Crazy. Mad. Fun. Passionate. Insane. These are a few words that describe Jyoti and Paarth as a couple. But what’s beautiful about their relationship is that they are all of this even as individuals. Them coming together just takes this madness to a new whole new level.

Football-crazy Jyoti, and bike-fanatic Paarth, met each other through a common friend, Kim. While it’s a classic friends-turned-lovers story, nothing else about them is ordinary.

When they said that they wanted to do a football-and-bike themed pre-wedding shoot, we joined in their madness with equal enthusiasm. And ever since it has been a fun journey, from the pre-wedding shoot to the wedding, we’ve had a blast.

Have a look already!

P.S: Wedding pictures…COMING SOON!

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Kick-Starting a new life!

Searching for AstroTurf facilities made easy!

Various AstroTurf facilities in the city

It started as a concept imitated from the west for passionate sports enthusiasts to play after hours, and now has slowly gone viral all over Mumbai and other Metropolitan cities thanks to budding sports enthusiasts turned entrepreneurs that realise the need and passion for the sport. Coming from the same area myself and working and partnering on such a facility I see a lot of potential for growth. I also see confusion and sometimes lack of knowledge when it comes to making a choice for which turf to play at. Here’s a consolidated list of all the turfs in the city along with the sport they offer and the price range:
Cooperage side pitch – Churchgate

Image credits – IFS Facebook Page
Probably offers the best football playing experience according to me since its open and not contained in a structure. The facility has two five a side pitches or you can use the entire pitch to play 7 a side.
Price: 3800 per hour for half a pitch, 7600 for full pitch.

Booking Details – For group bookings call +912222844545 / +918080297427 or visit www.indianfs.in for registration and further enquires.
NSCI 5-a-side – Worli

Image Credits – SSE Facebook Page
Recently opened, this facility offers a really good view of Haji Ali while you play. Has two independent five a side pitches. Since it’s a part of the club, it ends up being much cheaper than other facilities in the vicinity.
Price: Varies depending on time slots.
Astro Park – Kamala Mills, Lower Parel.

This facility is huge, it’s centrally located and probably the finest, most well maintained, well – managed and highly active turf in Mumbai. They conduct 3 month long football leagues and get about 40 teams from all across Mumbai to participate in it.

They’ve recently opened up new pitches at Lion’s Club, Santacruz & in Hyderabad.
Price: 3500/hr half pitch, 7000/hr full pitch.

Booking details –

Contact info – +91 88792 29996

Visit: – www.astrosports.in
Mad Over Sports: Dadar

Image Credits – MOS Facebook Page
This place has something unique to offer. It’s the only place where you can play soapy football in Mumbai. If you are tired of regular football and would like to try something different then this is the place for you! Apart from soapy football they also offer a multi-sport pitch where you can play either football or box cricket.
Price: 3500 per hour.

Booking details – Call on: +919833355594 / +919833366694 for further details.
Don Bosco – Matunga

Image Credits – Don Bosco Website – Facilities section
This facility is part of Don Bosco International School and it can be used after school hours. It’s a 5-a-side astro turf facility. They play host to many open tournaments and school tournaments.
Price: Varies depending on time slots.

Footbrawl – Santacruz, Mega Mall

Image Credits – Footbrawl Facebook page
Footbrawl is set up in two key locations, one being Santacruz and other Mega Mall, Andheri. Footbrawl has gained reputation locally by conducting one day open tournaments & giving away exciting prizes in those tournaments. The mega mall turf also offers box cricket.
Price: around 2000/hr at night

Booking Details – For Bookings, please call – 9820587147
Cage football and cricket – Vile Parle

Image Credits – The Cage at JVP
Probably the cheapest on the pockets on the western side, since it’s a smaller facility compared to the rest of the turfs. Offers box cricket and football.
Price: 1800/hr in the night

Booking details – For bookings, please call 9820987287

Tiger play – Citi mall & Durgadevi Saraf, Malad

Image credits – Tiger play
Tiger play at Citi mall has two multi sports pitches. They offer box cricket and football at this facility. The one in malad has been made as a complete sports academy where apart from football and cricket you could also play basketball & tennis. In terms of look and feel this turf beats every turf in the city.
Price – at Andheri – around 2500 in the night
Price – at Malad – around 1800 in the night

Booking details – http://www.tigerplay.in/

Contact Info – 091677 77678

Arena – Chakala

Image Credits – Livemint & the Arena Facebook Page
Started off in a warehouse, it’s now moved to a terrace space on top of the Toyota showroom in andheri. The turf is in good condition and reasonably priced.
Price: around 2000 an hour in the night

Booking details – http://www.thearenaindia.com/

For bookings, please call – 09833184811

Kick off – Oshiwara

Image credits – Kick off Facebook page

Located at heera panna mall, they too host a number of one day tournaments in the open category.
Price: around 2000 per hour in the night

Booking details – +91 8879771265, +91 9819097603, +91 9867052773

Score- spot – Malad

It’s been termed ideal for a 7 a side box cricket game because of its apt dimensions. The price is affordable and it’s located right outside Malad station which is convenient. They have digital cameras placed over the facility which records your game and you can take back the footage on your pen drive at no additional cost.
Price: around 1800 in the night

Booking details – 7506744540
DSF – Inorbit, Kandivali, Vashi

Image Credits – DSF facebook page
Dream sports fields – The first turf made in mumbai. They slowly moved to different locations and have opened turfs across other cities as well.
Locations: Malad, Kandivali, Borivali West, Andheri, Ghatkopar, Vashi, Thane and Kalyan.
They actively do tournaments across all locations and also have active social media pages for all of them.
Price: depends on the location you book. They have a booking system on their website for all their fields.
You can log on to www.dreamsportsfields.com to check prices and availability.
Dribble – Wadala, Thane, Borivali

Image Credits – Dribble facebook page
Dribble has multiple turfs at multiple locations, all of which are spacious. They are all proper football turfs. The only worry is that the turf is not well maintained else the playing experience is totally worth the money they charge.
Price: Wadala: 2200 in the night (approx.)
Price: Thane: 1800 in the night (approx.)
Price: Borivali: 2000 in the night (approx.)

Booking Details – http://www.dribblefootball.com/

8080050650, 9029033424
Passion united astro field – Kandivali

Image Credits – Passion United Astro fields facebook page
The only option in Kandivali east. It’s located at Growels mall and here you can play a proper 5 a side football match, participate in tournaments, and also use it for cricket.
Price: approx. 1500 in the night on weekdays and 2200 on weekends.
Kickforall – Powai

Image Credits – Kick Facebook Page
Kick has revolutionised the football playing experience at their venue by getting isl players, top celebrities to come play at the turf on a regular basis and also interact with the crowd. Now with their newly opened cafe, they also screen premier league matches hence taking the turf experience a notch further. Apart from this they hold tournaments, coaching, leagues, corporate events etc on a regular basis. It has been the most used turf in mumbai in the last year!
Price: 3000/ hr
Booking details – 022 3227 6565

About love

May it always be clear that only true love can compete with any other love in this world. When, we give everything, we have nothing more to lose. And then fear, jealousy, boredom, and monotony disappear, and all that remains is the light from a void that does not frighten us, but brings us closer to one another. The light that always changed, and that is what makes it beautiful and full of surprises not always those we hope for, but those we can live with.
To love abundantly is to live abundantly.

To love forever is to live forever. Eternal life is coupled with love. Why do we want to live forever? Because we want to live another day with this person by our side. Because we want to keep going with someone who deserves our love, and who knows how to love us as we think we deserve to be loved.

Because living is loving.

Even love for a pet dog, for example can justify the life of a human being. If he no longer has this bond of love in his life, any reason to keep on living also disappears.

Let us first seek love and everything else will be added.

No one can force himself to love, nor can he force another person. All you can do is look at love, fall in love and imitate it.

Those who know how to love love, rejoice with the truth and do not fear it, because sooner or later it redeems everything. True love does not consist of exposing your weaknesses to others, but instead it consists of you being unafraid to show when you need help and rejoicing in finding that things are better than what others said.

Our goal in the world should be: learn to love.

Life offers us thousands of opportunities for learning. Every man and every woman in every day of our lives always had a good opportunity to surrender to love. Life is not a long vacation, but a constant learning process. And the most important lesson is learning to love.

Loving better and better. Because the languages, the countries, the streets, the house where I live, the furniture, it will all disappear… And my body will disappear too.

But one thing will be forever marked on the soul of the universe: my love. All in spite of my mistakes, my decisions that caused others to suffer, and the moments when I thought it didn’t exist.

– Paulo Coelho

The Baniya Boss

It was about a year back that I watched this movie called, “Horrible Bosses”. Amusing at the time, didn’t actually think I would experience a character of that nature personally. Not that I didn’t expect such people to exist but until you face something you never actually know. Every individual in the initial meeting stages or interview stages tries to put their best foot forward so you don’t really know what’s to come next. I’ve typically come across many kinds of bosses, one that is politically correct, one that is straight forward, one that believes in results, to name a few. This special kind that I came across recently I would like to call as “The Baniya Boss”. For him, the stock of items he has is more important than his employees. A common mistake I guess everyone here makes – Placing very little value on their employees, who at the end of the day are the face of the company (since most interaction happens through them & that’s how the service industry works)

Now let’s read through the characteristics of this “Baniya Boss”

He has no boundaries whatsoever. To him calling an employee at 12 in the night is absolutely no big deal as long as it is urgent. If only I had a rupee for every time he said it was urgent in this past year, I would have been a Billionaire by now. For him, urgency meant asking stupid irrelevant questions to his employees in the middle of the night.
My company is your one and only priority, there should be no other. Now this is a feeling that is found when one is in a relationship. When you are emotionally bound to someone you would have such a feeling not otherwise. This always reminded me of a nagging girlfriend who likes to use up all your time and gets extremely jealous and create unnecessary fights if you do it any other way than hers. I remember one of the statements I received very clearly, “You only think about this company and give your hundred percent from 11 to 7, what about the time after that?” (I hope your eyes popped out as well after hearing that)
Day offs? Shut up! You are asking for way too much here. How many of you’ll have had a fight for not answering your phone or mails on your day off? It is okay to expect that in case of urgencies, but let me take you to point one again where you would get a clear idea as to what urgency meant to him.
I think every employee gets perks of some nature. It could be basic water or tea coffee in the day, or late night travel if you were ever staying back, which is understandable. Now imagine you being asked to hold on to all the bills, from something as small as a cup of tea. Yes you can expect this from him. The type that would hold on to 10 bucks if you did not produce a bill. In today’s day and age I think I let go of ten bucks to a cabbie almost every alternate day due to lack of change.
I simply loved this policy of his. You can of course take leaves but can’t take three days in a row together as work could suffer and there could be some sort of an emergency. If at all 5 days of leave were granted to you together, they came at a cost of working on your day off and working late nights before your leave days began. If this wasn’t enough, he made it a point to glorify the fact that he was nice enough to give you those leaves.
Constant in your face nagging to get work executed by you while he stares at his phone and chats.
Hatler policy – Work isn’t achieved with love. If an employee develops a feeling of hate towards the employer only then does timely execution of work happen. That being one of his beliefs.
Public holidays – do not exist. You might get a compensatory leave but it comes with a fight and a tantrum which completely sucks the fun out of the leave.
Sick Leaves – I don’t know how this works for others but I have never been able to tell two days in advance that I might fall sick on this particular day. I don’t think even a doctor can predict what day they are about to fall sick on.
You must pay for everything you have consumed. For example, if you drank a Pepsi out of the fridge, you must pay for it. Your work will be questioned in case you drank more than one Pepsi a day.
Nobody is irreplaceable. I think this had something to do with his inclination towards Beyonce.

Now that I have listed down the characteristics, makes it easier for you to identify if your boss falls under this category. My intention here is not to ridicule or demean anyone’s way of working but it just is to highlight the fact that employees are the heart of the company and if treated right they could add so much value. Now nobody in any of our positions would be able to work with this kind of behavior, I did to a certain extent but look at what I took back, just the negatives. This just takes away the positives that he had to offer, one being diligent and persistent way of working, but that would never get noticed as he never really made an attempt to touch, motivate or value the existence of a human being that worked for him.

Life never calls.. You’ve got to take the plunge yourself to make changes!

How is it that one finds their calling? Not everyone pays attention to job satisfaction or contentment in the true sense. For some people it’s about making money. I think ideally that’s how we’ve been raised. We’ve been raised to study well, emerge at the top of the rat race, get a good job and make money. (This is what is highly confusing to me). Well what according to one is a good job? I would really like to know the definition of a good job. Is a good job one that makes you maximum money? Or one where your talent truly comes out? Neither of us is able to ask ourselves this question when we are at a stage of choosing or deciding a career or take a step in that direction. Can’t blame our parents for that as the scenario was different back then and it’s quite different now, with what the options and also the exposure and importance being given to various other fields. Let’s try and take a test just to check how many of us are happy with our jobs. Look around your office, maybe go to a desk or two and ask your colleagues: what is it that makes you wake up every morning and come to work? Is it monetary need that you are obliged by or does this routine genuinely make you happy? Im sure the answers will surprise you. Some will openly admit it, others would still be in denial as they aren’t aware of where their true passion lies. I’ve always believed that it is highly important to be true to yourself. If you don’t like something, DON’T DO IT! I know money makes it very difficult to take such decisions so easily but let me tell you what I’ve learnt about life. Nothing is stable in life. Absolutely nothing is. Everything goes through phases and changes and these changes happen to test your adaptability. Have you ever seen a person go through life without any hardships? I bet you haven’t! and that is the beauty of life. There is plenty of opportunity out there to change, to try something new, to do something you’ve never done. Let me tell you a secret – when I was younger I thought that each individual was entitled to just one profession. I thought it was against nature to change professions. But if you ask me what my profession is today I cant name a single one. I’ve done pretty much everything from working in a software company to a BPO, to an AD Agency, to a hospital and etc etc. That doesn’t mean Im Jack of all trades and master of none (I don’t really see that as a bad thing though). That just means I fought, I fought hard enough to try and understand what makes me happy. I wont be looking back tomorrow feeling sorry for myself or feeling bad for the time that I wasted in doing something that I absolutely detested! Believe me the road is hard, but where it leads you ultimately is so blissful. Hold your head up high, find a heart that understands your passion and run wild with it!