Bachpan ka Dhokha

Rude Awakenings - Media Students

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Life Cycle of An Average Indian Engineer

Ich will!- Kotak Launch Party

It was a Sunday and a tempting offer in the name of 'B-bar' with an open bar enticed our thirsty souls to unite for the Indiblogger meet sponsored by Kotak Mahindra Bank for its newest product #JiFi.
I alighted fron metro on Malviya Nagar station and started walking toward the Select City Walk (DLF malls) for the venue. As I reached, I started chatting up fellow bloggers on myriad issues from politics to religion but as soon as the announcement of the bar being open was made by Nihal (Team Indiblogger), all conversations came to a screeching halt and we all headed towards the bar. I grabbed myself a beer and soon a 'selfie' contest was announced. The social lubricant that beer is, it made me offer my photogenic profile to various selfies being clicked.

This was also the most social I had felt at an Indimeet due to the novel concept of selfie contest. I made so many friends in the blogosphere and met so many faces that I had already seen online. Then came a weird funny moment when we all headbanged to a German song "Ich Will" which had pretty funny lyrics.

Then came the turn to introduce the product. By that time, most people had already started swaying due to the generous amounts of alcohol in their systems. I wonder whether Indiblogger had anticipated this, the city being Delhi. Simultanously, we were introduced to the chief guest of the event- Chetan Bhagat who was present in body at the Mumbai meet and in spirit at Delhi and B'lore also. Frankly, we'd have liked the body too. The product i.e. Social Banking #JiFi which connects your online twitter and FB profiles to your bank account seemed to be a novel idea. I am pretty sure it can make banking addictive by the sheer accessibility and added features like zero balance account and shopping offers and coupons on the basis of points earned.

It is ideal for youngistan which practically breathes twitter and Facebook. Then came the Q and A session where Chetan took up audience's question over the reliability and accuracy of the system and answered them satisfactorily. He even took up my tweet through which I cleared my doubt about the adherence to KYC norms by the product. Sadly, for KYC, we do need a manual application but they'll soon digitalize the process hopefully. Later on, the product manager from Kotak took up questions from the Delhi audience. It was a nice interactive session.

Then I gave an interview to a camera in a half inebriated state. Let's not talk about it. The table at which I sat was full of interesting people from all walks of life. I met lawyers, a liver transplant consultant, a physics teacher, a Biotech PhD student (Ok, I already knew this one- Nimi Vashi) and many more awesome people.
Later the food was served which was noodles and rice which made me jealous of the people in B'lore because my friend Aparna Lanka in B'lore told me that they had Italian.

All in all, it was a fun meet - the proof of which is the whatsapp group that we formed after the meet. We're called "Blogger Buddies" if anyone wants to know! :P

Facebook Profile Pic Vs Passport Photo

How Indians Shop!

There is perhaps, a unique tendency in us Indians to bargain with the economically weak business owners and spend delusionally on overpriced international products. 'Be Indian, Buy Indian' might be too much to ask for the modern generation but 'Be sensible and buy sensibly' might be something that we can think upon.

There are restaurant chains which claim exorbitant prices on their menu items and then there is the street vendor who might be using good quality ingredients but getting paid less. These international chains lure customers by offering a sense of achievement by giving discount coupons, loyalty points and cashbacks etc. when actually their product pricing is such that even discounting them cannot make them value-for-money. Take pizza places for instance, you go to a good Pizza restaurant and a hearty meal would cost you nothing less than Rs 700 for two people. Now compare this to a street pizza joint. There is a stall called 'Pizza On Wheels' on Munshi Ram Sethi Marg in Patel Nagar, New Delhi. Good pizzas, hygienic preparation, copious amount of cheese and a small double cheese pizza costs just Rs 60. Now, I am sure this pizza guy will soon close down due to lack of business as there is a Dominos a few blocks away.

I also see people bargaining for small grocery items and vegetables with the street vendors, trying to almost get the item for free; knowing that these people already have so less margin of profit. On the other hand, the same people would happily hand their cards to the shopping mall agents and big bar, restaurant owners so that they can overcharge them and fuel the capitalist setup. Need of the hour is not to uproot the big businesses or treat small business owners as handicapped but to judge the products objectively and get rid of the colonial hangover that anything used or purchased by the West is automatically superior. It is about time we grew up!

Websites like gopaisa.com are doing a great job in this regard by bringing such Indian retailers and products to the fore and offering them to the Indian customers along with offers of coupons and cashbacks that really seem good.

This post is a part of the Shop, only to Save More! Activity by GoPaisa.com in association with BlogAdda.com