Whats in a Name???

Whats in a Name??? Everything in this modern world. Parents have to think a lot nowadays when naming their kids. After all the current generation of kids dont want to spend their lifetime with a name which they dont like!!!

Think about it…can anybody name their kids Laloo or Rabri anymore? The kids will run away from school on day one!!!

Take the case of my own grandfather….with due respect to him….but will any child today be ready to live with a name as Lalchand.

Kids today are much smarter…and they certainly will object to any non urban name in school for themselves.

Certain names were a norm in the yesteryears…. but not anymore. One wont even dare think of naming their kids Amitabh, Mithun, Phoolan, …they just dont fit anymore into the urban lifestyles!!

Cant imagine kid with names like….Rakeshchandra….Harishchandra…Sudhakar…Champaklal…Hiralal…Maghanlal…Chaggan…

Gone are the days of religious names…Saraswati..Hanuman(yes i know of 2 people living with this name!!!)…Prathna…

The point being..nowadays Names are to be very carefully selected….else be ready to hear a bit or two about it from your kiddo!!!

Of Facebook Relatives and mobile numbers…

So when one has free time, s/he starts marking Uncles, Aunts, Cousins on Facebook. Set up the relationships. Not bad till one starts receiving calls for a certain relation from collection agencies.

The social network boom has got almost every person hooked on it. And Bank and Credit card defaulters better beware. Collection agencies have now started tapping Facebook to find the elusive persons or have started contacting the relatives for recovery.

Now how do they contact the relatives? Simple thru their mobile numbers which have been posted on the profiles!!!

Read a few newspaper articles about such incidences. Got to know of one such incidence yesterday thru a cousin. Infact read one article in the newspaper in which a Collection agency agent befriended an elusive defaulter on Facebook, arranged for a meet, where he found that the real intention was to recover his dues.

Ones intention of setting up relations is not bad, but cant certainly get you in trouble if your relative is that elusive defaulter…….

But yes…posting of mobile numbers should certainly be thought of again!!!

Sources :

http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_that-sexy-facebooker-is-a-recovery-agent_1478225

http://www.ndtv.com/article/cities/recovery-agents-harass-defaulters-kin-on-facebook-134654

http://www.goanewsonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6830

Western Express HIGHWAY(?)

Having been driving on the Western Express Highway of Mumbai since past 9 years now, I consider myself somewhat an expert of that road. So much so that I thought of writing this blog and also trying and making the Traffic Commissioner read this.

I have seen the highway grow…from a plain road to flyovers, from bottle necks to wide roads. But still its not enough. The traffic jams just do not reduce. Infact its a shame to call it a Highway anymore.

So let me rant off my wisdom…if anybody is interested…

I simply dont understand what is the use of flyovers when there are traffic jams at the exit ends…either because of Nakabandi by police(currently observed daily at the north end of Andheri flyover) or because BEST busstops are hardly 100 meters away from the end of the flyovers(south end of Malad flyover). These busstops dont only create a traffic jams because of buses stopping there, it also because of rickshaw drivers and other vehicles stopping there trying to woo the harried bus travelers who are getting late because the bus has not come in yet.

One more observation I have made is that the beginning of flyovers are being used by private buses as a collection point. This leads to a bottleneck thus leading to slowing of traffic.

We are a major city with no facility of immediate removal of breakdown vehicles or vehicles involved in accidents. Neither have we demarked any service lane to move such vehicles. Some vehicles are allowed to be repaired right in the middle of the road, which is one more reason for the jams.

Driving slow in the fast lane is one more headache. There are various kinds of drivers in this category…the rickshaw drivers, the busy on the mobile drivers, the lady drivers. They take pride in keeping the lane ahead of them totally empty, leader of the pack of the long line of cars behind them. The busy on the phone drivers are still ok as they wake up from their slumber moment the call is over and speed up again…the remaining two…less spoken of the better!!! Our Traffic department knows of only asking for fine for overspeeding not for underspeeding.

Oh forgot the old uncles, who are out there in the fast lane to protest against the fast cars. No matter how many cars overtake them, they drive at their own leisurely speed, reminding us of their times when cars never used to touch even 50 KMPH!!! ( I dont think they understand my sign of middle finger also )

Dedicated public crossings seem to be decided not by the traffic departments, but by the public and the local politicians. Dividers disappear overnight, barbed wires are effortlessly cut to create a new gap for the local public to cross. Forget public crossings, at some places U-turns appear overnight creating trouble to the cars.

Sigh!! I can go on and on and on…..

I know the traffic department alone is not to be blamed , even we as the citizens are responsible for most of this mess. But then when rules are implement strictly( and not just to pocket the money by enforcers), things can change….but who is going to bell the cat….

Booooooo K

Recently saw a hoarding in Mumbai, about some school claiming to be the first in Mumbai to have iPads instead of textbooks. I scoffed at the idea, thinking this is just another one of those ultra rich stupidities.

Cut to yesterday, when I went to buy my sons school books for the new academic year.  Was actually shocked to see the total amount I had to shell out for the books. The book seller was telling me that these books are still ok, one schools three books cost more than your sons all the books.

Now to think of it, seriously iPad or even a tablet will be a better option. Atleast the kids can use it for 3-4 years, ibooks can be loaded on them. Saves me money, saves paper, saves trees.

Aakaash an initiative by the Government of India failed, for whatever reasons, low cost, low production, whatever …but not a bad idea. Technology has progressed, we should also progress with it.  Maybe schools should adopt this system of iBooks.

Till then I will continue being spooked by the spiralling cost of text books. Whenever I see my sons textbooks….they seem to be scaring me by saying Booooooooooooo ….!!!

The Highway Robbery…..

Everybody keeps asking me how I liked Dubai/Sharjah. Frankly the thing which impressed me was not the Infrastructural Highway but the Internet Highway.

Seriously we Indians are being taken for a ride when it comes to Internet Speeds out here. I experienced broadband, Edge and 3g speeds out there….we are nowhere close to those speeds. We are paying from our noses for 3g speeds here in India but somebody should really run a audit check on the speed which they are providing to us. What we are getting is bullshit. First the government sees a chance to earn black money in the auctions and then it does not even ensure we are getting the speeds which we deserve.

This is Internet Highway Robbery, which we are not even aware of, because majority of us have not experienced what good speeds really are….

Traff*&ked

Being a Mumbaikarr I know how bad it can get when you are stuck in traffic. A two minute distance takes not less than 15-20 mins to cover sometimes. Sometimes the car is just stuck there in the same place. One cant even move in any direction.

Yesterday was stuck for nearly 20 mins at the same place. While there I could hear a faint siren of an ambulance. Now I am not sure if the ambulance was on its way to pick up a patient, or on its way to drop the patient to a hospital… or if at all in line of duty. But yes…began to wonder what would happen to a patient in case stuck in such traffic.

Why just get Traffucked on any road…imagine getting stuck on the road to an important hospital. Take the case of Hinduja Hospital at Mahim. A school in its vicinity with its all ultra rich students coming in cars occupy the road and create jams over there for almost half an hour in the morning. These car owners care a damn about traffic rules, cutting across the lanes, taking U-turns from where ever they feel comfortable. I have seen parents just park their cars and talk to other parents without caring a damn about the traffic situation. I shudder to think of a medical emergency patient getting stuck because of this stupidity. I am being told that there are other schools also, where similar situations occur daily.

Forget ambulance, what if there is a medical emergency to a driver or a co-passenger. Are we equipped for such eventualities?

Surely not. Our State Government has funds to build a stupid monument over the sea. But they have never planned any air lifting medical facilities in Mumbai. This is one facility we need badly in Mumbai, not just when we get Traffucked on the roads, but also in case of disaster management. Is anybody listening????