Dhaniya Tea

Do you know how dhaniya (coriander leaves) tastes? I didn’t, until today. I use it for garnishing because everyone does. Always thought, may be, it is for the nutritional benefits, or to increase the visual appeal of that dish! :P

Today I made rasam (a south Indian gravy to be eaten with rice), and rasam is always garnished with dhaniya. When the rasam was almost made I saw my half cup tea from the evening. I thought I can reheat it and have it now. At the side, I was chopping dhaniya to garnish the rasam.

Once I took down the rasam from the gas, I placed my tea to reheat. With one eye on my phone and mind wandering in some thoughts, I put these chopped dhaniya into the tea. After hardly a second I realized my folly and filtered out the tea immediately. But one sip of this tea has taught me the taste of dhaniya!

Being the tea lover that I am, I could not throw it away. So I drank the “dhaniya tea” :)

Reverse waterfalls of Sandhan valley, Bhandardara, with Tattva Adventures

The phrase “reverse waterfalls” makes one wonder, what could this be. This thought made me register on this trip, with Tattva adventures. My roommates also joined me. A few other friends were also supposed to, but they could not make it in the nth hour. I thought I would miss them, but soon realized, it is they who have missed out on something so awesome!

‘Tattva Adventures’ is a fun-filled, mischievous and adventure loving group. We started at night in a nice bus. All through the ride we played antakshari with super funny songs, and some of them were even real bollywood songs! The rest you can imagine ;) The unity in thinking was surprising. Everyone somehow thought of the same crazy things at the same time! The game at times got stuck in never-ending loop “ILU ILU” followed by “LA LAI LAI, LAI LA LAI LA LAI” followed by “ILU ILU” and “LA LAI”… until someone took a stand to break it.

The bus stops suddenly on the way. It was dark, foggy and biting cold. People get down, place the speakers in the middle of the road, start playing item songs loudly, and dance like crazy around it!! After almost an hour, people got exhausted and started getting back into the bus! Then our ride continued.

We reached the base camp and watched the sun rise. Then we get hot and spicy missal-pav along with a nice tea! There was a round of introduction, along with distribution of badges that read “Tell your story”. To me it sounded like, the organizers, Jaal and Sai, are two spiders, who have made a cobweb named Tattva. The rest were the insects who get caught in it. The difference here is, the insects do not wish to leave the cobweb ever, and could even kill the spiders in case they ever thought of destroying the web! I too am caught in it now!

After breakfast and introduction, we started off towards the reverse waterfalls. On the way, we experienced a very different type of rain. The water came flying towards us from our sides, instead of the top. The heavy pours lasted for about a minute, and repeated every 2-3 minutes. Most of the first timers came up different explanations, without noticing the silence of the experienced people. As we reached the point, we understood that they were not rains at all. It was the water from the falls that were flying upwards due to the heavy winds! It felt as though God was holding a huge hose pipe and watered us! Amazing experience :)
 https://youtu.be/TKyNA_0AJYI

We played in these showers for a while and walked towards Sandhan valley, an extremely beautiful place. One can stare at its lush, green mountains for hours. Then we came back to the base camp and changed into dry clothes. They had arranged for a home-made lunch, in one of those huts. It was a simple dal rice and roti sabzi, but the taste of food cooked on top of burning woods is just awesome. You can feel the difference from that of our gas-stove cooking!

Our return journey was equally fun. We played a customized housie game that had gifts in abundance! Every single person in this trip, whether had a gift in hand or not, sure had a smile on their face, and loads of memories we can never forget! Thank you Jaal, Sai & Tattva group for this amazing experience :)
Would love to tell many more of such stories!

Desire → Anger → Delusion → Annihilation

A four year old boy, Rahul, is playing in the park with his mother. He spots something red and sparkling at a distance. His attention is drawn towards it and he wants to find out what it is. As he goes closer, he starts to see that it is a soldier with a drum. Now he is excited and is so happy to have found it. He runs towards it. (DESIRE) Suddenly another child appeared from no where, picks up the toy and starts playing with it. Rahul is disappointed. He goes to the child and asks for the toy. The child does not want to share it. Rahul says it is his toy and he wants it back. The other child also says the same thing. The two boys get into a fight. (ANGER) Their parents come, break them off and take them to their respective homes.

On their way back, Rahul tells his mother that it was his toy and the other boy just took it away. His mother explains that the toy did not belong to him. He just happened to see it when it was left unattended. Rahul is not convinced. He feels he saw it first, so it belongs to him, and the other child lied about owning it. Rahul asks his mother to take him back to the park, but she does not agree. He starts nagging her, crying, and then throwing tantrums. Rahul's mother is growing tired of handling him and starts punishing him. This irritates him more. He explains that it is the other boy who deserves the punishment, not him. His mother tries to explain to him that he is not being punished for losing the toy. He is being punished for nagging her. Rahul still feels the punishment is unnecessary, as he will not be nagging her if the other child had just given him his toy back.(DELUSION)

Now, Rahul has undergone a lot. He has got himself beaten up and scolded by his mother, lost out on watching his favorite cartoon show, has got himself prohibited from eating chocolates for the next three days, and has started to develop a fever from all the crying and screaming that he has been doing. But Rahul has not realised the things he has lost, or what he has undergone. He surely knows he is not happy and his mother is not happy with him. But feels that none of this would have happened if the other boy had just returned his toy back to him.(ANNIHILATION)

Sometimes in life, we do not realize when we become this child. Krishna explains in two verses how one becomes deluded and destroys himself when we set our mind on acquiring trivial objects.

ध्यायतो  विषयान् पुंसः संगस्तेषुपजायते ।

संगात्सञ्जायते कामः कामात्क्रोधोऽभिजायते ॥ (2.62)

dhyayato (thought/ focus) visayan (materialistic objects) pumsah (man/ soul)

sangastesu (union) pa jayate (win/ conquer)

sangat (union) sanjayate (come into existence) kamah (desire)

kamat (intentionally) krodho (anger) bhi jayate (win).

When the focus of a man gets set on materialistic objects, a desire is born. 

This desire creates an anger to acquire or conquer it.

क्रोधात्  भवति संमोहः संमोहात्  स्मिृति विभ्रमः ।

स्मिृति भ्रंषात बुद्धि नाशः बुद्धिनाशत प्रणश्यति ॥ (2.63)

krodhad (from anger) bhavati (manifests) sammohah (delusion/ confusion)

sammohat (from delusion) smiriti (memory) vibhramah (loss/ error)

smiriti bhramsad (from memory loss) buddhi (intellect) naso (ruin) 

buddhi-nasat (from ruined intellect) pranasyati (perish).

Anger deludes our mind and erases our memory.

Memory loss ruins our intellect. And without intellect, we are destroyed.

! जय श्री कृष्णा !

"Fear of Rejection" and "Self Sabotage"

Ever wondered, if you have a fear of rejection, why will you sabotage yourself and want to get yourself rejected? The phrases may seem to contradict each other, but in reality they are deeply connected. To understand this connection, let us take the stories of two people, Ravi and Mona.

Ravi’s story

Ravi is an ordinary looking man with simple dressing sense and a decent job. He sees a girl, Mona, who is beautiful, smartly dressed and has a creative job. Of course she looks appealing in every sense, but also out of his league. He looks for every slightest opportunity to reveal his existence. At some point she starts to take notice of him. He doesn’t want to ask her out, for the fear of rejection, so he keeps her in the friend zone.

Mona hints that she is willing to take their friendship to the next zone, but he is scared to consider her hints. Ravi too wants to be with her, at the same time he is scared about getting dumped. One day Mona kisses him and that marked the start of their relationship. Ravi is not able to mentally agree on it, and constantly wonders why, a girl like Mona, will want to date him.

Mona shares her past, and tells him about her future plans. Ravi feels more close to her, but he keeps reading between her lines to find out the real reason behind why she chose him. Would it be her bad experiences that is making her settle down for him, or is it her inferiority complex, or does she have any other ulterior motive?

The more time he spends with Mona, the more he falls in love with her personality. He finds her sweet, caring, funny, creative, bold, and a really nice person. As the adjectives keep adding, so does his insecurity. Mona keeps asking him for small favours like a drop home, book tickets, recharge phone, etc. Since his observations are not yielding the answers he desires, he concludes that she is just using him, and soon he will run out of her use.

Ravi starts to dress shabbily for their dates, reach late and makes excuses of being busy. Mona buys his excuses and does not see them as a problem. Mona also has a busy job. This makes Ravi feel that she is not so much into him as much as he is. So he decides to test her love. He lies to her that he used be a drug addict. Mona becomes curious and wants to know the details. Ravi explains a false past and convinces her that he is completely over it now. He is momentarily happy that she is interested in him, but soon starts to wonder why will a girl like Mona want to be with a drug addict.

Ravi finds Mona talking to another man, and blames her of cheating on him. Mona explains herself that they are just friends. Now, if Mona spends time with Ravi, he thinks she is trying to hide her guilt.  He is curious to know why Mona finds him better than that ‘just friend’. He secretly tries to find more details about that friend and compares himself. The friend scores better. Now Ravi feels totally unnecessary in her life, and decides to move away.

Ravi calls for a breakup. Mona expresses her broken heart, but Ravi says he is doing her a favour and she will move on. Mona blames him of playing with her emotions, but he feels it was the other way around. Wasn’t she the one to kiss him first? She anyway wasn’t too much into him either. Why is she feeling so bad about the whole thing now? Is she just saying things now to make him feel guilty? Her laments are confusing him, but he is neither able to put his foot down and console her, nor apologize. He assumes that her tears are an impulse, not genuine. Either way, it is over now. He feels secure that he has dumped her, before she did, because this relationship wasn’t going to last that long anyway.

Mona stops talking to him. Ravi starts to miss her, and wonders if he did a mistake. He apologizes but Mona just ignores. Now Ravi feels, this is the truth. Mona never wanted him in the first place. It was he who wanted this relationship, and she would have walked out of it someday, ripping his heart away. Ravi’s ego is satisfied about being right. He knew she will reject him, and she did! Now his heart is filled with hatred for Mona, because he believes that she deceived him. Ravi may even try to revenge Mona!

Mona’s story

A decent guy, Ravi, shows interest in her. His simplicity and down to earth nature impresses her. She is able to see that he really likes her, and also sees his hesitation in asking her out. Mona finds that cute and kisses him. She finds Ravi caring, and as a person who can never hurt her.

Mona enjoys the freedom to be herself around him, and she shares her past and future. She seeks out Ravi in times of need and is happy to know he is always there for her. His shabby dressing or being late on dates does not bother her much, because she trusts him. Ravi’s declaration of being a drug addict did come as a shock to her, but she was happy that he is able to be honest with her.

Mona did not like Ravi accusing her of cheating on him. But she understood his insecurity and tried to spend more time with him. But when Ravi called for the breakup, it was totally unexpected. Also, Ravi was careless to her feelings when she broke down. The one thing she thought Ravi would never do was hurt her, but he did!

What went wrong?

Can you spot where the self-sabotage started, and why? There are many reasons for one to have a fear of rejection, or a fear or failure. They are usually some deep rooted childhood experiences. Self-sabotage helps in proving yourself right. You have this fear that you are going to be rejected, so build your surroundings to make sure you do get rejected.

People do this in their careers too. Go late to work, dress inappropriately, don’t be prompt in your tasks, go drunk, be rude to colleagues, make irrecoverable mistakes, etc. You drag your employer down to the extent where he/she can no longer tolerate you. Once you get fired, you say to yourself, “I knew they never wanted me”.

How to deal with this?

The trick to deal with these fears is very simple. The moment you realize it, you have dealt with it!

1. Every time you feel you want to be late, or it doesn’t matter to be late, or you don’t dress appropriately, realize you are not giving your hundred percent. This is the first stage of self-sabotage. Try to realize it at this stage, before you ruin everything.
2. Every time you attempt to think for another person, as to wonder what he/she thinks of you, or why he/she is doing a certain task, realize you are not being normal. Take time out. Stop thinking. Put on the ear phones, play the radio in high volume and let their nonsense blare into your ears.
3. Every time you interpret the other person’s actions as a rejection, i.e., you feel he/she is doing something to reject you, realize you could be wrong. Don’t try to add a meaning to every action. Not everyone thinks so much before doing anything. Confront your feelings with him/her immediately. You may sound stupid. But being stupid is kind of cute too.
4. Every time you feel the need to explain your words or actions, realize that you have replayed the action in your mind many times, and have come up with the best explanation to prove the other person wrong. This, in short, is called “manipulation”. What is spoken or enacted cannot be undone. Everyone loves you for what you are, and not for what you explain yourself to be.
5. Anytime you feel the need to test another person, realize that you are getting into the analysis mode. There is no need to analyze anyone or any situation. Live life, don’t analyze it. The more you think, the less you experience. And remember “the boy who cries wolf”? When you tell the truth, no one will believe you.

Darkness is an illusion, not real. It is just an absence of light, as described by Einstein. You may struggle in it, but the moment you put the lights on, you cannot find the darkness anywhere. Similarly, ALL FEARS ARE AN ILLUSION. Put on the light of realization, and... heyyy, what was that fear you were talking about??

Cat and Crows

As I walk by, I could not help but notice a cat peacefully chewing on a left over bone piece, in spite of being surrounded by a number of crows waiting for their turn with the bone.
We know how crows call out to their kith and kin when they find something. I stood there for a moment to see what the cat would do when she feels out numbered. Crows kept increasing, but the cat did not bother. She neither showed any fear nor any regard for the awaiting crows.

Would the crows have attacked her if she had shown any fear?

Today I believe "Jo darr gaya, woh marr gaya" :)

Sewing thread

Let us say, we are trying to sew a torn pocket or trying our hand at embroidery. We always thread the needle with a long length of thread, so that we have to re-thread the needle minimum number of times.

We start stitching. Initially the length of the thread is so long, that it is not easy to manage. We are very cautious as we do not want the thread to knot up. We keep assuring ourselves that soon the length would reduce, and then it would become manageable. We are hopeful and not content. We are irritable and are constantly fearing about the knots.

We continue stitching till the thread has become so small, that it is difficult to proceed any further. We say to ourselves, "two more stitches and then I shall re-thread the needle". It is again not easy to manage. We squeeze the cloth, twist it a bit and try our best to get those two last stitches and the final knot.

We were aware of the length of the thread initially while it was long and not easy to manage. We hoped for it to become smaller soon. And then we became aware of the length when the thread had become so small that it was difficult to proceed.
Did we appreciate the length of the thread while it was right?

Chocolate Ice-cream!

Assume chocolate is your favourite flavour of ice-cream.

Scenario 1

A cup of chocolate ice-cream is lying in your freezer, and you are alone at home. You open your fridge, get reminded of the ice-cream and pick it up.

You start eating it. You like its taste, but there is nothing exciting. You start watching a movie while you eat it. Half way, you get bored and place it back in the freezer.

Scenario 2

A cup of chocolate ice-cream is lying in your freezer, and your friend, who also loves chocolate ice-cream, has come home. You open your fridge, get reminded of the ice-cream and pick it up. Now you have two options, either share it with him, or sacrifice it to him. You are not able to decide.

Your friend suggests a game and whoever wins in it, gets the ice-cream. You both play, and you win. The cup is yours.

You now pick the cup with a lot more enthusiasm, and start eating it.

Scenario 3

A cup of chocolate ice-cream is lying in your freezer and a cup of vanilla ice-cream. Your friend, who also loves chocolate ice-cream, has come home. You open your fridge, get reminded of the ice-creams. Now you both can have one each. You do not want to let your friend choose for the fear of losing the chocolate. Nor do you want to be rude by directly handing him with the cup of vanilla.

Your friend suggests a game and whoever wins in it, gets to choose the ice-cream he wants. You both play, and you win. You choose chocolate, while your friend has to settle down for vanilla.

Now you pick up the cup with so much triumph, and rejoice your victory. You have not only won the cup, but also got your favourite flavour. You relish this cup with so much more joy than ever before.

Does the ice-cream in the cup taste any different?

In life, we have many such chocolate ice-creams lying in our fridge, waiting to be eaten. We do not relish them as it is available to us at all times. We bank our happiness on chasing what we may lose, and momentarily enjoy the victory of winning it.

Appreciate what you have and rejoice every moment with it. Your chocolate ice-cream will always taste the best to you J

Addiction

Just one smoke before I go to bed

There are many times in life we make a mistake knowing all its consequences and choose to regret it in leisure. It shows how weak a human we are. We kill our own conscious to give-in to a temptation. Can addiction fall into the same category?

Every man is born with a great amount of will power. But we choose to believe that we are slave to our habits. Human mind is far more powerful than we know. It is not that we cannot get over an addiction, we don't realise that we do not want to get out of it.

Some like the attitude of being a rebel. Some like to be identified by their addictions. Some just want to fit into a group. Deep inside is a reason why you want to be addicted. Search your soul for answers and then choose to give-up or continue whatever you are doing, without blaming nicotine, alcohol, weed, caffeine or sex as addictive.

Cheers!

Happy New Year!

Today is the first working day of this new year!

I had stayed back at my uncle's place last night. Got up quite early. Thought I shall go back to my place, freshen up and start this new year with a fresh note.

I left his home as soon as possible, so that i do not disturb the others still sleeping.

I had no money in hand. There was a Canara Bank ATM nearby. Tried to withdraw from it. Got a slip "transaction denied". So I thought of trying my luck with the HDFC ATM a few steps away.

After I entered this ATM i realised that I had left my card back in the earlier ATM!!

Now I had no cash and no card!

I walked from 4bunglows to Andheri station.. Thankfully I had train coupons. Used it to travel till Borivali. Then walked from Borivali station to SFIT!!!

Whatta morning walk! And the best way to begin this year!!

I just hope my year is not filled with any more such goof ups!!

Wish you a goof-up free new year!

Regards,

Goofie.

Another reason to love this city

Just another day! I m travelling from home to college by bus. There is a huge traffic jam at a 4-road crossing, with no traffic signals or police.

The bus is stagnant for almost 10 minutes. I tried to look out through the window. Could see nothing more than a sea of vehicles meeting each other in all directions. I thought we were going to be stuck there for the next one hour.

Then suddenly there is movement. I wondered how it could be resolved so quickly.

As the bus moved closer to the junction, I see 4-5 shopkeepers helping the traffic to dissolve!!

I could not imagine another city with such a spirit of unity!

I have fallen in love with this city once again!

Art Of Learning!

Have u ever wondered how do u learn new skills?

I had never given much thought to it until the day I could not learn something new!

I had always been a fast learner.. be it riding a bicycle, or a motor bike or writing a program.. I always somehow knew it beforehand, or that is what I used to feel whenever I got to do something new and I could learn it real quick. So I never really paid attention to the art of learning.. I just assumed it as a way of life, until came Friday!

I had been to Essel World on Friday. It has a ice skating rink.. I had never tried ice-skating.. Infact I had never even tried skating on wheels.. I thought why not give it a try.. It shouldnt be difficult.

Confidently wore the shoes, and walked into the ice rink, just to meet my biggest fall! To get back on my feet was a challenge. The instructors in there gave me a hand, and some tips on how to move around without loosing my balance. I tried for more than an hour. I was cold and badly bruised by then. I decided to GIVE UP! I could not understand how I could not learn something which others could do!

Then I realised that I have grown old. The first fall had created a kind of fear within me, the fear of falling, the fear of getting hurt. This held me back from trying. To learn a new skill, you must try until you succeed.

While I was younger, I did not care for the wounds or the pain followed. I did not care for the scars it could leave. All that mattered was to do it. But now... Do I sound like I m 80 already!! @#$^&*@#$

Goof up #n

I bought a bed yesterday, that wont fit into my room :(

Lady on my bed.

It was 4 in the morning. Nature's call forced me to wake up from my slumber. My eye lids were heavy and sleep forced me to keep them closed. Yet the call was urgent and had to get up.

Slowly I opened my eyes and in the dark, I could see an image of an elderly woman seated at the end of my bed. She looked worn out and did not move. I thought it was the kind of images darkness forces you to see as you open your eyes. So I closed my eyes again, waited for a few seconds and then tried to look again. She seemed to be there just the way she had been. She hadn't moved by an inch!

The usual fear created by the power of my imagination creeped in. I closed my eyes again wondering how powerful my hallucinations have become. They had now started to take definite shapes and linger for much longer than just glimpses!

I lay with my eyes closed. Some thoughts were trying to analyse the image, while some trying to shoo the image away. Who could it be? Or is it just the way curtain falls in the darkness? Or do ghosts really exist? But the nature's call interrupted me reminding of my presence and my need to take a visit to you know where. So I looked again, and she was right there!

I got freaked and screamed out my room-mate's name. She turned the lights on, only to find NO ONE at the end of my bed!

Guess I scared the poor lady away ;)

Come home for DOSA!

Goofing up has become a part of being me. Today’s story is just another one of my deeds, in fact I would call it 'being myself'.

Being a south-Indian I am expected to be good at making dosas. Once in a while they do turn out perfectly circular, crisp and in one piece! Last evening was one such times where everything seemed right. I assumed to have perfected the art. I had enough batter left and chutney to go with it.

So I decided to make dosas for all my friends and flaunt my skills. I invited everyone who was in the staffroom home for dosa and tea. Six of my friends trusted me and came home as well! My room mate and her boyfriend were also at home. This means I had to serve for nine plates.

I confidently took the batter and added some water. When the tava was hot I tried to spread the batter with the spoon, just like a professional. Unfortunately it did not need any 'spreading'. It was already 'flowing'. The “some” water that I had mixed was actually a LOT of water. So, you can now imagine the state of my dosas!

Everyone got to try their expertise with the art, but the batter did not seem to give in. We threw some of the dosas, while we landed up eating some sticky ones. Everyone complimented the chutney, that I had bought from a near by shop, instead of commenting on the dosas. Wasn't that really sweet of them!

Whether we had good butter dosas as planned or not, we sure had a good tea and a good time together.

My First Omelette!!!

Well let me start with a bit of background as to why create a post for something as small as making an omelette.

I come from a vegetarian family, which instilled ‘non-violence to animals’ from a very young age, deep within me. Moreover, as a kid, I was too weak. Doctors had advised my mother to give me at least an egg every day. My mother had forced me to do so for more than two years! She used to make me eat a whole egg raw, half boiled, boiled, omelette or any way, but made sure I ate an egg every single day! This kind of made me avert eggs totally. My father and sister have eggs occasionally, but I could never even think of it.

I have been having mouth ulcers for the past 20 days. I went to the doctor as I seemed to be getting a new ulcer everyday! The moment my Doc heard me out, he asked me if I was going through some sudden mental stress. I was not sure of it. Then he asked me if I was a vegetarian, obviously yes. Then he asked my milk consumption. It is negligible (I don’t like milk). He said I was deficient of Vitamin B12 and that was the cause of my misery. The only sources of Vitamin B12 was meat, eggs and milk, none of which I have. But that still dint give me a reason to start having non-veg.

Saturday evening, I was all alone in my flat. I was hungry. I went looking for noodles to realize it was over. Then digged my fridge for bread, only to see it fungi filled. Disappointed and hungry, I went back to reading my novel (“Irresistible Forces” by Danielle Steel). After some time I realised that I found eggs in the fridge. Then I thought why not give it a try.

I cut a whole onion and a tomato for one omelette. I chopped a chilly into it a

nd added lots of salt as well. I dint want to know the taste of egg. Broke an egg and added it into it. Breaking eggs is not new to me. I use it to wash my hair with it. Dashed the mix for a while. I have seen my boyfriend making omelettes, so I knew I was going the right way. Then poured a lot of oil on the tava and heated it. Poured the mix into the tava, it spread by itself into a perfect circle! That was easy. I don’t know whether an omelette is cooked both sides. But I did :-)

Now it was eating time. The first bite took me a lot of courage and self pushing. It dint taste all that bad. I could feel more of onion and tomato than the egg. Then, when I took the second bite, I puked! My boyfriend always asked me to start eating eggs. He says that is the fastest and tastiest food we can have when we live alone. So I decided to give it a another try. Drank a lot of water. This time I tried it with some pickle. It was OK. Still not something that I could relish. I decided not to give up and continued eating till it was over. Much to my surprise, I finished it, and I dint puke!!

I have eaten a whole omelette now! I plan to try another one sometime soon. Hope I succeed :-)

Kristal Ka Side Effects

I bought a Bajaj Kristal recently (June 20, 2008). I m a bit short.. so decided to settle down with a Kristal or Scooty. I am not able to reach down when i use Activa.I have been riding for the past 12 years.. My first vehicle was TVS champ (in 1996).. then had a Kinetic Honda DX(in 1999).. then an Activa (in 2005). Now Kristal. Yes, this one gives me a very good mileage.. almost 55-60Kms/Ltr.. But I not happy with the vehicle. There are a lot of discomforts, not one.

Let me start with the performance of this vehicle. It has the worst pick up I can say. For a 95cc vehicle, it does not give enough. It takes almost 12-15 seconds to accelerate from 0-40Kms/hr. This is really worse than our good old Scooty (70cc). I remember my DX zooming to 50Kms/hr in a fraction of a second, yes ofcourse it is a 2-stroke engine.

Second best thing is that after riding for sometime, say 20 minutes, the vehicle starts pulling. When I release the throttle the engines switches off. I have to wait for minimum 2-3 minutes before I can restart the vehicle and continue my journey. It is very difficult to do this when we are amidst traffic. Not to comment on Bangalore traffic. The cars just wait for a chance to honk away.

Next is the design or the make. It does not give a good sitting posture. I suffer from pains on my shoulder and upper back on riding it for half an hour or so. This is because of the poor design the vehicle has. I used to not face this with Activa or my DX.

To top this all is the service station. This is the most pathetic service I have ever received. I had filled my tank for almost Rs.100/- (approx 1.85 Ltr, I can cover more than 110Kms with this). I had rode for just 8-10 Kms. This means I can ride for another 100Kms atleast. Let us assume they had used around 250ml of petrol for cleaning the engine (which I am sure they have not done), I should still be able to ride another 70-75Kms. I get the vehicle back from service, and hardly 15-20Kms later, I am standing in the road without petrol!!!!! Should I call this pilferege or day-light robbery?? Well, you can ask me why I gave my vehicle with petrol. I used my Activa for almost 3 years before this. This has never happened there. Even if I were to have Rs.50/- of petrol in the tank, I would get it back the very same way. That is the kind of reputation Honda service centers have built.

Now to talk about the serving part, I was not there standing next to them when they did it. But out of my 12 years of riding experience, I can surely say if my vehicle has been serviced or not. I am very dissapointed to say that there is nothing done to the vehicle during the 1st service!!! I have got the vehicle back with nothing more than a water wash. There was a call from Bajaj for feedback. I told them clearly what has happened. Its been almost a month since i heard from them. So they dont mind having a unhappy customer.

About the engine oil, my engine has been ceasing very often. I doubt if they have changed the engine oil during the service (though I was charged Rs.200/-, yes Two Hundred Rupees for the oil)

Overall.. I regret for not buying a Scooty or Pleausure. Now I realize why I find so few of the Kristals while there are sooooooo many Scootys all around Bangalore. So anybody in the look out for a new vehicle..... please strike Kristal out of your list. Thanks for your time.