The fear of kids thinking of them as people who just feed and clothe them, parents are trying to have as much fun with them as possible on the weekends. Now the kids can think of them people who not just feed and clothe them but also entertain them on weekends... read more

This is one question that I have heard so often from Mira without really knowing the answer so I decided I would sit and think over it. This question generally is asked in context of work or actually in context of my office. The tolerance level of an average Mumbaikar seems higher than the same of a north Indian... read more

The more you think, the less you know and the less you know the more you get confused. More than once in the past I have written on my Blog about my feelings towards the formal education. It won't be wrong to say that my opinions reflected it as a necessary evil. Something without which you can't survive but at the same time, it is messing up with your mind... read more

You know I am really sick of getting spam mails from all sort of supposed "welfare" organisations like the WHO and and the Unicef and countless more like them. I feel they are a bunch of liars who want you to believe in stupid and baseless things like there are children in Africans countries that are dying from hunger or there is widespread unemployment and deaths caused by various factors like terrorism and political unstability... read more

It's been quite a hectic week for Raj Thackeray's men. First they had to bet up the north Indian, set fire to buses and shops. All that as just come to end that they have to get on Valentine's Day duty. They have to go to places like Bandra Reclamation and Bandstand and other places where young lovers generally meet and then beat them up for celebrating Valentine's Day... read more

Identifying a need and creating something for that requires some talent like someone identified that there is a need for communication while on move and mobile phones were created and now most people can't imagine a life without it. What requires even more talent is creating something for which there is no need and then that thing going on to become an integral part of people's life... read more

Public transport is for losers - This comment by Homer Simpson sums up my opinion about public transport. Yesterday I promised to tell you more so here it is. In the final years of school and during college I traveled in DTC (Delhi Transport Corporation) buses extensively and since the time of my travel was off peak and I usually had all the time in the world, I enjoyed it. When I started working, I experienced the incompetence of DTC which couldn't run enough buses and the greed of private operators who saw humans as sack of potatoes and their buses as Lorries for transporting them... read more

The other thing about kids is their ability to find something amusing about almost anything in this world. This is the case with Manu as well. Last Sunday I took him for polio drops in the A block of our housing society. The distance from our home to the camp was about 250 mtrs but it took us about 2 hours to make that trip. By the end of it too I had to carry him while he was howling to stay out even longer... read more

Looking at how most resolutions don't even last longer than the New Year party and the rest barely stretching January, I generally don't make any resolutions. This year however I have thought of bringing some positive changes in my life. I have some resolutions and although I have been thinking about them for some time now, I will call them my resolutions and will share them with you here. The number one resolution I would... read more

So the Aussies have managed to win 16th test in a row...with a little help from the umpires Steve Bucknor and Mark Benson. They have given about 11 incorrect decisions against India and I guess all of them could not be honest mistakes. You make a mistake on day 1 by not giving Andrew Symonds out who later himself confessed that he was out... read more

Found this in my inbox, sent by Nitesh - a friend of mine.

Suddenly the shoreline north of Sydney were transformed into the Cappuccino Coast .. Foam swallowed an entire beach and half the nearby buildings, including the local lifeguards' centre, in a freak display of nature at Yamba in New South Wales... read more

It was like a large group of male population in our country decided simultaneously that in the year 2008 they will try to get drunk more often and molest more women, individually or in a group. Now this is one helluva idea for male bonding. Not only did those men made this resolution, they were very prompt in putting it in practice too. They were out on the streets groping women all over the country.... read more

In one of my earliest post I mentioned how the HR practices of Indian companies are not very professional. The HR generally don't have the courtesy to call you up or send out a mail saying that your skills don't meet the requirement so can consider the chapter closed. Here everything is like a hit and trial. You go to a job site and then wait and wait for any reply. If your skills match you will get a call for an interview if not, you just keep waiting... read more

Some years ago there used to be a mini truck or a tempo as it was commonly known as. It used to run on a single cylinder 4-stroke engine and used to make a sound like a bullet on steroids (Royal Enfield bullet, not the bullet from a gun) the problem with it was that it had only three wheels. Instead of two, there was only one wheel in the front. The other odd thing was the engine which was kinda mounted on the front wheel... read more

Have landed a good job in Bombay but hate the city way too much to go there. OK let's there is one month before I join there so let's spend this time looking for a better opportunity elsewhere. Suddenly, with Bombay coming to play, the list of locations preferred became very wide. Jobs were explored in Chandigarh and Hyderabad as well but nothing is stronger than destiny and I landed here four years ago... read more

Plan A is that I will migrate to US... I may go to Australia and then from there move to either Canada or US. “What was the plan B?” The plan B is to get married. If you are thinking about getting married for love, you are in for a big shock because love and all that stuff is not even a consideration here... read more

In England someone threw jellybeans on the pitch while Zaheer Khan was batting and that pissed him off. He thought it was Kevin Pieterson and threatened him waving his bat. He was smart enough to not actually hit anyone but England paid the price of spilling beans on the pitch... read more

Everyone says we are bad tourists and our overseas records confirm that. We have managed to win a series after 21 years. A few things that come to mind after winning the series... read more

Two boys, probably twins, call their mother “Mom there is a good news and a bad news. Which one do you want to hear first?”
A little apprehensive, the mom said “Bad news?”
The boy says, “Rin Supreme bar of soap will no longer be available... read more

When I started Mental Floss, I used to send out regular updates. Around once a fortnight with links for all the posts in that period of time. When I started Picturejockey, I started sending out that update daily. The update was not as elaborate or customized as the one I used to send earlier but just a link to the latest post... read more

In 2001 while I was working for Trisoft Systems I made a site for myself. One of my colleagues suggested a person I could contact for hosting and domain registration. I got navinharish.com and uploaded the site there. So far the site survived the way it was. I knew I had to change the site but it took me quite a long time to actually update the site with a new design... read more

The memories of school I have are not exactly pleasant. I vaguely remember that on the day I had to go to school, I was standing in my bedroom. There we used to have a table where we used to keep our beddings. I was standing there clutching those hoping they won't be able to take me to school. I don’t remember how much I cried after going to school but my guess is a lot. That was when I was a little kid. I used to cry every time I went to a new school till the age of 5... read more

The first news that I read in the paper today was that Kingfisher has taken over Air Deccan. Air Deccan was trying to raise capital for some time and for it, the budget carrier was ready to offer 22% equity in the airlines, which would have been more than what Captain Gopinath—the man who launched this airline and the concept of budget carrier has in the airline... read more

I am back from my holidays or should I say I am back from the Delhi and Nangal episode of Survivor. It was nothing less than that especially for Manu who was hit the hardest by three nights in trains in one week... read more

I remember reading a joke in Reader's Digest. A judge was giving verdict in a forgery case and said "This is the stupidest criminal I have ever seen who is trying to make a counterfiet note of 20 dollars by cutting out corners of a $20 notes and sticking them on a S1 bill... read more

The Indian and the Pakistan teams seem to be out there just to prove Ricky wrong. India lost to Bangladesh and Pakistan did even worse by losing to Ireland. Something that the coach Bob Woolmer found so disappointing that he died. The coach was found unconscious in his hotel room and later died in the hospital by shock of losing to Oreland. I hope the coach of Ireland is not as shocked as he is by the win of his country that he also dies.... read more

Got this mail in my mailbox from a member of Creativegarh and I felt more people should know about it... read more

Holi is festival that almost all the kids enjoy and their parents usually are terrified of it, mainly because their kids enjoy it. On his first Holi, Manu was only a few months old so he didn't knew what was happening to him when we put some talcum powder and sindoor on his face. Last year he was saw that we were all getting more coloured than usual but didn't really knew how to react. This year, he is 2.3 years old and was very happy on Holi.... read more

One thing Manu is really fond of is my phone. He usually doesn't get to play with it but when he does, his happiness is beyond something I can describe. Usually the phone is kept on a shelf above our TV. He climbs on the table and then reaches for the phone... read more

I guess this is exactly the attitude of the government and all government organizations including the railways and the Railway police. Samjhauta Express traveling from New Delhi to Pakistan had two bomb blasts near Panipat... read more

Got this in my mail from my cousing Yukti and I thought it was important enough to be shared with all of you. It is the story of the ant and the grasshopper told in a modern context... read more

It is said that Bombay is the city of dreams and you can realise all your dreams if you have the courage. I guess it is right. If you see all the people who have been successful and who have achieved something in the city are not the natives of Bombay but people who have come over here from all over the country with a dream to make it big... read more

The Hindustan Times on the 1st of January came with some resolutions and one of those was that the newspaper would put on more weight. The plan to put on more weight by adding more content but I guess finding and providing new content is not always as easy as promising it... read more

The Indian media seems to covering only one news and that is the wedding of Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai. The fact that it was announced that they are engaged and will be getting married is driving the whole world crazy and this is all they are talking about... read more

Cricket is not something I like to write about as there are a lot of other who have infinitely more knowledge about it than me and secondly because a lot of Indians have lost interest in it including me but I couldn't stop myself from writing about it after the recent events... read more

Bombay is called the city of dreams and I guess rightly so especially when you have a thousand people coming to the city everyday with the intention of staying here. Among those thousand people are the aspiring actors who want to make it big in the Bollywood, there are people from small town and villages who come to seek employment and then there are people like me who don't actually want to come here but have come here all the same... read more

In what seems like a previous life now, I used to work for Nirula's. Those who don't know Nirula's, it is a chain of restaurants that dominated the Delhi market before Dominos, McDonalds and other fast food joints came in.

I used to work in the design department and we had a Vinyl plotter, which was used to produce quite a few things including the menus' signs etc... read more

Saddam Hussein was hanged at 8.30 am India time yesterday and this inspired a range of reactions including people dancing on streets and people planting bombs killing about 80 odd people...read more

I have mentioned in a previous post that Manu's brain works in ways not comprehensible to me. He has building blocks that my cousin bought for him and whenever he gets hold of that bag, he comes and asks me or Mira to unzip it but he rarely plays with them... read more

There are two matches starting on Boxing Day, one between India and South Africa and the second between is the ashes match between Australia and England. The match played on MCG is special because Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath are retiring from cricket... read more

I once dreamt that I am in my office and I am playing FreeCell. In the game instead of playing cards, I have UI options for one project. Actually that project was nothing less than a nightmare as I had a total of 108 files of User Interface including colour options by the end of the project, enough to give me the kind of nightmares I was having...read more

One of the tabloid carried a news of Shah Rukh Khan giving a gift worth 30 crores to Farrah Khan...read more

One of the most important things in doing good work is taking pride in it and we see a lot of work done just to get over with it. If the people who did that work actually took pride in it, how would you explain the shoddy results... read more

In a classroom, there are two chubby kids sitting next to each other. One of them offers the other one five candies and says.

“Five for you, ten for me”
“CHEATERCOCK” is what the other kid shouts.
Next they are standing outside their calls "Tell me, why 5 for me and 10 for you" and over a period the kid is trying to recollect how many problems his toothpaste fights... read more

Buying a house is a dream everyone has and for a lot of people it remains just a dream, especially if you are living in a place like Bombay. The pace of price hike in real estate is even giving the Sensex a complex... read more

I had some problems with my Tata Indicom Broadband account about which I wrote sometime back. After I gave up talking to the call center people, I decided to speak to someone higher up... read more

There are a couple of incidents in the past few days that made me wonder how dumb some thieves can be. In the present scenario I guess a school teaching basics to thieves and robbers will do very well... read more

In the newspaper today I read the headline of an article on Amitabh Bachchan saying that 2006 was by far is best year. I am sure a lot of people would disagree and would think of other years where he was more successful in terms of his careers but the bottom line is that the gentleman himself believes that this is his best year... read more

At the time of independence a provision was made to provide some help to the people from Schedule cast and tribes. There was a reservation for them in schools, educational institutes and government jobs to give them an opportunity that has so far been denied... read more

I wanted to write about it when it happened but didn't for some reason and a couple of days I read his name again in the newspaper as he was arrested again so I though I should write about it. Alistair Pereira, a boy in his early 20s and high on alcohol ran over workers sleeping on the pavement in Bandra... read more

Last Sunday Manu turned 2 and one very obvious thing we had to do was to buy a cake. We have been buying cakes from Mongini's ever since we came to Bombay and I must say that I am not too thrilled by the kind of cakes they make. We have been ordering cakes from Birdy's in our office se I decided that I will get the cake fro Manu from there... read more

Sometime, in our eagerness to share something with the rest of the world we may end up doing things that can be classified as spamming. I have got a first hand experience of this...read more

I don't understand this. There are people, especially people in media who are going crazy about the supposed wedding of Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai. First they were speculating if this is going to happen but now they have seemed to convince themselves that indeed they are getting married... read more

In a quite office in a not so quite suburb of Bombay, a man is sitting on his chair reading a newspaper and sipping tea. Just as he placed his cup of tea on the table, a man opened the door of his cabin and rushed in...read more