Offer Monger

Hello! You can call me Offer Monger, or in short OM!

I provide the best buy for busy corporate junta.  What’s best buy, you might ask.  Let me explain. 

I am a simple, free, intelligent and effective mobile app and I list exclusive jaw-dropping deals from various merchants for corporates.  Not enough?  Well, let me explain it to you with an example.  I have this friend of mine in Mumbai by the name of Ananya.  Ananya is a hard core workaholic professional and a mother of two kids who follows the latest trends in fashion and shops without fail. She doesn’t mind exploring different websites and mobile apps that promises killer deals. She observes a lot of exclusive tie-ups that her Fortune 100 company and clients have with brands she follows fanatically. However, an over loaded mailer box and a time hungry weekend makes her lose the exclusive offerings she is entitled to.

Now, that’s where I come in – I am a one stop solution that aggregates all corporate deals and makes it available to employees at their finger-tips.  I understand that we all refrain from logging in to our enterprise mail boxes or don’t have access to the same during weekends. Few of us may have a faint memory of a mailer from our employer depicting exclusive offer from a great restaurant. With me, that is your friend OM, you can view best deals near your location at ease when you are on the move.

In short, I help professionals to save every time they spend.

Here are some more fun facts about me (I’ll refer myself in third person from here on, you know, because I’m fun that way):

•  OM is a modern platform for new age start-ups to help them get introduced to potential customers.
•  OM’s vision is to serve other corporates with OM’s technology platform and discount offers.
•   OM was deployed at eClerx Services Ltd in July’2015 and the employees love it!
•   Currently ~5000 Corporate Users are enjoying OM discount coverage in Mumbai, Pune, Chandigarh and some across Pan India.
•  OM provides lucrative offers in various categories viz; restaurants, electronics, online shopping, sports & fitness, theme parks/fun activities, beauty, wellness, and many more. 
• Some of the leading Brand offer partners at OM are Essel World, Peppertap, Reliance Digital, Zoomcar, Adlabs Imagica, Hotel Lalit, Makemyhome, Mainland China, and so on.

Offer Monger - Features

Now what are you waiting for?  Get a special treatment of being a part of large Corporate by redeeming these offers to be found on the Offer Monger a.k.a. OM app  and save money as you spend!

Remember, OM envisages to Revolutionize Employee Engagement with Best of Corporate Offering at One Place!!

Sincerely,

Your new found friend, OM

www.offermonger.com

Look Up

She was thirty eight years old.  My Maths teach from my High School was diagnosed with breast cancer.

She was away from her family, alone in a hill station with other nuns, sharing her days with children who will pass out of school and vanish out of her life in a few years, unmarried and without any near kith and kin to look after her.  It was inspiring just to watch her keep on going from one day to the next - day after day after day.  Truly.

We were the senior most in school that year.  After that year we would not be seeing her again and probably for the rest of our lives and hers, think very little about her.  And yet, today, after these many years, she is still my greatest role model, my greatest inspiration.

Mrs. Bagchi was the most eloquent, graceful woman I have come across in my life.  We have not only looked upto her as a Maths teacher, but also tried to imitate her ways and manners - the way she spoke with such great confidence and assertion, and yet sounding so polite, the way she dressed herself in those Sarees with not a single pleat put of place, the subdued fragrance of Cuticura as she walked past the isles during the tests, the encouragement, the restraint  We all had a sort of teenage girl crush on her, and we all aspired to be like her when we grew up.

So the day we learnt about her illness, naturally we were devastated.  It all started with a rumor.  A rumor that no body was inclined to believe. Someone had started the fire. It came in a single whisper and flooded our eyes.  We just could not believe.  No, we chose not to believe.  She was all right just the day before.  Even that morning we had a class, and she seemed perfectly well.

Later, living in a small town paid off, when I heard the neighbor tell my mother, "She is hiding it well.  No sign of distress or pain of the misery that has befallen her.  Imagine an unmarried lady who has to go through all this on her own."

"Won't the school take care of her treatment?" she asked concerned.

"Of course, of course.  But its different you know.  If one has a family.." and she drifted off there, leaving Mrs. Bagchi's fate to the possibilities of better prospects that apparently only her immediate family could give her.

Well, to be honest, we wanted to, but we could not do much for her except pray and make Get Well Soon cards for her whenever we had any spare time, or during our art classes.  By the grace of God and the strength of her will, Mrs. Bagchi survived the evil cancer.  She did look very weak and frail after her treatment, but very soon she was back to her usual graceful self.  The mirror of perfection.  Of course, by the time her treatment was over, we had passed out of school, but we continued to meet her and she used to talk about the difficult time she had been in, and how she managed to draw strength even in such adverse times as those.

We meet her even today.  Less frequently. But we do.  Her once jet black hair has now turned grey, but her beauty and grace is still untouched by the savageness of time or fate.


For finding your strength and your ground, do look up:  https://housing.com/lookup

#StartANewLife

Look up every once in a while and one may never know which way the stars may direct you.  My Granny used to say that.  And truly so.  The stars have guided me home. Always.

After a long courtship that ended in a disastrous break up, I decided that it was time for me to leave my home and my home town.  Scarred by life, brimming with discontent, and with a sackful of complaints I had left home and all that reminded me of the close proximity of that one person who used to visit me there every Friday evening at seven o' clock sharp for an evening in town.

I left it all to find new grounds in another land.

The excuse was career.  Family needed to be told something. They wouldn't just let me go.  And going out to find myself, my bearings would not be a sufficient answer it would not convince them.

I still remember that day. A match was going on in the television. It was India Vs. Sri Lanka I suppose.  We had bread and tea for breakfast.  Outside it was pouring.  Everyone at home went about pottering and doing their own thing unaware of the screams that came out of me.  The world was oblivious to my pain and I was too immersed in self pity to hear the new hatch-lings of Papa Pegion making their first ever sound in this world.

A friend of mine had shifted to a city a few months ago, and I had her address.  The only way I could leave my home town was by telling a lie.  After breakfast I told them about a fictional job I got and that too, conveniently, in the same city as my friend.  I could live with her.

My family was apprehensive at the first hour.

"Is it really necessary?" my mother asked out of concern.

"You can get a job here itself.  Why do you want to go so far away?" my father reasoned.

Nothing could make me stay.

And then, the first time in all the years that I had spent with my kid brother, he said something that was intended to hurt me, but actually it made me smile.  "I'm taking her room" he announced.

I was officially out.

Many months passed, and I had managed to get myself a decent job as well in the city.  My friend was ever so accommodating.  We would go out every weekend to the malls.  Have lunch outside on a Saturday.  Watch a movie the next Sunday.  Hit the beach a few days later.  It was good.  It may be true to say that I had begun to gradually forget the ugly incident that had happened back home, which had acted as a catalyst in my shift to the city.

Now, my parents keep visiting me every few months. My brother is still enjoying the ownership of my room.  In a few months he too will be coming to the city.  A big company has offered him a job here.

My Granny was here a few weeks ago. She says that she likes how I have done up my house.  I told her how I had saved up for every little thing that she saw in the house, from the porcelain vase to the painting and the large mirror I fitted in the house.  My friend and I would look for things in the market, talk about how they would go with the colours of our home, and after we reached a consensus we would go, determined to buy that thing for the house, no home.

It has been a magical experience.  Finding a home in a foreign place - a place of comfort out of the comfort zone of home.  And it has all been worth it!

It's true.  You just need to look up and the stars will guide you home.

Look up.

For more interesting information do check out the video below and this link too:  https://housing.com/

It's Better Together

I still remember that hot summer evening when the world came crumbling down upon me.

It was the year 2008, and recession was rampant. Companies were firing people, companies were collapsing, it was difficult to get investors, salary cuts were declared, any hope of raise was annihilated with a look of disdain that seemed to say, "How can you think about it at a time like this?" I was at the very beginning of my career, snuggled up in my new job, giving it all my waking hours, making the company's success my sole purpose.  And then suddenly my world came crashing down.

The company would be liquidated.  My job that was there in the morning, suddenly vanished by afternoon tea.  The corporate world had vanished in a poof! There was no way I could get a job in a market that was burdened to the teeth with stakeholders claiming returns and profits, and calling in the notes.  I was a small cog in a machine, but at least I was a cog.  That summer afternoon, the machine was put to sleep.

Malls were vacant that day. Consumerism began to slumber. I remember walking into a lot of them to stare into the shop that sold things I could never afford again.  A lot of housing constructions were taking place.  I looked at them an d thought what my plight would be - will I have a roof over my head the next day.  Finally, as the balmy evening took over, I began to stroll on the boulevard.  A stray dog followed me. Everyone else were in their own worlds, unaware of the universe of glum I was carrying inside me.

Xylo, as my roommate loved to be called, was already in the flat when I walked in.  I told Xylo about my day, and it turned out that his wasn't any different either.  He was actually not just my roommate but my closest friend.  I had known him for years.  Since our school days.  He has always been the one I would turn to in my times of distress.  Somehow, he always managed to have a solution for everything.

But that day how could I ask him for advise.  He too had a rough week, and very unfortunately the same bad fate as mine and that too on the same day!

We had a dinner of frozen pizza from the fridge that night.  Even then we felt guilty.  The beer bottles clinked in the fridge but we did not have the cheer to open those bottles just yet.  It was not a good day.  At least we had the warmth of a good friendship.

Years have gone by and still now I recollect that evening and cannot wipe off the smile off my face.

Suddenly, as we tore off the last piece of the frozen pizza he said, "This is an opportunity, man!"

I looked at him bewildered.  How could this boy whom I've known since childhood come up with such an insane idea at a time of such great adversity.

But he kept persisting.  Whatever little savings we had, and along with the help of our parents the first idea of a new start up germinated.  And, now after half a decade,  the rest is history. And even to this day I acknowledge the incident of that afternoon, the warmth and optimism of that friend that guided both of us to where we are today.

And I wouldn't have it any other way!

To find out more about your dreams, or that roof over your head, visit this site: https://housing.com/

Healthy can be Tasty!

Mr. Gupta, also known endearingly as Guptaji, would never boast of his good habits.  Looking at him it is not easy to guess the secret behind his all day long good cheer.  However, once someone did ask him, and a flattered Guptaji gave a very baffling answer.  He said the secret of his good cheer lay in his morning Nashta.

Since then the entire street has been curious.  They wish to know if seriously the Guptas have a secret recipe that they consume during the morning, or if it was a lie that he was telling just to quiet everyone's unabashed inquisitiveness.

But, the need to know - that is, their curiousity has been peeked.  And has mine.  What did Guptaji mean by saying that all his day's unending cheer came from the Nashta he had in the morning.

I know for a fact that the Guptas buy Kellogg's Cornflakes for I have seen Mrs. Gupta carry it in those brown bags with other green leafy vegetable peeping out from the top.  The unmistakable yellow and white of the Kellogg's cereal boxes also peep out from there.

Well, sometimes, these boxes are yellow and white, sometimes red and white, at times I can see "Honey Loops" written on top of it.  Sometimes they are strawberry flavoured.  Other times, almond and honey, and still other times they are banana flavoured too.  then, every now and then I also do see a packet that says it's the Original Kellogg's.

I am quite sure that their morning Nashta does consist of this cereal.  But what I want to know is how do they bring variety into these few kinds of cereals. Do they add fruits to it, or nuts maybe?  What do they do to bring about this variety.

Also, I do know that the Guptas are a family of four with Roshni Chachi coming in and staying with them every few months.  The two kids are growing with fussy eating habits.  The son thankfully eats everything, but their daughter, Riddhi, hardly ever touches anything that has a drop of fat in it. How do they manage to make a breakfast that suits every palate day after day after day?  I wonder.

Another thing to which Guptaji hinted to himself was that the breakfast, or Nashta is the most important meal of the day.  So he makes sure that he has it properly.  But how does he plan on doing that, and creating variety, so that he begins enjoying his breakfast everyday?  I don't think I have the answers to these yet.

He also mentions, "Healthy can be tasty" whenever we talk about food.  I wonder how far that's true. Maybe to know all these, and for these reasons, I too must pay a visit to the Guptas.  Even Mrs. Gupta has invited me to her place.

Don't agree? Watch the video below.

And also don't forget to check out the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/anaajkanashta

Hello Happiness - Coca Cola International Day of Happiness

It is an international day of happiness, and I have a list of things to share with you that makes me happy, but first this short anecdote.  Do bear with me:

It was a few months ago I came across this article about a man who had been devastated by his divorce.  Unable to find a solution to come out of his depression, he amazingly came across an insane idea.  He decided to tackle his problems head on.  Instead of succumbing to what was causing him so much pain, he decided to be so happy and to make a list of all the things that made him feel just the opposite of what he was feeling.  He came up with a list of a thousand and one things that made his day beautiful, cheered him up and generally made his life awesome.  He then went on to become quite famous and also had a website of his own!

Well, my list may not be as long as his, but there sure are things that gives me immense happiness, and I am glad to share them with you.

So here it is, the big list of the things that make me happy:

Rains

Green Grass

Rides in the Giant Wheel

Quiz

A good TV show watching while sitting on the couch with a blanket cover, while its raining outside.

Umbrella

Pakodas and Tea

Coca Cola and a chat with friends

Planning new trips

Reading my past journal entries

Moleskin diaries

Fantasy Fiction

Scones and Tea

A new shirt

Old Letters

Memories of my mother

Theater

Picnics

Reading a book by a table lamp while, yes, its raining outside

Baking too!

Travelling

Trekking (not during the rains. Too many Leeches! Ouch!)

You know what, the list will go on and on.  I love doing just way too many things.  From old telephones to going on a hot air balloon -  I have a space in my heart that will make me happy doing all these things and in the end also ask me for more.

I love Agatha Christie Novels, and often imagine myself in one of those old English Country Tea Rooms sipping tea and solving detective stories with Miss Marple. Now that would be awesome, wouldn't it?

There are other things too - like the maybe a many layered cake beside a bottle of perfume, a nice long dress, or a rusty old harmonica, or even an accordion.  It's just being blessed to have so many things that can give one happiness.

And, now talking about being blessed, I love the most the amount of time I get to spend with my family.  Nothing compares to that! Wouldn't you agree?

For more happiness, do check out this Link --> http://CokeURL.com/96jnc

Also, don't miss out on this video:

Teddy Travelogues

Today she is graduating from college. But it seems just like yesterday when I went out travelling with my niece, Naina, to Pondicherry.

It was a birthday treat I had promised my newly turned nine year old niece at the time, and within a week of her birthday we set out from Bangalore  enroute to Pondicherry. And what a ride it was! She kept asking me questions even before our journey had begun.

Naina is a very bright kid.  She is curious, loves to ask many questions and sometimes even I learn a thing or two from her. Even at that time, she kept asking me questions - what should I pack, Maasi?  Is it too cold there? Oh, then is it too hot? Is it like Bombay? Bangalore?

And that one week before the trip, seemed like an age - an age of inquisitiveness and innocence. What will we do there?

The last question stumped me.  I knew Naina was a studious, knowledge hungry kid, but the things I had planned for her were a tad different.  It was what other kids her age did and called them “fun”.   I wanted her to have some fun.  Have a lolly, walk to the pier, see other things – not necessarily absorb everything, but just see and remember moments for what they were then – not as an anecdote from history, not like a footnote from her big great encyclopedias, but just as simple happy moments.

I didn’t know if my plan would succeed. The only way I could make it happen was to have a discussion with her – and I told her what my idea for the Pondicherry trip was. Surprisingly, she understood and agreed.

“Sweet!” I said and off we went on our first Maasi-Niece birthday vacation.

She was a happy child still basking in her post-birthday glow, embracing the birthday gift and the long journey from Bangalore to Pondicherry with a wide open smile! It was sheer delight! Only once she asked me, “Why do they call it Pondicherry?”

I almost answered but stopped myself, and reminded her of the promise she had made before the trip. She went quiet instantly.  The largeness of her heart melted mine.  So I gave her just that little bit of extra information and also told her that Pondicherry is also known as Puducherry.  She is always ecstatic to get new trivia for her treasure trove.  But I was afraid that having indulged her once, she might ask questions again and again and make that face which I can’t refuse.  But, she did not take advantage of that and for the rest of the trip, her questions were much simpler, “Maasi, can we go to that bakery?” or “Isn’t it so lovely at the pier? I will never forget this sunset!”

And truly that is one trip that I have never forgotten.  We had walked on the road next to the ocean, strolled in the French quarters, had goodies from bakeries, visited the Ashrama, and even watched a rock concert on the ocean road one evening. 

That holiday with the kid is one that I will never forget and always remember with the fondest memory!

Also check this link if you are planning a holiday with your beloved kid(s) àhttp://membership.clubmahindra.com/TeddyTravelogues/index.html.