Udvada Trip

Last week I was lucky enough to visit Udvada, the holy city of Parsis. The oldest and most sacred Atash Bheram also known as Iranshah is located in Udvada. Udvada is located in Gujrat around 200 km from mumbai. Reaching Udvada is a 3 hrs journey thanks to the beautiful National Highway 8.
A small town with old bunglows and peaceful surroundings is a complete contrast from our concrete Jungle mumbai. Mostly inhabited by Parsis the town is a good getaway for mumbai Parsis during the weekend. Good accommodation facility in famous Parsi hotels like Hotel Mek, Globe and Ashishwang makes it more comfortable to visit Udvada. The mouth watering Parsi food that we get in Udvada is another magnet which pulls us Parsis over there.

But nothing comes close to the satisfaction we get from visiting the Atashbheram. The experience is unforgettable. The calmness, Serenity and feeling of being in such a sacred place washes off all our tensions and problems which we are bagged with in our daily lives.

Visiting the Atashbheram in the evenings is another spectacle. As there is no Electricity in the Atashbheram, its the oil lamps which lit up the Iranshah.
A must visit for all Parsis atleast once in a life time.....

Digital Marketing Conference 2007

It was my first opportunity to attend a Digital Marketing Summit here in Mumbai.
The summit had some very good speakers and some not so good!! But I would rate it as a good one coz all the speakers managed to keep me awake throughout the conference. That's one parameter I use to rate a conference....
Some of the key learning's I have taken from the conference are:
1. "What are the top 10 problems our country is facing? And what business or a portal can I start which will help solve one or many of these problems" - Ajit Balakrishnan, Founder & CEO Rediff.com. This point really made sense.. coz when we look at some of the biggest sites around us, they are all business which have helped solve some problem or the other. Eg Google took birth coz we needed a good search engine to find things in the vast world wide web. Naukri.com came into existence coz people needed one single place where they could search, compare and apply to lots of Jobs at a particular time.

2. The 5 I's of Internet:
a. I: I the Individual coz unlike other mediums on the Internet every thing happens as per I the Individual. I can Read what I want, I can Write what I want, I can search what I want, I can say Yes/No to what I want.
b. Infinite: The world wide web is an infinite space where we can spent infinite time.
c: Impulse: Most of the thing we do happens on impulse. We are checking our mails and we see a relevant banner and click on it impulsively.
d. Interactive: Every thing on the net is interactive. Its always a 2 way thing.
5 Information: There is tons and tons of Information available on the net.


There were lots of other things discussed which were interesting but the above mentioned 2 things left me thinking. it was all followed with the usual Cocktail and Dinner.....