Caliban's Beast

1636 or 1706

2011-03-28T18:32:00.004+05:30

The latest tiger census says that India now has 12% more tigers. One hopes that it is an accurate figure. If it is so, then this is news worth rejoicing. Specially if this is the beginning of a trend.

One was also glad to know that along with the pug-mark profiling, photographic census was done in many places. Pug-mark census is not a reliable method in itself. Too many variables come into play - the ground needs to be soft and not rocky to capture the imprint; the animal needs to be walking normally and not with a large kill in the mouth; if the ground is sandy then the pug can appear smaller or indistinct; a short burst of speed may distort the distance of the stride...and many such variables. However, pug-statistics are invaluable when the animal is being tracked and monitored on a continuous basis. The pattern that gets created with numerous separate data-points reduce the errors.

To do this exercise as a one-off is not a good idea. And that is what happens in our counting. Volunteers are recruited every 2 years - they have no details of the behaviour of the individual animals and hence record data mechanically and without much insight.

This can change if our tiger reserves are monitored 24x7. This way the observers can get to know the individual animals, gradually build the pug-profiles, correlate them to pictures (it is impossible to get the pictures of all the tigers in an eco-system in the few months that a typical census takes to complete) and, most importantly, build the DNA profiles of each animal. The DNA profiles need to be verified using cross sampling: fur, scat, saliva, urine, etc. This becomes a crucial data-point for monitoring cubs as they grow. It also ensures that cub losses are recorded and no mistake is made of either double counting or missing out, for example when the male-cub uses jungle corridors to occupy new habitats after it separates from the mother.

If all this is done, the actual census would be like taking the freeze-frame of any one particular period's count of animals. It would still need to be painstaking, but it would be far more accurate.

We would continue to face challenges in some areas - like Sundarbans. Not only is it difficult to spot the tigers, the habitat is spread between two countries where the animals move freely, completely oblivious to the man-made geographical boundaries. Here, as they do now, statistical algorithms will need to get used. However, continuous monitoring will ensure that the profile records help in calculating more accurate error compensators. Sundarbans has an additional problem because when the animal spots our intrepid observer he does not think, 'Good Lord! Man!!! Let me melt into the jungle'. Instead he says, 'Ah! Dinner!!!' Yes, they are all maneaters in Sundarban.

Jairam Ramesh has done a commendable job by improving the census methodology. It would be great if he invests in adequate personnel to provide expert and scientific monitoring; and invests in laboratories to ensure that even better processes are sustained across all tiger habitats. Without reliable and continuous data it is impossible to save the tiger. Or indeed, any endangered species.

However, today, it is time to celebrate and congratulate the minister, the ministry, the fantastic guardians of many of our sanctuaries, our IFS officers and the villagers who live in the jungles and support it. Well done, all! A big thank you for saving this magnificent beast and its habitat!

Open Letter to Dr. Manmohan Singh

2010-09-13T20:42:00.004+05:30

Dear Manmohanji,
Your last alma mater, Oxford University, released a report based on an new, accurate way of measuring poverty called Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI). This report states that India has 410 million desperately poor people, a poverty level that is comparable to Sub-Saharan Africa but numbering far more. To put this number in perspective: India has more desperately poor people than all the people in the whole of sub-Saharan African countries put together. The world has a total of 1.7 billion such desperately poor people. That works to around 24% of these poor live in India. In the 17th century that was India's share of the global trade. To put another number, so that we have some idea of what we are talking about: money-wise the desperately poor are those who earn less than USD1.25 per day. That is, around INR 60. And that is maximum INR 60. Further, they need to earn it every day, day-after-day; because they are on daily wages. So it is a maximum INR 60 on the days that they have work. Else, they starve. They starve and their children starve. If things don't go well, they starve the next day too.

Some of these people we are talking about are the very persons who starve for so long that they die. That is what we know of Kalahandi. It can't be that Kalahandi is the only place for such wretchedness. So it is reasonable to assume that we do not know of many other places where people starve to death.

You, Mr. Prime Minister have 4 more years to go with this Government. Now, here is my proposition to you: please ask the Planning Commission and the entire think-tank that you have to create a project-plan to reduce the number of MPI Poor from 410 million to 205 million in these 4 years; that is to say, halve the current numbers. Then work backwards from the plan and see how much money will it take to accomplish this. Please give this team a quarter (in case they misunderstand, it means three months) to present this plan to you. Whatever the money required, please allocate. It will naturally mean scrimping on other things, but let's do this on a war-footing.

After all, you would not hesitate to come up with a war-plan if China or Pakistan were to attack us, would you? What's more, you would not take a quarter for it. Suddenly every thing would be made possible - the movement of the army and artillery, the managing of the food and transport logistics, the support staff - all would be instantly mobilised. You would not think twice about diverting the trains and disrupting civilian schedules, would you? Suddenly all fuel would become rationed, suddenly roads and bridges would start to get built where for 60 years there had been none. Suddenly remote villages would become mini-cities supporting 100,000 Jawans - much like a 6 month long Kumbh Mela. No expenses would be spared for any of these activities. Suddenly every ministry would be on their toes, every key position monitored and made accountable under the absolute certainty of swift and sometimes savage punishment (retribution?).

And it would be right too, after all what is the use of being a sovereign nation if we cannot defend our land?

Manmohanji, you do see what I am getting at, right? I am saying that this situation of 410 million desperately poor is no different from a threat to our borders; it is in fact worse, because it is gnawing away at our innards and making us weak and hollow - how will we fight an external threat in such a state? And I am not being poetic - do you think that the Maoist situation we face has nothing to do with this? Do you not see the uncanny coincidence: the states that have these 410 million people are the very same that are the Naxal-ridden regions. Do you think that the vast population of the downtrodden and the dispossessed who are part of the 410 million but are an even bigger number, would sit meekly and not revolt when spotting this chance? Yes, revolt, because opportunities and wealth may have made us middle-class folk become seasoned citizens of this nation, but it might be a difficult idea for a father to agree to when he watches his children wither away and die in hunger. You know that already. It is also a good time as any to remember your warning Sir, that the Maoist threat is the biggest that is facing our country.

It is also a matter of deep shame. In a country that takes pride in growing at 8% per year, year-on-year and aims at becoming a world power, this calamity of 410 million desperately poor is a slap in the face. No amount of progress in the cities and in the stock exchange, no amount of glories in cricket and badminton, no amount of home-grown billionnaires, no amount of media coverage and sensational revelations is going to balance this deep and abiding shame. And the shame is not that the 410 million exist. The shame is that we who are not the 410 million do nothing about it. I read about your retort to the Supreme Court's order to distribute free grains to the desperately poor. In all humility Manmohanji, please can I say that no matter how difficult it might be to do the above task, to let the grain rot and for the mice to eat them is not an ethical option for us. If it is difficult it does not mean we must not try it. And when I say try, I do not mean the way Mr. Kalmadi & Co. are trying in CWG; no, I mean the way you tried when Mr. Narasimha Rao brought you on as the Finance Minister. Does one need to say more?

What I (and millions more like me) don't want to hear is: These are complex tasks that will take years to fulfill. Or, 'you must be joking, these cannot be done in four years - they require proper planning and marshaling of resources. We will need a proper structure in the states to deliver this program. Not all Chief Ministers will comply.' And a million other excuses why it cannot be done.
Why don't we want to hear such words? Because they are not true. If as a nation we can run a war-machine, then we can run this poverty-alleviation-machine. Its is imperative to reduce the numbers swiftly; and more importantly, to demonstrate that these numbers can be reduced quickly and effectively. It will be a template for reducing it further by another half, this time perhaps, in two years! Who knows! We might become good at managing this sort of a thing. What I am tired of listening to is that we are a big and complex country, with maddeningly complex issues. How much longer does one need to wait? To repeat the key word here: swiftly!

So let's give this plan a shot. Go on, try. After all, we Indians are good at doing projects. Why should this one not be a success? Besides, for years we did the five-year plans. This one is merely a four-year one. Here is my commitment: you just have to ask (Ahem! I mean even one of the secretaries of your personal secretary can drop me an email - or better still give a call) and I shall leave anything that I am doing to join you in whatever capacity you wish me to.

I have no doubt that like me, there would millions who would gladly join you. Let us try it please.

Regards,
Citizen Pat

CWG & the Rogue's Call to Nationalism

2010-08-08T15:29:00.003+05:30

I am amazed!

At the audacity of come of our better known commentators, who have suggested in their respective Sunday columns that this growing sense of revulsion and alienation towards Kalmadi, and through association to the entire CWG games, is excessive and even misplaced. The gents, Gupta and Mitra have both defended the accused saying that in the scheme of things, even if corruption is discovered, it really is peanuts compared to some of the scams that our master hiester politicians have engineered. They are both at pains to point out that Kalmadi has been uinfairly singled out and that he (Kalmadi) and his cohorts are really novices - having possibly pilfered a few crores.

Gupta makes a point that 85% of the budgets were set aside for, 'virtuous development' - of virtuous Delhi. Well, what better way, one must agree, to convince our commonwealth visitors that India is now no longer a third world country because we have 30 crores worth of flower pots, gleaming (but slippery as death) granite sidewalks, spanking new stadia (what if a few tiles come off in the swimming pool on the opening day? Guys, why be unnecessarily harsh? I mean, have you not heard of a wardrobe malfunction?), a world class airport terminal, a new power station - and all of this in Delhi. Which, in retrospect seems so, so fair. After all, we must all agree, Delhi is India. The sportsmen and sportswomen may come from impossible places in the hinterland, and they are the ones who might win medals; but how is that relevant? The CWG is a showcase for shining, First World Delhi..oops...Shining First World India! Medals, sports facilities, diet, coaches, all those are piffling details and as we all agree, details, they are for the vulgar. We must be noble.

So noble that we must agree that anyone who thinks that years of preparation time being wasted, warnings of international experts were all bunkum. Does not one remember with flaming pride coursing our tiny, worthless and doubting hearts the day when our own dear Kalmadi scorned the CWG observer from distant lands, the expert had warned that things were in a hopeless state and that something drastic had to be done if the games were to start on time. Oh! the machismo the shone from every honest pore of dear Kalmadi that day when he rang forth in indignant righteouness that the observer be stripped of his post and be banished from the face of earth for making statements of gross negligence and mischief.

So noble that we must desist from our shallow nature to be seen aghast at the revelations that every quality certificate was found to be a fake or dubious. Shame on us for ever doubting the capabilities of Kalmadi and his cohorts - of course every stadium will be completed, of course every facility will be in place before the first guest arrives to exercise on the the fabulously special treadmills, the very, very, special treadmills hired at a mere 5 times the cost. And since when, might I ask, nay, demand, why any of this is even remotely a question of national pride? Don't we know that National Pride is only to be exhorted after the money is safely in the banks and when every known device to create a situation of crises has been triggered? How dare we, at this late hour question the indifferent quality, the bombed-out, war-zone look of the stadia? Instead, we should do kar-seva and help in making everything perfect. We must show the world how brilliantly we manage large projects of national importance, projects that have only a fleeting relationship to national pride for the best part of 5 years and two hundred days but miraculously become the most singular beacons of national pride in the last 50 days of its life.

I had a good mind to heed the haloed advise and wear my coolie hat and torn jeans to Delhi and do my bit of kar seva. It might have knocked my misplaced sense of patriotism in place. Alas! I shall forever be bereft of that piece of enlightenment and continue to be this base, vile person who doubts every hardworking politician! My boss thought that it was all very well to wear the coolie hat but felt that I could not be given leave and that I still had to earn my salary despite the noble but contrary sermons of Kalmadi and Co. My soul screamed out - O! What outdated notions! My country needed me, national pride was at stake. If this is what our bosses say then who will stick all the fallen tiles back on the pools? Who will plug the leaks of the stadium walls? Who will arrange the 30 crores worth of flower pots (hopefully the amount was enough for the pots to come with the plants in them. But, hell! what do I know?). Who will smoothen the ground and carry away the debris? Who will cook and make the meals? (for, in the absolute tightness of times, in the welter to formalise on bank accounts and appoint shady contractors in UK, Kalmadi and Co. forgot to appoint contractors to cook the meals. Poor chaps, so insanely busy, when could they have had the time for such minor and unimportant details?)

And all this brouhaha over the Commonwealth Games. A sporting activity with quaint rules - it gives three gold medals where all others give just one. So here our exalted weightlifters get a gold for the Snatch, another for the Jerk and the third for the total of the two. Oh, oh, oh! An idea just occured to me!! We MUST have cricket as an event (someone just whispered that it already is! Shucks!). But to continue with the idea, what if we have a gold for each wicket taken and for each century scored, a silver for each Maiden bowled and bronze for every four saved at the boundary ropes? Oh, oh, oh! What an idea Sirji!

The Great Accumulator

2010-08-07T16:56:00.002+05:30

India has just won the Third Test in Sri Lanka, levelling the series and thus redeeming some of its reputation as a number one ranked Test team. It was yet another opportunity for Sachin to lead India to victory. Alas, it was not to be! Instead it was VVS and Suresh Raina who remained unbeaten.

This is yet another instance when Sachin has failed to address the valid criticism that he is an all time great batsman, the all time highest run-getter and century maker, yet of all the opportunities presented to him to take India past the winning run, he has not converted them with the regularity that he converts his fifties to hundreds.

This is not to say that he is not a great player; he is. This not to say that he has not won for India; he has; after all, he has won the most MoM in the history of cricket - they could not all be losing causes. Many have been to steer India to victory.

Yet, yet, yet. If proportions were a criteria, then the greatness that Sachin has attained as an accumulator of centuries and of runs is leagues ahead of the reputation he has, and it seems now, that he will have (for he has far few seasons left to redress the balance), as a finisher of games. This quality too is an essential component of greatness. A great batsman also carries the the great responsibility to steer his team to victory. And if Sachin has been the undisputed great batsman of this era (he has!), then he has decidedly not been a great finisher.

This is a fact that we must accept and also regret. Regret because, at least in my books, its a flaw that keeps Sachin away from the mantle of true greatness. Just as a truly great batsman scores the most runs and centuries for his team in his career, and he is given every opportunity to score these runs and centuries, so too must a truly great batsman ensure that it is he and not lesser batsmen who take the team past the winning run. Sachin does not make this cut.

I put this down to a flaw in the character. Perhaps luck also has a part to play. Perhaps he tries too hard? Perhaps he feels the burden more heavily than the others. After all, for example, had VVS failed today, people would not have written an article as I am now, decrying the fickleness of VVS. Instead all I remember is that VVS stood up and won us as he did in the Kolkata match. For me he is the low profile hero, a genius batsman, who has flaws but is incandescent at times, and who more times than not, stands up with his team and gives it his all. I am protective about VVS, I am more forgiving.

For Sachin, I expect him be there when India wins, carrying his bat through, not succumbing despite every difficulty. I am less forgiving. It may seem unfair. But that is the flip side of being the greatest batsman of the era. Sachin should have stood up more often, he should have been there taking his team to victory more often. In this, Sachin has been a disappointment.

Vacation Report - North Sikkim

2010-06-02T22:36:00.003+05:30

While planning the itinerary our gaze was fixed on North Sikkim. We had to go there, no matter how difficult the terrain. We had also to ensure that it did not entail too much walking as Mum's knees, in their current state, would not hold. All said and done, Lake Gurudongmar was marked down as a must-visit.

We were instructed to pack light as space was needed to haul all the provisions that we would consume in Lachen. It sent a ripple of excitement: it seemed that we were going to an arctic research station. So on came a sack of rice, not-to-fresh vegetables, pulses, oil, cartons of milk, biscuits, juices and corn-flakes. And a big box packed tightly with ropes. It did not seem to be rum or whiskey - if it was then that was hardly a civilized way to treat precious cargo.

After a point the 'roads' became a bit like wild beasts - I tried this trick of staring blankly out of the windshield at the rushing gravel and stones, letting the focus go (as one does while sipping tea and going into a place far, far away in the mind) - and the road would leap at me like the stallions that Liv Tyler invokes in The Lord of the Rings. But who in his/her/its right mind would look at the road while the scene around was spell-binding? Uncorking of cliches will not do justice to the splendour of North Sikkim. The place seemed wilder; the trees were gnarled and deep; the mountains were taller, darker; the streams seemed gurglier and frothier; the waterfalls more numerous; the clouds were lower and frequently wreathed the mountains like mysterious, ephemeral veils. When we broke for a comfort break I remember standing at a spot looking at a distant, tall waterfall with only the murmuring of the stream and the sound of the wind whistling through the ancient trees just below me. It was dark and cool. For some moments I was sealed in this primeval world with its sounds and smells, the rest of the world lost to me in swirling mists - magical!

As we climbed higher it became colder and darker. The mountains were all around us, crowding the sunlight away. On and on we went for 8 hours - with copious halts for lunch and tea, photographs and a quick pee. At last we halted at our hotel - it looked innocuous from outside. And so it proved to be even from the inside - a tad overdressed with tawdry furniture and garish curtains and carpet (carpet!). The welcome was warm. And we got some free (well-meaning) entertainment from the manager of the hotel - he spun tall yarns about the arduousness of Gurudongmar, about how sparse the oxygen was and how light the air was - we would float, he said - and how each step would be a painful realization our mortality. I had a fleeting thought - perhaps it was here that the earliest moonwalkers from America and USSR had trained? And then he sold us the idea of renting ice-jackets, gloves and caps; and he very kindly agreed to arrange all of it. It was all done with good humour and a twinkle in the eye so with wry grins we parted with the advance money.

Next morning we stopped at Thangu for breakfast. We sat around the fire and sipped steaming hot Maggi with onions, chillies and tomato! It was delicious! They have a unique way of 'toasting' the bread - it is steamed like the momos, whole loaves in one go! To eat you pick a slice and dip it in the bowl of melted Amul butter. The little kitchen was friendly and nice - it took me back to the unpleasantness at Gangtok. When we were leaving for North Sikkim we had an unintended skirmish with the local drivers. As with most such incidents, I'm sure that fault lay on both sides. Now with some days to absorb and reflect I have only this to say: for Sikkim to become a tourist destination it will require not just infrastructure and investments but also a rethink of the attitude of the local populace towards (demanding, pesky, sometimes annoying) tourists. To manage tourism, or indeed any venture that is customer-centric, it requires tact and appropriateness of articulation. After all tourists come here for a vacation, to escape from the stress of everyday existence - a little bit of pampering is a fair expectation. The take-it-or-leave-it philosophy may not be effective. Just a thought, mind you; I'm not an expert in tourism...

It is superfluous to talk about the beauty of the lake. So I won't. Suffice it to say that we did not moon-walk, but yes, it was exhausting to even walk briskly. The jawans were the busiest lot - skipping down to collect the water and to pray. We spent an hour, opening all our senses to the grandeur of the place. It was a silent ride back to the hotel. Most of all, we, the younger lot, felt quietly proud of the way Dad and Mum coped. We did not even feel the need to rib the manager at the hotel. It was smiles and silence all over. The lunch was very Bengali and tasty. It was a 3 hour drive to Lachung next.

After traversing to Chunthang, we forked left towards Lachung. There was a transformation in the state of the roads. It was smooth, wide (as wide as it can be on mountains) and barricaded towards the free-fall end - this last thing was a minor relief; most of the roads that we had left behind had no such comfort. We fairly zipped into Lachung. The scenery was even more spectacular. It would be a fair to say that Lachung is the most scenic little town that I had seen in my life. It had both the soothing, lush and dark beauty of the forests and waterfalls; and the terrible, brooding majesty of the soaring peaks - all black rocks and white snows.

The hotel arrangements were awful! But let's not crib. Instead let's spend some time on a curious incident. We had arranged to visit the valley of Yumthang only. But our driver, Pempa suggested that we had enough time to take a look at the snow slopes of Katao; he would take care of the permits, etc. And so we went - the journey was spectacular and as we passed a military check post, the soldier there took our permit and informed that we were the 19th vehicle since morning. Very good, I thought, nice and early; we were 33rd in Gurudongmar. And so we had fun and took pics and played with the dirty snow; finally we set our way to Yumthang. On our way we were stopped by the Sikkim police - in fact all the vehicles on their way down from Katao were being stopped - and were told to pay a fine of 1000 rupees. The driver seemed to mumble something incoherent when asked the reason for the fine. So we decided to go the police station and understand the reason. What emerged is this: tourists are forbidden to go to Katao as it is a sensitive spot. The tour operators and the drivers and the hotel owners know this. Hence it is kept out of the official itinerary. But this fact is not divulged to the tourist - who then pays extra (as we did) to tour Katao. And everyone makes money from the gullible tourists - including, it seems the military. This came as a jolt. One does not associate our army with such riff-raff. But if it was not then how come the military check post soldier took our permit and informed us of the vehicles ahead of us? They should have stopped us right there!

So it was with a sour taste in the mouth that we made our way to Yumthang, the valley of flowers. But first we had a splendid breakfast at a stall on the valley and we were served by a jolly little woman (a cousin of Pempa the driver) who made pleasant jokes and bustled about happily. We had momos and noodles and eggs. The crankiness vanished, our brows thus smoothed, we stepped down to the valley. No flowers, sadly - it was too late in the season. But the place was nice, an ideal picnic spot. This entire area was part of the Rhododendron sanctuary.

And that was that. All 'places' had been visited and ticked off the list. All that remained was to pack up and leave for Gangtok. By this time I was seeing visions of my cosy bed in Andheri, the aroma of ghee on hot rice and daal wafted in from all directions; I wanted to throw away the inners-shinners, the gloves-shoves, the sweater and the jacket and wear a bermuda a la commando and curl up with a book with the strains of Kishori or Kumarji surrounding me.

In short, I'd had enough of Sikkim; I wanted to go home. But dilli duur ast; we had a 6-day stay with Mum and Dad in Kolkata. Good Lord!

Vacation Report - Nathu la and Baba Harbhajan Singh

2010-05-20T22:51:00.002+05:30

We started at 8 on a moderately sunny day. The day before, some vehicles luckily escaped getting grounded - of a sudden snow flurry. Half way up, one thought kept looming in front of us all: had this been any Western country, no one would have been allowed on roads such as these. Not just were these roads perilous by Divine ordain, it was given a generous dollop of perilous-ness by teams doing simultaneous construction and repair work. Yes, it made for unintended exhilaration, mostly in the way of yelps followed by sighs from us (minus the driver, who, like all pahadi drivers, leave decisions such as safe completion of a treacherous drive to Divine powers. This helps them to be guilt-free when the passengers die of fright)

This is not to criticise the Border Roads Organization - codenamed Swastik - I'm sure they sure do fantastic work. It is not that things don't work - they do, miraculously! It is helped in no small measure by the general Indian attitudes of looking for jugaad at all costs and a disdain for human lives. This lethal combination of attributes has ensured that we do not strive and do not expect to have excellence in systems, public utilities and infrastructure. The flip side is that we generate (eke?) money out of activities like tourism earlier in the lifecycle.

The tragedy of Indian public life is that we are eager to grab the early fruits and utterly neglect the aspect of building excellence. There is no reason for the roads in this country to be so decrepit; no reason for our cities to be so ugly - take a look around you, each building is a monstrosity; no reason for non-star hotels to be so...so average; no reason for the railway stations to be several sizes smaller than current requirements; no reason for airports to be dank, unlighted, cluttered and chaotic. No, the reason of us being a third world country does not cut the mustard. All of us who watched the recent 2020 world cup remember the shots of the streets and the townships of several Caribbean third world countries. What did you see? My brother returned from Nairobi, Kenya; and swears that it is a fabulous town, beautiful and stately - Wodehousean English, even.

My goodness! What a tirade! Now after that digression, back to Sikkim and Nathu la.

We passed several lakes on our way up; including Tsomgo (also called Changu) which we had planned to see on the return. Nathu la is at 14500 feet and I underestimated the might of nature as I stepped out of the SUV - it was bitingly cold because of the stiffish breeze - and a few brisk steps later my head was spinning the way it had done in the New year's party of 2006, my worst experience of getting drunk. It took 5 minutes of deep breathing and controlled calmness to return to normal. After that I took small steps and rested copiously for the short walk up to the Chinese border. Admittedly all of us were under-dressed: no thermals, gloves or double-socks; I was even wearing rubber-soled denim shoes. So much for cuteness!

There is nothing really to see up there. An Indian building, a much larger and gleaming Chinese block (check my pictures later and you'll know what I mean); couple of very young and smiling Chinese soldiers offering us ciggies; and two benevolent-looking Indian soldiers (after accepting the ciggies) keeping a close eye on what we clicked. A curious thing happened: as we were talking to one of the soldiers, the officers marched in with the entourage. The CO ignored my greetings, looked through me as if I did not exist and walked on ignoring the rest of the 6 civilians there. The lesser officer, however stopped, wished back and even engaged us in a conversation. Perhaps that is how the officers of the Indian Army are trained - to create this caste system, if you will, between them and the hoi polloi, the civilians. Perhaps it helps them to be dispassionate and tough. I will wait for further enlightenment on this.

I will digress a little again - humour me please. On our way up we saw several bunkers and camps. In one of the camps we saw artillery carriers - which meant that the main artillery gun, the Bofors was also positioned. Now, you can't have Bofors deployed in any significant numbers by trundling them up trucks or even in the French equivalent of Chinooks that we have, it's too slow and too, too expensive. Cargo planes like AN 32 would be required - especially in light of the strategy of rapid attack envisaged under IBG (read here for further details). This meant that there had to be an air-strip up here. And since we were looking for it, we saw where is could be: a mile-long plateau on the top. It was further reinforced when we saw a road branching out from our's towards that flat and the sign, 'Entry Prohibited'. Of course none of us took any pictures that we thought were delicate so I cannot share the thrill of spotting the possible air strip - it is etched in my mind. Seeing all these preparations of protecting our country and the incredible difficulty that each soldier faces 24x7 (we spotted numerous half-concealed shelters spread across the tops and slopes. They were tiny, which meant only one, possibly two soldiers in utter and total isolation), I found myself reacting incredibly emotionally - proud and teary at the same time.

This proved to be merely the prelude to a larger emotional jhatka a few minutes later. The all-faith temple in the remembrance of Baba Harbhajan Singh. Here was a structure created out of a belief in a human being and there were hundreds of plaques saying, 'Baba bless us'. And these were from the battle-hardened soldiers of the Indian army. While I was there I saw groups of soldiers of various faiths doing darshan and offering sealed bottles of Bisleri as a gift to the memory of the Baba. There is a certain innocence and goodness required to believe in all this if you are a soldier. To see these large, well-knit men pay obeisance to an idea of faith was humbling; these same men would not hesitate to kill an intruder and an enemy. I did not have the heart to take pictures of the soldiers while they were praying - it felt odd - so I took several of the plaques and flags and the lovely poems on the doors, probably of Guru Nanak sahib. It is cold up there and the face muscles go numb, so one does not realise when things run down the face for all to see. It meant a hasty retreat to the edge of the mandir for me. An odd, irrational, heady and cleansing moment.

It was Tsomgo lake next - yaks and yak-touts, people everywhere. On the way back to the hotel, just minutes from Tsomgo, the dark clouds came rolling in. Much of the 90 minute drive was done through 10 meters of visibility, sometimes less. It was very tiring to keep checking if this time we passed 3 inches away from the edge of the precipice and doom. So I curled into my seat and went to sleep.

Vacation Report - Day Six: Gangtok

2010-05-14T23:38:00.000+05:30

Continuing from the last blog, no, the sandwiches were not cucumber and cheese; they were instead, bathed in some kind of a homegrown tomato sauce of dubious parentage. So the breakfast-on-the-move was a flop but the tea-stop at Ravangla was nice. But before we Gang-talk, some more observations from yesterday.

Perhaps its the timing; when we leave we see groups and lines of children making their way to school. On our way back we see groups and lines of children on their way, presumably on their way home. The children are sometimes tiny - maybe 4 years old; and most often it is unaccompanied children - girls and boys in equal number. Sometimes one can spot a parent but mostly it is children. Last morning I saw a small girl, possibly a laggard, for there was no child following her, make her way slowly, with hundreds of tiny digressions (an aimless step to the right, a skip and a jump, a craning of the neck to watch a bird, a swing of the arm...) to her school which was a couple of turns up the road. It was just that little girl alone. I struggled to remember if I ever saw a child that young being unescorted at the bus stop in Mumbai, let alone a child walking all by herself to school. I was left wondering admiringly at a society that encourages and supports parents to behave in the way that they did. And not just parents; for this to work the other people on the road, the drivers of the hundred taxis and jeeps, the teachers and older school-children - all have a part to play. I hope and pray that this cheerful practise continues - it certainly brought a smile to my lips.
We had lunch at a place called Cherry Village, a traditional Nepali lunch. The food was good with a few dishes like Chhurpi bhurji being excellent! Chhurpi is Yak cheese and this particular variety was the soft kind. I also liked the way we were served - the trays held high, the food being offered with the left hand touching the right elbow; it was traditional without being dramatic - we felt quietly special. We mentioned chhurpi casually while we were eating and within minutes the bhurji was on the table.Munching on the slighty stringy beans and mustard greens I had the time to reflect that such alacrity is not something that we experience everyday; indeed, we felt special!

However the highlight of the visit was to know from Sushil Tamang that Cherry Village is actually a community-based business - the land is Sushil's and he is the MD of this group called Darap Eco-Tourism Committee. I would have hyperlinked this site had it worked. Maybe it is down temporarily so I'll leave it in. This committee provides jobs to the locals and promotes tourism. The resort has a few rooms and independent cabins; all laid out tastefully with enough space to not feel hemmed in. I hope it succeeds, and as Sushil says, it has started well. All the best DEC! I shall follow your career with interest.

OK, back to Gangtok! To say it was unrecognizable would be a cliche and completely true. I'm afraid the first impression was not positive - too crowded, narrow streets, warm, nauseating gasoline fumes and too few trees on the main roads. By the time I came back to the hotel room to write this blog I was convinced of one thing: sitting and loitering on the MG Road is cool! The people of Gangtok dress well and are good-looking; the girls and women look very chic in their high cheek-bones and slim legs, the boys and men look a tad loutish but it changes when they laugh and smile.

The weather is changeable, indeed callous. It was sunny at 1:30, by 2 the dark clouds and thunder enveloped the city and the wind threatened to pluck the prayer flags out from every rooftop, by 3 it was drizzling lightly but the dark clouds were gone, by 4 it was sunny again and I had to remove my jacket. However soon it was cold enough to wear it again. Temperamental; that is the word I was looking for.

We had dinner at Hotel Tibet. I've had better dumplings than the vegetable momos that got served, but the brothy noodle soup with hand-made doughy round noodles was interesting. Peasant's fare, true, but honest and nourishing. By the time we reached the hotel room it was pretty cold again and the sky was starry. The paan I had on the way back was just as ordinary as the one that I get near my flat in Andheri - so one could say that I was feeling quite at home.

Vacation Report - Days Three, Four and Five

2010-05-13T00:08:00.003+05:30

Kolkata is steaming hot. For the next 8 days we will attempt to cool off in Sikkim. We leave tonight - train it up to New Jalpaiguri and then motor to Pelling. I've been to Sikkim before - as a child. Have only a few memories: for instance, playing badminton with a tall Sikh officer gentleman in the BSF colony. I have no recollection of Gangtok.

It was just as hot and humid in NJP. My phone conked out and had to buy a new one simply because the idea of not being 'connected' made me break into a cold sweat, which, in the circumstances made a disagreeable cocktail of sweats.

As we drove up I got reminded of small incidents from earlier encounters with hill folks. The one uniform memory is that hill people are surly and not talkative. While I noticed that trait almost immediately in our driver, I also realised that between then and now my appreciation of their taciturnity had undergone a 180 degree reversal. I now see the condescension, the aggression that the travellers from the other parts of the country heap on. This is especially true for my friends from the north-east - from Mizoram, Nagaland, Assam and Manipur - the stories they tell of everyday life in Mumbai is a treatise in cultural over-simplification and of plain, unadulterated gracelessness. So if were a Sikkimese, I would be seething inside and looking for the first opportunity to bash a few knuckles with the car door. Instead what I see is a once-bitten-twice-shy kind of wariness which, depending upon the encouragement one gets, very soon gives way to delightful smiles and an eagerness to help that has so much niceness that it makes me feel very happy indeed!

Before making the plans, everyone whom we asked advised us that this being peak season, it would be impossible to get good hotel rooms. Now that we have booked and that we are here in Pelling, it does seem bustly (too many loud Bongs everywhere), but there still are many rooms available, the restaurants are fairly empty, the shops are moderately busy. So the question is: why is it so? Is Sikkim over-designed for tourists? Or is something else at work that we are unable to spot?

Yesterday we had the local toddy called Chhang; it is a hell's brew cooked out of a millet. The fermented grain is placed in a bamboo tumbler and hot water is poured on top; we are encouraged to sip from a wooden straw - the liquor is warm, sour and piquantly fragranced - altogether an OK experience. Today I had a dish made of Yak's cheese - I loved it!

Both Pemayangstye and Rabdantse were terrific! I felt a strange emotion to see children in the monastery playing 'lagori' with gusto and unbridled merriment of kids everywhere - and at the same time think of the nature of their chosen path. Many among these would choose to be full-time monks. Perhaps it is beyond the comprehension of a person like me - someone who is wordly but not wise, someone who empathises but is actually not connected.

Tomorrow we leave for Gangtok. Bright lights and a fully functional tourist town awaits me, or so I have been warned. So it is going to be an early morning with a hurried cup of tea and packed sandwiches. What is important is that sweet-smiled chaps in the kitchen remember to pack both the cucumber and the cheese.

Vacation Report - Day Zero and One

2010-05-08T23:43:00.003+05:30

First it was pre-poned by an hour. On the day of the flight an early SMS announced that it s postponed by an hour, so back to its scheduled time. At the check we were told its another hour late, that is 2030hrs. After the security check we overheard others say it was going to be far more delayed. At 2130 hrs we were loaded in the buses and all seemed imminent: we had promised Mum that we will all have dinner at home; so midnight seemed a late hour for the repast but not unheard of. But we were fooled, all of us; we waited in the bus on the runway, looking at the aircraft from steamy windows we waited for 30 minutes. Finally we were on board. But the airconditioning was off. And we sat for 45 more minutes until it was our turn to take-off. We landed at 1:10. But the ordeal was not over. The pre-paid taxi stand was moving very slowly - and we realised it was slow because there were no taxis at that time at the airport. Welcome to the village called Kolkata! We reached home at 2:15.

And after a quick wash, had dinner. A sumptuous, delicious dinner that only Mum can make. It was already well past three by the time we finished; and birds had started warbling.

The day started with the aroma of Darjeeling tea. After another delicious spread at lunch we sped underground to the North - and saw diases being made everywhere - it is Gurudev Rabi Tagore's birthday tomorrow. So it will lots of elocution and singing (which is all right) all day long. Hopefully we will have little of that godawful dainty prancing that is passed for dancing. The metro seemed awfully full today. The tickets are still so cheap - just INR 8 from Tollygunge (renamed Manayak Uttam Kumar Station)!

The one thing that I was impressed with yesterday and again tonight was the street lighting. All the main streets and the side ones were awash with powerful sodium-vapour lamps. The streets seemed wide - but then they do look wide so early on, with nary a soul on the streets.

I had a chance to walk along the streets in the evening tonight and the impression is the same as the last time: Kolkata is a city that looks even more dilapidated everytime; the same poor people living in exactly the same hovels; the same irrationally excited 'bhadralok', teetering on the edge of sanity. Yet it has a charm - the old-worldish charm of a city that lives in several decades all at once. It has not been trammelled by the garish new desi culture. There seems to be a system in place that allows both cultures to exist and even flourish in silos. I hope they continue to do so.

Fat in the Firing Line

2010-04-30T18:26:00.002+05:30

There has been a recent discovery that might lead to a 'natural' cure to obesity. The discovery of brown fat in adult humans. Hitherto this magic fat was found to reside only amongst children and adolescents, and animals (rats have it in plenty, apparently) - we all have heard about it - as puppy fat. The reason why it has excited the researchers is because brown fat is capable of being used to 'burn up calories'. It very literally gets consumed when the host gets busy; in fact it also gets used up to combat cold. So the really lazy blimps amongst us (superfluous use of lazy, you reckon?) can turn up the air-conditioning and call it exercising.

So what other kind of fat is there? Most adult bodies were so far thought to contain only white fat - the stuff of legends that wobbles over the six-pack and jig-jigs under every thundery thigh. This fat, unlike the brown variety is used by the body as reserve. It is probably the remnant from a time where ice-age meant that most mammals would starve for 6 months, hence needed a mechanism to ensure that they survived till spring (bears and whales still do it). This is the reason why white fat is so bloody tenacious - it sticks like a limpet to the tummy no matter how hard you exercise. Of course it also depends upon individual body-types. All of us who are adiposally challenged have painful memories of that person who would nonchalantly toss with a light laugh, 5 pineapple-cream pastries, 4 floating aalu parathas, a gargantuan slab of Dairy Milk and a tubful of ice-cream down the hatch and yet be rake thin. Yes, these misbegotten children of Beelzebub have more brown fat than white. Which is why when they walk they burn fat, when they shake a leg on the dance-floor they burn fat, when they frisk and frolic they burn fat; when they energetically shove all that food in they burn fat, and even when they feel cold they burn fat.

And no, there is no justice in the world for people with white fat. But finally there is hope. Researchers feel that if they are able to trigger the human body to produce more brown fat than white then it will become easier to control obesity. Will researchers be able to find a way to convert white to brown? This point is moot - its too early to comment.

One might say what is the big deal in being generously built? After all many cultures prize 'traditionally built' people, where the show of paunch is seen as a sign of prosperity. Well, the popular culture in most parts of the world now tends to portray slimness and athleticism as the healthier body-type. There is a growing body of evidence to suggest that extra weight attracts ill-health. Its better to be slim than be sorry.

And most importantly, it's the willowy guys and gals who get the most dates.

Now that we have our priorities in place we await the day when the wonder pill will give us the freedom from the tyranny of the gym, tearing the shackles of the guilt of looking in a lascivious way at a plateful of fries. Ah! the day of deliverance! When will the sea part again!

Biggest Gain from IPL

2010-04-29T18:32:00.002+05:30

For me the biggest single achievement of the IPL has been the camaraderie between players from different nationalities playing under the same franchise. Yes, there was something vaguely similar during the heydays of county cricket, but it was not as global in the way IPL is. Things will get even better in a few years after the key players do a 'circuit' of the major franchises.

This does not mean that the international matches will be any less competitive. But hopefully they will not have that savage edge that one sometimes witnesses nowadays. To take an example: would the Symonds-Bhajji fracas have happened had both played for the same IPL team? Answer: No!

Perhaps IPL will bring back to the game a degree of brotherhood that we used to see in the 70s and 80s? I remember that during those days it was not an anathema to see the fielding team clap and shake hands of batsmen when they reached personal milestones. In the recent past I recall only a handful of such incidents. I would still like to think that these small considerations add up to make cricket the game that I love. I like to see the concern that fielders show when a batsman is down, either felled by a ball, or through cramps or injured while running; I like the fact that batsmen turn to the bowler to request him to tie up the shoelaces; I like it when during breaks fielders heft and inspect and swing the bat in appreciation; I like it when during a sudden break the batsman strikes up an animated conversation with the fielder on some random aspect of the game. It makes me believe in civilization and in humanity. It tells me that sport can be just as competitive without it being necessary to make the opponent your enemy.

I would very much like to see this kind of cricket come back on the international arena.

When all is done and dusted OR Musings on IPL and Cricket

2010-04-27T18:45:00.001+05:30

And so it has ended - this Lent-long vigil of mostly underwhelming and mediocre cricket. At the denouement there were so many distractions that the actual play appeared incidental. Perhaps fittingly the final - and this is from those who watched it and not from a prejudiced twerp like me - turned out to be mild; soporific, even.

Let's return to the original premise - that 2020 is the 'new' face of cricket, that it is the version that youngsters and housewives are interested in. I hope not. Whatever little that one saw of IPL, the lasting impression was that a large part of the audience was not really interested in the game of cricket - they were there to be seen in the company of the film stars and other glamorous people; they liked to be part of the glitz and the festivities. One hopes to be proven wrong - I hope that most people watching IPL were there because of their love for the game. And it is in the hope that cricket shall prevail that I wish to make several random points; and an random points go, these appear here in no particular order:

For 2020s and IPL to be taken seriously by all (i.e. the godforsaken lovers of Test Cricket) it is imperative that the dumbing-down is stopped forthwith. (duh!) Well, that means no short boundaries, no cute breaks, no rechristening (pardon me, fair Christian folk!) of Sixes and catches and hits to the box. Let's not dick around with the game. There, I have said it.
That Sachin is an all-time-great player, but is not, is not, is not a leader of men in the traditional sense. (remember! I said random points). He is a fine example of arrested boyhood and also of an exemplary cricketing brain. But it does not, does not, does not translate to him being a great captain. And I say this as a devotee who writes to praise him, not bury him that let us not burden him with attributes that he does not have.
That in Mahi we have a captain who is grounded, clever, decently skilled, brave and amazingly lucky. It won't surprise anyone if he ends is career with a high win-loss ratio - let me stick this neck out - a ratio above 60%
That showing a battery of ill-clad white girls doing hoops is not innovation. In passing, don't know about you, but it struck me to be a deep case of racism to have only white, girls dance. (Hope you noticed the comma, pregnant with meaning between white and girls)
That commentary is an integral part of all sports; more so in cricket - for it is blessed with a vocabulary so rich and eccentric that it is absolutely, insanely criminal to let loose upon the unsuspecting public the likes of Sidhu (it would be ok if he meets with an accident that robs him of his speech. Just saying, mind you, not wishing!), Morrison (drown him, please!), Bedi (Angad, not Ms noodlestrap - and I honestly do not know who is the worse of the two; and that is saying a lot!), et al. To be honest, even a seasoned speaker like Shastri was reduced to being a buffoon and an all-time great cricketer and a sober commentator like Gavaskar was annoying more times than decency warrants.
If there is to be innovation then bring it in the game. An example: allow one catching mitt to the fielding team - let the captain decide which fielding position should have it. This will bring a semblance of balance; after all, every rule favours the batting side nowadays. So it will be a treat to see 99 out of the 100 of those impossibly high, curling catches being bagged.
Let ricochets off the stumps be declared as dead-ball in 2020. There have been some cricketers who have mooted this idea - and I think it is only fair. If the administrators are reluctant to adopt this universally, let it be made operational in 2020s at least.
I'd like to see another change in 2020 - let the bowling team have the right to bring in their brand of balls. As long as it is a standard issue and meets the regulations I don't see why batsmen should have all the advantages of bringing Mongooses and Civets into the game without giving a similar option to the bowlers.
Captains finishing their overs slowly, for every 5 minutes delay they should be fined the equivalent of one over worth of runs scored at the highest run-rate that the batting team achieved in its 20 overs. And of course, also the stiff fines. If 2020 is meant to be fast and furious cricket where there is only time to react, then no side should have the advantage of getting free-time to think and ponder and delay
If BCCI is the coffer for the game and its shepherd, then let it be a good shepherd! Let it not be a bully that steamrolls cricket into a dish that is neither fish nor fowl. How I wish that BCCI would first fill the calendar of the years to come with test series, then ODI and then 2020 (if it must!). The rock, the pebble and the sand...then the cup of cricket shall not run over with bad tidings; it will sound a sonorous, melodious ring and spread unalloyed joy to all! Amen!

Us Indians

2010-04-03T16:07:00.001+05:30

Here is a lucid account of the status of water-sharing between India and Pakistan. The author, John Briscoe sums with minimum fuss the practical issues and also points to possible solutions. He cites the example of Brazil, and how it has chosen to be generous towards Bolivia and Paraguay, poor neighbours both; he hopes that India too will show such generosity.

I very much doubt it. We may be a tiny bit benevolent to Bangladesh or Nepal even; Pakistan is not a country that makes the milk of generosity flow in Mother India. For one, Pakistan has been foolishly aggressive. Kargil is impossible to forget - the TV has ensured that it will endure at least another generation of viewers. Second, unlike Bolivia and Paraguay, Pakistan is a dangerous country that is capable of causing serious harm to India. Brazil is lucky to be in an altogether salubrious neighbourhood.

As I pointed in my earlier blog on Bangladesh, India must repair the relationship with the rest of the neighbours. Being generous is only the beginning. The first few movements with Bangladesh suggest that perhaps we can hope for a better future there.

The second point that Briscoe makes - about the media in India - that is a serious and valid criticism. I am often dismayed at the lack of rigorous enquiry by the media towards what the various arms of the government do. The media in India is obsessed with trifles and on sensation; on melodrama and bathos; the level of debate on our weaknesses and our holy cows are so mild and staged, it makes me feel very ashamed indeed.

But the most devastating reality that I have had to face after reading the comments of the Internet community in India and Indians is that the young Indians today are so belligerent and so full of themselves - not ready to engage anyone who happens to differ in opinion. As an experiment try this: engage a couple of young adults, say 21 to 30, on any topical issue - be it the women's reservation, Pakistan and US, the state of infrastructure, food prices, education - chances are that they will not have a clue, or they will not be too concerned beyond their immediate issues. Any criticism of the current icons and any attempt to talk about the deep disparities in our society will immediately bring in the most vulgar kind of discourse: religious hatred, caste based hatred, language and region based hatred.

Sometimes I feel that the Internet and the TV have not brought the noble and the civilized in us. Reading the interactions and watching the audiences one would think that we are becoming closed and intolerant, unread and uncouth, shrill and surly.

Perhaps these are the sign of times? Perhaps this too will change and the tide will turn.

3 Idiots

2010-01-17T15:08:00.001+05:30

Went to see it with trepidation: a 40 year-old lead masquerading as a college student was a recipe that was sure to go horribly, predictably, utterly, irredemiably, excruciatingly, writhingly-embarassingly wrong.

So as penance the least I can do is give a constipated smile here :-\

There. I was wrong.

Loved every moment of it - almost. Loved the oh-so-real contrast of Chatur. Loved the downplaying of mushy-mushy moments. Loved the absence of cynicism. Most of all, loved the unabashed idealism; not the preachy Swades kind, but a more believable kind of let's-go-about-it-and-let-the-devil-take-the-hindmost-kind of glowing goodness.

The childbirth sequence is painful, but it is a small price to pay. The only other crib: why make the prospective dulha, the Wildesian guy-who-knows-the-price-of-everything-but-value-of-nothing, a caricature? (Sigh! I'm in the mood for hyphens today. Well, let me make the most of it)

To me the standout thing about the movie was the attempt at mainstreaming hitherto obscure elements of India and Indians. Wangdu is the unlikeliest of names for a hero in Hindi commercial cinema. Here it was slipped in without a whiff of majority-smarminess that we often see when dealing with any minority issue. The Muslim character and his family are not built-up as a shining beacon of secularism - they are a regular family with regular problems who happen to be Muslims. Chatur could have been seen as a madrasi-from-uganda jester who mixes up his tenses and genders while wafting in noxious farts; but we see him as a desperate anally-retentive man who takes himself so seriously that he loses any sense of proportion that might have given him a peaceful night's sleep. We don't make fun of him. We want to shake him by the scruff of his Hugo Boss jacket and drill some sense into him.

The Director played by Boman Irani teeters on the edge of caricature but redeems himself as only an artiste can. It is not difficult to find such people in our campuses and schools - isolated from the world by years of cotton-balled environs, so devoid of a sense of otherness! I know of headmasters and teachers and lecturers who are uncannily like the character we saw - maybe each with different tics and idiosyncracies, but vivid in their colouration and exotic as a menagerie.

All of these elements mingled in this film and they crafted a story for us that was both overdue and is boilingly-hot. After this film one should not now be surprised to see many more youngsters in our IITs and IIMs and RECs questioning the relationship between career and desire. They have found an ally and a tongue. However, it is not just Kapil Sibal who is responsible to open the windows, it is actually the parents and teachers and employers who need to look out of this opened window and realise that the horizon really meets at infinity.

Google Games

2010-01-16T15:14:00.000+05:30

An interesting fact from the google pages - as this article shows, Google shows Arunachal as Chinese to users in China; Indian to the users in India; and disputed to the rest of the world.

I thought I'd check it for myself at the maps.google.com instead. Here's what I see: All of J&K is shown as disputed, all of AP is. However Tibet is shown as Chinese and Taiwan is left to interpretation as it is not on mainland, hence no contiguous boundary. As it happens, google maps don't show international maritime boundaries. So there is no way of knowing.

Tomorrow if India were to claim Bhutan as it's own, would it be seen as disputed by Google? After all, one sovereign nation, India, thinks Bhutan is her's.

Another case: Srinagar is shown as India, Gilgit as Pakistan; and funnily enough, Siachen too is shown as Pakistan!

Further afield, in Palestine, the land between the '49 Armistice and the '74 Ceasefire line is shown under Israel, and not as disputed. It is occupied by Israel.

So, what to make of it all? Siachen is occupied by India, but is shown as Pakistan. But Ein Zivan, for instance is occupied by Israel but not shown as Syria.

Clearly, there is evidence to show that Google it towing the US line - it is in alignment with the overt and covert US foreign policy. It cannot be termed as business sense; it is anything but that. It is jingoistic.

So why can't India, a country that has some clout, not make it difficult for Google? China has. Israel has. Why should India be seen as pusillanimous? I'm all for making it tough for companies like Google - companies who, in the military parlance, are nothing more than mercenaries; ronin.

They should be treated as one.

India's 'new' military doctrine

2010-01-05T16:49:00.000+05:30

This article by Dr. Maleeha Lodhi raises some interesting points.

The summary of the thesis is that India has over-reached and has aspirations that it cannot possibly meet in the future. This has been translated as a show of arrogance and misplaced self-importance.

There is merit to this argument. It is not for the first time that Indian foreign policy has been discussed by people who should know better and by people who ought to be discreet. Our FO mandarins have never shied away from bombast. Pity! It does not behoove a country of India's pedigree to allow such loose talk from its elite.

It would have been far more effective to not discuss the specifics at this stage and to bend all the powers of the mind, statecraft and the military to achieving the vision.

However, let's examine the main points of the new strategy. First the cold-start doctrine. It's been in place since 2004. This doctrine is totally Pak-centric. And that is my first objection. When we sat down to craft a Pak-centric strategy, why did we not at the same time sit to design a China-centric strategy? Surely we have the thinkers in this country and enough experts in geo-politics and military strategies? It seems inconcievable that the only foe which has defeated us does not figure in our primary strategy. Well, perhaps the think-tank is and has a strategy; maybe it is chary of revealing it. If it is so, then kudos, well done!

The cold-start strategy itself has its pros and cons. The ultimate idea of creating smaller and more mobile 'Integrated Battle Groups' (IBG), capable of being deployed on the western front within 96 hours is a laudable one. Since it is being seen as an integrated exercise, the Navy and the Air Force will also bring their respective strengths on board. Whether or not we will even exercise this option and attack Pakistan is very moot. Perhaps a combination of political and tactical events may make it necessary - example: another Paliament-like/Mumbai-like attack by Jihadis and with Al Qaida being chased on Pakistan's western borders, India might think it is the right time to do large-scale damage to specific targets in Punjab or Sindh.

However, I doubt if we would ever think of a controlled strike as a strategy to retaliate against the game of attrition being played in the Kashmir vale - as this article from Walter Ladwig suggests. That game has become far too complicated.

Second, to the articulation of a 'two-front war' - Ms. Lodhi has a pathogenic dislike to anything that the Indians might want to say about themselves that throws them in good light. Is the 'two-front war' only a rhetoric meant to boast about our military prowess of handling two formidable foes at the same time? Is it not a reality for India that there could be a situation in the future where China and Pakistan gang-up on us? Is that too outre? I don't think so. In which case, is it not a smart thing to be prepared for that eventuality? If Raja Mohan is to be believed, the strategic think-tank has not been too active in making these plans. In fact, he raises a far more disturbing point: that under the current political dispensation we have lost at least two opportunities to stake our leadership in this region.

Either way, if there is a move to articulate our defence and offence strategy for the northern border it ought to be welcomed. One only wishes that not too much is divulged - or only misleading bits are divulged. We need to be far more crafty in dealing with China - we need to believe in Chanakyaneeti. The buff and raucous way that we behave in dealing with such matters needs to change, or it needs to be part of a brilliant side-stepping strategy to pull several fast ones. If the latter is true then even as I write and as we speak, we are being out-flanked by the FO mandarins. In which case, FO guys (and gals), Good show!

The only way to figure what is the reality would come from mapping the strategy to the purchases and from the recruitment and from the slow and invisible changes in the command-structure. I'll post something about this later - at the moment I don't even have the starting data. Readers are welcome to direct my attention to links and web resources.

On Avatar

2009-12-29T21:16:00.000+05:30

The special effects are so dazzling and the digital world of Pandora is so bewitching that one postpones the niggling feeling that this is a story that reeks of Judaeo-Christian simplification of a heathen world. Poor, simple-minded, artless children of nature, tramelled under the foot of a superior race of humans (all Americans, mostly white).

Whilst the innocents talk environmental cliches, the one neat trick all Pandorans have is the tassled synaptic ends that act as USB connectors to a massive Central Consciousness Centre (Oh! Sri Sri, we missed your gabble!), which later reveals itself as a large tree built with Faerie Lights. This idea is a cool one and would have been plausible had the contrast between the simple-mindedness of the ten-foooters and the sophistication of the inter-synaptic connections not been too great. Imagine! The Pandoran Pterodactyls, the 6-footed horses (more like Threstals, really), all were instantly docile the moment the mutual tassles connected; imagine the transformation of the 'soul' from a human - an alien race - to an ten-footer (though Sigourney Weaver does not make it): breath-takingly advanced. (One curious aside: I don't remember any Na'vi eating in the film. There is only a brief shot of the gurrl drinking off a Pandoran lily and that was more to show her limpid eyes and trembling lips than victualising)

To then imagine the same people to go into that chanting trance like the chak-chak dancers of Bali and to seek a messiah to emerge from the enemy race. Of course it had to be the Human who would tame the red Pandoran pterodactyl! (How could we have doubted that!). Ah! finally a person who shows the poor natives what the real stuff is about. Poor duds, what did they know! Well. dunno about you, but I found it a tad too similar to the telling of the history of the heathen world from the eyes of Roman Catholic conquistadores. A history that still helps the West stereotype just about everything that is Eastern, and hence by default, Dionysian.

Look also, at the other actors: the military commander of evil intent - he seemed to have not a single redeeming bone in his body - the glowing facsimile of Lucifer. Along with Ribisi (Phoebe's kid-bro from Friends) they were more the Judy and Punch from the neighbourhood Pantomime. There is a moment where Ribisi is shown to be in two minds, he seems unsure. Hopefully it is meant to portray an inner turmoil. We have no way of getting any deeper for this nano-second of insight has not been developed further. The commander suffers from no such pussy-footedness. He is of the brawny Republican mein - perhaps a Cheney in one dimension?

What boggles the mind is that such majesty of technical sophistication in the film was matched with the characterization that only a Jellyfish would consider nuanced (hang on! perhaps that's insulting to the Cniderians, maybe the amoebas then?). The story could still have been a simple one (well, there's only so much one can absorb after being bedazzled with such digital artistry), but surely some realistic layers could have been introduced in the Humans and the Na'vis? Some controlled nuances of the heroes and villians? (did you see a baaaaad Na'vi? No, only one who is jealous and blinded-by-love). It would then have been a memorable movie.

In the end, all one remembers is the awesome spactacle of Pandora seen through 3-D glasses. Nothing more.

Rajkot Drama

2009-12-15T17:35:00.000+05:30

825 runs scored in under 8 hours. 15 wickets given scoring them.
One team lost by 3 runs.

A remarkable match. Because in the end it was not the 414 that India scored that won them the match. A huge score by any reckoning. Yet, one cannot say that it was the scoring of 400 that led us to win.

Nor was it the 411 that SL scored chasing. Under any circumstances one would have thought that a team scoring 400 would have won. Well, they didn't.

India won because it held its collective nerve in the last two overs. So it didn't really matter to all of us who were watching if the score was 400 or 200. The important thing in the 50th over was was that Ashish Nehra should not give a 4 and should preferably take a wicket every ball. I did not think of 414. And I bet you didn't either. It was all about Nehra bowling those yorkers and SL not being able to score of the last 6 balls. The actual score was inconsequential; it could have been anything!

However the match will always be remembered, not for its close verdict, but for the two teams that scored 400 apiece. In a way it is fair - after all, we have seen so many close matches with all kinds of scores. But nail-biters with 400 runs apiece? well, just 2! This and the one that SA and Oz played in 2006.

The cynic would say that there now is no need for the bowler. They anyway get carted for boundaries. They might as well have bowling machines instead. Yet while watching this match, it is impossible to imagine India winning had Zaheer and Ashish N. not bowled those yorkers in the last two overs.

However, the credit, 100% credit, to make this match a nail-biter goes to the SL team. As Sanga said, they did not, 'roll over and die' (haha, Oh! the wit of a budding lawyer) thinking of chasing 414. They matched India blow for blow and held a slight advantage at the 35 over mark.

Which is why I would have given my MoM to the 160 by Dilshan. Maybe the adjudicators could have been cheesy and given it jointly to Viru and Dilshan? This SL team is a proud team and Sanga is the most gracious of leaders. Perhaps is is better to not rub in the salt and give this the flavour of a 'consolation' by going joint or giving it to Dilshan. You know what? I think, it's fine that SL walk away with the head held high and without people throwing scraps at them.

It is amusing to see Mahi do the deliberate nonchalant act after we win. He does this after every match of consequence. It looks cool. Suits Mahi.

One last thing. I don't want to make a big deal out of this. But I can't help mentioning that the last two Test matches and this ODI were far more riveting and satisfying than the two 2020s. I'm just saying...thats all.

:-)

Well, in the end we won. Good for us.

Thai Pavilion after the makeover

2009-12-15T15:45:00.000+05:30

I had dinner last week at the Thai Pavilion. Long had I wished to go, and this article by Vir Sanghvi tipped it over. I had to go. At least to see the coloured glasses by Super Potato. It's not fair to talk about the decor - after all Thai Pavilion is known for its food. The coloured glass jars - rows and rows of it filling up an entire wall - seem to be 3/4th filled with rangoli powder. Cute.

Now to the food.

The build-up was immense. Just last week I had read that it is the top five destinations in India - with Bukhara at the top and TP third. Till the last week, the only Thai places I had eaten were: Thai Ban (several times), The Thai Restaurant next to National College in Bandra Linking Road (now closed; I forget the name), A Thai joint in San Dimas, Calif, US; and a few Chinese eating paces that also serve Thai.

The water being served was directly bottled from the Himalayan springs. So much for the build-up! Tom Kha first, then Som Tam. The soup was nice; bland-ish, not hot enough and the veggies were - well, normal. Did not spot anything that surprised me (pleasantly!) and made me say, 'mmmmm. hhh, mmmm'. I did that on 5th Dec. when served with the T. Kha at Thai Ban.

A decidedly tepid start, I thought.

The papaya salad was, again, ok. Nothing that one did not expect a posh and famous place to serve. It was again bland-ish. The the papaya gratings could have been a tad finer and perhaps the peanut a little less coarse. Definitely more lemon juice, and a little bit of magic perhaps. Well, I had to rely heavier that I would have liked to on the sauces provided.

The portion was small considering it cost INR 500. (In fact all the portions for whatever we had that night were just under what one would expect. Hmmm. Not that we are big eaters. One likes to see a surfeit, I guess! After all there are doggie bags to consider)

By this time I was apprehensive that the meal was going only in one direction - down!!!

Then came the raw mango and water chestnut salad. Nice. But too simple. Just two basic tastes and two basic textures: the mango and the water chestnut; sour and bland. One thought it could have been made faaaaar more interesting. After all a Thai kitchen probably has the most astonishing array of condiments, sauces, dips and relishes. Once again, we all got too busy with the (four, yes, only four) sauces at the table. I asked for more - and was given a bowl of garlic in chili oil. Nice, but not Thai enough. The nam pla, though, was excellent!

By this time the main course had been ordered and we were looking at each other with trepidation. Oh Lord! What a disappointment!! I was already making mental plans - perhaps it's still not too late to nip in to Thai Ban.... perhaps one should call them, just in case...

Then came broccoli in some kind of a black-bean based gravy - very dry and aromatic. It was delicious! It went just perfectly with the plain rice. The black bean paste was flavorful, light and it did not have the bitterness that the Chinese one has. The garlic was just right. The dish was sweet and succulent and lovely!

Revived, at last!

Then came the old favourite. Green curry with veggies. It was fantastic! The best I had eaten. It had pieces of okra, plantain, barbatti and it has lots of flavours that kept popping and bursting in my mouth.

I left it mid-course to try the Phad Thai, thinking that it would be good to leave the tastiest for the last. Well the rice noodles was terrific as well. The textures were varied and perfect, the taste was fresh, the gravy was savoury enough to satiate my Indian palate. It was great! Only complaint - the portions! Oh! Did I already say that the portions were small?

Hmmm.

Well, it didn't take long to finish the noodles and get back to the rice and the green curry. Thankfully, the rice bowls seemed to be like Draupadi's - the spoonfuls kept dropping on my plate. Usually, I eat till I'm just over a-half full. That night, I was maybe a little over that. So yes, it was a nice meal, in the end!

And BTW, the service was chaotic at times, but the main server was knowledgeable. He stopped me from ordering a perfectly ghastly affair of batter-fried squashes (I have a horror for batter fried stuff), and recommended this-and-that-and-the-other. Good!

Learning: Do not order starters in this new Thai Pavilion. Go straight for the jugular. Score: 3.5/5

Another angle to the Edwina-Nehru saga

2009-11-04T13:31:00.000+05:30

Last week I read Pamela Mountbatten's interview and tried to map it to the generally-held view of the Jawahar-Edwina relationship. The general view is that it was an affair, kept under wraps, but plain for all to see including Edwina's husband. A film was almost made - and it may well be made in the future - about this torrid romance carried out in the heat and haze of Delhi.

Why would Pamela Mountbatten disagree with this version of truth and insist that it was not a sexual relationship but one brimming with love and friendship? For one, it may well be true. As in, really, really true. (Check this scene in Bend it Like Beckham, 2 mins into this youtube).

It is not a secret that there have been reports of Pandit Nehru having had gay leanings, at least while at school. Wolpert has written about it and many in India made a big deal out of it. Seen from that light, the Jawahar-Edwina relationship can be very well understood as that of a gay man and his fag-hag. It would have all the ingredients that Pamela has talked about - it would be intimate without being steamy, it would be deeply emotional, it would be physical as in hugs, and kisses and touches - but entirely without a tremor in the nether regions of either. It explains the equanimity of Lord Mountbatten, a handsome dasher if there ever was one, and an alpha male; casting an indulgent eye on the lady being frivolous with another good-looking man.

No one knows what the truth was. (Nor is it anybody's business, really. But it makes for interesting conjecture). I think it is sweet to imagine two grown-up people who are in love in the way that most people cannot imagine them to be, the fact that their friendship was 'more innocent' than what people thought it to be, and the fact that it probably suited the two (and the hubby) to let it be seen that way.

I wonder if a film will get made with this as the angle? To silence the critics who say it was sexual and to show how 'pure' the friendship was. How ironical would that be?

Am I the only one who thinks that this might be even more unpalatable to those who demand nothing less than perfection from our holy cows?

Generosity of companies

2009-10-15T11:07:00.000+05:30

On the Thursday before Diwali night, I was given a box of chocolates. This brought back a flood of memories. My first 'meaningful' employer was Reliance and I joined the Patalganga factory as a trainee some 15 years ago. Within 2 months of joining, during Ganesh Chaturthi I received a bonus of 6000 rupees and a small box of sweets. During Diwali I received a bonus of 30,000, free coupons worth 7000 rupees (to 'buy' clothes, food, goods, et al) and a kilo of kesar kaju katli. We would also get regular supplies of Godrej towels (large ones), Cinthol soaps so that we could shower and clean up after getting our hands dirty in the plant. (I just took them home. Officers were not supposed to bathe in the factory like the 'common' technicians). Besides, we always got all the safety equipment that we ever wanted and uniforms (along with stitching charges). Plus we were fed every 2 hours, all 24 hours. late work meant getting dropped home in a car all by myself. This happened in all the four years that I was with them. The bonus amount kept mounting each year. I was a rich little bugger.

Since then I have been with 5 other employers, two of them for decent periods. Never have I seen that level of generosity. In fact, it embarrasses me to say that the other two places have been piteous, not just by Reliance standards, but by any reasonable standards of generosity. It left a hollow feeling of being seen as a burden. Such bitter aftertaste! It seems that generosity is now only shown to the top layer of leaders in the organization, who, by the way, are extraordinarily well paid and perked and who, seem to need the generosity least. I have always wondered how a 16 hour flight is more harrowing to the CEO who needs to travel first class. Must be some Vishnu-induced metaphysics where for the hoi polloi, it's merely a 2 hour jaunt across the Atlantic.

Have we, I wonder, outgrown the era of generosity? Have we entered, some would say re-entered, an era of gracelessness? Of course, I'm sure it works both ways. Employees too are so mercenary nowadays. It is the norm to be so.

Well! there you are! I meant this to be the post for Diwali.
Happy Diwali anyway!

Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam: Connecting with our world

2009-09-28T12:02:00.000+05:30

I met Max in 2007. He was in Mumbai for a 6-month internship. He is from Rennes. I got to know him during this internship - we would lunch at the same place. He came back next year with a few more friends. This time as a 6 week vacation. For the last 1 year he is in Australia, completing his Masters (and travelling all over the continent). In between he spent a few months vacationing in Portugal and Spain.

Jan and Tomas are friends who were in Brisbane along with me - all of us were there for some university education. I came back to Mumbai after my MBA. Jan and Tomas took a flight to Hong-Kong from where they chug-chugged their way in some kind of a pan-China railway stopping at all the interesting places. This railway met the Trans-Siberian along the way and the two transferred on and crossed over to Europe. They even made a detour to Mongolia!! From Europe they apparently made a brief stop over in Amsterdam and from there they went to Nairobi. Among other things, they hired a team of 12 helpers and mounted an assault on Kilimanjaro - burra sahib-style. The recce team would go ahead and clear the way, set up the tent, make the meals and drinks, smoothen the pillows and the blanket; and wait for the intrepid duo to puff in. Jan sent me a pic of Jan 'Hillary' and Tomas 'Norgay' atop the snowy peak, fluttering flag and smudgy unwashed grins and all. They went back home to Norway, settled down into jobs and are busy raising families now. Of course, they go vacationing every year - almost always to new, unexplored places and people.

Last year I was on my way to NY in a Jet flight. I was cursing my luck that I had the middle seat in the middle at the tail-end of the plane. I was greeted by a grinning, wire-haired, skinny guy who had pierced ears (3 places), pierced eyebrow (left), and a tattoo on the right forearm. His was the right hand-seat. Name - Rafael, Rafa. Percussionist from Barcelona. Rafa was in India for 6 months. Spent time in temples listening to panch-vadyam, attended all the recitals he could in Delhi, Chennai and Mumbai; was thrilled to bits watching pung-cholam in Delhi (I think). He was eager to come back. He loved every minute. So was he going home now, after six months of breathtaking excitement? No sir! He was going only as far as Brussels. Then he would attend some seminars in Netherlands and Belgium before leaving for Yaoundé, Cameroun. He would spend a month or two travelling along the coast - Accra, Abidjan right up to Dakar, meeting people, learning about African percussion. Why Yaoundé? Well, he had a contact.

There is a custom in Europe, Anzac and in North America for young adults, just out of college, being encouraged by parents, by neighbours, by teachers, by strangers and by the State to go out and see the world. To experience freedom, to face difficulties, to overcome impossibilities and come back enriched and hopefully, wiser. Or maybe to just let off steam, soak in alcohol and cheap drugs and cheaper sex. Whatever!

We seem to have the opposite culture. Start the career immediately after college, work, don't fritter away any time, stay at home, be mamma's good, dutiful boy; go vacationing to 'native' or with the family. If one is bold, then go with friends to Goa and drink cheap beer, ogle at whores (but do nothing), do a surreptitious skinny-dip for all of three minutes, piss on the beach in moonlight and come home braver.

Paul Theroux talks about interacting with the gentle and helpful Vietnamese, and marvels at the absence of rancour against the Americans. How I wish we, the increasingly boorish, loud and pompous desi would go to Vietnam and learn a bit of humility. And there is no harm at all in starting young - right after college.

A generation or two of our youngsters travelling across the world would change the tone and even the substance of national debate. This present generation is far more mature and open minded than any in the past; and they are, I believe, free from many of the baggage older generations carry. With rising prosperity and expendable income (thanks to IT and BPO) perhaps the generation of intrepid Indian youngsters is not too far away!

Surge forth, children! The world is indeed our family. Go, meet them.

Match schedule in Champions Trophy

2009-09-25T11:53:00.000+05:30

Before India plays her first game, SA, SL and WI would have finished 2 of their 3 matches. India play Pakistan, for whom it will be the second match. Intriguingly, Pakistan then have to wait till the 30th for the last match with Australia; same as WI who will play us on the same day.

I wonder, why this lopsidedness?

Has it something to do with an early Indian departure? It's known that with the exit of the Indian team, the TV spectators too drop drastically. Some companies now release the new adverts only when assured of an Indian presence in the 'second week'. I cannot recall this kind of 'adjustments' being made in the itinerary for past world cups and major tournaments.

While it makes sense to ensure that everyone profits from cricket, it will be wise for the administrators to keep the interest of the game itself as the highest priority. For example, if a schedule is designed where a team goes off the boil (as Pak or WI might), it is not fair to them.

I'm not suggesting that the current schedule is inimical, but if the administrators are not vigilant, it will drift into that territory without them realising it.

India-bashing in Ozland

2009-09-17T16:17:00.000+05:30

In the wake of the recent attack on the Singh family at the snooker club in the Melbourne suburb of Epping, I thought to check how the issue of racism is being seen in the Australian media and in the 'most popular' articles. Here are screenshots of all the major newspapers. The curious thing is that the bashing and the race-relations between Oz and India are nowhere in sight. The google news search shows that there are articles, but they seem to be tucked in the inside links somewhere.

Clearly, this is not something that the Australian media thinks is important. Maybe this has been drummed up enormously by the Indian media and the touchy, prickly, uber-sensitive student-diaspora in Australia. Farokh Dhondy's call to arms has made some news.

On the other hand, when I caught this headline in The Australian and this in SMH, I began to wonder if there is some meat to the vague suspicion I have that Australia is slowly disintegrating back into a racist society. Something that comes to it naturally, for Australia has been a deeply racist country till the 1970s. Notice how the word racist comes in inverted commas.

It is difficult to say for certain, but one thing that I have personally experienced in my 2 years at Brisbane, is that by and large Australians do not allow race-ridden thoughts to come to the surface of their interactions. Of course, there is a set of people who are openly racist (But then all societies have extreme fringes). However the point is, most people whom I met and became friends with, continued to be hesitant and strangely clumsy about making that unconditional connect that you make with a friend. Perhaps Australians are so used to the idea of White Australia, it is finally dawning upon most that it has changed and will continue to change rapidly, and that there is nothing that they can do about it. Maybe this is the last revolt against the inexorable march. Indians make an easy target; they are not as ghettoised as the Chinese or the Vietnamese, they are generally slighter in build unlike the Pacific islanders and Fijian-Indians (who, by the way, are far more aggressive and violent than Indians). Indonesians, Singaporeans and Malaysians simply stay out of the way and melt homewards at the slightest sign of trouble. But Indians are easier meat.

I'm afraid that the relationship between white Australians and Indians has soured beyond repair and it will take a generation to redeem it. The Symonds affair showed an ugly side of both our countries, the student bashings and robbings have got bad press, the worm of doubt has crept into the minds of fair-minded Australians and emotional Indians. This will get showcased in the cricket rivalry in all the series' to come.

It is only going to get worse.

Case of Pot Calling the Cattle Black

2009-09-17T10:33:00.000+05:30

The cattle controversy with Shashi Tharoor is another example that shows what big hypocrites we really are. To me the bigger tragedy was that it also showed how absolutely devoid of humour we are as a nation. Especially, the kind of witty, self-deprecating style that we see in the Brits and Aussies. They don't mind taking a piss at their beloved icons - be it the Queen, or the Prince of Wales, or Beckham or anybody at all! As Bill Bryson writes in his book, 'Notes From a Small Island', this humour comes from the affection that they have for the people that they choose.

The trouble with us Indians is that we love to laugh at people. Never with them. In the 70s and 80s, while growing up, the jokes were on Madrasis slurping sambhar, Bengalis eating rotten fish and Marathis licking kadi from the elbows upwards. Not exactly scintillating, as you might observe. Sardarji jokes continue unabated. Though, to be fair, in the interim we Indians have 'grown up' and hence these jokes on regional stereotypes have undergone a change - some of it is brilliant - case in point, Lola Kutty and her on-the-fly wit.

The laughter channel on TV still has most fare directed at someone and at someone's expense. Whereas, with a little bit of improvisation the whole thing can be presented such that we laugh with the people and not at the people.

In the meantime, will Rahul baba tell his amma to tell Jayanthi amma to just pipe down on the 'insensitive' use of language when talking of the 'common people' who travel in the said cattle class? This shrill hypocrisy that is on show for the last two weeks about solidarity to the poor is making me want to puke.

Bangladesh: a new beginning. Or is it?

2009-09-16T12:13:00.000+05:30

Relations generally improve when the Awamis are in power in Dhaka. So it was not a surprise to see Shiekh Hasina being welcomed by Delhi with much warmth. There have been equally warm and friendly overtures from Dhaka. The recent visit by Dipu Moni has trotted impressive columns in B'desh. Many commentators are positive about the goings on.

Shiekh Hasina's government has been more rigorous in rooting out insurgents from the hill tracts and have made the right kind of noises. No pronouncements have been made by anyone in the Hasina government which can be seen as 'belligerent' by Delhi. Likewise, SM Krishna has agreed to all the 'demands' made by Dr. Moni. So it seems all is hunky-dory.

The populace is much more cautious though! in fact, it is remarkable that today in Bangladesh, there is more support for Pakistan than for India. The dam on Tipaimukh has touched a sensitive spot in the collective psyche of our eastern neighbours. To be fair their experience of Farakka has been not too good - in fact it has been a disaster on most counts.

India has the chance to behave like a future regional power here. It can show some wisdom and be generous even. If it steamrolls Tipaimukh and causes another desertification in the lower riparian area then B'desh will be lost forever from our circle of influence. I hope we have the sense to be as sensitive to Bangladesh as we expect China to be for the dam that is proposed on Brahmaputra. We have been raising a hue and cry against the dam for pretty much the same reasons as Bangladesh's.

If we are seen as a reasonable and a caring big-brother then we will also be able to veer B'desh away from the Deobandi disease. This looking to the west, and to Arabia for its cultural roots is not more than 7 years old. Its still not widespread. One would like to think that the Bangladeshis will again remember that they are Bengalis first and shun this movement towards Deobandi islamization. What we in the subcontinent need is to rediscover our own links to Sufi and gangetic-islamism. For Bangladeshis it would mean rediscovering Baul and Lalon Fokir. We are after all, the product of what Saeed Naqvi calls, our ganga-jamni tehzeeb. And there are sane voices, as this article shows. But the problem is that not just the government and the bureaucracy, even us, the citizens of this country think of our neighbours with hostility, with derision and with contempt.

So let us make a start.

We in India need to start behaving like a great nation, and stop just expecting others to perceive us as one. We need to have a hard and critical look at ourselves first.

We need to start believing in our multi-culturalism, and not just tolerate it; we need to open our eyes to the parts of our country that we are unfamiliar with. Start there. And then look towards our neighbours with those opened eyes. Can those of us who are in the plains and in the stretch from Punjab to Kerala, for instance, put our hands on our hearts and say that we think - even remotely, briefly - just think of our fellow-citizens in the North-east? Do we think of 'them' as part of 'our' nation? Do we have the broadness and generosity to acknowledge that a person from Mizoram needs to be given the same treatment as a Tamilian, or a Maharashtrian gets?

For us to be a great nation and a responsible neighbour, we first need to set our house in order.

Hoysala

2009-09-11T13:54:00.000+05:30

The most satisfying dinner that I have had in the US so far was in Hoysala, this quaintly (but aptly) named Kannadiga restaurant in Somerset. It was a buffet dinner, where they serve you one portion of dosa and uttappam and the unlimited portions of the stuff on the sideboards.

The thing about this place - it was totally authentic and pandered to no firang tastes. Little wonder then that the clientele was 100% desi.

The food was very good. The dosai, for instance, were perfect! Crisp yet thick, sour and adequately grainy on the tongue.

Here's the entire fare ...

A small incident about Hoysala. We had to make three visits before we got anything to eat. The first time, it was 9:30 PM and the usher said that many of the items were not, 'in enough quantity' and the potato sabji is, 'over'. So we left fuming and hungry - only to get into a frightfully revolting place called Pooja. The next day we were again there, only to see the dark doors staring back at us. It said, 'Monday Closed'. By this time, we ought to have given up. But somehow the place kept calling us, and we went next week.

It was worth the trouble.

Holy Cow! They are proselytising!

2009-09-09T15:16:00.000+05:30

While waiting for the train home at the Penn Station, I saw many red fliers being trampled underfoot and tucked at the back of the seats. I picked one up and saw that it was a message from a group called Jews For Jesus. I thought that the message was attractive, contemporary and brought a chuckle or two even from a confirmed agnostic like me. While I detest proselytising of any sort, I could only nod my head and grin at the cheekiness.

The larger question remains. Why do I react negatively to propaganda by religions? I'm not angry when bombarded with a zillion adverts on TV, merely irritated (Well, I do get angry when they cut away just before the last delivery in the over and start an advert in a cricket match).
So what is the difference? I think that religion works at the belief level, and as everything else that works at that level (like for instance honesty, patriotism and love), they are deeply, totally personal. A belief demands that the individual grapple and seek. And if in that seeking; she reaches out to a guru, or a church, or a book, or a sect, or a philosophy; it is all right. However, what is not on is to thrust ones religion on to individuals, to peddle belief. That, to me is disgusting and beggars belief (sorry, couldn't resist that pun!). Let the seeker approach; let the one who needs to believe ask for help. Don't dishonour anyone by assuming that she needs to to believe, that she better believe!

I have heard the argument, 'But, what if they don't know that they need help? What if they are simple and innocent?' Well, all the more reason to leave them alone. If they have not yet found a reason to believe, then they don't need it in their lives. When they need it, the heart will seek.

McDonalds loses to McCurry

2009-09-08T16:27:00.000+05:30

Malaysian courts have decided that Big Mac does not have monopoly over the usage of Mc. After 8 years of drama, we now finally have a situation where any eatery can use Mc. as long as its menu is sufficiently different from McDonald's.

This throws an interesting twist: consider India. Seeing this judgement, if Indian restaurants start doing the same then we may have hundreds of McShetty, McMoti Mahal and the likes, which given the jurisdiction, should be all right. But what about a McVadaPav? Is that sufficiently different from a burger? Which came first? Ah! It becomes all so interesting. Hey! 5 Star Vada Pav guys, are you listening?

'World Class Indian Cricketer'

2009-09-04T00:04:00.000+05:30

Saw something hilarious today. Being a holiday, I'd gone to Nirmal Lifestyles, a mall in Mulund to pick a few bargains for the home. On my way out, my attention was drawn to this ugly stump-of-a-commemorative pillar with the following legend...

Good that we have been told about this Rahul Dravid. The one that I knew is really a banker who sells Amway on weekends. lolz

Stuffed Green Tomatoes

2009-09-01T17:50:00.000+05:30

Made on a whim. There were green tomatoes and they were priced decently (didn't need a mortgage like it does to buy some of the other veggies nowadays) and Robin had remarked in an offhand way that it was his favourite, absolutely the bestest and favouritest dish. So obviously I forgot all about such trifles. Till that day when I saw them nested next to lemons and I thought that I have never seen lemons of that particular greenness. Lemons, BTW, are in the Cadillac range just now - Rs 4 per. Ridiculous! To cut a short story, shorter, I bought 7 medium, tight and hard green tomatoes and made this dish...

Ingredients

Green tomatoes, small to medium, firm and round. Three per person is a reasonable portion.
Freshly roasted and ground coriander powder, 2 tsp per tomato
Red chili powder, 1/2 tsp per tomato
Freshly roasted and ground jeera powder, 1 pinch per tomato
Mango powder, amchur, 1/2 tsp per tomato
Salt, 1/2 tsp per tomato
Refined veg oil, 1/2 tsp per tomato

In case you want a gravy, here's what you could use:

Onions, 2 medium, for every 6 tomatoes
Fresh green coriander leaves and stems, 1/2 cupful for every 6 tomatoes
Tomato puree, 1 tblsp for every 6 tomatoes
Fresh ginger, 1/2 inch for every 6 tomatoes
Salt, to taste
Refined veg oil, 1 1/2 tblsp

Get going

Wash and dry the tomatoes, green coriander and ginger
Remove the brown tops and cut a thin slice from the bottom of each tomato so that it may stand straight without lolling around in the pan.
Make a cross cut over each tomato so that you have the quarters that can be forced apart but are not deep enough to cut the tomato into quarters. In case you are wondering why such intricacy, well, between the spaces of the quadrants you will stuff the masala. Duh!
Set the tomatoes aside and mix the coriander powder, the chili powder, the mango powder, the jeera powder and the salt together in a bowl. Mix well.
Force each tomato open along one and force a teaspoon of the mixture down to the centre. Do the same for the other cut. So you are stuffing in 2 teaspoons of masala in each tomato.
Once done, set the tomatoes aside for 30 minutes.
After 30 mins, once the tomato juices have absorbed much of the masala, stuff in the remaining masala equally on all the tomatoes. Use your fingers this time.
You are now ready. The cooking will require 30 minutes on medium-to-low flame. Give yourself 15 minutes for the gravy. You can also do the gravy while the tomatoes are simmering.
To cook the tomatoes, heat a flat bottomed large pan, add all the oil. Let it heat on medium flame for a minute.
Slide in the tomatoes one-by-one on the pan. Huddle them around in the centre for best results.
Cook them for 3-4 minutes. Then turn each of them gently in its sides and keep turning each tomato 90 degrees every few minutes to ensure it is uniformly cooked.
Once all the tomatoes are done this way, cover the pan and let is simmer on low for 10 minutes.
In the meantime heat up a kadhai, add the 1 1/2 tbslp oil and let it heat up for a minute.
Add the onions and stir gently at medium heat. Add the salt. Once translucent, add the coriander stems and the ginger. Stir gently for a few more minutes.
Dilute the puree and add it to the kadhai. Simmer for 5 minutes. Add the remaining coriander, stir and turn-off heat.
Place the gravy on a flat dish with raised sides.
Place the tomatoes around. Sprinkle with coconut and coriander

Goes well with Fulka and daal. The tomatoes should be cooked but just a touch crunchy. By some good luck, hopefully they will not be too tart. In case they are, you might want to let go of the mango powder. This means you'll need to taste the tomatoes when raw. I don't mind them when tart. I just add a dollop of unhealthy salt!

Monsoon marches

2009-09-01T17:27:00.000+05:30

It is September. And monsoon is still around. Can't remember the last time it rained this late. Maybe the cycle is shifting? Or maybe it is going to last longer this year. I hope it does - we need the rains. The lakes are half-full. We have water scarcity at my flat anyway; with empty lakes it will be unthinkable in the summer.

It would be to the advantage of us Mumbaikars to learn about urban rainwater harvesting. I'm sure there must be some simple things that one can do. A quick google revealed that there IS a special department of theMumbai Municipality that helps home-owners to harvest rainwater. Its called Division for Education for Water. IN case you want to start off right away and don't have a clue where to begin, start by looking at this youtube video from Bangalore. Its fab!

It's time we heeded.

US and them

2009-08-27T16:30:00.000+05:30

I returned from the US on 8th August. The assignment is now complete and the report has been tabled. All is well. So now I have the time to reflect on my 5 weeks.

On our way from Somerset, NJ to Moosic, PA, we saw 5 roadkills, all deer, large ones; ungainly in death, some bloated, others just plain pathetic. B said that deer are a menace - eat the best summer blooms and mess up the lawn. And when they crash against cars on the freeways people are not just injured (some are known to die, but that happens more with Moose than the smaller deer) but are left guilty and generally wretched having blown the car, killed a harmless but stupid animal and having to pay for the repair. Roadkill meat is not eaten. Just buried or incinerated.

But there are culling expeditions as well in many states, mostly for deer. And these are then given to the local butchers who sell the venison to the local populace.

Where we lived in Somerset, just beyond the lawns in the woods that line the property were numerous families of deer. I've seen them during breakfast - a family of three, one yearling, frisky and slim; the other two, more staid and perpetually hungry. Another family of three in the adjoining property - all large and energetic. They are completely unafraid of humans. I've also spotted rabbits and a stoat-like animal, something narrow, low and dark. It was well past 9 PM when I saw it, hence it was not too clear. Could have been a weasel. Had it been India, I would have said mongoose.

There is hunting season in all but three states in the US (Kentucky, Hawaii and Rhode Island). How different is the situation vis-a-vis India!! Hunting and gathering is allowed only for the tribes and villages inside the protected forestry zones in India. That too, of a few species.

What I find incredible is that much of the wilderness that we see in the US is really very recent: less than a 100 years old. Most of the arable land available used to be farmland - HUGE tracts of it, especially in the southern states. Cotton and tobacco. All that is gone, the farms abandoned. The forest has reclaimed all of the land. Apart from this, there are large areas in North America, especially in Canada, where the government has planted pine forests.

All this is possible because North America is still mostly wilderness. Human density is ridiculously low if you compare it to any other industrialised area. Europe is as dense as it gets, Japan too, and the densest amongst them all - UK. What NA needs are hordes of immigrants; twice as much, thrice....only then can we have a semblance of balance on the planet. It will also make Americans and Canadians more responsible environmentalists and less profligate. Well, Canadians are really quite OK. It's the American consumption that tips the scale.

Speaking of which, it was impossible sometimes to just watch at the breakfast table, the colossal wastage of food, even now, when the going is tough. It would take all of my good breeding (?) to not get up and slap the fat lady silly - one particularly noxious woman - who would pile her plate with two Waffles, then cut them quarter-wise, pour four 'cups' of syrup, and then leave three quarters on the plate and go for crisp bacon strips and cheese omelettes. Then she would grab a 'healthy' yogurt cup, some bagels and coffee leaving an untidy mess of omelettes behind. Last, a banana and more coffee. Jeezuz!!!! Not only gluttonous, but wasteful. Except for the coffee, nothing was really 'finished'.

But why just the noxious lady - almost all the folks up there seem to leave quite a bit on the plate. Call me old-fashioned, but it would set my teeth on the edge to see all of this around me. I've not even started yet on the amount of garbage that this eating frenzy would generate. The mousy little Mexican guy would come in twice in the time I breakfasted to clear the bins.

On the other hand, there are not many people who are as generous in spirit as the Americans. Even in these blighted times, the portions in restaurants is gargantuan, there still is free coffee and cookies, the peg measure while pouring out drinks is almost always ignored.

A word on the weather. Lovely!

Sukhe Aalu

2009-06-15T19:23:00.000+05:30

So I am loving the potato this season; big deal. Before the rains come down, you may want to try some. The rest you can try while it rains (hah, droll!)

Ingredients

3 Large, hard and shiny-skinned potatoes
Masala A: Dhania powder (1 tsp), chilli powder (1/4 tsp), Aamchur powder (1/2 tsp), ajwain (1 pinch) and hing powder(1 pinch), turmeric powder(1/4 tsp) and salt (1/2 tsp)
Masala B: Marathi goda masala (1 tsp), roast jeera powder(1/2 tsp), red chilli powder(1/4 tsp), turmeric powder(1/4 tsp) and salt (1/2 tsp)
Masala C: Sambhar powder(1 1/2 tsp), chopped garlic (2 large pods), red chilli powder(1/4 tsp), turmeric powder(1/4 tsp) and salt(1/2 tsp)

Get going

Wash, peel and cut the potatoes into 1.5 inch triangles and cubes (depending on where you make the cut)
Soak in cold water and ready the pan
Heat the pan and add 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil
Immediately add the potatoes and stir so that they do not stick
Reduce the heat after 30 seconds and put in the first ingredient of the Masala Combo of your choice. Add the salt. It will start to sweat. Stir and reduce heat if it starts to burn
Add the other ingredients keeping the chilli powder for the last
If you are adding the garlic, add only half now. Keep the remining for last.
Stir till it is nicely mixed; cover completely and heat it on low for 10 minutes. If required, lift once to give it a stir.
Check after 10 minutes. Depending upon the quality of the potatoes, you may require 2 to 5 minutes more. Just prod the largest piece to see if the centre is still firm.
If just a few minutes away, add the remaining garlic and cover till done.
Do not over cook - they become mushy.

They are delicious with chapatti, of course. But the surprise is when you have it with nice aromatic rice, either basmati or kali mooch or even punjab boat. Don't smother with daal - just have the pristine rice with a piece of the aalu - you'll discern the flavours and texture of rice merging with the richness of the masala. Its different. Try.

Exit T20

2009-06-15T17:59:00.000+05:30

So we have been kicked out by England. This should have brought my world crashing down a few years back (umm, maybe quite a few years back!) and I would have been fuming at the incompetence of Dhoni, the lethargy of Ishant, the arrogance of Yuvi, the block-headedness of Yusuf, and so on. Instead I found myself applauding Broad for his resilience, the English spectators for their goodnatured mirth....even Pietersen for his focus. True, it is disappointing to go out in this fashion, but somewhere one also realised that the team was not the best in the tournament, it was not working as well as it did the last time; somewhere one can see that Team India was underdone. And it is all right! The team is human, after all. In Mahi we have a potential great; let us give him the time and space to carve out a splendid team that does not get blown away by het or wet, rain or snow.

For me the best sight was the Windies winning and showing the joy that only they can show on the cricket field. I for one would be glad to see this Windies team claim its rightful place in world cricket. For too long have they been mismanaged. Those of us who have seen Lloyd's and Viv's and even Richie Richardson's team, they will know what the succeeding generations of fans have missed - the grace shown by a generation of unconquered champions in victory and defeat, in the field and off it.

IPL

2009-05-02T15:14:00.000+05:30

I have to write about IPL - cannot help it.
All the drama before a ball was bowled - that sapped some of my interest, instead of whetting it. To be honest, I did not think Modi san would carry it off - he did! Wow! As a pure management exercise, his was sublime. If CEOs can do what he did, the recession should be short work.
Heh!

Now that it is on, I watch it when I can. The few matches that have been close - especially the three in the last 5 days, were riveting stuff. Now that I have experienced it, I also know that last year was different. Last year had energy, it had raw passion. Yes, it had more than its share of silliness, yet the people in the stands made a palpable difference. The screen used to throb. You know exactly what I'm talking about.

This year, we have had even more silliness, even more blatant commercial crassness, the commentary has been pathetic and the crowds have been dull. I don't mind the silliness or the crassness or the commentary because I can do mute, or simply flick to Natgeo and come back exactly to rejoin the play. But the energy? It is missing. The crowds are thin, there is bonhomie maybe, but no partisanship, no heart-thumping electricity. Its boring.

I might as well be watching Essex bat against Notts - don't really give a rat's ass. Clearly, IPL can only work in India. That is a learning that Lalit Modi must have got by now. Knowing him, we can be sure that the next year it will be in India, come het or wet, rain or snow; and we also know that the brazen strategy break will be gone as well. Thank the Lord for small mercies!!

Resuming Talks

2009-05-01T14:50:00.000+05:30

There seems to be a default assumption that talks should resume between India and Pakistan. What we hardly ever debate is this basic assumption. Why should talks resume? What is so pressing about talks that either Pakistan or India should take heed? Let us examine first the possible reasons why Pakistan might want to talk with us.

Pakistan wants to discuss Kashmir. Specifically, it wants to discuss the ways in which it will be possible for India to give up territorial rights over the part of Jammu and Kashmir that we control. Assume for a moment that Pakistan really is interested in that part which is predominantly Muslim - so the Valley, really. What does India think of this? No way! So out it goes of the window. Unless Pakistan wants to pretend to demand, and India, pretend to listen.
If giving up territorial rights to the Kashmir Valley is a no-go, then Pakistan wants to discuss ways in which India will allow Kashmir to be autonomous (much like Chechnya, Ingushetia, etc. We all know what happened there!). Again, what does India think? Mind your own business, Pakistan, it says. So, this one is out as well. Or the same humbug as above - pretend some more.

Pakistan wants India to not dam Jhelum and Chenab and release more water than now. The 1960 Indus water treaty is seen as unfair in both countries for exactly the opposite reasons. Since 1960, India, because of it having the upper-riparian and upstream systems, has created dams along the main and the tributaries feeding into the rivers. It is now in complete control of the flows. This is alarming from a Pakistan point of view, and exactly how we want them to be, from an Indian point of view. Over the centuries, land and water have been the primary cause of wars. This has the potential of being the number one issue between us in the next 20 years. India will extract the maximum bargain from the waters and will no doubt, try to do the tightrope walk to ensure that it does not tip Pakistan over the edge and start a nuclear exchange. Strategically, Pakistan is poorly placed in this matter. The situation is getting worse still because India has reached out to Afghanistan and offered to dam the Kabul river. This will mean further loss of water, this time from the western border. It is desperate times ahead for Pakistan and it has very few levers left. If Pakistan's planners are wise, they would focus all their attention on this issue. Kashmir, while a popular refrain, is not as important. Yes, if the Kashmir valley goes over to Pakistan then it will have more say in the river systems, specially Indus. But India will never allow the Simla LoC to change. Hence it is not a gettable target for Pakistan. Which is why it makes so much sense for the planners and strategists in Pakistan to come up with an imaginative river sharing solution. War-mongering, aggression, complaining, none are going to work in the next, maybe 30 years to come. That is so because India will be the frontier nation along with China for most trade and wealth creation.

Pakistan wants India to stop interfering in Baluchistan and Sindh. While this was not a concern for Pakistan for all these years, it will now become one. Simply put, India did not really have a foothold in either of those provinces. It had a espionage network that it dismantled in the 90's (thank you, Mr. IK Gujral!), and now, nothing. However, Afghanistan is turning out to be an interesting case. With US blessings, India is slowly getting to be a 'legit' player in the geo-politics of Afghanistan. India is sure to leverage this entry it has got by means of, 'rebuilding Afghanistan' (and a mere $1billion) and surround Pakistan. It won't be too long when India will work with Iran and further get a grip around Pakistan. Shia Iran is no supporter of a majorly Sunni Pakistan. Here too, Pakistan is poorly placed to get any leverage. Plus, both the military and the ISI have played their cards wrong - they have not been long-sighted and have learnt nothing from the past, especially the colonial past. Too much reliance has been placed on the fortuitous Russian faux-pas, and the consequent Taliban movement. It stands increasingly isolated now. China can't help even if it wants to; and China is already re-evaluating its options. It will not jeopardise the possible economic benefits of being friendly to India (albeit reluctantly) for siding with an ally like Pakistan. It will be too costly. China will, no doubt, continue to surround India and 'show her its place' at every given opportunity, however, it will also build economic bridges, or more specifically, mutual dependence on natural resources like oil and minerals.

What does India want to talk about?

India wants Pakistan to stop supporting the Islamic terrorists and wants the state instruments like the military and the ISI to stop planning and conducting terror attacks across India. This is not going to happen as long as Pakistan exists as we know it today. In my earlier blog I have written why. In a single line: a united and secular India negates the need for Pakistan to exists as a separate nation.

India wants Pakistan to give each other MFN status and build trading links. This may start happening now. The military establishment might object, as it always has. People getting closer will not fit into the stratagem of fostering hatred. It won't happen if the civilian government (when it is in a position to rule) makes Kashmir a precondition. There is nothing to discuss about Kashmir.

India wants Pakistan to not veto its membership to OIC and not ask allies to veto us either. In short, India thinks that being the country with the second largest Muslim population makes her an automatic candidate for OIC. Considering countries like Togo make the list, its scandalous that India is not in the club. Of course, Pakistan will veto every time. If it does not, it undermines the notion of its existence.

India wants Pakistan to shut its ISI operations in Nepal and Bangladesh. Not one of the three countries will oblige India. India has not been a responsible big brother and this is the price we have paid and will continue to pay.

So what do we have? A very, very limited list of essential items to discuss. How long should it have taken? 5 years? Maybe 10? But 50! Is it possible that the talks are a big hoax? Examine - apart for the UN tribunals that handed bits and pieces to the two countries, nothing substantial has ever been agreed and followed. The LoC has stayed, more or less, with seasonal incursions; but the water treaty has never worked, there is no provision for visitor visa for citizens of either country; there is no overarching trade agreement, there is no cultural exchange blue-print; students cannot study in each other's educational institutions. It is clear that ours is an unhealthy relationship. No positives can emerge from this morass.

For that to happen, we need to restart. With no assumptions. No baggage of the past. Only looking ahead. If this is simplistic, then it is. Why can we not try? After all, we are neither brothers nor neighbours. We are just enemies now. We have nothing more to lose.

Beating the Heat

2009-05-01T12:31:00.000+05:30

It's been some time since I blogged. Not that one has something momentous to say now. The summer has been tough - with the whole of May to go yet. Talking of which, I must tell you about the chaas.

The canteen has been supplying a chaas at lunch-time that has chopped coriander and just a little bit of pudina and a touch of rock-salt. The buttermilk is nice and thin and sour. Just the right mix of tastes that makes the summer mellow. That and the zero need to step out in the open from the delicious, cool interiors makes it easy to withstand. Bit la-di-da, nonetheless, lucky! Wouldn't have relished travelling under such circumstances.

The other thing that I look forward to is the pani-puri on my way back. This guy has a stall at Parey's, Sher-e-Punjab; and he has ice-cold pani that has mint and green mangoes and is fairly sour. Mumbai pani is usually bland. This guy also makes a nice aalu mix (no ragda for me, thank you!).

The first thing to do on reaching home is to make a tall glass of fresh-lime soda. Ah! Bliss!

I'm waiting for the rains. Taking a page off Alexander Frater, a-la the Indians Spices Board members, I promise to soak myself in the first shower, no matter what the situation.

Change in Gates

2009-02-18T16:55:00.000+05:30

From today, the SEEPZ main-gate is off limits. It is being repaired / renovated for monsoons, and methink, also to handle 24/11 like emergencies better. Well, that's good news. This means, from now till the time the gates are back, one will need to use Gate #5.

I saw it today, open, and entered. All these years it has only been shut whenever I would pass it. What a surprise it is to see a ruined building right in the front - it seems like an imposing edifice. The official notice about the gate change talks about a 'church', maybe this is it? It does look ancient. I never knew it existed. Worse, it seems uncared for, for centuries! That is a shame.

That whole area near 'Gate # 5' is so lovely and old-world. It should be a good place for walks after lunch. Or even a stroll on a free afternoon. Let's see if we can take a shot at it with the camera - I'll post them here.

Apparently there is a lake behind the church and once upon a time there used to be a walk circling the lake for exactly the reasons above. Who says we are progressing?

Obama and us

2009-02-05T13:58:00.000+05:30

At one of the Balls, when Barack, in a fit of sartorial rhetoric said of Michelle, 'How beautiful is my wife?' I heard myself say, ' No dude, it's you who is beautiful; she is merely plain'. There is a touch of the vain peacock in the President, but it becomes him. The slender tall figure with long and nervous fingers - the head a gallant study in ebony from a Togo figurine - all looks too good to be true. And that is only a third of the story. For, when Obama speaks, the heart listens.

I cried when I saw tears in the eyes of black men and women gathered there. It is not only an American dream to see a minority, any minority, who have for centuries been the exploited and the unempowered, in a position of leadership, to have it in his hands to carve the destiny of the planet. It was an overwhelming feeling to be moved by an event that is not 'our own'. It is hard to explain but easy to understand what Barack Obama means to me, to us, to all of us.

I do not know what kind of President he will be and what will he unleash, unbidden. As of now, Obama has brought hope in the free world, he has forced people in India to look at askance of their leaders - can we hope for someone with his vision, his articulation, his empathy and erudition, even? That speech at Philadelphia's National Constitution Center after the pastor debacle, is it possible to imagine anyone in the current crop to make such a nuanced and complex argument for hope and unity? Some of the public cogitations (can't call them speeches, really), of Pandit Nehru had that quality. None, after him. I am hopeful of Omar Abdullah, but it is too early. How bare does our cupboard of 1.2 billion look! Let us not despair, for just as Obama rose out of nowhere, we too might see a miracle.

Well, all the best to Barack Obama. May he continue to be the beacon. May cynicism stay away from his person, may luck ride with him in all his endeavours. Amen!

Looking for the perfect dosa

2009-02-05T12:48:00.000+05:30

The Dosas in Mumbai restaurants are sweet. The sambhar is also sweet, or bland. The chana-coconut chutney is tasteless and often watery. Of course, very few serve gunpowder (malagapudi) here; one has to ask.

Lets start with the dosa. Instead of letting the daal and rice batter ferment on its own, the restaurants, especially the Udupi ones, add yeast immediately after making the paste. As we all know, yeast is more the bread kind of thing, it produces glucose as an end-product of fermentation, sweetening the batter and giving it the rose-like fragrance which is wholly inappropriate for dosa. Dosa needs that tangy, sour smell of fermentation, and a sour and sharp taste.

Now the sambhar. They make it mostly with tomatoes here, with tamarind making a guest appearance, or not at all. And the masala is not quite OK - too little dhania powder and hing, too much of chili powder and SUGAR!! OMG! Its terrible, the sweetness of it all!

Chutney - well! the word itself a touch of onomatopoeia about it - chhhhuttt- nee! the chhhhutt is the mouth-watery click of the tongue against the back of the teeth. And look what we get - the blandest possible paste of insipid nothingness - no tang of the green chillies, no back-of-the-throat sensation of the ginger, no roundedness of the coconut milk and the faint nuttiness of ground chana daal.

The tiny joint on Dadar TT, a few shops before Parsi Dairy makes it the way I like it. Crisp but thick dosa, made from proper sour and salt batter. The sambhar and chutney come in small bowls. The moment you finish any, the waiter will replace it with another. You suddenly feel that the sambhar and the chutney are precious - not to be lavished upon yokels. The sambhar is not the best (you can have better in Radhakrishna in Andheri West opposite Shopper's Stop); but the chutney!!! Ooooh! exquisite! The consistency is just right - a bit of the solids and enough gravy to soak your dosa into. The coconut is not ground down mercilessly into a gooey paste, but retains the granularity and hence the juices. There is ginger and green chillies - plus a hint of garlic and tiny bits of coriander stalks. Its just perfect! Try it.

Dogged if I can!

2009-02-05T12:12:00.000+05:30

I wish I had a dog. A Labrador, maybe; or even a German Shepherd again.

I wish it was possible to convince oneself that it is a workable idea. At 1,100 sqft, the flat is large enough for me, but small for a tiny bundle of restlessness. The bigger problem - who will look after the chap when I'm away at work? One does not mind giving up vacations for the pet, but work! And one can't really depend on keepers and servants - they will mistreat the li'il guy; I've seen it happen too often. Indians as a people, are not as attuned to animal happiness as, say, the English. The countless times I've caught a keeper angrily belting the dog with the leash while on a pee-break, all because the dog had woken him up during the noon siesta, or is tugging in a particular direction, or simply to practise some whacks.

Then there is the problem of walks and exercising - where are the empty spaces in Mumbai? Where I live it is impossible to see a large enough park where one can exercise a young dog. They require vigorous physical activity, else they become moody, unfit and cantankerous. Nails grow to become talons and you can know that your dog is around at the way the nails tap against the floor. The 'parks' around my place are dust bowls fringed with debris. And they are full of kids - who, no doubt, face similar dilemma - where to play? A doggie-walk in Mumbai is a visit to the neighbourhood lamp-posts and garbage dumps accompanied by frenzied barking of the galli ka alpha male or the over-friendliness of tail-in-the-legs non-alphas.

I wish it was possible to have a dog at home now. While I was growing, I can't remember a time when we did not have a dog - maybe only those short months of despair at the passing away of the pet when we would promise ourselves to never, never again, keep pets - they die. But, once hooked, it is impossible to completely forget the joy a dog can bring in the life of a person, especially a growing child. So a few months later, another puppy would be yapping to welcome us home from school, peeing over the carpet at the sheer joy of seeing us. It would start, a familiar routine by now - and a very welcome one. Preparing the food would always be 'Mum's Department', the weekly baths would be shared, and romping in the garden would be a joint affair. Yes - we had gardens then. Not Mumbai.

Coming back to this maximum city, a dog ought to be the ideal companion of the single guy - me! A metrop ought to have the facility for its citizens to keep pets. I feel envious to see people in cities like New York and Chicago, Melbourne and Brisbane, everywhere, I would see dogs of all shapes and sizes being taken out for a run at all hours of a weekend.

Maybe I should stop moaning and just go ahead and get my Labrador puppy; after all, it is not as if mumbaikars have no pets. And maybe the pets don't mind the lamp-posts and the strays. Maybe I can get a keeper who is genuinely fond of animals - after all I have really not looked hard enough for one.

This time, it will be a tan Labrador.

Pat Style French Beans

2009-01-19T15:27:00.000+05:30

It started off when we saw this mound of shiny and tender french beans in the thela last week. So we selected the best from the heap and then wondered what could be done with them that was different from the usual (the usual is to stir fry it for a Hakka noodle or blanch it in salt water and dress it for a salad). I remembered a beans sabzi with fresh-coconut in Mangalore. It had a little gravy and also had some kokum, if I'm not mistaken. The sabzi that I made that day turned out to be an eclectic mix of styles. And Robin loved it. Then I made it again last Sunday, and my bro, bhabhi and my niece loved it. 'Hey!', I thought, 'Hey! let's post it; maybe some more people will like it..." So here goes...

Ingredients

French beans - 250 gms. Take the trouble to pick tender, green ones.
Onion - 1 medium, red.
Tomato - 2 medium, red, firm.
Dry Coconut powder - 2 tablespoons + some more for the decoration
Jeera - 1 teaspoon.
Kasoori methi - three pinches.
Tomato puree - two tablespoons (for the tartness and for a touch of thickness of the masala).
Salt to taste.
Sugar - just a little, to round off the tastes.
Vegetable oil - 1 and half tablespoons.

Get Going

Pare, wash and dry the beans. Chop them into tiny cylinders of half centimeter.
Clean and chop the onions fine.
Pare the top off the tomato and chop it fine. If if find the tomato skin annoying, do take the trouble of removing the skin. I leave mine in.
Roast the Jeera in a kadhai, wait till it browns evenly; then add the oil. Once the aroma starts to waft, put in the onions. You must have noticed that I have put no chillies. Yeah, strange, but true...
Stir till translucent, add the beans and put in some of the salt so that the colour is retained. The kadhai is to be kept at medium heat throughout. As the water dries off, and the beans still look green and crunchy, add the chopped tomato.
Stir in the tomato till it becomes mushy. Add it the salt and stir it till the tomato becomes part of the gravy. Keep tasting the beans - they should be crunchy, yet cooked. It should not have the rawness, say, that is desirable in stir-fried beans.
Add the puree to adjust the tartness and the consistency of the masala. Remember this dish is not intended to have a 'gravy' but will have some nice masala. around the beans pieces. This should take 8 minutes.
Add the coconut powder and the kasoori methi and work it into the sabzi.
Adjust the salt and the sugar to your taste
The sabzi is ready. Keep it in the kadhai as the beans sweat and cook a little while not losing its crunchiness.
Serve in a bowl and sprinkle more coconut powder on it.
It goes well with phulka and daal

War Looms

2009-01-15T17:14:00.000+05:30

Something does not add up.

The meekness of sending the dossier to 180-odd countries; so many of the barbs from the Pak-establishment being ignored, or dealt laconically; too many high-level meetings involving the Services Chiefs; sending 2 Sukhois for retrofitting; the Army not responding to the Pakistani troop movements and loud warmongering, the PM mumbling out exceptionally harsh statements; the US interlocutors of all shades seen too frequently in the neighbourhood; the ambhibious INS Jalashwa and INS Viraat both patrolling the west coast.

All this cannot be for 'putting more pressure' to Pakistan to 'comply' with its promises. The signals are muddled and work against each other. The studied underplay, the meekness of 'crying out for help' does not fit with the medium-term planning of Sukhois and warships.

Can it be that India is preparing for a limited strike at defined targets inside Pakistan and POK? The planning points towards it. The timing need not be defined by the elections - the first intuition might suggest that things will move into top gear before April. However, traditionally political parties have been united in the matters of defence - as witnessed during the 1998 testing - when all the preparation was done during the Congress government, but the testing happened under Vajpayee.

The logistics of the strikes will need at least 6 months - given the winter and the lead time required to unleash the covert links on the targets. Indian government's reaction to another attack on Indian targets would be an interesting indicator. If it is raucous then maybe there is no planned strike. If it is muted and wreathed in silence, then war is afoot.

Despite what the US may try to sell as an argument, if push comes to shove, India will not listen to US concerns about Pakistani troops shifting to the east, abandoning the war on Taliban and Osama. The argument would be, 'you take care of your interests, we will take care of ours'.

If indeed there is war, however limited, the reasoning should be reconstructible. Let's attempt it.

First big concern: will Pak press the nuclear trigger? No. The MAD scenario will not be invoked. The Pak nuclear buttons are now split and secured (under Musharraf's insistence) and while they are bunkered in the western region (nearer the Islamist armies), they are safe from being taken over. Islamist sympathiser top brass have been purged from the army and the ISI has never shown an appetite for full-blown nuclear war. Besides this, the US Navy is keeping a close watch on the bunkers from the Arabian Sea.

Well, then in the situation of a low nuclear risk, India might think thus: there is no way that Pakistan will ever be reconciled to being India-neutral, not after Bangladesh. Any peace movement will always have periods of controlled warfare, either through terrorist strikes or Kargil-like incursions. In short, it will never be like France and Germany. The only reason Pakistan can give for its existence is if it leads to the dismemberment of India. Else it does not need to exist. Thus Pakistan will always seek India's dismemberment. If that is so, can India afford it? No. Not if it wants to be part of the global leadership. Simply because the setbacks caused by Pak strikes would never give it the legitimacy of a leader and it will always be seen as an economic risk by investors.

Containment is not going to help because, as we have seen, even a limited, once in a year strike can swing the sentiment away. Besides, instability in Kashmir and North-east, Telangana and Naxal-zones will not be options anymore. They will need to go.

Sooner or later, India will need to undertake this job of relieving Pakistan of its army, the ISI and hence, of its islamists. This cannot be done only though warfare. It can be done and sustained through building institutions, civilian rule, shared civilian-army control on the nuclear button and economic revival. All are long term factors.

Making Pakistan smaller is an active thought with India - it has succeeded before and hence may think that it can do it again. Separating Sindh (or parts of Sindh) will mean a lesser sized territory to handle. Balochistan could be next. In other words, its the Punjabi army and ISI that is the enemy; it is that which needs to be defeated. These are again long and strategic activities - we can see them slowly unfurling over the next 15 years.

But why is India planning to strike now? It can only be one thing - a rehearsal. India wants to test the waters before unleashing the grand plan. The brief incursion of Indian fighter jets can be explained only if we assume that it was done to check the scramble-times and the counter-strike readiness of Pak jets.

By doing a quick strike, say on a Lashkar camp and on JuD HQ, India will know the extent to which Pakistan will engage them militarily. Under the current economic conditions the world will stop Pakistan from a revenge strike. India has the advantage of not carrying a begging bowl. Far from it - it may be the only economic oasis in the free world in 2009 and 2010.

If this is the way then we will see a sustained effort from India to keep the post 26/11 situation warm. It will remove embassy staff, gradually withdraw from trade, cut air-links, shut roads. India will do so based on the timetable of the planned strikes. All this will be to ensure that the 26/11 situation is not allowed to cool despite conciliatory gestures (and even actions) by Pak.

So all portends to a grim 2009.

28th Nov

2009-01-15T16:40:00.000+05:30

The US offices are closed for Thanksgiving, hence not many mails. The presentation can wait. There is some attendance at work - maybe 30%? The canteen is on and I have already got my morning cuppa and idli. I was bewildered yesterday, and when I left work, a little sad. Today I am writhing in anger. And I want to spew venom here on this blog. Its an impotent attempt at doing something. The news coverage is annoying the hell out of me - everybody seems to be speaking loudly and with no coherence. I don't feel comforted. The PM said something in a weak, whiny voice that set my blood boiling. So I won't get into that.

I got an auto to come here and there are buses plying as well. When I entered, there were armed policemen in the van in front of the SEEPZ gate today. They looked just as lazy and unkempt as always. Who would trust them to save their lives? I won't. I would run; or maybe in a mad, blind run, choose to attack those who wish to harm me. I would be dead in the most likely scenario.

Back to the screen - there is smoke billowing out of the front of Taj now - must be some botched attempt at rescue, or maybe the chaps inside are lighting all the furnishings? I remember going up to the top-floor suite once to visit a rich American cousin. The room was tiny, the roof was low, the bed was huge, the doors were narrow, the bathroom was shiny but without any character. I remember the curtains were thick and ugly and had three layers. The upholstery everywhere was soft. So it must be an arsonist's delight, this Taj.

The three police honchos who died yesterday - I can see repeat pictures of them and can't help wondering - why the heck did three top guys need to go in the same jeep? I'm familiar with Karkare's name, and the little bit of the Malegaon thing; he seemed to be a smart guy, with his wits about him. I bet his last thoughts must have been, 'fuck, what a chutiya I am to die like this!' And did you look at his helmet? And his tiny, frayed flak-jacket? In fact, even as I write I can see more policemen in front of the Taj barricades; none are in flak-jackets, and two are bare-headed. Why do we have jokers to protect us? We in India are not that poor, surely?

More news pouring in - all are condemning the attack, rah rah, and we have a grim faced Pranab saying something that seems to be in English. But then I am illiterate in that version of the lingo. I am not interested in his bakwas. I'm curious at this stage to know what happened to the hundreds who were caught at CST. No update yet on that. Perhaps the crowd that was caught in the crossfire was not as glamorous as this crowd. Or maybe the killing ended too soon and there is nothing else to report from the 'scene'.

Its lunch. I'm hungry.

27th Nov

2009-01-15T16:38:00.000+05:30

I am at work right now. I have logged on to the online IBN CNN news channel - the volume has been tuned down, and I keep checking on what's being shown every few minutes. I'm not really interested in finishing the presentation slide that I started yesterday. I don't care if the deadline is tonight. I'm caught in the scenes of unfolding terror, I can hear random bullets being fired and an occasional bang, maybe of a grenade? Is this Mumbai, my Mumbai, or is this West Bank, or Fallujah, or Chechnya, or Karanchi?

I stepped out a while back - and all is as usual here in Andheri East. A couple of police vans on the door, and maybe a lesser traffic, one can't be sure. The vada - pav guys is doing brisk business, the paal-wala has a line of three people, the new-vendor's stall is missing, but the nariyal-pani stall has a person eating the 'malaai'. I can see a small jam ahead of me near the Rolta building and there are idle pedestrians all over. No one seems to be in any hurry or in any concern of what is happening in deep south of the city. I don't feel any urgency either - it might be happening in another country, anywhere. This is puzzling.

I am back in my cabin, the news is just as before - more shots, more smoke, more screeching news from frenzied reporters. It seems I have entered a dark, mad world again. I am glued. The fear is returning, I can feel the heartbeat thumping against the rib-cage. I abandon all pretence of work.

It seems there is a gun-fight now at Nariman House as well. However on the screen I can see two stray dogs in front of the house and hardly any NSG guys - in fact none; just some slovenly policemen and a bearded gent in white. It seems there won't be any more cricket either. Once England wakes up we'll know for certain. Anyway it was a 5-0 bluewash. I am hungry and need sustenance.

Every now and then I can see the first pictures of the terrorists - a chap in a blue duffel bag, short and stocky carrying an automatic in his right hand, face with one streak of what seems blood. The picture has done something to the eyes - they seem to be glowing - like the obsessed girl in Exorcist. I feel uncomfortable looking at the picture. The platform is empty - they have killed everybody on it? The air conditioning is making me shiver. I want to go home now.

Daal without oil ka tadka

2009-01-14T18:26:00.000+05:30

All oil is baaaaad - that is the mantra. So how to make tasty stuff without the oil in dishes that were meant to? Read on...
Ingredients

Tuvar daal: how many mouths to feed, ji?
Jeera: a generous pinch for every fistful of pulses.
Salt to taste.
Turmeric: enough to give it the yellow of your dreams.
A touch of ghee (utterly, totally, completely optional).
Coriander leaves and stems: for the garnish and the top-note.

Get Going

Pick, wash and soak the tuvar daal for the time that you have at hand. Don't soak if you are in a tearing hurry, it's OK.
Put it in the pressure cooker and cover with water till the water is a half-a digit above the daal.
Don't put haldi now as the blubberings of a bad cooker will stain everything with indelible turmeric.
Don't put the salt now - it softens better without
Four whistles should do the trick. Give five if you have no churn. In which case remember to put a tad more water.
Let it cool on it's own. Open, add as much water as you want. I like it being tolerably thick. Stir it around till it has no lumps. Put it to boil. Simmer. Move to preparing the tempering now.
Dry roast the jeera till it is well browned all over. Pour it over the gently bubbling daal. Add the salt. Adjust to taste.
Add the coriander stems and leaves and put the ghee if you want to eat right now.
Goes well with steamed rice and fulka. Of course I have it with any dry sabzi - aalu, beans, gobi.....

Pat's Baingan Bharta

2009-01-08T14:52:00.001+05:30

Winter brings the most luscious, lightweight yet firm aubergines blushing a radiant purple on the market stalls. With tender peas and garlic greens also making an appearance, it is the right time to cook-up a bharta!

Ingredients

1 large, firm, light, non-wormy aubergine (while looking for larva, check for tell-tale perforations on the green stalk as well) with a long enough stalk (so that you can hold it over the fire).
3 large, firm, red tomatoes (Remember Penelope Cruz in Woman on Top?).
3 medium red Indian onions.
Handful of fresh shelled peas.
A bunch of clean garlic greens.
10 pods of large fresh peeled garlic.
4 firm and hot green chillies (all wimps can choose less, I suppose).
Quarter inch piece of fresh, mature ginger (the young, pink variety has a fishy taste).
4 tablespoons of mustard oil (choose Engine or Mastan for the best results).
A large bunch of clean, dark green and fresh coriander stalks and leaves
Quarter lemon if the tomatoes don't lend enough tartness.

Get Going

Roast the aubergine (after having cleaned it and checked it thoroughly for larva) over a gas flame. Start from the end and slowly work your way up to the stalk. About five minutes into the roasting, the aubergine will start becoming limp and drooling juices. At this stage you may want to support the end of the damned thing with a steel implement of sorts - this will allow you to roast the veggie nicely. Don't mind the puffs of steam that will come out of sudden cracks to the skin of the eggplant. Once the top part is also uniformly cooked (about 10-12 odd minutes), rest the roasted aubergine on a plate and incline the plate gently so that the juices run clear. I like putting the juices back in the bharta. Let it stand for now; go back to the rest of the veggies.
Cut the tomatoes in half, remove the top ugly centre, chop the nice parts into 1 cm cubes. For this to happen, your knife needs to be sharp. Retain the juices that run from the cutting and put them in along with the rest of the tomatoes.
Chop the onions into small pieces - the way you would do to onions in bhelpuri.
Chop the garlic greens and the garlic into as tiny bits as you can.
Skin and chop the ginger as fine as well.
Chop the Coriander stalks fine; keep them separately from the finely chopped coriander leaves. Stalks go into the cooking, the leaves are for the garnish.
Break the chillies into halves.
By this time the aubergines would have cooled enough for you to handle it. Remove the burnt skin by picking chunks of it with your fingers. Leaving some in lends a nice smoky flavour. With most of the burnt skin off, caress the now naked and fleshy lump from the top like you would a lock of tress. A rope of tender meat will come away and reveal clusters of seeds. If you think they are a bother, remove as many as you can. If the aubergine is young, the seeds will be soft. Some people find the seeds itchy while chewing. Do this 'combing' to the rest of the aubergine. Once you have deseeded, wrench the stalk off to leave just the fresh, smoky, trembling flesh.
Heat up a kadhai / wok with 1.5 tablespoons of mustard oil. Let it smoke, then cool it and when you are sure it is cool enough to not burn what you put in it, put in half the garlic, half the ginger and two pieces of chillies. Stir for 10 seconds; put in half the onions and all of the peas. Stir till onions are translucent. Put in all the tomatoes. Stir till tender. Check if its becoming dry, if it is, add some oil. There should be a nice sheen over the cook-up. Keep stirring till the tomatoes are nicely mushy. Add the coriander stalks and stir some more till you are convinced that the tomatoes and onions are well cooked.
If you do not like the starkness of this dish, add some turmeric. I know of itchy-fingered Moms who add turmeric no matter what. Desist, if you can, else its OK to succumb by a pinchful of the yellow powder.
Now assuming you are ready to eat, continue with the rest of the steps. Else, switch off the gas and wait till you are famished.
If you are restarting, then wait till the cooked mess is hot and sizzling. Add the remaining onions, garlic, ginger and chillies. Add the roasted baingan. Switch off the gas. Now it is all about mixing.
Tease the aubergine flesh into the rest of the masala. The raw onions, garlic and ginger will sweat a little in the heat and provide a wonderful crunchy texture. Work in the rest of the raw mustard oil. Add the chopped coriander. Serve with fulka.

The traditional way is to cook the aubergine in the kadhai. I find that cooking it further makes the aubergine lose the wonderful smokiness and texture. Adding the raw onions, garlic and ginger brings a touch of adventure and un-tamedness to this rough but satisfying dish.

More on the Oz series....

2008-11-13T13:09:00.000+05:30

Much has been written about the direction in which Test cricket is headed; and, as one writes this blog, much advise is being tossed in the wind - the fact that the turnouts were low, that two matches were drawn, that Nagpur was a showcase of negative cricket - all of which, one was told, had surely ushered Test cricket towards dreary death.

I had always thought that Test cricket could be enjoyed only if one had a different mindset and a different expectation. I remember, in the salad days, sitting through Anshuman Gaekwad's 201* against the WI, in which, one is reliably told, the slip fielders actually fell asleep on their feet! Now, if that did not manage to kill off Test cricket, then what we saw in the just-concluded series was actually engrossing and at times, insightful test cricket. And was I glad to read this brilliant article by Chris Ryan! He argues along the same lines and goes on to expand on the theme with breath-taking eloquence.

A shard on Bhajji - here is he, almost crowing in ill-guised delight at the drubbing that India handed to Oz. This was his comment, 'I think they were busy writing for their books, while we were busy preparing for the series'.

LOLZ, unbeatably raw and pithy - it's sure to send Ozzies writhing into uncontrolled spasms of invectives.

A healthy working lunch - Alas!

2008-11-12T20:51:00.000+05:30

A confession: however light I eat during the day, it seems to not make any difference to my weight. It is steadily moving northwards. A desk-and-a-chair job makes is difficult to contrive situations where one can dash about flinging calories hither-thither. A measured approach to lunch (while barely picking at a breakfast) should have (un)worked off much of the adipose. Alas!
A typical lunch is two chapattis, a small bowl of yellow daal and one small bowl of dry veggies. What i would have liked for lunch is not substantially different: A bowl of boiled and soupy masoor daal with chopped onions and chillies and a dash of lemon; a bowl of diced cucumbers and tomatoes with lemon and salt dressing; and a dry brown slice of toast. This would have made me feel sorry though not miserable.

But where to get such miserly meals at work? The canteen guys are anyway overworked. It may be a good idea to be in the Canteen Committee and design the 'Diet Menu' for everyday.....

Boredom?

2008-11-12T12:40:00.000+05:30

Growing older one realises that one has lesser things to do. Work no longer is that headlong tip into tasks, chores at home are easygoing chums of old. Travelling could have been a pain, but I am fortunate to walk home from work, collecting the veggies for dinner and dawdling in the pani-puri queue for an occasional snack as I trudge back. Workouts are shorter than what they ought to be but longer than what one would like them to be. Television has long been banished from Pat's kingdom so it is the desultory web-radio, usually tuned to BBC - the plumminess now giving way to a bewildering mix of accents and flexions. And of course the library.

Yet there is more time to spare than ever before. I know I potter round the kitchen more than I would like to and read even though the book demands to be laid aside. However, I do not feel bored. Thoughts and memories fill my senses - a thread of an incident unravelled with the help of recollections and imagination, or a vague feeling of having heard a tune somewhere, and then humming it in various combinations to see where it fits to an existing song. Suddenly I'm awakened from these warm, slumberous cogitations by the clanging of the doorbell or the ring of the mobile - only to realise with a start that the shadows have lengthened and the darkening evening is sending chill breeze and ravening mosquitoes through the window with equal impartiality. Thus is a Saturday woven with idle dreams.

Unless, of course, if there is a 'plan' - then it's the helter-skelter of a movie, or a mall or the company of friends in smoky cheer and sparkling spirit. If I have to be honest, I must say that I love the languorous afternoons, curled with a book, a bowl of amla, some dhana daal and saunf (with maybe a box of Rajnigandha?), a packet of sharply spicy cinnamon sticks, maybe some home-made chivda or just plain muri within grabbing distance from my hand and the rich tones of the chaps at Bush House rolling away at the back somewhere - ah! Bliss!

So we win...

2008-11-10T15:20:00.000+05:30

2-0 is a fantastic result. In many ways this has been a pathbreaking series. In Mahi we prolly have the best captian ever (potentially). Time will tell. This series marks the beginning of his era. Fast bowling becomes the primary weapon on Indian pitches for the first time since we stopped having 'designer' pitches.

Mahi is a lucky captain. He is also a gracious captain - his handing over the stumps to Dada and Amit were meaningful in their idiom. So was today's 'guest captaincy'. Brilliant! After all it is Sourav who taught us to win and not whine.

Feels good!!
:-)

Passing On To Eternity

2008-11-04T14:21:00.000+05:30

How does one prepare for the death of a dear person? Yes, it was expected (how ugly that sounds!); yes, it was a merciful release from pain followed endlessly by more pain; and yes, the years had taken their toll.

A phone call in the morning pierced through the tendrils of sleep, and a hushed expected unwelcome message; I recall the moment exactly - it went quieter; the cawing faded, the air con hum stilled. After a few moments I called Nagpur. The sadness of the voice when bhabhi spoke caught at my throat. It was the sadness filtering through the phone that made me feel helpless. I cried then, unable to bear the sorrow that had been left behind.

To grieve for one who has parted, to reach those places in the soul for moments of complete aloneness and despair - are these not the purest moments when we are closest to god? If there is god then must it not affect it? Does it cry with us? Does it too, need a comforting hand on the shoulder and a warm cheek to rest one's tears?

Ah! But humankind is strong, it is resilient. We tell ourselves that we shall all perish one day, as indeed we shall. And we tumble into happier memories, of times that smiled and laughed. I did that too, not moments after melancholy. I remembered the stentorian yet rich, 'So how are you, Partho? gaan-taan kemon cholche?' How is the music keeping up (I sing in a desultory fashion when my mood takes me)? And then that Edwardian smile of the handsome man that he was, the crinkled eyes that welcomed me, yet again, to a home that has been my home for the past 25 years. I remembered him gnawing on a tender morsel of paanthaar kosha mangsho (gently simmered semi-dry goat-meat) with the eyes closed, as if in Communion; the half-rocking right knee keeping time with the chewing of the jaws - the sheer enjoyment in the entire frame, an ode to extraordinary cooking as much to the ability of showing pleasure at such wholesomeness.

I was at peace. And I wished and prayed that each one of us who is today grieving for Mesho will also find their own wisp of recollection. For, in those wretched few moments of despair in the morning today, I know my heart was pierced not by an individual grief, but by the arrows of the many who were grieving for him. It was the thought of so much sadness that I found unbearable.

The Onrush of Winter

2008-11-03T15:51:00.000+05:30

Methinks there are signs of winter in Mumbai. Yesterday evening I caught the cross breeze in the sitting room; it felt deliciously cool. Plus the breeze carried with it a hint of eucalyptus and the ozony taste of ice. It was just 6. It must be the winter.

Our's is a contrary world where we celebrate winter. Truth be told, it is far easier to combat summer. Losing a few clothes, seeking shade, drinking iced-water (or surahi ka paani) and fanning with, well, anything that is next to you - and voila! the heat abateth. Even if momentarily.

Combating flesh-numbing winter is a different kettle of woolley clothes. It demands luxuries of arrangement that most of even the wealthy don't have in their homes in Mumbai! Not because they lack the INR, not by the long clalk! We simply do not have a clue of what it takes to combat cold.

Its long been a favourite (and reactionary) theory of mine that we do not find too many beggars in the West because they simply die of the cold! Its too difficult to survive the winter - too bloody expensive as well. On the other hand, the poor of India just need to go nanga-panga, have umpteen cool dips under neighbourhood water handpumps and taps , beg from goras, wait outside gurdwaras and other places of worship to get a fair meal, and sleep in the open, under the starry sky of the subs/fumey soup of the metrop. How easy! No blanket, no joota, no topi, no patlun, no hot food every 2 hours to keep the metabolism from freezing over..... You see what I mean?

Imagine a world of Bharat mata, plunging to -20 in Febrrrruary! Imagine Mumbai under 3 feet of snow, imagine each restaurent, each office, each home centrally heated by something or the other (a continuing shower of INR), imagine the fineness of the (exorbitant) woolly patlun on each one of us (woollen undies tooo!!!); imagine the thickness of the (10,000 INR) joota, the fur under the (3000 INR) topi.

What you cannot imagine in this scene are the frolicking urchins at the Andheri junction, thrusting a nosegay or a dud book (who would lower the glass to let the icy wind inside?); you cannot imagine the clutch of families under the Kalanagar flyover, sitting beneath wisps of cloth they call home and making garam-garam bhakri over brick-ka-chulha (Hah!). Nor can you see, in your mind's eye the thousands that sleep on the pavement starting from Churchgate station, along Marine Drive into all crannies and flat land.

And Good Lord! What if it rained ice-cold, razor-sharp slivers of sleet in the midst of all this frozen madness?

Heavens above, thank you for giving me my sweltering, gassy, shirt-sticky summery-winter!!!