Ideas for Uber/Ola

1. An option for Green ride. Only CNG/LPG/Electric vehicles will be eligible. It will come with reduced trunk space which should be okay with many kinds of travelers.
2. Common Radio - Drivers/Passengers should share their favorite songs. Find the common songs and play during the ride. Very good for Share rides.

[Satire] DJ ने कहा- "put your hands up!", पसीने की बदबू से लोग हुए बेहोश

नयी दिल्ली. राजधानी के पॉश इलाके ग्रेटर कैलाश के एक क्लब में कल रात पसीने की बदबू की वजह से दर्जनों लोग बेहोश हो गये। यह हादसा उस समय हुआ जब लोग नए डांस बार ‘आजा नचले’ के उद्घाटन समारोह में नाच रहे थे। इस मौक़े पर फ्री बीयर पीने के लिए युवा जोड़े भारी तादाद में आये थे। जैसे-जैसे शाम परवान चढ़ती गई, डांस फ्लोर पर भी माहौल बनने लगा और लोगों के पाँव अपने आप ही थिरकने लगे।

डांस बार में हादसे से पहले की तस्वीर

तक़रीबन 12 बजे एक पावर कट हुआ, जिसका कारण बिजली कर्मियों की हड़ताल बताई जा रही है। इसके बावजूद इन्वर्टर की सहायता से म्यूजिक सिस्टम तो चलता रहा लेकिन AC बंद हो गया। लोगों ने भी डांस करना चालू रखा। जब DJ ने “दिल चाहता है” का गाना “कोई कहे…कहता रहे” चलाया और लोगों से रिक्वेस्ट की कि इस गाने पर उन्हें परंपरागत तरीके से हाथ ऊपर उठा कर नाचना है तो लोगों ने भी तुरंत हाथ हवा में लहराना शुरू कर दिया।

लेकिन ऐसा होते ही एक के बाद एक लोग बेहोश हो कर ज़मीन पर धराशाई होने लगे। माना जा रहा है कि गरमी में डांस करते करते लोगों की काँख यानी कि armpit में काफी पसीना इकट्ठा हो गया था और उनके हाथ ऊपर करते ही पूरे वातावरण में भयंकर बदबू फ़ैल गई।

इस बारे में जब डिस्क के संचालक श्री जतिंदर सिंह जी से पूछा गया तो उन्होंने कहा कि  “भई, हम तो सालों से माता की चौकी का आयोजन दिल्ली के कोने-कोने में करते आ रहे हैं। फ़र्क बस ये है कि वो हम खुले मैदान में करते हैं, तो ये दिक्कत कभी नहीं आई। ये हमने पहली बार ही डिस्को खोला है और पहले दिन ही स्यापा हो गया। ये आज कल के नौजवान भी बड़े सेंसिटिव हो गए हैं और दिल्ली सरकार इंसेंसिटिव!”

इस दौरान, दिल्ली सरकार और LG नज़ीब जंग के बीच एक बार फिर आरोप-प्रत्यारोप का दौर चालू हो गया है। दिल्ली सरकार का कहना है कि बिजली कर्मियों की हड़ताल रोकने के लिए वो ESMA लागू करना चाहते थे लेकिन LG ने शाम को 6 बजे के बाद काम नहीं करने का बहाना लगा दिया। हालांकि, LG ने इस मामले पर कोई भी टिप्पणी करने से इनकार कर दिया है।

Also published on Faking News

Ideas for today - 7 Sep 2016

1. No one seems to be selling Indian mythological action figures. I don't know why. Kids these days have insatiable appetite for toys/action figures. All the men - spider,super,iron,bat and others are all over the place and kids are more or less done with them.  Indian mythic figures will also lend themselves to very inventive and innovative action figures. Ravan with 10 heads, Ganesha with elephant trunk, Chamundi with her impressive arsenal and a severed head in her hand etc. It's an idea waiting to be tapped.
2. Funny videos for learning language A for people who already know language B - Suppose I know Hindi. I would have definitely heard a popular Hindi song. Let's say - My name is Lakhan. And I want to learn Kannada. In a YouTube video, 2 guys will take turns to sing the same song - one in Hindi and the other in Kannada. Hindi guy : One, two ka four. Four, two ka one. My name is Lakhan. My name is Lakhan. Kannada guy : Ondhu, eradu, naalku. Naalku, eradu, ondhu. Naan hesaru Lakhan. Naan hesaru Lakhan.
3. A Bengaluru sewage drain is not a sewage drain - it's a biodiversity hotspot.
4. Android phones should have ability to link specific Google accounts to specific apps. As of now if I sign in with a gmail id a@gmail.com it's accessible across Gmail,Maps,Photos,YouTube etc. I would prefer it if I could restrict its usage to only YouTube for e.g. So if I sign in with my google account on my girlfriend's phone she should be able to see my private videos on YouTube but not check my mail.

Akira could have been one of the best action movies ever but it actually gives you a headache (Akira Movie Review)

When I went to watch Akira, I wanted an action movie better than Tiger Shroff's Baghi. I consider Baghi to be one of the best action movies of Bollywood of all time. And Baghi didn't even have a relatable story. Nor does Tiger Shroff a regular Indian by any measure. But he makes up for it with his exemplary action sequences.

In Akira, we had a highly relatable story. A girl from small town India moves to Mumbai. With an irritating sister-in-law and meek brother who brought her home with his mother only to take care of his child. Sonakshi Sinha has also got the perfect looks and build for the part. It's impossible not to feel for Akira. All the time I wanted her to beat the bad guys black and blue with her bare hands until they die. Which eventually happens but there is too little action to keep one engaged. In the process too many pains are inflicted on Akira. When I watch an action movie I would rather have something like Taken. The good guy should remain mostly unscathed while killing the bad ones. Here Akira almost dies and becomes a mental patient. Really sad.

An action movie should give you 10x more highs than the lows. Here it's the opposite. Mostly you are feeling sad and depressed with occasional wins.

Useful articles/videos on JNU row

Kanhaiya bail: Justice Pratibha Rani had no business to expound on nationalism, says Prashant Bhushan

Shekhar Gupta: Student of the year

Thanks to Kanhaiya Kumar, azadi is no longer a war cry for rebels looking for a cause - Sanjay Kaul(BJP)

Do we have a clear idea as to what is anti-national? - Karan Thapar

Barkha Dutt's speech at The Telegraph National Debate 2016

Fali Nariman - A test of freedom: 'To be anti-Indian is not a criminal offence, and it is definitely not sedition'

BJP and Tacit consent - 'What we witnessed with regard to JNU is not the exclusive creation of the BJP and the RSS . Instead, BJP is only consolidating what is perhaps a more general sense of public morality in India. It is to this constituency that the BJP responds'

Why Kanhaiya is not a youth icon. Vivek Agnohotri

Moment Of Reckoning For Student Movement - Deepti Sriram

3 day Pondicherry trip

Summary : Go to Pondicherry if you have time to kill and nothing better to do. It's a regular Indian small town where trucks jostle with pedestrians while the swirling dust on the road sucks you in its embrace. But, with a few good attractions thrown in to confuse you - which is the real Pondicherry?

Moving in : Train 11005. From Bangalore to Puducherry. Arrived on Tuesday morning.

Moving out : Greenline bus. Took around 7 hours. Roads are good. No hilly roads to make you vomit.

Stay : We stayed at Sunway Manor helped with generous discount dollops from GoIbibo. The service here was great and gives nothing to complain about. They have put some real money in bathroom fittings, AC, TV and other in-room stuff.

Moving around - Autos, Ola cabs and rented 2 wheelers: Ola cabs is present here. Autos are reasonably easy to get but it's always tough negotiating with them. I rented a two-wheeler (Hero Pleasure) from Vijay Arya. Rs. 750/- for 3 days. They are very helpful. The person dropped me to bus stand after I returned the vehicle. Also, when I took the vehicle, he went to great lengths to tell us about what to see, general idea about roads etc. Didn't get a helmet from them though as it's not compulsory there. But it would have helped a lot - given the dusty roads. I did roughly 130 kms and filled Rs. 250/- petrol for that (still a good chunk was left over).

The bad part - traffic,dust and no helmets: There is a lot of heavy vehicle traffic inside Pondicherry. I mean the buses and trucks. I have never seen so many buses and trucks on so few roads. Part of the problem, according to me, is that too many highway roads touch Pondicherry. And being so small, it becomes aggravated. Also, helmets are not compulsory here. So people end up inhaling a lot more dust and smoke. Plus, it looked like, everywhere some sort of construction was going on - unregulated, with no barricades and stuff.

The good part : There was always a breeze flowing around to make riding a bike easier.(February at least). Don't know about other months though.

White town : Adjacent to Gandhi beach, this is the cleanest part of Pondicherry. Very well maintained. Most of the French people live here. It houses Alliance Francaise,The Museum, Bharathi park and some upmarket pubs/restaurants apart from important government buildings.

Pub scene - no nightlife to speak of : If you have seen pubs in Bangalore and Goa, the pubs here will come across as pretty cheap and downmarket, and also empty. Only pub which seemed upmarket was Le Club. And it was fully occupied when we reached there - so couldn't get in.

Offline Google Maps : It will be a good idea to use offline Google Maps for Pondicherry since you won't find the good data connection often.

Eating out : We mostly ate at the hotel. But Cafe Xtasi is too famous to be ignored. They serve Wood fired oven Pizza. It tasted pretty good and different. Once we ate at Le Club too. Zomato has good info though.

Attractions : There are people who visit the attractions in 8 hours. It's possible - since Pondicherry is pretty small. But I would say give it 2 days at least to visit it well. Plus, if you have a kid - you will have to be a bit slow. Here are the places which we visited :

1. Auroville - Head straight to the visitors center reception and ask what to do. There isn't much to do/see here though. You will get a general vibe about the coolness of the place - as people from many countries are living here. There is Matri Mandir here which you can see from outside. Going inside means effectively signing up for a 2-3 hours long meditation session and you have to register for that at least a day in advance. Plus, they don't allow kids inside the dome(Matri Mandir) - so we didn't end up seeing the inside.
2. Auroville beach - nothing great about this beach. No one was taking a dip in the water. While on the way from Auroville to this beach, you will get some nice cloth shops (the kind you get in Goa, especially close to the beaches). But these shops are reasonably far from the beach.
3. Botanical garden - kids will enjoy this. It has a toy train, an aquarium and pretty good play area. It closes around 5'o clock though.
4. Gandhi beach - it's a very well maintained place. After 5 in the evening, vehicles can't enter here. Even otherwise it's very easy to walk/run/sit/relax here. So a pedestrian heaven. Reminds you of Sector 17 of Chandigarh (sans the shops). Rocks to sit on (somewhat like Marine Drive, Mumbai). But not the beach for taking a bath.
5. Paradise beach - the only beach where I saw people bathing. And they seemed to have a blast. But nothing like a Goa beach. No bikinis for example. To get here you have to take a boat from Chunnambar Boat House.
6. Manakula Vinayagar Temple - A Ganesha temple. Very well built and beautiful. You can buy some nice kids' toys outside. Nearby there are good shopping huts/stalls for women (close to Adyar Ananda Bhavan).
7. Ousteri/Oussudu lake - you get a great boat ride to see migratory birds and wetlands. But be careful of Google Maps. This is the correct link. And, be there before 5PM. Also the roads leading there have a lot of heavy vehicle traffic. But worth it.
8. Thirukameshwara Temple -  a Shiv temple. Actually, it's greatly built. But unfortunately, in Feb 2016 (when we visited), it was going through complete reconstruction. I guess, it will take quite some time to finish.
9. Toy Museum - was closed for renovation.
10. Pondicherry Museum - close to Gandhi beach. Has a good collection. But surprisingly, a good many important things were lying out in open for sun and rain to ruin. 

Last words : There is a canal in Pondicherry which separates White Town from the rest of it. The difference is stark. Once you cross the canal you feel like you are in a different PM2.5 zone altogether. Also, the canal is now defunct and serves as a garbage dump. It's a pity having seen how Amsterdam treats its canals. But visit Pondicherry to feel in control of a place. There are places, for e.g. Goa and Singapore, where no matter how hard you try, you will miss out on something. Not here. People are helpful. Directions and information about a place are easy to find (unlike Chikamagalur).

Saala Khadoos - first genuinely good Hindi movie of 2016

Not only 2016, it could be first good Hindi movie since Tamasha which released in November 2015. Since then I watched Bajirao Mastani/Airlift with high hopes, and Wazir/Dilwale with not so high hopes. Dilwale and Wazir had thankfully lame trailers and thus didn't raise expectations. Given the trailer - Dilwale was actually above expectations.

Bajirao and Airlift had great trailers and fell way behind. Proving once again - how difficult is it to make movies based on real life events. The same problem which plagued Bhaag Milkha Bhaag and Mary Kom - two of the most popular and successful sports movies in India. But personally, I found their narrative patchy, incoherent and fake(surprisingly).

Which takes us back to the last good Hindi sports movie - Chak De, India! (2007). This again was inspired from real life events yet did a great job as a movie. 

Saala Khadoos has taken a clearly different path as a sports movie. It's not based on an actual sports person or event. It's fiction out and out. And it does treat the viewer as an intelligent human. The woman boxer is portrayed by Ritika Singh - who was signed because the makers wanted a professional boxer to act, rather than an actress to act as a boxer(Priyanka Chopra in Mary Kom). The energy displayed by Ritika is infectious. Madhvan, as always, acts well and leaves you asking - why isn't he more popular again?

And given that this is basically a Tamil movie which has also been made in Hindi, I really wonder - how much am I missing out on by not knowing Tamil?

Parenting with a story - Excerpts about bullying

Source

Despite being a talkative know-it-all with a sarcastic sense of humor, I somehow made it all the way to the fifth grade without having what I would consider a real “enemy.” But that’s where my luck ran out. I had somehow become the target of ridicule of the class clown, John. For weeks, he made me the butt of his many jokes. If it had stopped there, that might have been tolerable. But his jokes spread to name calling, taunts, and teases. And since the other students admired his sharp wit, many of them soon joined in the chase. My life had become a fifth-grade version of a living hell.

One evening, I went to my father for advice. For some reason I chose the one night a week when his drinking buddies were at our house for a visit. Ironically, that turned out to be a far better choice than the sober hindsight of age would suggest.

The men listened to my dad give me the mature and reasonable advice to have a respectful talk with John, telling him how his comments made me feel, and asking him to please stop. After patiently suffering this apparent affront to masculinity, my father’s best friend at the time, Jerry, interjected with this advice: “Bullshit! This is what you need to do. You get to school tomorrow morning extra early. You wait outside the school in the parking lot and wait for this ‘John’ to get dropped off. Once he’s away from his mom and not yet buddied up with his friends, you walk right up to him, get in his face, and you say this: ‘John, you and I are either going to be friends, or we’re going to be enemies. And you need to decide which it’s going to be, right now.’ ”

“Then what do I do?” I asked.

“Nothing. That’s all you have to do.”

“But what if he says he wants to be enemies? Or what if he wants to know what I’m going to do about it?” I complained.

“He won’t,” Jerry assured me. “But if he does, all you have to say is, ‘I just need to know where we stand, John. Are we friends? Or are we enemies?’ Then no matter what his answer is, say ‘Okay’ and walk away.”

It sounded too easy. But all the men, including my father, seemed to think it was a good solution. So the next morning, that’s exactly what I did. I waited to get John alone in the parking lot and executed my lines with the precision and seriousness of a military officer. John’s reaction surprised me as much as my parking lot ambush probably surprised him. Despite his being a few inches taller and several pounds heavier, he took a step backwards. His eyes widened. And he stammered out a set of words less meaningful than the tone of voice he used to stammer them. Each of his two or three disjointed sentences contained the word “friends.” But his tone was a combination of shock, fear, and shame. Our business concluded, we walked into the school together.

John never spoke an ill word of me again.

Wazir : Fake moves

First few minutes of the movie and hero's daughter gets killed. Lifted right from Badlapur (released last year). She is killed while he is taking on the bad guys - Shool. The chemistry between a suspended cop and his estranged wife(dancer in both the movies) - straight from Shaitan (Rajeev Khandelwal was the cop there). Just figured out - Shaitan and Wazir are directed by the same guy. And also, he married the dancer wife from Shaitan - Sheetal Menon.

This movie gives an impression that all the actors were underpaid and hence they put in a half-hearted effort. Or, they were overpaid, that's why they put up with such a shoddy script.

Why is Danish(Farhan Akhtar) so obsessed with Pandit Ji(Amitah)'s story? On paper, that could be answered pretty well but on screen, they just couldn't explain it. And in this game of chess - audience is the loser.

Does Sunny Deol work for Amazon?

Pop tents in The Martian

In the book, The Martian, there is stuff about pop tents which I didn't understand. Here is a nice description.

Prem Ratan Dhan Payo - Salman gets his 'Prestige' back

As the folklore goes, Salman Khan was so impressed with The Prestige that he gave its DVD to Sanjay Leela Bhansali(SLB) in the hope that SLB would cast him in its remake. Well, SLB made Guzaarish - which was a pretty lame adaptation of The Prestige and didn't cast Salman in it.

So angered was Salman by this insult that he publicly announced that Koi Kutta bhi Guzaarish dekhne nahin gaya (source)

At the same time Salman kept his hopes alive. Though with Dhoom 3, Aaamir khan also stole some bits from The Prestige. With PRDP, Salman hit the jackpot. Although, not a copy of The Prestige, Salman stole the double role bit. Check out this dialogue from trailer which revealed to me his inspiration.









Sonam Kapoor is another actress who hasn't had a lot of luck with SLB after her debut with him in Saanwariya. For both Salman and Sonam, it was their last movie with SLB.

Another thing to be noted about Dhoom 3 and PRDP is that in both the movies, audience came to know about the secret about the double role pretty soon. Quite unlike The Prestige where the audience had to wait almost till the end.

Last observation is that it's the second time Salman Khan has turned Rajput Savior in a movie, first one being Veer. On the other hand, Aamir Khan loves to play a Rajput.

Monster Hunter feedback

Pretty nice movie. Very few people have rated it on IMDB since it's not yet released in USA. So don't use that as a criteria. The English version released in India seems to have Indian accent for audio. Easily understandable. Unlike all the other English movies.

Parenting with a story - Excerpts

Read the book here

The destiny of the world is determined less by the battles that are lost and won than by the stories it loves and believes in. —HOWARD GODDARD

“Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it." - Hannah Arendt

As Emma explains, one of the rules they established early on for all three of their children was this: “We weren’t allowed to have toys with batteries or that needed electricity.” Many kids would consider that cruel and unusual punishment. But to Emma, that’s just the way things were.
.......................
So how did they entertain themselves? “We had to be more creative. I played with Lincoln Logs and paper dolls I made. We would go for walks and collect rocks. Then we painted the rocks into different animals and created whole scenes with them. I even remember my brother making wallets out of duct tape.

.......................
But the rule may have had an even longer-term impact. All three children grew up to pursue a career in some kind of creative design.

Review - From Zero to One by Peter Thiel

After a long time I have read a book which offers really fresh points of view. Though the cover says "Notes on Start Ups, or How to Build the Future", a large part of the book - esp the first half - is not about startups. It's about how to think different and offers some very strong contrarian views about the prevailing wisdom.

A must read for its novelty.

When Google Met WikiLeaks - Excerpts

1. It was Cohen who, while he was still at the Department of State, was said to have emailed Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to delay scheduled maintenance in order to assist the aborted 2009 uprising in Iran. http://archive.is/ndbmj
   
2. New York Times columnist Tom Friedman wrote in 1999, sometimes it is not enough to leave the global dominance of American tech corporations to something as mercurial as “the free market”: The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald’s cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley’s technologies to flourish is called the US Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.
   
3. You can have a lot of political “change” in the United States, but will it really change that much? Will it change the amount of money in someone’s bank account? Will it change contracts? Will it void contracts that already exist? And contracts on contracts? And contracts on contracts on contracts? Not really. So I say that free speech in many Western places is free not as a result of liberal circumstances but rather as a result of such intense fiscalization that it doesn’t matter what you say. The dominant elite doesn’t have to be scared of what people think, because a change in political view is not going to change whether they own their company or not; it is not going to change whether they own a piece of land or not.
   
4. WikiLeaks is funded by donations from supporters. In December 2010 major banking and financial institutions, including VISA, MasterCard, PayPal, and Bank of America, bowed to unofficial US pressure and began to deny financial services to WikiLeaks. They blocked bank transfers and all donations made with major credit cards. While these are American institutions, their ubiquity in world finance meant that willing donors in both America and around the world were denied the option of sending money to WikiLeaks to support its publishing activities.
   
5. Zimmermann - The natural flow of technology tends to move in the direction of making surveillance easier. (not an excerpt but related)

Should physical bookstores put a donate box for people who are eventually going to buy books online?

There are many people who would browse books at a physical bookstore since most of the bookstores do a good job of curating books. But a big chunk of them would end up buying them online for cheaper price. Many buyers do feel guilty for their behavior but there is no way they can compensate for the guilt. So wouldn't it be better if bookstores explicitly ask them for donations by means of a donation box?

The Triple Package - Book Review

Recently read this book. And I mostly agree with the negative reviews on the Wikipedia page. But here are few of my personal observations.

Just for introduction (from Wikipedia):

The central argument of the book is that the cultural groups that have "starkly outperforming"  the rest in America possess three distinct traits. These virtues are the presence of a superiority complex, the simultaneous existence of an inferiority complex, and a marked capacity for impulse control.

As per the book, "Indian Americans are have the highest income of any Census tracked ethnic group" but surprisingly most of the book is about Jews and Chinese with almost zero analysis of Indians. Which makes sense as one of the authors is Chinese and another Jew. So they can take liberties writing about their own culture. Whereas if they write something offensive about another culture, the racio-religious backlash would be too hot to handle. So, this choice seems to be practical but shows considerable lack of courage.

Another reason for devoting little attention to Indians could be that they don't fit the triple package theory. If you ask me the reasons for Indians' success in USA, they would be quite mundane actually.

1. India is almost the most populous country in the world. By any laws of probability, there are bound to be more talented/successful Indians than other nationalities.
2. As far as I know, Gujarati, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada,  Marwari, Bengali and Sindhi communities would make up the 90% of rich Indian Americans. Except for Punjabis and Marwaris all of them come from coastal states. Punjabis and Marwaris have long sat on some of the most important trade routes connecting India with its neighbors. Being a coastal state/trade route state gives you a lot of advantages in terms of the awareness and network effects.
3. Bihar/MP/UP and large parts of Rajasthan which are backward are landlocked. Which explains the lack of business opportunities and other opportunities in general. 
4. The book claims that a lot of Indian Americans have the superiority complex because of their caste. Might be true. But there is a huge Brahmin population in UP and it doesn't have proportionate representation in US due to the reasons mentioned above. So the caste argument is not that strong.
5. A lot of successful Indian Americans are IITians. And IITs have always tried to emulate the western universities. IIT Bombay was teaching Fortran in CS-101 for many years only because MIT was doing it too. So when the IITians do land up in USA, they take less time to adjust.
6. From what I understand, Gujaratis are the most successful Indians in USA. And they are most successful in India too. So it's just a case of rich getting richer in other countries. No other explanations are needed.

Jaipur Trip - Notes

Day 1 :
Started late, around 12. Took an Uber to Amber Palace. There are jeeps available to take you to Amber, Jaigarh and Nahargarh. But didn't get any, as we were late. Also, if you reach there before 11, you can take an elephant ride from the bottom of the hill to the Amber palace entry. It costs around 1100/- but worth it because of the great view you get of the Maota lake. There are other elephant ride providers in the vicinity, but they charge the same price for no reason. They would just give you a ride on the nearby roads. Either take the ride across the hill or skip it altogether. If you want just the ride on an elephant, better go to Chokhi Dhani. They would charge you only Rs. 50/- per person. More on this later. At Jal Mahal, you will get a Camel ride for 300/-. Skip that. In Chokhi Dhani, it's for Rs. 20/-.

So, since we didn't get any jeep, we took an auto who took us to Jaigarh and Nahargarh for Rs. 650/-. At Jaigarh, we took a guide for Rs. 100/- and he explained the stuff really well. There is a shop in the fort which claims to sell authentic stuff at exorbitant prices. Nothing worth buying there.

From there we headed to Nahargarh. There we couldn't get a guide, but a security guide offered his services as guide for Rs. 50/-. Though he was constantly avoiding his supervisor while doing so :-)

From here, we returned to the hotel and started for Chokhi Dhani. The crowd there was huge, as their ticketing system is very inefficient and also there was a big holiday season rush. The price per adult for 600/- and 350/- per kid. This includes the buffet and many free shows inside - fire show/magic show/puppet dance/dandiya etc etc. This price is really cheap given the ambiance and size of the place. My 4 year old loved it. He took a bullock cart ride, elephant ride, camel ride, horse ride and other stuff. Everything was priced around 10/- or 20/-. The most expensive was the elephant ride for Rs. 50/-

Day 2 :
We started with City Palace. Took a guide there too. Just nearby you have Jantar mantar and Govind Dev Ji Mandir.  Which you can club together. Govind Dev Ji Mandir  has specific timings.
Then we went to Amber and visited with a guide. In the evening we went to Birla Mandir, Moti Dungri Ganesh Mandir(adjacent to Birla mandir). From there to hotel and from hotel to Crystal Palm Mall and MGF mall (opposite to each other).

Day 3 :
We were stuck with some work till the evening. In the evening, went to Govind Dev Ji Temple and shopping in Chandpol Bazaar. Ended the day with a night show at Rajmandir Cinema.

Things we missed : 
1. Hawa Mahal (though it would take 10-15 minutes)
2. Birla planetarium (needs 1-2 hours)
3. Jantar Mantar (needs around 1/2 an hour)
4. Albert hall museum

Ola & Uber in Jaipur
Uber charges you an extra 200/- for Amber fort and 125/- for Chokhi Dhani. It's to incentivize the driver for going to those places as they are pretty far off and many a times, the drivers don't get a pessanger for return trip. Though it's mentioned as Amber Fort Entry Toll and Chokhi Dhani/Sitapura Exit Toll in the bill which is confusing for the customer, as there is no such toll.

On the other hand, Ola drivers handle it differently. Many drivers would refuse to go to Amber claiming that the company has asked them not to go. The drivers who go there, don't get any extra incentive so they stay put there for a while waiting for the return fare. For this reason, you may find no Uber driver for the return trip, since they have no reason to wait there, having made the extra bucks. But you may find an occasional Ola driver waiting for you :-)

Overall, Ola drivers were rash/unpolished/untrained as compared to Uber.  But Ola offers many coupons which make the rides cheaper. As far as service is concerned, nothing beats Uber in terms of pickup time and driver behavior. One reason why Uber drivers are fast to pick up the pessangers - if a ride is cancelled and the driver has crossed a certain distance threshold towards the place of pick up - he gets Rs. 75/- or 100/- flat. Also, Uber seemed to give better location to drivers.

Flipkart, you disappoint me!

1. Whenever I have purchased an e-book from Flipkart, it has taken minimum of 1 day for the book to be available in my account. Feels like, someone manually uploads the books to my account. So I had to stop buying them from Flipkart.

2. Then, one day I published a book :-) There is no way you can list an ebook on Flipkart directly. So I had to go through Smashwords. It took more than a month to get it listed on Flipkart. Another 2 weeks for it to appear in its search results, though it was already listed. And since then the ebook has constantly been Out of Stock :-) I mean, come on. An ebook out of stock? Subah se main hi mila kya? BTW, if you click on the search result and go to the book listing, you will be able to buy the ebook.

For this issue, I mailed/called their customer care multiple times. Mostly, they couldn't  understand what was I complaining about? I guess, no author ever called them to complain about his ebook being out of stock :-)

3. For the same book, I had printed a paperback version through Pothi.com and used their services to list the book on Flipkart. Again, it took more than a month to appear on Flipkart.  I don't know who is at fault here? Is Flipkart not digesting the feed from Pothi fast enough or is Pothi not feeding them on time? I guess Flipkart would be at fault here, since it takes ages to take the feed from Smashwords too whereas other book stores(tied up with Smashwords) listed the book the very next day.

Now contrast 2. and 3. with Amazon. You can upload an ebook to Kindle and it will be available in all of Amazon's countries in roughly 4 hours. Same goes for any edits you make to the Kindle version. There are no glitches mentioned above. Even the paperback version was listed without any hiccups.

4. Then, just now I bought Flipkart First 1 year subscription in the hope that I will get free delivery for every order. But seems like I got to wait, since my account isn't upgraded yet. Bhai log, aise kaise kaam chalega? Will someone manually upgrade my account? If not, then why isn't it done instantly?