Kotak's jifi is here and so am I!

My Sundays are usually spent with family and dear friends or all by myself up in my ivory tower.
Last Sunday, I headed out to B-Bar at Select City Walk Mall, Saket to hang out with a family of a different kind at the Kotak #JifiIsHere Indiblogger Meet. My Indiblogger family, and what fun we had!!!!
The oriental themed luxurious bar welcomes guest into a different world. I got in line to register, said hi to a few fellow bloggers and then hit the bar to get myself an early drink. It had to be 8 pm somewhere in the world right? and it was Sunday, my day of rest :)

The cheerful servers kept the appetizers coming. There were exotic looking and tasting tidbits including chicken satay, chilli chicken, and assorted vegetable tempura. We made a meal of it. We is me, Rinzu and Paromita. It's been raining Indibloggers meets :) and I am loving it.

Eversince my first Indibloggers meet sometime last year, I have really made a lot of new friends from the bloggers I met at the meets :) I call them my new family and we are discovering the fun of dining and snacking at 5 star venues, winning tweetathons, blogging contests and exploring new products, ideas and avenues. Thank you Indiblogger for expanding my world.

Sunday was Kotak Mahindra Bank's jifi launch party and it was done in style with a tri city event spanning Delhi - we were the noisiest lot I think! - Bangalore and Mumbai. We watched the proceedings on the televised screen with Mr. Chetan Bhagat doing his thing while we ran our own party.

First off was the selfie competition which me and my friends did not win. We tried nonetheless. We soon caught up with the group tweet contest where our group of twenty calling ourselves the KPL 3, won vouchers from Flipkart for the maximum tweets about Jifi - the Social Banking experience with #jifiishere #KPL3. Yippee!!!!

So what is Jifi? In simple words, banking the social way using social media networking to up your rewards while making your bank transactions too. You can now make the most of you big circle on social media to help you earn kudos of the money kind! You earn by commenting and liking posts on the jifi facebook page! You can safely use your email/facebook id to log into your account and get your updates including bank balance via a DM or direct message on twitter.

Mr. Deepak from Kotak was more than happy to answer all our questions about jifi patiently.

The jifi account allows you to maintain a zero balance! How difficult is that!!!! Keeping count of the zeros is fun now! Only glitch is you have to apply for a brand new jifi account! but hey, to sweeten the deal, you get rewarded a cool 1000 social points when you invite yourself to jifi - this points can be used to shop on select partner merchant sites! Connect your twitter account and add 100 points. Refer your friends on facebook and you earn more and more points to add to your kitty! Make transactions with your jifi account and earn more points! Oh and if your bank balance hit 25k and above, you start earning interest on your moolah!!!!

Here's to a fun social banking experience with jifi. My own account is awaiting formalities to be completed and I can't wait to start earning and spending! Kotak has gone a step ahead to put the fun back in banking and this will go a long way in educating people about saving, earning and banking smartly with the times and the technology! Bravo!

Cheers! belated hic hic

Did I mention that lunch was a delicious affair and the Indiblogger Team - as usual, super RAD?
Oh and welcome the first timers to the Delhi Indiblogger family! Now, time for me to go and start banking with jifi!

How many times on top of the world is enough?

At FICCI's TURF 2013, I got the chance to interact with a young man who was the youngest Indian to scale Mt. Everest and subsequently the youngest Indian to summit Mt. Lhotse and Mt. Manaslu.

And what does it take to scale the top of the world thrice literally? He says "Hours and hours of training, exercise, endurance building activities and a diet that resembles that of a wrestler, support and prayers of family and a will of steel but humility to the forces of nature and the whims of weather conditions."

"Conquering Everest was a big deal but convincing my parent was an even bigger deal. But I was adamant to do this and my dad had a huge role to play. He believed that I could do it and he went all out to make it happen for me."
For this young lad of twenty, the business of Mountain climbing is a serious issue which he highlights at events he attends as a motivational speaker. Mountaineering is an expensive hobby and for him a way of life so funding his dreams is the main focus of his life.

He also wants to educate, create awareness and promote mountaineering as an adventure sports and extreme sports in India which he believes can be sustained in India with many youngsters these days becoming interested in the field.

He laments the lack of recognition of young achievers in the field of Mountaineering as it has not received its due as a sports in India and hopes that it will gain the stature it deserves through the efforts of many more like minded people in the country.

"I have received recognition abroad for my achievements but here in India, except for some sections of the Media, we mountaineers are largely ignored. I have so far not received a single penny from the government towards my expedition though fortunately for me, I have been able to get good sponsors to back me up to make my dreams come true so far."

What next? This enthusiastic young man who almost ended up being a football star, has a long list of summits to conquer. "It is my dream to reach the all the 14 summits around the world at above 8000 metres above sea level. It is not about conquering the highest peaks but it is about conquering myself, being one with nature, testing my limits and finding new ways to getting on top of my dreams."

He feels that he has lived more by being on mountains. Yes. There may have been movies he missed, family time and celebrations he had to forego, but the feeling of seeing the world at one's feet when on top of the World is worth giving the rest of the experiences a miss and he is ready to do it again and again. Precisely eleven more times in the next 7 to 10 years, god-willing and weather permitting.

I wish him all the best as he goes from pillar to strength to pave his way to the remaining dreams.

Special Note:

Thanks to Blogmint, India’s first and only paid bloggers network and the online media partner for FICCI’s TURF 2013 for allowing me to be a part of the LIVE Blogging experience.

Read more at Call of the mountains.