Smile Charitable Trust Blog

When in Rome, do as Romans do. How about if; I want to do as Romans do, while in London? Well; then I go to Princi cafe and bar at SOHO, where Real Italian food served by Italians in an Italian-style setting. The look/feel of the place is just amazing and I just love spending some time here, either having a coffee or staying for lunch or dinner. Prices are little over the average, but for the quality of the food served, price is justified. This place is a real find, in a real long time.  Years ago when I was working around Oxford Street/Soho area; I had discovered this place while browsing roughly for a lunch bite. I was immediately struck by the lengthy glass cases of exquisite treats, contrasted by rough unpolished granite walls. All those linear and balanced long counters, perfectly symmetrical seating arrangements by the wall next to the fountains and along the floor!!!  A lot of careful thinking must have gone into Princi's design. The tables are set humbly back from the busyness round the counters and up beside the wall on the far side - there are little cascades and a bit of a marble look going on with elegant lights, to add to the mood around this area.

There are various food stations within this restaurant to pick out what we want (Desserts, salads, coffee, wines, main course, pizzeria, starters, smart foods etc). No matter, which food station you pick your food from; the food is always very appetizing. I have been to this restaurant both at night and during the day and wow what a difference!!! It’s fantastically relaxing in the day and crazy at night. Brilliant!!! Whether we talk about best desserts or best salads or best coffee or best wines or best pizza or best modern Italian food – Princi comes to my mind straight away; for its quality, beauty, culture, customer service and originality! I will pour in 5 out of 5; for this extremely gorgeous beauty “PRINCI”!!!

Here is your ticket to extreme Italian experience: http://www.princi.com/

After our successful cycling trip from London to Box Hill on the previous weekend; my friend wanted us to carry on doing the same, every weekend. Last weekend; he suggested us to cycle to “Colley Hill””!  Where H**l is that, I thought to myself! It is somewhere close to Box Hill; he said. I trusted his navigation skills always; he is good at using Google map from his semi-smart phone. And I am hopeless. And we arrived at Colley Hill. Other good friend called in to check what were we doing during the long weekend and if we could go somewhere nice.  He was not happy to learn that we are already in Colley Hill and it will take another 3-4 hours for us to be back in London. We invited him to join in for breakfast at Colley Hill and he arrived in Colley hill with his beautiful wife for the; HAPPEN-TO-BE THE BREAKFAST of the YEAR! I literally mean it… FAN-TA-STICK-OOOOO!!!

We have had no idea about this country pub. I think we were BIT lost in the forest and we were trying to find our way out, when I discovered this: I thought to myself it has to be special something and guess what I pulled all of them to have breakfast in there. What a lovely breakfast/Brunch we had!!!

We looked at the very extensive menu in awe. All of the staffs were smartly dressed and very attentive (in exception of the grumpy manager). The food was exceptional and service second to none. I have for years never wanted to leave a tip in many pubs/ restaurants, but this place is on another level. If I have friends/family visiting me in the near future (quite likely my parents and sisters will be here soon) - there is no doubt I’ll take them over to this authentic English country pub.

Built in 1532 the Sportsman used to be used as a stop off for the Royal family when out hunting. Situated on the edge of Walton Heath, Lower Kingswood the venue was sensitively renovated in August 2008. It is in a unique location, at the end of Mogador road, just off the A217, Lower Kingswood. It benefits from no through traffic. The Sportsman is very well known for its fantastic outside garden areas which can seat up to 150 people. Car Park for 60 cars. Due to a superb country location The Sportsman is perfect for dog walkers, horse riders, runners, cyclists and families.

I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE THINKING! What is my rating – you bet – it is 4.5 / 5. You got to try to believe this. I just loved the whole experience. Now it’s your turn!

Your GUIDE to the destination is: http://www.thesportsmanmogador.co.uk/

I visited “Spice N Ice” few weeks ago, on a strong recommendation from a friend, who is generally good in food selection/recommendations. Unexpectedly it was a large space with very contemporary décor; just like a star hotel lobby, which appeared quite busy on a Sunday late evening. It was not an easy location to spot though, it being several streets away from the Croydon high-street. Although the restaurant was half-full; it was noisy enough with various music and television sets. I interacted with its Chinese manager, who hails originally from Mumbai, India. One of the many Chinese migrants, who are settled in various parts of India to keep the Chinese taste buds alive, in the hearts of us Indians. Waiting staff were mainly Indians and all very welcoming indeed. They helped me charge my phone as well, with due care, without any hesitation.

Coming back to the food; we order few popular dishes, which I’d normally order in an Indo-Chinese restaurant such as: Chicken Monchow Soup, Chicken Lollipop, Szechuan Crispy Noodles, Egg Fried Rice, Chicken Manchurian and Chilli Fish.

In my experience; it is the best INDO-CHINESE restaurant, I have experienced in the UK so far! Just as good as in India.  Since then I have recommended this restaurant to many friends and all of them have only thanked me so far, for the recommendation. I shall go with 4.5 out of 5; for it being a classic, contemporary, characteristic restaurant with very tasty indo-Chinese food.

Any suggestions for improvement? Hmmm: how about some Chinese background music & how about some coconut ice-cream for dessert? I am sure; they are vigilant enough to add these, before next time I visited them. 

I know you’d like to know my rating and the address of this place. My rating is 4 out of 5. And the address of all branches you can find in the link below.  Enjoy your meal!

http://spicenice.co.uk/Contact.html

The Indian Cuisine is as diverse as our culture, languages, regions, different states and the climate conditions in different parts of our country. Every major region of India brings its own unique dishes and subtle variations to popular dishes. This is the unique formula, upon which the success story of Saravana Bhavan, chain of Indian vegetarian restaurants is based on, to build their businesses across the globe.

Today, the group has its presence across 29 outlets in South India, 2 outlets in the North India. Outside of India, it has presence in 10 countries with 38 outlets. Soon it will be launching in two other countries with 8 outlets to begin with.  The restaurant chain is quite a house hold in name in India, especially in South India.

Two years ago, they opened an outlet within 100 meters distance from my home in London.   The restaurant has a very gentle and peaceful ambience to its credit. The food here is lovely in decent sized portions. Options with vegetarian-Indian food; can be realised only when we look at the menu of Saravana Bhavan. Some of the dishes had me confounded but the waiting staffs here are always very pleasant and helpful in explaining. The calmly background music (mostly south Indian classics) makes the eating experience, a memorable one.

My favourite items from Saravana Bhavan? A spicy utthapam, Strong Indian style boiled tea, Idly, Vada and the very special Potato Bonda. My son loves the Idly at Saravana Bhavan. He says it is the softest of them all.

One other factor for which I’ll give them full credit is: cleanliness. I would not have been regular at this restaurant, if this was not the case. I shall go with 4, out of 5 as my rating; for this gentle, clean, decent and peaceful Indian eatery, next door. Highly recommended.

Other day; I was watching Komal Nahata’s show where Bhai-jaan came to promote his movie “Kick”. Generally Bhai-jaan is a confident man, but on that day in Komal Nahata’s show – he was ultra confident. When you know you are good, when you know you are liked, when you know you are second to none, you ride/enjoy a different kind of confidence, which I saw in Bhai-jaan’s on that day. Beautiful!!! Beautiful are those, who know they are so good, but they still are able to maintain their level-headedness….like those extremely beautiful gals, who are fully aware, how beautiful and appreciated they are – still they strike a perfect humbleness within and outside!

I enjoy every second of a bhai-jaan movie - still my favourite scene from the movie was: bhai-jaan’s entry scene. How cool? Koi-tow rokow!

Sajid Nadiadwala's directorial debut film, which has become box office collections highest grosser of 2014, has now beaten Shah Rukh Khan-starrer 'Chennai Express' (Rs 227.13 crore) record to become the third highest grosser of all time. Another achieved milestone for Bhai-jaan!

The plot, yet again another Salman Khan show-piece, is completely and delightfully, full of ecstasy!!! There is no real story. I am glad it didn’t have a real story. But there is a dreamlike story!!! Woooooo!!! Devi Lal Singh (Bhai-jaan) is a guy who wanders about searching for KICKS (something which can inspire him to do things). His father (Mithun Chakraborty) helps him to achieve  his pursuits. Devi runs into the gorgeous psychiatrist “Shaina” (Jacqueline Fernandez), but before anything can happen, he’s off and away from her, due to circumstances. And in this time, Devil (Devi’s AVATAR), shows up, and be chased by a cop (Randeep Hooda), and a crook (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) here and there and everywhere. Devi/Bhai-jaan runs and they chase. They chase and Bhai-jaan runs. And the chase begins and finally it ends… How often have we seen a full house audience clapping and whistling for a chase? Well, imagine Bhai-jaan was being chased…what else? How cool? Koi-tow rokow!

What makes Kick interesting, apart from some unencumbered Salman moments, is Nawazuddin Siddiqui. This guy is in full flow. His wickedness is very Bollywoodish, with a trademark evil laugh, but self-aware and dramatic at the same time: there are scenes he steals from everyone, including, profanity, from the Bhai-jaan. Randeep Hooda improves with every movie passing by. But this movie, belong to Nawazuddin Siddiqui, of course for a villainous role.

What else? “ You talking to me?” The famous line from the movie …and? Everything else as well. Jacqueline Fernandez can be beautiful and she has acted well too… Dr Psycho! We know, she can be one! My favourite line from the movie? “Koi-tow rokow!”. Without a shadow of doubts; nobody can rokowing me, if I went 4.5 OUT OF 5 for the best movie of Bhai-jaan in recent few years.

Soho is gorgeous as it is! All the shops, characteristics of each shop, their heritage, offered experience, the evolved customer service – may be that is what LONDON is all about. Experience of its kind. I didn’t realized what I am getting into, when I got an offer to work for one of the global electronic major at their Soho office in London near Oxford Circus, a year ago or so. Two things I liked about this short assignment, apart of the exciting/my favourite work (Finance, Budgeting & Planning). One was my colleagues “JAMES”, and the other was “my EXPERIENCE of SOHO, Oxford Street”. James and I worked in Australia in the same project, where we had common friends but we never interacted ever in Australia unfortunately. He mentioned he did work in the same projects. What a lovely guy he is! He is just my type. Excuse me? Sorry James – I am just your type. Happy? You are this amazing friend, awesome human being and someone who is always HAPPY! FULL OF LIFE. He always SMILES.

Anyways – James is the one, who mentioned about “The Breakfast Club” to me! He looked at me and said WHAT? You have not been to “The Breakfast Club”; in spite of living in London for seven years! May be he was right – every day I saw a long queue in front of the restaurant, when I went out during the lunch hours. I am not big fan of English breakfast but my son “Rishi” is. He just
love’em!

I think it must have been the day; he completed and promoted from his nursery class (July 2014); I promised him for a nice dinner. I asked him what is that special something he would like to have for dinner. He said “I want some sausages Papa!”.  It got me thinking, how about I arrange the best sausages in London, right now in the evening, for my little angle? I thought of James and his wisdom with the food – I remember James telling me: if you want BREAKFAST anytime from 8:00am - 00:00am – one place can offer and that is the “The Breakfast Club”. Rishi and I rushed off to Oxford Street and in no time we were curling in the comfortable chairs of the “The Breakfast Club” Soho.

Want to know what we had for our breakfast in the dinner time? Here we go. Check out these pictures. There is a way I certify that Rishi has enjoyed his food; - IS WHEN, he falls off to sleep quickly after his food. Within five minutes he was snoring resting his head on my lap; while I was eating my lovely pan cakes slowly. What a lovely evening, it was!!!

I know you’d like to know my rating and the address of this place. My rating is 4 out of 5. And the address of all branches you can find in the link below.  Bon appétit!!!

http://www.thebreakfastclubcafes.com/contact/

There is a traditional practice we use when we want to ascertain whether we are awake or dreaming. We pinch ourselves.  If we feel the pain, we think we are awake. What a way to assess legitimacy! Pain = actual; pleasure signify fantasy. If we all use this as our benchmark, we have to believe misery is unavoidable. But it isn't true. Happiness can be every bit as real - and as true - as sadness, and WE see the proof of that only by going through the pain. It may get a little more intense before it starts to get easier. Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place.  If we quit, however, it lasts forever.

• Although sad feelings are tough to accept and bad feelings are painful to tolerate, these are a small price to pay for the ability to feel joy, to feel ecstatic, uplifted and inspired.
• The capacity to be close to someone, to have compassion, to share kindness, to experience affection is such a blessing; only comes when we understand what the opposite is like…no?​

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Often, when we are in the midst of an extreme occurrence, we remain surprisingly calm. No matter how peculiar things get, we refuse to feel daunted or dismayed. We just know, somehow, that we have to keep on going. Then, after a while, things calm down. Life gets back to normal and at that point, suddenly, we get upset. We look back at what we have just been through and feel appalled. We have a delayed reaction to our difficulty. If we feel weird now, it's because of what lies behind, not ahead.  Future is only better, than past, few minutes ago, few hours ago, few days ago, few week ago or shall we say few months ago…no?

The Pope is the Bishop of Rome and the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church. The importance of the Roman bishop is largely derived from his role as the traditional successor to Saint Peter, to whom Jesus gave the keys of Heaven and the powers of "binding and loosing," naming him as the "rock" upon which the church would be built. The current pope is Francis, who was elected on 13 March 2013, succeeding Benedict XVI.  The office of the Pope is the papacy. The pope is also head of state of Vatican City, a sovereign city-state entirely enclaved within the Italian capital city of Rome.

The papacy is one of the most enduring institutions in the world and has had a prominent part in world history. The popes in ancient times helped in the spread of Christianity and the resolution of various doctrinal disputes. In the middle Ages they played a role of secular importance in Western Europe, often acting as arbitrators between Christian monarchs. Currently, in addition to the expansion of the Christian faith and doctrine, the popes are involved in ecumenism and interfaith dialog, charitable work, and the defence of human rights.

The Pope’s 10 Commandments for Happiness:

1. Live and let live.
2. Be giving of ourselves to others…If we withdraw into ourselves, we run the risk of becoming egocentric. And stagnant water becomes putrid.
3. A healthy sense of leisure … Consumerism has brought us anxiety, [causing us to lose a] healthy culture of leisure.
4. Proceed calmly in life.
5. Sunday is for family.
6. We need to be creative with young people. If they have no opportunities, they will get into drugs.
7. Environmental degradation is one of the biggest challenges we have. A question that we’re not asking ourselves is: ‘Isn’t humanity committing suicide with this indiscriminate and tyrannical use of nature?’
8. Needing to talk badly about others indicates low self-esteem. That means, ‘We feel so low that instead of picking ourselves up; we have to cut others down.’ Letting go of negative things quickly is healthy.
9. We can inspire others through witness so that one grows together in communicating. But the worst thing of all is religious proselytism, which paralyzes: ‘One should not talk to other in order to persuade him/her.’ No. Each person dialogues, starting with his and her own identity. The church grows by attraction, not proselytizing.
10. We are living in a time of many wars, [and] the call for peace must be shouted. Peace sometimes gives the impression of being quiet, but it is never quiet, peace is always proactive.

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Whether we’re a student or well-to-do in our career, if our goal is to build a remarkable life, then busyness and exhaustion should be our enemy. If we’re chronically stressed and up late working, we’re doing something horribly wrong. We’ve built a life around hard-to-do work, not hard work. 

The solution suggested is as simple as it is startling: is to do less. But do what we do with completeness and hard focus. Then when we’re done, be done, and we go enjoy the rest of the day with rest of our time.  We’ve seen this phenomenon time and again. A comparison/observation of life-style of high achievers, with that of average achievers. How they are different or what do they do differently! It is often found that:

• An average person; works just as many hours as the efficient person (around 40 hours a week).
• But the average person do not dedicate these hours to the right type of work (spending almost 3 times less hours than the efficient person on crucial deliberate practice.
• And furthermore, an average person spread this work haphazardly throughout the day. So even though they’re not doing more work than the efficient person; the average person ends up sleeping less and feeling more stressed. Not to mention that they remain worse at the work.
• Perhaps; one of the real observations is about taking more naps. Efficient people are better performers. Perhaps they engage in behaviours that are greater learning challenges (hence deliberate challenging practice) and enhance these efforts through neural consolidation via more sleep -naps and dreaming.

There’s a difference between hard work and hard-to-do-work:

• Hard work is deliberate practice. It’s not fun while we’re doing it, but we don’t have to do too much of it in any one day (efficient people spent, on average, 3.5 hours per day engaged in deliberate practice, broken into few sessions). It also provides them measurable progress in a skill, which generates a strong sense of contentment and motivation. Therefore, although hard work is hard, it’s not draining and it can fit nicely into a relaxed and enjoyable day.
• Hard-to-do-work, by contrast, is draining. It has the people practicing the same, running around all day in a state of false busyness that leaves them, being average/achieving average, feeling tired and stressed. It also, has very little to do with real accomplishment.

The basic activity here is to wiring our brain through training, expansion, integration, and development. Anybody would be horrible if they were regularly sleep deprived. Rest and relaxation is incredibly important to cognitive and creative development, and not just sleeping at night. Naps and relaxation periods are when we engage in free association and imagination. where we make NEW connections.

Everyone knows this; that children, who are learning the most must sleep the most. If we want to learn more, really extend what we know, we will be sleeping more for the same reason that children sleep more. We have to recharge and build our brain network.

Neural pathway formation is very sensitive and dependent on neuro-chemistry. But once pathways are formed, they are much more robust and less sensitive to neuro-chemistry. e.g. learning to ride a bike depends on mood and feeling. But once we learn how to ride a bike our moods and feelings are irrelevant to our ability to do it.

Mood and feelings are primarily driven by neuro-chemistry. This is why we do training for intense situations in non-intense situations to build pathways unaffected by the impacts of intenseness.  The efficient performers likely have a much more integrated approach to their life-style that involves rest and down time as well as focused time.

The football world cup is over. Argentina lost the FIFA World Cup 2014 final 1-0 in extra time to Germany    and four-time World Player of the Year Messi missed a great chance to score in the second half. Argentine football icon Diego Maradona felt Lionel Messi should not have been given the Golden Ball award at this year's World Cup in Brazil because he did not deserve it. Right; but Argentine football icon did not say who he thought deserved the Golden Ball award.    "it is not right" carries further significance, when comes together with "what is right"!!!   Never mind – that’s not the point I wanted to make.

Some 250 million people play soccer regularly in more than 200 countries   , according to Goldman Sachs.    Since the first FIFA World Cup was hosted in Uruguay in 1930, more than 70 countries have participated in various qualifying round   s.  

World Cup in Brazil has generated more than $4 billion in total revenue for FIFA   , or 66% more than the previous tournament in South Africa in 2010. The vast majority of the money came from the sale of television and marketing rights. The World Cup generates more revenue for its association than any other sports tournament, save the Olympics (based on revenue per-event-day, the NFL’s Super Bowl reigns supreme).    FIFA’s profit for the Brazil World Cup:    $2 billion.

Most of the revenue FIFA generates comes from television rights ($1.7 billion) and marketing rights ($1.35 billion) from corporate partners    like Adidas, Emirates, Sony, Visa, Hyundai and Coca-Cola. Blue chip companies love to throw money at the World Cup because it is followed passionately throughout most of the world.

For Brazil, FIFA made total payments of $576 million to the participating member associations, the clubs of participating players and for the club protection program, 37% more than the World Cup in South Africa for years ago.    The biggest lion’s share of the payments went towards a record $70 million of prize money, 75% more than the 2010 competition. The 2014 World Cup winners received $35 million, while the 16 teams that are eliminated in the group stage each collected $8 million.    Taking into account the total number of teams, players and the duration of the World Cup, the per-player, per-day amount  was $2,800 in Brazil.    

The growth in the business of the World Cup has been robust since the late 1990s due to the big jump in broadcasting rights.    Television rights outside of the U.S. for the 2002 and 2006 World Cup were sold for $2 billion, a six-fold increase versus the $310 million paid by the European Broadcasting Union, a consortium representing the interests and financial power of Europe’s public broadcasters, for the three tournaments held in the 1990s.    Since 1998, overall World Cup revenue for FIFA has increased 11-fold.    

England football team’s performance in the world-cup, has cost UK supermarkets up to £55m in lost sales over the two weeks since they were unceremoniously booted out of the 2014 World Cup.    In some depth, here are more highlights from the IRI analysis:

• The value growth for soft drinks reduced significantly, from 18% in week one to 9% in week two, and just under 6% in week three.    Sales were £5.2m lower in week three of the World Cup than they were in week one.
• Altogether, value sales of bagged snacks, pizza, chilled party snacks, bread rolls, baguettes, coleslaw, chilled salads and dips were £3.3m lower through the UK’s major supermarket chains in week three than they were in week one. 
• Ale and stout had sales volumes increase by 13.9%, the highest in sales volumes.
• Champagne and sparkling wine continued to grow strongly, with volumes up by 13.3% and value up by 15.7%.
• Cider maintained its momentum with volume and value sales in the last week, still up on the four weeks immediately prior to the World Cup (volume +2.7%, value +6.9%).
• Net sales for beer, wines and spirits in week three were up by £5.7m compared to the same week in 2013.    However, this was a £37.1m reduction in sales value compared to week one of the World Cup.

If the claims are to be believed;    a lot of road-accidents, bad-moods, fights-arguments, hiring-firing, drinking-quitting, smoking-cooling, mood swings, peace-violence and “much more than that…” during last four weeks;    were direct results of the frustration/excitement caused by football world cup 2014.    

My drycleaner was closing his shop;    when I checked-in to collect my cloths. He kindly offered to drop me home with the cloths. We just narrowly escaped an accident at a road turning. Someone was driving very fast and did not see us approaching. My drycleaner got off from his car and went up to the other car to give an earful to the speeding driver. I saw him being angry for the first time…he is generally a peaceful man! It was funny for me…he was going back and forth and shouting   ….”I know what it is…where it is coming from…it is the stupid football doing this, to our people…to our country…now on the road”,    trying to make it audible to every one passing by.

But to this accountant customer sitting inside the car;    my dry-cleaner had already pervaded an inquisitiveness to take a dip in the numbers & understand the impact of this world-cup statistically. It is incredible indeed;   BIGGEST SPORTING SHOW/EVENT ON THE EARTH, IN THE UNIVERSE!!!