The most fascinating animal I have seen so far are the cute little ones with alternating black and white stripes running across its fur. I am talking about squirrels here..:). There seem to be lots of them in Bangalore. The way they savour their food mostly nuts is a treat to watch.

Yesterday i.e Saturday, the first thing I did was to attend a property show in Koramangala. I must say I was quite stumped by the flat/apartment prices most of which are anyway slated for completion in October 2007 or January 2008. The price range was from INR 25 lakhs to INR 32 lakhs and one was an astonishing INR 70 Lakhs for a 2BHK(Bedroom Hall & Kitchen). The EMI on such a loan with a floating rate of interest for the tenure of 20 years worked out to Rs.23,000 odd.

That made me wonder what if tomorrow there is a slump in IT just as it happened during the dotcom bust, will I be able to repay the amount. It reminded me about the BBC website article which mentions that the real estate boom has outpriced non-IT people from the market. It indeed is a sad reality. For example a teacher, govt. employees etc..will they able to fulfil the desire of their dream house with the salary they are drawing. Sadly with the enormous growth in population its more of a demand v/s supply situation. Land is something which is not in infinite supply, nature has only provided that much to sustain mankind. Whether its Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore or Hyderabad all are experiencing sky rocketing real estate prices.

To come back to where I was, after the reality check of property prices...I went to the Forum mall(supposed to be one of the happening places in Bangalore). I had to drop off my cheque for the credit card payment. After having seen In-orbit mall in Mumbai, I didn't feel Forum came anywhere close.

This may come as a contradiction as I am not into junk foods..however when I saw McDonalds @ the mall, I couldn't resist the temptation to grab a bite. I had a McVeggie burger. When I looked around me there were lots of people munching their french fries, desserts and burgers. More than half of them(it was mostly teenagers and children) were looking very healthy..u know what I mean..:)

I later went to meet one of my old pals..her name is Sanju. I can never forget the first time we met..it was quite hilarious. It was 6 years back and we still manage to stay in touch. When I saw her, I was stumped..she seemed to have piled on weight.
She was @ work..however she was gracious enough to spare some time out of her busy schedule. We went to sweet chariot, its a cake shop which was close by. She said its her and her colleagues frequent adda.

Some of her colleagues dropped by and everyone seemed to have a good sense of humour. I told her she was lucky to have such people around her. A source of concern is Sanju has become so pre-occupied with work that she has neglected her health. No proper sleep and she had her personal problems too. She is a nice girl always willing to help others even those who don't like her. Career wise she seems to doing well working for a UK based insurance firm and she is eagerly looking forward to clearing her interview which will make her a Team Leader.

After bidding Sanju goodbye..I came back home..however this time I ended up visiting a electronics showroom and purchasing a 21 inch flat Philips color tv. I bargained hard for a tv stand which seemed to be a used one, however the quality of its finish was quite good. I convinced the shop owner to sell it to me @ a discounted price.

My weekend has come to an end and tomorrow I need to buckle up for the week ahead..:)