Showing posts with label Brands. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brands. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Review of Online Retailer - Jabong

I recall it was about 2-3 years back when I once got stuck at Andheri-Jogeshwari flyover for about half an hour during one of the hot afternoons of summer. During those 30 minutes of no-movement inside the cab, I had nothing much to do except for looking around at others who were also stuck like me there. People in all sorts of vehicles - Mercedes, Jaguars, Honda City and good old Fiat Padmini, were all travelling at same pace and were stuck together irrespective of where they came from and where they were headed to. By observing that scenario I struck with the moment of truth that no matter how and where a person lands up on this Earth, but ultimately he/she has to get stuck somewhere with a lot many others of different economic backgrounds. To be honest, I really felt that I learned a lot during that half an hour of congestion.

In between this period of understanding social anthropology, I had no idea that I would also learn a lot about changing trends in Indian shopping scenario. So my second learning of the day was that a lot of people shop online through Jabong.com. Like the first learning, this one also came from the same old traffic only. In-between those plethora of vehicles, there were frequent motor-bikes travelling with pillion guys carrying parcels of JABONG. Initially after observing 2-3 of those motor-biked courier delivery men I assumed that they must have been part of a single shipment travelling together. But sooner I got to know that my assumption was simply based out of plain ignorance. Obviously, I then kept on noticing a lot of JABONG men travelling to and fro delivering the parcels to their respective recipients.  

Escaping the traffic, and after escaping the busy life of Mumbai I reached back to my city of Vadodara. Yes, my same old #damndrystate. Once home, I started my research on this JABONG. Once there online on it, I was amazed with the chunk of products available on it. I do agree that there are few other competitive brands offering similar service, but if I have to get into a thread-bare analysis with the perks and services I look for, then definitely JABONG will stand out from the crowd.

As any one close to me can vouch that I am a complete non-shopaholic. So, I did not shop as in shop with them much, though I did buy 2 silver rings from them. That was then, but recently they contacted me to review their site and gifted a voucher to do so. Again me being me, I just could not bring myself to shop and I hence did not realize when the voucher actually reached its date of expiry. Again me being me, I forgot about the whole thingy till the sweet people at JABONG again got in touch to know if I did use that voucher. I told them the truth and they were really sweet to extend the life of the voucher. I then did shop from them and surprisingly I did buy a dress for myself.

To let out a fact, I am a dress person. I have a huge collection of dresses, but all have been from stores in the U.S. I have always believed that good dresses are only from phoren stores. May be that is the reason I never ventured into searching them on any stores in India, be it online or offline. But this recent gift from JABONG made me venture into that territory as well.

I checked out their collection and to begin enlisting my observations - they do have a huge collection of dresses. With prices ranging from less than 300 INR to well above 30,000 INR, they have more than 6000 SKUs in dresses at any point of time. I have listed few of the features of the site which helped me with my purchasing decision, which are apparently absent in the competitor websites.

1. More inventory. For dresses - 6679, the nearest competitor offers 5123.

 2. Classification on Dress type - For me a Peplum dress is a sub-set of DRESS. I cannot wear a
    similar dress style for all occasions. Thankfully JABONG caters to the dress-informed people like
    me. So, it was easy for me to use their site to find a Maxi-dress for myself. By the way, such an
    advanced feature is rarely found in other online stores.

3. Classification on Occasion type - I was thrilled to see a classification on Occasion for dresses.
    That is one feature that can be of use to people who are not much acquainted with the process of
    buying dresses irrespective of an online or offline mode. I simply checked the WORK option under
    Occasion and voila I had all the dresses as per my search criteria specified. 

4.  C.O.D. - It sounds like nothing if one is paying by digital money, but it matters a lot if one is not
     so sure on their shopping skills. Considering women and their shopping, it is much of a possibility
     that bought products could be returned. Yes, JABONG provides that option which is majorly
     absent for many of the small towns in our country.

5. Free Shipping - Now who does not want a free shipping. But if a site tells you that the minimum
    you need to order is 499 INR, you are bound to get irritated. I mean what is the point buying a
    dress for 399 INR and then look for something else for another 100 INR to get qualified for free
    shipping. Luckily JABONG does not tie to buy with such tricks. On the other hand, they
    simply ask for 2 products site-wide, irrespective of their price. So, one can enjoy free shipping
    even if their order is less than 499 INR.

So, I went ahead after my thorough research on the site and ended up buying a nice little dress which eventually turned out free for me as I was gifted a 500 INR voucher by them. I wanted some work wear sturdy garment in a dress that would cover up much and still be defined a DRESS. I am happy with my purchase and here I post a few pictures of me in it.

* Pictures are attached in chronological order

That is how the Package looked

Perfectly Packaged Consignment

Packed Dress Inside
 

The Lining and the Zipper of the Dress

I had to include myself wearing it


Overall, I had a fun time shopping and using the product that I bought from Jabong. The product was of good quality and definitely worth its cost. The inner lining of the dress was perfect along with the seam stitches and the back zipper.

Yes, I do look forward for another purchase with them any time soon.

If you wish to purchase anything similar like what I did, you can try this link.


P.S.: I am not paid a penny by anybody to write this article, all the content is my own. Though Jabong gifted me a no frill voucher which I used to purchase this dress. For the pictures, I give the credit to my friend Bhavina. Thanks Bhavina!

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Tuesday, December 16, 2014

When the Brands are Not Saved by their Ambassadors

These days it is not at all uncommon to find brands being endorsed by celebrities. Gone are the days when you find a well known personality acting as a mere user to a particular brand; rather today is the time when a celebrity is synonymous with a brand in all respects and time zones. Be it giving endorsement speeches, showing up at allied events organised or co-organised with the brand or speaking about them at all media events in front of the cameras as well as behind them and; all the time talking about using them and hopefully using the endorsed brands for real as well.

Also it is a general fad that adding a well known celebrity to endorse a brand increases its brand value. Statistics has shown that it does happen all the time. But there also exists data to prove that that has not happened all the time.

I am not aware of all, but there are few, namely 5 that caught my fancy, hence enlisting them here.


1. Shah Rukh Khan for Top Ramen

I am not talking of the current scenario where Shah Rukh Khan is the brand ambassador for the Sunfeast range of foods, but to the times when the actor was roped in as an attempt to shake the 90% market share enjoyed by NESTLE's brand of instant noodles - THE MAGGI.

Surprisingly, the actor's charm and keen marketing sense (so popularly called) did not do a thing to bring the meagre share of TOP RAMEN brand of noodles by the Indo Nissin Foods anywhere close to the former brand's.

Some would call it bad luck, others would call it failure of the brand and the brand ambassador, but I would like to keep it as "failing to make the first mover impact" by the Indo Nissin Foods that ultimately made their attempts in bringing up celebrities as plain futile.


Also, more recently they had Sania Nehwal as the brand ambassador, which also did not work. Sigh!

By the way Shah Rukh Khan today endorses the instant noodles brand by SunFeast. So I would not be surprised to see him any day slurping up some variant of Yippie noodles, if he has not done it already.






2. Ranbir Kapoor for Virgin Mobile India Ltd.

I laughed the first time I saw Ranbir Kapoor starting the tag line - I am a Virgin, are you? May be the playboy image of the then poster boy of Bollywood worked in the process of enticing their targeted audience as mentioned by the company - the YOUTH. But really that did not seem to happen anytime.
Further more, the brand was also unique in terms of offering the "get paid for incoming calls" strategy. Unfortunately, that also did not work. I got some data which is exhibited below, it clearly shows that the parent company for the brand Tata Teleservices itself does not have much worthwhile share in the market, so speaking of Virgin's share is not of much significance.

And a bit of trivia here - back then in 1999, they roped in Genelia D'Souza and Diana Penty (who obviously was not much of a hot property then) for their adverts. Later on the Kapoor scion moved on to the parent company Tata Teleservices, coincidentally with which Virgin mobiles penetrated the Indian shores with a joint venture.

Source:http://www.telecomlead.com/telecom-services/india-telecom-mobile-service-provider-market-share-2013-november-78760-47636





3. Katrina Kaif for Dyna Soaps

I mean, will any one will ever believe what I wrote as a heading for this one? Yes, it is true. I recall traveling by Mumbai locals in the year 2007 and finding the trains hoarded with big banner adverts of Ms. Kaif endorsing the brand with her full on grace.

Till date the travels and trains for me have been the same year after years, but I notice that the brand endorsed by the lady has changed. She moved on to the unbeatable leader in the consumer goods market HUL with their flagship brand LUX.
It is interesting to note that although today she is not associated with the brand, but her presence did help the FMCG arm of the Anchor Group, the Anchor Health and Beauty Care to claim that Dyna became the first new beauty soap in over a decade to enter the league of top 10 national soap brands in our country. The point to note here is that although the soap was launched in 2006, it achieved this feat within an year's time.

This makes me wonder what would have happened to the brand in current scenario if the rumored soon to be Mrs. Kapoor in question was still endorsing it!!!


when brands are not saved by their Ambassadors


4. Abhishek Bachchan for Maruti Versa and Ford Fiesta

Considering the overall flops that junior Bachchan has churned in Bollywood, it is not so surprising for anyone to conclude his omen carrying forward to his commercial brand endorsements as well.
Abhishek was either roped in with his dad or with the Maruti people only to endorse their family sized car Versa in the the year 2001 in an attempt to market their product as a family one. But as we all know, the brand failed miserably in the market and years later it was probably made into Maruti Eeco with a much lower price point than Versa, which seemed like an attempt to dispose the vehicle off the shelf.
Obviously, the company Maruti Udyog Limited had burnt their fingers in their bargain to get BOGO free celebrity offer.
Sadly enough, with time things did not change much; just the car manufacturer changed from Maruti to Ford. In the year 2005, Ford had Mr. Abhishek Bachchan roped in for their Ford Fiesta brand. Considering the fact that in those days his mainstream Bollywood career was going gun-ho with movies like Bluffmaster and Guru, it was obviously not insane for the guys at Ford to assume same accolades for their brand as well. But sadly, the American vehicle manufacturer did not even reconsider their endorsement contract with the actor after an year.
At this point I got nothing to comment; though I would love to share some trivia.

Moving further, the Maruti guys then got Kavita Kaushik of Chandramukhi Chautala fame from the hugely popular series F.I.R. to enact in their Eeco adverts; while brains at Ford were probably too scared to get any celebrity on board. So Ford remained brand ambassador-less till 2009, after which they had Suneil Shetty endorsing their SUV, Endeavour for a year long contract, which was obviously not renewed. (I knew you guessed it right by now) 

By the way, it is indeed contrary to find Abhishek Bachchan's septuagenarian dad still having a long list of active endorsements in his kitty, although those endorsements are successful or not is a matter of much debate worth many blog posts.(some day later I shall....)


when brands are not saved by their Ambassadors


5. Amitabh Bachchan for Uttar Pradesh Tourism

Continuing with the Bachchan family, brand endorsements are a synonym with the surname. Therefore, I could not help not include the biggest celebrity endorser of India in this list. I know this list is complied of the flop brand ambassadors; but when you have 20+ brand endorsements in your separate brand ambassador career profile No. #3 (politics was No. #2), you are bound to have made few wrong decisions in your career by the sheer rule of probability.

So, here I include senior Bachchan's Uttar Pradesh Tourism brand endorsement as a failure. If the various statistics have to be taken into consideration, the state did not see any significant change in the tourism footfall in the years 2004-2007 when he was the reigning brand ambassador of his home state. On the other hand, since the time he shifted his endorsement base to the state of Gujarat (last 5 years), the state witnessed a 14% pick-up in the tourism foot fall, which even surpasses the national growth rate by more than double the rate, which is 5.82% for the current fiscal.

Again a trivia on the facts and figures, the state of Uttar Pradesh enjoys the highest footfall in domestic influx of tourism averaging to 71 million (forget the international), whereas Gujarat has a mere figure averaging to 20 million for both. (don't look for currency symbol, I am talking of human beings here)

So, it is clear as to why the hugely popular brand ambassador failed here; what more greed can we expect from the state tourism board here.


Furthermore, I have a piece of personal advice for the decision makers for the UP tourism board here; instead of spending money on a new brand ambassador, why not work on improving the security scenario in your state, especially for solo female travelers like me. I am sure it will enhance the image and brand for your state, since the numbers you already have.

A big bit of Trivia: Not to forget the open white lie endorsement tag line from the dashing old man for their adverts: UP me dum hai, kyunki Jurm yaha kam hai (what rubbish, I am a born and luckily not brought up from the states of UP )


when brands are not saved by their Ambassadors


Hope it all was entertaining and factual to read , if not accept my sincere apologies. I shall try to be better with time.

Do add to the list....

Cheers!






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Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Indiblogger Monetization

La vista da uno dei ristoranti all'interno del...
La vista da uno dei ristoranti all'interno del Grand Hyatt (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Hi,

This morning I woke up to realize that my blog is accepted by Indiblogger to be up and running for monetizing their brand of content.

This typically means that I can post adverts that specifically come from them.

So, after spending a little time with the system, I got my ads integrated to my blogs.

Though currently, they are only offering a travel affiliate for monetization, which seems will improve in the times to come.

So here I am posting a search bar for this travel website. It is called Wego. 

Wego.com is the leading travel search site in the Asia Pacific and Middle East, headquartered in Singapore, with regional offices in Jakarta, Bangalore and Dubai. Available in more than 50 localised country sites and 30 languages, Wego searches hundreds of global travel websites including airlines, hotel chains and online travel agents, using powerful yet simple to use technology. Wego presents an unbiased and channel neutral view of travel prices, providing users with the choice of booking direct with a hotel or airline, or via an OTA or aggregator site.

I have tried and tested it. It works in the lines of IXIGO that we know of more popularly in India.

I as able to locate good hotels in my vicinity at more or less the same price that I find at other leading websites.

Though I have not used the site personally, but the ease with which it navigates, seems user-friendly.

I believe the real test of a travel booking website comes when you actually get to find a good deal at the last hours of travel.

That reminds me that I will have such moments in just about 15 days from now. Will then use it again and post the outcome. Till then one can experience it here - Wego.com

P.S: The java scripts provided by Indiblogger are broken, so I could not paste them here. Will do so if I get hold of the correct error free scripts at any time.

Also, please feel free to share your reviews here.



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Monday, August 25, 2014

kareena lakme twitter contest

So this post is to share some good news. No, do not get any hanky panky ideas. I want to share that one of my tweets made me win a personally autographed Lakme goodies hamper from the Kareena Kapoor Khan.

Yes, it happened, and it happened yesterday. I know I should have been posting this yesterday itself, but you know I am too lazy for myself.

So, anyway, yesterday it was a Sunday and I was in my lazy lamhe mode at around 12ish during the day time. So, I logged into my tweetcaster account from my phone and so some #GoesGlossy contest going on by Lakme India.

I scrolled some tweets on it and realized that basically it was just a part of promotion activity for the Lakme Fashion Week that also had its finale yesterday.

The contest basically required people to tweet with the #GoesGlossy hashtag on a picture of Kareena Kapoor which had her in 3 different make-up looks. One was supposed to voice out his/her favourite look for her amongst those 3 with a reasoning. Ultimately the best 5 of all entries would win a hamper from the organizers, which would be personally autographed by Ms. Khan.

                                                  



Generally I am not the one who goes for such quick trending one-day contests; but seeing the visuals of Kareena Kapoor Khan I immediately had some thought crossing my mind. Obviously then I blurted out in a tweet.

          



And then in few hours I was awoken to realize that I had about 50 notifications on twitter and one could guess why that number in just a matter of 4 hours.

Yes, I won that one.

I felt good and immediately I shared my joy with the person because of whom my creativity these days is blooming to a new flavor and color, and yes a glossy color.

Attached are both the contest tweet and the one that made me win. Cheers!!

P.S: The aftermath of the contest was a lot of young girls sending me tweets and following me, and then asking me to follow them back. And I hope that is it.

Also, a proof that I did win:





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Sunday, January 12, 2014

The contribution of Recharged Hair to the Love Life

http://www.sunsilk.in/

The coolest reason I find to recharge my hair is to sit pillion with my boyfriend on a two-wheeler bike while keeping my hair open. To be very frank, I have never really ventured out going on a bike ride with my boyfriend. There are 2 reasons for it; one is that my boyfriend does not have a bike (he drives a four wheeler); and secondly I am conscious of my limp and flat hair.

I could be termed lucky that my boy friend drives a sedan, but to be very frank I have missed out on getting cozy with him because of the huge size of the vehicle. I mean I like travelling in the luxurious car, but at times I feel some intimacy missing between the both of us due to the size of the car.

Many a times, I find myself staring at couples on 2 wheelers with a certain kind of crave. I crave of experiencing sitting close to my man on a bike with my hair let loose. I know both the stuff seem little impossible as of now, but I am sure there will be one day when they will not seem the same.

So for fulfilling the same, I have thought of a plan. I intend to use Sunsilk range of shampoos for myself and gift my boyfriend a brand new Vespa to fulfill this innocent dream of mine. I am sure the Sunsilk shampoo will super charge my hair and they will turn from flat and limp to bouncy and fuller. And the brand new Vespa will take care of the intimacy generation part of the plan.

Then we both can go for our bike drive with my hands resting on his shoulders and all the wind blowing in my hair. I just cannot imagine what I would go through at that particular time when this dream of mine will get fulfilled. I seriously get goosebumps....

Hope to see it getting fulfilled soon.

 http://www.sunsilk.in/ 





Monday, January 6, 2014

Jabong Affiliate Link

Sunday, June 2, 2013

Re-The overdose of co-branding

Hi,

This is just a P.S. kind of post to my last one. I was right; I did have a feel that I must have missed mentioning at least 1 advertiser for the latest sensation YJHD.

So, yesterday after I had posted, I was slapped on my face with another co-branded commercial for the movie.

And this one is the tooth-paste brand. Of course, hair, face, clothes and accessories, travel, and phone are already taken care of, so the only one that seems left out till now is the dental hygiene. 

Therefore, I am glad that that is also taken care of. Plus, there is an added advantage too. With the purchase of that particular limited edition brand of Close-Up tooth-paste, one gets a special autographed wrist band.

Do I really need to mention who has autographed that special wrist band???

LOL

Saturday, June 1, 2013

The overdose of co-branding

I know this movie released yesterday, and I think it is a hit. The television channels have been showing the rushes of the movie every 10 minutes, and yeah going by the lead cast and the energy bursting out of them, the movie does look an intersting one.

I also like all that joyous, colourful burst of energy, but what I really get distracted is by the flow of advertising that flows along with this peppy rom-com. Of course, it is just not possible to watch Ranbir or Deepika without either Makemytrip, Pond's, Nokia Lumia, Parachute Hair Oil, or Jabong.com being flashed on your screens. (Pardon me if I missed any)

I do not know what made these brands to co-brand with the movie. Do the advertisers really think people will buy those products because they are being tied with the movie.

Really these companies think we as consumers are so dumb??

Because if we scratch our head a bit, then we realize that it was not so long ago that we witnessed Ms. Padukone selling BB Garnier cream. And a little before that she was selling Maybelline cosmetics.

Oh yeah, I do agree that the only product that she endorses both in the movie trailer and otherwise also is the Parachute Hair Oil.

OK, I agreed with that one, but then why exactly the Pond's scrub that claims to remove tan is associated with the leading lady in the movie? Even if the HUL brand has co-branded with the movie producers, would not it have been more intelligent to replace the other lady Ms. Koechlin in the fairness inducing product??

On the other hand, the apparel online retailer is selling the wardrobe of the stars in the movie. I liked that concept of mimicking what the stars wear in order to become at least half as good looking as them. So, I thought of sourcing the same deep blue sari that Deepika drapes in the signature "badatmeez" song of the movie. But believe it or not, I searched the entire site, left right and centre, but I just could not find it, and how depressed and cheated I felt after that. Sigh....

Hope some of us understood the conniving ways of thrusting consumerism... 


Friday, July 20, 2012

Thanks Dove for being there...


Almost every one has a hair problem these days. Be it a man or a woman. I have never really come across anyone who does not have a hair problem to rant about. Beautiful, luscious hair seems like a fantasy entirely. The only times I have heard or seen people with good hair is in the fairy tale of Rapunzel, or the once in a blue moon coverage of some women somewhere with long stresses that are so and so many meters long, and of course the models in shampoo advertisements or the Bollywood divas in their movies. 

Xie-Qiuping-and-her-record-setting-hair

Now coming to a thread-bare or a hair-bare analysis of all these depicts of strong, beautiful, long, shiny stresses, we all know in our guts are not true. Rapunzel is indeed a fairy tale, so not worth discussing at all; models and actresses in movies and the shampoo advertisements look very different onscreen and vis-à-vis their off-screen presence. The fact that wigs, hair extensions, bouffant and tons of other artificial products are used to give volume to their hair is a common knowledge now. So, to vie for people on-screen having beautiful hair is also pointless. Next coming to the common people with good hair; well I really appreciate women who have made it to the Guiness book of World records or registered in the Limca Book of World records for their long stresses, but they still do not become someone I stay in awe of cause I have never seen really beautiful long hair on them. I mean their stresses do qualify for lengths, but when it comes to beauty, they really lack luster. To prove my point I have added a picture of Xie Qiuping, the woman who holds a Guiness record for the longest hair. You need to see for yourself the point that I am trying to make. Length is fine, but the hair should actually be healthy. Health is evident when the hair is lustrous, does not fall and look pampered and bouncy.


Any way, why I spout so much about hair and the various problems attached to them is because I have really had a long hair tale to share. I have always had long hair that extends up to my hips. In addition to the good length, the low down is that their basic temperament is frizzy, limp and gradually thinning to a great extent. Luckily, I never got to worry much about their appearance because I happen to be a male, and that too a Jatt Sikh. I conceal them nicely under my over-sized turban. That does solve the problem of public display of my thinning and whining stresses, but there is nothing much I can do to improve their texture. I know chopping them off to some lengths does bring in vitality to them, but my religion forbids that. So, my only option remained oiling and shampooing them. But since I need to keep them covered most of the times, I could not really juggle up my regular busy schedules to include a regular and elaborate oiling and shampooing session. I recall many a times I have had kept my hair messy with oil and hidden them under my turban, or after weeks of non-oiling they have turned into a frizzy bunch of knots and then I have again hidden them under my turban. And continued moments of these hide-and-seeks have led to a never ending hair fall.



Because of my hair problems, I have avoided going out for vacations with friends. The mere thought of sharing the same room with friends gives me a bout of embarrassment. At times I felt if it was not for my turban, I would have been a laughing stock amongst all, thanks to my religion because of which I have saved a face. But whenever I used to think of future, I would get really paranoid wondering what will happen once I get married. I would wonder what my wife to be would think of me and my hair. And I used to think what would happen if she would not be the one from my community. These thoughts had become a part and parcel of my life. I would go into a remorse seeing my hair turban-less on Sundays, at times out of frustration I even thought of chopping them all off, but every time my religious staunch held me back.


I am thankful that it did hold me back. It is because about 6 months back, a chanced moment I got lucky. I happened to see just another advertisement of a shampoo on the first few pages of one of the issues of Reader's Digest. I sneered at it as just another made up model posing for just another hair product. But somehow I ended up reading the entire content of the 2 page advertisement. It talked about Dove advertisements featuring real women as celebrities and not the regular paid and made up models. After reading that advert I thought of giving the product a try. As it is I had been a guinea pig to so many brands and their products in past, I thought of budging in again. And I am glad I did. I used the Dove Nourishing Oil care range, and it suited me the best since I have had the historical habit of being irregular about oiling. Once my scalp got better with the regular usage of Oil care range, I moved on to the Intense Damage repair range of Dove. And voila, my perdurable damaged stresses got revived. I was simply amazed. I mean my hair have been to daily tight twisting and coiling under my turban for almost as old as I am; and still all that stress that they have undergone was taken care of in a few week's time!! Gradually my hair fall also started to reduce, since most of it was induced due to the physical damage that my stresses were going through. But God forbid if I ever happen to experience a hair fall, I shall definitely try the Hair Fall rescue range. Since that day I thank Dove for being there.

 ‘…and that was the end of my hair problems!’ The very fact that I know that Dove Hair care range is by my side, gives me a lot of comfort. Now I am no longer shy of people discovering my knotty and messy hair, and have found a new confidence in me. Aha though there still remains one hair problem.

Due to my religious vows, I am unable to flaunt my stresses, as I am forbidden to keep my hair loose and open. I am sure my would-be wife would definitely be either proud or envy of my stresses.

    
P.S: This is my semi-fictional entry post for the Dove Contest on Indiblogger. I dedicate this post to my dear husband.

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Me and Kyra

This is my post for the Lakme Diva Blogger contest on Indiblogger; www.facebook.com/ilovelakme.

Ok, so after watching the contest page on Indiblogger, I believe that Kyra is similar to me. She loves to put her hair down; wear a floral summer dress, paint her face with favourite matte shades, accessorize well with funky pair of earrings, belt and a necklace, paint her nails with spunky colours, wear sneakers and go out into the Sun to have some  fun and laughter with her friends. But all this while she never forgets to cover her whole body with a layer of sunscreen with an SPF no less than 50; 50 and not 15, 20 or any other denomination below 50; because an SPF worth 50 provides more than 97% protection from the harmful UVA and UVB rays.

So, now when the major concern of protection is taken care of, what remains is deciding on the place to have fun. Both me and Kyra find major amount of fun visiting the beaches. But mind you we are not the ones who would be vising the regular, popular beaches which every Tom, Dick and Harry ends up visiting. Rather, we will be at the beaches which are not yet mapped by Google. Hahaha. Yes ,even google needs to learn a few tricks from we girls.

After little brainstorming we both girls decided on the Narhara marine beach on the shores of Arabian Sea outlining the Indian water borders at the Gujarat's coastline. I and Kyra will spend our entire day there to spend time with the friends who live under water like the Octopus, prawns, fish et al.

The entire vast stretches of the sea will be for both of us, since many people do not dare to visit such forbidden places. It works out wonderful for both of us. We both will keep wading far off till our eyes can see; there will be no human soul around; no disturbing sounds of traffic, and not even a single worry in our minds. The only sound that we could hear will be of our giggles, which will be interrupted by occasional cries of the seagulls that would be perching on some dry part of earth. And little far off we could see some turtles coming out of the water to meet us. We both will run towards them. Some would be big enough to carry each one of us on our backs for a nice turtle rides. If we are lucky, some could even surprise us with a turtle spin under the water. Wow, the thought itself brings me a thrilling chill.

Yes, and there would be that notorious balloon fish in the waters too. The one that is famous for playing tricks of swelling up her body like a balloon to deceive her attackers. But her skills will be not enough to fool me and Kyra. We will pick her up and would not let her go. Of course when is it that you get to feel an exotic live fish; the moment she will be done with her tricks and deflate her body, we will put her back into water. Of course, we are nice girls. I am sure from then on the balloon fish will be skeptical of girls visiting her home again. LOL

The other sea creature that will not like us will be the humble Octopus. Yes, the same relative of the celebrity predictor. How we both would wish that the few of the octopuses at Narhara beach would be half as proficient as their Paul uncle in predicting futures. Then, we both could have a lovely time knowing our future before hand. And of course in return, we would gift the Octopus a bottle of Lakme Sunscreen; they need it too. The black ink that they spit in pre-defense makes their skin dark, along with the harms of the rays of the Sun that could penetrate deep into the water too.

Then after meeting up all the Star fishes, sea-anemones and all the other members of the Sea world, we will bid a farewell to them when the time comes for the Sun to set in. The setting Sun would also indicate the time of our farewell to the sea friends with whom I and Kyra spent a wonderful day. With the memories of spending such a wonderful day, we girls will be back to our abodes to sleep and dream about going to another beautiful place the next day.

How much do we wish all this happens for sure when we visit the place. All around the only thing to be seen would be the vast Sea under us, Sun on top and we both precious pearls between both.

Sea-weed-and-beauty-all-around

Sea-Anemone

Octopus-Paul's-Indian-relative
Wish every place that we end up visiting turns out beautiful.....

Friday, May 11, 2012

Things that I just dont get - I

There are many things around that I witness during my day to day craft of living that make me go perplexed. Just this morning I saw this product on some online cosmetic website, and it took me a full 3 minutes to gather what the product really was.

In fact looking at it I was congratulating the owner Vinita Jain of Biotique for coming up with Sports and Fitness products. With the thought about this new range of health products I went off to my daily regime of cleaning my face. I was wondering whether to ingest the product or is it supposed to be a topical application one. But as soon as I was awake from my stupefaction after splashing my face with my customary rose water, that I realized that it was not any new range, but the regular hair conditioner that was advertised.

People please have a look at the picture and tell me if I was wrong in getting that stupid notion.

P.S: Ms Jain, I respect you a lot, but please give some thought before setting out the nomenclature to your product ranges....Ever thought of renaming the same product as "Volumizing Shampoo" ??

Friday, October 28, 2011

DISCOVER QVENDO

I have always believed in the process of creating "wish lists". Don't know why, but whenever I list all the stuff that I wish to possess or for that matter experience in my life, I am able to achieve through writing them down. It is actually not just about writing, but the power of listing them down makes me targeting them head-on. Till now most of the stuff that has reached my mind and has seeped into the Post-aid through pen, has definitely made an impression into the experiences or rather the achievements of my life.

Be it the wish of travelling to a beautiful virgin beach which is not found on google map or the craving for a peculiar recipe authentically prepared by the natives of a locale, as of now whatever I have wished has mostly been achieved. So, that brings me to the next challenging upgrade of wishing of luxury shopping stuff from the Qvenbdo site. Let me see what all stuff from them excites me right now. Well the Replay watches look enticing. Wish I could have one with a big dial and a broad brown strap with the textured finish on it. Boy that would look so amazing on me. I love to wear real masculine watches. I really like them, though some people tell me that they would not look good on my thin wrists, but I feel that is what makes me and wrists stand apart. lol

Don't know if this wish of mine will be fulfilled, till then let me look out for some more challenging stuff to include in my wish list.

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Monday, November 17, 2008

do not know what to say


Now my curent companion has become magicbricks.com. what a change from orkut.com.
Every time there is a fight, i simply log on to these real estate sites, and the moment I find a shelter that fits in my budget, i feel so relieved.

It is so difficult to live alone, but it is more difficult to stay with someone with whom you do not want to live. An ill-tempered room mate is a fiasco. But a similar scenario with a spouse is indeed a fiasco.

All thanks to these online real-estate sites for making home-search so easy. And of course the banks and lending institutions, and the Sharekhan Top Picks.

And how can i forget Tim Lee for the Internet.

How sad he never even fights. A non-fighting silent husband is more dangerous than the wife battering ones.

In the former, you don't even get to know, who is at fault. If he would have been hitting and abusing me, I would have considered him the villain, but he never does anything. He simply shuts himself off. How weird.

Not to worry, I will also do the same from now on.

I will also shut myself up, coz you get to know what your enemies are scared of by watching their weapons.

...don't remember but i read this somewhere in some Strategy Magazine.

What a pity, there is no difference between domestic violence and the war front.
May be both are wars, only the quantum differs...

Thursday, October 9, 2008

A bird in hand worth 10 in the bush


Except for these matrimony sites, I have accounts everywhere. Same user names and passwords everywhere takes me into the virtual flow of all the uber-chic websites of this age. Be it job sites, social-networking sites, professional networking, real asset, equity trading, forex trading, shopping, auction, and of course blogging. 

But then why not matrimony sites. May be because the wave missed me. Been dating my husband for the years, the time when these Bharatmatrimony, Shaadi.com and the very recent simplymarry.com were not there. This simplymarry.com I feel is the best satirical and ironic brand in this vertical. How can one be just simply married. It is so difficult a thing to do. How well I remember 3 years back I developed such a cold feet plunging into one. And that when we both knew each other so well. Thank god that his was colder than mine. LOL.

The picture below in the red sari is exactly a year back. Simply comparing that to mine now looks so so different...And the one is white sari a year before that. And the blue picture some months close to the marriage time.

Just unbelievable how time simplyflies. Oh my God, that is some body else's tag line. Simplify. Yes, I recall that is Deccan Airline's fortnightly magazine.

Well coming back to the topic of lacking a presence in the Internet matrimony domain. Hm mm I thought a lot. Then I thought of catching the wave by logging on to the sub-segment in the same vertical. Yes, the second-hand marriage market.

The options were simply not simplysecondmarriage.com. No, of course not. Second marriage has to be more complicated. As per my research, the complications in marriage increase exponentially with each one.

Anyways, I thought of getting into the secondmarriage.com and marryagain.in. But I could not. Simply because change in marriage market is contrasting to the job one. You can post liners like looking for better prospects, better rewards.

Also, most importantly you can list your current partner's name and the gross benefits availed from him/her. LOL

And very importantly you need to be single and looking for someone. I read this somewhere on the net that people mentioning that they are separated get poor results. You have to be vacant to get into a new relationship.

Hm mm pondering all this, I gave up. And to make matters worst my current life partner is not there with me for our 3rd anniversary. It is such a big void without him. First anniversary without him.

What a phenomenon, when he is there I scare him to leave him any day, but deeply miss him when he is not there. Wish I always remain aloof to these first, second, third and last marriage sites....

I feel one is better off with the ignorance of these websites.

At some instances in life, a bird in hand is indeed woth 10 in the bush, may be a HAWK. hahha

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