Tag Archives: Ambience Mall

My Worst Purchases-Dyson TP03 Air Purifier

Continuing with my series, the next entry in the list is Dyson TP03 Air purifier.

Dyson TP03
Dyson TP03

It was the day after Diwali 2019 in Gurgaon. Because we Indians cannot celebrate festivals without polluting at least 1 element of nature, the AQI was 1999. I already had air purifiers (Different makes) in all the bedrooms, but it was getting difficult to breathe so we decided to get one for the living room.

We had had a very good experience with the Xiaomi 2S, so we decided to get another one for the living room. Headed out to Ambience Mall (I miss you so much) and went straight to the Xiaomi store. We had already decided what to buy, so I asked the sales guy to bill one for us. Instead, he laughed at us and said “Stock hi nahi hai to kaha se du”. (We don’t have stock where do I give it from?). Angry at his rudeness, we decided to get the Dyson TP03 (Also known as Dyson Pure Cool Link) instead. Surely, compared to the Xiaomi (₹7999) the Dyson (₹29999) would surely be much better? How wrong we were.

Here’re my views after using it for >1 year

+ Is Stylish, looks nice in the living room
+ Setup is easy and app is very nice
+ App can show historical AQI data
– Can only show AQI on a scale from 1-10 (Both the tiny display & the app). No other details
– Is noisy
– Doesn’t really purify very well or fast. On most days, it couldn’t keep up with outside air leaking in
– Since it throws air straight at the user rather than up in the air, in winters it becomes uncomfortable

At the end of the day, I think the company’s Air Multiplier technology is not really suitable for air purifiers. Basically, if the fan draws “X” amount of air from the pedestal (and via the HEPA filter), it draws 15*X amount of air from the back of the air multiplier which doesn’t pass the filter at all. So at any point of time, only 6.66% of air thrown by the purifier is clean/has passed through the filter, compared to 100% for traditional purifiers.

All of this results in a lot of air flow in the (already very cold) room but very little purification. My impression of all this is that Dyson has over-engineered its purifiers for the simple purpose of purifying air. I feel terribly guilty for not buying 2 Xiaomi purifiers for the same price as this and still have cash left over.

I miss Home

As expected, 6 months into my stay at Bangkok, I already miss my home in India terribly. Part of this is because of the lockdown in Bangkok. Part of this is because I never really wanted to leave India and had to do so because I was unhappy with my job and this was the best option I had, then.

What I Miss about Home

  1. Although Thailand has some of the biggest malls in the world, I miss my Ambience Mall. I miss looking forward to weekends to go to Ambience Mall.
  2. Although Bangkok has some of the best restaurants in the world, I miss dining at Pizza Express, Daryaganj, Chili’s, Mamagoto, Sodabottleopenerwaala and Burma Burma.
  3. I miss going to Cyber Hub on the weekends.
  4. Although Bangkok has some of the best bars in the world, it is missing a microbrewery culture which was so popular in Gurgaon and Bengaluru. I miss drinking craft beer.
  5. Living in my own house and doing what I want with it.
  6. I miss Connaught Place, although, I hadn’t been there for many months even when I was in Gurgaon.
  7. Miss Hotstar India. Hotstar Thailand doesn’t have as many shows, especially from HBO, FX etc.
  8. Sorely miss Amazon. Lazada/Shopee are disgusting and I use them only because I am forced to.
  9. I miss having the electrical switches the right side (For India) up.
  10. I miss the few friends I have.
  11. Miss the prevalence of online services like online doctor consultations, online medical test bookings & online booking of household services.
  12. I miss driving my own car.
  13. Lastly, I miss a sense of belonging.

What I don’t miss

  1. The horrible air quality most days of the year.
  2. The unnecessary and tiring bureaucracy in every aspect of life.
  3. The forced religious indoctrination in everyday life.
  4. The lack of respect for animals and even pets.
  5. The high cost of fuel, electricity and cooking gas.
  6. The high cost of food at restaurants.
  7. The filth omnipresent everywhere.
  8. The utter disregard of Indians towards their country and their countrymen/women.

Goodbye, Gurgaon

The fateful day is here. After almost 13 years in this city, the time has come to say goodbye and move on.

I got married while living here, we had our kid here, bought our own apartment here; till a few months ago, I thought I would live here forever. However, the deteriorating air quality year-on-year and the complete apathy of the government decided otherwise.

For years, I watched the air quality go worse, for years I saw people turn a blind eye to it and eventually it became clear that this problem won’t be solved in the near future (or maybe ever).

PC: Rentomojo

I will miss

  1. Spending my weekend at Ambience mall, perhaps my favourite place in the city. I still remember the first time I went there to buy formal shoes for my first job here (the job didn’t involve formal wear).
  2. Having breakfast at McDonalds while soaking the winter sun at MGF metropolitan mall.
  3. The (few) friends I had here and drinking beer with them at one of the many craft breweries.
  4. The wide highways, flyovers and underpasses and sparse traffic.
  5. The ease of getting things done and solving problems by throwing money at them.
    Apps and online services for literally everything.
  6. Extremely fast same-day and next-day Amazon delivery.

I will not miss

  1. The horrid air quality between November and January every year and the grey/brown skies.
  2. The constant and relentless pitch of hindutva in every aspect of your life.
  3. Kids as young as 12 driving cars with impunity.
  4. People who cut in queue (in person or in their cars).
  5. The name “Gurugram”.

Mall Covidiots

The mall is where you get to see the worst of humanity, as I have previously noted here, here & here. These days, they are full of covidiots. On a recent trip to Ambience Mall, I decided to observe them in detail and discovered that there are different types.

The first type are the ones who wear a mask, but keep their noses out of the mask. Their aim is to fool casual observers into thinking that they are fully masked, but the joke is on you, as their respiratory tract is actually completely unobstructed. They can get away with this in 90% situations with minimal inconvenience of a mask on their face.

The second type are the ones who wear a mask on their chin. They don’t pretend to be complying with mask rules, but have a mask dangling from their chin just in case someone challenges them, when they can quickly move the mask up and cover their faces like nothing happened.

The third type are the boldest. They won’t wear a mask at all. They won’t even pretend to wear a mask, nor do they carry a mask in their hand. They are above all this pretentious bullshit. They roam around openly without a mask, just waiting for someone to challenge them, so that they can inform them who their uncle/father is.

The saddest part of all this? It took me less than 2 minutes of sitting stationary in the mall to take these photos.

Beer, my friend

I have a long relationship with beer and our relationship has evolved over all these years.

A mug of “Child” beer

I clearly remember my first beer (or any alcoholic beverage for that matter) which was at Orchid Lake resort next to the pristine Umiam Lake in Meghalaya. I was around 12 years old at that time & was going to Shillong with my uncle and his friend for the day from Guwahati & had stopped at that resort for lunch. My uncle and his friend ordered beer for themselves and offered me some. My first reaction was that it was bitter. I obviously kept that information to myself & commented that it was very tasty so as to not embarrass myself as less of a “man” in the presence of 2 adults.

I had beer a few more times with that uncle over the next few years but didn’t enjoy any of it.

When I went off to college at Nagpur, I was suddenly exposed to a whole plethora of alcoholic beverages. Beer was reserved for those hot summer days when we didn’t have electricity or had an exam the following day & didn’t want to get too drunk.

I remember one evening when Sood Sahib was feeling a bit low. I suggested that we drink some beer & his spirits lifted immediately. We bought beers from a store and some policemen tried stopping us on the way, but we somehow escaped, got soaked in the rain, reached home, dried up and enjoyed our beers.

Sood Sahib Enjoying and Appreciating Beer

I also remembering going to Urvashi with Neeraj after our gym sessions to drink beer with Tandoori chicken to aid our workout recovery. Beer also accompanied our jam sessions on numerous occasions.

My first major incident with beer was when I bought what I thought was “Haywards 5000” from a seedy store in Nagpur, went home and drank it alone. My roommate came home from college later to find me passed out with my head shaved. Later, when I regained consciousness, he also reported some strange behaviour from me but I would refrain from going too deep into those details. Later everything explained itself when we saw that the beer I had was actually a “Haryana 5000”.

When I moved to Gurgaon, I was exposed to a new world of freshly brewed beer also known as “artisanal beer” or “craft beer”. We used to go to Rockman’s Beer Island at Ambience Mall very frequently to drink fresh brewed beer poured out for us from taps.

We used to order barrels of this stuff and get hopelessly drunk. I remember one incident when we went to Beer Island with Soniel’s German colleagues, everyone got sloshed on beer and they ran away without paying for anything and we were stuck with the bill.

Beer plus Laser

Another incident with beer I remember is when I had something called “Beer Buster” at an office party. It was beer mixed with Tabasco sauce and I had litres of it. When I came back home, I couldn’t sleep because the Tabasco was burning in my chest and stomach all night.

Neeraj at Beer island

One of my best beer experiences was during my Beer trip to Bengaluru. We went to a place called Biergarten which was a huge open air pub surrounded by beautiful palm trees. The weather and the colour of the sky were unlike anything in Gurgaon. Even the washrooms had a killer view.

Biergarten, Bengaluru

Not until the lockdown, when I was forced to stay without any beer for months did I learn the true value of beer (among other things). When the lockdown did open and I rushed to the nearest beer shop to buy some, I decided that I would start treating beer with more respect from then on. Yes, I would savour my beer more and learn to enjoy it.

I started drinking beer slowly, appreciating the textures and flavours and enjoying the taste rather than aiming to get hopelessly drunk.

First Craft Beer after Unlock

When I drink alone at home, I never drink more than 1 or 2 cans at a time and I make sure I enjoy every sip. When drinking out with friends (rare), all these rules go out of the window, though.

3 cheers to beer and here’s to many more years of friendship.

My Worst Purchases-Microsoft Lumia 950XL

Continuing with my series, the next entry in the list is the Microsoft Lumia 950XL, which was my 29th phone.

Microsoft Lumia 950XL, Dead on Arrival
Microsoft Lumia 950XL, Dead on Arrival

I was super-excited to buy this phone since the day it was announced by Microsoft. In the months leading up to the actual launch, I used to send my family members to the Microsoft Store at Ambience mall every Sunday (one-by-one) to ask about the phone’s launch date. I even had a Google search alert setup which sent me emails as soon as any news article were published about this phone. Although this phone was great on paper (Great hardware, huge display, excellent camera), this phone was my 7th Windows Phone overall and by the time this phone launched, Windows 10 Mobile was all but dead.

I remember the day this phone launched; I had just started a new job that week. I immediately dropped everything I was doing and went to Ambience mall to buy it (For ₹55,000; of course, I had pre-booked the phone months ago). The store employees told I was the first person in North India to get my hands on this phone. At that time I thought I was special. In hindsight, it is clear now, I was one of the few fools in North India to buy a Windows Mobile (at the tail end of 2015).

Within months, Microsoft announced the death of Windows 10 for mobiles. Within weeks after that, app developers abandoned the platform. There was still a small community online of loyal fans but we were more and more reliant on 3rd party apps for basic services. Uber, specifically, was a huge pain point. There was no easy way to search for destinations, you had to zoom out on the map, zoom in to where you thought you wanted to go and mark the location manually.

I also remember claiming some of the phone’s cost from my company (There was a company BYOD policy) and my manager laughing at me that I spent such a huge amount for such a phone.

Slowly and painfully, over the next year, the number of useable 1st party apps dwindled to almost zero and I eventually made the jump to Apple’s (Walled) Garden putting an end to my Lumia misery. If I could do things over, I should have bought an iPhone for the same amount and prevented myself from a year of misery.

Lockdown Day 33

Today is Day 33 of the lockdown. In these 33 days I haven’t gone out of my apartment complex gate once. And it is starting to affect me in some weird and unexpected ways.

  • I do not miss socialising at all. In fact, I welcome this time away from unnecessary socialising.
  • I am having very vivid dreams and remembering them for a change. Normally I hardly have dreams and don’t remember them later.
  • I miss going to Ambience Mall, drinking coffee ☕️ at Barista, eating at Pizza 🍕 Express and just roaming around the mall. It is unlikely malls will open even after the lockdown is relaxed and I am not sure how the mall or the business inside will survive this.
  • I miss drinking fresh beer 🍻 at pubs. Again, not sure when this will happen again.
  • I miss eating out at restaurants. My thoughts especially drift towards Toninos at Two Horizon Center on Golf Course road
  • I miss driving my car 🚗 , while listening to BBC World Service.
  • I miss ordering stuff from Amazon, waiting for the delivery and unboxing the items.
  • I miss going to the park and walking🚶‍♂️ around.
  • I miss going to the nursery to buy new plants 🌱 and fertiliser.
  • I miss going to Galleria, sitting opposite the fountain and sipping Coca Cola.

As per the current situation, restrictions should start lifting in 11 more days, but I have a feeling that’s not going to be the case and things won’t start going back to normal for a long time.

Pathetic Fool-2

It is impossible to go anywhere in Gurgaon (Sorry, Gurugram) without stumbling across such idiots. What a pathetic fool!

German Engineering

This one has a Mercedes Benz logo on his Nissan Sunny. Immediately reminded me of people who put Apple logos on their non-Apple laptops.

I do not understand what people achieve with all this. Maybe there are even bigger fools out there who actually believe that it is a Mercedes/MacBook.

McDonald Drive thru VIP

On closer inspection, it turns out this guy is a McDonald Drive through VIP. I don’t even know what that means. In a drive through queue, when this guy comes along, they remove all the other cars and let him get his Vegeterian burger first?

Spawn from Hell & Haraamzada

So I was at the mall, sitting on a bench when I come across these two. The kid is almost 2 years old and still sucking on a soother. One look at his face and you are sure he is a Spawn from Hell.
While the Spawn from hell is hanging out with his man-servant, pulling his hair and being a dick in general, his father comes over and screams at the servant “Yaha kya marwa raha hai haraamzade?” (What are you doing here, bastard?) in front of his son.
Haraamzada and Spawn from Hell must both be partially deaf, because the father is shouting at the top of his voice.

Spawn from hell must want something from one of the stores, that his father is in no mood to spend money on, because he immediately lies down face downwards and starts beating his fists on the floor. The father gently kicks him over so that he is face up and cannot beat his fists anymore.
While the parents walk away, the haraamzada servant bends down to pick up the spawn. The spawn shouts “haraamzade” one last time before giving up and resigning to his toy-less fate.

Pathetic Freeloaders

What won’t people do for free stuff? Fisher and Paykel had an exhibition at Ambience Mall, Gurgaon where they had a chef make food using their products. People who sat for the demonstration would get this food for free.

Losers
More Losers

We saw this scene when we reached the mall and after more than an hour later, while walking by, we saw the same group of people sitting there, licking free ice cream. Surprisingly, it was not people from the lower class who were wasting their time for free ice cream, bit rather well to do people. Pathetic. Bonus: Another (or the same) set of losers getting photos clicked in front of Valentine’s day decorations