Chp 791. One Last Ride to Lonavala

The first time I went to Tiger Point / Lion Point at Lonavala was two years ago when dear Esther dragged me out of my house and tried to make me see the finer side of Pune instead of just staying at home the whole day watching TV shows [Read: A Trip to Lion's Point].

Since then, I have been there many times again, mostly as fifth wheel or seventh wheel with friends, and usually drunk :D

Recently, my dear friend Sanga who had also retired from the Corporate Life earlier this year and went back to Mizoram for good, recently came down to Pune again, and we had our one last ride to Lonavala.

On the day that we were supposed to leave, we all woke up early at our respective houses. We went in two cars. Gary, Sanga, Christina and Tuli in one car, and Pazhiio, John and me in the other car.

We were all so pumped up that after Pazhiio and John picked me up from Koregaon Park and drove for around 30 minutes, we ended up back at Koregaon Park again! :D Yeah, I knew something was wrong when we passed Khadki Martyr Cemetery because it wasn't on the way, lolz.

So eventually we all switched on our GPS, took a U-turn and found the right route, lolz. Great fun. Picked up the good stuff on the way and we did the customary pose.

Ahhh finally the Expressway.

We took a brief pit-stop after the Toll gate.

McDees. Enough to keep our engines running.

And with that, we were off on our way again.

Finally, reached Tiger Point.

Cute wild monkeys everywhere, eating anything the tourists were feeding them.

Tuli and Christina having fun.

Lewlz. Some people never grow up.

After that, we decided to take our drive further to explore some of the other places around Tiger Point.

We found a perfect spot.

My awesome OnePlus 6 camera :)

After loitering around for some time, we decided to even go further.

Beautiful. Soon we reached Aamby Valley premises.

The entrance to the much exclusive Aamby Valley City.

For those of you who don't know, Aamby Valley is a private gated community for the uber rich folks in Maharashtra. So random tourists like us cannot just enter the place. They even have their own private airfield and hangars for all the private jets landing there.

For a private community boasting of billionaires and millionaires, it sure is funny to see nobody fixing the broken sign on top of the building :P

On our way back.

View from the car in front of us.

View of the car in front of us :P

We found another virgin spot on our way back. The place had a breathtaking view.

Off to take more pics.

Pazhiio in action. Now that is dedication when it comes to taking a pic! :D

We looked like we were about to drop our meanest album and this was the album cover :D

Christina posing.

Tuli also wanted to take pics at the same place :D Ah, the struggle you go through just to have a high like count on your Instagram update. :P

Pazhiio resting from all the yoga pose photography :D

Again, my awesome OnePlus 6 photography :P

We stopped by a pottery barn on the way back home and Sanga bought a couple of stuff to take back to Mizoram.

Sunset over Pawana dam.

And finally on our way back on the Expressway.

Such a fun time indeed, and is truly memorable to me as this was our last ride there together. I will miss all this a lot, and will always remember these awesome places once I head back home.

Chp 790. Yearlong Christmas Tree!

A Christmas Tree is special to all Christians, and to many Mizos living away from Mizoram, it is even more special to decorate our own Christmas Tree at our rented apartments, even though the tree is definitely not as big as the ones our family will be decorating back at home. But still, it is the thoughts that count.

Today being 25th November, exactly one month to Christmas, this is the time I would usually start putting up my Christmas Tree too. However, today, I am doing the exact opposite - putting down my Christmas Tree!

You see, I haven't taken down my Christmas Tree since last year! It had been up the entire year!

It's not because of laziness. I knew from the beginning of this year that this would be my last year away from home. That it would finally be time to pack up and go home for good, and that I would be home before Christmas. And so, since I would not be spending any more Christmases away from Mizoram again, putting up a Christmas Tree this entire year was a way for me to move past that pain.

I still remember last year when my friends Sangi and Hlimi who live in the next lane from my apartment came over on their way back home from work, just as I was about to decorate my tree. They immediately volunteered to help me decorate it!

And with them still in their business attire, it really looked as if I hired some professional decorators to do my Christmas Tree :D

A big thanks to them again. Simple as my tree and decorations are, they made a fine work out of it.

Thadaaa.

And today, as I finally dismantled my Christmas Tree with one hand while wiping off the tears rolling down my cheek with the other hand, I realized this had been a fine good run for me. It was during First Year of College in the year 1999 that I started putting up my own Christmas Tree in my hostel room, and continued that tradition wherever I went since then. 20 years of Christmas Trees outside Mizoram, finally coming to an end now. You would cry too if you had been through what I had been through.

Ahhh... the last of my Christmas Tree.

With much luck and fortune, my next few Christmas Trees from now on will be not just with my family back home but maybe a future Mrs.? Of little children merrily running around the Christmas Tree and calling me daddy or even grandpa... who knows? That's the power of a Christmas Tree and the magic of Christmas. Take care for now everyone, bye. Love and Peace.

Chp 789. A-Z challenge

Having done my task for the day with my packing and paying bills and helping out some friends, I realized I am pretty jobless at the end of the day. And yeah, that's because I am technically jobless.

So I decided to update my blog with the "A-Z challenge". It's something I just made up :P All you have to do is open your desktop browser and type an alphabet from A to Z at the address bar one at a time. See what website appears for each letter, as the URL suggestion will be the website you visit the most (unless you regularly clear your cache or browsing history).

And considering this blog post number happens to be chapter 789 (get it? 7, 8, 9), it would be an apt to write this A-Z post. Just be brutally honest about which website appears on your browser, and let me know your results :)

My desktop browser is Chrome, and the last time I cleared my browsing history was probably, like, never, because I live alone and there's nothing to hide from anyone (sticks tongue out to all the husbands and boyfriends out there). Here is my A-Z list -

A - aws.amazon.com - This is my image hosting site for all my blog updates. Long time ago, pressing "A" used to lead to either arseblog.com (which is my favourite Arsenal FC related blog), or amazon.in for online shopping. Not anymore, I guess.

B - blogger.com - No surprises there. My blog domain, the reason why I am still blogging for the past 15 years.

C - cleartrip.com - Not that I book a lot of tickets, most of the time I would just compare different flight ticket costs and contemplate whether to visit another city during the weekend while sitting at home, alone, drunk, and 99% of the time I would eventually decide not to go, lolz.

D - dailymail.co.uk - My favourite British tabloid. But I use it mainly to follow American politics, lolz, and of course the British Royal Family updates, along with regular Premier League football news. It's one of those few sites where you'll read an extremely biased Pro-Trump article, immediately followed by an extremely biased Anti-Trump article, lolz. To be fair, I think that is more balanced than reading just CNN or just Fox News. :D

E - en.savefrom.net - Lolz, this is a site I use to download YouTube videos. However, on my Internet Explorer browser, pressing "E" shows eztv-torrent.com, my favourite torrent downloading site for movies and TV shows. I can't open this torrent site from my Chrome browser because of my Ad-blockers, and it is the only time I ever use Explorer on my PC.

F - figma.com - Surprisingly, it is not Facebook (which is second in my URL suggested list). Figma is a very useful online tool that I use at work to build prototypes and work flow for different projects. It is extremely efficient, cloud-based, and can be operated portably on my mobile for user-test scenario offline. Sometimes I would work on Figma the entire day, even for an entire week, until we have the exact proto model required for tech implementation, so yeah, no wonder it trumps Facebook.

G - gmail.com - No surprises there.

H - hotstar.com - I've been a Hotstar premium user since the time they started, as it was the first time we could also watch Game of Thrones without having to download from torrent, and I also use it every weekend to watch football matches.

I - imdb.com - I visit this site mainly to check out the ratings after seeing a new Movie or TV show torrent on eztv-torrent.com or Popcorn-Time app. If I am still undecided with the rating, then I go to youtube to check out the trailer and then decide whether to download or not.

J - jira.jetsynthesys.com - Lolz, this is another tool I use every day at work to complete tasks, track bugs, basically manage the entire project along with timelines and scopes. Now that I am no longer working, this will also be replaced soon from my URL suggestions like Figma above.

K - kima.in - My domain name. I seriously do not visit it that often, maybe just to check once a month to see if it is still active because I am too lazy to sign in to my godaddy account, lolz. It's just redirected to another static about.me page. But it is a part of my unique identity I want to keep alive online, especially since there are so many other Kimas. Even KIMA (Karnataka International Music Awards) has been after me for many years asking if they can buy the domain from me, but it's my name, it's something I can never let go.

L - livescore.com - My favourite site to check football LIVE scores and schedules.

M - mizohican.blogspot.in - Oops, talk about vanity, lolz, my own blog is my most visited site starting with "M". Well, I do read a lot of my old blog posts now and then, as sometimes they remind me of the silly things I used to do.

N - netbanking.hdfcbank.com - My bank.

O - opensubtitles.org - The best site for subtitles. I watch most of my TV shows with subtitles, it's kinda like a habit now.

P - pornleech.is - Ok, I'm not gonna talk about what this site is about :D :D :D Also, it has been down most of the time for the past few months, so I don't know why it is still there on the top of my URL suggestions. Hmmm...

Q - quora.com - Best site to ask questions and get the best answers.

R - reddit.com - Bang on. My favourite subs these days are r/RoastMe and r/Photoshop_Battles.

S - swiggy.com - Of course this has to be here, lolz. Sometimes I would randomly chat with Swiggy executives to discuss about food because I am lonely.

T - twitter.com - One site I cannot live without. If I don't read my daily dose of top tweets, I tend to go insane.

U - The only alphabet that didn't come up with any URL suggestions. I'm sure I visited UEFA site a couple of times, or Uber website to complain about cancellation charges, no idea why those aren't showing up.

V - vodafone.in - I guess this is here because I pay my monthly bill through their website. Also, not many other popular sites I visit start with a V.

W - wikipedia.org - The website that changed the world. And countless college assignment "research" time, lolz.

X - xda-developers.com - Ahhh, my favourite nerd hangout. It has saved me from soft-bricking my Android more than I can count. Right below that is xkcd.com, another favourite nerd comic of mine.

Y - youtube.com - Cool. And I'm so glad it's not youporn, lolzzz.

Z - zomato.com - Glad to end this with another food related website.

And so this is my list of A-Z websites on my browser. Thank God, just one porn site is there in the list, lolz. Let me know yours, either here in the comment section or on my Facebook comment thread. Just be honest, it's really fun, especially when you see some shady websites popping up, lolz. Your move. Cheers.

Chp 788. Trump Towers, Pune.

Take any group of people, like a WhatsApp group for example, a group that had been co-existing  peacefully together for a long time, sharing memes and laughter alike, and mention just one name - "Donald Trump", and you'll most probably see the group divided like never before, one side attacking the other and hurling abuses at each other.

Even his famous building "Trump Tower" in Manhattan, NYC, is a favourite spot for people to hold their protests. Democrats, Liberals and Far-Left groups on one side, Republicans, Conservatives and Far-Right groups on the other side. It is a place under constant surveillance and security.

Well, we have our very own Trump Towers here in Pune too. Unfortunately, it lacks any of the drama and flair like the one in NYC possesses. The only time the place is chaotic is during office rush hours due to the Metro construction going on in the middle of the road.

So the other day, just before I quit my job, there was a once in a lifetime opportunity to visit Trump Towers, and I immediately signed up for it!

The CEO of our company where I used to work (up until last week) owns two floors at Trump Towers. In fact he was the first person to buy an apartment and when the building was inaugurated, Donald Trump Jr. himself personally came and handed him the keys at the inauguration function.

We, the employees of Jetsynthesys, were cordially invited to the exclusive book launch of Simon Taufel, a 5-time ICC Umpire of the year. I asked my colleagues if they were planning to go and many of them weren't because they weren't interested. As for me, I was excited, not because it was an exclusive interaction with Simon Taufel (I didn't even know the person, in fact that was the first time I was coming across his name because I don't watch cricket). I was excited because the event was taking place inside Trump Towers.

And so, at around 5:30 PM, I left office with some of my friends. Trump Towers was around 10 minutes walking distance from our office and so we walked there.

There was a lot of security at the gate, but all our names were there in their roster and they quickly let us in.

I know a couple of Mizos and Nagas working at Trump Towers as Concierges, and I even met some of them later that day. They told me that Trump Towers Pune is purely a Residential building, so random outsiders and tourists cannot just walk inside, only those guests invited by the tenants were allowed entry. Apparently, according to them, I was the first Mizo visitor to enter Trump Towers!

Lolz, yeah, kinda ironic, considering there are so many Mizo Trump fans out there, and yet the one person who is the first to step inside is me, probably the most non-Trump fan around :D

The building was majestic though, and we walked from the gate to the reception, which was surprisingly not near the entrance but much further behind at the back.

I decided that I was never going to buy an apartment there because if I came home drunk from a party and my Uber dropped me at the gate, I would have to crawl for such a long distance just to reach the lobby door :P

My concierge friends told me that usually on other normal days, they were equally divided between the two towers, but on that day, since the event was held at Tower A, reinforcement was obtained from Tower B.

Stepping inside the lobby.

There was this large board welcoming Simon Taufel.

One of the concierges led us to the elevator.

Once we were inside, she pressed "P" and the elevator moved up. I was like, "Cool! There's a Parking floor above the ground floor!" But then I learnt that the P stood for "Podium" and that was the floor where the event was held at :D

The Occasion Room at the Podium.

We roamed outside at the balcony before the program started. Refreshments were organized by our company people.

Nice swimming pool. At the far end is Tower B, which apparently is identical to Tower A in terms of structure and ambience.

I took a picture with Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Jared Kushner. :P

Again I found another reason never to buy an apartment here. Look at the building behind us, the complete closed glass walls. Where the hell will I hang my washed undies after I take a shower? :D :P

Refreshments time!

The sandwich was personally made by Ivanka Trump, and the samosas were fried by Donald Trump that morning :P

The guest of honour Simon Taufel with our CEO and MD, Rajan and Rakesh Navani.

The Navani brothers are definitely one of the most down-to-earth people I have ever met, and most of us have a lot to learn from their humility and simplicity.

Finally once everybody was done eating and taking pictures, we headed inside the conference room where the book launch function was about to begin. I slyly snuck out and headed straight for the elevator and left the building :D My mission was done. No offense to Simon Taufel, but I don't even understand Cricket rules properly, nor do I watch the game even when India is playing, so it was going to be extremely boring for me. But I wish him all the best and success on his grand book launch.

And with that, I left my footprints at Trump Towers.

As usual, of course I sent my photos to all my Mizo friends who were Trump fans just to make them jealous. They were seething with rage. Nah, just kidding. I have left that "Me versus You" debate a long time ago. Just because they worship Trump doesn't mean I hate them or anything, everybody has the right to have their own opinion. People who follow my blog or know me well will know that I lean Liberal in most issues, but lately I have seen many left-leaning individuals silence conservatives or traditionalists and even deem them to be inferior to their intellect, which is not a belief I agree with. And that is why I hate labels. Let us not label each other.

I now treat this whole Pro-Trump versus Anti-Trump debate in the Mizo online world as just another football match. I am a hardcore Arsenal fan, if you are a Manchester United fan, I will curse you and abuse you and taunt you during our entire match, but after our match, you and I are back to being best friends drinking together and making merry whole night. That is how all political debates should be like.

Also, I think we really need to tone down how much American media we watch. Already, we have the dangerous precedent of calling any news as "FAKE NEWS" if it is not favourable to us, thanks to a certain fine gentleman. And then there are the numerous number of conspiracy theories being spread as real news at various Mizo FB groups. And finally there's the name-callings. The other day, I was arguing with a Mizo Trump supporter about LGBT rights in India, namely section 377. The guy was somewhere from Lawngtlai in Mizoram according to his FB profile, when suddenly he called me a "filthy DemoRat"! I was like, WTF??? Lolz. A "DemoRat" is apparently a nickname used by Republicans to call Democrats in America. Like seriously? I really don't give a rat's ass about Democrats or Republicans, we were arguing about the basic human rights of an individual here in our own Country. See, that is how far we stray from reality if we watch too much of American media all the time.

So with that, I will leave you all, raising my glass to you all for a "Cheers", regardless of which side of the political spectrum you belong to. Thuthlengs.