Monday, March 11, 2024

Open Mics and Stand up comedies

I have discovered Open mics (The precursor to the stand up comedies) about a year ago. I have visited about 10 open mics over this period. 

There are multiple things I look forward to there:
Hilarious takes on situations, Good jokes, Open talk on societies' taboo topics and also the Gen Z's thoughts, perspectives, online tools and in general being in touch with that generations' ecosystem.

An example:
I just knew about a dating app called Tinder. But an artist's full fledged stand up of 10 min comparing the people you find on each of the popular dating apps was both hilarious, cringy as well as very informational for an outsider like me.

Friday, February 23, 2024

Relationship between Time and Money

The relationship between these 2 things is interesting:
The middle class and poor, value money more than time and give their time to earn money.

The business class and the rich, value time more than money and spend money to save time.

The middle class and the poor, dont know many ways to make money apart from trading their time to earn money with the particular set of skills they have.

For the business class and the rich, know that there are multiple ways to make money, but time is limited. They have seen their money and wealth go up and down many times and understand it much deeper. They sometimes have connections (trust from customers, suppliers, associations, bank credit, mortgaging assets) they can leverage to get back from a bad position.

Tuesday, January 9, 2024

Zonkey

Meet the Zonkey.

When "WTF" has more than one real meaning - (What and Who)

You can see this family in the Baku Zoo, Azerbaijan


Skiing at Shahdag, Azerbaijan

My wife and I tried skiing at Shahdag range of mountains at Azerbaijan.

We stayed at Hotel Zirve where there is a ski school with instructors.

A few details about skiing:

It is not as easy as it looks. It involves getting the physics right. Just like other things (trekking, scuba diving, helmet diving, archery, golf, shooting) 

There are a few things we learnt about the details and process of skiing doing it here for the first time overall.

The process involves a few steps:

1. Register your time slot for individual instructions. (Here they allow maximum 3 people per instructor)

2. You need to hire the following: Ski shoes, Skis, Ski sticks, Helmet, Goggles (optional), Jacket (optional if you already have one), Gloves (optional)

3. You need to pay the following: Equipment renting, Ski instructor fees and the Ski pass - for using the ski slopes (Like a green fee on golf courses)

Please be ready to spend at least 1-1.5 hr before the instruction time to get these 3 things done.

Post this, the live instructions of how to connect / Disconnect the skis with the ski-shoes on ice can start.

The instructor we were assigned was good in English and patient and helped us correct with the mistakes we made and took us (my wife and I) step by step.

At the end of the 2 hrs session, we asked him to video record our skiing and he did a marvellous job of it too.

Few new things to know for a first timer: The ski shoes are very different from all other shoes and are very heavy (maybe 3 kgs each leg). The ski shoe is meant to not break or let the leg slip out even when you put the maximum weight on the front and try to fall front (the ideal body position) when skiing.

Please do expect a few falls with the entire attire while trying to negotiate a curve or trying to stop, but be free to fall and prevent any injuries. I saw at least 2 other people fall in the 2 hrs apart from we falling off.

Skiing has significant costs:

Renting of 2 pairs of Skis, Ski sticks, Shoes, Helmet, Goggles and a locker for our shoes costed us about 132 Mannat or USD 78.

Ski instructor fees was 185 mannat or about USD 109

Ski pass for 2 was 66 Mannat or about USD 39

Tip to instructor of 15 Mannat or about USD 9

Total Skiing = 398 Mannat or about INR 19900

Happy Skiing!

Monday, November 13, 2023

2023 Experiences

I am a firm believer of having new, interesting experiences almost constantly throughout life.

If not experiences, what else are we living for in this life?

With a firm mindset and curiosity of new things, I have been able to identify new things to do and new experiences to have almost every other week. It is a craving, it is an addiction and get to learn more about the world around me. The thrill of discovering new things, experiencing new things and then sharing these new things to others is something I find joy in.

I hope the list below inspires people to value experiences and look forward to create & share experiences for others to enjoy.

So, let me share with you the new experiences in 2023. Most are bucketlist worthy and some not, but just an interesting experience.

  1. Completing the Hyderabad half marathon - 4th time. This was the hardest ever for me as I did it after a 8 year hiatus. With poor training, I somehow managed to complete it much better than expected with going to office half day after the marathon and not taking any leave the next day also. Helped in bringing a lot of self confidence in doing hard tough things. Some of the reasons I run the half marathons: to know my stamina, to develop will power to overcome barriers.
  2. Indoor sky diving. Gravity Zip at Hyderabad. The starting of an experience for sky diving in the future.
  3. Riding a bike as fast as possible - 122 km/hr. Breaking the previous record of 114 km/hr after a big break of over 7 years in the same bike as before.
  4. A bike tour with a gang. An interesting new experience and learnt about the various roles in a bike gang.
  5. Watch Maverick - one of the best movies in theater for free. An infinite returns on this one experience.
  6. Indoor Rock climbing - Crag studio. Never knew rock climbing is this hard.
  7. Axe-throwing: In Madhapur, https://axethrowingindia.com An interesting game and definitely not as easy as one thinks it to be.
  8. Foosball, 10 pins. Fun to play with family / friends
  9. Visiting a huge mythogical musuem/ theme park - Surendrapuri
  10. Experiencing a TEDx event. Definitely some of the best music, live shows and fantastic standard setting level of organising an event like this.
  11. Having a flaming drink. Nothing more fun than to drink a flaming Sambuka.
  12. Attend a live concert
  13. Attend a live stand up comedy show - There are open mics daily in the city. One of the few people to know this and attend this and encourage the upcoming talent.
  14. Perform a live stand up comedy show. Last but not the least, the best secret experience of the year. Performed as a rakshabandhan gift to my sister and my wife with others.
A few missed experiences:
Attending a world cup cricket match in a stadium
The cancelled F4 car race in the city
The e-prix car race.

What's up 2024? :)

Sunday, May 14, 2023

Business of Transgenders in India

During college days, I used to wonder the source of income for the transgenders as and when I came across them in the road. To be clear, they were much better dressed than beggers even when they used to harrass people for money at traffic junctions, railways, etc.

So what's their secret to their far better living standards than many working class people like watchmen, clerks, auto drivers, etc.?

It turns out harrassment on the road is only one of their small source of income. One of the larger sources of income for them is harrassment/exhortion of shop store businesses and taking baksheesh on festivals also. 

The group is close knit and also very organised to support each other when required to create scenes/ dramas at places. They have clear demarcation of shops, roads and areas where they have their shops which provide their source of income.

With some transgender people becoming even MLA in India, I hope they take up more normal jobs in the society and get themselves acquainted to other people in the society in a better way so that people/ kids are not scared of them. The more they join the society in meaningful ways, the more people would be acceptable of them, removing the stigma attached to them.

Thursday, March 2, 2023

Never trust your Bank

Has this happened to you?

The bank promises you a credit card with a limit and at the time of drawal, they dont let you draw.

Backstabbed by the bank! 

The bank in question is HDFC Bank.

From yester years, the synonym of banking or lending is trust, which is the main basis of it.

The recent experience of my "trusted" bank has had me question some of my beliefs.

I have been a loyal customer to this bank from 2005, a pretty significant 18 years. And this has been my primary bank account. They have issued me a premium credit card and they have wanted to increase the limit once a year which I have denied to as I have a decent limit which I dont use.

I was also smart enough to get my wife an add on card on the exact next day after our wedding 10 years ago so that she should not have any problem when the need arises.

Last week, my wife shopped and swiped the card for a pretty big amount well within the overall unused limit and the card was declined. I reset the password online and checked with my banker (on a sat holiday) and he confirmed that the pin generation and limit change was instantaneous. Despite this, the card was declined 3 times with no correct reason specified.

The next day, I get a call from the transaction monitoring team of the credit card asking if the transaction tried was genuine. Why didnt they call and check at that time? She also told me that the card has been blocked. When I asked why, she had no reason.

In effect, they promised me credit and at the time of drawal, they didnt let me draw. Backstabbed by the bank! 

What if the purpose of this transaction was at a hospital for an emergency? The patient could have died as I couldnt pay. Could I then make the bank a party to the murder of the patient as it was responsible for not obliging on its promises and denied getting the treatments on time?

Few lessons from this episode:
Never trust any bank. Diversify the credit cards and have 2 primary accounts with transactions in each to have good credit limit.

You need to have multiple lines of liquidity (as stated earlier in my blog) to overcome immediate payment needs.

Friday, February 24, 2023

Productivity Tool / Hack 4

Although I am not an Apple fan, I decided to change my laptop from the usual HP / Dell / Lenovo (Microsoft systems) to the Mac.

I think every windows person is scared of the Mac and how things would be.

Turns out, it is just like crossing a road from British colonial countries to the US based countries. Every thing is on the opposite side. Thats primarily it.

The biggest benefit though is putting off the screen and awakening it twice daily for a week with all the websites open in chrome and firefox (about 30 for me), and still working very well.

The minimal model options available in Apple laptops works very well with they having the best product for regular office work.

Productivity Tool / Hack 3

Once in a while, we need a USB drive to move data/ take a print out, etc.

We usually have a good fancy USB drive at home, but dont have it handy when required.

To solve this problem, use the credit card/ debit card shaped USB drive in your wallet and take it around always.

This even comes with personalisation options to portray your perspective.

You can find these here or search for personalised usb or card pendrive:

https://www.yourprint.in/product/custom-printed-credit-card-pen-drive/

https://www.igp.com/p-don-t-touch-personalized-usb-card-pendrive-64gb-139700?