze with my classmates. I was super charged the whole day. On my father’s advice, I had my dinner early and went to sleep. Around the scheduled time, he came to my room and gently woke me up. Still with groggy eyes, I gladly followed him to our drawing room and w...

After checking out Cyber Hub across its length and breadth, we were feeling quite hungry. We made one final round and since Indian and Chinese are generally the places we usually ending up choosing, we decided to try something different on the inaugural visit.   Nando’s was right before us and its vibrant exteriors made quite an attractive proposition. and we marched in. The staff was quite amiable and showed us around the restaurant, giving us the freedom to decide. We chose a reasonably large table at one corner with very comfortable seating consisting of sofa occupying one half and  chairs the other half. There was no objection or suggestion to move to a smaller table! The tables are spaciously placed giving an impression of leisure unlike other restaurants where space is treated as a premium and there’s just enough gap for moving around. One a late Sunday afternoon the restaurant was decently occupied.       We ordere...

The concept of office area intermingling with food joints is a very successful model and a win-win situation for both employees and the food joints. However commercial spaces being expensive, cost of operating restaurants are very high and typically only a few restaurants are able to sustain. Imagine if there was a dedicated open area, the size of a football ground, only for restaurants within striking distance of office buildings. Add to that entertainment spots, open amphitheatre with giant screen, sprinklers to beat the summer heat, promotional events and you will get a world class experience.   This is Cyber Hub for you – a one stop shop for some of the most sought after eating places. DLF claims it to be India's first integrated Food-Entertainment destination . It is strategically located within DLF Cyber City in Gurgaon adjacent to Building Nos. 8 and 10 and overlooking the National High 8. The beauty of the conceptual construction is evident from the view along th...

  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 ...