My realizations..

1.       Today's realization - thanks to the Ice Bucket Challenge, I have been privileged to view many people's bathrooms!

2.       Today's realization - what is the point of showing ads to sell TVs ON TV itself? If your current image quality is bad, then the one shown inside the ad will also be fuzzy. If your current image quality is good, why will you want to buy a new one anyway?

3.       Today's realization (thanks to some commuting between two ends of town) - Three definite things in Hyderabad 1) why paint the lanes when no one follows it? 2) Red lights are a mere suggestion 3) incessant honking clears all traffic in front of you apparently

4.       Today's realization - the happiest in the world on my birthday (a couple of weeks back) seemed to be my insurance company because they could avoid a payout - so evident in their birthday greetings.

5.       Today's realization - 0.01 seconds is the amount of time after the signal turns green that the person behind you starts honking asking you to move on....

6.       Today's realization - I saw a poster with pictures of multiple people on it near a busy intersection. Initially, I thought they were the local small time politicians and their cronies trying to get publicity. When I went near and saw closely, it was actually a warning with pictures of pickpockets in the area and not the local politicians. Then I realized - there was ACTUALLY no difference!

7.       Today's realization - it is easier to wake up at 6.15 am on a weekend than to do it on a Monday morning after a long weekend after all the festivities and with such gloomy weather outside. But then I did...

8.       Today's realization - there is always that one person in a meeting who basically waits for everyone to give an opinion, picks up key points from each person and then summarizes it to make it sound as if he has a very strategic & broad perspective thus impressing the boss!

9.       Today's realization - each parent believes that the good attributes in the child comes from his/her's genes while the bad attributes comes from the spouse's side...

10.   Today's realization - there is ALWAYS an aunt who knows you from childhood and remembers every embarrassing incident in your life (peeing in your shorts, some word you mispronounced etc.) and will recount every teeny-weeny detail to your new bride (thus damaging the image you built of yourself during your courtship days!)

11.   Today's realization - there was ALWAYS one teacher in school that you especially liked (okay okay - had a crush on) which made you go to school on a Monday morning!

12.   Today's realization - your worst picture in life is usually on some form of id - passport, driver's licence, voter card etc. and can be a constant source of amusement to your friends.

13.   Today's realization - the line that I stand in ALWAYS turns out to have the one of the following - the worst checkout person in the world , a terminal which cannot scan correctly, a guy with a credit card that does not work or the person with the biggest shopping basket ever!

14.   Today's realization - ever notice when you are driving that you feel the guy who overtakes you is driving too fast while the guy you are following is driving too slowly?

15.   Today's realization - there is ALWAYS a little bit of your mother in your little daughter...

16.   Today's realization - ever notice that the dress/shirts they have on the mannequin is never in stock inside the store? If it is in stock, it is not in your size! If you are lucky and they do have it in the store and in your size, when you finally wear it, it does not look half as good on you as on the dummy outside!!

17.   Today's realization - ever notice that the videographer is actually the director of your marriage ceremony and we are but mere actors? Also, did you ever realize that he is the most irritating person when you are stuffing your mouth?

18.   Today's realization - even though you know the daily forecast in the paper cannot cover the millions of people under the zodiac sign, you still feel happy when it predicts something nice for you!

19.   Today's realization - the worst part of the marriage ceremony is when the guests come to greet you on stage You don't know most of them but still grin stupidly at them, they mumble something that you don't hear and they are as relieved as you when they walk off the stage.

20.   Today's realization - irrespective of how the new born baby looks, the maternal grandmother will ALWAYS claim that the baby looks like the father!

21.   Today's realization - 2 seconds is the time in India between the wheels of the aircraft touching the ground and the sound of the unbuckling of the seat belt while 4 seconds after is the time the overhead lockers are opened in spite of the admonishments!

22.   Today's realization - the best way to make your spouse happy is to tell her that you lost 1, 00,000 at the races, make her angry and then tell her it is actually 10,000 and then she will be fine! This is officially called Flipkarting now!

23.   Today's realization - the closest you get to feeling like Superman is when your little baby holds on to your finger and doesn't let go

24.   Today's realization - people tell about their deepest, darkest emotions and fears on Facebook to everyone but then complain about lack of privacy controls on it!!!

25.   Today's realization - the most meaningless "Happy Diwali" greeting ever is from one of your service providers (cable, broadband, mobile etc.).

26.   Today's realization - I guess they expect a year of wrong billing, unscheduled down times, pathetic customer service can be made up because they send a "non personalized, full of routine pictures of lamps and clichéd phrases" from an unmonitored email box! Yeah right!

27.   Today's realization - "Nothing" "k", "Ok" are the most powerful words in a woman's vocabulary. Small words but can have a wealth of meaning to the husband. This is the time you should go out and buy her favorite things!

28.   Today's realization - the most irritating start to a phone conversation is when an unknown voice calls you up and asks you "Who is this?"! Till now, I have not been able to figure out the best retort to it.

29.   Today's realization - there are bike drivers in Hyderabad who are fine with a head on collision just to avoid a pothole! Your brains might explode (thanks to having no helmet) but the bike should remain safe!

30.   Today's realization - how come all the TV channels run their ads at the SAME time? Whatever channel you surf during a break (to keep the remote away from the others) seems to have a commercial at the very same time!

31.   Today's realization - if only they could bottle up a baby's smell after a bath and feed, they could outsell every perfume in the world. Likewise, if they can understand the peaceful sleep the baby has after the bath/feed, they could put the Deepak Chopras and any other gurus, who teach you about inner peace, to shame!

32.   Today's realization - the best part of the conversation happens when the guests are outside the door and just about to leave - that 30 mins has sometimes the best family gossip!

33.   Today's realization - New Year resolutions are like eggs - meant to be broken! :)

34.   Today's realization - you know you are old when you have to keep scrolling in the drop down to choose your birth year in an online form. It was actually easier to type in the year directly (lesser key strokes)!!!

35.   Today's realization - unlike us, the earth works harder on weekends by rotating twice as fast and takes rest on weekdays by rotating twice as slowly. That explains why weekends go off so fast while weekdays seem to stretch.

36.   Today's realization - sometimes the joy of finding 60 rupees intact in your jeans after a wash is much more than the money you might have in the bank..

37.   Today's realization - the most inane piece of information is when the pilot tells you the cruising speed, the altitude and the temperature outside. You can't feel the speed, you don't want to test the altitude and you definitely won't keep your hand out to test the temperature!

38.   Today's realization - it is only the very young and the very old who can speak their mind freely. The first group does not know the impact and the second one does not care. The rest of us are the ones who need to be mindful about what we say all the time...

39.   Today’s realization – WHATEVER happens during the rest of the World Cup does not matter now. Today – we HAVE won the World Cup by defeating Pakistan!

40.   Today's realization (rider to the last one) - it does not matter if we don't qualify for the next round of the World Cup AS LONG AS Pakistan does not qualify too!

41.   Today's realization - the best part of February is that you work only 28 days and still get paid the full month's salary!

42.   Today's realization - the best day of the year is not your birthday, nor your spouse's birthday or even your marriage anniversary. It is actually the day when the school exams get over and frayed tempers come back to normal. The other best day, of course, is the day when school restarts and you heave a sigh of relief!

43.   Today’s realization – whether it is India or Ireland, the ads on TV are the same – promising you fitter abs or cleaner floors or whiter clothes. Even the lines on bonus offers if you call within the next 30 minutes remain the same. The only change is the accent and the currency. Global consumerism is here to stay!

44.   Today's realization - you are always 12 to your mom when she is giving advice irrespective of the fact that you are actually in your 30s, 40s, 50s or even more! ‪

45.   Today’s realization – not sure which makes me most angry – the bad luck that you get the slowest clerk in the entire shopping line OR that the products don’t get scanned automatically OR the person in front of insists on paying through a card that does not work OR a new counter opens up and everyone behind you moves to the new counter and you are now the last in the line!

46.   Today's realization - there is no difference between corporate hospitals and five star hotels - polite reception, nice rooms, multiple restaurants and good room service. The only difference is the higher costs (from the resident's perspective) and more demanding residents (from the business perspective) in corporate hospitals.

47.   Today's realization - you can look really really bad on certain days but you can never look as bad as the picture on a government issued ID card e.g. Passport, aadhar card, ration card, voter id card etc.

48.   Today's realization - no roller coaster (I repeat no roller coaster) in any amusement park in the world is as scary as sitting in a auto rickshaw while the driver whizzes around the narrow lanes in Hyderabad!

49.   Today's realization - except the bride and the groom and a very few others, no one is really interested in the marriage ceremonies. They are actually interested in 1) the food 2) what others are wearing 3) showing off what they are wearing 4) meeting others 5) the food!!

50.   Today's realization - the best coordinated departments are the Roads laying and the pipe laying one. They really work in perfect sync - the pipes department digs the next day AFTER the Roads department has laid a new road.

51.   Today's realization - the biggest win in your life is when you pretend to lose to a child and see the his/her happiness at it.

52.   Today's realization - the two biggest fights in an Indian family during summer 1) Who emptied all the cold water in the fridge? 2) Who did not fill the empty bottles? #IndianSummerMemories

53.   Today's realization - you know you are old when you have to keep scrolling in the drop down to choose your birth year in an online form. It was actually easier to type in the year directly (lesser key strokes)!!!

54.   Today's realization -the second most visible display of money, power, politics, cunningness, stealth, spying etc. is war. The first one, of course, is marriage!

55.   Today's realization - the most embarrassing moment when visiting someone's house is when they ask a 4 year old child to recite nursery rhymes and the kid refuses! The parents push him/her and give excuses, you ask to let it go (secretly relieved) and the child doesn't understand what is happening!

56.   Today's realization - the most "scenti-mental" person in the world is the crazy one who believes that all women will run after him thanks to his deo (as they promise in the ads)

57.   Today's realization - The worst part of doing all those complicated poses on Yoga day is that you notice all the cobwebs in nooks and corners as you twist and turn! ‪#‎jestsaying

58.   Today's realization - men can be the best cooks in the world when they deign to enter the kitchen but you need the world's best maid to clean up after them!

59.   Today's realization - women remember every detail - what you both wore on the first day you met, the restaurant you went to, what you ate and the "actual reason" for your first tiff. 
The men, on the other hand, don't even remember what they wore yesterday or what they had for lunch. ‪#‎jestsaying

60.   Today's realization - the origin of 'good cop, bad cop" did not originate from cops but actually from parents who played the two roles to the hilt and interchanged as required. In fact, we should call it as "good parent, bad parent"

61.   Today’s realization – the best way for family bonding is not by going to a movie or going to a restaurant or go on a vacation. It is actually when both your ISP decides to have an extended outage and hence no Internet access on all devices AND your cell phone provider has poor signals at the same time. ‪#‎thankyoubeam ‪#‎thankyouairtel

62.   Today's realization - you know you are old when you stand up to remonstrate your son and notice that you now have to look UP to meet his eyes!

63.   As they say age is just a number but then I have never been good at numbers anyway! smile emoticon

64.   Today's realization - whichever toothpaste you use (with salt, neem, coal, clove oil, prescribed by the Dental Association, by dentists practicing in the UK or any of the above combos), ultimately you WILL visit the dentist and have the same trepidation when you sit in the chair.....‪#‎youknowthedrill

65.   Today's realization - the best way to recharge batteries in the remote control is to hit it a few times- first with your hands and then on a hard surface. If that does not work, open the slot and rotate them, exchange their slots or replace them with any other used batteries lying around.
If that does not work and only IF, THEN replace with new batteries. There is no point making a fool of yourself! 😃

66.   Today's realization - the best way to recharge batteries in the remote control is to hit it a few times- first with your hands and then on a hard surface. If that does not work, open the slot and rotate them, exchange their slots or replace them with any other used batteries lying around.
If that does not work and only IF, THEN replace with new batteries. There is no point making a fool of yourself! 😃

67.   Today's realization - when a cab driver in Hyderabad says he is coming in "just" 5 minutes, he actually means 20+ minutes...

68.   Today's realization - the most irritating people are people who come to your city for work and then complain how much better it was in their old city! This can be true even when they join an organization or a team! (I am as guilty!)

69.   Today's realization - there is actually ONLY one way of getting 4G in most places in the city. Buy a dual SIM phone and get two 2G connections and claim you have 4G now. This way you also get 2G in smaller towns.‪#‎simplemath

70.   Today's realization - the old parent and the young toddler are very similar when they walk. You have your heart in the mouth when they falter with hesitant steps, hoping they wont fall and hurt themselves. Both are too proud to take the proferred hand to help them. Both have the same look of pride at the end "See - I have done it!". YOU have the proud look of the parent and the child rolled into one when you see that.

71.   Today's realization - it is the combination of garbled & incoherent announcements on flight departures AND apathetic passengers who are lost in their own world, which makes the airport employees desperately run up & down the seating areas shouting frantically "Final Call! Final Call"!

72.   Today's realization - the best exercise you can do on a cold wintry Sunday morning is press the snooze button multiple times! ‪#‎lifetips

73.   Today's realization - the very things that your parents forbid you from doing during your childhood (and for which you were punished) are the same ones that they find incredibly cute in their grand children and even encourage them. You are actually reprimanded saying "Kids will be kids".‪#‎howparentschange

74.   Today's realization - never buy a toothpaste which is recommended by 9 out of 10 dentists (even if they are shown practising in the UK!) Why would they recommend something good impacts their business negatively?!!. Find something they don't recommend - now THAT will work!

75.   Today's realization - the most irritating girl is the one in the Airtel ad who talks about downloading movies while one cannot get a decent signal to even make a phone call (and to top it - data disabled for 1.5 days with no notice - could not even download even a single email, forget movies!)

76.   Today's realization - today is the day, by when, probably 90% of the New Year resolutions are already broken. The rest 10% did not even start! :)

77.   Today's realization - it is difficult to remember the names/faces of old school mates but the minute, someone points out the wicked nickname he was given or some wacky or weird thing he had done in school, THEN all the memories start to flood in.... :)

78.   Today's realization - you really feel happy when FB introduces a feature which mirrors your exact opinion of a product (and not a Like!)

79.   Today's realization - there was always one teacher in school who claimed that THIS batch was the worst one in her experience. Of course, she repeated the statement every year!

80.   Today's realization - the most interesting discussion during an Indian marriage is the "food analysis" - of how one dish lacked salt, one was too salty and how one dish never made it to them. This, from the bunch of people, who would have gorged themselves and ensured "paisa vasool" for the gift they gave! 😝

81.   Today's realization - when they advertise a medium pizza as a meal for two, I guess they expect one of the two must be on a diet!

82.   Today's realization : Defeated Australia - Check,Defeated Pakistan - Check, Pakistan out of World Cup - Check. For some positive people, we have won the World Cup (even if we lost in the semi finals)

83.   Today's realization - some people you disliked extremely at the World Cup will now be cheered and some others whom you loved will now be booed!‪#‎ipltamasha

84.   Today's realization - unlike the rest of us mere mortals who have a list of published holidays, the nationalized banks should publish a list of WORKING days to make it easier for us to remember! ‪#‎toomanyholidays

85.   Today's realization - people have a misguided notion of sympathy. When you describe a painful ailment that is troubling you, they will tell you of THEIR travails with the same ailiment and how much more worse it was for them.

86.   Today's realization - there are 8 captains playing in the IPL, there are at least 80000 of them at home, who feel they can do better

87.   Today's realization - the second most expensive * is the one after the pizza price. It usually adds 20%+ to the 199 pizza that you felt was reasonable. The most expensive one,of course, is the one after mutual funds "mutualfundsaresubjecttomarketrisk. Pleasereadalldocumentscarefullybeforeinvesting"

88.   Today's realization - the best innovation that has improved service provider & customer interaction is the Uber star rating - suddenly both are so nice to each other! The worst innovation, of course, is the fact that Hyderabad auto drivers don't call it "half return" or "20 rupees over meter" anymore - they now call it "surge pricing"!

89.   Today's realization - you know someone is totally not into Facebook when you wish him for his birthday and then notice that your last year's greeting is still not acknowledged!

90.   Today's realization - the irony is that while you anyway lose your privacy when you join Facebook yet we feel that we can bring back our privacy by copy pasting some lines quoting some vague UCC or Rome statutes

91.   Today's realization - most Indian parents become doctors as the kids grow up and develop cough/cold/fever frequently #docwithoutlicense

92.   Today's realization - the second prize for knowing all your details (friends, events, location etc) goes to the apps in your phone. The first prize, of course, goes to the neighborhood aunties!

93.   Today's realization - medical treatment is 10% medication and 90% trust

94.   Today's realization - instead of measuring Hyderabad rains in mm or cm, they should measure it by the corresponding Uber surge prices. For example, this year we had good rains, average surge prices was 4.5 while two years back, it was only 1.2! 

95.   Today's realization - if the "as seen on TV" ads, worked ACTUALLY as they promise (reduce weight instantly, give you 6 pack abs in a few minutes, make soft rotis, make cleaning a breeze etc), then life would be so much better!

96.   Today's realization - if everyone actually read and understood every line of the Terms and Conditions of apps that they download, then there will be no users signing up for any of these apps! #noprivacy

97.   Today's realization - the best way to inspire a man to cook is make him watch him a few cookery shows and then let him loose - he might just outdo the show host! :)

98.   Today's realization - the health index of any food is inversely proportional to its taste index

99.   Today's realization - the best examples of plastic surgery are seen on Indian soap operas - either a woman who has kids getting married but looks 30 or a woman who undergoes plastic surgery and looks totally different now (thanks to an actor leaving the show!! :) )

100.   Today's realization – you realize you are getting old when your “gyaan” aka realizations reach the century mark – 1.       to an extent that whenever people meet you, they give you suggestions for a new realization!  :)  The complete list of realizations are kept at http://vishnudasprabhu.blogspot.in/search/label/Realizations