Law of the Garbage Truck

The morning had already begun by witnessing a brawl between two passengers, while commuting in the local train in my homtown, Mumbai. Rather than such quarrels occuring on day-basis, I would say these quarrels occur on an hourly-basis or maybe even less than that. At every step, every life you encounter with in Mumbai would be running to earn his bread-n-butter (job)...

Post an hour of travel to workplace, I came across a lovely mail and it very well echoed what I witnessed in the morning and what should be done to make this world a beautiful place to live in.. 

The mail is called as Law of the Garbage truck and it goes like this

"One day I hopped in a taxi and we took off for the airport. We were driving in the right lane when suddenly a black car jumped out of a parking space right in front of us. My taxi driver slammed on his brakes, skidded, and missed the other car by just inches! 

The driver of the other car whipped his head around and started yelling at us. My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy. And I mean, he was really friendly. So I asked, 'Why did you just do that? This guy almost ruined your car and sent us to the hospital!' This is when my taxi driver taught me what I now call, 'The Law of the Garbage Truck.' 

He explained that many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full offrustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it and sometimes they'll dump it on you. Don't take it personally, just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. Don't take their garbage and spread it to other people at work, at home, or on the streets. 

The bottom line is that successful people do not let garbage trucks take over their day. Life's too short to wake up in the morning with regrets, so...Love the people who treat you right. Pray for the ones who don't. 

Life is ten percent what you make it and ninety percent how you take it! Have a blessed, garbage-free day! " 

Wouldn't be it wonderful if everyone adopts this law in each ones life ?? We will just put behind all the differences and make this world a better place to live in ...

 

BRTS Mumbai

BRTS cannot succeed in Mumbai unless authorities take huge efforts

Introduction:

BRTS (Bus Rapid Transit System) was started by Best in Mumbai by introducing Long buses with cushion seats, conditioners that keep you cool in the hottest weather outside and running right across from Backbay (South Mumbai) to Dahisar (North Mumbai) - from one end to other end of the city. Pricing is pretty comfortable for an air - conditioned bus at Rs. 65 from Backbay to Dahisar (check the BEST website which says 55 but the conductors charge 65). The minimum charges are Rs. 10.  

The bus is deputed in the mornings and the evenings from Monday to Saturday - targeted at the car owner who uses his / her vehicle to travel to work. 

Practical Problems: 

The absence of a dedicated lane for the Long bus (which is seemingly impossible in Mumbai or in any city in India) makes the travel a long 3 hrs from Backbay to Dahisar - the time in which you can reach Pune, thanks to the expressway. But in Mumbai, if you are returning from work - 3 hours, trust me, tend to be extremely long. BEST estimates a time limit of 2 hours which can still be long. The other alternative, the bone-crushing travel in the local train which is faster at 1 hour but totally strains you out - Air condition is out of question but getting a place would also be difficult in the local train. 

Epilogue:

The fact that it takes more than double the time to travel between the same places, the travel being extremely relaxing with those super efficient suspensions but in this world where people are always short of time, the pleasing environment inside the bus might not help lure mass Mumbaikars.  

Rock On - The bollywood movie

The Bollywood movie "Rock On" rocks.. a must see !!

It was a hectic week in office, and I was already dreaming of going back to a good sleep. My friends suddenly came up with this plan to go for this movie.. that too a late night show.. phew !! I could not imagine what I could have missed I had not joined them on this show.. !!

This movie simply goes by its Title - it simply rocks.. Based on a group of guys who had a band (a rock band) out of sheer passion and had even won a Channel V contest to bag a cool music album sponsorship... what happens next ? I would like to leave that for the time when you yourself would see it in the cinema hall...

Finally, a great story directed very well... Shankar ehsaan loy has yet again given good numbers suiting to the film.. Lyrics could have been better but who listens to lyrics in rock songs.. !! oh did I hear that you dont like rock music ?? But chill .. even I dont like it still now .. but i love those numbers in Rock On.. those are simply awesome...

A story with love, friendship emotions and yes of course the rock music all mixed very well to create a masterpiece

I would simply give a "MUST SEE" rating to it..

10 Tips to attract traffic to your blog/website

It’s always an aim of any blogger to increase his blog traffic day by day. I started my blog about 18 months back and have followed some great tips to try and make it known in the internet world. Follow some of the tips mentioned below to anticipate an increase in traffic which I am using or have used..

1. Visualize yourself to be the audience of your blog/site and anticipate what readers would get from spending time on your site. Is it useful enough for them? Will you be able to provide the right information the readers are looking for?

2. Include many references, links in the article to make it more robust and ensure that the article is not too verbose – People nowadays don’t like to spend more time on a single site. They want information quick and in an assorted manner

3. Include links for ‘Related posts’ for the article on your blog to ensure some people who would like to read more about that topic navigate to your other posts – thus increasing retention

4. After you have created the post you think will ‘rock’ spread the word. Participate in forums related to the article with including a link to your blog. Submit your articles to popular article databases like ezinearticles.com, articledashboard.com etc.

5. Answer questions in popular sites like answers.com related to your topic and of course include your URL, submit your URL to popular aggregators like bloglines.com etc

6. Submit your site to the mother of all search engines – Google – Many surfers would have their way through Google, and your site being found there is always an advantage – If your site is popular then Google will automatically index the site, but if not visit the URL à http://www.google.com/addurl/

7. Create custom and attractive feeds for those who subscribe your feed with the help of sites like feedburner.com

8. Place labels of other content on your blog for allowing people to know about the other content, place comment boxes & polls on your blog to get feedback from your readers

9. Enable swift registration of your subscribers by placing subscribe boxes on your blog

10. Register for Statistics at any site providing those services for your blog. I would personally recommend Google Analytics to constantly monitor the traffic and preferences of the audience. Judge which is the ‘hot’ topic is and try to improve the topic to ensure reader retention!!

11. Earn Online by installing advertisements on your site to monetize your site – to which I would recommend Google Adsense – the audience generally lands your page in search of information and if they don’t find it, they would rather navigate to another page by clicking on a prominent ad on your page ensuring some money earned for yourself

India at 60

Is this what India dreamt of, after 60 years independence, did we achieve what we dreamt of?

India was centuries ago known as the ‘Golden Bird’ and consequently knowing this the whole world ran towards the country trying to grab a share of the pie. Starting from the Mughals to the Britishers, they had it all and what was left for the people here could be only imagined. What was built by Mughals was destroyed by Britishers and memoirs like the famous ‘Kohinoor’ was shipped off to the place where the Queen lived!! India was always exploited in the hands of rulers who are famous now. After ruling & exploiting the country for nearly 180 years the Britishers with their common strong strategy of ‘Divide and rule’ divided the land in what is today known as India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

It has been 61 years since we gained Independence and have established ourselves as the largest democracy in the world, the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, and a close friend of Lord Mountbatten, the then Viceroy of Indian territory had said “When the whole world will be asleep on August 15th 1947, India will awaken to a new world to have a tryst with destiny…” Since then the country has a come long way in terms of Politics, Development, Industry and nearly every field we might talk about. As long as one stays in India, it would be always great to see India achieving something new and advanced. My visit to another developing country gave me the advantage to look at the comparisons for our country. Its only when you compare that you find the shortcomings in the nation’s prosperity.

Apart from comparison, some incidents always hinder my mind questioning the prosperity of the country and will it ever change.
1. A young boy is studying for his final school exams, in a candle light, because his village in rural Maharashtra faces a minimum 12 hour power outage for a simple reason – there is not enough power produced – The state faces an acute shortage of power because the power supply has remained stagnant over decades while the power demand has increased proportionally. Who fails to anticipate the demand and ensure the supply is increased??

2. A family is homeless in a hamlet in Orissa due to floods – I do agree this is a natural calamity, but should it then happen every year. Last year people were homeless in Bihar and it floods every year but does that mean we put it on natural calamity and keep quite?

3. Back in Mumbai’s suburban station, Goregaon, is full of people wanting to catch the next train to town. A person is valiantly trying to get into the already overcrowded train. Finally after the 4th attempt he has to wait for the next train. Poor, does he know the next train might be worse - I certainly agree that population has exploded in the last decade in Mumbai but does that mean we still have to use the same local train network that was built at the time of the once ruled India !! Couldn’t have we built another network supporting the current local train?

4. Metro rail which started work almost now 3 years back is still no where!! Will it be ever ready by its target date?? – I would attribute this to the intense politics and the inefficient processes in place

5. A truck driver is found with 8 driving licenses (yes you read it right.. 8) Every time he was being caught for offence and his license confiscated, the driver would simply use his other licenses – Now I am lost, I have no reasons for this other than a sloppy process in place

6. A political party is always on the neck of the ruling government threatening to withdraw support in the reason that the government would sign on a Nuclear deal with the US (which supposedly would solve the electricity problems being faced) - I really don’t know who’s correct but atleast reaching to some consensus which would be beneficial to the masses should be done

Of course, there are reasons for everything.. But what matters would be the passion in the people (by the people and for the people) to make it a better place to live..

Obvious, it will be continued…
Disclaimer: The blog include the opinions of the author and does not intend to or relate to any individual. The author does not intend to hurt any religious or political sentiments