Que Sera Sera

The Egypt Chronicles - Day 9

2012-01-30T04:55:00.004+05:30

I woke up to find SK standing in the aisle next to our seats. "It's nearly 5 AM", he said. That was when we were expecting to arrive at Cairo. One by one, everybody woke up as the train reached our final destination. Cairo - home to the greatest exhibits of mathematics and engineering - the Pyramids.

We scrambled out of the station waving off taxi drivers until we all were together. The hotel was quite near, probably even walkable, but we decided to go by cabs and have an early start to the day, if possible. RA called us the cabs and pulled out the address for them. SK would take a separate cab to the airport. There were hugs and promises to keep in touch, even as the cabs waited for us in the middle of the street. MS, S2K and I jumped into one and we pulled away.

Our cab driver, in the interest of fare, drove us through by-lanes and by-lanes of the Tahrir area and finally, unable to find the hotel, he asked a couple of locals at the Talaat Harb Square, which was just metres away. The hotel was neat, and although we were not due until 11 AM that day, he made some adjustments for us to dump our luggage and freshen up. Most of all, he offered us something all of us had not had for the last 3-4 days ... Wi-Fi!!!!!

As soon as we were done with our Facebook updates, SP and I ventured out for a 'beat'. We walked along the main road, into Talaat Harb Square, where I stepped into a pharmacy. I asked the pharmacist for some cough syrup and got an Arabic sentence back.

"Arabic, lah", I said, "No Arabic".

"lah, @£% throat straining syllables $%$, Arabi?? Arabi lah?"

I shook my head. He went back to find a colleague who spoke English. The other guy asked me if I had dry cough or chesty. I replied it was the latter. He brought me a herbal syrup. I saw some Strepsils on the counter, and grabbed a couple of strips, just in case.

SP and I continued on the street and found a small eatery. It had just opened for the day, I guess, and we were one of the first customers of the morning. It was so much similar to entering a darshini at 6AM, that I almost ordered idli-vada-sambar. Well, I did order vada, only, it was called falafel in this part of the world. We made a mental note to bring the gang here. (On our way back, we found another place called Kazaz, whose chicken-shawarma-sandwich was a huge hit).

We walked on from this place and reached Tahrir Square. It was just starting to get busy. On the square itself, on a raised platform, people were busy clearing up litter and flags left over from last night's protests (?). Off the square, on the main roads, traffic was building up. Further off, on the footpaths that went around the square and into the business districts, hawkers were setting up their stalls for the day. We looked at the Egyptian Museum and thought it must be some seat of the government. The rest of the panorama was made up of towering hotels - The Nile Hilton, The Semiramis Intercontinental, the Ritz-Carlton etc, overlooking the Nile Corniche.

We walked back to the hotel, thinking of getting the guys here for breakfast. As we walked up the stairs to the reception, we saw SK - horror of horrors!! SK - lounging on the sofa, checking his Facebook updates.

He'd gone to the airport, thinking about a request from someone special to extend his trip for another day. And at the airport, when he could no longer weigh his options sanely, he flicked his credit card to the pretty lady across the counter, and in his most baritone voice said "Change the date, darling"! Well, almost, except the last part.

And then he sagely says to me, "The best hugs are the ones that make you change your travel plans". Bugger!

By the time everyone freshened up, we had got our rooms allotted. The programme for the day was - Egyptian Museum, Pyramids, The Sound and Light Show, and party!!! SM rang his local contact and did a poll for the New Year's party scene. The guys were more or less all in, but the girls were reluctant. Safety, they said. Dresses and shoes, we thought. :) And were close. Some convincing later, they did agree to come along.

We all moved to Kazaz for breakfast, and the agenda changed. We were to do the museum tomorrow before flying out, and we would go to the Pyramids instead. After breakfast, we headed out to the metro and boarded at the Sadat station just below Tahrir Sq. It was a short journey to Giza, about 5-6 stops away. At Giza station, with the help of a small time guide, we hired a mini bus to take us to the Pyramids. The guide tried to make a small cut by getting us in via a different entrance, but was unsuccessful. And, since he had brought us to the other end of the Pyramid Complex, we were now entering the complex from the Sphinx side, instead of getting to the Great Pyramid first.

In these ten days, neither SK nor I had taken as much as a blade towards our faces. With our 10 day stubbles, we were probably indistinguishable, which is why we were able to use his student ID and pull off a few fast ones and buy our Pyramid tickets at the hugely discounted student rates.

We started with the Sphinx. I thought the Sphinx was a let-down, compared to the Pyramids. It was still and made for a great monument, but somehow I'd imagined it to be much more resplendent than it was. It was one of those moments where you think "That's all? This is all there is to it". The Pyramids were, on the contrary, a great experience. We went to the biggest one - The Pyramid of Cheops or Khufu. It has a separate ticket to go near the sarcophagus. As you enter the pyramid, you are amazed by the size of each block of stone. Every single block was cut in South Egypt, near Aswan, and transported to Cairo over the Nile. The very thought of that is overwhelming, scary even. I cannot even imagine the vision of the mind that orchestrated the logistics. A true wonder.

The entrance of the pyramid of Khufu narrows down into a steep incline, which takes us to the tomb. The passage is very narrow and one has to climb/walk with a bent back. I'm not very tall, but had to put my backpack across my chest as it was constantly chafing the roof of the passage. I wonder how RA and SP did it. As one climbed the passage, one could see the blocks of stone put together diagonally, and the joints were so tight, there was hardly any space to insert a tool. It was a feat, no less, to accomplish such perfection.

The tomb was a small room, with the sarcophagus - a stone coffin, which enclosed the mummy. The room was warm and stuffy, and a bit claustrophobic. It was completely empty except for the sarcophagus. There was a staffer who offered to take photos for us with our cellphone cameras, but we didn't oblige his offer, or his request for baksheesh. We slowly slithered down the way we had come, this time with the backpack on my back. The stuffiness and my pullover made me sweat and by the time we were out, you could see a shine on my face. DT, SK, SM and NC were keen on going inside the other pyramid too, but SP and I skipped it and walked towards the Pyramid of Khafre (Cephren).

Khafre was Khufu's son, and his pyramid, although smaller in dimension than that of Khufu, appears larger as it is built on a raised platform. The pyramid of Khafre still has a bit of the polished sandstone at the top, which makes it easily distinguishable. The third pyramid is the pyramid of Menkhaure, Khafre's son. Lined against the sun and the city, the three generations of Pyramids made for a great shot. RA and I walked into the desert to get that one shot!! (And the one where I hold the pyramid at my fingertips! Thanks RA).

All along the way up and down the desert, we were pestered to take a camel ride. It was almost 4 PM, and it was closing time for the Pyramid complex (They closed at 4 to allow for the Sound and Light show to begin at 7ish). We walked in the sand towards the pyramid of Menkhaure to get to the Sphinx, but a jeep behind us started honking. They called us back to the road and asked us to go through the road. They followed us for a short distance to make sure we were going by road and did not sneak back into the sands. Then they overtook us and sped off. We felt it was a bit strange because the road was winding down and going to the same place where we intended to go! However, because we came on to the road, I could get a picture of the Mahindra Scorpio which passed us.

Back at the gate, caught up with all the others and ate tuna sandwiches as ST and SS wrapped up some souvenir purchases. We went into a small eatery just outside the pyramid complex, and walked up to the terrace. The plan was just to have coffee and smoke some shisha (and eat our "parcelled" tuna sandwiches) to kill time until the Sound & Light show started. The coffee was expensive at 15 EGP apiece, but it was good. Dusk was setting in and SM and RA did some silhouette photography as the Sound & Light company starting testing their lights. We sat down to finish the rest of the tuna sandwiches. DT tried some, and immediately rushed to the washroom! Never before had I seen a quicker reaction to fish... :D

The Sound & Light show was a cracker. There was a brief history about the ancient Egyptians, the Pharaohs and their way of life, but the commentary got boring after a bit. The lights, though, were spectacular. It was glorious, all the three pyramids, resplendent against the dark sky, bearing testimony to time's travails. The show lasted 45 minutes, but it was well worth the time and money!

After the show was over, S2K went in search of the officer who had confiscated his Swiss knife earlier that morning. They wouldn't let him carry it into the Pyramid complex, and had asked him to collect it at 4 PM when the complex closed for the public. Then, they'd asked him to come when the Sound & Light show ended because the officer had left and they did not know where the knife was. Now, they asked him to leave a forwarding address and phone number. (To their credit, they did call back the next day and said we could collect the knife back). After S2K came back, we hired a cab to take us from the Pyramid complex to the Giza metro station, from where we would catch the train to Sadat (Tahrir Sq).

Tahrir was busy, as usual, but there were people gathering up. There was an election rally, I think, for there were elaborate speakers and a stage set up. We walked across the square and stopped at Kazaz to eat. As SM and I walked ahead to the hotel, we noticed a couple of Polish women looking, in turn, into a Lonely Planet guidebook and the top of the buildings. Evidently, they were trying to find our hotel (as we were earlier this morning). We led them to our hotel, and tired from the day's walk, crashed on our beds until the rest of the gang came in.

People were hardly interested to go out, but when SM is around, you can always count on a party!! It was New Years' night. :)

The Egypt Chronicles - Day 8

2012-01-28T03:23:00.003+05:30

After making sure the last night on the boat was worth it, the gang had gone off in the early hours of the morning to pack and get their bags out. The dancing and the sleeplessness had taken a toll on everybody. Everyone packed in a stupor.

We dropped our collective luggage in a corner of the reception, picked up breakfast boxes from the restaurant and made our way out of the boat. Mohamed led us to a mini-bus which was to take us from Aswan to Abu Simbel, our main destination for the day. From Abu Simbel, we would then see the Aswan High Dam, the Temple of Philae and be back in time for the train back to Cairo.

Everyone in the bus was weary, dreary and conked out. They'd been up for much of the last 36 hours. (Remember, we'd been to Kom Ombo, then lazed around the boat for much of the day sailing to Aswan, visited the Nubian Museum, seen a perfumery, ate Egyptian food, danced like crazy and met some interesting visitors). Of course, I was well-rested. My headache was gone, my throat was better and I only had a lingering cough, but it could have been a lot worse if I had not slept at all.

Presently, we moved out of the cityscape to reach the outskirts of Aswan where the convoy began. There was a small restroom break, as the drive to Abu Simbel would be non-stop. Most of them dozed off to catch some sleep on the road, and the ones who were awake continued their game of 'Tell-me-what-you-think-of-me" from last night. I sat listening as DT, RA, SS and NC belted out what they thought of the rest of us. Now and then S2K would pipe in with a comment, but generally people quietened down and fell asleep.

The vehicle continued its race to Abu in darkness. Aswan to Abu Simbel is about 265 miles. We covered that in about 3 hours. The day broke not far away from Abu. It was magical. I tried to capture it but the vehicle was so fast that I could hardly hold myself steady, let alone the camera. So I sat back and just watched.

The pink dawn broke over the sand and one could see the the horizon brighten slowly, as if someone was turning up the colours in a superbly choreographed sequence of lights. The greys slowly gave way to the blues and the browns. The terrain was mind-blowing. It was nothing like I had imagined. Miles and miles of sand, dunes smoothening out and then merging into another. It was like putting your head into a picture and getting transported into the land!

The sun quickly came up and the daylight became quite harsh by the time we had reached Abu. We parked and walked while Mohamed told us the story of how Egypt had made the decision to build the High Dam and a lake to act as a reservoir, how it would flood the villages of Nubia and the temple of Abu Simbel, and how there was a global call for help and UNESCO helped to garner international support required to cut the rocks and rebuild the temple 200 meters behind and 60 meters above its original location. The Nubian villages were given a choice to resettle in Upper Egypt near Aswan or Luxor or emigrate to Sudan.

Presently we walked around the bend and had a glimpse of the huge statues of Ramesses and Nefertari. As we walked nearer the size of the statue began to overwhelm us. Mohamed told us that on two days of the year, the light of the rising sun goes directly into the sanctum sanctorum to illuminate the face of the Pharaoh. That was not the interesting part. The interesting part was the light came in at such an angle that it did NOT illuminate the God of the Underworld, who was right next to the other Gods.

We had a lot of time to explore the temples of Ramesses and the nearby smaller temple of Nefertari and Hathor. The minibus had been dispatched for refueling, so while some of the gang did some monkey jumps, the rest of us walked around the site and drank Egyptian tea. Found a car with an IAF sticker on it. Awesome.

The drive back was more fun. The sun and the walk had shaken everyone awake, and now on the way back, out of tune Antakshari started out, before it just became a 4 line song fest - DT, S2K, SK, and me being the chief perpetrators of the musical violence on a few others like SP and ST who were making a genuine effort to read.

And then the tyre burst. There was a clap and the vehicle veered to a halt a few meters ahead. The tyre was a sight. The heat had ripped it apart. A car and a minibus passed us. Both returned in reverse gear to help out. They spoke to the driver and then the minibus went on its way. The car stayed while our bus driver, the car driver and Mohamed changed the tyres around. The terrain again tempted us for a round of photographs and again, when the monkey shots happened, SK and I walked a distance talking about things in general.

Back on the road, we were hungry and missing lunch. Since we left the boat, food was one more thing we had to think about. The more foodies of us - RA, SS and SK - interrogated Mohamed for some places where we could get some pigeon meat! Unfortunately, lunch would only be after we finished the High Dam.

Mohamed explained to us how the High Dam was built like a pyramid, and how it produced electricity enough for the whole of Egypt and more, which they sold to neighbouring countries. If you think about it, we spent a very short time (relatively) at the dam, as we also had to cover the temple of Philae. The temple of Philae is on an island on Lake Nasser. We took a motorboat to the temple, but the temple in itself was not very different from the other ones we had seen. I spent the time in the shade, talking to Mohamed and thinking about getting back to the train at 4 PM. It was close to 2:30 by this time.

Saw a bag at the souvenir shop at Philae and got SK to go along with me and haggle. It was a top loading cloth bag with Egyptian motifs dyed on it. Back at the boat, used it to stuff some surplus stuff I had in my backpack and made space for the stuff SP had got me from India. Batch by batch, we all freshened up to rush to the station in time. SK opted to take a bath, as he would be flying back to Germany from Cairo, whilst the rest of us did the Pyramids and the museum. The ones who went ahead promised to buy takeaway lunch for us.

RA, in true organiser spirit, stayed back to be the last to leave the boat. Him, SK and me left for the station with 10 mins for the train to start. Fortunately, it was just across the road. As the three of us were walking, I thought how 8 days before, none of us had met each other, how we'd sat doing pointless bakar at the Selsela, and tomorrow morning SK would fly out. The trip was coming to an end.

Our seats on the train were split. There were two seats in AC-1 and 9 in AC-2. There was a bit of juggling before SK and NC decided to move to AC-1 and have some privacy! Three hours into its run, the train halted at Luxor. We laughed at the fact that we took 2 days to sail from Luxor to Aswan when it was just 3 hours by train. We thought it was a routine stop and did not venture to get off the train. But, hunger got the better of us, and SP and I went to the snack bar to get something to eat. Turns out we were not the only ones hungry. Whatever food we got, lasted us 5 minutes. Tea was served. Jokes. No sign of movement from Luxor. We contemplated sneaking out of the station for some takeaway. Decided against it and went to buy boiled eggs instead. The guy outside our coach quoted too high, so S2K and I walked further down the train and got some at half the price. Hah!

Finally, about an hour and half later, the train moved. It began to get a bit chilly as the night set in. Conversations died down, books were put away and blankets brought out. I remember I and DT were talking about her diving before we put on some music and let the train rock us to sleep.

Tomorrow, we would wake up in Cairo.

The Egypt Chronicles - The Good Night

2012-01-27T03:20:00.005+05:30

At about 4 in the morning, SP comes in to the room and says "Viky, you should have been there!".

I cringe. I learn he is the last to get down from the deck. The others had come down a short while ago. I learn it was a good night. I take my bag down to the place we were checking out. SM was paying off some bills, settling the 'tibs' and collecting passports. I walked to SM and took my laundry bills off him and settled the extras. Collected passports. NC was dozing on the couch. I handed her her passport. She waltzed her way to the reception to ask why the passport was 'bent'. I took her back to the couch. SK came along and said I should have been there. Said he missed not having me to back him up. Nice. MS and DT came along. They said, "You missed it".

I went back to when it all started.

There was a dance party. The DJ in the lounge was playing some peppy numbers, and then he even played a Punjabi number which got the gang going. There was fun and games. Musical chairs - only no chairs, but you had to pair up. There was limitless dancing again. As the party died down everyone, except yours truly, gathered on the top deck and met the two visitors.

The visitors mixed well with the group. They mingled so well with SS, NC, MS and ST (I hear), I was surprised they didn't say hello earlier. S2K, SM, SP and SK were no farther - they were downright pally and cracking lewd jokes with them!! Only RA (man! loosen up!) and DT (girl, come on!) were looking at them, wondering how someone could just gatecrash hours earlier and turn the group around.

I hear the two visitors got the the gang to sit around and play some games, ask questions and get to know each other better. So, one of them sat with SK and the other with ST and goaded them to ask questions. ST seized the chance and fired a volley of questions. Normally SK plays his cards well, but with the guest, he was not himself. He was cornered and pressed for answers and could not think on his feet. Eventually, a truth was revealed. It must have been surprising for some, but some had seen it building. You, if you're reading this, you know which group you belong to. :)

A lot of personal questions were asked of everyone that night, there were profanities, there were clarifications, there were mix-ups. The two visitors spoke to people in turns; sometimes to the girls, sometimes to the guys, sometimes to a pair, sometimes taking someone alone to the edge of the boat. I heard each one started to speak what they felt about the rest of the group, but before everyone could finish, it was time to go. The gang left the deck and went into their rooms to pack. The visitors left. SP lingered around on the deck for some more time, waving the visitors off.

At about 4 in the morning, SP came into the room and said "Viky, you should have been there".

It was a night to remember. It was a night to forget. The two guests, I hear, were amazing. One was Russian. The other was brown.

The Egypt Chronicles - Day 7

2012-01-23T03:03:00.004+05:30

Day 7 was a day of leisure and unwinding. We had been sailing since dawn. Do you recall we had got off the boat at Edfu, and went into town, met a local policeman, eaten tuna sandwiches and called off what would have been a tremendous prank. We had to recall that, too, over a continental breakfast spread of croissants and brioches.

The room service was pretty active that day. They brought their creativity out by arranging the sheets like a swan, complete with a twisted corner making a strong sharp beak. I sat down on the bed to look at some pictures from last night, and there was a firm tap on my head - the 'bedsheet' swan had craned its neck and its beak tapped my head. Useless buggers, why couldn't they just fold it flat.

It was slightly overcast and the weather was not too hot. The cruise had arranged for a 'galabiya' party at the lounge in the evening. Dinner would be 'Oriental', they said. We thought Chinese, they meant Egyptian. A 'galabiya' is a singlet - almost like a maxi, but a lot more richer - worn over the head and usually with an 'arafat'. We would stop briefly at Kom Ombo today, before we sailed to Aswan.

Kom Ombo is unique in that its temple is dedicated to two Gods, which is unusual for ancient Egyptian traditions. It is also special as it has a lot of carvings depicting daily life. Mohamed showed us the carvings of the tools that were used back in the day, their records of healthy postures, childbirth and suckling, sowing and harvest etc. There were pictures of the queens of Upper and Lower Egypt anointing the Pharaoh, who was wearing the double crown - which looked like a bottle of champagne in its basket. There was Horus and another God, preparing the Pharaoh for his journey into afterlife. Some of the pillars were resplendent thousands of years after they were coloured. One can imagine how grand it would have looked in its day.

Outside the temple complex, hawkers offered us the 'galabiya'. Maybe it was the cruise, or maybe we were close to the Nubian land, but we did see that the hawkers here stressed on the 'galabiya' much more than they did in Luxor. Also, the dock near the Kom Ombo temple reminded me of the various ghats on the Tungabhadra. Or scaled down versions of the Ganga ghats at Haridwar or Varanasi. Yes, Cage, your scarf added effect. (Yes, Cage sounds like SK. It is too).

From Kom Ombo, it was non-stop sailing to Aswan, where we would depart the cruise. This meant that all of today was going to be on the top deck. So, after lunch, we sat on the deck, getting Mohamed to write our names in Arabic and Hieroglyphic. Mohamed was our 'Red', we could count on him to find things from time to time. He made some calls and arranged for some tuna, and because drinks were prohibitively overpriced on the boat, some drinks to go with it.

The sun had come out by now, and in the brilliant sunshine, the Nile shone like a bejewelled bride. We pulled some chairs and chatted for a while before everyone went off to do their own thing. I sat at the edge of the boat, looking at the boat make its way through the water. It was like seeing a giant life-size album of a crazy traveller. Some scenes were plaid, normal, just your day to day stuff. Some scenes were outright breathtaking, making you wish you could stop your boat right there and just keeping looking at the horizon for hours on end. Some were so flamboyant, it was hard to believe they were real. It must have been half a lifetime ago that I sat jobless like this, with nothing to listen, read or do. I remembered sitting on the footboards of the trains to Gujarat and Delhi, looking at the terrain change as we passed regions and states. It is ironic I did that, because back then I used to wonder when I would look at a foreign country pass by like this. I guess things came around full circle.

A felucca made a great shot against the dusty desert in the background.

I must have dozed off in the sunshine, because when I got up DT was reading everyone's palms, and I did not remember how it started. By the looks of it, she was pretty accurate. SK, SP, SS all had their few key things told. Then, as if reading palms were not enough, SK started reading minds. Well, not exactly minds, but people. And, he did read DT quite accurately.

The boat docked at Aswan, and Mohamed led us towards a felucca to go towards the other side where we were to see the museum. A felucca is a sailboat, depending only on the wind for propulsion. The felucca-wala was a rustic Nubian. He was thin and wiry, singing his way along as he pulled the sails to steer the boat. His young helper laid out some Nubian souvenirs for us to see and buy. Our fun and games were distracted by a young lad on a pair of floats paddling along our felucca. He sang popular rhymes and songs - Macarena - only, he sang them in French. We tipped him for his bit of time.

Then the wind stopped. We were just floating along with hardly any movement, literally feeling the wind blown out of our sails!! Mohamed arranged for a motor boat to take us to the other bank. From the bank, we walked a short distance to the Nubian museum in Aswan.

I was beginning to get a small headache - must have been the sun in the afternoon. My eyes were smarting and I just hoped something in the museum would catch my interest so I could get away from this unwell feeling. Alas, although the museum was well laid out, there was too much theory around "The Golden Land", and it hardly helped to draw me away from my headache, and SP and I were probably the first out of each spot that Mohamed stopped to explain. To add to that, there were a group of local students who were having their museum day out! I just ambled my way around the museum looking at various statues of Pharaoh Dont-Know-Who, the construction of the High Dam (which we would see tomorrow), the movement of the temple of Abu Simbel (again, something we would see tomorrow) and some such frap until the others were ready to exit.

Mohamed had a bus ready to take us back to our boat. There was a detour though, we had to visit a perfumery. I could not bear to sample any perfumes on top of the headache, which had become splitting by now, so I chose to stay back in the bus. A short while later, the group came back and we made our way to the boat in time for dinner. Tonight would be our last night on the boat, so

(i) we would have to settle the 'tibbing' for the boat staff. This tipping business is sickening, the recommended tip was about 7 USD per person per day, however, we felt it was an exorbitant expectation, and we ended up tipping as per services received and put it all in a single envelope from the 'SM Group'.

(ii) we would have to get up at 4 AM the next day to go to Abu Simbel by road. This was important as we would be part of a convoy and the convoy would leave Aswan at 5 AM sharp. Breakfast would be packed for us.

(iii) we wanted to make the last night on the cruise worth it. Mohamed's package had arrived.

Dinner was Egyptian, but I was surprised that there was no 'falafel' nor any 'pigeon meat'. There were a lot of people in traditional 'galabiya' outfits. Some had 'arafats' alone, and some, like us, were looking spoilsports. There was an anniversary tonight, so again, out came the drumrolls and the cake, and there was a traditional celebration. This time, I did take a video, here it is.

There was also a dance party in the lounge after dinner, but some of us (oh ok, I guess it was only me) chose to pack for the early departure the next morning. Although the food had helped, the headache was still bothering me, the music from the dance floor was reverberating between my ears, so I told SP that I would wait until the party died down to join the rest of the gang on the top deck, and hit the bed for a nap.

And that's how I missed the most defining night of the trip - something that I feel like kicking myself for! (SK, SP, S2K, SM, thanks I don't need you guys to do the honours. RA - don't even think about it, I'll not survive!).

The Egypt Chronicles - Day 6

2012-01-17T02:40:00.005+05:30

Every now and then, you meet someone who makes amazing sandwiches. SK is one such.

Mohamed had left us the tuna with SK. After dinner on the day DT won her moun-wrath (bad one, but couldn't resist), SK, SP and I gathered in our room to make some sandwiches for later that night. SK quickly mixed the tuna and some mayo and celery and whipped up a fine mixture. He then took a pair of bread slices and buttered them before lining one side with a big lettuce leaf. He spread the tuna mixture evenly on the leaf and wrapped it up with the other slice of bread. He brushed down the excess on the edges and sealed the sandwich shut.

The tuna lasted us for about 4-5 sandwiches, which we took up with us to the top deck. The deck had a sheltered area with chairs and an open area with beach chairs, overlooking the swimming pool. It also had a TT table and a few more normal tables which they used to serve tea. Ever since we had seen it, the top deck had become our rendezvous. So, we all pulled up some chairs and sat in a circle, talking.

The city had gone silent. Far in the distance, across the river, one could see the Valley of the Kings lit up with floodlights. Nearer to the eyes, but still on the horizon, there were a dozen or so minarets with green neon lights. Mosques. If it got really silent, you could hear the sound of the Nile lapping against the hull of the boat. Further to the side, on the road, the odd vehicle whizzed past.

The conversation began normally before S2K took over with his jokes and had us all in a laughing riot. Kabhi stand-up comedy bhi kar liya karo, haramkhor S2K! Saare joke toh baithke suna diye!

Some of the girls had not eaten tuna sandwiches before, so they didn't know what they were missing. Some of them chose to try and sat with us while SK and I went down to our room for another batch of them. By the time we came back to the top deck, S2K and SM were playing TT. We sat down and started talking about my day at the market, hot-air ballooning the next day, the cruise in general and the jokes kept coming even as we devoured the sandwiches. For example, see below.

It was a great night, lots of laughter, amazing stories, delicious sandwiches for your late night cravings and a calming ambience that put you at ease with the world.

Day 6 started before day-break as we had to catch the sunrise from the balloon. Or that is what we aimed for :) We took the bus to the bank of the river, which was a short distance from the waterfront I had been to on Day 5. Even as we passed the waterfront, we could see 12-15 balloons already launched and marking the face of the valley. Presently, a boatman arrived to ferry us across to the West Bank. We were offered coffee and tea on the boat. There was a van on the other side, to take us to the site of the balloon launch.

Hot air ballooning was fun. It was the first time I was seeing anything like this. The balloon came in a small pickup truck and the lads spread a large carpet where they unfurled the balloon and its basket. The basket had huge cylinders and there was a burner to blow flame and hot air into the envelope. In a matter of minutes, the balloon was ready to go and we were asked to step in and hold tight. A hop, and then the ballooning staff let their hands and ropes fall away, and we were afloat. I know, for sure, that developed countries have a more stricter view of Health & Safety when it comes to things like this, so I was glad I saw it here first.

The balloon experience was enjoyable. We went up to a height of 2000 feet, I think, and got an amazing view of the west bank, the Valley of the Kings and the Queens, and beyond. The sun was bright, but not hot; more heat emanated from the bursts of the contraption which was generating the hot air. The direction control mechanism of the balloon was interesting. The envelope had two slits or overlaps which could be manoeuvred by some ropes. Depending on the direction of the rope pulled, the slit would let in cold air into the balloon and turn the basket in the desired direction. We ballooned for about 45 minutes before we started our descent in the desert beyond the valley. The terrain was fantastic. The landing was uneventful and after our usual photo-op, we headed back to the boat.

This was to be the most relaxed day on the tour. We sat down for a leisurely lunch, and while we were at it, we set sail from Luxor. We were to travel down south as far as Aswan, with a brief stopover at Edfu tonight. With nothing else to do, we all settled on the top deck after lunch, laid back and looked at the hillocks and the trees go by. Sat down with Mohamed and got names written in Arabic and Hieroglyphic. Put our legs up, let our hair down and watched as the the boat sailed over the Nile. It was blissful. Shortly after, I went down to the room and slept for about 2 hours! I had not slept that soundly in the last 7 days.

I woke up just after dusk, the boat was stationary - we were at the Esna lock. The Esna waterlock is one of the many locks on the Nile that allow boats to flow across different levels of water. I'd have liked to see the lock in operation in light, but had to make do with this. Freshened up for the cocktail party in the lounge - I think this was put together to be an icebreaker between the various groups on the boat, and S2K did a pretty good job of breaking ice. I was certain someone would come after us with a hammer or such, but luckily, we did not get to see any of that. Seriously S2K, what was introducing the Gujju couple all about? And man! you forgot all our names!!!

The party was not remarkable in itself, but I did notice two people were conspicuously absent from the party, one of which was NC.

Dinner was fun, the waiting staff came up with a surprise birthday cake for one of the groups and there was much celebration, with Egyptian music and tradition. People made a human train and paraded around the restaurant and wished the lady well. It was pleasantly refreshing. The tune was catchy too.

We went back to the top deck after dinner and spoke in the darkness of the night as we watched the boat go under bridges and along small patches of land, and finally docked at Edfu shortly after midnight. We realised we did not have any water on board (the ones sold on the boat were prohibitively expensive). So, we went down to the reception, and left the boat to go into Edfu town. The receptionist asked us to come back before 4 AM, as the boat would leave for Aswan.

We stopped at a small shop outside the dock to get some water, tea and shisha. We sat there experimenting with the camera, taking low light shots and enjoying the shisha. S2K found an internet cafe and went back to the 'connected' world, while SP, SK and I walked further on into the town. The crowds diminished slightly as we walked on, but so did the roads and the lights - we came to a dead end. Turned back and walked to the boat, but did not get on it. Instead we walked further on the waterfront and sat down on a parapet. There were a couple of locals below the parapet, on the rocks, fishing in the dark. SK pulled out some sandwiches, and we ate them in the silence of the night. Took out the camera and tried to do some slow shutter photography. Got great tips from SK, and we ended up doing some bouquet shots of the lights far in the horizon, we did some progression shots of the Christmas bell that adorned our boat. I am yet to study those photos, will get around to them once I finish the trip.

A local approached us and made small talk. Broken English. Counted three days and sang Happy Birthday. It took some time to register he was talking about the New Year. Apparently, he was from Luxor and was a policeman on night duty. It's amazing how much information can be passed with just a few words. Presently S2K returned from his Facebook-spree and we had an idea.

The receptionists had seen us 4 going out of the boat. S2K had seen us going out towards the town. We figured if the three of us (SP, SK and I) would lock ourselves in our room and give S2K the key, he would be in a position to raise an alarm in the morning saying we went into town while he checked his email, but did not return with him. The boat would have sailed by then, it would have been the perfect scare - right out of Hangover! The only hitch was the receptionists had to be in the know - else we would risk a real alarm.

It was a superb prank - only we called it off at the last second. After S2K had been instructed. After he'd collected keys and was at the door. And none of us really remembers why we called it off. It had all the things to be the highest point of this trip. We should have done it. It would have been great fun.

And if you're still interested in the tuna sandwich - here's how you make one, SK style!

The Egypt Chronicles - Day 5

2012-01-15T06:06:00.005+05:30

The day started early for the group, as Mohamed, our guide had said we would cover the West Bank of the Nile at Luxor and be back on the boat by lunch time. The afternoon, and the next morning would be free for us to relax.

The Valley of the Kings is a huge cemetery, nestled in the lap of mountains on the bank of the Nile. Legend has it that the Pharaohs realised that the treasures were being robbed from the Pyramidal tombs, so they resorted to picking a spot in the valley, where their tomb would be built. There are about 60 odd tombs discovered in the valley, and there are more still under excavation. We were to see only three this morning. Photography was prohibited in the valley altogether, which I thought was good; it allowed us time to soak up the experience. Mohamed also told us there is a ban on guides entering the tombs, as they typically tend to lecture to groups of people and too many people would start affecting the natural state of the tombs (read colours of the hieroglyphics).

So when we reached the valley, we took a little road-train from the entrance to the start of the tombs, and Mohamed took us away from the hawkers and peddlers and explained to us the significance of each tomb we would visit. The valley was breathtaking. There were miles and miles of sandstone hillocks; some leading to tombs, some lurking around from behind, tempting us to visit the Valley of the Queens. I'm told further into the valley, there is also a valley for noblemen.

The tomb of the legendary Tut-Ankh-Amun also lies in this very valley, but needs an extra ticket to visit. We did not visit it anyway, since we planned to see the mummies at Cairo on our way back. However, the tombs that we visited were nothing short of spectacular.

These tombs had the story of the after-life as a common theme - You could make out the jackal Anubis mummifying the body, the God Osiris making the judgement after weighing a person's heart against a feather and such. The colours used in the tomb are so bright and unfading that its hard to believe it was the ancient Egyptians who did this! I forget whose tomb it is now, but one tomb we visited had a massive roof mural, suggesting a snake which gobbled up the sun each night and a giant scarab beetle prodding the sun along its way across the sky. The hieroglyphics were in such abundance and telling a story of their own, which made SK remark that one should study hieroglyphics and come read these stories.

The hawkers at the Valley deserve a special mention, there are so many of them, and they never ever give up. They pestered us up and down the valley as we moved in and out of tombs. Mohamed did warn us about them, and we normally refused all offers. We eventually bought some books about the Valley, after a great deal of bargaining and hassle.

On our way back, Mohamed took us to an alabaster/basalt shop where we could buy some stone souvenirs. He probably did it out of good heart, to make sure we bought authentic souvenirs and were not ripped off, but frankly, we thought the prices were too high. But we had a lot of fun at the place, in addition to the free Egyptian tea and clean toilets.

The owner of the stone workshop led us through a choreographed introduction session, where his cronies belted out inanities similar to a primary school "Gooood morninnnnnng, maaaadam!". More fun was had when we went inside his shop and saw statues of the God of Fertility in all sizes - SP and SK even picked one up to play with!!

Our next destination was the temple of Hatshepsut. Hatshepsut was a queen, who ruled over Egypt like a monarch. It was not too far away from the valley, and was being re-constructed by a team of Polish archaeologists. The temple was eye-catching and the restoration activity gave it a very different look from all the temples we had seen thus far. The legend which goes with this temple is very interesting. Mohamed put some names in our group to explain who is who, so it turned out Hatshepsut (SS) had a devious mind and when the Pharaoh died, she devised her little son Tuthmoses III (RA)'s marriage with the daughter of the Queen, so that she would get to rule the kingdom (or some such frap, which I can't remember now). Equally interesting was the mountain behind the temple. In the light of the shining sun and our fertile imagination, it was looking similar to Mt. Rushmore. RA and SM went on a shooting mission, while someone made a suggestion to go back to the bus, and when we did, we saw the rest of the gang also sitting close by.

After Hatshepsut, we went to the Colossi of Memnon. The Colossi of Memnon are two huge statues of Pharaoh Dont-know-who. The story says that the statues whistle at certain times of the day and is considered to bring luck to the person who hears them whistling. We didn't. We did hear something else, that was the 'Ahoy' of a farmer on a donkey, who saw us taking his picture and came running for 'baksheesh' :D

Our tour for the day was done. Mohamed took us back to the hotel, and said he would meet us again at night, to deliver some of the things we had asked of him to make some 'sandwiches'.

Lunch was served, and we were all soon devouring the lavish spread. The best thing on this cruise was that we never had to worry about food. Breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner - we only had to be there at the time and we would be fed. So, we were having lunch and the conversation meandered along our two tables and there was a wager that DT would not say a word for an hour, and in exchange SK would give her a 100 Egyptian. She would also not sleep (it would be discounted) and always be with someone so there was a chance to speak. It was a deal and DT switched to sign language. Now, there are different versions of this, but I know SK did not say a word after Egyptian, so the argument - pounds, piastres, people - was always open.

DT continued to be on mute throughout lunch, and thereafter. I wanted to go out to the Luxor market, so I asked around if anyone wanted to accompany me. Some wanted to sleep, some wanted to swim, some wanted to go up to the top deck and read a book (ST, yes, that's you :)), so I went to the market alone. (I later learnt DT won the wager, but whether or not she got the Egyptians is another story :) - congratulations DT!!)

I asked the reception for a taxi and he said it would be about 30 EGP. Thanked him and went out of the boat thinking to flag one off the road myself for a lesser fare. Saw another guide from the boat taking a group of people to Luxor in a bus, so I asked him if he would drop me at Luxor temple, and hitched a ride to the temple.

From the temple, I walked around to the souk, trying to find a public pay phone. There was none, so I asked a group of tourists if they had seen one. An Italian said he had been to the waterfront for a felucca ride (felucca is a sailboat, and rides on the Nile are very popular) and he had seen one there. I spent some time there, called S and spoke for a while. I walked back into the souk and spent some time looking at the various items on display - there were the usual assortment of clothes, figurines of cats, mummies and the Pharaonic busts. I waved most of them off, but stopped at the shop of a thin lanky man, who tried to speak to me and guess where I am from. I liked him, he was not selling his stuff to me, he was just trying to speak - a clearly different strategy of marketing. I learnt his name was Armos. (His real name was Tayyeb) and he was just making some conversation - where I was from, what I did etc. I asked him for the 'Arafat' - which is a chequered Arabic scarf, typically in black and white, but also available in a few other colours. I knew, from my chat with Mohamed, that 10 EGP were a fair price for the scarves. So when he quoted me a high price, I waved him off. I only wanted two and was not ready to pay any more, but the scarves he had were bigger than the ones I had seen in Hatshepsut. They were also better. So when he made an offer for three at a little over 10 EGP a piece, I accepted it.

An Englishwoman came to his shop with a lad who was very friendly with Armos. Armos introduced me to the lady with "He speaks English", and went off to get us both some tea. The lady was named Heather, and she was Welsh. She was visibly overjoyed to hear I had been to Cardiff, Swansea and a few other places in Wales. Apparently, she had married an Egyptian and had been living here for the past 10 years or so.

We sat down and over tea, spoke about a lot of things. She recounted her stories with an Indian colleague when they were both teaching in England, and said she had been to Sri Lanka, but never been to India, for she was overwhelmed by the size and the amount of time and money it would cost her to cover India in a single trip. I spoke to her about my life in England, the various facets of social experiences for me to go from India and live in England; and for her to leave Wales and live in Egypt. She spoke to me about her daughter and I about my wife and son, and then we touched upon some of the things I had already covered with SK on Day 1.

We exchanged numbers and addresses and took leave. I continued my lone walk along the waterfront, reaching the high street - the Winter Palace and further on, the Lotus Hotel. From here, I hired a tonga to take me to the Egyptian Market and the Nubian Market, which were further across the railway station. The local markets were nothing like the souk - it was very similar to (at the risk of repeating myself) an Indian setting. I felt no different here than walking out of Mysore bus-stand, making my way through the touristy alleys selling bags, shoes and what not, to the palace square where S and I always ate chaat and butter dosa. It was different - there I was feeling almost at home, and the locals were like "Oh, look at the tourist in the tonga, with his expensive camera". I bought a couple of papyrus paintings at the Egyptian market, it was close to 7 PM. I was almost near the Luxor temple, so I got rid of the tonga and hired a taxi to take me back to the harbour. The cabbie was playing Mohammed Fouad on some local radio station. When I mentioned Amr Diab, he smiled in a way I thought the singer was over-rated in Egypt.

When I was back at the boat, there was a plan for hot-air ballooning over the Valley of the Kings. I thought it was an awesome idea, and we confirmed our entries. An aerial view over all the tombs we had seen this morning would be spellbinding, I thought. I was looking forward to a quiet day after all the walking I had done, but it was a fair trade-off, I had never done hot-air ballooning before.

Tomorrow was promising, but tonight was going to be legendary - with 'sandwiches' courtesy Mohamed.

The Egypt Chronicles - Day 4

2012-01-11T05:13:00.003+05:30

Let's go back to Day 3 a bit, it's not quite finished yet.

We'd had a light dinner at Ahmed's (Achmed's), and the girls were shopping (?!) for SIM cards next door. I think they did get a couple of local numbers, and we walked back to pick up our luggage from the hotel. On the way, we stopped at a sweet shop. This again, was very similar to any Bangalore sweet shop, probably on a larger scale with AC and all, but then again, this was a bit more upmarket. There was a lot of the usual stuff - cakes, pastries etc, but also a lot of local stuff, with dates and dry fruits. Normally, I would have tried some of the sweets, but they did not appeal to me that night, so I did not venture to buy any. In hindsight, probably should have - I would have either enjoyed it or written about the experience here. I did pick up a packet of biscuits though - these were similar to the Monaco biscuits you get in India, but with a zeera flavour. I also withdrew a lot of Egyptian money from the ATM to pay the cruise the next day.

So, back at the hotel, we picked up our bags and called a cab to the Alexandria station. RA confirmed the platform and we all hauled ourselves in and took our seats. I did not notice SP walk away towards the AC-1 coach, where we had a lone seat, so once we sorted out our seats, SK and I went in search of SP, and after moving in and out of about 7 interconnected coaches, we found him comfortably in his more luxurious coach. We sat with him for a few minutes, and then returned to our coach to find a volunteer who would be ready to upgrade.

Unfortunately, the co-passengers in our vicinity could hardly speak any English, so we decided to wait for the ticket official. We sat back and were wondering how the AC-2 coach was not only more cleaner but also better lit than the AC-1. It was almost like walking out from an urban setting of bright incandescent light into a murky suburb bathed in the yellow light of a naked bulb. To which SK offered his logic of the AC-1 being dirty as the people who travelled premium were spoilt. Presently the ticket official arrived, and we tried to explain to him that one of our tickets was in AC-1 and we wanted it swapped. He nodded as though he understood and did some calculation, finally he said 12'o clock. We sat exasperated, realising he mistook our question for probably the arrival time or some frap like that.

We tried to pick out passengers to effect a seat-trade, but could not find any suitable candidate. As the night drew in, we settled back. I took a muffler from SM and rolled it into a neck support and stretched back. My sweatshirt was still wet from the rains, so when I saw SK's parka, warm and inviting, hanging over the hook, I did not spare a second in pulling it on! Poor SK was left snuggling in his sweatshirt to keep warm. Sorry, mate, and thank you so much! Say hi to the parka. :)

Day 4 began with a chill in the air, but warm and sunny once we were fully awake. Egyptian Rail serves tea and snacks in small wooden trolleys similar to the airplane trolleys. We had some tea and biscuits, and went to chat with SP in the AC-1. Turned out the coach was too noisy - we could hear some metal splutter like an AK-47 discharge every 10 seconds or so. It was annoying. But the interesting that SP had noticed the night before was that the seats on the train could be swivelled on a pivot so that it could face the one behind. Nice, we thought, and went back to our coach to show off.

I thought rural Egypt, through which the train was running now, was similar to an Indian setting. The railway crossings were similar, people in cars, autorickshaws (Yes! No, I did not notice if they were Bajaj!!) and some pedestrians with baskets waiting on either side. The buildings leading up to a station were similar, with advertisements and graffiti on them. It brought back memories of travelling to Mumbai via Udyan Express.

Luxor was a smaller station than we expected. I was hoping to see something like Cairo, but it was considerably smaller. We disembarked, stretched out and ambled off towards the exit, fending off the 'taxxx'i drivers. SM called our contact in Luxor, and arranged for a pick-up to take us to the cruise. Meanwhile, we lingered at the station, snapping up photos. Saw an Apple logo on a taxi and found it amusing. Clicked it and the driver came up to me asking for 'baksheesh'. He was kidding and strolled off when I said I would delete the photo instead.

Luxor was warm, sunny and dusty. We were in interior Egypt, far from the Mediterranean and its effects, and there was a marked difference in the weather. An English speaking guide came with an air-conditioned van to pick us up. A theme song was conjured "The whole thing is that, ke bhaiyya, sab se bada rupaiyya".

Mohamed, our guide for the rest of the cruise, broke ice very easily. He christened us Pharaohs - a name which has stuck and become our group name on Facebook. On our way to the cruise, we saw HSBC and KFC (Kentucky Fried Camels) and Mohamed spoke about the way of life and how the next few days would be like. We passed a few riverside resorts and made our way into the Presidential Nile Cruises harbour, where two cruise boats were moored. We were ushered empty handed into one, and requested to wait in the lounge, while porters carried our baggage into the boat.

Weary from the night's journey, with unwashed faces and scraggly hair, most of us were ready to just sleep off on the sofas, and SM and RA deserve to be thanked for speaking to the boat officials, calmly arranging alternate rooms, and arranging methods of payment. I offered to pay in Egyptian money, and imagine my dismay when the boat official said he would accept only foreign currency!! Thankfully, he accepted cards - so I was able to pay in USD (and get billed in GBP), but from that moment on, I became the local forex guy!

We were offered a glass of hibiscus juice while we settled our payment - I thought it was very refreshing. I even went and had a refill at the bar. It was nearing 1 PM and we were shown our rooms and the dining hall. Lunch would be served every afternoon at 1, dinner at 8 and breakfast the next morning from 8-9.

Lunch was awesome. There was a salad bar with various salads, a soup counter, a buffet spread with a main meat item, with a carver ready to serve it on to your plate, assorted accompaniments and vegetables, and a dessert counter. The maitre'd showed us our tables (these were to be our tables for the rest of the cruise) and took count of the veg, beef and 'no beef' eaters. We devoured lunch like we had not eaten for days!

The lunch did tempt us to go sleep in our rooms, but we had Karnak Temple planned in the afternoon. Mohamed met us in the reception and we boarded our bus to Karnak.

Karnak is the biggest of the temples around and is overwhelming. As we went in, I was in awe of the structures - so imposing, so brilliant, so perfect that it was hard to believe it was done in an era of primitive tools. The colours are still there, even after 1000's of years. It was surreal to imagine the splendour and the richness of the time gone by. The monolithic obelisks, with the stories of unknown kings, bore testimony of an old kingdom whose days are past its glory.

We spent considerable time at Karnak, and headed to Luxor by sunset. Before the Luxor temple, though, we stopped briefly at a papyrus shop, where they showed us how the ancient Egyptians used to make paper. I still think S2K bribed Mohamed to stop at this place. :)

The Luxor temple is not very far from Karnak, legend has it that the Pharaoh built the Luxor temple for his queen. It is said a road connected Karnak to Luxor and it still exists below the city of Luxor, and part of it is being excavated near the Luxor temple. It was dark by the time we reached Luxor temple, and there was a line of sphinxes just outside the temple, standing almost like a guard of honour. I went closer to have a look, and was separated from the group. I'd run out of space on my camera, so I just walked around, looking at the huge pillars, and when I was done, I walked out where I joined the rest of the gang who were drinking some really expensive coffee!

We went back to the cruise in time for dinner, and the show of the night - there was a Sufi Dance and belly-dancing. I'd seen the Sufi Dance in SK's camera and had high expectations, but the one we had on the cruise was nowhere near. I guess it was passable as a new experience, first-timers would have probably enjoyed it. The belly-dancer was a rip-off as well. When S2K shared stage with her, people thought he was the better looking dancer on stage - true feedback!!

RA and I then tracked down a guy with a laptop and managed to empty our memory cards into the hard disk, and after some inane chatter, we went to bed. Biggest learning from this trip: Delete all previous photos and carry empty memory cards.

Tomorrow, we visit the west bank of Nile at Luxor, which is home to the Valley of the Kings, The Valley of the Queens and the temple of Hatshepsut.

The Egypt Chronicles - Day 3

2012-01-08T03:32:00.008+05:30

There was a constant drizzle all of the second day, from when we left for Ahmed's (Achmed's?), to the time we went to the library, to the time we went to Selsela, to the time we came back to the hotel, pretty much until we had dinner. The wee-hour walk to Selsela was ok, but it was still damp and cloudy the next morning.

RA had booked us a local mini-bus to take us around Alexandria. Our itinerary for today was the Al-Montaza Palace, Pompey's pillar, the catacombs, the Roman amphitheatre and the Qait Bay Citadel. SK opted out to take a 'rest day'.

The drive to Al-Montaza was uneventful, and relatively short, but when we reached there, we learnt the palace was not open to the public. We chose not to go around the park and the palace gardens, instead walked down the water-sports gate. All of us had not even reached the water's edge that it started raining again, and we had to run for cover. We did get some pictures before we were all drenched, though. We gathered back in the mini-bus and voted to move to the catacombs. But since we would pass it on the way, we decided to stop at the Library so that the people who'd joined us last night could tick that off their lists :)

It was mid morning by this time, and we were sure to get into some traffic. Sleep deprived, as I was, I chose to catch some rest while the others invested their time in something more useful - numbers. The girls (I think) floated the idea of learning numbers and went wahed, itnen, taleta... (arabic for 1, 2, 3 ... the whole set is wahed, itnen, taletta, arba, khamsa, sitta, sabaa, tamaniya, tissa and ashara. Note how sitta and tissa are syllablic antigrams, just like the Roman numerals they represent are symbolic antigrams 9 and 6). Then they started reading the number plates of the cars ahead of us, while SP and I dozed off at the back.

We spent the next hour or so in traffic and rain, and finally stopped at the Library. A couple of the gang went inside, while the rest did most of the photography from the outside. After the brief stopover there, our next destination was the catacombs.

The catacombs are a collection of underground tombs, accidentally found when a donkey fell into a pit at the excavation site. The site has a circular stairwell into the catacombs itself, and a lot of the excavated relics in the general area surrounding the catacomb. They were all marked with numbers, which I thought were probably the numbers for listening to their history, via the audio guidebooks.

Personally, the catacomb reminded me of the Volkswagen automated car park, where you have cars elevated via a lift, and rotated to their slots and rolled into place. It was very primitive, but the same concept - lower the mummies via a central shaft, roll the coffin and push them into the slot. I also thought this must have been a mass tomb for the general public, for the noblemen and the priests would have had a site near a temple or the Pyramid of the Pharaohs.

After the Catacombs, we went to visit Pompey's pillar. The clouds cleared here and we got some awesome weather. The main edifice was the pillar itself, and legend has it that 22 people had dinner on its capitol in its day. The pillar was surrounded by sun-dials and a nilometer to measure the flood, and there was also a sanctuary for Serapis, the bull-God. From the entrance, the pillar and the sphinx ahead of it presented a regal sight, but once you reached the vicinity of the pillar to cross over to the other side, you could see these monuments against a polluted old-city background. Some would like to think of it as an old Egypt co-existing with the new, but I thought it was plain eyesore.

It was lunchtime. Lunch was had at Gad, which is a chain darshini similar to say, Sukh Sagar of Bangalore. Here's a video of some Gad staff slitting Pitta bread.

We drove to the Roman Amphitheatre after lunch, but it did not entice me to step inside, so I stayed out with most of the others and looked through the barricades. I could see the remnants of a Roman bath, and a few other ruins of Roman architecture, but it was not incentive enough.

The next stop for us would be the Qait Bay Citadel. The Citadel is built on the edge of the Corniche and houses an Oceanography Institute and a small museum outside. We bought tickets for the museum and just a few steps later, realised this was not worth it. There were hardly enough marine life to catch your interest, let alone hold it. SP and I exited double quick to spend some time near the water.

We walked around the Citadel to see if there was an entrance, but there was none. Towards the back, there was a route in, but military guards stopped us from entering or taking photographs in the area. I thought it was unnecessary since there was a shooting club next door and anyone with a decent telephoto lens could zoom into the place.

We walked back to the group, snapped some photos, and soon it was time to go back! The day has been wet, windy and the weather had so dampened my spirits, that combined with the Al-Montaza closure, the ride in traffic and the disinteresting marine museum, I thought it wasn't a great day of covering the tourist sights. I loved Pompeii's pillar though, must have been the sun!

Back at the hotel by 5 PM, we had about 3 hours to go before our train, so we sat down at the coffee house for some Turkish coffee and shisha. SK, having made a great decision of staying in, was well-rested. We all sat down at the coffee house, while taking turns to visit the hotel, have a change of clothes and get our bags down to go to the railway station.

With time to kill, we decided to be local and play some board games. But how? We did not know the game, nor understood the language. We did the next best thing - make up our own game. So like silly schoolboys with nothing to do, I and SK tried to play carrom-football (score a goal by making your striker rebound and go through a stack of coins), and destroy-fort (destroy the opponent's stack of coins so none of them lies on top of the other). SP looked on, wondering incredulously, how lame we could get. Eventually he left to make some calls, and we got bored of making up games, so we called the waiter over to teach us a proper game. The waiter could only understand we wanted to play, so he went and brought us a pair of dice. Then he found us a German who spoke very little English, but was able to explain to us the basic premise of the game. And so it came to pass that on the night we left Alexandria, SK beat me in a game of newly-learnt towlah (or backgammon, I guess, as far as the similarity of the board goes).

We went back to Ahmed's (Achmed's?) for some falafel and omelettes, and then hired a cab to the railway station. Our next stop - Luxor!!

The Egypt Chronicles - Day 2

2012-01-07T05:46:00.003+05:30

I woke up about 9 ish, and opened the slatted doors which were preventing the sunlight from disturbing my slumber, and stretched out. Fully. Like two arms outstretched and face contorted towards the sky. And I felt raindrops!! Perfect, you'd think, if you were a girl. Me, I uttered a profanity, and rushed back to the comfort of the rug. Opened the doors once again, and grabbed my shoes before they became too wet, and settled back in the warmth of the bed.

And I began thinking. Man, here I was, away from family, away from work, embarking on a trip with strangers. Thought I should have done it before. Thought I was lucky to be doing it now. Thought about getting some more sleep. Thought about the sea.

Got up and rushed to the other room. SK was sprawling on the bed, not ready to leave the comfort of it for whatever reason. RA was making disconcerted efforts to get SK out. I went into the balcony and looked at the sea. It was awesome. Here it was, the Mediterranean, which was snapping in all its rage and ardour last night, now tame and calm, lapping quietly at the bank.

The sea, the roads and the traffic reminded me of Marine Drive. Blackpool, to be honest, but then you'll accuse me of being an Englishman. Nevertheless, snapped a few photos on the cellphone and tried to Whatsapp them back home using the hostel wifi. Went back to the room, freshened up and met the guys for breakfast.

Breakfast was the usual continental setup - bread, butter, jam and coffee. Over breakfast, we decided the course of the trip for the rest of the time we were in Alexandria. SK and RA had already done the Catacombs (more on this later), so the agenda for today was mostly the Bibliotheca Alexandrina - the Alexandria Library.

Over breakfast, I also learnt that SK and RA met on the Skoda Yeti campaign. The campaign rang a bell, and I asked them if they knew Mridula Dwivedi, and they did recall some fond memories. I was happy - it made me realise the world was so small. Till yesterday, they were strangers to me, and this morning, I'd found a strong traceable link. I knew Mridula from my contributions to Blogbharti, and they knew her via Skoda. It was like the six degrees of separation, it was awesome!

It was still drizzling, so we lazed around a bit, but at around 11 AM, we thought we'd venture out. So we went out to Ahmed's (Achmed's?) for some more falafel and pickle (again, radish and salad leaves). It was drizzling even after the falafel, so we walked around the Corniche, and into a coffee shop to order a shisha. We spent time discussing mundane things and examining RA's Nikkor 18-200 lens while we waited for the rain to stop. It didn't, and we decided to walk in the light drizzle anyway. Our next stop was the Alexandria Library. (In hindsight, we should have taken the bottle of water and the box of tissues put on our table, we later realised our bill for 17.50 EGP included them too... and not just the shisha).

We walked about half a mile (or was it one?) to the Library. When I looked at it from outside, I thought it was just another architectural gimmick. Then, we went inside, and I was dumbstruck. This library was not just another library. It was just spellbinding. I took some time to assimilate the surroundings - there were levels one after the other and a flight of stairs connected them together. It made me wonder, with a library like this, who would attend regular class anyway. There were many a young couple flirting and making discreet passes at one another, to prove my point, hah!

The library also had a section for antiques, on a separate ticket. We went into the section and saw the articles on display. Remarkable ones were the mummies; an artwork of the mummification process, where we learnt about the God of mummification Anubis, and how a person is brought before the God Osiris and his heart weighed against a feather; a figurine of Aphrodite from the Greco-Roman period, and a latticed wooden window shade, which had deer so cleverly built into the geometry that you would not notice it until you stood about 4 feet away and really attempted to find the deer. Sadly, photography was not allowed in the section, otherwise, it would have been a fantastic capture.

Library done, we retreated to the cafe across the road, the El Selsela. The place had great ambience - it was right next to the sea, we just wished it were more sunny so we could get to sit outside, but it was downright rainy, so we had to settle for indoors. Some food, coffee and shisha later, we were chatting away in all our glory. Played a game to pass some time and learnt RA really struggles to lie :) Sorry, dude!

We spent some 2-3 hours just sitting in the cafe, chatting, joking, making up unprintable parodies of popular Bollywood songs, listening to SK's stories, before we realised we had to get back before the rest of the gang arrived at the hostel. The day was not a clincher in terms of tourism - we had hardly covered any place except the Library, but it was great fun. It was time well spent - great ambience, great company, and the feeling that *this* is how travel should be.

We then walked back the mile or so to the hostel, where RA had agreed with the owner to move us into a different hotel, so that all our party (us and the 8 who were coming from India) could be together. So, SK and I volunteered to move our bags into the new hotel, whilst RA stayed back for the rest of the group to arrive. We walked about two blocks on the Corniche, opposite to the direction of the Library, before SK thought he had to re-confirm the address of the new hotel.

It was raining, so we thought the best thing to do was to sit in a coffee shop with the luggage, while one of us went and tracked the place down. As it happened, I sat down with the bags, and SK went back to locate the hotel.

The coffee shop was imposing, to say the least. It covered almost the whole block, and seemed to be quite popular with the locals. One side of it overlooked the Corniche and the sea, and the other side of it was adjoining the side road which was perpendicular to the Corniche. Locals were playing chess, backgammon etc, and the ambience was great. While SK went off to find out the hotel, I sat back and watched the locals and ordered a coffee.

I should probably tell you now that by coffee, I meant the espresso, or if not, the normal black coffee without milk or sugar. Little did I expect I would get Turkish coffee.

SK and RA had already warned me about Turkish coffee. Apparently, they had been to a coffee shop and ordered the Turkish coffee. It was served in an elaborate fashion, with specialised jugs to pour from, but it tasted like a concoction made of mud. SK was quite verbose and actually took the time to explain that the 'mud' settled in the crevices between your teeth.

So, when the waiter brought my coffee, I almost bit my tongue at my gaffe. Nevertheless, like all proud men, I took a sip and realised SK was right - it was muddy and downright loathsome, and the powder did really go into the crevices of your teeth. So I politely put the glass aside, not wanting to take another sip out of it, and waited for SK to return from his quest.

About five minutes passed and I noticed the powder in the glass slowly settle at the bottom, while the coffee stayed on top. Without disturbing the sediment, I took a sip of the liquid above. It was heavenly. SK returned jubilant, the hotel was right outside the coffee shop. I asked him to taste the coffee. He did, and confirmed it was way way better than the muddy coffee he and RA had left earlier.

And right there, in that coffee shop, SK and I had discovered the right way of enjoying a cup of Turkish coffee. It would stand us in good stead for the rest of our stay in Al Iskandriyah!!

We finished the coffee, and checked in to the new hotel. Shortly after, the rest of the gang arrived and the group was complete. Introductions done, we went to a nearby place for local food. Most of us had koshary - a heady mix of noodles, rice, pasta, vegetables and mild spices - for dinner. It was almost like bhelpuri, but not quite the real thing.

Back in the room, more ice was broken - with SM and S2K in addition to SK, and good old SP. Conversations went on as people dwindled one after the other, and not before long, it was just me and SP going back in time.

We felt the urge to take a walk, so we went down and into the chilly Alexandria night, and walked half the distance towards the library, before we realised we had not brought our wallets. So, we marched the retreat, back to the hotel, and armed with wallets, walked back to El Selsela, the shack which had impressed me so much earlier that afternoon.

We spent some time at the shack, this time by the sea. Between the strong coffee and the rough sea, we wondered how we had never imagined we would ever meet on a different continent, let alone country. It was calm when we walked back, almost dawn, the roads were deserted; even the late night taxis had left, disappointed at not having got a fare.

We slept that morning at 4:30 AM, wondering how on earth would we get up to 'sight-see' Alexandria in the private cab that RA had arranged!!

The Egypt Chronicles - Day 1

2012-01-05T04:46:00.003+05:30

The plane started circling Cairo in its attempt to land, and I craned my neck to catch the first few glimpses... there was sand everywhere, as far as the eyes could see. Thin black lines cut across the vast expanse and occasionally there was greenery and habitation around. The landscape was dry and a wee bit rugged, if I may presume too.

The landing itself, was uneventful. Routine checks on landing cards and I was sent off on my way.

Presently, an airport official accosts me and asks something in Arabic. I shake my head and offer a shrug. Another fellow, suited up, walks over and suggests I have come in from London, and speaks in English. The first one checks my visa and waves me off.

The suited guy walks with me and explains that I looked Egyptian. I nod. He starts selling me a package tour. I wince. I explain to him that I'm a student from India and was backpacking, and didn't have a hotel to stay. He kept on selling his package tour. Finally, I took his card and some pamphlets and said I would be in touch. He didn't quite buy it, but let me go nevertheless.

I looked at the signboards offering taxi services which read 80-100 EGP from the airport to downtown Cairo, from where I had to take the train to Alexandria. So I called a cab to take me to Ramses Square, where the train station was. I later learnt the rates were 'fixed' and it doesn't even cost you half as much. (True enough, on my way back, I took a metered taxi from downtown to the airport and the fare was about 30 EGP).

The cab driver led me to his Verna (Hyundai is huge in Egypt and Verna seems to be their flagship model here), and we were off. At first glance, Cairo did not seem any different from Pune. It was the usual horn-blaring, swerving traffic, except this is left-hand-drive. The buildings were similar, the flyovers reminiscent of Karvenagar area.

I have my camera out by this time, and I see the driver fervently waving his hand to grab my attention. He gestures to me to look on his side of the road and snaps his fingers like a flash going off. Sign language for "Take a photo". Okay. He showed me what I now know as 'Al-Azhar' mosque. We were passing through Islamic Cairo.

Shortly after, he dropped me off at the train station, near the parking lot. The entrance to the parking lot was shabby, there was dirt near the compound, the flyover behind had a great deal of muck accumulated, and stray cats meandering on their way, trying to grab a morsel in the dirt. Not very different from Pune station, I thought, only a few degrees more polluted, maybe.

I walked on into the station quadrangle, and things improved. The pavements were cleaner and there was evidence of a lawn which was cared for until recent times. The building was grand, but could do with some cleaning. There was construction work going on at a corner. I walked into the station from the side entrance, towards the platforms. A lone train stood on one of the four platforms behind the main facade. Again, it could do with some cleaning. It must have been a special train or such, for all the coaches were filled with cadets in military green. I walked further in towards the main entrance. There was a small pyramid on the ground, with a huge inverted pyramid extending from the ceiling and almost touching the tip of the pyramid below. It reminded me of 'Angels and Demons'. There was a signboard with some information on it, but it was in Arabic. I waited a while, but the LEDs showed no signs of turning to English, so I approached a group of cadets and asked whether they spoke English. They did. I showed them my ticket and asked them the platform. They told me. All three of them shook my hand and welcomed me to Egypt. Upon my ask, they said 'Yes' in Arabic was 'aiwa'; and 'No' was 'lah'.

I had about two hours for my train. So I walked out of the station and into the city. The first thing I noticed was all male adults were smoking. They were smoking outside, they were smoking inside, and some were smoking in front of a 'No Smoking' sign. I saw some hand carts selling the local snacks; koshary, I think it was, but I wasn't hungry so did not ask. I saw a huge building with Egypt Post on top, must have been the administrative office of the postal department. Good.

Across, there was a line of shops on one side of the road, and mini-buses waiting on the other, and men of my age calling out 'Iskandriyah, Iskandriyah'. I walked on and saw a fruit juice shop. Ordered an orange juice for 2.50 EGP, bought a bottle of water and some chewing gum. There were hawkers further on selling bags, scarves, cigarettes. Some shops serving tea and snacks. A cobbler and boot-polish. It was quite similar to an Indian setting. If you would take a bus into Mysore and walk out of the bus-stand, you would see a similar setup - shops selling fruit juice and newspapers, lottery shops, old women hawking flowers and betel leaves and maxi-cabs shouting out 'Mandya - Bangalore'.

I walked all around the block and reached the other end of the station and this time, from the main entrance, I saw a helpdesk. I went and reconfirmed my ticket and platform and waited in the station. Met a Swede, who had been in the country for about a week. He told me Tahrir Square had been mostly calm, but on one day, he had just walked out of his hotel and he saw a crowd approaching from Tahrir, and he had to rush back in for safety. That lone incident apart, he said there was no action whatsoever. In fact, if you were out of the Tahrir area, you would not even notice.

He said he landed in Hurghada, and the hotel staff there said this was a popular time for tourists, and they are usually overbooked, but this year, they were at 30% occupancy. His cab driver had a story to tell, too. Apparently he plied to Giza Pyramids on a daily basis, but now he would be lucky to get a fare once a week. I later learnt some of these taxi driver stories are just sob-stories in an attempt to fleece some 'baksheesh'.

Baksheesh is local for tips. The whole of Egypt has a sickening baksheesh culture. Almost everything will need to be topped up with baksheesh, so better to haggle accordingly. Waiters, cleaners, drivers, guides, even locals of whom you take photos approach you in an attempt to get some baksheesh! It's quite ok to wave them off saying 'lah'.

Back to the train. The train was on time, and surprisingly the coach numbers were in Roman numerals, so I lost no time in finding my seat and settling in. The coach was dirty from the outside, but cleaner inside. The seats were quite roomy and the cushions thick. The windows were no cleaner than an Indian train. The coaches were marked non-smoking, and had doors on either side, outside of which one was free to light up. There was a rickety wooden pantry trolley which made its round every hour or lesser, selling bread and tea. I sampled the tea, but it was too tea-y for my taste. The train took about two and a half hours to get to Alexandria.

Now, Alexandria railway station is not exactly the Raml station which I was looking for, so after searching high and low for a certain Hotel Cecil, I walked up to a chai-shop and asked for Hotel Cecil. The good man tried to explain in broken English, and said it was near the sea-side. I contemplated calling our hostel, but realised I would (i) need a phone booth; (ii) someone to explain. So, instead I walked to a taxi and said 'Fondo Cecil'.

"Fondo Cecil? Sea side. 10 Pound Egyptian".

"Aiwa, aiwa".

In about ten minutes I was in front of Cecil, walked around the back of it into the shabby entrance of our hostel, and took the lift up to the 4th floor. I was greeted by a chubby young man with a bright smile, who showed my room, and also said some of my group were already in the other room.

RA and SK took me to a great place called Ahmed's (Achmed's?) for some local Egyptian food. They explained that falafel was similar to medu-vada, and that there was rajma, which was called 'foul'. There was also hummus and pickle (although the pickle was just diced radish, chilli and some salad leaves). I was famished and devoured all the three falafels we ordered.

Back in the room, ice was broken and there was fine conversation with SK on marriage, travel, advertising, IT, management, movies, music, student life ... until the people next door requested some peace.

I plonked out at about 2:30 AM, to get up to a sea-view the next morning.

The first of many...

2012-01-03T14:16:00.001+05:30

Rarely does one get a chance to cover a foreign country with a bunch of motley strangers - rarer still that one gets to the point of missing them when the trip is done.

The trip to Egypt this Christmas was unique in so many aspects that I've lost count. I had not been outside India or UK for a long time. I had not travelled without S and T (A huge thanks to S, for having it in her to manage herself and the baby alone - I owe you one, sweetie). I had not travelled with strangers before. I had not been on a trip where I was not involved in the planning or finances. I had not travelled to a place which had seen recent political tensions.

Like many of us, I was setting foot on the African continent for the first time, did not know the language, was apprehensive of the situation in Egypt, and was wondering on the plane about the company I would get, how S would manage, and how this whole thing would turn out.

It could not have turned out any better. Egypt was awesome - Tahrir Square is phenomenal, the cities of Alexandria, Luxor, Aswan and Cairo are fantastic. The temples leave you in an anachronistic daze. The dusty Pyramids against a clear blue sky leave you dumbstruck.

Then again, the places you visit are hardly an indicator of your journey - its the people you travel with, and some conversations which started on the night I landed worked their way seamlessly throughout until the day I flew out, with warm hugs and promises to keep in touch serving as punctuation marks on the last line of an unfinished poem.

The Egypt Chronicles start tomorrow.

Childhood Games

2011-01-07T03:50:00.001+05:30

Some of the most common indoor games I played a child were Labyrinth and Bagatelle (more commonly known as Pinball).

Labyrinth was the more prevalent, with plastic handheld versions available at stalls at wedding or function venues (or at Dasara exhibition). More common than the Labyrinth was the Maze. The Labyrinth requires you to take the marbles from one place to other without letting them fall through the holes, but the Maze was simpler, with no holes at all.

Bagatelle was the rarer one. Nobody I knew owned a bagatelle table, so when I found one at a neighbour’s place, I was intrigued about the game. But there is only so much time you can play at the neighbours. I kind of liked that game, and was hooked to the computer version which we now know as Pinball. However, while Pinball had two paddles which let you flick the marble, bagatelle lets you do a cue only once, before the marble settles on a score.

I guess we never outgrow childhood desires, because when I saw these for sale at the car boot sale, I instinctively picked them up without even the slightest inclination to bargain. (They came at a throwaway price anyway!). I played with them the afternoon I bought them, and then packed them up and put them away. Here they are!

This one to the right was a bonus, I don’t even know what it is called!!

These are just museum pieces now, because I know my son will not play with these. There’s not much scope when you have the same as iPhone apps. :-|

Parenting, Ahoy!

2010-09-28T03:39:00.000+05:30

And so we became proud parents of a lovely boy last week!

The week gone by has been topsy turvy and I have lost all track of time and date. There is no semblance of any sanity around, S and I are learning to get things done around the house in the brief bursts of respite we get when the baby naps. Time seems stuck in an endless loop of baby cries, changing nappies, recording feed and sleep times, with little time for anything else. We have become so forgetful that we make lists of the most mundane tasks, and at the end of each session, look at the to-do list and gnash our teeth thinking when we would get it all sorted. Yet, it is a glorious feeling to see him smile, to watch his expressions change in seconds as if someone was talking to him in his sleep. It takes all of our irritability and teeth-gnashing and shoves it out of the door.

We had anticipated this when we made the decision to raise the baby ourselves (not flying in either parents or sending S home), but the support we got from friends blew us off our feet. Friends turned in to visit and check on us; took care of the food department for the week we were at the hospital; offered to come stay at the hospital with S to help me catch some sleep. I am yet to respond to many of those who called in to wish and offer support, but whose calls I could not take. Colleagues advised me not to worry about work and that it is all taken care of. The knowledge that there is someone to fall back on to gave us confidence and we are grateful for this cushion of support. It means a lot to us.

Thanks, everyone. More on baby later.

The Car-boot Sale!

2010-04-16T03:37:00.004+05:30

Summer is around the corner, and the most visible indicator of summer having arrived is the car-boot sale. It is exactly what it says - selling out of the boot of a car/van (Why it is not called a van-boot sale then, I do not know). All summer, you can see a number of people selling stuff out of their cars. Unwanted stuff, outgrown stuff, collectibles, damaged goods and what not.

First up are the guys that sell new. These are wholesalers, who have small businesses or shops at the local centers. They are mostly out there to display their wares and make whatever they can from the people who come out Sunday morning in search of a bargain. They sell the same stuff which is available at their shop, and at more or less the same price. Wholesale stuff like reams of bubble wraps, A4 sheets, envelopes, shower gels, detergents, AA batteries, bread, huge packets of crisps (chips, if you like; but then call your chips fries)... you get the drift. They could not care less if you do not buy from them, they're just there to let you know they're there. They would probably give you a deal, if you ask them nicely, and keep buying from them.

The next are the the guys that sell used. These are usually Do-it-Yourself guys who have some sort of expertise or make a living by fixing things. They probably contract all week to various agencies and look to make some extra in the weekends. You get to see electricians with pedestal fans they've fixed; plumbers with various sinks, wrenches and mixer taps; carpenters with furniture they've mended. Refurbished laptops, unlocked mobile phones, adapters, chargers, car tyres, engine parts, wheel plates, number plates, bicycles, loose DIY items, you name it.

The first summer I was here, we bought three bicycles from an elderly couple, who probably fixed bicycles for a living. They would be there every week, and you could leave your bicycle with them and the old man would fix it, lubricate it and keep it ready for the road. They even bought old bicycles, and I would probably sell it to them if my two bicycles would not have been stolen from the front of my house. (Yeah, well! there are thieves everywhere).

Finally, the guys that sell cheap. These are people who just want to get rid of their stuff. People who are moving home, people who have spring cleaned their home, people who've lost interest in their toys/books/CDs and want to convert them into cash. The range is mind-blowing, from baby car-seats to hand mirrors to hand-made teapots to Chinese fans to Harry Potter books, you never know what you can run into in this lot, and more often than not, they give away things for less than you imagine. Some even have the car on sale, you only have to ask.

It's fun to watch this third category of sellers and offer them a price. You see a middle aged couple out to sell their clutter. There's a remote controlled helicopter. You ask the man how much it costs, and he quotes the price he bought it at. Truth is, he has not had enough of the chopper and still wants to hang on to it. It is the wife that will not allow it into the house. If you really like the chopper, you're better off making an offer to the wife. Chances are she will let you get away with it for a steal.

It cuts both ways, though. A number of home decor items are on sale. Things like glass trinkets, lampshades, vases etc. They usually have a lady hovering around, but never make the mistake of asking her the price. Deep inside, she does not want to sell any of it so she can take them back to her house and stock up the display cabinet. Make the man an offer, he will let you take it all for the price of a beer.

Sometimes, you do get fantastic deals - a colleague got a decent cricket kit from a man whose son outgrew playing county cricket. The guy even threw in a couple of used leather balls for free. Then there was a lady whose daughter played tennis, but would not use the balls after a few rallies. For many weeks, she almost exclusively supplied us tennis balls to play cricket with. Come summer, and the car-boot is a regular Sunday fixture. We usually come here with lots of change (better to offer a multiple of the lowest passable coin, than to expect change), just in case we get anything interesting. If not anything else, it offers you a long leisurely walk around an open area the size of a football field, and works up the appetite for a Sunday roast.

The Childhood Kind of Poverty

2010-02-27T04:50:00.002+05:30

Two articles I read lately have set my mind thinking.

The first was a tweet I picked up from Ultrabrown. It went "waiting outside hotel for cab so lady comes out of cab. Hands me her bags & asks me to take them up. Never thought I looked like a bellboy." I googled to find out who thought that about himself. Turns out it was Gurbaksh Chahal. In about 26 years of his existence, this gent has founded two ad companies, sold them to competitors (one of them Yahoo!) for a whopping $340 million! Here is his interview to the San Francisco Chronicle.

"In India, his father had graduated college with an engineering degree and worked at the police academy, while his mother had run the nursing program at a city hospital. Here, they worked double shifts, shopped at the Dollar Store and McFrugal's and clipped coupons. But they encouraged their children to go to college to become doctors or engineers ... Nirmal Chahal, the family's eldest daughter, recalled the night that Chahal told his father. "He brought the bank statement and showed my father he was making money," she said. "My dad's reaction was that he literally screamed. My mom came rushing from the kitchen, her hands still wet. My dad said, 'G is going to jail! He did something illegal!' They'd been working 20 years, double shifts, and had not had that kind of savings."

The second was about Xerox's chief Ursula Burns. When she was named CEO of Xerox, The New York Times notes, it marked two milestones: the first time an African-American woman was named CEO of a major American corporation, and the first time a woman succeeded another woman in the top job at a company of this size.

Here is a lady who started out in the eighties, joining Xerox as a summer intern, working her way up through executive positions to leadership ones. Today, as CEO, she tries to tackle what she terms 'terminal niceness'.

“When we’re in the family, you don’t have to be as nice as when you’re outside of the family,” she says. “I want us to stay civil and kind, but we have to be frank — and the reason we can be frank is because we are all in the same family.”

Ursula credits her mother as her biggest influence. “150 percent my mother. My mother was pragmatic, focused and extremely, exceedingly practical, and she was the ultimate self-determining person.” Her mother made ends meet by looking after other children. She also ironed shirts for a doctor who lived down the street and cleaned his office, bartering for things like medicine and even cleaning supplies.

Chahal has been on Oprah but still flies economy. He says "Waiters at Nikki Beach would clap for you, if you bought Champagne at 3,100 euros a bottle. I could do that, but it would put me through mental shock."

Ms. Burns was worth over $5 million back in 2008. Even so, she’d still show up in line at the grocery store in Rochester, where she’s lived for roughly 25 of her 30 years with Xerox. A housekeeper comes in just once a week, and Ms. Burns will often do the laundry herself, knowing that it sends a good message to her daughter, a high school senior. “There’s a little bit of this childhood kind of poverty — you know, pragmatism — that you never can get rid of."

This line by Ms. Burns sums up the strange paradox of many immigrants. Or the upwardly mobile Indian middle class.

We all go through our childhood seeing our parents struggle to make a better life for us. We all struggle through our adulthood trying to ensure a better life for our kids. Yet, somewhere deep in our heart, we restrain pulling out all stops. Somewhere deep in our heart, we feel they may take their privileges for granted. Somewhere deep in our heart, we still want our kids to fight their way through fire, so they can be tempered individuals and not snobs revelling in easy money.

The feeling is extant. You can always debate about the extent.

The iPhone User Review Contd

2010-01-07T04:36:00.002+05:30

Ever since we bought the iPhone for S, I always found myself reaching for it to play with. This annoyed S no end, especially with me taking the phone into the bathroom to catch up on my emails in the morning. If there is one thing that the iPhone has changed in my lifestyle, it has been the ability to check email first thing in the morning. It helps me prioritise what to start with as soon as I reach my desk, rather than doing the prioritisation on the desk. Sometimes, it works the other way too. Every now and then comes an email which puts me in a bad mood as soon as I read it. Perhaps, if I'd left it unchecked, I would have left home more cheerful!

Generally though, its a good thing to have, and it irritated me no end that the Orbit could not bring such brilliance into itself (although it was aged two). So, I was on the lookout for a phone which could do email. Blackberry was a first choice. I considered the Blackberry Storm for quite some time, but an initial putoff was that it had no wi-fi at all. You may argue that O2/Orange gives you a data option, but no sir, that is nowhere compared to wi-fi speeds. AppStore and YouTube would creak their way to render what would be a snap-of-a-finger job on wi-fi. Two, not having a wi-fi option at all is a no-deal in this time of free markets. The phone would be a brick once I am out of contract. Why would I pay for a data tariff once I'm out of contract, when I already pay for my wireless broadband. Three, network coverage is not all that great either. Imagine me at a friend's place or at the local Wetherspoons, and I find the coverage is bleak. Would I not want to switch over to the free, faster wifi? By the looks of it, Blackberry has fixed this grouse in Storm2 by adding wi-fi. Just this above line makes me wonder if all business is going Apple's way by not including basic things and hyping it up when they finally come on par subsequently.

The Blackberry packed in a lot of features - it did email great, had a great UI with its shiny linear icons, external upgradable memory, long lasting battery life, a camera with flash, and allowed me to re-use my old memory card with its drag-and-drop music. But there I was at O2 looking at both the Blackberry and the iPhone. With the sleek shiny iPhone morphing itself to the touch of my fingers, the Blackberry suddenly seemed very outdated (do I have to press buttons? BUTTONS??) Seriously though, what won me over to the iPhone was that the browsing experience in Blackberry reminded me of the Orbit, and the iPhone was miles ahead in its capability to render pages. And the looks, of course.

And so, about a year into S's iPhone, I got myself my own iPhone 3GS.

There are still a lot of things which I would like to have on the iPhone. Like longer battery life, for example. I barely manage a day, it stretches to a day and a half if I don't go to the gym. My Orbit gave me around two and a half days on a full charge, but then, truth be told, I did not use the Orbit as much as I use the iPhone. I'd like the ability to receive/read a business card (The gawky Sony Ericsson P990i did that!!). I would like the ability to forward or delete calendar items which have been pushed from my work email account. (Blackberry does this :( ). I would like the ability to save attachments into the phone. (This doesn't happen because Apple does not give you a Windows-ish file-system view). I would like the camera to zoom in and zoom out by the pinch gesture (Talk about wishful thinking). And so on!!

The iPhone User Review

2009-12-19T19:36:00.004+05:30

On July 11, 2008, I was one of the people making a beeline at the O2 shop to get S her new phone - the iPhone 3G. S was reluctant at first, she's had no use for phones which do a lot more than just allow you to talk, but she quickly came around. It is hard to ignore a thing like the iPhone, it's crafted so well that it is almost a work of art.

I loved the phone for its minimalistic design. I loved the seamlessness with which the phone curved together to meet the flat screen. There were no hard keys to press on the front face, nor many buttons at the sides (think reset, push to talk, voice activation etc). Still, for all its looks, the phone looked like a watered down version of my Xda Orbit on paper. At the time we bought the iPhone 3G, the Orbit

could cut/copy/paste (which means I need not type the whole message again).
could forward text and multimedia messages (which means I did not have to think of cut/copy/paste in the messaging space).
could send a business card.
had a device-independent mini USB Type B connector (which means I could charge my phone through any USB cable).
could recognise my handwriting.
had expandable micro-SD memory.
could suggest names if I punched the numbers on the dial.

All of which the iPhone could not do. In a way, S got the phone she wanted. And once I started playing with it, I started to appreciate the phone more.

A key thing which landed up in the ayes for iPhone was its ability to render multiple pages in Safari. Sure, I used to browse the net on my Orbit, but it was always a columnar display of text which kept on rearranging itself as it retrieved packets from the cloud. Even with the optimised settings for mobile screens, it would invariably come up with two-way scroll bars making navigation a less than satisfying experience. Moreover, there was only one window. With Safari, the iPhone scored twice; one, it had the ability to bring multiple screens, two, it renders the actual site itself and not a WAP site which used to be the case with Orbit.

The user interface design is another thing about the iPhone which I liked. Double tapping a block of text fits it to the screen. Just tilting the iPhone auto-orients its text, so you can type and read in widescreen. The best use of this can be seen in the Calculator, where it offers you a scientific calculator by just turning the device on its side. Tell me a simpler way of doing it. However, a common grouse with the auto-orientation is that when you're lying on your bed, and you turn to your side, only to find the screen has spun around by 90 degrees.

I went great lengths trying to configure my email on my Orbit. I tried Gmail, but it would not go beyond downloading the headers. I tried to configure my primary work email, but it failed for not having a security certificate. Curious to explore more, I tried to configure my secondary work email, and was successful. Only later did I realise that the secondary email had enforced a security option which now required me to put a PIN every time I opened the phone. After registering into a dozen forums, poring over hundreds of posts and downloading freeware to blast through the PIN-gate, I realised that the only sure cure was a hard-reset of the phone. Compared to this, configuring my work email and Gmail on the iPhone was a cakewalk. So every morning, even before getting off the bed, I would roll over to S's side of the bed to grab her phone and check my email (A habit I'm trying hard to break now).

The most important thing that worked in iPhone's favour, was Apps. It is not without reason that they say they've got an app for almost everything. In the first few weeks, I downloaded an app called Shazam. I did not quite know how it worked, but there I was in a friend's car and there was a great song on the radio. I turned on Shazam, it analysed the song for about a minute, and offered me the Youtube video of the song. And we sat there with a silly smile on the face. The very fact that you could search by audio input left us feeling dazed. This was something the Orbit could not do. I would like to talk about Mover, Bump, Evernote etc, but the apps merit a post themselves.

A few months ago, when Apple brought in much needed fixes in the 3.0 upgrade, it solved most of my problems with the iPhone. Although I could not send business cards and still have the charger handy, I am now able to copy URLs and note items into emails, which more or less serves my purpose. But, a major peeve was that the iPhone refused to work when I took it to India. Now, I understand it is locked to O2, who is the sole carrier for iPhone here in the UK, but I also thought it would support a SIM from Airtel, who is the sole carrier for iPhone in India. When I came back, I asked around and to my horror, I was told that O2 would NOT unlock the iPhone even after I fulfil my contract of 18 months. That, to me, was fleecing in broad daylight.

That inexplicable decision seems to have been reversed now, with Orange coming in as the second carrier for the iPhone, O2 are now unlocking the iPhone for free (for Pay Monthly customers, a small fee for Pay & Go customers). Here is the official O2 link.

That's a step in the right direction, especially as S's contract runs out this January.

The Fundamental Question

2009-12-10T05:19:00.005+05:30

A welcome break in the daily routine was when a colleague booked his flat in Pune. For a long time, he was looking out for a flat, and now when he did get one, it was a nice change to look at floor-plans, work out carpet area, saleable area etc. Getting a flat you like and within your budget is almost next to impossible in Pune nowadays. Time and again, friends keep giving me pointers about the going rate, a suitable builder, or even interest calculations, but I have never seriously considered buying a house.

I love the house we live in now. It's a rented one bedroom apartment, fully furnished, and very close to work. When I moved in, I moved in with only my suitcase. It was a little more than what I had come with to the UK, three years ago. In fact, if you really think about it, it was not very different from what I had brought to Pune, five years ago (not taking into account the size of the clothes, but you get the drift).

So, it makes me wonder when S sees something she REALLY likes and buys it 'for "our" house'. She is all too keen to get it up and running. She already has mental maps of how our house should be, she wants to paint her own walls and arrange her furniture. She's bought vases and candle-stands which have found their places in our would-be house. And although I see her point, I still remain unconvinced to take the plunge.

May be it is the traveller in me who has taken to heart that little notice on trains - 'Less Luggage, More Comfort'.

May be it is the fact that even if you snap a finger and magically have the most likeable apartment available for sale, I might not have the money to commit myself to it.

May be it is because it constrains me by limiting my options.

Consider this. We stay in Milton Keynes, but S's job search is not limited to MK alone. This is because we have the flexibility of moving anywhere within an hour's drive of MK. All we would have to do is to search a fully furnished house on rent, and drive down with our luggage in the back of the car.

On the other hand, the first thing I have to decide when I think to moving back to India is to decide "where". Should I move back to Pune, live in a rented flat, paying the equivalent of two months rent as brokerage every year? Should I move back to Bangalore and spend half of a working day travelling to work?

My argument is that buying a house is probably the single largest investment we make in our life. It tethers us to the place we choose, dramatically reprioritising career options, healthcare, schooling, what not! And we are better off doing it when we know the answer to the fundamental question - Where?

A man's worth

2009-10-28T03:45:00.005+05:30

Dave talks about their Analyst Day where the men who matter at NetApp speak to the men who matter at Wall Street.

If you look just at the first ten minutes of his talk, when Steve got the first dollar, he was increasing our market cap at the rate two billion dollars an hour. What power: mover of markets and creator of value. Steve Gomo, the seven hundred million dollar man!

And yet, when he got home from the meeting, late that night after a cross country flight, the first words Steve heard were: “Honey, I need you to take a look at this sink. The spray hose is leaking like crazy.” From star to plumber in six seconds.

Who was that again, who said "Give them wings to fly, but also roots to keep them on the ground".

In between flights...

2009-09-30T03:22:00.005+05:30

On my way from Pune back to Bangalore, as I waited for my turn to be frisked at the security check, I saw before me a bearded gentleman who was politely giving way and chatting to someone who did not know where the queue was. I could not help overhearing him say he was American, but ‘is desh mera desh hai’. I suppressed an urge to correct him ‘Yeh desh’. It is not often that a foreigner strikes up conversation with a local in Hindi, especially when two Indians themselves greet in English.

So off he went before me, and as we waited for our planes in the lounge, I happened to be within earshot of him. He was obviously catching up on some business and I could not help admiring how confidently he spoke. I continued to listen as discreetly as I could. The crux of the conversation was that he was called upon to share pearls of his wisdom at some event, but he was looking for some kind of remuneration. He was very matter-of-fact in advising the lady on the other side of the phone that his time cost money, and if he were to prepare for and spend some time with them, then they would have to arrange for an honorarium.

Now, the mental picture I get for this kind of situation is a pot-bellied gentleman, scratching his head and saying ‘kuch kharcha pani mil jata toh …’. For some reason, when he spoke the way he did, it did not sound very awkward. Blame it on whatever you want to, but there I was, wondering what this person did that enabled him to speak the way he did and get away with it. Shortly, he was speaking to someone else who made the mistake of asking him his email ID. This gentleman chastised him for asking an email ID on a phone call, but eventually gave it in terms of his first name, last name and then his company name. I was totally hooked and made a mental note to look him up, having heard his name when he introduced himself on the phone call. He was David Wittenberg.

Well, you never know who you run into. On a separate note, here’s (who I think was) Syed Kirmani napping in the Jet Lounge at Mumbai.

What's Your Raashee?

2009-09-27T03:51:00.003+05:30

A yuppie NRI in the US of A is called home to wed, in the hope that his dowry can be used to repay some bad debts. He chances upon the novel idea (pun unintended) of meeting one girl of each 'rashi' to see with whom he hits it off.

In making the movie a comedy, Ashutosh Gowariker makes heavy use of the stereotypes associated with each 'rashi'. In some characters, these get overdone to an extent that it is hardly believable. After a few 'rashis', it begins to feel as if the hero is looking for reasons not to marry, rather, to move on to the next 'rashi'.

~~Harman~~ Hurman hardly has any scope in the movie. He seems to be strutting around for all of the three and a half hours, asking the same questions to every 'rashi'. There are a couple of songs to showcase his dancing talents, but largely he comes across as a poor man's Hrithik Roshan. Priyanka Chopra on the other hand, can walk away from this movie with her head held high. She has put in effort to research each character and give it a distinct trait in speech or gait. Be it a pretending 'dehaat', or a polished corporate, or a carefree collegian, she does justice to each character. In the title track video, which has all her characters on-screen together, you can see that each character does the same steps differently - while the collegian prances around oblivious to others, the doctor sways a bit reservedly, the corporate moves are 'propah', and the dehaat character has two left feet, which she pulls up together right after the song stops. I thought that the attention to detail given in this particular piece of choreography was fantastic. Music is not extraordinary, save a couple of numbers which have catchy sequences.

My reco:

It's worth a watch to see Priyanka Chopra's histrionics, she's been on a marathon run to the dressing room since Fashion, but her apart, there's nothing really strong about the movie to pull you into the theater. The title track tells you all about the movie - visually and musically too! Wait for it if you can, it will hit the TV soon.

Nano: The New Auto?

2009-09-25T01:24:00.006+05:30

The Nano has hit the roads. And as you can see, it is very close to the Auto. :)

The similarity does not stop at size alone. The costs are comparable; in fact the Nano might even be cheaper to own than an auto-rickshaw. The cheapest Nano costs around Rs. 1,30,000 on road and the auto is not very distant from that figure. So, it might in fact be a better option that a prospective auto wala buys a Nano and runs the Nano as an auto.

On the one hand, you have more comfort; one can sit beside the driver rather than squeezing in "cattle-class" at the back. You have more safety, as there are no open sides or soft tops. More value, as you are protected from rain and paan (and may even have AC if the driver is enterprising enough). Roads where two/three-wheelers are prohibited are no longer a constraint.

On the other hand, they may not be as easy to flag down. Typical auto-navigation (read sudden U-turns) may not be possible because of the larger turning radius, which may be a good thing after all. Carriage of goods/luggage can also be a problem, as autos have a reputation of being able to carry a lot of things which cannot/may not be accommodated into a 'car'.

I do not know about CNG/LPG, but I do not see a significant difference in the fuel efficiency in the two when using normal fuel. The auto is known to give anywhere near 30 kmpl of petrol, while the Nano is said to return around 25 kmpl. A little math is required, perhaps, to work out a pricing model, where the Nano can be a little pricier than the auto, but still cheaper than a regular taxi. In fact, I think if LPG is considered, or for that matter, even diesel, the Nano can still be profitably used with the existing auto tariffs.

If it clicks, we may well see the Nano inherit the traditional black and yellow, hitherto worn proudly by the Auto and the Premier Padmini.

The Years Gone By

2009-09-23T02:16:00.004+05:30

Old photographs make for a fun filled post-lunch session. Recently when I was home, I went through our regular routine of cupboard re-organisation. A bagful of old albums are taken out, spread on the double bed, and the flashback begins, often not ending until dinner is served.

This time was no exception, I found a small paper sachet with a few additions to my Dad's collection of passport size photographs. Dad has this habit of retaining one photograph everytime he takes a fresh set of eight photographs. So, the cover had about 10-12 photos of Dad at various stages of life - resulting in this panorama.

It is amazing how time wears a face out, how you can look back year on year and see how faces change. Some lines are welcome, some take a little sheen off the personality. Hairlines recede, the skin puffs up, the different hairstyles symbolic of the era all leaving you with memories of each phase.

On Independence Day ...

2009-08-15T18:13:00.005+05:30

... Orkut does a fine job of giving an Indian motif on its home page. Not quite unexpected, considering that India has one of its largest user base.

PS: And on Diwali, this.

Passing the test

2009-08-12T03:13:00.002+05:30

A few weeks back I had the car tyres changed as the offside ones were on the legal limit and would have failed the MOT. The search for the tyres were almost like the search for the car itself (which was like having autotrader as the default page on your browser). Sometimes, options do drive you crazy.

I chose Pirelli P3000s and even though I 'had' to change only two of them, I had all the four changed. I'd rather drive on new tyres myself and sell the car than drive on part worn tyres and put new ones on it while selling.

The difference the tyres made to the overall driving experience was awesome. As soon as I spun the car around the roundabout, I was smiling wide. The braking is firmer and the handling is a lot easier. Small bumps are no longer noticeable and these tyres seem to be a tad quieter too.

The real fun came on the motorway. The car used to show signs of vibration near 80mph. I had suspected this to be due to wheel balancing/alignment. The offside tyres were badly worn, while the nearside tyres still had some life in them. After I had the Pirellis fitted, we drove to Birmingham the other day to visit the temple, and the car did not wobble an inch even when I hit 80mph. Then 90mph. Then 100mph for a short while. The drive was total paisa-vasool, I wish I had these tyres when we drove up to Lake District.

Last week, I also had the MOT done on the car. It was at the usual folks - JS Motoring. Last time I had the MOT done for the Golf, it had set me back sizably. As I watched them size the car up, I got the 'butterflies'. I watched as they went through the motions - doors, check; wipers, check; windshield, check; lights, one bulb blown (fine, not a big deal); tyres, check; seatbelts, check; and so on... It was like the time we ran through our question papers - a ten here, a five here, a ten there, a five more for the diagram, a ten from here and there in the last hour... forty, Yay PASS!!!

Apparently, the car is in good nick. It came out of the MOT clean, with only a few minor niggles like blown bulbs and brake settings to be taken care of. Remarkable, if you ask me, for its age and miles. Peace for 12 more months. :)

Roads for Development

2009-07-28T04:17:00.007+05:30

The photo-feature I did set me thinking about the roads we have in Milton Keynes. Milton Keynes is served by two major roadways - the M1 and the A5. These two arterial roads handle most of the traffic that comes into (and goes from) the city. In fact, this ease of accessibility allowed us to expand S's job search to places around MK, so that we could move home and I could commute by car.

It is quite common to see a lot of people who stay as far away as Birmingham commute to Milton Keynes on a daily basis. Of course there are traffic qualms, but then some amount of timing will ensure you are done in about an hour (Birmingham). An interesting fact about Milton Keynes was that it was deliberately built where it is now. It was planned so that the city is equidistant from the major hubs like London, Birmingham, Oxford, Cambridge and Leicester. Remarkably, one third of the UK's population is within one hour of Milton Keynes. This is the single biggest factor favouring Milton Keynes as England bids to host the FIFA World Cup in 2018.

It is amazing how a good network of roads can help you pitch for tourism, trade and business.

A Photo Feature on Roads

2009-07-26T15:53:00.017+05:30

Roads, sometimes they are clean,

Sometimes, dirty.

Sometimes, lonely.

Sometimes, crowded.

Sometimes, straight.

Sometimes, twisted.

Sometimes, narrow.

Sometimes, wide.

Sometimes, scenic...

... picturesque ...

... and sometimes outright breathtaking.

You can see some roads till the eye can see.

Some roads appear to be a dead-end.

Some are artificial.

And some do not even need to be on land :D

Das Auto

2009-07-22T04:49:00.010+05:30

I had not thought much about having a car until I rented one to go visit Goks in Ipswich. That triggered the dormant driver and I rented a few more times that year. And then when AA had to go back to India, he left me his car in our driveway. It was a 1992 1000 cc VW Polo. By today's standards, it was quite rudimentary, but it did the job. For four people who had to walk home in winter, it was a godsend. It heated the interior, played audio cassettes, and we had a car. Yay! So what if it had only three doors and we had to squeeze into the back seat?

I took out insurance on it and used it to commute to the office for as long as AA's parking permit was valid. Then we used it only to go to the movies because the winter was cold and the parking was free. Then one day, in great gusto, I filled a little more fuel than normal and it sprung a leak at the bottom. It beats all notions, but I still believe the leak was because I put in too much gas and some weak point in the tank could not bear the weight. It was still usable until it developed a problem with the horn wiring. The horn would sound every time I turned the car left or right. Miffed, I let the car stand in front of the house as I could not bring myself to scrap it.

About this time, KG was going back to India for good. And because he had to go in a hurry, he left me his car in our driveway. It was a 1997 1400 cc VW Golf. By today's standards, it was a mediocre car to have. It had five doors, looked good and had a sunroof :) So what if it had done about 125000 miles? I transferred my insurance on to it and started using it. It was a great car, we took it on the motorways once to Birmingham and it behaved itself very nicely, although I felt that the the engine was a bit slow to respond both while overtaking and picking up from zero. Within the city, it was great fun. The lack of response from the engine gave a factor of predictability to the car and it handled easy, almost like a toy. I moved home about this time, and took the Golf with me, while the Polo was still parked at my bachelor pad.

I liked the Golf in spite of the big dent on the front bumper (thanks to AD) and even contemplated keeping it but it cost me a bit too much in its annual MOT. Plus there was no service history on it before KG bought it, so I was a bit wary. I eventually sold the car to a guy who wanted a car to practice his driving on. I tried fixing the Polo. I managed to disconnect the horn under the hood so there would be nothing to sound even if the wiring fired but no adhesive or sealant would plug the hole in the tank. Finally, I asked a used-car dealer who took damaged cars to haul it away.

My current car is a 2000 Vauxhall Astra, 1600 cc. By today's standards, it is a decent car to have. It has remote locking, fog lights, and plays CDs. So what if it does not have a sunroof? The insurance I had taken out for the other cars gave me one claim-free year which got me a hefty discount when it was time for renewal. Since I have bought it, I have done more than 4000 miles on it. The car has been to places as near as Birmingham and London to those as far as Blackpool and The Lake District. A few months ago, I had the cambelt changed when the service was due, and now I am having to change the tyres, because they are very close to the legal limit, but them apart, the car has been in fantastic shape and performance for its age and miles.

If you notice, the cars are getting newer and more powerful. An SUV around 2.0 litres would be logical for the next change, would you say? :|

Friends at work

2009-07-13T03:17:00.002+05:30

One of the questions on the annual employee satisfaction survey we have (when we have it) is 'Do you have a best friend at work?'. Sure, I have friends at work, but my answer to that question has always been no. It is because if you're 'best friends' with a colleague, it blurs the line that demarcates personal and professional relationships.

Back home in India, it is easy to maintain different networks. You have your friends from school, from college, from the neighbourhood, from work etc. They are all distinct social circles of which you're a part of for a period of time. It is therefore possible to leave your colleagues at office and go to movies with your friends. But when you're in a foreign land, where your only social circle is made up of your colleagues who don the role of friends after hours, it makes it very hard to identify where to draw the line. And because everyone is part of the same circle, you're always bumping into each other everywhere - from the shopping mall to the movie hall to the pub crawl - bringing about an odd sense of familiarity between two people that eventually leads them to understand each other profoundly, or one taking the other for granted.

It is all good when everything is ok, but when people fall out, it fosters an unhealthy atmosphere. Suddenly people are no longer willing to help. Hands are thrown up in the air. Questions met with shrugs. Greetings unacknowledged. Dirty linen washed in public. And other people notice and they talk. They probe. They wonder what may have gone wrong. It lingers on somewhere in the mind, popping up every now and then, killing the urge to work and crushing productivity levels.

Recently two colleagues of mine (who were good friends) fell out of each other's favour. I recalled all the times spent together, and then all the venom spit out now, and wondered if it was all worth the result. I mused if this could have been prevented if they were merely colleagues, and strangely it made sense. They would have probably gone their own ways, like they have now, but without the acrimony. And it would have worked out well for everyone.

The incident came as a loud wake-up call to me. In each of the people we know professionally, there is a colleague who knows us well and a friend who works with us. It is important that we differentiate the two and know whom to work and whom to play with. It reminded me of a line which I often use - 'Good fences make good neighbours'. When the fences are strong, all is well, but when you let the fences break down, you give them the power to hurt you.

And once hurt, the relationship will never be the same again.

An Year of S

2009-07-01T02:57:00.004+05:30

This June, S completes a year of stay here. Looking back at it all, she's managed pretty well. Not that I am a hard person to live with, but she has been able to mix the excitement of being in a new place away from family, the hesitancy in making new friends, the boredom of being jobless all together and lap it up without letting it go into her head.

Last June, when we came in, she was all too excited about the house. She could not imagine it well enough when I described it to her (which was a good thing, since she did not have any preconceived notion of how it was) so I made a video of her as she entered the house and explored each room (of the 1BHK, if I may add). Now, it makes me smile as I look at her going around the house, looking wide-eyed at (now) common things like the carpeted floor, the bedside tables, etc and gushing "It's so cute".

The first few weeks were quiet, until she wore off the blues of being in a new place. She took her time to acquaint herself with the house, moving little bits of furniture around, making the place her own. She loved the fact that internet was available 24/7 and became so active on Orkut that she used it as an instant messenger. She bent the stick too much, and it broke. Within weeks, she deleted her Orkut account having got bored of it. Her next project was to go through my hard drive and arrange my music. Then photos, place-wise, date-wise. Then she ran out of things to do and there started the tantrums.

She missed her office, she missed friends of her own, she missed the independent life she once had in Bangalore. Suddenly, she began feeling claustrophobic, with no one to talk to, nowhere to go to, nothing to do. We've had our silliest fights during that phase,and sometimes I'm glad it's happened here. Anyone who saw us fight would have thought there is something seriously wrong in the marriage.

At this time, FRIENDS played a big role in taking things forward. S had this box set of FRIENDS - 'The One With All The Ten Seasons', which she always wanted to see with me. So one weekend we put in the first season and leaned back on the sofa. From then on, we devoured FRIENDS like Joey devours sandwiches. One DVD would never be enough and we would watch complete seasons at a stretch. It caught on to such an extent that S would keep an episode ready and we would watch it over lunch before I went back to office. Then again over tea, and dinner, and later.

FRIENDS gave way to 'Jo Jeeta Wohi Superstar' and we rooted for Vinit to win. Vinit imitating Himesh was an oft-played clip in Youtube. We caught up on all the episodes and actually became 'Live' in the sense that we watched Rahul Vaidya win in real time. The singing competition gave way to dancing competitions and streaming television at which point I lost interest.

Cooking provided S with another channel to expend her energies. She did find it hard the first time when I had invited about 20 people home, but once that was a grand success, she has not looked back. She now follows a cookery blog and conjures up dish after dish of simple, but exotic, delicacies.

The transition from a working woman to a homemaker has not been easy on her. Not landing a job has been her biggest grouse. With the market down, and employers preferring British people over immigrants, jobs have been hard to come by. Women and Work, which she recently joined provides her a chance to go out, meet other people and observe their lifestyle, but still a regular job eludes her.

Yet, she remains hopeful, and goes about her fairly predictable routine cheerfully, making me look at her in awe.

Dave Hitz on Engineering and Management

2009-05-17T14:44:00.004+05:30

Just about the time when NetApp ranked first on Fortune's Best Companies to Work For:2009, I came across this video of Dave Hitz. In a short talk at Princeton, Dave talks about his experience from founding the company to being VP of Engineering.

Dave talks about his becoming a manager despite being involved in a technical capacity for more than a decade, and the rationale behind Dan Warmenhoven in choosing him for the job. Giving (sometimes humorous) examples of various clients, he talks about technological simplicity, company values and culture.

What I liked most was a quote about engineers. "The optimist says the glass is half full. The pessimist says it is half empty. The engineer says that glass is twice as large as it needs to be to hold the fluid it contains."

Full video here.

The Cricketer Under Cover

2009-04-28T01:13:00.007+05:30

The Fake IPL Player has been evoking a lot of interest. I have been seeing the rate at which he attracts comments, and I must admit, I have seen such frenzied hits on one site only during online contests like Klueless.

Part of the reason for his popularity is that he is in uncharted territory. Given the importance attached to this game in the country, and the way lobbies work their way through the system, any little detail leaked to the public will go a long way, polarising many in its wake. The players know this, and therefore what happens in and around the dressing room, is largely kept to themselves, rarely coming out from under the honey-coated, politically correct blanket.

Take for example any development in the recent past - senior players not wanting to play under Dhoni, Dravid resigning as captain, the coaches who came and went, the Ganguly-Chappell emails - all exhibited signs of dissent and conflict of interests. Rather than being a cohesive unit, the team sought to be content to co-exist in an environment of mutual exclusivity.

In that respect, Fake IPL Player (if he is a player), is blowing a very loud whistle.

Part of the reason is also that he gives a tiny window into the other life of these demi-Gods. A life which spans five-star hotels, uptown nightclubs and flashy discotheques around the world. A life where an inebriated star making small talk with a local chick suddenly brings him down from his lofty pedestal to something not very different from what you and me see or do.

In their defence, tours abroad may be the only chance the stars get to let their guard down, especially coming from a land where all it takes is a single photograph for the media to proclaim a cricketer and a movie starlet as a couple. Still, you get the drift.

However, the biggest reason contributing to the player's popularity is that he is under cover. He is a mole. A double agent. No one knows who he is. He leaks their secrets. He gives words to the steely stares. The team management is determined to snuff him out. The owner is having sleepless nights (unless of course he has conjured this up, in which case we may have to doff our hats, all this muck and mudslinging notwithstanding). There have been attempts to ban internet, laptops etc in the hotels, but this guy manages to stay a step ahead, blogging via SMS etc.

Like the backbencher kid who cracks jokes while his headmaster berates him, he takes on the mighty cricket establishment and pokes fun at it. He mocks the system that tries to unsuccessfully stifle him.

It is this in-your-face irreverence that the masses are cheering.

Iranian Deserts

2009-04-13T05:03:00.010+05:30

A few days ago, local newspapers reported that the residents of Broughton village here blocked the entry of a Google Street View car and prevented putting their village on air as they thought it intruded upon their privacy.

My views on the Street View feature are rather desultory. Useful? Perhaps. Intrusive? Maybe; but one thing is for sure. I would never have found out where these stunning locales were from, if it were not for Google Maps.

I took these photographs from the plane when we flew back here last June. The flight attendant told us we were somewhere over Iran, giving us something to start with when we came back home.

After unsuccessfully locating various other lakes, I did find out the place. It is the Orumiyeh lake in Iran. See Google Map embedding below. The faint line joining the green to the brown is the unfinished bridge. Zoom in to see more.

View Larger Map
Some googling also revealed that the unfinished bridge has considerable history behind it. Here is a photograph from one side of the bridge.

Take a look at the deserts and the terrain. You can sense the dusty, earthy feel to it, a quality which implores the traveller in you to leave everything behind and experience the weary, rough nomadic life. I hope I get to walk on those sands someday.

Here I go again

2009-04-04T06:38:00.002+05:30

Its been a long time coming, but here I am. Marriage didn't kill the blogger in me, after all! And it feels good to be back!

More later, but soon.

Doing It Yourself

2008-05-06T00:48:00.018+05:30

My first brush with carpentry was to create a dove-tail joint out of two half-a-foot blocks of wood. In the carpentry shop in the mechanical department, I marked and I sawed, I chafed and I chiselled until I managed to fit the two blocks into a T, where one block held the other against movement in its length axis.

The second was to build a wardrobe out of this. :O

First, I fit the middle plank to the bottom and the main shelf-plank to make the skeleton of the wardrobe.

Then, the top panel (to the bottom of the pic) was joined and the side panels were clamped in.

The rear plys were then nailed in.

And then the whole thing was heaved and put against the wall. Once up, the doors were hinged in.

There, a decent wardrobe, with lots of hanging space, shelves on one side, and drawers and racks on the other.

I bought this thing from a colleague who was leaving UK for good. Thankfully, he dismantled only the planks, and did not go all the way to the pegs. I'm glad I waited till the long weekend to get this thing up, because the next morning, I woke up with a pain in the lower back (which subsided after a session in the gym). Thankfully, few friends came in after the rear plys were nailed in, and helped me heave the wardrobe against the wall, and fit the doors in.

It was fun, no doubt, but you need to get your basics right. We fit and re-fit a door two times, but it was still not straight. It was finally brought in line by tweaking the position of the hinges. The right side doors are still a bit askew, but then... chalta hai.

About S and Love

2008-04-29T04:38:00.003+05:30

Sometime back, I moved home. I moved out of the bachelor pad, and into a single BHK close to the office. The new place is a quiet little cosy place, which is tastefully decorated by the owner. I haven't had to bring much into it. It looks and feels so balanced in its minimalistic furniture that I don't want to bring anything and make the place cluttered. Recently, I bought a huge four door wardrobe from one of my colleagues who was returning to India for good. Him and me dismantled and brought it in our cars. I am yet to re-fit it again. The planks are just lying there, waiting to be fixed, but every other weekend, some thing or the other takes precedence.

Every night, after I return from office and fix myself some dinner, there is a lull before I actually go to sleep. If I turn the music down on the laptop, and keep the tall lamp in the corner glowing, it creates an introspective mood. It gives me time to think about S, about the fact that in less than a month, people will start referring to us as a single entity. It is not long before S joins me here and we start our own life. Sometimes, while the thought wanders aimlessly like this, the low music and the muted lighting creates a magical atmosphere and makes me miss her.

I think about how this will be a good time to start wooing her all over again. We have been together for almost eight years now. In these four years of being together and as many years of maintaining a long-distance relationship, some things have changed. For better, I would like to think. And then there are things that have not changed. She still laughs at my PJs. The good ones, that is. I hope it never changes. I think about how I used to wait my turn at telephone booths, and there used to be so much to talk about. I think about how I can call anytime I want now, and yet sometimes, there is nothing to talk about. But from then to now, the longing to hear my voice is still the same. I hope that never changes. I think about how her eyes sparkled on seeing me arrive at the bus-stand every morning. I recall the same sparkle when I was with her in January. I hope that never changes.

And then there are things which are revelations. I think about how, working in Bangalore, staying in PG's, she has become this independent woman I never knew. I think about how she gushes about her awards, and her shifts and deadlines and team-building and stuff, and I wonder, was this the same girl who did not write aptitude tests in college, because she was scared she would end up with the lowest scores. This in spite of the fact that the whole class copied her notes. I think about how, living in Bangalore, she has developed a 'taste'. I think about how she takes me all over Bangalore. I look with great interest as she darts back and forth through MG Road, holding my hand and leading me as though I were a child. In times like these, it is as if I am outside myself, leaning against a pole and watching her lead me as she weaves our way through traffic. I think about this and I smile. It must be the movies I watch. :D I think about how my excitement on seeing Shahrukh Khan and shaking hands with Amitabh Bachchan amused her. I think about how she chides me, for happily staying here, while she (poor soul!) is in India.

I think about how we will now be a single entity. How, should we attend any function alone, we will be asked why the other did not come. How, if we go out together, it will be acceptable. I will miss the risk and the guilt of making up reasons to go out and meet her. Somehow, the reality of the union is unreal. I want us to go back four years and live them together. I want to call her from office, and arrange to meet her at a multiplex, watch a movie, drop her and then go home. I want us to just hang out, see a sale, shop together. I want to cancel a day out with the boys to be with her. I want her to come over to my place on lazy Sunday afternoons, and to make us some tea, and go out to the terrace and talk about having to iron clothes for office the next day. I want to wait for her at the railway station on Friday evenings, so we could travel to Mysore together. Or by bike sometimes. I want to get up late on a weekend and realise I had to meet her at CCD, and make it double quick. I want my four years back.

And yet, I dream of us sitting together on the window sill on a rainy night, drinking hot tea, listening to the constant pattering of the raindrops on the glass. I dream of us washing the utensils and wiping them dry before going to bed. I dream of us in bed on warm balmy afternoons, too lazy to get up, talking about nothing in general. I dream of us sitting down and working out finances and homestead. I wonder if these will make up for the four years.

I have good colleagues at my job, I have more friends than I deserve, I am given more love in the family than anyone else, but I would still want those four years. You see, when it comes to love, I am greedy. I can never get enough. :P

That Queer Shake

2008-02-28T04:33:00.006+05:30

12:10 - I am sleeplessly lazing, stretched out across the width of the bed, my back against the wall, cushioned by a rumpled duvet and a pillow, and my feet on a wheeled chair. I'm aimlessly browsing stuff, here and there, listening to Gaalipata songs on Kannada Audio, and randomly scrapping friends on Orkut.

12:20 - Too many tabs opened on a window, I guess, and Explorer has had enough. Without warning, it comes up with an error saying 'Explorer has encountered a serious problem and will close'. And poof, it closes all the sites at once. Though the loss is nothing so important or interesting to be furious at, I find myself cursing the laptop. There is a saying in Kannada which roughly translates to "going and sitting on an ant-hill, when there's nothing better to do". If only it had occurred to me, when I was showing off at Frankfurt airport having connected to public wi-fi without an anti-virus, my laptop would probably not have been in this state. To cut another story short, I had to take it to a HP authorised dealer to have it back in working condition without loss of any data.

12.25 - I shut my laptop down and place it on the chair (the one with the wheels). I visit the bathroom, remove my lenses and come back with my glasses on. With a cursory glance, I take in the general quadrangle of the room. Wash Clothes. Iron Trousers. Make space on the table for the laptop. Unpack completely. (I came back ONLY three weeks ago you see :P). Towel for tomorrow? Check. Ironed shirt? Check. Set alarm on the phone? Check. Removed from silent mode? Check.

12.35 - I switch off the light and jump into the bed. My eyes adjust to a pale orange light streaming in from the sodium vapour lamp outside. I take off my specs and place them above the laptop on the chair (the one with wheels). I look through the skylight into the darkness. It's an odd test I take sometimes - looking into the darkness with my heavily myopic eyes to see how much dark-distance I perceive. Sometimes it gets really interesting. Especially when you look at a luminous object, and then at something else, you see a superimposition of the luminous object over the real object in your line of vision. It is almost as if you can touch the vision with your hand, only it disappears when you outstretch your hand. It may lack an explanation, or may be it is too trivial to deserve one, but sometimes I do it for kicks. In Mysore, I could climb up the stairs and go to my room in pitch-dark "power cut" darkness, and return with Chelpark Black ink for my pen. Blindfolded. You tell me how.

12.40 - I close my eyes and try to sleep. I'm thinking about a dream which I had last week, and remembered to write about. What the dream was, I don't know now. But what I know is that I had remembered the dream then and wanted to get up and make notes lest I forgot about it. Why I didn't get up, nobody knows.

12.55 - I am shaking. It is not the usual shudder which I involuntarily have when there is a sudden cramp or a bad dream. Few seconds later, I realise it's not only me. The dim reflection of the white of the cupboard behind my bed is shaking too. The chair (the one with the wheels) is moving farther and farther away. A few seconds later, everything is still.
Puzzled, I go downstairs to talk to my flat mates who are usually awake till late. Unusually today, they are asleep, and do not respond when called. I walk back to my room and look around. I remember I shook unnaturally. I stretch my legs to feel any tell-tale pain which may have given a cramp. None. I look around, but there are no clues.

Only the chair (the one with wheels), having rolled to the center of the room, stands witness to my ~~first~~ second experience of an earthquake.

News:
Yesterday just before 0100 GMT, an earthquake measuring 5.2 on the Richter Scale, hit the UK. With its epicentre in Lincolnshire, it was the biggest earthquake in the UK in 25 years.

Asides:
1. I now know how people must have felt in Latur. What I experienced for 10 seconds was muffled by 100 miles of solid rock.
2. That Queer Shake is an anagram of The Earth Quakes.

Flashback in the New Year

2008-01-06T03:40:00.001+05:30

As New Year says 'Hello', I am glumly reminded of the fact that it has been an year since I have been out of the country. Standing at the London Eye, watching the fireworks last year, I was not very sure that the year ahead would be without breaks at all. I had a faint hope I could go home sometime in between. Alas, it was not to be. But this New Year brings cheer with it, because, by Makara Sankranti, I will be back home for vacation.

The year that passed was a year of new acquisitions. Late as it was, but I did get my hands on the XDA Orbit. Quite common now, but at the same time last year, it was quite a sensation, and a fine sense of ownership would wash over me each time anyone asked to see it. This continued for a period of about six months, from when it started to become common. There was a similar kind of joy with the bluetooth stereo headsets, the high capacity hard-disks and the electronic gadgetry, though the joy this time was shortlived owing to their plummeting prices.

The year that passed was a year at the movies. I have never seen as many movies in one calendar year ever. If there is anything such as a good bargain, then it is the Cineworld Unlimited card. For 11 pounds per month (now 12), getting any number of movies, any number of times, any time of the day and at any theater in the UK is a superlative deal. Especially if the normal cost of a movie ticket is 7 pounds (now 8) for an adult. From watching Nehle Pe Dehla almost alone to seeing people watch Sivaji standing, I have done it all. I have been able to watch much-hyped big banner movies WEEKS before my friends saw it in India. I have seen them a lot cheaper too, if you think about it. If you wanted to watch Chak De India, Aaja Nachle and Om Shanti Om on the first day (as I did), you would probably pay more than what a non-member would pay here (approx. Rs.2000). The card is the first thing I recommend to any colleague who comes from India. So much so, that now, we are a sizeable number and at one point of time, we used to calculate the monthly cost-per-film and try to reduce the ratio the next month by watching more movies. Yeah, we are like this only.

The year that passed was a year of luck. How else would you define having seen from a distance of ten feet, the two most bankable stars of Bollywood - Amitabh Bachchan and Shahrukh Khan. It has been my fortune to be roomies with an FTII alumnus, who has immense hunger for films and their making. He is a member of the British Film Institute and the National Theatre. It directly results in getting passes/tickets to premieres (Chak De India premiere at London), award functions (IIFA at Yorkshire) and film festivals (London Film Festival).

The year that passed was a year of appreciating good food. When you get up early on a weekend (#1 on my 'Will-not-do' list) and travel 75 miles (#2 on my 'Will-not-do' list), just to get some breakfast, you know you miss India very very much. Over the year, I have travelled to London innumerable times, just to eat Idli/Dosa. Nothing else. I have noticed that the curry you make at home is better than the bland stuff which comes when you order from an "Indian" restaurant. I have learnt that my room-mates cook so well, that if I can rake up some money, I can persuade them to shift from IT to catering. I look back with extreme satisfaction that some of the best food I have eaten over the last 12 months was cooked by my own roomies. Back home, my grandmother, my mother and my three aunts all make coffee the same way, yet there is a distinctive taste of each coffee, and I could make out who made which coffee. Now, I have forgotten how filter coffee tastes. Here coffee is either a black hot espresso or a sugarless, milky latte. Being away makes you realise the value of things taken for granted.

The year that passed was a year of travelling. Brussels, Bruges, Ghent in Belgium. Rotterdam, Amsterdam and the famous Keukenhof in the Netherlands. Cardiff, Barry Islands, Swansea and the beaches of Port Eynon in Wales. Glasgow, Fort William, Fort Augustus, Isle of Skye and the Loch Ness in scenic Scotland. And in England - London, the temples at Birmingham and Neasden, Sheffield, Ipswich, the cathedral of Norwich, the beaches at Great Yarmouth and the Isle of Wight, the Roman Baths at Bath and Bristol. It's an utter pity, a shame in fact that I haven't found time to write about them yet. Each of them was an experience in itself and deserves mention.

The year that passed was a year of fun. Of driving on the motorways at 100 miles per hour - as fast as a Shoaib Akhtar delivery. Of experiencing the first snowfall. Of pelting each other with snowballs and making snowmen in the parking lots. Of seeing black ice on the roads. Of taking steam baths in the gym. Of converting a flatland in the park into a cricket patch (not a pitch). Of seeing only five hours of daylight. And then sixteen hours. Of waking up to dull grey mornings and watching out of the window, with a cup of hot tea in one hand and a phone back home in the other. And of the joy of having taken a seven-year young relationship towards its logical milestone.

2008 promises to be fun. Here I come!

Kaboom

2007-12-28T05:18:00.000+05:30

And there goes another message to the political establishment, one more famous name added into the kitty of the perpetrators of terrorism. A 54 year old leader of a troubled state reduced to a mere number in their also-killed list.

I'm not a political guy, heck, I don't even understand the games played in the office, much less a country. Yet, when I see a person of the stature of Nawaz Sharif, emotional and choking on the television, saying it is the darkest day of his country, I know it is not drama. I see Benazir on the television, telling Barkha Dutt that she is not afraid of going back to her country, that she considers that no one can be killed until their time is up. I see Benazir emotional when she is back from exile into her homeland, jubiliant and confidently talking about what she wants to do next. I look at the family, where the father and his three children are tragically done to death and wonder what reason will possibly justify these murders.

Cut out all the fors and the againsts, leave aside all her political aspirations, and charges of corruption and what have you. Till today, here was your woman - living in exile, wanting to do something for her country, having lost her family to a series of unnatural deaths, and probably putting her own life on the anvil everytime four people gathered around her - and still saying it does not worry her as she enters her own country in dangerous times. Such guts!

And now, all that is left of those guts are two words making a cold headline. Benazir Assassinated.

The Spotlight Series

2007-12-26T21:22:00.000+05:30

Having been associated with it for some time now, I take pride in bringing Blogbharti's latest offering - the Spotlight Series - where guest writers muse on issues that are relevant today.

Go have a look, will you?

Merry Christmas

2007-12-26T20:29:00.000+05:30

Hmm... a long and an eventful break. Since the last post I have -

enjoyed Diwali,
been busy with work,
seen the weather change till it almost snowed, but didn't,
been down with a bout of cold, sore throat and general feverishness,
been driving all over South Wales.

There's a lot to update, so keep watching. :D

Saawariya

2007-11-17T17:20:00.001+05:30

Saawariya is a nice little love story, which looks very artificial at first sight, due to the extravagant sets created, and the picturisation of the story. But underneath the superficiality of the sets and the seeming anachronism, it is indeed a beautiful story of love and loss.

It is quite simple in its story, of a boy meeting a girl, falling in love at first sight, and attempting to woo her, not realising that she has someone else in her heart. And even after the realization, it sticks to reality in the sense that he does things which would be true of any person smitten. Have we not walked our girlfriends home? Have we not held their hand and guided them over puddles when we go enjoy the rain in Lonavala? Do we not harbour dreams of dancing for our sweetheart and proclaiming our love with the entire restaurant looking on? Do we not rejoice when she blushes a deep red when you are kneeling and the all the people in the room are rooting for her to say YES? Is it not natural that in the excitement of all this, a guy falters and falls flat on his face. What then is so artificial about this film that everyone is sinking their daggers in its chest and carving a Christmas turkey out of it? I risk fingers being pointed at me for bringing in comparisons, but at least, it is more believable than running on to the streets of New York and breaking into a dance where everyone else including the Yankees know all the steps.

This film compels you to go into the protagonist’s character to experience the full force of it. Once you are in the character, it matters little that the rocks are artificial, that the river which flows here is essentially the same water which has been channelled in from the fountain at the town square, and even that when the heroine comes sailing at night, there is no one paddling the boat. Yes, I noticed these “lapses of direction” as you would call them, but they were irrelevant in the context of love. Is it not true that when you’re in love, the most insane thing looks absolutely perfect. I am glad that SLB chose to build a set so artificial that love is the only thing that seems to be real. It is everywhere, in Raj, in Sakina, in Gulab, in Lillipop. You can give me a hundred things which were wrong in the movie, but I will give you just three scenes.

Masha Allah – Until the first occurrence of these words, the song does not picturise Sakina’s face in full, and when it emerges out into the moonlight, Raj looks at its beauty, resplendent and glowing in the milky moonlight, and exclaims, “Masha Allah”. His eyes are so wide, that he wants to soak up the ethereal beauty in front of him all at once. If this was a qawwali, this is when you would say “Wah Wah”. All through, the lyrics carry you forward through the thoughts going through his mind, and as you bask in his thoughts, you gasp, “Masha Allah”. Further down, we see them sailing underneath a bridge and she signals to him that the bridge is low, so they bend towards each other. And for the brief amount of time they pass the bridge, they have their heads down to each other, Raj metaphorically surrendering himself to her beauty. Silence, breaths held to an extent you can hear the heartbeats, the unequivocal ambiguity of what to say when one sits up again upright, and then “Masha Allah”. If this isn’t finesse, what is?

The scene where Raj and Sakina are standing on a raised platform on the town square, and he takes her in his arms and swivels her around so that her feet are off the platform and hanging mid-air away from the edge where he is standing. She clings on to him for support, knowing that the ground under her feet is far below, and he balances her wrapping his arms around her, almost saying, “I assure you I will not let go of you, not now, not once in life”. If this isn’t literally sweeping a lady off her feet, what is?

The scene where Sakina folds her hands in a namaste to ask forgiveness, and just as Raj wraps his palms around her hands, she retracts them, and says “Humne tumhe maaf kar diya”, revealing that now, Raj is in a position asking forgiveness. There are a lot of things like this, which make you feel lighter, which will take you back in time to remind you of things which you may have done or thought of doing. The guy, in awe of the girl, thinks she is leading him on, and reciprocates his feelings. The girl, obviously flattered by the interest shown, tries to humour him. If this does not bring out the coy one-upmanship igniting the sparks of a mutual attraction, what does?

What's good in it?
Sets are extravagantly created, in an obvious attempt to re-create St.Petersburg in winter. Music is superlative. One could not ask for more from a debut performance. Directing music for the first time, after having given background score of Black and Devdas, Monty Sharma gives an above-par performance with music with enough pain in it to make you cry. The lyrics complement the feelings of the actors and are like little ferries which take you from one part of the story to another, and by the time you are there, you know what the actors went through. I would, however, have liked a bit more Urdu in the parts where Sakina’s feelings are depicted. Due to their use in bringing the thoughts out, one feels that the songs are a bit over-used, and having a similar base, all the songs (except one) seem similar, as if they are stemming out of the title song Saawariya.

Ranbir and Sonam would still have to prove themselves in commercial films under big banners, because this film does not give them much space to deviate from the adaptation and bring in their full repertoire into use. However, Ranbir's dancing skills and toned body have been exhibited for those film makers who would want to bank on him. Zohra Sehgal impresses in her small role, and Salman Khan and Rani Mukherjee are wasted. Any one would do in their place, and it seems that they have been added to give the star value to the film.

My reco - If by going to a film, your expectation is to while away the monotony of five days in office, then this film is not for you. This is something that has to be watched for the effort that has been put in to bring out love as the only real thing, all else artificial. As a fantasy, it is certainly more believable than Paheli, which has a ghost romancing a girl and impersonating her husband. (I delayed watching Paheli after hearing this very line “ghost romancing a girl”, but when I watched it, I liked it).

A beautifully made film, you will appreciate it as soon as you identify yourself with the character in even one scene, and that identification will happen if only you have ever loved someone to the point where all else seems futile and meaningless.

Of Cabbies and Celebration

2007-11-12T13:15:00.000+05:30

Calling a cab comes easily to people who don’t have a car here. Bringing down groceries every week from Sainsbury’s, going home from office at unearthly hours, or just if you are not in the mood to walk to office – the simplest thing to do is to call a cab. I think, if you go counting, in all of my eleven months here, “Can I have a cab from … ” would come third after “Sorry” and “Thanks” in the list of most-used phrases. In fact, the phone numbers of the cab companies were one of the first ones to go into my phonebook. Most of the cabbies are from the sub-continent – Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis. Srilankans are conspicuous by their absence – In all these days, I have run into only one Srilankan cabbie named Kobalakrishnan. There are also a large number of African youth, and a small cross-section of local people among the cab-driving crowd.

We usually have a small chat in the seven-odd minutes it takes to drop me home. They usually start with the very British “You alright?”. I think it will slowly overcome the quintessential London cabbie opening gambit, “Where to, guv?”. Although there are 3-4 cab companies operating around here, we desi crowd usually call only one. Legend has it that the owner of this company is a man of the sub-continent who started out as a cabbie and set up shop when
Milton Keynes was in its toddler years. Considering that MK is a very young city (only 40 years old) and very different from other English cities, the cabbie grew with the city and became prosperous. The more practical and buyable reason is that in our experience of calling cabs in our Indian accented English, this company dispatches cars faster than other companies. Given the number of times we call the cabs, we get some really chatty guys who break the ice as soon as we sit down.

Some of them play with us at the local cricket club. Some of them say they have houses for rent. Some of them advertise their shop, offering discounts if we pick up beer by the crate and such like. Some of them pour out their woes on us. Apparently, software is eating away into their jobs as well.

Aapke yahan naya masheen laga hai kya? Maine phone kiya tha to automated response aaya.
Haan? Kya aaya?
Humse poocha yahan se pickup karna hai to 1 dabao, ya operator se baat karne ke liye 2 dabao. Humne 1 dabaya to poocha abhi chahiye to 1 dabao. Humne phir 1 dabaya to aapka cab bhej diya.
Achcha.
Achcha system hai, cab book karne mein pehle jitna time nahi lagta hai abhi.
Bhai, unhone 35000 hazaar ka woh masheen lagaya hai, aur who kam se kam chaar aadmiyon ka kaam karega.
35000?
Kam hai. Humare 10-12 operator baithe hain wahan. Har operator ko per week 250-300 dena padta hai. Agar ye chaar aadmi ka bhi kaam karta hai, to ye paisa to unko (250 x 4 operators x 4 weeks) 9 months mein aa jayega. Uske baad ka sab to munafa hai.

What is this new machine which you have installed? I called and got an automated response.
Yeah? What was the response?
It asked me to press 1 if you want to be picked up from (my address). I pressed 1 and it asked me to press 1 if I needed the cab immediately. I pressed 1 and you came along.
I see.
It is a good system, booking a cab is faster than before now.
Brother, they have installed a machine for 35000 pounds, it will do the job of atleast 4 people.
35000?
It is less. We have 10-12 operators, every operator is paid 250-300 (£). Even if the machine does the work of four people, this money is recovered in 9 months (250£ x 4 operators x 4 weeks). After that, it is profit.

And then, during the Twenty-20 World Cup, in the days before the final, cab-rides would generally be silent. That was because India was all set to face Pakistan, and a sizeable number of our drivers have Pakistani roots. It becomes very uncomfortable to remain neutral when speaking about obvious strengths and weaknesses of each team. More so, when they threw statistics – in the last three games of their dream run into the finals, India successively
batted first and defended its total, while Pakistan always bowled first and chased down the total. It was like an invisible wall.

Then on the day of the final, we encountered a motley crowd from the bank across – a big mix of first and second generation settlers and visiting workers like us. We were sitting in Wetherspoons, a popular watering hole, which offers food and drinks all day, and beams live telecast of major sporting events on four screens. Every boundary or wicket was cheered enthusiastically by respective crowds. The bartenders raised an eyebrow at the hooting and the
loud thumping of tables when Joginder was hit for a six in the last over. One ball later, they could not do anything about the dancing on the chairs, the shrill whistles screeching across the already high decibel level of the howling public and the wide-eyed locals watching the Indian crowd do a street-dance in their office wear. For one whole week, the hollow silence of the cab-rides echoed the ruckus of those thirty minutes. Again, the invisible wall, the curt replies and the general discomfort. Then everyone grew out of it for the better.

Last week, I took a cab home as it was chilly, and I was too bored to walk home in the cold, moist outdoors. My cabbie was a middle-aged guy from the subcontinent, white-haired, and spoke with an acquired but broken British accent. I was half expecting him to start a conversation on the current India-Pak series when he opened up asking “Haanji, kahan choD doon aapko?” (“Yes, where can I drop you off?”)

I told him, and he quickly changed back to English.
“Whereabouts are you from?”
“India.”
“Where in India?”
“Mysore.”
“Oh. Mysore”, he repeated, then, “Where from in Mysore?”
People who ask me where I’m from usually stop when I say Mysore. They say it’s a beautiful place or they associate it as the Poona of Bangalore, but few ask where I am from within Mysore. Had this guy been there?

“I’m from Mysore proper. Do you want to know which part of Mysore I come from?”
We stop at a traffic light. He looks at me and says, “Mysore is like a state in India, right?” Lights turn green. As he drives ahead, I explain, “No, the princely state of Mysore became Karnataka long ago, and Mysore is a city now.” He keeps looking across the road into a parking lot as we drive. He glances at me and says, “I’m just looking for my wife – she works here – see if you can spot a yellow Mini”.

We search for a yellow Mini, but there is none. Another traffic light. He looks at me and says, “So, which part of Mysore are you from? Karnataka?”. “No”, I reply, “I’m from Mysore, and Mysore is a part of Karnataka.”

“Yeah, yeah. And what do you speak there?”
“Kannada.”
“Canada”, he says, and smiles.

"How long are you here for?"
"Almost an year now. I might return soon", I reply.
"Given a chance", he says, "would you like to stay here permanently?"
I smile and look around the darkness at half past five. "No, a year or two is fine, but I don't think I'd like to stay back here. I would go home."
"But, why? You know, it's all dirty there, so much pollution, so much corruption. The ministers, the clerks, they all ask money to do small things."
"Yeah, but all said and done, India is home."
"Why? You have work here, you are getting money."
"Yeah, I guess it comes down to personal choice then."

We were near my house, and I told him to pull over. He reverse-parked into my driveway, and pulled out a pamphlet. "See this", he said. It was a Barclays Bank ad offering an account in India. Then he showed me a receipt printed out from a website. It showed a transaction for a sum of around 80000 USD.

"I bought a detached house in Sarjapur Road, Bangalore. Is the price about right?" he asked. I did a classic double-take. Here was a guy, driving taxis around, settled here in the UK, and he had bought a house worth 32 lakhs in Bangalore.

"Family, that's why we all go back, innit?", he continued, "I'm a Punjabi. My brother, he lives in Bangalore in a four storeyed house - he has the first floor, his mother is in the second, and his nephew in the third floor. And someone else on the fourth. I have this house now, and I will be going in January. I will eat masala dosa. Masala dosa, you don't get that here ... "

A voice inside me said, "muh to band karo, uncle", and as I drew my jaw up, he was finishing "... make money, come here; want bhelpuri, go there."

I paid him his three pounds, and as I was getting out, he offered his hand, "What's your name, I'll see you again."
"Vikas", I said, "what's yours?"
"My name means 'Light'", he declared.
"Deep?"
Yeah, yeah, he prodded.
"Deep...er...Deepak?"
"Yes", he grinned indulgently.
"Cheers, Deepak. Happy Diwali."
"Hey, is it Diwali already?"
"Yes, today is Dhan Teras. Two days later its Diwali and then Bhai Dooj."
"Oh", he said, and then, "I will show my ignorance here, but when is Rakhi?"
"Rakhi is already over, my friend."
"Not my fault, I don't have any sister, you see. See you around", he said, and drove away.

I watched him until he turned at the end of the road. Here was an Indian, driving a taxi, and come January, he would be in his own house in Bangalore, munching away on masala dosa. I took a long look at myself, and then scurried inside.

And on that note, have a Happy Diwali.

And one more

2007-11-01T02:16:00.000+05:30

You know I'm maha impressed with the Swedes, their innovation and the Slow Down Culture.

Here's one more. My good friend Beryle forwards me this. And she's asked me to thank her. (Thanks, Beryle). Before you ask, this is an ad in a Swedish magazine for some job openings in ABB, the automation giant.

It says, "Is your future in Beijing(Chinese script), Västerås(Swedish) or BengaLuru (KannaDa)?"

While we can all take pride in the fact that 'phoren log' did actually make the effort of putting in the name of the city in the language of the land, I cannot help but wonder - what if the idea was put forth by a kannaDiga, working away in an outsourced office in BengaLuru. :D

Unbelievable

2007-10-22T04:50:00.000+05:30

Amazing. Ballistic. Colossal. Dashing. Extraordinary. Fantastic. Gosh! Heavenly. Iconic. I can go on and on and on till I reach Z two times over, but Amitabh Bachchan will still have much more in his repertoire which will go unmentioned.

You might wonder why I am bursting with emotions like a teenager on seeing a rock star!! Well, ten hours after shaking hands with the Big B, I am still to shake the electric feeling off myself. Allow my restless feet to break into a jig once again, allow my fist to pump the air once again, it is but once in a lifetime that a commoner gets to see the Big B, let alone touch him.

YES! YES! YES! *leaping into the air*

Thanks to my friend P, who is a BFI member, (and keeps springing up treats like the Chak De India Premiere and the IIFA Award function in Yorkshire) I was at the Odeon West End, London, today to watch The Last Lear. Odeon West End is one of the venues of the ongoing London Film Festival (for which P has taken two weeks off work and is watching world cinema while volunteering as a BFI member) and The Last Lear and Darjeeling Limited are two of the Indian films being showcased in this extravaganza.

But, coming back to Bachchan again, Wow!! The man has an even more commanding persona in flesh and blood than on camera. I first saw him through the glass of the entrance, giving interviews to TV channels. Later as I settled in my "second-row from the screen" seat, a mike on the stage, right in front of me, gave me a subtle hint. I realised that if AB were to speak at the mike, boss, I would have the best seat in the whole auditorium. Lo and behold, AB appeared from behind and proceeded to walk on stage to the mike.

After the initial few photographs, I just held the digicam aside to record his video, while I just gaped open-mouthed at the legend - just looking at him, wondering if this was for real, if the baritone ringing through the speakers was THE real thing. At 64, AB carries himself quite remarkably. He does not droop from the weight of the films that ride on his shoulders, his voice does not falter for one moment, and his eyes, though dim in their shimmer, have not lost any of the intensity.

And as he wound up his opening speech, I shut my recording, and before he could leave the stage, leaned forward and asked to shake his hand. Call me crazy, or brand me a typical desi - all your suited-booted decorum can go take a walk. This was the closest I got to the man in all my four and score years, and NO WAY was I going to throw away a chance of getting my hands on him. AB was taken by surprise, I guess, but he did oblige me, and boy, does he have a firm grip!!!

I might have sat in the front row, but I watched the movie from Cloud Nine!!!

Update: I have uploaded AB's speech on Youtube, here, in five parts. Watch out for the third part of the video where I pan the camera around. Those who recognise me in my current avatar can attempt to find me in this IBN-Live video.

Being an also-ran

2007-10-17T00:19:00.000+05:30

When I read about Mysore having its own half-marathon for Dasara, I gave myself a big high-five. About time, too, I thought. Having enjoyed running in the Hutch Pune Half Marathon, I proceeded to read about how the event was and the route covered. Sadly though, the event seemed to have fallen flat on its face.

The saddest thing is that there seems to have been no overseeing at all. Supervision seemed to have been removed from the agenda altogether. Take this - Mysore Marathan. First I thought some Maharashtrian runner must have given himself a name - "Mysore Maratha", but no, this really was the runner badge of the Mysore Marathon. And this in spite of sponsorship.

To top this, Star Of Mysore reports, "But unfortunately for the participants in this morning's half marathon such arrangements were not made, the traffic was not controlled in a proper manner and the marathon runners seemed disoriented. Some of the runners were almost knocked down by autos and cars that were overtaking from the wrong side. Some runners were confused as to which road they must take at certain junctions as the proper personnel
were not present to direct them."

(pic on left courtesy Star of Mysore)

I ask, what were the vehicles doing in the marathon lane :O Where was the police? You don't see the vehicles, say, when Devegowda passes through the city, do you?

While I agree it is very premature to compare it with the Pune International Marathon, the least the people-in-charge could have done is to get someone to go over the checklist. This is the time when the spotlight is on Mysore, when the world is looking at Mysore, when it is the cynosure of all eyes. When you organise events under a banner as grand as Mysooru Dasara, you just can't afford to go SO WRONG.

Events like this will not ensure Mysore the podium finish it deserves. It will at best, be an also-ran. I just hope visitors to Mysore don't base their opinion of the Dasara on this enormous faux pas.

English Summer

2007-10-16T01:24:00.000+05:30

I love summer, and since I am in England, the English Summer. Though it has been a limp summer this year, with the sun emerging out continuously only in August, the mood is fairly upbeat. The best things about an English summer as seen by us visitors are the number of outdoor activities and people buzzing about (And of course the lack of clothing ;P). No wonder they wait for summer like anything.

Come summer, and almost all cars roll their tops down. It is amazing how almost every car manufacturer has a convertible in the mid size segment. Those who have hard-tops make sure their sun roofs are open. Come summer, and the beer flows. Most restaurants and diners bring out the outdoor tables from their hold, and put them out with an umbrella. It is jolly here, almost festive. Malls and supermarkets come up with shopping deals, and a lot of outdoor activities are planned.

It is bright outside by 5 in the morning, and it is not uncommon to see people go to work as soon as seven. Light persists all through the morning and afternoon till about half eight, when twilight begins to set in. Imagine, almost 16 hours of daylight!!! It is sunny when you come from office (5 pm), it is sunny when you change and go to the nearby park to play cricket (6 pm), and when you start walking back home (9 pm), it is just getting darker, and you feel as though it has just struck seven. Mealtimes go for a toss as you don't feel hungry at all. The body, accustomed to having dinner in front of the 9 pm soap, a good two hours after play, just cannot come to terms with the fact that all the meals are taken while the sun is up. So, dinner is postponed to 10.30 or 11, and hence bedtime to 12. Barely five hours later, the sun begins to warm your feet through the skylight on the roof.

The shopping centre here in MK has a large vacant area, to be used for promotional activities all through the year – there are PoP statuettes depicting scenes of the Bible during Christmas, there are job fairs and product exhibitions. Now, they’ve put up some inflatable slides, small trampolines, artificial rock climbing etc for the kids. All of them are manned, so you can just let your kid in there and sit on the chairs around. Most prefer the cool mosaic floor though. On some days where there are no such things, the whole quadrangle is left open. With the children running amuck, and the parents sitting on the floor, you feel as though you are sitting in a large open marriage hall hours before some pot-bellied uncle comes with the utensils in a "goods auto".

One such event was the Summer Screening of the Chak De India Premiere at Somerset House, London. Very similar to the drive-in theatres where you can watch in the comfort of your vehicles, this had a giant screen propped up against one of the walls of the House . Sitting inside the courtyard of the majestic building, I was reminded of our own Mysore Palace, especially when the entire structure was lit up like this.

Held under the auspices of Film4, this drew a sizeable Indian population from in and around London. Even though it was summer, the winds here get a little chilly at night, so there was an option of buying blankets. Nobody needed to, though - they all came prepared.

But what was the NDTV reporter doing here - surely she would not have come all the way from bureau office just to cover a premiere? The real reason was that the King was here. YES - Shahrukh Khan was here, and I saw him in flesh and blood. Less than ten metres away from me stood the Badshah, and set the ball rolling.

Hmm, and there were more of people like me with better cameras and gadgetry, so obviously, if you surf through Youtube, you should be able to catch a better video of him speaking. My poor digicam, craning its lens out could only manage a pathetic effort which I will not reproduce here.

Summer also gave us the opportunity to explore the cycle routes in Milton Keynes. Cancer Research UK had organised a marathon cycle rally - the Get On Your Bike - 2007. A twelve mile track (of medium intensity to suit adults and kids alike) was marked out from Furzton Lake, around the city and back. The route was well marked in fluorescent stickers, and marshals wherever the cycle route intersected the main roads. Halfway through, there was a pit stop, with volunteers offering bottles of water, and bananas for instant energy.

A hugely popular event, it was widely publicised on the radio, and had fitness instructors coming in to administer stretches before the event started. Kids in particular were more enthusiastic - most had their own small cycles, but I could see a few toddlers sitting on tandem bicycles and kicking their limbs awry.

They tell me it was better last year when summer was so intense that they had to buy table fans in the office because the AC wouldn't suffice. Sadly, summer this year was neither that good, nor that long - it started late, and has already gone by in a flash, and autumn is knocking on the doors. Leaves, golden brown, are falling off the trees and making the town look like a Mohabbatein set. These two weeks are all they last, and then the trees will be bare, until Christmas and after.

Driving in the UK

2007-09-16T04:58:00.000+05:30

Five minutes after I rented a car to drive to Ipswich, I was left thinking "This is such a bad idea".

Driving for the first time in the UK, I deliberately chose a circuitous route home, so that I could be accustomed to the controls of the car. As soon as I eased the car out of the rental agency, I put it into gear and watched in glee as the car shot ahead like a bullet each time I depressed the gas pedal. Now, Milton Keynes is not your run-of-the-mill city which you know like the back of your hand – a lot of roundabouts, and too many roads with the same kinds of trees lining them. Lost, I had to depend on the satellite navigation in my phone to guide me home.

“Take second exit on the roundabout”, it said, and I swung my car into the roundabout. Once in the roundabout, there was another car approaching the roundabout from the left. Not recalling that he would stop (as I had priority in the roundabout), the Indian driver in me thought it was best to apply brakes, much to the displeasure of the vehicles behind me in the roundabout.

Later, by the time I returned to MK, having driven over innumerable roundabouts and having horns sounded behind me (a vehicle honking at another here means it is saying "F%#$ you") I knew by trial and error that (i) You don't enter a roundabout if there is already one in it or there are vehicles entering it from your right, (ii) You stick to the outer edge of the circle if you have to go straight ahead, and (iii) You stick to the inner edge of the circle if you have to turn right.

There are a lot of other things to be kept in mind other than these three, depending on whether it is a two lane roundabout (shown) or a single lane, but these three rules of the thumb helped me to return back safely. I then learnt that there are things called "double roundabouts" where the exit of one roundabout will lead you right into the mouth of another!!! All said, roundabouts are a lot of fun when they are empty, but when there is heavy traffic all around, it becomes a bit too much to handle. I also learnt that as compared to traffic lights, roundabouts cause less traffic accumulation and they are the fastest way of clearing intersection traffic - unless of course a maverick like me does not take any exit and just keeps moving around the circle. But I digress.

The Sat-Nav decided to have some more fun, and just at the point where I’m passing a T junction, it says “Just ahead…Take right”. Unable to turn right without indicating, I proceeded ahead, and stopped the car at the kerb, put on the hazard lights and waited for the software to determine a new route. Just then, a car pulls up behind me and a guy comes out and asks if I’m all right. That was when I thought – renting a car was such a bad idea.

I was about to tell him I stopped to answer a phone call, thankfully I didn't because (i) you can't stop at the kerb to answer a phone call and more importantly (ii) you don't put on the hazard lights unless there is a hazard ahead. Had the words come out of my mouth, I could as well have been writing this from jail. The man probably thought I was sick or there was something seriously wrong with the car.

Cut to two hours later – Renting a car was the best thing I did in a long long time. Watching myself cruise over the motorway connecting Milton Keynes to Ipswich, I could not help wonder. To drive in a foreign country was a dream come true. Two years back if you would have told me I would do it, I probably would have laughed in your face. Yet, here I am, savouring a sweet feeling of "being there, and doing it". It is almost utopian. People stop where there is a Give Way line, so you know that even if there is a car coming on the side road, he will wait for you and you don't have to reduce speed. People stop if there is a red traffic light, even if it is 1 a.m. in the morning. Lane discipline is strictly followed.

Drivers here are made to fall into place with the system - the licensing process is stringent. There is a theory test, for which you are ACTUALLY supposed to read up, to answer questions such as the distance to stop while travelling at a certain speed in good conditions, wet conditions and snowy conditions, such as the length and duration for a car to back up, such as the name of the document which is issued as a cover till the time your actual documents are sent.

Additionally, there is a visual perception test, where there are 14 video clips, recorded through a camera atop the vehicle. The point is to identify potential hazards as soon as they begin to develop - a hazard may be a cyclist, who may swerve in any direction, or a person getting into a parked car (he could open the door wide) etc. The practical test will allow a limited number of minor errors, and NOT EVEN ONE major error. So much so, that if you change two consecutive gears without lifting your hand off the gear lever (like we so often do while picking up speed), you will be asked to pull over and marked failed.

Little wonder then, that driving in UK is such a charm!!

Longing and Belonging...

2007-09-16T03:35:00.000+05:30

Two very powerful words, which almost sum up the general feeling of two hard-hitting movies I recently saw. Both movies are based on their namesake books - while Atonement is a novel by Ian McEwan, A Mighty Heart is a memoir by Mariane Pearl.

Atonement is the story of two people in love, but having to part ways due to the exaggerated imaginations of a little girl. It is the story of how the young girl realises her folly and attempts to re-unite them and relieve them of their longing, their pain and their angst. The story is set in a rustic English background, where having studied together, Cecilia (Keira Knightley), the daughter of an uppish class family, and Robbie (James McAvoy), the son of the household servant, fall in love with each other. However, Cecilia's younger sister Briony, has a queer imagination, and misinterprets situations where Cecilia and Robbie are together to such an extent that she begins to believe that Robbie is a sex maniac. And when her cousin is molested in the house gardens, she testifies that Robbie was responsible. Robbie is hauled away by the police.

Years pass, and Briony becomes a nurse, but having realised her folly, she is constantly tormented by the guilt of accusing Robbie, and hence depriving her sister the love of her life. The story is about how she redeems herself and puts an end to the lovers' longing for each other.

James McAvoy brings to life the English worker - the mannerisms, the ruggedness and the feel. Keira surprisingly, does not stand out as much as she did in her Pirates series.

A Mighty Heart is the story of angst, anxiety, uncertainty and grit of a woman, a pregnant woman, whose husband is kidnapped by terrorists. Mariane (Angelina Jolie) and Daniel Pearl (Dan Futterman) are in Karachi investigating the shoe-bomber case while Daniel is lured by the terrorists by arranging an interview with Sheikh Gilani. The story closely follows the plans of action taken by the CIA, the American government, the Pakistani government and the involvement of an alleged double agent from the British Secret Services Agency MI6. It showcases the strong network of the terrorists at the grassroot level and how the entire intelligence was caught unawares, leading to the capture and subsequent murder of Pearl. Though taut and fast paced, somewhere there is a feeling of something not being told to the viewer - there is very less of Danny, and more of the confusing trail of people investigated in the time leading to and after his kidnapping. While it is true to some extent, considering that this is Mariane's account of things that happened, an account of things to whose memory she will attach her belongingness; still it leaves you somewhat hungry for details.

Angelina gives a good performance - but somehow there are too many characters coming in, and none has enough screen presence to make a lasting impression. Not Dan Futterman, not Jolie, not Archie Panjabi, not Irrfan Khan, not Will Preston. None. The interiors and immediate locations of the house the Pearls lived in at Karachi were actually shot in Pune, while I was there. However, the sets have been made up to look like it resembles Karachi. There are a couple of cityscape shots, but they are too fleeting to recognise.

Note - I got to watch A Mighty Heart at The National Theater, London. A friend of mine is a member of The British Film Institute, and had arranged the tickets to the preview.

Chak De India

2007-08-12T07:28:00.000+05:30

Is the story of determination, of dreams and of success. It is the jubilation of a young team, brought into cohesion by the efforts of one man, who seeks to redeem himself as a coach by making them achieve what he could not as a player.

What's the Story?
The movie opens into the final of the mens' World Hockey Championships, where India and Pakistan have locked horns, with Pakistan leading 1-0. Into the final moments of the game, India is awarded a penalty stroke, and to take that comes the captain, Kabir Khan. Khan strikes, fails to score and India lose. A shroud of silence drapes over the Indian camp even as Pakistan erupts in whoops of joy. For having lost the match, and congratulated a Pakistani team mate, Kabir Khan is slapped with charges of match-fixing, named a traitor and shorn of his place in the Indian national team.

Seven years, three months and fourteen days later, he walks into the Association meeting room, seeking an appointment to coach the Indian National Womens' Hockey team - a post which no one is keen to take up. Khan is given 16 of the best hockey players in the country, and his problem is that they know how to play against, but not with each other. On the one hand he has to cope with the inter-state cultural differences; on the other, the senior players' indiffererence. He starts with the basics, and begins to untie one knot after the other, and succeeds in uniting the team - against him. And when they can bear his strict, almost Hitleresque regime no more, the team decides not to practice under him, and Khan resigns as the coach of the team.

A day of reflection passes, and the team realises that there is no point in having Khan sacked, that for all his histrionics, he had indeed succeeded in making them more productive as a team than the day they had walked into the camp. The next morning at 5, Khan is back on the field training his girls. Polarised and charged up, looking at a distant dream, their game begins to rise. But they are cut down to their place when the Association drops the plan of sending them to the World Championships for lack of sponsors.

When no amount of convincing works, as a last resort, Khan challenges the Association's bronze medal winning mens' team to play against his team. He knows his girls are underprepared, but he uses the stinging remarks of the Association office bearers to good effect. The girls eventually lose, but their fighting spirit is given a standing ovation by the mens' team and the Association sends them to represent India at the World Cup.

The team arrives in Australia, with a lot to prove. Kabir, to win this World Cup, and let the world know that he indeed played and plays for India. Vidya Sharma, the Indian goalkeeper, to tell her husband and in-laws that a daughter-in-law need not be confined to the kitchen. Preeti Sabarwal, forward, to show her boyfriend (and Indian cricket team vice-captain), that hockey means as much to her as cricket to him. Bindiya Naik, center-forward (most experienced and miffed at not being made captain), seeking to bring down the coach and captain.

After a humiliating 7-0 loss to Australia in the first round, the initial euphoria of having come to the World Cup settles, and the team begins to become aware of its lacunae. The loss manages to ignite the fire in the team, and match after match, the team begins to advance towards the final like a hungry lion devouring its prey. You don't need me to tell you what happens next, do you?

What's good in it?
Lots. Maybe for the first time since Swades, Shahrukh has put in a sober performance sans any overacting. On certain occasions, like the one where he is called a traitor, or when he stands in the rain after a humiliating defeat, he conjures up a controlled performance, which is worth sitting for once more through the movie. However, Yash Raj does give him a chance, and when he says "sattar minute" nine times in a single monologue, you feel he has suddenly reverted to Captain Veer Pratap Singh of Veer Zaara saying "Main Quaidi number saat sau chiassi..."

The scenes inside of the dressing room have been brought out well. It shows how seniors can gang up together and influence the team against the coach or the association. It depicts how senior players can cut juniors down to their place - when a junior runs up to congratulate a senior and says she is glad to have met her, the senior responds, "Achcha? Toh naacho". Or when the seniors say, "Ye coach kya samajhta hai, subah uthke 20 km daudne se hockey achcha khelenge? ye koi tareeka hai national level players ko treat karne ka? Kya hum training nahi jaante?"

Comparisons cannot but be drawn to cricket. You begin to wonder if Sourav may have said the same things when Greg Chappell said he did not show up at training sessions. While on cricket, ample effort has been made to let the powers-that-be know that hockey, though the national sport, has been always under cricket's shadow. Harmless fun has also been poked at the Hockey Association, and it provides humourous interludes.

The acting team has been trained well to play and the playing team has been trained well to act - the camaraderie shows on screen. Editing is crisp and the movie moves ahead slickly, dragging only at a few places. Songs are hummable, and during the film raise goosepimples on your arms. Excellent background score by Salim-Sulaiman, especially a couplet which goes "Maula Mere Le Le Meri Jaan". This movie has the right mix of patriotism, sport and human nature, and it has been shot and cut well to ensure commercial success. In Indian cinema, this will be hockey's answer to Lagaan. After Ab Tak Chappan, this will be Shimit Amin's second bull's eye.

Reco: Must-watch.

Gandhi, My Father

2007-08-09T05:23:00.000+05:30

... is a poignant story, bringing out the angst of an unsuccessful son of an iconic father. It throws into spotlight the extreme emotions undergone by Harilal, who is overawed by his father’s aura, and wants to emulate him in his own life, when Gandhi, with his stubbornness and his inability to draw his lines where the country was concerned, always manages to put a spoke in his wheels.

What's the story?
The film begins with Gandhi’s displeasure of his son getting married, although it was he who approved the alliance. After marriage, Harilal joins Gandhi’s self-styled ashram in Phoenix, SA, where he helps his father in odd jobs at the press while preparing himself for a scholarship to go to England to study law. However, it is Gandhi’s desire to have Harilal help him in his grandiose plans for India’s freedom. Initially, Harilal acquiesces, in the hope that his father will somehow pull some strings and get him the scholarship. But when Gandhi refuses his education as a mark of protest against Western education, the seeds of discord are sown between the father and the son.

During a protest rally in SA, Harilal gets arrested. His hopes of his father pleading his case are shattered when Gandhi uses him as a guinea pig to test his new theory of passive resistance. Harilal is jailed as his father offers him no defence, and he sees his dreams of further studies going down the drain. His only source of strength is his wife Gulab, who keeps renewing Harilal’s dreams of being successful. But when he sees her leaving for India after he is jailed, Harilal realises that his father is employing arm-bending tactics to retain him in SA.

Once released from jail, he plots his return to India without his father's consent but is unsuccessful and father and son have a chat, where Harilal stresses that he is a common man, and the air of expectancy lingering around him due to his illustrious father is too much for him to bear. This is one of the many landmark points in the film which has you taking sides - while on the one hand you think Gandhi was just in retaining his son for the freedom movement; on the other, you also feel that Harilal has his own niche to carve.

Back in India, Harilal has one more hand at his studies, fails, gets himself a job, and manages to keep his life going. Gandhi returns to India, and gets busy with the freedom movement. Harilal approaches his father to lend him some money for business. Gandhi, as was his wont, pleads his inability as he does not maintain a "personal fortune" and will not ask any others for favours. Instead, he asks Harilal to come into his folds and join the freedom movement. Hari will not have any of it, and leaves.

Never having a business mind, Harilal stocks up on western fabric to sell them at a premium after the World War, but Gandhi brings in the swadeshi movement, and Harilal incurs losses. In his shortsightedness, he teams up with a team of sycophants, and allows them to collect funds in the name of Gandhi and make away with a sizeable fortune. When betrayed people approach Gandhi for redressal, Gandhi issues a public statement claiming his son does not have his backing anymore. This catches the attention of the Muslim fraternity, and they pay up the loans of a debt-ridden Harilal in a godfatherly gesture. Being almost disowned, Harilal decides to hit back on Gandhi by giving himself unto Islam and becoming Abdullah Gandhi. Nevertheless, his being a Gandhi secures him preferential treatment, which does not go very well with the Muslims, and Harilal reconverts to Hinduism by associating himself to the Arya Samaj.

In all of this, the tag of being Gandhi's son weighs down on him. Every action of his is judged whether it is worthy of someone who has a father like Gandhi himself. Drunk, ill, and hopelessly confused, he wanders along not knowing where he would get his next meal, when he hears of Gandhi's assassination. It is too much for him to bear. Five months after Gandhi died, his eldest son breathes his last in the cold corridor of a government hospital like a lone street urchin, brought in by the police, and ignored by everyone else.

What's good in it?
All the actors deliver a staggering performance, which may well be their career-best. The best performance will, of course, be debatable. While Akshaye does deliver a class-act everyone will remember for a long time, Darshan Jariwalla plays Gandhi to the hilt. In fact this man oozes Gandhi, and rightly so, is being talked about after the release. However, it may be attributed to the fact that Gandhi's mannerisms were known to the public through numerous films, and we have a notion of him. You only have to say Gandhi, and we have in our minds a dhoti clad "half-naked fakir", with a bald pate and a bright smile. And because no one knows how Harilal was, the absence of a original may just be a factor in not appreciating the imitation, and we may just have underrated Akshaye. Shefali Shah and Bhumika Chawla impress in their roles as Gandhi's wife and daughter-in-law.

Cinematography is top-notch, with scenes fading in and out at every logical cut-to-event. In fact, a very meticulous approach has been taken, and the hard work has paid off. This movie will be counted as one of the classics in Indian cinema, an extraordinary improvement in the quality and detailing of movies made on true events.

Recommendation: Must-Watch!!!

Guess who's back?

2007-07-13T02:25:00.000+05:30

Back again - after a long hiatus. Though this wasn't as long as some of the other breaks I have taken, it is long in the sense that a lot has happened in between, and I'm left like "Hello, is it less than a month since my last post?". The weather has changed for the better, atleast it's sunny for most of this week - so the mood is upbeat. And an upbeat mood makes for a makeover, and hence this change.

Don't be too judgemental about the colours though - I had a look at Sony VAIO C Series and the grey and orange gave it a cool look, and I was hooked. I'm not entirely satisfied with the appearance yet, but hey, give it some time - may be it will sink in.

How long did you say I was away, again? Come to think of it, I don't remember having shaved since my last post. So there's a three-week old stubble (or is it more?) dimming some of the radiance. And while I was away, I watched Shrek - The Third (4/5, Donkey's got some cute kids), Die Hard 4.0 (3.5/5, some overly unbelievable action, but extraordinary gadgetry), Jhoom Barabar Jhoom (1/5, it's better than Nehlle pe Dehlla), Apne (2.5/5, longish, predictable and Paaji looks weary) and ... let me think ...

And oh, I bought a bicycle (summer's here, folks!!).

Sivaji...Cool

2007-06-16T20:22:00.000+05:30

The hype: Sivaji released yesterday in 52 countries, amidst electric expectations of the combination of superstar Rajni, and prolific director Shankar. With a top secret plot, astoundingly hummable songs by Rahman, and the crowd pulling stature of Rajni, this was bound to create the wave it has. This broke all records for an Indian film in the UK, with back-to-back shows in five Cineworlds in London alone and upto two dedicated screens, in Cineworlds all over the UK. And boy, does the crowd love Rajni? In Milton Keynes, which has less of the Indian diaspora than other bigger cities in UK, I could get only the first day - third show, and many people watched standing. And once I came out, what do I see, the entire South Indian populace of our company and elsewhere making a beeline hours before the show, to get a good seat. Never before in my six months of Cineworlding (watching movies just for the heck of it) have I seen such a thing!!!

What's the Story? Just for this one movie, I will not reveal the story here - there are a lot of you guys out there who haven't got tickets yet, so won't kill your enthusiasm. :D

What's good in it: Shankar, like in Anniyan and Mudhalvan, again relies on his favourite plot of his protagonist fighting against a dishonest system - and does justice to it. The make-up artists have done a tremendous job, and Rajni looks much younger, younger than in Baba. But his age shows in his fight sequences. However, his mannerisms touch a new high - the way he bounces chewing gum into his mouth, the way he tosses up a coin and makes it land into his pocket etc. There are no particular punch dialogues though, like "Khatam gatam" or "Naan oru thadavai sonna, nooru thadavai sonna madiri". The closest which comes to it is "Coool".
Vivek, with his humour, provides excellent support to Rajni, and Shriya looks exceedingly beautiful. Suman is believable in his role as Adiseshan, and Manivannan stands out in his limited scope. Sets are artistically done for the songs, and Rahman provides superb music, the pinnacle being "Wah ji Wah ji Wah ji, en jeevan Sivaji".

Reco: If you go to watch it as a movie, you might be a tad disappointed, but if you go to watch it as a "Rajni movie", you will come out whistling and dancing "Dhingi-chaka-dhingi-chaka"!!!!

"Respect" and craze for the superstar was such that for the thirty-odd seconds where S-U-P-E-R-S-T-A-R R-A-J-N-I flashes across the screen at the beginning, the four screens nearby could have heard the cacophony of the whistles and cat-calls. I thought people would throw change as well, but they didn't. (I would have - I had even collected a sizeable number of 1p and 2p coins - I just got late, and forgot to pick them up)

Update: Don't miss the comment by Beryle here.

Fracture...

2007-05-10T05:03:00.000+05:30

... is a good battle of wits, with some excellent acting by Anthony Hopkins.

What’s the story? Ted Crawford (Anthony Hopkins) is an engineer, who discovers that his wife is having an affair with another man. Unable to stomach it, he shoots her in the head, and when the police come, he confesses to his crime, and is whisked off to prison while his wife is rushed to a hospital, where she slips into a coma.

Willy Beachum (Ryan Gosling) is a highly successful prosecutor for the government, and is on the verge of getting into a private law-firm, when he is asked to take up this case. With the confidence of his 97% conviction rate, and the strength of a verbal confession, Willy decides to wrap this up before his exit from the government office.

But when he is brought to court, Ted pleads not guilty, and says his confession was forced as the officer who took the confession was the one who was having an affair with his wife, and that his life was at risk had he not confessed. Willy is unaware of this, and having come grossly unprepared, he is shattered to the core. He is left with no more evidence to produce, and his job at the private firm is in danger if he loses this case. Following this, Ted moves for acquittal, as there is no evidence against him, and the murder weapon is not found. The acquittal is granted, and while Ted walks, Willy is flabbergasted by this old man shoving defeat into his illustrious career.

With the newspapers making a joke of his famous loss, and his private job offer retracted, Willy becomes obsessed with the case. He jumps headlong into a search for the murder weapon – thinking hard on where it was hidden, especially when the police had searched the house soon after the crime. Meanwhile, Ted authorises the hospital to pull the plug on his wife, as her condition was not getting any better. A final brainwave occurs to Willy as he realises, in horror, the thorough planning of the crime. A brilliant confrontation makes for the climax.

What’s good in it?
Anthony Hopkins shines through, coming across splendidly as an eccentric old man, who plans out everything. He is lovably irreverent – scrawling NO on legal documents and drawing structural sketches on a notepad when the trial is going on. Ryan Gosling’s acting however, is a tad overdone. The rest of the characters do justice to their roles, their relevance being mediocre to plot or performance. The plot is tight, and the movie moves ahead slickly except for some parts where you wait for the family conversations to end so that the courtroom drama may begin.

The Belgium Trip - 2

2007-05-10T03:50:00.000+05:30

Sorry this is late in coming...too many tasks, too less time.

The next day, we got up to a hot shower and some sumptuous breakfast - which was included in the price - and enquired at the reception for tours.

Our breakfast of bread-butter-jam and cornflakes. There was coffee, too :D

The idea was that in the day and a half allotted to Belgium, we would go outside of Brussels on the full day, and the city itself could be covered in the half of the next day. So we took a tour of Ghent and Bruges, to leave at half-eight in the morning, and to return by five. (When travelling with a group for tourism, I make it a point to hit the road by 8 - this helps me in two ways - one, I make good use of the daylight; two, I pull the others out of the bed. It is a different matter though, if you are travelling alone, or are vacationing in Maui, Hawaii, where all you do is ogle and sleep ;) But then, I digress!!!)

The council building at the town center

The first thing that strikes you as you enter Ghent is the size of the buildings - they are mammoth and overwhelm you like no other. The flipside is that, like all of Belgium, it is aesthetically ugly - you have a fantastic piece of architecture, remnant of its glorious Gothic heritage, and just next to it is a glass building with your in-the-face neon lights. Well, that's Belgium for you!!! I'm sure if you ask, they would tell you "hum aisech hain" in Dutch.

There is this beautiful church in Ghent, which houses extraordinary glass paintings. On the outside of the cathedral is a vast quadrangle, having a fountain, statues and benches to sit on. On a perfect morning, you could come there and sit on the benches, eating a waffle and soaking up some sunshine. Or you could come there and sit on the benches, eating a waffle and soaking up some sunshine, and it would be a perfect morning. :-)

A statue in the church quadrangle

Inside the church

The inside of the church has striking paintings, both showing passages of the Bible, and abstract art. Some of the paintings are really breath-taking. They render you so speechless that you forget to let the abstractness sink in. Or maybe that is what being abstract is all about.

Abstract Art :O

But Ghent is more famous for this walk along the canal. I forgot what this place is called, but the buildings you see across are special. Each one of them is built in a style of a different century. From the fifteenth to the nineteenth century styles - you have it all. (This prompted my friend to ask whether they waited a hundred years to build another...).

Ghent has about three tall cathedral towers around the town center, so it is very easy to get lost. So the next time someone yells at you, you know where to come. In fact, this getting lost and not hovering around the guide is a big problem in conducted tours. You get very little time to enjoy the surroundings and NO time at all to capture your "orkut photos" - the ones where you have your face in the foreground and the most recognisable edifice of the city in the background which you upload with a caption "Been there, Done that!!".

Architecture of centuries, standing together in harmony

I saw a lot of middle-aged people walking around with closed umbrellas raised high like an Olympic torch. I looked up. The sky was clear, and the sunshine was pleasant. But before I could wonder any further, our guide held out her umbrella high, and I realised that all those middle-aged people were in fact guides asking their group to assemble. Whew!!! I followed my torch-bearer as she led us through a narrow alley back to where we came from. This walk is famous, they say, for the graffiti on it. I was reminded of the song "Mera rang de basanti chola" from "The Legend Of Bhagat Singh" while walking through this dark winding alley.

In the alley
Another one

The best tip for a tourist here would be to look around - not just at the buildings, but at the cyclists too. They don't ring the bells, nor do they show any indication of avoiding you. If you show some sudden movement, like jumping away in fright, they look at you as though you have come from outer space. The roads are cobbled and give you blisters if you don't have good shoes on. Walking becomes slow and painful on the cobblestones, and as if that was not enough, they have rails on that, for the trams to pass.Cobbled roads...tramways...left-hand drive

A quick circumambulation of the center is done, and we now proceed towards Bruges, and the guide says we will be stopping for lunch. Mmmm :)

Planes make a cross against the steeple of one of the cathedrals in Ghent

The Belgium Trip - 1

2007-04-27T03:17:00.000+05:30

Two countries. Three major cities. Four days of semi-backpacking. And memories to last a lifetime. A tour of Belgium and the Netherlands.

Most travelogues begin at Day One, but since we wanted to start fresh, and took a flight on the previous night, this will start from Day Zero. On Day Zero, a Thursday evening, we drove from Milton Keynes to London Heathrow, to catch a Brussels Airlines late evening flight into Brussels. We left London at around half past eight, but as we were flying East (and Belgium is an hour ahead), it was already half-ten in Brussels when we landed.

Zaventem, as Brussels' international airport is called, is well connected to the city. In fact, there is a train station directly below the airport. Trains run at regular intervals from Zaventem to Brussels North, Central and South stations. We picked up a free city map, and took the escalators to the underground station. (BTW, an escalator takes you up. What do you call an automated step machine which takes you down?). There was an automated kiosk selling tickets, and also a normal counter. However, the counter was closed. Surprisingly enough, the kiosk selling tickets would not accept credit cards. And we had been stupid enough not to carry cash of lesser denominations than 10 Euros. Not that it would have mattered anyway, because only the coin-slots were working and not the note-slots.

This is a map we clicked, because it was more detailed than the free leaflets.

Back in the airport, we learnt that the counter in the underground station closes at 21.50 (it was nearing 11 now) and that we could purchase the ticket on the train as well. So we sat on a cold bench in the dark underground station and ate parathas rolled in aluminium foils. The underground station seemed very primitive when compared to the London tube stations, but I noticed one thing special - the escalators had a step sensor at the boarding point, which would bring the elevator to rest if it did not detect a step for a reasonable amount of time. I'm sure given the number of commuters, the escalators in London would not rest even if they had the sensor, but still.

Presently, the train comes, and out comes a guard in a grey uniform and a funny cap. He issues the ticket, and goes back into his cabin. Somehow, he strikes me as a cartoon, and the train itself is like a toy train. We sit back, take photos and try tracing the route on the map, using the passing stations as a yardstick. And one station before Brussels North, we figure out from the map that our accommodation is closer to Brussels North than Brussels Central - even though the directions on the booking confirmation seemed otherwise. I go and ask the guard, and he says we are right. Fine, I say to the boys, we get off at Brussels North then. The conductor unfortunately did not understand a lot of English - so, unable to direct us to our hostel, he went to the driver, and asked him to translate the directions for us.

Those directions, though correct, did not stand us in good stead, because the area outside Brussels North Station is very shady - and I'm not talking about the trees. A few steps, and we found a pub offering "peep shows". There was no one around. And so ... we had no one to direct us to our hostel. (Ah, you dirty minds, I know what you thought ;) hah!!). The directions on the booking confirmation were descriptive enough, and we found ourselves slowly trudging along the streets of north Brussels at midnight. Presently, we came across the Sheraton, and the multi-lingual receptionist confirmed that we were on the right track, and to top it, he also gave me a more informative and localised map of the city.

The Sheraton. Sorry for the sad quality. We were dead tired.

The Vincent van Gogh hostel is one of the best in Belgium - what with a rating of 92% on hostelworld. It is quite near to the main tourist district - Belgium Central - and scores well on all other counts. The rooms had no keys - only access cards, and we got new bedsheets for the duration of our stay. They could not accommodate all six of us together, but we got a double room having two bunk beds, and one other room with two normal beds.

I know, it looks like the hospital in Dear Heart, but then, what do you expect when, after a day of travel, all you want is something warm and soft to tuck into?

The facilities were excellent too - there was a bar just beside the reception, which stocked the best of all Belgian beer, there was a pool table nearby, and the toilets were clean. Showers had hot water flowing, with automated stoppers to regulate the flow of water if you just forgot and walked away. The staff was quite helpful, and provided us with information and leaflets on what to see, and how to get around. And after a game of pool, and a discussion of how to spend the two days in Belgium, we hit the sack. Tomorrow, we take a guided tour to Ghent and Bruges. Till then, these pics ...

The view of the entrance from my room window.

The main road leading out of the hostel

Another road - it is left-hand drive in Belgium, so you drive on the right side.

Bliss

2007-04-20T03:44:00.000+05:30

Last Sunday was a treat in itself.

If you discount the sole exception of Khushi, Mungaru maLe was the first KannaDa movie I watched in a theatre, after say 15 years. NanjunDi KalyaNa, starring Malasri and Raghavendra Rajkumar, was the last. I am quite critical when it comes to KannaDa cinema - chiefly because there is a lack of originality - most of the so-called hits in KannaDa cine world are usually remakes of other hits in Tamil and Telugu film industries. Agreed that there is no dearth of classic films like Nammoora Mandara Hoove, Amruthavarshini and America America, but a great majority of Kannada films are just chaff, with below par stories, loose direction and poor acting. Anyway, debates will never cease if I choose to dwell on that.

All I have to say is that I enjoyed Mungaru MaLe immensely. And the 45 minutes travel from Milton Keynes to Southall, London, having spent almost three times the ticket money on the travel, was redeemed in full. It was the first time in 4-5 months that I encountered so many people speaking KannaDa. So much so, that we had to consciously make an effort not to spring up any expletives, because otherwise, the kannaDa we speak at our bachelor pad is the one mothers tell their young children to avoid.

Apart from the movie, the other high point of Sunday was the food. I enjoyed an unlimited breakfast at Chennai Dosa. For three pounds and a half, you get unlimited helpings of idlis, uppittu, and pongal, followed by a dosa item of your choice AND a poori item. All of this packed in and followed up by a cup of rich filter coffee. Burp!!! And of course, pani-puri, and rasmalai at a Punjabi do at Southall. It is because of this reason, and this alone, that I am content, and not swearing abuses at her for time and again rambling about delectable Indian food. :-)

And unless something more interesting happens, the next few posts will be of the holiday in Belgium and Netherlands. The 2300 odd photos from all the four cameras are sorted and ready. Anyone offering free prints, please???

Update: The screening was courtesy the Europe Kannada Sangha. Its still a fledgling, but shows a lot of promise, judging by the Ugadi celebrations and the movie screening. Last heard, there was still a waiting list of 100-150 kannaDigas, eager to see the movie, but lacking a screen. The sangha has an orkut community here and a new blog here.

Update 2: The movie screening was carried by a kannaDa newspaper. :)

And here is a video of the most famous dialogue of the movie.

100...

2007-04-14T01:44:00.000+05:30

... could not have come at a better time.

This Friday brings an end to an eventful week of living out of backpacks. The long weekend was well-spent in a semi-backpacking holiday in Belgium and the Netherlands, while the rest of the week was (well, let’s say it just was) at Ipswich.

Sitting in the lounge at the Ipswich office, for the first time, I felt that joblessness is frustrating too. Soon after coming back from holiday, I went to Ipswich on a “company assignment”. By hearsay, I knew that Ipswich was a sleepy little town with a lot of local cafés, and it certainly looked so at first sight. But somehow, all the stars and planets connived to deny me the pleasure of enjoying its laid-back laziness. My stay at Ipswich was a comedy of logistical errors.

First up, the guys there did not know I was coming so I did not have a desk to sit at or a computer to work on. Added to it, there was no information of what I would do, and who would oversee it. Hovering around friends’ desks was not a viable option as they were all busy in their own work. So all day long, I just sat in the lounge, fiddled with the stylus and browsed the net on my PDA-phone over a GPRS connection (appearing to be someone doing something important), and finished the issues of Wired and OK! in the lounge.

Upon that, the budget bed-and-breakfast I checked into was very moderate. Well, I can’t blame it for the low rate and the short notice I got it at, but then, it could have been a little cleaner. It was managed by a brown-turning-silver haired old man, probably in his sixties, who obviously was struggling to maintain it by himself. Half the house was painted, while the other half was smudged with strokes, and had paint buckets and brushes on the floor. The room had a creaky floor, and floorboards stacked nearby, so he was evidently doing some repair work.

The room I got was dank and mildly emanated a wild unidentifiable aroma. In the room below, his daughter maintained a solitary existence. She had a cat which roamed all over the place. My room floor had visible hair which the cat had moulted. The room had windows which couldn’t be opened and there was a note asking to keep the curtain closed at all times. The kitchen was lacking utensils and food items, and had a note to keep the door closed when cooking to prevent the tadka from choking them.

However, the man himself was good to talk to – he took me for a “round” in his car and showed me the nearest bus-stop and over a cup of heavenly Portuguese coffee at the local coffee shop, he told me that his son had been to university in America, and was now in the Metropolitan Police in London, and that his house had been let to Indian tenants too. He asked me if I had been to Brazil, an obvious reference to the “Universidad Sao Paulo” on my T-shirt, and said his son had been there as part of a Met Police exercise.

Once I was back in the BnB, I looked at my task-list –
1. Clear mailbox (company has a limit on the mailbox size :( )
2. Transfer money
3. Pay credit card bills
4. Market going up – make some money
5. Leave feedback for ebay sellers
And I was stuck there, stuck without internet!!!! Though I managed most with the GPRS connection, a few things spilled over to today (which was better, because the market scaled a considerable height today). Yesterday afternoon I told them they could request my services when they had the logistics ready, and took the next train back to MK – and had a good night’s sleep.

Weekend drama shall unfold in a few days. :)

The happy family

2007-03-23T00:02:00.000+05:30

He swung his car into the parking lot, and killed the engine. Getting out, he extracted his jacket from its hanger in the rear, and put it on. He pulled out his briefcase, and beeped the car shut. Tall and handsome, he cut a smart figure as he walked across the parking lot. He carried his age with élan, in fact, the greying temples, and the light horizontal wrinkles on his forehead gave him an air of maturity and commanded respect. A high-profile lawyer, he was the Midas of the court-room. A home in the suburbs, a swanky car, socialite evenings and a neat sum stashed away for retirement. The perfect life. He smiled at the waitress as he walked into the restaurant for lunch with the family.

The estate agent slowed as she entered the driveway, and smiled at the valet as he came over to collect the keys. He recognised the car and its owner very well. She was svelte, attractive and vivacious and received regular double-takes from young men passing her way. Must have rendered many a men breathless in her prime, he mused to himself. They came in on the third Thursday of every month – the lady, her husband and the kids – and joked and laughed over an extended lunch. It was almost a ritual, and he wondered whether a family could be ever so happy. He watched her shaking her head as she saw her husband smile at the waitress.

From his corner office at the investment bank, the son saw his father walk into the restaurant below. A glint of red at the corner of his eyes told him it was the valet parking his mother’s car in the guest lot. He straightened his tie, and pulled his jacket over as he walked down the stairs into the restaurant. He joined the older couple just as they were about to sit down. The maitre d’ picked up three menu cards, and then he took one more – for he knew there would be four. Sure enough, the young girl came huffing and puffing, and kissed her mother before she took the seat opposite.

She was an art-student, and presently, in faded jeans, dull ochre top with swastika and Sanskrit motifs and a cross-bag, she stood in stark contrast to the spick, formal attire of the rest of her family. But then that was how she was – bubbly, vibrant and a beloved – she brought colour and fun into the family folds. Her stories of the impressionists, the way she explained the styles of Renoir and Rembrandt always fascinated the other three. It was as though she was living their dream.

They lunched for a long time, devouring the steaks and wine with great relish, laughing together, and enjoying their meal and time. As if they didn’t care for anyone else on the outside of the general vicinity of their table. The maitre d’ noticed that for the entire lunch, they never spoke business. It was always about the fun they had, or general small-talk. This cosy table, set away from the rest of the restaurant, should be the hotel’s happiest table, every third Thursday, he thought to himself. By dessert, the family was almost at home – ties loosened, collars open, cuffs folded back, vanity bags set away and everyone sitting back and letting the meal settle.

The waiters cleared up the table and the maitre d’ came up with a box of unordered Cuban cheroots. Setting them, he produced a Zippo lighter and addressed the lawyer, “On the house, sir, for the happiest family I’ve seen”. Father, mother and son inhaled indulgently as the daughter nibbled on the remainder of her dessert.

“The happiest family”, they all thought, as they walked back to their cars, “the happiest family, if only they had stayed together and not fought over divorce and custody”.

Of the Swedes and Slowing Down

2007-03-13T04:23:00.000+05:30

On a mid-morning break at work, I was strolling with my colleagues in the parking lot, enjoying the sunshine and sipping watery tea of the vending machine, when I chanced upon this one.

The first thing that came to my mind was Govinda's song Chashme par unke wiper. Such innovation!!! I mean, the weather generally is snowy here in winters, and tends to develop moisture on the outer surface of the headlights. I have seen people scrape snow off their cars using a small rubber shovel. So this is not a bad idea after all. And if not that, it sure does help in flicking off the dust and grime off the glass - ensuring a better illumination. Of course, it did not click on most cars, but what the heck? It's a gem of an idea. And who else thought about it, but Volvo, the Swedish auto giant.

And while I'm on Sweden, I came across this beautiful article, by way of forwards, and it made interesting reading. It's called the Slow Down Culture, and versions of this are splattered all over the web. Here goes -

It’s been 18 years since I joined Volvo, a Swedish company. Working for them has proven to be an interesting experience. Any project here takes 2 years to be finalized, even if the idea is simple and brilliant. It’s a rule.
Globalize processes have caused in us (all over the world) a general sense of searching for immediate results. Therefore, we have come to posses a need to see immediate results. This contrasts greatly with the slow movements of the Swedish. They, on the other hand, debate, debate, debate, hold x quantity of meetings and work with a slowdown scheme. At the end, this always yields better results.
Said in another words:
* Sweden is about the size of San Pablo, a state in Brazil.

* Sweden has 2 million inhabitants.

* Stockholm, has 500,000 people.

* Volvo, Escania, Ericsson, Electrolux are some of its renowned companies. Volvo supplies the NASA.
The first time I was in Sweden, one of my colleagues picked me up at the hotel every morning. It was September, bit cold and snowy. We would arrive early at the company and he would park far away from the entrance (2000 employees drive their car to work). The first day, I didn’t say anything, either the second or third. One morning I asked, “Do you have a fixed parking space? I’ve noticed we park far from the entrance even when there are no other cars in the lot.” To which he replied, “Since we’re here early we’ll have time to walk, and whoever gets in late will be late and need a place closer to the door. Don’t you think? Imagine my face.
Nowadays, there’s a movement in Europe name Slow Food. This movement establishes that people should eat and drink slowly, with enough time to taste their food, spend time with the family, friends, without rushing. Slow Food is against its counterpart: the spirit of Fast Food and what it stands for as a lifestyle. Slow Food is the basis for a bigger movement called Slow Europe, as mentioned by Business Week.
Basically, the movement questions the sense of “hurry” and “craziness” generated by globalization, fueled by the desire of “having in quantity” (life status) versus “having with quality”, “life quality” or the “quality of being”. French people, even though they work 35 hours per week, are more productive than Americans or British. Germans have established 28.8 hour workweeks and have seen their productivity been driven up by 20%. This slow attitude has brought forth the US’s attention, pupils of the fast and the “do it now!”.
This no-rush attitude doesn’t represent doing less or having a lower productivity. It means working and doing things with greater quality, productivity, perfection, with attention to detail and less stress. It means reestablishing family values, friends, free and leisure time. Taking the “now”, present and concrete, versus the “global”, undefined and anonymous. It means taking humans’ essential values, the simplicity of living.
It stands for a less coercive work environment, more happy, lighter and more productive where humans enjoy doing what they know best how to do. It’s time to stop and think on how companies need to develop serious quality with no-rush that will increase productivity and the quality of products and services, without losing the essence of spirit.
In the movie, Scent of a Woman, there’s a scene where Al Pacino asks a girl to dance and she replies, “I can’t, my boyfriend will be here any minute now”. To which Al responds, “A life is lived in an instant”. Then they dance to a tango.
Many of us live our lives running behind time, but we only reach it when we die of a heart attack or in a car accident rushing to be on time. Others are so anxious of living the future that they forget to live the present, which is the only time that truly exists. We all have equal time throughout the world. No one has more or less. The difference lies in how each one of us does with our time. We need to live each moment. As John Lennon said, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans”.
Congratulations for reading till the end of this message. There are many who will have stopped in the middle so as not to waste time in this globalize world.

Forget the blah-blah on slowing down - I know it's the truth, and we need to stop to smell the flowers - but what struck me the most in the whole article was the logic of parking. Its almost like thinking laterally!!! I won't be surprised if the reason for those headlight wipers is something more common and obvious than cleaning the lights.

Do not watch...

2007-03-07T01:31:00.000+05:30

... Nehlle pe Dehlla (sic).

I dream of ...

2007-03-02T01:34:00.000+05:30

... a lot of things, because I remember them in the half-awake moments when I pull the blanket tighter around me. But once I am fully awake, they have fully evaporated from my memory. Even so, there are a few which are clear, and come back to me when I’m day-dreaming while waiting or travelling.

The most common, of course, is the one where I fall off a cliff. But unlike her, I don’t develop wings, I just fall…I enjoy the breathless drop at some breakneck speed, and fall with a thud on my bed. This “thud” would usually be a sudden rolling over, accompanied by an awakening jerk. I hated this dream for the reason that it always woke me up half an hour before the alarm sounded – and it put me in a bad mood because the knowledge that the alarm would sound in 30 minutes would deprive me of any sleep lingering in my drowsy eyelids. Now though, the dream has stopped appearing – largely due to the fact that when I started falling, I would realise that it was close to half-an-hour before the alarm sounded, and I shut the alarm off even before it sounds…he he he!!!

Another consistently appearing dream is the one where my daughter is ice-skating (or doing something similar, which requires her to glide on a smooth surface) and she wants me to come see her perform, but somehow I can’t seem to make it. And it so happens that at the end of her skating, she tends to fall, and I somehow come up from behind, grab her waist and we do a lap of the rink, to standing ovation. It leaves me with goose-pimples, and I don’t know what happens before, or what happens after that. I don’t even wake up then – I only remember in the morning that I dreamt about it.

And there are the ones where I dream about a lot of insignificant things in advance, as if a few friends are sitting and discussing some movie together. Or that we are gathered in some unknown place over a dinner. Much later, when we are actually discussing a movie or sitting at a friend's place, I remember that I had “been here” before – that the guys were wearing the same clothes; that we are talking on the same topic. It’s an uncanny sense of déjà vu. (In order to explain it better, I came across and ended up seeing Déjà vu, which is not that bad a movie, after all) But what I feel is explained to the T by this quote of Dickens – “We have all some experience of a feeling, that comes over us occasionally, of what we are saying and doing having been said and done before, in a remote time – of our having been surrounded, dim ages ago, by the same faces, objects, and circumstances – of our knowing perfectly what will be said next, as if we suddenly remember it!”

In the process I also learnt that when I feel that I was "there" before, it is a particular type of deja vu, known as deja vecu; that when I know that I'm falling and decide to get up, I'm actually undergoing what is known as lucid dreaming, and that jamais vu is the opposite, when you can't remember something despite knowing that you have been there - Like you know that you have seen that face somewhere, but don't know when and where!!! (Happens to us guys all the time :D) Some gyan, eh??!!! Shru, thanks for the tag, I didn't know these before.

More later... :D

Blood Diamond...

2007-02-21T01:23:00.000+05:30

... is a diamond, which has been mined in a war zone, and sold to finance the military needs of an insurgent group.

What’s the story: In the late nineties, Sierra Leone is in midst of a civil war. Insurgents of the Revolutionary United Force (RUF) have swooped on the newly-found diamond mines in the country and are selling it to unscrupulous persons to finance their arms and ammunition. The government is trying hard to cut down on the smuggling of the country’s natural resources. And thousands are dying amidst the gunfire of these two warring factions.

Solomon Vendy (Djimon Hounsou) is a fisherman, who has been captured by the RUF and is made to search for diamonds. One day, he finds a huge diamond – of a size that no one has ever seen – and is caught by the captain of the RUF while trying to bury it. But before the captain can lay his hands on it, the government troops launch an attack, and arrest all of them. In all the gunfire and fighting, Solomon is separated from his family, and his son taken away to be a child-soldier. Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio) is an ex-soldier from Rhodesia , who smuggles diamonds from Sierra Leone to Liberia , for his former commander, Colonel Coetzee. Caught while smuggling, he is now in prison. He is in desperate need to find something of value to bargain his life and way from Colonel Coetzee, for the diamonds which were confiscated when he was caught. Maddy Bowen (Jennifer Connelly) is a journalist covering the civil uprising in Sierra Leone , and is trying to find proof that the illegally flourishing diamond business is actually funding the war, and that the largest diamond corporation is actually buying these diamonds to hold the reins of an ugly game of demand and supply. However, she has no one who will go on the record to give her the details.

So when Danny overhears the conversation between Solomon and the RUF captain in prison, he realises that the huge diamond might as well be his ticket out of this situation. He strikes a two-way deal – with the Colonel to find the huge diamond as repayment for the diamonds which were confiscated while he was caught, and with Solomon to help find his family for the huge diamond. He gets himself and Solomon out of prison, and under the guise of a person genuinely helping a homeless man, he asks Maddy to help find his family. But when she finds out that he is actually a smuggler, Maddy refuses to help him until he goes on record and gives her the details for her story. Danny gets under immense pressure – with his commander prodding him for the diamond, Solomon prodding him for his family, and the RUF searching out Solomon. His only hope is Maddy, who can find Solomon’s family, and lead him towards the mines as members of her press convoy. Watch the movie to find out what happens next.

What’s good in it: Top of the line acting by Leonardo DiCaprio. He sports a look and feel not very different to the one in The Departed, and gets a good hold of the Krio. Watch out for his infectious rendering of “yeah yeah”, when he nods in agreement. Jennifer Connelly looks believable as the journalist. The narration is tight and the cinematography is excellent. All the gunfire, wildlife and war-torn rural Africa make it look like Tears Of The Sun but has been depicted better.

Reco: Once, most definitely. It would not have been nominated for the Oscars otherwise. Must-watch if you are a Leo fan.

Melody...

2007-02-16T01:06:00.000+05:30

... is a first-time thing, like physical attraction, while lyrics are like real love, deep, true, like getting to know a person. Or so Sophie Fisher says in Music and Lyrics.

The Movie – Music and Lyrics is a sweet romance – a chick flick with an Awww!!!! climax on the lines of Notting Hill, About a Boy or more recently Love Actually. Alex Fletcher (Hugh Grant) is a star of a bygone era. His heydays are over, and after his band broke up, he has been singing his songs at retro clubs, and resigning to the fact that he is not in demand anymore. Sophie Fisher (Drew Barrymore) is a “plant-girl” who comes to water the plants in lieu of his usual help, who has taken sick. And when Cora Corman (a teen music sensation made out on the lines of Britney / Lindsay) chooses to do a show with him, he realises it would be his biggest break in the music industry ever since his band broke up. The flip side – he has to write a song in under two days, something he is not very proud of. The last time he wrote a song, he rhymed “you and me” with “autopsy”. So he decides to get a lyricist to do his song, but is left unimpressed with the given lyrics. And then he hears his “plant-girl” humming some words to his melodies. He fires his lyricist and sits with Sophie to write their song. And they start debating on music, lyrics, words, rhyme, and what not under the sun. How they write the song, and finish it up (with Sophie’s sob story, her star-struck elder sister, love and of course Cora and her karmic mixes thrown in) forms the rest of the story.

Performance – Brilliant. Hugh Grant comes up tops!!! He carries his age well, and is extremely believable as a fading star. When he sings “Don’t write me off, just yet”, it almost seems he is referring to his acting career. His Elvis-esque thumkas and the POP after “Pop goes my heart” are lovable. (Dont miss this video at ANY cost). You see yourself doing the POP while coming out of the movie. Drew Barrymore excels as the bubbly sensitive girl, who has dreams to pursue, but develops jitters every time she finds the going getting tough. With her pouts and batting eyelashes, she develops sizzling chemistry with Hugh, making you forget the toughie she played in Charlie’s Angels. Sophie Fisher’s elder sister and her family, Cora and Alex’s manager provide timely humour. Music is awesome, lasting melodies with meaningful (and sometime laughable) lyrics justify the title to a T. Look out for the moment where Hugh dubs his song in his studio.

Reco – Once, most definitely. All the good reasons – Good looking stars, excellent chemistry, lilting music, genuine humour. Plus, it will gather you brownie points if you take your girlfriend along. Pity I had to watch it alone on V-Day.

Salaam-e-ishq...

2007-02-08T00:32:00.000+05:30

... is a movie of a confused director. He wants to say something, but he loses all of it in the melee of his under-used overbearing cast. He takes six couples, and you wonder why. Your confusion is never set to rest, because even at the end of the movie, you are as huh as you were at the beginning. In his effort to fit in all the stories into one, Nikhil Advani loses out on the material.

There is hardly any story which has any palpable depth – in fact there are only five stories – the sixth is hardly a story. If I did not know Isha Koppikar and Sohail Khan were stars, I would have searched the whole screen trying to locate who is being shot there. Their story hardly has anything to do with the other five, nor is its slapstick comedy entertaining in its own right.

A quick performance analysis follows, and may have slight spoilers.

The story of John Abraham and Vidya Balan proves to be the only one with some substance and it aches when its superlative climax gets diluted in the typical shaadi-mandap-esque finale of the other stories. This story comes across as the only reason for which the movie has to be watched. Both John and Vidya excel in this sweet romance. Vidya has matured as an actress, and effortlessly moves from a bubbly mood to a poignant one.

Akshaye Khanna desperately tries to do an Aamir Khan of DCH, but fails miserably. As a "wants-love-not-marriage" guy, he churns out a performance which is a watered down version of Aamir at times, and Rahul Bose in PKSE. After Dor, Ayesha Takia has shown that she has a lot to offer, but Nikhil does not capitalise on it, and she is wasted.

Anil Kapoor gives out a couple of shockers in his role of a middle-aged guy with a successful career, perfect family but boring life. As the dutiful wife and mother-of-two, Juhi spins out a natural performance; it is high time she did something which requires her to “act”. For quite some time now, her characters have become an extension of her real life.

Govinda is old. Period. His comic timing, though, isn’t. His performance is not very different from Bhagam Bhag, and is predictable. His role of a simpleton, falling in love with a phoren maidum is unconvincing, and dull. The phoren-maidum is not too remarkable either. Age shows on Salman Khan too. His awry hair, and body language have nothing to offer. His vintage charm of Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam shows up in bits and pieces, but fails to clear the last mile. Priyanka Chopra is lack-lustre. Her name (Kkamini) and her mannerisms often confuse you into thinking it is actually Kareena onscreen and not Priyanka.

The less said about Isha and Sohail the better. They have a total of 3 scenes, none of which are original or remarkable. Half of their story runs, believe it or not, while the credits roll. Their story (or what is called one) is totally unconnected and runs parallel to the rest. I think it has been included in the movie just to satisfy a numerological need, and nothing else.

Music is not very catchy, the sole exception being the tune of the bagpipes which I intend to use as a ring tone. Camera work is superb, especially when John takes Vidya to his father’s house. Movie is too long, with too many characters playing touch-and-go. Much of the dialogues are takes on old songs, and there are a couple of spoofs as well.

Watch it if you have nothing else to do. Which is why I went in the first place :)

Busyness...

2007-02-07T23:39:00.000+05:30

... in business has resulted in a hiatus in posting. It isn't only the volume of work you see. A lot of other things are happening, like arranging an intra-company badminton tournament, like discussing NRIness with old friends on IM, like receiving and seeing off colleagues, like arranging a conference call to discuss how to vacate the house in Pune, now that no one is there and such like.

Things, which did not allow me to do what I would want to - like writing about the trip to a small British Isle (Wight), or ordering free prints of the photos I took there, or reviewing Guru, or spell-checking the professor, or mentioning my new PDA phone (or its 2GB micro SD card or the bluetooth stereo headset or the 4GB pen drive), or putting in a word on the pass I have to the local multiplex, which gives me unlimited movies for 11 pounds a month.

And to boot, these guys have loaded up this new thing here, which requires me to login with my Gmail account - that's one less password to remember, but what the heck is Google upto? It is integrating everything left, right and center. It took over Youtube, and integrated it into Orkut. I can see them integrating Blogger too, and before you know it, you will be blogging on Orkut.

While this will convince you that I'm still active and Google has not mistakenly trashed my blog in the migration it is undertaking, I'm gonna take some time off and write a lot - most of it will be reviews ( I have been spending too much time on eBay :P ) - but I will also include travelogues and photos and movie-reviews (monthly pass, you see). For Guru, though, I will direct you to this exhaustive review here.

Stay tuned. Attuned.

Nando's...

2007-01-26T00:14:00.000+05:30

… short for Fernando’s, is a Portuguese-themed chain of restaurants, which is famous for its peri-peri type of chicken.

Legend has it that when the Portuguese set out to India by sailing all along the African coast, they camped in a place near Mozambique. The sun, the sand and the tropical weather caught their fancy, and they set up base here. And to add to their pomp and gaiety, they developed a fancy for the local spice – pili-pili, which they called peri-peri.

Such were the old settlers enamoured by Peri-peri that it finds its way into their menu, their food, and their way of life. They like to believe that ex’peri-peri’menting and ex’peri-peri’encing are the only way to live life. The cuisine here is mostly chicken - not surprising, because its best selling item is the chicken itself. They cook the chicken in a unique way, laying it flat on an open fire grill – much like our tandoor – which gives it a smoky taste when eaten.

You do get veggie items – but there is a limited choice – like the pitta, for example. A simple veggie pitta is not very different from our Big Mac when eaten. To the eyes, however it looks like the filling is enclosed in two thick chapattis and sealed all around. A typical veggie pitta, with chips and spicy rice, looks like this.

The food here goes very well with Sangria. Sangria is basically a light wine punch – a dominant red wine, which is then spiked with sweeteners like honey or orange juice, and has fruits in it. Subtle variations of fruit and sweeteners have given rise to a variety of drinks, but they are all called Sangria in general.

For more stories on the Peri-Peri Life and the legend of the Barcelos Cockerel, click here.

So you all...

2007-01-19T01:14:00.000+05:30

... thought I was joking about the winter here? Take a look at the roads which take me to my office.

This is just as I step out of my door. Take a look at the swanky cars to the left. I gotta take a right where this road meets the intersection somewhere in the background.

This is the main road - the road in the foreground (white lines) is what I call a 'parking road' - its a kind of service road, which is used exclusively for parking. Notice the red lines - this means its a has a premium rate for parking - a pound an hour!!! Purple lines are 75p and green is free. But its never free - for parking, that is!!!

And, you remember I told you my desk was almost a corner one, and has a view of Jaipur, the Indian restaurant? Well, this is the view!!! And just in case the fog and the darkness make you gloomy, let me remind you, once in a while, we get some sunshine, and how we wish it lasts!!! Why? Take a look!!!

Notice the red car in the foreground - it is always in the same place. Proof of it is the fact that the two snaps above are spaced weeks apart. There are lots more to come, so stay glued...

I am a stickler...

2007-01-06T17:25:00.000+05:30

...for correct spellings. If it’s a sunny day, and I’m feeling Godly, I may choose to forgive an occasional grammatical mistake, but I simply cannot stand wrong spellings. This, in spite of a Cambridge University study wchih pvores that you can raed and udnersnatd snetneecs if the frsit and lsat ltteers of the wrods are in palce. Only I know how difficult it was for me to write the above sentence – to convince myself to deliberately put the letters in the wrong places. But I digress. If I were not like this, I wouldn’t be the spellchecker for the professor, would I? Anyways.

GOOD DAY. This is KIRAN R PAWAR is This right time to talk to you? As you
are aware I am working with LIC, LIC is conducting a customer satisfaction
sarway. The corporation wants to know your views on Life Insurance
Mr. ________I want to meet you for about 15; minuets. Would you prefer That of come at 10am Saturday or nest day Sunday be more suitable? (your view :s are Important to us)
Thanking you
You finical friends
Kiran R. Pawar

And so began my autopsy of the ill-fated letter which dared to seek my mailbox with all its lacunae. And as if he were standing here in front of me, my friend starts asking -
Is this a good time to talk to you?
NO. Why is he going on?
As you are aware, I am working for LIC?
As YOU are obviously unaware, this is the first time I’m talking to you, so I’m not aware. Ok, now I’m aware. Now what?
The corporation wants to know your views on Life Insurance Mr.
What? Is this an interrogation, mister? Or is it like Mr._________, I want to meet you for 15; meet you for 15? You want 15 from me? 15 what? *Flabbergasted* Oh minuets? You want to meet me for 15 minuets? 15 dances and that too old style? Crazy hua kya? I’m no ‘Writh’ik Roshan, mind you.
Would you prefer that?
Prefer what? The dance?
Would you prefer that of come at 10am Saturday?
Any suggestions?
Or nest day Sunday be more suitable?
I thought Sunday was a rest day. Nest Day? What do we do? Go and nest? Or is it that on a “nest day be more suitable”, and other days be less suitable? Suitable for what? Nesting? Huh? And in the bracket he writes – your view :s are important to us. I have half a hunch the ‘:’ implies another meaning. Which view is he talking about? Sunday? Nesting? View? Whew!!!
You finical friends – Kiran R Pawar
Friends? I assume that the r is “or”. Which leads me to believe that there are two of them, both finical and intending to maintain an air of mystery. Oooh!!! Super. But then, who is the “this” pointer when they say in the first line “this is Kiran (or) Pawar”

And even though I spellcheck all the posts and comments for the professor, she does have an other side - she won this contest with this gem of an entry, you see. So as soon as I received this email, I sent it to her. Sometimes, it helps to know you have competition around.

Man wants...

2006-12-30T22:20:00.000+05:30

... a telephone. He goes and checks the latest model and plans available. Man goes to the showroom and offers to pay upfront. Man is denied a phone because he does not have a PIN number for the debit card or a "paid utility bill, not older than three months" in his name.

Man goes to bank, demands a PIN for his debit card. Bank says PIN is despatched. Man says he has not received yet. Clerk checks and says it has been despatched to his permanent address in India.

Man wants to go out. It is so damn chilly outside that the very thought of "becoming a penguin" to go out puts him off. Man wants to go out of the city for new year. It rains. Man looks out of the window at 4 in the afternoon and wonders "Whither the sun?"

Man wants to charge his gadgets, but his round plugs won't go into the square holes. Man attempts to find a charger, but none in stock.

Man wishes everyone a happy, fun-filled and a satisfying year ahead and rolls off to sleep under the warmth of his blanket.

The chilly winds...

2006-12-19T15:20:00.000+05:30

... of England seem to have the sharpest bite of them all. A week into the UK and I already feel the woollen I have will hopelessly fail to insulate me – when I am outside, that is. In the inside of the house, the office, and the mall I visit in between walking from one to the other, there are heaters working tirelessly to make the people feel warm and cozy.

The walk to the office is a pleasant one – early in the morning, thanks to a disciplined colleague who works smart – the shops in the mall are just about opening as we walk past them, the heavenly smell of cookies and bread emanates from the brunch shop, a couple of people nod a silent “Good Morning”, as we walk the entire diagonal length of the mall, window shopping the huge stores, brandishing their merchandise at a re-worked price for Christmas.

One desk beside me, the large glass windows (or should I say walls) stretch themselves over the parking lot, and beyond it, one can see a palatial structure with a dome – that’s the Indian restaurant, Jaipur – the closest to authentic Indian food you get around Milton Keynes comes from these kitchens, they say. One can also see the traffic emerging out of the railway station, which is just in front of the office building. The cars, I won’t even talk about them – BMWs are driven as taxis. More land is allotted to the parking lot than the actual office space. The sun, when it shines, bounces off the glass windows, and reflects off the shiny roofs of the cars below.

Outside, the leaves have bid goodbye to the trees, and those which have managed to hold fast have turned a rusty brown. People walk around hugging their dark overcoats tighter around themselves. You can’t make out who is smoking unless you look at their hands and find a cigarette between their fingers. The landscape outside has a touch of wilderness with all the brown and the earth. Even so, the guy next door, scraping frozen dew off his car windows, brings hope that it might be a white Christmas after all.

Westward Ho !!!

2006-12-12T03:18:00.000+05:30

The lights below were as if someone was holding a mesh of golden beads, shining away in all their glory. Wait, was that the Sayyaji Rao Road meeting Urs Road at KR Circle?

It was indeed one road meeting another at a roundabout, but from 2000 ft above the ground, you would not know for sure. For, the first illuminated aerial view of the city of London reminded me of my own Mysore, decked up for Dasara.

I'm in the UK now, on company assignment. I arrived over the weekend, and have settled well, thank you. Work might not permit me to blog on company time, but I do have unsupervised internet access at home, so Shru, the comments shall freely flow now...

Firsts list

2006-11-23T21:51:00.000+05:30

How many of you have a first-list - the first job, the first bike, the first house, the first kiss...you get the drift? Like Dr.Bhalerao says to Roy in Bluffmaster - tumhe kitne din yaad hain?, I have a mental "to-do" list, which I like to "Mark as Done" with a punch in the air, as and when I reach there. Some of my firsts have been highly fulfilling, like my laptop, which left me on cloud nineteen, or my first big splurge - 16k of hard-earned money on a cellphone. I still remember the feeling when I gingerly gave my card for swiping, wondering whether it was worth it.

Some of them were long overdue, like my bike. My bike was not the first vehicle I rode - I had a second-hand Hero Puch before, and an old family Luna before that, and hand-me-down cycles even before. My bike was not the first vehicle I bought - I bought a Scooty for dad before the bike. And so, the joy that MY bike was bought of my own money was overshadowed by a "Oh, you bought a bike? So what?" feeling. Nevertheless, I celebrate every small acquisition in my long list of "must-haves" I have been listing since college days. Some items on the list have been re-prioritised, some new items have gatecrashed and some items have been obfuscated.

And I remember each of these firsts - the offer letter - which was like a million prayers answered, the first big splurge - with the fear of repayment, the first salary (again, technically, the first salary was Rs.880, for a part-time job as a sales canvasser for Deccan Herald, which was joyfully spent on steaming idli-vada-sambar or set dosas for a whole month), the ride from the bike showroom to the office, the wide-eyed stare into the shining blackness of the laptop screen, the awe at the credit-card sized digital camera, which is smaller than my cellphone, the first of those stolen kisses (ever wondered how the sweetest of kisses are those that are stolen), the first of those innumerable whoops of joy at something finally working out, the first (and all) of those reunions of college friends and many many more....

Some time back, I struck one more entry off my list - I bought my first suit. And while I was it, I made it even more memorable by making it two.

bewDon ka woh aDDa

2006-11-10T22:50:00.000+05:30

You ask me where I was all these days? I tell you I was at the bar. You gawk?

So I was hopping here and there, bored and yawning, and I came across this cozy bar via Adi.

(This takes our score to 2-1 in his favour. How you ask? Like Adi carries my post on Mysore here - Adi 1 - Viky 0, Like I beat him for the GOLD on this post - 1-1)

I'm lucky to generally have some spare time in office, which I book under "Non-project Activity". Much of this is reading blogs, checking out gadget reviews, drawing up comparison sheets to help friends buy some goods, checking my account balance in the hope that some good samaritan may have transferred some money, reading trivia on sports or film stars on Wikipedia - the stuff. I always enjoy posts of Indian students and professionals living abroad - their life, the kind of things they come across, the slight fear of being alone in a distant, unfamiliar environment, the tingling excitement of explaining your native habits and culture - you know, the works. I keep coming back and read them, often discuss anecdotes of the scores of NRI blogs I read, but none were so captivating that I had to reschedule the other NPAs. After Thought Raker and Waiter Rant, this was one blog which beckoned me to keep coming back.

And I'm left with the same feeling which I had after Waiter Rant. It's like finishing a good book. Like one of my trainers said - I'm sad that you have never read Harry Potter, but I'm also happily jealous, because you can experience the joy of reading them for the first time, while I can't. When you finish lapping up all the archived stuff, you are glad, but there is this hunger for more. Hunger, which will not satiate at one post. Which is why I read the waiter once in four-five weeks, when there is enough on my plate. I thought I'd never find anything which would feed my hunger for short-storyesque prose like ThoughtRaker, but I found Waiter Rant. I thought the same about Waiter Rant, but found Sayeshaz.

Which prompted me to tweak Hariharan's ghazal and put it as my debut comment on her bar - "maikade band karein laakh zamane waale, shehar mein kam nahin blogon se pilane waale".

Trains

2006-11-01T19:43:00.000+05:30

When I have written about buses, can trains be left behind?

I always had a special connection with trains, as can be seen in my comment on this post. I have literally woken up to the loud trumpeting horn of the Mysore-Nanjangud train, waiting for its signal to enter the Ashokapuram station. I clearly remember Thatha taking me up to the roof years ago, to show me the trains. Those were cherished moments - every year, a visit to Mysore would mean looking at the trains from Ajji mane mhaaDi. Later, when I came to stay there, and the house underwent a lot of renovation, I was to take my little cousins up the stairs and show them the trains when they acted cranky.

While in school, we would go to play cricket in a place called the "woodyard". On my way back, I would walk along the tracks, wondering how they could stack the stones in neat oblong mounds.
I would walk along until I reached the station, which had a workshop attached to it. This was enough to fuel my curiosity, and I have seen probably all kinds of engines and bogies there were at that point of time.

Later, as dad kept moving around, I got to travel a lot in trains - long distance trains to Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi. I loved those journeys - the looking up your name on reservation charts, the securing of suitcases under the seats, and wondering who might be in the seat next to you, the removing of shoes and climbing up to the upper berth (I got to see a lot of people who climbed into the upper berth and then put their shoes on top of the fan there. I found it utterly disgusting, but I guess they must have lost more shoes than I have stepped into, so I'll let that be), the slow rocking of the train, the switching off of the lights, and the drifting off to the best sleep ever. I always sleep well on trains. Better than I sleep in buses or aeroplanes, or at home. It must be the rocking, or the heavenly smell of countryside, or maybe, the distinctive smell of the cold metal and rexine.

Sometimes, in late evenings when dinner would be served and wrapped up, and I had finished my book or my batteries, I would go and sit on the footboard. Yes, mom, I know you forbade me to stand there. Which is why I didn't. I just sat. I sat and watched the countryside whizz by. I sat and enjoyed the change of sound as the train went over a bridge. I sat and counted the number of bogies as the train went around a bend. I sat and let the wind mess up my hair, I watched the distant light of a lone house in the dark fields. I watched the headlights of the vehicles lined up to let my train pass, I waved back at the small kids waving me goodbye. I took deep breaths of the night air, and at the first sign of drowsiness, I went back to my berth.

Sometimes, I would wake up early to the first call of "tea-choy", "chaya-chaya" or "ness-coffy sir", and a paper-cup in hand, would watch the dawn break across rural India. Trust me, there is nothing more beautiful or divine than watching the sun rise over the misty horizon, lighting up the hitherto dark countryside. The chill in the air stings your face as you sit on the footboard, sipping the hot tea and feasting your eyes on the emerging greenery. Dawn breaks early in rural areas, or rather, it seems to, and you have to be up really early to catch this. An hour later maybe, all you get is morning squatters on the outside, and people wanting to freshen up on the inside. I always used this time to go back to my berth, recall all the sights and drift back to sleep.

The night is always mysterious and fascinating, you never know how it passes. On a train, it is passing the day that is the more difficult part. Like everyone of us, I always hoped that I would meet (atleast) one interesting person of the opposite sex, who would make the journey interesting - but no !!! It either happens in the movies, or to Chetan Bhagat. My sister got such company once, though, and they ended up talking about a story I had started to write, and made fun of the characters. I sulked and never finished the story.

How could one write about a long distance journey and not mention the eunuchs who came clapping by. First I used to look away - outside the window, or into the newspaper or magazine. Later, a sense of "what the duck" took over, and I used to look them in the eye and ask them to go away. The first time I did this, I was like - Wow, it works!!! Hah!!! It's not that I am against helping or anything, but rather, I subscribe to the view that giving them money would encourage them to do it more. It is like purchasing ivory or leather goods - the more you do it, the more it spreads. The only way of stopping it is to refuse them. The only exception I make is for kids. I can't stand them begging saying they haven't eaten for days. And no, I don't give them money. I make sure that they are fed.

Not just trains, as a kid, I was intrigued by stations as well. The nearest station (the one with the workshop) was in visible distance of our house. As kids, we used to go there often and play hide-and-seek in the bogies there. This catered to just one local line, so there was not much of a station there, in fact. Later, when I began visiting dad, he would explain to me the types of stations - there are stations which make their cities famous - like Wadi, or Guntakal, or Bhusawal - these are crucial junctions for the Railways, and they are, by far, the only claim to fame for these cities. Then there are stations which are famous for the food there - like Agra, for its petha, or Mathura, for its peda. And then there are the cities of the erstwhile Presidencies - Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata - since the railway stations here were among the earliest ones set up by the British, their main platforms are unidirectional, like airports - the train comes onto the platform, then backs out to the loop line, and then goes to the main line before chugging out.

I remember how I would stand in the queue at the reservation counter, with 2-3 reservation forms in hand along with the student concession form, for the most convenient train, book the ticket, and count days for the journeys. Things have since changed and the last time I booked a ticket, all I did was call an agent from my extension and give him the train number, and the tickets were delivered next day. Trust me, it was no fun at all.

Trains. They are not just a medium of transport in India. They are a way of life. Like The Think says, you shouldn't write any other word in the same line you write "train".

The race

2006-10-30T18:06:00.000+05:30

There was a race at Mohali yesterday.

The spectators were trying to leave the stadium before Aussies finished the game.
The Aussies were trying to finish the game before the spectators left the stadium.

The Indian team lingered on till both left. Ask them who won.

Teachers of a different kind

2006-10-24T20:59:00.000+05:30

All through our life we learn from teachers. And then as we stumble along, we get other people from whom we learn - friends, colleagues, mentors, apprentices. Me? I have learnt from room-mates.

The first is a guy who has the cleanest heart and the simplest mind one could have. A thought with an ulterior motive will probably never germinate in his mind. A guy who maintains a birthday calendar and wishes everyone at the stroke of twelve. He can never say NO, and hence is often found doing someone else's dirty work. He sees joy in the smallest of things - a simple meal of rice, a hit Telugu movie, a boundary in a cricket match - almost to the point of being child-like. He is often moody - sometimes revelling in little things of joy, sometimes going into a thinking mode and becoming silent, sometimes thinking about work and related stuff - which has led to us dubbing him senti, but nonetheless, he has great character. Oh, and yes, he is a wonderful cook, and he is insistent on keeping the kitchen clean - a bit Monica-esque.

He is our local interest-free loan bank, he always manages to arrange money when any of us is facing the crunch. From him, I have learnt to save money for a rainy day. From him I have realised that I want to be in a position where I can lend money at short notice. (Oh basically that means I want to have surplus money, and not just make ends meet). I have also learnt to take life seriously, to plan for the family. He does not do anything special - just the things a son would do, or a big brother would do for a kid sister - but for a guy like me who has not stayed with his parents for the last 13 years, it sure seems great.

As much as I have learnt to take life seriously from the first, I have learnt to let go from the second. In all the two years I have been with him, I have seen him lose his temper only once. A miniature version of him would look like the toy in the song - "aaDisi noDu, beeLisi noDu". He even rocks the same way when he laughs, holding his stomach. He takes everything in his stride - the only thing that comes out is a hearty resounding laugh. He is a master of parodising songs - he will twist the lyrics to his whims and fancies, and sings as if the bathroom is soundproofed. He has a strange obsession to puffed rice. He has this knack of conjuring up recipes with puffed rice. He will soak them and use them as a substitute for rice in chitranna. He will chop tomatoes and make tomato-puri in minutes. As a cook, he is second only to the first above (and that's because the rest of us would not be able to tell the difference between saarina-puDi and huLi-puDi)

His best quality is the ability to laugh at himself. He is invariably the butt of our jokes - we create and laugh at a joke on him, in front of him, and all he does is laugh with us. Every waking hour, he is poked fun at. We have poked fun of probably everything he does - his eating, his sleeping, his talking, his clothing and accessories, his hair, his voice - anyone else would perhaps been offended, given us a piece of his mind and changed rooms. But not him. He is a punching bag. He will take all your blows and never hit back. These two qualities of his, I would like to take back with me.

While the second taught me to let go, the third showed me how. Funny to the core, this guy is almost like Chandler, in dishing out one-liners and puns. He finds joy in the antics of Homer and Bart. I will perhaps, take back the most from this guy. Even though I knew him for years before he became my room-mate, I cashed in only in the last couple of years. Coming from a no-cable, no-loud-music background which, like the typical Indian Middle Class, favoured marks over runs or goals, I never had varied interests in English music, or movies, or sports. I imbibed most of my decent knowledge of sports and music from him. He explains to me, even today, in great detail, the different genres of music - and the best in those genres. He is an amazing database of statistics and reels them off the cuff. He points out to me, the intricacies of football and tennis. He tells the most inspiring anecdotes of sportsmen and musicians. Some of the best movies I have seen have been his recommendations. He has, arguably, the most impeccable dressing sense among the non-celebrities I know.

I shall probably remember him most for introducing me to Friends. I have since become a fan, something I share with another person close to my heart, and I have spent nights watching season after season on my laptop.

My fourth roomie is no longer a room-mate in the physical sense, he sold his girl and moved out five days short of completing two full years with us. The conversations are more on phones and reply-alls now. This guy is fiercely close to his parents and shares with me, a love for Mysore. Along with my third roomie, he has also helped in increasing my repertoire of english music. They always had topics to talk on, and I have picked up a lot of things being a silent observer to their conversations on music and sports.

Though we are all close-knit, there is a tangible closeness among some of us. Like the first and second are often dubbed "brothers" because of similar backgrounds, similar families, and a similar tongue of speech. But we are all equally fond of the fourth. A thing he mentioned to me in the days before he left will be the lesson I take back from him - that good fences make good neighbours.

So there you stand introduced to my four room-mates, who have shared time, space and life with me, over these two years. Not everyone is fortunate enough to get such roomies - I have friends who have room-mates for reasons purely financial, I know of people who are not happy with their room-mates - but in my room-mates I've got teachers of a different kind.

Guys, I know you will read it sometime now - no, I was not feeling senti (though I bet I made some of you senti). It's just that we're all kinda drifting apart, what with two of us here, two in UK and one in Bangalore, and with the possibility of living under the same roof again getting farther and farther away, I realised I have never thanked you guys. Hence this post, to thank you for being there, for making our stay in Pune that much more comfortable, for weaving together strands of your life into the fabric of mine.

Happy Diwali

2006-10-21T22:14:00.000+05:30

So its Diwali, a time for the whole family to come together and rejoice. A time when sons return home to be with their parents, a time when daughters get busy helping their mothers set the sweets aside, a time when kids light up crackers all over the place.

I remember, as kids, we used to heap together all the crackers our numerous aunts and uncles got from their Lions and Rotary Clubs, and from various cheeTi vyavaharas. Two days before, we used to spread all the crackers on a newspaper, and put them in the sun to dry, so that they would burst in a bang, and not just sputter in front of the neighbours.

I don't really know when I began to appreciate Diwali more as a festival of lights than sound, even though over years, Diwali has become just the opposite. I guess we just miss what has left us.

Like Thatha, for example.

I'm in Mysore this Diwali, like every year, but for Thatha's annual ceremony.

I've been very busy for some time now, and there are other updates as soon as I return to Pune, but till then, wish you a happy Diwali...

The journey of 40 kms ...

2006-10-08T16:51:00.000+05:30

... begins with a bus.

Those who know me know I love travelling. Now, you know too. :D Alright, it was a dud joke.

Anyway, I have no special preference for the modes of travel, but somehow I had never had special affinity for buses. When my dad was in Andhra, we used to come to Mysore for the annual summer vacation. My tiny brain (at that time) registered very little of those journeys. I remember that before I fell asleep, the bus went in a long straight road which had eucalyptus trees on both sides, which gave way to dry fields bordered with parthenium and other thorny shrubs, and by the time I woke up, the bus would be descending a big jaaro banDe. Any guesses what the jaaro banDe was? Well, I'll let you Bangaloreans guess this, before I give the answer in the comments section. Muhahahaha. In any case, that was all I remember of those bus journeys.

Or bus-journeys in general. Until I joined engineering.

I have travelled in buses for the entire four years of my engineering, from Mysore to Mandya. The normal red ones - whose conductors allowed us in without a whimper; the special red ones, which claimed to be interstate buses, but whose conductors surreptitiously changed the board as soon as they entered Mandya from Bangalore - these conductors had to be fought against, because they barred us students to attract instead, passengers who would pay for their tickets; and the real interstate ones - in which students were not allowed - we have on occasion paid on these buses - sometimes in cash, sometimes in sheepish smiles.

The first year, it was all so new. And fun. Counting the number of hand-rails and pillars, walking up and down the aisle in the name of getting ragged, magnanimously allowing a bus to pull away because the seats were bad (yeah, I used to "drop" buses until I was late for an early class one day), flashing the bus-pass into the face of the conductor like it was the ID of a vigilance officer - you name it I had done it.

By the second year, it had become routine. The big gang of "fresher friends" had broken up into small groups - branch wise, class-wise and time-table-wise. We now had a specific bus to catch - Ghati Subramanya - because it had a lady conductor. And also because it made the 40 km distance 15 minutes earlier than the other buses, which took an hour. And those 45 mins were pure bliss. That particular bus was superbly maintained. Save for the occasional brake to save the stray dog from its suicidal death, it was pretty much a jerkless journey.

We didn't care about the buses by third year. We didn't care about the classes either. So we waited in the bus-stop, "dropping" bus after bus, until the whole "travelling" strength of our class assembled, and then we all crammed into the same bus. Unless of course, the lecturer who was supposed to take the class saw us waiting there. Yes, our lecturers travelled from Mysore, too. We would generously offer the seats in front to the normal passengers and occupy the last seats. And let the antics begin. We had more fun there, anyway. How many days we forced the government (forced the government??? $%&*%$* Ah!!! Youth power!!!) to run buses from Mysore to Mandya, without a single ticket collection. Yes - A bus full of hooligans, singing their way along. God forbid a fresher getting a bus like that in his first sem.

This was the year we enjoyed the most, I guess. The bus-stand had almost become our home. I even had a newspaper-wallah, who would hand me the paper at 7, when I came in and I would settle his accounts weekly. Till 7-15, we would scan the paper, waiting for the class to assemble. Yes, here. Our class assembled in the bus-stand. And then board any bus which had the last seat empty. We would reach Mandya by 8-15, catch an auto to the college a mile away, and storm into the canteen for a tea. We walked in the first year, enjoying the superb weather, but then, who wants to get all sweaty and tired before a class. An auto preserved the early morning drowsiness, which proved helpful in the class. ;)

The return journeys were more fun - in fact. It was the Mandya bus-stand that saw us wait more. Mysore was a terminus. We always got seats. But in Mandya, we had to wait for the buses which came from Bangalore. No sooner did a bus come in did the great collegian huddles run into a frenzy, throwing bags and hankies around. Usurping the whole last seat was the general aim. There have been times where the bus took just a bag, and the owner collected it from the cycle-stand. We all invariably parked at the Wellington Stand on Irwin Road, and the owner recognised almost everybody by face. I sometimes wonder about the life of these people - every year, they get a different set of people, and they establish a close relationship with everyone of them who chooses to say Hi to them. Amazing how tough bonds can become, even though they involve only saying Hi twice a day for four years.

Yes, four years. The final year was mostly of nostalgia. We had made sure we had only one theory subject for the final semester, so there was no need to come to college. Yet, once or twice a week, we found ourselves gathering in the bus-stand. We've taken photos inside the bus, making people wonder whether we had seen buses before. In these four years, I have memories of sitting in EVERY seat of the bus there is. So much so, we have an online group here.

It was a blissful time, and it appeased the travel-bug in me, so I have nothing to complain of. Even the seats - they taught me to appreciate the kind of seats we now have in Volvos. It can't get worse than having a mishmash of a plywood sheet, a threadbare cushion and a rexin cover bouncing aorund in the last row for a seat, does it? Now, I hear the college has employed buses to pick up students from the highway - from where we used to take an auto - and I wonder whether the kids now have as much fun as we had cramming five-six people into one auto and haggling with him for the fare.

I have no special preference for modes of travel - as long as the "travel" is there. I like to bike around - remind me to make a post of how we rode down to Mulshi on bikes - and drive cars, but I enjoy them more when I'm the one in the driver's seat. But now, I have an opinion of buses. I love them. And all the more because they take me to Bangalore in 16 hours flat. The train takes twenty.

Braking the break

2006-10-06T19:40:00.000+05:30

The break did not do me any good.

Not writing has not helped me one bit - I'm still the same. Pangs of doubt and uncertainty hit me every now and then. I keep thinking of how to make it a win-win for all concerned, but I lose my way midway and think on what might happen if things would not work the way I want them to. I know there is only one outcome. But I just can't bully my way in there. I just don't want to hurt others on my way there.

Not them. Not after all they have done.
Not them. Not for believing in me.
Neither them. For no fault of theirs.

If only I could make others see my viewpoint and set everything right with a flourish of a wand, I would. Alas, I am endowed with no such powers, and I will have to undergo the uncertainty of it all. The dark clouds meandering over me shall pass to yield a brighter light. But the stream cannot stop till such time. The stream has to flow, lest it develop algae, in its stagnation.

I am back.

And its time to take a break...

2006-09-11T20:54:00.000+05:30

... because a lot of things are happening on the personal front.

I am going through a very bad patch, it is better that I do not tempt myself to write, for I may end up writing something, which I would regret later. See you folks around.

Goosepimples...

2006-09-06T16:48:00.000+05:30

...rise on my arms, even as I read my own article on Mysore, which Churumuri carries here.

A big thank you to Churumuri, for carrying my article, and to Shastri, for pointing it out to me. You guys made my day. I am proud that my writing found its way into a forum where titans like T.S Satyan, T.J.S George, Bhamy Shenoy and Sunaad Raghuram muse, and all the more because I did not have to do anything for it (except the writing, of course).

As email forwards, my article seems to have reached into the hearts of every software engineer either from Mysore, or who has done engineering in Mysore. Immense joy comes when they think it has been scripted by somebody from SJCE. Ironically, this "somebody from SJCE" did his engineering in neighbouring Mandya. I guess the assumption is because I have mentioned Jayciana right after the NIE-SJCE feud.

I also see, by the time Churumuri carried it, well-meaning people have tweaked the text to include their favourite hang-outs, which were missed out. Phalamrutha joins Penguin as a ice-cream joint, and GTR dosa sits pretty with the Mylari dosa I had mentioned. In retrospect, when I go through the comments of everyone of you guys - Adi, Shark, Vamshi (thank you all for carrying it as a main post) and of course, Anu (who brought me to that frame of mind here, in the first place), I do realise that I missed out mentioning quite a lot of things - some which I had experienced, some which I had not - I intend to, on my next visit.

Coming back to churumuri, there ensues an oft-repeated discussion in the comments section - how Mysore was polluted by the influx of IT community. Well, I will not get drawn into that debate, I have only this much to say - Striving to help Mysore retain its status as heritage city does not mean depriving it of development. If we are doing it even unconsciously, then we are doing a great disservice to the city which we love so much.

And before I end, a few gems which elicited wide smiles on this already radiant face - Nostalgic Mysorean says, "Surely this sums up the Mysore I lived in from 1948-1965", and Jeevarathna says "This is actually from Infosys bill board by a infosyan and not meant for public circulation". Really?

The Kaleidoscope

2006-09-04T11:13:00.000+05:30

"What is life, dad?" the kid asked.

The father ruffled the kid's dark brown locks, and took him into his arms. "Life, son", he said, "is a mirror."

The little one seemed satisfied for some time, and looked over his father's shoulders, gazing at the two sets of footprints in the sand, which had now reduced to one.

"Can I see myself in it?" he asked.
"Yes, son. But you have to be really patient, as the image does not form so easily."
"Why not?"

The father sat on a rock, put his son on his lap, and pointed to the waves at his feet. The kid peered intently, seeking some crab wiggling away, or a shell, which he could take home.

"Do you see yourself in it, son?" the father asked, pointing to the wobbly reflection of their hunched bodies in the water.

The kid nodded his head and smiled a Yes. The father explained, "When the water hits the shore, it is in a hurry, but it has all the time in the world to go back. You cannot see yourself in it when it comes in, but as it goes back, you can see your reflection in it."

"Life's mirror is similar, son. It reflects what you show to it. Show some anger, and it retaliates. Smile, and it smiles back at you. Show some love, and it will love you back."

"How many mirrors do I have?" the kid piped up, interested in the turn of the conversation.
"We have separate mirrors, son, for each of the people we know. One for me, one for the uncle at the toy-store, one for each of your friends, for each place you have been to. Each mirror is of a different colour, and depending on how much love you put into it, it acquires a deeper colour."

"Where are all these mirrors? Do we have to take them everywhere?"
The father smiled at the innocent question. He loved to explain things like this to the little one.
"When we move on, we cannot take the mirrors as a whole, so we break the whole thing down, and pick up a shard of the broken glass, as a souvenir. When you have lived your life, son, you will have a number of shards with you, which you put into a kaleidoscope. And as you turn it over and over, you see many different shards in random combinations, shining in the light. Each shard will remind you of the mirror it came from, and how you helped color it. And if you smile when you gaze through the kaleidoscope, it means you have lived your life well."

"Colourscope?" the kid looked up, confused.
"Ka-lee-dow-scope", the father syllabled, setting his son back on the sand. "Come, I will make you one when we go home."

And the kid held his hand and pranced away, sure that he would get something to play with in the evening.