The TimePass of India

I bought a 29 inch Sony Wega last week…Its a small step for any other man but its a giant leap for Arshat! You see, I was using Onida (21 inches, 1990 model) to keep my visual cortex busy. But the only “colour” tht my Onida showed was Green!! Btw, whats with Onida? I mean showing people throwing their TVs out of the balcony?? Wht happened to good old conventional advertising? According to Onida, the marketing campaign worked for them(thanks to ppl like me).

As a kid I wanted to see my neighbours turn green…However as time passed, the only thing tht turned green was my TV screen…

After 17 yrs of a loving relationship, which recently had turned sour(or shud I say - Green ;)) , I filed for divorce.

Size mattered the last time I checked, so I went for 29 inches. It was a toss betn LG and Sony, family members wanted a Sony…So, Sony it was…

There is an Old saying in arabic … “Walah! agar life tumko petroleum deti….toh petrol banati…” which crudely translated means - “When life gives you lemons make lemonade”. So when life gave me a 29 inch Sony wega…I decided to make a home theatre…So, bought a Tata Sky. Believe me mate, its amazing…! Isko laga dala toh life zingalala!

SONY like.no.other

You guys must be wondering were the heck was I…Actually I know, some of you must be rejoicing tht you might not have to read the junk tht I dish out every few days…But rejoice no more! I am back! *Evil Grin*

My Family deserved a Holiday but for the lack of casual leave, we had to go with a sasta and tikaao option. I like the Sun n Sand (no, not the hotel, cant afford it).I mean I like beaches…The beaches we considered were Alibaug, Mandwa, Kihim and Murud.

We had been to Alibaug once…While Mandwa and Kihim were booked…Infact, every time I called a hotel in one of these beaches to check for booking they gave me a - dont you know we are always full on weekends - snarl!

Speaking in Konkani did not help…As it turned out most of the Hotels were owned by Southies. Btw, I dont know Konkani per se…But speaking Konkani is damn easy, just replace “ra” in marathi by “la” and you ll be just fine.

I got fedup of calling Hotels and made a call tht I should have made long ago. You guessed it right! The call to my Travel Agent. He got me a room at Shoreline Resort,Murud.

How to reach there: (Yeah,its gonna be like one of those travel shows). Simple! Take a ST (State transport) from Mumbai(Stops at Mulund,Borivali,Thane,Panvel)
to Murud.

Actually, its slightly more complex…Take a ST, start feeling sick, throw up at Panvel, jump down the bus at Alibaug, pay a rickshaw an exorbitant sum, get down at Murud, count your bones(there are 206 of them), get inside the resort.

Where to stay: I stayed at Shoreline resorts. Try to get a room at Golden Swan (previously owned by MTDC). Its probably the best resort in Murud. Btw, if you are at shoreline, dont mis the view from the Terrace of the Hotel, its amazing. We spent a lot of time there.

What to eat: FOOD! hahaha…er..sorry.
A lot of choice for the non-veg guys, if your preference is veg(like mine), well, bring your tiffin along. Note tht Shoreline is the only Pure veg. hotel in the vicinity.

What’s good: The view is to die for, esp. if you rent a room on the 3rd floor. Also, the beach is not crowded. If you hate crowds, which you should if you are a true Mumbaite, this place is heaven. Its almost like a private beach.

What’s not: The beach!!…I m sure you didnt see tht coming. The problem is tht there are large traces of Oil in the sea water. While it may not sound very threating to people who swim at Juhu beach, its not exactly what you have in mind for Murud.
A little research led us into believing tht ONGC had a petroleum extraction plant nearby which was the cause for all this oil.
If beach is what you want, you should visit Ganpatipule. Its probably the best in Maharashtra.

Note:
1.Pls visit Kashid beach (approx 15 km frm murud). Its beautiful.
2.It would be really smart if you could get your own vehicle.
3.Dont care about Petrol, you can fill in the sea water, your vehicle would run just fine!

Btw,the cancerian in me urged me to swim! And I did swim! We found this patch which was far from the main beach, but the water here was really clean. It started to rain while I was swimming. It was amazing. Those fifteen mins made the entire trip worth it.

…Now only if we could take better care of what nature blessed us with.

Murud

But this post is not about who topped the exam,you will find thousands of posts on tht topic.This post is an analysis of the exam….its actually an analysis of the performance of Mumbai students.

All my life I have heard stories about how my cousins studing in ICSE or CBSE had access to better education.I have read umpteen articles on why the state HSC is no good.

I have heard aunties discuss how brilliant their CBSE and ICSE educated children were and how much better were these boards than the Maharashtra State board.Maybe ICSE and CBSE are better or maybe they are not.The world will always remain divided on these issues.But I found it weird tht the argument tht they put forward to support their statement was tht students from Maharashtra dont make it to the IITs and this is because of the lousy education std of Maharashtra.This was partly true!
During my time(makes me sound old. But I am just 21) only 150 students from Maharashtra made it to the IITs. Out of these 50 were from Mumbai.Too less for a city like mumbai. We had all the riches, all the facilities, still we couldnt make it. The media projected us as spoilt brats who didnt have the perseverence tht is required to get into the IITs. All this inspite of the fact tht the IIMs have a large number of Mumbai students. A high score in CAT requires a lot of hard-work too,doesnt it?.

But the media dishes out what people wanna see/read.There were many readers who seemed to agree with the media.Many of these readers were Mumbaikars(who had completed their education from outside the state). These were the people who made it to mumbai from small towns. They considered it cool to bash the Maharashtra education system.They opined tht the students in Mumbai were spineless. They didnt have the guts to take on the best in the country….

I always predicted tht we will kick ass the day CET type entrance exams take place in Maharashtra. A sense of frustation gripped me nobody understood this simple logic.

You see, we have been bred on subjective exams.In fact we used to get admissions into engg after scoring a high percentage in PCM.(Your blogger had a score of 95%.)
It becomes very difficult to study for both Objective(JEE) and subjective exams(XII).The result-fewer qualifiers.But now things have changed…..

Since now we have CET based entrance,students find it easier to devote attention to Objective type studies. Out of the 45000 who appeared for the exam from Mumbai division, a whopping 2600 have qualified. Kicked some serious butt,didnt we?

Mumbai topper-Harsh Pareek has AIR 8. Also, All India girl topper is from Mumbai.

Thanks Harsh & co. You guys made us proud. Now I wanna hear what the media has to say!

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Btw, it rained tonight. We had a power cut for 2 hrs. I dont understand, why does it happen always? Hasnt MSEB heard about the thing called rain? If the power cut is inevitable why dont we have a power cut everytime it rains?

Its raining cats and dogs as I write this post. Infact there are so many cats and dogs fallen on my car tht I had to remove them using a shovel…er…bad joke!

IIT JEE - Mumbai tops!