Hotel Formule1 In HITEC Hyderabad - Comfortably Awesome

I had a dream when I was a kid. It’s nothing new, obviously! All of us have dreams. Mine was to be Miss Universe, so mainstream (I knowwwwww). But the end goal was to use my scholarship money to build green cities all around the WORLD. Yes! Well, that did not happen.

Anyway… I came across something. A hotel by Accor hotels and you know what? They have this zone in the hotel called “Green zone” which promises to reduce the carbon footprint. This is the zone where you’ll find bicycles. No matter how old you’re now you can ride bicycles :)

So this hotel is called Hotel Formule1, by Accor hotels. They say it is comfortable, warm and a nice place to be. This post might save you time if the next thing you’re going to Google is “Budget hotels”. I know the ones in Ahmedabad and Bangalore and now there is one in Hyderabad too! Somewhere in HITEC city. Cool location, I must say. 

Why do you think is this hotel one of the good Indian hotels? The answer is pretty simple! You don’t really want to feel at home when you’re in a hotel. You want to feel comfortable. YES, you do not want to clean for yourself, pick up your laundry, worry about dirty dishes and floor… NO ONE wants to feel at home at a hotel. We look for comfort, really amazing shower, soft bed, sofa, vibrant colours, beautiful decor and and and a television, flat screen full HD, right? To find all this in any of those budget hotels might not work for you (SAD truth). But well this place is nice and warm (also has a GREEN ZONE) and might fall right into your budget. AMAZING. And btw there are 150 such rooms and the price range starts from INR 2399.

Did I mention home is where wifi connects automatically? Anyways it won’t connect automatically here but you WILL get it for free and at high speed. Also if wifi isn’t enough they’ve got some awesome breakfast (attention INSTAGRAMMERS).

Dear people! It also has soundproof walls (YES you read it right!). I know you didn’t see that coming :)

So next time when you are in Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Greater Noida, Hyderabad or Pune and want a comfortable roof and some positive vibes check this place out.

Also here is the Facebook link for more info: http://www.facebook.com/FORMULE1Hotel

Not Just Another Team, A Family - Crowdfire Story!

#TeamCrowdfire - It's not a team, it's a family.

One fine day when I was thinking of leaving Bangalore I found Crowdfire was hiring and I dropped in my CV. Within 2 hours I got a call which I missed, it was followed by a text message from Nischal asking me when was the right time to talk. I texted back saying “Tomorrow at 10”. At almost 10 I received a call with the most enthusiastic person I was ever going to meet in my life. I had decided JustUnfollow was my future.

Moving from Bangalore to Mumbai was going to be a big step, also the most difficult one. I was about to leave my comfort zone, places I knew, roads I understood and most importantly Appy, going away from her was going to be a nightmare. But I had to move on. 

Nischal: “What kind of a place are you looking for?"
Me: "1BK or even 1RK will do, no one visits me anyways."
Nischal: "Team will want to hangout at your place."

This 1BHK is going to be a cool place. People are going to hangout here. A lot of afterparties are going to happen. The K of this 1BHK is going to be a myth.

Twitter friends stepped forward to help me out. Sunny explained me the map of mumbai, where I would be working and where should I find a house. Shilpa almost found a place a for me!

I’m going to meet them, one day.

The day I left mDhil was tough. I remember how Priya and I could just not stop crying. Oh, I miss Priya. May her soul rest in peace.

Urmila, my friend from TooStep came say good bye. 

Appy and me were both sad. We knew this was gonna be tough on us. She had been there when no one was around. My break-ups, shifting, weekends, the meets, it was all me and her and suddenly it will change. BTW yes I met her on Twitter.

I’m going to come to back to see her soon. She is going to get married and we are going to have blast at the bachelorette.

I came to Mumbai. To my Kaka’s place. I wasn’t sure if it was okay to live there, if I was causing them trouble. But I was accepted. I felt like I was home. Ah, how we struggle in our life for acceptance!

Day 1 at Crowdfire. I wasn’t sure how was it going to be. My first travel in mumbai local was okay. I reached office. It was locked. Sid came immediately once I left a message on Crowdfire WhatsApp group. (I was added to the group a month before I officially became a part of the team). I knew everyone virtually. I had gone through their profiles, knew who worked on what, had interacted with them enough.

Urooj explained me my work and I started working! I had been using the app for years now and was one of the early users you see :)

The welcome and laptop opening ceremony happened on day 3. JD shots! Lunch at BBQ Nation. Whatta fun! 

This team will be my family.

Day 1 at Crowdfire was also the day I was forced to say goodbye to GizmoManiacs (one fine day I got up and I wasn’t a part of it anymore). Another sad thing. Talk about depression! New job, yet to find a home, break-up and the feeling of “I-am-good-for-nothing” attacked me. But I was saved, I was saved by the positive vibes of people at Crowdfire.

I will not give a damn about depression but relationships henceforth will be tricky, very tricky!

I started understanding everyone. Who likes what, who eats what, who works how. Life became smooth. This was just a start of a good phase. There was a lot to be done, a lot to be achieved and a lot to be planned. 

Feb and March passed.

My parents visited me for the first time in 9 years! << Happiness level infinity!

April. Standups became a habit, Counter Strike became a passion, eating with team became a ritual, movie nights became common and fun became a part of life. Bye-bye depression. 

Thyroid got almost under control, Sam’s corner became irregular, blog went for a toss. Life is beautiful.

May. Went for indiblogger meet without Appy, without her my confidence level drops down by a few points. It was awkward. Made new friends. 

I love you That Desi Girl.

Now if you know me you would know how I keep on having these blackouts where I don’t remember certain parts. So it’s good for you :P

Finally I went to Marine Drive for the first time with Ani, KidSid and Shardul. 

Thank you Ani! :)

We were still working on making Crowdfire better. Some serious work was going on.
The best part about working with startups is you get to be your own manager, you get to be a leader, you get to be a pirate. You are expected to come up with ideas and execute them on your own. They have faith in you. 

I still can’t believe they had faith in me. 

Urooj and me did everything. From marketing to growth to content to ideation. We were a small gang. It was cool. 

More people will join the team. The gang will become bigger and we will not be doing all this alone.

As if mumbai rains weren’t enough my apartment got flooded. Short circuit. Power gone. Call Sid for rescue! Team Crowdfire is just a call/message away. 

I love my party hoppers. I love my dinner people. I also love the MUFC group. Them all, I love them all (some a little more than others, I'm human after all).

June. Video ideas. Sketch, script, work, half-way, scrapped. This was a struggle. We did not really know how to go about it.

Debasree will come and take the whole video thing in hands. She is going to shine.

July, August, September, October. Blog, support, Twitter, Facebook. Experiment with reddit, meme maker, using fiverr. Guitar lessons. The unforgettable Vikings happened (now only internal people are allowed to know this).

Birthday came and went. Next time I want cake at midnight! Are you listening?

November, December. New year’s party at Nischal’s place. Now how many of you have partied at CEO’s place on New Year with your whole team? Come on come on, tell me.

I will go home and find out I have Nischal’s AC remote in my pocket. I wouldn’t know how did that happen!

January, February. Rebranding was the mission. Regrouping, listing out things, execution of the plans at it’s best. In between we also completed 5 years of JustUnfollow (Crowdfire). Grand party. Sid ki shaadi, the dance practice

We will be using the same dance as welcome dance for everyone who will join the team from now on.

I also found a new place to live. The view is awesome. I love heights. Housewarming party is still pending.

JustUnfollow is now Crowdfire.

March, April. Things changed. UI changed. This came along with some issues and we had to work them out. Happiness team was at test. But we do not give up. We work things out. We believe in ideas, innovation and creativity. The badass challenge happened. The social meet-up happened. 

Stats by Crowdfire will tell you how we are doing 300% better than in December on Twitter.

May. Good bye to the place which gave us so many memories. We moved to the new HQ. The cool CFHQ! It is awesome. You must visit. The designer meet-up Mumbbbai happened. We will call it successful.

We work hard, we party harder, we support each other, we argue, we question each others decisions. We are the force. We are the pirates. We are building something you wouldn’t want to live without in social space. 

I am just a human with a spark, together we are FIRE, Crowdfire.

Oh Damn I Burnt Myself - Now that’s Igniting!

I was this close to celebrating my safety week because I did not burn myself for one whole year and BAM it happened. I burnt myself. A little. The celebrations were burnt to hell too. I am still cleaning the ashes and I see no absolutely NO phoenix rising anywhere. 

Life is strange. It tests you. It doesn’t let you live a lot of happy moments in a string. Happiness isn’t an infinite loop. There is no deadlock, there is no sine wave too. There is a very different graph. A different graph for each one of us. 

The reality is you are gonna meet a lot of fake friends, a hell lot of love yous which mean nothing are gonna be exchanged (Let’s say they did mean something in that moment), there are gonna be celebrations and dances and sweet songs which might fail to convert into memories. You will get burnt at some point or the other. You and you alone will have to clean the ashes. No ash trays will come at rescue. 

At the some time there would be some good friends, some genuine love, some small celebrations, crazy dances and way out of note songs. That’s what is life for. The ashes don’t matter. The burns get healed and leave a scar. A scar that will remind you that you survived. You lived and you lived well.

“Fallen flat on my ass a million times but haven’t learned a thing.” she said. 

You had courage to get up and try again. You’re brave. You are living. That is what counts.

Life was never about not getting burnt. It’s not about being a phoenix.It’s about being YOU. Being this being who doesn’t give up, who ignites, who sparkles and who doesn’t use fancy words to describe it but just feels it, lives it. (Ah, that would be me, I know NO fancy words.)

If you get burnt, don’t worry you’ll heal.

You’ll heal my friend.

Life is beautiful!

Btw I'm a honeybee.

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