Tuesday 23 June 2015

My amazing #Sniff-Sniff meet experience!


If the #sniff sniff activity was itself exciting enough, the #SniffSniff meet was definitely the cherry on the cake!

There were rounds of speculation across blogging network as to what the mysterious product is going to be. Finally an amazing surprise was unveiled at the Four Seasons Hotel, Worli. As the rain gods had their way, it was pouring heavily since morning itself. The welcome of monsoon to the city was an amazing experience. Being a weekend, the trains were less crowded. I was enjoying the sight of rains and thinking what an amazing day, when suddenly a middle- aged man came and sat next to my seat in the train. He seemed to have forgot his umbrella, and as a result, was fully drenched in rain. In addition to it, there was a pungent smell coming from his clothes. I was disgusted to say the least! I was thinking, could there be a way that we could ban body odour? Some awareness on the subject? It was strictly needed in a city like Mumbai, specially in the crowded local trains.

I reached the venue of the meet a bit late, thanks to my fellow bloggers who chose to enjoy the rains till the venue. As we grabbed our seat, we saw the section of the lobby had been divided into 2 rows, with male bloggers on either side. There were a few lady journalists as well, being a media event.

As soon as I settled down, I saw a pretty female anchor for the evening. Till now we were not aware about the brand that was going to launch the mysterious product until we saw Nivea men written all over the launch banner.



After an introduction, th lady made way for our host for the activity segment, Mr Animesh Gupta. He seemed to be a very enthusiastic host, giving us a brief about Nivea as a brand and made it clear that we were going to learn all about body odour and how to prevent it! (Wow, what a respite as I was just thinking about the same an hour back.

The meet commenced with an interesting activity where the bloggers were divided into teams of 5.In each group 2 of the bloggers were blindfolded who had to smell different things and depending upon the smell had to identify the personality of the person who smelled like that. The other 3 had to pick five items at a time and make the 2 blindfolded persons smell them.

In my group I braved the task of getting blindfolded and man! The items were quite diverse. Ranging from Roses to onions!

Thereafter, there was another session where Animesh educated and took our feedback at the same time on diverse questions on body odour like 1. What is the biological reason for development of body odour. 2. Effects of different kind of food habits on body odour. 3. What kind of diet is preferable when you have a body odour. 4. How to confront a person who has bad body odour and make him/her realize the same. 5. How to react when someone confronts you and says, “You smell bad today”.

A pleasant surprise awaited us at the meet when my friend told me that a handsome bollywood superstar is going to grace the occasion! We were all hell excited to know who he was. But knowing Nivea and bollywood it wasn't that difficult to guess. Can you? Yes, indeed Arjun Rampal

I had been a fan of his work and not his looks that much unlike everyone else, but seeing him in real, I could say he can give any handsome hunk a run for his money!

. The pretty host lady for the evening couldn't stop blushing on seeing him! He had charmed everyone by his sheer presence.



He talked about his connection with Nivea and the beauty of its products. Also he answered the questions asked by fellow bloggers. He was so right when he cheekily remarked that "beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, smell is not!" :P

He was gracious enough to let the shutterbugs click photos with him.

It was time to break for a sumptous lunch, accompanied by photos with fellow bloggers.



Off we headed towards the hall which was all set for the launch!!

It was time to unveil the mysterious product.



#BanBodyOdour was trending all over India. There was a hilarious video streamed spreading the message to #BanBodyOdour.

Mr Rakshit Hargave, the M.D. of Nivea India finally took the centre stage. Lights, camera and action – “India’s first body Deodorizer” was revealed.

A turning podium was in front of us which had a large model of “Nivea Deodorizer” and Arjun Rampal was hugging it tytly!



It was Q&A round as Arjun Rampal and Mr Rakshit Hargave took centre stage and braced some funny as well as some serious questions from the media regarding the Nivea Deodorizer.

After responding to around 7-8 questions it was time for curtains and photo session ensued

We too had our mini photo sessions at the end of the meet.

It was time to head home with our goodies as the #SniffSniff meet concluded successfully.

As I opened the goodie bag, surprise surprise: “India’s first Deodorizer” gave my day a kick again :)

I attended the #SniffSniff product unveiling event by BlogAdda in association with Nivea.

Thursday 18 June 2015

Taking a peek into future at the Reliance retirement fund meet!!

"An investment in knowledge pays the best interest"

What amazing and true lines these are by the great American philosopher Benjamin Franklin. Indeed these lines came true when I attended the Reliance Retirement Fund meet organised by Reliance in association with BlogAdda!

It was a day full of excitement as I reached the venue of the meet well in advance as being a finance student, investment is something which I very often hear about, but wanted to learn practical ways of doing it. And what better way to do it, than attend an event organised by the giant Reliance company!

The session was indeed a dream start as it was organised at the hub of finance in mumbai, the Indiabulls Finance Center building. As we bloggers from various spheres of life and various corners of the city gathered for the meet, the meet kicked off.

As a usual norm, we were made to introduce ourselves and our blog. As an interesting part, every blogger was asked about his dreams and where he sees himself 20 years hence. There were lots of interesting replies, ranging from holiday in Miami to buying a Lamborghini or having a rich penthouse. Naturally these things were not possible without a solid investment backbone and great savings. This is exactly where Reliance chipped in, and explained to us various trends in the Indian investment scenario, and why investing for our future is so important on our life. There were interesting trends which were projected by top corporate honchos of Reliance who explained to us how India is so much lagging behind in terms of contribution by youth towards their investment. We were aghast to see the present value of rupee in future terms after 20 years, which was hardly 30% of its value, all thanks to the ever growing inflationary pressure in the Indian economy.

We were also educated about 2 popular investment plans: income plan and growth plan provided by Reliance to its customers which indeed projected great future prospects and were tailor made for the type of investor- a young budding entrepreneur who wanted to aggressively invest vis-à-vis a middle aged person who would be in need of his accumulated savings after few years, and hence had an appetite for lower risk. This was well explained with the help of a practical demonstration on Reliance's website itself.

We were quite enlightened at the end of the session with respect to retirement planning and its importance and were also thankful to Reliance for doing such an extensive research on the subject.

The meet concluded with the generous hosts Reliance and BlogAdda clicking photos of the bloggers and then with a sumptuous lunch organised by them. Indeed a day well spent! Here's attaching some wonderful photos of my day at the eventful meet!

This post has been written for Reliance Retirement fund meet in association with BlogAdda.