Thought's, Opinions and Travel

When the spread of the Coronavirus began in India, I was eagerly awaiting for my organization to bring out the WFH policy, based on my conversation with friends/colleagues in other countries, it seemed like a logical step, but none of them shared with me the mental challenges of working from home.  Humans are a social race, we are encouraged to mingle and chat since the day we are born, our uncle/aunts relatives pick us up, play with us, we go to parks and socialize with friends and family. For the past 4 days, I have just been sitting at home, doing my office work but not been having any facial connect beyond my immediate family and for some strange reason it has begun impacting me and I am sure many others like me.  My daily routine has broken, while earlier I used to start my day by going to the gym, get motivated by fellow members. It has now turned into a home workout and then starting office work. Weekends seem like weekdays and vice versa.  I have be...

During my recent trip to Vietnam, the importance of cash was reiterated, digital platform are still not close to reaching cash’s biggest strength, easy of acceptability and interoperability. The first thing I had to do before traveling was buy USD, upon landing in the country I paid the visa fee in cash and that was the starting point to a 10 day cash life. From taking an Uber to ordering food, to accommodation it was all cash. My biggest incentive for not using a card was avoidance of FX fee. Since FX rate is known only post the transaction. Also what I observed was, most businesses preferred cash over card a known behaviour across most geographies. From India’s perspective most tourist I meet here prefer cash, for the above reasons and there is no viable global option. A thought I had Probably networks like Mastercard and Visa need to create products along with banks, where a user can create a virtual currency account linked to their existing credit/debit card, ...

Most of you probably know, I ride with a Royal Enfield Motorcycle club, called India Bull Riders, for a long time we had been planning for a off-roading trekking ride. 5:30 AM on Dec 2 nd I met a few fellow riders at M.G Road metro signal, we started our journey to the meeting point NICE junction on Mysore road, upon greeting other riders and a briefing by the ride captain Vinay we begun thumping towards Wayanad. It was a chilling ride, luckily I had worn thermals, after a quick breakfast stop at Mysore we continued to ride, we passed through the beautiful Bandipur forest, and by afternoon we had reached Wayanad. We were briefed about the off-roading but most riders were taken by surprise as the road was gravelled and the climb was steep, many riders lost balance. Team work kicked in as some of the experienced riders parked their bikes and strategically stood to ensure we were able to support our fellow riders. Once at the base camp we freshened up, and got ready to head bac...

Since the East Coast Ride with IBR, life has been a pack of mixed emotions, did few interesting projects, learned new skills and met new people. This blog is more on my experience of finding a partner through matrimonial sites and family connections. So I have entered into the 30's my professional life started falling in place, the big question that was in my parents and relatives mind is “ Yeh ladka shaadi, kab kare ga? ” Interestingly my parents were so overwhelmed with the above question that one evening while a close family friend was home my dad decided to spend around 30k on matrimonial site subscription, he was certainly overthinking which is why he probably ended up buying subscription for 99 years, not just for me but the next two generations that follow. Obviously I was not amused considering I could do so much with that money. But his insecurities were justifiable. Still 30K?? Coming to the entire process of finding a partner and starting a conversa...

I am a strong proponent of paying electronically, don’t quite know the reason to it but I enjoy the experience of be paying by cheque or cards, I have often walked away from a purchase if the merchant refused to accept card. Electronic payments have now become mainstream, so much so that, food contractors within large offices display Paytm QR codes as a mode of acceptance and people like me pay INR 10 for a coffee using Paytm. This week though I was faced with a peculiar situation, after the never ending East Coast ride my bike was due for service, having dropped it at an authorized RE service center earlier in the week, I was expecting a significant bill but was happy that effects of demonetization had resulted in acceptability of cards at the service center. So I get a call on Tuesday, saying the bike will be ready by evening and the rear caliber needs to be replaced hence the bill amount is approx. INR 8000, I was a little surprised at the amount but, having owned an RE ...

Having lived away from home for a year I missed some key events -  a close friend’s wedding, travel to Leh - Ladakh, Bulletiyappa, RE Rider Mania, and just the sheer joy of riding. Once my return date was confirmed I began planning a 10 day ride. Initially I had planned to explore the southern state of Kerala; it was around the same time a member of my riding group India Bull Riders posted a ride which was being planned on the East Coast of India. I signed-up for the ride, hoping I don’t get pulled into a new project. Final Ride map D -3 Three days before the ride, I fell sick, picked up a stomach infection, hurriedly rushed to my family doctor, explained to her what I was about to do, she thought I was crazy to be riding for so long, she gave me meds and asked me to take care. D -2 Meds began to work, stuck to a strict no spice diet and had begun to recover. My bike was also ready, after having spent the weekend with the mechanic as there was paint p...