A Complete Washout : Washing Machine reloaded!!

People who had read my previous post are aware of the sinister story of my whining washing machine (Siemens WM-10-16).

After 3 weeks of eager wait and several phone calls, the Siemens service engineer arrived at our house. But wait - we have to start from the beginning i.e the service centre.

I called up the Siemens service centre diligently. With three weeks practice, I had become rather proficient in doing this. For the uninformed, this is more complicated than it sounds. 

The call centre has two numbers, both are almost always busy. The trick is to continuously keep dialling them - something like an advanced version of "Fastest Finger First". So I store one number on my mobile and the other on my land line and keep on dialling them simultaneously with my both hands. On the 16th or 17th attempt, I usually succeed. 

This time, on the 15th ring, a bored-voiced lady with a typical Delhi-ite English picked up and informed me that my earlier service call number 5936 has been "upgraded" to 6016 and henceforth I should refer only to this service call. That sounded bizarre - I always thought the software companies usually do such things. Nevertheless, I prodded on and wanted to know about the "actual" status of this service call. To this, I was told that the famous gasket (which has to be imported from Germany after placing a call request on Bangalore and a purchase order on Mumbai) - the root cause which has made the machine inoperative for past three weeks, has finally arrived and has been handed over to the service engineer. The lady also told me that the name of the service engineer is Mr. Harit and I should make a note of this. On requesting for the service engineer's phone number, I was told that it is against the service policy of Siemens to give the mobile number of the service engineer. On asking as to when Mr. Harit would arrive, I was told that this is left to the discretion of the concerned engineer and the service centre has no control over this. At this point, I asked rather pointedly about what do they expect me to do with the name of the service engineer. I gave several suggestions like chanting his name in front of the idols that my wife worships everyday or recite his name in a sing song manner to my daughter as she falls asleep but the lady at the other end of the phone could not give a satisfactory reply. She merely murmured that she thought that his name would gladden my heart. I thanked her profusely for this supreme service and kept down the phone. 

Then the man came. It was a cold afternoon and there was a thin layer of fog still lingering in the Gurgaon atmosphere. His arrival, nevertheless, was like a bright sunshine in our flat and the smile my wife gave to him was probably the same on or at least from the same series which she used during our first year of marriage. This happy moment was short lived as Mr. Harit, upon seeing the machine was taken aback and he immediately called up the service centre and started conferring with someone senior in a secretive hushed tone. After several minutes of muffled discussion, Mr. Harit informed us that the problem, in fact is far more severe than merely a gasket. It definitely involves changing the drum but would probably need a step-by-step root cause analysis, which, unfortunately, has not been done. He, therefore reinstalled the machine without fixing the gasket and urged us to continue running the machine before it completely breaks down. At this point, Mr. Harit will arrive again and make a detailed analysis and order out the necessary parts. 

One has to grant the consistency of a German machine. Barely had Mr. Harit left our house, the machine started misbehaving. On the first day, it did the job but with a noise which would have shamed a turbo-charged jet engine. On the second day, it refused to spin and dry the clothes but chose to entertain us with a tap-dance and move away from its original position. On the third day, it simply refused to wash and thereby resumed to its state of complete inoperativeness. 

Again a round of rapid-fire speed dial and bingo - on the 21st attempt, I was through. The summary of my desultory conversation with the same Delhi-ite lassie can be summarised as below:

1. The drum is damaged and needs replacement.

2. This would cost 9k + taxes + service charge

3. The official delivery time is 3 weeks. This has to be calibrated with reality as the official delivery period of a gasket is 10 days but it took 3 weeks to deliver. 

4. This will not ensure that the machine is restored to its former glory as the "root-cause analysis" is yet to be done.

Thus the last of my ties with Siemens will disappear tomorrow. It took us 15 minutes to decide on buying a new machine, 15 minutes to check the net, 1 hour to drive down to the nearest shop and buy a new machine. This time, the specification was simple

a) the machine should be movable

b) the service centre and engineers should be accessible

c) the engineer who comes to install it should not talk about centrifugal forces and cosine component of the gravitational force that it exerts on our floor. 

There were several ones which fitted the bill and we picked up the one we felt was least intimidating. 

Let's hope this one will not be a complete washout like the last one!

Life, Washing Machine and other tragedies

Forgive me folks if I tend to rave and rant more than usual in this post. A cataclysmic calamity of gargantuan proportion has descended on the Dey household. As the year comes to a close, a deep darkness engulfs us and threatens to disrupt our otherwise nonchalant lifestyle in the most irreparable manner. We are shells of our former selves, walking in a state of philosophical detachment from life itself. Our washing machine is down since past 12 days!!! 

Readers who are less adept at grasping the intricacies of life may say "So What?" or "Tschk, tschk" or something equally banal. These are the blokes who are either unmarried or are possibly brain-dead from being battered during the early days of marital life into a vegetative lifeform. Nevertheless, I will try to explain the enormity of the damage in excruciating details so that it is clear even to these guys. 

This washing machine, which is one of the pillars on which our delicately balanced marital life rests, is one of those fully automatic front loading stuffs from Siemens. We had bought this when I was still working in Siemens and this "loyalty towards the hand that feeds our household" stuff led to an impressive miscalculation on my part. The fact that this machine came with a three speed selection option (an option, which, ever since we bought the stuff, has never been used by us) also appealed to my technology driven inner self and therefore we displaying an abundance of nerve and blatant disregard for logic, chose to buy this machine. 

We should have realized what we are in for when the installation guy had come to install this machine. This guy spent a good one hour trying to align the machine exactly 90 degree with the floor. Not his fault of course, as the builder of our house, sadly, was not aware of the exacting standards demanded by the Siemens A10-16 and had, left some waviness on the floor, a slant towards one side (possible with the mundane reason that water should flow along the slope into the drain) and had used ceramic tiles, whose co-efficient of friction was not what the doctor (read Siemens) had ordered for. At some point of this installation process, it wasfurther revealed that the entire house is not "exactly" perpendicular to the ground but at an angle of 89.95 degree. The last revelation was a crushing blow to the delicate sensibility of the poor fellow and only our strong motivation to have the machine installed forced him to actually install it. The fellow did it but one could see that his heart was not into it. He spoke rather brokenly about how the centrifugal force of the rotating drum of the machine will clash with the cosine component of the gravitational force of earth and how this will permanently traumatize the emotional balance of the machine. While leaving, this broken man implored us not to move the machine, in fact, preferably not to touch it at all, as A10-16 is known to be as prudish about unwanted touches as a village nun of the Catholic church might be.

After moving to Gurgaon, the Siemens guy who had come to re-install the machine was not a supreme perfectionist like his predecessor. His idea of aligning was completely devoid of any tools whatsoever and based on "eye-judgement". Probably this mistreatment caused our otherwise quiet A10-16 to become vocal and demand attention of the service personnel quite often. And in the last of these visits, the service engineer informed us that the gasket of the machine has failed, rendering it to an unusable state. 

Before you, my dear reader, come up with the above mentioned banality of "So what?" once again, let me inform you that the state-of-the-art gasket of the piece-of-art machine in question is manufactured in Germany. And for some incredibly complex logistics issue far beyond the mental ability of mere mortals like us, the Delhi service centre has to place an order on Siemens Service centre in Mumbai, who, in turn, has to place an order on Germany. To make matters worse, Siemens has formed some kind of a JV/Collaboration with Bosch and as a result of this, the Bangalore office also has to be  "somehow" involved. And all this happening on 20th of December means that one can forget about this machine for next 3 weeks as any self-respecting German company does not work from 22nd December till 7th of January, officially or otherwise. 

This realization, of course, meant that this is an SOS situation. An immediate spot-check with the house maid as well as other maids in the society revealed that they have all but forgotten this skill set.  Almost all Gurgaon household have a washing machine and to find a maid in Gurgaon who still washes clothes would probably socially ostracize the said household as well as the maid. 
The next logical step was to look for a dhobi. One would have thought that after movies like Dhobi Ghat, these people would have gained a certain respectability and would be easily visible. On the contrary, this species also seemed to have disappeared from Gurgaon. I looked for laundry shops all around the place, only to discover that all these blokes have re-invented themselves into "dry-cleaners" and washed off their hands from the wet business. The people who press clothes (what are they called? Not Iron Man - I hope!!) also are specialized fellows and as one of them told me "Hum to sirf saaf kapde pe hi kaam karte hyay" (I only work on clean clothes). Finally one of them surreptitiously advised me to quietly pay a visit to the local market and look for shops which has two water tanks on top and a constant flow of water through their drains!!
Next morning found me roaming the recesses of the local Wazirabad market - looking for buildings with double tank on top and whitish soapy water gushing out of the nearby drain. This search led me to a small shop on the second floor, accessible only by a steep rung ladder. As I reached the second floor, I found a relatively large room with constantly flowing soap water, a huge dump of clothes on the floor and two young guys holding hands and jumping on it. To facilitate this, an FM radio was kept on, which, paradoxically, was playing "tu hi meri fantasy" at that very instant. After the initial awkwardness, these friendly blokes revealed that this, indeed, is a laundry and they would be happy to wash our clothes (which, by now, is enough to fill the entire dickey of my car) except..... Except? Excepting for the fact that due to some logistics issue, they are barred from taking orders directly and I need to go to their front office, which, as fate would have it, is approximately 10 km away from this spot. I left hurriedly to reach this alleged front office - only to discover that it is another of those dry cleaners who also runs an undercover business of washing clothes the regular way. 
Now we are driving down every second day to this dry (wet) cleaner with a bagful of clothes. Sentiments about my former company cannot be described as warm by any stretch of imagination and mean statements are being hurled at me for being associated with the said company for sixteen years. 
Life!!

A Winter's Tale : Delhi Winters

The first rays of sun had to stretch itself to pass through the thick "snowish" fog of the early hours in Delhi. After a great deal of refraction, diffusion, absorption and all that jazz, the filtered watered-down light could finally reach our balcony and illuminate the pink Petunias and Carnations. The morning breeze had a distinct edge as it took its first nick on my bristled cheek. The Kashmiri shawl, erstwhile kept as a fashion statement seemed to be an absolute necessity today. I peeped down from the balcony and noted that our rigorous bunch of health freaks (buggers whose early morning antiques cause guilt-pangs in my ever-increasing pot-belly) have all donned thick woolens, lending a very asexual snowman-like look to them. 

My coffee cup had gone cold and I wondered whether this weather justifies a second cup of caffeine so early in the day, when I felt a human presence behind me. I turned around to discover the missus of the house with some additional features ; a nose like Rudolf, a voice like Rani Mukherjee and a forlorn look like Meena Kumari. The diagnosis was simple; the Delhi winters have arrived. 

For the less informed ones - we don't use thermometers to detect temperature at our place. Fancy concepts like "wind chill factor" have little or no appeal to us. Instead, all three of us in the house are like thermal weather-cocks - having thermal sensitivity tuned to detect every degree C variation with  an alarming accuracy. 

Take my case. My nose is so famously tuned to dT/dt  (for people who are less mathematically inclined - rate of change of temperature w.r.t time) that every variation of temperature causes me to get into a bout of rapid-fire sneezing. This usually is followed by the outer cuticle of the nose becoming hard and brittle while the inner recesses of the nose, remaining moist. The overall effect is somewhat like a well-made cheese omlette - well cooked from outside but slightly running in the inside. Once the temperature stabilizes, all these bouts of machine-gun firing ceases and I just have a mild headache - the intensity of which determines the ambient temperature. Simple, isn't it? 

With my wife, things work rather differently. Despite having plenty of warm clothing, she refuses to wear them under the pretext of "what will I then wear when it becomes even more cold". Then her body temperature seem to follow some sort of a sharp saw-tooth waveform - suddenly becomes extremely warm and then drops down to shivering cold in a matter of minutes though the ambient temperature fluctuates in a much more regularized manner. This usually causes her to have influenza and renders her unfit for a few days. People who know her will find this strange as she is known to weather much more painful stuffs like migraine, gastritis and high fevers easily and continue working even under this situation. Influenza, apparently, attacks her like those guerrilla troops with an utter disregard to Geneva conventions and leads to a complete collapse. This seemed to be the present case.

As a dutiful husband, I made a logical recommendation : let's go to a doctor. This was met with utter contempt and complete disregard "Visit a doctor for common cold?" . Second step was to recommend some house-medications like vapour treatment which was also rejected under the clause "yesterday I tried it and see what is my state today". Instead, my wife posted her status in the facebook. And voila - a volley of suggestions landed into our doorsteps from the cyberspace. The suggestions ranged from simple ones like "wear a sock" and "take a hot compress" till more complicated ones like "use a nebulizer". We tried all of them with varied degree of results. I also added my two bits into it by making "Rum Toddy" and making my wife drink it. This seemed to temporarily ease her breathing troubles but had some serious side-effects like wanting to watch a movie called "Namaste London". People who have seen this flick will know what am talking about. For people who haven't seen it - preserve it for a cold desperate day. 

It is now 10 pm. Being a Saturday night, the cars have become infrequent and the outside road quiet. The street-side dogs have also become peaceful, probably after a hectic day of barking at the cars. And my wife read out the latest Facebook suggestion : "Go see a doctor tomorrow". 

We looked at each other and promptly fixed up an appointment with a doctor at 11 am tomorrow. 

The famed Delhi winter has really really arrived now. 

Why men should say No!

This time I have chosen to write on a subject that is of social significance; an issue that I feel strongly about- namely, Gender Based Violence (GBV). For some time I have been following a Facebook group called “Let’s Talk” and their campaign which is known as “Must Bol”. This group of young Turks are doing a great job, and it was, therefore, an honour to get an invite to write on their Blogathon: Men say No!

GBV issues are multi-dimensional in nature, owing to the diverse range of causes and manifestation that tend to vary across countries, cultures, and socio- economic strata. I have tried basing this article in context of Urban Indian Middle socio-economic class – the brand ambassadors of the so-called “India Shining” group. Why do these people allow such things to happen to their women? Why are they so passive about a problem that has acquired such great proportions that one cannot feign to ignore anymore?  

Why men do not say ‘No’?

In all probability, many men still think GBV to be a problem predominantly faced by women, and therefore it is “their fight which they have to fight”. At a superficial glance, one has to admit that there is a certain degree of rationale behind this thinking. Many would equate this issue of gender-based violence with other issues like gender inequality / woman’s liberation, etc – causes that are fought by women-centric organisations across the globe. So one tends to associate Gender Based Violence (GBV) also with similar problems, and prefers to leave the women to champion this cause as well. GBV and its associated problems are, however, somewhat complex and more involved. Let's take a bird's eye view to the problem 

Solution type: Internal or External?

In general, any problem can be addressed either internally or externally, and the effectiveness of the two methods varies depending on two aspects: nature of the problem and the role of the adversary within the problem. In most of the sociological problems, any one of the two aforementioned aspects plays a major role, while the other one ends up playing the second fiddle. Very few problems can be solved with a mono-dimensional approach. For example, if we try to reduce drinking amongst the working class to improve their quality of life, a major thrust has to come externally in terms of campaigns, restrictions, regulations etc. This has to be supplemented by internal pressures from the family, children, peer group, friends etc. Thus, a combination of both is necessary, though the drive has to be from the external forces.

If we look at Gender discrimination at workplaces, this also has a predominantly external approach. Men have dominated the workplace scenario until now, and it will be sheer foolishness if one expects them to give away their dominant position so easily. However, things have now changed to a certain extent, and the main reason for this is the constant barrage of attacks from the women groups. Organisations have reluctantly being forced to remove regulations which bar women from joining them and later have grudgingly accepted that quite a number of women deserve to be above the “glass ceiling” – the invisible barrier which prevents women from rising beyond a certain level in an organisation.

If we put this in a simplistic step by step approach, it would look somewhat like this :

Step 1 : Organizations accepting women into responsible positions – [External : created by awareness campaigns, litigations, constitutional rights etc]

Step 2 : Women performing at par or sometimes better than their men peers – [External : as women are still not accepted completely]

Step 3 : Superiors acknowledging that Women can deliver at least as good as other men. Also accepting that having women in management can provide certain paradigm shift into management thinking [Internal]

GBV : External or Internal approach ?

In contrast to the above examples, GBV has a completely different dimension. In this case, men are committing the crimes against women actively (not just passively ignoring their rights), and quite a number of these remain unreported. There are several reasons for this lack of reporting, the major ones being:

§         Social Stigma: A woman violated by someone is often perceived a ‘loose woman’ and ‘she was asking for it’. Often this also acts like an ice-breaker in a reverse manner i.e ‘now that she has anyway been deflowered, she will probably not mind a roll in the hay’ kind of a psychology

§         Sense of shame / guilt by the offended

§         Often perpetrator of this crime is a man of social / family position – the husband, the boss, the father of a close friend

No wonder quite a number of women prefer to suffer quietly. This, in turn, emboldens the criminal even further as he realises that he can get away with this.

GBV also has a dimension that the crime being committed is atrocious. Unlike Gender discrimination in workplace, which, at its worst, is a case of being “unfair” and “discriminatory”, GBV is about invading another person’s private space and committing a hideous crime. Quite often, it is something that happens within the house – within closed doors and within the closed family. And for this reason, this battle cannot be merely an external conflict. It has to be fought internally – with the perpetrators (the men, in this case) themselves turning back and saying, “we would allow this to happen any more”.

How do we make men say no?

How do we do this internally? How do we make men say “No” so such crimes? As usual, there are no easy recipes to this. It might be worthwhile to look at some scenarios, which exist:

1)     Break social sanctions: There is an “indirect” sanction amongst men about situations when such behaviours are tolerated. Typical examples are:

1.1)           Army: It is a common practice that when an army invades another country, the victorious army indulges in ruthless activities, including sexual exploitation of women belonging to the vanquished party. Such practice date back into history and seems to be a well-established military practice even in the modern era. Be it the Cossacks during the First World War, the Japanese during Second World War or the Pakistani army in 1971, all have indulged in this practice rather openly. Our own Indian army is also accused of having used this “weapon” in the northeast. It, therefore, is logical to think that this kind of behaviour has a certain acceptance amongst army chiefs for it to have continued over the ages.

1.2)           Community centric: There are certain communities where this is an accepted form of punishment against the “loose” woman. This communities view of somewhat similar to Constable Michael Sanguinetti (of “Slutwalk” fame)’s view point – which is, if a woman dresses like a slut, she is asking for it. Usually these societies have a strong “machismo” complex and such violence against women seem to confirm to this image.

1.3)           Emotion-driven: Quite a number of people seem to sympathize with the husband / boyfriend who loves his wife / fiancée so much that he ends up hitting her or violating her – quite like a modern day Othello.

The first step could be to break these acceptance norms amongst men. This has to be done tactfully, because almost no-body will be honest enough to acknowledge existence of such a mind-set in the first place.

2)     Creating consciousness amongst men is another important step, and it is important enough for them to stick out their neck when necessary.

This will be a great challenge as the urban upper-middle class is an upwardly-mobile bunch of epicurean cynics (me included) who strictly follow the golden rule called WGOMF (“What Goes Of My Father” – literal translation of “Mera baapka kya jata hai”). To shake them up into some actual action will require massive effort – something akin to the Anna Hazare movement against corruption. The parallel is interesting as the Anna Hazare movement was predominantly a movement of the urban middle class – which seems to suggest that this class of people may not be completely dead yet !!

What do we want men to do?

Very simple things!  We are not looking for crusaders. I believe our women can take care of themselves without “knights-in-shining-armours” lurking in the background. We expect:

-          Awareness amongst male members in the society (especially young men). This can be done through talking, mails, chats or even Facebook posts.  

-          be supportive to women who are experiencing such a situation. Women are often subjected to harassments in public places. In such situation, women are generally advised to speak out / protest / shout. Please join them in their protests

-          instead of being a passive observer, try to call in help from whichever quarter possible.

There will, of course, be a handful who will take it up more seriously and take this up at a different level by being part of a cause or a movement through different organisations.

This Blog is part of the Men Say No Blogathon, encouraging men to take up action against the violence faced by women. 

More entries to the Blogathon can be read at www.mustbol.in/blogathon. Join further conversation on facebook.com/delhiyouth & twitter.com/mustbol 

Schools in Gurgaon : a review

This blog is somewhat different from my usual "all style and no content" blogs. This is a result of the research I was forced to do when I changed my daughter's school. Some of the things written in this blog are experiences shared by like-minded people though most of them are impressions formed by me during my visits to various schools. 
I thought of writing this down as we have a huge inflow of professionals moving into Gurgaon from various parts of the world. One of the first things they start looking for is a good school for their children. Hopefully, this blog will be of some help to them.
As per me, the schools in Gurgaon can be categorised into three categories 


A) Alternative school (Also known as Progressive schools) : 
These are the schools who follow a completely different methodology of teaching. Usually these schools will first stress on teaching orally and students are taught to write at a much later stage. Often these schools will not teach alphabets in their usual sequence but in context to how they are used in the children's perception. Thus they will probably teach "B" ahead of "A" as they would then try to teach the child how to spell "BALL". These schools also believe in not giving any homework and keeping a very low stress level on the children. 
Typical characteristics of these schools are 
1) Completely different teaching approach at the primary level. Does not follow the NCERT method at all. 
2) Teaching is often project-based or experience-based instead of text book based.
3) Usually has a setup for the children with special needs (with separate teaching staffs for them). 
4) Merges into regular NCERT / CBSE or ICSE format after class 8. 
5) Has plenty of outdoor activities like summer camps etc


There is some debate about this form of schools. The concern points raised by many parents are 

• their teaching methodology is excellent for young students but not so good for older children. Hence when the students reach Class 8 and is introduced to the conventional NCERT syllabus, most of the students don't fare well. 
• a child finds it extremely difficult to adjust into any other main stream school (in case one needs to change the school)  
• unconventional way of teaching - hence finding teachers and retaining them is a challenge.

The schools in this category are 

• Heritage School (Sector 62) : Pioneer in this form of teaching. Uniformly acclaimed as excellent among the progressive schools. Off late, there has been some report about the standard of the school having deteriorated. Also the students seem to find it difficult to merge into the NCERT based syllabus after Class 8 and consequently, there is a trend of students leaving Heritage after Class 5.
  Rating : 4/5
  Board : CBSE
• Shikshantar (South City I) : Excellent school in Progressive format. Seem to have a better balance between the progressive form and conventional form. Mid term admissions are not very easy.
  Rating : 4.5/5
  Board : CBSE
• Matri Kiran (Sohna Road) : New school started last year (is now till Class 3). The principal is the former principal of Shikshantar. The secondary section will be at Hero Honda Chowk.
  Rating : not known.
  Board : ICSE

B) International Schools :


The name can be deceptive as most of the schools these days have added "World" or "International" as their middle name. I am classifying those schools as "International" which have the following features
1) Will follow a modern form of teaching (may not be entirely progressive but a close second to this)
2) Will not have excessive academic pressure on the child (in line with international practices). Usually these schools will have less or no homework and parents are discouraged from teaching the child separately.
3) Will have SMART class rooms for all standards and all classes
4) Will have elaborate sports facilities (usually including a few exclusive facilities like Horse Riding, Golf etc)
5) Will have external faculties / institutions coming in for added value (like British council, external Theatre workshop, elocution classes etc)
6) Usually will also have options of other boards (IGCSE, OB etc)
7) If often accused to be a bit too flashy.


The following are the schools which fall in this category 

• Ridge Valley International School (Near Galleria Market) : New school backed by the India Today Learn India movement. Focuses majorly on self learning / project based learning. Expensive (approx 45k per quarter)
  Rating : 4/5
  Board : CBSE
• Lotus Valley International School (South City II) : New school (presently upto Class 8). Excellent facilities and innovative teaching methodologies. Tie up with several external institutions (British Council, Cambridge Education, Maxmuller Bhavan etc). Already have an established school in Noida which is considered a premium school.Rating : 4/5.
  Board : CBSE
• Pathways : New school. Good setup. Has separate section for Special Needs children. Extremely expensive (approx 70k per quarter). Predominantly focuses on Expats and NRIs (the admission form asks whether you earn in Indian Rupees or Foreign currencies!!!)
  Rating : 3/5
  Board : IGCSE (Cambridge)
• Scottish High : One of the first true "international" school in Gurgaon. Well established and well known. Off-late have heard a few negative remarks about this including some pretty damning stuffs on mouthshut.com. Expensive (approx 45k per quarter).
  Rating : 3.5/5
  Board : ICSE 
• Banyan Tree : Feedback on Internet is quite high. Did not check personally
  Rating : 3.5/5 (based on Internet)
  Board : ICSE
• American Excelsior :  Feedback on Internet is quite high. Did not check personallyRating : 3.5/5 (based on Internet)Board : IGCSE (Cambridge)

There are a few others on which I have no feedback like 

• K.R.Mangalam World School
• G.D.Goenka World School
• Euro International 
• Indus World School
• Shiv Nadar School (yet to start)

C) Conventional Schools

The feature of these schools are as under

1) Will follow the NCERT prescribed norms. Within this, the good schools with use techniques which are modern and more child-friendly. 

2) Academic pressure will be high. It is expected that the parent will also actively teach the child from an early age. 
3) Good schools may have SMART class rooms (though this is usually not common)
4) Good schools will have elaborate sports facilities (though conventional ones like football, cricket, basketball etc)


For such schools, it is recommended that one takes careful feedback from students / parents as often what they promise and what they deliver is starkly different. 
Grade 1 : Ratings between 3 to 5

• Sun City : Rated very high. Teaching style and staffs are extremely good. Good setup and nice balance between education and co-curriculars.
  NB : Is known to ask for donations and/or part of the entry fees in cash. I have personally not experienced this but a close friend had this experience.
  Rating : 4.5/5
  Board : CBSE 
• Sri Ram International : Could not even enter the reception after trying thrice. I believe one has to admit the child in nursery itself or will have to be a celebrity to even enter the school. Usually the interview will be conducted by the school "darwaan" and you will be shooed off with a flea in the ear.
  Rating : 3/5
  Board : ICSE 
• Shallom Hills
  New school. Modern style of teaching; child friendly.
  NB : Even for Class 1 children, they ask for an entrance test (carefully veiled under a phrase "bench-marking") while they themselves don't have exams till Class 5.
  Rating : 4/5
  Board : CBSE
• Delhi Public School Sector 45 : Standard good school. Academic pressure is on the higher side.
  Rating : 3.5/5
  Board : CBSE 
• Amity International Sector 43 and Sector 46 : Standard good school.  Nice infrastructure (in Sector 46), large playground.
  NB : Even for Class 1 children, they ask for an entrance test <
  Rating 3/5
  Board : CBSE

Grade 2 : Ratings below 3

• Ryan International
• Delhi Public School - Shushant Lok / Sector 29
• Delhi Public School - Maruti Kunj / Sector 28
• Summer Fields
• Tagore International : Excessive academic pressure. Old fashioned method of teaching. Has a reputation of hitting children regularly.
  Rating : 1/5
• Blue Bells 

There are many more schools in category 3 on which I have no feedback.  A list of some of these are 

• Presidium Galleria / Mother's Pride
• Presidium Sector 57 
• Alpine Convent School
• Salwan School 
• Manav Rachna 

It would be nice to get some feedback or review on these schools. 


I got plenty of help from some Internet sites which the readers may also find interesting. These are :
- http://livingingurgaon.blogspot.com
- http://www.parentree.in
- http://www.gurgaonscoop.com
And finally, there is no point in writing this blog unless we have discussions on this. I would sincerely urge all parents having school going kids to put their opinions as comments to this blog. This would certainly help the parents in Gurgaon who are in the hunt for a good school.

Trying to be a new age father

Parenthood has become incredibly complicated these days. It must have been rather tiresome even in the olden days but at least they were not bound by these new-found theories about how to take care of the kid. In good old days, if the kid was a brat, you called him (or her) a brat and whaled the tar out of the little fellow. Nobody gave a damn about whether it was going to traumatize the kid and leave an indelible scar on the tender mind or, for that matter, tender bum of the child. On top of it, there was also the golden rule of "children should be seldom be seen and rarely heard" which took care of the rest. 

Those happy days are, sadly, things of the past. These days you are supposed to "interact" and  "instill values" into the child but ensure that her "delicate mental framework is not shattered by the traumatic parental pressure". I had been strictly following this by not trying to instill any of my values into my child (and therefore ensuring that the right values are picked up by my kiddo) but I decided to make an exception a few days back.  

In one of my daughter's school forms, there was a field where I had to fill in how many hours I spend reading to my child. After filling this up, out of sheer guilt conscience, I decided to be a "new age good parent" and read a bedtime story to my child. Let me present you a "blow by blow account" of what happened : 

Me : Three little pigs. Once there were three pigs who wanted to stay alone.
D'ter : What does alone mean?
Me: Staying without anybody else.
D'ter : But they are three of them - so how can they be alone ?
Me : Hmmmm - I think they meant staying without their parents
D'ter : Then the parents are also alone 
Me : Yeah (aside : lucky bastards). Let's continue. The three pigs built three houses.
D'ter : Why did they built three houses? They could have stayed together in one house.
Me : They eventually did that because of the wolf.
D'ter : What did the wolf do?
Me : He blew the house down.
D'ter : Because they had build three houses? 
Me : No. Actually the wolf wanted to eat the pigs. He asked the pig whether he can come in. And the Pig said "Not by the hair of my chini-chin-chin"
D'ter : Why did the pig say "chini-chin-chin" ?
Me : Because it is funny !
D'ter : Why is it funny?
Me : This word. It doesn't really mean any thing.
D'ter : What is funny about that? If you say things which doesn't mean anything, is that funny? 
Me : Yeah - sometimes
D'ter : Dad - you don't know anything!! If you say things which nobody understands, people will make fun of you ("aapka mazak urayenge")

So it continued till finally, we reached the end of the story. Sadly, this "good parent thingy" did not work out well. Most of the queries of the daughter could not be answered to her satisfaction and at the end, she concluded that anyway, the first two houses built by the pigs should have been given to the old women and children who stay on the pavements. So, the wolf, in fact, did a good thing by blowing them apart and is the real hero of the story. 

May be I should start writing a whole new set of "Politically correct fairy tales" instead of trying to be a new age dad!!!

Maggi : My comfort food

After wearying out the readers with the detailed development of my new house, let me move on to something which almost everybody likes. This blog is about the universal favorite instant noodle called "Maggi".  

As a kid, I don't recall being passionate about noodles. In those days, it was not very common to have them. Noodles were either cooked by some "avant garde" type relative (usually as an aftermath of a cooking class) or brought from the legendary Kolkata Chinese restaurant called "Peiping" (on Park Street). Peiping was famous for its "Chow chow" (not to be confused with the ill-temper Chinese dog) - which is basically noodles with plenty of vegetables and some gravy and the entire household seem to go gaga over it. I was the solitary voice of dissent, who protested against this Chinese aggression but was summarily silenced by the women in power. My grandmother used to be somewhat sympathetic while my mother used to dismiss it with her characteristic "motherly" one liner -  "He's just being difficult". As was customary in those days, I was usually given the choice of "Take it or stay hungry". 

In 1983, a company called Food Specialties Ltd, along with Nestle, came up with a new product called "Maggi" - a type of instant noodles.  We, of course, couldn't care less about these trivias excepting the all important fact that they came to our school and, as a part of their promotional campaign, gave every one of us a  packet of noodles for free. In those days, such aggressive marketing strategies were unheard of and more so in Kolkata, the so called "hide-bound" metropolis. I proudly took it home and much to my everybody's surprise, fell in love with it. It was, truly, a love at first bite. 

From that instant onwards, Maggi has become a part of my lifestyle. Just like the converts show greater passion that the original believers, I became a Maggi-lover with a vengeance. Our household patronized Maggi as if we are majority shareholders in this company and we have three family members in their board. To give you some statistics : 

Maggi was offering a small steel plate for every 12 empty wrappers of Maggi. In a period of 6 months, my mother managed to collect about 12 such plates at which point Maggi withdrew the offer and completely broke her heart. Which means in 6 X 30 = 180 days, we had consumed 12 X 12 = 144 packets of Maggi - a hit rate of 80%. 

I still recall that Maggi used to come in three flavours, namely Masala, Chicken and Capsika.  Capsica was extremely popular, closely followed by Masala. Masala and Chicken flavours have defied all management theories like Product Life Cycle (PLC) and BCG Matrix and are still extremely popular. Soon other flavors like Tomato, Curry etc and some "heath conscious flavours like "Multigrain", "Atta" etc have evolved. About two years back, they also entered the market of Cup Noodles which, hither to was the forte of Nissin.  In between, they also faced some competition from Top Ramen - who came up with Smoodles (smooth noodles) which were nice (especially their curry flavour) but somehow they could not dethrone Maggi for long. 

In my bachelor days in Pune, Maggi was one of our main stay as far as cooking was concerned. On more adventurous days, we used to add "Chorikos" - the fire brand Goan Sausage into it and avoid adding the Maggi tastemaker into it. We usually used to add cheese / cheese spread into it to somewhat reduce the firepower of the Goan sausages. This delicacy - almost the high-water mark of my culinary career, continued with me for several years till my decrepit alimentary system refused to absorb this any more. Forcing it down the esophagus these days either causes severe acidity or puts the rear side on fire, the next day morning. 

I loved the Maggi advertisements all along. I think one of the first ones was where the kids come home and shout "Mummy, bhookh lagi hay" and the mother beams benevolently and says "Just two minutes". As a kid, I often wondered why my mother's reaction invariably was to scowl and shout back "Go to the bathroom, wash your face and hand etc etc" instead of smiling in such beatific manner. 
Recently, my friend reminded me of another old favorite of mine 

Even their latest one about the cup noodles - "Just add garam paani, aur shuru ho ja jaani" - targeting the new generation of trekkers - is also quite catchy . 

A few years back, I was in IIM Bangalore for a short term management course specially designed for Business Managers. As is usual in such courses, we were given enough assignments to ensure that we never go to sleep till 2 am in the night. After the first couple of nights, we started feeling hungry at around 1 am (an old failing, I always felt hungry when I used to study as a kid). On the 3rd or 4th night, we decided to explore the campus to see if any edibles are available. And wonder of wonders - we discovered a small shop selling Maggi 2 minutes noodles, nicely cooked and garnished with scrambled eggs and stir fried vegetables. For the next 5 weeks, this shop was frequented at 1 am by a group of six 35+ mid level executives from an MNC. Malicious aspersions were cast on our moral characters because of  these nocturnal visits (this shop, incidentally, was located rather close to the Ladies hostel) but our loyalty towards Maggi was far beyond such dastardly allegations. 

Hope this brand survives the test and taste of time and continues to be a gastronomical delight for one and all.