Did Himesh always look like this ?

Did Himesh always look like this ?

Strange thought. I am now used to of finding Himesh in his traditional stuff and a cap, always and I often used to wonder that when this guy gets his cap off, probably never.

So I thought more and my common sense, whatever of it is left after all these years of testing all kinds of code (you can read some of my software testing tips at http://test-software.blogspot.com), tells me that there must be a time when this middle class born Gujarati would not have spotted a head-gear.

So I hunted and found what, well the old Himesh look. Look at some of these pictures and you would get a good break from the monotony of this current look.

Just this and I actually wanted to write this as a post, well I thought why not. He is riding really really high and with every new day I am growing a liking for his songs, my two year old daughter Pihu now recognizes him, probably I taught her that as part of ever-educating-juvenile-dad, and also knows that he is the guy behind songs like ‘ek baar aaja aaja aaja aaja aaaa jaaa’ and ‘a aa ashiqui mein teri’. He has been around long enough to carve a world for him, infact he directed music as back as 1988 (Bandhan) but was hit only by 1998 with Pyar Kiya to Darna Kya. He did few TV sops as well for Zee and our motherly channel DD. So its not an overnight or couple of years of hit movies to get where he is now. Enough of my justification for liking him.

Coming back to my daughter, I really wonder whether she would be able to recognize him w/o his head-gear. Enough Himesh, go get a shaver, you look much kewl-er and neat without this.

Bitten by a air ticket reservation bug

I like to travel (Read my travel blogs at www.ghumakkar.com) and mostly I am not alone, infact never. I travel to near-by places which means driving and a little far-away places as well which makes me to buy tickets and to encounter air-ticket reservation systems.

Last week, I got bitten very badly by a bug which was sitting in Air Deccan’s Ticket Reservation System. Before I start the story and give you details (including the PNR nos) I would like to first thank Captain for making air travel possible for common man. Frankly, all my leisure trips have been on budget airlines whether its Air Deccan or Spicejet or someone else. Had Captain not started it, we would still be travelling by train or not travelling at all. Continue reading “Bitten by a air ticket reservation bug”

It happened in India – By Kishore Biyani

It happened in India is a candid and close book by Kishor Biyani, the king of retail as often called by lot many with every growing day. This book which is sort of a young biography of Kishore is co-authored by Dipayan Baishya.

Kishore or KB as often referred to in the whole book starts with telling the Big Bazaar story esp the ‘Sabse Sasta Din’ campaign of 26 January 2006 and it reads like one hell of a fiction. I wont leak the story but how much you can imagine a grocery store can make by selling Atta, rice and low priced tops and jeans. They do sell TVs and Washing Machines but these are not the ones which get picked up in large nos. Ever heard someone who wanted to buy one AC, actually ended up buying three of them. This happens all the time for folks who go to Big Bazaar to buy a T-Shirt or a Juice can or even a shampoo.

Coming back to fiction, the first story is very well sold to readers and that sort of binds you to read the remaining book. Some of the things which KB talks about are how there store are never a few steps up guarded by a inhibitive security person or on how not to have long aisles and how the concept of having mini-bazar is so much common sense. One of the things which everyone keeps telling us is that when WalMart or other such biggies come here with their expert inventory systems, people like KB will go bust. Well after reading it doesn’t seem like as KB tells us stories and stories on how we need to Indianize things.

After the big bazaar story, KB tells us about his background, how his parent came from Bikaner and setup shops in Mumbai as traders. He is a Marwari like some of the other big businesses but he didn’t chose to do what his parents were doing. He dabbled in many things, from tailoring patlooons (yeah thats what it was called way back) to setting a fabric factory.

You would be surprised to know that KB even produced a movie called ‘Na Tum Jaano Na Hum’ followed by another flop and decided to stop. He talks about the future and the ‘future group’.

Pretty easy and good read for all. He finishes with another equally fascinating fiction which they pulled off next year on 26 Jan 2007.

Read it.

More land development near NH58

More land development near NH58

Just back after a 2.5 hour drive to a new area which is being developed. Its near NH58. If you are coming from Delhi and going towards GZB towards Anand Vihar, Dabur, Vaishali, Vasundhara or from the Shahadara side then you hit Mohan Nagar (yeah, of Mohan Meakins fame). From Mohan Nagar, drive towards GZB and you will hit Hindon, cross the river and look for a exit on the left. Its a kuccha road, sustain the drive for 7 odd KMs and you would start to see the development work.

This kuccha road is billed as the swanky 6 lane expressway which will connect to NH58, the road that leads to Roorkee and then to Haridwar. It will take a while to get this work done but once thats done, you would be able to avoid a better part of GZB. Currently there is nothing much in this area, some villages, couple of re-hab colonies and an Ashram here or there or few nurseries.

Some of the builders are Garg builders (River Heights), KDP Infrastrutre, Grand Savana from someone, Ashiana etc. There is no big builder of repute (ATS, Supertech, Unitech, Ansals, KrishnaApra etc) who is active as of now. The quoted price is Rs 1750 per sq feet. I guess if you go with the money in your pocket, you should get it for Rs 1500 and withs other goodies thrown in like Free Parking etc.

Does it make sense to buy – Well, it depends on your risk appetite. My personal safe recommendation to first time house buyers would be to avoid this place for some time. It might be worth buying the same flat for 1800 per Sq Feet, 6 months from now if that means more clarity, bigger builders or simple more peace of mind. But if you have a house and if you are not in too much of loan then do evaluate it. I still think that the big realty boom is yet to happen, so if you have got some spare cash, then go and take a look yourself. You might get rich 🙂

Black Box Vis-a-vis White Box Testing

Black Box Vis-a-vis White Box Testing

Like most of the other developing streams of wisdom, testing also can boast of a long list of terminologies and a good hell of them makes no sense to out side world. There is no good way to really dissect various kinds of testing using a particular method because none of them is complete . One way which most of the practioners have sort of agreed upon is to divide them in two colors so as to put everything in Black and White and these are

– White Box Testing
– Black Box Testing

Continue reading “Black Box Vis-a-vis White Box Testing”