Hanging gardens in Mumbai and Ravi the lingo kid

Couple of months ago, I saw a video on youtube about a kid named Ravi who sells peacock feather fans to people visiting the hanging gardens in Malabar Hill, Mumbai. This kid speaks a tonne of languages including non-Indian ones like Spanish, French, Italian, Hebrew, Arabic, Japanese and so forth.

Anyways, I was in Mumbai as part of a business trip two days ago. On a free day I made a visit to some popular tourist spots and hanging gardens was one of them. As I was exiting from the garden, lo and behold, the Ravi I saw on youtube couple of months ago was trying to lure a Philipino couple into buying his peacock feather fan. Not wanting to waste an opportunity to take a pic, I told him how famous he was on the internet with the video a tourist put up on him a while ago and then asked if I could take a pic. The kid blushed a bit and happily obliged. Its too bad that the hundreds of thousands of hits hes getting on youtube as the “lingo boy” isnt monetized. He has no formal education. He knows all the economics and marketing about selling the fan and I doubt anything more. This lingo kid isnt any more special than the thousands of other similar kids doing the same thing. Ravi gets his stuff from his hometown in Gujarat. His mamma makes them and he sells them.

This meet up with him was one of the highlights of my Mumbai trip, but will exist as a dark reminder of the plight of many kids in India whose situations force them to forgo any pursuance of formal education to meet the bread and butter needs of the family. By the way, the video is here

les miserable review

first time in my life, i went to see the broadway show “les miserable” today. longest running show in the world. “phantom of the opera” is the longest running show on broadway, new york.

now for the review. the whole story is about this one person named, Jean Valjean, known in prison only by his prisoner number, 24601, who was shown grace by a priest. that act touched him and throughout the plot, we see him in turn demonstrating grace in profound ways. the play is taken from a novel written by victor hugo.

though i read that the show was musical, i kinda thought it was actually a play with quite some number of songs. wrong! its literally a musical. 99% of the script was musical. the accompanying music was awesome with all the horns, brasses, strings and timpanis, though sometimes drowning the vocals (and did i say all the vocals were awesome??). the stage setting was awesome and set appropriately to the early 19th century feel. i think the lighting people needed to do better. when the actors moved, the lights did not perfectly light them.

i sat in the middle of the last row in the mezzanine.  the view was perfect from here. i advise to sit away from the orchestra section for 2 reasons. non elevated view and plus the music might be a little too loud there. there were about 1000+ people today. probably being a friday evening. most of the people were dressed up a bit. and i guess other than 2 more, i was the only indian there. and probably the youngest too.

when buying a ticket, do a search on the internet. you might find promo codes. i bought it for $75, including the 6.50 for service charge and 1.50 for something else. sheesh! didnt think about doing the search. later on when it struck me, i saw that i could get premium seats for that price. anyways, i wish the show was less expesive. other than that, everything else was pretty nice. the story plot especially. would i go again to watch “les miserables”? hmm.. i think i will (if i get the tickets cheaper though!)

send limit in gmail??

wat the heck??!! if you go to gmail.com landing page, you see an ever moving counter indicating the ever growing gmail inbox size limit. but did you know there was a sending limit. i mean, literally, you cant send the same message to more than 500 recipients a day. i know 500 may sound a lot, but its not. in this day and age of social networking, you tend to meet a lotta people and keep their contact infos.

yesterday i came across this awesome video (heres the link by the way) and i thought of sending it to everyone in my contacts list, 550 by the way. it was the very first time i ever tried doing a mass emailing (a.k.a spamming). i did that successfully, but when i tried to send a diff message to one of my friends, i came across this message. wierd. now i got to wait till 12am, for the next day, to get this message across. SHOOT!!!

me bored..

its -10 degree outside. im all bundled up sitting downstairs, my heavenly abode, in front of my laptop trying to think what to blog about as i write this………… still thinking……. prolly some other time… c ya!

here’s a deal…

u giv an idea…. if i implement it, n its profitable, i giv u half of net profit… nw dont ask me for idea… if i had one, i wud not ask u.. i wud had implement it and kept all profit..

i sound stupid dont i?? i guess for me its one of those days where u feel stupid, think stupid and write stupid.. happy stupidity day!!! hi five!!

tasteless fashion

ive always been on the “shabbily dressed”/ “bum like ” end of the fashion spectrum… n today i proved it again.. my uncle, 67 years old, was getting his bags ready to fly to india in couple of days… in my sincerest attempt to help him out in deciding wat to wear during travel, i suggested a white t shirt with a khaki pant and dark khaki overcoat.. my suggestion seemed gud to me.. but once i saw the disgusted look on my uncles face on hearing that suggestion, i realised i havent risen on the spectrum.. my tastes are still tasteless.. ive always wondered wat luks gud on me or wat i luk gud in.. either way, i think its going to be tasteless.. so lets spare ourselves of the attempt n find better things to do in life..

first day of ’07

went to sleep at 3am.. got up at 12.30 pm… there goes half a day!! setup a Cisco VPN  client so I could connect to work using remote desktop connection.. might sound a lot, but just took 3 minutes!! the rest of the day i spent reading tech news, watching videos on youtube and “stumbling” links which is by the way an awesome way to kill time.. there goes a day… 364 more left to waste!!

i went outta state!!

i came to the US on jan 10, 2006… and today was the second last day of the year… couple of days ago, i was having a conversation with one of ma friends… it was about travelling and sight seeing..  he asked me whether i went out of state after coming to the US… i said no and he said, “tats so messed up  man!!”… me being an adventurous person, i kinda felt bad for being commented about my life of unadventure since coming to the US!

i was always planning to get ma license and rent a car and go visitin outta state, but been procrastinating about scheduling a road test.. i got my learners.. but theres not point in having that coz i need a person in the car with a ny state license to “baby sit” my driving as i am a threat to the society!! all i need now was to pass the road test to get ma license.. but anyways, today i WENT OUTTA STATE!!! the place was in new jersey, just a couple miles of away from the border of new york.. my cousin was going to pickup his new toyota sienna from the showroom in nj and i decided to tag along.. im happy that i got to go outta state with just 1 day left to end the year!! nothing really exciting… it just seems that theres more space outta ny.. anyways, whew!! close call!!

saddam hanged…

the crime that was charged against saddam that led to his hanging was that he authorised the torture and killing of a lot of people in dujail coz 6 youngsters from that place tried to assasinate him… i saw the edited version of the hanging video( with the “viewer discretion advised due to graphic content” note ) on CNN and the unedited footage leaked out of the execution room using a phone!! (nt linking here coz i find it quite disturbing)

i think mr. bush and mr. rumsfield shud of had hanged first… because of ’em, the country of iraq has apparently turned into an anarchy… more people are suffering and being killed than it shud had if saddam was ruling today… if saddam was punished in such an inhumane way coz he killed and tortured people, how much more shud bush and rumsfield be punished.. im not justifying saddams actions.. im just saying that all three, bush, rumsfield n saddam are guilty of killing and torturing people.. but bush and rumsfield even more.. the war college predicted such kind of aftermath (civil war n hence lotta people dying) but bush n rumsfield ears fell deaf to it..

reasons for america attacking iraq

1. pre – eminent attack :- america thought saddam had weapons powerful enough to reach the US and destroy it.. its yet to be proved

2. saddam tortured his people :- with 80% shia population who is against his 20% sunni population of course saddam tortured and frightened people so that his clan cud be safe.. in the present scenario, coz of US “dethronment” of saddam and “enthronment” of shia leaders, there is even more torture and anarchy…

bush man, ur a complete failure!! so is ur buddy rumsfield… u guys have ruined a lotta lives… wonder y u didnt extend ur “helping hand” into the starving and war torn countries of africa instead… no oil eh??

david blaine with no magic skills

yesterday i saw a 3 minute video about being successful on TED.com (too lazy to find out the exact link and post it here).. in short, a person is not financially successful just because hes smart or hard working.. its because hes “passionate“.. he/she ( to be diplomatic gender wise!! 😉 ) is passionate about something that is considered valuable by people and delivers it right…  so what??  well i tried  to  find out something that i was passionate about… its been since 30 hours since ive watched the video and i still havent found out..

i do IT.. but am i passionate about it? i dont think so.. i like it, but not so passionate enough to spend $2000 for some training on a new technology.. new technologies  come out so often and before u know it i wud be broke if i started going for all of em.. but do i make an attempt in understanding it through personal research?? yes.. so am i passionate?? no!! wats the point of this exercise?? i dunno!

have u seen david blaine doing his escapade? him cruched up and bound with heavy chains and locks that make it so difficult to breathe?? and then magically he comes out of it?? well, i kinda feel like that now.. blaine bound but bithout bthe bmagic bskills..   dont live alone. with my uncle… dont have a car.. ride with uncle.. work + commute ~ 12 hours…. weather? cold to do anything!! bored? heck yeah!!