The Brave Pedestrian

[Friendship, love and trust have many meanings. This is an erotic story about all those beautiful emotions.] He lay awake in bed, waiting for her to finish her kitchen winding-up chores and join him. By the time she came in and began undressing for bed, he was very nearly asleep. With drowsy eyes, he gazed at her taking off her saree. She had grown a bit plump of late, but it only made him love her more. "There is more of you to hug now than when I married you," he sighed, wrapping his arms and legs around her in the dim light of the bedlamp. "This is sheer luxury!" She reciprocated by kissing him, and then turned around, determined to fall asleep quickly. Tomorrow was another tough day ahead, and she would have to cook a full formal lunch, keeping in mind his guest. Not just the daal-chaval that she made on days when she was feeling tired. "Turn off the lights, please," she said sleepily. "Not yet," he breathed in her ear. "Let me ...

19 th June, 2016, Mumbai: Welcome to RNA Exotica, a premium building project by Skyline Construction Co, where deadlines keep slipping and the number of flats to be constructed keeps shrinking year after year. The number of flats to be constructed has dropped by at least 80 since March 2011, and project completion date has slipped by six years. (Yes, you read that right -- six whole years!) Further shrinkage and slippage is definitely forecast. Also, visible manipulation of official facts and figures should make investors wonder what is going on behind the scenes.  I m age: http://bit.ly/1W6IFnf The gory details: In Axis Bank's first mortgage deed registered in March 2011, RNA Exotica's project completion date was mentioned as September 2012 . Given the amount of work that had to be completed within 18 months by Skyline Construction Co, the deadline was obviously a bare-faced lie. Axis Bank's first loan to RNA's Skyline Construction Co for...

29 th May, 2016, Mumbai: If the Development Agreement is well drafted, then flat-owners are safe, right? Well-drafted contract documents protect the flat-owners if the builders don't honour the contract, right? NO, WRONG! A well-drafted agreement doesn't give you automatic protection; it gives you the LEGAL RIGHT TO FIGHT to dismiss or penalize a non-performing builder... but you will definitely have to wage a legal battle, and your society will be your enemy, not your supporter. Why? REASON NO. 1: NO SUO MOTU ENFORCEMENT. Law enforcement agencies and courts are not required to act suo motu to defend your individual legal rights. Therefore, you have to go to great lengths to convince enforcement agencies and/or courts that (a) you have a certain right under the contractual agreement (b) your right has been violated and (c) you (and not just your society) are a party to the contract. Each of these points have to be proved by you, otherwise your complaint is summarily ...

Mumbai, 25 th May, 2016: While we are sitting in the comfort of our homes, an unfolding tragedy is transforming proud flat-owners into paupers and destitutes who will die in tiny rented homes, senior citizens homes or in the houses of their children, and the memories of the flats that they once owned will be cremated with them. In the name of redevelopment, millions of flat owners are being led like sheep to the slaughter – not only humble salaried workers, unthinking housewives, aged pensioners, over-dependent widows, but also doctors, lawyers, CAs, MBAs, MNC executives, bureaucrats, businessmen, tech-savvy housewives and career-women. Cooperative housing societies are full of financial illiteracy, ignorance of ground realities, overconfidence and gullibility. The redevelopment mantra of cooperative housing societies is: "jo sabka hoga, woh hamara hoga, bharosa rakho" i.e. "What happens to others will happen to us, so have faith." A few thousand buil...

New Delhi, 25 April 2016: This weekend was a nightmare for 33-year-old media professional Mukund Prabhakar, because his new car – a one-year-old Hyundai i20 Elite Sportz – went up in flames where it was parked. Mukund, who works for multinational media and communication agency Dentsu Aegis Network at Gurgaon, recounts his ordeal. "I got home early from work around 6 pm on Friday, and parked the car at the nearest possible location from my residence at Khirki Extension, Malviya Nagar. On Saturday, around 2 pm, the person who washes my car called me to say that my car was in flames. When I reached the spot, a big crowd had gathered, including the police. Within minutes, firemen rushed to spot and put out the blaze with water-hoses, leaving behind a junk heap of ashes." Photo: the burning Hyundai i20 in Malviyanagar, new Delhi, before arrival of the Delhi Fire Brigade. Thankfully, other cars were not parked too close to this Hyundai i20, otherwise the fire might hav...

21 April 2016, Mumbai: With the backdrop of the Union Labour Ministry's tripartite consultations reported to be happening today to “assess the impact of the mandated larger pictorial warnings covering 85% of packaging space on the livelihood of 1.50 crore bidi workers”, nine bidi smokers who suffered from cancer, and their bereaved relatives, today wrote a letter to Mr Virjesh Upadhyay, Secretary of Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, which claims to be the bidi workers' trade union. Download a copy of the open letter on behalf of bidi victims . (Incidentally, bidi-rollers are not the enemy of bidi smokers and their   families, although it is in the name of bidi-rollers that Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh is trying to help the bidi industry evade the 85% pictorial warnings. Bidi-rollers are themselves a downtrodden and exploited lot -- largely dirt-poor child labourers, especially girls, often pushed into debt by the bidi industry contractors, and they have no genuine spokesmen. Bidi...