Viana - 30 , Papa - 19

 #Uno Scorecard: Viana - 30 , Papa - 19 (Yep, seems i will never get past her!🙄). Yesterday we played 5 games and she won 2 and I won 3 (All baked in the overall score above) so she was upset..

Me: But you are 30 games to my 19, 11 games lead, so be happy!!

Viana: So what.. that was before today.. today you won more than me and when we started today I was 28 and now instead of 33 i am at 30!

After trying to explain her again to enjoy the game and look at long term, what she said had a learning for me.

Learning: - Don't look at past profit/progress as profit/progress. The profit/progress becomes new capital base/norm. So your last (L)earning is just the new base. If u look at it as profit/progress, you may get complacent by thinking pehle ka profit/progress hai so am still doing fine if i don't (L)earn for a while.

Be it wealth or experience, it has to be built upon continuously.

Link to original post: LinkedIn

UNO Chronicles

 ..to continue the #UnoChronicles .. So I, Viana (5yo) and her mom were playing another game of #Uno .

Me: Uno!

Viana (with a lot of determination) : Take that.. and that...and this ( she dropped a series of draw 4s and 2s in next few rounds and actually won first so it was me and her mom fighting out now)

(Next thing she does - comes next to me and cuddles up)

V: Let me help you beat Mom!

Me: What's the point now, when i was about to win you bombed me!

V: But that was because I was in the game and I had to do it to win... I gave you so many cards so now I'll help you get rid of those and win...


Learning 1 - When you gotta be professional you gotta be professional but its very important to switch your hats once the task/goal is accomplished.

Learning 2 - Don't judge your opponent/peer based on their actions while in the game (or at work)... Look at the hat they are wearing and judge the hat and not the individual.

Celebrate every win! However big or small!

 ...so it seems I will never get any better at #Uno 🙄 The scoreboard says it all! But I observed something very interesting. Everytime Viana (5 yo) won a game, she updated the scoreboard and did a victory lap around the house showing everyone that she had won a game. So that's 17 Victory Laps so far!

Lesson 1: Celebrate every win! However big or small.

It doesn't end there. After the first few games she lost (ya she was upset so I pulled out the "enjoy the game and not the wins" message as usual) she did something more interesting! Every time she updated my win, she did another round to show the score to everyone. Not with the same wide smile but nevertheless she went around telling everyone "Papa won this one but i am still ahead"

Lesson 2: Take a note of your opponents' victories and be aware that you have lost (talking and accepting losses as imp as celebrating wins?), but also be aware that you have lost just this round but are or will be ahead in the overall game with enough time, skills and efforts..

Draw 4

 Have you ever played UNO? Most of you probably have.. how do you react when your opponent drops a Draw 4 card on you? Annoying right?

But whenever I play with my 5 y.o. daughter, she gets ecstatic when i drop a Draw 4 on her! Why? Coz when she gets to draw 4 cards, she looks at it as an opportunity to get more magical cards, as she calls them (draw 4, draw 2, skip, reverse, wildcard)!!

Superb learning, that we often look at an adverse event as annoying whereas a kid looks at it as an opportunity! And quite often even after dropping the Draw 4s I end up on the losing side coz she makes the most of the 4 cards she drew...

Let's embrace the Draw 4s coming our way - perhaps we will end up with better cards that help us in the longer run..

Chronicles of a forced bachelor...

... so mom's gone out for a long pilgrimage and wife's gone for a while as well.. so here i am back to bachelor life.. just a couple of weeks in it though with many more weeks to go before it changes back to normalcy.. before i get into the couple of weeks thing ( had its good and bad moments, saving it for another blog though), penning down events as they occurred in last 24 horrendous (exaggerated though) hours....

So its 1pm on Aug 31st Sunday.. our maid has happily gone on a long leave since a week so the home's in a mess.. i target tidying up 1 room a day so start working on the living room and balcony today.. putting things in right places and clearing up the room... not having a maid is a biiiiiig challenge as we all know and maids hold more importance than even our family members at times... its ok if the son/daughter is not home till wee hours but if the maid doesnt show up within +/- 30mins of her scheduled time of visit it is chaos in any home.. so i have been trying my luck to get my neighbors to send in theirs for a day atleast once a week to mop up the floors atleast... somehow asking someone for a maid is like some goon is asking for your daughter's hand... the privileged (the one who has a maid) will give you the looks and assess you carefully to decide if they should share the maid with you.. what if you just poached her or offered her a higher pay and she walks out on them for good.. anyways, so somehow i convince the neighbors to send over their maid and they agree... after several "promises" the maid doesn't show up and come today (Aug 31st) i also realized that i haven't used the washing machine for a few days and have run out of clothes to wear!! So after am done tidying up the living room, i put some clothes in the machine and I see that i am not gonna utilize the machine's capacity adequately so i pull out all sorts of stuff and put it in the machine and start it (very proudly as i feel i have just done a smart thing of getting some bed sheets also washed) and behold! - The machine refuses to start washing and displays an error that indicates that the door open!! So i bang the door in every angle and degree of intensity to see if it works and after about 15 mins of trying i finally give up.. then it strikes me that i have been procrastinating on the washing which has now resulted in me not having much to wear for the week starting Monday! So i raise a ticket with my washing machine company (wondering how will i be able to attend to the technician if i go to work from Monday) and in the mean while again start maid hunting, now not just for mopping the floor and washing utensils, but also to wash my laundry - which included bed sheets that i proudly/foolishly put in.. somehow i get an assurance that one maid will come at 8am the next day and i should be ready to receive her (yes, receive, as in receiving a celebrity)... So Sunday evening i have enough problems in hand already and i go to sleep hoping Monday will be a better day (let me omit the bit about food related issues and other misc challenges.. will save it for a blog another day..)

Monday morning (Sep 1st) i wake up at 7.30am as i had set up the alarm to wake me up in anticipation of receiving the "bai".. its 9am and there are no signs of the maid (again!!) and so i call her up and get to know she would be on leave on account of rains! So here i am on my last pair of clothes which meant probably in the evening i would have to just give up on maid hunting and get into it myself - sweeping the floor, mopping it up, dusting the furniture, washing utensils, washing clothes... and am sure some more unexpected chores.. So its time to put the thought behind and rush for work as i have an important personal event to attend to in evening for which i have to leave from work early.. so i rush to my car and open the door and just before i step in, i notice a small flower lying down on the floor mat near the clutch! so i bend down to pick it up wondering how did it land up there and whoa!!!! I discover 3 tiny mouse pups laid on some sponge (eaten from my car somewhere obviously), probably born overnight in the car (as i had driven it at 11pm the previous night and it wasn't quite a maternity home then!). I was just too awestruck to decide what to do and it took me a few mins just to figure out what to do.. i could not lay the pups out in the rain as that would be too cruel so i carefully lifted the carpet and dropped the mouse pups in a safe place, hoping they would survive somehow and their mum would find them and take them to a safer place... with that, i go back to the car and try starting it... now the mice and my car go a long way.. its a routine for me to find that the mice have either cut my wires that start the ignition or the water hose which sprays water on the wind shield.. just a week back they had nibbled on the water hose (they do so when they are thirsty and dont find a place to drink i guess) and this time they even nibbled on my car's ignition wires! Now don't know if its thinking too much or probably the mother mouse and nature's way of protecting the new born... first i find a small flower on the floor mat which ensures i don't step in the car directly without noticing the pups, then the fact that they are laid on a mat on the car floor due to which i could just move them to another place.. and then the mouse nibbling on the wires as of to ensure i do not start the car and take it away (no mum would want the maternity ward just moved away i guess!). To top it off, i try calling the mechanic and he is not reachable as well.. so i have no option but to take a rick to work... now if you stay in Mumbai, you know hitting a lottery has a higher probability then getting a rick to the place you want to go to.. so I face rejections after rejections from rick-wallas and i walk nearly 2 kms in rains in search of a savior.. finally after umpteen rejections i decide its not my day and walk back home thinking of taking the day off from work instead of facing more challenges... just then near home I flag down an autowallah just going thru the motions and voila! i do find my savior.. just got into the auto and just to clear off my mind thought of penning this down and so came this impromptu, unstructured blog post (blogged after a year again).. This one is more like an outlet for my woes so might not be that enticing a read.. but then if you read up-til this line then guess it wasn't that bad... reached office after a bumpy auto ride so calling it a day on this one! Until next time.. if i come up with chronicles of a forced bachelor part 2.. 

Drive to Mahableshwar - Travelogue

Before I begin, I must put in a few disclaimers and warnings. First things first, I'm not a very good writer. Furthermore, much of what we experienced on this trip cannot be recreated through words as weak as mine; neither will our photographs do justice to those memories. Coming to the pics, we had a simple camera, besides our modest cellphones. It is therefore likely that you will find my effort very amateur.

So after the drive to Saputara & Goa from Mumbai, it was time to plan another trip albeit a short one within the state of Maharashtra... It was wifey dearest’s birthday and i decided to drive her down to the beautiful & misty Mahableshwar. Before i delve further, here are some facts/stats:

Start Date:- Sept 6th, 2013                                              Return:- Sept 9th, 2013

Distance in Kms (Mum-Mahableshwar):- approx 250Kms    Total Kms Driven:- 760Kms

Route taken:-  NH4                                                         Start Time:- About 6am

Time to reach:- About 5hrs 30mins                                    Vehicle:- Grande Punto 1.2

Day 1:-
We planned to leave early morning around 6am on Friday, 6th Dec to beat the morning traffic in Mumbai. On the D-day we were all but 22mins late when i cranked up the car engine. 

There were 2 ways to reach Mahableshwar from Mumbai suburbs... the shorter distance (but longer travel time due to narrow road) is via the Mumbai-Goa highway and the quicker (but longer distance) NH4 which is what we took as we had explored the Mumbai-Goa highway for our trip to Goa earlier this year... 

As usual i loaded up my pen drive with the latest bollywood chartbusters prior to the trip but started off the trip with my latest fav english number - Diamonds, by Rihanna....

  

 Its always good to drive on less populated mumbai roads and the early morning drivr thru the city was peaceful with a good view of the sun spring up....

...soon we were on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway which is the only place near Mumbai where you can actually step on the gas and coast at high speeds.. altough have done 170 regularlyin my modest Italian hatchback beauty, managed to hit over 160 more than a couple of times on the straights....

...and if you are on the E-way, tunnels are never too far... as a matter of fact there are quite a few tunnels on the NH4 even post the express way...

... well the weather was good, so was the light and wifey thought she might as well click a snap of your truly...

On the way we took a couple of breaks.. one post the Khalapur toll plaza for a quick chai with wada pav and later after crossing Pune.. In all there were 3 toll plazas on the way - Vashi, Eway & one post Pune... To our dismay there also is a tax one needs to pay to enter Mahableshwar [valid for 7 days] for he vehicle as well as tourists and whats more annoying is that altough you cross Panchgini on your way up, if you are coming down from Mahableshwar back to Panchgini, there is yet another silly tax that needs to be paid....

Well brushing aside the disappointment, we drove towards our Hotel which was near Wilson Point and gave a magnificiant view from the Hotel premises (as seen below)...

... we checked in and got fresh and decided to explore a bit... We drove back down towards a few points we were told could be covered quickly.. On the way we first took a halt at the serene Venna Lake which also has a boating ride for few bucks but the only downside is that they are oared by the staff and you do not get to oar on away on your own...

... here you will also find a small market of sorts with some food stalls and horsewallahs trying to woo you to take a ride on their magnificent beasts...

Driving a bit further we suddenly noticed a beautiful rainbow in the sky etched post a mild drizzle. Being September it was nearing end of Monsoon and there were no heavy showers but just light drizzles and heavy mist in the evening and even in he afternoon at times...

... next halt was Parsi Point which gave another enthralling view of the valley...

Going down a bit further we came to Syndey Point.. Nothing so great about it but yet a nice view with the famous Table Land in the backdrop as seen in the snap below... we went to table land next but did not click any snaps.. it is the second largest table land they say and good enough to land aircrafts.. 

.... next we went to a place which has 2 points adjacent to each other - Lodwick point & Elephant Head Point... You will see lots of waterfalls thru out this hill station and once such was visible from the base of these points... from the base its 1km walk to the 2 points... Snaps of these posted below (you will know why Elephant Head if you look carefully)

.. in the evening we decided to explore the Mahableshwar main market (unfortunately no snaps). The market has loads and loads of shops and is fairly crowded. Shops range from eateries to icecream parlours (yes no matter how cold it is, people are enjoying icecreams all the time as this place is known for awesome srawberries and hence stawberry icecreams), mementos and quite a lot of gambling shops which mainly host slot machines and a couple of dice/ball games. The gambler in me got enticed and we ensured we splurged a few hundred bucks before my wife had to drag me out of the place...

Day 2:-

So we thought of visiting the famos Pratapgad which is roughly 30kms away but on a looooong ad winding road which has a lot of ups and downs. I was warned by many to be careful as the roads are pretty tricky on a few turns... So we started and reached at the base of the fort in about an hour. The information board at the base boasted of over 2 dozen points which the guides there tried selling us but we decided to pass the help... The fort has about 500 footsteps leading to the top. The climb was a bit tiring but what was disappointing is that the fort has not been kept well and completely commercialized with food stalls all over it and somehow it seemed more like a abandoned mill than a fort. Reaching the top we found there was nothing but a statue of Shivaji on his horse and nothing much to look at... Dejected we came down tired losing out the better part of the day.. However the drive to and from the Fort was interesting and we halted a couple of times to soak in the atmosphere at a couple of places..

The evening again was spent roaming in the market and gambling...

Day 3:-

We were told most of the points would be deserted due to monsoons and frankly these points have nothing new to see as most of them are similar... so the next place that sounded interesting was a place called Mini Kashmir [Tapola].. Again this was a good 20 kms away so it was a long drive of sorts given that the roads arent very broad.. On the way to Tapola we saw a road sign to a Babington Point and we thought we might as well check it out, but again to our dismay, there was absolutely nothing that could explain what this place was and what was so special about it...

Eventually we reached Tapola where we see the River Koyna flowing. There was water sports of sorts by way of speedboat rides which took you for a ride and well as for some extra bucks took you to a couple of points via the waterways... we opted to just take a quick ride on the speed boat..

Conspicuously we could see a lot of bats around and like you see in the next snap, the trees were full of bats hanging upside down as they usually do..

On the way back we spotted some peahens [guess thats what we call the better half of peacocks] but they scampered away before we could pull out our camera... going further down came one of the most astonishing sights of the trip at what is called Shiv Sagar Point.. A steep and huge valley with the Koyna flowing thru it was a breathtaking view perhaps this snap may not do justice to....

On reaching down to the main market area we found the Rajdhani Express somewhat derailed and moving on 4 wheels..

Next we thought we would visit Mapro garden in Pachgini which is famous for its products and its garden. However since this was the season when Stawberries grow there wasnt much to see in the garden. Another thing that Mapro here is famous for is the food... The pizzas and sandwiches here def make you forget the Dominoes and Pizza Huts...

So we had our feast and moved towards the hotel to retire for the day and we spotted a roadsign to Lingmala Falls.. we decided to give it a quick dekko and parked the car at the base. This one too had considerable stairs that were to be climbed up and down to reach the actual point.Somehow we ambled thru those but by the time we reached there it was evening and the mist had set in big time. There was this huge deafening sound of water falling hundreds of meters and splashing on to rocks but we could not see thru the mist... we patiently waited for the mist to clear a bit but we werent in luck and left the place with just the sounds of what might me an enthralling sight [maybe next time...]

We finally called it a day and returned back to our Hotel...

Day 4:-

This was basically the day we returned so we checked out in the morning and since Wilson point (Sun rise point) was practically next to our hotel we decided to have a quick glance at it on the way... Once again a short drive thru a narrow road and we arrived at Wilson point where we were greeted by a nice little... well cant call it little , but a nice big Ostrich! The poor bird seemed to be in a poor state and to our amusement it took an instant liking to our car and stayed next to it pecking at it till the time we left from the place...

and it seems there were a few langoors to give it company....

We decided to have the Brunch again at Mapro...

Further down towards Panchgini we came across a point called Bhillar falls...

Finally further down we came across our last attraction in Panchgini called Harrison's Folly which like its peers looked down on a fantastic view and we finally decided to take a horse ride to ride out the vacation on a high...

Its All In Black & White Here!!..... Contemplated Trading The White Fuel Guzzling Beauty For The Black Eco Friendly Beast! - But The Ghodawala Let The Offer Pass! :|

Towards the highway there was a flurry of sugarcane fields..

Finally we made our way back to be greeted by Lord Ganesha who was being welcomed for the Ganesh Chaturthi commencing on the day...

And Finally Finally.... End Of 4D-3N 760 KMs Trip

.... and that friends is the end of a lame attempt to write my first travelogue... hope atleast some of you who started it reached thru it to read this :)... To sum it up, Mahableshwar is a beautiful place but the right time to go is when the monsoons are just ending to stay away from the peak season crowds and enjoy nature at liesure.. its a must goto place if you reside in Maharashtra for its scenic beauty and cool & Misty weather...