Thoughts @ Amit Gupta

Why I would recommend Flipkart

Amit Gupta — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 19:24:41 +0000

My personal online shopping is more or less restricted to travel, web products, movie booking , Bill pay etc which are very standardized products/services. I have made most of my online product purchases on non indian ecommerce sites (google, amazon , bestbuy etc) though I have few transactions in my name in erstwhile baazee.com (now ebay.in) way back in early 2000.

Why ? I think the primary issues being TRUST. Trust on the service provider and the product itself. In name of discounts and deals most of the online sites are selling cheap imitation of real products. Moreover the vendors also don’t have any great reputation. You have have no where to go incase the buy goes wrong.

The notion of buying online is looked only as buying cheap and not as an alternate market place which offers you choice of products at competitive prices. A place which will bring price and product advantage beyond the geographical boundries of your local market.

Offlate there is spurt in number of ecommerce sites and the way they are positioning themselves in the market. They seems to be taking onus of the business and are strongly backed by brick and mortar support.

I just bought a HP mini 8 Gb pendrive from Flipkart. It was such a nice and smooth shopping experience. So what is flipkart doing right or different in still nascent indian eCommerce space , so many other players are jostling for the market share.

What flipkart is doing right according to me :

24×7 toll free helpline (Build faith that you have human support in case something goes wrong online ; my transaction failed once)
Delivery by Flipkart own network (Enhanced reliability)
Shipped by Flipkart (Vendor is identified)
30 days return guarantee (Eliminate the fear of being cheated or duped with damaged product)
Almost real time tracking of shipment (Timely delivery)
Cash on delivery (Most Important as fear of using credit/debit card online is the biggest deterrent in the growth of online shopping)
Promise less and deliver more (2 day delivery against promised 3-5 business days)

PS:

The packaging was sturdy enough to withstand any transit
The customer support staff is very polite and helpful. They refer to customers on first name basis and come across as very friendly ; infact I have spoken to them thrice in these 2 days.

Signs of India

Amit Gupta — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 06:53:28 +0000

You will be back . we guarantee it just above the return policy

Integrating FB social Plugin Like and Comment

Amit Gupta — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 16:37:00 +0000

Facebook has made integrating of ‘Like’ , ‘Send’ and comments really a simple process with social plugin. I have implemented all three of them without using any plugin in my wordpress blog or creating an application ID on Facebook. You can find the complete documentation of the three social plugin on Facebook developer’s Page for social plugin.

Facebook like : You can customize the like and send button for your blog. The customization include format , width , color , font and option to hide / display facepile (Thumbnail of friend’s photo). You can generate the code from here.

Similarly you can generate the code for FB comments plugin from here. This is really social plugin as this enable comments by logging in from Facebook, Yahoo ,AOL & Hotmail.

I have implemented both of them on the individual post. The default setting for both Like and Comments is the top level domain or URL. The problem with implementation is that the like and comments on any post are reflected on all pages.

This works for Like to a extend where visitors can like your website or blog but comments is a big fail in default installation. All comments across site might get jumbled up.

Here the fix I found working for me for both the codes.

1. Replace href=”domain name” with expr:href=”data:post.url” for Facebook Like

2. Replace href=”domain name” with href=”” for Facebook Comments

The result is the following implementation :

Passport for minor in India

Amit Gupta — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 14:40:37 +0000

As promised I am back to lock horn again with the Passport office. Three years back I had a tough time to reissue passport after expiry of 10 years.

But this time its for my sweetheart little baby. She now has a Date of Birth Certificate , a Pan Card and a Postage Stamp of her own Next target to get her the passport. Though the best source for information on procedure, documents required, FAQs on the topic would be the Delhi passport office website but still here’s my personal experience which might be helpful for you guys.

Step 1 : Application form (29th May 2011)

I suggest you fill-up the online application form to ensure you have an appointment and can dodge the long queue outside the passport office in Delhi (BTW regional passport office in Delhi is situated at Bikaji Cama Place , Behind Hotel Hyatt). This is the easiest of all. Fill up the basic details of the minor.

You can also select the date and time of the appointment for submitting the application form. The time on the application is only indicative , applications are accepted on first come first serve basis. So no worries if you are late or early. Its better to be early just in case you missed out on any document and need a copy etc.

Documents for the passport for minor

a. Print out of the online application (6 pages including 2 PP forms). There are multiple fields which need to be filled manually (No overwriting allowed) e.g. Passport details of parents, Date of birth in words etc

b. Paste 3 photographs (3.5cm X 3.5 cm) on the form. DO NOT SIGN (THUMB-PRINT) ON PHOTOS

c. Use blue or black ink for taking minor’s thumb impression on the form

Self Attested (Signed by parents) copies of the following :

a. Date of Birth certificate (Issued by local municipal corporation)

b. Marriage Certificate of Parents or Affidavit

c. Annexure H

d. Address proof

e. Copies of passport of parents (First and last four pages)

Passport Fee for Minor :

Fresh Passport for Minors (below 18 years of Age) of 5 years validity or till the minor attains the age of 18 which ever is earlier. Rs 600/-

Tatkal Passport Fee for Minor :

I opted to apply under tatkal scheme for issue of passport. You would need couple of more documents and additional fees of Rs 1500.

You need to submit a application of plain paper to convert your application to the tatkal. There is no standard format for the application. I have used the following :

The PRO,

Passport Office , Delhi

This is to request you to process passport application of my daughter under tatkal scheme.

Regards

Additionally , “Annexure I” was required on a notarized affidavit non-judicial stamp paper of Rs. 10. That’s why you need to reach passport office early. No worries you can get the affidavit done from Notary sitting at bikaji Cama place building. I got it for Rs. 100. Also there is a photocopier guy right within the passport office building .

It is advised to carry a couple of pens, extra photocopies and plain A4 sheets with you just in case they ask for some application. Be careful with your originals , carry them all for verification.

At Passport Office (07th June 2011)

a. We reached well in advance of a warm sunny and hot day. To top it all the queue is now shifted to open space behind the passport office building. There are two counter for passport application and one for miscellaneous service counter. These are only for ONLINE applications.

b. Even though online application enable us to dodge some 200 non online applicants in serpant queue but the online queue was long enough. Be patient as every applicant takes some 10 mins at the counter.

c. On counter itself you can convert your application into the TATKAL. the officer at counter was very polite and helpful. He attached a white paper on top of documents and suggested to write an application and get “Annexure I”.

d. Thankfully we didn’t have to get again into the line and our application was stamped for verification by PRO (sitting at Misc service counter)

e. The queue at that counter was not very long and took 30 odd min. The PRO validated our passports and signed the application.

f. The signed application was again to be submitted to the original counter. Thankfully again we need not stand in line. We paid the total fee of (600 + 1500 = 2100).

g. We are issued a receipt with the promise of delivery within a week.

Update 1. (09th June 2011)

The passport status page is showing as “Application is pending for want of Police Report.”

You can also find the complete list of documents http://passport.gov.in

Update 2. (13th June 2011)

Passport is delivered to our address through speed post. The status on site though still shows “Police verification pending”

The passport is issued for Five years and for once I need to admit this was a super smooth process. My Fairy now has a passport to FLY

Update 3. (26th June 2011)

Police verification done for for my daughter

Update 4. (30th June 2011)

Passport Status updated as passport dispatched on 10th of June 2011. Funny but it’s Okie.

Google +1 for your blog

Amit Gupta — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 05:45:35 +0000

Google launched +1 recommendation button for publishers yesterday. This could possibly be the turning point in the Google vs Facebook war to control the web. Facebook has taken a lead by share and like button but google +1 is a bigger counter to all this.

With Google controlling the major portion of publishers organic traffic they would be more than willing to install the recommendation button on their blogs and sites.

The implementation is really easy and even easier for wordpress blogs.

Step : 1 Select the desired size of the button. There are four option to pick from.

Step : 2 Copy and paste the code in your blog post or website.

The first part of the code goes just before the end of tag in your blog /site. and the second part need to be inserted where you want the button to appear.

Fast Tube by Casper

Voila! you are done.

Google will display the +1 next to search results.

How would Google +1 help your blog :

a. Provide authenticity to your blog content

b. Crowd recommendation will boost your search engine read Google rating

c. For users ; they will get more refined and recommended results (Less of spam / ad page blogs)

If you’re a webmaster, you can get the +1 button code and learn more about implementation on Google’s +1 webmaster site.

What is QR code

Amit Gupta — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 18:14:42 +0000

There is so much buzz around the QR code recently. Frankly I initially thought its some feature available with Blackberry phone , when I purchased one last year.

So what is QR code ?

By definition its Quick Response Code and look like a square bar code. The information stored on the QR code can be decoded or read by Bar code reader and mobile phones. Qr code can be used to add contacts to list, display text, image or open a webpage by connecting to mobile web.

All mobile platform supports QR code by native applications or multiple free application available. Blackberry has build in a complete campaign around QR code. Ease of adding contact to BB messenger. I love the concept and ad.

Fast Tube by Casper

But the QR code can be used for more interesting use. Few examples :

1. Talking Resume (Combination of print resume and QR code redirecting to youtube ) . Watch the creative way to use QR codes on a intern resume. www.victorpetit.fr (Sup de Pub Student, Lyon, France).

2 . Profile Photo on Social Profiles (Business promotion by @mayank)

3. Link to download applications (Android Market ) – One click Download

Android market offers one click download to almost all applications. The same code can also be extended to print and online campaigns. Check out the QR code for Facebook app

And many more ….

Interestingly term QR code itself is a registered trade mark of Denso Wave Incorporated and Denso Wave owns the patent rights on QR codes, but has chosen not to exercise them. Kudos

One last thing and most important thing. How to get a bar code for you ?

QR Code for http://amitguptaz.com

There are ample of online QR Code generator which offer this service for FREE.

a) http://www.qrstuff.com/ Customize the foreground color of the QR code and get a printable code. The site also give option to get QR code on various products like mugs, t-shirts etc.

b) http://www.quikqr.com : Simple interface with option to create a QR code for a webpage

Go ahead get a QR code for yourself.

Update : A mailer today suggest one more utility

IPL match @ Ferozshah Kotla

Amit Gupta — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 20:05:32 +0000

IPL season 4 …manoranjan ka baap

(Bhagwaan jab deta hai chappar faad kar deta hai)

Date : April 20, 2011

2:00 PM : Thinking of Cycle Agarbatti ?? Kya Bhagwaan hai

2:30 PM : @amitguptaz digging deep into excel sheets @indiatimes office

4:30 PM : @amitguptaz cheering for Delhi Daedevils from Super Hospitality Hill A South east stand of Ferozshah Kotla Stadium with 3 team members.

These complimentary passes for the match were sponsored by my office Times Internet Limited. I was among the lucky one along with Hemant , Naveen and Gagan to got these passes from our Business Head Archana Vohra . Thanks a ton. Have a look at the lovely envelop and the ticket to match below.

Yes you read it right, each ticket was worth Rs 20,000 . This gives access to east hill section of the stadium ; which is most premium location and also have a hospitality section (will come to it later).

3:15 PM : Full speed ahead to Feroz Shah Kotla ground. I must have broken my own record of highway driving of 80KMPH ;p

4:00 PM : Got parking some 2 Km from stadium and we all rushed towards the stadium. Even took an Auto for a Kilometer of ride

4:30 PM : See below where were sitting, standing, roaming , dancing and cheering for the Devils

It was my first experience to watch match at the stadium and it can’t be bigger and better than this. It took us all some time for this feeling to sink (Some drinks obviously helped all of us).

The hospitality area was another experience. Watching the live match from air conditioned zone with refreshment and drinks on the house, took the experience to another level all together.

Back to cheering after the break. We were all loaded with merchandise of Delhi daredevils. And in true delhiwalla style we carried it all back with us. Anyone who want a piece raise your hand.

BTW the fans were spraying water to keep all enthusiastic fans like us. And few like me also took shelter in the hospitality zone to enjoy the match from cool zone.

And then like all good things the match also come to an end. We were all happy (may not be reflected in pic below ; ya I am fan of the loosing side) and super charged even after the match.

So match ho gaya after match abhi baaki hai. What next …

The moment we stepped out everyone from Star News to P7 wanted a byte from us about the match. Well literally Naveen and Gagan were in their best avataar as the sports analyst. Talking from team composition to batting technique of Virender Sehwag.

What a day !!!

My Stamp for my daughter

Amit Gupta — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 06:43:29 +0000

This is super cool. Better late than never. I was super excited by the anouncement of India Postal Department to launch My Stamp this year at INDIPEX 2011 (Held at Pragati Maidan, Delhi). The scene there was chaotic there with hundred of philatelic enthusiasts wanting to grab chance of lifetime. So how could I miss it

So I went there on the first day of the exhibition. And here are the stamp sheets for Tisya.

Incomplete map of India on google

Amit Gupta — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 15:23:16 +0000

Totally condemn the way Google repeatedly treat the map of India. J & K is and will remain integral part of India.

And , not showing it part of any other country also is not solution. Correct your maps Google.

love you facebook

Amit Gupta — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 17:00:35 +0000

Love the facebook’s tagging feature with face detection. It identifies tisya and my face as one.

upgrading of my blackberry 8520 firmware

Amit Gupta — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 06:11:20 +0000

Few months back I joined the Blackberry train and bought a 8520 for myself. I found the phone quite handy and feature loaded even without subscribing to blackberry plan. The handset works smoothly using the standard mobile internet (GPRS) connection except for the push mail.

Following application are seamless on blackberry 8520 on GPRS , practically every application which is NOT made for blackberry only

- Gmail

- Google Maps

- Google Search

- NGpay

- FourSquare

- UberTwitter

- Gtalk

Fantastic phone !!!

I am now subscribed to the Basic Blackberry plan with Idea (email only plan). The only difference is the push mail of enterprise mail (NOT enterprise solutions plan)

Only one issue I faced is regarding the up-gradation of firmware. I got the handset with firmware v.4.6.1.314 (You can check the version Main Menu > Options > About) pre-installed on it. There is an option to check for any updates being released for the handset (Main Menu > Options > Advanced Options > software update). It showed that the firmware is updated ; whereas all the new blackberry boys and girls ion my office got v5.0 installed on the handset.

Solution : A quick search on internet leads to few links.

Blackberry official site with details of the most recent firmware version releases for the handsets (https://www.blackberry.com/Downloads/browseSoftware.do)

BlackBerry Handheld Software v5.0.0.1168 (EastAsia)

Package Version: 5.0.0.1168
Consisting of:

Applications: 5.0.0.681
Software Platform: 5.2.0.67
File name: 8520wifijEastAsia_PBr5.0.0_rel1168_PL5.2.0.67_A5.0.0.681_Singapore_Telecom_Mobile_Pte_Ltd.exe
File size: 116.41MB

Some more search and the steps for installation were posted all over the net

1. Download the file to PC (with blackberry desktop manager) and install the same.

2. Deleted the VENDOR.XML file located at: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Research In Motion\AppLoader\VENDOR.XML

3. Disconnect PC from the internet

4. Connect the handset to PC and run the Blackberry desktop manager

5. Voila! 20 -25 mins and the firmware upgraded to v 5.0.0.681

6. Enjoy !!!

Only thing missing on screen is the lock screen button in menu. The phone can be locked by a long press of ’A’ key or the pause button on the top of phone.

I am loving the new interface.

Birthday celebration

Amit Gupta — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 06:35:33 +0000

what a day… celebrations round the clock literally. cakes ..yes three cakes , chocolate facial, party , outing and full dhammal and masti. This was one of the most memorable birthday celebration.

Thank you everyone for all your good wishes and making my birthday so special. Have look at the video featuring
Archana , Pushpinder , Varun , Manraj , Rahul (the cinematographer with his TamTung loaded with Android 2.2) and everyone from team communities.

Fast Tube by Casper

The celebration extended to well late into the day with Vikas, Neha , Priyanka, Vihaan , Tisya and My dear wify.

Some of the photos are uploaded here

bow to the god of cinema – Rajnikanth

Amit Gupta — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 08:04:14 +0000

A big bow to god of cinema – Rajnikant. Here’s the collection of trivia of Rajnikant (collected from across the web)

RAJNIKANTH’s next movie is going to be called ” TWITTER” …. He’s going to play all 140 characters in it !

Stats point that #Endhiran car parking collection is greater than Anjaana Anjaani’s box office collection!!

Rajanikanth makes onions cry

Rajanikanth can delete the Recycle Bin.

Ghosts are actually caused by Rajanikanth killing people faster than Death can process them.

Rajanikanth can build a snowman….. out of rain.

Rajanikanth can strangle you with a cordless phone.

Rajanikanth can drown a fish.

When Rajanikanth enters a room, he doesn’t turn the lights on,……… …. he turns the dark off.

When Rajanikanth looks in a mirror the mirror shatters, because not even glass is stupid enough to get in between Rajanikanth and Rajanikanth.

The last digit of pi is Rajanikanth. He is the end of all things.

Rajanikanth does not know where you live, but he knows where you will die.

When Rajnikant does a pushup, he isn’t lifting himself up, he’s pushing the Earth down.

Bullets dodge Rajanikanth.

Rajnikant doesn’t wear a watch, HE decides what time it is.

Rajnikant can divide by zero.

Rajnikant doesn’t bowl strikes, he just knocks down one pin and the other nine faint.

Rajnikant is so fast, he can run around the world and punch himself in the back of the head.

Rajinikanth reverses Court judgements by making the ink run back into the Judge’s ballpen.

The Bermuda Triangle used to be the Bermuda Square, until Rajnikant kicked one of the corners off.

Rajinikanth once went to Jim Corbett National Park. After eight straight hours of snapping pictures, the tired tigers ran out of camera film.

Raincoats were developed to prevent raindrops from getting electrocuted on coming within 1oo metres of Rajinikanth.

Rajinikanth once dived into the sea from his Chennai condo. The next thing you know is that a tsunami has hit half the world.

The Chennai – Delhi Rajdhani Express once missed Rajinikanth. It ran as fast as it could but failed to catch him.

Viagra often needs Rajinikanth.

No one messes with Rajinikanth. Only Rajinikanth can mess with himself.

Parachutes were invented just to prevent the earth from getting shattered to pieces when hit by a falling Rajinikanth.

What colour is Rajinikanth’s blood? Haha! Trick question! Rajinikanth never bleeds!!

Once a cobra bit Rajanikanth’ leg. After five days of excruciating pain, the cobra died.

When Rajanikanth gives you the finger, he’s telling you how many seconds you have left to live.

Rajanikanth can kill two stones with one bird.

Rajanikanth has a deep and abiding respect for human life… unless it gets in his way.

It takes Rajanikanth 20 minutes to watch 60 Minutes.

Rajanikanth once shot down a German fighter plane with his finger, by yelling, “Bang!”

Rajanikanth got his drivers license at the age of 18 Seconds.

Rajnikant counted to infinity – twice.

With the rising cost of gasoline, Rajanikanth is beginning to worry about his drinking habit.

The square root of Rajanikanth is pain. Do not try to square Rajanikanth, the result is death.

When you say “no one’s perfect”, Rajanikanth takes this as a personal insult.

My personal favorite :

Endhiran (Robot) releases. Rajnikanth gives Times of India 3 stars.

Some dialogues from Rajni’s film

“I will do what I say, I will also do what I don’t say.”

“If i say it once, I’ve said it a hundred times.”

“When I will arrive, or how I will arrive, nobody will know, but I will arrive when I ought to.”

“My way is a unique way.”

“The past is past.”

“Say the name ‘Ekambaram’ and even an unborn child will shut its mouth and hush up.”

“God proposes…Arunachalam disposes…”

“I will hit you so hard, even Google will not be able to find you!”

one year at indiatimes

Amit Gupta — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 19:18:15 +0000

29 September 2010

oh just realized it’s been a year i have logged out of makaan.com and signed into times internet limited. The year has been full of excitement and challenges. I pulled my self out from a state of non working and retirment and had a stupendeo fantabulous time working with team communities.

Its been an amazing experience and fun to work in the socialbookmarking and email space and much more. And as a mayor of Indiatimes :) i thank everyone for the encouragement and the support extended to me.

errr… do this starts looking like a farewell mail to you…..then you are wrong, picture abhi baaki hai mere dost.

Installing canon sx200 IS zoom ex browser without CD

Amit Gupta — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 11:14:58 +0000

Hard disk crash or OS re installation is a nightmare I have gone through innumerable times And the worse part to it it restore the all the previously installed software (and off course the saved password on browsers). Anyways most recently I have gone through this last fortnight.

Now there are several of the softwares available (freeware obviously) of the shelf from respective sites and that’s the best way to get the updated version. And then there are many which come in form of CD with the products. They are the biggest pain point if you loose the CD’s over a period of time and they are not available on product sites. One such instance is Zoom ex browser (image management software for Canon powershot SX 200 IS). The official canon site only provide a upgrader software ~120-30 MB which requires the original (any version) of the software to be installed. An hour of soul searching with google baba leads to numerous workaround including creating and changing registry entry in system. But this was big #fail for me.

Finally , got a very old version of zoom ex uploaded on http: // foto-freeware.de / zoombrowser.php (Added space before and after every / to delink. Also download on your own risk , it worked for me though. ) Once I installed this , rest was a cakewalk as the updater from Canon (http://support-in.canon-asia.com/contents/IN/EN/0200106601.html) did the rest.

Update : For windows 7 user . Pls download update from here

But it still confuse me why can’t canon provide the drive support on the site itself , as in any case the software is a freeware.

Pan Card for Tisya

Amit Gupta — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 16:08:02 +0000

Tisya got her Pan Card issued on at the age of Four Month and Nine Days (09 June 210).

By far this has has been the most wonderful experience of mine dealing with any government agency or should I say the only agency which offered a truly world class service experience.

I applied pan card for my four month old daughter (Tisya Singhal) online through NSDL. The form seems to be very simple and self explanatory. As my daughter is minor Pan was applied on her behalf by representative (her mother)

The fee for the pan card is Rs 94 . You have the option to pay through Credit or Debit Card / DD /Cheque. The best mode of payment is Credit/Debit card as this beside expediting the process also give online status of your application using a 12 digit acknowledgement number issued on successful transaction.

A printout of acknowledgement need to be send to NSDL Pune with photograph and address proof within 30 days.

National Securities Depository Limited
3rd Floor, Sapphire Chambers
Near Baner Telephone Exchange
Baner, Pune – 411 045.

In case of any queries you can also call up NSDL call center at Pune (020 – 2721 8080) . I called them up twice , once while filling application and again checking the status of the application. The staff was extremely polite and helpful on both the occasions.

I received a SMS from NSDL on receipt of the application and again on confirmation of issue of the pan Card (whole process took less than 15 days) . Today the update on NSDL site shows that the PAN has been dispatched to our mailing address through overnite courier.

A quick check on ovenite courier website says the courier has reached Delhi on 14th July from Mumbai. So hopefully We’ll get the Pan Card for Tisya tomorrow.

Next on agenda is to get a Passport for Tisya and that thought sends a shiver down my spine. To know why read my experience in getting my passport reissued

Update (July 13, 2011) : I applied for passport for my minor daughter under Tatkal and got it within 4 working days.

Birth certificate for minor in Gurgaon

Amit Gupta — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 17:55:55 +0000

The Cradle provided a birth certificate for my daughter. Little did I realized that it only has a emotional and ornamental value and no legal validity. So we got it framed it nicely (Thanks to Tushina) and it occupies a place of pride in our bedroom.

I was told that as a procedure hospital has already send the notification to the municipal authorities about child birth. The birth certificate can be collected after 21 days from the MCD office, Gurgaon situated opposite civil hospital Gurgaon (See Map Below).

View Larger Map

I went there after 2 months to collect the certificate. I was told to submit an application again on plain paper (hospital has already send in the notification) and collect the certificate 21 days post that. The application has a simple format capturing Name of child , parents, date and place of birth, address and number of copies of certificate required. Not so simple…

The application format was pasted outside the clerk window in both English and Hindi, but he would accept the application only filled in Hindi and that too without child’s name. Once a certificate without name is issued then a affidavit needs to be submitted stating that child name will not be changed in future to get a birth certificate with child’s name. I tried to convince him that we had already spend two months in finalizing the daughter name as Tisya and have no intention to change it.

I got the birth certificate without child’s name and wrong address. On inquiring I was told the birth certificate will carry details as shared by hospital and can’t be changed (I thanked heaven they have only put in wrong address and not wrong parents name).

On my next visit I submitted the affidavit for the child’s name, Birth certificate (without name) and the same stupid application (remember they would only print details as shared by hospital) and fee of Rs 17 (+Rs 52 for additional 4 copies). I was asked to come again in 7-8 days to check the spelling on certificate before printing. They issued the certificate this time with name but in Hindi. Every action of theirs is covered under one blanket statement ‘yehi process hai’.

Now as a final step, I have again submitted the application (same futile details) and attached a copy of certificate (hindi) and fee of Rs 17 (+Rs 52 for additional 4 copies) for a new certificate. I have to visit the municipal office again to ensure the name is punched in right before the printing of the certificate.

naming our baby daughter

Amit Gupta — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 18:48:56 +0000

Holi this year splashed million of colors in our life and brought a colorful bundle of joy in our life. we become proud parents of a little angel.

So the next daunting task after settling the hospital bill (she was born at the cradle, gurgaon) was to find a name for our princess. I would like to mention and thanks Cradle for the amazing hospitality during our 3 day stay. They have brilliant set of medical staff on duty to take care of all little things.

Coming back to naming, we had very simple requirements (really !!!).

Primary:

a) name should have origin from Sanskrit language

b) should have positive meaning in major languages

c) Should be less than 7 characters

d) Should not be as common as Amit and Monica

e) available domain name, preferably first name

Secondary:

a) easy to spell & pronounce

b) should not have 10 more child with same name in close relative and friends

c) Should sound good with Singhal our actual surname (Yes, Gupta is a generic surname for bania community).

Most important : Both of us should agree to it (That means my wife has the final authority).

So the search begin and i trusted my best search buddy for this , who else Google. And Google didn’t disappoint us by returning About 61,000,000 results (0.11 seconds) for ‘baby name’.

Try refining to Sanskrit baby names and Google gives About 244,000 results (0.29 seconds) Simple isn’t it. I still love Google. Okie so the job was to pick a name matching the above criteria from baby name sites and also few other suggestions as shared by family and friends. Some of them are:

a) www.babynology.com

b) www.indianhindunames.com

c) http://babynamesworld.parentsconnect.com

d) www.birthvillage.com

and many more… (oh yes there are these excel sheet for anyone interested to download)

a) baby boy names b) baby girl names

But finally after close to two and a half month later we finalized our princess name “Tisya”. By that time even our daughter get bored of nodding to all the names and meaning we keep fighting on.

So, Tisya is a 5 character word which has a origin in Sanskrit language and means “Auspicious” and now tisya.in host a photo-blog of our daughter. phew ! job well done and finished , at least we thought so.

The next step is to get a birth certificate of our daughter… means locking horns with one more government deptt. updating soon…

Google sites not opening with BSNL broadband

Amit Gupta — Fri, 14 May 2010 15:36:12 +0000

Getting BSNL broadband connection is one thing and then make run is another big task. Its not that BSNL dataone connection was my first choice but as they say beggars are not choosers. With limited option to pick from (precisely two BSNL and Tata Indicom) I reluctantly picked the state owned giant.

I also have a hidden agenda behind the same (No its not to please my father in law who works with another former state owned telecom giant MTNL), the bill generated for BSNl act as a legitimate address proof. Many of you would be aware of my plight while trying to reissue my passport where i run from pillar to post to prove my identity.

Anyways, BSNL connection started throwing tantrum from the day of installation only (including by the linesman who would ask for regular chai-pani for activation). The connectivity was erratic and connection tag slow. I relied on the internet god to check the connectivity. But little did I realize that there more to internet beyond google. Everything will work but for Google and related sites.

Here enters the Internet ka Baap, BSNL dataone, which for reasons best known to him don’t gel with google. I resorted to other search engines and realize this is a very common problem for all BSNL broad band users who tries to access google, orkut, gmail and other google sites.

Doing some more research it suggests , i found following stuff on internet.

“DNS stands for Domain Name Server. When you type www.google.com, the DNS server converts the name into an IP address of Google. Then it follows the IP address to fetch you the webpage.

Now, due to a defective DNS server system, your typed address can not get resolved into IP. So you reach nowhere.”

This was really frustrating as life seems to be standstill for me on internet without google. But surprisingly this complicated and widespread problem has a quick solution.

SOLUTION (Simple) :

BSNL DNS is the root cause of the problem, so simply change it to DNS that works.

IMPLEMENTATION (Simpler) :

a) Double click the LAN icon on your system tray

b) Go to Properties > Click on Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)

c) Choose “Use the following DNS server addresses”

d) Update 208.67.222.222 as preffered DNS server and 208.67.220.220 as alternate DNS server

e) You’re DONE

These DNS are provided by OpenDNS . I have actually experience a better connectivity and page rendering using these settings. HAPPY SURFING….

gmail going social with google buzz

Amit Gupta — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 20:22:50 +0000

Its time now for gmail to go social. In these times when every application is geared for real time collabration, sharing and uploading how come mail be left behind. Google has launched buzz for gmail both on web and mobile.you can upload and share all interesting conversation , images ,link and status messages from the gmail itself.

But what about google wave wasn’t that also suppose to change the way we communicate and share. In-fact it looks promising at first go and there was huge mad rush to grab those few initial invites. Heard that the invites actually got auctioned on eBay.

On the other hand the google buzz seems to be available for larger audience and is not following the invite mode. I believe this shold make it a clear winner over wave. As Google Buzz give an advantage of a ready friend network to share and communicate.

I visited http://buzz.google.com to get started. The buzz appeared as a label on the left menu on gmail. It automatically made me follow people with whom I communicate more (not sure what to call this google intelligence or violation of my privacy / follow discretion). Being very true to the open social it allows me set my twitter and flickr account for updates (Not sure on exact integration, and its yet to integrate facebook).

As per google Official Blog

“We’ve relied on other services’ openness in order to build Buzz (you can connect Flickr and Twitter from Buzz in Gmail), and Buzz itself is not designed to be a closed system. Our goal is to make Buzz a fully open and distributed platform for conversations. We’re building on a suite of open protocols to create a complete read/write developer API, and we invite developers to join us on Google Code to see what is available today and to learn more about how to participate.”

Would I be using this ???? Not really…. (Except for the auto pdates which will reflect on my google profile.

Why ???? This may be a great tool but still not available for hosted domain. For me my network is not on gmail but my own domain. And you need to reach to your audience where they are and not ask them to come to you. So best of luck Google….

image credit : http://www.computerworld.com

Google official Blog

3 IDIOTS और वर्ष 2009

Amit Gupta — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 18:21:51 +0000

अब बताओ ये क्या कनेक्शन है और मैं हिंदी में क्यूँ लिख रहा हूँ. नहीं ये बिंगो चिप्स की नई एड भी नहीं है. वो हुआ ऐसे की मैं हिंदी में न्यू इयर ग्रीटिंग टाइप करने का ट्राई कर रहा था और गूगल लिप्यंतरण (Transliteration) टूल एकदम मस्त लगा. और भाई लोगो गूगल लिप्यंतरण(Transliteration) और गूगल अनुवादक (Translator) दो अलग चीज़े है मुझे आज ही पता चला. आप लोगो की जानकारी के लिए भी बता दूं - गूगल ट्रांसलेटर (Translator) का काम है अनुवाद करना मतलब की आप जो भी लिखेंगे उसे किसी और भाषा में उसी मतलब ले साथ लिखना. इसके द्वारा आप ५१ (51) विभिन्न भाषाओ में translation कर सकते है. जैसे की happy new year का हिंदी भाषा में ट्रांसलेशन होगा ‘नया साल मुबारक हो’ लेकिन गूगल ट्रांसलिटरेशन (TRANSLITERATION) happy new year को लिखेगा हैप्पी न्यू इयर.

समझ आया या नहीं . आया तो ठीक नहीं तो भाई मतलब की बात सुनो ३ बेवकूफों (3 Idiots) और इस बीते साल का कनेक्शन.

वैसे तो मैं सिनेमा बहुत कम देखता हूँ (वैसे ज्यादा दखने लायक फिल्मे बनती कहाँ है) लेकिन भाई मानना पड़ेगा आमिर खान को मस्त काम करता है , जान लगा देता है . वर्ना मजाल है कोई और हमसे इस मंदी के दौर में १००० रुपये खर्च करवा दे वो भी फिल्म देखने के लिए. 3 Idiots चेतन भगत के नोवेल five point someone पर आधारित है तो भैया हम पहुंचे अम्बिएंस माल , गुडगाँव जानते तो होंगे आप एक किलोमीटर लम्बा एक फ़लोर और ऐसे चार फ़लोर. अब बताओ इतनी जगह में तो लो फ़लोर बसें चलनी चाहिए (अबे नहीं रिक्शे ज्यादा सेफ है, बसों में तो आग लग रही है और कीमतों में भी ). दिन का पहला शो देखने का फायदा है की सीटे साफ़ मिलती है और मूवी से पहले के सारे एड देखने का मौका

फिर भटक गया … वापस चलो ३ idiots पर

मूवी शुरू से आखिर तक उतार चड़ाव से भरी हुई , अचानक से नए नए मोड़ और भावनाए. शुरू होते ही सस्पेंस , कौन है यह ranchoddas shyamaldas chanchad उर्फ़ rancho जिसकी तलाश में दोस्त लोग निकल पड़े है. फिर शुरू होती है दोस्तों की कॉलेज की जिन्दगी की कहानी , जिसमे है एक दूसरे से आगे निकलने की होड़, बिना सोचे समझे रटने और पास होने की दौड़. साथ में में है उम्मीदों पर खरे न उतरने और हार जाने का डर. इन सब के बीच तीन दोस्त इन सब डरो से लड़ते हुए अपने ही अंदाज़ में जीते जा रहे है. Rancho अपने दोस्तों को जीने का एक अलग ही ढंग सीखा कर एक दिन गायब हो जाता है. उसके दोस्त आपनी आपनी जिंदगियों में सफल हो जाते है मगर अपने दोस्त को नहीं भूल पाते है.

साल २००९ भी कुछ इस तरह ही शुरू हुआ लेहमन बैंक की मेहेरबानी से जो मंदी का दौर शुरू हुआ था उसका असर पूरे जोर पर था. नौकरियों का कुछ पता नहीं था, बड़ी छोटी सभी कंपनियों में धड़ले से छटनी हो रही थी. तन्खाओं में कटौती आम सी बात हो गई थी. साल के पहले छे महीने तनाव व अनिश्चितता से भरे हुए थे.

मगर शाहरुख़ भैया ने कहाँ था अगर सब कुछ ठीक न हो तोह समझो की पिक्चर अभी बाकी है मेरे दोस्त.

तो इंटरवल के बाद मतलब के बाद के ६ महीनो में इकोनोमी में सुधार आने लग गया और २०१० आते आते लगता है वो सब एक बुरा सपना था. अच्छा है की वो वक़्त बीत गया. मगर जाते जाते बहुत कुछ सीखा गया.

२००९ को मेरी ओर से धन्यवाद :

तुमने दिखा दिया की जो बलात्कार करने की क्षमता तुममे थी वो संसार में किस्सी में नहीं है. जो बलात्कार पर बलात्कार तुमने किये , वैसा दुनिया कोई नहीं कर सकता. उम्मीद है आप आगे ऐसा कुछ नहीं करेंगे.

मेरे लिए तो 2009 मेरा दोस्त Rancho या funsukh Wangroo ही रहेगा. जिसने हर वक़्त में fun और sukh से रहना सिखा दिया.

जहाँपनाह तुस्सी ग्रेट हो , तोहफू कबूल करो.

Mumbai Marathon 2009

multi-utility – this happens only in india

Amit Gupta — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 18:39:24 +0000

Interesting images captured on road.

Maruti Suzuki launched a new multi-utility vehicle to cater to specific indian requirements. This was launched without much fanfare but was spotted on gurgaon roads

This guy is wearing helmet for protection from ???

It’s time to retire now

Amit Gupta — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 15:19:07 +0000

I am announcing my retirement today from active working life. I have spend quite a lot of my quality time and effort in building a retirement estate for my self. And now i feel like a chilling out and enjoying the fruit of my efforts well spend.

It was not an easy decision to quit. The ever lasting greed of earning more and more & never ending race to beat the world keep pulling me back to it. But then I set a target for my self and determined to stick to it. I wanted to retire in style and man i think i have achieved it.

My dream estate boost of a retirement villa with orchid , vegetable farm , stud farm, dairy , chicken and pig farm, small pond with lots of swans. Oh did I forgot to mention a entertainment arena with elephants and much more for my visiting friends and family.

Looks like a self sustained ecosystem , jealous… huh wanna see.

Click on the image above to have full view

Isn’t this beautiful, ok stop admiring it now.

But retirement is also not that easy a job, it’s now time to feed the cattle and pluck some ripe fruits & vegetables.

So catchya later.

BTW you need to be invited to visit my farm. Invitations can be sought at http://facebook.com/amitguptaz or tweet me @amitguptaz

Long time no see

why am i not working

Amit Gupta — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 06:57:25 +0000

don’t ask why i am writing this post just one week into the new job. Oh btw did i i tell you that i have joined the communities team at times internet limited. I’ll be working out from their swanky office on golf course road in gurgaon on a social bookmarking site http://hotklix.com

Coming back to the post, there is no fault of mine , its actually how life plays dirty games with you. Now you tell me what will a child of lesser god like me will do if struck in my position.

i am all confused in choosing between luxuries of mortal world , spirituality and the work. Now sitting here on my desk this is what i look around.

Office Machaan Temple

in office, i have all my colleagues slogging hard for the next performance review a year ahead , which will get them the next car or a house or a wife

looking at the temple, people are trying to get moksha to get rid of all the troubles in life. but i don’t want to die now to get it.

the last option is the machaan across the road, let me exggagerate for you, its a strip down version of swarg (the heaven) where you are served sura (wine) with live music. you pay for it with money and not your good deeds.

tell me what to do ? days are just passing by and i can’t decide…

No related posts.

Logging out from makaan.com

Amit Gupta — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 06:32:47 +0000

Now when i am logging off as a product manager for makaan.com after two and a half year, i am tempted to peep into the past and relive some of the moments that i’ll cherish for life. My session with makaan begins with an email request (typical web 2.0 style) to aditya verma (business head & vp, makaan.com ) and i got the invite to join in the core team to build a real estate portal.

First day @ makaan My Laapy

We started out with a small team in a makeshift office in south extn before moving to beautiful building in gurgaon. We started in a typical start-up environment with a daunting task of going commercial in the least possible time. But this gave me a rare opportunity to work and understand every aspect of setting up a new business and felt like an entrepreneur.

The proud moment arrived on August 15, 2007 when we formally launched makaan. I lived so many sweet and sour experiences during my stay with makaan. Few of them become part of my blog and can be read below and rest will stay etched in my memory for ever.

- Offsite visit with makaan tech team (& family) to Chamba, Tehri dam and Mussorie.

- Endless wait in aircrafts for takeoff.
- I become a jealous economy class traveler (I pass it of as austerity).
- Been an alien in my own country.
- I spend a night at airport terminal.
- Completes 1 year @ Makaan
- Offsite to daman with software team
- Launch of makaan mobile application
- Launch of makaan 2.0
- Offsite to karjat with product team

Some more unforgettable moments captured on camera

Team makaan on second anniversary

What next ????

I’ll be logging into the domain of social bookmarking. To know more details keep watching this space or add this page to your favorite (web 1.0 style) or better bookmark this page

Plan trip to vaishno devi – online

Amit Gupta — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 12:55:29 +0000

My weekend trip to vaishno devi, so what is different from my last trip in december. This one was a completely arranged online for every step of journey. I had the mix experience bad one with irctc (online booking for indian railways) and Indian railways but excellent experience with official site of vaishno devi shrine board.

I booked my rails tickets on JAT express tatkal basis. They charged me fare from originating station (ajmer) to the destination (jammu), almost double in my case and 150 rs tatkal charges extra + irctc charges. But they treated me as no show because we boarded the train from gurgaon. Once we boarded the train then we realized TC gave our seats to someone else. We were told that we need to get our boarding station changed 24 hrs in advance by giving written request at railway station which irctc tatkal faq clearly failed to tell us. So pls be extra careful while booking tatkal tickets. This is least expected from the site, which has the lion share of indian online transaction. This was the only ugly instance on the whole trip. Indian railways shame shame…

On other hand, shrine board site offers host of online services on simple registration.

a) Yatra parchi slip: It is mandatory for every yatri to register himself before starting the yatra. A online registration saves a lots of time at katra (starting point of yatra, some 40 km from jammu). Online booking cost rs 50 per yatri and entitles you to collect prasad from govt souvenir shop at katra.

b) Room Booking: Site offers you rooms at Jammu, katra and bhawan at very reasonable rates. These rooms are generally short in supply and its advisable to book well in advance (booking opens 30 days in advance). We got the booking at vaishnavi bhawan (rooms are allotted on random basis online, this can be improved).

c) Helicopter Booking: This service is provided by Deccan and pawan Hans

And last but not the least if all these services seems less to you click here for online darshan and pooja.

Weather at katra not as what is seen below in photographs. It was hot and humid there with temprature touching 38-40 degrees but this change as we go high up on a long 14 km trek on the mountain.

We made some friends on our way (the center pic not on the right). And as the luck was on our side they had extra VIP passes for darshan. The normal waiting time for darshan was around 4-6 hours. (Advice : plan your trip in winters and avoid weekends. There is less no. of devotees and old holy cave is also open to devotees).

Enroute to bairon mandir, the weather here was awesome and one can feel the true beauty of nature.

This is me gulping desi ghee ka halua. Most yummy halwa i ever had.

This is one intersting signboard in center pic seems to be inspired by Sholey like ‘Ramgopal varma’ producing disasterous ‘Sholey’ . And finally the journey back to gurgaon with indian railways and this time thankfully we got our seats.

My new N95

Amit Gupta — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 18:24:21 +0000

Now why have I got a new N95 without having a poll on facebook and asking for opinion on model on make. Couple of reasons, firstly I have done it very recently for my Nokia E63 and more importantly why would my friends spare time for it. But on second thought they might have its better than stupid facebook applications to find out what flower, color, actor, emotion, ghost. But that’s a different story… coming back to my N95.

This white beauty come with certain exclusive privileges. Just flaunt it and you get preferential treatment at almost all outlets. I have experienced it at bank, chemist and the grocery shop today. All the experiences are worth sharing.

My first encounter with royalty was at bank today. Being saturday branch was only open for half day and there was a long queue. But as soon as I entered the branch, an executive escorted me to the teller and my job was done in less than a minute. I was the center of attraction and maybe jealousy (I can see in their eye). This was my shortest stay in a bank branch in last 15 years.

My second stop was a chemist shop. Needed some medicine for my viral fever. And surprize surprize I was the first one among the 10 odd aspirants to be attented to. I was through with my transaction and out of shop in flat 5 minutes again.

Last but not the least , same treatment was dolled out for me at the gracery shop. Everyone paved way for me to the busy cash counter. My daily shopping was never so convinient but thanks to my N95 , I was feeling like the king.

I am down with viral and wanted to wear a mask as a precaution. My brother in law got me N95 out of love , affection or fear, God knows.

PS : N95 is the mask I am wearing in the above photos to prevent spread of virus. Any resemblence of name to mobile is purely dilebrate.

Rules of life

Jeff Bezos about Amazon and Zappos

Amit Gupta — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 08:43:32 +0000

“Every thing I know” by Jeff Bezos (Founder Amazon.com). This is an exellent presentation about Amazon and Zappos but hold true for any organization specially startups. This also highlights the advantages of being ‘obsessed on customers’.

Source : Youtube

Neemrana Fort palace, Rajasthan

Amit Gupta — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:22:50 +0000

Few months back, we picked up Neemrana Fort Palace for a weekend get away trip from Gurgaon. I have some kind of facinations for the Palaces & forts and Neemrana is the closed fort in Rajasthan from Gurgaon, some 80 km from IGI Airport.

We booked a stay for a night there in Hari Vilas (Lord Vishnu’ adobe) , one of the rooms being offered from the heritage property. The deal – One night stay @ INR 5000 excluding the buffet lunch (INR 600) and dinner (INR 700). We opted for this room for three primary reasons

a) This room is part of the original fort (There are many additional new rooms and facilities being constructed as an extention to the original fort palace.)

b) The room have extended balcony and private roof top terrace.

c) This fits into our budget

We started a cool ride on NH-8 towards Jaipur. Our first stop was at Mc’donald close to manesar for brunch. We picked up usual burger and coke. The ride was very smooth and took us less than 2 hours to reach neemrana. Road to the fort is from within the Neemrana town is still in shape the last king must have left it. We followed a camel cart patiently to reach the fort.

We certainly had some high hopes of staying in a heritage fort palace which was once home to decendents of Prithviraj Chauhan. Neemrana fort is magnificiant and well maintained property but the room was bit of a disappointment. Its actually a heritage property (no fancy floors and ceiling, tv, intercom and even room service). My wife insisted and actually checked on couple of same room but found this to be best.

Infact if we ignore the room per say rest of the experience was lovely. There was huge balcony attached to our room and we have access to two level of roofs. The room offered excellent view of both fort and neemrana town from balconies and roof top.

Nights offer even better view of the fort (My camera though couldn’t captute it) . The fort has 10 stepped level and whole fort was illuminated at night. Fort also has a common room with television, library and few indoor games. But we decided to explore the fort after dinner. We covered most of the levels and but at times it was really scary to be roaming in the narrow staircases.

Next day we decided to have breakfast out on restaurant terrace and explore some more of fort.

and then we discovered the most coverted mahal(palace) in the fort. It was just a chance discovery as the way to this palace is told by fort authority until you have the pressing need. Look for yourself…

Traffic light for footover bridge in gurgaon !

Amit Gupta — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 10:46:57 +0000

This can happen only here in India. We know how to ulitize all the resources to fullest and look forward to accept new challenges. Look at the images below I clicked of foot over bridge meant for pedestrian in millenium city, gurgaon.

No hurry at all – Guy seems to be attending a call from home

Wow ! such a good negotiater of sharp turns

Pedestrian should be given adverse travel advisory for crossing expressway by footover bridge build in gurgaon. Or considering the amount of motor vehicles goverment should put up traffic lights up there. Or better lets have a another overbridge on the existing one

New life in my home

Amit Gupta — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:47:00 +0000

Hold your gun man and don’t jump to conclusions and don’t go by the post image at all. Its not me and monica in the pic, I am talking about …well why don’t you read below.

Wow ! great to see my garden getting inhabited by a new couple (weaver bird but off course). They have build up a nice cozy home for themselves (see images of the progress in last 15-20 days).

July 02, 2009 July 09, 2009 July 16, 2009

Like a typical middle class Indian neigbour I peeped into their home on pretext of borrowing some sugar (Actually I wanted to see the interiors) And I was pleasently surprized to see my new neigbours are on family way. There were two beautifule little blue eggs holding life in them.

I’m eagerly waiting for the new borns to arrive.

Safeguard your SIM card against misuse

Amit Gupta — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 12:32:32 +0000

There seems to be a perfect synergy in the marketing and sales department of cellular companies. Both departments are supplementing each other in growing the subscriber base (And possibly redcuing ARPU).

The telesales ladies pushes hard to sell complementary ‘Golden’, ‘Platinum’ and matching/similar numbers to your current Mobile number in ever sweet voice. I have recd two such calls since morning. Good I have recieved two call in morning itself and now I can chill (My average incoming telesales call stands at 2). I am sure you want to know how have I managed this. Follow these simple rules to avoid telemarketing calls.

‘Amit Gupta : With the amount of free numbers offered by Idea cellular. It seems I can run a telephone exchange.Tell them I am happy in my job’ via my facebook and twitter update.

On other hand, marketing team is generating demand for new sim card in very innovative way. My latest bill from Vodafone displayed the ‘SMART’ way of safeguarding sim cards in 3 easy steps (This is the most prominent and colorful element on the page).

1) Go to nearest Store
2) Break the card in two
3) Hand it over to store employee

and then what…get a new sim card or connection Can’t believe what is the message Vodafone is trying to deliver with this creative. I found this message very confusing and misplaced.

I am a club hopper now

Amit Gupta — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 08:29:03 +0000

Just other day while checking mails on my Nokia E63, I noticed an invitation to a B’day bash of my dear friend Vivek Bhatia . I replied promptly for two reasons :

a) I was too excited to meet old bunch of friends from Time of India after a really long time.
b) Wanted to check , how does ‘send from my mobile device’ appears in my mail signature

So on the D day, we (me and wify) found ourselves the first one to turn out at Turquoise Cottage, Vasant Vihar as usual following the date and time on the invitation (9 PM on July 04). God knows how many more invitations would it take for me to understand that the time mentioned on invitation is only indicative and not to be taken seriously.

Our guest of honor B’day boy arrived the last and got well deserved bumps on right place :). Party continued well past midnight and it was time us all to say goodbye to TC (Bouncers reminded us politely to leave by first stopping to play music and then switching off the room AC and television). We have made up our mind to head back to Gurgaon and were exchanging goodbye greeting in haste (Stories of bouncers treating guest at gurgaon disco flashed in front of me).

And then, Vivek suddenly decides that before he turns too old to dance by next year, he want to party harder. For me any dance party beyond midnight is generally at marriage function or a jagaran. So the moment of my life arrived (I have to hop clubs remember) , when we all headed for Capitol the Disc @ The Ashoka at 2:00 AM.

My first hand experience of Delhi party crowd begins right from the entry date to the Hotel Ashoka. God! it seems I was stranded at Delhi-Gurgaon expressway in the morning office hours. Every one was jostling for the precious parking space. Like a true Indian, I parked my car on the road outside without wasting any more time. The scene at the entry to the disc was no better, it seems ration shops are distributing kerosene to BPL card holders. And very true to market scenario our group sneaked into the disc surpassing the all other needy thanks to our friend Gagan Myne .

The disc was full and over flowing with maddening crowd. We also shaked our legs to the deafening DJ music for an hour and so. This was when middle class traits of m and wify made us realize we should be back home before the first light of the daybreak. This marks ends to my first experience of club hopping.

BTW entry back to gurgaon via the toll plaza was a breeze at that hour.

Logging out from makaan.com

My new mobile Nokia E63

Amit Gupta — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 17:01:14 +0000

It has been now three days, and initial euphoria has died down. I feel this is a good time to write about my new possession a Nokia E63.

There are three small stories behind my new mobile.

- Deciding on the mobile

- Moving from Touch screen to Keyboard based phone

- Joy of learning

Deciding the mobile: This is the most difficult part of the complete process. My previous mobile, good old pal for close to 3 years was a Windows based iMate Jam (Now this model is discontinued). A touch screen based yet very sturdy device. I bought this from US (no, it was not company sponsored trip, I went there on self paid family holidays). Few pics of that memorable trip are posted here. I seem to be drifting too much, so coming back to my mobile. Now this mobile of mine was in very bad shape, so much so that it can’t even handle meager 9 calls I received daily (2 Business calls, 4 Marketing calls and 3 missed calls from my wife ). So finally I gave into the business pressure.. On second thought peer pressure I decided to move on and buy a new handset for myself.

The hunt was spread evenly on online media (google, gsmarena, gadetsguru, compareindia), peer discussion, online reviews cutting across brands like (htc, Nokia, Samsung, Asus, iMate). The last round was between Asus 522w (better processor), htc touch viva (Full touch windows mobile) and Nokia E63 (Non touch but my trusted brand for 4 initial years 5110 & 6110) and this was also the order of personal preference. Asus 522w and HTC touch are windows 6.1 touch based mobiles and Nokia use Symbian platform. In this round Asus lost, as this cool gadget was way over my budget (Cost approx INR 19000 in Delhi).

So the final round was played between HTC and Nokia (INR12-13K), wherein Nokia won by overwhelming majority on features and trustworthiness (Thanks friends, and a special thanks to facebook which fasten the process of feedback). The next dilemma was to choose from the three stunning color offered by Nokia (Red, Blue and Black), so I went back to facebook and asked friends. The winner turned out to be Nokia E63 Ruby Red (BTW if you notice the poll was hacked by my wife, she has ordered err…voted for RED. )

Moving from Touch screen to Keyboard based phone : Before that I forgot to mention the features of E63. This is primary a form based business phone and pack most of the essential features. Some of the highlights being ;
-        QWERT keyboard
-        EGPRS and GPRS
-        110 MB internal memory
-        1GB Micro SD card (Included in the box)
-        USB Cable (Included in the box, wonder why don’t they use standard mini USB port)
-        WLAN/WIFI support (Work well with my Linksys WiFi @ home)
-        Open office & Acrobat reader
-        2 MP fixed focus camera with flash

For more detailed specifications check out Nokia’s official site.

Primarily, I had to move from a full touch screen based mobile to full QWERTY format. Few initial hiccups

- By instinct I tap on the screen to click.

- Look for stylus to write J

- Have to deal with 47 buttons on Nokia instead of 4 on iMate

- No single button to lock/unlock the screen

- Go to webbed clicks to reach the folders

But But But….now I am coming with terms to this. I now able to figure out where to reach out on keyboard.

And finally Joy of learning : I was overwhelmed to see my mom learning how to click photo from the mobile. She tried couple of times and managed decent images. But the best part was when I clicked her. She quickly removed her spectacles and posed for the photo shoot. I have not posted the image anywhere as she has asked me not to share it.

Gayatri Mantra and meaning

Amit Gupta — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:40:07 +0000

ॐ भूर्भुवः स्वः । Om Bhur bhuva swaha
तत् सवितुर्वरेण्यं । Tat savitur Varenyam
भर्गो देवस्य धीमहि । Bhargo Devasya Dhimahi
धियो यो नः प्रचोदयात् ॥ Dhio yo nah Prachodayat

“O God, Thou art the giver of life, the remover of pain and sorrow, the bestower of happiness; O Creator of the Universe, may we receive Thy supreme sin-destroying light; may Thou guide our intellect in the in the right direction.” – Maharshi Dayanand Saraswati

Why this post – God knows.

No related posts.

Google Wave – a new wave of communication

Amit Gupta — Fri, 29 May 2009 17:38:52 +0000

Google announced to launch Google wave later this year. This is bound to create a wave across the Internet world. So what is exactly is a wave. In a simple words Google wave is a real-time communication platform. It’s a hybrid of email, instant messaging, web chat, social networking, micro bloging, file share all build into one interface.

Features of wave :

You can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process (contextual suggestions and spelling correction).

It supports the drop and drag attachments from desktop and thus enable the real-time file sharing to anyone in the conversation.

It’s also embeddable, so you can embed Google Wave conversations on any blog.

This could very well turn into a project management tool with all concerns sharing the progress realtime.

It’s also an open-source project with a lot of API integrations. So the possibilities of growth and integration with various web products are unimaginable.

There is more information which will flow in but as a user we have to wait for some more time to swim in the wave. But this will surely bring a mega shift in the internet communication and more. So beware Twitter and FB of the world there is a strong wave coming soon….

Image Credits and official page : Google Wave you can also sign up for Google wave update here.

Grow Red Tail with Dabur India

Amit Gupta — Tue, 26 May 2009 17:29:57 +0000

I clicked this at a medical store market today. I was totally amused at branding of the baby product from Dabur India. Now what on the earth product called ‘Dabur Lal Tail’ from the Ayurvedic Expert for babies would convey to the parents. It is for child growth or growing tail for your child

Dabur could have aptly named it as ‘Dabur red Oil’ and also retained the name in devnagiri ‘डाबर लाल तेल’ to appeal to the loyal base and cash on the recall value.

They have done similar excersice for ‘डाबर लाल दंत मंजन’ when it was launched as as a paste variant ‘Dabur Red toothpaste’.

My nephew voted today

Amit Gupta — Sun, 24 May 2009 11:47:39 +0000

This election season all the non-pappu population on country got their figure marked and proved that common men (no offence to all the women out there) has the ultimate say in democracy.

Today is the day for generation next to go out get the mark. I am proud of my nephew (Kavya), he voted for the right choice – Polio Drops.

Kavya proudly showing his marked fingure

Thanks to the well-coordinated government campaign ‘Pulse Polio‘ to eradicate polio out of our country, there has been significant drop in the polio cases in last decade. Though goverment is doing its own bit but the success of the programm depends on the participation by the parents.

Won’t you move few steps, so that your child can walk for life ?

No related posts.

How to make a pizza (sinful eating)

Amit Gupta — Mon, 18 May 2009 18:44:15 +0000

So folks let me take you thru the process of making a sinfully unhealthy but amazingly delicious Pizza.

Ingredients:

a) Pizza base
b) Cheese (Britannia)
c) Pizza Sauce (By Cremica)
d) Oregano and Chilly Flakes (Leftover from Domino’s blend perfectly)

Toppings:
a) Mushrooms
b) Fresh Paneer
c) Onions
d) Capsicum
e) Red Jalapeno (In Vinegar)

Other key requirement
a) Microwave
b) Electricity (Scarce in Gurgaon)

Step 1: Apply a thin coating of pizza sauce on the base.

Step 2: Put Sliced toppings of about 1/2 inch size and put them evenly on base.

Step 3: Now put the shredded Pizza Cheese and cover the pizza base evenly.

Step 4: Put the pizza in Microwave for 7-8 minutes @ 180 C on convection mode. (Hopefully you would have switched on the microwave by now)

Step 5: Wait…Wait…Wait or sing a song or dance or ya get some coke for you.

Final step: Indulge into the sinful act.

PS : recovered this post from google cached file. Love you google ummmaaah . And thanks @mayank for moving my blog successfully to new host.

Makaan.com property survey on CNBC

Amit Gupta — Wed, 13 May 2009 11:59:17 +0000

Makaan.com conducted a National survey ‘My Vote. My Makaan’ in leading Metros and Tier II cities of India. The survey was conducted on the portal between 22nd to 30th April 2009 and saw participation from over 3563 property seekers nationally.

The survey results can be found at http://makaan.com/electionsurvey. The survey findings were also covered on CNBC Awaaz.

Rules of life

Amit Gupta — Sat, 09 May 2009 04:38:00 +0000

Rule of life from an email doing rounds (Claiming these are actually delivered in a high school speech by Bill Gates). Whatever they sound very realistic and the best is kept for the last.

Rule 1: Life is not fair – get used to it!

Rule 2: The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they’ll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.

Trip to Ladhakh – Final part

Amit Gupta — Sun, 03 May 2009 12:41:17 +0000

Day 6-8 Khadungla (Highest Motorable pass) , Chumatang (Hot water springs) , Monasteries (Hemis, Thiksey) & Leh Palace

Day 6: A bit of disappointment as snow blocked our way to Khardungla (18380ft above sea level). We waited for the snow to get clear at South Pulu 14 km from the top (K-top) for 2 hours but in vain. We got down to Leh and roam around in market. We had food at local café with some interesting menu items ‘SNAKES’. Fortunately for my wife it was only a spelling mistake.

Recommended:

Coconut Cookies @ Golden bakery in main market.

Vegetarian North Indian food @ Lamayuru Restaurant

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Day 7: Early rise to a long day. The enthu twosome headed to Khardungla again. A it was worth an effort. We felt like on top of the world. Got some souvenirs from the

Army shop at the K-top and clicked loads of snaps. Few interesting landmarks on the way:

a) India Gate

b) Gateway of Numbra

After a lunch break @ Happy World Restaurant in Leh we headed to Kali Mata Mandir close to Leh Airport. No photography allowed within the complex but there was an flowering apricot tree… amazing beauty.

Leh palace was under renovation but offered eagle eye view of Leh town. There was a temple inside the palace but you need to look for it no signs boards. Photography is allowed with palace and monasteries but without Flash.

We followed up palace visit to Thicksey monastery. Amazing place with beautiful statues and paintings of Lord Buddha and other Buddhist God.

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Day 8 : Yet another early rise for a long drive. This was our last day in Leh and it was reserved for hot water springs in Chumatang. This is close to 140 km on Leh-Manali highway towards Manali. It was a break from the regular snow and the route had picturous red mountains and notorious Indus flowing along with us. A long but not tiring 3 hour journey ended with loads of fun. Though snow was missing but there was enough of ice to supplement. So you have hot boiling water and ice present at the same place (Though Grown up kids accompanying us Vikas & Neha went berserk and destroyed all).

We ended our day and Leh trip with visit to Hemis monastery. The place can’t be explained in words but can only be felt and captured on frames. Must visit.

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And that’s bring us to the end of exiting and adventurous week of vaccation. Next day morning, We flew with Kingfisher Red back to scorching heat of Delhi.

Trip to Leh (Ladhakh) Part II

Amit Gupta — Sat, 02 May 2009 13:34:15 +0000

Day 3. We came across snow for the first time On the way to this beautiful and frozen Pangong Tso (or Pangong Lake; Tso: Ladakhi for lake). It is 120 Km long lake with one third of the lake falling into Indian territory and rest in China. The temperature was freezing cold literally and wind were blowing hard.

Our first stop was at the army post of Zingral @ 15500 ft. Few interesting things on the way (see images)

a) White house

b) Frozen drain

c) J & K Bank (Just 38 Km away)

By the time we crossed Changla (The third highest motorable road in the world) we all were shivering in our woolens.

BTW I had my favorite maggi at Pangong Lake. Ummah..

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Day 4. Highest Guest room complex in the world @ Tangse. But the highlight of the day was snowfall. Finally a long cherished dream come true. Dance in the middle of the snowfall.

On the downside because of heavy snow road leading back to Leh was blocked and we were forced to stay back in Tangse.

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Day 5. Thanks to the Indian Army, our way got cleared by late evening and headed back to base. Fresh snow was too tempting to resist and all of us had lots of fun. We had to chain our wheels to make sure we had safe journey. It is highly advisable to get the vehicle chained in snow as it increases friction and grip for the tyres.

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Adventurous trip to Leh (Ladhakh)

Amit Gupta — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 10:31:02 +0000

So finally I got a well deserved break from the daily routine with a long pending family vaccation. My Wify always wanted to see some snow clad mountains and I wanted to go on some adventure holiday. And we discovered a perfect mix in the Land of Lamas-Leh.

I have done some goggling before packing our bags for the leh. Few useful tips based on suggestions and personal experiences:

a) Leh is on high altitude and really high So you are bound to suffer from high altitude sickness. The degree of effect may vary from person to person. Common effects:
Breathlessness

Ø Headache

Ø Vomiting

Ø Bleeding from nose

To overcome this you need to drink lots and lots of water. And don’t venture out as soon as you reach Leh. give some time to your body to acclimatized to the conditions. We rested for one full day before any activity.

b) Carry warm cloths, jackets , Caps/Hats nd pair of good sunglasses. (Thanks abhishek for your jacket.)

c) Consult your doctor and take medicines to control effects of High altitude. Carry some first aid medicines with you like Paracitamol, Eno , Disprin , Anti Vomiting drug etc.

We were stationed at Kharu (40 km from Leh) in a beautiful army guesthouse. We didn’t venture out anywhere on this day. Though I can’t resist clicking the beautiful Leh and Sheh city on our way to the guesthouse.

Day 1. We flew with early morning flight of Kingfisher Red (As if we had other options). There are daily flights to Leh from Delhi by Kingfisher Red, Jet airways and Indian. It was a very comfortable flight (highly recommended). Delhi – Leh flight is for 1hr 10 min but there is a difference of more than 10000 feet in height and a variation of 40 degrees in temperature. We landed at Leh airport around 8:30 AM and the temperature outside was 2 degree Celsius.

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Day 2. We were off to Leh city.

a) Hall of Fame: War memorial by Indian army. No photography allowed inside the building but it treasure the war memorabilia’s and weapons from the war fought in this zone, including the Operation Vijay (Kargil war)

b) Magnetic hill : On our way to Gurudwara Pathar Sahib there is a place which supposedly have magnetic properties. Our SUV was pulled towards the hill in engine off condition.

c) Gurudwara Pathar sahib : The Gurudwara got its name from the huge rock (Pathar) which was thrown on Guru Nanak dev ji by some devil. The rock turned soft on touching Guru Nanak Dev and got molded in his shape.

d) Sangam of Indus and zanskar river : Beautiful place where two meets. we had lot of fun at the banks of the rivers’. Couple of hours just passed away.

e) Leh market : Markets are stuffed with woolens, handicrafts and Chinese stuff. Nice place to roam around. I am no shopoholic, so not much interested.

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Few more days of leh watch out the next post J

Confession – Love you Maggi

Amit Gupta — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 09:37:39 +0000

Oh man … It’s 25 years or Silver Jubilee of our first meeting. I still remember the day when you entered my life. We met at my school. You wore bright yellow with strokes of red. And on our very first date, I brought you to my home to meet mom (It wasn’t infatuation, I can say now). Mom actually likes you…

And It was love at first bite…I am mad about you till this date. I love all your makeover and well…most of the flavors. You remember you got me gift on our every 5th date. I still have some of them with me (still hidden from my wife).

But for the first time I am sharing this story and some of your gifts with the world, Hope you would love it equally.

All you MAGGI lovers visit http://meandmeri.in and share you lovely moments spends with her.

Mood swing of weather

Amit Gupta — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 03:14:41 +0000

I have captured the mood swing of weather within a span of 20 min. Is this reflection of what we face in real life too. Everything seems to be going fine and then there are sudden storms, which seems never ending and devastating. But the nature show there is always a bright sunshine after dark clouds. And this keeps us moving in life….

Snow Balls

8:10 AM

8:30 AM

Fruit of Patience is not always sweet :p

Amit Gupta — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 16:50:37 +0000

So finally, I have fruits in my garden. Have a look at the vibrant and HOT green chilies !!!

The Seagate FreeAgent and I Contest

Amit Gupta — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 07:51:45 +0000

There is a interesting contest running on Indian Blog and new Media Society http://ibnms.com/2009/03/03/seagate-contest/#more-31 .

The Contest
You have to write a blog entry on the following topic: Seagate FreeAgent Family and I: What would be the most creative use I could put it to if I had one? And what would I expect from Seagate’s storage solutions that will enhance my content management experience?

So here are my thoughts on the use of Seagate FreeAgent external storage drive (This is my wishlist).

I am looking for “my space” to be myself and do what I want to do and be what I want to be. For my kind of space there should be no boundries and limitations to the imagination and the performance. My space should be like open to the world like me. It should be able to handshake with everyone and adabtable to available technologies. Should grow and learn with me and my requirements (upgradable software and intelligence). It should be with me and move with me like my shadow (nice, compact and portable).

Now what would I do with if all of the above come true:

It would be nice to have only computer screens (laptop and desktop) and a place to plug and play your own drive. So there would be no dependency and boundries of sytems and places. So everyone can just move around freely and still carry one’s own world with them

No related posts.

Abuse of Cost Per Click (CPC) Marketing?

Amit Gupta — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 08:28:04 +0000

Cost Per Click better known as CPC advertising is one of the most popular ROI (return on Investment) driven model in online world. Google has build in a complete empire revolving around this model.

This model provides a win-win situation to publishers (websites), ad-networks (like Google, Komli etc) and advertisers (sellers). Advertisers pays to the ad-networks only when a visitor (prospective buyer) clicks on the advertisement (thereby presumed he expresses interest in the advertiser’s services) on the publisher’s website. Thereby justifying the advertising cost as paid by the advertisers. On the same hand ad-networks are in position to calculate and display the ROI and compensation for publishers.

Now in a fair game, a visitor will click on the advertisement to know more about the services and contact the buyer subsequently (If he is interested). On every such click publisher get paid certain amount by ad-networks and advertisers are charged for that click.

Wonderful concept, so where is the abuse?

Now few advertisers are abusing the ecosystem by removing/reducing the requirement to click the advertisement in order to know the contact info etc. Thus avoiding the charges payable to ad-network and subsequently the publisher.

This short-term strategy will surely have long lasting impact on the ecosystem of publishers, advertisers and ad-networks. I am sure ad-networks would have all the systems and checks in place to avoid such content going live in the advertisement. Ad networks would spend more energy on building more checks to stop abuse, which would have otherwise gone in more constructive activities. All said and done, I believe there is an equal responsibility to be shared by the advertisers also for not abusing the product.

PS : I just found one more and this one is interesting. Skype installed on my system prompt me to call on the number displayed on ad for FREE and again without even clicking on the ad.

Everything I Know About Startups by Dharmesh Shah

Amit Gupta — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 17:12:45 +0000

This is an absolutely great presentation by Dharmesh Shah, co-founder of HubSpot, that was originally posted at OnStartups.

Festivals of Colors – Happy Holi

Amit Gupta — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 09:22:56 +0000

No related posts.

Bar Camp Delhi 6 (#bcd6)

Amit Gupta — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 10:49:24 +0000

I attended my first bar camp which happens to be sixth edition for Delhi. The event is being hosted at MDI Gurgaon. It was quite an interesting experience to attend the sessions in the daylong event. Anybody and everyone was free to pick up a available slot of 30 min to present the topic of their choice.

The day started with introduction of Bar camp and followed by a three word introduction by all the campers (mine being “Google for amitguptaz” :p ). BTW Bar in Bar Camp is acronym for BAY AREA REJECTED. This was followed by many interesting topics being discussed throughout the day.

The best discussion on Day 1 as per me were by
Pankaj Jain, CEO, Teknatus solutions on “Financial Crisis in India ”

Piyush, Co-founder, Routeguru.com on “Location Based Search

Pawan Duggal, Advocate, Supreme Court on “Legal issues in blogging”

I tweeted live during the event. Catch up with the updates on http://twitter.com/amitguptaz

Meeting Matt

Amit Gupta — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 17:17:51 +0000

I met Matt Mullenweg last saturday @ wordcamp India. I must say , I am damn impressed by this young champion of new media. He is such a nice and down to earth guy with no air about giving world a whole new medium of expression in way of WORDPRESS.

He shared his journey so far and his vision for the product. He was full of energy on podium and it was flowing across the audience. He was very enthusiastic talking about every update and new features to be introduced in wordpress. Matt’s philosophy of making life easy for the users in terms of product, interface, upgrades and features is very well transalted in WordPress as a world class product.

Hats Off !!!

WordCamp India (India’s first WordPress Camp)

Amit Gupta — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 07:04:25 +0000

I’ll be attending the India’s first WordPress Camp to be organised on 21st and 22nd February. To know more and register for event visit :

http://wci.eventbrite.com

PS : Event is Co-hosted by Mayank Gupta. An internet freak , wordpress fan and my sweet little cousin. I’m proud of you.

Best of Luck …

Shades of me

Amit Gupta — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 10:58:03 +0000

Logging out from makaan.com

A close encounter with Vintage Car

Amit Gupta — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 17:34:54 +0000

A chance encounter with this beauty on National highway 8. I could’nt resist myself to get clicked with this charming beauty. I felt like a royal…

Bollywood Unlimited : Best and Worst

Amit Gupta — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 15:46:29 +0000

Hmmm.. who am I , a producer , director , actor , musician , critic nah… May I have the honour of calling myself the Real King of the Bollywood Industry…THE AUDIENCE.

Kings do have the liking and dislikings and they too make mistakes in evaluation. But Here goes my list of best (I have a definite inclination to movies with humor ) and the worst movies I have ever watched (Though the list is long, few are worth a mention) :

The Best & My Favorites

1) Jaane Bhi do Yaaro : Naseeruddin Shah, Ravi Baswani, Bhakti Barve, Satish Shah, Om Puri, Pankaj Kapur, Satish Kaushik, Neena Gupta

“Thoda khao, thoda faiko” , “”

2) Andaz Apna Apna : Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, Raveena Tandon, Karisma Kapoor, Paresh Rawal and Shakti Kapoor

“Mogambo ka bhateeja”

3) Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa : Shahrukh Khan, Suchitra Krishnamurthy, Naseeruddin Shah and Deepak Tijori.

4) Jab We Met : Shahid Kapoor and Kareena Kapoor

5) Rang De Basanti : Aamir Khan, Soha Ali Khan, Madhavan, Kunal Kapoor, Siddharth Narayan, Sharman Joshi, Atul Kulkarni, British actress Alice Patten

6) Hera Pheri : Akshay Kumar, Paresh Rawal, Sunil Shetty and Tabu

7) Gol Maal : Amol Palekar, Utpal Dutt, Bindiya Goswami, David ,Deven Verma

Bavarchi : Rajesh Khanna and Jaya Badhuri with Asrani, A.K. Hangal and Durga Khote

9) Chupke Chupke : Dharmendra, Amitabh Bachchan, Sharmila Tagore, Jaya Bachchan, Om Prakash, David, Asrani and Keshto Mukherjee

10) Maine Pyaar Kiya : Salman Khan and Bhagyashree

“Dosti ki hai ti nibhani padegi”

Other : Sholey (Amitabh Bachchan-Dharmendra) , Mugal-e- Azam (Dilip Kumar, Madhubala , Prithviraj Kapoor, Durga Khote), Bhool Bhulayia (Akshay Kumar, Vidhya Balan), Munnai Bhai Series (Sanjay Dutt), Satya , Rangeela and many more…

The Worst & Unforgettable

1) Humse Na Takrana

2) Ram Gopal Verma Ki Aag

3) Mela

4) 1920

I am feeling sleepy thinking about them ….

Mumbai Marathon 2009

Amit Gupta — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 10:32:46 +0000

Mumbai will run again. Run again to show solidarity, unity, a cause and spirit of life. Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon the biggest international marathon in Asia will kick off tomorrow.

This event first held in 2004 has outgrown itself from just being a annual gala sporting event. The event now showcases the spirit of people of Mumbai and India and large. Along with top international athlete who competes for prize and pride, there are whole lots of Indians who run for cause. There will be corporate India running as a team to raise funds for charity as designated by them.

This event is the biggest international event happening after the unfortunate terror attach on Mumbai. And now Mumbai will run to display the strength we have as the country and prove that no one can bring us down.

Sitting miles away physically, my heart goes with all who are running for the cause. Keep running…

Death sentence for rape accussed

Amit Gupta — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 14:50:15 +0000

There should be no mercy for the rape accussed. They are are bigger culprit of humanity than any criminal, murderer or terrorist. The law enforcement agencies and judiciary should set examples by speeding up the judicial process and awarding the highest punishment to these criminals. Related posts: 60th Death Anniversary of Mahatma Related posts:

60th Death Anniversary of Mahatma

Reissue of Indian Passport

Amit Gupta — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 11:25:26 +0000

I filled the application form online from official website and it generated a downloadable format for me to get the photographs done etc. And the best part , I got a appointment online for submission of the form. Somehow I manage to get all my documents in palce and time (Most difficult being proof of residence.

So a journey of five month has come to an end. I have managed to lay hand on my reissued passport after much delay and followup. For the starter an Indian passport has to be be reissued after every 10 years. My passport was about to expire (actually there were still 9 months to go) so I thought to get the same reissued in time. I was pleasantly surprised to find that system has evolved much since the day I have first applied for the same, year 1999.

ALWAYS REMEMBER :

a) Telephone Bill means only Government line (MTNL or BSNL) no Airtel, Tata Indicom or Mobile bills

b) Bank Statement : Only government banks (No Citibank, ICICI though it is second largest bank in India, No HDFC it may be the largest housing finance banking entity of the country)

AND so on… Anyways, Fortunately I have one sarkari bank account in Bank of Baroda which actually become the passport to my passport application. So two days of effort to collect documents and 1000 RS down I managed to submit my application. They cancelled my current passport and accepted the application for reissue. So now I was practically without a passport (with some 9 months still to spare for expiry ).

This was the beginning of long journey, which was suppose to get over in just 45 days.

The wait begins for the police verification as the passport status site show the status “Awaiting Police verification” from the very next day. After numerous round to ACP office and request for early verification, the same happened some after 60 days.

Now after 90 days I found the new status on the site “Police verification clear, Application under process”. Now starts another round of wait for the processing of passport.

Then the round of mails and personal visit to RPO ensure that I got my passport after 5 months. I feel like being on cloud nine without actually flying

Update ( Feb 27, 2009 ) Months after I got my passport , I got call for a police verification again. As per them My verification is still pending. this send chill through my spine. But fortunately It was some error and I was saved from any hassle.

Update (July 13, 2011) : I applied for passport for my minor daughter under Tatkal and got it within 4 working days.

Trip to Vaishno Devi

Amit Gupta — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 10:34:01 +0000

I am back in Delhi after a three day trip to Vaishno Devi. The trip was thought and planned a month ag0, But all my planning failed (2 set of cancelled train and hotel bookings) and like every time we were rushing to catch the bus. whatever…

The journey and the destination was worth the effort. It was such a nice weather all through the journey. Everytime I visit the place I seems to be discovering something new and mystical. By the way in a rare occurence (at least for me) I was fortunate to visit the Ardhakuwari temple and the ancient cave of Vaishno Devi in single trip.

View From Our Room

After a trek of 13 km we reached the bhawan (the main temple) and stayed in the room there. And I have the surprize view from my room’s balcony. Our balcony faced the bhawan. We had a full view of the temple from our balcony. It was really a divine experience.

Some of the natural beauty we discovered on the way :

Natural Spring

Goat

Vote for better India

Amit Gupta — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 08:35:49 +0000

Did you know that there is a system in our constitution, as per the 1969 act, in section ” 49-O” that a person can go to the polling booth, confirm his identity, get his finger marked and convey the presiding election officer that he doesn’t want to vote anyone!

Yes such a feature is available, but obviously these leaders have never disclosed it.

This is called “49-O”.

Why should you go and say ” I VOTE NOBODY”… because, in a ward, if a candidate wins, say by 123 votes, and that particular ward has received “49-O” votes more than 123, then that polling will be cancelled and will have to be re-polled. Not only that, but the candidature of the contestants will be removed and they cannot contest the re-polling, since people had already expressed their decision on them.
This would bring fear into parties and hence look for genuine candidates for their parties for election. This would change the way; of our whole political system…. it is seemingly surprising why the election commission has not revealed such a feature to the public….

Please spread this news to as many as you know…

Seems to be a wonderful weapon against corrupt parties in India … show your power, expressing your desire not to vote for anybody, is even more powerful than voting… so don’t miss your chance. So either vote, or vote not to vote (vote 49-O) and pass this info on…

Use your voting right for a better INDIA.

missing you papa

Amit Gupta — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 16:48:54 +0000

happy anniversary papa Related posts: love you facebook Festivals of Colors – Happy Holi Related posts:

Chanda Mama here we come

Amit Gupta — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 10:29:02 +0000

India launches its Chandrayan 1 today from Sriharikota. This marks the entry into new era of space exploration by India. India will enter the league of naions who have succesfully landed on the Moon. Though Man-less mission Chandrayaan will fuel the space program of India.

Incomplete map of India on google

10 Years of Google

Amit Gupta — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 08:32:06 +0000

Many many happy returns of the day. Google always stands for innovation and usability. I wish you many more successful and innovative products.

Google Chrome – First look

Amit Gupta — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:28:08 +0000

I have downloaded Google chrome today. I am impressed in the first glance. Though it will take some more time to understand how will the brower perform. BUt few features which make it stands out are ;

a) Neat and clean look : A new browsing experience and the window seems to gain that extra screen space. The tabs and search bar are intelligently integrated in the browser. Every pixel is optimally utilized.

b) One stop shop : Search , Address bar, suggestive search all integrated in one box. Google makes me LAZZZZY

c) Most visited site : Hmmm… nice tool. I would not say amazing but useful (advertisers will love google for this)

d) Browsing history : Smart way to display history along with time of visit.

More to come ….

First Step

Amit Gupta — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 07:43:06 +0000

I have taken a baby step owards fulfilling my dream !!! Related posts: Hi from Amit Gupta ! How to make a pizza (sinful eating) A Year That Was… naming our baby daughter Related posts:

Are Customers Sitting Duck

Amit Gupta — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 07:16:04 +0000

The mailer gives a feeling how the organization feels about their subscribers, who pays monthly subscription to be part of the network. They are just addition to growing number of sitting ducks for TATA Sky who can be easily targeted by the advertisers.

Horrible is the word, to explain the feeling when you see customers being called “Sitting Ducks”. I just came across an emailer from Tata Sky targeted at advertisers for their DTH service.

Can’t ad agencies treat customers in a better way ???

Product offsite at Karjat (Mumbai)

Amit Gupta — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 10:00:36 +0000

Off-sites trainings are fun and this is my second off-site training camp in People Interactive within six months. Now this is advantage of managing multiple portfolios and slogging. I got to go out with both software and product offsite to take break from work at makaan.

My last visit to Daman with software team was close to sea and this one at beautiful Karjat near Mumbai. The weather was awesome and it almost rained for our entire stay at karjat.

We had a training, presentations, Jam session, treasure hunt all squeezed within two short days. We were literally awake for two days.

This is a very memorable trip for me to Mumbai itself also. After so long I really got the chance to out and see mumbai city. Before this mumbai to me was only our office and road to airport. This time round Me and my team decided to extend our stay in city for a day more.

Our city tour in taxi include visit to Sidhivinayak, Hazi Ali, Gateway of India, Marine drive and Nariman point.

Waiting at airport for the flight back to Delhi. The guy with lappy is me tring to finish this post

Down with viral

Amit Gupta — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 06:30:17 +0000

This week has left me weak … this is not what extended weekend are meant to be. Still recovering from the pangs of deadly viral. High fever has forced me to stay indoors and eat very little (surviving on mostly liquid died). Even now as fever is gone , there is a feeling of weakness.

So after a long time, I am looking forward to Monday. Hope I recover fully to resume work.

My new N95

At last this works

Amit Gupta — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 17:02:19 +0000

Thanks mayank to bring my site back to life (though the site was down because of him only). There is so much happened in last 15 days.

a) I have an fantabulous offsite @ riverside resort , Karjat near Mumbai (Amazing place , will upload pics soon)

b) India lost the test to Srilanka

c) Olympics kicked off in China on 08.08.08 and icing on the cake being India winning first individual gold @ olympics (Abhinav Bindra made us all proud by winning a gold)

Why do customer buy our products

Amit Gupta — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 09:36:45 +0000

Why do customer buy our products?

a) We feel your product is the latest.

b) We have a best marketing plan.

c) We have the best solution for the customer need.

Obviously C, customers buy our product not for any other reason. Customers will be happy and keeping come back to us if we keep meeting their need. We should strive to not only meet but exceed customer’s expectations. And while doing so there are moments where the customer feels delighted.

The delight come from the “experiences ” we give to the customers and not the product. The experience offered to customers at every stage of product and sales cycle. This may come from things as simple as speaking to the customer about his experience with the product and getting his viewpoint to improve the product.

These experiences are used to sell products also. One such beautiful example is recent advertisement of “Reliance Mobile”. Amazing execution of the advertisement has translated a simple message of wider connectivity in a soul touching experience.

The storyline is set in a backdrop of temples in high-rise Himalayas. A couple is praying for the whole family and suddenly the lady realizes something… Calls up the dadi (Grand mom) and let her hear the sound of temple bells. This is a divine experience for the dadi and she feels like being present right there in the temple.

Great experience. And emotions sell well in India.

Makaan Chowdhary

Amit Gupta — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 07:14:12 +0000

My fond childhood memories of Chacha chowdhary , Sabu , rocket (Chacha’s pet dog) are back. Chachaji can solve all the problms in the world cauz ”Chacha ka dimaag computer se bhi tez chalta hai” . Watch him in new avtaar making Rajnikant and Mithun da the superstar.

[Amit Gupta]5F3QoOqdf1o[/Amit Gupta]

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1

Amit Gupta — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:13:32 +0000

I have just checked out Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 version and Firefox3. I would not be comparing them but there are certain new feature I liked about both of them.

But the most exciting feature to me is Actiities in IE8. I lets to do certain activities on the webpage you are working on. Its like talking to many other application from one page (uff.. internet making me lazzy and more demanding every day). Though the application integrated are few but all are worth mentioning.

See how useful a Live Map application can be for a real estate site. No clicks , No tabs and you get what you want. I have tried looking for Noida and a map was there (That too fairly close).

There are many more activities which can be done on a click like Google search , Blogging with Live Space and define with Encarta. Microsoft keep exploring…..

Monsoon Clouds

Amit Gupta — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 13:47:40 +0000

Monsoon Clouds Captured on my camera

Mood swing of weather

No Gates for Windows

Amit Gupta — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 05:51:54 +0000

Bill Gates call it a day at Microsoft , the giant software empire he has founded and build over last 33 years. A richest man on the world for many years will now focus on philanthropy.

Time will tell the impact of this change on Microsoft.

Good Bye Sam

Amit Gupta — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 05:36:06 +0000

Good Bye Bahadur Sam

(April 03, 1914 – June 27, 2008)

3G in India

Amit Gupta — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 17:56:13 +0000

Bharti , Vodafone to bring Apple 3G iPhone to India later this year and with Bharti on verge of launching 3G services (Subject to all statuary clearance) .

Hmmm… so would we get to see a revolution in the way people get to use mobile and mobile internet in India. The success will largely depend on the cost of acquiring the technology (Handset + Service). Indian consumers are very price senstive and to an extend slow adapter in terms of mobile innovations. Still we have very limited usage of GPRS and related applications.

Mobile services were launched in India by Airtel but the credit goes to Reliance to bring mobile phones to commener. Their runaway success can be largely attributed to attractive (read unbeliable low priced handset and call rates) offers they throw open to customers. And with 3G hanset promised to be priced sub 10K , I think there will be many takers.

I am of belief that Internet and Mobile are deadly combination and way for next generation of business. 3G will offer the speedy internet and open avenues to offer range of product and services directly to the mobile device.

Looks like tring tring time.

Thank You Yahoo !!!

Amit Gupta — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 09:42:15 +0000

Hmmm… very true . Thank you for reminding me of this. I surely need a break of of couple of days. And all you workaholic check out the cool mailer from Yahoo and you might find your dream holiday…

Yahoo Local (India) has much more than a holiday destination search. It is a local search engine as of now limited to Delhi, Mumbai , Bangalore and Chennai. And has features like rating, maps etc … But Once it comes to local search engine My vote will be with justdial.com for the sheer database and asklaila.com for the use of technology.

Anyway now I want to plan a break Yahoo!!!

Where have I Been ???

Amit Gupta — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 10:15:53 +0000

No where , I was very much around but again busy with some upgradation and imrovement work on Makaan.com. I have been hearing and experiencing much about web 2.0 and the rub of effect was evident to come on Makaan.com So Makaan.com member backend is now been changed and made more action oriented and user focused.

We have tried to reduce the umber of clicks to do activities and all the relevant information is available upfront to the user. Action buttons are more prominent and sytem prompt the user about possible actions intelligently. There are many more changes to come and will keep me busy for some more time….

BTW Pappu paas ho gaya (Pls read my previous post).

Makaan Mobile

Amit Gupta — Thu, 29 May 2008 10:33:45 +0000

Know your customers and the environment in which they operate. At Makaan we found out that our customers (property providers) are not very tech-savvy and don’t have regular internet access, infact only little fraction of our total customer universe are internet friendly. But the irony is that thier customers (Property seekers) are more and more depends on new age mediums for the needs.

So the challange was to build a product which will bridge this gap and property seeker & providers can be brought closer. The answer was in mobile phone which is a integral business requirement of people in property business. So through Makaan Mobile benefits internet is brought to people with no access of Internet.

Makaan Mobile application is a First SMS based application which enable property provider to advertise for the property and recieve responses directly to his mobile. The application also manages all the listings and the responses of the advertiser.

To know more about Makaan Mobile visit www.makaan.com/mobile . This application is supported on all GSM networks in India. You can also download the application from the link below :

Makaan Property Show

Amit Gupta — Sat, 24 May 2008 16:10:20 +0000

Hey Last week was very busy. Makaan.com is organizing the first property show in North India. After successful shows in Hyderabad and Pune , saddi Dilli seems to be the best choice. In couple of months there are many more to come across nation.

Today was the day one of Delhi Property show. And it was quite a show as the show was simultaneously held at Noida and Gurgaon. I covered both the centers though it become a bit too tiring … So See ya Gud Night

Google and Tom Sawyer

Amit Gupta — Tue, 06 May 2008 15:08:32 +0000

You have not heard the famous story of Tom Sawyer getting his fence painted by Mark Twain. The smart chap get the fence painted by the friends and even get rewarded for it. He makes the painting job felt like the most interesting thing on the planet earth.

Now Google has set a perfect example of how to get things done the right way. What better way to get the matching results than getting the indexing done by the end users themselves.

Google Image labeler is a online module where users can tag the images with the words they feel most appropriate. The module works like a time bound game where users are paired as a team and they earn points on matching tags. (Amazing isn’t it , you get agreement from two different unknown users and time bound activity ensures top of the mind tagging).

Google will use these tags to throw the image search results. This will certainly help in generating most relevant search results. Good Going Google…

Long time no see

Amit Gupta — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:44:23 +0000

Last few days were quite busy. So I didn’t get time to write but so much so has happenedd during this time.

Phasing out of the Killer blue lines (As if the evil lies in the buses and not the one who drives them), Sacking of KPS Gill (Better late than Never) , Harbhajan slapping Sreesanth (Gentemen’s game @ its best) , Sealing activity begins and what not…

But its not that nothing good had happened ISRO has made India proud by launching 10 satellites in orbit creating a new record, RBI is considering on guidlines to enable mobiles to be used as credit cards, A flat in Mumbai sold for 27 crores, India has crossed US in terms of mobile connections and so much more…

And where to put democracy in Nepal…lead by a maoist government

and last but not least, on personal front I enjoyed my cousin’s wedding, attended a two day seminar on “Art of Project Management” by Gavin Oh Huan Khoon of Business Management Consultants (Highly recommended)

Examination Results

Amit Gupta — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 18:40:28 +0000

I came across an interesting mailer from naukri.com in my inbox and it brings back memories of yesteryears examination results.

March-April has always been the most tense months throughtout life. Since my earliest memories these months will mean loads of tension and sleepless nights. All the hard work & efforts are put on test and then begins the wait for the results….

This agonising wait keep haunting year after year during these months. Earlier it was examination results and now its the annual appraisals. But the most talked about thing remains the same ”Percentage”. How much did you get this year. From parents to friends to everyone you on this earth is interested to know how much did you get.

But then this also keep you gunning for more year after year but for now I am waiting for the results for this year . Wish me luck to come out with flying colors again.

Makaan.com TV Commercial

Amit Gupta — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 16:43:18 +0000

After 7 months of launch makaan.com has come out with a TVC. And as an associated sponsor to the Extra Innings during IPL. I hope Makaan will generate loads of brand recall.

There are various factors what make this commercial stand out including a very well executed and co-ordinated performance of animated Mouse Character and human actor. This commercial has a very peppy and hummable background score.

Catch this throughout the telecast of IPL. As of now check this out :

Google Street Map

Amit Gupta — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 13:00:56 +0000

Jinke ghar sheeshe ke hote hain, unhe kapde parde daal kar badalne chahiye (One who have glass windows, should put curtains before changing the cloths.). Now you have all the more reason to fear. Google has ventured into street map and to what precision.

I was just exploring trulia (A real estate portal) who have implemented the Google street Maps. I clicked on the sample map provided on the homepage for San Fransisco. I was amazed to see the details of the streets. I can actually read the number plate of the car standing outside the apartment.

Now that’s taking property to your desktop literally. Though I am a staunch follower and devotee of Google but this feature has put me in thinking mode. You can put image of your house on site for sale but how can we allow anyone to peep into neighbors house. Say in the ad below the house no. 510 on sale is and we can zoom to the balcony of House No 511.

To me that is a bit too much. There need to be limit to this invasion of privacy.

IPL – Kab Aayega Baap !!!

Amit Gupta — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 17:59:31 +0000

Kab aayega ranjan aur mano ka baap! There is an extensive and long search for ranjan and mano for their baap. After a long wait of 8 years and endless taunting of people their mother attempts suicide. Suddenly we discovered who is “mano-ranjan ka baap”

Hilarious and simply brilliant is how I would describe latest commercial of DLF – Indian Premier League. Agency has successfully married the two biggest religion of nation Cricket and Bollywood in this one script. The advertisement not only has brilliant story line but also executed to the perfection.

The tempo was build over a period of time and viewers’ curiosity was raised to a level that it becomes a talking point among them. Everyone wanted to know “Kaun hai bachcho ka baap”.

Hope the IPL itself also turns out to be equally exciting.

How to stop telemarketing calls

Amit Gupta — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 16:16:07 +0000

I just come across an Interesting email doing rounds.

Ten ways to stop those credit card sales, mobile companies, insurance calls from irritating you:

1 After the telemarketer finishes speaking, ask him/her to marry you.

2 Tell the telemarketer you are busy at the moment, and ask him/her, if he/she will give you his/her home phone number so you can call him/her back.

3 Ask them to repeat everything they say, several times.

4 Tell them it is dinnertime, BUT ask if they would please hold. Put them on your speakerphone while you continue to eat at your leisure. Smack your food loudly and continue with your dinner conversation.

5 Tell them that all business goes through your agent, and hand the phone to your five-year-old child.

6 Tell them you are hard of hearing and that they need to speak up…. louder… louder… louder!

7 If they start out with, “How are you today?”, say “I’m so glad you asked, because no one these days seems to care, and I have all these problems………….”

8 Tell them to speak very slowly because you want to write every word down.

9 Cry out in surprise, “Helen, is that you? I’ve been hoping you’d call! How is the family?” When they insist they are not Helen, tell them to stop joking. This works especially well if the telemarketer is really MALE.

10 Tell the ICICI call center guy to call on your office number – and give him the HSBC call center number.

TRY THEM OUT…

One Night @ terminal

Amit Gupta — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 17:42:52 +0000

My fascination for the city Kolkata ended as soon as I found myself struck in an unusual Traffic jam to airport. A normal route of 30 min took me close to two hours. And for the first time in my life I missed the flight. Now that’s a bizarre feeling of helplessness. It took me another 30 mins to convince the duty manager that in all my good intention I never wanted to miss the flight. Fortunately I managed a ticket in the first flight out which was next day morning @ 7:00 AM

So I was there at the terminal (The first thought struck me was The Terminal, starrin g Tom Hanks) . But I thought it was only couple of hours before I could return back to my good old Delhi. I decided to catch some sleep at the lounge before airport start buzzing with travelers for the first flight @ 5:00 AM.

But, as the fate would have within 30 min there was tsunami of people who captured the terminal all geared up with stuff for night stay. There were people all around trying to capture every bit of space possible. I have never experienced this before; the airport looks like a railway platform. I had to move to a chair in corner for respite.

But this was only the beginning, best was yet to come. At around 2:00 Pm a airport official woke me up. I was just amused when I saw him equipped him with old age mosquito repellent which throws a lot of smoke. He practically filled the complete airport with heavy smoke to ensure a mosquito free airport.

I just managed to get a two-hour sleep before getting into my flight back. I am happy that my stay @ terminal got terminated after just one night.

The City of Joy – Kolkata

Amit Gupta — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 17:23:41 +0000

I clicked this on my way to Kolkata office. The city seems to be slow and peaceful and very different from the fast paced Delhi. I am here for two days and both have packed schedule of training and evaluating few options for Property show in Kolkata.

Let’s see if I can visit few places and if possible ride tram.

Food @ 29000 ft

Amit Gupta — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 03:55:37 +0000

After a usual delay of 2 hours I took off to Kolkata (City of Joy). By now you would have realized how much I hate air travel. This time I am traveling Jet Air, which is one of the finest airlines. Thanks to web check in facility, I managed a first row seat in economy class (Advantage to spread your legs and relax a bit).

So I felt like being from upper middle class where all the middle class cramped in their seats. And like all upper middle class who are aspirant to become upper class (Business Class travelers) I wanted to feel the luxury they have.

And as the luck would have due to the wardrobe malfunction (Not the one at Fashion Ramp but the curtain diving the two sections in aircraft) the last row of Business class was straight in my line of sight. I envy the way they were pampered with choice of cuisine.

Though the food served to us was excellent but the pastures are always green on the other side. So, I dig into my breakfast thinking how soon I’ll be part of the upper class.

Fun @ work – Offsite to Daman

Amit Gupta — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 11:23:22 +0000

Fun @ work takes a new dimension when People Group engineering team has strolled out for the picnic last week. The gyaan sessions seemed to be the coolest thing around. Day one: We headed for resort in Virar (Suburb of Mumbai) for tech presentation to be made by engineering teams. The event gave opportunity to everyone to come on stage and speak up about the work they’ve been doing and their learning’s. We achieved the very purpose of the get-together KNOWLEGE SHARING. And we end the day with jump in the pool and late night cricket.

Day 2: We headed for Daman after a light breakfast. The three and a half hour long journey seemed nothing with everyone having fun on board. Many of us were singing and dancing while quite a few catch up with Ajay Devgan’s flick “Halla Bol”. After having a filling lunch at the beachside in Daman we all rushed to the water park. It was amazing to soak our self and enjoy in thrilling rides of the park. The evening attraction was the wave pool and the rain dance. The day ended with dinner against the vast Arabian ocean as a backdrop with live orchestra playing the hit numbers. We shook our leg till we drop.

Day 3 : It was the day to relax and chill out. After a lazy morning breakfast everyone wanted to take maximum of the last day of our trip. We headed back to Mumbai after the lunch. The spirit doesn’t seem to die though all of us were dead tired. We reached Mumbai late in the evening and everyone carried sweet memories of the trip with them.

Talent Search 2.0

Amit Gupta — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 07:00:03 +0000

Every child has heard this umpteen times. Every time there is a guest parents insist child to recite a poem or sing a song. A latest song hummed by the child makes parents proud of their child’s talent. Child gets rewarded through lots of praises. Now the stage has grown and children perform in front of live and TV audience. Various talent hunt shows has make this bigger than ever and the rewards has grown too. Few days back , one such show held a finale at where contestants performed and whole nation seemed to vote for them. The winner takes 20 laks of cash, a brand new car. Now that’s something really big for a teenager. Infact the youngest winner who takes 10 laks as reward was not even in his teens. Its amazing to see the talent getting rewarded in style.

Indian Redifined

Amit Gupta — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 06:57:49 +0000

India has evolved and so does Indian. Hey, I am talking about Indian, the state owned domestic airlines. I was scheduled to fly today morning to Mumbai by 8:00AM flight. As expected the flight was delayed (Still waiting for the final departure time to be announced, As I am writing this at airport).

This has now become a standard and not the exception for all airlines to delay departures. But I was talking about something else.

I got an unexpected call at 5:45 in morning. This was from call center of the airlines announcing the delay of 1hr 45 Min. I was pleasantly surprised to hear from them (Not because flight is delayed because they saved me from waiting unnecessary at the airport lounge hearing announcements). But my team was not fortunate enough as all of them has already started from their respective places.

They but of course were cursing me as I met them at airport at 9:15. But these delays surely exhaust persons before they actually start the day. Fortunately we have planned for the delays and actually we are traveling A DAY IN ADVANCE for our presentation tomorrow

A Year That Was…

Amit Gupta — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 10:13:00 +0000

These line are generally written on the turn of the year. You might think that I am possibily two months late. But I am talking about completeing a year with Makaan.com

Now when I look back at this amazing year it gives me a feeling which can’t be expressed in words. But whats so amazing about this year and this job. There has been complete transormation from the kind of work I’ve done in the past. I have lived my dream of creating an online business.

On the day of joining makaan team strength was three including Aditya (Business Head) and (Chetna). Now we have grown over 125 as a team. Aditya has shown immence confidence in me and handed me an additional responsibily of Managing the software team along with my Product Management responsibility.

And we have done our best to proove him right by delivering a best in the category product within the short span. We have worked for 10-12 hours in a day for 4 months in a strech. We launched the site on August 15, 2007, Independence day of India in less than 6 Months of my joining.

And I must say that I have got an amazing team to support Saleem, Deb, Veeru , Amit , Sandy and Nikhil.

Reliance : Thy Name Trust

Amit Gupta — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 17:58:33 +0000

Reliance by virtue of its name generate confidence. And Ambani’s has done unthinkable to keep the flag flying high for these years. I may not understand the depth of share market but this is my take on reliance as an consumer.

People has shown immense faith in the Reliance Power IPO and oversubscribed it as expected. The issue bombed on the day of listing and thousands have burned thier fingures. And then came the unexpected announcement of Bonus shares. And now talks of buy back of shares.

Hatoff to Mr Anil Ambani . This is a great gesture of corporate giant to show support to millions who have trusted them over years and keep thie confidence alive in BRAND RELIANCE.

Job Hunt 2.0

Amit Gupta — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 17:02:07 +0000

Mediums are changing and so do the people. Snail mails to email and still evolving. The way employees and employers are connecting to each other has seen a marked change over period. Both are trying to woo each other with innovative means. Resumes on CD have now moved to online space in form of Videos and presentations. Sites like Youtube has impressive number of such video resumes. Organizations have created separate dedicated career sections on their websites.

There are jobsites like Monster, Naukri etc which has brought a radical change in the way job market works. Job market has become open and transparent for employees and employers. Job seekers have access to jobs across the globe and similarly organizations have large pool of prospective employees to choose from.

But I feel Social/professional network sites are now become the latest hotspot for Job hunt. Professional network sites like Linkedin has a definite advantage in the game. This site not only offers you a platform to connect to professional across globe but give access to uncalculated jobs within your network. Features like recommendations of your work are the definite advantage in establishing job seekers credibility.

So mantra for Job Hunt is networking.

Image Credit : www.cib.uk.com

A Decade of Relationship

Amit Gupta — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 09:18:09 +0000

This day 10 years ago, I owned something which to many was of no use. I got myself an e-mail id. Though now I am maried to gmail but my first love is my hotmail id “yaaden at hotmail dot com.

10 years ago people used to ask me , who will send you an email. Only handful of people used to have internet connections in India and I remember paying Rs2/min ($1.25/ Hour) to access the internet from cyber cafes. And set was simple 4-5 machines getting the internet feed from a single dial-up. It used to take me 20 min to check my mail account.The email on the CV used to be the most decorative thing at that time.

Now 10 years down, the way we communcate and interact has changed. Internet as a medium is access to a lot more population. People are using the medium for things which may not be thinkable even few years back.

I always wanted to be part of the internet revolution which has changed our lives. I wanted to create something which will bring internet closer to people. Today I am proud to work as a Product Manager with People interactive ,one of the leading Internet organization of the country. I have seen Makaan.com (A real estate portal) the latest venture of my organization taking shape in last one year. This has given me a feeling of empowerment of creating a online product which is making life simpler for the world.

Cricket Moolah Unlimited

Amit Gupta — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:53:53 +0000

Crick·et
noun

1. Only sport in the dictionary of Indians

2. Money

Crick’et.er
noun

1. Sportsperson

2. Model

3. Endorsements

BCCI
noun

1. Mint

2. Money spinners

3. Politics

Image Credit : ballsports.com

Nationality of Bullet

Amit Gupta — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 07:47:56 +0000

I am confussed on this. It belongs and yet not belong to any one nation. Seems it treats everyone as foe.

Just gone through an article, which covers a story of two kids lying next to each other in hospital. The cruel part is one of them was an israeli hurt in an palestinian and other a palestinian boy hurt in cross firing by israeli’s.

So who’s winning not atleast the suffering families of the boys. This should make us think on what war hold for the humanity.

No related posts.

Dilli ki Sardi

Amit Gupta — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 10:42:02 +0000

“Tarpaye tarsay re…saari raat jagaaye…pyaar tera …Dilli ki sardi” These line from hindi film says all about the character of Delhi Winter. This year tempratures in delhi has been below than the normal. I am still enjoying hot water bath and my cosy layer of quilts. Weekends are best spend at homes being a couch potatao munching popcorns and watching television.

BUt next weekend will be not so comfortable. I have to shift home. So there are so many things will have to be rearranged and taken care of. Cable TV, internet connection , addresses all across and so much to do.

Coming back to Delhi weather, at this hour the best thing I can think of is a steaming cup of hot coffee…But for that also need to get out. Wish I could order this to some coffee joint over internet.

Waiting in the Wings

Amit Gupta — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 19:22:40 +0000

We humans always wanted to fly and rule the skies. Modern age has literally brought flying within the reach of common man. With India skies opening up there are airlines that are trying every trick in the book to lure the customers. Good we are flying places.

But on the flip side, airports have become crowded and the sky seems to be choked with the air traffic. Scenes at airports are no different from a railway stations. Long queues, delayed flights, frustrated passengers and airline staff carrying a plastic smile with no satisfactory answers to passenger’s query.

Flights are delayed because of weather, delayed in coming flights, air traffic congestion, security and what not. But at all time commuters are at the receiving end. At least traveling between Delhi – Mumbai, delayed has become part of the total travel time. Couldn’t recall when I have completed the journey in stipulated time duration.

Though fortunately there is up-gradation work going on at both the cities and Infact similar work is been done across airports in the country. I think, this inconvenience is a small price to be gear up and welcome the fliers from across world with open hands and let them feel the real new India.

As of now, Thankfully after waiting in the wings for close to an hour, I am cruising at more than 30000 ft above the sea at the speed of 800 Km /hr. Bon Voyage..

Image Credit : iddeals

Alien in My Own Country :(

Amit Gupta — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 19:15:02 +0000

I never felt away in my country. Mumbai over the last few months have been like visiting my backyard. But this visit to our financial capital has left me thinking. This trip was marred by apprehensions and fear of being a so-called outsider. There has been riot situation across Mumbai where a group of fanatic was out on streets rioting

Mumbai life seems to come to a halt. The nerve of mumbai the local transport was completely broken. It took me 30 min to reach my guesthouse, what would have been a 10 min drive in a taxi. My heart pained more than my legs because this feeling of alien in one’s own country will make any patriotic person cry.

These people who held back the city wanted outsiders to leave. Aren’t these the people who celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi as their biggest festival? Lord Ganesh, As far as my mythological knowledge goes, belongs to Mount Kailash (Not in Mumbai by any chance) and not Mumbai. Would these people move Siddhivinayak out of Mumbai because he’s not born here?

Monday Blues

Amit Gupta — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 15:57:36 +0000

Good Morning Monday. Hmmm.. You are here again to pull me out of my cozy quilt. Since the day I am introduced to you I wished you missed your date with new week. But you come week after week without fail. Wonder why don’t you go on sick leave or take a casual leave.

But then on second thought, If you don’t come the life would not move. There will be no office and no work. There will be no motivation to work and even no excitement to look forward to the weekend. What is the fun of weekend without Monday? Its you who make us live the weekend breaks to the fullest.

But I’ll still suggest you take a break once in a while.

Let’s go shopping. Yahoo!

Amit Gupta — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 06:21:09 +0000

Three more days of agonizing wait when I’ll get to see my bank account buzz with my monthly funding (My Salary But of course). On my shopping list would be grocery, vegetables, household stuff and woof… my account will be looking like a desert by 10th of the month.

This left me wondering what people with fat balances have on their shopping list. Many like to sprulz on themselves, some like to go on world tour, few will buy private planes and liners and for fewer it will mean real serious business.

So when I heard that Microsoft is planning to go shopping . I knew that they gonna spend some cool money. The company in question is none other than the internet giant Yahoo. And $45 Billion for the bargain is no small money by any chance. If this deal goes through it would be the largest transaction in the online world after the Times Warner-AOL deal.

But think of the synergies of the merged entity. And all of this to combat GOOGLE. Google has been the biggest headace of both Microsoft and Yahoo since early days. Google has changes the rules of the games and in style. Whatever they have planned , made sure they executed it to perfection. All their creations and acquisitions are ruling the internet.

Future will tell what would be the outcome of the deal or the merged entity but one thing for sure that internet is not meant for the weak hearted shoppers.

Zero Degree in Delhi Really !!!

Amit Gupta — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 18:17:16 +0000

Bakar Bakar on Channels about Zero degree temprature (Forecasted for Today) in Delhi has hogged the limelight on prime time slots for last few days.

News channels and Newspaper has debated it out more than they do the annual budget or general election. It become the talking point in offices. Few of my friends from across seven seas even me asked what we are going do to battle the freezing cold.

Now that the day today is coming to an end and there is no sign of Zero in Delhi. It seems that there is some time for homecomimg for Zero . As it is we Indians who gave birth to ZERO and send him around the world

Image Credit : Claudecf

Crown Prince in waiting…

Amit Gupta — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 15:21:51 +0000

Prince Charles of Great Britain has become the longest waiting Prince in queue to the thrown. And what a wait.. more than 59 years. Long live the queen.

But then it reminds of difference between Purab and Paschim. Where else but in so called under developing nations like India and Pakistan one would sacrifice the power and chair for the children.

Not to glorify anyone but earlier Ms. Gandhi and now Mr. Zardari has taken chosen to pave way for their children (People may choose to call this political compulsions).

I think sacrifice will bring you more glory and power than the artificial titles. Stepping down and nurturing future will surely make you the king of the hearts.

Image Credit : Londononline

Gentleman was it “Monkey” or “Maa ki”

Amit Gupta — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 16:47:24 +0000

Harbhajan’s controversial spat with Symond has come to an end. The outcome though was bit predictable with BCCI literally arm-twisted the cricketing giant with a threat to abandon the tour. So the charges against our turbunator were mellowed. Now, we will have Harbhajan and Symond once again battling it out at field in the upcoming one dayers.

Whatever it may be but cricket is no longer seems to be a Gentleman’s game for sure.

Good Bye Sam

60th Death Anniversary of Mahatma

Amit Gupta — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 16:14:32 +0000

“I cannot teach you violence, as I do not myself believe in it. I can only teach you not to bow your heads before any one even at the cost of your life.” - Mahatma Gandhi

I salute the Father of the Nation on his 60th death Anniversary.

Organ Trade in Gurgaon, India

Amit Gupta — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:14:29 +0000

Every print and news media in India was clogged with news of a organ trade unearthed in millennium city of Gurgaon. This racket, which was operational in major part of country, was run by group of surgeons for last 6-7 years.

They have state of the art medical setup to operate and transplant organs of needy to their rich and effluent clients in India and overseas. They were minting money by exploiting the poor and needy by luring them with money or false job promises.

But what gives them this opportunity is our own law of land, which does not permit organ transplant from anyone beyond one’s family. The essence of the law was to prevent commercialization of organ transplant. But it has paved way for the flourishing organ trade where huge monies are exchanged and the donors end up exploited at the hands of these so called doctors.

In my view, all of those involved in such heinous crime should be shown no mercy by the law and an example should be set for others.Further, regulatory authorities should spread awareness about organ donations (Like the campaign for eye donation) to promote donations after death. And make some provision in the law to allow a non relative to donate the organ for a adequate compensation.

Image Credit : BBC

Life in Google Age

Amit Gupta — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 15:48:35 +0000

The above image may look a bit funny or a bit too exaggerated but I believe that we live in Google Age. To me Google is synonym to Internet. Google as homepage tells me that I am connected to rest of the world and my system is breathing.

It’s the nerve cell of information for millions like me. From finding a store next door to information on stars millions of light year away everything can be goggled. I like to Google myself and would feel on top of the cyber world the day googling Amit Gupta will show me on top of Google search. To me that is the symbol of being arrived on Internet.

Can’t think of a life without Google. Happy Googling!!!

Hi from Amit Gupta !

Amit Gupta — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 20:00:07 +0000

Hi every one. I (Amit Gupta) have taken one more baby step on internet. Although, I ‘d created my identity on web quite sometime back but I realized that it can’t be updated often.

So, I thought that I’ll use a blog as it becomes easy for me to write down my thoughts about me , people around me and things around me. And whats a better day and time to start than 26 January. which reminds us of our country, our rights our duties and our constitution – think i am getting bit too serious! That’s the impact of the date.

Anyway to cut it short, this will be my space , my thoughts and all of you are welcome to share the thoughts of amit gupta.