Quick tips for Lansdowne

Lansdowne is a small hill-station in Pauri-Garhwal District of the Garhwal region of Uttarakhand and it is a perfect place for your weekend trip. You do not require to take any extra leave from your office.
It is a quite and beautiful place where you can spend quality time with your family.There is nothing like tourist attraction apart from the beauty of hills and green valleys. It attracts tourists from Delhi and other near by areas, most of the tourist comes during weekend but still this place does not appear to be over crowded. As it is a small place so number of hotels/resorts are less and expensive of course.
If you love trekking than Lansdowne is a place for you, all the places in Lansdowne are in the radius of 5 km which can be covered by foot but remember 5 km trekking on hill may seem bit difficult but it is a best way to see the natural beauty. If you don’t have your own vehicle and you are not willing to trek then you can hire it from Gandhi chowk (main Bazaar area of Lansdowne). The rates are quite high and unreasonable to cover 5 km but local people say that it is the only way of their earning.
If you get vomiting sensation during driving uphill then don’t forget to take pills which prevents vomiting sensations. Trust me these pills are totally life saver.


How to reach:
If you want to go by your own vehicle (suggested) then Lansdowne is around 240 Kms from Delhi and is the nearest hill station from Delhi. By road it will take around 7 hours from Delhi to Lansdowne. Having your own vehicle will enable you to easily visit nearby towns and temples.
You can also have the option of train, there are two trains from Delhi Mussorie express and Garhwal express to Kotdwara, from Kotdwara Lansdowne is 40 km drive up hill.Buses and taxis are available from the Kotdwar railway station directly upto the Lansdowne market, a shared taxi charges INR 50.
If you want to hire a private taxi then the charge from Kotdwara to Lansdowne is Rs 500. Beware of the high charges told by taxi drivers who will greet you as soon as you will walk out of Kotdwara Railway station.
Same is applicable for returning.


Best time:
Across the year. Avoid rainy season as there are chances of Land slide to block roads.


Accommodation:
There are not very much hotels and resorts in Lansdowne. You can find some hotels and resorts from website www.makemytrip.com but accommodation available on this website are far from the main market of Lansdowne. Main market is the center point of Lansdowne.
The cheap and best option is to book your room at Tourist Rest house maintained by Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam Limited ( a government of Uttarakhand Enterprise). The rooms are good and not very expensive. You have to do your booking in advance as there are not many rooms, you can do your booking from gmvnl’s website http://gmvnl.com/newgmvn/check1.asp?naam='trh', You have to create a user for booking your accommodation. Tourist rest house is near to center point of Lansdowne.


Restaurants:
Various small restaurants offer decent selection of snacks, lunch and dinner and most of them are located around Gandhi Chowk (Town centre). We went to Hotel Mayur all the time as it suits us.
Your Hotel/resort will also have the fooding facility.


Places to see:

• Kaleshwar Mahadev Temple – Way goes from Gandhi chowk

Below places are together i.e. If you go to Bulla lake first then you can go to St. James church, Tip-n-Top and Santoshi Mata temple and vice versa.

• Bhulla Lake – A small artificial lake made by cantonment, open for boating from 10 am to 5 pm. Boating charge is Rs 40 for adults.
• St. James Church – A small church made in the pre independence era.
• Tip-in-Top - A view point, on a clear day you can see the green valley.
• Santoshi Mata Temple (On way to the temple watch out for the tree with giant ear, and the reindeer rock)

Below places lies on the way to Garhwal Rifles Museum

• Snow View - a view point, on a clear day one can view great Himalayan peaks like Chaukhamba etc
• Garhwal Rifles Museum – Has medals and rifles of the officers from Garhwal Regiment. Entry ticket is of Rs 50 for adults.

Near by Places:

• Jwalpa Devi (47 km)
• Durga Devi temple (24 km)
• Tarkeshwar Mahadev (30 km) - beutiful and quite place
• Karnva Ashram (14 km) - where Shakuntala is said to have given birth to Raja Bharat

Theatre:

There is one theatre which shows movies, it is near to Gandhi chowk.

Quick Links:

http://wikitravel.org/en/Lansdowne_(India)

http://gmvnl.com

Known faces but Unknown people

How often it happened with you when you saw a known face but that person is unknown to you or you know that person but that person don't know you or both of you have seen each other before but you don't have any communication?

I believe this happens most of the time in our day to day life. When such moment comes either we just smile at each other and move forward with out saying any word or we go to that person and tell him/her that "I have seen you before..." and we are sure where we have seen him/her then we directly tell them "Hey... you work in office or you are from the same residential society..." or we just don't say anything.

I usually tell the person who is with me (at that time) that I know this person and it happens most of the time with me. I am somewhat good in remembering names and faces of people, in fact my colleagues call me database of names because most of the time when we are talking about a chick or a dude from our office I have their name.

I remember one incident which happened with me at Chennai airport, I  and Palak were waiting for flight to Andaman, We were munching at a snack counter and I saw a man standing 5 feet away from me and looking at me continuously, when I shifted my gaze from Palak to him he gave me a big smile and started walking towards me with his open hands as if he was going to hug me. When he came more closer his expression got changed and he dropped his open hands. I asked him

I: "Excuse me, do we know each other?"

He: "Actually, I guess...no, you very much look like my younger brother"


I: "Well, that may be a coincidence but did your brother get married recently?"

He: "No, he is married for 5 years?"


I: "...then definitely I am not him because I got married 3 days before and we are on the way to our honeymoon".


He:"Oh ok...Congratulations!! Actually, I am going for a family reunion in Mumbai and my brother who looks like you is coming directly to Mumbai from Singapore. I thought he came here to surprise me and go along with me".


I: "Oh...I am sorry that I am not him.... have a good time in your family reunion".


Such incidents happens sometimes.Generally,chances of happening this is more if you are working in an Corporate firm or a place where many people work at the same time, there you have your own small social group and you see other people during lunch time or town hall meeting. Some people don't hesitate to speak on such moments but sometimes they got success and sometimes the person says "Sorry, I am not the one you are looking for".

Stupid Cell Phone

Aap logo ne ye to suna hi hoga ki "aajkal lagi hui he" ya phir "Boss ne le rakhi he" or "life is screwing me hard" but kabhi ye suna he ki "mere phone ne meri leli"?? Trust me, aapka phone bhi kabhi aapki le sakta he.... kaise?? thik waise hi jaise mere phone ne meri [ehem][ehem]...

Last week Monday, I received a call from a unknown number, when I took the call the caller told me that he has received a missed call from my number, I put him on hold and checked my call log and I did not made any call to him. I told him that I have not made the call but he didn't get convinced and I have to end the call abruptly. I got another call from a different unknown number and this caller was also saying the same thing. I didn't get what was happening, initially, I thought Airtel's network might got goofed up but it was not like that. I was continuously receiving the calls from different people saying the same thing and all my effort to explain them that I have not made any call was going waste.

When I received 10th call that day I asked the caller about the number from which they got missed call and it was 9990703**4 (an Idea subscriber number). Soon, I realized that this idea subscriber has diverted all incoming calls to my number and this subscriber is giving missed calls to different people who in turn calling back to this idea subscriber but their calls were landing to my number due to that call divert feature. When I got the whole game I realized that it is very hard to make people understand what was actually happening so I decided to not to answer any call from an unknown number which was getting flashed on my cell phone screen with Nokia's call divert symbol.

I tried to make a call to this idea subscriber to inform him/her about this stupidity but my call got loop back due to that call divert and my cell phone was showing dialed number as engage. I thought to send a sms to this idea number but my sms were getting failed. I was receiving the calls whole day, whole week till Sunday and it was really baffling me.So, there was no way left to contact/inform this idea subscriber besides hoping to receive a call from any friend/relative of this number and answering it to request them.

You must be thinking why I haven't contacted Customer Care? I did and they told me that call divert feature is activated from the cell phone itself which orders sim-card to divert all incoming calls to the provided number so they are unable do anything in this as there is nothing which is activated from their side. They told me to find that subscriber personally and request him/her to disable it, I asked them how in world I can find a person with only a cell phone and that to when Customer Care keeps name and address information confidential to public.(Stupid Guys....)
                                 One of the  amazing thing of this facility is that you can divert your incoming call to any number with out having consent/confirmation from the owner of diverted number.Idea customer care executive told me to try lodging a complaint on Idea Showroom, may be they can take some action on this matter or lastly I can lodge a Police complaint against this number.

On Sunday, I received the very first call of the day, I didn't answered it for the first time, it came again, I didn't answered it second time, it came third time as well, Palak asked me to at least answer the call waise bhi kaun sa humare call rate lag rahe the so I answered it and it was from the owner of that number. She was Deepa, an Idea executive who sells Idea sim-cards. My bubble of anger burst on her and I told her that I have already made a Police complaint against this number and now she is going to face Police enquiry (it was a lie but I thought it was necessary). She, actually felt that she was not receiving any calls on her number in that whole week so she started investigating (pagal.... tube-light kahin ki...) and made her call me from a different number. I told her to disable call divert by dialing ##02# on her mobile immediately.Sone pe Suhaga to ye tha ki us bandi ne apne sim card pe sms service activate nahin karwa rakhi thi.... that's why my sms were getting failed.

After Sunday afternoon she disabled call divert and my phone stopped ringing. Jabse mere pass ye phone he tab se aajtak ye itna nahin baja hoga jitna peechle hafte baja he... :)

I believe Idea tagline is really true..... "An Idea can change your life" :)

PS: Arey yaar log bhi kitne curious hote hein.... ek missed call aa jaye kisi ke pass to pura enquiry kar ke hi maante hein.

Patience,Wait and Increment

Some times life put us in dilemma, we don’t know what it want and where it is going to take us.

We always want things to fall apart in the way we like them to be but it did not happen always, life has different plan for us. From the past few months I have been involved in some things and if they turned in my favor then they will benefit me in a really good way but the dilemma is they are not turning either in my favor or on the other side which is really irritating. My friends says to go with the flow of life and have patience but day by day I am going impatient.

Every day I am waiting for some updates on those ventures and I want the outcome as soon as possible. I am not bothered about the positive or negative outcome, whatever it is let it be, at least I will be able to plan further as soon as the things get clear.

All those positive quotes like “Don’t get angry on your life when you do not get desired things, your life knows that you deserve more than your desires”,”Whatever is happening, is happening for your own good” and “Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet” are holding me up during this time.

Above quote are somewhat true, my awaited increment letter which was due from April 2012 was in my Inbox in the first week of this month. I was waiting for it from the day when I filled up my appraisal form (patience) and when I received it I really liked the increment in my salary (this fruit is really sweet) which is going to be credited with the salary of June. My wife is waiting for it more then me :)

I hope things to become clear, the sooner the best.

HO HO

Being in NCR region from year 2002 I never did Dilli Darshan, every year I thought to plan for it in winters but some how the plan for it didn't work out. When I and Palak got married in Dec 2011, I planned to Dilli Darshan this time as that was the right time (winter season and a companion to roam with) so we did it in the month of Feb 2012 by HO HO bus service.You must be wondering why I am writing about it now, well, some of my friends asked me about my experience with HO HO bus service so I thought to pen it down which would be easy to refer.

HO HO Bus service initiative is very good, you can choose this service as you don't have to worry about finding a parking place and then parking your vehicle. Also, those who are not very much familiar with roads in Delhi then they must opt this service for sight seeing.

HO HO service covers in total of 19 places and you should have 2 days time for it because out of 19 places we were able to see only 6 places in a single day. HO HO purple color bus is every 45 minutes from each sight seeing place which means you get 45 minutes to spend at each place. Some places are very time taking like Red fort, Malls in Saket,Hauz Khas village, Dilli Haat so it is not possible to cover these places in 45 minutes so you may have to skip your next bus.

*** If you are planning to purchase handicrafts and other state wise cultural things from Dilli Haat then I must  tell you that prices are skyrocketing there. You can purchase the same items at much reasonable rate from either Chandni chowk (near to Red fort) or from the shops inside the red fort.***

The Ho Ho service includes many museums so, if you are not interested then you can skip these places and continue in the same bus for next point. It's ticket is of Rs 300 per person which is valid for two days (you can book ticket online from HO HO website). I went through snap deal in which ticket was of Rs 249 for two persons for a single day (if you are going thru snap deal then you have to redeem your voucher from CP office). HO HO service is from 8 am to 8 pm and you can board from any of the stops and purchase the ticket in the bus itself. The ticket cost will remain rs 300 for each person and it did not differ if you have skipped 5 places from the place of you are boarding.

One important thing to keep in mind is that all the monumental places which are going to be covered by HO HO tour having their timings i.e. most of the monuments are closed by 5-5:30 pm so plan your trip accordingly. Below is the timing chart of all destinations which is obtained from HO HO website

Bus service and the guide on board are good and quite satisfactory. Main thing is that HO HO bus services are on time at their spots.

More details are available on www.hohodelhi.com

How I Met My Wife

Yes.. you are thinking it right, the title of this post is inspired from American television series How I Met your Mother but trust me, I am not going to tell you a never ending tale like HIMYM.

My process of arrange marriage was going on after meeting one, two and three which I have already told you, there were other meetings but they were not interesting as compared to those three meetings.Along with the newspaper advertisement and friends, relatives contacts I have also made my matrimonial profile as a free user on matrimonial website www.jeevansathi.com and trust me guys once you have made a login on it your mail box will start receiving lots of notifications about the profile who has viewed your profile, who has accepted/rejected your interest, who has shown interest in your profile and suitable matching profiles according to your profile.

My parents used to browse those profiles and then when they find a suitable profile they asked me to have a look and give my approval. Things were going on like this, one day my parents told me that one of their friend has told about a girl from Agra and her profile id on jeevansathi.com, It was Palak's profile and I liked it. I asked my parents to proceed further. When Palak came to know about such initiation from our side she become a bit worried and decided to talk to me first before proceeding.


Normally, my intention was to talk to the girl for some time before the face to face meeting but it was not always possible. We both felt that we need to first talk to each other on phone/chat to understand each other and we can not take a big decision of our life in those 10 minutes face to face meeting in a secluded room so we were talking.


Later on, we felt that we should meet each other before our parents meeting and exactly one year before I went to Agra to meet Palak. She told me that she will pick me from railway station but she didn't arrive when I have already reached there, actually it was raining that day and  she got stuck in traffic. I was waiting for her on the station and after some time I saw her coming on her Activa, she stopped and took off her helmet and came to me.On that moment dialogue of Aamir Khan from 3 Idiots were going through my mind.... 

"Tum apne scooter pe helmet pehen kar aati ho, aur phir apna helmet utar kar meri taraf aati ho and phir mujhe.... "

She was completely drenched due to the rain, so it was like "...Bheegi bheegi saari me yun thumke lagati tum..." we exchanged initial greetings and decided to go to some restaurant. Till this point when I saw her in real I was somewhat fallen for her, I asked her to park her Activa in station's parking and hire a auto rickshaw but she refused (I don't know why), she insisted me to hop on on her scooty. I did that, when she drove I was really singing in my mind


"...jaisa filmon main hota hai ho raha hai hoobahu
Zubi dubi zubi dubi pum pa ra zubi dubi para rum
zubi dubi zubi naache kyon paagal stupid mum..."


We went to a restaurant and talked there till the time of my return train, she dropped me back on railway station and I came to Noida. As the days were passing and as we were talking on phone after that meeting in Agra my so called infatuation was turning into a budding love but I didn't told her about this as still our parents have to meet and decide. We fixed the parents meeting and by this time we both were sure that if things goes fine between parents then we have made the right decision.

We went to Palak's relatives home for family meeting, she arrived after sometime,she was blushing and she was not uttering a word, I was continuously smiling to see talkative, charming,bubbly Palak to be silent and blushing. When we got our 10 minute cut in a different room then we laughed (matlab ek dum khul ke hass rahe the hum dono because our parents were not aware about our face to face meeting in Agra, before that family meeting they were only aware that we are talking on phone) and She said

Palak: ab kya baat karein hum log, hum to saari baatein pehle hi kar chuke hein.
Me: Haan wo to he but still hume ye 10-15 minute  baat to karni hi hogi.


Me: Waise Palak ji, aapko sharmana bhi aata he...ye to maine aaj hi dekha. Us din Agra me to tum badi bindaas thi. Aaj kya hua?


Palak: Arey itne saare log bethe hein to sharm to aayegi hi, ye ladkiyon ki baatein he tum nahin samjhoge.
Me: Chalo thik he koi baat nahin.


Palak: So, what do you think, what parents are gonna say?
Me: I don't know, I believe that if we are destined to spend our life each other then everything will go fine.
Palak: hmm.... I will not feel bad if it is a No, I will accept it as a decision of God.But, it was really nice  talking and interacting to you.
Me: hmm...same here
(Actually, we both have said those filmy dialogues but internally we both wanted it to be yes and we both have felt bad if it came to be No from either of parents. This we shared to each other later on )


Our meeting got over and we were asked to come out. After few private discussion between my parents and  my Chacha,chachi they said yes and then meri Parchi wahin kat gayi :)

So, this is how I met my wife. Below is my video wedding invitation which we shoot during our courtship period, if you are on my facebook friend list then you can also see this video here. I hopw you will like it.

See what Mansi and Shivani find in their life on Sony Entertainment Television, every Monday to Thursday at 8.30p.m. (IST)

I have submitted this post for a contest on Indiblogger. Read details here: http://www.indiblogger.in/topic.php?topic=59

Visit the Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/LoveYaArrange

Meeting During Arrange Marriage Process-3

Okay fellas, I am back to marriage thing.

I have already talked about the process of arrange marriage and my first and second meeting during arrange marriage process. Now comes the third one, as the marriage proposals were flowing in both directions it leads to another meeting with parents of a girl from Rohini, Delhi. _{I know, you must be thinking that why I am writing all this about families from Delhi and if you did not then this statement of mine made you think that. Seriously, I do not have any intention to project anything wrong/negative for families from Delhi, it was me only who wanted to have my life partner from NCR (why? Well, there are many reasons which may need a separate post, so, not this time). There were some good meetings as well, but, as I already said in my first post that these posts will contain my funny (or weird) meeting experience with family members of those potential prospective brides.}

Meeting with girl’s parents was fixed at my apartment, again, I thought maybe they want to see how this bachelor is keeping up his home or may be my living standard. Thankfully they were only two people to screen me, the mother (the Lady) and the father. I escorted them in to my  apartment and made them settle down. After exchanging usual pleasantries and serving them whatever I had arranged the lady opened the questionnaire:-

The Lady: So, Ankit, tell me about yourself.

This question sounded like an interview question which is generally asked to candidates to start interview and I answered in that manner only.

The Lady: Ok, good. So from where you did your schooling and graduation? From Gujarat or from U.P?

Me: I did my whole schooling from Gujarat and graduation from U.P.

Girl’s father was smiling and pushing his both knees with his both hands. May be he was feeling sleepy or he was stressed out of driving from Rohini to Noida

The Lady: Ok and what was your percentages in Xth, XIIth and B.Tech?

Smile from face of girl’s father got vanished and I literally said

Me: Excuse Me.

From here the conversation went in Hindi

The Lady: Marks aapke Xth, XIIth and B.Tech me. Beta agar aap comfortable nahin ho to mat batao. Main ye dekhna chah rahi thi ki how intelligent you are.

Me: I am totally confortable in it. Itne bure marks nahin he mere, wo kya he na ki aisa question aaj tak kisi ne aisi meeting me pucha nahin to I was little shocked.

I told them about my marks and I wanted to told her that a person cannot be always declared as intelligent by looking at academics but I didn’t . She started digging her purse and took out some papers and handed over to me.

The Lady: Ye humari beti ki MCA ki photo copy he and uski transcript bhi he. Main generally rakhti hoon agar koi dekhna chahe to. Beta aap dikha sakte ho apne degree and transcript?

“Shock laga laga shock laga…..” I thought ki ye aunty marriage silsele me aayi he ya she is some third party verification agent.

Me: Arey aunty!! Iski koi zaroorat nahin he. Aapne bataya to I totally believe you after all ye to vishwas karne waali baat he. Haan wo baat sahi he ki verify karna chahiye as aajkal dhoka dhadi bahut hoti he.

She didn’t say any word, she smiled a bit and then become somewhat serious.  I continued

Me: Waise aunty Preksha (imaginary name) ke Xth and XIIth ke certificates and marksheets nahi laye aap? Waise kitne marks the unke?

The Lady: Unke <something something> marks the aur baaki documents to he nahin mere pass. Aap k documents…..??

Me: Actually aunty, mere pass he nahin mere documents, ghar par he, soft copies he mere pass, if you want then I will send it you.

She has not expected such counter attack from my side. Girl’s father intervened and said

Father: Arey nahin, uski koi zaroorat nahin he, ye to bas aise hi pooch liya.

Me: Oh achha!!

On my such kind of reaction her facial expression was very serious as if she wanted to walkout from my apartment. She bent her head towards left, leaned forward and in a Sarkar Raj style she asked me

_{From her this kind of expression I sensed that she is going to ask another ajeeb question.}

The Lady: College me padhai k alawa kuch aur bhi kiya he ya nahin?

“Kuch aur bhi”…  there are various meanings of “Kuch aur bhi” in college life. Which one she wants to know so I asked her

Me: Sorry, aunty main kuch samjha nahin.

The Lady: mera matlab sirf padhai hi karte the ya kisi sports, extracurricular activities me bhi involved the?

Me: Sports me to nahin but haan extracurricular activities me involve tha.

The Lady: (with a small fake smile on her face) ok, kis type ki activities?

Me: mmm…. Like watching movies, playing network based computer games on desktop,  getting involved in long night discussions (B*kch**i), raat ko khoke pe jaa kar Anda parantha khana and chai peena aur college ke management ko galiyan dena. _{Actually, I didn’t say all this.} Well, I was involved in organizing various kind of technical fest in college and I was also the founder member of our College’s first computer society “CONATUS”.

 The discussion shifted from education to general life, she asked me various things about our style of living i.e. how we (me and my cousin) are managing our food, how do we commute, what we do once we get to home after office and one more interesting question

The Lady: aap log apne kapde kaise dhote ho? I mean maid he ya apne aap?

Me: Ji maid ko humne hta diya as she has spoiled some of our good shirts and Ts so apne app.

The Lady: (With her mouth open wide) Apne aap, kaise haathon se?

Me: No, not at all, we have our own washing machine so we use it.

The Lady: Ok, so, shaadi ke baad kaun kapde dhoyega, aap ya aap apni wife se kahoge?

I was losing my temper on such stupid questions, I decided that I won’t be answering  this question diplomatically

Me: Aunty, ye to situation pe depend karega, agar meri wife is out for some work and kapde dhone ki zaroorat he to main hi dho dunga, isme koi male ego waali baat to he nahin. Abhi bhi main hi dhota hoon aur jaise time k according requirement hogi waise dono kar lenge. Aisa to he nahin ki I will always ask her to do the clothes, hum ek padhe likhe samajhdar log he and hum jaante he ki mil  baat kar kaam karne se time bhi save ho jaata he and enjoyment alag hota he. Wo to pehle ki baat thi jab har kaam ghar ki lady ko hi karna hota, mere khyaal se ab aisa nahin, jab dono husband and wife working he to dono ko mutual understanding se saare kaam karte hein.

Auntyji to thodi der k liye chup ho gayi. Girl’s father sensed that it is not going well and I am getting irritated with such questions so he broke the silence

Father: haan beta ye to sahi kha aapne.Aisa hi hona chahiye, dono me se agar koi naraaz bhi ho jaye to doosre partner ko musky maar kar use mana bhi lena chahiye.

He kept down his soft drink glass on table and asked his lady

Father: I think hume ab chalna chahiye.

She nodded in agreement and they left the apartment. I was sure that by seeing my khadoos attitude they are not going to proceed and I also wanted this.