In pursuit of “putting on”:

It has been a very long time since I have been fruitlessly pursuing to complete this task satisfactorily. Well, not a task actually, since it’s more of continuous rather than being a final task. To put it in simple words, it is more of a journey with milestones.

However, the sad part is that I have never been able to even cross, or reach for that matter, the first milestone of 55 Kgs. Being 5’7” tall, I have been advised by numerous doctors & health instructors that the ideal weight range for me would be approximately 60-65 Kgs. Further, being an organized task planner, I decided to put up milestones of 55 Kgs, 58 Kgs & 60 Kgs. But here I am, still hovering in the range of 50-52 Kgs. since last 5 years.

Considering the spate of events, in the year 2000, my weight was almost 55 Kgs. Bang! The dreaded thing happened. I met with an accident in Surat (don’t feel like covering the details here). My weight plummeted to 47 Kgs within the first 15 days. Thereafter, my exam preparation leave would add 2-3 Kgs to my body. & later that will get knocked down on the onset of the succeeding semester.

There have been quite a few people around – like my bro-in-law Jay – who have told (once or twice, maybe) me that I may put on after completing my studies. So I hoped that my job life would help me in crossing my first milestone at the least. Alas!

I guess I have tried everything possible within limits, by now to put on. To cite examples, I ate almost 6 bananas’s a day for 3 months. Been a couch potato for almost 4 months. However, no intended results were achieved. The Weight meter swore not to move by even a centimeter. 50 Kgs!

Been in Hyderabad since 4 months & my diet has been more healthy 7 nutritious than what it was in Chennai. More of fruit juices, more of milk consumption per day, more of almost everything. But Still I don’t think I have put on!

& more agonizing is the fact that my pants have gone tighter from waist since last 1 month or so, but there seems to be no remarkable achievement of crossing the first milestone of 55 Kgs.

& the agony is further aggravated each time when I go to Mumbai & hear it from my parents, my sis & overall lots of relative there: “Wajan kem nathi vadharto?” (In Guajarati it means – why aren’t you putting on weight?)

Phew! So this happens to by my BHAG-2006; a Big Hairy Audacious Goal – cross first milestone by June – July 2006.

Any tips to put on would be highly appreciated.

How Blogging Helped me in trying new things?

Till recently, I had been suppressing the urge to blog since I was actually not clear about the objective. As it happens, a lack of an objective restricts our actions & suppresses our urge. However, I just thought of getting started (without any firm objective in mind). & as Nescafe likes to put it – ‘One thing leads to another’ – blogging instilled in me a habit of penning down my thoughts, my opinions and reviews on almost anything & everything.

To justify, since my last blog on this blogspot (Sania Link added) I had not been keen enough to write regularly. But however, the writing habit got me hooked to another habit, which I consider quite refreshing & healthy – posting reviews on commercials on mouthshut.com.
Link to my reviews: http://www.mouthshut.com/user/kool_writer/1.html

Till date, I have posted 3 reviews on various advertisements which I came across surfing TV channels. & I guess I’m not doing badly, since more than 60% of the people who have read my reviews (& cared to rate it) have rated it as ‘Very Useful’.

Further, I plan to shift focus from posting reviews on commercials to other categories like Products, Places, Events & so on.

Pondering further on my posts, I was wondering as to ‘Why did I start off on commercials only’? Frankly, I always found commercials interesting. I consider advertisements as a major contributor to the branding strategy for any product.

I was discussing the same when returning from lunch with my room mate. He was feeling bit unwell. So I just asked him (jokingly, of course) “Sar dard hai? Aur naak bhi bund? Kuch lete kyon nahin? Coldarin lee?” After laughing out the humor, I was wondering that even though we consider these dialogues (the one said above) as funny, they exemplify one of the major branding successes in India. The discussion further made us recollect other pioneering branding successes like “Humdard Cinkara tonic”, “Bajaj Bulbs” & so on.

Further impressing upon the statements that ‘Advertisements are major contributor to the branding strategy’, then consider this – normally when people try to recall a product, they associate it with their usage experience, if any, else they tend to associate the product with the advertisement that they have seen. When either or both of the above bring a smile to their face (or arises a sense of satisfaction within them), the brand should be considered as successful.

I guess I will stop here & keep rest for future. Hope you enjoyed reading this & do comment.

Link to Unofficial site for Sania Mirza fans.

Just recently I have uploaded a link to the 'Unofficial' website of Sania Mirza fans. Well, there were two reasons for incorporating this link on my blogspot.

The obvious reason is that I am her fan. Fine, I would like to clarify here that it’s not because of her physical statistics or her tennis game (which by no means would attract any fans), but for other reasons. To state that here, it’s purely due to the fact that she has emerged successfully as a new face in the list of Indian Sport personalities. Unconsciously & unintentionally, she has dared to bring upon a new face in the Indian Sporting arena. & the Indian ‘junta’ has also responded positively to accommodate her amidst the likes of Sachin, Sehwag & Sourav. That does not mean that other non-cricketing sporting icons like Dhanraj Pillai or Anjali Bhagwat have not done their job, but the penetration level of Sania amongst the masses has been fast. Also, other factors like the fatwa raised by Muslim clerics for her on-court costumes, the media coverage on that issue & many such have been catalytic in helping Sania gain coverage. This can be further gauged from the fact that of all the sporting personalities who received the Padma awards this year, it was only Sania’s name that got most media & public attention.

The other reason to include a link to this webpage from my blogspot is that the website proudly claims to be the ‘Unofficial’ website of Sania fans. ‘Unofficial’! Does that means that other websites of fans of celebrities or sport personalities are Official! Or is it that since Sania must have refused to fund to host this site, they chose to term it ‘Unofficial Fan site’! It further reminds me of the ‘Nothing Official About It’ ad campaign of Coca Cola during the 1996 Cricket world cup. Are the website hosts trying to say that there is ‘Nothing Official About’ the Sania fan’s website. Whew, too many possibilities. But ‘Unofficial’ is surely an eye-catcher. Whatever be the case, at the least, the website offers an opportunity for moderate (not die-hard) fans – like me – to express their views about her game (tennis, of course), to check out her updated tennis statistics, news & of course, the photo gallery.

Finally, being her fan, I wish her best of luck for her tennis career ahead.

Why Did I start blogging?

At last, here I'm. typing out my first blog.
I was just wondering, wat actually made me involve myself in this activity?
I don't think my company is gonna hike my sal for blogging neither it's gonna add as a credential to my list of achievements (which is almost NIL till date).

Well, I guess I will ponder on this sometime later.
But there was surely something itching inside me which made me log into this site to get registered & get started. Still searching...

Hmmm.. I will surely try to cover this in future. As for now, lets consider this as a test blog. Let me see & check if this get published properly.
Later, I would try to tweak around (this word is used extensively in my present company) with the settings part to see how each option affects the published post.

Hope this gets published soon.