@dvocable

Of late foursquare has been a hit among my office colleagues and they all have been trying to become the mayor of the office.  Apart from that, you also find these guys becoming the mayors of many interesting locations around the city.  There is almost a competition nowadays to become the mayor. So now the norm is almost like –   you come back to the office from a meeting,  check in and you get nearer to dethroning the current mayor.

The update status ‘XYZ just checked-in @ABC’ is becoming a bit of an eyesore, especially when it comes out on Twitter and Facebook repeatedly. Why not be creative? So recently I checked in inside a flight IC 213……..

How about checking in on foursquare itself. I just checked in @foursquare.com

I added a place called ‘The most wonderful place in the world’ recently. I am the proud mayor of that place now.

My colleagues suggested why places only, why not people? So we thought we should check  in @Tina @Surangana. How many girls in office have you as the mayor now? Cheeky.

One of my colleagues has become a super mayor for becoming the mayor of 10 places. I’m at 4 – one is an imaginary place, one of MG Road sucks, and two of my clients’ offices.  I don’t travel so much nowadays, except for obvious places where I could go with my 9 months old . Like one of my friends on Twitter said, ‘Fathers of toddlers can become mayors of doctor’s clinics; Hard Rock Cafe, difficult.’ :-)

By the way, let’s connect if you are on foursquare. My profile is here. Let’s see how many more interesting places we can discover and thus get many more fancy badges.

I wanted book air tickets for two adults and one infant from New Delhi to Imphal on Feb 6, 2010 and return tics on Feb 13, 2010. Since I had some time on my hand, and after a failure to book online  yesterday, I thought I will check out some of the travel agents online.

I tried Makemy trip.com, Yatra.com, Cleartrip.com, and Flykingfisher.com. These are the top travel sites according to Vizisense. The total fares shown by these sites on the airlines with the lowest fares available with them were interesting and all different.

Makemytrip -Rs. 14,405

Yatra – Rs. 13,682

Cleartrip -Rs. 15,921

FlyKingfisher – Rs. 14,274

Curious, I tried another search, Yatra gave the cheapest fares again. Seems like I found my banshee.

My wife got me into a contact dance workshop today, organised by Choreotheque. And as reluctant as I was to participate, I couldn’t escape it.

When I went to drop her at the workshop venue, I had to wait and give her company till the workshop started. Then when it was starting, I was going to be the only one in the room not dancing. Then Anish, the dance instructor called out to me. So I thought what the hell, I should just play along for a while.

The workshop was on contact dance, a dance that fine tunes your senses and wakes up your ability to listen and respond to what is happening in the moment. What makes contact dance from other dance forms is that partners are often moving in and out of physical contact while rolling, spiraling, springing, and falling. The dancing is unpredictable and insipred by the physical and energetic contact the partners share.

We start off by ‘exploring our spaces’ which was something I have never experienced before. My space? I knew the hypothetic term but actually putting out my hands in air to explore my space was a different feel altogether. After this, you team up with your partner, join hands, and explore our space together, first you as the leader and then as a follower.

Then there was another session where we were made to roam around and sway while holding a pen using mine and my partner’s forefingers.  You and your partner need to press the pen from both ends with your fingers to prevent it from falling. And when you do that while you are having a sort of ballroom twist, then you need coordinate very well along with your partner.

We the had a number of exercises changing partners and between groups. The most important thing our instructor was repeating was that we need to keep our minds clear of any thoughts and concentrate on the movements. Work lessons?

The workshop quite refreshing, surprisingly, and I wondered where my tiredness was gone. Maybe it can teach us a bit of team work. Corporate HR folks who conduct a lot of innovative team plays for employees should give contact dance a go and see for themselves.

Can you rotate one of those big Ferris Wheel at parks yourself? That too with dozens of people riding on it. This guy at a Mussoorie Mall Road park sure did.

car travel from delhi to mussoorie