Life made easier with Airtel 4G

Life in 21st Century is tough. This is the real digital era. We have smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, laptops ruling the roost and everyday,new digital technologies make their way in our lives to de-clutter it, simplify it and make it better. The world is a small place and connectivity is at its all time high.

But all of this goes to naught if our internet connection speed does not catch up with the times! And unfortunately, it hasn't. For example-take the singular case of me trying to make one blog post. I write it, then I put in links, pictures or videos and then upload it. The whole process should ideally take me as much time as my brain needs to think and my fingers need to type. BUT I spend at least 5 minutes staring blankly at the screen while the pictures/videos upload merrily. Ok, sometimes I utilize that time to make me a nice cup of coffee, but that does not make the process any less annoying.

Or take a simple work day. I have to meet clients to give them presentations and so I need internet on the go. Being stuck in a traffic jam, I want to utilize that time to update my presentation or browse some worksheet or check my emails or write a speech or maybe even watch a video. The number of times I have cursed at my phone as the connectivity speed is almost nil at busy traffic intersections, are too many to recount.

That is why I am overjoyed at the news of Airtel 4G making its appearance :) Finally, internet at speeds that I deserve, that I need and that I wish for! Superfast connectivity is not going to be a fluffy dream anymore. Just last week, an office colleague of mine was talking about Airtel 4G  -about how he got a free 4G SIM home delivered by simply tweeting with the hashtag #GetAirtel4G on twitter! It intrigued me and I asked him if I could see the 4G speed in action for myself. Imagine a mp3 song being downloaded in 4 seconds flat, or a mp4 video in 25 seconds flat! Watching youtube videos is a breeze as is downloading any app now. Watching him perform these activities in seconds, what earlier would take minutes & hours, I am sure it is going to make my life easier too.

I will be stuck in traffic and still be able to make snazzy presentations & share them quickly with my colleagues. I will be on the move and seamlessly connect with my emails, even the ones with heavy attachments, or even update my blog in a heartbeat. Downloading songs, movies or watching them stream will no longer be a pain! Very importantly, I stayed away from mobile banking all this while because of poor connectivity and regularly dropped connections, but no more! I can be a financial whiz kid while on -the -go too :) And for a travel junkie like me, travelling would be a pleasure when I have the whole world of sharing and connectivity at my fingertips-at super speeds :)

Working on the go, Entertainment on my fingertips, with Airtel 4G I am ready for a new chapter in my life. After all, it comes only at the price of 3G!

No More Crashing, Honey!

Fatso, Fatso, Fatsooooooooooooooooooo!

The words still ring in my ears.

The truth is. I am a fat girl. I was born this way. When I was 5 years old, my parents took me to a pediatrician who thought I was a chubby boy and he told my parents, 'Don't worry, his baby fat would melt away when he grows up and plays cricket or football.' Then my parents told him that I am a girl and he was like, 'Ohhhhhhhhhh'.

I did grow up to play football and cricket, but the baby fat never really melted away. I was always the plumpest girl in my class. Up until the age of 10-11,everyone called me a teddy bear since I was a rolly polly child and we all love such chubby kids,don't we? But then came the teenage years and as if pimples weren't enough to make me feel bad enough, there came those rings of 'fatso' in my neighborhood whenever I went to market to buy veggies or fruits or bread. Even my mom's aunties started asking my mother if she was helping me go on some medicine to lose weight or if she was looking for some gym to enroll me in. 

The worst part was, nobody in my family before me has been born fat. My dad is athletic but far from fat. My mother was actually underweight before marriage and it was only after I was born that she started resembling a normal,healthy human. So everybody would just see me and my parents and assume that I am fat because I spend my days eating and doing nothing else.

Well, I did everything possible.

I ate as less as possible. I ate as much karela and bhindi and all the healthy veggies as I could. I said no to chocolates. I had ice-cream once a month. Even when we would go out on picnics or sleepovers, my friends would indulge in samosas and chole bhaturey while I would make excuses and eat watermelons in a corner. But I still remained 'fatso'.

By the time I reached college, I was desperate to find a cure and turn into a 'hottie' with a figure like a model. I read about all kinds of crash diets and in a moment of utter desperation, even tried some of them. For a week, I abstained from all solid food and had only fresh fruit juices. Result? I fainted on the 7th day and had to be taken to hospital for intravenous glucose. The medicines to recoup my health made me gain even more weight than what I had lost in that horrible week. Then I went on an alternate-day-eating diet where I had normal food one day and only water the next day. Again, I started feeling weaker within 5 days and my parents made me stop all this nonsense crash diet obsession. 

The only ray of hope-my parents. They never made me feel bad because I am fat. They never loved me any less! When my parents quizzed me on why I was doing all that and I told them it was because I wanted to be thin, they asked me to be patient and trust the age old wisdom, starting right from having a glass of warm water every morning with a spoon of honey. I had always seen Dabur Honey on a kitchen shelf and read about the benefits of using Honey in the process of dieting (Honey Diet ,if you may!) but never really tried it!

Well, I started with the morning ritual and guess what, within 3 months I had lost 6 kilograms of excess body weight-which might sound less to you-but considering how stubborn my body fat is, this is a miracle. Not only this, I feel more energetic, stronger from inside, I am not bothered by diseases due to low immunity anymore, my skin feels better, I do not have acne anymore and there is a general spring and vibrancy to my lifestyle. I credit all this to Honey and that is why I have vowed to never even look at a crash diet again!

Surfing Without A Break, Life Uninterrupted!

AAAAAAAAAND IT'S A SIXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX!

How many times have we heard of these exact words in our childhood and still smile at the mere memory?

How many days, weeks, months have we spent with our buddies and cousins and in general, anyone and everyone, discussing if the umpire's decision was right or not?

How many neighborhood banters were based on whether it was a 'No-Ball' or not?

Yup, too many priceless memories and beautiful smiles hinge on all this. Cricket is not just a hobby or thing, it is a relentless passion,pursuit and indeed, a religion in India :)

I remember so many of my exam days,completely ruined because of some important match or other! One eye on the TV and other on the notes,does not really make it any easier to comprehend anything. Oh,the number of times I have almost flunked my school tests because of Kapil Dev and Saurav Ganguly!

And then I came to college. Things have got to be better here, right? WRONG! Here comes Sachin and all my plans of weaning myself away from the lure of cricket are gone to flames. I don't care if I am dying of appendicitis or writing my graduation practicals finals, I had one ear on the pocket transistor and another on whatever the task at hand was.

With passage of time and the advent of internet, things became better. Hey,now we have google along with so many internet sites, news sites where we can catch hold of latest scores, previews and analysis of each match. But hey,now I am working and I don't seem to have access to everything at one place. I am also travelling a lot, I am spending time stuck in cubicles and I cannot spend so much time hopping from one site to another. After having almost ruined my entire academic career running after cricket, am I now forced to take a break for fear of almost ruining my career too?

Absolutely not!

This is where my favorite UC Browser comes to my rescue! With the advent of UC Cricket, my life is literally now LIFE UNINTERRUPTED :) Live scores, Latest News, Videos and MORE, all at one place, all at the tip of my fingers! So even when I am stuck in traffic, or in a boring meeting with a large group or just in my cubicle during a particularly lazy afternoon, I no longer need to panic because I am left adrift without access to anything that I crave. AND to top it all, I am saying goodbye to the slow browsing that has been my bane since the beginning of internet! As my sister rightly said after browsing through UC Cricket, 'Hey, if it is cricket,it has got to be UC Cricket!' A boon for cricket lovers and fanatics alike! I am just glad I found it before I started sending resumes to all the cricket playgrounds around the city, for anything to stay close to my first and last love-Cricket!

My Mom,My Expert

Really, who else is there on this planet who understands us better than we understand ourself? Who else is there to listen to our cries before we cry or pray for our happiness while we go ahoy in life absolutely unfettered,without even looking back for a moment? Yup,our mothers. The person crafted by God since he could not be everywhere Himself,right? Right.

So why should my mother be any different? My mom, my Maa, the one person who can read my soul like an open book even though I am still stuck at the first chapter.

I was 7 years old. I remember her arguing with my dad. My dad is an awesome person, but like many other awesome persons on this planet, he also loves to abide by the rules of the society in which he lives. Not my mom. She breaks them as per her convenience. That is what she was doing that fateful day.

My dad was saying something along the lines of- 'Arre,what will others say? You know how people look down upon such things here...'

And my mom retorted,' I do not care. Others do not take care of her, she is my daughter! She is going there and that is that...'

I had no idea what they were arguing about. Mainly because I had no interest in focusing on anything other than the episode of Shaktimaan that I was watching right then and also because mom had taught me to not eavesdrop into other people's arguments and this was when I actually listened to her (wink wink).

But I did not have to wait for long. Barely 15 minutes had passed before my dad stormed out of the room, crossed the living room in 2 long strides, turned off the TV, turned towards me and nearly growled, 'Get ready,NOW'.

I did. 15 minutes later,we were sitting in a car, zooming towards my dad's office area which was puzzling for me, since I knew his office remained closed on the day Shaktimaan was telecasted. However,I had no idea of intruding upon the cold war brewing between my dad and mom by asking about where we were going. 

15 more minutes later and we were standing on the grounds of a nearly dilapidated,yet imposing, building near my dad's office. It was a dance school. Oh,so this is what they were talking about! You see, we lived in a society that looked down upon the performing arts. Dancing, singing, acting were referred to in derogatory terms by my dad's family, my mom's family as well as the neighbors in our apartment complex, and the general populace of our social class. But ofcourse,I was a 7 year old child. Trying talking about socio-politico-religious compulsions of this mad world to a 7 year old child! All I knew was, I LOVED to dance. From a very young age, I had loved songs and watching Bollywood movies was an obsession with me. In our family, my dad's family would only ever listen to classical music and ghazals of Pankaj Udhas. But I think,from the time I was 3 or 4 years old, my mom had started buying Hindi film songs of Mithun Chakravarthy and Jackie Shroff starrers since she loved to see my little toes wiggle to the beats of those disco songs. So,obviously, she thought it was best for me to start getting classically trained from a young age. Ergo,here we were,getting my name enrolled for the Bharatnatyam classes at the said dilapidated dance school.

This is the first instance I remember where I saw the fighter in my mom. My memories are a bit hazy but I remember everything important. 

I remember the way she held on to her ground even under growing opposition. First it was my dad,then came my dadaji, my dadiji, the whole extended family from my dad's side who refused to even consider the idea of sending me to a 'naach-gaana' place. Even my mom's side of family was not overtly thrilled even though they did not make much fuss but I remember my mom meeting everyone with a curt 'No Discussion' on the topic.

I remember my mom telling me the story of her childhood where she used to watch Hema Malini and Vyjantimala's movies at her friends' places because she wasn't allowed to do so at her own house,and how she would dream of dancing but ofcourse she was never allowed to nurture this dream and to make sure that she did not take any 'drastic step' (of maybe getting self-enrolled into a dance school?) she was married off while still in high school. Obviously, what better way to make sure that a woman 'does not cross her limits' than to marry her off in India?!

I remember how this 'dance school incident' was the first one where I saw my mom being a true warrior,not one who goes around totting a gun but one who sticks to a very finely refined compass of moral right and wrong and never gives up principles and values.

I remember how about 2 years later,my mom also applied for a job at the same dance school, in an administrative position, so she could stay close to me as well as to her first love-classical music and dance. I remember how her eyes sparkled when she saw all us little children in our dance uniforms and ghunghroos.

I remember how our neighbors grudgingly gave my mother the respect she deserved when I started performing at our colony's Durga Puja and Kali Puja ceremonies. That was when they realized that my mom wanted me to worship arts the way Lord Shiva, The Nataraj does, not make me a 'naachne gaane waali'!

I remember how some years later, our neighbors started asking my mother for advice on various matters,not restricted just to the dance class but general queries on how to navigate administrative bureaucracy in various places too since by then she had gotten promotion in her choice of vocation all based on her hard work and dedication.

I remember the way my mom used to be a perfect housewife and a perfect working woman in those days. Waking up at 7, taking me to school, doing all housework, going to job, coming back at lunch time to pick me up, take me to dance school, bringing me back, helping me do my homework, making dinner, helping me prepare for extra curricular and co-curricular activities. I wonder how I never thought of her as Wonder Woman then! She truly was! I never missed school or dance school, never missed submitting a homework on time and never got anything less than 90% on any of my exams.

I remember that from this instance on, she was always my rock, my pillar of support, no matter what I needed to or wanted to do, no matter if the whole world stood against me, she was always there and she still is.

I remember a 100 different incidents but I also remember this is where it all started. The realization that God really could not be everywhere and so he made mom. Specifically,my mother. Even today,her enthusiasm for life and her quest to change whatever stifles her (or by extension,any fellow human being) remains unbridled. And the fact that she is such a passionate,never ending warrior makes her eternal and ageless. Of course, there are some signs of ageing, but thanks to Godrej, at least her hair never shows any signs of ageing. So there it is, my mother, my warrior, my expert!

Together we can overcome anything...

It was just another regular day. Not a dreary cloud in sky. Cheery, nice day. I still remember it as if it was yesterday. I went to class. I was in High School. I entered the class and immediately found Goku (my best friend) in his favourite place, immersed in a book like always. We had a little ritual amidst us. He always reached class first and no matter how much I tried, I could never wake up as early as him and catch the same bus as him, as a result always reaching just a few minutes before the class bell rang. And every single day he would have some smart comment waiting for me as I would enter my class and I would throw my heavy bag at him. Regular friends we were you see.

But not that day. I entered, walked the whole 10 steps to my seat, put my bag down and waited for the smart – mouth to put forth a mildly insulting comment related to my inability to wake up early. I waited a whole 30 seconds. Nothing! This was a first in the history of humanity Ladies & Gentlemen! We had been studying (and fighting) together for almost 2 years now, how could he just deviate from our well established routine like this?

‘Earth calling Goku’ (His real name is Gokul, in case anybody is wondering).

‘Oh, hi’ (back to his book)

‘All right there? Got a Prozac overdose?’

‘No. Just my father died’.

Now how do you respond to something like that. Not that I had never witnessed or heard about death before. But this was too much. One would expect the news of death of someone’s grandparents. But father is too much for anybody to bear. Too much, too soon. This was not right.

‘Sorry’

‘Don’t worry; he was never much of a father’

Okay, so we were best friends. We did not grill each other’s personal history like they do in those cop shows. Nearly 2 years of friendship and not once did I talk to him about his mom or dad. We even had a few birthday parties at his home, all conveniently on days when his parents were out of town and so again, there was no need for a cop level grilling.

Anyway, trying my best to not burst into flames with shame and guilt, I asked him if he wanted to talk about it. Turned out, he did. We bunked all our lectures for the day and went to the nearest shopping mall we had to find the quietest corner in the food court in which to talk about our life journey so far. Turns out, his dad had turned alcoholic soon after he was born and his mother died of child-birth complications. So he was being brought up by his father’s elder brother (who had officially adopted him later on too) and so all the dealings he had ever had with his father were a customary ‘namaste’ or two in various family functions. That is it. A whole lifetime of burden, feelings, sadness, inexplicable tragedy and tears came out pouring in that afternoon.

What most affected me in the whole episode was I looked at him and our friendship in a whole new light. His experience did not merely move me, it transformed me. Strange how I could find optimism and strength in a tragic episode like this, but I did –optimism that this friendship is truly the rock of my life, something that I never take for granted, and that truest friends make you feel like anything is possible, they are the true angels giving wing to your dreams. Suddenly no problem seemed unsolvable, nothing seemed improbable. It is not something I can explain in mere words but surely, anybody with even a modicum of feeling can understand this. I am sure many such experiences are waiting out there ready to be unleashed in an avalanche of memories. Try checking Housing.com if you need motivation to remember them!