Urban Thrilling Adventure Walks

I'm going to start Urban Thrilling Adventure Walk workshops for foreign tourists It is an idea whose time has come!
Based out of Pune city in India, the itinerary will include exciting events such as how to cross Fergusson college road at 5 pm, negotiate traffic signal chowks in the early mornings, walking along the narrow peth lanes without harming a hair (of your own self!) and so on. Advanced levels will include survival and negotiation skills such as actually managing to hire an auto rickshaw that is ready to take you where you wish to go, how to climb on a public transport bus, etc. 

Might add more brilliant ideas to this list later :D 

Let's Celebrate Lurkers' Day

How about celebrating Facebook Lurkers' Day? On that day nobody will post anything anywhere on Facebook. Everyone will only lurk on other friends' fb pages and groups. In this day and age of social media, a Lurkers Day is so apt. Celebration will be online and worldwide. The idea is to create awareness about the existence of the poor silent souls known as Lurkers.

This day the vociferous, the narcissistic, the vocal amongst us who keep clattering away at the keyboard, shall refrain from posting our witty remarks and high quality images, and experience the feelings of our friends who lurk. We shall experience their feelings of lurk and weightlessness as we silently float in cyberspace along walls, on the edge of groups, occasionally stumbling on the mass of words and sharp image corners. Traveling along our friends' timelines, we shall silently absorb facts about our friends' history, geography, political leanings, sleeping hours, the smarmy images they share, and what they do for fun.

How will we know that people lurked? Well, nobody will post anything. And since no one can stay away from facebook for even an hour, they will have no option but to lurk!

This idea can be expanded to organize Blog Lurkers' Day, Yahoogroups Lurkers' Day and so on.

Mud pack delivery?

Couldn't resist clicking this. The juxtaposition of these two elements made my morning. 

Sugar or Chini?

I'm always on the lookout for new restaurants and udipi cafes where one can sit for a long time undisturbed over a cup of coffee and vada sambar.  

Scene 1. Ah. A new joint. I enter, sit at a table and ask for coffee. The waiter nods. The resultant drink is the restaurant's standard coffee. It is way too sweet for my taste.

Scene 2. Same cafe. This time with a friend. Friend tells him to get two coffees. "Sugarless" she says, in rich plummy tones. The fellow nods his head. The coffee arrives, steaming. And sweet. Aaargh.

Scene 3. Same joint. Ok, it's on my way and convenient. I ask for coffee. Waiter nods. Then in a fit of epiphany I ask him, "Which language do you understand? Hindi,  English?" in each of the languages. Turns out he is from the rural areas of north. Hindi it is. "Coffee mein chini nahi daalna. Bilkul nahi." He nods his head vigorously, and also rewards me with a smile.
This time the coffee is as I like it. Without sugar.