Shubham Choudhary's Blog, page 3

Cherry’s first love with Dabur Lal oil!

You guessed it right, this is yet another post for my little nephew and my recent gift to him. :)

I was told that when I was a kid, I loved massages, erm… I mean, unlike most babies, I didn’t cry my lungs out when it was massage time. I used to smile instead! And it was kind of similar sight when I saw my nephew getting his first massage. Enjoying like he was born for it. So when blogadda came up with the activity #FirstLove with Dabur Massage oil with olive and almonds, I just had to sign up for it. I wanted my nephew to get what’s been trusted by so many for over years.

So let me tell you first about the awesomeness that this new avatar of Dabur oil is, all experienced real close. :D

“One of the most trusted brands in India – Dabur has launched a new massage oil for babies that is designed to give the most benefits to the delicate skin of babies. The good news is that it is free from harmful parabens and paraffins which are detrimental to a baby’s health. Dabur Baby Massage Oil is enriched with the natural goodness of olive and almond oil. This oil nourishes the baby’s skin and regular massage with this oil is known to help develop the baby’s muscle fast and enhances quicker bone formation. The Oil has also been dermatologically tested for skin safety.”

And unlike many products that mention something and give something else, ahm ahm, I found out that every word in the above lines is true to the fact.

Let me first show you some of the pics where my neighbour’s little kid enjoyed the pampering with Dabur Oil And following that is my own nephew.

Aren’t they looking happy? And well, just so you know, this massage has such a lasting effect on the kids that he is happy all the time. Look at him.

Well that’s partly because he enjoys bathing too, unlike me. :P

So how do I feel after doing this? Too good, I must say, after all I gave him something that will nourish him and help him grow into a smart and intelligent boy, kind of like his uncle. And that’s not it, this oil is actually better than anything else that we’d used for this purpose. It isn’t rough for his skin, he smiles even more now that he likes the light fragrance that is coming out of it and most of all, my sister likes it, and I guess a mother’s approval is the most important, isn’t it? So I’m happy that cherry is happy. And I want to thank Dabur and Blogadda for not only giving me this opportunity but giving me some extra bottles that I could gift to our neighbor too (Who, by the way, are also permanently switching to this oil now!)

This is it for now. In case you have a baby (Or planning to have one :P ), you know which is the best thing you can offer your child right after your love :)

I am writing about Dabur Baby Massage Oil with the goodness of olive and almond for the #FirstLove activity at BlogAdda

Tagged: blogadda, Cherry, Dabur lal oil, kids

OYO Rooms Review – Being the OYOXplorer

29 states and over a billion people, if you can never grow tired of one thing in our country, it’s travelling. In India we have such an amazing mixture of cultures, languages and seasons that no time of the year is bad to simply take out your backpack and go for a hike. But that isn’t everyone’s cup of tea either. It isn’t just about travelling, you also need to know which places are the best, what are the attractions of the city you’re in and most importantly, you need a place where you can crash in and give a perfect finishing touch to your travel experience. A good hotel stay is one of the most important and often overlooked aspect of any holiday. Personally, I’ve had my share of hotel troubles while visiting any city and I’m sure you’ve had it too. So when I heard about OYO Rooms and their fantastic concept of bringing economical rooms to you, I couldn’t resist but to sign up to know more. So here goes, my experience of the day I became the #OYOXplorer!

Ok, I promise I’m never making this face again.

I could tell you how I’m not from Mumbai and how I literally explored the city, but first things first, let me introduce you to the Oyo App.  Barely 6 MB in size, this is a must have App if you like to travel and don’t want to waste much time in thinking about where to stay. The OYO app gets you a comfortable room and all the facilities you’d want in the best prices possible! Don’t believe it? What if I told you that the OYO room in one of the most centrally located places of Jaipur is available in 999 INR a day?

Courtesy : Google Playstore: OYO App.

So what do I have to do with this? Well, thanks to OYORooms, Indiblogger and my supercool blog, I got a chance to experience all this first hand and live my dream of exploring Mumbai. It’s a shame that even after living so close I never actually went out and explored the city on my own. But never mind, OYO gave me that chance.

I entered the OYO Rooms, Juhu at 12 PM on the 30th of May. Despite being the least punctual, I was the first one to reach there. So I simply went to my room and used the spare time to watch a movie and take a nap afterwards. And what’s not to like once you enter the room, the AC, the TV, the clean bathrooms, the speedy Wi-Fi, and the delicious food that is just a call away! I made sure I check out every single thing inside.

The awesome double bed.

The oh so fine TV.

And my personal favorite, menu!

But this wasn’t it, after all, you don’t invite the best bloggers in the town just to make them sit in a room, right? There were many tasks that we were supposed to do. 10 bloggers, wandering on the streets of Mumbai finishing up the challenges as they go! And this was probably the toughest for me, since all the other bloggers were from Mumbai, they had a definite advantage.

So here’s the list of tasks that we were given.

And I’m so happy that I managed to do it. But that’s not what makes me the happiest, the better thing was that instead of staying close to the hotel I was staying in, I managed to go quite a distance and feel the heartbeats of the city that never sleeps.

Take a look at how I completed the challenges.

The check-in selfie, the rider selfie, the selfie with a story, the vada-pav selfie, the happy kids selfie, the uniform selfie, the keeping yourself cool selfie and what not! These are just few of the challenges that we did.

But two of my best challenges were these, which I’m pretty sure no one else did! :D

In one of the challenges we were supposed to take a selfie with a movie poster. And I chose the movie of my favorite star Lauren Gottilieb, Welcome to Karachi. And guess what, right after I tweeted this, Lauren Retweeted it herself. What else do you want when your favorite star shows some love to you and OYO!

And the second one that I personally found quite challenging was to reach out to another OYO Room and take a selfie. Now it was made quite easy thanks to the OYO app that took me to OYO Andheri and I clicked this.

Bad expression Ver.2.0                  But hey, can you see another OYORooms at the back? :D

As you can see, here I am posing with so many things and so many people, it was a real exhausting task. And to top it all, we had to keep tweeting about how we were faring in the challenges. And not to mention, the activity was not just taking place in Mumbai but in 4 cities across the country. Now it is worth a mention here that yours truly stayed on top of the social media rankings while doing it. Take a look yourself:

From the OYO rooms on Juhu beach to Churchgate Local station, then the Gateway of India, then Andheri to checkout another OYO Rooms and back to Juhu to finally retire in my OYO Room, I seemed to have lost the track of time while travelling all those places. And the best part was, that after so much activity and a hectic day, I got to get a good night’s sleep in an amazingly comfortable OYO Room.

And when I woke up, I couldn’t have asked for a better morning!

Perfect AC: Check

WiFi: Check

Newspaper: Check

Clean bathroom : Check

Delicious Breakfast: Check.

Two of the many Idlis I ate that day!

So tell me, what’s not to like in this? If you haven’t tried them yet, do install the OYO App and try it out. You can thank me later.

You can find OYO here:

Website – www.oyorooms.com
Twitter – @oyorooms
Facebook –  www.facebook.com/oyorooms

I’ll probably be back with some more stories of the day, till then, have a great time! :)

Tagged: indiblogger, mumbai, OYORooms, travel

Following the GenX, with the GenX!

Once upon a time, there was a guy who loved to do whatever his heart told him to. He used to travel, write, attend concerts and irritate people with his poor puns, an activity he enjoyed the most. And then came a time in his life when he had to put all that to a pause, because, you know, job and stuff! But as they say, never say never. Well, they actually don���t say that since the day Justin Bieber said it. So that pause finally came to a pause and that guy got to know what his real self used to be like just a few years back.

Now you definitely know that I���m pretentious enough to make sure that I���m talking only about myself here. But what you don���t know is what happened which made me blabber that nonsense. So let me begin from the very moment it started. Indiblogger, one of the best portal for bloggers in India keeps organizing various activities and meets for the active bloggers. I happen to be one of those unlucky people who never had a chance to attend one. So when I saw that there was an event specifically for the people from Mumbai and Pune, I didn���t delay a second and registered. Little did I know that there were hundreds of people registering for the tiny window of 24 people. I said the last line to brag, since I made it to the lucky 24 who were going to be a part of an extravaganza.

So what was that special event you ask? Take a look thy self master!

I felt like the A Team for a moment!

So here���s the deal. You go to the Tata lake house, you test drive the latest Nano, you eat, play and have fun and come back home with a lot of goodies. And that was just a rough idea of the event in my mind and something too awesome was in store for us.

For those who were with me on twitter, you���d know how excited we all were. For those who weren���t, take a look at the awesomeness yourself.

Let me now take a moment and speak about the reason we were all there, the Nano GenX. It was my first time inside a car with auto transmission. So I called shotgun and decided to lead the team, giving the steering to the only female player of our team, Rohini. And man did she break the stereotype! I���d give her a 10/10 when it comes to driving. Coming back to the Nano, I must say the car is one of its kind. I���m not a seasoned reviewer when it comes to automobiles so my take is going to be from a customer���s point of view.

When I want to buy a car, given the kind of place we live in, I���d look for these three things: 1. Mileage 2. Comfort and 3. Technology.

With a mileage of 21+, the Nano GenX beats all the others in its segment out of the waters.

So I���ll just skip to the comfort part of it. When I say comfort, I mean a car that gives me enough leg space to fit in, enough space for my luggage in the back, a decent shock proof ride and an AC that can keep me cool. And let me tell you that by fitting in a 6���2.5��� giant like me, the Nano definitely proved that it can accommodate even the mountain. Since we were driving on the streets of Pune in 2 in the afternoon, you can imagine if the AC was bad I���d have gone at it with full force, but it was too good!

So that leaves us with Technology. And it looks like Tata was just accumulating nerds in its backyard to make Nano a techno buzz. It has Automatic transmission and the Easy shift technology and my favorite Creep mode. So if you like to switch gears on your own, simply turn to manual and if you like to make things peppy, go on the sport mode! And if you���re stuck in traffic, just manage the brakes and the creep mode will take care of it. With a mammoth 24l fuel tank and an ePas technology (Electronically powered assisted steering), the Nano is truly a GenX car!

Courtesy : TataNano_Tweets

So that was about the latest Nano. So what did we do in the event? I must have narrated this about a hundred times to different people now, but here I go again. So the event was in the Tata Lakehouse, which is a beautiful place with lots of trees and a serene atmosphere. I was the second person to reach out of the 24 participants. So I waited there and had my breakfast. Things took pace when the bus from Mumbai arrived on scene with all the awesome bloggers who were going to be a part of this event. With a small presentation we were explained everything about the Nano GenX. And then started the real game. We were all divided in teams of 4 and every team had their own Nano to enjoy. There were hundreds of people ready to throw challenges at us from twitter and every team had to complete the challenges in order to win. We were #TheNanoKnights, also called the Team D ( :P ) and it was up to Rohini – the charioteer, Lance – the knight, Shubham (Me) – the captain and Pranav ��� The navigator, to simply kill it.

#TheNanoKnights blurred version :P

After the flag off, all the teams started on the path that could be tracked live on the Indiblogger website as we went. We kept doing the challenges, some of which you can see here:

Fun, isn���t it?

To make sure no one got tired, we stopped for lunch and refreshments and then got back to our sweet rides and reached the Tata Motors destination. And there I witnessed this awesome track, which Rohini had no issues in covering. And then we went back to the lakehouse where another awesome surprise awaited us.

Apart from the serene environment, this time the Lakehouse had Taal Inc for us! So it wasn���t just a soothing atmosphere, it was some really cool music. And no, we didn���t just listen to it, we literally created our rhythms! Take a look:

Wasn���t it awesome? The best part was, I, along with my 3 awesome teammates and 20 plus bloggers, roamed around the city in a scorching heat doing the weirdest of things including dancing on an open road, didn���t even notice it and simply went on with it enjoying every moment. I could just go on and on about it, but I���ll let my tweets do the talking. And oh, there were cupcakes!

And some too good goodies!

My camera does take some cool pics! :D

A special mention to the Tata Nano and Indiblogger team for the amazing event and for pulling it off quite successfully just like they always do.

Some moments give your life a whole new meaning, this one reminded me of the one I���d almost forgotten. If you remember the line I began this blogpost with, that pause is now over! :)

Tagged: blogging, genx, indiblogger, pune, tata nano

Him and her.

If you liked A Facebook Relationship, this is one more such attempt. Hope you like it too :)

Happy, she put on her favorite dress, the finest lipstick she had. Sad, he threw the shoe away, and lay down on the bed.

Happy, she made the best Pasta ever, he���d like it, she thought. Sad, he forgot to bring the roses she thought he���d already bought.

Happy, she had a lot to talk about, confused where to start. Sad, he wanted to keep quiet and listen to Mozart.

Happy, she wanted to hop on him as he came, and kiss him the best way she could. Sad, he just wanted to hug her, and kiss her back if she would.

Happy, she had a news to share, and an idea in mind. Sad, he���d even say no to sex today, proving the first of his kind.

Happy, she called him, waiting for him to respond. Sad, he didn���t notice his phone, and her calls of which he was fond.

Happy, she saw him as he entered the door, but the energy wasn���t there. Sad, he saw her jumping like a kid, even in his despair.

Happy, she wanted him to be happy too, but something seemed wrong. Sad, he could see how excited she was, maybe he could play along.

Sad, he still smiled, knowing she wanted him to. Sad, she toned hers down, knowing he didn���t want to.

Happy, he kissed her first, assuring her his love and care. Happy, she held his hand, telling him she was there.

Also, I was recently told that posting a good comment adds two healthy years to your life. No harm in trying, right? :)

Tagged: him and her, life, love, poems, relationships

The big nose theory.

Before I begin this post, I want you to quickly do a little exercise. Hold your breath, cover your nose with a hand so you cannot breathe and open your mouth. Now start inhaling and exhaling from the mouth.

Did it feel a little uncomfortable? I���m sure you���ll easily do it for a minute. How about 5 minutes? Or let���s make it an hour. Most probably it will feel like your lungs are collapsing. Do you think you���ll be able to do it? How about a whole night? Is it possible to sleep without breathing through your nose? Now imagine doing that for two and a half days. And to add to the misery, imagine that happening on the New Year day. The imagery you just conjured was how I spent the last two days of the last year and first day of this year.

About three months back I went home for a few days. Unlike most of my trips that happened because of my craving for homemade food, this one was for some urgent works. Little did I know that I was in for a surprise! I had been suffering from a cold for over 2 weeks���. Blah Blah Blah��� long story short, I was told that I had to undergo a nasal surgery. I could tell you the name but you better know it as the one Leonard goes through in The Big Bang Theory. Before the surgery all I knew was that I���ll be back to normal in a few days and will get back to work. What I didn���t know (or was stupid enough not to ask) was that I���ll be getting a packing inside the nose that���ll keep it covered for over two days. So talking, breathing and eating, all through the same little mouth. Imagine the pain, can you? To add to that, the surgery went a bit longer than planned, maybe causing more blood loss because of which my resting period increased dramatically. For a private IT firm employee like me, that period isn���t counted in number of days but the number of Casual leaves it will be causing.

A friend of mine shared this image on my wall a day after I got operated. That’s pretty much what happened to me, just a little better. (Courtesy: The Big Bang Theory Wiki page)

And did I tell you why am I writing this? Because I had nothing better to do. Because I felt that it was a one of a kind experience that I need to share with you people. So what do you do when you can���t breathe how it was naturally meant to be? You breathe how it was unnaturally meant to be��� I mean, that���s one thing you can still do with your mouth without the fear of ending up in jail��� erm��� did I say too much? Anyway, while you do that, what do you do when you have to eat/drink something? Technically, for the duration you swallow the food, you don���t breathe��� and trust me, even though the procedure sounds similar to the normal one, it isn���t. Soon your throat starts aching along with the head and they seem to play some weird tune in an irritatingly cool rhythm.

I know this whole procedure is quite normal and many people go through that. So I���m definitely not trying to scare those who will someday have to go through it. (Don���t do it��� don���t do it!!) And that���s why I���m also going to tell the positive side of it. While I went through all of that, not even once did I feel sad/depressed or any other crap like that. The reason is simple. I had a lot of cetirizine��� No, that���s not what I had to say��� the reason was that I was with my family��� my friends��� people who love me and care about me. I got to eat the same homemade food I could die for and since I was on bed, I didn���t even have to get up to get that! For three weeks, I didn���t have to worry about what���s going on at work and how will I manage things there. It was a painful time, but it prepared for the times to come and since it wasn���t the first time I got operated, I knew ways how to recover faster.

It took me a lot of time to get back to normal. Most of that was spent at home. And now that I think about it, I could never do that on my own. There were many times when I was almost on the verge of giving up (I couldn���t, I only had one nose) but I didn���t because I knew there was always someone there for me. Most people think of a family get together or an auspicious occasion when asked about their most memorable days, but for me, it was the day I went through this surgery. It gave me the right amount of pain at the right moment. In fact I loved it so much that I���ll probably go through it once more. (The worst part is that I���m not even kidding.)

Hope you liked it. This was my story of being #together with the loved ones that gave me the power to look up and the motivation to move forward. Thanks Housing.com for the prompt. :)

Tagged: housing.com, indiblogger, nose, personal, the big bang theory

Restarting the life.

Recently I���ve not been able to write too much in the field of my expertise, i.e., well��� basically nothing. But what I have written is a post about how I began my life in Pune, the city of great weather as I like to call it. That came after I felt that I had written almost too much about my college life and how I planned everything from there, but almost nothing when it came to my life after that phase. Now I won���t be sharing the full post here again, you could always read it here, but I will share a few things that I really want to, things that helped me take the much awaited fresh start.

���Congratulations on the offer. Your job location will be Pune, Maharashtra.��� Out of the numerous lines that my job offer at Oracle contained, this was the one I anticipated the most. The reason was simple, if it wasn���t going to be my hometown, I wanted it to be a place where I could feel like home.��� This is how I began that post. But is that all that matters? Just a place that makes you feel like home wasn���t enough. Probably I never felt the gravity of the situation I was going to be in. It was going to be an all new life there, not the responsibility free phase like college but the career oriented war. So as the day of my joining to oracle came near, that thought of ���will I be able to do it��� rushed to my mind. It was kind of obvious too, for someone who���s never lived away from home for more than a week, this was a giant leap. Unlike many of my hostler friends, this was going to be an all new kind of test for me. But if there���s one thing I���ve always believed in, it���s the fact that if your will is strong enough, you can do anything. And that���s what I did. Instead of thinking of it as a problem, I made it look like an opportunity to my mind. I know it won���t ever sound like an inspirational story to anyone but hey, add an introvert guy and a romantic angle and who knows I���ll be fighting for the Oscars��� no���? Okay! But it���s true, I thought of this chance of going to pune and starting a new job as starting a new life. Transiting from the college life to professional life and restarting a whole phase. And it worked. Rest as they say, is history. Glad to say that Pune welcomed me and I welcomed this city to each other���s hearts. And did I mention how I fell in love with its weather? As I mention later in that same post, ���Pune has been like a second home to me. In the last one and a half-year of my stay here, I���ve traveled a lot, made so many new friends, learned a lot of new computer languages while still struggling to learn Marathi and above all, gathered a confidence that no matter what happens, I���ll be able to deal with it.���

Thanks for reading. Now that you���ve reached this far, it would be a good time to tell that this post was inspired by the #StartANewLife��theme that https://housing.com/ gave to me. In case you wonder how awesome these people are, take a look at this video:

I���m sure you took a new start at some point in your life as well. Do tell. We���ll talk about it over��a cookie sometime! :D

Tagged: housing.com, indiblogger, StartANewLife

That hopeful incident.

���Hope���, if I ask you the meaning of the word, you���ll definitely be able to give me an answer. But if I ask how many of you are positive that your life is going in the right direction and you���re hopeful about the future, I guess half of the same people who gave the answer won���t have too much to say now. Or that may be specific to people around me, but given that I work in the IT industry, my test sample still counts for over 5% of the country���s population and almost 99.987% engineers.

So why that difference? Why is it that we can always tell others that it will all be okay but fail to convince ourselves the same? I understand that it can be a little difficult, knowing all the facts and chances and still thinking that things will be fine, people who find it too difficult call it pragmatism. But I believe that with a little confidence, even the biggest of problems can be faced and to have that confidence in yourself, you need the positivity, the hope.

Don���t worry, I���m not preaching and I���ve definitely not started my own business of spreading happiness. But what I���m saying here is that wherever you are, whatever you���re doing and whatever your age is, just stop for a moment and think about how positive you are about your life and how helpful will it be if you were just a little bit more hopeful about how things will turn out for you. Confused? Let me share a story, I once told the good old people on Quora.

���About two and a half years back, my friend had bought a new bike. As a ritual that almost everyone does, we went to a temple. On our way back from there, I saw a beggar sitting beside the stairway to the temple. He was blind. He wasn���t really begging for money but mainly just sitting and smiling. Hundreds of people were walking by that staircase and every third or fourth person passing by dropped maybe a coin and sometimes a bigger amount of money for him and as I noticed, he didn’t say anything. He was continuously smiling though.

When I passed by him, a thought crossed my mind and I gave him the pack of sweets I had with me. He didn’t say anything but his usual smile covered his face. I had never seen a smile like that before on a grown-up���s face. It conveyed satisfaction and approval of life in the best way possible. Imagine something like this just on a grown-up���s face.

Just too happy with life the way it is.

Then I thought for a second and it struck me. This is what life is. Don’t complain for what you don’t or can���t have and learn to accept some things. It doesn���t mean we have to accept everything, it obviously doesn’t mean we’ll stop working towards getting better, but we won’t waste our time in being sad about the current problems we have.

Maybe that man didn’t have any idea of what he taught me. Maybe his perspective of life was entirely different from what I imagined then. Maybe… A lot of things… but the bottom line is, I learned that we need to appreciate life and be positive about the future.

What thousands of articles and books and what not couldn’t teach me, that man did within a minute. Sometimes all you need is that one moment to set things right.���

I guess now what I said above will make more sense. Why I wrote all this and shared here? Well, here���s why. I came across these lines today and I couldn���t resist writing about it.

���As elusive as it may seem, optimism can be found all around – in the laughter of children, in the excitement on your pet’s face when you get back after a long day, and in the smile of your loved ones when you go back home after months of being away. Housing envisions a world filled with positivity.��� Not to mention that these lines came from this beautiful website called https://housing.com/lookup.

And that, my friends was the reason I shared this moment that told me the meaning of hope and taught me a lesson I���ll probably never forget. It looks pretty simple to most at first, but when you take a deep look into your own life and the things you want to do, you���ll realize that many such moments are waiting for you too. Or maybe you don���t need a moment, maybe this, right now, is your moment. Think about it, and tell me if it helped. :)

Tagged: happiness, hope, housing.com, indiblogger

Redemption.

���Do you think it���s that easy? One day you will make a mistake and you will get caught. Don���t you care even a bit about your future?���

���What���s the point of worrying about the future if it disturbs your present? I prefer not thinking about it.���

���What present are you talking about? You���re an addict. There���s no coming back from the path you���re on!���

���I can���t help it. It makes me feel good, it���s the only way I can live with myself.���

���And what about everybody else? Did their present not matter to you when they were screaming for their lives in front of you? Did their voice not make your conscious bleed?���

���No. It soothed me instead.���

���Even that little baby girl?���

���Specially, that little baby girl.���

���You do realize you are everywhere in the news, don���t you? Not much time and they���ll know who was behind all those murders. You need to stop for good.���

���I will. Just��� not today��� I promise I won���t do it tomorrow������ he smiled.

���Alright������ he smiled too.

This whole serial killer tag was too heavy for him��� This everyday conversation with the mirror was the only way he could redeem himself.

Tagged: evil, Fiction, microfiction, thriller

Union Budget 2015-16: Takeaways.

Please welcome, an entirely different kind of post on the bug. Well, I’m trying :)

While everyone was expecting a big bang reform budget this year, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley brought out what I���d call a growth oriented budget. I���d not go out and call it an excellent one, but this sure was a good budget with some of the much awaited reforms. Here are a few of the highlights and takeaways:

Numbers:

The Fiscal deficit seen at 3.9 percent of GDP, the fiscal��target of 4.1 % to be met.
Revenue deficit at 2.8 percent while the current account deficit at 1.3 %
GDP growth rate seen between 8-8.5%.
A target of USD 6.7 billion set for stake sales in the coming financial year. The same revised at USD 5 billion for the current year.
Inflation seen close to 5%.
Planned and non-planned expenditures at 4.6 and 13.1 trillion rupees respectively.
Major subsidies including Fuel, food and fertilizer estimated at 2.3 trillion rupees.
Defense budget upped to 2.5 lakh crore rupees.

Announcements:

FMC to be merged with SEBI, big news for the commodity markets.
Wealth tax to be abolished!
Proposal of new universal social security system and a new law on black money.
347 billion rupees allocated to Rural Employment guarantee scheme (Something that was the sign of the previous government���s failure according to the PM���s recent speech)
IIT status to ISM Dhanbad, 2 new IIMs announced for J&K and Andhra Pradesh.
National investment infrastructure fund to be set up.
A student financial aid authority to be set up and a number of excise duty cuts announced to promote entrepreneurship and create jobs.
Yoga included as a charitable purpose in the Income tax act. (Something that our PM applauded more than anyone else)
Banks to fund small entrepreneurs, laws to be made to improve the ease of business.

For the common man:

Health insurance premium reduction limit increased from 15 to 25,000. (30000 for Senior citizens)
Additional deduction of 50000 allowed under the NPS.
Pradhanmantri Suraksha Bima Yojna launched to provide life insurance at nominal costs.
EPF made optional for low earning individuals while choice between NPS and EPF provided to others.
Service tax hiked to 14%.

The Union budget 2015-16 was not a bundle of please-all announcements, which can be looked at as both a good and a bad thing. While some of the highly expected announcements weren���t made, many decisions were taken which may sound absurd now but will surely prove to be decisive in the country���s development.

Where will you need to pay more?

If you are a medium earning IT employee who likes to smoke and use high-end gadgets, this budget was more of a disappointment for you than anything else. Cigarettes, Smartphones, Imported Cars, Dining at restaurants, Set top boxes, Parking fees and airline tickets are supposed to be more expensive after this budget.

Where do I pay less?

Thankfully, for the poorer sections of the society, the budget wasn���t all bad. If you���re looking to buy a TV or a computer, or branded clothes, you will probably save more now. Higher education and starting a new business venture should also be easy on a common man���s pocket now.

Summary: I���m no one to judge, but I���d give this budget a 7.5/10. Although some announcements like the 100,000 KMs of roads and the ambitious target of 60,000,000 toilets under the clean India movement did sound appealing, probably worth an 8.5, the no change in tax slabs part hurt me bad. Although some measures are taken to provide relaxations to taxpayers, as I said, they don���t seem helping someone who earns 4-8 LPA and has to spend half of it maintaining a decent life standard (aka, most graduates).

PS: I did miss a few numbers while watching the budget and had to take the help of Moneycontrol and Economic Times to get the same. In case you find any mistakes, feel free to point out.

PPS: Although I don���t like the politicians making remarks at each other in the parliament, this was worth a laugh:

“Kuch to gul khilaye hain, kuch abhi khilane hain, par baagh mein ab bhi kaante kuchh puraney hain,” (We have made some progress and are working towards achieving more goals, but there are some hindrances in the way) (Courtesy: NDTV Profit)

Tagged: arun jaitley, budget, india, union budget 2015-16

The bedtime rituals.

You can never appreciate motherhood the way it deserves until you see what a mother has to go through everyday right in front of your eyes. That���s a sad but true fact. I���ve never failed to appreciate the women in my life though, but at the same time, I was yet to see a few miracles.

Now that I���ve intrigued you with the word miracle, let me tell you that I���ve been blessed with a baby nephew a few months back. As exciting as this news sounds, a few of us were also worried if my sister was ready to face all the troubles that come with being a mother. It wasn���t wrong to be worried either, this is the first time I was seeing a kid in my family and I had never imagined my sister doing anything that my mother used to do for us when we were kids. But as they say, it is a gift that is there in every woman and comes out alive when she sees her kid for the first time.

Much like other kids, my nephew loves to keep us all awake at nights. I kind of feel he would become a batman fan. He will shout, he will cry and if nothing works, he will use the strongest tool at his disposal and poop!�� And night isn���t the only time when he does it. His bowels are as unpredictable as the weather in Mumbai! He���ll do it anytime and anywhere.

So what do you do when you have to do everything you used to do in your life, but only this time with a kid who needs you to be there for him 24×7. And not only he needs you, there is no chance in hell a mother would willingly go away from her kid even for some time anyway! From what I saw, there is a lot you need to learn when you have a kid. And to make sure he is clean, well fed and sleeps well are the most important requirements of all!

But our little devil is not the kind who���ll sleep just like that. It���s a whole hour-long (or sometimes two-three hour-long) program that you need to undergo. It begins with changing his diaper into a fresh one that is soft enough to make sure he likes it and is comfortable and at the same time, absorb the moisture and keep him smiling! Well thankfully after a few failed attempts, we found Pampers! So that���s one thing done. Next up is the music therapy. No! You don���t have to sing, he does all the singing. You just need to provide the background score. For that we have the ���Old Macdonald Had A Farm��� rhyme that he loves! You just play it on the phone and he will be lost in it and keep singing till it lasts. But every good thing has an end and so does the rhyme. So what do you do next? Here comes the good old fan for rescue. Now this is something very exclusive to my nephew, he���s a fan of fans! He loves them so much that he will watch a fan moving circularly with such a concentration that sometimes the fan will stop and blush (or maybe it���s the power cut, who knows!).

Now that I���ve given away a few secrets to what we do, I feel lucky that he can���t read them yet. Otherwise he���ll find new ways to not keep calm! Which is fine by me, I���m not the one who has to make him fall asleep, but my sister does. And lately she hasn���t been mean to me so I���ll try and do the same ;)

In case you too have a latest copy of a son or daughter, here is summary of the bedtime rituals I���d suggest from my observations.

Diaper change. (Keep a few handy, you never know when you���ll need more!)
Powder application. Because who doesn���t love the smell of baby powder!
Singing a lullaby (Or playing one on your phone)
Switching on the fan. Or you know, anything that works!

Two things will happen after reading this. Many people will go ���Aww!��� and others will laugh. I know, happens to me! To make sure to convert everything to the good old ���aww!���, let me post a cute picture of the Protagonist of this post :)

PS: Now that I pretty vocally said the name Pampers, it would be mean if I don���t tell you about the place you can check out to know more about it. So check this out: ��http://www.rewardme.in/tag/Pampers

Also, take a look at this video, cute, Isn���t it?

Tagged: indiblogger, kids, mothers, pampers