Two weeks ago, I was in Panchkula celebrating my vacations. I was coming back from a long evening walk with Papa when I happened to cross this "Fresh" store. The scene was something like this: There is this wonderful, colorful, garish, lucrative Reliance Fresh store and in its front, there are these cart-vendors standing on the road with their shimmering lamps, looking at each passer-by with questioning eyes - "What do you want sir/madam?". I was telling Papa that these Reliance people are slowly intruding into each and every segment of the industry and their services are really good and I guess the days of these ubiquitous cart-vendors are almost over. As I had never entered a Reliance Fresh store earlier, I forced him to come along inside the store. As we were about to enter, this strong guy with big moustache leaned forward - saluted and opened the door for us. "Hmmm... good, nice gesture", said Papa. Entering the store with AC on, serene music, flashing vegetables, I was feeling Papa is surely going to be impressed with all this. And I was right, he was happy and surprised at the same time to see everything so clean and fresh that too at the same rate as the cart-vendors outside or may be a little cheaper.
We bought a nice looking musk-melon (Rs. 40/kg). Took it home and put it in fridge. The very next day, when I cut it to serve it to others - "Here comes the Reliance stamped melon". I found a big dark patch inside, of course with its owner - the worm (with family). Almost half of the fruit had to be thrown and needless to say, whatever we ate was not sweet at all. Another comment from Papa, "I think whoever goes inside the store, comes out buying something, otherwise that guard won't salute and open the door for you :) People buy to get that salute/respect which they consider as a status symbol". OK, I thought, "but Reliance people can't get into the fruit to see what's inside", so that doesn't qualify as an accusation.

The same evening, mummy asked me to get some tomatoes. Ok, now is the time to prove how wonderful Reliance products are. The same scene, the same store and the same me of course with same feelings. I straight marched to the tomatoes. I saw the tags - two kinds of tomatoes - "Simple tomato (Rs. 16/kg)" and "Premium tomato (Rs. 19/kg)". Which one should I go for? Anyone! how the hell they'll identify at the cash counter (which kind is it). So, I headed for Premium brand. And as I picked the first tomato, aha! the fluid came from below, this was my reaction: Isshhh! put it aside. How do I pick the nice ones from this crowd of putrid tomatoes? They were stale, they were rotten, they were leaking, they were even stinking and what not. I could hardly find some "OK" tomatoes out of 2 really big baskets of tomatoes and actually I (had to) mixed the two brands (Premium + Plain). The cash counter could never know, which quality it is... how could he ever know :) - they were both (I got @ Rs. 16/kg). And while I was coming out of the store, the security guard smiled, bowed as expected (after all I visted them the 2nd running day). I could recall "दूर के ढोल सुहावने" while exiting.
And as rightly pointed out by Abhishek, in one of his blogs regarding "his experience" with Reliance Fresh, they don't have a proper website of their own. I could find just a single page on Reliance Fresh where the forum link talks about the jobs in Reliance Retail.

Now, the point is, if a giant like Reliance can't maintain the quality of its items, won't the common man turn its back towards the stores and switch back to the push cart vendors. Agreed, that they don't look so clean, but at least these guys work very hard to keep "their" fruits and vegetables fresh by constantly spraying water on it.

If Mukesh Ambani & Co. doesn't do something quickly on this, I am afraid, the freshness of Reliance Fresh is in deep trouble. By the way, I was amazed to see a Relaince Fresh outlet in Rohtak, but again I know for sure that Rohtak people are going to put these guys on toes if they are not going to improve the actual quality of their garish items.

Today, I tried adding some new gadgets to my blog - just to check what all they do?
One of them is "PageRank". As it appeared on my Page, it displayed the Rank as 0. What does that mean? Wow! is it better than 1 (Rank 1 is supposed to be best) or "No Rank" or "Not eligible for the rank to be calculated" :)
Then there is "Visitor Locations" from "FeedJIT". As soon as this one appeared on my Page, it displayed a small red dot somewhere on the west coast of North America. On moving the cursor on the dot, a tool tip popped up - "Concord, California". Hunh! who visited my blog from there? Sounds confusing to me.
Then the "Photo Gallery". I added this one to put some of my nice pics here but sadly I don't have too many photos. Maybe I'll click some nice ones to put up here :)

Actually, I was looking for some new templates and gadgets like "Hit Counter", "Calendar" etc. I didn't get either of these and ended up adding the above ones. Never mind, the search is ON...

I am back from Chandigarh to Pune this Sunday after a vacation of one week.

With four hops, the journey was awsome. Quite a few reasons for that:

1. Chandigarh to New Delhi - Jan Shatabdi AC Chair Car: Its a new train that has been started for this route and the thing to excitement is that the fare is just Rs. 107 (even less than the bus which is Rs. 135). How good it is to travel in an AC coach with so less fare?


2. New Delhi to Mumbai Central - Rajdhani Express AC 2-tier: The name of the train itself is quite exciting. After waiting for around 2 hrs on New Delhi station and confirming my seat in the coach, when I entered the train, I felt rejuvenated. No crowd, no noise and a titillating mild scent sprayed in the coach. That was very refreshing. This being my first time in Rajdhani that too in AC 2-tier was a great experience. Thanks to Papa who got me the last minute reservation. The train dropped me off at Mumbai Central exactly at the scheduled time (exactly 16 hrs), but I didn't want to get down. The food served was very nice - Juice, beverages, candies, refreshments and the main course (dinner and breakfast) all were sumptuous.


3. Mumbai Central to Dadar - I landed in Mumbai for the first time. The very first thought I had when I stepped down the train, "Oh! what if I get to see some high profile filmstar like Sharukh or Aamir here." That was just a starting. I even thought of having a glance of some beautiful actress, maybe Vidya Balan. Why the hell will they come to railway station on a Sunday morning? Oops! even if its not a Sunday. Ok, may be for some shooting. It took me around 15 minutes to get a local train ticket to Dadar and all the time my thoughts went through a falling graph. I started thinking with Sharukh, Vidya etc. , went through Salman, Katrina (Ok, I am fine even if I meet Navjot Sidhhu) and finally perched on Raj Thackrey. What if some people come and ask me where do I belong to? I say - Rohtak. Where is it? Haryana. Oh! thats North India, send him back. Take his luggage and scare him out of this place. "Take his luggage? Hey! I have got 'Besan ke laddoos', I won't give it to you." Drowned neck deep in all these thoughts, I even forgot to take back the change from the ticket window. Never mind, that was just 2 Rs. :) I got my ticket to Dadar. I was already warned by Papa that stand near the door of the local train and jump out as soon as the platform arrives because the people rush madly into the train. I did as directed and managed to get down safely with my luggage on Dadar station. But, I appreciate the service of Mumbai local trains. They are on time, they halt for only 10 seconds at each stop, they have a separate track for themselves and they are damn too fast.


4. Dadar to Pune - Ok, the only irritating and tiring part of my journey. I had the ticket of "Hyderabad Express" and gosh! I am travelling in "Koyna Express". Thats no legal. And I was so happy that I have the ticket of an AC 3-tier berth. And to my surprise, there is no AC coach in this train, just one AC chair car coach. So, I went inside that. I took one of the empty chairs. TT was ought to come and he came. I told him that I have the ticket for another train which will come after 3 hrs and I didn't want to wait that long in this 42 degree heat. He told that at next stop, all seats will be full and if I can manage standing. I said absolutely no problem. I was lucky enough to have a cool TT. Where I was thinking of getting a fine, and where I travelled in the only AC compartment of the train. The sight seeing is really cool on this route - the train passes through a very beautiful terrain, running through a couple of tunnels. Though this train was 10 minutes late of its scheduled time at Pune (that too due to some maintenance activity going on at some peices of railway line), it can be condoned looking at the present day scenario where most of the trains run much late of their schedules.

Overall, I enjoyed the journey to my fullest. Maybe, because I travelled on rails after a long time. I have been travelling in air only for the past 2.5 years. Though flights can save you time, but journey by train has its own charm and excitement. :)