Viva La Vile Parle, mumbai - looking for food in parla east part 1

Vile parle (east) or parla is a suburb in mumbai. Thats just not it.
Its where people have lived for decades, never can leave it, never will, will keep coming back, not just because of its real estate, but its very experience.

I moved to parla in 2001 from another part of mumbai, and just like the shire to the hobbits, parla to the parlekars. Not only parlekars mumbaikars in general have been fascinated by its sights and smells, very very sweet smell in particular.

Home or the Parle-G biscuit - the worlds highest sold, the factory is in central parla and been enticing people from many parts of mumbai like bees to its fragrant batches of biscuits. Bus drivers religiously make unscheduled stops right in the middle of the road to hold up traffic for many minutes just to buy army quantities of the sweet delight from the factory shop. Just follow the station road towards andheri and let your nose guide to the factory. School kids get to visit the factory with previous intimation.

Nothing satisfies mumbai's belly like the home grown carbo-bomb burger, Vada Pav.

Fried savoury potato fitters nudged between local bread called pav and as if the vada was not spicy enough, chutney to take your tongue on a taste overload trip. The chutney just like the coke formula, is proprietary of the vada pav wala . The symphony of all the elements create the perfect filling vada pav. Notch up the waist size please. One of the best places to get this humble mans meal is at Babu's vada pav who operates out of the revered Parle Tilak school canteen. Crowds spill onto the busy hanuman road to get their dose of the vada pav , fixed on it since school time. Babu, although never seen the guy , whips out the best vada pavs , samosas which mind you are authentic marathi samosa not filled with potatoes but cabbage, kothimbir vadis and the usual assortment of superb chutneys, cant get a table in a restaurant, come here there are no tables. Great for bikers who can use their mobile hands to eat the vada pavs while riding. Thirsty? Answer sugar cane juice opposite babus.

Bhel puri, sev puri, ragda pattice, dahi puri, pani puri and Ganesh Chat Bhandar. That completes a sentence. At the end of subhash road is this little place which as the picture might suggest looks better setup and hygienic than the usual bhel puri guys, but don’t worry the pani puri has jut the right quantity of sweat to make it fit to be called a pani puri. Best place, not joking considering the hundreds of bhel puri walas in Bombay , this guy knows how to make it and make it well. Proof, the damn crowds. Try getting your fix of some on a Sunday or Saturday weekends without waiting for 15 mins atleast, statement that this bhelpuri wala has truly arrived.

These are just three of the places where you can sample the wonderful local creations, I want to open up more of my experiences to you. So lets see further,

Where do you see yourself 5/10 years from now

Asked usually at the end of an interview, your answer can cause a lot of good or whole lot of bad. Heres my attempt to guide you to a good answer.

This question is basically to judge your foresight, knowledge about your domain and in general one’s attitude towards one’s career. By forth one of the most important questions that could be asked - so be very prepared

Hence should not be answered loosely in vague terms and absolutely no dhapugiri. Beginning with retrospection, figure out what you wanna do if you can, tragedy is most of us don’t know for sure what we want to do. Seriously guys do we? (yeah I am reading the fountainhead) So atleast narrow down the options we want to do, whether manager, a consultant, entrepreneur etc. Take your pick and think deeply about it.

Once you have ascertained what you will be doing, try focusing on some aspects further, now by researching your interests and responsibilities arising out of the role that you will be playing. I guess now you hold a clear picture what you will be doing, subject to change of course.

So the answer finally (whew!): Show foresight stating the role you want to fill as of a leader (manager, project lead etc), a worker (developer) an entrepreneur…you know something beyond the mundane and please be confident here. To say you want to be an entrepreneur in a pedestrian way will be irritating. Say what you think will be the future in your domain..like you see advanced mobile apps in JAVA or rural networking.
Convince them you know whats in store for YOU and how you can/will CONTRIBUTE to this vision. Give them relevant examples ,hello research . If possible a time frame.
And finally tell them how you tend to achieve all this, by learning further or gaining experience.

This answer I feel is as endless as one’s avenues and I feel is one that should be answered honestly by everyone, literally on a piece of paper. Do this atleast twice. I Guarantee a positive result in many ways.

Facing HR questions in interviews for freshers

Many times my batch mates and most of my juniors have asked the question , how to efficiently answer HR questions , with a few dreading these more than the technical questions.

Not much of a risk for freshers appearing on campus as most of the people clear this easily except in some interviews like microsoft the majority rejects were after the HR round. Nothing to be alarmed, probably they realized that the job was not good enough for you, yeah that could happen.

Here are a few guidelines.

When In HR they ask you “describe yourself” they are looking for a person to suit their needs which may differ. For instance a siemens guy who has come to recruit for marketing would prefer a people person not some lab guy who is good at research;agreed siemens is core but at that moment his need is something else. For an infy interview they want a team player. For Tata SED , I am taking a guess, they require an innovative person who is very focussed and aware of his field and even a bit defficient in extra activites..So there is no one formula for HR questions

The solution is to be yourself and SELL yourself properly. Dont be negative at any moment. If you have a problem like a KT convince them that it was a one time issue and an opportunity to improve yourself in that subject (they wont ask about KT but if they do) . If its a software company and they want you to know SQL and stuff….show them you are open to new things and eager to learn anything. Give examples when you did something new even if it wasnt succesfull…they appreciate initiative and will be impressed when you take credit for everything including failure. Its an interview, you have just a few minutes to allow them to evaluate you, so dont be ashamed of giving them the goodies about you.

DONT LIE, never lie! You get caught easily, these guys might be the biggest fraud and you are speaking to them. Just show them how good you are and give them a reason to employ you.

Finally, most important RELAX. You have got nothing to loose cause the avenues are endless.

You dont need luck, you need yourself.

A cliche'd new Beginning

I am an electronics fresher from mumbai - Bombay, and I have to say the four years of engineering has taught me a lot more than engineering.

Majority of my lessons were learnt in a brief period of time, called Robocon. The highest level of robotics competition held in India where the best institutes and minds of India compete to win this international event, and to get a chance to represent India. Simply said its the common Indian engineer's olympics. Replete with misadventures, misfortunes and missed ballroom dance sessions, this was the best time of my life...so far, so good.

Opportunity never knocks twice, yeah right....sometimes it comes and punches you in your guts till you acknowledge it. Thats when I 'became' , hell was bestowed to be the placement coordinator for my college electronics batch. Great way to experience an office environment, complete with water dispenser crass talk, back stabbing and some good old boot kissing. Better was the satisfaction of helping my friends to get a good job and a great career.

It dosent stop here, never can with the people and circumstances you come across while in Bombay and well life in general.