Mumbai Coffee House

French Leave … The Indian version

2011-12-01T03:01:00.001-08:00

There was an article in the papers this morning which reminded me of an incident from a while back. I had just joined the work force then.

Some folks had come to work in jeans that day. Not standard regulations. Turned out that they were on leave. They were on leave as they could not claim their LTA otherwise. But apparently had too much work, were too busy, were too important to actually go on leave. Wearing jeans at work was their honour badge. The vacation … only on paper.

It was the 90s.

Kolkata actually. Not Mumbai.

Then a new century started. A new city for me. Mumbai. Another corporate concept… ‘Half day’.

I remember at least two occasions…in two different companies where folks went all the way to the office gate taunting their colleagues, who were leaving just a bit after official closing hours, with a kindergarten bully-like taunt of ‘half day … half day’. A very prevalent form of sledging then.

Luckily I only once worked in a place where holidays were a four letter word. Bought my first cell phone with the leave encashment money when I quit.

I think things have changed a bit now. Having a life is not always considered to be a social evil in corporate India. And some day folks would realise that by letting people go on vacations companies can save a lot of money that they would otherwise spend on employee motivation workshops.

What’s your take on this?

Just a little bit over the top

2011-11-19T02:43:00.001-08:00

The barber shop traditionally was a man's last bastion of serenity. A place away from domestic chores and feminine wiles. A place to talk about man stuff. The barber often multi-tasking as a shrink.

My genes tell me that haircuts are one thing that I don't need to set aside money for in my retirement fund. A few more haircuts and soon that's one thing that won't need to be ticked on the to do list. Which is how I explain spending a ridiculously high amount for haircuts.

I don't know if I want to name the place I go to. Simply because I am sure they would like folks with thicker manes to be their brand ambassadors.

It's an airy, glass and chrome place, young folks in black, lounge music that I recognize from the gym.

There are no barbers here. There are stylists.

I had a 'stylist' for the last couple of years. S was the exact opposite of the swarthy barbers of yore. Over time our conversations became interesting. The usual stuff ... jobs, clients and bosses...the state of traffic ...religious fundamentalism. Yes, pretty much barber shop conversations in the modern salon. Then she left for a break.

So I walked in today to meet a new stylist, R. A 'junior' stylist just as S was before she became a 'top stylist'.

"Have you come here before?"

I looked at the young girl like the kids of Sound of Music did at a new governess, scowled and said "Yes. For a couple of years. Always to S".

So the process began. Wash, snip ... you could have cut the silence with a butter knife.

And then the usual conversation starter at Mumbai.

No, not the weather.

"Where do you live?"

"Oh, next door? I live at New Bombay. Never know what it means to reach work at twenty minutes. I just take the train to Wadala. Then to Andheri. Then another here. An hour and a half each way versus three by road."

"And what do you do?"

"You do? I used to work in market research too".

Then the ice broke. Turned out that R had worked for two years in the same agency that I used to before this!

"You have never come across a hair stylist who was a market researcher before have you?"

She said she had enjoyed research. Liked the 'corporate' world. Felt that the agency was one of the best places to work at.

"Corporate and yet cool".

"So why did you shift?"

"Well I always wanted to be a hair stylist. Research was fun but I didn't see myself at the desk all my life.

I wanted to try it out. Took a while to convince my parents. Being a hair stylist is not regarded to be a career yet here. Not like abroad where they respect whatever you do. Even if you are a janitor. But eventually my parents agreed. They said well you are grown up now. Even funded my course"

Then she looked at me proudly and said "I am a trainer now. And financially not too far off from my market research salary. I have done good".

"So what do you do in research? You are a food blogger too? You cook? I love to cook. I baked a cake the other day. For the first time. I followed all the instructions. Came out so easy. I was surprised."

And so our chat continued about the need to follow one's passion. The merits of blogging as a pressure valve. And about a former colleague, a legendary workaholic ... the other side... the need to have a balance in life"

Yes, chats on life in the salon continue well into the twenty first century.

Even if they are now with your stylist.

The Nowhere Man

2011-10-18T18:10:00.000-07:00

Bumped into a few Bangladeshis at Sydney's Miller Street.

They were talking in Bengali and I asked them for directions in Bengali.

We began to talk. Turned out they were at the 'Uni'.

On hearing I was from India, they asked me if I was from Kolkata.

Mumbai, I replied without thinking.

Got a bit philosophical when I left them.

Where am I from?

Chinese whispers go Digital

2011-02-16T05:34:00.000-08:00

I saw a tweet at 2 am a couple of nights back. A friend tweeted saying that people were throwing stones on the streets of Bandra and that she had a scary ride home. Soon there were others tweeting about 'riots/ stone throwing' on the streets of Bandra and Khar and asked people to stay home. Some wondered about the relevance of asking people to 'stay home' at 2 AM. But this is Mumbai. I retweeeted some of these tweets too.

Then I switched on the TV. All the English news channels were showing repeats from the Grammy Award ceremonies from earlier in the day. Even the ticker didn't mention the stone throwing incidents. Ditto for Aaj Taak, the only Hindi channel I could think of. This was twenty minutes after the tweets started.

No surprises that the newspapers didn't mention this the next morning. But 2 AM was well after papers were put to bed.

I guess news travels fastest on social networks these days. Within that, possibly on Twitter. I didn't see a mention of the disturbances at Facebook. Which, of course, could be a function of Facebook groups being closed or limited ones. At Twitter you have access to a larger world.

There is another angle to this. Next afternoon I saw that someone retweeted a tweet on the Bandra riots. Many of us windered whether the riots were happening again. Some tweeted asking about this.

Turned out that the person, a friend of mine, intially didn't realise that the tweet was from the previous night. The moment she realised she sent a tweet explaining the mistake.

I guess social media could be a good cop. And a bad cop too. Potentially explosive in the hands of those who want to spread rumours.

The story doesn't end here. Turns out that the the street agitation was in protest against a hate page on Facebook.

Social Networks can shock. And awe.

Ask Grandpa Mubarak.

How green was my Bandra

2011-01-23T02:19:00.000-08:00

This is an e that I got from a twitter friend who only DM's or e's me. Interesting perspective

"Really nice to read about your pleasant experiences at good ole Candy's.
I witnessed something peculiar a few days ago - was on my way back
into town, decided to stop at (big) Candy's & buy a cup of coffee to
keep me awake on the drive home.

A young lad, possibly in his late 20s - girlfriend in tow, literally
shouted at the guy behind the counter.

Why? Because they had run out of the items he wanted to order.

Reached a point where I thought he might actually jump over the
counter and molest the staff.

Funny how Bandra has changed. Wasn't like this less than 4 years ago.

Ah well, proof that I am indeed, an old fart.

Cheerio'"

K: Well, that makes it two of us.When the crowd at Candies gets too much, I walk away. You can't hang them for their popularity

Tweet Me Up Scotty: Mumbai Tweetup @5Spice @Janta Bar

2010-12-17T02:00:00.000-08:00

I went to my first Tweetup last night.

It was a Mumbai Twitter's meet. From what I understand, a Tweetup is when folks who Tweet meet up, talk in real life, eat and drink, largely Dutch. No agenda. Hopefully.

The hash tag was #5s. It was at 5 Spice, Bandra. As close to home as it gets for a chronically lazy socialiser. Problem was that I was done in by Mumbai's freezing winter (apparently hit the sub 20s. Centigrades). I doubted that I could croak out even 140 characters. So I stayed home and ordered Green Thai Curry from Thai Baan. The only folks in Mumbai apart from Thai Pavilion to make a half decent Thai curry.

I sat at home chatting with K and a friend. My heart was at 5 Spice as I kept scanning the tweets on the tweetup. Then this flashed from @TalkorTweets @finelychopped hey there is a popular request for u to be at this tweetup guys want to meet even if you are feeling sick.

I had to go. I donned a jacket though I couldn't find my muffler or monkey cap. I headed to 5 Spice suitably anti-biotiqued. And for all those 'celebrity' jibes, well I did make an entrance four hours late and was greeted by an entourage at the gate... in my defence I wasn't wearing shades at midnight.

I went up and met the 'Mumbai Twitter Originals'. It went something like this. "This is @finelychopped" "I am at @B50". "@Suddentwilight" "Hi @Netra good to see you again". Sort of like being at M's Christmas bash. "Hi, am double o seven". "Moi double o three". You get the drift. Didn't get to meet the great @Anaggh though. He remains an urban legend I guess. The Ghost who Tweets.

I then headed to Janta Bar at Pali Naka to catch up with the young guns who had tweeted for me. I'd never been to Janta Bar before as Gokul at Colaba used to be our watering hole in our tight wallet days. Had no idea that there was a mezzanine floor and a first floor too. I got a stool, reserved for the elderly, to sit and chat on as I caught up with @Cute_Divya @r113 @krunalhm @TalkorTweet @mohitnanda.

How was the food? Well I need to go back for that someday. And, well they serve booze in quarter bottles, if you are not on antibiotics. The Bombil Fry on the next table looked quite dishy. As did the fish.

From someone who couldn't figure out what was happening in the beginning, I must say that I am quite hooked on to twitter now. Facebook doesn't work for me any more. I have rather quaint views on what constitutes 'friends'. If I don't know you, and you send me a friend request without a word of introduction, then all I can say is I don't wear tees which say 'free hugs' in real life. If I have met you at work but wouldn't share a Saturday evening drink with you then could we 'connect' on Linkeidn please? If you want to tell me how well read you are and how many links you read from the world of business...again not the sort of stuff I chat with friends about. If you want to send me sheep or cows then could you slow roast them first and add some baked jacket potatoes on the side please? And I don't really care what Paul The Octopus says about you. He is dead Paul's sake. If we haven't interacted on Facebook then are you a friend or a lurker. Surely you dn't want to show me off in our list of friends. I am sure real celebs like Sheila and Munni have Facebook pages for Mark's sake. And don't add me as a friend then spam me about your business, your job or your self. If I care I will seek you out. If I have removed you from the 'friend' list isn't it rather lame for you to send a friend request again? And if you find my updates on food boring, well I rarely do that on my Facebook page any more. I have a Finely Chopped Facebook page for that.

Yes I am a bit constipated when it comes to my views on facebook and friendships but then as someone said at the Tweetup yesterday 'Facebook is the new Orkut'. I like the sense of space that Twitter gives one. Follow someone if you like. Write what you want without bothering about 'likes' or what your 'friends' will think. Not the clingy or faux social niceties that Facebook involves. After all if people follow you then they do so on their own accord. And hope that you don't end up the Shashi Tharoor way if your employers follow you.

So if I had to sum it it up in 140 characters then here's my take,

@finelychopped : So Twitter is more fun than Facebook. Tweetups than Blogger meets #5S

These are the Twitter Handles of some of the folks on my timeline (if you don't know what it means then this post won't make sense to you in any case) who were there yesterday:

TalkOrTweets @Cute_Divya @r113 @krunalhm @R113 @mohitnanda

Netra @maheshmurthy @ansoogupta @4chayn :) @aaR4 @chet6 @b50

@Madmanweb vgdravid and the man who hiccuped somewhere away from 5Spice @anaggh

Is Bandra the new cocaine?

2010-11-29T10:40:00.000-08:00

Met a Social Media friend from Delhi for the first time last weekend. We met up at Gloria Jean's, Bandra, for a short while. A place which he confessed to love. I like Gloria Jean's too. As does my wife and many others.

I pass the road in front of Gloria Jean's on the way to work everyday. At times I try to grab a bite in the car and sip a juice as I am not the sort who wants the worm in any case. Problem is that I have to wait for the stretch to get over before I start eating. Its pot holes and pockmarks would make the food somersault in your tummy. Never a good idea. I was hoping that they would fix it when Obama came to Mumbai. Then he flew down to South Mumbai and we were left with audacious hope.

Most of the houses at Bandra resemble the road that I described - old, damp walls, peeling paint, tired plumbing, pre-liberalisation flooring, badly planned, dark, dank and small.

Yet, here are some interesting things I found out through hearsay. My friend who lives at GK 2, a fairly posh address at Delhi, pays one third the rent for a 3 BHK in comparison to what we pay for a 2 BHK here. A lady whose husband has recently moved to Singapore told me that rentals at Bandra beat those in Singapore. And a couple relocating from London said that the rent for a sub optimal, compromised 4BHK at Bandra would get you a semi detached house in a good condition with a garden at a good suburb of London. And no, its not that salaries at Mumbai are higher than those at Delhi. And is not even close to those in Singapore and UK.

I guess we are 'prisoners of our own device here'.

Anyone else who has got 'Jhingalala'd'?

2010-11-28T00:57:00.000-08:00

I miss the good old days of a DD antenna and a booster antenna for Bangladesh TV. Or even the cable wallahs whose office you could go to. Scream and rant and get technicians if something went wrong.

I don't want a satellite dish service which teaches me supreme patience and tolerance. I don't want a satellite dish service which prepares me for the worst that life can throw at me. I don't want a satellite dish service which prepares me for failure, being ignored, being dumped. I don't want to be grounded. My TV rights taken away. I thought I'd grown beyond that.

I don't want a satellite dish service which doesn't work. Which takes my complaint. Gives me a booking number and a date three days later. Followed only by a SMS that my 'complaint is closed'. Asks me for feedback on their service, which I never experienced. Y for Yes. N for No. And if you text N then the reply is 'invalid service'.

I want my MTV.

Welcome to the real world

2010-11-27T13:14:00.000-08:00

For all the snide remarks about their being a virtual make belief invisible world, I have met some really interesting people, and made some of my best friends of late, thanks to Blogger, Facebook, Twitter and of course something called Orkut.

I met Shubho who is fairly prominent in Twitter and FB for the first time today. He said the same thing about meeting folks through social media. He was in his 40s and said that he had connected with some wonderful people across age groups.

Some of these 'connections' remain virtual and yet at times more intimate than many acquaintances in the real world. And some cross what my friend, Kaniska, calls the fine line between the real and the virtual world. Yes we too met thanks to the blog.

And this evening we had dinner with some of my original friends through blogging and another new blogging friend.

This is a social reality of our times. Thank God for that.

So do you draw your sustainable from the 'virtual world'? I believe its not so good for women though as there are a number of weirdos out there, any thoughts?

Do blogs work for you? Please write in

2010-10-15T06:10:00.000-07:00

Note: This post was not written by Ross Geller (FRIENDS)

Hi, today is Ashtami. The biggest and most auspicious day of Durga Puja. It is also the 25th anniversary of the Puja in our building. I was there when the Puja started 25 years back. And am lucky enough to be here this time too. 25 years. Phew, that's a long time. Wonder how things will be on number 50?

Got a piece of good news to share with you on this auspicious day. As you probably know I am a market researcher by trade. That's what pays for the bacon I bring home, make pasta with and write about. My job is to help clients understand what consumer feel about topics of relevance so that they (the clients) can work out their strategies.

Well, this is an instance where work and play collides. I had written a paper on how blogs and social media (Facebook, Twitter) can be used to get customer feedback for small businesses. The paper was based on, what else, food blogging. Things I observed on Finely Chopped.

Got to know today that this paper has got selected by the Market Research Society of India. Which means that I will have to present it at their conference in Mumbai in mid November.

Esomar (the world body of market research) has also organised a conference with TMRS (the Thai Market research body) at Bangkok. They have asked me to conduct a workshop on this earlier in November.

So now that I have probably lost you this is what I would like you to do. Please write to me through comments on this post (ideally) or through DMs, e's on the following:

If you read blogs ....

Why do you read blogs?
What do you look for in blogs?
Any differences on what you look for in blogs versus what you look for in newspapers, magazines (offline and online)
Do you look for information on blogs? What sort of information?
Have you ever decided to buy something or try something based on what you read on blogs/ Facebook. Specific examples please

If you own a business/ are an entrepreneur ....

Have you used blogs/ social networks to further your business? How?
Do you use blogs/ social networks to market your products?
Do you use blogs/ social networks to get feedback from customers? Do you ask people directly for their opinions or do you just read what's put up on blogs/ Facebook pages?
Specific examples where info from blogs or Facebook has worked for you

I am really counting on you to write in. The paper got selected based on what I learnt at Finely Chopped and on Facebook after all.... so please delurk and write in...otherwise I won't have much to say...

Hope you are in a happier place Rouvanjit

2010-06-16T02:15:00.000-07:00

You might have read about young Rouvanjit Rawla. He used to study in La Martinere for Boys. One of the premiere schools in Calcutta. I am referring to him in the past tense as he took his life recently. Thirteen years is all he got in this world. The caning or corporal punishment that he received in school apparently led to his suicide.

Caning? Didn't that happen only in David Copperfield?

Well not really. I moved into an ‘Indian’ school in Calcutta in 1984 when I was ten. My earlier experience with schools, or play schools, was in the UK, Iran and then in an ‘International’ school in Calcutta. We knew about the Solar System. But not about canes.

The ‘Indian’ school I went to, following the ICSE board, was where I first came across the concept of caning. Except it was with wooden rulers and not canes. Our teachers would take our rulers and then hit us across our palms. At times till the rulers broke. Boys. Girls. No gender discrimination. Across ages. By all teachers. Always on the palm of the hand.

No homework? Whack. Talking in class? Whack. Talking in Bengali? Whack. Not polished your shoes? Whack. And so it went.

Then there was being made to stand out of class. And even the occasional take your shirt off and stand. And for girls, take your shoes off and hold it on your head and stand. No, this was not in Panchayat in Haryana. This was in an English medium, ICSE board, Christian Missionary School situated bang in the middle of Middle Class Calcutta.

Did it make us do our homework, not talk in class, not speak in Bengali, polish our shoes? You are kidding me!

I remember a very different occasion when I was in the seventh or eighth standard. Same age as Rouvanjit. I was called into the staff room to meet a teacher. This teacher usually used the ruler till the clasp of his watch come off. That day was different. He sat me down and pointed out that I was the son of a teacher myself. He said that if I would bother my teachers then it was possible that my mom’s students would do that too. Would I like that? The penny dropped. There were fewer detention occasions for me after that.

But then reasoning takes patience and effort. Caning is easier. The British rulers knew it. As did the Whites in Apartheid Africa. And do school teachers in India.

Of sons and mothers

2010-06-09T01:36:00.000-07:00

The defining mother son moment of Hindi films of the seventies was Shashi Kapoor telling Bachchan ‘mere paas maa hain’ (Mom’s with me) in 'Deewar'. Nirupa Ray, who played the mother in question, played the same character in a number of other films too. Struggling to put ends meet so that she could bring up Amitabh Bachchan in various movies. Unquestioned devotion to his mother drove the hero and the story of the film.

The recently released Hindi film, ‘Wake up Sid’, showed a very different mother son relation. Supriya Pathak, the mother, was doting and smothering. Ranbir Kapoor, the petulant son. Churlish. Irritated. Snapping at his mother at all points.

Something which would have been unheard of for a hero in the seventies.

Is it becomes the times are different? Is it because we have moved to consumerism from Gandhism?

Or is it because Wake Up Sid was directed by a Bengali? After all Bengali mothers are considered to be amongst the most protective of their sons.

But then are these things culture specific? Are their mothers who don’t dote on their sons? Being a Bengali son I can’t think of such a scenario.

What’s your experience?

How grey was my valley?

2010-05-26T09:31:00.000-07:00

Tapen Chattopadhyay, who played the character of Goopy in Satyajit Ray's Goopy Bagha series passed away a few days back.

The Goopy Bagha films defined children's films in a country where there weren't many. Films you could grow up with as you kept discovering layer after layer each time you saw them. For many of us they were the rare home grown super heroes cum rock stars. Though more in the Asterix quirky, double meaning, genre. This post is not about Goopy Bagha. You can check this excellent post by the Great Bong to get an idea of the phenomenon that was Goopy Bagha if you want to know more.

I first heard about Tapen Chattopadhay's death from a college friend on Facebook. Soon status updates from others of my vintage began to pop up. Culminating with the above blog post which was linked by many including me.

I guess the mid thirties is a strange period. This is when the icons you have grown up with begin to leave you. Bagha, or Robi Ghosh, was long gone. Goopy now joined him to rock the heavens. Michael Jackson thrilled and then shocked and then went away. Others faded away. George Michael was not really a Lady Killer. Aggasi probably not as cherubic. The judo and disco legends disappeared as Mithun and the eighties became a real time spoof. Gavaskar was left peddling DLF Maximums and MRF Blimps after breaking Bradman's records. Kapil Dev sulks in a corner. The mighty Windies is barely ahead of Bangladesh in rankings. Azza went from one murky world to an even murkier one. Becker and grass are both part of history books. For the cows as Lendl said. Maradona is rounder than the ball he fisted in. Bachchan keeps re-iventing himself. Kishore is remixed.

So who fills up the gaps. Do we search for new icons? Where? Amongst those a decade younger than us? Or do we live in reruns?

But then there is always Anil Kapoor who ek do teen'd his way onto the Oscar Stage.

Finely Chopped on Facebook... My experiments with Web 2.0

2010-05-23T06:50:00.000-07:00

Warning: Geeky post ahead

I recently opened a Facebook Page for my food blog, Finely Chopped. A blogger friend wrote in today saying that she'd just discovered this page. She said she was wondering why I had stopped putting food updates on Facebook. Till she found the Finely Chopped pages. And then said that this was a good idea as I could reach out to a larger number of like minded people.

So why did I start a Facebook page for the blog.

Well let's go back to more than a decade and a half and about twenty five kilos less to a balmy afternoon in Calcutta's Presidency College. PR or Dr Prasanta Ray, an urban legend and head of our Sociology Department was taking our class. One of those rare teachers who could connect life with education. Reason why I remember a lot of what he had taught then.

PR was discussing the book of a rather intriguingly named Sociologist called Tom Bottomore. If I remember right, Bottomore said that each individual has a number of social concentric circles around him. Friends. Family. Family of procreation or the out laws. Of orientation or birth. Work. And so on. People apparently behave differently in each of these groups and often reflect the image others have of them when living in each circle. So if your parents want you to be studious, you will hide your desires to be a rock star. If your friends thought you you to be a rock star in college then you would play Led Zepp in your car while driving down in pinstripes. If your office doesn't approve of rock stars then you would toe the party line and espouse the values of your company.

PR, without doubt, was a rcok star in his trademark white dhoti and white panjabi and gleaming scalp ... though we did disagree on whether the college should have rock concerts or not. A rare moment of discord.

Mr Bottomore passed away in '92 according to Wiki. No one told us that in 92 -95 when we were in college. But it is interesting to see how some of what he said plays out in the age of web 2.0 and social networking.

So what are the concentric circles that I belong to? Family. Fortunately or not, no one apart from my brother and wife are fellow web denizens. So I can crack all the family jokes that I want to. Friends. A lot of whom I have made in the last couple of years. Folks who are in similar spaces as me in terms of life stage, aspirations, experiences and mind sets. With whom you develop a degree of pleasant warmth. People you look forward to connecting with. In real life and in the virtual world. Work. The stuff which brings the bacon to the table. And, how could I forget, saving the best for the last, food lover, cooking enthusiast, food blogger and the very occasionally commissioned food writer.

How do these translate into social networks? In my scheme of things work should nestle itself in Linkedin. Work relations are professional, most of us have a job to do, often for corporations. Our relations are defined by this context. In my mind these relations are represented by the 'connections' of Linkedin. Want to network, self profile, discuss business, further business, recruit, apply for a job ... go to Linkedin. Work has its boundaries. Linkedin defines this. Things become messy and complicated when the professional steps onto the personal.

Next comes 'friends'. Ideally Facebook is where I would like to connect with them. Remember we are the mid thirties generation. We don't have the time to physically 'hang out'. Web 2.0 is tailor made for us. Problem is that Facebook profiles are public. What works for it goes against it too. I might define friends as "Folks who are in similar spaces as me in terms of life stage, aspirations, experiences and mind sets. With whom you develop a degree of pleasant warmth. People you look forward to connecting with". But the truth is that you have people from work - clients, colleagues, suppliers - those who want to 'network' creeping into your private space of Facebook. Or voices from the hoary past. Whom you might often not recognise as more than a name or a roll number in college or school. Or even less. And strangers - 'mutual friends' - who don't even bother to give a word of introduction but want to be friends. Well, I really doubt if 'friends' could number into hundreds, forget thousands.

And then comes 'food enthusiast'. Finely Chopped is my blog where I hold forth on food. But then blogs are meaningful, weighty, broadcast mediums, not as interactive as Facebook. So I would put a number of food updates on Facebook which might not be on the blog. Then I realised that not all my friends are foodies. Jibes of 'how much do you eat' were common. Which I could understand. After all I don't see the point of those who flood my Facebook pages with songs, ads or worse, internet management and marketing news retweets. To each his or her own. Who am I to judge if you surf the net for work and not porn.

Plus there were unfortunately some pure work contacts in FB. Folks whom I didn't want to actively broadcast my life to. Which is different from them stumbling onto my blog. My blog's not anonymous. That's a call I took and am comfortable with. Just don't want to be seen broadcasting stuff. That's needy

And so my Facebook page was born. With some help from fellow blogger and virtual friend, Pree. I am a tech dinosaur after all. This is a place for food 'lovers' to collect. I don't like the word 'obsessed'. If you like food and people who like food then this is the place to be. Here you will find lots of food. Meals. Recipes. News. Dreams. And a barrage of it. You can choose to be here if you are fine with it. Or, you could choose to not 'like' it. This is not the place to be if food bugs you. As they say, "you shouldn't be in the kitchen if you can't stand the heat".

And here's some geeky stuff on my Facebook experiences for those who came to this post because of an interest in social media rather than food.

Finely Chopped, the blog, got about 102 followers after around 2.5 years on Blogspot
100 odd followers after about a year on Twitter
183 'likes' after about 2.5 weeks on Facebook. And daily page views on Finely Chopped went up by about 30 per cent after I opened the Facebook page

I guess amongst the three, Facebook is the best way to connect and broadcast with people of our demographic. The blessed 'Networkers' know that. Pity.

The gravediggers ... Mumbai ravaged

2010-05-01T08:07:00.000-07:00

There was a slightly old Economic Times lying around in our bedroom. I glanced upon what was written on it as I was tidying up. The article was about Gollman Sach's take on the BRIC countries. 'I' standing for India. And how these would dominate the word even faster than earlier predicted.

Those of us who work in multinational companies would have possibly come across the spiel about how India is the future and how everyone's excited about the 'India story'. You would have heard the same people going gaga about the service in Jet Airways when they come here. And you are probably reading this post on a state of the art laptop or phone. The latest the world has to offer.

But a look out of the window of your home, office or car shows a very different world outside. And I am not even talking about the in your face poverty. Poverty we have learnt to blank ourselves to. Poverty which bothers us only when an Irishman refers to it while winning making an Oscar winning film.

I am talking of the traffic which gets worse by the day. The sheer lack of civic planning. Monstrous, ungainly flyovers coming up. Walkways which noone will use. Roads being dug for the Metro. And pilars being put up for the monorail. Yes, we are a city in a hurry. But does it all have to be at the same time?

The dust, destruction, construction and desolation gives you the feeling of a war ravaged city. Not that of a city which is the commercial capital of the 'future'. One look at any Asian city, I am not even talking of those of the developed West, and one realises the need for a reality check.

The simplest and most recent example of this insensitivity and lack of civic planning is the Bazar Road beside Balaji restaurant at Hill Road, Bandra. This is a narrow road which connects Bandra to the Sea Link. A road which many take to office in the morning.

Well if you go half way down the road these days you will find that it is closed. In which case you will have to turn back in this single laned road and the result is almost as chaotic as the Indian Parliament in session. Now I am sure that there is a good enough reason to shut the road. But why not put a sign warning people at the beginning of the lane? The simplest thing then would be to turn and take the Mehboob Studio exit.

But then, as T would say, 'where are the hardships'?

My teachers in school used to say that I was a day dreamer. That I would not pay attention to what was happening in class. That I would be lost in my own world. But I must admit that even I am not enough of a dreamer to see any hope amidst the rubble.

It's time to get real.

I know it's Maharashtra Day today. But before you say 'get back to where you belong' and all that stuff let me go on record saying that I am really fond of, and attached to the city. I would speak up for it any day. But I also know that most of us have been badly let down by those who matter. As Forrest Gump would say, that's all I have to say about that.

'Gai-eem' ... life on a treadmill

2010-04-14T10:30:00.000-07:00

It's been a cruel summer. And the heat has made people do strange things. Like join a gym in my case.

I am no stranger to the word of gyms (note to self: the surprise element should come at the end of a post). From akhara like non air conditioned places to the college gym which I think had the same equipment which Netaji had used to strengthen his legs before he kicked the Brit prof down the Presidency stairs to suave gyms at Mumbai and fancy ones in luxury hotels. Then my back gave in during a holiday and I got an excuse to stay away. But I would look at gyms occasionally. Especially when I would see the disturbingly rotund figures of food show hosts on Indian TV channels. Very different from the Bourdains the Majumdars and the Chins.

Checked with my Ortho. My last hope. The cherubic and corpulent gent smiled and said "of course you can go".

So I did a round of local gyms a few idle Saturdays back. Was hounded with SMSs and calls from them since. Two months free. Eight months free. Partner free. If you don't have a partner we will get you one and split the costs. No man has been wooed the way I was.

A mid week holiday. Another idle day. Heat wave. And I landed at the gym closest to mine. "OK, what the hell."

"Yes sir you can join from today. Right now please."

I have a feeling that I heard something pop in the background and the whoosh of streamers and ribbons.

Then fate rushed in for the rescue. The credit card didn't work.

"No problem sir. You can pay later.

"Aargh"

"Please change your shoes. Our head trainer is here for you."

Fate kicked in again. An irate client call. Which ended after more than ten minutes. Sorry but the consumer is just not that into you. And I finally made my entry into the floor.

Twenty minutes of treadmill. And then the cross trainer. Very 'cross' it kept flashing 'stride faster' on the screen. Hey I am not eighteen any more. And you are a machine not Artoo Detoo.

I went downstairs. The original trainer had disappeared. I caught onto a podgy lady in uniform. We soon established that she didn't speak English. I switched to Hindi. And soon established that this was her first day ever in any sort of gyms. She walked with me from machine to machine. Looked at the diagrams and tried to get me to replicate what the stick figure was doing. And so her journey of discovery continued for more than an hour. With each machine she looked happier and happier. I think the stick figure in the illustrations won her heart.

It was well past lunch and I was getting hungry. The gym guys decided to throw in some motivation. Now its quite likely that you could bump into a celeb if you walk into a gym at Bandra. That happened and the gentleman in question was fairly close to being an A lister. Though guys, the size zero end of the pair he belonged to, would work better for me.

I finally trudged out. Met the front desk lady. Pointed out the disconnect between someone who is discovering gyms being a trainer for someone who needs special care for his back and walked out having a found out a reason not to go back.

No such luck. She ran behind me and said that the manager wanted to meet me. Apologies were offered. I was told that this was an exception and that 'real' trainers were in in a Wednesday meeting. Guidance of a phyiso was promised. And of real trainers. And expectations to see me the next day were evinced.

I checked the menu at the snack bar. And left for home. Must come back to try the chicken sandwich.

Note: 'Gai-eem' is how Homer Simpson read the three letters, G-Y-M, which he had never come across before in his life.

Dada's Gang of Boys

2010-04-05T10:33:00.000-07:00

"The best way to ignite Saurav is to write him off" Steve Waugh

The other day K was referring to a couple of friends of ours as 'Tendulkar Fanatics'.

I said that it is easy to be a Tendulkar fan. He scores oodles of runs. Acclaimed by all. Owns most personal cricket batting records.

In fact you actually have to be fanatical to be a Saurav Ganguly fan in my opinion. Consider the evidence. A man with patchy performances. Glorious at his best. Farcical at his worst. Often inconsistent. You always have your heart in your mouth when Dada bats. You have no idea what he will dish out. And over the last years its often not been much. While, as many point out, Tendulkar's still going on like a well oiled machine.

I had met a gaggle of fellow thirty plus Bengalis a few days back. The most consistent support group of Ganguly. In contrast to Ten whose supporters cut across clans and countries. We asked ourselves about why we Bengalis support Ganguly. Even when he is obviously a spent force. Why do we let the heart rule over the brain? And then, in a larger context, why do all our heroes belong to the past?

Well the fact is that most Bengali heroes belong to a time when we were in our diapers. Uttam Kumar? No more. Satyajit Ray? No more. Kishore Kumar? No More. Plus they all belong to the word of cinema. There has not been any national politician of note from Bengal post independence. Pranab Babu remains a Man Friday.

The sporting cupboards of Bengal are equally bare. Dalhousie Institute boy, Leander Paes, did well for himself. But tennis doesn't work in Calcutta. And despite much trying one couldn't discover any Bengali gene in Pele or Maradona. The fact is that Saurav Ganguly remains probably the only Bengali player of significance to have played for India.

And Ganguly is not any ordinary player. Yes, he had his cricketing moments. But more importantly he has spunk. An in your face attitude. He wears his heart on his sleeves. There is a sense of bravado in his demeanour. A willingness to take the fight to the opposition. A fighter.

There are many positive values associated with Bengalis. Love for art. Ability to think. Creativity. Culinary skills. Mishti. Ability to write. Rabindra Sangeet. But, a Bengali would probably not be your companion of choice if you got into scrap with someone.

We are the thinking race. We plan. We debate. We ponder.

We don't get into fist fights.

Ganguly changed it all. Here was a Bengali who walked with a swagger, his collars up, taking on the world, in a Quixotic manner at times. The last time a Bengali did that was Mithunda in B Subhash movies. And those acts were scripted.

So suddenly there was a whole lot of us who began to root for Ganguly. Like Danny De Vito in Twins, we puffed up our chests and said, 'you mess with me you mess with my family"

Add to this the fact that there was noone else to revere. Contrast this with say a Delhi who has Sehwag and Gambhir. Or a Bangalore which had Kumble, Srinath, Dravid, Prasad. We had one hero and we hung onto him with our dear life.

So Dravid loses the Bangalore captaincy to Pieterson. No problem. Laxman shown the bird by the Deccan Chargers. No problem. Yuvraj and Punjab. Ditto.

But drop Ganguly from the Indian team and the whole of Eden jeers Dravid and team India. Take away the KKR captaincy from Ganguly and SRK was left without a single Bengali supporting his team in IPL II.

Sounds strange?

But then have you considered our options?

Photo credit: Caesar Ceasar

Talking of Tendulkar Fans do check out this lovely Facebook Note by Harshad on Tendulkar.

Here's the text in case you can't access it.

"I was in school and hated chemistry and lost the tug of war game and took my bleeding hands home and you batted for me.

I felt the high and had my first crush and I was trying to make sense of what was happening to me and you batted for me.

I sprouted a moustache and spent vacations in Pune with my long departed grandpa and loved every match you played and you batted for me.

I went to art school and made new friends and learnt new tricks and mixed new colours and you batted for me.

I saw a big riot happen and cities burned and my city was bombed very badly and we were all scared and you batted for me.

I sat through two day exams and poster colours cost five bucks and Mafco lassi four and you batted for me.

I got cable TV and foreigners were on my screen and MTV happened and Baywatch happened and you batted for me.

I shaved off my moustache and saw Shahrukh Khan rise and Amitabh fall and Madhuri retire and Amitabh rise again and you batted for me.

I fell in love and out of love and graduated and looked ahead at my brand new dreams and held a bat for the last I remember and you batted for me.

I created my first ad and my chest swelled with pride and I felt grown up now as I earned my pay and you batted for me.

I voted for Vajpayee and he became prime minister and India went nuclear and Kargil blew up and you batted for me.

I sat along with the country and a storm hit a desert and then you hit the storm and you batted for me.

I did many ads and changed many jobs and won my awards and you lost your dad and yet you batted for me.

I saw heroes fall and your game was defamed and all else fell down and you batted for me.

I lost my dog and I cried and I cried and I gave up non veg and you batted for me.

I saw 9/11 happen as did the rest of the world and the world changed forever and you batted for me.

I went abroad for the first time to Sri Lanka and you were there and then to Australia and you were bigger there and you batted for me.

I was in office and we friends bonded over you and we screamed ourselves hoarse on the streets and fluttered the flag as you ripped through Shoaib and you batted for me.

I made newer friends and newer enemies and every now and then you walked out on the ground and then all of us together camped around the office TV and you batted for me.

I got better pay and I bought my first car and a new house and a new LCD to go and on it too you batted for me.

I saw my city and your city held under a siege and great heroes were born and you batted for me.

I saw people lose jobs and not lose their hopes and the world was now a far tougher place and you batted for me.

I came back home from some really tiring work and a child in my building called me uncle and I put on the TV and you were there and you batted like I was still in school and like the world had not moved and you batted for me."

Golden years? Yeah right!

2010-04-01T11:25:00.001-07:00

If you are in your mid thirties then you would possibly be at a stage where you see your family elders growing old. Parents. Grandparents. Ailments. Debilitating at the worst. Scary at the least. Heart wrenching in most cases. You would probably feel it more because this is the time when many of us move out of the more selfish and self obsessed twenties to the domesticated thirties.

There is nothing as painful as to see those who have brought you up, protected you, helped you stand, picked you up, nurtured you, beginning to tremble themselves. Nothing as deadly as to listen to the feeling of doubt in their voices. To detect the hidden fear and anxiety when they talk. To imagine their unsteady steps. To hear about their obstacle ridden lives.

Health ailments are so frustrating. You can't do anything against nature. There are things that even money can't fix. And we are not talking of common colds, the odd bloated feeling or a little pimple here and there. Failing vision, weakening hearts, knees that give away, lungs that refuse to breathe, minds that refuse to remember, hands that refuse to stay still, bodies which refuse to get up ... you just sit and watch. Helpless.

It's even worse if you live in another city. A reality in today's migratory world.

And the amazing thing is that when you call them up, they put their aches and pains behind and enquire about your well being and your life. You always come first to them.

We have some standards to live up to.

Here's to everyone who has a grandparent, parent, family elder suffering. Here's hoping that they get better. That they feel strong. That they sleep well.

Whose Queen is it anyway?

2010-03-07T11:33:00.001-08:00

One tends to hear a lot of English when one moves around in Bandra, the posh suburb of Mumbai. Especially during the rare occasions when one goes to walk at Carter Road. The mind tends to wander and eavesdrop on others as one walks aimlessly in a straight line.

I would safely say that more than ninety per cent of the conversations one overhears happen in English. All sorts of 'English'. From prim and propah Queen's to Bombaiya Slumdog pidgin to LOL Twitter chirps. In accents which would make Bernard Shaw's Henry Higgins roll his shirt sleeves up in glee.

The accents floating around are fascinating. You have a very American FRIENDS twang which seems most ludicrous on young brown skins to English with heavy Indian regional accents.

The world of politics is a good example of the latter. You recently had Dada and Didi (Pranab Mukherjee and Mamata Banerjee) presenting the National and Railway budgets. Both were pilloried by many, including embarrassed Bengalis, for their heavy Bengali accents. You have our professorial Prime Minister slipping into the occasional Punjabi 'aaward'. The Amar Singhs and Lalu Yadavs with their North Belt English. And even the erudite Mr Chidambaran with a slightly ponderous Tamil lilt.

Funnily there are a set of politicians who speak a fairly 'unaccented' English. They spend most of their time in the studios of English TV news channels. Far removed from running the country.

But then what is 'unaccented' English in an Indian context? For the pre independence generation it would be English as taught by the British. Think Nehru's Tryst with destiny and you will know what I mean.

For folks like me who grew up in the eighties, it would be what I like to call as 'NDTV English'. Best exemplified by Dr Prannoy Roy and his World this Week . But how 'pukka' is this accent? Won't it stick out like a sore thumb in BBC's London, CNN's Washington, Sydney and other places which claim English to be their own?

A sobering thought the next time one marvels at someones 'funny' accent.

My name is immaterial

2010-02-13T01:08:00.000-08:00

Pali Hill is considered to be one of the poshest addresses in Mumbai. This is in Bandra. Considered to be the poshest and most expensive suburb in Mumbai. You have all the Khans and Kapoors living here. I suspect that the tax collections from this suburb is amongst the highest in Mumbai.

Yet it took me close to twenty five minutes to drive down from the base of Pali Hill to Bandra P O which is less than a kilometre away on Saturday morning.

Chaotic traffic. Cars tottering like battered prize fighters. Autos whizzing past like mosquitoes. Pedestrians crawling all over except on the footpath. And people dragging handcarts oblivious to all. Not a policeman in sight. What really livened up the madness was the fact that roads had been dug up. There was no advance notice. So you reached your turning and realised that you could no go further as the road was dug up. You had to turn back into the snaking traffic. You would be really lucky if the person opposite you had the sense, patience and manners to wait and give way. In most cases you would be faced by people refusing to give you a square inch. The fact this made everyone go deeper and deeper into a black hole of traffic induced inertia be damned.

Did I say there were no cops? There was a posse outside Globus cinema guarding SRKs film from Goebell's Sena.

All that the rest of us could hope for is to get drunk on the' spirit of Mumbai' and sleep off our Saturday

Bombay to Goa ... Lost in translation

2010-02-11T00:32:00.000-08:00

This happened on the drive down North Goa yesterday. We were heading to the airport to catch our flight back to Mumbai. A nice air conditioned Wagon R (Rs 50 more for AC) and a very sweet, young Goan driver. A local Hindu, nicknamed Sam.

I slowly woke up midway and began to stretch after the coconut tree induced snooze. Suddenly Sam spoke out of the blue.

Sam: Sir, where are you from?

Me: Bombay (I normally use the M word on the blog)

Sam: Oh. Er what is happening to the new Shah Rukh Khan film? Will it get released?

(I am used to this. Years back on hearing I am from Mumbai, folks in Bangladesh had asked me when the then new SRK film, Kuch Kuch Hota Hain was going to release!)

Me: Well from the news it seems so.

Sam: The Sena is opposing, no? What is the problem?

Me: Well from what I know they are protesting because he wanted Pakistani players in his IPL team

Sam: So the Pakistanis won't play now

Me: No, I don't think so. Plus they can't hire more players now

Sam: This Shiv Sena makes life in Bombay difficult no?

Me: (wan smile)

Sam: I heard that they are like terrorists. They break everything all the time

Me: Well not 'all the time'. I wouldn't call them terrorists

Sam: But what is their problem?

Me: They have a central belief. They protest when things go against them. Actually there are two parties. One is Shev Sena. The other is... (I actually forgot the name of MNS at that point)...er the Sena

Sam: Oh, life in Bombay is tough

(My face became even sadder at the thought of the short holiday coming to an end)

But, what happened there? Did I just bat for the Shiv Sena. I guess being largely off booze and red meat at Goa made me delirious.

Mumbai Road Rage

2010-02-03T08:21:00.000-08:00

It took me close to two hours to drive the twelve odd kilometres from Chinchpokli to Bandra after work at Mumbai this evening. I took to the wheels of my new car for the first time after I returned from a weekend in KL and its regulated traffic and empty roads. I am without a driver again.

My spanking new expensive car with ergonomic seats and super suspension couldn't prevent my back from giving in today after the drive. I was so disoriented when I returned from my drive from hell that I almost put my socks in the garbage bin instead of in the laundry basket. So why am I writing instead of resting my back? I am writing because I am angry. Very angry. And the pain doesn't let me forget my anger.

Angry at the fact that I live in a city where I have to pay the highest road taxes, the highest for fuel, highest for rent and then have to go through this. Roads broken everywhere. Multiple constructions going on in every road of this cursed city. Metro, Monorail, flyovers, concreting, sky walks ... more projects at the same time than the number of women Tiger Woods had at one go. Some of them such as the walkways are a joke meant for construction guys and netas to beat the recession.

And then there are jaywalkers. That's the first thing which struck me after my weekend in KL. How pedestrians just take over the road and jauntily wave a finger at you asking you to stop. You spend huge sums of money to buy more bhp, cubic centimetres, more power, space and then move at the speed which would make a bullock cart driver seem like a F1 racer. And before you get all socialistic on me...there is enough space on our pavements. And traffic lights are there for a reason.

Then I came back, switched on the telly and what do I see? The principle opposition party taking on a film star who wants to hire Pakistanis for his cricket team. And the crown prince of the ruling party reminding all that commandos in 2611 had come from North India. I don't know what Major Unnikrishan's father would say about it. But the crown prince seemed to have forgotten that the commandos could have come earlier if his then Home Minister didn't want to hitch a ride on the flight for a photo op. And the 'Cousin'? I have it on good authority that there were both people who speak the local language and those who don't who were stuck in this evening's traffic. And then there was the gem that the police at Pune are going to come down on PDA during V Day. Splendid. Now all we need to hope is that Kasab's classmates come in holding hands. We will be safe then.

And don't give me the argument that the middle class doesn't vote and don't deserve to complain. I voted for the last two elections once I got my name on the lists here.

Don't give the argument, "shut up or ship out you outsider". I have lived in this city for ten years. Folks need to understand that every global city grows because of their mix of native talent AND immigrant talent. Often from across borders. Would Mumbai be as big in the corporate world, films, advertising, fashion, electronic media, if it wasn't for people who had come from outside and made it its home? Neither is exclusive. The locals build the base. And fresh blood helps the city grow. We can accept this fact of life. Or we can be like the cities across India which everyone pooh poohs.

From traffic to the outsider issue.... I know that it's a hyper leap but the point I am trying to make is that there are enough real issues here - traffic, water, pollution, housing, drunken driving, rats, terrorism. It's surprising that our polity have the time to dream up the sort of ridiculous issues which they live by. But I guess that is our lot. They will fiddle. And we will burn..

Drunken driving? It's driving here which will lead you to drink

Murder .... Drunken driving

2010-01-30T05:08:00.000-08:00

There's been one more drunken driving accident at Mumbai. It happened last night. Two people dead. More injured. Not the driver though. Two innocent people. Bystanders. The details of this case are not important. Drunken driven as an act is such a shame. Avoidable and condemnable.

Hearing about the two who died really makes you think about the futility of life. Neither one knew when they woke yesterday that it was going to be there last day on earth. The years of joy, trial and tribulations of life cut to an end due to no fault of theirs.

Drunken driving is one of the most lethal things one can do. I am not pontificating from a pedestal. We all take risks with our lives. One does things that the doctors say are harmful. But drunken driving puts others at risk. Kills people. That is just not on.

Is it that difficult to take a cab back home? Worst comes to worst, if you have your car, and not a driver, then you could even leave your car behind and pick it up the next day.

I know that is not the most eloquent of posts. Sometimes the gravity of what happened says it all.

Musty Majestic Mumbai

2010-01-28T11:27:00.001-08:00

I love getting lost in old Mumbai.

I was there for a short while today as I had a meeting near Bombay Hospital. Enough to get the heartbeat racing.

The art deco of the refurbished Metro cinema. The majestic crumbling facade of Crawford market. Parsi reading rooms. Irani Cafes ... Sassanian Boulangerie and Keyani. Punjab Hotel, Kashmir Hotel and New Bengal Lodge from a time when the Indian federation was being formed. Shops with quaint names and calligraphy from another age. All sitting like Miss Havisham waiting for her Prince Charming.

There is a sense of romance in the old city which the ruins, disrepair, dust and grime cannot hide. A beauty which makes you proud of belonging to this city.

Long standing plans to come on a Sunday with a camera are remembered. Fresh plans to come to Sassanian Boulangerie for kheema pao are made.

And then the cab ride back to spreadsheets, numbers, team motivation and client satisfaction.

I hope that the old city doesn't become the foundation for skyscrapers if and when India becomes a superpower. I hope that someone has the love and patience to nurture, restore and give life to the grand dame that we all so love.

We don't need to look far for inspiration. Look at how beautifully Istanbul has married the old and the new. And how they have restored Taksim Square to a harmony of modernity and heritage.

You mean to say that we can't do the same and better?

Last Christmas ...dumped on New Year

2010-01-06T02:28:00.000-08:00

Gosh, it was just July when I wrote about our driver woes. I had put a comment about a chubby, affable driver who had just joined us. He turned out to be a good find. Drove properly. Often bunked but not to the point of desperation. Polite. Round. We used to refer to him as 'The Great Salami'. Simon Majumdar's moniker for his brother.

Cut to the first morning of this year. We woke up bleary eyed when the bell rang at ten. It seemed as if we had just gone to bed after bringing in the new year. My hair looked like a balding porcupine's as I dragged myself to the door.

I opened it and saw that there was a thin, lanky guy waiting outside. His words finally registered through the haze of the previous night's good cheer. The Great Salami, who took his salary a day in advance, had apparently quit! The thin, lanky guy worked for a neighbour and came to apply for the job. TGS had apparently sent him.

I couldn't think of a worse morning after scenario. I slowly realised that we had been dumped on the first day of the year. The first day of the decade. And what hurt was that he didn't even say goodbye. That I had to hear it from someone else. Hungover. Jilted. Baulking at the prospect of meeting the family to make merry in a few hours.I closed the door on the thin guy's face.

A nice lunch at Kamling with the in laws. A cab ride back to Bandra in the sweltering heat. An afternoon nap late in the evening and better sense prevailed. I called the thin guy and took a test drive.

Me: What cars have you driven before?
Thin guy: Sir I drove for your neighbours (sister and bro in law of a Bollywood starlet who owns the house). Before that I drove for Sameera Reddy (a smaller starlet, in terms of career credits)
Me: What routes have you driven in?
Thin guy: "I drove for Sameera Reddy. Before that I drove Kaizad Gustad (a controversial Bollywood director who went Boom)"

Well I did recently ask a female lead in a recent avant garde film whether the seats beside her were taken in Gloria Jean's. I don't know if that redeemed us enough in the eyes of our filmi driver. Thankfully the thin guy joined us despite our lack of any obvious tinsel town affiliations.

So there you are. New year. New driver.

Would you call this a clean break up? I don't know. I still wish that The Great Salami has at least given me some sign when he took his salary in advance. Or had at least returned my calls.

Let's see how long the rebound works.

3 Idiots over 3 D anyday

2009-12-27T07:59:00.000-08:00

I slept through most of Avatar a few days back. I was sleep deprived. I had a heavy lunch before watching the film. But to be honest the story didn't engross me.

I watched 3 Idiots this afternoon. I slept late last night. Didn't have my post breakfast Sunday nap. The show coincided with my Sunday afternoon ghoom or siesta... sacrosanct to the Bong Bhodrolok.

I did not sleep in the movie.

Yes, it took off from where Tare Zameen Par left. And the second half was Munna Bhai 3. K feels it had every cliche possible and that it is no Dead Poet's Society or even DevD.

But I liked it. It was not new yet refreshing. There were cliches but it also made fun of cliches (the art house treatment of the Rastogi family poverty for example). The film oozed melodrama specially post the samosa break. Yet you could feel that the script writer hadn't left the building.

The message of 'excel in what you are passionate about and success will follow' is something some of us talk about. But it is a message which is still new to most of Joint Entrance Test crazy middle class India. Or at least something we don't talk about at home. A bit like sex. Yes, 3 Idiots it is no Dead Poet's Society but it has taken the message across to parts of India which DVDs from Bandra's Movie Junction don't reach. And in a manner that is light and engaging.

It is also a message which is particularly poignant to many thirty plus Bloggers I am sure. Folks who blog because they like to write. Writing is something which they don't do for a living. And they often write on things which, again, have nothing to do with what they do to earning a living.

3 Idiots raises many questions. Do we want to answer them?

Including, in a different vein, why shoot films in New York and Switzerland. 3 Idiots really romanced the hills of Uttaranchal. And the last sequence set in Ladakh, was breath taking. The blue of the lake was purer than anything I have ever seen.

With Aamir Khan is around 'All would be well' with Indian cinema. To think that I was a bigger Salman Khan fan when they both started off!

I guess there is still nothing to beat good old story telling. Even if it is in just two dimensions.

Happy Holidays

2009-12-24T12:55:00.000-08:00

Out of office replies of offices shut from the 24th of December to 4th, in some cases 12th Jan, have begun to come in from the West. A few months before we begin to get ten day long OOOs from the Far East for the Chinese New Year. And then seven days for Ramadan and 30 half days from the Middle East.

Pity that we don't have the concept of vacations in Corporate India. In fact we are the first to criticise ourselves about the number of holidays that we have. Yet what do our OOOs read like? One day here and at the most a three day weekend there. Even the apocryphal shut down in Calcutta for Durga Puja is actually for three days which could include a weekend too. But then we have made self deprecation a fine art haven't we?

It's sad that life has passed India by.

And thank you Lord Clive for this three day weekend.

Merry Christmas.

The importance of being 'Nyaka'

2009-12-23T00:32:00.000-08:00

'Nyaka' is a Bengali term which beats translation. It could mean coy, coquettish, scheming, la di da. There is no one word which captures it. The term is used in a pejorative context and has a sarcastic tone to it. Used a bit more for women than for men. Has a feminine context when used for men.

I posed the challenge of translating 'nyaka' into English to fellow Bengalis in Facebook. Here's a sample of the answers that I got.

I have removed the names and kept the statuese as is, hope it's not too difficult to read

Bong man 1

Coy.....but that does capture the essence
14 December at 14:37 ·

Me
No ...not entirely. A colleague just suggested precocious. Maybe its too intrinsic a Bong trait to be translated :)
14 December at 14:50 ·

Bong woman 1

kol-lan, difficult to get a english / hindi word for nyaka.
14 December at 15:11 ·

me
that's the point
14 December at 15:15 ·

Bong woman 2
oh, i think the essence of the word 'nyaka' will be lost in translation. just like getting a bengali word for 'smart'. 'ustaad' is the closest ( as suggested by my bro) but it is a derivative from 'ustaad'. may be that's why we keep hearing bongs saying " bhishon smart";-)
14 December at 15:51 ·

Me
and then there is 'paaka' . Precocious would be somewhat there for paka but not as colloquial
14 December at 15:54 ·

Bong woman 3
affected, spoilt, irritatingly coy, are words/ phrases that sound somewhat close to me for nyaka
14 December at 16:45 ·

Bong woman 3
even pampered, could do somewhat
14 December at 16:45 ·

Bong woman 3
pampered drama queen could also work
14 December at 16:47 ·

me
ok ...the context i am looking at would be similar to 'aar nyakami korona'....say a person created a problem/ dispute and then kept beating his or her chest about it...just to clarify this is an academic discussion to illustrate a point :)
14 December at 16:48 ·

Bong woman 3
ya understood, in that context drama queen, appeals to me
14 December at 16:54 ·

me
i suggested that too...but apparently that was 'too strong'
14 December at 16:57 ·

Bong woman 3

arre it is more to do with how you say it that determines whether it is strong or weak na? so even if you say you little ass to someone who you are affectionate with, it may not come across as a gaali na
14 December at 17:38 ·

me
true a lot is in the inflection... we are a deep race
14 December at 17:39 ·

Bong man 1

I like this conversation
14 December at 17:42 ·

Bong woman 3
in the garb of affection you can get away with a lot....jus kidding..., but obvious that you are enjoying - given you too belong to OUR race that makes conversations as a way of life
14 December at 18:02 ·

me
and if this was a challenge try adikhyeta :)
14 December at 19:35 ·

Bong woman 2

chalak = street smart adikeyta = gluttony nyaka = acting the dumb blond act to get your work done
14 December at 21:16 ·

Bong man 1
Superb!!!!!
14 December at 21:18 ·

Bong woman 2

SM says coquettish.
14 December at 21:23 ·

Bong woman 2

A Csays : It took me a sec to make out the word...than a hearty laugh Nyaka is a word best suited to bongs only ,because I guess we r the only ones who can be like that but in a cultured way....others r more like Shaunda -Gunda types.Nyaka does not have a exact english or hindi connotation .In hindi/english it would incline to something not nice (vulgar), which it is not suppose to be .So just stick to Nyaka in all vernacular lang .
14 December at 21:24 ·

Me
Maybe we shd ask Arnab Goswami to debate at New Hour Bong woman 2, isn't adikhyata a form of nyakami. Taking on from A C can we say that Nyaka is like Mithunda and Bappida... Unique
14 December at 21:44 ·

Bong woman 4

nyaka is not pakka. it is sort of taish bangali mei! which again begs to be translated. nyaka is someone who wears high heels to the pao bhaji stall and says, " bhaiya...yeh vegetables sab bisleri mein dhoya hai na?naka is sharmila tagore in mere sapno ki raani. just watch her expressions.
14 December at 22:05 ·

Bong woman 4

oh. i think sanchita hits the nail on the head. nyaka is the bong version of dumb blonde. brilliant.
14 December at 22:07 ·

me
hmmm Bong woman 4 ... That would be right up Tiger's street. And I don't mean Danny. Sharmila T or her bahu, Poo wd be a great analogy. But what about when one uses it in a bitter way?
14 December at 22:23 ·

Bong woman 3
Sharmila T's Bahu? Who is that Kol-lan...yup agree Sharmila abso fits the bill.... Bong woman 2, I love the eloquent way you define nyaka, though my version of one is more like Sharmila T, and so obviously not the dumb blonde but a sexy siren with affected mannerisms :-)...Kollan nyaka in a bitter sense reminds me of those wicked shashuris and step ... See Moremothers in Bengali cinema who would give gaalis like nyaaka, delivered in a shrill-pitch, and prefixed by a sarcastic and sing-song hmmmmm, suffixed by mukhpuri type of words :-)
14 December at 23:00 ·

me

Bong woman 3, very good analogy for bitter nyaka. Bahu as in Bebo in K3G
14 December at 23:18 ·

Bong woman 3

Aah ok, Bebo :-).....
14 December at 23:21 ·

Bong woman 5
Coquetish
15 December at 02:03 ·

Bong woman 3
Coquettish, charming and irritating, all can be flavours of nyaka, but all nyakas neednt be all of those, tai noi ki?
15 December at 07:15 ·

me

good one Bong woman 5
15 December at 08:04 ·

Bong woman 2
this could be heading towards a 'nayaka analysis / analogy' summit. but then anything for much food and booze. unfortunately dont have enough bengalis in goa who would want to discuss this through :)
15 December at 08:52 ·

Bong woman 1
Bong woman 4your description of 'nyaka' reminded me of someone who we know.." sookha bhaaji and diet coke ;-))
15 December at 09:37 ·

Bong woman 2
Bong woman 1, we too have this variety available. they order sukhi bhaji poori and then dab a tissue to get rid of the extra oil from the puris :)
15 December at 11:03 ·

me

Diet Pepsi and rum :) I was thinking the same thing Bong woman 2 about the 'summit' must bookmark this for posterity. Wonder why hardly any Bengali men have commented though. Any thoughts?
15 December at 11:38 ·

Come to think of it, Ash, with her 'eesh' in Devdas would be a good example.

bong man 2 (would that make me Bong man 0?)
tahole, jeta daralo, english of nyaka is shormila...right?
15 December at 18:24 ·

The creative race

2009-12-16T01:41:00.000-08:00

I was quite intrigued to find that there was only one Bengali at the fag end of the list of the top 20 influential people in advertising. This was in the Brand Equity Ad Agency Reckoner 2009. There was no Bengali in the list of top ten folks in creative in the same report.

The reason for this slightly parochial post of mine is the disconnect between the rankings in advertising and the Bengali image, or self image, of being a creative race. While definitions of creativity abound, there is no denying the fact that advertising is one of the most prominent, with it and organised creative professions around.

Old timers or industry watchers bear me out on this but weren't there more Bongs influencing Indian advertising earlier?

Assuming that Bongs wielded more influence earlier I wonder what led to the current Bong famine in the peaks of advertising. Could it be the ascent of the Hindi language in Indian advertising? Or the migration of clients from Calcutta at a pace which was faster than the exodus of Calcuttans from Calcutta? Or was advertising seen to be too 'capitalistic' a rendition of art for the Bengali Bhadrolok? Or, dare we admit it, others were more 'creative'?

What's your take on this?

I know tons of bongs in advertising who are of my age. Maybe the results would look a different a few years later.

The scores would be a bit different if this was a ranking of the world of media (English only). The Goswamis and Roys and Mukherjees would pop up. Or Indian authors in English and the Jhumpa Lahiris and Amitav Ghoshes. Publishing perhaps. There would still be Bengalis there.

What about Bengalis in Blogging? Too many anonymous writers at this point in the Blogosphere though for such a survey.

For the record, I work in market research. So this is an outsider's perspective. A Market Research reckoner in India would still throw up more Bengalis, or T least people from Calcutta, in the list. But then few outside the industry would consider it to be a creative field.

'Meat in the room'

2009-12-12T23:14:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine gave me a DVD of In The Loop to watch recently.

It's a modern British political satire. The twenty first century inheritor of the legacy of the Yes Prime Minister and the Yes Minster series. It is cutting and irreverent as only the British can be. I guess there is something for being a race that swears by the stiff upper lip. My friend said that the film has been described as 'the Sistine Chapel of profanity'.

The film is set in the context of British and American polity and the build up to an Iraq like invasion.

I found an interesting concept there, that of 'meat in the room'. Apparently the Americans don't feel that a meeting is a meeting unless there are at least twenty people in the room. So Simon Foster, bumbling British minister, is asked to attend a joint US UK meeting. He is there to make up the number. Or as the British apparently say, to be 'meat in the room'. He is given strict instructions to remain mum and to not draw attention to himself.

Problem is that no one has told Simon he is meat in the room. He feels compelled to say something as he is in the room. He believes that the Americans who called for the meeting would expect that.

He opens his mouth. And sparks off a series of event which lead to the Americans and Brits deciding to invade an unnamed country.

Sounds familiar? Have you even come across meat in the room? Have you ever been meat in the room?

Have a happy and fulfilling Sunday.

Carry on doctors

2009-12-03T06:24:00.000-08:00

Being an orthopaedic surgeon's son I have grown up playing with X Rays, little hammers to tap people on their knees, injections, stethoscopes and seeing my dad make plaster casts out of white water (POP). I learn lessons from my mother about not breaking the time sequence for medicines, not stopping antibiotics mid way, not taking medicines without doctor's prescriptions, getting tetanus when you get cut, dissolving Dispirin in water and eating something before taking a pain killer. These are the standard 'facts of life' lessons which most Bengalis get.

Imagine my plight when I come across the Wild West of Mumbai medicine.

My first encounter with a Mumbai doc was when I had fever and my P G aunty recommended that I go to the doctor she went to. This fine disciple of Hippocrates examined me and then gave me a set of coloured pills. Pink and blue at night. Yellow in the afternoon. This was the equivalent of going to the village Shaman to a person who is used to talking to his doc in terms of the merits of Amoxycilin versus Thrombocyn and the m g of each.

I asked him if I should do a blood test for Malaria. He said 'you can do it if you like'.

If I like ???!!! If I wanted to be poked with a needle I would do a tattoo for God's sake.

His parting words to me were 'don't have non veg food for a few days'. That's when I ran out of the chamber vowing never to return. Any respectable Bengali knows that chicken stew is synonymous with fever.

This happened way back in 1997. I have found a set of wonderful doctors over the last twelve years.

Our family doctor is a GP who gives coloured pills, a reality of life in Mumbai. I had read somewhere that you should find a doctor you trust who is your age and grow old with him. That's the case between us. I never have to remind him of any of my previous ailments. I can get him on on phone at any time if there is an emergency.

You know that he really feels for you. He seemed heartbroken when he had to prescribe cholesterol medicines for me and started by saying 'This is a sad day and I am really sorry to say that I have to give you... '. K and I had to console him. He looked psyched and distressed when I told him about my recent fish bone scare. Then I called him to tell him about my fractured toe. He replied by saying, 'Oh my God', and sounded like he'd seen a ghost.

He is very popular and you have to wait for ages to see him. But then it's no surprise that people would like to be with a doctor who feels for you.

I went to a Catholic lady doc, a G P, sometime back when our family doc was out of town. I had an upset stomach. I don't know how the conversation reached there but my visit ended with her giving me her recipe for pork spare ribs. She is a colourful character, full of life. And, surprise, surprise, gives prescriptions. She'd talk about the most morbid thing with a jovial voice...from breast cancer checks (!) to a parting shot of 'don't forget to take your vitamins, we are all hurtling towards old age and senility'. We went to her once for K's bad throat. Doc told us that it could be infectious and that we should avoid contact through towels, utensils and then suddenly threw up her hands and said, 'what to do, you guys will kiss naa?' And she has the most adorable, scuffed up, teddy bear in the room. Reminds me of Ross' visit to his paedio in F.R.I.E.N.D.S.

Both are very good docs.

I have my ortho on speed dial. I had read about the tea and coffee machine in his chamber in a Bombay Times feature way before there were blogs and before I had a back problem. I have never tried the coffee though the sign kindly asks you to help yourself.

He is another very nice soul. As, Julius Caesar told us, all roly poly folks are. Unlike other surgeons he won't ask you to do MRIs straight away. He is extremely patient and kind and will NEVER scare you. He will take the skeleton on his desk and will describe in detail about what's happened to you. And will often show you exercises at the jump of a hat. Don't forget that he is super sized. My mom in law calls him a teddy bear.

You don't feel that its all about money when you deal with him. He won't push his own physio or diagnostic clinic. At times he will prescribe stuff on the phone even if it means losing out on the visit charges.

Thankfully he was close by yesterday when I broke my toe. He called me over to the charity clinic he was in. Then called back by himself to tell me that I should take a Combiflam and a glass of milk before I left home.

He took one look at my foot and said 'yes, it's looking deformed' . Turned out he was looking at the wrong foot! Anyway he strapped up my toes and I am hobbling towards recovery. He didn't bother about his fees and said he'd adjust it a week later.

Almost everyone I know goes to him. We are the bad back generation after all. I think the time has come to start a Facebook group around him.

We know a genius of a Gastroenterologist too. A nice person to know once the little business of Endoscopy is done with. Some people shake hands when they meet, others hug. He pushes a pipe though you when you are introduced for the first time.

My mom in law credits him with giving my Pa in law a second life when everyone else was floundering. Our family swears by him.

I once told him about my cholesterol report and asked him about the dangers of mutton. He went into a monologue about how the mutton today is not a patch on real mutton. No fat, no taste, no juice. I was surprised to know that our skinny doctor had obviously seen life.

Feel free to drop in a mail if you ever need, and I sincerely hope you don't, the name and contacts of any of these doctors. They are all based at Bandra.

Mera Karan Arjun Aayega

2009-12-01T03:36:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time there was a company called Bajaj. It used to make something called scooters. The entire Hum Log segment of India used to dream of getting one and would pray for years to be allotted one. There was another company called H M. It used to make a car called the Ambassador. The Polo Playing set of India would queue up for decades to get one of these.

Meru and Mega A C cabs were a boon to those frazzled by the stinking, dusty smelly black and yellow cabs of Mumbai. Folks who were willing to pay a bit more for a better ride. Good cabs which you only got to experience as a tourist in the Far East. Without the ridiculous fees charged by the scamsters who run Blue Cool Cabs.

Tons of folks jumped into these cabs and soon the demand exceeded the supply. That's when the problems started. Call centres which wouldn't give bookings for short distances. Huge waits to get through to the call centres. Cabs which never turned up despite committed times and driver numbers. Drivers calling up saying their cars had mysteriously stalled. Worse still sitting and wondering what happened as there would be no news of your car. Complaint after complaint which cut no ice. These guys had a winning product after all.

This morning was typical. K booked her cab for this morning yesterday morning, twenty four hours in advance. I booked mine last evening. Twelve hours in advance.

The time for K's cab came in the morning. But not the cab. She called up the call centre and was shunted from one apologising exec to another without the promise of a cab. The pitch of her voice got higher and I began to fear for her sanity and mental balance.

I launched into Beethoven's ninth in the shower meanwhile. I had got my driver details after all. while K was told that there were no cars in our area. We live in the same house.

After being reduced to imitating Mamata Banerjee after twenty minutes of banging her head on the phone, K got a car. Which is when my allotted driver called up to say that his car was 'stalled'. I called up again. Was promised a cab in ten minutes.

I hitched a ride from K twenty minutes later and then got into an auto rickshaw and bounced all the way to Andheri.

Post Script: I booked a Meru again to return from work. It has actually turned up. As, someday, will the Hero Honda Splendor and Maruti 800 of AC cabs.

Till then keep a blood pressure pill handy when you book a Meru.

The naughtiest car in the world

2009-11-30T08:15:00.000-08:00

I thought that all those of years of automotive market research, listening to folks refer to their cars as wife, lover, girlfriend, mistress (the married ones), would have prepared me for today.

But no, it is not easy to see your first car go.

We had him for more than six years. The time by which most people are onto their third car these days.

He was jumpy and would rattle us in the rear seat. An attention seeker if there ever was one. He had the family appetite and would need a refill much earlier than others. He liked being pampered, car window washes, polishes, scrubs, metrosexual's the term I am looking for. Hot headed at times, he would blow hot air though the AC in the sun. Much to my embarrassment if I was with colleagues.

Tall, gawky. Chubby. Black as the night. He would get scratched up and covered with mud like a frisky poodle.

He would greet me with the biggest smile in car land. Waited patiently while I learnt to drive. And then again when he and I got lost time after time as we tried to navigate the by lanes of Mahim. He watched indulgently as K soon abandoned the driver's seat for the back seat. A series of nannies and he was still unfazed.

I loved the times when I would be driving him alone on weekends. Looked forward to the times when we didn't have drivers. When K and I had him to ourselves. I think he did too.

The last few days were tough on him. He aged quickly. A bit like Marley in Marley and Me. Each day saw a new ailment. A pipe which leaked. The steering wheel which went stiff. AC which gave in. Spark plug which got burnt. Headlights which went dim and needed to be replaced. Shrieking linke a banshee when we started it. Each time we would get a mechanic and fix him. But with each day it was clear that the end was close.

We signed the deal and traded him in. A last drive to South Mumbai yesterday with K and me. Memories of many such trips to Churchill and Martins. And the ones for ice cream and dessert emergencies to Carter Road at night.

Fuelled him for the last time. A goodbye treat of premium petrol. A last sprint up the sea link today. And off he went with a big goofy grin.

I guess the first ones are impossible to forget.

Post Script: Sam the car was there with us to welcome Princess Leia at the dealership the next day

Life after the fifteen minutes

2009-11-27T00:47:00.000-08:00

I was walking at Carter Road last evening. Yes, I occasionally do exercise more than my digestive system.

I came across a candle march/ forum with Milind Soman standing there. Every girl I knew in college had a crush on him As do most women I know now. Turned out that the gathering was organised by NDTV. A Celebrate Bandra rock show was going on five feet away. It was close to nine o clock and they stopped the band for a few minutes to observe silence. The band joined Soman for a TV grab. A few teens clicking it all on their mobile were asked to join in by the anchor.

I resisted the urge to jump in, come on TV and wave at my mom. I marched on, instead, in my war against cholesterol. Without a candle.

I have got nothing against candle marches. As Rahul Bose said on CNN IBN yesterday everyone has their own way of coping.

Nor am I belittling the attacks because they happened in the 'First World' of South Mumbai.

The point that I am trying to make is that there is a lot that needs to be done. Jawans guarding the Gateway sleeping on the pavements? NSG Mumbai base formed at Pune because of land problems here? Force One Guards borrowing AK 47s from the CRPF to practice as guns haven't been procured for them?

No Prime Minister, not happening.

Candle in the wind

2009-11-26T00:46:00.000-08:00

Coldly put, Mumbai and Sobo five stars would be the media planner's equivalent of a Times Of India, front page, full page ad.

Since then Maoists have gone on a rampage. The Chinese have put on boots and are walking all over Arunachal. Terrorists at Guwahati are competing with those at Peshawar for the most number of bomb blasts in a day. And Qasab does biriyani reviews in Mumbai.

Our polity fights over what language to swear in. And over who leaked the report of a seventeen year old study. And for three days news channel programmers don't have to think of new themes to cover.

Well at least candle manufacturers will be better off a year after 2611.

The dreaded B word

2009-11-22T05:21:00.000-08:00

I read a very nice link on Facebook today on 2611. The author, someone who has come to Mumbai from Calcutta to work, vented her anguish on the year gone by. Here's the link. It's that time of the year when we have all become cynical again. But why not. Nothing has changed since then has it?

There was an interesting reader comment on the same Facebook post which referred to the 'silly debate on Mumbai versus Bombay'.

So here, at the risk of getting stoned and tarred, are my two bits on the subject.

Mumbai will always be Bombay in my heart. That's because I grew up in an era when Mumbai was Bombay, Chennai was Madras, CST was VT, and Myanmar was Burma. And, in case you are wondering, Kolkata is Calcutta to me.

The truth is that Bombay doesn't officially exist anymore. Like it or not, it is Mumbai. And it has been renamed by those who belong to the city. So one can cry for Bombay. Ridicule the change. But Bombay will remain Mumbai. Till it changes again.

Frankly I doubt if the essence of the city has changed with the renaming. It is still a city on the move. A city which doesn't just talk. A city of doers. A city where everyone wants to come to. A city which people hate. Yet love. As the Eagles would say a city you can check out of but can't leave. To the world Mumbai is India. We suffered that when the terrorists attacked us last year. They knew that nothing can give the sort of mileage that Mumbai would.

It is a bit like a woman changing her surname after marriage. The person remains the same. But the documents need to be changed.

Mumbai is the new name of Bombay. And there is no point in using any other name in an official forum. Offical forums would be forms and applications, reports and organised mass media. The Blog space remains personal still and I am not sure if rules apply here.

My argument therefore is that one should refer to Bombay as Mumbai in official forums. There's nothing ideological about it. It is a fact.

One's personal relation with Mumbai is a completely different though. What the Mumbai brigade should understand that most who refer to Mumbai as Bombay do it more out of habit than as an intentional slight on the city or its culture. Politicians who insist on taking their oath in Hindi might have hidden agendas. Not the average Jaikishen who is trying to scrounge his rent for the most expensive hundred square feet in the world while hanging precariously from a local train.

I would compare it with a term of endearment which you might have for your lover which might not be her formal name. Or like calling an old college classmate 'fatty' like in the old days though he is now a trim and fit Mr Arora, MBA Harvard. It is not an insult. It is how you relate to the city. if characters in films and books say Bombay that's because people still do.

And, emotions, can't be doctored or tailored. Nor can art and literature. Ask Goebbels.

So what I am trying to say is that if you want call Mumbai Bombay, remember it is Mumbai now. Get real and don't end up being a lover from the past.

And for those who swear by Mumbai, the city needs a lot more from you than your bashing up those who have used the B word.

There is a hell of a lot that needs to fixed in this city. So let's not get sidetracked and then marvel at the Shanghais and Singapores and Dubais of the world.

Post Script ... I read a nice article by Bhavin Jhankaria of Mumbai Mirror a few weeks back. He made a similar argument. This is the link

Time heals all? A city in denial

2009-11-21T06:47:00.000-08:00

I came upon a very well packaged feature on last year's 2611 terror attacks in Times Now today. It's called 'Those who fought for us'. I got hooked onto Times Now during those horrible days when we were all shaken up.The earnest and passionate coverage of Arnab Goswami and his team struck a chord.

Watching the programme set me thinking.

Qasab's still alive. The Arthur Road Jail road block to keep him safe means that he is till a thorn in the flesh of Mumbaikars. As if reading about his giddiness and pleas for biriyani were not enough to make our blood boil
The ministers who were sacked after the attacks are back. One in the same post
The government has been re-elected at the Centre and the State
While the opposition goes about whacking people for calling Mumbai, Bombay. Pity they didn't try beating up the terrorists who were immigrants to Mumbai too
Retired cops are probably trying to get book deals by raking up controversy
While the SRPF Jawans who are protecting the Gateway to Mumbai have to sleep on the footpath
For many the effects of the attacks are traffic jams in Tulsi Pipe Road thanks to naka bandis. Or the irritation of having to get your cell phone checked at Malls
While a few have had their lives scarred for ever
Mumbai's own Bollywood is addressing the issue of terrorist attacks. In New York City.
And marketing teams have ad campaigns ready to ride the memories of the carnage

Bomb Blasts, Train Blasts, 2611 ... I guess there is still some of the famous 'Spirit of Mumbai' left to wash clean our next wound

Where one city ends and another begins

2009-10-30T13:24:00.000-07:00

I am in Kolkata right now.

The 'Coffee House' part of this blog is from Kolkata and its famed addas (chats) of the India Coffee House. The blog was supposed to reflect my part Kolkata part Mumbai identity.

Yet I realised that I have begin to view the city from a tourist or travel writer's eye.

Right from the attempted scams at the airport (tips to load your suitcase by pulling it from your hand or proposing to locate a cab which is in front of you) to rude, disinterested, non change returning, men manning the prepaid counter, the airport loo which was out of a Ramsey horror film and the four men who sat in the front seat of the cab I hired to the cabbie who will charge twenty Rupees extra to take you home and the joy of the Metro Station just opened outside our house and the bewildered attempts to place stations called Mahanayak Uttam Kumar (Tollygunge), Netaji, Masterda Surya Sen (my Bansdroni) and Kobi Nazrul Islam).

So when does a city start becoming a stranger? I have been in Mumbai for ten years now. Another five and I can officially call myself a Mumbaikar apparently. In the process I romanced Mumbai eateries on my food blog, presented papers on it in research conferences on Mumbai and now write on it on the B A's Mumbai Metro Twin too.

Is ten years enough to make a city a memory? While I did live for eighteen years in Calcutta, I was not born there. I moved in when I was eight. My parents weren't born there either.

Calcutta remains the central city for all Bengalis who don't live in Bengal. The mother ship. The lodestar. Our Jerusalem. I am no different.

I guess a city is also made of its people and its memories. I am writing this post on my dad's desk which used to be my study table through school and college. In my room where I navigated through those awkward teen years and hit the twenties with baggage such as Rambo and Juhi Chawla posters. I went to Park Street earlier today where every step brought back million memories. And walking around our building where I moved in when I was ten is a Cinema Paradiso flashback sequence of Durga Pujas and Leo Mattel plastic Mauser guns and Star Trek transmitter made with two match boxes and a rubber band.

Then there is the warm fuzzy feeling of being with family. Discussing and listening to problems and plans and stories from the past and flipping through sepia hued albums... my mother who thinks I have lost weight, have had a nice hair cut and write with a certain 'grandeur' to my grandmother who thinks I have put on weight (!) and then plies me with fish curry and sweets a week after she came out of the hospital. Plans for my grandfather's ninetieth birthday the day after and my little brother who insists on treating us to expensive restaurants.

I guess a city can fade away from our lives as we move on. But its memories and its people never will.

And so I sit at home and think of returning home. Waiting for the caffeine to go out of the system. Brushing away my mom's entreaties to call it a day.

Reporting live from Kargil

2009-10-18T12:33:00.000-07:00

0020 hours and heavy bombing begins.
This gives way to intermittent gunfire.
The machine guns are called on and there is not respite.
0200 ack ack begins and goes on for an unprecedented ten minutes.

No conscription hasn't begun in India and I am still at Bandra. But I am either getting old or it was my loudest Diwali at Mumbai last night. As I wright this there was another short round of crackers which went off. 1.30 AM, the day after Diwali.

One explanation could be that our earlier house was at a junction at Bandra and people followed the police rules in the open. We are in a quiet alley here (an unfortunate use of words given the context) and people just took off.

Now I am no Uncle Scrooge. I am all for festivities. Whether I follow them or not is a separate issue. Festive cheer is important in the pressure cooker lives that we lead. But does it have to be at another person's cost. Does Diwali become any less fun if you finish bursting your crackers by dinner time? Is it, as Bryan Adams said, all about waking up the neighbours?

After all we wish each Happy Diwali.

Not Heavy Decibels.

Climate change anyone?

2009-10-16T03:14:00.000-07:00

The skies were gloomy and overcast at Mumbai today. Wet. Damp. The odd drizzle. The problem is it's Diwali. And I don't remember Diwali ever being wet.

The audacity of vote

2009-10-14T06:02:00.000-07:00

The Maharashtra elections were held yesterday. We got a holiday in Mumbai so that we could vote. Some TV reports said that about 52% of people in Mumbai voted which was up from 45 % from the parliamentary elections here (don't hold me to the numbers, but these are roughly what I remember). My home constituency, Bandra W had the lowest turnout at 42 %. Though the Bollywood Khans and Munnabhais who live here voted. If you dissect these numbers more than actually less than 52 % of those eligible voted. 52 % of those on the voters list voted. But there are many who are eligible who aren't on the list. So as a market researcher would say, one has to apply a correction figure and down weight the numbers.

In English this would mean that actually less than 52% voted.

I voted yesterday. As I did in the recent parliamentary elections. But then I am a migrant from a city where politics is religion and voting is a fact of life.

I learnt from a recent panel discussion on news that you are officially a Mumbaikar only if you have lived in Mumbai for fifteen years. I am in my tenth year and need to figure out where to register. Any suggestions? In the same talk show a custodian of the city said he would be OK if migrants came in with a job and a house to Mumbai. I guess he will be fine with me as I had asked to be transferred to Mumbai years back and had fixed a paying guest accommodation before I came in.

Voting was fairly easy ONCE you got yourself on the voter's list. That took us about two to three years. And it is not as easy as the sarcastic wise guy drinking tea on TV claims.

But once we were on the list we got our voter's slip before the last election. And this time too. Our names were given an interesting spin. But that little detail aside the slip gives you the name of the school where you have to go to vote, the room number (!) where you will vote, the timings, list of documents required... everything short of asking your meal preferences.

So we woke up at twelve. Made a round of coffee shops searching for breakfast. Bought samosas from Punjab Sweets as the coffee shops were shut. Went home home. Made coffee. Had breakfast at one PM (it was a holiday guys), drove down. Found the school. And the room number. Easily. Stood in the queue. Fifteen minutes. Pressed a button. Voted and out.

Now that's as uncomplicated as it gets.

Yes, I know, whom will you vote for, all parties are the same, nothing will happen, etc etc

But you can register a no vote, you can vote for an indy who won't win ... as someone wrote on Facebook yesterday, now that she had voted, she had earned the right to crib and rant through the year.

Voting days are here again

2009-10-11T09:31:00.001-07:00

Just picked up our voter's slips from our earlier place. So come Tuesday we will be voting again. The Government holiday on voting day won't see us just goofing off then.

I think I have a hang of who the candidates of the two larger parties here are. I have no idea what their single line promise is. Not because I am not interested. Perhaps because my demog is not important enough for them to reach out too.

Still I would like to know what their stand is on:

why the tiny lane in front of our house had to be fixed just before the election? And why has it taken a week and still looks more like Baghdad than Bandra?
stopping a repeat of the great floods and the terrorist attack
public loos
an airport befitting the commercial capital of a BRIC country
traffic jams which get worse by the day
the various metros...underground and above
Shivaji's statue, riots over Mumbai vs Bombay and things which people really care

An interesting observation on marketing vehicles. I now live in a Catholic dominant building and got a flyer from the ruling party in English and Hindi. When I crossed the road to get my voter's slip from our house which is in a Muslim dominant complex, I got an Urdu flyer from the same party. And of course my Maharashtrian sounding surname gets me SMSs from the latest saviours of the Marathi Manoos.

Fantastic media planning!

Breaking news

2009-10-11T01:58:00.000-07:00

Upcoming awards for the most powerful man in the world:

Oscars for best lifetime achievement, best actor in a motion picture, best director, best character in an animated film
Grammy best lead vocals, best upcoming artiste
Olympics 100 m dash... and Marathon
Miss Universe 2010
Asian Paints Sharod Shomman ... naah that's reserved for Chairman Mao

City of dreams

2009-10-07T12:29:00.000-07:00

I almost did cartwheels when I read the papers this morning.

'Almost' because I have never done a cartwheel in my life.

But I almost did when I read about the proposed elevated air conditioned corridor from Virar to Churchgate at Mumbai's Western line. I had visions of the wonderful train networks at Bangkok and Dubai. And emptier roads.

'Almost' also because I then read that the project would start in three years. And finish in ten!

The Dubai metro got over in two years. But the Calcutta one took three decades. So why complain?

Reminded me of a discussion which I had with some foreigners about India. We are quite a quirky country. On the one hand we have certain private sector enterprises like five star hotels or airlines where we match up to the best in the world. Or achievements in the ethereal world such as mobile networks and the quantum leaps there. But when it comes to brick and mortar stuff .... infrastructure, roads, public toilets, airports, traffic management, its phoos.

Though I must say that I am impatient but not a cynic. There is a lot of talk these days. And some plans too. A bit like the 'big bang'.

I hope something will come out of it.

Question is when and what?

Country roads

2009-10-05T12:56:00.000-07:00

We just returned from a twenty day trip across two countries, nine cities, three airports, innumerable train stations connecting most of the cities in one of the countries.

Seems daunting? Not really. We breezed along quite easily with the one strolley and one rucksack that we each carried.

We didn’t have to fill any forms at the airports. Immigration was a breeze. There were trolleys at every stage. And moving tracks and escalators. Very important given that I, like most others of our generation, have a bad back.

We could walk through the airport straight to the train station to take us to the city.. The intra country train rides weren’t a problem as there were frequent trains, running with clockwork precision connecting cities. Escalators or elevators within the stations to carry your luggage. Steps to push your bags easily from the platform to the train. And there were places to keep your bags in the train while you sat somewhere else and yodelled as the train passed lovely country sides.

I am talking largely of Switzerland, its train stations and of Zurich airport.

And of Dubai airport. The latter had a retina scan but that was a two minute affair without any tension or loss of my few remaining strands of hair. And there was comfortable seating for those who had come to receive us.

We did get stuck at one of the three airports we went to.

This was the only place where we had to fill many forms. Where we landed and had to make the long march from the plane to baggage check without a trolley in sight. Where we ran into a village fair before we could go to immigration. Figured out that it was a swine flu ‘scan’. Where we were first told me we needed one form for the two of us. And that we didn’t need to fill it.

Where we were then sent back because we didn’t fill it as we followed our earlier instructions. And that we needed to fill a form each. Where we thrust our forms through the card. After writing that we did not have fever. Where a hand struck back with stamped forms. Neither us, nor the stamper saw each other. But we were deemed swine flu free. A fact that the folks at Zurich and Dubai airport didn’t overtly care about.

Where our luggage came out on the conveyor belt and was kept on the side while we went through the swine flu tribal dance. Where we continued to wait expectantly by the conveyor belt as noone told us that the luggage from our flight had been kept separately. The only airport where our luggage in the Green Channel had to be screened. For which we had to lift the heavy suitcases far more times than necessary. Bad back be damned. And where we were asked for our embarkation slip thrice. Unlike in other airports where it was one stamp and off you go.

No points for guessing that I am speaking of the Mumbai International Airport. The airport to the commercial capital of India. The seat of one of the largest film industries in the world. And some of the most expensive real estate in the galaxy. A country which many believe will be a super power within our lifetime. Gateway to a country which many of us believe has tremendous tourism potential.

Hopefully someone will look at this once they have decided on what name we can call our city by.

Wonder why tourists don’t throng in till then though.

'No reservations'

2009-10-04T12:11:00.000-07:00

I attended a prayer ceremony for Mamma on Sunday morning.

Nothing wrong with that except that the official norms of her religion didn’t allow for folks from other religions, like me, to attend their prayers. I had the good fortune to be a part of it thanks to a lot of love and affection of the family… and a priest who was willing to fulfil the wishes of those who didn’t wanted to be constrained by the shibboleths of their religion. In fact I was not the only outsider there. There were two close family friends too.

Not that Mamma would agree to a prayer ceremony for her which excluded those she loved.

But that set me thinking of the various religious dogmas that one has heard of.

There are certain Hindu temples which do not allow non Hindus. It was before my time but I think Mrs Gandhi wasn’t allowed into the Jagannath temple when she was the Prime Minister as she had married a Parsi. Other temples don’t allow Hindus of certain castes or to women. There are limits to who can be priests too. Parsi fire temples are closed to all non Parsis. I don’t think women can be Christian priests very easily. I remember reading Erich Segal’s “Acts of Faith’ where the same applied to women and Jewish priests. Menstruating women can’t be part of ceremonies across religions. Women can’t go to all mosques. At least there were mosques in Turkey which claimed that they were one of the few where women could come and pray. I am not absolutely sure about this but I think that non Muslims can’t enter the Muslim Holy City of Mecca. And I know of at least one ‘modern’ philosophy of life interpretation type of practices which don’t enlist people who don’t speak English in India or who do not belong to the Middle Class or above.

Now I don’t want to really debate on the factual accuracy of the above. I could be wrong on some of them.

What I do find interesting is that most religions were started by someone who wanted to protest against the overbearing nature of the religious order of the day. The new religion was supposed to be ways for ordinary folks to connect with God without having to pay their tax to the religious toll keepers.

Then the new faith became an organised religion.

Religious wars and oppression started.

And the world waited for the next Prophet.

Mumbai Rocks... Metrotwin Mumbai

2009-09-17T00:56:00.001-07:00

Hey, this is something very close to my heart and a dream come true for me.

Metro twin http://mumbai.metrotwin.com/ is a BA effort to add colour to Mumbai for foreign travellers. I am a strong believer in the tourism potential of Mumbai and India.

A lot of things suck in terms of infrastructure but there's so much to see and do here, there is so much character. We just need to get people excited. We can give tons of popular destinations a run for their money. We can't fix the roads and loos and the Governmental apathy but we can definitely help build the romance of India. The rest will change I am sure.

So please introduce Metrotwin Mumbai to your friends overseas.

Let's spread the Mumbai story.

Money down the sea?

2009-08-30T00:03:00.000-07:00

It's a bit scary to write about the great Maratha king, Shivaji. Those who do normally make it to TV. With news of their being stoned and beaten up.

But the fact remains that Shivaji is, what one would could these days, a 'rockstar'. And this is not just in his native state of Maharashtra. I remember that we were big fans of Shivaji in school in the last century. We'd often play Shivaji and the Mughals those days instead of cops and robbers. Everyone wanted to be Shivaji. And this was in Calcutta at the other end of the country.

The Government has recently sanctioned plans to build a statue of Shivaji in the sea. The aim is to make this taller than the Statue of Liberty. Reports peg the cost of the project at Rs 350. The aim is to honour his memory and make a tourist attraction too.

Rs 350 crores is a lot of money. Especially for a state which is going through tough times and where there is a high incidence of farmer suicides due to economic depravity.

Could this money have been used better?

In fact there is a lot which can be done even in the tourism front.

The other day I had wandered into the old by lanes of Kalbadevi, Mumbadevi and Gamdevi near South Mumbai by mistake. There is so much vibrancy and life there. Each lane has its own character. You could be walking by imposing Muslim mosques and minarets in one with dry fruit shops beside you. And then by ornate Hindu temples in the next lane with hardware shops around you. I was so tempted to jump out of the car and hit the streets with my camera to capture the riot of colours. These lanes are a treasure trove in a world where many are trying to hold on to the liveliness of the past as we move on to a mechanised robotic future.

And India is the new black with the world looking to India to see how we have held our ground in the times of recession.

Yet Singapore sells 'Little India' to tourists while we have not thought of making tourist attractions of our heritage.

Once you have had your fill of the India in the crowded lanes, you can head South to areas such as Colaba, Fort and Fountain to feast on a well preserved slice of 19th century England. These areas have some astonishingly beautiful Gothic buildings from the times of the British Raj. Walking down these lanes take you to another era where life was slower, the world was still being discovered and the air was unpolluted. A world where aesthetics, style and grace counted for something.

If you have had enough of history and want to clear your mind and let new ideas come in then you can head to the Marine Drive nearby. You can sit by the sea and let your thoughts wander as you unwind the way nature wanted you to.

Go down North and you hit the grimier mill districts of Parel and Dadar with its flower, vegetable and clothes bazars. The squishy markets make you cringe? A lot of Far Eastern countries sell walks through these markets to sanitised Westerners. Just check Bobby Chi walk the markets of Malacca and Bangkok in his programme on Asian food. And Istanbul's Istiklal Cadesi has a very fancy food dome with well heeled restaurants serving Turkish food inside. The dome is decorated with flowers and chandeliers. It used to be a squishy wholesale flower market earlier!

And if you need a breather from this pre-modern Indian stuff then you can head to Bandra and celebrate the free spiritedness of modern India. This is the youngest, liveliest, trendiest and most welcoming suburb of Mumbai. And within its hip and happening spots you will find idyllic lanes which smacks of a village in the most modern spot of Mumbai.

My heart bleeds when I see cities like Singapore and KL making tourist attractions out of a thirty year old heritage. When I see the transformation that Istanbul has had since the times of Orhan Pamuk's post Ottoman melancholy to its post Euro Cup glory.

There is so much which can be done at Mumbai to harvest our potential for tourism. You will rarely get a city so rich in its past and so open in its thinking. But this needs good airports, clean roads, proper taxis and public transports, maps, affordable hotel rooms, facelifts and restorations and most importantly a desire to welcome guests. Something which made Turkey so wonderful for us.

Does anyone have the will to do this?

Coming back to the statue ... that is relatively easy to do. But how about restoring Shivaji's forts. Building trails, train rides along the hills where Shivaji used to charge down at the Mughals could be an idea. Entire tours could be built around siginificant events in his life. This would grow the legend of Shivaji. AND develop the economy through business and employment opportunities across the state.

There are icons in modern history such as Shakespeare, Tagore, Marx, Einstein, Christopher Columbus, Abraham Lincoln, Gandhi and Emperor Akbar to name a few who don't need statues to be remembered and revered.

I would dare say that Chhatrapati Shivaji would be part of that August group.

Interestingly the Statue of Liberty was gifted to the US by France.

A good book doesn't need a bookmark

2009-08-18T01:12:00.000-07:00

Well this heading sounded more profane than a good film doesn't need a popcorn break.

I first saw The Scent of a Woman at The Nandan Cinema at Calcutta.

This was way back in 92. I was on my way to college and it was raining heavily. I had just started college and couldn't bear to stay at home. I had pimples... those who have watched the film will know that this didn't count for much.

I had to get off the bus at the Rabindra Sadan stop as the roads were flooded. I thought I'll go and check out what was running at Nandan rather than go back home. The Nandan compound was flooded. I had to wade through water to go to the back gate where the ticket counter used to be. The irony was that I wouldn't have got wet if I went straight to the theatre.

So I watched the movie alone with my pimples, soaked trousers, no intermission, no toilet break, no snack break. And I didn't realise any of that till the movie ended.

Need I say more?

Just another day in India

2009-08-08T23:03:00.000-07:00

I went to Hearsch Bakery near Holy Family Hospital after ages to pick up a burger for breakfast this morning.

I saw an elderly gentleman, possibly in his mid sixties, standing opposite Holy Family in the alley. He was simply dressed like middle class folks of his genre, white bush shirt tucked out, grey trouser. He had a red and white jhola, the sling bag favoured by folks of his generation. He had round glasses, was slim and probably looked the way my grandfather would have looked twenty years back. A typical, middle class gent in the early years of his retirement.

And he had his hand stretched out asking for alms.

I remembered seeing him when I had come to Hearsch's months back. I was very puzzled even then.

I wondered what his story would be. Was he abandoned by his children? Was he laid off? He did look in good health. Didn't look particularly poor. Yet, there was a strange mix of serene desperation on his face. What would have driven him to beg? Should I offer him some money? That's what he was standing there for. But he looked so professorial and dignified. How could one go and offer cash to someone like that? Should I get something for him from Hearsch. Was he a vegetarian? Should I offer to take him to Hearsch and buy him something.

And then I found myself in my car, driving off with my burger.

Poverty and deprivation is so in our face in Mumbai. Even if you leave the slums and people defecating on the roads because they have no option, you have an incessant stream of beggars of all sizes and genders knocking on your car windows. Amputed people lying outside train stations, trying to get your attention by flicking some body part.

Most of us have developed an immune system. We have learnt to move on to the next traffic signal without thinking twice. Common arguments would be that you are doing the kid a disservice by giving him money. And we know that most are run by Ganglords and begging syndicates. We cringed when Danny Boyle showed this to the world. But we knew it was true.

I know folks who have their soft spots. The other day I was with a colleague in a car who took out some coins for a listless boy who knocked at our window. He is a father.

Then there is someone who opens her heart and purse to elderly women. She misses her grandmother.

Rolling the car window up is an option too.

Be afraid... very afraid

2009-08-04T03:29:00.000-07:00

I saw the scaffolding come up for Ganpati Puja and I shuddered.

I work a stone's throw away from Mumbai's biggest Ganpati Puja at Lalbagh. Seeing the workmen awakened horrific memories of insane traffic and fighting for every inch on the way to work.

Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against Ganpati Utsav. I love festivals and I think that they are a wonderful outlet for pent up energy. I used to live in Kolkata which used to come to a standstill thanks to do a Goddess. And I am not talking of Mamata Banerjee.

The thing about Durga Puja in Kolkata is that it is a holiday for everyone. Pretty much like Chinese New Year in the Orient and Christmas in the West. So those who want to celebrate it do so with unbridled passion. The rest stay home and chill without worrying about work.

No such luck with the Ganpati Puja here. Offices are open so you have to navigate through some pretty insane traffic situations to get to work. Those who celebrate it have to balance work and festivity. And that's no fun. Or they have to take an off day for a festival celebrated ironically by the largest community of the city. And those who don't celebrate it are pressed through the oil mills of tortuous traffic for no fault of theirs.

Add to this the Wednesday jams because of the Mahim Church, the Dargah jam for a week in December, the Mount Mary Fair blockades in Bandra and you will soon pray for freedom from religion.

It's sad that in India religious festivity is coupled with civic frustration.

A really sorry state of affairs. And I hope that it's not coming soon to a street near you.

Baby you can drive my car

2009-07-24T02:34:00.000-07:00

I often wistfully think about the promised lands where my friends who have moved out of India live in.

Especially when I am stuck in a traffic jam caused by a religious festival, waiting to take on the potholes of Mumbai.

Then I console myself by reminding myself that I live in a country where you still get domestic help. That I won't have to go back and do the dishes. Or navigate the crazy traffic myself.

Reality?

Our maid has bunked for the last couple of days. Our kitchen's a disaster zone.

And we have been driverless for a while.

Bunking is our maid's thing. It used to bug me and I often wanted to sack her. My wife restrained me and six years later our maid has become Pygmalion to my Henry Higgins. When she comes to work that is.

But our luck with drivers is the stuff of Bollywood tear jerkers.

We have been without one for a while. Three of the last four didn't last beyond a day. We sacked one, the next one inexplicably disappeared after day one and the third called me after the first day saying that he was getting a better salary elsewhere. The fourth came to our place, agreed to the terms, and never turned up.

I ate the humble pie and called our last driver who was a bit of Cinderella and wouldn't want to stay beyond eight even for the love of money. He had this angry young man thing going and would normally greet me with a scowl. We let him go in the promise of one who was highly referred to me. The new guy didn't live up to the build up that he got and was the first of our recent one day stands. I had to read him the riot act.

Anyway Cinderella responded to my pleas to make up with a SMS (!) which said "thousand Rupees more per month, two hours less per day".

Since then I have been at the mercy of Meru cabs and a few attempts to drive myself which end up in a backache.

We have had more drivers in the last six years than the number of craters in the average Bandra by-lane.

The first one taught me how to drive. It was his first driving job as well. He used to drive tempos before. Things were fine till he began to think of me as an ATM machine for some reason. Loan for school, farming, house, a difference of opinion on paying up loans (I felt he should, he felt he shouldn't) and we had our first break up. Like Taylor and Burton, he joined me a few drivers later and then left. He fell for the call of the wild. He went back to driving tempos! The sad thing was that we had to hear this from other people. He had told us that he was returning to his village.

In between we had one who used to mysteriously fall ill on Saturday and Monday and take extended weekends. Another who could barely see, wouldn't recognise us if he saw us on the roads and would make potholes seem like air pockets. And there was one who would run at eight to have dinner with 'Maushi'. Even if we were in the middle of nowhere. Replaced by one who claimed to be a Bandra boy, but didn't know what lay across my road in the centre of Bandra. He drove like a maniac. Then quit before I could sack him. He told me, "It's not you, it's me" He said that he was a 'pilot driver' and that I deserved someone nicer and less wild.

Then came Raju. A stable driver. Polite, diffident, middle aged. Happy times? Well, he looked up to his name sake in the film Sri 420. He would take off home for a nap while I was at oblivious at work. With my car! And bought an expensive colour camera phone after taking money for us to buy a basic phone. There was no money left for a SIM card to activate it. His response to my flustered threats in Hindi was a whimpered "Lalach me aa gaya tha Sir" (I succumbed to greed sir).

I feel very hassled when I have to tick off a driver. I could be seething in anger but would be at my wit's end about how to convey my angst in my broken Hindi. I would blurt out something at the end with no idea about whether the message got through.

My parent in law's favourite, 'Tauji', came next. As old as Methuselah, with the heart of Shumacher, and a rasping smoker's cough which would make us flinch in the car and send him to the doctor. All was fine till he disappeared for six months for his daughter's wedding. This wizened Obi Wan is back in town and often pops unexpectedly from below a car these days asking me for a job.

And then there were the ones who came to try for the job and didn't make it. Most didn't know how to drive. One damaged the car while taking it out of the parking lot at home. Seven thousand rupees down. Another was a gym attendant who knocked the car while taking it out of the building gates during the trial. There were quite a few whom I asked to get off the wheel two minutes after they took it out of our house for the test. One flummoxed me by saying "meri tamanna tha aap ke saath rehkar driving seekhu." (It was my dream to be with you and learn driving). He was the doorman of the restaurant opposite our house.

Valet parking guys, cake delivery guys, studio stunt drivers ... I have tried them all.

The only thing that keeps me going was what Madhuri Dixit said in the film Dil to Pagal Hain ... "Someone..... Somewhere..... is made for you"

I hope she was talking about drivers.

Bangla Rocks

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

I was trying to get the little woman to leave her Jap and Mexican authors aside and read Sankar's Middleman.

"Why are you Bengalis so clannish?", she exclaimed in exasperation.

She would know, being married to one. And, being in advertising, quite a few of her close friends are Bengali too.

I have heard others smirk and say that two Bengalis always break into Bengali when they meet each other, even when non Bengalis are around.

Well I have seen Malayalis, Tamils, Parsis and Gujaratis do that too. So do people from the Hindi belt except that Hindi doesn't stand out as much as quite a few speak it.

But yes, it is downright rude to break into a language when there are others around who don't understand it.

Put two Bengalis together and they will rubbish Bombay's biriyani in comparison to Shiraz's and Chowpatty's paani puri's in comparison to Lindsay Street Phhuchkas. And nothing will convince them that even Golden Dragon or Royal China or China Garden are a patch on the Chinese of Barbeque, Tangra and Jimmy's Kitchen or that there will ever be a continental dish which matches up to Mocambo's fish a la diana. We are food chauvinists.

But I have seen Tam Bran friends go weak in their knees over tahir sadam (might have spelt it wrong) or curd rice and Punjabis who go to buffets and fondly call dahi vadas dahi vallas and black daals maa ki daal.

You would also find to the last existing die hard fans of Saurav Ganguly amongst Bengalis. But cut us some slack. There hasn't been a single Bengali sportsman of note since Netaji kicked his Principal down the steps of Presidency.

While I am not much into it ... Bengali books and papers are widely read in Mumbai. And music from Tagore to Hemanta to Bangla Rock would be in quite a few Ipods of Bengalis outside Calcutta.

But then I have Malayali friends who would be in seventh heaven when they found Malayali films in grocery shops in New Bombay.

And if there are eight Bengalis, one more than required to start a trade union, then you will surely find a Durga Puja. Even if its on the surface of the moon! I think that's where we over shadow festivals of any other immigrant communities.

The Bengali accent and their way of speaking English and Hindi are often subjects of mirth in pop culture. But then show me a single Indian community which doesn't have its own way of speaking English and I will show you an American who spells correctly.

I think that the one reason why Bengalis and their idiosyncrasies stand out is that you have a disproportionately high number of us in circles such as arts (films, music, literature), media, advertising, market research and even marketing. Circles which a number of Facebookers and Bloggers belong too.

On the clannish bit... I think that there is a certain comfort that emigrants, or probashis as they say in Bengali, find in shared memories. This, I think is fine and innocuous in comparison to the communal diatribes, lingual xenophobia, religious posturing and cultural intolerance that surround India today.

I have heard out of towners say they find it tough to mix in and feel at home in Calcutta. I agree with that.

But then show me any other city in India, apart from Mumbai, where people can feel at home so easily.

So are Bengalis clannish?

I would think so.

The Joker

2009-07-20T01:19:00.000-07:00

I took the Bandra Worli Sea Link to work a few times before today.

I was quite sold on it. It cut the time to reach my first stop, Kainaz's office by more than ten minutes. And, for those interested, the taxi fare of black and yellow and Meru's is exactly the same on the Sea Link and on Tulsi Pipe. The fifty Re entry fee being the difference.

Then, as Bertie Wooster would say, the scales fell.

We set off by the Sea Link this morning. The sea looked very mysterious and grey. It was wet, cloudy and seemed cool and surreal. I could see the peak of the skyscrapers at the Worli Side through the mist. Smog actually but mist seems more poetic. It seemed straight out of Batman's Gotham City... dark, menacing and yet, exciting.

We got off at the Worli Sea face and saw that the U turn to Worli Naka was closed as usual. I don't know why they can't be flexible and keep it open when traffic is low. The city planners don't care for the energy crisis apparently. Today was particularly crazy as the U Turns were closed later too and one had to hit the main road, get stuck in terrible traffic. Batmobile to reality in ten minutes.

So we limped forward, struggling to gain every inch, while we could have easily taken a U Turn after the Sea Link and hit Worli Naka in a jiffy.

But then what would the guy at BMC who thinks of new ways to test the tenacity of Mumbaikars do if we could do that?

I am sure such a department exists. After all why would they concretise roads, break them, put palaver stones, break them, concretise them, and then block the road wondering whether to make a fly over, or demolish the existing one?

Without them, as T would say, 'where are the hardships?'.

Learn in the USA

2009-07-16T02:51:00.000-07:00

I was quite amused to read recent media reports that Barack Obama plans to revamp the American education system to compete with India.

This took me back to my high school days and my friends who would sit at the back in class and solve SAT and TOEFEL papers. An American education was what many dreamt of. Visions of a whole new world, a whole new way of studying with no learning by rote, subjects such as micro biology and liberal arts, lovely campuses romanced by Erich Segal in his books spurred many. I was interested too but found applying to scholarships to be an expensive affair. I don't think that I was sure of what I wanted to do in any case.

So the closest one has come to experiencing an American education is through novels and films. I studied under the British System till the fourth standard in International School. I found it very tough to adjust to the ICSE system initially with its focus of exams and 'by hearting' (memorising) and compliance. A far cry from the creativity and free thinking which I was used to till then. An example would be 'write a story about a suspicious looking man' to 'write ten sentences on your pet'. Duh!

My perception was that the American system would reflect these liberal values too.

Is Obama speaking of basic, elementary education? Or is he speaking of the post grad system?

So have we come a full circle now? Is the land of the free looking wistfully at societies which are not fully unshackled?

Or has Dr Singh left a big impression on everyone!

Do write in if you know more on what Obama said... and definitely if you have experienced both the Indian and American education systems.

Hardly the Wonder Years

2009-07-14T09:16:00.000-07:00

I read the Bengali author Sankar's book, Jono Oronyo, while I was at Goa and was blown away by it.

The way Sankar set the character of the protagonist, Somnath Banerjee, in two paragraphs, right in the beginning, is a lesson in great writing. I felt very proud to belong to such rich literary heritage when I read the book.

Here I must confess that I actually read Arunava Sen's translation of the original Bengali book. It is called The Middleman in English. I have not read too many Bengali books and this possibly expalins my awe when I read the book.

I know a lot of Bengalis will take this personally and would consider me a snob for admitting that I don't read Bengali books. There is a simple explanation for this. I learnt Bengali after I came to India. Uninspiring teachers, Christian schools which espoused English and a general love for English books did not inspire me to explore Bengali literature. I never took to reading in Bengali, struggled with a few Satyajit Ray books (yes the master wrote too) and then gave up. Today I like to believe that there are many ways to connecting with one's culture. Eulogising Bengali food or supporting Saurav Ganguly (a lost cause most often) are my hooks.

And I am now getting a taste of Bengali literature thanks to brilliant translations such as Sinha's Middleman.

Enough about me. This is not an autobiographical post. Coming back to the book, it is about Bengali middle class angst, unemployment and corruption in the seventies. I could really feel the pain, frustration and desperation of Somnath Banerjee. Rarely have I read a book which gets so under the skin of a character.

The book is a telling commentary of Calcutta forty years back which appealed to the Sociological orientation that P R tried to instill in us in Presidency years back.

I recently wrote about parents who pushed their children into the rat race through the hidebound paths of medicine, engineering or management studies. "Where is the creativity and free thinking", I brashly asked.

Well, this book gave me a huge insight into the psyche of parents who had grown up in the job scarcity era of the sixties and the seventies. I realised that they would have gone through a lot to get a toehold for themselves and must have been very, very scared about what would happen to their children.

We have seen another side of India where there was a shortage of manpower till a few months back. Companies were in a hiring spree. And there were lots to do in emerging India. Things have changed a bit since then and I am sure that we are oceans apart from the bleak situation portrayed in The Middleman today.

I hope we never slip back.

It's sad that so few of Ray's films are sub titled well. And that so few of Indian books are translated well.

We can step into a video library and get a sub titled Kurusawa or step into a book store and buy a Murakami.

Hopefully someday someone in Tokyo can do the same with a Ray classic or a Sankar novel.

Any idea of where to get a copy of Satyajit Ray's film on the book, Jono Oronyo, in Mumbai? Ideally with English sub titles so that I don't have to do a simultaneous translation for K.

Roll over Pygmalion

2009-07-10T09:31:00.000-07:00

I read a shocking piece in The Times of India. Schools in Kolkata, the city where the sun never set on the British Empire, have legalised American English! As has Calcutta University!!!! And Bombay University

Topping the list of schools mentioned in the article was my Alma Mater, St James' School, Calcutta. I did my plus two there.

Is this the school where our principal, J A M, ruled as a martinet armed with Wren and Martin? Scratching our essays with red? Making us shiver under his sophistic and pedantic attacks? He even wrote a book on English Grammar which, surprise surprise, was part of our curricula. Though, to be fair, it was a good, handy book. He then went on to Doon and Dubai but left generations of us Jacobeans guarding the Queen's English.

And, he would have spotted sixty two mistakes in this post by now. Including the fact that I started the last sentence with 'and'.

Call me old fashioned, call me over the hill, or call me uncle as the college kid in the corner store recently did, but I can't spell favour favor and I need to start my sentences with a capital letter and the last letter of the alphabet is zed, not zee and I will end this sentence with a full stop and not a period.

The default language in my spell check is English UK.

What is yours?

Papa kehte hain ... the path well travelled

2009-07-06T12:46:00.000-07:00

Aamir Khan crooned this famous song from Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak in the late eighties, straight into the hearts of all the girls in my school. While I made collages of Juhi Chawla. Thirteen is an impressionable age.

In this coming of age song, Aamir Khan's character, Raj, sang of his father's hopes from him.

Part of the lyrics went as follows:

Har ek nazar ka sapna yeh hai
Koi engineer ka kaam karega
Business mein koi apna naam karega
Magar yeh to koi na jaane
Ki meri manzil hai kahan
Papa kehte hain bada naam karega

This loosely translated means "everyone has a dream, some want to be an engineer, some want to make it in the world of business, but no one knows where I'll end up, Papa says I'll make a name for myself".

This song was quite symbolic of the times we grew up in. Add doctor and CA to engineer and business and you have the career options opent to a twentieth century Indian laid out in front of you.

Most of us followed these routes and earn a living, often quite adequately, diligently and with some efficiency.

And yet many of us blog by night ... and in these blogs are hidden aspirations to be writers, chefs, food reviewers, poets, photographers, journalists, rocket scientist, designers, film critics ... professions very different from doling out medical certificates, building bridges, selling soap or researching why people buy soap.

Of course there is the odd story such as that of an ex colleague who quit her job, became a Mom and now a published writer.

But these stories are probably far and few. Even folks in 'creative' fields such as advertising take up film making or song writing to discover themselves.

I think a part of this was because India didn't have a social security system. Nor do we have a culture of living on credit. So the aim of most middle class parents was to see their children settled and earning a living as soon as possible. No place for Bertie Woosters here. So going for the tried and tested seemed the best option as a nation of young minds sharpened themselves for medical, engineering and MBA exams.

I started working in the late nineties. I wonder if things are different more than a decade later. Are today's students chasing their dreams. Or are they working towards their pay cheque, the safe way?

The stories in newspapers about admission anxieties don't seem to indicate much of a change.

My first job was with The Asian Age for about a month before my MBA entrance results came out. Close to fifteen years later I am my own editor and my own journalist! Just that I don't earn a living out of it.

The wall

2009-06-21T08:54:00.001-07:00

A few of my friends have kids who have just joined school. Or play school as it's called.

The problem is that the kids are a year and a half old. Now I know that I am not a parent and therefore am not in touch with what's happening in the under two feet category. But the way I see it is that school is the end of one's free life. From then on, you are in the rolls somewhere or the other - at play school, at school, at college, or at work. The only break is if you don't work or if you are a freelancer. And that's rare.

My friends assure me that these are 'play schools' - kids come and 'swim' in buckets full of beach ball, watch puppets, eat popcorn, make friends. I wonder if the poor kids know that. Do they see it as fun and games. Or do these translate into discipline and rules in their world?

I guess this is how things are today. Perhaps I am over reacting. There is no doubt that parents have their kids best interests in heart.

What is the hurry to make kids grow up? Why is the system in a hurry to put them in system? Will this reduce to school at six months soon? And then like Arjun, will school start while you are still in the womb?

There is the argument that kids learn social skills better in school than at home, fawned upon by doting parents and grand parents. I don't see a lot of social deviants amongst those of us who grew up at home ... cuddled and pampered.

Is this just a trick to build an industry - schools for sub toddlers?

It's really scary. School before you begin to walk. Cricket and music becoming classes rather than hobbies. Ninety five per cent plus being the cut off for college.

That's when you appreciate being in the right side of your thirties.

I would love to know what the parents feel on this. And more than that, what do the babies think as they get into the bus in their school uniforms.

Back in fashion

2009-06-18T23:37:00.000-07:00

Chances are that if you blog and read blogs then you have a back problem too. I sincerely hope not. But it seems that anyone who has anything to do with a computer has a back problem these days.

If you don't have a back problem, and I hope you don't, then I can bet my increment this year that you know someone who does (watchers of corporate India would have caught the bitter joke in this sentence).

But seriously, what's with back aches? Everyone seems to have it these days. From serious ones which need surgery or steroid injections to nagging pains which just doesn't seem to go away.

Some attribute it to bad postures or desk jobs. But I am sure that bad postures always existed even if generations claimed that they had a stronger spine. And desk jobs can't be new to what the Brits considered a nation of clerks at one time.

When we were in college and soon after that... bad backs would be associated with the throes of passion. The rare person who had a bad back would be jeered and cheered. But I am not too sure about this hypothesis either. Almost everyone I know has a back problem. While we don't have prying eyes, I would be surprised if there are many Lonely Lotharios or Lady Chatterley's amongst them.

And if you are addicted to writing, then there is nothing worse than a bad back and a stiff neck.

Growing up with Moley

2009-06-14T09:14:00.000-07:00

"I am thirty five today. I am officially middle- aged. It is all downhill from now. A pathetic slide towards gum disease, wheelchair ramps and death" - Adrian Mole

The first time I got to know Adrian Mole was when my aunt gave me Sue Townsend's "The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4". I think I was about to turn thirteen then. The book was a rollicking ride of self discovery and empathy. I remember that me and my mates from school had a great time reading about Aidy's love for Pandora, his obsession with his spots, his constant measuring with his foot ruler, his run ins with his principal, his pains as an 'intellectual' and his chaotic life of adolescent self doubt and discovery. I think this was one of the most circulated book amongst us. It had, as my aunt wrote in the book, 'helped me grow up'.

My encounter with Aidy didn't end there. We discovered in college that the Adrian Mole series had grown and we got hold which had a few more diaries detailing his life as he grew older - True Confessions, The Wilderness Years.

I then came across his 'Cappuccino Years' when I'd moved out of home and shifted to Bombay. That's when Adrian had moved out to and was coming to terms with fatherhood and his attempts to be a celebrity chef.

The last rendition in the series is 'Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction' where he turns 35. I bought it when I turned 31 and read it during my birthday trip to Goa. That was in 2005.

I picked up the book from the bookshelf a couple of days back. I couldn't put it down till I reached the last page. I had read it before but still hung onto every word this time. But that's not strange. I must have read the Secret Diary more than five times at the least. I was lost in Adrian's world in the WMD and at times was shocked by the way we connected.. Which is funny because this is not a self help Chicken Stew, Middle Class Dad, Children are from Saturn book. This is just a work of humour.

I then did the math and suddenly realised that this the period when Aidy reached 35. I had earlier read the book when I turned 31. But I am now 35 and could relate to so many things in the book.

Self obsessed, neurotic, living from one failure to failure, depressed, klutz with 'a futon and a few pots and pans to show after thirty five years' ... I guess it would have been more fashionable to say that one connects with James Bond, Rhett Butler or a host of other fictional characters... after all this blog is not a 'secret diary'. But Adrian Mole and I go back too far back for that. So I won't add myself to the list of people in his life who have disowned him.

It's really amazing how Sue Townsend is so insightful and can draw out the psyche of Adrian as he grows up. That's real sensitivity. It takes a lot to understand a person of the opposite sex so well. Especially if you writing the book as a diary with daily recounts of a person's life and thoughts.

I really hope the series doesn't end. The time has come for Adrian Mole to turn forty.

Perhaps Adrian could write one of his famous letters to Ms Townsend.

Hell Down Under

2009-06-01T13:06:00.000-07:00

They glamorized sledging... called it mental disintegration

Mocked Gavaskar ... knocked Ganguly

Shoved Pawar

Got behind Murli and called Bhajji an obnoxious weed

Bullied young Manish ... And played ugly

But now it's not even a gentleman's game

Dante's hell...aka phone banking

2009-05-28T05:30:00.000-07:00

ring ring

Dead voice: we have a tie up with an insurance company so please waste your phone time and listen us while I drone on

Sultry machine voice....welcome to Big International Bank, please enter your account number followed by hash brown potatoes

me:done

SMV Please enter your date of birth in .... format

me: done

SMV Sorryyyyy I can't recognise your date of birth, please enter your date of birth

me: done

SMV Sorryyyyyyy I can't recognise your DOB

Confused Voice: Sir this is Jane Singh how can I help you

Me: I want a change of address

CV: Please verify your pin number on the phone.

me: done

CV: Oh sorry our system is not working today. Please answer the following questions. 1 what is the specific gravity of hydrogen 2 How was the thrid person to climb Mount Everest 3 What was your mother's vavourite maiden snack 4 What is your overdraft limit

Me: what is an over draft limit?

CV: sir, that's the wrong answer. Please call again

Me: But I need to change my address

CV: Please call again

Me: but I typed in my DOB, your system is not showing it

CV: That is not possible the automated voice doesn't ask for DOB

Me: But it does

CV: It doesn't

Me: It did too

CV: No it doesn't

Me: Ok let me verify my pin

CV: Sir our pin verifying system is down, please call again

Me: But I need to change my address

CV: Sir I can open a term deposit for you for 300 days at 7 per cent

Me: But I need to change my address

CV: sorry please call again

IMAGINE GOING THROUGH THIS SEVEN TIMES IN A DAY. FOR OVER MORE THAN AN HOUR WITH THE PHONE ON SPEAKER PHONE!!!!!

Did this really happen to me? Did I just hallucinate with back ache and fever pills hitting me from all sides? Is this a nightmare?

End of story... I lost my temper and yelled "are you a bank or a cattle shop!"

Marooned in your own country ... Aila to Amritsar

2009-05-26T03:09:00.000-07:00

I caught snatches of the coverage of the cyclone Aila in Calcutta and Eastern India on Bengali news channels. On one side there is the terrible loss of life and property. On the other hand there are people who were out on work and stranded because there was no public transport. My mother and brother were two of those.

Thank God for the metro. That at least helped people to some extent. But buses? No! Taxis? No! Autos? No! The frantic faces of people of TV were really sad to see.

And from what i saw on TV today, it is the same in Punjab with many stranded thanks to the riots there.

And this happens everywhere in India. Whether its in the commercial capital, Mumbai, the ruling party's current darling, West Bengal, the Prime Minister's state, Punjab... any place that you can think of. The calamity could be natural like a cyclone or floods or man made like terrorist attacks, bomb blasts, riots or the current violence in Punjab over the Gurudwara in Vienna.

Innocent people get stuck. And there is absolutely no support from civic systems.

Coincidentally, my mother was stranded when she was twenty five years younger and there were the riots in Calcutta after Mrs Gandhi was killed. We were kids then and everyone was worried as there was no news of her till she returned home after walking miles from work.

Twenty five years later, the only difference is that we knew her whereabouts thanks to her cell phone. She still had to trudge back with no support from the system.

But the metro was there and she did get a lift from a good Samaritan in a cab ... so some things have changed in India. But is it enough?

Talking of mothers my mom in law was sinking in the famous Mumbai flood when once again an unknown Samaritan literally pulled her and got her home safely from her office.

Where is the government machinery when calamities strike us? Why are good samaritans our only hope when we pay taxes obediently? Why do people have to come out in their cars to help people during floods? Why do people have to collect biscuits for terrorist victims in hospitals?

And most importantly why is there no leader out there talking to the people and giving them hope and direction?

Or perhaps that happens only in Obama land and in movies like Independence day.

PS I also heard on news that an elderly lady died close to our place as a tree fell on her rickshaw during the cyclone. Imagine living through the trials and tribulations of life and then suddenly it's over before you realised it thanks to nature's whim. Or worse still, on a terrorist's whim.

Ode to Master T

2009-05-24T04:40:00.000-07:00

Under your tough shell lies a frisky soul
Snoozing in a corner when you are alone

You somersault when we are around
Thinking you are Spiderman you try to cross the glass walls

You don't speak a word as you stare into the world
But when we are around, baby you do rock

Your needs are little as are you
Six fish sticks, twice at eight

With your beady eyes you look into mine
God only knows what goes around in your primitive mind

Dunno if you know our days together are numbered
But why think of that while we are together

Born in the USA?

2009-05-17T00:51:00.000-07:00

There was a lot of enthusiasm amongst folks I know on the American elections. Barack Obama fans in India were all over Facebook, Blogspot, Twitter rooting for him.

Recently I have come across some folks questioning the apparent apathy of such people when it came to the Indian elections. Questions raised were whether such people even voted here. Or on why there was hardly any chatter on social network sites on the Indian elections.

Now let me lay my cards down in the beginning. I voted. It was not easy to get registered but Imanaged it over three years. I am sure many would have tried but couldn't. Secondly I too was cynical of the obsession over the American elections. Especially if one was not active in the Indian political scene.

Having said that I must say that I can relate to those who were over the moon with Obama but inert on India.

In the American elections you had a man who was inspiring. A man has appeal cut across economic and social classes. Who was fighting against a President who was seen to have left crises behind in whatever he touched. People were hoping for a change. The promise of what would change was clear.

So there was something you could identify with, get inspired by and support.

Cut to the Indian elections. First of all I don't think that India was in a crisis the way the US was and therefore the need for change was not that in your face. Secondly there were no clear and visible polarisation in stances between the parties. And thirdly there were no inspiring leaders you could pitch your lot behind. The PM candidate of one party was not even directly elected by the people of India. And the candidate of the other has definitely had a questionable past when he had polarised the country.

So whom do you root for? And for those who argue that we are not a Presidential system, which party do you root for?

And this 'parliamentary system and therefore the leader doesn't matter' argument is one of convenience. By that logic we wouldn't have had the Nehrus, Gandhis, Vajpayees, Thatchers and Chruchills who were part of parliamentary systems but were clear leaders too.

In such a scenario what is wrong if people look for inspiration outside? After all Obama, Mandela and Dalai Lama looked to Gandhi for inspiration. By that logic one should mock them too.

The results have shown that the electorate have pitched their lot with the Congress and the UPA.

But there is nothing wrong in hoping and wishing that someday we have a leader who inspires the whole country of not the world. To start with the Congress could at least chose someone who was elected in the Lok Sabha to be the PM. And if they do stick with Manmohan Singh, which seems likely, can't they at least get him elected in a Lok Sabha by poll than depend on a technical Rajya Sabha seat? In fact, if memory serves me right I think Narasimha Rao did that when he was appointed Prime Minister. He was a RS member who then contested in the Lok Sabha and won in the by polls.

After all a knockout punch is always more convincing than a technical points victory.

And for those who are Obama fans but alienated here, I think it would be better to see why that is so than to mock them.

Perhaps we are missing a trick.

Stability rocks

2009-05-17T00:39:00.000-07:00

Well the election results are out.

It seems that we will have a fairly dominant ruling party after ages. One might subscribe to part of their policies and not to the others, but overall this should be a good thing. Hopefully the markets and economy will respond well to this and hopefully some things will get done in India for a change. Democracy is fine to a point but one needs some autonomy while leading, in all walks of life. While both the Congress and the BJP have their specific stances, the fact is that practicality rules when it comes to governance so I don't think either would have been disastrous for India. Example of this would be the communist government in Bengal which woos industrialists or the BJP government which never pushed its Ram Mandir stuff when it was ruling the country two elections back.

The other great surprise is the Left losing in West Bengal. I left Bengal a decade back so I don't know whether this would have been a surprise to those who live there. But one can't imagine the Left losing on Bengal. They had such a stranglehold on the state. In fact it was a pollster's dream. I guess it is a bit like the West Indies losing the '83 World Cup.

So let's keep our fingers crossed

blogging in bed

2009-05-15T07:09:00.001-07:00

you are probably here because you like surfing. You might even blog. At least the net means a lot to you. But what do you do if you cant access the comp. For eg i have a back pain today and should be in bed. Taking out the laptop and pounding away is not a good idea. At least the fancy e 71 which k gave me helps me stay connected. But nothing like tv or a good book if you are in bed i guess.. Unless the geeks come up with something where you have a comp in the form and size of a book. Is such a thing there?

fake housing society secretary creamed

2009-05-03T10:36:00.000-07:00

i will write a more detailed post later as i am quite drained out tonight. This is for all of you who have been following our housing society woes and have been supporting us. The special general body meeting happened today. And, in short, we won! We swept the floor with the museum piece. And everyone supported us. Quite a fight, full drama. More later ...

The night before...taking on the Mickey Mouse committee of our housing society

2009-05-02T13:09:00.000-07:00

I earlier wrote about the delusional secretary and his Mickey Mouse committee in our housing society who weren't allowing us to rent out our house.

Since then my parents in law swooped in and got us a letter from the deputy registrar directing the society to let us rent our place.

We found a tenant after losing four months of rent thank to the society goons.

And suddenly the society, who had not replied to our application for four months, has called for a general body meeting to 'enforce' a ruling passed by them two months back not allowing people to rent out our house.

That meeting's tomorrow. We have pumped ourselves up for the fight. We have figured out that we have a solid case:

the society cannot stop a person from renting their house and passing any such law is illegal
the Maharashtra Co-operation act, section 79, 2001 actually encourages people to rent out their vacant flats to help bring down property prices
we have seen cases where court rulings have overruled societies who have charged unjust amounts from people who have rented out their house or societies who have tried to bar people from renting their house to bachelors, spinsters or foreigners
we have gone through the legal route - registered agreement, all in white, police NOC, prior letter to the society... we have done it all
the society committee, on its part, hasn't replied to our application. AND in a consumer court ruling a society secretary was fined Rs 7,000 for not replying to a society member
we have a letter from the deputy registrar asking the society to allow us to rent out our house
AND our trump card, the nuclear option, society committee members need to form an indemnity form, M20. Without that, any rule passed by them is illegal. My sources tell me that the secretary our banana republic haven't filled the forms

They have harassed us enough and more. Hopefully tomorrow it will be our chance to sock it back to them.

It won't be easy. Society meetings are as unparliamentary as the Indian Parliament. But the trick is to have a good breakfast and outshout the buggers.

Paraphrasing the Mumbai Indians, 'society hila denge!'. We have to stamp out what Amitabh Bachchan called, 'society ke keere' in Hum.

I will keep you updated on what happened.

PS. Kainaz says I should leave the Hindi parts to her.

Don't cry for them Kolkata

2009-05-01T14:00:00.000-07:00

I never thought I would cheer for Sachin and Jayasurya when they were bashing the Knightriders team at the IPL. Nor did I think I would clap for Yusuf Pathan when he helped the Rajasthan team with the Super Over against Knightriders team.

But I must thank Badshah D@#$% for converting me to a Mumbai Indian fan. And for hating the Knightriders.

First he drops Kolkata from Kolkata Knightriders. He probably thought that his own name was big enough to carry the team. He didn't need Kolkatans by his side. Well he is mistaken. It was the passionate Bengali which made KKR the most successful franchise last time. And dropping Kolkata has got the home city against KR.

And my question is that who gave him the permission to drop 'Kolkata' from the name? Why is this the only IPL team without a regional identity?

And secondly the way he has treated Saurav Ganguly was sickening. It's not that other captains have not been dropped. Dravis, Laxman were removed as captains. But not through a press conference tamasha as it happened for Ganguly.

The fact is that Bengal has only one iconic cricketer, Ganguly. Dildo B@#$%^ and Bhooka Noon's (with apologies to the fake IPL player) shenanigans with Ganguly were sickening and have lost them all respect.

The team seems to be going though the motions now going from one defeat to another. There is no passion or buzz in the players on the field. Nor is there any support for them. KR exists in the IPL for other teams to up their net run rate. They were supposed to send their NPAs back but as of last count the coach and the captain are still there playing fiddle while the team burns.

And last heard, Badhsah D@#$% was trying to make money by what he is actually good at. Dancing at weddings!

Vote's up

2009-05-01T12:00:00.000-07:00

I voted for the first time yesterday, since I moved into Mumbai ten years back.

I had voted twice in Calcutta when I stayed there. It was fairly easy then as the political party cadres would ensure that your name was on the electoral list.

Conscientious Bengali that I am, I tried to get my name on the voters list a few years back. This was before Jaago Re, Lead India, Rock The Vote tried to get people to vote.

So I took Kainaz with me and went to a nearby school in 2006 to submit our voting forms. The place where they were taking the forms were chaotic. We found it tough to get through the officials as they were speaking in the local language of Marathi. We filled our forms and hoped for the best.

We didn't hear anything after that till I once got a call from an official for verifying my antecedents. The problem was that I was out of the country. Kainaz went and apparently the gentleman told her that we would need to go to the office once again.

Three years passed since then. Nothing happened.

Then the terror attacks of 2611 happened and Kainaz and I felt we must vote. This time we tried our luck with Jaago Re. But we found out that the site just gives you the forms and directs you where to go and that's it. It was not a place to fill forms unlike what we thought. The Jaagore site informed us that no new registrations were being taken. So we got back to our lives glumly.

Election day was preceded by a crescendo of public service ads asking people to vote. I even got an off day in my office because of the elections. But I thought I couldn't vote as I wasn't registered.

Come election day and Kainaz and I went to Candies for breakfast before she was to leave for work. I was feeling pretty sheepish as there were posters of John Abraham exhorting people to vote even at Candies.

What followed was straight out of Hans and Gretel. Kainaz left for work while I went to check on our house where we used to stay earlier.

I opened the door and I saw that there was a paper which was Kainaz's voter's slip. Apparently our application had worked after three years! She was on the list. And I was hoping that I would be too.

I excitedly called her on her cell and she turned back. We went to the school where we were supposed to vote.

There was a government official manning the station. There were quite a few folks trying to find their names.I must say he was being quite patient and even breaking into English when he realised that they couldn't speak Marathi.

He gave me a directory and said that the names were in alphabetical order. A quick scan and I found my name beside Kainaz's.

I could vote too!!!!

I can't begin to say how thrilled we were.

We stood in the queue for about 15 - 20 minutes and then our turn came. And we voted!

One can always argue that a single vote doesn't make a difference, that we have to choose between political parties who don't have much to say for themselves, we could say that the middle class vote doesn't count ... but the fact is that we took a step in deciding our country's future, And our future. And felt great about it.

The registration process could have been easier and more transparent. I think we were just lucky to find out that we were registered. Or perhaps our keen desire to vote moved things. Or perhaps it was Mr More who called Kainaz in 2006 and promised that our names would be on the list. But seriously there must be better ways of tracking this - online forms, political cadres like in West Bengal?

I must say that the government folks who were running the show were doing a good and sincere job under hot and difficult conditions. In fact there was a gentleman inside the polling room who was trying to get more people inside the room so that we could all stand under the fan. He was quite friendly too.

It is thanks a to millions of such nameless people quietly doing their job that the great Indian democratic process is alive and kicking.

No Country for old captains

2009-04-18T12:33:00.000-07:00

IPL has really been a marketing case study.

Hardly anyone follows Indian domestic cricket these days. IPL, with its concept of city based teams, was a brave venture. Especially after the ICL floundered. So the IPL built teams around 'icons' who were the stars of Indian cricket - Sachin, Ganguly, Dhoni, Dravid, Sehwag, Yuvraj and Laxman. Each had been captains or at least vice captains of India.

What was glossed over was that a number of these icons were nearing retirement. Not the ideal state to be in for this high adrenalin version of cricket. The purpose of the organisers were served with advertising building regional identities and teams positioned across brand ambassadors.

Kotler would have approved - demographic segmentation, brand identity - no business school grad could have scripted this better.

There was a slight hitch. A number of the icons didn't perform in the first version. Sachin didn't play through most of IPL one thanks to an injury. Dravid and Laxman floundered and were swiftly, though discreetly, dumped by their team owners through reasons such as paternity breaks and injuries.

The problem was with Saurav Ganguly. His team didn't do too well. A number of star players were passengers and played in one or two matches. His own performances were patchy with a few man of the matches at one side and some poor plays on the other.

He also had a penchant for Australian coaches whom he would recommend and who would later blame him for all ills barring poissibly the nine eleven attacks.

A game of cloak and dagger followed to remove him from the captaincy of the Knight Riders. The questions on his captaincy, the four captain theory startted it off.

These were different from the quiet removals of Dravid and Laxman though. TThe difference was that Saurav captained the Kolkata team. Kolkata is the land of Bengalis, a very passionate race. We are amongst the biggest fans of sport in the country. But have rarely produced a sporting icon. Ganguly was the only Bengali cricketer of note in quite a few decades. Many are die hard followers of him. His sheer presence made Bengalis across the globe unite for the Knight Riders team. And, while he has detractors, there are enough non Bengalis who supported him for his edgy petulance.

The team managment knew that slighting Saurav would upset all his supporters. So began a game of subterfuge where the team management slowly began to move him out from the captaincy as they moved out of Kolkata and then India.

As we used to say as kids, it is easy to brave in another mohalla or, in this case, subcontinent. It is not easy to take on the lion in his den.

It was really pathetic to see Buchanan and SRK to go to the other end of the world before they had the guts to dump Ganguly. If they were convinced about what they were doing then they should have come clean and removed him from captaincy in India itself. The manner of how they have done this was also not quite cricket. They announced this at a press conference without getting Saurav on board The sight of Buchanan stating his whip with Ganguly looking away was ugly. I know people who are not Ganguly fans take umbrage at this I doubt whether so much dirty linen was ever washed even in Mumbai's famed dhobi ghats!

The management would say something. See the public outrage. Retract. The circus repeated itself with SRK telling Gavaskar that the latter didn't understand T 20 cricket. Retract. Say Ganguly was in charge. And then dump him through a press release the day before IPL.

In fact there have been some who have wondered if this was carefully scripted for media attention and interest. The entire scenario is so weird that it is difficult to dismiss this conspiracy theory.

I wanted to buy a Kolkata Knight Rider last year. With an Aussie coach and Kiwi captain I think I am better off throwing my lot behind my adopted city of Mumbai.

I am sure the ANZ Knightriders will find enough supporters in the Southern hemisphere.

Taj Mahal...South Africa's latest attraction

2009-04-18T12:23:00.000-07:00

IPL 2 started today.

Two matches. Razzmatazz. An opening ceremony with Zulu dancers. Everyone going gaga over the logistics at South Africa.

To start with a change of scene on telly from Manmohan Singh and Advani expressing their hurt with each other and animated TV panelists dissecting this.

But IPL 2 has been a hot potato so far. Political differences, impatience, inflated egos, the lure of lucre led to its shifting across the hemisphere. Doesn't matter that India, in the process, got clubbed with Pakistan as a place where it is unsafe to play cricket.

Soon after this happened some country refused to come to India to play the Davis Cup! Close to thirteen people come to watch a Davis Cup match in comparison to cricket. But we have layed ourselves bare to potshots from across.

Hopefully the matches will be closer than what we saw on day one.

Matches in South Africa. Captained by foreigners. Coached by foreigners. Wouldn't 'International' be a better word for the I in IPL?

The language of cinema...Slumdog speaks English

2009-03-24T03:57:00.000-07:00

This is a short post which I know is my third post on Slumdog Millionaire. Still I thought I must put my two bits. And no, I don't make any money blogging yet, which means no commissions from Danny Boyle.

I just chanced upon an interview of Amir Khan where he said that Slumdog left him cold. One key reason for this was that he apparently wasn't used to seeing Indians speak English in films...especially slum kids or the cop.

I obviously won't even be foolish enough to question Aamir Khan's understanding of cinema. He positions himself as one of our cerebral stars after all. But I don't buy this argument for not liking the film.

The film was not a Hindi film! Do all films need to be in the language of the story/ context? I am sure a million examples can be cited to the contrary. And I am not talking of Tom Alter and Bob Christo.

By that logic, Devdas, a Bengali book shouldn't be made in Hindi especially with the odd atrocious Bengali in the Bhansali version. Didn't the Brits speak an abnormally high amount of Hindi in Aamir Khan's own Lagan? I am told that Khan's latest, Ghajni, was set in Tamil speaking Chennai but was a Hindi film (I have not seen the film).

And by that logic The Reader should be panned because it was in English and not in German!

Liking or disliking a film is a personal choice. But this seems to be a mighty stupid reason.

While on The Reader, I liked the way Kate Winslett switched accents to a more neutral, guttural one there, and an American one in her other fantastic performance in the Revolutionary Road. Remember that her natural accent is British. I think this is where she scored over Dev Patel in Slumdog as he was the only one in the film speaking English in a British accent. Would have been good if he worked on Indianising it

Unless Patel's English it was an intentional play on many of the young folks I hear speaking in a very pronounced American accent in coffee shops of Bandra. Still shouldn't have been British though.

Mr and Mrs Smith-wallas

2009-03-17T03:46:00.000-07:00

I last wrote about my angst and alienation (I studied sociology in college) with the socio legal system. This was with specific reference to the housing society which wasn't allowing us to rent out our place.

That's when we decided to unleash our trump card - my in laws. Let me clarify before you get the wrong impression. They are not WMDs or something. Nor do they belong to the underground (don't get fooled by my pa in law's shaven head). But they, especially my mom in law, are every tenacious in getting things done. They don't give up that easily.

Their track record gave me a lot of confidence. The first time I saw my Mom in Law action was with a couple of insurance policies that were misselled to Kainaz and me. This was from one of the financial groups in India in whose hands we have often suffered. Their (the group's) service and efficiency levels are quite abominable. We have lost interest because we had started a fixed deposit with them but the cretin on the desk had not registered it. We lost serious money and (I) lost hair while buying our house as their agent had promised us the loan after seeing the papers, took the fees and then said that they wouldn't give the loans with the papers available.

So my Mom in law took things in her hand when we got third time unlucky with the insurance wing of this group - she sat on their head till they returned Kainaz's money and till they corrected the errors in my policy.

So we turned to my in laws with a lot of hope this time to resolve our society problem.

They made about five trips to the registrar at Bandra from Dadar. Unlike Kainaz and I who were frazzled after a couple of attempts. Again while we would wait tentatively there, they went up the food chain and met the peon, the deputy registrar, his clerk. They argued our case. Got promises of help. Persisted till they got specific commitments from the deputy registrar. Then enlisted the peon's help to track the elusive office clerk and finally did got the clerk to implement the Regirstrar's promise of help.

The end result? Yesterday, my in laws got us a stern letter written by the Deputy Registrar to our society secretary asking him to stop harassing us and to resolve issues within fifteen days and let us rent out our place. The Registrar also told the society folks that he did not want to get any further complaints from us about the society.

How cool is that? Now we can at least go and look for a tenant.

Thanks to all who wrote in with their support. Thanks Anaggh for your tips. Yes, the registrar is fairly effective IF, and its a big if, you are really persistent and have the time to go after them. My in laws are retired and are tenacious.

Talking of retirement, I am really, impressed with my Mom in law's skill in cracking first, one of India's largest and most slothful financial companies, and now, a typical bureaucratic, government office. She has a natural talent as what Kainaz calls a 'fixer'. Perhaps she can take up cases from people like us (working, not too worldly wise) for a fee. And all above board.

I am sure there will be quite a few takers. What say?

The impotence of middle class morality

2009-03-07T23:39:00.000-08:00

We studied George Bernard Shaw's 'Pygmalion' in school. I remember a character, Mr Dolittle (not sure of the spelling), who made a compelling argument against what he called middle class morality. The crux was that the rich can do whatever they want, the poor are desperate and therefore have no standards to match up to. It is the middle class who get screwed (I am paraphrasing heavily here) because they have to live up to certain norms of morality without the means to do so.

Closer home was this serial called 'Wagle ki duniya' which used to come on telly in the eighties . This was about a middle aged, middle class man, Mr Wagle, and his struggle for existence. There was an episode where he had to give a bribe to a government official. Nothing new about that. But the twist was that straight laced Mr Wagle had no idea about how to give a bribe!

I remember our then school principal, Mrs Kapper, gave that as an example of how all of us should be good, honest, law abiding human beings.

We learnt a lot of things in school - Shakespeare's favoured metre, the directive principles of the Constitution, the reproductive organs of a frog, the rise and fall of Napolean, Boolean algebra (what the hell was that now).... and so on.

Unfortunately what we didn't learn was how to deal with the real world. The world where there are no rules.

Look at us and our housing society problems for example. We have been held to ransom for about three months by the senile, obstinate, one foot in the grave, uncooperative secretary of our 'cooperative housing society'.

To quickly recap the issue - we wanted to rent out our house and rent a larger place. The secretary had said there was no problem. We went ahead and to took a larger place. Once we did so he said we could not rent out our OWN house! He cited a resolution to this effect which has been allegedly passed by the society. Since then he has refused to show us the resolution. Nor is he offering a solution. He says the 'committee' has to decide. And that committee apparently has not met for the three months since. He has even brought up ridiculous thing saying that the bank we have taken a loan will not allow us to rent out our house. I called my bank immediately, found that this was not true and told him to stop bluffing.

So this means that that we are now paying a sizable rent for new house and the EMI for the loan on our house. Without being able to rent out our own house.

We thought we will at least shift our loan to a bank with lower interest rates. We are stumped there too as they want a no objection certificate from the society.

Our only fault was that we played by the rules and were civil. We have tried everything. Put in proper applications. Been very courteous and polite with him. Then been curt with him. Yesterday I even lost my temper with him(tough as people who know me will find this to believe).

Some suggested going to the Registrar of Housing Society' office. That is a maze like all government offices - no timings, no accountability, be prepared to grovel. We went there a couple of times on an office day. The person wasn't there. We met the registrar on the third attempt and was told to come a week later. A week later they were busy. You get the gist.

The system is not geared for working couples like us and now my in laws will try their luck again.

The other suggestion was litigation. Again that's something people like us wouldn't want to get in for time and money constraints.

And for what? For being able to rent out our own flat? The flat which we have paid for by our hard earned money? Money for which we put our lives on hold for at least two years after we bought it by cutting down all expenses - eating out, movies, etc? The flat for which we have paid every possible tax and paid in white without resorting to any form of subterfuge?

What right does the society, the secretary and their ancestors have to put us in this position? In fact as I asked him yesterday, how does he sleep at night with a clear conscience?

The system is geared against one. You have a body like the housing society, with no accountability or use, calling the shots. You have a government body, the Registrar, which is a maze. And a litigation system which only fools rush in.

And the irony is that this system exists in Mumbai. The city which is supposed to be the one which is synonymous with freedom.

There are people who can get their way around to get their way. Bravado, muscle power, bribery, hit men, sweet talking, manipulative call it what you want but they get what they need through any means.

And then there is us.

We fret, we blog, we quitely stomach what's dished out to us and live out our life by the rules of middle class morality.

Why can't Brazil win the Euro cup?

2009-02-25T11:00:00.000-08:00

The news of the Slumdog wins began trickling in as I got ready to leave for work on Monday. My heart did Danny Boyle like scissor jumps when I heard that Rahman and Pookuttyhad won.

The Indian media covered the Oscars through the day and, as expected, TV ratings went through the roof.

Of course, for every Jai Ho, there seem to be a hundred doubts, accusations and cribs. I felt some of these were out of place and uncalled . So I thought that I will put down some of the complaints and put in my two bits:

"Would it have got the same recognition if an Indian made the film?" No, it wouldn't because the Oscars are awards for American/ English cinema. Our cinema is not American. Barring Karan Johar perhaps.
"This is not Rahman's best work and he has done better?" Same logic. He hasn't composed for American/ British so was not eligible for his 'better' pieces. And what's wrong if he didn't win it for his best performance. The fact that he won for what was entered is what matters. As an aside, Russel Crowe won the best actor award for 'Gladiator' and not for 'A Beautiful Mind'. Wasn't the latter much better. Back home, Amitabh Bachchan won the National Award for 'Agneepath'. Surely not his best work!
"Why didn't Rahman mention Sukhwinder or Gulzar?" Give the guy a break. He won us two Oscars. That way you can say Pookutty didn't mention Rahman. I think this is a time to celebrate rather than spoil the party. By the way Gulzar keeps saying continuously that the entire credit goes to Rahman.
"Danny Boyle has exploited India's poverty" To start with Boyle was making a film and was not doing an ad film for India. Secondly the poverty shown was a part of the backdrop - they did show middle class India, restaurants, five stars, plush TV stations, etc. Thirdly Hindi films have often shown their protagonists as Slum Dwellers including Bachchan's Amar Akbar Anthony & Deewar, every second Mithun film and so on. Its just that they were shot tackily with no attention to detail. In fact by showing the squalour of slums, riots, beggar rackets, tourist harassment, Danny Boyle has reminded us of a hard reality which we would like to wish away. I guess it is difficult to take criticism. (People say I don't take to criticism well. All I have to say to them is, "Boo!")
"Why are we celebrating? This is not an Indian film" That's true we have adopted this film like its nobody's business. The truth is that the film is made by an Irish director. And completely rewritten by an America (?) writer. Simon Beaufont really deserved the best adopted screenplay award as the film is completely different from, and leagues ahead of, the book. True, the film was not made by Indians. BUT most of the actors and technicians were Indian. The film was as brown as it gets. Only the credits and Dev Patel's British accent were there to remind us of the origins of the film
"What's so special about the film? This is the same plot of a million Hindi films" True. The makers of the film have taken typical Hindi film idioms - separated brothers, destiny, love through ages, the vctory of the underdog - and packaged them in a world class way with some excellent cinematography, story telling and acting, especially from the children. Think of the master Rajus and Baby Guddis or that irritating girl of Kuch Kuch Hota Hey and then think of the child actors here. You will know what I mean
"Anil Kapoor went over the top with his dance steps and star gazing. He was not the main actor in any case" I don't think that most of us can even relate to his level of achievement. He has reached parts where no Indian mainstream hero has. One would have perhaps expected Bachchan, Amir Khan, Sharukh Khan to be shown on the screen when the Oscars were announced. Not good old Munna! And exuberance makes people do strange things. Remember Pat Cash climb up stuffy Wimbledon to kiss his girlfriend? Or a certain Mr Ganguly strip at the equally stuffy Lords? Or Halle Berry scream at the time keepers, or Michael Moore scream at George Bush at the Oscars? Cut the guy some slack. And as far as his not being the main actor is concerned, Anil Kapoor was a part of the team. And he didn't have a blink and you miss it role. That counts for something. Sunil Gavaskar didn't do well too well in the 1983 World Cup win. But he is still central to any World Cup memory and celebrations
"Why get excited about Oscars? They are not about our cinema" Why were Indians crazy about Levis, Nike, McDonalds, Toyota, Coke before they were launched in India? These are global brands and we like to see ourselves as global citizens

Can you think of anymore prominent objections?

PS Did you notice how Hollywood seemed to have looked to Bollywood for a change on Oscars night? Gone were the witty anchors of yore as Hugh Jackman sang and danced us through the evening. And of course the interspersed TV shots of Brangelina and Jennifer Anniston were as Filmfare'ish as they get. I was referring to the way they pan on Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan and Rekha when one of them is getting feted at Indian awards.

Roots: a slave to the traffic of Mumbai

2009-02-16T04:13:00.000-08:00

I am about to leave for home. And am dreading this. The traffic in the evening has been insane of late. The struggle to cover each square feet is epic. It takes me more than an hour to cover a meagre ten kilometers or so. And this is a luxury at Mumbai where people cover much longer distances to come to work.

My chauffeur has just left me. I have terrible luck with drivers in any case. And yes in Sumdog's India we do get help like maids and drivers. I have left myself to the mercy of cabbies now because I don't even want to think of driving back myself. It needs a much stronger man than me. Even marriage hasn't prepared me for the infinite patience required for this.

There are some common causes for traffic in Mumbai:

religious - the Wednesday Mass at Mahim, the Ganpathi visarjans, the Eid fairs, Mount Mary fairs... man's love for God touches us in many ways
perpetual digging - subways, flyovers, metros, monorails...good intentions, thirty years too late.
Sheer bad roads and potholes - Plus repairs are often given to corrupt contractors, the road repairs don't last beyond a season and the karmic circle of repairs continue
Jaywalking - India follows a pedestrian first policy
Political rallies - rallies could be against historians who write biographies of past heroes, against shops which put signs in English, against migrants who come from other parts of India or for asking for votes for the wonderful job that they do
Police checks for terrorists who would be law abiding enough to take the proper roads while on their mission. The objective being to irritate the hell out them I guess
Recently we have another cause for traffice - Pratibha Jam. She is India's first female President. She hails from Maharashtra and keeps coming home from the capital, Delhi. She has already clocked the highest number of trips home by an Indian President in office. We never feel her presence in day to day affairs or in matters of State. But she often has this phantom like aura at Mumbai. The city comes to a standstill and we are told that the traffic is due to the visit of this grandmother like lady and her posse of thirty or forty cars. I believe that local officials have thrown up their arms and said that they can't give her a ceremonial welcome if she comes home so often

I wish that our logjams are as logical as these points make it out to be. At times there doesn't seem to be any reason for traffic. That seems to be the scen nowadays. You are just stuck. Too many cars on the road I guess.

Its not that Mumbai is unique. I have seen horrid jams at Istanbul, KL, Bangkok and I believe that London's pretty bad too. But they at least have a slightly more comfortable public transport system than our hard warking local train system which is efficient but dirty, bursting at the seams and a ride through hell.

Anyway let me square my shoulders and go out to face the world out there. After all how long can one avoid this 'emotional atyachaar (torture)'?

Bra burning 2 - chaddi power

2009-02-10T23:43:00.000-08:00

I can't get over the 'pink chaddi protest' on Facebook. In the unlikely even that you haven't heard about it then it is a protest movement where women are sending pink panties on Valentines to the Mr Muthalik and his band of forty brave men who beat up 4 women in a pub for....well for being in a pub.

Who said we don't have a sense of humour? Mr M won't know what hit him. I hope some people are considerate enough to send him thongs. He and his leather pant boys can use them as sling shots. I wonder whether road side shops post 14th February will see a flurry of red panties. After all that's what happens to clothes one gives for flood relief and other government run relief camps.

Just one question to the folks who organised this. Why pink chaddis? I thought red was the colour of Valentines. At least that's what the window display at the lingerie shops at Hill Road, Bandra seem to be screaming out.

I saw a few vox pop comments on the pink chaddi issue in a newspaper. Most were quite excited. But a few, including a couple of girls, said that this was a wrong representation of Indian culture or modernity. Did I miss something? Is wearing underwear against our culture? Or is bringing it out of the closet a problem? Perhaps it should be hidden like paedophilia, wife beating, vote tampering, raping of tourists, corruption and other such aspects our culture

On a serious note I hope that this doesn't take the attention away from what is a really important issue... these hooligans need to be punished by law. There can't be any compromise on that.

A little over the top: Billloo hair stylist

2009-02-10T00:10:00.000-08:00

I have always given a lot of importance to my barber. The reason's simple. I don't have too much hair. Folks used to point out how thin (patla) it was right from my college days.

I would try to avoid this by standing tall but there would be vulnerable moments when I would be sitting somewhere only to hear some girl squeal, "eeks you are going to become bald soon".

I have tried various places to cut my hair. From the basic salons of Kolkata to the basic ones near Bandra station and the legendary Air Cool at Churchgate, Mumbai. As the years progressed there was less hair to play around with and there was slightly more money in hand. So I have tried a couple of trendier places here in the hope of getting a 'different look'. With barely visible results. Still I give a lot of thought to where to cut my hair.

I also remember my father once explaining to me that the original surgeons in England were barbers. He said that this was the reason why surgeons should technically be referred to as 'Mr' and not 'Dr'.

Therefore the point I am making is that I had no idea that 'barber' was a derogatory word!

But it apparently is as poor Shahrukh Khan found out when some barber's association protested against the word 'barber' in his film 'Billoo Barber".

From what I understand SRK has given and said that he will remove the name. One can argue and say that he shouldn't have given in. If he hadn't, on the other hand, I am sure people would say this is a publicity stunt.

I just think that SRK is probably pissed and doesn't want to get into such a silly thing. At least I wouldn't.

As if we don't have enough real issues in our country!

The Goa invasion

2009-02-03T13:31:00.001-08:00

We are off to Goa tomorrow.

We have made this a little birthday ritual over the past yeas and I must thank Kainaz for being so sporting. I think my love for Goa has rubbed off on her too.

We will be at Waters. We were really looking forward to staying here. The owner, Samir, has been kind enough to offer to upgrade us to two suites. I am quite looking forward to it.

I have written extensively about Goa in my food blog. Almost seems like there is nothing left to write. This year's different though. As they say in Hindi 'hum do sai char ho gaye' (we have become four from two). No, not kids as the saying refers to.

My mom and brother are coming with us. My mom has wanted to go to Goa for a long time. So we used this as a bait to get her over to come to Bombay. Something tells me that our usual beach bumming, desperate eating and sundowners won't be the flavour of this holiday.

My brother's birthday is a day before mine. This is the first time the three of us will be together on our birthdays in ten years. Plus Kainaz of course. She has put up enthusiastic stauts updates on Facebook about the trip.

I will drink to that.

Empty Nest

2009-02-03T13:07:00.000-08:00

A series of events sparked off the chain of thoughts leading to this post.

It first begun when I was watching a Ray film, Shakha Prashakha. The film is about an elderly gentleman who has a heart attack and the days that fellow when his family comes to visit him. His children were not the evil offspring of the movie Baghbaan. But the film did show their attempts to balance their professional lives and personal irritations with their concern over their father.

Then we saw instances in our own family when my grandfather was hospitalised at Calcutta and we saw the nervousness in the my grandmom's voice even after he returned home. Her children were there for them in different degrees but the reality was they had their own lives and own families.

Then during a meeting a client came up with the hypothesis that Indian men start thinking in terms of 'family' only when they have kids. Wives, parents were often less involving and not strictly seen as famlily according to this gentleman. I must say that I sensed a grain of truth in what he said.

Then my Mom came to visit us from Calcutta after repeated requests from us. Its just been three days but I've often been at crossroads trying to balance my regular life with spending time with her.

All of this makes me thinks that do parents get the raw deal in a parent child relationships?

In the average relation the parent give up everything while rearing the child - money, saving for the child's future, being up at night, listening to the kid's prattle, answering questions patiently, coming home from work and cranking up energy levels for the kid, suspending life when the kid is unwell or has exams.

And I am not talking here of bad parents or 'bad' children here.

But the fact is do children spend as much time and energy with their parents as their parents did with them? Is this a fact of life? Are their exceptions? Is it possible for a grown up to focus as much on his or her parents as they did?

If not, then what is the best one can practically do? What would we expect from future generations? For those who are parents, is it worth the effort?

Mumbai uncooperative housing society

2009-01-29T07:26:00.000-08:00

I remember reading about the cooperative societies of Mumbai as a kid in social studies. The concept was evolved, apparently, to help middle class folks get affordable housing.

I did not really encounter this epidemic called cooperative housing societies in my initial years at Mumbai. I first stayed as a paying guest with this aunty at Nutan Nagar, Bandra. Her matronly digs were just right for me - home food (even if veg), clothes washed, ironed and put tidily into the cupboard.

I then rented a place at Khar just before we got married. We were there for two years. Again no housing society woes.

We first encountered the mafia when we decided to buy a tiny place at Pali Naka, Bandra. We came across an evil and unhelpful cretin while buying the house. He and his cronies really hassled the gentleman who was selling the house to us. The transaction got delayed. Our first bank loan application fell through and the bank kept back the ten thousand Rupees we had paid as application fees. Money we could ill afford to lose. And I can't begin to describe our trauma at the possibility of losing the place.

Five years later we decided to take a larger rented place. Our plan was to rent our existing place to narrow the gap.

Well the trauma is back and how. The evil secretary has been replaced by another old clown. I checked with him about renting our house and he said there would be no problem. Now that I have gone ahead and taken the place he says that we can't rent out house. When pushed he said that there is some resolution passed years back by the evil secretary saying people can't rent out their houses. I asked him to show it to me and he said he can't show it. Why? Even the government shows stuff under RTI.

Reasoning with them is a lost cause. I have swallowed my pride and tried to sweet talk them. But the old clown goes on and on like a freaking stuck record. He seems to be quite keen to drag this on and on.

What is really ridiculous is that it is our house and we are willing to go ahead with the legal requirements - registered agreement, police NOC - but no, that won't work for this guy. In other words I cannot decide what to do with my house in this supposedly free country.

I don't know what people get from causing harm to others. We are losing out money here as we have to pay our loan EMIs and the rent. But does he care? No. So why call it a 'cooperative' society?

This is the most ridiculous system I have come across. How can a group of unrelated people interfere in other people's property? They take money from the buyer and seller when a purchase happens. They take a higher maintenance if one rents out a house. And what does one get in return? Pure harassment.

I just can't figure out the reason from their existence. The claim of 'affordable housing' is a joke. Bombay has the most expensive housing in India after all.

Plus this leads to unconstitutional policies where people are not allowed to rent out/ sell to Muslims, single people or even non vegetarians at times.

Hitler would have approved of this fascist system.

Any practical suggestions on a way out?

Reality Check: Danny Boyle style

2009-01-28T04:26:00.000-08:00

There's been a lot of chest beating over Slumdog Millionaire.

"Oh they have shown slums and not our malls", "oh they have shown shit and not our granite five star loos", "oh they have shown begging as a profession and not our software coders", "oh they have shown riots", "of they have shown hookers", "oh they chose a has been and not our super stars", "oh the West loves to mock us".

My question is, is there anything shown which is not true? And who will remind us of this reality? We will even forget that the streets of India exist left to the Karan Johars and Yah Raj's of the world. Forget the reality of Indian streets.

Someone had to wake us up. Sadly enough it had to be an Irish man.

We can exult saying that we are the next super power. By saying China beware.

But somewhere we need to get real. Our politicians, our roads, our public transport, our concern for others, our concern for the environment... the list of areas where we trail the developed nations is huge.

Somewhere we need to realise that a lot has to be done back home and something seems to tell me that others won't do it for us.

We can exult in an Obama and revel in him. But the reality is that he is not our President. We are still stuck with amazing set of politicians ever. Most of whom should be in old age homes. The other should be in jails.

Guess I need a stiff drink.

When I last heard Indian culture is fine with men who drink.

Daddy got it wrong

2009-01-28T04:01:00.000-08:00

My father passed away when I was nine. There were a few things which I learnt from him in that short time.

These included:

never hit/ hurt a woman
don't identify people by their religion (this when we were dropping a classmate home and i told my father that my friend was Muslim)
respect education and teachers (my mother was a teacher, plus Saraswati puja was the one puja which used to happen in my father's family in a big way. She is the Goddess of learning. And education is the sole force which enabled people like my parents and grandparents, non Brahmins, to move up in life)
not to taunt people basis their identity - I think I was once imitating my friends and calling some street kids Biharis or something like that when my Dad called me in and gave me an earful

These learning have remained in my sub conscious over the last 25 years or so even though he isn't around. I thought that this was part of our heritage, our culture.

Recent events suggest that I might have been wrong. We have 40 people beating up 5 women with the excuse of protecting our culture. When I last hear I though the Ramayan was the story of a man who went to protect and free his wife. Sriram Sena seems to be at the other end of the spectrum.

Respect for women zero. Indian Cultural dark knights 1

Then we have some other folks breaking and damaging a university the next day.

Respect for learning zero. Indian Cultural dark knights 2

A few days back another set of cultural protectors ransacked a hotel and beat up the hotel staff because the hotel had sacked people from their community.

Respect for other communities zero. Indian Cultural dark knights 3

And don't get me started on what goues under the guise of religion. The public posturing which goes under the name of religion has led to riots, deaths, terrorist attacks, traffic jams (In Mumbai - Wednesday Mass, Ganpathi visarjans and road blocks, the December fair). God knows what God would think of the pain caused in His name. The prevailing thinking seems to be "he who shouts louder gets His ear faster."

Respect for religion zero. Indian Cultural dark knights 4

I guess the score says it all.

Side effects

2009-01-27T03:21:00.000-08:00

Surprise surprise but I do occasionally think of things beyond food.

And at times it is difficult to fit these into my food and travel blogs.

So I thought I will start a new blog where I plan to hold forth on anything under the sun. After all that’s what we Bengalis do. Did I say ‘do’? Well we do talk! That’s one thing people can’t take away from us. And we are not known to be modest. So an anonymous blog won’t work for us!

Our addas (chats) over endless cups of tea and tele bhaaja (vegetable fritters) are what we lived on. Till Blogs were invented at least.

I named this Coffee House after the famed Coffee House of College Street. This was the hot spot of endless debates and discussions involving students, unemployed youths, politicians, film makers, writers, poets and philosophers. The scene had shifted to our college canteen by the time I joined Presidency College in 1992. Still Coffee House was the stuff legends were made off.

And why Mumbai? Mumbai’s been my home for the last ten year. I am madly in love with it. Frankly to me Mumbai will always be Bombay. But I thought I will call it Mumbai in deference to my hosts. That’s hardly a price to pay for the wonderful hospitality that I have enjoyed here.

So here’s hoping to many more posts on life and its side effects

Not a perfect ten...but who's complaining

2009-01-27T03:18:00.000-08:00

I completed ten years in Mumbai today. I still can’t believe it. Not the easiest of cities to live in. But like a good marriage – is maddening, but heady.

I do feel a bit proud of this ‘achievement’ (?). There were quite a few of us who had shifted in to Mumbai at that time. I can think of just about one other person who has stayed back. The rest moved back to their home towns or to foreign shores.

What do I have to show after ten years? About 15 kilos more than before, an amazing wife, three job changes, a lot of interesting experiences, met some wonderful human beings, my blogs, a sought after Bandra address - passport photo sized and very recently, the ultimate Mumbai dream, a spare room!

I spent about twenty years at Calcutta before shifting to Mumbai. It’s quite obvious to me that my years in Calcutta have had a strong influence on my thinking, to my world view, to my interests.

But Mumbai is very clearly the city where I crossed the rites of passage to adult hood. I came to Mumbai seeking new experiences, freedom and got them in every sense.

I don’t think I will ever be able to get out Mumbai out of my system. I hope I never will have to.