Pakaa Mat, Sirf Khaa !

I give you five situations. Pick the one that's irrelevant-the one that doesn't really happen.

Situation 1: Mohit is a 20 year old guy who's into cricket. He represents Jain University and has played at the State Level as an under-19 cricketer. He is a top order batsman. Last Saturday, he came home from practice at about 7pm, feeling really hungry. That's when his dad said, "Son, we are eating out tonight. Get ready." "Why?" asks Mohit. "Mom isn't in the mood to cook tonight and so aren't I" is the reply he gets. Option-less Mohit gets ready to eat out.

Situation 2: Rizwaan and Abhijeet are roomies in an Engineering college hostel in Pune. It's Rizwaan's mom's birthday and he wants to treat his roomie. There's an internal test the next day for which none of the two have studied. They think for a while and then decide to stay back and study. An hour later they feed themselves on the regular hostel food and curse it.

Situation 3: Sneha's parents are in town. She stays in a girls' PG. With an idea to surprise her parents, she misses a class and prepares aalu ki subji for them. Sadly, it doesn't taste edible by any stretch of imagination. Just then, she realises it's time for her to move out and go to the hotel where her parents are put up. Worse still, she has already said to her mom, "Maa, we shall eat in your room itself. I shall get something for you". Sneha queues up in a restaurant post that and gets late in meeting her parents.

Situation 4: A newly married couple, Vivek and Roshni are watching 'How I Met Your Mother-Season 8'. It's their favourite series after all. They wish to watch all the episodes and they don't want to cook for sure. Pizza is not a thing that Vivek likes at all. So, it's time for a sacrifice from Mr.Hubby. He has to have pizza. Later that night, at 4am, Vivek is seen in the kitchen munching on biscuits.

Situation 5: Everytime you've had to eat out, though you didn't wish to.

So, relevant or irrelevant?

Let me tell you. You've either found each of them relevant or each of them irrelevant. Why?

If it's all relevant, then of course you're still to enter the growing world of food delivery services. If it's all irrelevant, then you've already ordered from www.tastykhana.com I suppose.

Entrepreneurship, they say, is totally about identifying a need and then serving it. So there are a bunch of people out there in your city who are doing just that. I read about them and feel inspired.

These services not only save you on the petrol expenses, but they also save you valuable time that you can spend with your friends and family. We just need to call them and tell them what we want and from which restaurant. In about 30 minutes, we get our food delivered at our doorstep for no extra charge. This is magical for sure. Also, you don't need to go and listen to whatever music that restaurant plays for you. You can have our own set list in the PC and play your favorite numbers or watch a movie or just talk casually. Who's stopping you?

There are also times when mom has to cook because we aren't feeling like going out. So, now, that issue is sorted too. And thank God, you dont have to eat Pizza everytime no one cooks at home. You can order whatever you like.

Times are changing, you see. So, tell your friends, "Pakaa Mat, Sirf khaa... :)"

e-Food ! Pretty good !

The story dates back to the 1880's, when a person called Mahadeo Havaji Bachche decided to make a move. He recognised a need and made up his mind to serve it. The rest, as the saying goes, is history. Go to any IIM, and you will find a bunch of geeks trying to crack their code. They, ladies and gentlemen, are the 'Dabbawalas'.

A Dabbawallah

The magic is that this organisation, even after over 120 years of inception, still keeps growing at close to 8-10% every year. Winners, according to Shiv Khera, don't do different things; they simply do it differently. So, here we have a lot of upcoming winners in the space of electrons, trying to do in a different way, what the Dabbawalas have been doing for ages. This brings us to the hot new semi-industry called 'Online Food Ordering'.

The game's interesting. But, who's playing? Let's figure.

Yummm...

The gamer named justeat.in came into being in July 2006, with their first name 'Hungry Zone'. The concept was simply to make people avoid making phone calls to order. From just 15 restaurants to 2000 of them n a span of six years has been a really great journey that was intiated by Mr. Ritesh Dwivedy, once a techy. If you are a Delhite, go for it, I say.

Just Eat

If you happen to be in Pune, Mumbai or Bangalore, there's this player called tastykhana.in that's doing some awesome work. A brainchild of Shachin Bharadwaj, this was a typical home-startup back in October 2007. Now, whether you wish to have a sub or order a sumptuous mutton biryani from Faasos, you just need to dial 6000 8484. Afterall, you dont deserve to die hungry if your net isn't working. And yes, these guys take orders neatly and deliver on time. I've used their service and it definitely 'is' fantastic.

Tasty Khana

Then there's one called titbit.com. I don't quite like them. Just read the 'about us' section in their website and you will know that they don't belong to your 'taste'. I've seen this name associated with a few restaurants in Pune, but these people really love to complicate by what I get. I asked a couple of restaurants and came to know that their tie-ups are pretty complicated ones.

Titbit

Zomato is great. You find menus of all the restaurants out there on that website. The problem is that they do not deliver you the food. So, they aren't the single-point-solution to your hunger. They are more like a foodie's justdial on the net, but again, as I said, they are great at the bit they do. The best part about them is that they are everywhere. With 12 cities in India, 3 in the UAE and one in Sri Lanka, they are growing really fast. Sheer awesomeness, you see.

Zomato

In all, the scene's shaping up pretty well and the good news is that the industry is growing every quarter. People are growing lazier and the number of internet users is on a new high. That makes me assume that all the smart players in the marketspace are going to grow, given they play it cool and keep their promises, coz end of the day, that's what a foodie, or for that matter any customer wants.

All right then, ciao for now !

We men v/s women !

"Once upon a time, we were scared of the shopping malls. I remember taking different, and at times longer routes to avoid wasting time and money on my female partner. Sometimes, I'd get away with it but usually, I had to move into the Centrals, the Forums, the Garudas, the Phoenixes...you name it ! And that's how I wasted most of my slave-earned money.

But, these days, she's a lot different. She doesn't force me to go to those malls. She just takes my card and shops online ! How convenient !", says some guy, XYZ !

Such is the condition of the hu-man race. What's worse is that the condition is getting even more unsolvable with the passing days. She needs apparels, she's got myntra. She needs the next novel by her favourite author, she's got flipkart. She wants new offers to chose from, and snapdeal is right under her nose. She wants to eat, there's this tastykhana.com.

Now, the question to be asked is how. How the hell do we change the trend? The answer is simple. We can't. The marketers today are smarter than most of us are. After all, they are professional sellers and we aren't professional buyers. So, we lose the contest even before it starts. These marketers make shopping so bloody easy that we don't even think twice before entering those 16 digits and the CVV.

Psychologically speaking, credit card money doesn't really seem to be real money, probably because it isn't anyways. Therefore, we spend, only to realise later that we are broke for the month. And the funny part here is, that we do not make this mistake once. We repeat it every month. After all, we get nice bucks into our accounts at the end of every month. So, who cares !

Is there a solution to this? Oh hang on, do you see this as a problem, first of all?

Think about it. The solution, as always, lies within.

The other day, in Pune !

Not too often in life does everything fall in place for as long as 3-4 days in a row. Luckily for me, that happened last week. I was touring Pune with my band, Divine Raaga. It was the band's first outing; and guess what, we were travelling to the city of my choice. Among other reasons for my love for the city, is the fact that my lady love is currently put up there.

Thursday, November 1. The band arrives. We go around the city, with Anand and I playing part-time guides for the rest of us; after all we'd stayed in that city in the past and there was no way we wouldn't show that off. The day was nice. Thanks to Anand, our taste buds got treated to some serious awesomeness in M G Road, tasting authentic Marathi Thali at just 180 bucks ! (200 if you waste food. What a move !). Once we were back, we got busy practicing the special song for the gig, a changed version of our project song, Apna Tendulkar. Soon, it was 12 and officially it was gig-day !

However, I wanted to spend a few more hours with my musician pals, trying to learn a fact or two from them. Our drummer, Mrinal gave me company and I got to hear a bit about melodies and how important that was to a band like ours. Also, some 12 hours before that I got some free lessons on songwriting while Anand rode me to M G Road.

Before I slept at 5am, Mrinal had engraved a beautiful composition of his into my greys and I couldn't help humming that. It goes 'Teri muskuraahaton pe martey rahen, har lamha, tanha'. Beautiful melody. Bollywoodish, but very soothing and classy.

Friday, November 2. Gig day. We woke up late. Spent half the day trying to get my friend's bike fixed. I had borrowed that to save myself from the unavoidable autowalarchy ! But the tyres of the bike weren't any better. Our gig was to start by 8. Karavaan at IISER was where we were going to headline in a while. There were some 10 performances before our gig and 8 of them were pretty pathetic. There was one kickass group dance and a nice performance by the IISER band that made me feel good. Also, some 10 of my friends in Pune had turned up for the show and that felt nice, especially because the gig venue was really far away from where most of them stayed.

Enter Divine Raaga. They rocked. There are a couple of things the band tends to lack (I wouldn't tell you what all. Those are meant to be kept to the band) but in this gig I couldn't spot much of an error. It was all pretty awesome and most importantly, the crowd loved it. Though I am hardly responsible for how awesome a gig is, I always feel like there's a part I play as lyricist and manager. I often feel that's incorrect, but it's good to feel that you contributed, no matter how small that contribution is.

Saturday, November 3. Some stupid meeting and then I had an evening up in store. I was free by 6 and my better half was home by 7. "Let's get drunk", said one of us. Who cares who did !

But then I also wanted to have some awesome food along with the 'Madira'. Dominos? No ! I wanted to have mutton masala and rice. All this discussion was taking place after each of  us were at least a couple of pegs down. Options put forward were to order using Zomato, some Tit Bit or something I'd never heard of and a site called tastykhana.com. Zomato had too many options and I got a little puzzled. The options looked like pop-up ads. Coke Studio's 'Madari' must have played some 15 times by now on youtube, and had been set as my new ringtone as well.

Finally we placed an order using tastykhana.com. One mutton masala, One basmati rice and 2 egg rolls. 1 more peg each and there went the door-bell ringing. Naaice ! That was like as quick as Domino's.

We enjoyed the food as much as we wanted to. We were two happy customers. Happily drunk. Happily fed. Happily high.

Next morning I noted 4 good things about that new food ordering website I tried last night.
One. It was simple to browse, even though I was drunk.
Two. These guys take your order directly and don't put you across to someone else. Also they come and deliver. They are like the single point of contact, which is awesome service.
Three. They understood all that I said, though my girlfriend couldn't. But then, to be fair, she was also drunk, making our conversation twice as difficult.
Four. The delivery boy had change of 50 bucks.

Sunday. November 4. Back to Bangalore.

Here I am, yet again !

Well, after about a year, I am back to this glorious world of blogging, with my brand new blog, the Chakraview ! Here, I shall post my views and reviews on various topics such as music, food, cinema, our countrymen etc. Hope you guys shall read and challenge my outlook, in the process of having fun !
So, here goes...