How hard can it be?

There is this one thing I tried to escape from,in the early days of my life. I'm sure I share this feeling of hatred with a lot of people.

Politics.

I hated hearing about Politics while my father used to sit and debate with his friends, my childhood memories. I managed to carry that feeling in me until recent times, I realized that there is no way to ignore it completely. It affects your life one way or the other. As a citizen of any country, you exercise certain rights; electing a new leader by the process of voting is one of them. The policies that leader makes decides whether you prosper or you suffer. Such is my understanding about Politics now.

Recently we had elections in Southern states of India. I belong to the hand kerchief look alike state to the south. I am a native of that place though I haven't stayed much there. Coming back to the original topic of discussion, now that election was done with, the Communist party got their lead and they came to rule. Good for them.

So what is it about the title of this post? It's simple...How hard can it be? to select a right person. Not a rocket science I guess. I'm not talking about any political party specifically, but in general.

Few years back, a video jockey who was going on the streets asking people, whom they would consider voting for got some funny responses. Some people would vote for a certain candidate because he was cute. Some people would vote for a candidate because he was from their same caste...Seriously? Some college student answered saying that she would vote for the candidate who is oldest because she would love to get a day off, if in case he gets elected a minister and would die.

We all love our family, our friends, our relatives, our partners; I have no doubt. But we are not even close to being patriotic. If we had even a bit of love for the state or the country we lived in, we would have been a bit more sensible, and not voting for the wrong people and letting them do whatever they want. We have destroyed our state/country with our disastrous choices. If you are unhappy with the political scenario, then vote for the right person.

People stick to one political party. They show their loyalty to that party irrespective of whoever the candidate is. More loyalty should be shown towards the state or the country. Isn't it better to choose a candidate who would actually use tax payers money to better the current scenario? Maybe he is from a different political party or from a different caste than ours, who cares; as long as he has a progressive mindset and free from corruption. That's all we should be worried about. .

Every candidate should have an agenda and when they come to ask for vote, how many of us have actually asked them what their plans are for the next five years, if they happen to get the majority votes and come to power? Not many... How many of us have actually bothered checking for the background of that candidate, the educational qualifications of the person etc etc. Not many.

My only hope is that people vote wisely in the future. Use 'NOTA' (none of the above) option if they are not sure. If we need to grow and progress, we need right people at the right places. Hence vote responsibly.

End of rant.

Travelling in OLA cabs…

There was a time when debates used to be reserved to a time when we were free and debates/discussions usually happened between friends over small topics related to life. But all those times it used to happen in person ie face to face.

Thanks to whatsapp groups, now we have our discussions or debates anytime of the day. It only matters who is up for it. Sometimes these discussions have seen all of them voting for or against it. One of such example was drinking a couple of beers and driving back home. Everyone came to a conclusion that, we could hire a cab and go back home rather than put ourselves and the other road users in trouble. At the same time came the topic of hiring cabs. OlaCabs were new in Cochin then, but couple of my friends had already tried and tested their service and were quite positive about the service they offered. The first thing that surprised me was how did Ola even start their service in Cochin, and I was pretty glad to know that Cochin is quite a well reputed city after the metros in India.

The surprises didn’t stop there, but we also know that Cochin is an IT hub, not matching the likes of Banglore but in its own rights. One of my friend said that there were IT engineers who were quitting their job and joining Ola and Uber. The pay is amazing and matches the IT field. I was fascinated and I wanted to know more about Ola.

How do I book their services? What were the rates?

The booking is done through the OlaCabs app that you can get via their website. You just go ahead and download the app.

We can either book a ride 1 hour or more in advance and we have an option for booking an instant ride, wherein the app will show the hatch/sedan available to the nearest location to you. We have the option of selecting one. The rate is something like Rs 49 for the first 2 kms and then Rs 12 /km or Rs 14/km for hatchback and sedan cars respectively. The first 5 mins of waiting is free, beyond which they charge Rs. 2 per minute.

That is pretty cost effective since I would be paying the same amount for hiring an auto-rickshaw. Last night one of my friend messaged back in the group saying that he got a free ride in OlaCab. This is due to some points that he accumulated by using OlaCabs regularly. There is OlaCab wallet where you get your cash-backs and points which can be used later on to pay the difference, sometimes your rides may cost as less as Rs. 10 or sometimes even nil.

Imagine getting huge amount of discounts for travelling in a well maintained car, which doesn’t even feel like a cab. Most often the cars used for the purpose are Maruti Suzuki Swift Dzire, Mahindra Renault Logan or a Tata Indigo. The choices are not limited to these but these happen to be popular.

Then then then… things get even better. Imagine if you can apply coupons while booking OlaCabs and get crazy discounts. How amazing would that be!

27coupons as we all know is a leading deal distributors across various products and services. They, in collaboration with ‘Patrika’ which is the biggest Hindi News portal in India, helps their customers with additional discounts on their offers. You can view all their promotions for OlaCabs at this link location :

http://coupons.patrika.com/olacabs-coupons/

These coupons have helped many of my acquaintance get the prices lowered and hence paying cheap and making the travel much more value for money. Thanks to 27coupons and patrika for coming up with such an initiative. In the near future, I hope to use this service and thereby saving some money for other essential things.

I hope you guys make use of these facilities for quick and unplanned as well as long and planned travels, making your travel more hassle free.
(The rates mentioned in the post are from word of mouth and only related to Cochin. I would request you to confirm the rates before making any sort of booking.)

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Both the above images are taken from the websites namely http://www.27coupons.com/ and http://coupons.patrika.com/olacabs-coupons/.

THE SILKY CHOCOLATE TINGED DRESS

Smiles all over the face of this little kid as her mother dresses her up. She is 8 years old and looked charming in her shining little frock as her mother combed her hair back and tied a small pony tail. She was going to watch a movie with her elder brother who is getting ready in the adjacent room and their father was taking them out for a movie and followed by a dinner. At least that was the promised part by the little one’s father.

Their father was a small entrepreneur owning a small industry which manufactured t-shirts on a small scale. He would be running around procuring things and managing his labor force. She used to see her father thrice a day for sure, once early morning to drop her to the bus-stop where the school bus would come and pick her up, the next when she returns from school, he would be taking a nap or having lunch, and finally before sleep when he might be just back from work or watching TV series.

The brother who was getting ready in the adjacent room was in high school. A year more and then college. He was 17 years and much elder than the little one. They had their fights and the little kid would get bashed up as she was physically so little as compared to her older brother. He was busy with his high school friends, Soccer team and his life that little did he appreciate her cuteness and her little life which completely revolved around her Dadda, Mamma and her sweet brother.

The family haven’t been for any outings in a long while. The perils of being a so called small business man is that the market scenario would change every week. Their business was not doing that great in the recent times and he was also new into business. So it would take him at least 5 years to reap out something from the current business. That too if he survived in the market that long. Many people come and go in business field, not all make it big.

This explains the little kid’s obvious joy. There was only a one in a dozen chance that she would know anything about a movie, but going out after a long time mattered more than the movie or the food to follow.

After her mother dressed her up, she runs out of her room to see her brother’s progress. The boy was also wearing his favorite English Club soccer jersey which his father had bought him a year back. With the jersey on and his hair properly combed now the wait was for their father to arrive. It was nearing 5:00 pm and the movie started at 6:00 pm in the evening.

The brother switches on the TV and watches soccer. The kid doing back and forth from room to room, looking at her silky chocolate frock and checking how good it is in front of the mirror. Occasionally running back to her mother and running around her. She would dance in front of the mirror and again run back to her brother to check on him. Seeing that he is engrossed in some soccer match, she would go back to her room again.

It’s almost 5:45 pm. The boy is worried. He smells again that this is not going to happen. The little one is ignorant to the fact that there is a time schedule to watch a movie, so she didn’t bother.

At 5:50 pm, the tired father comes home. He drops himself half dead on sofa. As he sits there, the kids enter the room timid and silent. They stood eagerly at the other end of the room waiting for their father to start the conversation. But he never took notice of the kids standing.

Finally the little girl speaks to her father in all her innocence to get ready to go out.

The father surprisingly looks at the kids who are dressed up. The elder one reminds him of the promise he made in the morning.

The father smiles and rather easily brushes aside the thought of going for a movie. He tries to convince the boy that it had been a long, tiring day and he can’t afford to spend another few hours in the theatre and restaurant. The boy tries his luck again just to find his father’s emotions change from smile to grim. He walks away to his room, shrugs off and throws his clothes on his bed and silently thinks in great anger as to why his father had to ruin his day if he didn’t intend to take them out. He had friends playing outside and he quickly gets changed and charges outside to join his spry bunch.

While the father crashes on the sofa for a short nap , the little kid is heart-broken. Yet no tears shed from her eyes. The lady of the house, her mother also feels very bad for the child. She goes inside with the kid, slowly consoles the kid as she removes her silky chocolate tinged dress and gets her back to the normal wears. The kid, very sad has clear expression of the same on her face.

Her mother goes back to the kitchen, to get supper ready for the family for the night.

The little girl on her bed with numerous expressions as she looks on the ceiling. Slowly she falls asleep presumably to experience the movie and the dinner after the movie with her brother and father in her tranced state.

copied from my blog : anooppillaiz.wordpress.com