Goa Trip - Capturing those incredible moments !!!

One of my best trips! Awesome place, awesome occasion, awesome peer group, and above all, the unique combination of 4 B’s – Goa's USP - that made the trip deeply embedded in our memories forever. Perhaps this post will assist in some way to remember the nitty gritties of the tour!!!

Day 1 – The Lost Castle

We arrived at Goa 8:00 P:M and targeted 9:30 P:M to hit the beach. Most of us were envisioning shacks, beer, and beach everywhere during our flight from Delhi. The guest house guy was surprised at the pace with which we arrived, changed, and left. Soon we were at Calangunte Beach – most of us struggling n fighting over the correct pronunciation – and the shack closest to sea was chosen for the grand opening of an innings to meet our target of 100 Beers during the Goa Trip!!

Ankit and I did a “Bottoms Up” with the first beer, and decided that this will be our eeeeeestyle to start every booze party. Ankit later backed out though. 5 of us were preparing our Beer Castle, where each person will arrange his empty bottles in his castle and as the end we will all compare the count. Ashu, couldn’t help repeat 100 times – This is a great idea!! By early morning, all the tourists except 5 of us had disappeared and our beer castle had grown significantly high. Two B’s were already working here – Beach and Beer. However the castles we prepared were lost forever. The digital camera we clicked ourselves with got lost at either of three places – Dropped in sea or lost in beach sand or stolen by the waiter. We could not locate / remember where and who saw it last – The Castles were big you know. The camera loss also meant that we lost our pics of our castles forever. Also, sacrificed were two cell phones – something made two guys dive n jump in water with cell phones in pocket – the castles were huge you know. Moving on, we hired an Auto this time, a unique one. Guess what – The auto had a gate, yes I mean a physical gate that would open just as a car’s do. I repeatedly asked the auto guy the secret behind the gate 8-10 times before my friends helped me realize we could be dropped, rather throw, in middle of the road- The castles were huge you know. I still think that the auto was pretty cool. So impressed was I that I have brought a Memento, a magnet, of the Goa Auto. That brought us to end of very short yet very expensive day at Goa.

Day 2 – The Banana Ride and the other 2 B’s

The next day started with an incessant search for our ride – A bike or car. Good fortune prevailed and we ended up picking Bajaj Avenger over a car or jeep. From there on, the bike rides contributed most significantly to our overall experience.

Water Sports at Calangunte was primary agenda of the day. We didn’t click ourselves much there – the consciousness from loss of digital camera was enough to teach me not to risk my Nikon D40. The two firsts that I personally experimented were Para-gliding and Banana ride. During Paragliding we learnt how cool Goa actually is. The instructor was absolutely fine if we were to bring beer and take it with us in the air. What a missed opportunity!! We contemplated to go to shore n bring our bottles but then, sensibility suggested that we park this thought – let it be our driver to return back to Goa. Next, was the acme of the Goa trip, the Banana Ride. The excitement of being throw open in the sea, Nitin’s frantic search for land and repeated requests to the vendor “Bhaiya, mughe mat girnana”, “Bhaiya, aab please dobara mat girnana”, “Bhaiya, please boat mein hi le jayo” , Ankit’s confidence that I and Varun caught as fake when he said “Main theek huin yaar but mughe lagta hai ki tum aur boat mugh se doorrr ja rahe ho”, “Aur koi khass baat nahin, lekin bohat pani chala gaya hai anndar” - All of us thought at one point or the other that we will never be able to get back to the shore. We fell 5 times while trying to get on the Banana, scaring off the “boat” guy also. At last, we all survived – we grew bit heavier n saline due to amount of water and salt we consumed but we survived – One of my most exciting experience ever.

During all this, we were also steadily progressing towards our objective – 100 Beers. Of course by this time, the 4th B – Babes also contributed in our enriching experience. Nikon D40 SLR with excellent zoom (Am I marketing for Nikon – So be it) helped us capture and appreciate beauty God so carefully created. There were numerous foreigners from across the word but I think nothing beats the Indian beauties. After a quick lunch, we next hit the road again towards Fort Aguada – the DCH way. During our journey, one guy sat backwards on Bike in turns, clicking close n careful photographs of other two driving. We caught attention of locals as well as several foreigners – some thought we were nerds and cracks, others thought we were cool, and some thought we were professional photographers. The trip to Fort was good n helped us take some very good shots and we drove back to Vacautor Beach – the rock beach – to view the Sunset.

Fresh from my experience of Sunset in San Diego, I must say that Goa’s sunset was a disappointment; I was expecting wonderful display of colors n hoping to take some great shots – both went incomplete since the Sunset was nothing spectacular. Nevertheless, it was pretty refreshing and we moved to “The Saturday Nite” market in Arpora. We explored n rode through numerous roads in the interiors of Goa and loved it. The market was pretty good, most of stalls n shops were owned by foreigners. We tasted good wine and food there and moved on to our favorite place, the Beach Shacks at Baga Beach that was lot more happening than Calangunte as far as nightlife is concerned. We tasted Cashew Feni and danced quite a lot at the open disc. Nitin wanted to sleep at the Beach itself but was informed and scared by the waiter about potential raids by police or stray dogs wandering around. He rejected the idea. While returning back, Ankit turned down plan to go to Café Coffee day and earned several curses from us. It worked. Police tried to stop Ankit’s bike, he ran instead, police followed, and finally caught him. Ankit still maintains that he just paid 300 Rs but we continue to be skeptical – must have been something more, either money or …………

That brought end to Day 2@ Goa!! Thrilling, exciting, awesome, fantastic, fabulous, fantabulos– What not!

Day 3 – Beer Game and Pressure censors!!

Day 3 was always about Beer Game. Nothing else was planned. We took a call to skip driving 80 Km to South Goa and focus on North Goa. We picked up the happening Calangunte again. Before I get into specifics, first I will briefly explain what exactly Beer Game is.


I last played and learnt the same while at Backwaters at Allepy, Kerala. In beer game, you have people sitting in a circle with all the cards turned downwards. In turn, each person will pick up a card and each card carries a rule. If it’s anything 2-9 of Black, the person drinks Beer for those many seconds. Anything 2-9 Red, the person can nominate other person (Think who cracked the last nasty joke on you and target). 10 is Waterfall and that means Bottoms Up for everyone. “A” makes you the ruler. You can define any rule and people have to follow. For instance, I made an Alien rule. Every time you drink, you have to take an Alien out, drink, and put the Alien back. Simple as it sounds, Nitin repeated his drink three times (9 second Red nomination) because he forgot to either take out or put back the alien. Similarly, you can define other rules for Jack, Queen, and King. We went on to play the Beer game for 3-4 hours and ended up with a huge collection of empty bottles close to our shack. The people passing by were amazed at the same and wanted to click our pic with our empty bottles. The whole day went like this, chilling out in our Shack, clicking numerous pictures of each other, running, jumping in water.

As the evening approached, we were looking for a nice decent place to eat and searched “The Stone” restaurant close to Calangunte. Done with the food, Casino was the next. We learnt about “The Mint” casino in Arpora and ventured to explore the same. Nitin was at his skeptical best. According to him, everything at the Casino - the Roulette tables, people, free drinks, free food – were a conspiracy against us. He was on mission to uncover the dark secrets. While Ankit, I, and Ashu played Roulette, Nitin quietly observed everyone closely. Meanwhile, Ankit made the Roulette a perfect strategic decision making game and he would carefully articulate the exact number to bet upon – based on a paper on which he noted the previous results. However, as everyone else does, he too lost and finally concurred to appreciate that the game is all about gamblingJ. No pun intended. Later, I tried my luck and secured several big wins. Meanwhile, Nitin would touch the whole table multiple times while the game was on. The Casino guy finally asked him to stop at which he bended over and asked me “Are you sure these guys don’t have Pressure Censors to know what we bet upon and fabricate the result of the roulette? “. Sherlock Holmes was at work!! We returned from the Casino, proud of spending more than 2 hours and losing just 1500 bucks. Overall Casino experience was pretty good and I shall recommend the same to everyone visiting Goa. Finally we returned for another peaceful trip to Beach before hitting back to our place- some 4:30 in the morning.


Day 4 – Sign Off Beer and Memento Negotiation

We didn’t have much to do on the final day. Since there was some time, we went to Baga beach to click some more shots. We counted where we stand for our Beer Count and learnt we are just 1 short of 100. That was just perfect and we 5 took our final beer that we called – Sign off Beer. Done with this, we departed from three B’s – Beaches, Beer, and Babes. The 4th n last – Bike was next.

In our way, we stopped for Momento shopping. I would always remember that lady in the shop. At Goa, I learnt that everything gets negotiated. You like it or not but you have to. The Coconut Water guy would start from 25 and end at 10. Don’t even ask about the clothes. 350 to 100 is common. I was so accustomed to this by end of our tour unless I met this lady. She didn’t even negotiate for 1 rupee from initial quote. She shouted at an uncle and aunty from “Nagpur” who asked her to take out merchandise worth 1000 but bought nothing. She concluded that this is a general problem with Indians. We were shocked initially but glad later. Some shopkeeper makes sense in Goa. But in general, be prepared for some serious price negotiation to an extent that you negotiate beer prices at standard restaurants and shacks – We did this at Calangunte. Finally each of us departed from our beloved 4th B – The Bajaj Avenger Bike - and took our long drive to Airport to Delhi.

That’s all about GOA. I am in serious GOA Hangover since I am back. I can’t get over the 4 B’s. I wish we were to think of breaking Brian Lara’s record of 400 rather than focusing on just a 100. I find my healthy Unicorn nothing more than a bi-cycle now. I think Nitin should continue to probe into Casino’s pressure sensor enabled tables. May be, we should have persisted a bit to ask to lady to drop Momento prices by 1 Rs, at least live the spirit of Goa. Perhaps, we should have gone for Para-Gliding taking beer along again. One more Banana Ride. May be, this time Nitin will be find some land in middle of sea this time to position his feet. I will always remember this trip for the place, for the “bachelors type” activities, for the timing – I am closing my current version to commence a new life at ISB, and lastly, perhaps most importantly, the people I went with – I am sure never again I will have a chance to go anywhere with the same peer group. Life is fine blend of holding on and letting go. I am just collecting the maximum I can hold on and the memories of this trip will always be right up there.

Proud to be Teacher - Teach India - Teach !!!

Here is my cool badge from TOI’s Teach India Initiative !!



Proud to be a Teacher!!!

This is exactly what I was looking for. TOI is doing great work - Perfect utilization of the scale. TOI should be complimented for the two significant drives: Lead India and Teach India. The first produced awareness and brought to limelight some people doing exceptional work. The second is the need of the hour for India.

It was hearting to note that 10,000+ educated corporate associates, doctors, lawyers, and most significantly, college students have volunteered for the program. The fact that these people have committed for 2 hours of Sunday to the noble cause over spending the leisure time sitting in lounge / shopping in mall / watching a movie speaks of the sensitivity towards the problem of illiteracy among the Indians.

The program is currently launched in 4 metro cities of India. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that soon the waves of the program would reach to Tier-2 cities and ultimately to most disadvantaged rural areas. My father, an avid social work, has been doing the same activity for last 10 years in my town. An educator by profession, he renders free-after school tutoring to poor schools kids. I have often mooted upon spreading his initiative on a larger scale. My efforts to popularize the program with help of top businessmen in my town and senior social workers of the town have to opening up of three news chapters in the surrounding areas. Yet scope of the contributions has always been limited. TOI comes in and launches a similar program on a National scale.

I am eager to commence work and play my small part in educating few kids. It is so gratifying when some of my father's old students who have managed to get decent jobs come home and thank whole-heartedly to my father. My dad is a proud teacher. I too have started on his journey.

60 Years of Independence !!! Chak De INDIA !!!

The British, lured by the Indian wealth, first arrived in India on 31st December 1600. Thereafter, they manipulated narrow-sighted Indian rulers and gained control of the country by end of 17th Century. We have read in history text books in school, watched BollyWood movies how British ruined us of our immense wealth. From a share of 22.1% in world's GDP, we were reduced to the status of a Third World nation, a symbol across the globe of famine, poverty and deprivation.

However, what British could not ruin us of was our attitude, our attitude to achieve, to relentlessly pursue our dreams, to work harder and harder. We built upon the leftovers but with our hard work. No wonder 60 years later, "India's Miracle" is the subject of a special issue of the British weekly New Statesman.

The speed of the progress that I have seen in 24 years of my life never stops thrilling me. Mobile, from a luxury, has become an integral part of average Indian. People have upgraded from bi-cycles to Cars, Bikes, and Scooters. From days of mass unemployment we face a “Talent Crunch” situation. Everyday one article or the other in National and International newspapers talks about India’s progress. "India Shinning" and "Incredible India" stories have gained faith.

Tata Steel’s acquisition of Corus was a moment of immense pride for Indians as when Tata steel started operation in late 18th century ,during British rule, then Britishers mocked us by saying if the Indian company (Tata) succeeds in even making any steel part of its own then British will eat them. Britishers by now must be suffering from indigestion !!!

Having said that, the journey has just started and there is a lot of achieve. Still, we have 20% people below poverty. Still, hundreds of farmers commit suicide. Still, the growth is not all inclusive. Still, Times of India has to take over NewYork Times, Reliance Retail to Wal Mart, Tata Motors to General Motors, ICICI to HSBC, Infosys to Microsoft and many more !!!!

I hope we celebrate 100 years of Independence with Indian economy overtaking US economy.

Khudos !!!! Chak De India

"Meandering Pachyderms"

Indians have long been associated with the disdainful term “meandering pachyderms”. Also, in couple of forums on TV or otherwise, lack of patriotism gets highlighted. Sitting idle, I happen to relate this acquisition to my observations from couple of places I visited in recent times (US and Mumbai). In US, I noticed US flag being displayed at lot of places, in front of hotels, restaurants, adventure clubs etc. I remember how one of my friend, always ridiculous of India, commented to my childlike question, “We do not have our flag in India at some many location”, by saying that “In India if we put our flag on road, it will turn black in couple of days due to dust and pollution and then someone will use the cloth for cleaning its shoes etc”. An answer I felt uncomfortable with, yet something in me counterfeited my feelings. Why do we have people so insensitive about our National flag or for that matter whole nation itself? I do not intend to refer to a particular person; it is just that I meet lot of people with similar thought process. Are people the problem or is it the system? Something which encourages me to think deeper in this.

Yesterday, in an article in TOI about education in China, I read how Chinese students in every school take a 5 minute break for these National Anthem everyday, a practice common across China and followed religiously across all regions of the Great China. On the other hand, citing a similar example of promotion of patriotism and feel for the country, in Mumbai, all the movies I watched had one thing in common. Every movie started with National Anthem with audience standing in respect (I do not remember myself when last time I heard National Anthem before Mumbai). Perfect. We are just there. The only problem is that the practice not being followed across regions. No where else, at least in NCR is this thing followed. There must be some school promoting National Anthem. But not everywhere.

No doubt we are democratic. No doubt we are diverse. No doubt we are liberal. No doubt we have reforms. But can’t we have a system to reinforce the basic values back to the society. Food for thought.

Budget 2007 - “It’s not a bad budget at all”

No, please do not go by the caption at the Top as my personal opinion. I heard/ read the similar views from lot of corporates honchos. The best one and most ironical from CCD director Naresh Malhotra " We are hit by the increase in commercial property rentals and will lead to increased prices. This will surely hit our profits. All this when commerce ministry is asking us to double to coffee consumption within 5 years" ..Wait a minute Mr Naresh. Who is bothered about your profits. Do you deserve a profit of 10% more with each Union Budget or do malnourished lakhs of children need water to drink, food to eat. How much better would a country be served by offering handful of pleasant gifts to honchos like you to better your profits and convince your top bosses that you are doing a incredible job. Laurels and promotions on your way and you will be out of this country to head CCD Global operations. How does this idea of "growth" compare to providing lakhs of students access to education, more teachers. Increased spending on agriculture, education and health . Sounds like I am forming an opinion here. Well Not really !!!!!

Two compelling yet opposite thought from industry "Gurus" lead to different interpretations of this Budget. Following Arindham Chaudhry’s fine book on India "The Great Indian Dream" this comes as a dream budget in itself. "He says if middle class is increased, it will create more demand and hence more growth". Increased spending on key areas such as Agriculture, education and Health. Industries such as IT, Telecom to be taxed more to collect the revenues and "Incredible India’s" achievements shared with "The other half- Pathetic India". Perfect it sounds. Isn it ? After all, what would a father having resources to distribute to its 2 sons , one an Indian IT Engineer (Smart, Growing, Professional, Well placed , Progressive ) , another one (uneducated, unemployed, incompetent and not able to meet his 2 days meal) do. No prizes for guessing it right. The Father would allocate the resources to the poor son and also would encourage his Engineer son to take care of his brother and to share his success with the poor guy. The finance minister has acted like a Big Daddy. Exemplary isn it.

On the other hand, a study on McKinsey Quarterly (could not find the link) steers my thoughts in a totally different direction. Some of facts stated in the reports were as follows :
1. Indian household saving is among the highest. Yet only 50% of people put there savings in government led financial institutions.

2. Corporate sector, a major growth engine of India gets only 43% of this money while rest goes to dilapidate sectors of agriculture, public sector companies and inefficient education system.

3. While it is important to address social sector of the country, history(Brazil economy) testifies putting money in high growth sectors would create more jobs, prosperity and cyclic growth.

Seems finance ministry has kick assed the guy who analyzed, complied and formed this report. Corporate sector has not been anything aside from the assurance or rather taking granted there growth story. Agriculture, public sector and education spending has been increased by almost 30%. A completely social budget with an "All-inclusive" caption line.

Now where do I, an avid fan of all three - McKinsey Quarterly, Arindham Chaudry and PC, go from here. Who do i believe ???

Whatever the views be "Chance missed to transform the economy" , "It’s a good budget for long term growth" , "It is not a bad budget at all" , "There is nothing significant in this budget" , n the best "it’s a kutta-billi bidget" I earnestly believe growth lies in Action and not in Planning.

I question , why cannot finance ministry form a team to track each and every rupee disbursed by center to state ministry and to local bodies ??? Why cannot they set up an institutions to complete the golden quadrilateral project by working 24/7 with workers working in 3 shifts of 8 hour each?? Why cannot a institution to monitor the irrigation projects going on the round the country be set up ?? Why cannot government develop a website to list the names of 1 lakh scholarships winners?? Why cannot government set up more B-Schools if ISB can set up a successful school in 4-5 years . Indian student go abroad to study due to lack of infrastructure and opportunities and never return back..then you cry for Brain Drain . Why can not an ordinary man know what is happening with his money ?? Does the numbers matter to me ? Does planning matter to an ordinary person ? No, results and an aggressive approach matter. Whatever be the budget 2008,2009 or 2050 as long as an action oriented approach is adopted, it is going to be same story. Year after year, budget after budget!!!!!!!