• A Taste of Rampur

    is obviously quite good, because we’ve been repeat vistors, although this time we fell for a marketing gimmick – them calling up D and wishing her a happy birthday. 🙂

    The restaurant is in the service road (on Hosur Road) opposite Globus in Koramangala. There’s parking available and the best way to reach would be from the ‘National Games Village to Forum’ road and turning left just before the Forum junction.

    We don’t book in advance, but it would be better to do so on Saturday nights, especially after 8, since we had to wait once for around 15 minutes. The decor is very Awadh, and the background music is usually very Hindustani, although the TV in the corner does show EPL 😉

    The ambience is quite soothing, with soft lighting and comfortable seating. Although I’ve never tried it, the liquor menu does look well stocked. They have a good selection of kebabs. We usually ditch the shorba for starters, though the chicken shorba we had once was quite good. (but no 1/2 ok?!) This time we had the Murg Potli Kabab, which has chicken mince filling. Quite tasty.

    For the main course, we wanted to have a Murg Kali Mirch, but they recommended Murg Raseela since we wanted something spicy. Spicy it was, but i liked the Kali Mirch better (from previous visits). They also have a stew which we’ll try sometime. There’s a good selection of rotis, chicken and mutton. Though the dessert spread is good on paper, we have never managed to get the stuff we wanted. This time was no exception.

    A meal for two would cost about Rs.700-800 for a starter, 2 main course dishes and dessert. Overall the place is good, and we’ll definitely repeat the visits.

    Menu and map at Zomato

  • Viral Fever

    I happened to read from here and here about this, a ‘viral’ from makaan.com. As said on WATblog, it rehashes the Lagaan mixture of two of India’s most influential properties- cricket and bollywood, and not exactly in an earth shattering new take either. So, what’s it about virals that seems to have forced Brand Managers across categories to make it part of their regular campaign ‘things to do’.

    A good viral can definitely do the trick for your brand, there are many examples, most of them are of international brands though. I think the problem starts when we try to force a viral. If its supposed to work as a viral, through Word of Mouse, i wonder how much of force feeding can be done. All you can do, if you’re the brand manager, is to take a good idea, and seed it. I, for one, when reviewing any proposal sent to me, use two conditions to check whether it can work – one, does it somehow connect with what my brand represents, and two, is it good enough for me to forward it to my friends, and not necessarily in that order. I think it has worked for me, because i have junked all the ‘viral’ ideas that have come to me.

    More importantly, i think the reason why good virals are so tough to find is because of the non-adherence to the entire philosophy of the way these things work. Its based on a good idea, true, but more importantly its based on the brand’s willingness to lose control, which is something i see very rarely. For word -of -mouth to truly succeed, the brand has to trust its user, and the more brands think of their user as an end game, and not as a collbarator, the lesser chances for this philosophy to succeed.

    On a sidenote, i rather liked this viral effort from ICICI Prudential and this TVC, from 99 acres, the link being that one is a viral, and the other operating in the same vertical as makaan.

    until next time, lets hope you catch it right

  • Wild things

    They set out early in the morning, with the cameras ready. As the boat moved silently in the morning, they waitedwith bated breath for the sightings and the stories they could share. The excitement changed to hope and lasted till five minutes before the tour ended. Quite obviously, someone forgot to tell the animals.

    until next time, jungle talk

  • Turn Turn Turn

    Relationships. Hugs and backslaps give way to handshakes and then smiles. Swearwords give way to way to polite greetings and then a ‘Hi’. Long chats give way to short conversations to scraps on orkut and then to nothingness. Maybe that’s the way life is, but maybe its also time, place, context and things unexplainable. Fade.


    until next time, we say ‘it depends’ 🙂

  • I remember a house, like a lot of other houses, a yard…..

    From streets lined with trees, from flyover constructions, from roads whose names gave indications of a colonial past, from temples and their loudspeaker bhajans and flower fragrances, from an old theatre that played mallu movies, from rail tracks and the hoot of the occasional train. To change, and the creation of another set of memories.

    until next time, shift