Mumbai Local Trains

First of all Happy New Year to all the readers !!! (However small that number is..lol)

Mumbai as they call it, is a city of dreams… and one of the most significant part of fulfilling these dreams is played by the Local Trains which carries lakhs of people everyday (considering the crowd in the trains sometimes I feel all these lakh people are trying to come in the same train..). Anyhow, the ride in the train can be very tiring and uncomfy for the obvious known reasons…. But it can be fun also if u wana look at it …here is how I sometimes look at it and people..

They say people match their watches looking at the same guy at the same place every single day to catch the local train. That is how mechanical (or punctual if u want to sound positive.. haha) the local trains make you. Here I am trying to paint a day of work in which I spend 38% of my time travelling in train…lol...


For me the day starts normally,as I try my best (actually very best) to open my eyes at 7 AM (ya that’s early for me ok..) so depending on the time I have, I rush with my morning chores to be out of home around 7:50 AM. A Bus ride to the local train station is made refreshing by the lovely faces going to Sophia College. But the sad part is that its just the next stop to where I get in soo the time is too less for even a eye contact ..lol.. nonetheless I am more focused on thinking of my TO-DO list of the day. I somehow manage to catch the 8:13 local from Grant Road.( you must be already thinking of me as the Ram Bajaj in Andaaz Apna Apna… Sab cheez time to time honi chahiye..lol.. remember Robert asking him..Sir!!! chai main shakkar dalne ka time ho gaya?..lol)

Train is full of special characters;

1. ‘Mr. Hari (Hurry)’ will try to rush in to running train before stopping even if the train is empty (he is so used to getting in to those crowded trains that he can’t get out of that habit….lol

2. ‘Mr. I-Don’t-Care-About-Others’ will try n take up as much space as he can with this thunder thighs and heavy bag kept on the seat itself. But this man turns in to ‘Mr.Oh-Please-Come-Sit’ when the crowed enters in a hurdle at Dadar 

3. ‘Mr.Wana-Be-Neat” would adjust his shirt every 5 mins and his hair style every 1min (Please note that the intervals might change depending on if any girl is standing nearby). Also It could include “Mr.I-am-Scared-of-my Wife” fearing of having to wash the cloths if there is stain on it.

4. ‘Mr.Sleeping-giant” wouldn’t care if someone even sat on their lap or ran away with their stuff. I might fall in this category at times. Infact you won’t believe, once I was travelling on a train to Churchgate (down south) in the evening after office and woke up on the train going opposite towards Borivali (going north)…lol. For a moment I was scared.. I had travelled all the way to south and come back 1 hour away from my station.. it was not funny at all.. took me 10 mins to come to senses and understand what had happened..


If you are wondering why there are all Mr and no Miss in the list, its because there are hardly any Miss in the male compartments. There are so many stories related to Mumbai Local trains that it would be never ending. But these are some funny things.


Looking forward to hear your funny experience in Mumbai Trains or any local transport trains….

Keep Smiling :)

how to keep happy in these gloomy times

(Here are some small simple tips for keeping happy in these gloomy times)

· Smile at a stranger: If the world shows us a threatening face, why not paint that face with smiles to make it less threatening. Let's face it, if you smile at someone, they'll smile back (in all normal situations.. unless he is the brother of gal you are dating secretly). The more you smile, the more people will smile at you. The more you smile, the more people will smile at you. If everybody follows this advice, at least dentists will be too busy to fear world events.

· Volunteer: One of the scariest things about the world today is not just that it seems to be going downhill, but that we feel powerless to stop it. Worse still, politicians and diplomats are in charge (or not so in charge to do anything good). But we CAN take control and send the world uphill right in our own neighborhood. We can help the local animal shelter. We can smile with those small kids ar the NGO, We can work at the food bank. (That's my personal favorite, and NO you do NOT get free samples.) We can help little old ladies across the street. We can make a difference right in our own communities where the politicians and diplomats won't interrupt.

· Enjoy filmy gossip: I know it sounds strange coming from a guy (I enjoy being sexist at times) but this is specially for all the Indian filmy buffs. I know some of my frens think it’s none of our business to get in to the personal lives of the film stars but then I feel who cares if that gives us or people around us a small laugh or a light moment. We don’t have to take them so seriously. By the way.. I think Aamir took Ghajani too seriously…. Out of 2 years that went in making the film I guess he wasted 1.5 years building up the 8 packs and had no time to make the movie itself… didn’t like the movie at all… however Asin was very cute n simple..

Why was Karishma & Abhishek’s Engagement called off (whenever it was.. its been ages)?

We know that Karishma’s mother Babita is not in good terms with her husband’s i.e. Kapoor Family. And Amitabh is related to Kapoor / Nanda family through his daughter. Babita post the engagement had put a condition to Amitabh asking him to cut all ties with Kapoor family. Amitabh denied doing the same and the engagement was called off.

(how much of this is true.. I dono.. you are free to add in .. if u know of a different story..

Does anyone know why Kareen and Shahid got separated?)

Always Keep Smiling :-)

Are we getting the root cause right?

As someone said picture speaks thousand words so here is one i made (plz click on the image to see)

Lets Look for Solutions

I have seen the whole event on TV and felt it very closely. It is difficult to put in words how we feel when something like this happens in our city in our country. As i was listening to people on TV & Radio, there is a lot of Anger in people's mind, and rightly so. But everyone was talking about issues and blaming politicians...hardly anyone talked abt solutions (other than a war with Pakistan which i dont think is the solution)..so i sat back and thought of ......A Call to the PM's office and the following email sent to the PM

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Dear Mr. Prime Minister,

I am not sure if this would even reach you but still I want this to be heard. I am a working professional in Mumbai and wish to help in the hour of crisis in the country. I will try to make this as precise and to the point so that I don’t waste your time.

I am sure you have heard people’s opinion about politicians and authorities in the country post the havoc in Mumbai. Being an Indian myself I can totally understand the emotions. But I want to put my energy in to something constructive and suggest solutions instead of blaming people and talking about just issues.

The Idea:

To save its face and to save the country, the Central Government should run a campaign asking people of this country to suggest their ideas to curb Terrorism in the country. You should promise that the campaign will be wholly promoted by the PMO and some of the filtered ideas would be debated in the working committee and parliament for implementation (live telecast of the debate). I know the idea sounds overly optimistic but then I guess that is required at this point in time. The high energies of people in the country need to be directed in to something constructive and only you can do this through your team. Ask them to SMS, email or write letters with their ideas and put up a team of 100 people to scan it and filter it. It won’t cost much to implement this considering the following benefit.

Benefits:

• It gives People of India a feeling of involvement towards the country
• It gives some saving grace to the government by showing that it cares and is willing to take steps
• It allows the millions of brilliant brains of the country to come up with innovative (cost effective & practical) solutions
• It actually might end up saving my country, our country from many disasters
• AND IT’S NO SHAME TO ASK FOR HELP……. AFTER ALL EVERYONE IN THIS COUNTRY IS EQUALLY RESPONSIBLE


Please note that I am not questioning the intelligence your team has but I believe 1million brains will provide you a better pool of ideas to work with.
I am not sure if these emails are read by you, but I m optimistically looking forward to your reply.

Best Regards

Rahul Choube

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I dont know if this is the right way, but I truly believe that its time to consider it our duty to contribute in whatever way we can to solve the problem.

Looking for your thoughts

Cheers

Enjoy life and Be Happy

We in today’s world face soo many challenges and hard situations which literally force us to think “Why Me?”….. imagine Someone (who has a job) doesn’t like his boss, someone is not getting a job at all, someone is having issues in their relationships, someone is just irritated by their surrounding (raj thackray, terror attacks etc)… too many things around us (small or big) keep us low and entangled.

Sometime when I sit back and try to think, how much of our energies we spend worrying about these things and not enjoying our day to day life. I don’t mean we shouldn’t think about them at all, but do we think about the problem or the solutions or do we actually do something about the issue???

More than trying to get a solution to the problem which is a must ,I would say try to be positive about whatever happens in your life, I know it sounds easier than it is.. but then What the Hell… who says life is a easy ride.. at least we can try to make it enjoyable …

So the next time you feel you are not being treated well by your GF/BF, being scolded by your boss for no reason… just think… it’s up to you if u want to get hurt… at that time try to enjoy smiles of people around u (specially kids).. laugh on some of those stupid jokes of Laughter Challenge show.. some silly SMSs from your friends..or best… spend time reading silly blogs abt life.. you would get many reasons to smile J

I know this post sounds soo philosophical but then that’s what I have actually come to realize and I feel everyone should follow to keep themselves happy.

Here is a joke .. u get for bearing through my blog and come out of that feeling u got after reading it.. hahaha

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Man to doctor:
When I sleep, monkeys
play football in my dreams.

Dr:No problem,
just take this medicine b4 sleep.

Man: Kal se khaonga aaj final hai.

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KEEP SMILING

A Strange but “Innovative” Idea

It was a routine morning, and I was on my way in the train to office listening to Mumbai’s very own RJ “Malishka” (love the way she says her name). After the Blasts in Delhi, it was being talked about everywhere in media ; radio, TV, Newspapers etc.
Malishka then gave a very interesting thought which I wish to present here based on my understanding. It goes like this
“ When a blast happens and a terrorist organization claims it, what is their basic objective? Not only creating the terror but also letting the whole world know about it. What if a blast happens and its now shown anywhere. I mean the news about the blast is not published in any of the media forms. The whole objective of the Terrorist organization would be beaten. I know it sounds crazy and not practical but just think about it…. If the whole media unites for this cause and tries to do that.. what would be the implications? “
This came across as a very interesting and path breaking idea to me.. and it somewhere clicked that really can this be done? Will it somewhere hit the root cause of all these issues?

Let me know your thoughts…

Cheers


The “Pratham” Experience

Now this has to be one of the best and the most fulfilling experience of my life. All thanks to my sweet friend Mr. X (Name not mentioned due to security issues.. he is too good and I don’t want him to be harassed by girls..:) ). Not that too many girls read my blog anyway… lol.. but just in case.

As a kid when we all dream to do something different and contribute to the society, even I had similar thoughts. These thoughts became more profound as I saw so many of my MBA friends in Toronto being active in contributing to the society and people around them. My friend X had been part of this NGO called “Pratham” in south Mumbai where they used to teach small children English & Computers.

I was interested in joining this NGO and I got that chance few weeks back. As we got out from the Taxi in the Masjid area in south Mumbai, we went through this tiny walkway “Galee” with small shops on both sides and a huge crowd. It was so bad that we had to walk like snails through that crowd. We finally reached the building which is called “Musafir Khana” (meant for people who are travelling via Mumbai and want to relax for sometime in the area of the Mosque). The Mosque had given the top floor of the building to this NGO. Obviously there was no lift, so we walked our way through the old building with those stone stairs. As we went inside all the kids (age 5 to 15) had already gathered and sitting on the floor with some of the other MBA students. They were too busy in their notebooks to even look at us.

My Friend X had plans to teach them India’s Pledge in English. Some of these kids already used to go to school and knew some ABC.. The room was like those old house rooms with stone flooring. we started sentence by sentence of translation of the pledge from Hindi to English. “India is my country; All Indians are my brothers & sisters”. The first thing to notice was many of us MBA graduates didn’t remember the pledge fully. However this fact re-enforced the urge to remember it and teach it to these kids.

The kids started on their note books and the most amazing thing I noticed was they were writing the pronunciations of those words in hindi below the English sentence. That was something they did on their own. It was helping them remember the pronunciations. Overall the 2 hours went in a jiffy.

The Sparkle in their eyes and their willingness to study so eagerly on a Sunday (when some people want to leave job early even on a Friday) was amazing to see. I truly enjoyed teaching them and wish to continue this and may be do something on larger scale.
I believe if we have the talent and some time, why not put it in a good cause. The pleasure and sense of satisfaction you would get then you see them standing in front of everyone and speaking the Pledge out in English would be much more than you can imagine.
Hope that more of us get involved in nourishing the true future of our country (i.e children)


“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. “

-William Butler Yeats