A Great Drive - entry for Michelin Pilot Experience by Salomi Gupta

My last trip to Pune was a year ago...
Today weather in my hometown, that is in Indore is beautiful and it made me miss Pune and my friends even more.

Going back in memories I remember every detail of a similar day in Pune, don’t worry I am not going to bore you with with every detail of that trip, will tell you just the few necessary one.

We were in my friends flat watching movie, weather had turned out to be really romantic from last few days ..  yes ‘romantic’ is the perfect word to describe it , absolutely no sun yet it was not dark, not hot not cold weather, drizzling all day long, days like this, I hated being single :\

4 friends, 1 car, all girls, an urge to go out and it turned out to be such adventure …...

we loaded car with chips and cold drink we stocked for our pajama party and we set off first to khadakwasla dam and then to Lonavala.

One thing you should know 'Lonavala is the ultimate hangout in rainy season for Pune and Mumbai people'. We just wanted to have maggi and corn at Lion’s point, and this was the ultimate motivation which got us through that trip.

Beautiful lion's point in normal days without fog..

As soon as we left Pune around 5 kilo meters after toll naka we had 2 flat tyres simultaneously.... all girls in the car 1 flat tyre we would have tried to deal with but 2!!!...... after brainstorming on what to do. We finally stopped a car for help. Soon we realized that there were all guys stinking of beer in that car….. we were tongue tight no idea how to react.

Finally one of us said ‘we thought its our friend's car, sorry’. Thank god second car we stopped had few college students of our age , among them were 2 girls, we finally relaxed as they agreed to help us with our 2 flat tyres. We finally reached Lonavala, Lion’s point, it was amazing as always you can not see beyond few feets because of fog and hot maggi and corn at that beautiful place was worth all the troubles worth it.

Thank god nothing went wrong at least till we entered Pune. As soon as we entered Pune again something happened to our car and it stopped. All transportation strike it was that day ...which means no bus, no taxi to drop us home. Thank god we were in Pune we called up few friends and they came for help.

Road welcoming you to Lonavala.

That's it, That trip was the most adventurous trip we ever had. Most amazing as well.

That was the best trip of my life <3.

A chance to win a trip to Michelin Pilot Experience at BlogAdda.com

meaningful life ...

One of the amazing videos on the idea caravan is the presentation be Mr.Arunachalam Maraganantham, a school dropout and his story of how he turned his normal life into a meaningful life.

Few things that I loved about Mr. Arunachalam... His sense of humor, way of putting things and his immense love for his wife.

In India, no matter how modern we might become few things are still considered as taboo...... talking about sex..... female and male body parts ....... and the one that every girl has to face every month... her menstrual cycle a.k.a periods.

Let us imagine a case where a college girl just came out of her college, entered local bus, calls her friend in a bus itself. Due to network problem she has to say few things loud every now and then when her friend was not able to her her...... This seems to be a usual scenario isn't it ....... now image the girl is asking her friend if her period is over...... imagine if she says this sentence loud 'Is your period over ????'  since you and I know what exactly she was talking about we won't react in an absurd manner but people in that bus would definitely start staring her as if she has just said there is a bomb on this bus.

OK, try this yourself, if you are a girl, when you are with your friends out in a public place in between of your normal conversation just randomly say the word period loud enough for other people to hear you....... and you will know what I am talking about.... 
In our outrageously conservative society, outrageous because we adapt all the outrageous ways to stick to our conservative society norms.. in this society females lack the basic education of their body ...... they do not understand the importance of hygiene in a female's life ... how dangerous infections can be but no they don't want to use sanitary napkins they will use rag cloth, plant leaves, husk, saw dust and even ashes. 

I know this problem every well as few of my second cousins live in a remote places in Rajasthan, every time they go to any city they buy packets of sanitary pads in bulk as they can not dare to go to any local shop and ask for sanitary pads in their village and when they run out of sanitary pads they use rag cloths and wait for next trip to a near city. Though they are aware of the hygiene issues and can afford sanitary pads but then again comes the society norms to push them back to use cloth instead.

Mr.Arunachalam identified this problem for the first time some time after he got married, he got to know the problem of affordability for hygienic life for his rural women and decided to help them. He faced opposition from his own wife and sisters first then his mother and society. His wife even produced a divorce before him but this did not stopped him.

He tested sanitary pads on his own and became the first man to wear a sanitary pad, thus after some courses of trial and error he came up with a suitable design which was low cost thus affordable for rural women.

His story is truly inspiring. How he turn lives to millions, he created direct employment for 7000 poor women and shifted 1.5 million women from unhygienic way to hygienic sanitary pads and called it silent " second white revolution ".

With his witty style he discusses the need for a meaningful life in a black and white world, colourful world being the metro cities.
He says for a business all you need is a problem, don't chase money just solve that problem because solution to that problem is what you can call a business.

To see the whole video click here or watch here itself video is available below.

PS: This post is an entry for contest by Franklin Templeton India

Break all barriers ... use Internet to your best

Usman Riaz, a young Pakistani boy making his mark in this world with his amazing musical techniques.
Coming from background inclined towards art, it was no surprise he too was seen keen in music. Usman started his classical piano classes at the age of 6, started learning guitar at the age of 16 ....... and 4 years later at the age of 20, he composed his own song "Firefly".

Everything till now was nothing unusual ...... what made Usman Riaz different from other musicians was his way of learning .
At the age of 16 he wanted to start learning other instruments as well, that was when he faced the problem of teachers, since he could not found a teacher that could teacher other than eastern classical or western classical music. He explored a new way of learning. He started learning guitar from youtube videos. Having the knowledge of musical notes from his prior learning of piano, he would try to guess the notes in videos he watched on youtube, at times he would pause the video and see the finger positioning on the guitar ....... and this is how he learning guitar. And then he started exploiting youtube to the fullest, now he can play all the string instruments, he can do both hand tapping, he has directed a musical short story, he taught himself painting and many more things...

The story of Usman Riaz is not less than a moral story.
Not every problem has to be about people living below poverty line, today largest portion of population may it be any country in this whole wide world belongs to middle economic class or are living in under developed areas and yes, they too have problems in their lives.
The biggest problem that the children or youth faces in these situation is how to get a proper coaching of what so ever they want to pursue in their life.
But they do not realize that the biggest advantages they have that our ancestors did not had is internet.
whatever you need to know or need guidance in, in whatever form you need it, you get it all on internet .... all we lack in is the vision of internet as our ultimate source of information.

You want to know or learn something just go through the internet ...... You might not get into harwards but you will get videos of all Harward professors on internet.
Not every student can get into IITs and IIMs but if you want to learn what they learn all you need to do is browse it you will get their notes on college's website ..... yes they don't mind sharing it with you. Students need to be enthusiast to make that effort and collect whatever all those videos and notes available and do some self study.

All the students living in hostels it is futile to join cooking classes but a video of boiling eggs or making simple meals really would help ...... well this one comes from a personal experience 

You want to learn musical instruments like Usman ...... do what he did, no need to put thousands of rupees in tuitions just browse teaching videos and learn it yourself.
Today internet has nearly demolished that factor of miles from people's life. You can attend meetings, talk and see you loved ones siting half way across the world similarly you can also learn from any person receding anywhere in this world.....
If you can not afford a particular professional course, use the services of e-learning, websites providing e-learning services provides you with complete study material, you can clear your doubts with their experts and a bare minimum charge.

So the moral of the story is:- don't let anything get in the way of what you want to learn, just exploit internet ....break all barriers ...... use internet to your best .

PS : This post is a contest entry to indiblogger's contest by Franklin Templeton Investments

At Franklin Templetom Investments it is believed that powerful ideas of today are the true investments for a better tomorrow. I was really impressed by the video of Usman Riaz here have a look, for link click here or go through the video

When the going gets though, She chickens out .........

The line goes perfectly for me I guess, I can count those few things I have actually completed.....

Whenever I take up a job to do or even think about it.....

Initially it is exciting but after some time it is not so exciting and with time it becomes rather repelling .....

Today something horrible happened which made me really upset ..... I started my blog for the pure love of writing, sometimes my grammar is not correct ...... my vocabulary is horrible as it is ...... but still i love writing.

One of my friends has been trying to convince me to start freelancing ..... well my first thought about it was .... why not ..... not that I am in urgent need of money but who minds more shopping ;)

So I changed my linkedIn status to freelance writer and filled few forms ...... lucky or not.. I got a call today on sunday !!!!!! the thought of it threw the whole idea to phase 2 .... not so exciting now are we ???

But the worst is still to come the guy asks me to work for him for free for 2 months!!!!!!

Can you believe it ...... I know I love writing but still.... it was not about money, the guy talked as if I am some filthy slave and I am lucky he called me from his busy schedule specially on sunday ....

For a moment I thought That's it ...... no more writing I can't choose writing over my self respect ..... I was so hurt that I was on the edge of deleting my blog, luckily I din't.

I know I don't have many followers, I don't get a hundred votes on indiblogger I hardly manage to collect a few ....... I don't know if anyone out there is even reading .... or am I sending my posts to void ????

Then after a few moments of silence and finishing 2 bornville dark chocolates ( big ones ) I thought F**K him and his offer ...... he came in the middle of my sunday to make a difference ..... I am not going to stop writing just because some jerk called and said all those things to me ...... in fact I am going to write at least 3 post every week.

Once I get in the flow of writing at least three post every week, I will take that one task that I really need to do and that is to loose weight .....

And all this because I have a mother who keeps nagging about how I leave things in middle if I face a single hurdle ........ today I am taking a resolution, I am not going to wait for New Year for it .........  I won't chicken out, when the going gets though atleast not this time :)

So here is my first post for this week :)