tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132728222024-03-07T13:07:59.167+05:30Mazhe FundeParikshithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12149559038140111139noreply@blogger.comBlogger33125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13272822.post-8260627892624279392024-01-02T17:12:00.021+05:302024-01-02T17:19:52.749+05:30Enchanting MoroccoFirst impressionsAs an Indian travelling around the world, I am used to worrying about visas. Our online visa application for Morocco was approved in 2 hours and it was a sign that this entire country and its people were ready to pull out the red carpet. Immigration agents were so happy to welcome somebody from India and always brought up Shahrukh Khan and his movies. Amitabh Bacchan, Hritik Parikshithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12149559038140111139noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13272822.post-83079425846714247172016-08-11T23:18:00.001+05:302016-08-11T23:18:58.972+05:30Why we are everywhere and why actually we aren't
I have heard a number of statements and claims since I have come to the US regarding how ‘big’ the Indian community here is or how ‘we are everywhere’. I hear how Silicon Valley companies are full of Indians or how Texas and New Jersey makes you feel as if you are in India.
But is this really true? With my sense of history, it just doesn’t feel right.
America is Parikshithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12149559038140111139noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13272822.post-17147190453027833862016-07-23T00:01:00.001+05:302016-07-23T00:05:15.168+05:30Dignity
My first travel to the ‘West’ was when I went to London by British Airways. I thought the airhostess was rude, behaved as if she was doing a favor. I visited a pizzeria in London during my trip and I thought the waitress was rude, behaved as if she was doing a favor.
Why did I think so? Because as an Indian, the concept of ‘class’ and ‘privilege’ is ingrained Parikshithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12149559038140111139noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13272822.post-73218719715165315132016-07-20T20:54:00.001+05:302016-07-20T20:55:37.477+05:30How difficult can it be to get passport photos at a reasonable price?This may seem trivial but it’s no joke. US Passports apparently require only 2 photos hence most photo printing services give you 2 photos for a fee of around $13. Side note – photo services are provided by most pharmacies like CVS, Walgreens etc. Yes, pharmacies! Quite a weird business combination!
Enter Indian bureaucracy. It turns out; Indian bureaucracy doesn’t go very well Parikshithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12149559038140111139noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13272822.post-69247678100192436322015-12-24T05:40:00.001+05:302015-12-24T05:44:49.527+05:30My first contact with Mesoamerica
We could learn just three Spanish words in our everyday
struggle to communicate with the old world inhabitants of the new world.
Hola, we said to Me-hi-co which the English speaking
world calls Mexico. Part of the greater Mesoamerican landscape, Mexico is
organized chaos. Just like good old India! Arriving at Benito Juarez
International Airport in Mexico City at midnight was quite an Parikshithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12149559038140111139noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13272822.post-57611845644433494572015-08-27T05:43:00.001+05:302015-08-27T05:43:56.894+05:30Why are we always ticking boxes?
I love to travel. Having traveled around South East Asia
and India, travel to me was always looking at sites. I always looked for famous
places, cities, historical monuments, museums, beautiful cliffs or breathtaking
beaches. It’s necessary to have something to see and tick a box. “Sightseeing”
as it’s called in travel brochures. Once a box is ticked, it’s done. I would
never ever go there Parikshithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12149559038140111139noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13272822.post-87378485905592248802015-08-22T18:57:00.000+05:302015-08-22T18:57:25.458+05:30United States of Convolution
Convolution (a coil or twist, especially one of many). Its
true meaning has dawned upon me as I start settling down in the States. The
United States of Convolution. The art of making simple things complex!
This rant is not one of frustration but of amusement. There
are so many things great and beautiful about the US which I had read and heard
umpteen number of times but I had never read or Parikshithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12149559038140111139noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13272822.post-23997804139438393932011-08-20T11:17:00.003+05:302011-08-20T11:21:26.064+05:30If not for Anna..<!--[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]>Parikshithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12149559038140111139noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13272822.post-52629304779896769292010-09-07T22:10:00.002+05:302010-09-07T22:37:21.185+05:30Real Estate, be Realistic!Equity Mutual Funds Vs Real Estate investmentDisclaimer: I am NOT saying that real estate is a bad investment. What I am trying to say is Real Estate is just like any other asset class and make an informed bet when you put your life's savings into it. It may bring you handsome returns which no other asset class can but it can also give you lousy returns or worst put you in a debt trap.The Parikshithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12149559038140111139noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13272822.post-37267613494915263592010-01-29T19:57:00.003+05:302010-01-29T20:07:26.303+05:30Road Trip II: Raigad Coast<!--[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]>Parikshithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12149559038140111139noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13272822.post-5173307419585065622008-07-10T20:17:00.002+05:302008-07-10T20:21:37.641+05:30Thank God, it's Thursday !So it’s my 3rd weekend at SIBM today. Yes, we have a weekend off on Friday. I have the same feeling today as I used to have on every Friday while in the IT industry. Loads of mails used to come in which all said basically one thing; TGIF (Thank God, Its Friday!). This Friday culture is extremely rampant in the IT industry. There is even a restaurant named as TGIF on Airport Road, Bangalore. What Parikshithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12149559038140111139noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13272822.post-34181132387693814942008-06-18T23:33:00.009+05:302008-06-19T00:02:34.241+05:30First Impressions of SIBM LavaleHere I was in front of the SIBM building on Senapati Bapat Road at 11:30 AM on the 6th of June 2008 to begin my MBA journey. Excited, enthusiastic, determined, and courageous on one hand and nervous, afraid, cautious on the other. This was my state of mind that day. A minibus took us all the way to the SIBM Lavale Campus which I had been hearing about from so many days. This ‘Lavale’ thing was Parikshithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12149559038140111139noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13272822.post-47744492952706626792007-10-03T12:35:00.000+05:302007-10-03T12:49:36.709+05:30Ban on Bandhs!I was extremely happy to see the Supreme Court lashing out at the Tamil Nadu government for calling a ‘Bandh’ couple of days back. I had iterated in one of my earlier posts Save Namma Bengaluru about how these bandhs in India are not voluntary and are forced closures of business and cause immense social & economic turmoil. They intend to do it for a cause but almost always are nothing more Parikshithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12149559038140111139noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13272822.post-22905418687513020382007-06-14T15:29:00.000+05:302007-06-14T15:45:25.219+05:30Unity in Diversity28 States, 7 Union Territories, 2 Linguistic families with 23 Official Languages, 4 Major and innumerable minor religions, several castes and sub-castes, several tribes -1 Country! -- That’s what we learned in school to be our ‘Unity in Diversity’.Reflecting about this cliché often talked about in India, I understand that keeping over a Billion people as one nation state is a great feat in itselfParikshithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12149559038140111139noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13272822.post-59888240829076192152007-03-06T18:28:00.000+05:302007-03-06T18:30:18.672+05:30Save Namma BengaluruA linguistic minority passes a resolution in a local government body that it wants to merge with a neighboring state which is home to its language. A great regional language actor, who is adored by many, passes away a natural death. A religious minority takes out a protest march to condemn an event in a far off country which is followed by a procession by another community in the same localities Parikshithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12149559038140111139noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13272822.post-89930740124798699602007-02-21T11:55:00.000+05:302007-02-21T12:10:00.203+05:30Tax Trick for an ELSS MFThere is a particular ‘extra’ Tax advantage you can derive out of a Dividend Payout option of an ELSS Mutual Fund Scheme using a simple trick.Usually mutual fund schemes lure investors in the months preceding the financial year end into ELSS schemes to boost their assets. They also declare huge dividends and set a date for the dividend allotment. When a dividend payout happens on the prescribed Parikshithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12149559038140111139noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13272822.post-76563924524685913372007-02-13T10:29:00.000+05:302007-02-13T10:37:57.554+05:30Life Insurance Jugglery - IIYou must have heard the terms ‘Human Life Value’ (HLV) and must have been scared to death by insurance agents about how much risk you have and how much insurance you should take. There have been very popular advertisements on TV which show how everybody needs insurance, It portrays, “I don’t need Insurance” and then the ‘don’t’ word gets dropped off due to accident, fire or something and the Parikshithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12149559038140111139noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13272822.post-4732351194785005702007-02-06T09:39:00.000+05:302007-02-06T10:11:01.226+05:30Life Insurance JuggleryInsurance has always been the front runner amongst all the financial products in the Indian market place. The latest upsurge in the middle class income, a buoyant economy and a bull market has led to an even more increase in the Insurance products available today and the darling among them has always been Life Insurance.Life Insurance is actually a very uncomfortable thing to digest. It is a Parikshithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12149559038140111139noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13272822.post-49516648847189808702007-02-05T10:49:00.001+05:302007-02-05T10:49:56.476+05:30MoneyMoney is an amazing thing. Although understanding money and financial instruments is so fascinating and so rewarding, it still remains an area which is studied and implemented only by specialists. The common man either ignores it or the little more concerned one at least listens to the life insurance agent. And of course everybody goes to a CA at the end of the year! (Assuming you aren’t like oneParikshithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12149559038140111139noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13272822.post-27220180477702801622007-02-02T09:52:00.000+05:302007-02-02T10:03:40.619+05:30Three cheers to SRKAn overtly rude lady was the lucky one yesterday in the immensely popular KBC. Throughout the show, she behaved very aggressively, too overconfident and showing little respect to one of Bollywood's greatest superstar. One one occasion, when asked how many numbers are there with 9 in them from 1 to 100, she took an audience poll ! After the poll, when SRK suggested that she could have counted it Parikshithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12149559038140111139noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13272822.post-1147701164510835462006-05-15T19:20:00.000+05:302006-05-15T19:23:49.846+05:30ChaosYou have a boulevard. Keep huge rolling wooden logs in the middle of that road. Put in some smaller varieties of those logs which can roll a bit faster. Now if water starts flowing from one end not hard enough to blow these logs away, you can imagine how it will fill the gaps and race ahead of everybody.When the huge load of vehicles start flowing in the morning, I always have this scene in my Parikshithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12149559038140111139noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13272822.post-1141819912801154832006-03-08T17:35:00.000+05:302006-03-08T17:46:15.376+05:30It's Better in Goa"It's better in Goa" is a fond memory I have of a T-Shirt caption which was very popular with Goa tourists when I first went there in the early Nineties with my parents. This time, the T-Shirt wasn't that popular but it is still better in Goa...After a lot of discussions and planning (all though mails) we decided on the Goa tour in the first week of March. It was a memorable trip, full of fun, Parikshithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12149559038140111139noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13272822.post-1138727392291627902006-01-31T22:38:00.000+05:302006-01-31T22:40:44.526+05:30Here comes the ‘Happy Birthday’!Right from childhood, everybody is fascinated by those two words. And yes, those two words are always together. My younger cousin Rohan used to say, ‘Udya maza Happy Badde’ ahe, and that’s what I feel today :-)Many a times I try to convince myself that there is nothing great in the day, it is just another day. I will get up the same way, get ready, have my same idly-dosa breakfast, come to the Parikshithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12149559038140111139noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13272822.post-1138632112925406482006-01-30T20:07:00.000+05:302006-01-30T20:11:52.946+05:30Rang De Basanti ! First day of the opening and I was off to see ‘Rang De Basanti’ at Rex Cinema. Before I say something about the movie itself, let me say something about parking, yes PARKING! That is the dirtiest word, if you are on Brigade road, Bangalore. It was my friend’s brand new Honda Dio and as the traffic cop didn’t allow us inside the theatre premises, we parked it in a Bank’s compound after Bank hoursParikshithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12149559038140111139noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13272822.post-1137743726692710902006-01-20T13:15:00.000+05:302006-01-20T14:30:54.903+05:30The Not so Great Indian DreamIn the book, “The Great Indian Dream”, there are many things which I disagree. I don’t know whether I am totally correct but I simply do not agree. I will highlight some of those points here and leave the points which I think are correct for the later post.1. Sacrifice your Lipstick for his Toilet.A comparison has been made such as some $ Billion is spent in Europe on Ice Cream and an equivalent Parikshithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12149559038140111139noreply@blogger.com2