Showing posts with label Events. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Events. Show all posts

Sunday, February 21, 2016

My Valentine Walk in the Woods with Shortcut Safaari


Source: quotesgram.com
Haven't we heard or read this quote at some point in out life? Robert Frost's quote does remind us of the woods, but we don't keep our promise of visiting it! This valentine's weekend, I was going to keep my promise!

For the first time ever, as a blogger, I was invited to be a part of a movie promotion event. If you've been thinking, what's the connection with the title 'Valentine Walk in Woods' and a movie promotion, let me enlighten you...This was unlike any other run-in-the-mill film cliched promotion announcement- this was a zara sa hatke and a fun way to promote the film that keeps it's theme with nature and relates to children.



So on 13th February 2016, I traveled to Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) the Conservation Education Centre (CEC), located near Film City in Goregaon East, Mumbai for a Blogger Safaari with the team of Shortcut Safaari.



I was to meet my fellow bloggers Sujata Tawde, Geeta Sridhar, Amreen Sheikh, UK, Priya, Manujsha Pandey and a few others, invited by Riddhi Sharma. Reaching at 10.30 a.m. a wee bit late thanks to my autorickshaw driver, who had decided to go for his own trail by taking a detour from the venue.

Shortcut Safaari Blogger Safaari



From 10.30 am to 12.30 pm we had set out for a nature walk in the woods, at BNHS - Mumbai's best kept secret. Joining us bloggers on this walk was the Director of Shortcut Safaari movie himself, Amitabha Singh, who had earlier warmly welcomed each Blogger to the venue. And our VIPs of the day were the school children from Nehru Nagar Public School, Kanjurmarg. With instructions registered, pee breaks done and water bottles filled, we formed two groups and dispersed with two BNHS experts, one for each group. As soon as I stepped out side the BNHS observatory and classroom, I was taken back to my school days, a good 15 years ago. (Stop guessing my age!) 




It took me back to the time our school had taken us to BNHS, perhaps for an Environmental Studies assignment. And I'm sure, at that age I was not really paying a lot of attention to information given out about the trees and the critters there. But this time, it was different.

I was refreshed to know so many interesting facts on the bio diversity that is packed inside the green cover of Mumbai. Like did you know, Mumbai is home to the world's largest moth, the Atlas Moth? Or did you know about the agility of the Grey Hornbill or the beauty of the striped Tiger Butterfly? They all live in a biodiversity park within Mumbai's limits almost undisturbed by the hustle and bustle of urban activity.

Egged on by the inquisitiveness and enthusiasm of the children, 15 years later, I paid attention to each word by the BNHS expert. What surprised me to no end was the sheer unadulterated enthusiasm of the school kids in asking and answering questions to the BNHS Experts. And what did not surprise me was the eagerness of the children to pose for snaps! (Yours truly clearly remembers being camera shy, and still is) 



And to cater to such enthusiastic kids with bright and alert minds, a movie on nature is the need of the hour. That's what the movie Shortcut Safaari aims to do. At the end of the trail, we were treated to the music clip of a song from the movie but coded language! Can you guess what they are talking?




About 'Shortcut Safaari'

Shortcut Safaari is an independent film written and directed by Amitabha Singh. Other than being a fun-filled journey, it highlights certain touch points that affect us on a day to day level. In the broader stream of events and themes, the film also focuses on nature sensitizing. To a great response, the Film was premiered during the National Children's Film Festival at the Siri Fort Auditorium, New Delhi in November 2014, organized by the Children's Film Society of India (CFSI).

Furthermore, it received huge resonating appreciation from the audiences at Nandan, Kolkata during the Kolkata Children's International Film Festival in December 2014 organized under the aegis of Shishu Kishore Academy, Government of West Bengal.

Shortcut Safaari has made its presence felt over various National and International children’s film festivals across the country and now the film has embarked upon a new journey to connect as many children as possible to nature through various innovative activities and screenings. With Shortcut Safaari, Amitabha consolidates his position in the children’s film category. He has earlier helmed the camera for Chillar Party, Khosla Ka Ghosla and India’s Oscar entry in 2014- Good Road.




I'm glad I got a chance to be a part of this Nature Trail cum Bloggers Safaari. I am sure such an initiative fulfilled its aim to view  and to reconnect children with their roots and showcasing the natural world amidst the humdrum and chaos of daily city life.

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

What do kids want? | The Flipkart Lil' Stars Launch


We know what men want, thanks to all those websites. We know what women want; there's a movie dedicated to it. What about kids? Do we know what kids want? Nope, not even parents.

Especially if one has to shop for them. Having to find a toy for my almost two year old daughter is becoming increasingly difficult as the day passes. Thanks to all of the cousins, neighbours, the newspaper print ads, the advertisements on TV, the vibrantly decorated window displays of the stores in the mall I am even more confused what and when to shop for my daughter. Had she be going to school by now, her school friends and classmates would've been added to the mix. Moreover, the more digitally savvy kids these days are the more are the demands. These are the source of all the There will be more and more such sources of influencers, and these influencers will sway your child's mindset and in turn your purchasing decision.

In my opinion, here is a list of the key trends/factors that influence parents like me while shopping for kids:

Convenience - Shopping online saves you from the traffic, the endless rickshaw flagging, the parking woes, the sale rush and the limited payment options. Just sit back, relax with a mug of tea, click, click, scroll, add to cart, add address, payment, and wait for delivery.

Try and Buy /Return Policy - Some e-commerce retailers let you try the merchandise on the time of delivery and only pay for it, if it meets the requirements. Even if it happens that you did not like the fit/ colour or the product was not up to the mark, you can return it within the stipulated time frame.

Pre-ordering: Sometimes getting your hands on the latest merchandise before the rest adds to the glee of shopping. This feature is not seen on offline stores.

Discounts: Sorting products in any category according to their level of discounts or price is great for those on a budget yet want to shop online.

Reviews: Product reviews really really help in making the purchasing decision a more informed one. Especially, reviews which are by certified buyers help you sift the wheat from the chaff.

Gift Vouchers: Thanks to the paucity of time and resources, more and more employers like to gift e-GVs (Electronic Gift Vouchers) to their employees for various occasions.

Granted with double income backed parents with less time on their hands to shop offline, online retailers happily indulging their child(ren) with the latest in apparel, toys, books and more.

Interestingly, India's leading e-commerce brand Flipkart.com had published an article on the 5 e-commerce trends to watch out for in 2015. As we come to the end of 2015, we can see the success of most of the predicted trends especially Mobile Commerce flourishing with the likes of Flipkart's Big App Shopping days. Which is currently running from December 21-23, 2015 exclusively on Flipkart's app.

PC: Indiblogger.in

Flipkart in association with IndiBlogger hosted a meet for bloggers to announce and launch the Flipkart Lil' Stars - with a keen focus on cracking what the kids want.

And trust Flipkart to know running a kid's store is no child's play! Take a look at this FlipTrends 2015 info-graphic that depicts the top selling brands, top searched kid's products and the top selling toys on Flipkart.

Top toy brands on Flipkart
PC: Flipkart.com

What's more according to Technopack's report:
Mechanical puzzles such as the Shengshou Mirror Cube and Rubik's Cube were among the top five toys sold in 2015 on the online platform. Helicopters and remote-control driven cars are other favourites. Categories related to children and young mothers are the fastest-growing categories in India at present, according to Arvind Singhal, chairman of Technopak.
So on 19th of December, I was one of the bloggers invited to witness the launch of Flipkart Lil' Stars at popular resto-pub Blue Frog, Lower Parel. Revisiting this place after a year, brought back fun memories of the last IndiMeet held.

The meet started with veteran blogger Kalpana Behara taking the stage to talk about her journey as a blogger and how on becoming a mother changed her blogging style. She also spoke about how a blogger struggles at times to write.


After which we had representatives from leading kids brands Disney, Mattel, Chhota Bheem and Flipkart join for an open discussion on what influences parents' decision while shopping online for their kids. And the same points as mentioned above cropped up in the discussion.


Next up the IndiBand 'Blunder in the Code' enthralled us with unplugged version of some hit songs.

After that, we were engaged to a fun session of Ad-Mad, where we had to create an advertisement presentation on showcasing Flipkart's new kids section by featuring certain products.


Here, my team opened up their bag of tricks and presented a skit named #FlipkartSanta. With
'Age of Innocence' as the theme, we represented the various stages of a kid's childhood and the product associated with every age.

So the meet was fun with my fellow blogger friends Shaivi Sharma, Priyanka Purkayastha, Ekta Khetan, Jhilmil D Saha, Amreen Shaikh, Geeta Sridhar and Sujata Tawde. As always, it was great to meet them again.

And as a token of remembrance of the meet, we got to keep the plush toy of Chhota Bheem from his upcoming movie - Chhota Bheem and the Himalyan Adventure, due release on January 8, 2015.

With this I wish all my readers a very Merry Christmas! 

Saturday, October 17, 2015

My #FrizzFreeHair Dabur Vatika Women's IndiBlogger Meet Experience


Happy Navratras to all my readers. Just yesterday when I was picking a green coloured outfit to wear as Navratri colour dressing, I remembered last Saturday when I was also rummaging my wardrobe for a green outfit for another event - an IndiMeet. And this IndiMeet was all about hair.

Let me tell you, I have had a tough experience with my hair. It just doesn't be the way I want to.
Frizzy, dry and flyaway, I have unmanageable hair, to put it lightly.

So to find solution(s) to one of my hair problems, I was invited to The #FrizzFreeHair Vatika Women's IndiBlogger Meet on October 10, 2015. It was a women bloggers only meet at B J hall, NMIMS Campus, Vile Parle, Mumbai.


The good folk at IndiBlogger hinted us to wear something green for the meet. And so on a rather hot Saturday afternoon, I reached simply dressed in my green tunic and jeans at 11.30 am (so as to not miss any of the action) and seated myself at one of the tables and waited for the meet to begin. As the venue filled with more women bloggers, I looked around to witness a sea of ladies dressed impeccably in green outfits with fancy hairdos. (To which I realized I was under-dressed)




The event opened to a rocking performance - just like the last one I experienced -  by the IndiBand, Blunder in the Code. The band played to a enthusiastic crowd of women bloggers who didn't shy from letting their hair down to head bang (well not really, they didn't want to ruin their hairdos) and the eager-to-experience-a-brand-launch management students of NMIMS.





Good folks from the Dabur Vatika Product Team talked about the hair, hair oils, how they narrowed down to a concoction by trying to get into women's heads hair, the science behind frizzy hair, the lineage and popularity of Dabur's Hair Oil products (Fun fact: Did you know Dabur's Hair oil goes way back to 1940s?) and all about the goodness of the new Dabur Vatika Jasmine Non-Sticky Hair Oil.

Whoa! Dabur Hail oil goes waaaaaay back to 75 years! #didnotknowthat @Oilopedia #FrizzFreeHair pic.twitter.com/BkyOyGz77B
— Gauri (@missalpao) October 10, 2015

Next up, was the unveiling of the brand - Dabur Vatika Jasmine Non-Sticky Hair Oil onstage, in a grand manner.




We proud to launch Dabur Vatika Jasmine Non Sticky Coconut Hair Oil. #FrizzFreeHair pic.twitter.com/p4J1WNeOBh
— Dabur Hair Oils (@Oilopedia) October 10, 2015


After all that information and download, we played this ingenious IndiGame that I named it as: "How to lose your BFF in 30 seconds?" So for this game, we were asked to pair up in twos at our tables and play rock, paper, scissors.
Simple? Well, here's the catch.
The winner has to mess up the loser's hair!
(Genius game for Dabur Vatika's goal here. Frizzy hair? No problem! they tweeted during the game.)

Yours truly on the extreme left, busy tweeting away, not bothered about the cameraman.



After almost every female in the house had her hair ruffled a bit, towards the end of the meet, we were asked to share our combat mechanism to prevent frizzyness. And now I was receiving an education on hair.
I can still recall the tips, (but may or may not have attributed to the right woman blogger who shared it). And to share this helpful tips to my readers, especially ladies, I have illustrated the tips I gained:







These are most of them that I could remember. Another golden nugget by a lady was to keep smiling, stay stress from to have enviable, frizz free tresses. 
We were invited to pamper our tresses at Dabur's Champi station right outside the event hall too. How comforting!

The Champi Station

And then we had lunch. Sweet endings to a fun meet:

Yummy desserts - Shahi Ras Malai and Cheesecake bites with Blueberry jam

And after a lovely event, education and lingering enthusiasm, I was heading home, not only rich with my blogger BBFs but also an awesome goodie bag from Dabur Vatika & IndiBlogger which included the new Dabur Vatika Jasmine Non-Sticky Hair Oil and Dabur Vatika Coconut Hair Oil.

Shalini of @baketitude, Me and Priyanka @prankyy. Clicked by Shaivi @shaivisharma
All smiles with Sujata @sujatatawde, Manisha @manisha_topale, Nimi Arora

Awesome treasure trove of a goodie bag.
My jaw dropped when I saw something on my wishlist was now in my hands - A Philips Hairstyling Iron.


As I write this blog, I have jasmine scented #FrizzFree hair thanks to Dabur Vatika and fond memories to cherish with my new blogger buddies thanks to IndiBlogger.
Until the next meet!













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