Wondering, Wandering, Pondering

EXPENSES! I doubt there's a more terrifying word in the English language. To many, spending equals happiness (shopaholics), to me spending is something which is necessary evil. There are very few things which I don't mind spending money on: Treks Trips Good food Essentials A good cellphone (very infrequently), and so on. Statistically speaking, around 90% of my monthly expenses are on food. Like I said, essentials! Occasionally, I may spend my money on a few electronics. Though, even this is dependent on the need of that appliance, than actually wanting to buy it. I won't say that I have never bought something for the heck of it, but I prefer to keep those instances to a minimum. For instance, once I had bought a leather jacket just because I thought it looked good. Well, if I had thought about it, I would have realised that Pune's weather provides little to no opportunities to actually wear a leather jacket! They say that expenses actually increase once you st

It's too hot to be doing anything! I don't get Summer vacation. It's wedding season. My teeth can no longer tolerate sour delicacies like आवळा (Amla), चिंच (Tamrind) and कैरी (Raw Mango). The number of treks I can go to reduces drastically. MSEDCL decides that Summer is the best time for power cuts. It seems that the whole country has migrated to hill stations like Mahabaleshwar, Lonavala, etc. The rain gods, in all their wisdom decide to re-enact the Ghanan Ghanan song scene from the movie Lagaan . Any free time you get is mostly likely to be spent recovering from the Summer heat. The only advertisements that the TV seems to host are of ACs, Cooler and refrigerators. This blog post is part of the  52 Weeks Blogging Challenge.

What are we inspired by? Is it because of a certain situation? Or is it through a particular person's deeds/virtues? Is it a particular place that inspires us, or is it a story of the place? There are many things that inspire us. Some are people who have influenced people around them, some are situations, events which occurred and changed the course of history or it may be something as mundane as watching an ant carry many times its body weight. Thus, inspiration comes in many different forms. The main purpose of inspiration, the reason why we go searching for it is that inspiration pushes us to do/act upon something that we would be reluctant to do otherwise. Personally, I believe that inspiration comes from within. While I may be influenced by people or events, the final inspiration comes from within. The situations that inspire me are many, from something simple as watching the sun rise, to something great and complex such as the life stories of people who have achieve

I have been a Vodafone prepaid subscriber for almost 8 years and till a week ago I was satisfied with their customer service. My last week was peppered with arguments with whichever person called me and left me utterly frustrated and exhausted. To give a background, I was recently contacted by Vodafone regarding a postpaid plan which they felt was suitable for me. The executive informed me about the plan - Rs. 399 monthly rental with unlimited local/STD calls, 100 SMS and 21 GB worth of 4G data. The executive informed me that all I had to do, if I wanted to avail the offer, was to provide a Photo, a photo ID and an address proof to the executive who would visit me at my home. Besides providing this information, the executive asked me one question - "Are you working currently?" to which I replied in the negative since I was looking for employment after my MBA course which would end in 2-3 weeks. This was the first call. When I asked them to forward me the offer detai

Is trekking* a sport? Many people get confused whether to classify trekking as such, since it does not exactly fit into the usual descriptions of a sport. In my opinion, trekking is a an activity which requires the trekker to make use of various skills and equipment. The trekker is required to have a good level of physical and mental fitness to participate in this activity. A trekker not only has to carry himself up to the destination, but also has to carry his equipment and luggage with him. This fact alone is enough to consider trekking a sport! Trekking may often make use of special equipment such as ropes, harnesses, carabiners and other specialised climbing equipment. As such, a trekker should have some knowledge about using such equipment. Trekkers may often come across situations in which they have to make decisions based on the limited information available. The best example I can think of in my context is choosing the correct path to your destination. Many a time, a path

Discover Pune is a treasure hunt which has been organised by the Rotaract Club of Shaniwarwada every year for the last decade. This event is organised in collaboration with INTACH (Indian National Trust for Art & Cultural Heritage). One of my cousins , who is a member of the Rotaract Club, had been on my case to get me to participate in this event. This was the first time I actually managed to get a team together. Discover Pune is a treasure hunt with a twist. The organisers of this event always have some new rules or new factors which make this event much more than any regular treasure hunt. This year they had divided Pune into 13 regions (A-M) and had created a Revenue System. Each region had a set number of revenue points which were counted on an hourly basis, while each location had some Heritage points. These Heritage Points could be used to create/destroy capitals. A team could create/destroy capitals only when they had discovered a minimum of 5 locations. The advantage of