Three years in BMM

Living the final few days of my college life makes me look back when I first joined college. I still remember my first day, I joined a few days late and I think almost everyone knew each other by then. Frankly I was nervous and little afraid at first but then I became friends with Jeet Dalvi who was the first person to me. After that I met all sorts of people and it was fun. I never thought BMM would be so interesting and fun.

There were many interesting assignments that were given to us. Making short films was the first assignment that was given to us. We were newbies and unprofessionals. But through the sorting the topic to deciding the story to shooting the movie to editing it, we all moved one step ahead towards professionalism. After that we made quite many short films. Another interesting thing that came is college festival. Going to many festivals, participanting in few, fighting for our contingent
by doing PR and being astounded by people's creativity were one of the amazing moments of BMM life.

Some of the other amazing things BMM taught us was creating websites, basics of photography, writing reviews, designing newspaper and magazine and much more. In three years I also learned about movies, media i.e. Both print and electronic in detail. So in short there is no other course that allows you to watch movie in
class and that is one of the reason why BMM is awesome.

Eat Streets of Mumbai- Charni Road

If you are spending most of your time in any area, you ought to explore it. And if its me exploring the area, it always about the food. Charni Road is where my college is at and when you are at Charni Road, you have a whole lot of options to eat. Of course I am going to narrow it down a bit further, being a vegetarian. So below are the list of places where you can grab some amazing delicacies in Charni Road.

1. Sukh Sagar- Everyone loves the Idli-chatni and Pav-bhaji at sukh sagar. If you are near Chowpatti, you have got to try Sukh Sagar. They have two food joint and juice shop in a row. And one best thing about Sukh Sagar other than food is that its open till late.  
   Cost for 2 people-Rs 250
2. Crystal- A Parsi restaurant know for cheap and tasty food. If you are at Sukh Sagar and you walk towards Wilson College, you can find Crystal. Its an old and authentic parsi restaurant. And if you ever hit Crystal, you've to try fruit cream there.
   Cost for 2 people-Rs 250
3. New Yorkers- A place where you can find multi-cusine. You can get Mexican, Italian, Swiss, Indian. This place can be pretty expensive, but its worth it if you try out the Burger and Sizzlers there. Its located in front of Chowpatti.
   Cost for 2 people-Rs 1000
4. Cream Centre- Its next to New Yorkers and again can be pretty expensive. If you are at Cream Centre, you should never miss the Nachos, chole bhature and onion rings there.
   Cost for 2 people-Rs 1100
5. Chowpatti- If you are Chowpatti, you should never miss out on Golas and Pav-bhaji. It's called chatai Pav-bhaji.Cost for 2 people-Rs 200
6. Thakkars- An amazing place with amazing food. Gujarati thali should never be missed if you go there. Its located before Chowpatti.
   Cost for 2 people-Rs 800
7. Bachelor's- This is a place you should never miss if you are in charni road. You get amazing shakes and sandwiches. Its a bit expensive but its worth trying. Its located in front of Thakkars.
   Cost for 2 people-Rs 400
8. Hinduja Street Food- If you are ever find yourself in Hinduja College lane, you'd hit a jackpot. There are whole lot options but yeah it still depends when you are there. In morning, you can have frankies, sansandwiches, dosas, chinese, pani puri. And if you are there in the evening, you can have kathi rolls, pastas and kulfi. And trust me from experience, you should never miss any of that especially the evening delicacies.
   Cost for 2 people-Rs 100
9. Shiv Sagar- A few steps ahead of hinduja college, you can find Shiv Sagar. Here are things you should try pizza, white pasta and melting sandwiches. Trust me its reasonable and amazing.
   Cost for 2 people-Rs 250
10. Say Cheese- If I get to rate this place in terms of food, I'll give it 5 out of 5. Everything you eat here is just amazing. And if you are still confused from long list of varieties, you should definitely try Garlic Bread, rolls and nachos.
    Cost for 2 people-Rs 300
11. Pani puri house- Its just before Say Cheese, if you are here try pani puri and bhel puri here. Its very good.
    Cost for 2 people-Rs 100
12. Shalimar- There is no amount of appraisal that could define the epicness of this juice shop. Everything you try here is just epic. But I got to narrow it down for you. Try chocolate shake, blue ocean, choco delight, Sitaphal juice and cream, strawberry cream and the list never ends. And yes do not forget to ask for half glass more.
    Cost for 2 people-Rs 100
13. Khamni- This is a special Gujarati delicacy which should definitely try. I can vouch on it that you'll love it. If you walk straight from Shalimar, you'll find the shop. In just Rs 10 you get to taste heaven.
14. Jalsa- This restaurant is opposite to the church. This is one of my favourite places to eat. There are only 2-3 items in the menu. But all of them are just amazing. Paneer-Bhurji paratha is something which you should never miss out. You'll be amazed I guarantee that.
    Cost for 2 people-Rs 150

From 10 to 14 are places that are highly recommend. That's all for now folks. I'll update the list if I find more places.

Note: Every restaurant listed here is vegetarian.

Democracy's Watchdog Flawed

In past few months we saw some very crucial events and very shocking outcomes, The Lok Sabha Elections. And the ones who hosted the event, Election Commission of India did a tremendous job of hosting the elections by reaching everywhere and holding a safe voting.

But I think there is a lot of shortcomings in the working of EC too. As mentioned in our constitution, India is democratic country and everyone above the age of 18 has a right to vote. But it could be clearly seen that not everyone acquired the voter IDs. Even after the putting on the request for the name in voter's list, many names weren't there in list. And then they accuse people of not voting. If only 60-70% of people get their names in the list, how can they expect everyone to come out and vote.

There are lot of minor flaws that could also be seen in the voter's ID i.e. Mistake in name, age and even the gender is changed. One of the incident I saw was an old lady's photo was changed with some other man's photo. The point I'm trying to make is EC should look out to these flaws and try to correct them.

In this elections I felt and I even heard people saying that EC was biased towards BJP. One of biggest example is my previous post in which there were 11 people with same name and it was quite evident that it was all planned. Despite of complaint being lodged by BJP, the other fake's nominations weren't cancelled. And even the rallies of BJP were delayed or disturbed. Once Modi wasn't allowed to do rally in Varanasi. Is this not being biased?

And after elections Modi dared EC and questioned them about the booth rigging in Bihar, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh. Modi asked EC, "Why are you not acting? What is your intention? If you feel wrong about what I am saying now, then you are free to lodge another case against me,"

I just want to know what Election Commission says about this? I think EC should have done something about it. More or less EC still needs to be reformed. The Elections stands to be a very important event for any democratic country. So EC should see that it is more subtle and less chaotic.

The Curious Case Of Chandu Lal

For the first time in history of indian election, bjp led by narendra modi tasted a one sided sweet victory, after wiping out big parties like congress, BSP, Samajwadi party in their own fortresses. But in the midst of voting and counting, there was the case of 11 chandu lals. Mahasamund constituency in chattisgarh had the most interesting and extremely surprising results.

From the congress, former Chief Minister of chattisgarh and lok sabha minister ajit jogi had an upper hand all day. But strangely, during the last phase of counting the main chandu lal(BJP Candidate) took a lead and to the shock of jogi, won by 1207 votes.

Shocked jogi wanted to lodge a complaint to EC as he felt something was not right with the way a last-minute surprise lead taken by his rival led to his defeat.

But there was another complaint which was lodged by BJP much earlier. The party complaint to EC, alleging that jogi had raised 10 bogus candidates in the name of BJP's candidate Chandu Lal Sahu to confuse the voter's in Mahasamund. The BJP also demanded to cancel nominations of all other Chandu Lal Sahus and to look further into the matter and even cancel jogi's nominations, if found guilty.

Now some interesting facts about the other 10 chandu lal's. All the other 10 candidates had filed the nomination on the same day and after the last day of withdrawal of nomination all of them had gone underground. They said that the even the series of bank notes deposited with the authorities as election deposit was the same, giving credence to the allegation that it was a dirty poll trick to stump the BJP candidate.

But in this mayhem we forgot justice is inevitable and people wanted the change. But after the humorous case of 11 chandu lal, jogi sir is regretting the fact, only if there was one more chandu lal.