Transportation Cars & Roads:

Delhi’s road infrastructure is stunning. They say if you’re city driving enthusiast, you got to be in Delhi. It looks impressive especially when you come from other parts of India. Roads are smooth, broad, and there are cars for these wide roads to fill. There are cars, plenty of cars and variety of cars. Unlike other cities, where you see one types of cars dominating roads in a city, (which define the city’s culture;) in Delhi there’re cars of all price range; and they are big in numbers. I heard that Number of cars in NCR (New Delhi & surrounding area) are more than the total sum of all cars present in other Indian metro cities (Mumbai + Chennai + Kolkata). I thought it’s unrealistic claim, but after visiting Delhi I realised that it’s not equal to sum of other 3 metros, (but a lot more!!) it’s more than sum of all top 10 cities combined!! yeah! go ahead and add Bangalore, Hydrabad, Ahemdabad, Pune in the list & NCR would still beat them all alone. (yes, go google it & check the stats!). I see Toyota Camry & Honda Accord on Delhi’s road as often as I can see Maruti Suzuki’s Swift in Mumbai.

I cannot say it’s good or bad, having your own car, or having higher ‘cars per thousand people’ ratio for city, it could be one of the measures of prosperity. But it can also indicate the lack of good public transport system. Seriously, as a visitor, you’re completely helpless in Delhi. It’s inconvient and expensive. There’re no cabs/taxi (four wheeler car, fiat or ambassador) roaming around city, no cool cabs (A/C taxis) seen too, well! at least I didnot see them. (my friend claimed that there’re few). I hope there’re enough rickshaws but they dont follow the meter and charge passengers way more than they should. It’s the case with EVERY rickshaw, I dont understand why there’s meter system if nobody follows it in first place. Either increase meter rate or control rickshaw mafia. This is at full scale, illegal, cancerous and not right for the BIG city like Delhi. Public transport is SERIOUS problem in Delhi. Let’s not talk about Delhi’s buses. Privatising the city bus service is the biggest mistake government have done. Buses also doesnt travel through inner roads and lacks ‘reach’. I’ve been hearing about metro since a decade. And dilli junta is very optimistic, always saying ‘metro ane ke baad sab thik hoga‘…. lo aa gayi metro, kuch pharak pada?

I just hope they increase the rail network and the frequecy of metro trains.

I’ve always been attracted to Delhi, maybe it’s because Hindi language, nation’s capital, great history & legacy or Punjabi pop music influence on bollywood; it doesn’t matter, the point is I always ^tried to love^ Delhi….. whenever I go there. Yes, it’s not the first time I been there, so here we go. In red bold words are the top things I noticed in Delhi

Society, Culture & People:

If I visit new place, I love to get lost! (but fortunately/unfortunately I never got lost!) I love to explore cities, & when I went Delhi I see no beggars. There’re no beggars. At least nobody begged me! and it’s not that I wondered only in ^posh areas^ of city.  On bus station, auto rickshaw stand, railway stations, in the train, all possible public places, I never seen a beggar, it could be that everytime I went Delhi it was cold winter, but what would beggars do in cold? where do they go? & why should they come in summers anyways? it’s unbearable in New Delhi during any month of the year. I guess that is the reason why there’re no beggars, you cannot afford to be shelter-less in Delhi. Winter is freezing cold, summer is boiling hot & negligible rain during monsoon. Forget about beggars I wonder how normal people can live in that city! I observed very odd pattern and lifestyle at residential areas. In Delhi you buy a plot and build your own house. Landlord most of the cases gives on floor of the house/building for rent/lease. There’s no concept of equal people living together in a building owning flats like co-operative housing society, have common area, facilities like an apartment or sharing toilet and gallery like a chawl. Thus, every plot owner thinks selfish way. They have colonies consisting lots of grid-plots, where one plot ends and other starts sharing same compound fence. To utilise the avail land fully, they build house (?) corner to corner compromising greatly on ventilation. I would not call them houses they are actually small concrete boxes in a big city. There’re no skyscrapers for residents. I rarely seen high-rise buildings but those were corporate offices. I see it more like London than Mumbai. Still it cannot be compared with London, as it’s not a cosmopolitan city.  In Delhi, all people speak in Hindi, (including the staff at the American Library) yes true! I hear haanji (yes sir!), sirji, ji, all the time. Really, once you’re outside your home, all people from boy at tea-stall to rickhaw-wala everybody address you with “sir” or “sirji“, that’s such awkward for Mumbaikar like me, c’mon, sir? oh, & if you want to know how they address here in Mumbai, just watch Taxi No. 9211. In fact most of the bollywood movies are filmed in Mumbai, has Mumbai in its theme and demonstrate Mumbai culture and style. Very rarely, a film is produced with Delhi-theme e.g. Khosla ka Ghosla. Same is with advertising be it print or TV media, since most of the ad agencies that work in Indian advertising industry are located in Mumbai, they have Mumbai flavour in their ads. Anyways before I lose my track, the point is if you don’t live near NCR area, or Northern India in general, you’re not exposed to Delhi culture well; whereas you get glimpse of Mumbai’s lifestyle and culture by watching TV & Bollywood movies. For instance I was not aware of Delhi’s clothing sense, fashion etc. & I must tell you I’m impressed. Not just girls are good looking they dress well, I think girls from Pune should learn something Delhi and Chandigargh. Sigh!

to be continued read part-2 transportation

Bluehost

I was very cautious while selecting and finalising the web host service website where I would run my websites from. So I looked as many webhosting firms as I could & searched for bad or negative comments. I was looking for a service provider with zero negative remarks. I think that was easy to scrutinise because you find at least one bad comment from un-satisfied customer anyways. But it was not quick task as there’re plethora of webhosting service providers, plus there’re resellers and local agents. It’s a big market for website hosting, online server and data center industry.
I had few criteria already set that brought down the number by almost half.

• I wanted shared hosting server.
• I wanted a webhost account where I can park and host multiple (preferably unlimited/ 10+) domain names.
• I wanted great customer support and “online chat” feature was must.
• I didn’t want to use local service providers of any Indian resellers in general. (yes, Indian webhosting companies have long way to go before they could provide the worldclass service.
• Basically I wanted flexibility, freedom, support, so Yahoo was out of question.

However there’re general selection criteria, such as, Checking whether the webhost only host clean websites or not, else you might end up in the blacklist of Google/yahoo etc. If your website using shared IP address, your emails might be treated as spam & directly go to junkmail box if other websites on your IP are ’spamming around’.  There’re are special webhosting companies who host pornographic, warez, file-storing websites, which involves heavy traffic and needs lots of storage space. Better stay away from them.

I’m not claiming that these are the best rules (/criteria) to select a webhosting services. You can have your own selection criteria, it can be different but the point is you should list what are your needs and what exactly you’re looking for and I’m glad that you’re reading this page now. The reason for researching before deciding your web hosting service provider is the commitment period is usually long, if you pay for long-term *say more than 1year rather than paying per month, you’d save atleast a dollar per month with most of the shared hosting.

After a lot reading on net and research I signed up with BlueHosts shared hosting.

Bluehost is safe, reliable, best in support, pre-sales queries, literally 24×7 costumer care by online chat. You get flexibility to do anything on your website, e.g. run forums, blogs, photo gallery, all scripts are automatically installs and are free of cost! So, what are you waiting for? I’ve had a dream of running my own website & I’m doing it at affordable cost with bluehost!

For more details visit the official announcement, & if you’ve further questions, please divert them to the forums. Thank you.

I first made this wordpress theme available for downloads in June 2009. And now I’ve realised that I  must write a log of all changes that I make in the theme, including the release date. Automatic upgrade option is also in my mind but it’ll be done later.

The version number will be given according to the date, month & year of the release of the new theme.

For instance the current version/or the latest updated theme available currently has 10.1 version, Meaning: I released it in year 10 & 1st month, hence 10.1

This page will be updated as and when changes in theme need to be logged.

Name of the wordpress theme: ‘johnyc’ (click here to download the theme)

I know when I present it I should present it in a professional way… hmm I promise I’ll be better next time.

Yes, I am talking about my pet- dog, the puppy is merely 4-5 months old. Can you believe that after watching this video? We are teaching him few commands, apparently not in English, unlike most of the dogs out there who only understand English, our Twitter listens to Marathi instructions. Oh yeah!

Well, I”m also talking about twitter.com the website. (in fact that’s the reason I named my puppy twitter) I’m so greatful to the founders of twitter who build such a nice application & all twitter coders who used its API to make it more popular.
Twitter helps you discover so many interesting people from around the world. And best part is it gives you the opportunity to successfully interact with them. Seriously no other communication medium, website or tool had such accessibility. Imagine emailing/IM big corporate guy or any celebrity & expecting reply!! Now you got my point, right?
So if you still are not on twitter, what are you waiting for? Join now! & Follow me there! I promise I may not answer your phone calls but I’ll reply you on twitter. // //

For starters, here’s an introduction to the twitter from horse’s mouth, the founder of twitter & blogspot Evan Williams

We are planning to visit आधुनिक उर्जा ग्राम Adhunik Urja Gram (The Mordern Energy Park) by Mr. Chandrakant Pathak. It’s located on Bombay-Bangalore Highway NH-4 between Lonavala & Pune. I’m looking forward visiting the place and meeting him in person. I’ll be travelling and meeting such people who’re involved in rural development, social services, alternative technology, environmental issues much in coming year. Yeah! didnt I tell you in my last post, coming year is going to be exciting! You may call it “social tourism” in Marathi I call it Samajik Paryatan सामाजिक पर्यटन!

I think I’d have more to write once I personally visit it, mean time dont forget to check my biking routes and other details… I have made special post for that using Google Map

View My trip to Pune, Kisan exhibition. in a larger map

I have some business in New Delhi in coming weeks & I am planning to go for skiing at Himachal Pradesh & I’m (kind of) researching about it… so if you’re familiar with HP or been there-done skiing, ping me or feel free to comment below. While more thinking of it, I though why not take a 7-14 day full-fledge skiing course! I dont know whether I can afford that option or not (time wise & money wise… will see) but I’d at least do skiing this time for sure. I’ve been cancelling delaying it forever & now I dont think I’d let it go.

One more update, I’ve left BeatTheGMAT gang, yeah it’s sad thinking that I wont be there on btg with Eric & team but life goes on & we got to move on, right? (I guess I’ll have to edit my “about blog” am not associated with any GMAT study/ preparation forum any more.)  I’m currently working on an exciting startup & it’s gonna be real (yeah, you guessed it right it’s not some dotcom!) So stay tuned you’ll soon hear more about it. 2010 is going to be exciting.

People or living beings migrate for good. Most of the times they migrate because they see better prospects and better life than the one they’re currently living in. They say that those who migrate, progress in life. I want to question that belief. I want to try, and I want to prove that you can excel in life even living in rural area. Yes, I know many have proved that & I dont have to prove anything new, but I want to make it even solid. Your  location is irrelevant to achieve excellence. & by the way did you read “the world is flat” by Friedman? Anyways I think I’m going off the topic here.

So the point (and purpose) of this post is expect me talking about rural life some times.

see you.