Citizens of this country still remain baffled

Recently, the Maharashtra State elections results were declared and yet again the country’s ruling party- Congress- pulled off with the maximum number of votes. Ashok Chawan stays-on as Chief Minister (CM) of the State, asking Vilasrao Deshmukh and Rane, who had their eye firmly set on the chief ministerial position, to simply shut up.

A need for a CEO
The State of Maharashtra which occupies over 3,07,713 sq. km of land consists of 35 districts. Mumbai competently is the capital of the State, which maybe the smallest in terms of area occupancy, but it is the city with the highest earnings both in terms of knowledge & skills and production (not only within the state but within the country). More than 40% of tax generated in India is from its financial capital- Mumbai- and hence this city according to me needs that special administrative attention.

In addition to the Chief Minister, who is so busy serving other territories in the state, we also need a highly qualified and skilled chief executive officer, whose job is only to administer and manage the city of Mumbai, giving it that special attention it deserves. And we need to set this up fast to achieve our vision of becoming a Shanghai very soon in terms of infrastructure. However, talking about knowledge, competence and working style, India is the best and we don’t really need to be like anyone or compete with anyone …that’s for sure.

Our administration never learns from its past mistakes
Soon after the election result was revealed, there was a major accident that occurred at the Central train line and the whole city came to a standstill. The city’s rail network became paralysed and the over 6 million population of Mumbai who commutes by train daily, were seen on roads looking for other modes of transport to reach home. The huge masses that flocked on the streets actually got me nervous. The city looked like it was going to explode.

I believe the political system in India needs to seriously think of developing other states in the country to avoid concentration of people in one city or one state. Drawing an instance from Chennai which was called Madras at that time…..the infiltration of Chennai-iates inside Mumbai has drastically reduced after the massive development of Southern states such as Hyderabad and Bangalore today….we need to learn from this.

All in all, infrastructural development should be on top of the itinerary and in order to achieve this objective, we need responsible and accountable people…..we need people who crave for the welfare of the people and not hooligans you simply crave for power and more power.

Thanks for visiting my blog. Do write to me with your reactions, opinions or critical comments at simplymearl@live.com or leave your inputs in the comments tab below.

Before I sign out, as I always say take very good care of yourself and God Bless!

A cup of coffee brewed over my dead body

The lead title of my article is not a metaphor or a catchy one liner sentence to draw my reader’s attention. This is what actually quiet literally happens in the city of Taipei.

Let me explain this actually!! There is this funeral parlour in Taipei that has invested more than 1 crore in a plant to recycle the heat generated while cremating bodies. The heat that is generated from this funeral parlour is used to power air-conditioning of the waiting lounge and brew coffee for mourners waiting to collect the ashes of their deceased relatives. Wow!!! What a green initiative. Taipei truly is going the green way with results shown through implementation.

Imagine how a cup of expresso brewed over my dead body would taste like…hmmm…something to think about right.

An overdose of the go-green ideology
The educated…even more those working in companies which focus on bringing about the green revolution have already been overfed with the go green mantras which help the community, the city, the nation, the world, and the entire planet to grow to become a safe place to live in. However, I believe that simply feeding the literate with information and environment do’s-and-don’ts do not really solve any problem.

It simply becomes an information overload where content writers, authors and journalist make a quick buck with their report on the significantly glorified news.

Sharing an experience
Recently I attended a 1-day environment workshop which gave a low-down about the environment do’s-and-don’ts and about the immediate actions required for reduction of power consumption and proper disposal of waste which were the highlights of the workshop.

All said and done, the next immediate action taken was to separate the waste disposed off into organic, inorganic and paper waste. The action looked good, 3 huge garbage baskets were introduced and people were asked to dispose of waste depending on the type. Being a very inquisitive soul, I was hell bent to know whether the waste that is disposed-of from our premise, when collected by the community, is rightly disposed of in the same manner.

To my surprise, it was not the way I presumed or wanted it to be. The segregated waste from the premise was dumped in one common bin and then sent to the dumping ground.

This is how superficial we are. We do things simply to gain popularity or recognition. Infact I believe, we need to get down and showcase our results by looking at the entire supply chain and then make a report of our achievements based on the end result- a learning from the Taipei story is needed.

Before I sign out, as I always say take very good care of yourself and God Bless!

Accentuating those assets….

I came across this sensational article which talks about Bollywood’s top gear actor using bum bags to accentuate his butt, basically to make those assets look all rounded and attractive. It made me go Wow!!! Do you guys really need to get all padded-up to look good huh!! And listen, it’s not my fault that this news piece caught my attention. Perhaps, I must admit that this read was truly educating ;-). You see, I had never really heard of butt pads earlier and NOW I know.

Women always do it….infact she has to pamper herself to look and feel good. If she doesn’t, she is no woman. Likewise, when a man is overly concerned about his looks and appearance, we label him as a metro sexual or a heterosexual. How rude, isn’t it? Why do we differentiate huh!

Insure your booty
The ultimate rear side is given so much of thought and attention today. Look at actor and pop singer Jennifer Lopez who is so well known for her toned booty.

Recently, I also managed to get my hands on the ultimate butt programme which consists of some simple-to-do exercises prescribed by JLo herself. This prescription helps to get that ultimate hour-glass figure. Looking at the trend today, I think I need to now seriously follow it. Like I always say, I will start exercising on the 1st of next month and this time it will happen 100%;-)

But anyway, it’s better to get a naturally toned body than to use artificial padding’s, especially when temperatures are soaring in Mumbai….ahaan!!

Lastly remember, “Simplicity is the ultimate Sophistication”…so it is indeed better to accentuate your style rather than follow a trend set forth by others.

Thanks for visiting my blog. Do write to me with your reactions, opinions or critical comments at simplymearl@live.com or leave your inputs in the comments tab below.

Before I sign out, as I always say take very good care of yourself and God Bless!

Come lets fall in love…..

I was in Italy for about a week and I must say that it is a place in Europe that if given a chance everyone should visit. It is lively, sunny, and to say it in the words of the king of rock-and-roll Elvis Presley- Italy is a country you can sway back and forth and absolutely go day-dreaming. It retains its culture, religious sentiments, and traditional personification and at the same time, it also is a fun place with wines and pastas served all the way. All-in-all a beautiful place you can shake, ride and roll….

No. 13 is now my lucky charm

Was happy that it was a shiny sunny day when I arrived in Milan because I set aside the first two days to go places. I checked-in the hotel and was handed over access to the room on the 13th floor. There was a wave of flashbacks from the movies such as Friday the 13th, Exorcist, 13B, that spinned off my crazy mind and the next request I made was like, “Can you give me a room on any other floor please?”

A devil in disguise….the whole damn hotel was full and I had no other option but to stay on the creepy 13th floor. Yeah yeah….actually I don’t really believe is all these creepy stories about the number 13 but I still made sure I slept with a holy rosary chained right round by neck to avoid any kind of mishaps or even see any caspers. Must say that this indeed is the power of cinema ;-)))))

“I like calling him Leo”

I was like almost day-dreaming when I got this awesome opportunity to see the original piece of Leonardo Da Vinci’s painting of the “last supper” situated at Santa Maria Delle Grazia, Milan. Leonardo Da Vinci or as the beautiful Italian guide so closely addressed him as Leo, is someone who I only studied about in my schooling days. I had my jaw dropping, when I saw that huge original painting that Leonardo Da Vinci potrayed of the last supper which symbolizes Jesus Christ’s last supper with the 12 apostles – it was the last supper when Jesus told his disciples that one of them would betray him.

Mind-blowing is still a small expression to make you feel the way I felt at that point in time…wow!!!

Venice……can make you fall in love again and again

Venice is like ‘the heaven’ in Italy. The Piazza San Marco, also famously called the Saint Mark's Square or as the Piazetta is a huge meeting point for tourists. This encompasses the St. Marco historical church and Basilica, one can’t simply miss out on. When we went boating through the grand canal in Venice, the most amazing thing about it, is the way the historical buildings, churches and monuments are constructed and standing strong right across the canal on either sides. As the Italians say….Beau-de-full!

I attended the Sunday service at a local church. Although the whole service was preached in Italian, the format was the same like the Roman Catholic church….so it didn’t really make much of a difference.

Nothing without the foods & drinks and shopping

Being a hardcore foodie, I freaked out on the traditional and taste-bud enticing Italian food such as the pastas, spaghetti, pizza’s, cheese, olives, the brain stimulants such as the double expresso and the hot coffee and the different types of red and white wines. Diet….what diet are we talking about…..I never diet ;-)

My feminine instincts did fascinate me to shop a bit but I thing that’s okay once in a while….what say???

All in all was a fantastic trip, both work and play. Would not mind visiting Italy again, and tour Rome and Florence for sure.

Thanks for visiting my blog. Do write to me with your reactions, opinions or critical comments at simplymearl@live.com or leave your inputs in the comments tab below.

Before I sign out, as I always say take very good care of yourself and God Bless!

And as the Italians say “Chow”……….

Time for those mouth H2Oring sweets

The festival season is in the offing and before this year comes to an end, it is fiesta time for Indians living in India and across the whole wide world. The celebrations commences from this month with the festival of Lord Ganesha, Ganesh Chaturthi, celebrated with great fanfare and faith, across India. This is followed by the nine day festival, the Navratri, followed by the festival of lights, Diwali, and then to finish of with Christmas.

In India, especially in Mumbai, all these festivals are celebrated with zest and with deep faith in the almighty. Mumbai is a cosmopolitan city and no matter which faith or religion the person comes from, all festivities are celebrated with the same enthusiasm and fervor. That’s what makes Mumbai different from the rest of India!!

All these festivities also bring in loads of mouth watering home-made mithai (sweets) on the food platter…so its time to also sweeten your sweet-tooth. At the same time, making sure you increase your workout schedule so that you can keep tab on weighty issues arising due to over eating ;-)

All in all, an auspicious period…..assuring you good times!!!

The non-benefactors
It’s also that time of the year when animals and birds fret for their lives. They literally go in hibernation!! Ask me, because I have a pet cat (Spotty is her name) at home and she like goes missing for long extended hours of the day. Even right now while I am writing this article, she is glued onto the ground like a leech, hoping that all this was over and she gets back to the real world. The sound of crackers and gun shots is something birds and animals can never tolerate, since the sound that they hear is 3 times louder than the human ear transmits.

So a message to the pandal administrators & organizers is to be kind to animals and birds…..which can be done by celebrating these festivals with more lights and less crackers.

Wishing each one of you Happy Fiesta for now and for all those festivals soon to come!!!

Thanks for visiting my blog. Do write to me with your reactions, opinions or critical comments at simplymearl@live.com or leave your inputs in the comments tab below.

Before I sign out, as I always say take very good care of yourself and God Bless!

Swine’s now acquitted from charges of swine flu (H1N1)

Today’s Times brings out an interesting experiment carried out by the Health Ministry in India to check whether swine’s (pigs) in India are H1N1 virus infected…..and surprisingly all those 230 pigs sampled across India were tested negative. Look at the irony!

Yeah, I know that the disease originated from swine’s but why defame these sweet little pig heads in the first place. The poor things have always been outcasts!!

The blame game
The media has propagated the Swine flu like fire. Name it…and all newspapers, television channels, websites, magazines, etc. are spinning out information newsletters along with do’s and don’t on Swine flu. In addition, media does a fantastic job government-bashing, showcasing the government’s unpreparedness to tackle swine flu. The media is out there to make some quick bucks by criticising the government and the government keeps making promises they can never really fulfill. Eventually, nobody benefits….and the common man is left to die at the face of it.

Keeping the disease under control… is still a dogfight
Like I had mentioned it earlier….900 people in India have already been affected by swine flu until today and the number is increasing. The whole nation is going berserk with this news, leading to partial shut-down of schools, colleges, multiplexes, and other public places across India. Corporate India has not shut-down as yet but yeah…they show their so-called solidarity by distributing face masks to their employees or maybe cut down on travel to affected areas.

No-one has no idea about the legal distribution of the vaccine which is still in the testing phase. The whole world is waiting for this miracle vaccine to fight the harmful effects of H1N1 virus. I simply wish that very soon, medical experts who work so hard also find a remedy to life threatening killer diseases like AIDS and Cancer.

In India, over 20 million people are HIV positive…..but people refrain or are careless towards taking precautionary measures to prevent from contracting the virus….while simply ask them to wear a mask as a precaution to flu…..and the whole world is running helter-skelter to get one for themselves. An irony again!!!

Right, so remember to take first-hand precautions always….because "Prevention is better than cure.”

It’s been a while since I have written in my blog. Infact, this article is posted after a long gap of about 10 days and I’m not really very happy with this kind of delay. But yeah…I’ll try to keep up with this…without giving any more reasons of being busy.

Thanks for visiting my blog. Do write to me with your reactions, opinions or critical comments at simplymearl@live.com or leave your inputs in the comments tab below.

Before I sign out, as I always say take very good care of yourself and God Bless!

Come let’s dance…..

I have always been awed by people who can shake a leg with that level of ease and comfort…. and all that done so damn gracefully. Even more by those who can move their body like as if it is some sort of a spring-board or like it is made of some kind of elastic composition. Looking at them dance, I begin to ask myself a question of whether…these dancers have a different spine and bone framework unlike ours. They simply do it so simply!

Who can forget a Michael Jakcson, who introduced his signature dance move- the moon walk. MJ was so passionate about dancing that he wanted to be the first one to actually do the moon walking on the moon. But I believe, his health conditions did not permit him to fulfill his dream. It’s all about being passionate and loving what you do, that makes you successful.

Gracing up
Coming to think of dance styles that brings with it grace, poise, sensuality, and rhythm, it has to be the Latino dance style formats such as, merengue, salsa, hip-hop, jazz, cha-cha, rumba, tango, samba, paso doble…to name a few.

I happened to be a part of this annual dance Latino festival this year and got to see the different dance styles actually being spun-off live on stage. It was amazing to watch 13 different Latino dance technique presented one after the other. For me it was a bigger task, since it was not only the dance name that I had to memorise but I had to kind of understand and actually mug-up a piece of history and evolution of each dance method, to be able to compere the event (for a friend) with the same ease and comfort that the dance artists performed with.

All-in-all it was an amazing and an educating event set of with panache. Learning the rumba and the tango are on my agenda and I will make time very soon to boogie on these dance techniques.

Frankly, I can’t shake a leg to save my life….even if I was instigated by Gabbar cracking those oh-so-famous dialogues, “bohot yarana lagta hain,” “Jab tak tere pair chalenge iski saans chalegi,” (pun intended)…I just can’t dance!!

A sort of self expression and recreation
Dance is all about recreation and self-expression. Besides fun and entertainment, dancing has some real useful health benefits to go with it. It is indeed a way to stay fit for people of all ages, shapes and sizes. Moreover, it can improve your muscle tone, strength, endurance, and fitness all the way.

So remember to always keep it shaken and stirred!!!

Thanks for visiting my blog. Do write to me with your reactions, opinions or critical comments at simplymearl@live.com or leave your inputs in the comments tab below.

Before I sign out, as I always say take very good care of yourself and God Bless!