Spandana

Spandana has started reading big story books

Srilanka

Planning a trip to Sri Lanka for Diwali holidays. Booked tickets today

F1 Diary

25th September
Singapore

SCB's events around the F1 started with a party for clients at the Asian Civilization Musuem in the evening. Got to interact with most of SCB's top management - Jaspal, Shankar, Ashok Sud, Bala, Lenny, Daniel Koh, Sean Wallace, Arup, Prahlad, Seshan among others. Seshan (from SCCG singapore) introduced Sid and me to Sunny Varghese, chief of Olam. Narien Kartikeyan was the celebrity in the party, we tried to engage him with a big smile, but failed to get into a conversation with him. Live music, both western and indian was awesome. In the backdrop, cars were zooming past in the circuit during the practice session.

Tomorrow is a big day with the qualifying races to take place. We are elated to get an opportunity to be in the Box (Sky Suites) stand, right behind the pit stop.

26th September
Singapore

Started the day with a client event for karting. Met Rahul Bhatia, owner of Indigo Airlines and Chris Bush, Ceo of Tesco Malaysia. Rahul was boasting of his airline being the youngest and largest low cost airline. There was a karting competition for the scb guests, in which kartikeyan's team won (obviously).

Went fully charged for the qualiying races in the evening. It was a spectacle to watch the races, that too from bang opposite the pit lane. Met Saurabh Chawla and Gaurav Monga from DLF and Vaidi from ICICI Pru. Gaurav is a racer himself, and he gave all the techinal fundas to me about cars and races (as much as I could consume). Vaidy was pleseantly surprised to hear that the G3 markets are opeining up for indian issuers. Kartikeyan was hoping he will get a sponsor for the next F1 season. Steve Waugh was also present.

With Hamilton qualifying for the pole position, he has a good chance to win. Looking forward to the action packed finals.


27th September
Singapore

The final evening was star studded with Anil Ambani and Sekhar Kapur too in SCB stands. Ruias from Essar, Manoj Tirodkar from GTLI etc were few other top honchos. The 3 storied suites as well as the nearby stands were packed.

The circuit was looking stunning and the pre race parade was cool. Hamilton was expected to win, and he did. But Vettel and Rosberg disappointed and Brawn GP players were the real winners, almost securing the championship.

Scb's post race "pit stop party" was rocking with a live band. Juntha danced well past midnight.

It was a life time experience for me, and I have taken lot of photos and videos to capture the memories.

Hope you enjoyed reading these notes as much as I enjoyed writing.

Finally my birthday has come!

"Finally my birthday has come!" These were the first words from Spandana in the morning of 27th Jan, her 6th birthday. She has been waiting for this day for the entire last 1 yr, and planning for the birthday party was being done for the last 2-3 months. We did not want to make it a mega affair, and just invite a few of her close friends. 8 of her friends (Riya Varde, Riya Ajwani, Aditi, Tasu, Shanaya, Sanjana, Namita and Ishita) came to home after school for the pizza and burger and cake party. The special cake, a Barbie doll was cut after the lunch. Here are a few pics!

Her best birthday gift was from herself. The previous day, she participated in Abacus & Mental Arithmetic Bandra Inter Centre Competition 2008-09 (Organized by Winston Academy, franchisee of UCMAS) and got the 1st prize in her group (Level 2, Below 6 yrs). Now she will participate in the Maharashtra State level Abacus competition in May. See couple of pics from the prize ceremony below.

The same day (25th Jan), she also participated in the skating competition organized by YMCA, Bandra at Carter Road. This was her 2nd year, and she did improve her speed and position. Here are 2 pics of Spandana and one of her best friends, Tasu.

In all, it was her one of her best birthdays till date. I wish her all the best in life.

The starting point

I have wanted to start blogging for quite some time, just for the curiosity and experience, but today is The Day. I wish to pen down some of my thoughts and experiences here, just for my own pleasure. So in case you are reading my posts and find some of the stuff whacky, please bear with me.

Frankly, it was difficult to write these 3 lines, but I guess it is just the starting point. I take time to open up with people, so do my thoughts. That does not mean either me or my thoughts are reserved. Theese are just the initial teething problems!

Since sites such as google are not accessible from my office, hence I will be blogging from my home, which means it will be mostly a weekend blog.

So Rajesh, Get Started!