The Ringside View

Where the hell is goold old Bourbon

2009-06-13T10:09:00.001-07:00

The curly haired, cute looking boy from the neighbouring house is a regular visitor. And his visits unlike most kids his age are not noisy or tantrum filled. They are in fact, quiet and business like. He gets off his cycle, goes on his toes to open the gate and then parks his cycle like all gentlemen do, before hitting the doorbell. Nice size zero footwear are neatly parked at the threshold before he quietly makes his entry into the house. The routine is clinical. He first mounts the sofa and sits there for a while. A minute, maybe two. And then quickly dismounts and heads off to the kitchen. ‘Swalpa kara kodi (something spicy please)’, he then matter of factly asks mother. And whether the savory of his liking is available or not, he promptly gets to business. His daily dose of biscuits - chocolate cream biscuits. Its Bourbon and Bourbon alone that will pass. It’s this little man’s caviar. You give him anything else and he nods dismissively with a ‘why don’t you understand’ look and says ‘Cream brown irbekku (the cream has to be brown)’. And seeing him tuck away one into his pocket and hold onto one for the road, as he cycles away into the sunset is what life is one of life’s little joys.

Father has been ill the last couple of days and the little man’s Bourbon routine has been severely affected. A supply side shock of this magnitude has taken even this ‘no thrills and frills’ gentleman by surprise. And so, for the third consecutive day, when he was turned away from his quota, he just nodded disgustingly and headed home almost in protest. And did not bother coming today. After all, how much ‘No’ can a man of 5 hear?

In a quick move to appease the little guest, home affairs quickly dispatched me on a biscuit shopping errand today. Wonder what happened to good old Bourbon. Three different shops and no stock anywhere. So I bought chocolate cream biscuits of two varieties – Pure Magic and Tiger Chocolate. Will the little man like it? Only tomorrow will tell.

What do you do?

2009-06-12T00:23:00.000-07:00

What do you do when you have two lousy days back to back* like it were some one plus one offer of Hamam soap? Yes please, do throw me the kitchen sink. I don’t mind as long as you throw me the bouquets and true love and all that jazz later.

What do you do when confidence level is generally at the Marina Trench levels and shows no signs of floating up? Buoyancy did Archimedes say.

What do you do when everything you pick up to read turns out as academic and boring as Corporate Strategy 101? Bill Bryson, why did you stop ‘The Short History of Nearly Everything’ at page 580 something?

What do you do when you become an exhibit in a random experiment to prove boredom does not kill? Because if it did, I’d be dead by now.

What do you do when you are always the one who turns up thirty minutes too early every time you go out to meet a friend of yours? ‘Too much work da macha’. Ok, my watch is not working and I don’t have a job, so what?

What do you do when your daily evening getaway is only as exciting as the insipid coffee at Java City? Sigh.

And then what do you do when a friend calls and asks you if you want to drive 250 km to check out the ruins of a 19th century French Rosary church? Obviously, ‘Come on I say’.

* Well it was not two whole days to be honest. The wee end of day two was the party at DS place and it was a swell affair. Let truth be told.

And let there be light

2009-06-04T23:38:00.000-07:00

Going to B school is like packing your bags and going to Tahiti. One morning you decide to quit your job, borrow truck loads of money and set off like the great sailors of yore. And like them great sailors, you don’t have a freakin clue what you are going in search of. But you can feel an excitement like you have never felt in your boring jobs for gods knows how long and that is reason enough, you convince yourself.

There is one difference never the less between the men of the Spanish Armada and us, B school going types. The former very often do not return. Sea, sickness or over ambitious fellow seamen will generally ensure the journey is exciting but short. But in the rare cases in which they do return, it’s with the exuberance of having found new continents or the uninhibited joy of having a good many pots of gold by the deck side. The latter on the contrary, return for sure. With or without a world view; with or without answers; and in such times, with or without a job even.

Anyways, talked to an old classmate of mine over chat the other day. Some exotic US business school he was doing the soul searching in. Congratulations, he wished me; on graduating in one piece. I reciprocated. He asked me about the Bangalore weather and I asked him about the American economy. Both incidentally had been dull and cloudy.

Now, when two freshly minted B school grads meet, it’s like the meeting of two pistol totting cowboys with finger on the trigger. It’s about who lets it fly first. I was conscious but still erred. Taking the Dravidesque slow and steady ‘How are doing – is it fun out there – are the women pretty’ approach was bloody well long winded. He went for the jugular almost immediately. ‘So?’, he asked me. ‘How was the B school experience and all that?’. I paused and then paused more. He had let fly before I did. ‘Well, it was touted as a rollercoaster ride and it bloody well was. I liked it. It was well worth the effort’, I replied.

‘Mmm’, he responded; clearly unsatisfied with the lack of depth in the answer.

‘But that said and done, the bottom line is – the MBA is not the answer to all woes in life. I so well hoped it would be. Like at the end of it all, there would be bright light and reason and the meaning of life like in a 20th Century Fox production. But alas, that’s not how it works’

‘Well said. I completely agree’, comes the reply, with a smiley and all.

We MBA types like reassurance. Now, who doesn’t? But I am still left wondering. When does the bright light appear?

What dumbness

2009-06-04T00:20:00.000-07:00

Mount Carmel in our days was what Jerusalem is to a Jew. It was holy land. It was where every woman was pretty and every second woman a Miss India contestant. Or so the legend said. It was where beauty met brains and if the girls looked down upon the rest of humanity, it was considered slightly arrogant but yet appropriate. And when ‘Cul-ah’ (the ah we always thought was orgasmic, but let us not digress here) happened, the best of men in the best of clothes lined up in serpentine queues to get into the forbidden land. Come to think of it, it could only have been the male libido which could have braved pesky policemen, the occasional swing of the lathi and the almost disappearing self esteem to still stand there and hope for utopia.

Anyways, we went there with the best intentions to participate (however believable that is). And at the coffee table yesterday, we were talking team names, which is why I am writing this in the first place. Dumb Charades was one of those big ticket events. Suri, KB and Paaps formed the triumvirate while me and Seige preferred watching from the sidelines and every now and then gaily suggesting ‘What dumbness I say’.

The boys had practised for god knows how long. They had almost ceased talking. Even words like ubiquitous and preposterous were being enacted and cracked. Secret cheat codes were practised. The mid night oil was being burned. Anyways, there the boys were finally – on stage. The moment of reckoning had come. A smart looking girl who was organizing the event called the team on stage and asked one of the team members to go register the team name. Paaps was obvious choice to be sent as envoy with team name. He strides up to the three pretty women in the ‘spotters’ panel and registers - ‘Two plates idly with extra sambar’. The girls giggle. And then recomposing themselves in full MCC demeanour blurts back – ‘This is too long. Make it shorter’. Paaps turns back and communicates the message. ‘No worries’, quipped Suri. ’Make that one plate idly then’. Paaps turned back and with a charming smile told the girls -‘Make that one plate idly please’.

Mount Carmel girls don’t smile at strangers. At least, not at ‘Cul-ah’. But I think they smiled then. And the name stuck.

The only other team who had a wackier name was one called themselves ‘Men wh(o) pause’

CTR re-visited

2009-06-03T19:40:00.000-07:00

I had been through the revered gates once. And the milling crowds had dissuaded me two times. Non-descript and unpretentious, it stands oblivious to the endless traffic that weaves past it in an all too obvious urban frenzy. I was mildly hungry and it was purely incidental that it occurred at the revered corner. Perhaps, it’s a hunger that most if not all at Malleswaram will vouch for, when they reach this neck of the woods. It is after all, one of the Holy Trinity – the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost of masala dosa.

CTR, Malleswaram has stood the test of time. And their Benne Masala Dosa is probably as divine as divinity can get. We jostled past a waiting crowd and scanned the seating arena. Blank walls and expectant faces – waiting like pilgrims wait for the pearly gates to open. It’s old world fairness. You jostle around and find place for yourself. Today was a lucky day; a day when being at the roulette table would have been as good an idea as being at CTR. Two gentlemen rise and we slide in, like in a musical chair. What a fair world.

Traffic flowed ceaselessly on the main thoroughfare. And the little boy, who came for the order, flashed no menu card. The order is placed and Nicky re-iterates the ‘bring the coffee with the dosa’ routine that is very much the style. I talked like I always do; about some inane happening that both of us at that point were hardly interested in. The dosa does not take time; and it probably should not, the waiting crowd will cry out loud. Small, golden and crispy – every morsel tastes of soaked in butter. Like some divine entity the butter is never visible and yet all pervasive. Put one morsel into your mouth and it appears mysteriously in your hands.

At CTR, people hover around you as you eat, like defenders at the Arsenal goal mouth; silently hoping that you would finish at the earliest; praying you are not one of those gluttons who would order for one more. We just take our time and deliver justice to what is on the plate. The trick is in being in oneness with your food; and ignoring the unnecessary. After all, at CTR you earn your right to be where you are. By the time we get to the wash basin and back, different men and women are already gracing our seats and waiting expectantly for their plate of happiness to be delivered.

Twenty-two rupees is what it takes. But the old Bangalore experience as a television commercial selling credit cards once said – is probably priceless.

Hello world

2009-05-22T00:28:00.000-07:00

Hello world.

If anyone’s reading, believe me, it’s good to be back. Apart from the few ‘What was the URL? What was the password?’ kinda moments, the coming back has been pretty much seamless. But before I begin on what I call the second life of this blog, a few updates and confessions. To dispel notions as someone recently brought to my notice, it’s purely incidental that the first two words gracing by blog for the last one year has been ‘Holy fuck’. It’s also purely incidental that my blogging stopped exactly one month before I joined business school and the revival is now happening exactly one month after. Hand on heart honestly; B school does not kill the writer. People, who write will write nevertheless while others will look for nice sounding excuses like the one that I am currently searching for. But all said and done, it’s good to be back to the ringside view. And if you insist to ask, the last one year has been a blast. Much learnt. Much forgotten. But all in all much enjoyed.

And before I rant anything new, here is some writing recycled from the year gone by.

The Bullet point (Flashback series)

2009-05-22T00:26:00.000-07:00

It was the year 2001. The dot com bubble had busted. And even men with unambiguous sexualities were handed down slips in pink. Companies with a skewed sense of humour even played Aerosmith’s ‘Pink is my favourite colour’ as they handed it down. Protagonist, rookie programmer is sitting hunched over his desktop, concentration writ all over. Such were the times. Big Brother CEO had appeared over video conference the previous day and announced dourly ‘We need to save every penny ((read) there shall be no toilet paper in the loo from tomorrow); we need to increase productivity ((read) kiss your kids goodbye, you might not see them in a while); and employee performance will be tied in with health of the company ((read) Damn, we’re fucked!!!)

He stared hard. The debugger danced through the lines of code in harmony for a long time. And then, somewhere in the innards of a for loop, it careened out of control. The exception on the screen looked as unfriendly as the CEO in the video conference screen. Protagonist, rookie programmer, rubs his brow. Breathes hard. God knows what the code means. God knows what the error means. If only he had bothered to read that ‘Be a Java god man in 21 days’ book from the library. Or better still, if only he had chosen a better career. Tensed and quivering, he reaches down and restarts the machine. The blanking; the restart; the stupid Windows start-up music. He runs the code; and voila, it works. The golden tenet of software programming had worked again. The one that is handed down from one generation to the other but mentioned not once in any book on computer science – when in doubt, restart the computer.

Code compilation. Production roll-out. And imagine. Bits of data figuratively skimming through the lines of code. Transactions happening. Flags turning from 0 to 1. More transactions happening.

In distant somewhere a grumpy customer clicks a button and the whole damn thing does what it’s expected to do. And in distant somewhere in the corporate coffers, a penny is saved. And another. And another, until it is a million USD.

In 2008 a bullet point on the erstwhile rookie programmer’s resume summarizes it all – ‘’Successfully initiated and executed system improvements to re-engineer process methodologies of a critical system to realize cost savings of up to 1 million US dollars’.

Wow, what profoundness.

Conversations with the alter ego (Flashback series)

2009-05-22T00:10:00.000-07:00

‘Heard you’re writing for the ISB blog and all’, altar ego snapped suddenly, breaking the calm of the mid night nothingness.

‘Eh…..ya’, I replied uneasily. I hate it when he appears uncalled and unexpected. Just when you don’t want questions. Just when you don’t want conversations.

‘And I heard it’s this glorified story of how you mere mortal transformed into this Kryptonite eating B school grad of sorts. Of how you can read Adam Smith beyond page 26 and solve optimization problems that have double integration signs and Greek symbols you don’t even know how to pronounce’, he laughed. I hate that laugh. That questioning laugh. Sarcasm, derision and all things negative written all over it.

‘How do you know?’, I wanted to ask. But what the hell; he’s my bloody other half. How would he not know?

‘I know it because I know it’, he giggled.

And even before I could interject, he continued ‘So what’s it gonna be like. The Harvard Business Review meets Economist kinda articles eh? Think of you sitting in front of your laptop pouring over HBR articles for inspiration, just because your blog submission is due by 12 o clock’. Laughter.

‘Hey, hey, wait a minute’, infuriated me quips back.

‘And do write one of those wishful thinking ‘If I were a consultant, I would wear Giovanni to work everyday’ kinda articles as well. If not perspective, they will at least add humour’ he continued, like my voice never carried at all.

I had half a mind to smash the face peering out of the mirror with that questioning snigger plastered all over.

‘Listen. I don’t think you’re ever gonna get this but what makes you think I am gonna make this a blow your trumpet space for godsake. All this aims at is to give a perspective to life in a B school. And I swear it’s gonna be as interesting as any of those 150 other book versions plaguing the roadsides screaming perspectives from a B school grad. But I swear I’ll be different. For one, I’ll give a perspective – to life, the times and all that jazz’, I screamed profoundly.

Laughter. Uproarious laughter.

Sound of shattering glass. I hate it when he laughs like that.

There are no stitches; but take rest, the doctor told me. And I am still trying to convince the housekeeping guys that it was the freakin dynamites at Gachibowli that made the mirror mysteriously fall onto my hands and shatter. I don’t think they are buying it. Damn.

Vote of Thanks

2008-03-16T02:57:00.000-07:00

Holy fuck. Here I am skimming through my blog posts for 2008 and the first thing that strikes me is that, it’s been a ‘whine’ trip all along. An overdose of pining for old times and reminiscing all that is not current and happening. So I stopped mid way through my next post which was shaping up on similar lines and decided to write something more befitting my age and all that.

Ok, I guess I have got to be honest and also tell you that I was looking for a reason to do this one. And when buying a new pair of jeans and turning one year with the blog (both of them ecstatic, commerative happenings nevertheless) did not qualify as reason enough for a thank you note, I was almost getting frustrated. When do I get to do an impromptu Oscar like speech, I whined. And then it happened, making it to business school. This has to be big enough for a thank you note I told myself. Decent financial liabilities stacked up. The effort of writing a letter of resignation in less than 600 words (I don’t think anyone read it, to be honest). And the looming prospect of pouring over Adam Smiths’ ‘The Wealth of Nations’ has to be freakin big enough (if not exciting enough) to thank the people who made it possible. And if it is not, then I care a damn. I am going ahead anyways.

So without much further ado,

I’d like to thank mom and dad, for safekeeping all the documents and wiring them by the most reliable forms of postal service known to man, so that I could apply for the darn course in the first place. Thanks also for not questioning why the fuck I planned to spend double of what I earned over five years for a one year course. Thanks really for not asking because I don’t think I know myself.

To cousin, who despite seeming dangerously unreliable to start with and despite have a clogged theatrical itenary, managed to wire that one last document so that I could scramble home in the nick of time before the application deadline. Phew!!!

Freak. They want all the documents scanned. And in 300 dpi and some specific godforsaken resolution. Cometh the hour, cometh the man. To Kini, who unfettered and for one quarter chicken at Nandos alone, helped me with all the scans.

Cometh the hour and the fuckin man disappears. Suddenly realized that I needed one more document scanned and the man is holidaying in some Parisian boulevard. To John G, for being there when the most reliable are not around :)

To Prad, for cooking great food; keeping me away from the kitchen like I were the human form of bubonic plague and letting me swipe his credit card - not once, not twice but many a time. I am sure I paid him back and all. Atleast as far as I can remember. Next.

To SS, who was sweet enough to ask me time and again if I wanted to use her credit card. And who knew I’d be reticent and so asked again.

To KSP, who gave me some Ferris wheel analogy in the dead of the night, to prove why I would end up trumps and all.

To Bebo, who through many a random conversation proved to me that if I don’t make it, I don’t really lose a shit. The sun would still continue to rise in the east and Sainsbury would still continue selling bread.

To LM who I sincerely hoped would not take off on a holiday when it was time to send in the reco. I still owe you a pint by the way. And to GD who said ‘Tu do lik, me do liktha hu’ when it came down to his share of recos. Thanks for writing in the good words.

To Bindi and AR, who on the way to Fatsos one night, told me ‘Arre, what nonsense, why will you not make it?’ Such questions never have answers. Thankfully.

To Seige and Suri, for telling me – ‘Bob, tell you what. It’s all a bloody hogwash’. Probably is. And when I am through it and realize bloody prophecy in your words, we can all say in unison and in a louder voice – ‘It’s all a bloody hogwash’.

To Paaps. For being Paaps. For showing me that when you want something, you just go for it. And if you fall down enroute, you just get up and go for it all over again. And who despite knowing how unrelenting I would be, called me and tried convincing me that Manchester is where I should be heading. All the best for your year ahead at Manchester brother.

And to all others, who I have comfortably not mentioned but know they had a fuckin role. Thanks ya’ll.

(Bow) (Applause)

And I thought I was a self made man!?!

P.S: Freak!!! lest I forget and end up looking thankless. To Nick’alaus who signed on the dotted line. And MP who searched in vain for his Tax return forms. Thanks.

The old neighborhood

2008-03-08T23:39:00.000-08:00

The 1980’s is a long time back. So long time back, that I can only think of it in grayscale. Nascent memories; many of which I think, are mere fancy sub conscious fabrications and nothing more, flash by on recall like reality itself. Like say, images of me shrouded in a blanket and gasping for air on that ferry to the ancestral home. Grandmother had died. I was but a few months old. Winds lashing. Rain pouring down in angry torrents. Signs apparently were so ominous, that even the oarsman feared for the little one’s life. But as it appears, the little one gasped; and gasped hard, and lived on to tell this tale.

But wait a minute. I was but a few months old at that time. And there is no way I can have a visual image of that scene. Funnily enough though, I do. Etched, clear and crystal. How can that ever be so, ponders the pragmatic side of me. Pat comes the answer. No Freudian logic involved here. The image is but a picture reconstructed from oft repeated hearsay I say. Conjured up by the creative mind, to scale up to the melodrama that the scene demanded. That’s all.

Ok, disclaimer. The reader is at this stage forewarned, that if you find me speaking eloquent about the early eighties, Woodstock 69 and the man on the moon, remember, it’s merely reconstructed from other people’s stories. So if you happen to spot something to the effect of ‘When I was a year old, I remember the blooming gulmohars lining the promenade. Crimson and lilac, fluttering in the wind like colours on a painter’s canvas……..’, remember it could very well be bullshit.

*******************************

The Bangalore real estate scene in the sixties was as lukewarm as lukewarm can be. People gently enquired in good quintessential Bangalore spirit, if you wanted a plot of land in ‘modern day as costly as Sunset Boulevard’ Indiranagar. ‘Why don’t you take it sir; you can pay me later’, some shortsighted gentleman had offered father. Circumspect and risk averse, dad very myopically replied ‘Very generous of you sir. But I am fine, thank you. And further more, who will stay so far’. And those were the days when the wallets were thin and aspirations of settling down in the city minimal. (Talk about foresight and sound financial planning. Godammit.)

A decade or so later, father was still working in Bangalore. And when familiarity with the city and matrimony, both happened, he eventually decided to buy this flat which has been home for the last 27 years. It was spanking new, cousin tells me. And the strong smell of whitewash ensured the cold that I perennially had, stayed with me like an alter ego.

A wild undergrowth of parthenium flourished in the neglected land in front of our multistoried building in those days. ‘I have seen snakes in there’, cousin claimed confidently of a distant past which I am sure he never did see. But whether it was that or the constant tirade of ‘how many times to tell you not to go near those bushes chasing the ball. You will end up with rashes I tell you’, I do not know, but the early days were all spent playing along the fringes and hoping the ball did not roll into the uninviting wilderness.

*****************************

As years ticked by, and the school routine kicked in, I remember the parthenium shrubs had cleared out. A barbed wire fencing, made a feeble attempt by the corporation to convert the clearing into a park. And whether it was the grass or the gravel I know not, but the rubber ball used to turn at Shane Warnian proportions in our evening games of cricket. We would come back home and keep records; cousin and me. And he would always claim my 100 against Azib, the neighborhood bloke would not qualify. ‘You ran the last 20 runs without even hitting the ball’, he would assert himself. ‘But it was getting dark and he said it was ok. I swear.’, I would argue. What an unfair world it was, in those days.

We shifted to playing at grounds further away from home as we grew a bit older. It somehow seemed a little too childish to play in front of your own home. We were big boys now you see. And what’s more, the cover drives now had more power, so why put your own window panes at risk.

******************************

The rains washed down. The occasional hailstorms showered. The sun on summer days shined unrelenting. The plasters came off. And the odd pipes broke. The storm drains overflowed and new kids replaced old ones on the same track where the ball spinned square. Familiar people disappeared, new ones appeared. You walk down the flight of stairs and it still at times transports you back to images in grayscale. It’s still the same old neighborhood but in a changed time. And there will always be memories of a distant past; hidden in every bend and turn.

But for now, it’s time for me to disappear like all those people who disappeared before me. Into some place new, where someone else will sigh and tell – ‘old faces disappear and new ones appear’.

And you thought they were extinct

2008-02-19T10:16:00.000-08:00

‘Auto’, I waved half heartedly. And as luck would have it, he stopped. ‘Domlur barthera? (‘Will you come to Domlur?)’, I asked gingerly. And stared, mute concentration and all that, for the response to unfold. Now what we’re talking about is a complex discipline I tell you; what with half the time, the response not even being verbal. Though you are likely to have subtle variations, there are a few I have managed to comprehend over the times. There is the ‘you are the scum of the earth’ kinda feeling inducing change the gear and rocket away response (which in auto driver parlance is a dismissive no). Then there is the look the other way and pretend you did not hear anything thingy (which is non verbal for ‘f**k you’ I gathered). You can have variations to this of course, where yours truly could end up staring at the khaki clad devil incarnate continue with his article in the Prajavani or pick away at his ear with a match stick. You melt away as a non entity and wonder what you did wrong. You also have the Clint Eastwoodian smile of derision (which roughly translates to ‘you really thought I would come, ya?’). And not to forget the very cocky but confident – ‘Yelli Domlura. Shivajinagar hogthaidhni (Where Domlur? I am heading towards Shivajinagar)’. I didn’t ask you for a drop godammit.

So there I was asking ‘Domlur Barthera’ and waiting. The ginger bearded man in the driver’s seat looked bored. He let my words sink in slowly as his mind contemplated the decision. It almost looked as though his mind was a separate entity altogether of which he was no part whatsoever. But despite appearing non committal, he flicked on the meter (which in auto driver parlance is – ‘hop right in, you lucky bastard. You just caught me in the right mood’). Surprising how communicative body language can sometimes get.

The new age Bangalore auto rickshaw’s I gathered now have nameplates. And the ginger bearded man answered the call of Akbar. I sat there peering at his curriculum vitae as he weaved through the maddening traffic. Every column duly filled in – from residential address to driver’s license validity. The only column unfilled was blood group!!! Fill that in, I wanted to yell out for christsake. And put mine in as well. Especially considering the way he was riding.

************************

Traffic had grinded to a halt. Some bloke in a huge SUV had obviously thought that lane discipline does not apply to him. And stuck now, like a rabbit in the spotlight, he was getting the choicest abuses from all and sundry. Akbar necked out, shook his head in frustration and rendered a few neat ones addressed at his lineage.

******************************

The morning daily had laid out a table reminiscent of the Clark’s logarithmic table from school time. The oil prices per gallon had sky rocketed; claimed the government. Why should it reflect in auto fare hikes; retorted the opposition. How complex is the conversion table; worried me. From the look of things, it looked fairly complex. And intricately mathematical. Further more, all new rates seemed to diabolically end at such numbers that you had very little chance of getting any change back. But amidst all my worrying, we had suddenly found this unhindered stretch of road which Akbar gleefully lapped up in Schumacherian style. I jumped off the auto, mentally preparing myself for that culminating act of any typical auto commute – a WTF haggling session with the unscrupulous villain. The meter was reading a healthy 25 rupees. I handed Akbar a 50 and waited. He took his time; slowly rummaged in his pocket and handed me the change. Two notes of ten and a fiver!!! ‘Rate jasti agilva? (Has the rate not increased?)’ I enquired in disbelief. ‘Table thagondila saar (have not got my copy of the table yet sir)’, he replied in gentlemanly nonchalance. Agreed, it’s not just the giant pandas and the Olive Ridley turtles, but also gentleman auto drivers that are a rapidly turning extinct specie. But there is the odd glimmer of hope. May his tribe increase.

Goodbye and so long

2008-02-05T09:26:00.000-08:00

I shuffled uneasily as dad asked for the 18th time if the passport was safe in the cabin luggage. ‘Don’t forget to take it out when you get to the ticket counter’, he continued. ‘And be safe with it’. I nodded; even monosyllabic replies were getting to be a drag. It was a couple of minutes past ten and the Asianet news bulletin was running without an audience. Today it was not a point of contention. The remote lay strangely orphaned. There was no me screaming for it to be switched to something less important; something more exciting; something that’s not red flagged protesters marching on the streets of Trivandrum in the name of news. But there was that strange ‘you watch what you want’ silence today that was uneasy. The tiff for television monopoly was better. Can I have it back please, I hoped. Leaving home can never be easy, can it?

I stared through the cab window as we whistled through the silent night. Familiar territories. And memories. All streaming past at 60 kilometers per hour. And in a jiffy they’d be all gone. And new landscapes will appear out of glass windows. Unfamiliar and alien.

***************************

There was a cool breeze in the air when I got off the cab. The sky inky blue and all that. More paranoid questions from dad. Let me go get my boarding pass and check in the luggage, I suggested to break the stifling silence. Baggage counters; the waiting for the validation and the printing of the boarding pass. Can I have a window seat please? Bored looking policemen on night shift. The news re-run streaming grainy on the television set. I am my dad’s son. Paranoia. I check if the ticket in my hand reads London as it should. Metal detectors. How I fuckin hate them. The buckle of my god damn belt and the beeping; and the frisking. I got no hash on me, I swear it. All clear and I get a move on. Dumbschmuck me now realizes that the outside world is cordoned off. I call mom on the mobile and tell her to take care. I shall be back. In a year. Or probably a bit longer. Tears probably welling up in her eyes and all that. I sit there in the airport lounge trying to concentrate on the television. It’s a blur.

***************************
[A year and a half later]

I rolled over and stared at the clock. The gloom outside, the fully drawn curtains and the lazy subconscious self had all plotted to betray the reality that was nine o clock. I tugged at the duvet and hoped today was not today. Why could it not be one of those normal days where nothing really happened; where you could go through the motions like in a well rehearsed play, knowing fully well what would happen next. A year and half is a long time. That ‘I think I should go back home’ moment had materialized. But like an actor who when its time for the curtains to be drawn, I had that ‘let me live on; don’t turn the lights off me’ feeling.

Tomorrow I shall be airborne and the day after I shall be home. And this brick walled house at the end of Hall Road will only be a place I once lived in. The eighty year old neighbour, whom I scarcely met, will probably never again be seen. And all those regular people, whom you crossed paths with but never spoke to, will dissolve from the memory like salt in water. There are bags to pack, goodbye’s to tell and a new life to look upto. And despite what they say about how you can come back to any place, can’t help but think - can I ever come back to this place in this time?

Turning on the lights

2008-02-02T09:48:00.000-08:00

November can be a nasty month. Not because it’s cold. But because it reminds you that it will get colder. You walk to work in the morning, and it’s dark and overcast. And it’s still dark and probably even raining, when you return back after all the inanities at office. Those little pockets of sunshine (if at all they happen) will very often go unnoticed. But not that you miss much. The sunshine that happens, is likely to be that impotent shining that has more potential to frustrate you than make you happy. So what do you do? Devise your own ways of staying chirpy – how about pulling down the blinds, stocking up on hot coffee and staring at sunny Barbados on the internet.

But then, it’s not all gloom in November outside of the internet. You apparently realize there is Christmas. Suddenly there is new vigor. Suddenly there is something to look forward to. There are jackets to buy and Christmas trees to deck up. Carols to practice and Christmas puddings to select from racks at Marks & Spencer. Can you believe it, there is even a ceremony to officially turn on the festive lights!!! So there I was - part of this happy, warm congregation of woolen wearing families in front of the council building, watching the mayor go through his little act of hogging the limelight. And the families were there in full attendance. Little ones in pink fleece jackets and chubby cheeks; incessantly asking their fathers ‘When will Santa Claus come?’. To which bespectacled fathers, with bed time story voices would reply ‘Very soon my love. Very soon’. The mothers meanwhile, would stand there with their pearly smiles smelling ever so brilliant in the latest pre Christmas offerings of Ghost and Calvin Klein.

********************************

As the itenary proclaimed, at the stroke of seven, the choir came out and did a rendition of ‘Santa Claus is coming to town’. It sounded as happy as happy can get. The third girl in the second row was hot. And as much eye candy as eye candy can be. Anyways, we digress. More songs happened; more festive fervor happened; and in a moment of unstoppable elation, the mayor pushed down the plunger and set the lights alight. Jarrolds stood there, shining like one of those Swarowski crystals it houses; Gentleman’s walk sparkling like the queen’s necklace; firecrackers lighting up the sky in magnanimous orchestrated splendor; confetti spraying down like snow flakes from heaven. How nice it is I tell you. I step into Marzano to pick up coffee and I could hear the mayor winding up his speech with Christmas wishes. Brown sugar or white, I deliberate. Or on second thoughts, why not try the sweetener? More deliberation and moments later - the lights are all twinkling and the streets are all empty. What the fuck happened I wonder. And to think that they’d be people on the streets today (other than drunken teenagers of course) after eight o clock. And to think that shops would be open well after sundown. And to think……fuck it; where are all the people, I can’t help but ask. Back at King’s Arms. Or Cricketer’s Nest. Or The Coachmakers. Or wherever they are serving beer and showing Manchester United play Aston Villa. That’s it for the ceremony. It’s another quiet night at the Blighty. And as for the lights…..well, they’ll be on till New Year’s, no worries. Merry Christmas. Hope Ronaldo scores.

Last Christmas Part-2

2007-12-16T14:19:00.000-08:00

Er…so where were we. Ya, the weather. It was rubbish. When I walked into office that morning, haversack and all, BBC was still discussing gloom and darkness. The man in front of me in the bus was reading the weather section despite Wayne Rooney having scored a brace or some such thing in page 48. What was wrong with everyone? And why should flights get cancelled in shitty weather? Once you take off and reach 1500 feet, you don’t see anything anyways, do you?

But then there are worse things that you can do. Like for example - it’s a dumbschmuck idea when you decide to go on your Christmas holiday direct from office. When it’s time to leave, it all turns out that you are the most important person in the whole darn world. Applications crash, some fool who should be on his Christmas break, wants inane information immediately and everyone whom you know, even if it is blokes whom you mumble ‘how are you’ at the coffee vending machine, has an awakening that tells them that you (of all people) need to send them some document. What fuckin document?

A few abuses from the rest of the gang later, we realize that when its 24th of December, cab drivers are not twiddling their thumbs and waiting for you to be driven down to the station. ‘One hour mate’, the man at the cab office said grumpily. And even before you could negotiate and tell him that the train by then would be coasting past Ipswich, he bangs the phone down in high octane irritation. Merry Christmas.

***************************

What followed later were moments of sheer madness. What do we do now? Did you tell the cab guy to come anyways. What for? The train would have gone by then. So what? What so what, you fool. How about the bus at Peachman Way. Never seen one in the last 12 months. Oh look its coming. Why is this fool carrying so much luggage. Oh fuck the handle broke. Does it go the station please? Seven tickets. Wait I am coming. Eight. Phew!!! just made it da.

But the driver of route number 18 was not a god send. Neither was he in a hurry. So what if it takes 22 minutes to reach the station instead of 20. Thank you very much for the false hopes, driver of the bloody bus. It’s always a great sight to see a train disappear at the far bend into the horizon. Except ofcourse when you are supposed to be on it. But 25 more quid and we were all aboard the next train to Heathrow. We had missed the cab, missed the train and now we had a flight.

*************************

Heathrow terminal 4 was a refugee camp. Long serpentine queues. Policemen at their wits end. Airport officials distributing blankets and coffee. Can I have Café mocha please, two sachets sugar? The newspapers had talked about the blankets. And I have a strange feeling that some of the boys had brought along bigger bags keeping the blankets in mind. But as it turned out, it seemed more like a foil used to wrap your sandwiches rather than yourself. But we weaved past a few policemen and cleverly made it to the make-shift shelter. A young man in official uniform stood mike in hand, announcing like he were the MC at the Tyson-Holyfield bout at the Mandalay Bay – BA flight SX146 to Geneva …….cancelled. And there would be a sigh. And a few screams. And a few German abuses. The Swiss Air flight LX714 to Frankfurt……cancelled. Emotions repeat.

‘But how can they do this’, the German lady standing alongside was telling me. “I want to be with my parents for Christmas’.

‘Where are you heading to?’, I asked in cumulative interest.

‘Zurich’, she said. ‘What? I asked.

And just then, the man with the mike continued – ‘Swiss Air flight LX315 to Zurich….(pause)…..Delayed. Phew!!!

Probably it was our joy. The German lady who had booked BA looked at me and said – ‘You going Zurich? Not cancelled? How can they do this?’ WTF.

******************************

More serpentine queues. More waiting at the airport lobby. And the usuals at the boarding pass counter. Ya, that’s my surname. Ya that’s unpronounceable. Ya just fuckin give me the ticket. But we were there at last. Strapped snug in our Swiss Air flight. And through the window we could see nothingness. But they took off never the less. And they served good sandwiches with good cheese and also gave more Swiss chocolates when shamelessly asked. And Zurich was sunny and beautiful. And everyone who was less than 100 meters away was visible. What joy. Merry Christmas.

****************************

P.S: Incidentally, a small milestone has been reached – this was the 50th post. Thanks to all who’ve bothered to come back. If you’ve bothered to comment as well, then you’re a star.

Last Christmas - Part 1

2007-11-25T14:57:00.000-08:00

Down here in the Isles, there are dull days and then there are duller days. Clouds loom; the wind blows at a couple of knots and you’re generally dressed like you are headed on an expedition to the Artic. Stores in the city centre are displaying their autumn winter collection and you’re sill struggling to wonder how any amount of fashion can make you look smart in a skullcap.

But the script is not entirely one of gloom and lack of sunshine I should say. Every now and again, the BBC forecasts bright sunshine and clear skies with the same amount of enthusiasm as the arrival of Santa Claus, reindeer et al. And on that odd sunny day, you must be a darn fool if you don’t rip off your T shirt, put on your army dungarees and head to Hyde Park glasses of lager in hand. To lie around and do nothing in general, lest you ask ‘For what?’. But all said and done, along with your sunscreen lotion, you might be well advised to stuff your slinger bag with a foldable umbrella as well. Just in case.

***************************

Anyways, December last year was not one of those sunny bohemian days. Ever since we got onto Expedia and got conned into buying the most expensive air tickets to Zurich, the weather had progressively deteriorated. We cared not for the weather as much as we did about every other bloke who claimed he managed to get return tickets for as much as we paid one way. We’re going Swiss Air we tried consoling ourselves; but resisting the urge to shoot the one who clicked the confirmation button on that Expedia deal was still considerably difficult.

But the week leading up to the Swiss land trip ended up turning more dramatic than we would have liked. Weather turned bad to rubbish. Visibility from poor to ‘am I blind?’ types. Flights were getting cancelled helter-skelter. Talk shows on BBC1 were discussing the woes of not having additional runways in Heathrow. And finally, when it reached a stage, where you could hardly see your colleague sitting next to you in office (mild exaggeration), we knew things were turning tragic. Buying expensive tickets and feeling cheated is one thing. But buying expensive tickets and not getting to go even, is god level sadness.

**************************

Two days prior to Christmas. Phone rings.

“Hello Guls. You ok mate”

“What ok. Did you see the weather forecast?”

“No”, I mumbled fearing what but the worst. If we had hoped for things to clear out in the lead up to Christmas, we were grossly mistaken. The forecast predicted that visibility was bound to deteriorate to the most superlative form of poor known to man, on the day we were to be strapped snug on our Swiss Air flight. I looked out of the office window. It almost seemed like we were acting in some bloody cloud scene for a mythological flick on Doordarshan.

“BBC is all shit”, Guls continued optimistically.” We will check weather.co.uk. I could hear him clicking away at the other end. But when he concluded that all of them are shit, I knew no one was telling a story any different. We were damned; no questions asked. All those BBC coffee table discussions were right. Heathrow should fuckin have more runways. And the Kyoto protocol should be signed by all. If needed at gunpoint. And if none of the above, then Swiss air pilots should have IR vision to navigate flights through black nothingness. Please.

The weather man up there is a sadist

2007-11-18T14:30:00.000-08:00

The clouds rolled in from the west; from the east; from a hundred different directions – dark and vicious. And when they collided with one another, a great rumbling happened. Why does the great rumbling happen when two fluffy blobs of cotton clouds collide, I ruminated? Wind swept scraps of paper and sent them twirling into the sky like confetti. Tree branches swayed like possessed dancers. And then it rained. Big, fat drops pounding into the dry earth, whipping up that sweet smell of wet sand. I peered out of the window. The kids playing cricket had disbanded their stone slab wicket and run for cover. The banana seller was frantically pulling a blue polythene cover over his cart. The boys from the dhobi ghat scampered making vain attempts at saving their just dried clothes from the clothesline. It was sudden. One drop followed another in a rapid free fall. In a few minutes, the flat in front of me had turned colour. Damp dark patches conquering the wall space in a hurry. Small puddles formed on the ground. And then they merged in magnetic alacrity with other small puddles; becoming bigger pools of water. Mother was asleep; after endless hours in the kitchen. I seized the opportunity to tiptoe to the kitchen for hidden treasures. Why does she always keep the green box with the goodies in it on the top shelf, I wonder?

I tiptoed many more times. Treading the tightrope that separated calculated risk from sure shot hara-kiri. And through all the misadventures, it had continued raining. The storm drains in the distance were overflowing. Muddy water was gushing down like in Noah’s times. The rain showed a few promising signs of petering down giving the neighborhood brats an opportunity to vet their maritime skills. Paper boats were gliding downstream one after the other like in the Pirates of the Caribbean. Everything was beginning to look washed and new. Father would be back from work at five. And just when it seemed like a well timed shower, at ten minutes to five it started all over again. Why can it not wait a bit, I cringed and wondered. Why can it not stop for a while, just so that father can walk back home from the bus stop. So that I don’t have to go, one umbrella aloft, another one in hand, because father had not bothered taking one to office again. And this, despite his perpetual paranoia for impending thunderstorms. But it is all mere wishful thinking. The rain kept penciling down in sheer dissent.

‘Just take the umbrella and go will you’, mother shouted out from the kitchen. ‘It’s time for your father to be back’.

***************************

And I am pretty convinced the weatherman up there, controlling the shower knob has a skewed sense of humour. Who does not like the idea of me tucked up cozy with handfuls of thieved butter biscuits. And so I go through the cold and unwelcome ordeal. Jumping over puddles; making vain attempts at keeping myself dry as every passing automobile plays splash-splash. But when I get back, trouser bottom irritatingly wet and all, it’s all over. The knobs have been turned off. Can’t help but bloody ask – Why does it have to rain at 5 o clock only?

7:10 to Liverpool Street (Part - 2)

2007-11-10T10:33:00.000-08:00

There are more rail maintenance weekends in the UK than maintenance free ones, I tell you. Health & Safety, as Jeremy Clarkson rightly points out, has probably gone to great lengths to ensure that no one will ever die in a rail accident hence forth. But chances are, the odd traveler will still die. Out of the sheer boredom of jumping off trains, getting onto replacement buses and boarding more trains again, all for traveling as little as a hundred miles.

Now let’s get the picture. On a maintenance free weekend (this is assumptive and fictitious. Such weekends do not exist), the logical way of reaching Z from X would be:

X -> Y -> Z

But on a normal weekend (read rail maintenance weekend), your casual pleasure trip would seem as convoluted as this:

X -> W -> V -> U -> ……….. -> A -> Z (Hurray!!!!)

Now if you thought I was exaggerating, then you’re mighty mistaken. When I got a travel itenary printed out along with my 11 pound ticket, I knew things did not look ominous. One look at the itenary and I was already beginning to feel like an Amazing Race participant on AXN. Train ride to neighbouring town Ipswich (40 mins). Hop onto replacement bus service to Marks Tey (40 mins). A train would mysteriously manifest itself in Marks Tey they said and take me to Stratford (58 mins), wherein I would need to go underground to eventually reach Mecca in a shade under 3 hours. I even asked at the counter if I could make a de tour in the middle somewhere so that I can reach Harwich and take the sea route to Southend-on-sea and then make it to London from there;ensuring all modes of transportation are covered as well. But apparently there was maintenance work on the rail route to Harwich. Damn!!!

************************

And considering this journey was happening after an hour of vainly trying to spot the Great Bear and the Orion, I was not obviously in great spirits. And it did not help when one of the fellow star gazers who I had befriended over the long wait, asked for the 17th time that morning – ‘You reckon I got a chance for a coffee in here mate’. ‘Hmmm’, I nodded in a ‘Don’t ask me again’ manner. And for the first time that morning, divine intervention happened with the PA system announcing paninis, sandwiches and coffee at the front end of the train. He rushed off; seeming genuinely pleased at the turn of events. And I was happy coffee happened to him before murder did. The train had picked up speed and grassy knolls were now whistling past in silent early morning splendor.

************************

What seemed most diabolical about the itenary was the journey breaks. They were so planned and timed so as to ensure you would have to change train to bus and train again right in the middle of a short blissful stretch of sleep.

Ipswich happened a few grassy meadows later and very soon I was on a double decker replacement bus, coasting along the A12 to Marks Tey. Now how weird can a place with a name like Marks Tey be. Obviously, it seemed like one of those boring non-descript towns whose claim to fame itself was that replacement bus services to and from Ipswich started and ended here. There was an unfriendly sting in the air by now and a few unruly clouds were already rolling in from across the Channel.

************************

The Stratford bound train seemed strangely empty. I was fairly convinced that we started as a fairly decent crowd back at base camp. And yet there were only two replacement buses awaiting us at Ipswich. And now there seemed even fewer people who had made it to the third leg of the journey. Star gazer friend had made it however, seemingly in better spirits after his early morning caffeine shot. He even sought my advice on whether he should buy his nine year old daughter a mobile phone. ‘Give her a whacking’, I suggested in good earnest. Wonder if he took it.

************************
Stratford an hour later:
Strange as it may seem, many of the flowery skirted Jane Austen type old ladies whom I had thought were lost on the way had resurfaced. I was happy for them, sitting there in their Victorian ways like in a Westend musical. Everyone else looked at everyone else in an empty London sort of way; ears plugged to Sean Kingston singing Beautiful girls or some such thingon their IPods.

10:10. London Liverpool Street. ‘CG, where are you?’, me on the phone.

‘Where are you?’

‘At the station man. You there yet?’ I grumbled.

‘Oh, I am at home da. I was waiting for your call. Will start of right now’.

The freak lives in Hampshire. It was raining outside. The BBC weather forecast was sizing the day up as wet and windy. I sat there for two hours counting the number of whooper burgers that Burger King sold. By the time CG arrived, I had counted 46. I had half a mind to stay till they managed to sell 50. And then of course it would be time for me to catch my return train. Back via Stratford, Marks Tey and Ipswich. What fun.

7:10 to Liverpool Street

2007-11-04T13:41:00.000-08:00

When you are in Britain, the last Sunday of October is a time of great joy. It is when you can wake up at 7 o clock, laugh that hysterical laughter just reserved for very moments such as these, pump your fist a few times; roll the clock back to 6 o clock and go back to sleep. What joy. So it came as an absolute shock to me when I realized that I had a Liverpool Street bound train ticket booked for that very same fateful Sunday. ‘Can I have the earliest possible ticket please’, I had asked like a dumbschmuck. And now that one extra hour of blissful hard earned sleep, that unparalleled joy of turning the clock back like you were Chronos himself was all going to be lost, thanks to an absolute purpose less journey to London.

But the guilt and the despondency were soon shrouded by a question of great profundity. What does 7 o clock on that Sunday morning resolve to. Does it mean 6 o clock or 8 o clock? And is that after or before changing the clock itself? And above all, what for heaven’s sake would British Rail follow. So I went back to the railway counter, confused soul as I was, hoping to seek an answer in the simplest possible layman terms. ‘Don’t change your watch and you should be fine’, the old man at the counter replied. And as though he was this oracle who had just dispensed the route map to the Inca treasure, smiled a wise smile and pressed whatever people at counters press for that metallic sounding voice to announce – ‘Counter number 2 please’(which roughly translates to – Nexxt) Thank you, I mumbled, stepping into a web of re-affirmed confusion.

And to every acquaintance I bumped into on Saturday I posed the very same question – ‘What time do you think the 7:10 train to Liverpool Street will leave tomorrow?’ And all of them nice people, broadly fell into three categories. The evil ones, who smiled that all knowing Buddha smile and replied – ‘Why so much confusion. Obviously, 8:10’. The even more evil ones, who digressed greatly from the actual question at hand and spoke eloquent about the subtleties of BST, GMT and why all of Europe should have one timeline (who the fuck cares?). And the most evil of them all, who made no efforts to hide their sinister smirk and on top of that gave no answer.

***************************

But just when things were finally clearing up, CG called. I duly explained the problem to him and he very duly told me that I should be at the railway station at 5 o clock!!!! ‘Why the fuck for?’, I screamed. ‘Yes bob’, he continued, ranting away at some logic (I think he used Laplace transforms as well if I remember right) to arrive at the fact that I should be there at 5, no less (he even laughed in the middle). The world was not helping me I gathered. ‘You’re all wrong’, I told CG as I hung up. But what worried me most was the fact that however unconvincing he sounded, he had this uncanny ability to eventually end up being right.

***************************

The majority is right, I eventually concluded. We are rolling the clock back. So seven tomorrow should be the eight of today. But since I have been genetically handed down a ‘why take a chance’ attitude, I decided I shall stick by the clock. And the old man’s wise words were also – ‘Don’t change the clock and you should be fine’.

***************************

I got up at 6, so as to be ready for my 20 minute walk to the station by half past. Since I always misjudge the distance and mistimed the walk, I was pretty keen to get it right this time. There was enough evidence in the air that the rolling back the clock exercise was like heralding another winter. 10 to seven and I was at the station. Coke bottles, Pizza boxes all remnants of yesterday’s night life lay strewn on the station walkway. The station door itself was locked - safe and sound (I had never seen a railway station locked in my life before) and the only three folks who stood around were staring blankly at the ink blue sky as if to say we’ve got a lot of time to spare. It was after all just ten minutes to six in the new world. And the train was not due until an hour from now. One thing was for sure, the British rail follows the clock rolled back.

And then we were four of us staring into the inky blue nothingness.

Confession: The train was actually at 7 o clock, but I have made it 7:10 since it sounds more title like. Like Bollywood movies which have names like 'Ek Chalis ki last local'

(may be continued)

Of Beetroots and Broccoli

2007-11-01T16:49:00.000-07:00

When I wrote the ‘Eternal travails of the vegetarian mind’, I instantly knew the vegetarian Mafioso would not take a liking to it. And how right was I. Friends from good vegetarian culinary households where I have enjoyed many a smashing meal, called up to say they had declared fatwa on me. The even more unkind lashed out a ‘Come home and I’ll ensure even a tumbler of filter coffee does not come your way’ threat. So I did a breathe in breathe out routine and decided what I had to decide - to mend my ways. Friends after all are not worth losing you know. And they are definitely not worth losing if the friendship translates to free lunches and what not.

So here I present, the completely organic, vegetarian (no slivers of hidden pink meat and all that) post on (what else) vegetables. But I wanted to make it a little different, so it’s about vegetables that are over hyped; it’s about vegetables that I do not like; it’s about vegetables that look brilliant in cookery books and Khana Khazana episodes, but end up tasting like WTF. So without much further ado, ladies and gentlemen, may I present……..

*****************************

If ever there is a vegetable that has a confused identity, one that makes it to the vegetable basket and yet hollers out to be called a fruit, it is this one. You stand in your kitchen desk and wonder where you’d accommodate him into the grand scheme of things. Blood red, attractive and a total let down. Add him to a curry and he’ll add colour and dampen flavour. Which of course is a double crime because all it ends up then being, is a visual con job. Now who for heavens sake will make him understand that it’s a goddamn curry I am trying to make and not a fuckin dessert. So what do you do with him eventually – you use him to make a decorative salad which can duly be thrown into the back garden (where he’ll germinate into many more of himself adding to future woes and ‘what do I make out of him’ moments in the kitchen) after the meal is over. Beetroot poriyal, did someone say. Can you please stand up while I load my revolver.

*****************************

The closest my family ever got to being Punjabi was when they christened me. And god bless them for that or I’d have been subjected to one of those uncontrollable laughter inducing Mallu names which are fun to listen to and painful to own. So what if I did have a Punjabi trace in me, I have often wondered. Food options for example would have meant washing down Puttu and Kadala breakfasts with a chilled glass of lassi. But not to forget, it would have also meant a constant sense of confusion as to whether it is parantha with a nasal ‘n’ or porotta with a big stress on the double ‘t’. But since Punjabi I am not (in myth or otherwise), I was pretty much spared the reason to lunch on mooli(radish) ka parantha or mooli ka whatever else. Our next candidate to make it to the Ignoble list of veggies, is also incidentally an underground root vegetable. (What the hell is wrong with them, I say?) One deceiving bite and the contorted expression on your face is already a priceless photographic moment.

****************************

I’d come back home after waging war with the neighborhood kids to the smoky crackle of mustard seeds in hot oil. We were still debating the pros and cons of fitting an exhaust fan in those days and dad had promised mom that it figured prominently in the procurement list for the next five year plan. I’d rummage every empty container at home until hunger manifested into its not so friendly other form – anger. ‘Mee(Mom) whats for lunch’, I’d holler. And amidst the crackle she’d shout back – ‘Kaalan’. Now that is precisely what I did not want to hear. Anger would swell up like I were going to explode. An irresistible tendency to pull out the hair on my head inevitably mounted. Can I smash the showcase window? Can I do anything destructive at all please without being whacked? Kaalan – that yogurt based yellow curry with cubes of translucent yellow cucumber (read disgust). ‘Aaarhg’. I scream, venting out my anger at the fact that it’s Kaalan for lunch. Whack. Mom responds, venting out her anger of being in a smoky kitchen with no exhaust fan. And then there is silence. I don’t like yellow cucumber.

******************************

I am a strong believer that we should leave the leaves for the four legged herbivores. I mean it’s only being fair isn’t it. Now despite all the culinary options you have, if you still compete with the bovines for all things leafy, then I’d classify it as outright cheap thrill, what else? (a little bit of lettuce on your burger is pardonable but anything more….). And of all things leafy, the one that is rated pretty highly on my despise list is Palak (Spinach). Now how bad can something be, when in its company even good old Paneer tastes a bit funny. And in case you’re interrupting me with the ‘it’s healthy’ card, then please note that I’ve already read about the 2006 E coli breakout in the US – all because of (hold your breath) Spinach. Imagine dying after eating Palak Paneer with roti one fine Friday evening. How sad is that?

*******************************

If you see a bonsai like floret jutting out of your ceramic ware, you are well advised to stay as far from it as the bubonic plague. It’s the one ingredient that can give your otherwise non-descript dish a continental tag. But that apart, its contribution from the gastronomic angle is pretty much close to zilch. Oh btw, if you are a pseudo upper class house wife with a penchant for anything continental, please do buy your broccoli. And then you can have conversations such as these:

‘Arre, I picked up a kilo of Broccoli from Namdhari’s today. It was coming at 80 rupees a kilo you know’

‘Oh is it? At Nilgiris it was hundred the last time I bought it’

‘Husband loves it ya. I made this continental dish they showed on the telly yesterday and it was so nice you know’

*****************************

Bon Appetit.

*****************************

P.S: Now since I have patched up, with all and sundry, lunch and dinner invites are expected. I can be contacted at pmpreeth@gmail.com. Thanks.

Where is the love?

2007-10-21T15:19:00.000-07:00

Love happens in unsuspecting classrooms during boring Geography classes; love happens at the office coffee vending machine where the coffee itself is insipid and very short on sugar; love happens with dweller in opposite balcony even if dad of doe eyed beauty is grumpy owner of an old wooden hunting rifle. Crux of it is – love happens in the most commonplace of places in the most expected of times. And when it happens, the sense and sensibility section in the attic is shut down until further notice and the hormones are kicked into a vigorous state of overdrive. Dopey eyed Bollywood movies are suddenly making you all marshmallow mushy on the inside and you just can’t seem to step out of home (even if it is to pick up Deccan Herald from the corner store) without dabbing on cologne.

Ok fine, what we are talking about here is the kind of phenom that happens when your age has still not yet shed the trailing teen at the end of it. Point taken. Even I was digressing I realize. Because what I am actually pondering over is the next phase of Cupid strike; the one that happen to junta when in the marriageable zone. Question pondered over is, what is it that happens first in such cases – the compatibility check and then love or love and then compatibility check. Compatibility check, what you ask me. Caste, creed, sub sect, sub-sub sect, the works. The complete taxonomic drill down, that would have made even Karl Linnaeus look semi-pro.

****************************

Iyengar classmate doing masters in the States has fallen in love and is getting married you hear. Oh brilliant. The same dude who refused to even eat with us at restaurants, only because fourteenth item on the menu was Sheekh kabab. Please tell me his love interest is Mallu Syrian Christian. Or even better, tell me she’s Chinese and they apparently fell in love over a C program. ‘No, da, she’s Iyengar as well. Same sub sect and all. Even remotely in the same family tree I hear’. Holy crap. Tell me it’s framed. You can’t find love with such pin point accuracy, I say. And if he’s actually plain lucky to have found love within the clan, should he not try the super lotto?

*************************

P.S: Any resemblance to any character, living or dead is purely co-incidental and in such cases solely for inspiration only. And if the efforts at humour, despite best efforts of the author are still not appreciated, please feel free to let me know and I shall convey the abuses to Siege (who was inspirational in bringing up this topic over lunch today, as I waged a clumsy war, chopsticks in hand)

Angels and Demons - in pint sizes

2007-10-13T15:33:00.000-07:00

It was the summer of 1993 and we had new neighbours. Cousin was shadow fighting, when he looked out of the key hole and saw them moving in. They’ve got a cute chubby little one, he told me later that evening. And true he was. I had confirmation myself, when I was doing errands (quarter kg tur dal and one packet pappadam types) for mom a couple of days later. A smart, smiling couple and the little one, cute and chubby like cousin had described; perched up on daddy’s shoulder with a little pony tail and all. She was mumbling something to her father when I opened the door and barged out. Freeze. Mumbling stops mid sentence and she looks at me; face devoid of any emotion whatsoever. ‘Hello’, the mummy of the little one smiled. I smiled back coyly and ran away. Doing errands in those days were kinda bureaucratic you see; for every errand I ran, I’d eke out enough money for a small five star or a packet of biscuit. Small joys. But just returns for the investment of labour all the same.

A few weeks later, mom brought little Jove home. She was a sweetheart. And cousin and me took turns in carrying her around from one room to the other, showing her things as uninteresting as ‘look ma, fan’ or ‘cow standing there - see’. She sat perched up as I had seen her the first day, devoid of any emotion whatsoever. And clinically, a quarter of an hour later, she would start like an alarm snooze ‘Daddu,daddu,daddu…..’ And our vain attempts at showing her the fan one more would as expected fall face down flat. The ‘daddu’ siren would if not heeded, culminate in a slight curl of the lips and gentle welling of tears in her bead like eyes. At this threshold point in time, we’d open the door and rush out to hand the baby over with a ‘Crying uncle’ explanation.

But kids are kids. And familiarity breeds friendship. So very soon, the stoic silence transformed into a constant flurry (and at times unintelligible) of childspeak. We learnt as much as she did. ‘What bua ma today’, I would ask her. ‘Egg bua’ she would reply, hardly looking up from the magazine on which she was venting her new found interest for Euclidian geometry. Cousin would come back later and be at his wits end on realizing that it was the latest edition of India Today and the drawings graced exactly those articles which he had not read and were not surprisingly, hyper important.

But as I said, kids will be kids. And familiarity will also breed contempt. So there were days when she would come home, as devil incarnate itself. The ‘I want water; I want sugar to mix in water; I want to pour it all over the bed’ kinda days. Or the days when you have Geography exam (complete syllabus) the following day and the little one is constantly banging on your closed ‘please let me study’ door wanting to play a round of that horrid teacher-teacher. Or the days when you actually play teacher-teacher but she would not allow the student (you) to attend class lying down. Those are the days when you want to whack her with plastic ruler, but you can’t because if she cries who the fuck would take her home and pretend as though nothing really happened. You can’t take her home and say ‘She’s hungry uncle. Good night’. Disappear.

***********************

P.S: Jove and folks moved out of the apartment a few years later. But when I met her a year back or so, she was this tall pretty girl whom I would never have guessed was the same one whom I played an improvised form of cricket with many years back. And when I asked ‘How are you ma’, in childspeak, both of us were embarrassed.

So are kids fun? Are kids a menace? I can’t seem to get opinionated about it to be honest.

Inspiration for this blog: Colleague’s daughter who claps her hands excitedly on seeing me every morning, almost as though saying ‘I’m gonna have so much more fun at school than you at office’.

Eternal travails of the vegeterian mind

2007-10-07T10:03:00.000-07:00

If you have friends who are vegetarian, I think you should be kind to their leafy eating habits. After all, vegetarian food is healthy, animal friendly and simplistically no frills attached. However, if you happen to be traveling exotic European nations with your herbivore friends, then you might have a slight problem. Lettuce and tomato are vegetarian agreed, but how the fuck do you convince the bloke at the counter that you do not want the B of the BLT. Anyways, provided they can sort themselves out and live on Croissants and double chocolate chip muffins and let you savour the uninhibited joys of Spanish tapas or unpronounceable ‘what did I just order for’ French entrees’ its all fair and square. Let us assume not, but in case your friends are of the ‘we eat veg’ and of the complaining variety, then I am afraid you’ve got no go but to shoot them. Preferably, at point blank range. Allow me people, to give you a random sample of how life with a minimal sample set of choices can get extremely stifling. Not always for the proud vegetarian alone. But also for the others who unfortunately have to share the table.

*******************************

Scene: Random restaurant somewhere in Bangalore. Table for two. Hunger levels dangerously high. Menu on the table proclaims it’s Chinese. You don’t care. The décor is all dragon like and the place is called Chopsticks. Obviously it had to be Chinese. But simple things not registering. Reason: as mentioned earlier – hunger levels dangerously high.

You run through the menu and there is instant dilation of the pupils. Chicken drumsticks. Probably with silver foil at the end. Probably, four or six pieces; sticking out of the chinaware like the radiating sun. Probably, with a chili sauce dip in the middle. What joy. “Chicken drumsticks da”, you announce more of an order and less of a suggestion. “Good choice. I like drumsticks. Preferably in sambar though”. “One vegetable spring roll, boss”. Order made. Friend looks at you like you never spoke at all. “Veg Hakka noodles or Schezwan fried rice - veg?”

You fumble for the non existent double barrel Heckler and Koch. How you wish…

***********************************

Scene: Zurich, Switzerland. The last couple of days has taught you that in any Swiss city you turn left at the station and the fourth shop on the left has to be a McDonalds. Haha. It is. The first feel of falling snow on your face. You want to convince yourself that it’s a great feeling. You will probably go onto tell it was. But it’s freakin’ cold and the last thing you want to be doing is stupid things like standing in the snow. Veggie friends almost give a high five on spotting McDonalds. You are pissed that you are not trying Nordsee, where the king prawns are big and pink and stately. You settle for a chicken sandwich while the boys order something else that you don’t bother with. Dispensing euros is a new found challenge and we all feel fairly satisfied when it’s done with. I vaguely remember my good TamBram friend telling ‘dinner pramadham’.

The train to Interlaken the following day was at ten past nine. And by Swiss standards that means ten past nine. Not nine past nine or eleven past nine. Veggie boys convince me that because of Swiss train accuracy, we have no go but to pick up breakfast from you know where – fourth shop on the left - McDonalds. We make quick take away purchases and hurry into the plush airline like Interlaken bound train. Hills; vales; floating clouds all whiz past like in a fairyland. Tam Bram friend of mine, is relishing his burger.

‘How is it’, I ask.
‘Too good’ (Chomp. chomp). ‘Had the same thing yesterday. Super pa, so bought two today’.
‘What is it’, I ask.
‘Cheese burger’ (Chomp. chomp).
‘Ok. Cheese burger with what?’
‘Cheese burger with cheese’ (Laughs)
‘Agreed da, but there is a patty in there isn’t it?’
Freeze. More hills, vales and floating clouds whiz past.

Even I don’t eat beef. So we threw the second one at a bin somewhere in Interlaken. Not surprisingly, we didn’t do any more McDonalds on that trip.

*************************

Scene: East Anglia, England. It rained this morning. But it’s alright now. Sun shining brightly and all. The Radio one weather broadcaster predicting a cold stay warm kind of night ahead. How weird is this island, you wonder. Friend beams a 100 watt smile – ‘We have a team party tomorrow’. ‘Oh grand’, I reply. Wattage of the smile increases. ‘Barbeque party’. ‘Oh lovely’, I exclaim. ‘Lucky bastard’, I quip in hush undertones.

Following day I don’t meet him. Barbeque party. Obviously.

The day following day, the smile on friend’s face is surprisingly zero watt like. I need to buy one of those for my study lamp, I make mental note.
Me: “How was the party da”
Friend: “Ok”.
Me: “Food?”
Friend: “All beef and pork man. I only had Walkers chips”

Muhahahaha. Obviously, you fool. You can’t have vegetables being grilled in a barbeque party.

***************************

P.S: Friend in Chinese restaurant, Tam Bram friend and friend with zero watt smile – no offence meant. Seriously :)

P.P.S: Watch this space for more vegetarian tales. And if you don’t see any then it’s solely because I am at gunpoint and this one has not been well received.

Enemy on the wall

2007-10-02T13:45:00.000-07:00

Cousin came running out of the room like he had seen the devil itself. ‘It’s there’, he stuttered; looking as flushed as he generally looks at times like these. I instantly pulled up my dangling legs like a recoiled spring. In the middle of the cot with none of your body parts touching floor or wall, you felt slightly better; safer. Cousin had jumped into the cot as well. It was our safety bunker; far from the dangers lurking on distant walls. The cartoon playing on TV had suddenly turned uninteresting as cousin constantly peered at the bathroom in a ‘we are not safe yet’ manner. It was unsettling. ‘That is a big bastard’, he tells me at last. ‘Must have entered through the mesh door. It’s big and mean and spotted. I was just about to pick the mug and it was there; right on the wall next to me. I was lucky. Or else…’, he stopped mid sentence. I hated it when he stopped mid sentence.

I shivered at the very thought.

Like I shivered when summer vacations came and we visited mom’s relatives in sunny Alleppey. Not that it was a bad place. Nor was it that the folks there were mean. On the contrary, the tranquil rustic charm fascinated little me; used as I was to the prison like confinement of city dwelling. Running to fetch the honey sweet mangoes that fell every now and then with a leafy thud; hurling endless pebbles into the pond with a grim resolve to get that one extra bounce; eating omlettes made from fresh duck eggs , which aunts always claimed were so difficult to get these days. It was all nice and happy; as long as it was bright and sunny and daylight. The horrors started after sundown. I tried staying out for as long as possible. But at nightfall, you had to go back home. Even the hens and the ducks were chased back into their coops. Little me was no exception. I would sit there gingerly, staring at the ceiling. There they were; crawling about in great reptilian splendor. The bloody lizards. Menacing as they looked. Lurking around for the buzzing insects to make that one false maneuver. I would close my eyes every time they lunged for their prey. For fear that they would fall. Somewhere near me, on me, god knows where.

I count once more. Twenty three; twenty four. And the mat is rolled and the bed sheets are spread. There is one behind the tube light. Twenty six. I lie down quickly and cover myself with a blanket. The light is switched off but I know they are still there. Around me. Every where. In the dark, I can still see one lurking reptilian bastard on the ceiling right overhead. Prayer. Closed eyes and a shaky hope that the bloody reptilian grip is firm and trust worthy. And somewhere in time sleep happens and then dawn and then sunlight.

*************************

‘Ok, now stop it you two’, mom scowled, eyebrows raised.

‘Please chase it out’, I plead. And when she realizes that there is no other way to get the two of us on terra firma again she takes out the WMD. But lizards are not meant to be killed it seems. So the broom is deployed to harmlessly chase them away. Cousin courageous ventures out to monitor proceedings. I wait. He would come back, smiling. ‘Chased the bastard out. Should have killed him. If it comes back again I tell you….’

***************************

‘Have you gone to the bathroom yet? It’s time to sleep.’ mom shouts out after dinner.
‘I’ve gone already’, I lie. Why get out of the bed? Why take a chance?

Nice place to be - addendum

2007-09-29T11:51:00.000-07:00

Michelangelo, the great sculptor places his hammer and chisel down, steps away and scrutinizes. The form and expression is alright. The marble from father’s quarry lacks luster these days though. Wonder why, he thinks. It’s over chipped a little near the left hand, and it’ll need a chip or two near the shoulder blade, he made mental note. The unveiling happened at the king’s court the following day. When the silken sash slid off the marble structure, Michelangelo, waited for the prying eyes to scan and exclaim. Exclaimed they did. And in unison – ‘Too much detail missed I say’. And as we pane out of this frame, Michelangelo is seen sitting hand on chin, saying to himself - ‘What the fuck do I do now’.

It’s easier when you’re a blog writer though. When people post reading scream – ‘Ayyo, too much detail missed’, you just scream back and say – ‘Ok fine, I’ll add addendum’. ‘The essence of the city can never be captured in four odd paragraphs I try telling’. ‘Fine, add two more. Six should cover it’ comes reply.

And that ladies and gentlemen, is the inspiration for the addendum.

**************************

Chapter 5: How did I miss these out? Apologies and all that.

Let us put ourselves at the Bible Society end of Mark’s Road and turn the knob on our time machine a fifty years back. Biff!!! South Parade sans road dividers and raging traffic. Tree lined promenades and Lord Cubbon’s park a beckoning green in the distance. It’s fifty years back people and those were the days when traffic junctions were not yet named after leg spinners who with due assistance with Bangalore born umpires took ten wickets in an innings. And Koshy’s is still there; serving hot appams and creamy stew every Sunday morning. You roll back the knob and it’s still there. Another generation at the helm, but sill serving evergreen favorites like in the hey days. It’s quintessentially old Bangalore. And omitting it from a list of this kind would be sheer sacrilege.

Healthiest bar to go to on a Friday night (or Saturday afternoon or Sunday evening) – Sreeraj Lassi Bar. On a summer day, you have to be deft in your movements to tilt the table fan in your direction without the people in the arc noticing; but once that’s achieved, you’re pretty much ready to order. We always tried a Hayward’s 5000 ad simulation back in the college days.
‘One Fruit Salad with ice cream’, I would say.
‘One with double ice cream’, Suri would interject with mean looks and all. It’s not an appreciated stunt but on boring balmy afternoons when nothing happened one moment after another, it’s a harmless self amusement trick that’s worth attempting.

Best sweet tooth moment in a shopping avenue – Bhagatrams. A huge urn the size of a mini coracle and a 100 golden brown jamoons living swimmingly in cardamom laced, pistachio laden sugar syrup. Downing them should well be classified as a class one tier experience but what makes it even more blissful is the total lack of ambience in which you get to devour them. They recently upgraded the dim lit, oily walled, ‘shoulder push people buying khova and halwa’ kinda ambience to a more conservative sweet shop style. What a shame.

Best place to eat biriyani – Last day of exam in schooldays roughly translated to – Chicken biriyani at RR followed by ice cream at Lakeview. Little wonder then that I always scored least on the last paper. You were always in this godamn hurry to get those essay questions out of the way and head to the mecca of Andhra Biriyani. The restaurant however strangely closed down for a considerable period in between and the Nandhini’s and Nagarjuna’s filled in to take its place. [RR has reopened on Church Street in a new age avatar and the food is still mighty good. But that old charm is gone and had they called it by any other name, one really wouldn’t have noticed]

***************************

Chapter 6: Last Course.

75 paisa bun – ‘You are all convent educated Western block fellows maga. You are not aware of the simple joys of Vijaynagar’, Kams ranted. I sniggered and followed him. One storm drain jump later we were at a typical end of the street type Iyengar bakery. I peered at the glass showcase. The usual suspects were all there – desiccated coconut smeared honey cake, chocolate cake with cream made of pure dalda and cocoa powder, huge circular dil pasands, vegetable puffs, an array of savories in glass bottles et al. The smell of freshly baked bread wafted through as the bespectacled, white vest clad, threaded Iyengar looked our way. '75 paisa bun kodi sir’, Kams ordered. The man blinked then bent down and emerged with a golden brown beauty. In a jiffy it was cut into four quarters and served on a morning edition of Praja Vani. ‘Yeshtu’. Kami asked. ‘One tonty-five’. Change disbursed. ‘Adhe maga problemu’ Kams continued, gorging the 75 paisa bun which costed one twenty-five. Legend has it (or so Kams claimed) that this bakery was a local favourite for buns which costed 75 paisa. So despite inflation and all things financial, they decided to call it 75 paisa bun and charge it 1.25. Wonder how much the 75 paisa bun costs today?

Chinese on a budget – Little Chef, Church Street. (No longer there). It was officially what you called – Garage food. You could go in big groups and sit on discarded Ambassador seats and order anything from Chicken lollipop to Egg Hakka Noodles. However one fine day we go to Little Chef and our familiar cashier from Sanman Darshini is at the helm. He beams a hundred watt smile and says –‘Banni sir banni.Evaga navve sir managementu’. We were like –‘Oh super’. But when the Schezwan fried rice had Tomato bath flavours and the Hakka noodles tasted vaguely like the Shavige bath back at Sanman, we decided we may as well save the travel and have the originals.

The end.

Nice place to be (....contd)

2007-09-16T09:45:00.000-07:00

Chapter 1: Massalle!!!!

Best place to go for a jog - Its Sunday. And second week of January is too early to break your New Year resolution. It’s cold. But jog you must. Take the effort. The landscaped parks nearer home are no good. Go for the mother of all oxygen bars – Lal Bagh. It’s my vote for the best place to go for a jog.

Now to the crux of it. Best place for breakfast after jog - Your New Year resolution only talked about exercising. There was no asterisked reference to not eating good rich food with dollops of ghee after rigorous workout. You go by the old clichéd rule of ‘energy can neither be created nor destroyed’. The best place for breakfast after jog – Mavalli Tiffin Room.

Best place for longest wait to eat Masala Dosa – Mavalli Tiffin Room again.

Best place to brag I had Masala Dosa at – lo and behold Mavalli Tiffin Room.

You invariably finish your fast track exercising model (100 meters jog and 300 meters walk) in pretty quick time. Time now to exercise food pipe, digestive system and other internal muscles. They also need exercise you see. It’s seven in the morning. You reach MTR and you get the shock of your life. Half of south Bangalore are waiting hand on belly, grinning ear to ear for their Khara bath and filter coffee to arrive. Two hours is too much waiting time you decide and this is when the next place comes in handy.

Best place to have Masala Dosa in old world style – Its small, non descript and pretty much looks like an R K Laxman cartoon rip off. Sepia toned pictures of great men from bygone eras grace the oily walls (all eating Masala Dosas of course). ‘Right hand only’, you remind Paps. Dosa arrives, divine and golden brown. Ladles of lentil based chutney pours down like a waterfall. ‘Sambhar idhiya’, Paps asks. Sacrilege. No one’s asked that in a hundred years at Vidhyarthi Bhavan. Waiter glares. If looks could kill, he’s freakin ash. You continue eating like you disowned him a long time back. Vidhyarthi Bhavan, Basavangudi – the best place to eat masala dosa under SM Krishna photographs and all that.

***************************
Chapter 2: Tea, Coffee and other liquids.

Best place to go have cutlet and order no coffee – Indian Coffee House. You’ll get the stares and get asked ‘What else sir?’ a hundred times. Ponder for a while and then ask – ‘One glass water please. Amele bill kotbidi’. Never ask for coffee. The expression on the waiter’s face - priceless.

Best place to have lemon tea – Mecca, Johnson Market. You tell the man at the counter – ‘Do lemon tea aur do kajjur’. He in turn may look at his apprentice and say – ‘Kya re karra so; Kajjur’, but don’t ya bother, that’s the adjective version of it.

Best place to drink fancy tea and eat momos – Infintea, Cunningham Road. The tea usually comes with Bunsen burner, sand clocks and all apparatus complicated. Most drinks come with a glass or pot option. So its best advised you go for the glass while you coax whoever goes with you to go for pot. At least you’ll have entertainment at close quarters.

Best place to have coffee and feel higher up in the value chain – Barista, The Leela. Too many people are faking this now, so you are forewarned.

Best coffee place that is no longer there – Café Beanstalk, Houdin Road. How at all they closed it, I do not know.

Best beer hole to go to after bad performances at common admission tests – Pub World, Residency Road.

Best pub to go to and flash loyalty card – Pecos, off Brigade Road. It’s also the best place to go to, if your friends are human embodiments of oil tankers and you love popcorn – free with every pitcher.

Best pub to go to, if you’re not a beer guzzler – Mojo’s. Excellent egg chilly.

*************************
Chapter 3: Taking the woman out

Most clichéd place to take your woman out for dinner – Ebony, MG Road. She takes menu in hand and orders Mutton Dhansak for you. Why? Because her cousin told her it’s good. (You don’t like the way Dhansak sounds and you don’t really like mutton). Food arrives and even before you put the first spoonful into your mouth you know that Dhansak is not for you. Thanks for ruining my dinner btw. You make mental note, that this relationship if it continues this way, is heading the Dhansak route.

Ok, but still; why is it clichéd, you ask? I don’t know. The last time someone mentioned taking their wife out for dinner, I instantly barked out – Ebony. And the reply was – Ya, there only. So I decide to mark it clichéd. Period.

So then, best place to take woman out for dinner and still not compromise on Ebony view – Papparazi, Manipal Centre. It’s the old Pinch of Jazz, and I reckon they still do play the Jazz on weekends. Great décor. Good food. And super views of Cubbon Road decked up like a golden pendant (I wanted to call it queen’s necklace, but then if some Mumbai folks read it, they’ll laugh).

Best place for eating Black Forest Crepes in candlelight – Casa Picola, Residency Road. Despite the candlelight and all that there is no way you can give her undivided attention until justice is done to the crepes. Might be a good idea to keep her informed.

Best place to have ice cream – Corner House, Airlines Hotel. It’s never complete till you manage to get onto the swing in the attached kid’s park. We call it the contemplation machine and can be a good conversation spinner when combined with French apple cake with two dollops of Vanilla ice cream. If there are kids playing on the swing, don’t think, just throw them out.

Best place to have ice cream on a budget – Cool Joint, Jayanagar. Your elusive search for that ultimate combination of quality and (more importantly) quantity should end right here. It does not come easy though. Minor injuries and tomato soup on your T shirt should pretty much be expected as you jostle your way though the human wave, ice cream in hand.

*************************

Chapter 4: This, that and other things

Best place to listen to music – Java City, Church Street. CG by now is probably rolling on the floor and laughing. OK, agreed they do go out of sync at times. Agreed, the acoustics at JC is bad and all that. Agreed they do play pop. But it’s still a nice place for everyday music. Play on Lester, we’ll be there.

Best place to eat Rolls – Fanoos, Johnson Market. It’s like the Woodstock of roll eating. Land up anytime after sundown and you’ll get to know what I mean.

Best place to go have lunch when you don’t have anywhere else to go – Hotel Empire. Location not important. Look around, you might find one close to where you are. Or drop them a note and they’ll open one pretty shortly.

It’s also the only oasis serving food for all folks, drunk and lost at 2 in the night. It’s very often left over food I hear, but if you’re drunk that bad, chances are you would never realize anyways.

Best parking lot to chill out in – Hotel Airlines, Lavelle Road. It’s almost the place where we have our college get together these days. It works out cheap and the avoidable characters will not turn up telling – “You’re meeting at a parking lotaa?”

Best place to go for a breakfast buffet – Sunny side up, Ebony. Tailor made for Sundays. Provided you can wake up that is. But conversations of this nature post breakfast are not uncommon.

You: “I had breakfast at Ebony today”
Dad: “Where is that?”
You: “Barton Centre. 13th floor”
Dad: “What did you have?”
You: “You can have whatever you want. It’s a buffet. Idly, vada……”
Dad: “How much?”
You: “125 rupees inclusive of tax”
Dad: “What? 125 rupees for idly vada. You ……..” (rest of the conversation is predictably unprintable)

Best place to go watch a play – Alliance Francise, Vasant Nagar. It’s got a French Riviera atmosphere that is unrivalled. (Aside) Being a mongrel at the Alliance is a reincarnation option for many I know. Me included. Reason: you get petted and cuddled by all the good looking girls studying French at the institute. It’s almost as though, if you’re good looking and super hot, you’ve got to cuddle the mongrel.

Best….wait a minute. It’s got to end somewhere isn’t it? And since there is no logical end in sight, I may as well end here.

Nice place to be.

2007-09-11T15:55:00.000-07:00

Bangalore was an idyllic city to grow up in – it was quiet. It was pleasant. It was all that a young kid of 5 would ever want. Ok. Agreed it was not on the waterfront like the ancestral home where we went during summer vacations. And there were no mango trees with drooping branches full of honey sweet treasures. There were not even elegant coconut trees to peer out of from the bedroom window. But yet, it was a nice place to be.

Middle school happened and then high school. You cribbed about the fact that yours was not a metro city. Why can’t they just give us DD2. Dad brought home a new TV and it had 12 channels. That DD1 would come on all 12 was another matter. It’s a time when your horizons expanded. When what sent your pulse racing was not visits to Cubbon Park but the arterial roads that lead to it; with all the nice cinemas and pretty girls. Bangalore was still a nice place to be.

You amble into college and there’s an option now for everything. There’s an option to wear what you want, an option to attend classes or not. There’s even an option to crawl out of class, but of course after your roll call is called. The PYT in the neighboring class is super hot. Her dad owns a firm in Kormangala somewhere they said. Computers and all that. Unnoticed, the city grew; throwing opportunities for hundreds like father of the PYT. The fact that he’s a millionaire now is a matter inconsequential. What of course is consequential was that Bangalore was still a nice place to be.

High rises happened and then even higher rises happened. More glass, more concrete and more carbon fumes. At traffic intersections, you look at your friend sitting pillion and say ‘Fucked isn’t it’. ‘Mighty well’, he replies. 64 sittings in examination halls and you get a graduate cap, a scroll and a job to boot. Not ironically, its computers and all that. You sit sipping Latte with friends and discuss the death of the old world charm. But its coffee table banter all said and done. The city after all is yours. It’s metamorphosed alright but the spirit is the same. Will be the same. And you know that when you turn that corner, there is that school which you walked to as a kid, or the hotel where dad took you for that golden brown dosa. This is where we come to the crux of what I actually wanted to discuss – my personal Bangalore favourites. The best place to take your woman out (on a budget or otherwise) to the best place to have filter coffee. Join me for all this and more, in a blog coming shortly. (Yippee!!!! And this is where we stop for a commercial break and ads for Complan and Maggi 2 minute noodles would come streaming in).

And btw, Bangalore is still a nice place to be :)

The Jacket

2007-09-09T13:41:00.000-07:00

When I came to England last July, the sun was shining so brightly, that with Bob Marley playing on my mp3 player, it seemed more Jamaica then Blighty. It was the hottest summer in years they told me and I smiled disdainfully at the thought of all those people who advised me Eastern Stores on Commercial Street for woolen jackets, thermal undies and what not before my Heathrow bound flight took off. ‘You didn’t buy thermal wearaa. You’re fucked I tell you’, one oracle had told me. Just like some other mentioned – ‘What? I can’t believe you’re not taking ginger garlic paste. What the fuck are you taking then man?’ But unmindful of all the oracle speak, I skipped the much advised ‘Eastern Stores pilgrimage of the west bound traveler’ and landed at Heathrow with potentially the lowest MTR packets per luggage count among all Indian travelers.

And when I was greeted with a blistering sun, my decision immediately seemed justified. It was summer people and the traditional men’s wear this time of the year was 1 Bench army shorts and nothing else. Women on the other hand still averaged 2 garments, but they made up by ensuring those two pieces of whatever, was so small that you’d wonder if they were picked up from the kids below 5 sections in Debenhams.

But a few months down the line, the sun shut shop earlier and the Gulf Stream (I might be wrong here but that’s what they told me) brought with it a chill which made you seem like you just opened the sliding door in the frozen food section. I quickly got into a blue V neck jumper and turned up in office like a grim reminder of an impending winter. Dan was sitting there in his regular short sleeved thin white polo. ‘You not well’, he asked me when I turned in. ‘No. I am ok. Just getting a bit cold isn’t it’, I replied. He ignored my reply and continued; tugging his T shirt as though to let some air in ‘The weather has all gone naked hasn’t it. Global warming and all that shit’. I nodded.

However, when he turned up in a sweatshirt a few weeks later ,it sure was a sign that the Gulf Stream or whatever was now fuckin business talking. I took cue and immediately went and bought a brown corduroy jacket to keep me warm through the cold winter days (and nights).

“Nice jacket macha”, Lucky remarked when he met me at the gym that evening. Thanks, I nodded. I had had my few moments of doubt after the billing was made. Those moments of self questioning. ‘Is it nice?’. But with every good review, the points accrued and the 'it is good' quotient became firmer.

The next day at the gym, I met Lucky and he was wearing the same brown corduroy jacket. “I bought one too”, he smiled. “But why did you buy the same colour? Same design?” I pleaded. “So what? Ineeke cardioaa”, he asked making little of it and stepping onto the treadmill.

So we walked all through last winter, like German Gestapo on a crime beat, brown corduroy jacket clad and all that. I abashed. Lucky unabashed. And when somebody smiled and remarked “Nice jackets”, the paranoid me searched for any hidden sarcasm. Why did he say jackets (plural) and why did he give a cocky smile?

**********************************

The seasons have rolled over one complete cycle. Lucky has left; leaving his brown jacket behind. Mine is strung up on a hangar for a long time now. But there was a chill in the air yesterday and I pondered if I should wear it after all. But you know what; it would be strange being the only one in the brown corduroy jacket. And not being like a German crime beat officer on his rounds. I let it lie there on the hangar. A new one shall be bought.

Two random happenings

2007-08-26T14:28:00.000-07:00

Two random happenings on a quiet bank holiday weekend.

Random happening 1:

I walked in, Saturday morning into the hair saloon at the end of the road. The only POA on my agenda for the next 72 hours was this haircut thing.

“Hello. You awrite mate’, the long haired, hair band clad ‘my regular’ barber asked.

“I am awrite. And you?”

“Yeah. Getting along mate”. I noticed that the other bloke with a Mohican cut who I once heard explaining how the world would be a better and light hearted place if all great men went Mohican was not around. ‘George Bush’, he said and cracked up. “And how about Prince Charles”. More laughter. Anyways, he had called in sick or something and Mr. Headband was the only man on duty.

“So what can I do for you mate?”, he asked folded arms.

“Last time you let the number 3 run through”, I said sounding technical. “How about making that a 2 this time. You think I can spike it with a 2”.

“Yeah”, he pondered. “So short and fluffy on the front eh?”

“Yeah”, I agreed, having exhausted all my hair styling jargon.

Sometime in between when the number 2 was lawn mowing though my hair, a police car whizzed past with blaring sirens and all.

Mr. Headband scoffs. “Escort the bastards have got. You reckon they gonna win that chase. Back where I come from they have a BMW or Mercedes for cops like that. Here they got a fuckin Escort”.

“So where are you from mate”, I asked side angled and agreeing totally. “Back at my place, they still chase the crooks on foot”, I did not tell him.

“Sicily”, he says.

“Sicily?”, I blurt excitedly.

“Yeah, Sicily”. I don’t know why but I am excited. My hair dresser is from Sicily. That by the way was random happening one. His last name I hear is Corleone. Really. I swear.

*************************
Random happening 2:

I was walking back home this afternoon, sun simmering down like it had scores to settle and I see white sleeveless top, blue jeans, Prada glasses wearing hot blonde lady coming from the opposite side. I look up casually and she smiles. Ok, some good looking ladies do smile arbidly. I smile back.
‘Holla’, she says. Wait a minute. Not too many good looking ladies greet strangers on the road arbidly.

‘Something something Espaniol?’, she asks.

‘Sorry no. English’, I stutter.

“Oh!” she grimaces. Something more in Spanish. I deciphered from her actions as ‘ I thought you were Spanish”. Lady smiles and walks off.

“Oh!” I grimace. Why the fuck am I not Spanish?

*************************

Random question: What if I was Spanish?

Random answer to above question: I could have shown her the way to Sainsbury.

Clicking the celebrity

2007-08-26T14:24:00.000-07:00

Leicester Square was bustling with people. Revelers, travelers, Londoners. Sunshine streamed down like a happy downpour. It was that kind of a day. When even strangers would smile at you like you were long lost friends; when you could walk into any restaurant and blindly pick anything on the menu, and it would still turn out to be fantabulous. ‘Haagen Daz or Ben & Jerry?’, SS asked me after random-selection-from-the-menu-turned-fantabulous lunch. One of each seemed like a good option but I had a random vision of words like calories, healthy diet and fat free and I narrowed down on Ben & Jerry. What was the clincher, you ask? – easier to pronounce (oh by the way the dietary aspect, only means – ‘No two, only one’)

I realize I have this slight problem with ice cream places; where you stand in a long queue, all the while mentally weighing the exotic options available and suddenly you are bang at the counter – ‘What would you like Sir’. Black out. True humble self takes over – ‘Double scoop – Vanilla’. Freak.

But I am working on not getting overwhelmed with such predictable surprises in life. So I exercised restraint and managed to order something not Vanilla (I think it was double scoop Strawberry. Anyways never mind) while SS delved deep into her double rich chocolate ice cream with chocolate chips and more chocolate or something as exotic to that effect. ‘Was that on the menu?’, I asked doubtfully. ‘Hmmm’, came the reply. Some people have all the luck.

*************************

We watched the seven ‘o’ clock show at the Lyceum. And after Simba was crowned king and Sir John’s ‘Circle of Life’ was rendered and the Korean next to us had stopped clicking pictures (the London Zoo was closed that day and there are no lions at the Seoul Zoo I hear. So the bloke decided to come and watch Lion King!!!), we were walking back to the tube station when the glimmer of lights struck us. It was at the theatre playing ‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat’. Red carpet rolled out and cameras flashing in blinding continuity. And somewhere in the middle of that tumultuous hullah-bullah, a curly haired tuxedo clad smart man was signing autographs with a ‘everyone will get one’ smile. ‘Take photo’, I nudged SS. Mobile out of holster, we clicked some random pictures of the red carpet cacophony and the autograph signing celebrity. Always wanted to be a page 3 journalist. Take random pictures and write random footnotes of random people. What fun. We stepped aside and watched a short Chingi man emerge out of the huddle, buoyantly armed with a digital SLR that in the armory world is probably a Kalashnikov. He could not stop smiling appreciatively as he flipped through the prized photographic moments on his LCD screen. ‘We may not know who the curly haired man is’, I told SS. ‘But he knows and he values it’. The man by now had stepped out of his euphoric alpha state and seeing us looking at him appreciatively approached us gingerly. He then pointed to the huddle out of which he had just emerged and asked – ‘Who it is?’

A tale of two picnics.

2007-08-12T12:06:00.000-07:00

I am pretty convinced that there is an asocial side in me tucked away deep somewhere in my innards. A Mr.Hyde hidden somewhere in my Mr.Jeckyl self (I can’t figure out which of these RL Stevenson characters were good and which one bad, but it’s just a metaphor people, so don’t bother reading too much into it). And this ‘indifferent’, ‘cynical’, ‘where am I’, ‘what are these people doing’ side of me clinically resurfaces every time I go on one of these big social gatherings of the picnic type. On diagnosis, I have a feeling it happened all the way from school. But my memory is vague so I am not drawing any conclusions from these could have been symptoms.

Now picnics, in general are of two types. You have ‘the 15-20 people in a Swaraj Mazda going to some waterfall 100 km away’ type of picnic from the college days. ‘We got caterers from Malleswaram but they wouldn’t make chicken da. So we’ve got curd rice, veg pulao and lotsa beer’. Beaming smile from organizer at the very mention of the golden brew. Scheduled departure at 7 a.m but three women have not turned up yet. 8 o clock we get going, the women had valid reasons supposedly. Something to the effect of ‘we thought it was 8’. Roads bumpy, traffic (which we should have avoided) horrid. By 9, a game of Antakshari and the Mr. Hyde in me has taken over. I am asked to join and I check speedometer readings to evaluate if it’s safe to jump into Bangalore-Mysore Road at 50 kmph. Serpentine highways transform into muddy village roads and in the mid afternoon heat you’re at a stream and an anti climax of a waterfall. I am well and truly Mr.Hyde now. Aloof. Grumpy. Irritable. But the thing is, nobody spots it because in between all this, the booze has happened, and if I’ve become strange the junta have become stranger. Sundown and the return trip. Muddy roads now metamorphosing back into black tarmac as I myself transform back into usual self. End of picnic. Hand shakes, hugs. ‘It was fun no?’ ‘Oh ya.’

The other kind of picnic is the ‘100-200 people in big tourist buses going to nearby resort’ kinda corporate event. These ones actually and contrary to popular belief are bearable and unfold generally like this. You enter big 51 seater Volvo with loads of trepidation. So many children on it people, that you bloody damn think it’s a school trip. You walk past familiar faces on your way to the last seat. Many more married people than last year. Some bastards have hit jackpot with super hot wives. “Hey how are you’, you ask one of the jackpot winners who happens to sit on the same pod near the vending machine. ‘Fine, fine. Back meh seat hai’, he replies, as though in a big hurry to keep you moving. ‘Hellooo, how are you’, you continue, to the boss’ little one. Kid shows faces. You smile; look at boss and say ‘He’s smart isn’t he’. Boss does a ‘Ya, he’s my son’, kinda nod. I was joking you fool.

Resort is big and proceedings begin with a few autistic games. I suddenly feel him rising within me. But the expanse is vast, the crowd too big and escape unnoticeable. In a while it’s every man his own and only lunch can bring them back together like sweetmeat to a swarm of flies. The food is super good. Three chicken dishes and all. Sun down. Prizes for kids, two for manager’s kids and organizers. Smiles. Clap, clap. Everyone jump back into bus and travel back to square one. End of story. Bearable nah?

One kick for glory

2007-08-07T14:48:00.000-07:00

It eventually rang. I soaked in the shrillness like it were strains of some heavenly music. The history class post lunch was the greatest soporific known to man. We endured; played Chinese checkers; stared out of the window at squirrels scurrying around in gay abandon. The Cholas had built a hundred bloody temples and we needed to cram the height of the gopurams and how they freakin differed from the ones built by the Vijayanagar kings. For what joy, I knew not.

We waited for Ms. Hamalinta to dust the chalk powder off her hand and walk out in grandeur. Bags quickly mounted on shoulders and the randomness soon transformed into a chaotic height ordered double line. Like an unruly army heading for war, we headed for that last hour of school - PT. Hopefully, he’ll just throw the football in our direction and see us disappear in to the dust and grime of the large brown ground.

I looked at my shoes to see if they had been blanco’d. They had. The forgetful were doing a desperate scrawling of chalk on their brown, supposed to be white keds. It often ever helped. As he walked past Arun, I could hear the thud. It hadn’t worked for him again. He walked past me and I stood there motionless; breathless. The cane in his hand glistened and thanks to clean white keds it did not come down upon me that day. The not so lucky sniffed and sobbed. All for a little Blanco. Or for the lack of it.

He signaled to one of the boys who promptly ran into the sports room and resurfaced with three worn out footballs. He picked the first ball, letting it roll a full minute on his fore finger. ‘2B’, he eventually shouted as he kicked the ball skyward. The whole of class B ran roaring towards that object, the mere kicking of which was an act of sporting accomplishment. Another ball. Another kick. ‘2C’ went the cry. Another fifty odd boys disappeared into the far corner of the ground. There was no climax left. We chased the last disappearing ball like madmen at war. And for the next one hour we proved a living breathing example to Darwin’s survival of the fittest theory. Fifty boys of all shapes and sizes, chased, kicked, held and ran with the ball. It was American football, rugby, handball, football all rolled into one. Fifteen minutes of tireless running later, at one magical moment I had the ball rolling towards me in like in a dream. But in that momentary flash of showering glory little did I notice Iman Haider charging from behind me. I touched the ball. Or would like to believe I did. And then Iman swooped down on it like Chengiz Khan and galloped away into the distance ball in hand. I chased, with what seemed like a hundred others in tow, like life itself depended on it.

The bell rang a final time. Another day had come to an end. And for all the dust and grime, it was another ‘I din’t kick the football’ day. Sigh.

[Inspired by a chat conversation I had with a friend earlier today]

Big decisions world makes, small decisions you make.

2007-07-29T13:30:00.000-07:00

Picture this: Act 1 Scene 1.

You are sitting on one of those white plastic chairs waiting to be counseled. No. You’re not James Frey in a ‘Million Little Pieces’. No. You don’t have a demented bent of mind and contribute to no psychiatrist’s cash register. You’re just waiting to be counseled into one of the hazaar professional colleges in the state. And you expect your freakin life to take off sails upright into sunny Bohemia after that.

The last one year’s been one big blur. Social life has been as happening as that of a weasel’s. You feel you’ve stunted. You speak more gibberish than you ever did at any point in life. And the numbers on the marks card has proved you geek enough. Or so you thought. But now sitting on that white plastic chair, staring at the big electronic board blink rapidly depreciating numbers, you reckon otherwise. You look around. Guys in glasses, checkered cotton shirts and trousers ending at their ankles have all got better numbers than you. When you lived like a weasel, they probably lived like a weasel in solitary confinement.

Your dad next to you is panicking as the numbers against good city colleges for so called good technical streams disappear like Harry Potter books. You can feel the sails on your imaginary boat going limp.

It’s your turn finally. ‘Yen thagothiya (What will you take)’, they ask you at the pearly gates like in a grocery store.

‘Computer science – ABC college’, you reply for lack of a choice (Where is ABC college – somewhere in the city. Is it good? Probably. Do you like computer science – probably not. Then why are you taking it? Don’t ask too many questions no. I am taking a career decision damnit.).

‘Computer science close aithu. Electronics thago. Ole scope idhe (There are no more computer science seats. Take Electronics. Good scope)’

Your plans have been re-shuffled like a Rubix cube. Holy fuck, now what. ‘Jaldi (Quick)’, he prods you like you were not disoriented already.

‘Kot bidi sir (Give it to us)’, dad to the rescue. The sail has now completely gone limp. You can see yourself paddling in the high sea. Career decision made. What joy.

*************************

Act 1 Scene 2:

Your American Airlines flight from Denver or Houston or wherever else has barely hit the tarmac and your marital future is already being discussed. Oblivious you, with 46 kilos of luggage, 23 out of them being chocolates for all and sundry is merely happy to be back. Mars, Maltesers and Snickers for aunties, uncles, unseen neighbours and Lindt and Ferroro Rocher for women friends with whom you intend reviving some lost chemistry (little do you know that all these women friends of yours are now snugly married with their little ones winning general proficiency awards in Ryan Internal School first grade).

You feel disoriented. Stoned. And like in a trance you are whisked away to see some potential wife-to-be. Nice pretty stranger sits there as disinterested as you are.

‘Now why don’t you’ll go into the living room and talk’, an elderly uncle from the wife-to-be’s side announces; like he were some DJ at some rave party announcing – ‘Let the party begin’.

Progressive India you see. You get to talk to wife-to-be before marriage and all. You are jet lagged, disinterested and pretty much speak as much sense as Hunter S Thomson in Fear and Loathing. Wife-to-be sounds aloof as well.

‘Did you like her’, one of the cousin’s prods you back in the car.

‘She’s got a nice nose ring. It twinkles’, you reply.

‘Uncle, he likes her’, cousin (devil incarnate) conveys decision after parsing innocent statement above.

‘I did not say so’, you counter attack.

‘Don’t feel shy I say’, dad volleys back into the far court.

You stretch. Reply. ‘But I have hardly even talked to her’

‘Lots of time to talk after marriage. So much so, I get irritated when your mom speaks these days’. Federer style cross court smash. Laughter. Applause. Decision made.

*****

Two years later, in one of those silly office events you and wife-to-be (now wife) score 7 out of 50 in the ‘oneness of thought’ round. You are petrified. But the office average is 5.76 you hear.

*************************
Now picture this: Act 2 Scene 1:

You stare into the mirror and get a ‘Was I not wearing this yesterday as well’ kinda feeling; your one favorite jean is working round the clock and accompanying you everywhere from hair saloons to ice cream parlors. And when your mom, without prior notice decides to wash the poor thing, you pretty much are stranded with nothing at all to wear. Fine!! Enough is enough, you decide. Retail therapy time it is.

You walk into big swanky mall and cookies that smell much better than they taste are doing what they do best – smelling good. Pretty girls stand around campaigning for pretty cars and what not. You hate the malls as much you like it. Enter store one. Depreciating fashion sense these stores these days have. Outrageous designs. Looking for something wearable is no longer an easy job. Everything on display are for models strutting the Milan fashion scene. Poor you can find nothing at all.

You lay down fairly simple requirements. Something regular; single colored. (Is it a god damn necessity that every denim fabric should look faded). Ya, preferably not ballooning at the base. Absolutely, and no intentions of showing the black strap of your undergarment either. The sales man gives you the ‘this is the 21st century boss’ kinda look.

You move onto shop two. And three. And twenty three. Consultation. Deliberations. Trials. You finally narrow down the winner. Napoleon would not have thought this hard. You return home victorious. Mom looks at it and hollers –‘Again the same colour’.

************************

Act 2 Scene 2:

You: “So where do we go?”

SP: “You tell.”

You: “WTF? Why is it always me?”

SP: “Ok, how about Shezan. Like always. Good food, familiar faces, easy on the wallet”

You: “Why are you freakin worried about the wallet. It’s his treat. Wanna rip him apart”

SP: “Rip him apart we will. We can order extra food and not eat, can’t we?”

You: “What’s the point bugger. Why not go some place swanky.”

SP: “Ok then you tell”

You: “RB?”

PS: “No Chinese”

You: “Little Italy?”
CG: “Ya nice”

SP: “Fuck you. That’s a veggie place”

You: “Coffee shop at the Taj”

PS: “Ya my cousins tell me it’s a nice place. They have a poolside…”

AH (interrupting): “No pseudo places place. Just want food. Loads of it”

You (Beaming): “Pinxx?”

Chorus: ‘Ya”

AH: “Good liquor as well”.

VS: “I’ve not won the sweepstakes yet you bastards. It’s my treat and no way in hell it’s Pinxx”

{Two hours later]

You (sounding bored): “So where do we go?”

SP: “You tell”.

**********************************

P.S: Ever wondered why we ponder so much over the little things in life while the big decisions are just shoved down upon us no questions asked?

The question is asked, so if you’ve got an opinion, do drop a word. Else, go fly a kite. Lol.

P.P.S: Act 1 Scene 2 is not autobiographical. The other scenes may have tinges of the same. Btw, I finally managed to write a blog which is not in first person. Yayyy.

Food Talk

2007-07-26T14:43:00.000-07:00

[Published on Hafta dated 18th July 2007]

‘What is, authentic British food?’, I asked Matt over lunch one day. He pondered pensively like I had asked him the very meaning to life itself. ‘It varies’, he started evasively. But I was not to let him slip out of this one easily. ‘I understand’, I interrupted. ‘But there still must be something that the British would have every day. Something staple. Something they’d die for’, I dramatized. Staring emptily into a distant nothingness, Matt replied, ‘Yorkshire pudding is authentic and every Englishman likes his steak and roast potatoes. And…..’, rubbing his chin gingerly added - ‘Chicken Tikka masala probably’.

*************************

We were at JVK’s leaving do the other day and amidst passionate discussions on women, wine and other vices, we suddenly found ourselves discussing food. I quickly slipped out my million dollar question and asked VK, the ‘What is staple English food’ question. VK on six pints of lager laughed hysterically and told me – ‘Don’t believe the folks who tell you pies and puddings and something else exotic. For all and sundry, a normal English lunch is still the humble sandwich’. ‘Try Logan’s’ he continued in the same breath. ‘I had this jumbo deli today with turkey breast, mayo, lettuce, pickled olives, tomatoes…..’

*************************

Now that, I am afraid is what I very often get from folks when I probe them with questions on English culinary habits. However, not to be put off with Matt’s ignorance or VK’s statement of truth after six pints of lager, I set off this weekend to the Council library to demystify the truth about English food. Now don’t get me wrong people. It’s not that there is no English ware up for grabs in the streets of Norwich or Peterborough or where ever else you are in the Queen’s land. It’s just that for every restaurant serving British food, you will find three others serving non- British. And even by basic probability theory, chances are that you will end up in a restaurant serving Indian or Italian or Mexican and keep pondering ‘What is authentic British food?’

***************************

I walked past the giant racks on the first floor, searching for volumes on my new found interest. Imagine sitting around huge volumes on British food, making notes and looking pensive as summer clouds loomed dangerously outside. I remember watching Mastermind India on TV as a kid and being baffled by how inane the topics of specialization of some of the contestants were: All works of Vladimir Nobokov between 1938 and 1977. Phew; all Nobel prize winners for Chemistry and their works between XXXX and YYYY. Phew. Phew. Painful though it sounded, there seemed a vague sense of purpose to these topics and I was kicked to have eventually found my share of arbidness. And into it I shall pour my heart and soul.

*************************

I walked past World History and Criminology and finally found Health & Food tucked away nice and cozy between Economics and Photography. Four racks of literature on food and food alone. Quick and easy Italian lunches, books by Madhur Jaffrey and even the odd one on Lebanese cuisine. All hard bound and glossy with a ‘pick me please’ earnestness. But undeterred, I turned a blind eye and kept looking for something with point blank titles like –‘All you ever wanted to know about English cuisine’ or even ‘English cuisine for Dummies’. But multiple left to right scans later, the closest I ever got to anything remotely topical was a book titled ‘Fish & Chips’. Wonder who wrote that. Should I cross borders and venture deeper into ‘Health’ territories, I wondered. I’d be damned if steaks, pies and pudding made it to healthy eating.

*************************

I must admit that thanks to my culinary skills, I do eat out quite a bit and scrawling down eating joints of interest seemed like a good beginning. Very good beginning indeed. Out came a scrap of paper. ‘Can I borrow a pen please’ to the good looking girl sitting nearby and I am off. Scribble; scribble; scribble and I have a fairly long list.

The groundwork done, now it was down to analysis. The rain pelted down in a ‘Oh ya, you bet it’s summer’ kinda mockery.

Rocco’s it read. A nice place you come across when you walk down from the rail station. Black leather furniture; waiters in bow ties and bar girls with thick Italian accents. ‘Pasta, Pizza and Salad buffet’, the inviting board outside screams out. And if you took their word seriously and ventured inside, the Chicken Risotto, Meat Lasagne (is it beef? Pork? Do I care) and slivers of Margherita is what I would call food worth killing your neighbour with a fork with. Decorate your food mountain with colourful leafy salads and by Jove you have an endless (it’s a buffet people) gastronomic saga. But then let’s just not get carried away here. The Italians from Caesar’s times always were adept at building roads and colosseums and cheesy tongue twisting delicacies. But we’re studying British food here and I scratched out my Rocco’s with a casual albeit hungry pencil stroke.

Pensively I worked down the list. Nandos, the Mecca of grilled chicken. It’s a Portuguese joint with earthy interiors, very pretty waitresses and spicy Peri-Peri sauces of Mozambique origins. It’s an aphrodisiac they claim as well and I wonder if it’s the reason why whenever the pretty girl at the billing counter asks me ‘How spicy would you like it’ I always end up mumbling ‘Hot…Very Hot’. Ironically, the Nandos at city centre is right below my gym where I labour endlessly on treadmills and recumbent bikes burning calories which anyway are bound to magically resurface in the floor below. Anyways, that’s the ‘energy can neither be created nor destroyed’ concept locked, stocked and barreled. Swish goes the pencil stroke.

There are days when you do not cook and do not want to eat out either at places exotic. And walking home like a loser, in the dead of the night you see shining like a beacon – the Turkish Kebab centers. You suddenly feel the urge to eat Sheekh kebab in Pita bread, or Chicken burger with loads of lettuce and onions. You enter the shady joint and the barrage of questions rain down on you.

‘Hello braather’.

‘Hello’, you reply. ‘Can I have a chicken burger and a coke please’.

‘Braather Indian?’. Yes.

‘Braather student?’. No.
‘Braather working then?’. Yes.

‘How much money braather making’. You shift uneasily and ask for mayo and ketchup as well. He gives you more wisdom and asks why all Indians in this town work for the same company as you. Thanks for making me feel unique braather. Burger in hand, I walk out with a ‘I have earned it and it’s not just three quid’ feeling. Swish.

*************************

A couple of Indian restaurants grace my list in loyal allegiance. To be honest, if statistics is to be believed almost 70-80% (don’t quote me on it) of the so called Indian restaurants in the UK are Bangladeshi in origin. But who cares. The fact remains that they serve everything from Chicken Madras to Vindaloo to Mutton Rogan Josh and that’s all a foodie should ever be bothered about. Mop them up with rotis, naan breads or pilau rice all while listening to Bollywood music pelting out in a setting the ambience exercise. Swish. Swish.

*************************

We went to a Japanese place recently and it duly took its place as one of the latest entries on my list. Interesting way of operating, they did have. Your order taken, there was vigorous scribbling of your dish number on your table like it were some covert Japanese formula. You wait and the drinks arrive and nobody ever bothers if it was 46 on your table or 73. ‘Iced tea’, asks the waitress. ‘Here please….46’, I smartly quip. She hands me my drink and looks at me like I were some number freak. Anyways, the straw like rice noodles eventually arrive, and I restrain from quoting numbers. It tastes distinctly of lemon grass and ginger and I get wild visions of Japanese rice fields and farmers in long straw hats( don’t know why). I concentrate and fight through the quietest lunch of my life. Phew!!! Chopsticks.

*************************

The summer clouds outside the library window had finished their sport and drifted further eastwards. The sun faked a ‘I’ve been here all along’ smile. I walked out of the revolving glass door right into the aimless Saturday crowd of shoppers and revellers. I looked around ravenously. All the food talk had whipped up a roaring appetite, you see.

‘Half grilled chicken with coleslaw and garlic bread, please’, I said.

‘And how spicy would you like it?’, the Lateita Casta look alike questions.

‘Hot…..very hot’, I stutter.

************************

So that’s the crux of it. English food is Portugese; it’s Turkish; it’s Indian; it’s a melting pot of cuisines from wherever the Englishman went. Not quite satisfactory. I fiddled with the pencil in my hand. Anyways until a better answer dawns, let’s consider it proved. Period.

Waiting

2007-07-19T14:58:00.000-07:00

I sat staring out of my bedroom window at the kids playing cricket below. At 23/2 one of the boys came out and smashed a straight six which splintered the glass window of flat 14B into a million little pieces. The lady of the house stuck her head out and bellowed abuses at the now empty ground. A pair of forgotten slippers being the only testimony to a game that now seems did not happen at all. The fun was over. I stepped out of bed and threw my sponge ball against the wall and dived for the rebound.

‘Don’t dirty the wall’, dad commanded without lifting his eyes of the morning daily.

I walked across to the hallway and looked at my cousin. ‘Will they bring it’, I asked in doubt.

‘Can’t say’, he nodded despondently. ‘Younis’ grandmother passed away early this year it seems. Heard your mom telling’.

I grimaced in disbelief. Mom called out from the kitchen just at that very instance. ‘Go get some chilies will you. The money is in the box’.

I hate doing errands but I picked the loose change and rushed out of the door. The Younis household lived on the first floor and we on the second. The door as usual was ajar. The fruity fragrance of perfume wafted in like from neverland and I think I smelt saffron. And cardamom. And a hundred other spices. Mounds of footwear are strewn around the threshold of the house. Shiny, strappy, golden ones of the young and trendy; the flat utility Bata variety of the elderly; dusty, workmen slip-ons of the bearded men in white kurtas – all piled in one rising heap of colorful disorder.

I returned chilies in hand and Younis’ mom was chasing one of the many kids of the house. I beamed a 100 watt smile. Mumbled a not so loud enough ‘Hello aunty’. I don’t think she noticed.

‘You know what’, I whispered to cousin on my return. ‘They are celebrating. There are loads of guests and all’.

‘What are the two of you mumbling? Come to the table. Lunch is ready’, mom interrupted.

‘I am not hungry now’, I categorically sulked and went back to my cozy corner. The cleric called out the end of prayer somewhere in the distance. I stared out at nothing in particular. Everything outside looked bright and yellow in the jaundiced sunlight. Period.

‘Ok that’s enough. Come get your food’, mom concluded. ‘I know what your problem is. I wonder where you get these habits from. Always expecting stuff from others’

I glum faced and frustrated, went to the table. Resistance was futile. Rice and a yellow yogurt based cucumber curry. I want to holler and throw my sponge ball against the showcase but I know it’s of no avail. Gulp. Gulp. A few morsels and I decide I can take it no more. I can hear the dissent in the background but I get into my ‘I can’t hear anything’ cyst.

Back at my window sill, I continue staring. A good hour or so later there is a knock on the door. I take a measured walk into the hallway. I know it is them, expectation swelling in my little self. Younis and his mom are sitting there with a tray. ‘Happy Ramzan aunty. Happy Ramzan Younis’, I mumble. The biriyani has arrived.

Homecoming

2007-07-08T15:43:00.000-07:00

[Ok, readers of my blog, I now officially write for an online mag as well. So do visit - http://www.haftamag.com/ This one's from there. And I am adhering to the 'publish it in your blog only one week later rule'. Ofcourse, what you read below is the uncut version.]

You realize that the Ol’ Blighty has worked on you when you do twice the number of ‘Please’ and ‘Thank You’ than the obsequious air hostesses on the London Mumbai flight. I pushed the bridge of my black framed pseudo intellectual glasses as I made my way through the doors of the A320. ‘Good morning sir’, the first hostess clad in yellow wished. Though I hated the ‘Sir’, ‘Good morning’, I wished in return. A tall, short haired, dusky hostess with a nose ring was next. Huge turn on. ‘26A please’, I enquired in a false Sinatra baritone. ‘Straight ahead darling’, she replied with a beaming smile. Darling for godamn sake. I cringed at the ring of those words. ‘I am no kid damn it. Call me sir at least’, every sinew in me wanted to shout back.

The smart boy image having shattered into a million pieces, I sat around twiddling with the entertainment console. Aishwarya Rai danced beautiful in an artificially simulated rain sequence. The orange juice tasted sour and the unseen occupants of my neighbouring seat probably fiddled with their luggage in some tube station near Covent Garden as we left Heathrow behind and cruised heaven-ward.

Miss Rai danced twice more in the next twenty minutes, once with rain and once without. And when the flight safety manual started seeming more interesting than the happenings onscreen, I knew I had reached the pinnacle of air travel boredom. I vainly, alternated between states of alpha sleep and quasi wakefulness as iterative interruptions of food, drink and more food happened. ‘Excuse me sir’, she’d wake me up from a state of deep REM sleep and ask ‘Paneer wrap or Chicken wrap, sir’. One of each please.

But they finally ran out of food I presume and I managed to sleep through a few decent countries. When Mumbai finally happened, I was pretty much like a giant salamander post hibernation (assuming salamanders do hibernate). But the last place salamanders want to be after a relaxed period of nothingness is the airport. Immigration control and the long stares at your passport like you were a KGB agent at the JFK; the filling in of arrival cards, where shamelessly my name would jut out with a ‘can I have more boxes please’ earnestness; where restless me waited around conveyer belts like a love torn Romeo wondering – ‘Is that my beloved red back pack or is it the burly man’s next to me’.

**************************

The heat wave hit me like a welcome hug as I lugged my bags to the nearest pre-paid taxi stand. Three hundred rupees later, I was sitting in a black and yellow ramshackle Fiat with the only thing older than the taxi being the driver himself. A Rohinton Mistry protagonist look alike, the old man hardly uttered a word, maneuvering the road ahead (which had enough in it to seem like one of the higher levels in a brand new version of NFS) with concentration writ large on his furrowed brow. ‘Mumbai me garmi kaisa he’, I asked inanely. ‘Diktha nahi he kya’, he grumpily replied. I wiped the sweat of my brow and laughed sheepishly. I tried again a few minutes later, but a limited vocabulary and a lackluster choice of topic meant I was only going to get monosyllabic uninterested replies. Okay. No conversations for the taking here. I resigned and stared out at the giant billboards instead, advertising game shows on national television.

I checked in, showered and looked out of my hotel room window. There’s nothing like a room with a good view. Mine looked straight into the living room of some apartment on the other side of the road. The girl in the blue top was the only eye candy I got (if I were to not consider the shriveled petunias in her balcony). I walked west a minute and there stood the Gateway of India. Boats towed and bobbing in the simmering Bombay Sea. Boy scouts running around in shades of khaki. Peanut shells and pigeon feed strewn around today like carnations would have been when King George sailed in.

*************************

I sat at Leopold Café later that evening, with all due reverence that a place running since 1871 should deserve. But I felt weirdly incongruous. Largely because I did not have a copy of the Lonely Planet and everybody else on every other table had it. My previous visits to Mumbai (at least from the gastronomic angle) always had that ‘Damn, I did not go to Leopold’ factor to it. And now that I come to think of it, I do not think I missed much. All its got is a dreamy Indian Coffee House kinda nonchalance (in the nature of the waiters that is), a ‘ShivSagar’ kinda menu (Chinese,Indian,Italian….) and an interesting way of serving draught which would make even Arts students feel like they are in a chemistry lab. And what’s more, the Leopold menu seemed to reflect the grand Indian economic uprising. As I paid my hundred rupees for the mango juice, I was indeed painfully proud.

***************************

I walked the Leopold stretch this way and that; flooded with PYT’s shopping for little trinkets for the Monday morning flaunting back at college. And somewhere in between I felt the long lingering looks of an angel. And a whisper and giggle later, another. Must be my new Frank Lampard like frontal spike. God bless my Turkish hair dresser who speaks unintelligible but works like a craftsman. It all boils down to having a stylish hair style I say. I walked towards them with an air of conscious well being and then I heard them giggle and whisper ‘jumper’. Oh yes!!!, it was the freakin’ jumper. Stuck to me like an additional body layer all the way from Norwich. I was probably the only one other than the typhoid patients at Breach Candy wearing a black jumper in the hot Mumbai summer. And the girls sure did find it amusing. Strip went the jumper and I scurried into the nearest restaurant and downed the embarrassment with a Chicken biriyani washed down with fresh lime soda. Thank god for the fact that all things nasty have antidotes. Burp.

***************************

Two sunrises later, as I stood in the immigration queue at Heathrow, I had the beaming satisfaction of having learned from Mumbai. I had bulldozed my way to the top of the queue sending a couple of Chinese folks flying (Gattuso would have been proud). And when the immigration officer, stamped my passport and gave it back to me, I matter of factly picked it up and nodded a quiet thank you. To hell with the exaggeration and the profuse pleasantries, for you’re doing your fuckin job and I am doing mine, thank you.

Full circle

2007-06-15T15:51:00.000-07:00

Nine out of ten I sleep with the curtains wide open and the sun would playfully seep into my room every morning with that ‘Wake up you unlucky bastard’ kinda smile. I rub the slumber of my eyes and shuffle for the mobile to check the godforsaken time. Five thirty or some such obscene hour it reads. Now that’s both good and bad. Good because of all the extra hours you can sleep before reality and office time kicks in and bad because it still is a godamn interruption to some quality REM sleep.

But what strikes me most is not the bloody regularity with which I forget to keep curtains drawn, but the simple fact that the seasons have gone around one complete cycle and are back where they were one year back. I remember coming to Norfolk one hot sunny July day, black jumper clad and all that surprised at the long vigil that the beaming sun was putting in. And in the melee of finding a house, finding a room mate who can cook (he does not read my blog so it’s ok) and finding the nearest Sainsbury’s, a couple of fleeting months slip by. Trees shed leaves, temperatures drop and one fine day you walk into M&S and invest in a leather jacket with a fleece lined collar. It rains that very evening and a fleece lined collar begins to like the dumbest idea ever conceived to man.

Bare trees, even lower temperatures and a distant memory of sunny summer days. Long faces, black jackets and the women in tank tops whom you saw in July have all disappeared. You feel home sick and bored and soak in the bloody gloom like a sponge bar. Christmas brightens things a bit. Lights, a sprinkle of snow and a hundred innovative ways to burn a hole in your pocket. You buy, you binge, you endure and finally one day you see flowers on the once bare trees. The big heavy jackets get strung up on hangars and trees blaze a flaming red and violet in celebration. Jeez, its spring.

A couple of bank holiday weekends and the girls in tank tops are back on the streets. The hem lines have dropped, the neck lines are dropping and sun lotions are jutting out of the racks back at Boots. I am sitting here rubbing the sleep of my eyes as the sun gatecrashes into my bedroom. Godamit. It’s been a year.

Trans Atlantic conversations of the sick and bedridden

2007-05-06T12:10:00.000-07:00

I’ve been homesick the last few days, with nothing to do other than read news on the net, play downloaded music and sip a cold & Fever lemon concoction like it were some exotic Caribbean cocktail. And by homesick what I intended was sick at home and not really the traditional sick to get back home. On the contrary it is more or less bordering on ‘I am sick of home’.

Anyways here I was in my nth recursive loop of sleep after reading and drinking lemon concoction when my ‘now contesting for the most unreliable electronic device’ mobile buzzed. I was actually in the middle of a very feel good dream involving some unknown girl starring as my love interest, my mom and an alligator in a giant pond. Ok I agree it sounds kinda offbeat but when you are on unlimited rounds of LemSip, I don’t really expect plots to get any better.

I had half a mind to let the goddamn mobile keep ringing, while the story meandered into some sense of completion. At that point in time, it was really getting to be like those Italian movies nominated for the Toronto film festival where even a good hour or two later nothing really happened. But call it respect for your room mate if you want to, I stood up clumsy and walked across the room to where my phone uncharacteristically buzzed all loud and reliable.

‘Ceegee’, I drawled, like I always do when he calls.

‘You asleep fucker. And at this hour’, he asked from across the Atlantic.

‘Ya, fever and sorts. Have been in bed for the last two days brother. And how are you?

He laughed hysterically at the other end like I cracked a joke.

“Why are you laughing bugger. I said I am sick’.

“Oh yes you are. Some passing spores decide to stop over for the bank holiday weekend and you lock yourself indoors”. More laughing.

“I am out of the ER myself”, CG continued matter of factly.

“ER? WTF is that?”

“Emergency Room. Had a crazy bout of abdominal pain and the bastards reduced it to a freakin’ slapstick comedy show”

“What happened da”, I enquired like all good friends should enquire. “Was it a baby boy?”

“Fuck you”, he drawled back.

“I was sitting there screaming in pain and they thrust four forms for me to fill. One hand on stomach, the other clutching pen I wrote inanities like some Hindi film protagonist writing the treasure secrets in the climax”.

I laugh hysterically. My temperature has already dropped a degree.

“And what’s worse, when I ask them for quick diagnosis, they find my initials are not expanded and Farnborough is not listed as a valid American province”.

“It’s in the UK. And the C and the G are all bloody long and not worth expanding”, I screamed at the nurse.

“They shunted me into a room at last and then shunted me out in double quick time all because a convict had to be looked at in that very god forsaken room. And as they walked me out, the convict strides in handcuffs, cops in tow et al. That’s America for ya. I am screaming myself hoarse and who gets the treatment – him. Why? Because he bruised his finger while killing someone.”

Eons later, CG was respected with a sense of feigned urgency and a couple of CT scans and all. The doc gives CG a top down look and finally declares.

“You’re perfectly fine. Just get home and get normal”.

“As though I were a bloody convict. The convict is in the neighboring room bitch”, CG screamed at me in self pity. “I do high level design for 3G mobile interfaces”.

My temperature by now was hovering around normalcy. My stomach’s beginning to ache myself for all the laughing.

“BTW bro, one question”

“What is it?”, he asked.

“Did you fuckin’ fit into the stretcher?”

“Bye bye then. Go get some LemSip while I go play basket ball”. Phone clicks. I am blogging. And then I’ll have a LemSip and then I’ll sleep.

Death of the Gandhi's

2007-05-06T04:12:00.000-07:00

I remember being whisked out of class with a sense of confused urgency. I was done and dusted. Two months of summer vacation stretched before me like a never ending oasis of joy. But I wonder what the hurry was all about. Agreed it’s always nice to be walking out of the school gate with no turning glance. But I dearly wanted to savour this moment; especially when I didn’t have to come back for well over two months. I fondly waved at my friends who shared my second blue bench in kindergarten section B. What a good day it had been today.

In fact it always was, when we had the drawing class. We would sit around Ranju and wait for him to start off on his piece de resistance. The one that I was pretty sure would put our hands at the end of the drawing master’s cane one day. He would start off with an unsmiling concentration unbecoming of a 5 year old artist. One hangman walking. And then another. Pretty soon there was a mob on his slate canvas, some with cycles others with banners. What was little Ranju drawing, we often wondered. It seemed like a strike, a revolution. But what the heck, at 5; it was probably nothing more than a few harmless strokes of artistic expression. And as the canvas became more crowded, his artistic fervor would pick up tempo. Lines would descend down in callous strokes and pretty soon the chalk would stream over the slate like the vipers of an Ambassador on a rainy day. And when it eventually became an indistinguishable veil of white chalk powder, he would lift the slate up and smear it all in his face amidst muffled laughter from the rest of us. We would plead him for another time and he unlike a rock star would seldom refuse. We had three rounds today and as I walked, my stomach ached of incessantly trying to control my laughter.

There were times when Ranju’s dad, a strict ex-serviceman would come to pick him up and see specks of white powder on his face. ‘Why doesn’t mummy spread the powder around’, he would bellow, spreading it evenly into his fat round face. I would look at my shoe laces in a vain attempt not to laugh. But I seldom succeeded.

****************************

We walked past the peddler selling multi colored toffees and He-man stickers. I knew I wouldn’t get one. We walked past the melon seller, his exhibits glistening red in the sun, shrouded with flies. No chance in hell I am getting one of those. The ice cream cart was surrounded as usual by the bigger boys. Orange. Milk. Mango - it read. Wishful thinking again I must admit, but considering we have two months of vacation, I harbored over the rationale of ‘so what if I fall sick for a couple of days’. But today just didn’t seem like the day for negotiations. We were in a hurry to head home and I could feel a sense of nervousness about it.

******************************

‘We’re going to our native place, you know’, my cousin would gleefully tell me. ‘N number of days left’, he would calculatedly add; the number decreasing with each passing day. ‘And when it reaches zero’, he would continue, ‘we would sit in a long train and go to this sunny sea side place where loads of people will pamper us; where mangoes can be plucked off trees and eaten; where men with huge whiskers will climb up trees and drop nectar sweet coconuts for us to drink; where we can run around trees and build sand castles and not worry about going to school ever again.’ I would listen open eared, building these pictures of a sunny dreamland (unlike pictures which Ranju drew), well spaced and happy; waiting for us to enter into.

When I woke up that morning, I remembered him coming to my bedside and whispering – ‘It’s zero days left’.

******************************

We stopped at the Mallu shop selling magazines, rubber balls, peanut candies and a hundred other things.

‘They shot her today, didn’t they?’, my aunt enquired nervously.

“Yes, her own guards.’ the shop keeper replied. ‘There is bound to be trouble. Aren’t you’ll traveling today. The trains might just get cancelled. Please do take care, especially since you’re traveling with the little ones and all’.

‘I wonder what will happen’, my aunt nervously continued. ‘Wonder what is happening to this country. How could they do it to a Prime Minister? And to make it worse….today’.

‘I am planning to close the shop in the afternoon. Why take a risk’, he continued disbursing change and the regular bunch of magazines.

*******************************
We were never great travelers, our family. A fair share of paranoia with ample measures of ‘Have we got the tickets’, ‘Did you lock the door right’, ‘Will we get the bus to the railway station on time’, always ensured that a steady climate of discomfort existed until the train hooted its way out of Bangalore Central. Add social unrest, political turmoil and the impending fear of violent uprisings, and I am sure the tempers were pretty much on tenterhooks. But I was a boy of 5 and oblivious of the gravity of all that was happening around me. I only knew that we might not get Pazham Pori when the train stopped at Trichur and I was not to whine and cringe, for the likelihood of getting spanked was fairly high.

I do not remember much of that journey I must admit. But I do faintly remember my father pulling down the shutters of our window. And I feel I saw fleeting images of one hangman and then another, with cycles and banners, like in Ranju’s images, throwing stones at our long train heading to dreamland. They were throwing stones, because a few guards with huge whiskers and machine guns had shot the Prime Minister. Not that it made sense to me but I had loose bowels and gave my folks a tough time.

*****************************

I remember that summer was fairly hot and the mango trees had failed to bloom on time. So we got mangoes from the neighbor’s yard where a couple of trees had bloomed on time and it sure did taste like nectar.

******************************
[Seven years later]

I woke up dreamily to the unusually loud early morning commotion. We were all lying on the floor like in a refugee camp. The bed sheet under me had been pulled away by my cousin of a year older. Glowing embers of the mosquito coil glistened in the far corner of the floor. We were heading back home the next day. The fun and frolic was over. A brand new year of school hood awaited in distant Bangalore and I tried not to think of it. I strained my eyes and looked at the clock. It was barely even seven. What was the ruckus all about, I thought again.

‘What is it?’, I asked one of my elder cousins.

‘Rajiv Gandhi is dead’, he replied. ‘LTTE suicide bombers’, he continued in a know-all tone of adulthood.

I walked down the flight of stairs to where the elders sat. They sat there dejected, discussing the happenings of the night. I realized then that my family was strongly ‘Congressian’ with only the odd rebel cousin or two showing Communist allegiance. Someone had dropped in late into the night to inform my grand uncle, who was a senior party worker of the tragedy. And now my cousins were recounting the tale of how they had run to the press office in the night to confirm the news. I stood there sleepy; listening to real world stories. When the conversation died down, I walked up to my dad and rested on his lap. I enquired slowly ‘Dad, are we going back home tomorrow?’

‘Not tomorrow’, dad replied. “I have asked the tickets to be postponed. It’s too risky to be traveling at such times. We’ve done that once in the past. Not again.’

In my heart of hearts, I felt happy. We could continue our game of cricket. Our simulated game with real world cricketers was precariously placed. Gus Logie and Jeff Dujon had pulled West Indies out of a hole against the Indians. A couple more days of gay abandon. The West Indians might win. And another Prime minister to-be had been killed.

The Game

2007-04-15T12:46:00.000-07:00

I came home from office the other day, to see a colorful pamphlet jutting out of my letterbox, promising cheap games of snooker 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Considering you wouldn’t get anything in Norwich (not including pints of beer and other things at Sainsbury’s) after four in the evening, this sure did come as a surprise of sorts. Here was this snooker parlor tucked away in some place called Baker Street working almost like a Las Vegas casino. And its cheap they proclaim in Arial font 24. At least, no more dropping endless 50p coins into the slot machine like a devout soul at the temple drop box.

So the following Friday, me and a bloke of mine decided we’ll go and get a game after office after all. With the long hours of Saturday and Sunday stretching before us like a never ending oasis, we knew we had hours at hand.

“Have you got the map with you”, I asked him as I jumped off the Park & Ride.

“Yup, in my head”, he quipped smartly, denouncing those who fired print outs when all they needed to do was use their bloody brains.

“Very true”, I replied. “Think of all the trees. But we should have got a darn print out all the same”.

***********************

“It’s two roundabouts after Chapelfield”, he told me. But then the funny thing with Google maps is, despite all the distance and all that, it still deceives you into thinking that it’s close enough for comfort. For example, if you go in and type ‘New York to Paris’, it very earnestly talks about a 3000 odd mile swim across the Atlantic. Take that.

But he had a sharp sense of direction and despite our wide ranging topics of discussion, he spotted roundabout one and quite a while later the sought after roundabout two. “At this roundabout, take diversion to the right”, he continued, like an expensive talking version of Google maps that you can take along for a game of snooker, provided its available in the colour of your choice at the nearest Argos delivery centre.

“Are you sure it’s this one”, probed the paranoid me. He pumped his fist, smiled and pointed at a small board reading Baker Street. I cursed my timing and decided to rest my sense of disorientation for good. It definitely was further off than we thought it would be. The roads looked desolate and the road stretched in either direction, forlorn and disinterested. We were looking to reach 85 Baker Street and soon found 49 progressing into 50 and higher numbers. Right direction alright. But one problem. What stood at these numbers were not houses, not shops but warehouses. Huge, ramshackle and neglected. And the deeper we ventured it only looked worse.

“This looks like a shady place”, he told me. “You reckon we go back”. Considering the increasing number of Martin Scorcese movies I’ve been watching of late, I was expecting Joe Pesci and a few mean looking goons to come out of the thicket any moment and beat us to bloody pulp. But we ventured, all the same in search of the green board. Man, we had balls.

********************

If we had not seen the almost empty parking lot at the last corner, we would have turned back and left for good. A harmless game of snooker is not worth all this adventure I must admit. But it read Clarke’s and since we had braved the journey, we thought we may as well check it out. We went around the asbestos sheeted club house and through a grilled prison like turn table. A spectacled, ‘I’ve never ever smiled’ kinda man in a bow tie peered at us like we had just entered no man’s land.

It was dark like all snooker parlors are. It was smoky like all snooker parlors are meant to be. The smell of fresh brewed lager lingered. We looked around; 20 odd tables lay spread eagled with red balls in a triangle waiting to be dispersed. But hardly a soul.

“Hello mate”, I gestured. “Can we take one of the tables”, I enquired.

“Members only”, he replied matter of factly. “You become a member and then you play”.

“Oh ok then. We’d just heard about the place. Just thought we’ll check it out. How goes it then?” And as he walked us through the terms, we were already shuffling to leave. “Thanks then mate. We’ll be back in a while”, we smiled. He didn’t. As I stepped out of the turn table, I looked back to see if there was a camera rolling somewhere. And if Scorcese was beaming behind it screaming “Good shot ya fuckin bastards”.

Tarantino and me

2007-04-14T00:09:00.000-07:00

One of my friends recently asked me why my blog is like Quentin Tarantino’s movies. Whizzing across time and space like nobody’s business. From tropical sun burnt Southern India to wet and windy East Anglia even before you knew it. And of course with no consideration to chronology whatsoever. Now I wonder if he meant it as a compliment but I’ll take it as one anyways. And I am also planning to base my next write up with me, twenty years hence as a lumberjack in the upper American Midwest. Now will not Tarantino be proud.

**************************

And by the way, the walking tales were inspired after reading ‘A walk in the woods’ by Bill Bryson. Good read. My initial intention was to write a book review but then I ended up recounting my own tales.

More Walking Tales

2007-04-04T15:04:00.000-07:00

A queer mix of habit and self reliance propelled me to greater distances on foot in the years to come. And when I joined college for my engineering degree, I finally found a few guys who had the same classification of distances as I had – ‘walkable’; ‘not walkable’.

I remember it was somewhere around Jan-Feb and we had hit Ootacamund to seek solace from the rut of daily life and electronic circuits (ok probably you can ignore the circuits bit. I was just getting a little carried away I presume). Hopping off the rickety red and yellow bus, I stroked its metallic sides like a mahout strokes his elephant and quipped ‘He’s done well eh? Never thought he’ll survive all those frekin’ hair pin curves’. No one replied. They all stood mute, soaking in the splendor of Shangri-la.

Undulating green hills stretched as far as I could see. I stood there like I was on stage enveloped in a smoky haze that was meant to mimic a fairyland scene. The air was crisp, clean, clear; with enough oxygen in it to make you go hyper. Meadows, grassy green and beckoning with grazing cows like in an ad for a Swiss diary product. ‘Holy cow! Isn’t it a sight to behold’, someone smart alec mumbled. It was.

Two bucks and a glass of tea from the road side vendor. We stood exhaling hot air like Clint Eastwood without a cigar, waiting for KB to pay up, use his PR and get directions. “It’s far, he says”, KB proclaimed. “This way though it is. Whatdya guys reckon?”

“I think it’s walkable”, Papps replied without thinking. Like an oracle who knew the answer before hand. But that was the answer we were waiting for. We picked up our back packs and walked east. In the direction of the rising sun.

“He also laughed hysterically when I mentioned we wanted to walk up”, KB continued with a smirk. Now that’s interesting. Very interesting.

************************

Now when the road is acutely angled at close to a 30 and you are lugging a bag heavy with what now seems unnecessities, walking is not all that a joy. But the enthralling scenery kept us going in the direction which the tea seller pointed. Somewhere along the way, we suddenly felt the need to do a direction check; Papps pounced on an innocent passer by heading the opposite way with a ‘He’ll know it’ confidence. The poor man raised his eyebrows in disbelief and kept suggesting the bus station that we left 15 minutes behind us for every question that we asked. “That fucker was a let down”, Papps grimaced. But the signs were definitely not ominous. A root cause analysis was imminent. There could be two potential reasons for his bizarre reaction we concluded. One. Where we were headed is ‘not walkable’. Or two, Papps’ pot-pouri vernacular exhibition (with his limited vocabulary of 100 words both languages included) unsettled the poor man. Considering the water feud between the two neighboring states (the one we came from and the one we were in), blabbering the wrong language could well be the difference between a black eye and none. After much deliberation and to the angst of one, we unanimously decided it was the language and that we were lucky and Papps would never ask directions again.

A mile or so later, when rationality and fatigue got the better of us, we found two security guards warming themselves in front of the glowing embers of what must have been a bright and burning bon fire. We thrust our arms out like fire flies to the flame and the men made room with generous smiles. A few pleasantries later we asked the inevitable question and waited to measure the ‘are you crazy’ index in their reaction. “It’s a bit far off”, one of them replied. “There’s a bus stop round that corner. You’re bound to get one in another half an hour”. “We’d like to walk”, I intercepted gingerly. “How long do you think it’s gonna take us”.

“eh…. 25 minutes”, the faster of the two replied, as though it was a pre calculated answer to a math problem. ‘Minutes?’, I confirmed, just in case. Leaving the guards to their cozy corner, we labored ahead in what seemed the road to neverland. Conversations thinned, shoulders drooped. And the ascent mockingly turned steeper and more spirit crushing by the minute.

But the odd abuse not withstanding we trudged on like rudderless ships. And like all long journeys which end in broad smiles and confetti, we had our much awaited moment of bliss. Papps sighed. Suri sweared. CG raised his long arms in accomplishment. Djang screamed. I read aloud the writing on the big brown board: Love dale, 0 km. Many of us swore that day not to walk great distances anymore. But after breakfast when we got out of our hotel rooms, someone looked into a pamphlet the receptionist had thrust upon us and quipped: “Botanical Gardens: 5 km. I think it’s walkable’.

Walking

2007-03-24T03:28:00.000-07:00

I have been a walker all my life. For lack of money; for lack of transport or for the sheer lack of will to wait for public transport to arrive. Walking in a way liberated me from these petty dependencies; giving me that self reliant gusto to reach destinations on my own. Now if you’ve raised your eyebrows and mumbled ‘isn’t that shallow; aren’t you making too much out of this’, I’ll have to add it’s probably also got to do with upbringing.

Ever since I can remember, I had these pretty stories fed into me – of how my dad walked all the roads of big city Bangalore to learn how not to get lost. ‘I was 17 you see’, dad would say, ’and there was no one to show me the way. So I’d set off in the morning with half shorts and cotton shirt and learn all the routes by heart’. I’d listen to the story for the ‘n’th time with wide opened mouth and be inspired.

And inspired I had to be, for I was walked to school as a little fellow with bag baggage and neatly combed hair. But lest you start thinking I was this inspirational story like BBC reports of Sudanese kids walking miles for basic education, the plot’s a little different. And a little less innocent. And the little fellow me with slickly combed hair and name badge pinned up over a handkerchief was not an angel after all.

Barely ten steps from home, I’d feign inability to walk any further and perch myself on top of my mom or my aunt or my dad or whoever it was who was doing the honors of taking me to school. So they walked the mile to school like tireless Sherpas, with me and my bag and my incessant whining for colorful candies and fly laden cut fruits.

But a hundred yards or so from school, I’d suddenly find a new found vigor to walk. ‘Put me down, I’ll walk’, I’d say and would find myself on the ground even before I completed the sentence. Walking was a labour all right but self respect was not worth putting up on the stake. Little me’s big image was under threat of nose diving like a hand made paper rocket if anyone were to see me perched up like a baby. The nursery social circles can get extremely damaging you see and I didn’t want to take a chance.

Lessons in social responsibility

2007-02-05T13:46:00.000-08:00

It was December of two thousand something and a makeshift winter was doing its rounds. Despite it not being as cold as a winter should demand, I walked around in my black jumper with more regard to the seasonal change than anything else. I was turning another year older and was pretty much feeling like an autumn leaf waiting to drift to the whims and fancies of the wind. And yet; as much as it threatened to blow away in the next gust of wind, clung onto some crevice in the rock for fear of drifting into someplace unknown. Most of whom I called friends, ones whose presence counted and words mattered had moved away in what I so like calling the search for utopia and green dollar bills. I have often wondered why I did not join this search for Shangri-la. Probably because, utopia for me still did not translate into images I could relate and get fascinated by; probably because the lure of money, despite having the power to buy me all I needed (and there were quite a lot) was not strong enough to pull me off my roots.

Hey, but wait a minute. This was by no means meant to be a piece of philosophical writing. So the grim background not withstanding, December that year was pretty much happy times. Many of my friends were in the city for good and we stood on one of those arterial city roads, asking those very profound ‘where do we go?’ questions. I was tempted to add to the profundity by asking ‘why do we go?’ (for fearing of ripping a hole through my wallet), but in a material and gluttonous world, such profundity is not always appreciated.

Many decisive moments later, it was not too surprising knowing us, that proximity rather than cuisine and all other parameters unanimously chose the nearest Chinese restaurant as venue. ‘Matt, this is Lulls and Lulls this is Matt’, I introduced host-like, realizing suddenly that not all at the table really knew one another.

By the time the soup arrived, Matt and Lulls had sparred already a couple of times. The soup, I thought should ease matters out but they’d ordered ‘Hot & Sour’ and it probably only made matters worse.

‘Its funny you have your entire lineage stacked up in your last name’, Matt remarked with a sprinkle of sarcasm like black pepper on his soup.

‘Not as funny as having your first name repeated twice like an unnoticed spelling mistake’, Lulls retorted with a mocking smile.

Good sense of humor this, I must admit. But not when you’re the host and take social responsibility to ensure everyone is having a good time. Probably they were, for all you know, but I winced at every jab they made at one another.

When main course eventually followed starters, there were times when I felt an irresistible need to put the cutlery away; lest one of them use it to make a sound point.

But it all ended fine, with no living thing (other than the fish and the fowl) suffering any damage. As I got my round of hugs from all and sundry, I just kept telling myself – ‘Don’t mix your friends’.

***************************

‘Why not mix your friends’, Suri questioned professor like over our Saturday evening cup of coffee at JC. Lester and his jazz band had ‘breaked’ for their cup of coffee and inspirational puffs of nicotine.

‘..Because you’re fuckin responsible for ensuring everyone’s having a good time’, I replied.

‘You’re not’, Suri refuted.

‘It’s all about disassociating yourself’, he continued taking a puff of his Milds. ‘You bring an eclectic crowd together, introduce them to one another and cut the ‘I am responsible for all thee comfort’ cord. If the discomfort grows, sit back and enjoy it. It’s like one giant experiment in psychoanalytic behavior and you like Sigmund Freud watching. The more eclectic the crowd, the more interesting observations to sample’, he whispered with a cocky smile.

***************************

A couple of weeks later, we were sitting on a larger table at JC, listening to Lester play a skewed version of George Michael. ‘Great song’, one of my office friends who had accompanied me shouted.

“Yes indeed. Provided you’re a bloody sissy’, one of Suri’s B-school friends retorted. I could sense the discomfort growing. But it passed me like I were opaque. I was bloody Sigmund Freud. Suri stretched at the far corner and puffed. I smiled.

Of Big Brother and broken umbrellas

2007-01-21T14:35:00.000-08:00

The clouds and the sun were scheming devious plots against Chronos, the god of time, who oblivious of the situation kept ticking away customarily. Or so it seemed. My alarm buzzed and I waked into pitch darkness. Winds blew hard, striking my well wrapped body like a battering ram. And oblique pencils of rain pierced down like arrows sent flying from a taut bow. I walked down, umbrella in hand like a battling soldier. Thank God, I had a new umbrella at last. The old one was battered, bruised and beyond repair. With flapping opposite ends and a couple of broken bars, it almost passed of as a new style in umbrella design (a Gucci or an Armani, if they were ever into designing them that is). But I soon realized that the utility card desperately needed to override all other and there was no way I could continue with the old horse.

And what a wise decision it was. The new one stood firm and arched like all good umbrellas should stand; battling the gale storms like a tried and tested warrior. I had floated the idea sometime back that crafty umbrella holding in extremely windy conditions is worthy of qualifying as an Olympic discipline. If at any time the idea sounded lofty and preposterous, it was sure to be quelled today. I flipped umbrella sides as deftly as a sailor would tilt the sails of his yacht to catch the drift. And every right maneuver swelled me with a sense of pride (and every wrong one left me as wet as a helpless fish).

But the rain had petered down to a drizzle when I eventually reached the gravel parking and joined the wet and waiting crowd. The wind undeterred though had pressed the pedal, pressing my new black stallion to struggle in order to not turn turtle. ‘Europe under siege’, newspapers had screamed amidst photographs of monster winds and rising tides. And the damage and the foul weather not withstanding it was a refreshing change to have something different on the British dailies. It was all about Big Brother and Shilpa Shetty the past couple of weeks, who for some unfathomable reason was getting called everything under the sun. But it had racial undertones was the global debate. ‘…the Indian’, I hear she was called (but wait a minute, isn’t she one anyways. ‘…a dog’, they continued (now that can’t be true. One, there’s a clear cut gender error and two, from what I see of her on the tele, she’s probably in contention for the Ramon Magsasay this year ( or probably and more realistically, atleast the Bafta).

So as Shilpa braves all the rough treatment and cries her way to a cool three crores in the confines of comfy big brother’s house, I stood there soaking in the lousy weather. Two souls ahead of me, a short stout country man had his broken wreck of an umbrella rise up like a crustacean; or like Marlyn Monroe’s skirt in that eternal video clip from yore. And as it folded up like a rising curtain, the man underneath surfaced, smiling sheepishly at all those who stared at him like in an Indian version of Mr. Bean. I muffled a snigger. The blonde standing in front of me laughed uninhibited. Now I wonder if that’s racist. Considering the times, it probably is.

A Tale of Two Cities (cover version)

2007-01-15T15:09:00.000-08:00

I stood there huge bags in tow with a sense of awe and anticipation. The marathon flight was done with. The official scrutiny of everything that was me from my birth date to health status was over. I was free. Like a prisoner released on parole, I felt strangely happy for nothing at all. To be free and alive to be looking out at the azure blue sky. To see cotton candy clouds skirting around in gay abandon.

‘This way’, Nicky called out reaching for one of my lighter bags. I struggled behind, all poetry flushed; keeping pace with life’s a labor scowl on my face. We got into the elevator and he pressed basement. And however, anti climatic it may have seemed to me we were heading underground for sure. So I wasn’t really going to walk into the middle of bustling London amidst red double decker buses and fancy head geared policemen. I was going underground. Deep, dark and as recognizable as any other city’s underbelly.

‘Can’t we take a taxi’, I pleaded innocently, hoping to hear him say ‘Oh yes we can’ and resurface over ground to where the sun beat down on a fine July evening.

‘Nah, nah’, he dismissed, as though I were but blabbering childish prattle. ‘We’ll get off at Holborn and then take the Central line to Stratford. The Piccadilly line has maintenance work this weekend I hear’. I nodded sheepishly making vain attempts at assimilating the profound tube jargon hurled at me. Big city this; London.

**************************
I had vivid pictures of London in my mind’s eye; sketched right from the time when I read Seth’s ‘An Equal Music’. Of muggy London through which the protagonist walked soaking in the melancholy of lost love and music. There was magic in the great man’s words that struck a chord somewhere deep down in me, instantly raising the city’s image on a pedestal. And here I was now, blank and dark though the pictures flashing out of the tube window may be, traveling through the throbbing undergrounds of that very same city.

****************************

Stratford resembled more Philadelphia or Frisco than my visions of London. A giant Olympics countdown timer ticked away at a huge quantum of time. Black youngsters walked around with that ‘Hey brudher’ swagger. Low baggy jeans, cut t-shirt, sculpted muscles et al. It almost looked as though I had been plucked out of ether and transported into the midst of a 50 cents music video.

“Nicky”, I blurted, “You’re sure this is London brudher (feigning authenticity). I almost feel you’re faking it. I’d rather go some place that makes me feel I am in god damn London. Some place I can instantly relate to and say “Ah ah, here I am”.

***************************

A McDonalds lunch later, I set out in the search for the real London. The one that I expected to give me that déjà vu, if I can call it that. We did Piccadilly Circus. And I stood there at the foot of the statue of Eros and stared at the great social pot pouri of culture at display. The TDK signboards were there, flashing like in all those Bollywood songs which I had seen streaming on the idiot box back at home. The Thames flowed; muddy and non-descript, evoking no poetry or romanticism; London bridge stood as normal as any other bridge may be, bearing unending traffic. Somewhere within me, images shattered. Of pictures which I so clearly remember etched on nursery books with the eternal ‘London Bridge is falling down’. Tower Bridge though provided solace, looking more London bridge than the actual London bridge itself. Confusing nomenclature, but I took it all the same. London it has to be, I tell myself. Hyde Park, green and spacious; like an extended version of the park of Lord Cubbon back at home. And finally Buckingham Palace. ‘Is this it?’, I asked, disappointed.

No replies forthcoming, I just stood there straining my eye to catch a glimpse of the Queen, just in case she pops out to dry her laundry.

************************

We got off at Gare Du Nord, with vicious clouds greeting us like we never left London at all. Not that it came as a surprise though, since the weatherman had categorically proclaimed showers and unpleasant weather. Letting that not dampen spirits, we walked with a sense of purpose to the central station complex; where Christmas decorations were still intact to herald the New Year.

We stood at the metro ticket counters, me with my myth that English is a flash it anywhere language and my friend with his monosyllabic knowledge of French. At the end of the ordeal I was holding a zillion shards of my shattered myth and he was beaming with a swelling French ego and four metropolitan day passes. ‘the French don’t like us’, one of the folks back at office had told me. ‘….and we share the emotion. Talk to them in English and they’ll hardly get a word. Or at least they’ll try not to get it’. Considering the blank stares I got in reply to m questions in pristine English - probably true.

The Parisian metro stations were wider and dirtier. And so were the tubes. We barged into one of them which was headed in the direction which to us instinctively seemed correct. I stood there against the railing, staring at the tube map. An interesting analogy instantly occurred to me. The tube’s next stop, final station and where we were headed were all unpronounceable. Interesting indeed. ‘Pardone’, someone mumbled behind me, interrupting my profound inferences. I stood firm, tall and ignorant. ‘Pardone’, he hollered this time, the decibel levels clearly signifying much more than ‘excuse me’, I stepped aside and nearly dissipated in the cold stare. Welcome to France.

By now I was well and truly feeling like an alien from the spatial hinterlands. We got off at Trinite` d’Estienne d’Orves (how do you think I would not feel like one). But when I climbed up the stairs like Jack in the beanstalk tale, the first sight that greeted me was worth all the alienation. Baroque five storied buildings lined entire streets like in some medieval Hollywood film set. Balconies popped out into the road with potted petunias fluttering in the cool December breeze.

Paris; the high seat of art and culture. Images of all that I had ever read whizzed through my mind. It was the place to be, if you were an artist in the nineteenth century. Where Degas and Manet and Van Gogh met and painted and discussed art. Where Victor Hugo lived and wrote about the Hunchback of Notre Dame; where Queen Antoinette was beheaded for she knew not that people without bread have no cake either; where Mona Lisa sits in a long hall, mysterious and overlooked; where Napoleon conceived boulevards and giant fountains and lovers walked hands entwined over bridges that arched over placid river Seine.

Standing atop the Eiffel Tower that night, I marveled at all that the city glittering beneath me like a 22 carat jewel was. If there were visions I had in mind, of grandiose sculptures, beautiful fountains, pigeons fluttering amidst clear blue skies, they were all fitting in; like missing blocks in a jigsaw, consummating my vision.

**************************

Merry Christmas

2006-12-16T01:24:00.000-08:00

The red and green of Christmas is everywhere to be seen. Trees with lights that sparkle at night prop up all along the road in festive gaiety. Bed and breakfast places, their dirty walls adorned with last year’s decoration reserves. At office, danglings in a riot of colours hang precariously like trapezium artists. Streets bustling with a shopping frenzy. Slashed prices, more for less, that pair of shoes you always wanted at a 30% discount. Everyone’s binging. Parading through the streets with more shopping bags than two hands can carry.

No one’s noticed or no one’s bothered about the temperatures that have dropped; about the bare trees heralding winter; about the fact that their shopping bags have three jumpers and two pairs of gloves. The gloom and cold of the winter shall wait. At least until the last bottle of red wine is finished, till Santa Claus has gone back on his sled to his Artic haven, till the Christmas trees have all been removed, sparkling lights et al. Shops will go back to marked retail prices, decorations will be stacked up in cardboard boxes for December next. And before you know, it would be cold and winter and another Julian calendar year.

But anyways, for now it’s all bright and shining. Merry Christmas.

Music on wheels.

2006-12-01T15:10:00.000-08:00

I was disgruntled as usual. With both the quality and quantity of sleep (both of which I reckon were unjustified, as there was a substantial measure of each). Standing before the mirror I instantly knew it was a bad hair day. Each strand revolting against the very premise of good looks. Each one like an autonomous body. Expressing free will and direction. I should probably visit the barber; ending the tyranny of these bloody dead cells, I reminded myself.

The watch read eight as I eventually turned the key in the anticlockwise direction and pushed at the door in reflexive paranoia. It would take me 15 minutes to reach the gravel parking, just good enough to miss the 8:15 shuttle. The point is, I hate it when I get in, clamp the seat belt and even before I realize we’re half way down our journey, past the anglers and the noisy white swans at Thorpe River Green.

***************************

With my house at the far end of Ingram I had to walk, hands in pocket for a good hundred yards to reach main Hall Road. The trees looked more bare than yesterday. Leaves lying like golden leaflets at the foot of the trunk and elsewhere. Mischievous schools boys in small race bikes were racing along the footpath like in their backyard; making the old lady who always stood there waiting for bus 27 or whichever other to appear as troubled as usual.

I walked past the co-operative society opposite Harford Street, where I’d stop every evening for my packet of Doritos and two large bananas. The Daily News hoarding rued the dismal performance of the City football team; again. Past the eerie church compound; past the veterinary clinic where a girl in brown overalls always stood disinterested and smoking; past the pub called ‘The King’s Arms’ where on the wall is scribbled Billy. With a halo over the ‘I’.

I’d be at Queens Road by now and a couple of traffic button clicks later, on the road turning to St Stephens. Little nymphets bubbled out of the corner like out of a magic crypt. In shades of green and locks golden. I turn left from the ‘Nobokovian’ nymphet land and look which of the three shuttles wait for me this November morning. The 8:15 is long gone, which means I will get a good ten minutes to sit back and kick start the day. And how, is left to what I listen.

*****************************

The old man with spectacles who would shout out ‘Thank you everyone’ at the end of the journey like we did him a favour played classics. Warm as a Christmas hearth. Tucked in a corner seat, shrouded by a warm woolen jacket you could feel life’s smiling countenance beaming down on you. Even on a chilly day

Or I would land up in the shuttle of the blue jacket clad funny man, who played Elvis. A stand up comedian of sorts who had more than a funny take on everything animate or otherwise which went past him. Belting out numbers which infused life into me like air blown into a flaccid balloon, he’d look back and ask in a Gregory Peck twang - ‘Ladies and gentlemen, ready to rock and roll’. And before we could ever reply, the gears would fall into place, the accelerator would be pressed and we’d be on our way crunching gravel and spewing smoke.

Or like today, when I am sitting pretty in the shuttle of the big burly man with the bald pate and goggles of the Ray Charles genre. Who’d play magical numbers of singers and bands that I scarcely recognized. I’d just sit there all the same – transfixed; staring at the broads whistle past me in a hurry. Blue skies. Green meadows. Mellow music. And a Ray Charles look-alike at the wheel.

I wonder if I’ve ever thought about it before. Thank you, gentlemen. Just turn up the volume and keep the music going.

The Pilgrimage

2006-11-17T14:30:00.000-08:00

‘Wake up’, dad was screaming. ‘We’ve come all the way and now don’t tell me that you want to sleep. The early morning puja is the holiest of them all. And if we’re late it’ll take hours for us to get a darshan’.

‘Five minutes, dad’, I implored. ‘Why don’t you go take a bath and I’ll be up by then’.

I coiled into a posture of comfort and hoped for time to freeze. Like in the legends of yore when anything was possible. But those were the legends of yore, not the times of today. I could hear dad sending me the precursor to the final wake up call. I half opened my eyes and stared at the whitewashed ceiling of our hotel room. The fan whirred at terminal velocity, undeterred by the overnight run.

‘Quick, quick’, dad explained. “We’re late already and this boy just does not understand’, his ire now targeted at mom, non-committal. This is the problem with temple town visits. Early morning waking up (actually make it middle of the night. It’s hardly even four and god himself will be turning over in deep slumber). But no, people just do not understand. Ablutions done, I sat there like in a drunken stupor wondering about the logic of the whole exercise. It’s not that I am an atheist. I am a believer. But a rational one at that. For me, it’s the same deity that sits there in the temple; day in, day out. So why can’t we prostrate before the lord god at a saner hour. A good refreshing night’s sleep and one might be in better spirits to meet the lord for all you know. ‘Don’t wear that sweatshirt for god sake. You’ll have to remove it anyways when you enter the sanctuary’, dad continued bellowing.

‘Why don’t you’ll carry on and leave me alone. I’ll visit the temple later in the day’, I argued hopelessly. A full moon gleamed in pristine silver. Distant strains of devotional music wafted down from the street below.

‘What time is the puja’, dad enquired to the man at the reception.

‘You’ll probably have to rush. The queue gets very long otherwise’, he proffered unwanted advice. Hair slickly combed back with a smearing of sandal paste on his forehead, he sat there fresh as a daisy. It’s four ‘o’ clock in the morning godamit. Is he nocturnal or something, I wondered.

‘We’ll leave our footwear at the West Nada.’, dad stratergized. ‘It looks like we’re late’, he continued in the same breath, stepping up his steady trot. I stumbled as I kept pace; looking around at the world that to me should be at sleep. It seemed all roads led to the abode of the lord; standing there in the distance with spires coated in gold. The temple flag fluttering in the cool Arabian breeze. Temple town folk are early risers I must admit, for every man, woman and child in the vicinity was headed in uncomplaining devotion; oiled, bathed and sandal pasted to the door of their god.

I joined the cascading crowd, my senses by now wide awake, fascinated by this intricate world at play. In the gleaming silver of the moon above, in the golden outpouring of halogen street lamps, newspaper vendors squatted by the road, sorting dailies, plastered with trade union politics and Friday matinee releases. Little shops selling everything from beaded chains and multi colored halwas scouted for customers both devout and otherwise. Devotional incantations of every wannabe tinsel town singer was streaming out loud from a hundred tape recorders in various strains of melody and non melody.

And we rushed through all this and more like busy office goers for their 8:30 express. However, not all of them seemed to be in a hurry. I noticed a few ‘cotton candy’ bearded old men (in worn out shades of saffron) sleeping by the temple door, oblivious of the rush hour traffic. “They also serve, who merely stand and wait’, said Milton. Didn’t he?

***************************

It seemed like the inevitable had happened. Not all had slept and procrastinated like I did. The queue had made two neat circles around the main shrine. Dad gave me a look that was meant to be the silent equivalent of two tight slaps. I neatly evaded the look; asking mom instead some deep mythological question.

Minutes turned hours and daylight streaked in as the sun rose among the eastern hills. With light came the heat. I clutched onto my shirt to prevent it from sliding off my shoulder. Streams of sweat rolled down my back as though in mock recognition of all effort expended.

“How long is it bound to take”, I finally asked, tiredness over riding the sense and sensibility of such a question.

“Lord Krishna does not give an easy darshan.He tests you and only then appears before you”, dad explained. I wish he had been more quantitative in his answer.

***************************

A hundred oil lamps burnt in unison like a stellar constellation. The temple elephant stood there in salutary obedience at the threshold of the god’s sanctuary; with lean shirtless boys atop holding beaded umbrellas like in those tourism department adverts. Cymbals clanged, drums resounded and someone blew the conch loud and clear. Amidst fervent chanting of the holy name, a sudden thrust of latent inertia propelled the queue forward. And like tributaries joining the main river, three queues merged into one in a crescendo of chaos.

I pushed and got pushed and in a melee of hands and bare backs finally found myself in the innards of the temple courtyard. Over shoulders and perspiring bodies, I could see glimpses of the main deity room. Camphor burnt, oil lamps burnt; all like in a cauldron. The queue like a meandering river bent around and then dissipated into nothingness off the main deity room.

Dad wriggled, like out of a rugby defence stronghold and handed me a few coins. “Drop it into the hundi’, he actioned. Years of burning lamps had turned the walls pitch black. A magical odour of camphor, ghee and coconut and all of a sudden I was face to face with the God. A black monolithic block of sculpture stood there pristine; a smile carved somewhere on the stone. Mirrors dispersing the holy flame to seem like a hundred. I stood there marveling the simplicity of what I had waited for, all these hours. Two seconds and a push from behind. Biff!!! It was over.

‘Did you pray hard’, dad asked when I joined him.

“Yes I did’, I replied; not wanting to divulge I had hardly muttered anything other than ‘God bless me’. Or did I even say that?

***************************

Sitting on the temple stairs nibbling on some coconut and jaggery offering, I heard dad and mom discuss plans of coming back tomorrow for another darshan. I sat quiet, staring at the devout who still stood in long queues waiting for their two seconds in front of the open doors.

Tomorrow, much before dawn breaks, I knew all that happened today would happen again. And I from my slumber might whine and complain. But at the end of it all, I think I will end up coming like one of the multitudes. And tomorrow I shall remember to pray.

To err is human, to blunder is ....

2006-11-11T15:19:00.000-08:00

I turned into Surrey Street with a grim frown firmly plastered on my face. Downcast eyes, furrowed brow, clouded mind (like the clouds above) and daunting visions of a database design which loomed like a puzzle out of the final rounds of Crystal maze. Today was not going to be any different from yesterday. Or for that matter the day before. The task that had at first seemed simple, then complex now looked ‘undoable’.

Pretty girls in green sweatshirts and loosened ties giggled their way past me school ward. I walked past the bus station; past three piece suited gentlemen, grey haired ladies and the beggar in Puma shoes who sat their waiting for loose change under the giant Union clock.

There she stood. Good old St Stephens. A grim three storied structure; somehow reminiscent of documentary snapshots of government buildings in the old Soviet block. Going past the swivel door, i made sure i escaped the jail warden like scrutiny of the security guard at the reception. The bell tolled eight in the distance. ‘Hiya’, she smiled from behind the counter. A momentary blip of happiness as I fumbled for change for my oatmeal flapjack. Did I not see the twinkle in her eyes or was I merely fantasizing. I clumsily walked away from the counter; ruminating missed exchanges of pleasantries. ‘Hiya’, I heard her say behind me. The same twinkle in her eyes. Another flapjack sold.

Laboring up the stairs I pressed 53 on the vending machine. The coffee - as insipid as ever. Sinking into my seat, the day ahead appeared long; long like a serpentine road to a weary traveler. Three depressed keys and the complicated design popped up on my plasma screen. Nothing can be done now, the design is flawed. Redemption is in accepting defeat. Doing root cause analysis and shooting the designer at point blank range. Wait a minute, but who did the design. Wasn’t it me…….a solution should exist;surely. The designer is after all human.

Bangalore-Mumbai-London

2006-10-22T03:16:00.000-07:00

I had unwittingly checked in far too early for my middle of the night- early morning flight. Beyond a million people and what seemed a zillion glassy walls my parents hardly realized I was three security checks deep into the airport lobby and had no way to come out and bid them that final formal goodbye. A few phone calls later, I at least ensured that they were well on their way back home and in the warm confines of their bed when dawn and my Airbus 320 finally arrived.

With a little over three hours to kill, I was juxtaposed precariously between the proverbial horns of a dilemma. Do I go ahead and attempt a quick power nap or stay awake, for the flight, frisking and all the formalities that accompanies overseas air travel. Three cappuchinos later, I pretty much realized it was the latter approach that I had adopted.

Italy was playing Czech Republic (if my memory serves me right) that night and the Azzuris were pumping goals into their bewildered opponents’ net like there was no tomorrow. A hundred people waiting to travel to a hundred different locations sat there staring into a grainy transmission of the match. I joined; feigning interest and support to the Italian cause. But when the grains got thicker and the match more one sided I resorted to fidgeting with my very basic, no Bluetooth, no embedded 3 mega pixel camera, make-a-call-if-you-want-to mobile. How I wish I had one of those all encompassing gadgets that slay boredom at trying times like these.

***************************

Time ticked by as the Italians presumably stuck more goals. Pretty strangers, who sat around fidgeting with their more accomplished mobiles, got up and boarded flights to Kualalampur, New York and where have you. I sat there brooding like one of those unfortunate boys for whom daddy does not turn up well after school time.

More minutes ticked by and finally a coarse voice on the PA bawls out a flight number etched out on my ticket. I stared hard for confirmation. Bangalore-Mumbai-London, she repeated in languages more than one. It obviously could not have been the effects of caffeine ebbing away at the hands of an overpowering bout of sleepiness. The wait was over. My flight was ready for boarding. 3:30 read my watch. I tugged at my shoulder bag and walked towards the sentry. A couple of customary security checks later, it should be scrambled egg, toasted bread, Orange juice and then Mumbai.

***************************

I looked out of my double layered glass window into the distance. An invisible as-of-yet sun was sending those first streaks of daylight. And like a potion of colour dropped into water, they permeated through the black of what was yesterday. Dark changed a hazy crimson and then something lighter in the spectrum and then the G force of take off; white clouds; scrambled egg; toasted bread; Orange juice and then Mumbai.

****************************

The wheels hit the tarmac and I peered out through my half open eyes. A blanket of drizzle enveloped all the Mumbai that I could see. And as the Airbus turned around at the far end of the runway like a ballerina, the tin shanties of Dharavi popped out like a handwork assignment of a fifth grader. In all motley colours – blue, red, grey. Little boys ‘pottied’ outside their tin homes staring at the snouts of huge aircrafts which seemed to them like amusements of another world. I did a mini stretch; almost knocking over the coffee into my neighbors lap. A few cold stares later we were walking single file, him and me; like Jews to the giant shower bath; like school boys to a boring drill class; like co-passengers to catch a connecting flight. The electronic clock on the wall read six. The milkman would have dropped the customary litre at my doorstep back home. The drizzle steadied and then stopped.

*****************************

A bigger flight meant more people. More people to go past when you want to reach your window sill. More people who would grumble when you want to get out for a leak sometime. More older women. More crying devils. It also meant you’d be treated like a school boy in a classroom of a hundred. That’s economy class anyways, I ruminated as I slid past the woman in horn rimmed glasses to my designated corner of airspace (well, at least for the next eight hours.)

An hour or so passed in quasi wakefulness’. Staring at cloud formations slide past the steel bird like nothingness. How I wish I could slide past these row of people just like that, if I wanted to. ‘Orange Juice or (something I did not hear)’, ordered the headmistress-like-air hostess, breaking my reverie.

‘Eh…Orange juice’, I whimpered. (Damn should have asked her what else is available). Her barren face showed no signs that a smile had loomed in it for ages. “Can you pass this along’, she ordered again. “And what would you have for lunch – Veg or Non Veg”.

“I’ll have veg”, I answered. And immediately after uttering it, had this irresistible urge of making it Non Veg. I rolled over the question for a moment. The headmistress was long gone. I’ll have Veg I convinced myself. A few minutes later, I had my veg meal in a tray. God bless, it tasted good.

****************************

A large screen in the middle of the aircraft occasionally flashed the site trail of our journey. Like Alexander’s army we were crossing land and sea. The only difference being, we knew we were heading Heathrow. Alexander and his men meanwhile would have just wanted to keep going.

I tried sleeping and then I tried staying awake. I borrowed the New York Times from the lady in the horn rimmed glasses and tried doing the crossword. I tried reading James Frey; tried listening to Louis Armstrong. I even hopelessly tried concentrating on a movie where the protagonist’s best friend is a dolphin. I don’t remember when, but the movie ended abruptly sometime when both protagonist and dolphin swam away into the horizon. God bless the director.

And then a big bout struck me. And when I woke up we had downed the altitude for sure. Green hedges, tiled box like houses and a general sense of orderliness - evidently visible. The roads criss-crossed in perfect geometrical symmetry; cricket fields and swimming pools appeared every few minutes. In a bar round some corner, two young men are sure to be discussing knighthood for Wayne Rooney over large pints of Kronenberg.
Old Blighty.

***********************

Heathrow was like an Olympics village. Airplanes from a hundred countries -big and small; known and unknown. Parked there with their snouts together, oblivious of the fact that the lands that they come from are at loggerheads; fighting for soil, oil and what have you. We must have traveled considerable distance on land by now, like a car searching for parking in a busy urban shopping mall. People were restlessly folding their newspapers and picking up luggage from the overhead cabinets. The lady in the horn rimmed glasses got up as well, freeing me from my captive corner. I felt like a free man as I stepped down the stairs. The sun was up and shining and a distant blue board proudly proclaimed – Welcome to Heathrow.

**************************

The queue at the immigration was long and winding. But geography it seemed had dissolved into that one line. Old Chinese couples, whole Indian families, big bosomed women from the African hinterlands – all of them just stood there as though in a global communion. A bevy of very loud but very pretty young girls with hair colours ranging from auburn to blonde stood there speaking in some exotic European language. If angels were conceived on earth, it’s probably them, I ruminated poetically.

‘Next please’, announced the lady at the immigration counter.

Break in reverie again. I shuffle for my papers. Passport, check-in form, work permit, medical reports, what else…. Am I forgetting something?

‘Nice handwriting’, she smiled at me. A few basic questions later I was lugging my 30kgs worth of luggage in the search for that one familiar face in the crowd.

There he was. “Hey dude”, I waved.

“Where the fuck were you. Your flight arrived almost an hour back”, he complained, relieving me all the same of one of my monster bags. I smiled, looking around in amazement. Welcome to Heathrow, proclaimed a familiar blue board.

**************************

Monday - a sequel

2006-10-10T15:24:00.000-07:00

This is the sequel to an earlier post titled - Sunday

I labored out of bed like a prisoner of war to the gallows. The alarm on my mobile had buzzed like the harbinger of doom. Peering out of the window, I could see the scene set for the day. The sun peeked out momentarily like in a game of hide and seek and then promptly hid behind the veil of large vicious clouds. The roads had been washed down by the sheets of overnight rain and the wind was relentlessly beating down on me when I braved it all and walked out of home. A blond girl walking ahead of me had her golden locks flying around like a towering inferno. Thank good for small mercies and simple visual delights. And thank god not for Monday mornings.

Sunday

2006-10-08T02:11:00.000-07:00

For whom the bell tolled, it must have struck seven. The cathedral spire glistening in whatever little the sun had to offer. The dark vicious bulbs of cumulo-nimbus clouds would be there as usual; standing sentry to another chilly dull morning. Sheets of overnight rain would have swept the roads clean like a newly swept floor. And the wind. Like a prankster let loose in a candy store, like a lone tusker gone astray, the winds would be lashing at every sign and post. Leaves stretched to hold onto their twigs dear. Every muscle and sinew pierced as though by a thousand needles. Am I not glad I am not in the midst of it. This may be a figment of my imagination or may very well be true. But snuggling into my 10.5 tog duvet, there’s no way I am looking out of the window for confirmation. It’s Sunday.

The Donut factory.

2006-10-01T15:03:00.000-07:00

4 donuts for one pound twenty proclaimed the board. I stopped in my stride and worked out the logistics. Breakfast had more or less become a non entity and it was far too early for lunch. The artist had done a fair job in luring the waiting to be tempted and I decided it was very well worth a go. I walked up to the counter and mumbled – ‘Hi there, 4 donuts please’. The lady at the counter did a mere nod and walked up to what seemed like a pretty complicated apparatus stretching half the length of the counter. (Reminded me of physics apparatus back at school where my values always indicated that the refractive index of glass was the same as that of water)

I looked around to see if the actual donuts rose up to the image created by the part timer who had painted, what to the starved and hungry was nothing short of a Michelangelo. But they were nowhere in sight, and the lady still seemed obsessed with this weird looking apparatus of hers. Whatever happened to customer value, I wondered, as she turned on a switch and shuffled with a piston.

Below, this piston was a large cylindrical drum which extended into a long tubular waterway with lanes resembling a swimming pool. And the entire stretch was submerged in what seemed and looked like oil. At the far end of the tubular pathway rose a ramp at a 45 degree incline. The apparatus stopped there like in the middle of nowhere with a mound of icing sugar below.

I was by now figuring out what was happening before me. And as though to confirm my nascent ideas, a circular blob of dough fell into the black calm of the oil. There was a simmer and a few moments later a puffing of the dough. I could now very well see the circle expanding with that all too familiar orifice in the middle. A second blob soon fell and then two more. I gaped like a kid at the circus as the first donut (now they deserved to be called that) swam the great channel of oil towards its climax at the head of the ramp. The others followed suit like in a boat race, the only difference being the ones behind showed no signs of overtaking the leaders. A few moments later, they were climbing the hill like in a procession, waiting to fall into that mound of sugar below.

I waited with bated breath for the donuts to consummate their journey but it was not to be. The vamp got to them before they dived to their sugary end by picking them off the ramp and smearing them with the sugar. It somehow was not that classic end that I envisioned but before i could even reflect, I was thrust the four donuts in a bag and mumbled a quick ‘Thank you’. It was just another day in the donut factory.

Stories for the gym.

2006-09-24T13:19:00.000-07:00

The calorie reading flashed past on the dashboard. I visualized a slice of margarita with dollops of cheese I had for lunch, vanish like a genie in a Walt Disney movie. The big red button read Emergency stop or “Don’t torture yourself. Click here” or something to that effect. I ignored the lure. It was a pizza buffet lunch and the damage done was considerable; the calories to burn infinite. I increased gradient and kept running.

The gym was on the third floor and I could see the cobbled street below me open up like an opera. It was a different matter though that Debenhams, the super market round the corner had closed and there was not a soul in sight. So it was like an opera alrite’, but with no show. Curtains down. Empty balconies. Nothing happening.

What happens when there is nothing to entertain is this. The brain cells send a ‘Hi, how are you doing’, enquiry message to the rest of the body. The optic nerve nudges all and sundry around and picks up readings from the dashboard. ‘This freak’s running quite a bit today, eh’ it sends back to its well wisher back at the attic. ‘Hell, I am fuckin’ stretched’ respond the calf muscles. A board meeting of brain cells later a red button somewhere on the dashboard is clicked and a poor panting, gasping me is reclining in the comforts of a chair nearby.

But just when I was resigning for the cytological parody to unfold, something happened today. A young man dressed all in black came walking up the deserted street below. Resting against the Debenhems shop window, he kept speaking animatedly into his mobile phone. And minutes later, as though on a directors prompt, a girl in her teens also appeared from the opposite end. She looked around emptily for sometime and then rested against the same shop window a little away from where the young man stood.

Furtive glances exchanged and the girl uneasily tucked at her T-shirt. She fumbled inside her handbag and keyed some imaginary number into her mobile phone. I could see chemistry brewing; smoldering. I waited like at the movies for the young man to finish his call and Cupid to ignite the lull of the street below. A few moments and then a few more. The young man disconnected the call and the girl stood up. She walked back the same way she had come. The young man looked at his watch and walked the other way, without even a glance.

I looked at the empty Debenhems shop window; at the now empty cobbled street below. Was all that I saw mere fantasies fabricated in the mind. Somewhere, something transpired, a button in red got clicked and I……..

P.S: The author ran two miles and burnt 180 calories this nite :)

Go(karna) Go - A travelogue

2006-09-17T11:22:00.000-07:00

The tickets to Gokarna were booked for tomorrow. And in the proverbial red bus to boot. ‘Have fun. Be fun. Be frugal’ was the mantra of the tour. No gastronomic splurges. No expensive hotels. No reclining comforters of the Volvos which screeched into the neighboring bus terminals. For us, it was just the free spirit of the true back packers that we so badly wanted to be. And that latent desire to be Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty (The fact that that we hardly even possessed the ‘H’ of the hedonism of Kerouac and Cassidy was another matter altogether).

My cold had got worse over the last few days and innumerable inhalations with and without Vicks had not done what those ads did to kids with dripping noses and blazing temperatures. My voice too – changed baritone and then unrecognizable. Suri was christened spokesperson for the tour as we clinked bottles and guzzled mango juice for the road.

The red buses though were no longer red. They had turned chic. All those profits which the transport corporation was making were being invested on paint colours other than red for sure. But the luxuries denied in the buses of yore continued to be denied (so what if the buses were no longer red). Leg room for one was never an ergonomic consideration and it continued to be so. Railings on the window cramped elbow movement and Suri snuggled into a pose ‘half-Khajuraho half Lateita Casta’. But the bigger problem was what made us wait with bated breath. Our seats were part of a three-seater and the prospect of accommodating a stranger into our already uncomfortable abode was sure going to be a daunting task. But to hell with it. Backpackers don’t travel business class. Do they?

We waited.

***************************

The spokesperson took his job seriously. (making me ponder if we should have laid out a few rules to keep his responsibilities in check). There was a blatant exhibition of his command over the vernacular (which by the way was no command at all). Eclectic discussions with an equally eclectic cross section of people ensued, keeping me in constant fits of laughter and cough.

It was when the third round of negotiations with the ticket collector in swapping seats to a two-seater was looking promising when the Davanegere bound family entourage boarded. Two sets of ‘men and wives’, two adolescent girls and a young skinny prank. We heard the burly spectacled man shout out the seat number next to ours. We quickly sized up the family. South Indian conservatism would rule out the two young girls. Swish. The two women would prefer sitting together and gossip into the night. Swish. That would leave the two burly men and the skinny kid. If the men decided to sit together and discuss finances, matrimony and property rates at Davanegere – bingo!!!
(we would have the kid. We could even throw the skinny fellow out of the window before the bus hits Tumkur and sprawl over all that green leather.)

**************************

It worked out just the way we wanted. And we strengthened our Sicilian defense by making him comfortable with some needless child-like prattle. He seemed happy at first and then suddenly quipped – “Can I sit by the window”. He was going for the jugular right away, that little devil. “Illa. I need to vomit once the bus starts”, Suri retorted.

“Me too”, he replied, as though from a script.

“But I’ am bigger. I need to vomit more”, said Suri (those satanic horns easily visible now.) I choked; coughed. The kiddo looked the other way. The battle had been won. We soaked in the glory by sliding open the window and letting the gushing wind hit our faces as the bus set from Majestic bus terminal.

***************************

But the battle was what we had won. The war was lost. When you are a kid of six or seven, there is no way you can sit at the aisle. The window beckons like a candy bar lures the baby; like the neon lights of the strip clubs lure the young and like the wooden benches at the park lures the old. And when you are six or seven and the only male child in the family, you would nine times out of ten get the candy and the window seat as well. The burly spectacled father moved in beside me and I found myself choking again……but this time for space.

The next few hours were purely territorial in nature. We fought silent battles for comfort. Our conversations kept us awake. But it was not so for our adversary. He had to fight not just us. But also sleep. Tumkur flashed past us outside the window. A huge billboard proclaimed a ‘plastic free Tumkur’. We laughed it off like all socially responsibly young men should not. Probably was the sleep (or rather the lack of it) getting to us.

I leaned forward for a change in angle and lazily asked Suri – “Wonder how much the Indians made today?”

“Dhoni yeshtu hoditha”, a strange voice next to me suddenly quizzed. It was our adversary. And also the first overtures of friendship; of bonhomie; of connect. We blurted out a few numbers but he seemed better equipped with latest scores. Cricket, the unifier. And strangely, shortly there after we all found our comfortable reclining angles. Positions that suited everyone. (hey, wait a minute. I haven’t read Vatsayana’s work yet, but hope it does not sound similar. It’s a world where eighteen year olds are first paid a fortune for writing a novel and then ripped in public for ‘copying’ someone else. Why take a chance.)

***************************

In between fits of sleep, I saw small towns and groves of trees slid past. The changing imagery seemed surreal in the dark. And reality it seemed existed far away – in the small talk over coffee back at office; in the monotony of changing television channels at home; in alphanumeric gibberish plastered on plasma monitors in my cubicle. With every passing minute, the yawning gap between reality and me seemed to widen. And I didn’t mind it one bit.

The clock, I remember showed 5:45 when we boarded the bus. And it was forty-five minutes past five when we reached Tumkur. I strained my eyes and focused at the clock in the dark. It was pitch dark now. It said 5:45.

“What time do you reckon we’d reach Gokarna”, I asked Suri.

He rubbed the slumber off his eyes and enquired – “What’s the time now?”

“5:45”, I said.

“Oh…then I guess, we’d be there by……..eh…….5:45”, he replied and turned the other way.

I smiled and nestled deep into our time warp.

****************************

At sun dawn, the bus rolled into Sirsi. We jumped out to give our sore and twisted muscles a well deserved stretch. The reddish brown stone façade near the bus station invited exploration. A flight of stairs descended down into city square with only the odd mongrel strolling about an otherwise empty bus station. The obscurity of the small town was perfect for the early morning ‘open the eyes and you are not in the rat race’ feeling. A well groomed man with a baby in tow was checking the bus timings to Panjim.

“Are you guys on the bus to Panjim”, he enquired.

“No sir. This bus goes to Gokarna”, I replied.

“5:45 ko ayega na”

I stuttered. “Board me to yehi likha he”

I shuffled for the mobile in my trouser pocket. It was fifteen minutes past five!!! Suri and I walked around in search of the loo. And then finding none, pissed against the brick wall of a building which we later realized was the men’s rest room. There was a cool moist feel to the air and it thrilled me to believe we were heading the right way. Seaward.

The engine revved up and the ticket collector blew the shrill whistle. We abandoned our musings and boarded back into the bus. I looked up at the clock. 5:45. The young man would have probably found his bus to Panjim. I looked out of the window and he was standing there all alone, baby in tow. There was no sign of the bus. Was it late I wondered? Possibly not. We were back in our time warp. That’s all.

***************************

Kumta seemed like a larger town. And its scale of importance grew heavier when we realized that our Davanagere bound family was actually Kumta bound. “They hand over the collections here before heading to Gokarna. It should take not more than an hour from here”, smiled a ubiquitous South Kanara good samaritan. There was something genuinely warm about the people in this belt – that wide earnest grin or that extra word of advice to your concern of where to go or what to eat.

I got off the bus, persevered and found a loo. Suri did the same and found a cigarette. Back in the bus, I preferred staring out at the salt extraction plants lining the entire Kumta-Gokarna stretch while he stretched out and slumbered. An hour later, we hit destination one on our travel list – Gokarna.

****************************

Gokarna glistened in the mid April sun like yellow metal. We disembarked and were immediately accosted by two touts of the religious kind. The kind who play tourist guide whenever they do get time from their main job – seeking nirvana. It did not take long though, for them to realize that getting business out of us was only as difficult as seeking the elusive halo around their heads. The odd family or two standing around looked more promising and they left us to fend for ourselves.

I was not feigning cognizance of the mythological importance of Gokarna. In fact I hardly even knew if the place was Vaishnavik or Shaivik. This was the very me who harbored thoughts of learning all about Greek mythology oblivious of my limited local knowledge. (Like the me, who wanted to learn French when not knowing how to read or write in my mother tongue). Me, the hypocrite. Okay, now that’s it for negative shades. For the rest of this story, I am going to be this character worth being reproduced on screen (if at all it ever got to be reproduced) by some smart hunk from tinseltown. Nothing less.

******************************

Two main thoroughfares diverged from the bus station. We walked down one of them in search of the sea and cheap accommodation (the latter preferably overlooking the former). Five minutes into the walk, lodging was coming for as cheap as fifty rupees a day provided we compromised by looking into the bus yard instead of the sea from our bedroom window.

I wonder if it was the heat or practicality or lack of romanticism. We eventually settled for a restaurant called ‘Gokarna International’ with a twin bed, television set and a balcony to boot. It costed five times more than what the ginger bearded man who accosted us on the roads offered, but we took it all the same. And it did not even overlook the sea. It just happened to be the closest place at hand, when our tired bodies (bowels included) decided ‘Enough is enough’.

******************************

Brushed, washed and in better spirits we headed straight to the beach. A non-descript breakfast happened somewhere in the middle but as I mentioned, it is best described non-descript. Gokarna is a small town and there is no way one can get lost. We walked around the narrow streets lined with antique Mangalore tiled houses. An old man stood at the threshold of a house calling out to a lady selling vegetables. Both of them had creases on their faces that seemed antique as well. It looked like a weird experiment in anachronism. Like a world tucked away like a pearl in an oyster, away from the madness we called reality.

Gokarna, according to Hindu mythology is said to have got its name from the fact that Lord Shiva appeared here out of a bovine’s ear. And the bovine community sure did make their presence felt. They were unusually short in stature, with horns tailor made and razor sharp for good penetration and maximum damage. Soaking the old world charm and avoiding confrontations of the bovine kind we finally hit our first beach, Gokarna beach. I widened my gaze and smiled. Blue. And somewhere in the middle, sky became sea.

************************

Little boys heaved plastic lines and waited till it turned taut. One of them held a polythene bag filled with small fish. Laurels for their labour in the hot mid-day sun. Suri chased a few crabs, picked a few sea shells and tried striking a conversation with the fishing boys. Respect was scant but he persevered. Holding a mackerel in his hands, he quipped: “Whoa, that’s the closest any one in my family ever got to non-vegetarianism”. When was the last time you did something for the first time, proclaimed an airline ad. He could have proudly said – Today!!!

“And you better return that back to those boys before they bait you to hunt a shark, you bastard”, I shouted.

April is off season for tourists and we walked in front of shacks proclaiming to be restaurants but looking as empty as a classroom after class time. We trespassed a few private properties and managed to successfully disorient ourselves. (Please ignore my earlier claims of it being impossible to lose yourself in a small town. Where there is a will, there is always a way). We stopped at a small shop and shrugged off the disorientation by asking a few locals for directions.

“Climb that hill you see there”, a young man told us, pointing to a hill jutting into the sea. “Kudle beach lies yonder. And two hills later you will find Om beach”. I splashed some water on my face and looked to see if the hill seemed closer. It did. I splashed some more and looked up. That’s all close it would get.

************************

We walked up to the base of the hill that was pointed out to us in the distance, and surprisingly found a fleet of stairs leading up to a small shrine. Lord Ram and his faithful ape, Hanuman stood firm. We murmured a silent prayer and kept climbing. Half way up the cliff, another shrine awaited. Much smaller, more quaint and affording a panoramic view of the Arabian Sea. We read a board claiming that the shrine was dedicated to Bharath, the royal brother of Ram, who was king of Ayodhya when the king-god was banished from the opulence of the kingdom. We sat at the threshold of Bharath’s temple and looked at the sea below. The climb was already reaping dividends. The sky merged into the sea at the far left and the greens of the coconut fronds took over to the right. Somewhere in the middle, the waves shied away into the sands like a bride into the hands of the bridegroom. The riot of colours intoxicated me, like elixir to the eye. A painter it seemed had colours to spare and had been liberal.

The senses can inspire and suddenly, every nerve and sinew is throbbing you ahead. Stones in my path are kicked in gay abandon and the sweat pouring down my back is labour expended for beauty returned. We set sights on distant citadels, a lone palm tree or a hawk shaped rock. Claiming to one another that the beach lies yonder. It never did.

At one such corner, I looked at Suri and said – “Down that bend and its Kudle.No doubts”. We approached in mock anticipation. And with every step it was clear that the beach it was not. A gorge carved into the mountain fought with the sea, its ferocious adversary like warriors in battle. We stood there like at the colosseum and listened to the roar below. It was only apt when Suri screamed - Zeus point.

*************************

Zeus, eight feet tall, stood on the precipice of the rock, facing the crimson sun. The reins from his hand extended to the rocky structures on either end of the gorge like prancing horses. His raised hand lashed a whip as thunder and streaks of lightening rivaled his menacing voice. Suri shuffled a bit and clicked an imaginary photograph from his imaginary Cybershot. Zeus himself was mere fantasy. Fabrications of the romantic mind. We knew he was there somewhere; overlooking the sea, unseen to the eye but visible to the spirit.

I stood on the precipice where Zeus stood in our mind’s eye a moment ago and dialed home. “Take care and be safe”, mom was screaming over the line from Bangalore. “Sure thing mom. Not to worry”, I mumbled, stepping back onto level ground.

**************************

The descent soon came and it turned out to be rocky. The beach of Kudle peeked amidst the foliage. We dug deep into our energy reserves and stumbled along maintaining balance and poise. The latter all of a sudden being more important, what with the hot European woman following our footsteps in the search for the elusive beach. Suri immediately christened her ‘Tan’ia. The one in search of the tan. We could easily see her flaunting her sun tanned body in some distant German café or British pub and claiming she holidayed in India this summer.

Many precarious moments later we hit ground zero. It did not matter that it led us directly into the kitchen area of a beach side restaurant. We walked right through the back door with all the panache that was worthy of a Hollywood starlet making a red carpet entry. The sea shimmered in the afternoon sun like a cauldron of boiling water. We put up our legs and skimmed through the menu. What happened next is but a blur. Gluttony, avarice and hunger were all equal partners in crime. An hour later, the very thought of food made us squirm.

We sat their like pythons after devouring a bigger prey than it should have devoured. Tan’ia meanwhile had her brown bread sandwich and fresh lime without soda and headed out to the beach. The flowery summer dress soon slid down and she was all one with the sea, sun and the sand. The pythons though continued to snore unmoved.

****************************

A few heavy hours wafted by in what seemed like a surreal dream. When I opened my eyes, the dream seemed to continue. Dreamland was right there and for real.

The cliffs ahead, the boys at the restaurant told us lead to Om beach and we set off, no questions asked. I remember seeing this travel show on television where this smart alec host once quipped – “You cease to be a traveler when you start becoming a tourist”. We had had our hours as the tourist back at the restaurant and now it was high time we shed that image.

Om beach is so called because it is shaped like the holy Hindu symbol of the same name. Not that we could validate that, because we hardly got an ariel view of it. But it sure was a fabulous beach. A tad more commercial I should mention but doesn’t beauty always bring attention, whether you be a pop diva, television star or even a harmless beach.

***************************
Om beach had more than the average share of Western tourists. This obviously meant - more than the average share of shacks serving pasta, pizzas and toast with peanut butter. We entered one of them for want of food and water and were treated as graciously as school boys who knock on every door for Christmas collections are treated back in my colony. The lemonade was luke-warm; like the store keeper’s attitude. And we trudged back to the beach discussing animatedly about the total lack of customer value.

Om is a tree lined beach and we sprawled on a straw mat that we found lying abandoned under the overhanging branches of a tree. The sun bathers swam around and then sprawled face down in the sun, only to get up and head seaward again. And we watched them change from peach to ebony and back to peach.

“Boating hogthera”, a voice asked us from behind.

“Illa boss”, quipped Suri with the nonchalance of one who owns a private yacht. I turned back to look at the owner of the voice. A young fisherman clad in a pair of shorts and t-shirt grinned seeing the weak link. “You get to see dolphins. And two private beaches that is tucked away round that corner”, he said pointing to a distant hill.

“How much”, I asked him like every gullible tourist would ask.

“250”, he said.

I looked at Suri and realized that he was searching for his double barrel Heckler and Koch. And I was pretty sure, if he had just one bullet, he’d have used it on me. “Are you crazy”, he bellowed. “Boss, I’m not asking you how much a dolphin costs”, he told the local. “get realistic and we’ll think of it”.

A few minutes of deliberations later we were on the high sea. And at this point of the story, the writer in me would like to step out and leave the reader with the image of the two of us sitting on either end of a trawler speed boat throttling away into the horizon; in total oneness to the sea and the sky.

Death of the hero.

2006-09-17T02:24:00.000-07:00

The clouds seemed to play hide and seek as I boarded the bus back home. Trouble was brewing all over town they told me. The thespian is dead. The cardiac muscles of the hero, tired and then stopped. And he died once more; like a hundred other times, the only difference being - he wouldn’t get up this time, wiping the make up off his face.

But it was a life well lived and trouble for the rational did not make sense. But the shutters on the shops were all pulled down. And every street corner had garlanded pictures of the hero; some in memory, some in fear. I got off the bus and someone jokingly suggested – “Tomorrow guarantee holiday. There is bound to be riots”.

And well it was. You didn’t have to be Nostradamus’ second son to predict that. I sat on the couch surfing channels. Like fishermen who are advised not to venture into rough seas, I was ordered not to go out of home. The news channels beamed correspondents reporting amidst charred buses and rioting mobs. I looked out of my bedroom window to see the billowing smoke. I did not see any. I looked out to see if stones were being hurled at my bedroom window. They weren’t. But those images continued to flash on the screen. A police constable running out of a burning bus, with fear splashed all over his face; a few mindless men encircling him like in those games we played back at school. And those clenched fists ramming into his face as though it were but a pillow. Blood on the streets, fire in the air. And all because the cardiac muscles of the hero tired and then stopped? My neighbor had turned on the music full volume. His small world had not changed. I turned off the television set and read Dilbert. Isn’t this guy funny? My little world hadn’t changed either.

May the soul of the hero rest in peace.

These are a few of my favourite things?

2006-09-17T02:20:00.000-07:00

I was filling in the questionnaire. It asked for ’10 things that you like doing the most (in order of preference)’. Phew!!!. Impossible. Let alone listing them in order of preference I don’t think I’ll even find 10 things that I like doing so much that they should be put down on paper. I tried though and I’ll try again (with more thought, minor refinements and a pinch of lunacy).

At one, is ‘philosophizing on long train journeys’ (I promised you the lunacy bit, didn’t I). ‘Philosophizing’ probably is an exaggerated description, but travel does induce thought. Wonder if it’s the fleeting imagery or the sense of movement (a sense of not belonging to any place in general; a sense of wafting over land and sea with the eye feeding the mind with truckloads of imagery to process, comprehend and make sense out of). That skewed interpretation not withstanding I’d still go ahead with ‘philosophizing on long train journeys’ in my top 10.

At two, is ‘Tucked up in bed, reading a Kundera or Seth, while rain drops hit your window pane’. It’s a pretty simple recipe for a great day. A Czech genius, an Indian poet and a few cumulo-nimbus clouds. There is a certain magic in reading stories set in grim Prague or cloudy London with looming clouds and slanting rainfall outside your bedroom window.

At an unearthly five ‘o’ clock every morning, I pull myself out of bed, denying myself those extra winks of sleep which is nothing short of paradise lost. Lucky are those souls who oblivious to the rising sun confine themselves to the warmth of their furry blankets. The others like me want to lose calories. The treadmill at the gym does not show the ‘calories lost’ count though. Neither does it show the time I have been running on it. I close my eyes to make little of the effort. And invariably, I always get visions of running through a tree lined boulevard. (wonder what Freud would have made of it). But despite the chilly December mornings and the sleep denied at three is – ‘Working out on the treadmill to attain fitness nirvana’.

This one puzzles me. Why is it that you always prefer tea from small shacks and stalls set in frugal settings but coffee only from swanky cafes - on the rocks and otherwise? It is a dichotomy I’ve never really understood. Sipping tea in small tapering glasses from propped up shacks and thermos flasks, with a sugared ‘biskoot’ to dip is quite an unparalleled bliss. Cigarette smoke, whirring fans and waiters who blurt out your bill, no pleasantries expended marks a smack on your face honesty that is blatantly refreshing. But when it comes to coffee it’s different. Air conditioned, wi-fi enabled glass walled bistros serving coffee with chocolate sauce, whipped cream and what have you. The setting irrespective, catching up with friends at meager tea stalls and swanky coffee bars sure do make my list at four.

‘Watch out for Mukund’, quipped an acquaintance of my friend. ‘Broke a few hands last season’, he continued as though realizing that I was beginning to feel weak in the knees. We were playing Josephs and I knew that the odds were not even. Bracing up against a fast, furious state under-19 bowler did not sound like a good Sunday afternoon past time. I padded up like a Roman soldier off for battle and walked up to the middle. There he was – my nemesis. Tall and lanky, exchanging pleasantries with the umpire. I mumbled a silent prayer and tried not to listen to the taunts of the slip cordon. Ball one - the cherry hurls past me like a bullet making me feel nude; unprotected; stupid. Ball two – raps into my pad like a cannon ball. I was convinced – I am nude; unprotected; stupid. Ball three – timber. One of the stumps goes cart wheeling into oblivion. I walked back not having felt the ball with the bat even once. Funny, I recounted this, but when the ball hits wood and in the middle, it feels good. So much so, that I’ll put it down on this list as well.

I stood there on the thirteenth floor balcony of a restaurant serving a sumptuous breakfast buffet. It’s Sunday morning and I stand god-like with a city awakening from its deep slumber beneath me, as I spread peach and apricot jam on my toasted bread. I wonder if it’s because it’s Sunday or the fact that we are obscenely early, the restaurant is largely empty. The only others to have got the better of their deep rooted somnia were two British women - soaking in the sun and news reports of England’s cricketing heroics in the third Ashes test at Edgbaston. A glass of fresh fruit juice with Portuguese croquettes and cheese omelets for starters; divine. It felt good having the Brit women around and they probably felt the same having us Indians around. A sense of global camaraderie in me devouring egg and bacon and muffins while they immersed succulent idlies and golden brown vadas in sambar and coconut chutney. So that’s that – breakfast buffets on a sunny Sunday morning. Idyllic, lazy, gastronomic and definitely on my list of ten enjoyable things to do.

My channel surfing invariably ends at number 18. Travel & Living. In fact if god were to appear before me – Biff!!! and ask – “Son, what is that one thing that you covet; one man whose job you so badly desire”, I’d say – Ian Wright or Jeremy Clarkson or Anthony Bourdain or Megan McCormack or….any of those modern day incarnations of Epicurus who eat, drink, travel and make merry for a living. “Give it to me, O God. Those backpacks, those plane tickets, those trekking shoes and cocky scripts, those unlimited travels into unseen lands magical and beckoning. Give me, O wise one, the undying spirit of the relentless traveler who travel for travel’s sake leaving behind footprints for others to chart. Ok, Almighty, give them my desk job in return; coffee vending machine, personal computers, grumpy bosses and ergonomic reclining chairs included”. Fair deal, I should say, but no one’s replying.

Bob volunteered to give us two continuous hours on a Saturday evening instead of the usual one hour-two days a week schedule. We were kicked. The guitar seemed a fairly simple six stringed instrument and we envisioned learning the nuances to cutting our first album to take roughly six months at the maximum. At 500 rupees a month, we had this irrepressible notion that Bob’s tutoring was over priced but when a few subtle changes from G major to D seven and back to C major, yielded our first song we soon forgot the finances. The joy though was short lived. I felt my fingers lacked the dexterity in sliding over from G major to C major. Producing musical strains of any quality all of a sudden seemed Herculean. To add to my woes, Samantha and Elizabeth (two smart girls who also came to Bob’s) played every chord and sang every song (from Dizzy Gillespie to Cher) making sure they made me feel like one of those autistic kids who landed in the wrong school. Weeks later, I found defeatism even in the lyrics of the song. (Lord, oh one; Lord, oh two; Lord oh three; Lord oh four; Lord I am five hundred miles away from home (and my first song I would instantly think)). That was a long time back though. I no longer go to Bob’s and ideas of the band have evaporated into thin air. But now there is a sense of joy in sliding my fingers from G major to C major, sans the fear of getting the chords wrong. The calluses on my ring finger suggest I am learning and probably…….. I am not that far away from home now.

I see words stringing together to form sentences, and sentences metamorphosising into paragraphs. The paragraphs would fill reams of paper and a hard bound collection of all the words that I have written would be sold in glass walled book houses for money. People would read for joy, for pleasure, when they are bored and when they are not; they would appreciate, criticize and live my words in their living rooms. I like a Greek god, will create and then kill characters at will, eating and drinking out of silver ware and golden goblets from the royalty that I am paid. When I walk on the streets, men would whisper into one another’s ears – “Here comes the creator of tales, the painter of dreams, the foreteller of your life and mine”. Okay. Too much. Fantasizing apart, writing, getting a work published and being hailed an author does figure in my wish list of ten things to do before I bid adieu.

Now am I not glad I mentioned the lunacy bit right up front. This write up has ended up like one of those kites gone astray. Meant to go one way and then eventually heading elsewhere surrendering to its own whims and fancies. I twiddle through the pages and take count. It’s nine. I try thinking and then decide against it. Let’s leave one for posterity; for future thought and reasoning; for all things incomplete are abstract. Intriguing. Exciting.

City Lights.

2006-09-17T02:08:00.000-07:00

We were heading to Bombay and we were god damn excited. The romanticism of getting down at Victoria terminus, amidst all the Gothic style architecture, the dust and the squalor sure did make tinsel town stuff. In fact, we were born and brought up watching Hindi movies, where people board off Bombay headed trains, with a ‘thou(the city) art greater than all’ expression. So much so, we even practiced those expressions back in our bathroom mirror (why be frugal on the dramatics, I say). But the romanticism was not to be. Train tickets were at a premium and we found ourselves, stacked up on a 24 hour bus ride to the city of a thousand dreams.

But we were obstinate about not wasting the expression. Dry, arid shanty towns of Northern Karnataka were followed by the dry, arid shanty towns of Southern Maharashtra. We waited like a debutante actor for Bombay to appear in all glitz and glamour so that we can react like we so desperately wanted to react. It did not take us long though, to realize that there did not really exist any line of demarcation to separate Bombay from non Bombay. It merely looked like an extension of all those shanty towns we went past and to our disbelief they even called it Bombay. (these bastards would have brought us through the back door of the city for sure, Paaps told me. Whatever!!!).

But this is no travelogue this, so let me come to our story. We (we by the way is Paaps and me) caught up with a few friends of mine – a certain Matt and Bals (no pun intended) at the latter’s place. He was a tough man, this Bals. Had seen brawls and bloodshed he told us once. And considering our quiet, bloodless backgrounds we looked up at him with due reverence.

For Bals, manliness was in the swig of his whisky (no soda, three ice cubes please); in the number of rings that his cigarette smoke trailed (for others to count and keep records); in answering the calls of his testosterone surges (love is for the movies and the boys). For us, he was nothing short of a Hollywood star on vacation.

Pleasantries exchanged, drinks offered and Bals gets dressed in a jiffy. We were wondering what that meant, when he suddenly looked up at us and asked – ‘seen the nightlife yet?’

‘Er…Nope’ we replied in unison.

Twenty minutes down the line we were headed to a place Bals called ‘Chuck Naka’. And as though that didn’t sound mysterious enough he also added the ‘Don’t keep shouting out that word too often’ warning. Chuck Naka. Sounded like some magic word from Aladdin’s time. (repeat the magic word three times….genie appears….three wishes……I wonder what I’ll ask for……live happily ever after routine. Did not happen. We even tried).

We had traveled a fair distance by now and the auto finally stopped at a check post. It seemed to be the end of town for all practical reasons and it seemed like the forbidden land that lay yonder. Bals and Paaps were already waiting for us. ‘What took you guys this long’, he asked us and without waiting for a reply led us past the check post into forbidden land.

**************************

There was one thing that struck me immediately, once we were on the other side of the check post. The dust and grime on the roads seemed to have doubled, the meanness on people’s faces - tripled and our very own heart beats…….. had quadrupled. We were on another auto pretty soon and the ride was hardly a minute. We got off and stared at the hotel with a unicorn’s insignia. Chains of chrysanthemums adorned the entrance. The sentry promptly saluted and opened the door. Blink. Smoke on the dance floor. Blink. Girls on the dance floor. Blink. We were at the infamous Bombay dance bars.

There must have been about fifty girls on the floor. We weaved past them amidst glares that could easily have frozen any of us (bar Bals). Girls in skimpy clothes. Girls with mascara and red lip stick. Girls with small brothers back home, who do not know what they do for a living. Girls who remind me of similar faces back at up-town coffee shops. Girls who would end up in bed today with some cheap bloke with a big libido and a few extra rupees to spare.

We sat there transfixed for God knows how long. I would be lying if I say that I did not enjoy it one bit. Some of them looked gorgeous. And it felt good when they gave you more attention than you gave them. But I knew it was not because I looked like Brad Pitt. It was vulnerability, the desire to live life well at least in broad daylight.

I looked at the others. No one spoke. Not even Bals. It was about to strike twelve. Some good looking girls had disappeared. Others waited. We got up and weaved our way out to the door. We heard someone remark aloud – ‘It’s not even twelve and they’re leaving the old bastards’. I did not bother looking. The door adorned with chrysanthemums opened and we stepped back into the (un)real world.

More for less.

2006-09-17T01:59:00.000-07:00

Picture this.
Scene 1: You walk in through the glass door. (In all probability, it’s called ‘Gentleman Saloon’ or something to that effect). It’s a modest one room enterprise with no pretensions what so ever. The clientele remain faithful and walk in every fifth Sunday and get their hair cut, the same way they have been getting it cut for god knows how long. The antique radio, the size of a desktop machine which once played songs of yore now play the latest movie songs with techno beats. But it’s the cosmetic shelf that fascinates me. Some of those talcum powder brands I scarcely believed existed any longer adorn the shelf with gay abandon. He changes blades these days though. Touchwood. I wait for my turn in anticipation. Tamil dailies in various stages of deterioration lie around waiting to be read. I pick one up and browse through the pictures. A couple of Anglo Indian kids shout profanities outside for the world to hear. Someone in the box seat gets up. My turn.

The barber wraps me up in a towel and matter-of-factly reaches out for the scissors. I know what’s coming. I do the unthinkable. I stop him midway in his stance and explain gibberish to him. A Mallu animatedly explaining in broken Tamil to a barber from the innards of Guntur can’t even qualify as globalization I guess. He hardly reciprocates, but I finish my lines with great gusto. The rest of the scene though is as per script. I pay him the twenty five bucks and walk back home with the same haircut that I have been sporting since god knows when. Five Sundays later I’ll probably even come back.

*************************

These days I get my hair dressed at Le Meridian. Minus all the unheard talcum powder brands; minus the old wooden radio box which plays songs of yore; minus all the talking gibberish and the filth spewing Anglo kids. And minus the uncomprehending innocence of my barber from Guntur. What’s more I even pay ten times more money. And for less. Lesser life, I mean.

Monsoon Musings.

2006-09-17T01:50:00.000-07:00

Is it the rain that inspires muse or is it the proverbial ‘it’s raining because you’re doing muse’? I guess I’ll abstain from finding answers to that question. (Though I’d like to sincerely believe, it’s not the latter.) I’ve always felt that Bangalore is kinda incongruous in the Deccan plains, what with an English weather pattern to boot. It’s November. And though you might remind me of the great Indian monsoon cycles, the North Westerlies et al, I still don’t think this rain (and torrents of it) is substantiated.

Of late, it’s really been getting lonely in the city. All of them have headed West in search of green dollar bills and nirvana. I wonder why I did not leave with them. It’s a strange feeling. Like being left behind while all your folks have gone on an excursion. Like being made to stand sentry to your empty mansion lest someone burgle the god damn emptiness. Like the city, I’ am beginning to feel incongruous myself.

************************

The rain excites, inspires and finally depresses. The smell of sand when the first rain drops fall. The sight of a blooming petunia in your backyard. The touch of the holy water on your face. Sensory orgasm. Excitement.

You grab a cup of hot cocoa and think – ‘Life’s great. Let’s do something’. You read Russian short stories. Write a few lines of poetry. Solve the crossword. 8 across. 11 letters. Inspiration.

It’s been raining non-stop for 24 hours and the newspapers talk about a looming depression in the Bay of Bengal. Suddenly, you have a hundred odd jobs to do and an irresistible craving to stay dry. You stand in the balcony, look up at the sky and mildly enquire – “When the fuck are you turning it off”.

Tea, Coffee and skewed analogies

2006-09-17T01:45:00.000-07:00

It’s raining cats and dogs. Rainfall at this time of the year is pretty unusual. Or is it? If I can vaguely remember those geography classes back at school I think the North-Westerlies do bring rain round about this time. Anyway, like it matters. All that I care for at the moment is my glass of lemon tea.

I stare out of the window. It looks like the clouds are orchestrating their next act. People scurrying about in search of shelter. Umbrellas, raincoats, jackets. Newspapers double-timing as makeshift caps. Puddles, pebbles, broken roads. Honking cars, more rain and John Denver (for some unknown reason) playing country roads….take me home in some corner of my mind.

I shift me gaze to the lemon tea which has been duly placed on my table. There is a single lemon seed floating about, trying to settle down to the abysmal depths of the glass. But every time I stirred, it would bob up and struggle. Life’s like that I think. Running around in vicious circles searching for god knows what. What a skewed analogy – life’s like a lemon seed. It’s still raining. I think I need another tea.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Its forty bucks for hardly a full glass of cold coffee. But then, they promise a lot can happen over it. I wonder what. ‘Would you like chocolate sauce and whipped cream on your coffee, sir’ the barista fondly asks. I wait for him to finish and deliver. ‘I’d like mine straight. No add-ons please’. I love this part of it. Makes me feel like James Bond or something. Actually, I really wouldn’t mind the whipped cream or chocolate sauce or what have you if it were not for the extra bucks. I give a fictitious name at the counter and settle into one of those comfy chairs.

The donuts in the glass case look inviting. ‘With or without chocolate sauce, sir’, he might ask again. It’s the same with life too, isn’t it? You can either live it straight or with add-ons. I prefer living it straight, like James Bond. The coffee gets delivered on my table with bill boasts of tax enough to pay me neighbor’s latte. I take a swig and it’s bitter. Someone at the counter buying a donut with chocolate sauce. God bless.

Life between alarms

2006-09-16T13:09:00.000-07:00

The six ‘o’ clock alarm buzzed. I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling. It was still dark. The window pane had cracked and the makeshift cloth curtain hardly let the feeble sun rays penetrate. I did the first mathematics for the morning. Two and a half minutes more of sleep!!!

Ten minutes later when I finally got out of bed, the clock had already won the first battle and my deadlines had already slipped. It was cold outside despite the jacket. Ten days to Christmas I reminded myself. If it weren’t to get cold now, when would it? The dogs were out, strutting about in great canine splendor, relishing the previous might’s histrionics. They were the lords of the night, no doubt and it was with great reluctance that they handed over the scepter of lordship to us stupid looking bipeds at sun dawn. Stupid indeed the early risers(by choice or otherwise) looked; walking in half sleep for their early morning shots of elixir – milk for coffee and the newspaper for all those sleazy gossip from tinsel town. I wonder who starts the newspaper from page one these days. At least, not me.

I did a few uncomfortable stretches at the gym. Should make more time for exercise, I prayed. Those extra ten minutes – the push ups could have easily been fifteen instead of ten and the calories dropped would have been lesser by a few ounces, (which would translate to lesser guilt while biting into a cheesecake later in the day). The clock by now was capitalizing on the early victories. I was well and truly late.

I rush back home and into the shower and by then the race is fully on. Breakfast is a farce and the shoes as usual unpolished. I wipe them against the back of my trouser as I rush out. Appearance really did not matter, for my cab promptly left at eight (with or without me). Tennyson probably had my cab driver in mind when he wrote ‘……for men may come and men may go, but I go on forever’.

Rush hour and a clogged airport road. A VVIP visit or a traffic cop in bad spirits? I neck out of the window – seems to be the former today. Flashing lights and an escort of cars later, the mere mortals are let to pass. But our driver is now an irate man and the odometer readings seem to reflect the emotion. I mumble a silent prayer for the next traffic jam which will bring us back to a grinding halt.

Office is incongruity. Endless cups of coffee, faulty code and having to wish people good morning matter-of-factly in mid afternoon over tele conferences. In fact, it makes you switch sides. You egg the clock to move faster; until its time once again to make the return trip back to square one. Traffic jams, VVIP visits, road rage all included.

Its half past nine when I throw the bag into a corner and spread out on the sofa. I try thinking and it’s a blur. I try writing and I think it’s also a blur. But what about tomorrow. It’s going to be a déjà vu’ and I possibly can’t write the same thing. I dim the light. The alarm might buzz any minute, I might miss out on a few extra stretches, the cab driver might leave (without me) and the code which was not working today might continue to not work tomorrow. But life I guess would go on. Period.

The six ’o’ clock alarm buzzed.