an action-packed, adventurous life!

my wife blames me of corrupting her after marriage!

she claims that she was a far more organised person who planned well in advance and never waited until the last moment to start working on things. i think she's lead a very colorless, uneventful life until she got married to me :-)

what she means is that she (which includes her family) would usually land up at the train/ bus terminal or airport at least an hour before the actual departure time. and then they would wait patiently until the train/bus/aircraft rolled into the terminal and then they would have enough time to settle down in their allotted seats and make some polite conversation with the co-passengers.

my life has been far more action-packed than that. i've lost count of the number of trains, buses and flights that i've missed. i've boarded the wrong train more than once.

its not been so bad after marriage (i guess its my wife's influence!) but we've still had our fair share of near-misses. there was a time when we wanted to return to chennai from tirupati and we literally jumped on to a moving train. (i decided to buy the tickets just as we saw the train moving into the station.)

and then there was the near-miss when another family and we were trying to get to delhi after attending vivek's wedding in lucknow! (read vivek's blog at http://dil-vil.blogspot.com/) we abandoned the taxi in the middle of a traffic jam and moved our luggage onto a cycle-rickshaw (click here to know what a cycle rickshaw looks like http://www.traveladventures.org/continents/asia/images/chandnichowk07.jpg). the ladies and kids managed to walk to the station much faster while my friend and i were battling through the crowds outside lucknow station and managing to dump all our luggage into the train just as it started leaving the station!

but the closest miss was during my recent trip to dubai. my flight was at 5.40 am from mumbai and i decided to reach the airport the previous night itself so that i could catch some sleep at the airport itself instead of having to wake up at an unearthly hour at home! i reached the check-in counter just at it opened at about 2 am only to be told that my passport was not valid. that's when i realised that i was carrying my old cancelled passport.

my wife started frantically searching through all the usual places at home with no luck. i decided to get back home and called up a colleague and anita (our finance & admin head and one of the most resourceful people i've ever come across). they both rushed to office, woke up the security and managed to find my new passport in my office drawer. i promptly left home once again and reached the airport at the same time as my office colleagues.

and i managed to get to dubai on the flight i was supposed to be on!

now imagine if i were as well organised as my wife, i would have missed out on all such adventures! (she must be shaking her head in exasperation while reading this :-) )

i am sure i am not the lone adventurer. some of you must have more interesting stories to share! i'd love to hear them!

irony in our modern world

i've been in dubai all this week for some client meetings.

and i'm carrying back some volvic flavored water for the kids. i have not seen this kind of flavored drinking water back home. and this is what i find ironical. i am carrying back water from dubai (which is in the middle of a desert) to india!

i have been travelling from dubai to abu dhabi by road almost every day. it is amazing to see the extent of construction going on in dubai. the largest number of cranes in the world are apparently deployed in dubai right now.

what also strikes you is the amount of greenery and flowers in full bloom all along the well planned and immaculately managed roads. there is also hectic construction activity going on for a metro rail in dubai. the project was given the go-ahead in may 2005 and is expected to be completed in 55 months (http://vgn.dm.gov.ae/DMEGOV/dm-metro-news01). and by the looks of it it should be completed within that time.

dubai is a melting pot of many cultures. the largest groups of people you see are indians, pakistanis, filipinos, chinese, egyptians, lebanese, moroccons, russians and many europeans and americans too. at a superficial level there seems to be no discrimination against any specific community here. but most of the indians i spoke to do feel a sense of insecurity about their jobs, the rising prices, etc. (rentals have escalated by more than 100% within the last 2-3 years).

but for me dubai lacks a soul. there is a lot of glitz and glamor, but it all seems very fragile. i guess the fact that most of the funds pouring into the ecconomy here is from the underworld and from people who are avoiding taxes in their respecti8ve countries only adds to this sense of dicomfort that i feel. i prefer visiting other asian countries, but give me 'aamchi mumbai' (our mumbai) and 'mera bharat' (my india) anyday :-)

it happens only in india!

there are some of these quirky, bizarre and completely inexplicable things that you will come across in urban/metro india that would take you by complete surprise! i believe these are the reasons that make living in india one filled with surprises every day, sometimes unpleasant but mostly pleasant.

1. this is a road sign i noticed while i was at nehru place in new delhi. i crossed this sign and then it struck me. i retraced my path and couldn't believe my eyes. i took this pic on my mobile phone and kept it for posterity. i mean, where else in the world will you find a road sign that says 'no pachyderms!'

2. and then there was this bank i was visiting down south. during a break in the meeting i decided to visit the comfort/wash room. i noticed there were the usual two doors, one which said 'Ladies' with the tell-tale drawing of a shapely figure denoting the dairer sex, and the other which said 'Gents'. what got my attention was the third door marked 'Officers'! when i mentioned this to one of the bank employees later he shared an internal joke where most of them assumed that this door was used by the 'third sex' :-)

3. and i'm sure most of you have seen some of these sign-boards in some of the restaurants, especially in the irani restaurants.

- No combing

- No outside food

- No hand-washing in plates

- No special tea

- Milk not for sale

p.s. i will add some more entries into this posting. i would like you to share similar anecdotes which i could include.

what did you just say?

recently i was chatting with a friend trying to find out how i could get my picture uploaded on my gmail account so that it could show with my profile. (just goes to show how vain i am ;-) )

during the conversation a statement was made which went something like this -
"if you roll your mouse over your name you should be able to see your pic". that's when i did a double-take and asked 'what did you just say?'!

for a moment, just imagine you were in the early or mid seventies when we didn't have television, computers and mobile phones (and while i am at it, let me also add that at my house we didn't have - telephones, cable tv, refrigerator, micro-waves, piped gas, washing machines, etc). if i were to make such a statement to someone, they would either assume i have finally come unhinged or i am making some off-colour joke or something.

i then tried to list out some more such statements we use almost everyday which would sound weird or nonsensical if we had uttered them in the period i mentioned ealier. (the statements in brackets are the possible reactions that you might have received to these statements)

the amazing thing is that we are talking about language changing during our own life-times!

1. let me sms/text you his cell number (people would assume you are talking in code about people in prison cells!)

2. can you please switch over to mtv or ftv? (people would assume you are asking them to change brands of something. except that they would wonder what item are you talking about!)

3. do you have a swift or a getz? mine's a city! (you would be looked at in a kindly fashion as people would assume you are mentally disturbed)

4. let me log in and upload my file and zip it across to you! (a case of too much star trek!)

5. let's grab a coke and a 'mac aloo tikki burger' with some fries to go with it! (you are definintely imbibing some banned susbtances!)

6. let's meet at k-lounge tonight. dj plays some cool trance! (what's so cool about dhananjay playing his off-key harmonium? and where in the universe is the 'lounge'?)

7. you should try the hummus and the falafel. and then wash it down with a chianti. (dabbling with banned substances again!)

8. my son got his first 'beyblade' today! (how can you say such crass things? its not something to be proud of! you wouldn't say that if you were the father of the girl!)

9. did you crack today's sudoku? (is that some form of martial art you are practising?)

10. let me try ping you or finger you and see if there is any response. (don't you dare get fresh with me!!!)

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i'm sure you can up with more hilarious examples. please do share them here.

the role of role models

can you think of a single choice that you make where you are not influenced by some role model?

think about it!

whether we acknowledge them or not, and whether we are even aware of them or not, all of us have role models. and the way we think, act, speak and behave is largely influenced by our role models we have chosen for ourselves!

this might be difficult for some of us to swallow. but if you pause to think and ask yourself honestly, we model ourselves on people we look up to. and this basic truth reflects in almost all aspects of our lives - trivial or significant.

why do you choose a particular brand of toothpaste? why do you wear a particular type of dress? why do you read certain books, listen to music, eat in specific restaurants, and do most of the things that you do? why do you color your hair a particular shade, or decide to go bald?

why do you opt for a specific career path? why do you want to marry a certain kind of person? why do you want a particular lifestyle?

why do you want to go where you want to go? and be what you want to be?

in most cases there is a role model who is inspiring us to reach out and go beyond the boundaries drawn out by our own minds. i guess this is why our scripture/teachers/elders exhort us to choose our company well. because my choice of company, to a large extent, determines the quality and direction of my journey!

i'm so glad to be journeying with you :-)

our new-age children!

bringing up children today in today's world is definitely not child's play. when i think back to my childhood days (which is too far back for comfort) it seems as if i had a fairly easy time growing up and had a ball while at it! (some people might remark here that it definitely shows in the way i've grown up... and not in a generous sense :-) ).

let me list out a few things that starkly bring out the differences between our own childhood and that of our kids today -

1. i learnt to swim in a 'nalah' or an irrigation canal, where a friend taught me how to breathe and stay afloat. we used to have a whale of a time during our vacations where a group of enthusiasts used to travel on our bicycles to this nalah next to the empress garden in pune. i was in the 7th or 8th standard/grade then.
my son started his swimming classes right from his play school days. he agonises over it, refuses to let go of his floats and kick-board, knows all about various strokes, and takes a shower before and after he's done with the swimming session.

2. i used to walk to school and back with a gang of neighbourhood friends. i would look forward to school each day just for this walk. each day used to be a new adventure. and then when i reached secondary school (6th standard/grade) we used to drive our bicycles to school. which gave us a whole new sense of freedom!
kids go to school by the school bus and i doubt if most would ever ride their own bicycles to school.

3. i never attended any hobby/activity classes till my 9th standard/grade. i used to be part of the school choir and was also on stage every year for plays, dances, choir-singing, etc. once we got back from school our time was occupied with completing our home-work and playing scores of games with all the neighbourhood friends.
kids today attend all kinds of classes almost every day of the week. these include music (instrumental & vocal), dancing, chess, karate, swimming, art, etc.

4. during our summer vacations we used to travel to someplace within india or to our own native place (where my parents were born). we used to travel second class, bear the brain-sapping summer heat, and reach our destinations grimy and smelly. but the journey would always be memorable and fun! (i never travelled in an aircraft till i was 23.) and all the local travelling at these places was usually by whatever public transportation was available.
kids nowadays usually vacation abroad. travelling by flight is fairly de rigeur, even within india. public transportation is largely avoided.

5. toys and books were rare luxuries which we got for some special occasion like birthdays or doing well in an exam. (similarly, eating out was a rare treat!) we climbed trees, made up our own games, caught fish in bottles in nearby streams, made mud-castles, got wet in the rains, ...
most kids today have more toys than they can remember. eating out with friends and family is a very frequent phenomenon! they play games on their x-box, don't play in the mud or get wet in the rains, have never climbed trees, easily get bored in spite of all the games/toys they have, ....


don't get me wrong. i am in no way advocating that we deprive our children of all the good things they are getting exposed to.

but i somehow can't help feeling i had loads more fun when i was my son's age. do you feel the same? any answers why? and i feel, we ourselves are to blame... do you agree?

mumbai local - II

i got the overwhelming go-ahead from innumerable people which prompts me to continue with this series. and if you think i am going to share more details of the numbers, you can think again :-)

--------------

many non-mumbaikars might wonder why any sane person in their right senses would want to inflict such torture on themselves and willingly contribute to the 'Super-Dense Crush Load' (SDCL) by commuting in local trains everyday?

no, its not mass-masochism! it just happens to be the most reliable way of commuting across the two linear stretches of mumbai city (known as the central & western lines). let me give you an example of what i mean.

just last week i had to attend the wedding reception of a friend, in a suburb called kandivali, which happens to be the next station to malad (which is where my office is located) on the western line. i left office at about 7 pm and all i had to do was cross over from malad west (all of mumbai is divided into west and east as bifurcated by the railway tracks) to kandivali east. the distance which is about 3-4 kms should have taken me all of 30-45 mins by road, given the rush-hour traffic. well, i walked into the reception at 9.15 pm! give me the SDCL any day!

coming back to the rule book of local train travelling in mumbai, here goes -

1. if you are a male traveller, never make the mistake of travelling by the ladies' compartment. you will most probably be told off by the ladies and some might even pull the alarm chain to stop the train and have you hauled off by the local constabulary, who would only be too glad to do the needful, if only to earn a few additional rupees from you!

2. if you are a lady traveller, never make the mistake of travelling by the gents' compartment. you would most propbably be told off by some of the men for doing something as rash as this. (it is not exactly a pleasant experience to experience the SDCL, even if all the men around you are paragons of virtue and are ignoring the fact that you are a woman in their midst!)

3. during rush hour (which happens to be almost any time of the day) when the train (especially the virar fast) pulls into the terminus at either end of the suburban line, wait at some distance from the door and allow the people scrambling in to such in and grab whichever vacant seat is available. you should also try getting hit by flying hands, elbows and office bags.
but at all other stations in between, you should allow the people to alight first before you allow yourself to be swept in by the crowd. (the trick is to position yourself such that you enter at an angle to the door; else if you position yourself bang opposite the door you will only get swept away by the alighting crowd leaving you with little chances of boarding the train).

4. at each station the train halts at, you should remember to get in or out only from the rear-half of the door (which is demarcated by a vertical bar for people to hold on to). the 2-3 men/women standing in the front-half will just not budge if you are trying to alight or get in.

5. if you have to alight at a station you have to start inching towards the door from the previsou station itself. you keep asking the person ahead of you if they would be alighting at the next station. if they are not, they will automatically make way for you till you reach the person who will be alighting at the next station.

6. if you are travelling in the second class compartment you can ask the 3 people seated on the seats to squeeze in and perch yourself on the edge of the seat. but if you are travelling first class, you don't do that. even if you do try, you will only get scowled at!

7. if you are carrying a bag, you can ask the persone next to the overhead luggage rack to help keep your bag on the rack. nobody ever refuses.

8. and if you have dozed off, somebody will shake you by your shoulder to wake you up once the train arrives at the terminus. and most people around you will nod and smile understandingly.

9. an altercation in a second class compartment could end up in blows while in a first class compartment it usually ends up in loud vocal fights. but 9 times out of 10 the situation is defused by the other travellers who will ask both parties to cool off.

10. it is acceptable to ask a fellow traveller for a sip of water (if he is carrying a bottle) or his newspaper if he has finished reading it. very rarely you will be refused.

11. and it is completely acceptable to sing aloud if you are travelling in one of those compartments which has a group of singers. these singers usually travel together by the same local every day. you get a choice of bhajans (devotional songs) or film songs.

so that was my own version of the survival guide for mumbai suburban train travel. if any of you have more tips to contribute please send in your comments.

(in some future posting i will also list out some of the major benefits of suburban/local train train travel in mumbai!)

mumbai local - I

would you like to live life on the wild side? rough it out for a while? try out some dare-devil stunts? you can experience all these and more and you don't even have to travel too far (well, at least not if you are a mumbaikar - a mumbai resident)!

no, i am not talking about bungee-jumping or hang-gliding or fighting the leopards from the sanjay gandhi national park bare-handed. all you need to do is travel by the 'mumbai suburban train' during peak hour!

you have led a secluded, deprived life if you have been to mumbai and have not travelled by the 'local' as the suburban train is called by the locals.

but first let's put things in perspective. to give you a sense of what i am talking about, let me share some statistics from some credible sources here.

"Along with its neighbouring suburbs, Mumbai forms the world's sixth most populous metropolitan area with a population of about 25 million. According to the BBC, Mumbai is certainly set to outstrip Tokyo as the most populated city by 2020."
(source - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumbai)

"Bombay suburban services are run by CR and WR. Both run many hundreds of trains every day, and carry around 6 million passengers a day, roughly evenly divided between them. CR services connect the eastern suburbs to the city, whereas WR services connect the northern suburbs to the city. [4/02] CR runs around 1090 services daily, whereas WR runs around 980 services. Supply has not kept pace with the demand, however, as the number of passengers grew about 2.5 times as fast as the capacity of the system through the 1980s and 1990s."
(source - http://www.irfca.org/faq/faq-metro.html)

"Due to its extensive reach across the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, and its intensive use by the local urban population, overcrowding has grown to be a compelling problem (4,700 passengers are packed into a 9-car rake during peak hours, as against the rated carrying capacity of 1,700). This has resulted in what is known as Super-Dense Crush Load of 14 to 16 standing passengers per square metre of floor space.
(source - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumbai_Suburban_Railway)"

you might think that commuting by these trains every day is a horrifying experience. but for the seasoned veterans (viz. the season pass-holders) the daily grind actually is an uplifting, spiritual experience of sorts!

and if you are a first-timer, and for a moment lets assume you actually managed to overcome the panic gripping you when you actually see the 'Super-Dense Crush Load' of people, and you actually manage to get into the train (maybe you actually changed your mind about getting in but then you got swept into the train by the rush) you will very quickly realise that there are some unwritten golden rules that everybody follows. and the sooner you learn them the better the chances of your surviving the trip! (and till then you stick out like a sore thumb even though you don't have enough leg-room to place both your feet squarely on the floor! not to mention that you, and not just your thumb, end up feeling sore all over after the trip!)

so here's my own short & sweet rule-book (or survival guide) on how to commute by the local and live to tell the tale!

but i'm running beyond my self-imposed 'post length' here. so i'm going to have to share these 'life secrets' with you in my next post.

p.s. other 'travel-war veterans' among the readers here are requested to send in your list of rules so that i can filch them and include them in my list :-)

i'm an englishman in new york!

i'm an alien, i'm a legal alien
i'm an englishman in new york

these are the lyrics of a song by sting. these words came back to me recently during a discussion with a friend (who was not born in india but whose fore-fathers/mothers were indians about 2-3 generations back). she mentioned that even though she feels uncomfortable with the crowds and the noise and the pollution in india, she still feels home when she is in india. she feels safest when she is in india. she doesn't feel she is an alien.

another good friend recently visited pakistan and was also in islamabad on work. his older relatives, when they knew he was going to visit islamabad, had asked him to visit certain places that they could remember of when they were still living there. now my friend was born in india and had never been to pakistan before, but he mentioned that visiting this place of his fore-fathers was an emotional moment for him.

my wife and i get asked often, especially when our friends coming visiting from abroad, why we did not choose to emigrate to some other country. when we looked at this question and analysed what we truly felt about it (beyond all the obvious answers like 'india is today the true land of opporunity' and that 'we can afford a much better lifestyle here than in any other place in the world') we realised that the one single most important reason was that we did not want to live anywhere we would feel even remotely like an 'alien'.

now i can understand people like me (and i am sure there are many of you who feel similarly) feeling so strongly about this. i think it could be explained by the fact that i was born and have been raised on concepts like patriotism, pride for our country, etc. but what i cannot understand are the feelings that my friends were talking about!

1. do you think if i spent enough time in a foreign land i would be able to overcome the 'alienness' that i believe i will feel?

2. do you think that after a few generations the individuals born in another country will slowly lose their 'indianness'? would india only be a vague notion in their minds but a place they would rather avoid visiting or moving to?

i am sure many of you who read this posting are either first/second/nth generation indians living in other countries. i would like to know your 'take' on this. and i am sure the others would also like to know. so please send in your comments.

comments unplugged - II (thanks to the gujjus!)

the posting on 'thanks to the gujjus!' generated some interesting comments, including a list which outdid mine! i am posting it here for the benefit of the others who might not have had the fortune to read it earlier. (which basically means they were too lazy or did not know that there is a mechanism here to put up your comments! :-) )

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nani said...
Holi - played all year round. their sense of direction & control over force is fantastic. do a survey & we will realise how amazingly low the 'strike rate' is despite the ubiquitousness of the streams of the blood red fluid spurting out of trains, from double-decker buses, from speeding scooters. how many times have our worst fears come true and even a drop of blushing-red juice diverged from the jet to leave a love-bite on your Arrow white? to date, i ve only had my right foot baptised once. not a bad performance at all. so what if a red carpet has never been spread for my entry, the red walls have been sprayed.

Design - those 'mera shirt bhi sexy' patterns. only those allow your eye to unmovingly concentrate only on the backless choli walking alongside & nothing else.

9:40 AM


bindu said...
Gujjus truly have put forth an example of spirit and tolerance
-they have faced worst of situations of flood, earthquake, disease outbrake and many more
-The pioneer Dhirubhai Ambani also not to be forgotten

6:18 PM


Reema said...
I would credit them with the gujjuization of other cuisines - the indian hybrid mexican food, chinese bhel!!!(has to be of gujju origin) idli chilli dry - the shiv sagar menu is full of such delights!!

Also i don't think Mc donalds would have come up with a fairly decent vegetarian spread if it weren't for this breed who are known to eat out so frequently. The literally brought the Big Mac to their knees when they first entered India.

10:50 AM


Anonymous said...
A few things I can enumerate:

The Gujju cult -
1. Anyone (guys, especially...) who is seen playing pool inside a dimly lit UV pool parlour, wearing an oakley's dark goggles, Orange coloured Old Navy sweat-shirt, Sea-blue faded Diesel denims & brown leather belt with a Bull-shaped-buckle, Nike trainers in orange and blue, 'Just FCUK it!' - branded cap in dark blue, a Tissot watch, chewing an original Wrigley's Double Mint is most probably a brand ambassador 'Gujju'

2. Seedhe palle ki saree is a traditional Gujju way of wearing it where the 'palla' is brought forward over the right shoulder (in usual cases, unless one is a lefty) and the 'pallav' / palla can be showcased in the best possible manner

3. Himesh Reshamiya: We all love to hate him but can we ignore him???

4. The MSU of Baroda: My alma mater. Had it not been for this famous institution, we would not have seen legends like Shri Aurobindo Ghosh, our present President APJ Abdul Kalam (who is an alumni of my department - Physics) and International models like Nethra Raghuraman (Dept. of Psychology)

5. Narendra Modi: He's been superb as far as promoting Gujarat and its welfare is concerned

6. The people of Surat: Got plagued, then woke up to make it the cleanest city

7. Dry but not high: For being the only state where you can't get high on alcohol...legally!

8. The-perpetually-irritating-yet-so-easy-to-understand-and-learn-language

9. The sexy & intelligent Nandita Das, the daughter of the famous Oriya painter and an intellectual Gujurati lady

10. Indian movies which thrive on Gujju family, lifestyle, culture and heritage: Kal ho na ho, Dollar Dreams, Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, to name a few. Not to forget our daily soaps on TV

11. Calling even one's spouse as "Bhai" or "Ben"

12. Majority of kirana / departmental shop owners are Gujjus and 72% of Mumbai-ites are Gujjus

13. WHile they are notorious for their sweet food, one must try their kathiawadi cuisine - hot & sweet... it's different and I love it!

I would call this section: "Romancing the Gujju!". Truly they are the EVERYDAY PEOPLE!

Aradhana

11:10 PM


subir said...
intriguing comment "Gujjus truly have put forth an example of spirit and tolerance".

Spirit, yes. I am told that in spite of inhibition, McDowell sells more spirits (no beer please) in Gujarat than other states.

Tolerance!!!! can we have a break?

9:30 AM

life without a maid!

one of the greatest luxuries we, those of us living in metros in india, have are the maids/ ayahs/ domestic help that we are able to hire to help with a wide range of domestic chores.

this army of people (the service providers) are a critical part of the daily lives of all nuclear dink/disk/dimk families. (no, i am not saying rude things about these families. these terms only stand for 'double income no kids', 'double income single kid' and 'double income multiple kids'!)

a good measure of how important these people are in our lives is the extent of trauma/ chaos they manage to inject in our usually-busy lives by their mere absence! life gets thrown completely out of gear the day they decide to play hooky. even our respective work-places don't get as badly affected by our absence. (maybe that tells us something about our respective value in the scheme of things!).

and on those days that we have to make do without the services of these people, we suddenly realise how dependent we have become on this luxury. i am also amazed at the energy levels of these people since they manage to do these chores in at least 3-4 homes each day. i get pooped after washing dishes after one meal!

btw, i am speaking so passionately about this topic because we are currently going through a lean phase without a maid. and i've just finished washing up after dinner!the mood at home these days, especially in the mornings, tends to be grim or 'on the edge'. (i firmly believe that communal prayer can work miracles. and i'm hoping you would pray that we quickly find a replacement maid! my prayers for personal salvation and global peace can wait until then.)

and this is the reason why i never ask my wife the question - 'who is more important to you - the maid or i?'. i am mortified that she will give me an honest reply!

remembering dates!

even though most of my most critical events/memories/priorities in life revolve around food, this posting is not about the edible kind of 'dates'! nor is it about the encounters/rendezvous with members of the opposite sex. (actually nowadays you never know; it could even be with members of the same sex!).

here i am referring to dates on the calendar which help us mark the passage of time and keep reminding us that time is 'a fleeting' (and that i am getting older)!

i am amazingly bad with dates. and i mean gloriously, amazingly bad! i have yet to come across someone who is as bad as i am!

my wife was convinced that i don't remember most dates because i didn't give these people/events enough importance. and before you get any ideas, its not because i have forgotten her birthday or our anniversary.

i think the problem runs much deeper than that. i think it is similar to the problem my wife has with directions (i will wax eloquent on this in another posting, but that's assuming i get dinner at home tonight ;-) ).

now coming back to my chronic problem, i am just not able to remember dates for specific events. people think i am a very insensitive person when i tell them that i don't remember the birth dates of my parents, my siblings, my closest friends, etc. given this state, they take pity on me (or are too disgusted with me) and don't expect me to remember sundry anniversaries. but i am sure they would look at me more kindly, when i inform them that there were at least 2 occasions, that i remember, when i forgot my own birthday!

this problem is accentuated by the fact that my wife can remember dates (birthdays, anniversaries, etc.) for all her extended family members and her friends. and to top it all, she also remembers these dates for all my family members and some of my friends too!

after almost 10 years of marriage, my wife has slowly begun to believe that i am not faking this problem and has begun to accept this quirk as a in-built defect in me. we have now arrived at a kind of tenuous understanding. i depend on her for all these dates. she doesn't expect me to remember any. (i guess she feels glad that i at least remember our anniversary and birthdays of the immediate family members.)

life is much better now. i don't feel as guilty or horrid as before. i guess the trick is to not only accept these problems and surrender to someone you can trust, but also to convince people that you are not faking it or that you are not being just plain lazy!

but i sometimes wonder if there is anyone else out there who has a similar 'quirk'. do you? i don't mean 'do you wonder?', i mean 'do you have any similar quirk'?

my most memorable childhood moment!

what's the most memorable/embarrassing/traumatic experience that you have experienced in your childhood? what makes you cringe/grin even today when you think about this experience?

one such experience, and a funny one at that, that i remember is the time when i decided to single-handedly dismantle my bicycle.

we used to drive our bicycles to school. these were nothing like the fancy bicycles that you see today. they were just plain, functional cycles; but for us they were our hot-rods! and then occasionally (not as often as our folks might have liked us to), we used to get down to some serious cleaning up of our bikes. this meant a couple of hours of washing and polishing and oiling over a weekend.

during one such cleaning session during the summer vacation, i decided to do a more thorough job than usual. i had recently acquired a second-hand set of tools including spanners, screw-drivers, etc. i decided to dismantle my bicycle. i followed a very simple guideline - i unscrewed every possible screw or bolt that i possibly could. i was amazed at the number of parts that go into making a simple bicycle.

after a couple of hours of satisfying labor i had an impressive pile of parts including ball-bearings, screws, nuts (not including the writer), pedals, wheels, spokes, chains, handle, seats, etc. i then meticulously cleaned each and every part which took up a good part of the day.

finally when it came to putting the cycle back i didn't know where to start!

that's when a wave of panic slowly starting engulfing me. try as i might, i couldn't, for the life of me, figure where all these hundreds of parts were supposed to fit. after a couple of hours of trying various permutations and combinations (i trace my dislike of probability theory to this event in my life) i finally accepted defeat.

i then put all the parts into a few large grocery bags, borrowed a friend's bike (of course i couldn't tell him why i needed his cycle) and pedalled away furiously to my favorite cycle-mechanic shop. i handed over the bags and with a rather sheepish face asked him to build me a bicycle. he thought i was pulling a fast one on him, but that impression changed very quickly when he incredulously perused the contents of the bags. he was very amused when i narrated what had happened.

but i was not at all amused when i realised that i had to shell out an amount which was significantly more than what i would have had to pay my mechanic for a 'special' cleaning of the bicycle. but i took comfort in the fact that i was among the only one among my friends who had touched the very heart of a bicycle!

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do you have a similar childhood/teenage experience that you would like to share?

thanks to the gujjus!

i'm going to try my best to not be my patently rude self and to try be as nice as possible in this post :-)

have you ever tried to imagine the world without the 'gujjus' in it? (a gujju is the shorter version of gujarati who is a person who hails from the state of gujarat in india) i tried, and i suffered something close to a panic attack! imagine a world without gujju food!

it is said that mallus (malayalees, people from the state of kerala) are spread all around the globe, but i think gujjus beat them hollow. there's a joke which says that if you land on the moon you would most probably find a mallu tea-shop. but what they don't tell you is that it is a gujju who rented out the space to the mallu, lent him the money to set up the shop and also sold him the tea bought from another mallu's tea estate!

here are my top 10 contributions by gujjus to society at large :
1. gandhiji (mahatma gandhi; or 'bapu' of gandhigiri fame, for those of you who might have forgotten!)
2. the ambanis
3. gujju food - undiyo, shrikhand, chhundo, dhokla, thepla, etc. (have you ever met a gujju on a journey without packed food? their food parcel is usually the biggest piece of luggage they would be carrying!)
4. dimple kapadia
5. the stock brokers in mumbai
6. creating a huge demand for vegetarian food in most parts of the country especially at most of the popular tourist places! (i would credit them for the the 'only veggie' pizza hut in mumbai too!)
7. dandiya nights
8. amul (the mallus might protest and say that it was kurien who was instrumental in the amul movement! but do you think he could have managed anything close to this in kerala?)
9. backless cholis.
10. freddie mercury of queen fame(his parents were parsis from gujarat)

do you have any additions to this list? i'm sure the others would like to know.

my affair with the television!

i am a confirmed tv addict. ask my wife (she's an authority on this. she's actually the highest authority on most things at home! and i'm not saying this just because she reads my blogs! :-))

we have not had a tv set in our house ever since we got married and moved into our own house (i.e. from sometime in 1997. and for my own sake, i hope i got the year right!). we both decided that if our marriage had to survive we would have to do without a tv set at home!

why do i call myself a tv addict then, you ask?

i used to be the kinds who could sit up and watch hbo till the wee hours of morning every single day and then manage to go college/office the next day, albeit much later than what you would call a 'decent' hour. even now when i sit facing a tv set i realise that i have not managed to kick the habit even after such a long hiatus. i have absolutely no sensory perceptions of the entire external world; my jaws slacken; i cease to perform whatever activity i am performing, no matter how critical or interesting and stare at the screen with awe. even if it is an ad for super-absorbent diapers playing for the umpteenth time!

and i also am guilty of, if you are a stickler for technicalities, what you might label as, 'cheating in marriage'. i catch up on all my tv viewing when i am travelling. i sometimes end up watching 3-4 movies back-to-back especially if the next day is a non-working day. and if the next day happens to be a working day, i severely restrict myself and watch only 2-3 movies. (but before any of you get any ideas of squealing on me, i have already confessed to my wife!)

till we had kids, people who visited us used to be amazed about the fact that we didn't have a tv set at home. some even thought it abnormal and wanted nothing to do with us, in case they caught the bug too!

and now that we have 2 kids there is this constant barrage of advise, that we are at the receiving end of, about our 'no tv' status. there are many people who also have kids who feel it is a very healthy idea since the kids are not glued to the 'box' throughout the day. and there are an equal number of vocal representatives from the opposite camp who believe that our kids are being deprived of some very valuable inputs during their formative years. (and i am sure they are not referring to the 'k' soaps, or the wrestling mania, or the raunchy music videos on most of the channels!)

so i've decided to put this up for inputs from the 'discerning, mature, balanced readers of my blog with a world-view' (i hope all those adjectives do the trick!) and see which way this debate swings.

so do send in your comments. the world is waiting to hear you! (well, at least i am.)

p.s. yes, i do miss tv the most during the world cup season (football & cricket) but that also gives me an opportunity to drop in and bond with friends in the neighbourhood; who are also grateful for my presence since it gives them an excuse to play the graceful host and not get told off by their wives!

delhi vs. mumbai - III (the final chapter)

in this posting i share my two-bits about people. and i also attempt to cover the topics suggested by some of you.

8. people - its finally the people that define a city. and this is where we see most of the stark differences between the mumbaikar and the dilliwala.

a. clothes - i've noticed that the average the average dilliwala (especially the ladies) are much better turned out than their mumbai counterpart. even if a tad louder than my taste, the delhi youngster is wearing trendier clothes (most often branded) and accessories.
in mumbai - you wouldn't be surprised to find youngsters wearing some casual jeans and t-shirts unless they are going out for a party or occasion.

b. attitude - the average dilliwalla on the road is a lot more aggressive than the mumbaikar. he is louder, brash and pushier.
but the mumbaikar is a survivor. and when push comes to shove, they stand by each other. (remember 26/7?) the mumbaikar is a lot 'cooler' and has a more easy-going take on life. but don't let that fool you. you will find the average mumbaikar fairly sharp, professional, and a no-nonsense person.

c. ostentatiousness - no guesses here :-)
the dilliwalla loves spending and showing it off. with flashing pink neon strips added on, just in case you missed the new 'big' car. 'big' is the operative term here. everything is usually bigger in delhi as compared to mumbai - bigger cars, houses, television sets, bigger appetites, and bigger egos!

d. connections - do you know any dilliwalla who is not connected to someone, somewhere (where it matters). its almost de rigeur to know someone if you want to get something done. and the 'something' is usually something 'not exactly legal or according to the book'!

e. fine arts - delhi has a much stronger theatre culture among the people than in mumbai. and you will also find more artists, writers, poets, etc.
but in mumbai you will find a lot more music appreciation than in delhi - be it classical (carnatic or hindustani), light (ghazals), rock/pop/jazz, western classical, etc.
and finally in mumbai you have bollywood. that you just can't beat!

that about sums up my very own biased version of the difference between the two great cities.

for me the verdict is very clear - give me mumbai any day!

what's your vote?

delhi vs. mumbai - II

in my previous post i had started this series of comparisons between the national capital and the financial capital of india. i had identified some parameters including 'infrastructure', 'public transportation' and 'power'.

i had promised to cover 'work ethics', 'people', food', 'water', and 'academics'.

i got some mails/comments asking for some parameters to be included - real estate, girls, mms scandals, and the night life. well, i am not sure i would be able to do justice to these subjects but i will bravely attempt them.

4. work ethics - mumbai scores way over delhi on this parameter. mumbaikars are a far more professional bunch when it comes to work life. in fact you could call them professional to the extent of being 'cold'.

its a pleasure doing business with mumbaikars across all walks of professional life; be they people from a corporate, a public servant, a shop-keeper, a service-provider, an artist/entertainer, a laborer, a maid... almost whoever!

its quite a different story in delhi. and i'd rather not get into the details. most of the people i came across, especially in the government sector, ran some parallel business which obviously took priority over work. the most popular side-businesses omcluded travel agencies, car rentals and trading in tyres.

5. food - you can't beat the chaat that you get in delhi. and the sweets. the sheer variety and sinful taste are just unmatched. the options available in mumbai are but poor cousins. i love the hot 'gajar halwa', 'rabdi jalebi' and 'masala milk' you get during winter.

but for the carnivores, the choice of sea-food is far better in mumbai.

delhi also doesn't have the ubiquitous 'udupi' restaurant which you'll find on almost every street in mumbai. nor can you find a respectable 'vada pav' anywhere in delhi.

6. water - i don't know if you have noticed, but you just can't do without a bottle of mineral water in delhi. the regular 'potable tap water' is hard water in most places. and the mineral residue in the tap water creates havoc with the sanitary-ware in bathrooms and toilets.

and mumbai has the glorious sea. the beaches can be cleaner and less smelly. but then you can't beat the uolifting feeling when you are pass by marine drive, or worli sea-face or band-stand or any of those roads adjoining the sea-face and you can see the sea all the way to the horizon, in all it's glory.

7. academics - this is one area where i would humbly doff my hat off to delhi. students have far more and much better choices in terms of schools and colleges. and most schools in delhi have, what i consider very basic & essential, but sadly lacking in most mumbai schools, - playgrounds!

the quality of faculty and the academic rigor also happens to be far better in delhi than in mumbai. and i have noticed that students in delhi tend to be a lot more focused on education with most of them planning to do post-grad courses or research, etc.

but in mumbai, most students look at education as a chore to be completed so that they can get a job and start earning. i think more students in mumbai are working part-time jobs along with their education than their delhi counterparts.

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i'll cover the last few parameters (including the most interesting one - people) in my next posting.

as always, please keep your comments and suggestions coming in.

good bye to SM

sunil mehta, vice president -nasscom, died of a heart attack on saturday (16th dec 2006) while on his way to work. this posting is my way of saying farewell to him.

sunil (SM as he was popularly known) was my first boss. i had joined infac (the company that he founded along with sv) as a complete raw green-horn in 1990. i had no clue of professional life and to make things worse, i had no clue of what i wanted to do in life. and infac was just taking off and things were very exciting and the pace was frentic.

it was a feast and a great learning experience to watch sm go about building the place from scratch. he was tough and stern when required. but he always made me feel useful. he inspired the whole team with his quite, efficient and professional approach to work.

he also made it a point to give personal attention to individuals, even if it meant discussing things which had nothing to do with the job. i distinctly remember sm having a chat with me one evening about my progress in preparing for the mba entrance exams. he patiently discussed the various alrenatives i could look at and made me feel a lot more confident about myself after the session.

and to a large extent, i owe my decision of becoming an entrepreneur to my stint at infac and to sm in particular. i wouldn't hesitate to say that, in this aspect, he was my role-model.

thanks sm, for coming into my life; for inspiring me to get to where i am and for being a wonderful human being!

delhi vs. mumbai - I

this one's going to rub some people the wrong way! (all views expressed here are the personal opinions of the writer and may or may not necessarily be a true reflection of reality! but here goes, nonetheless.)

the comparison between delhi and mumbai is one of the oldest debates known to mankind and will continue till doomsday with neither side willing to budge an inch. i'm not surprised there are numerous blogs on this topic.

what i'd like to do is compare the two cities on certain parameters based on my personal experience.

1. infrastructure - delhi beats mumbai hands-down here. and that's a bug-bear which most mumbaikars hold against delhi. there's always a lot of animated debate in the media about the revenue contribution by mumbai to the centre as compared to delhi and the proportion of funds that gets allotted back to the city.

2. public transportation - the metro is something mumbai is aspiring for. but apart from that, public transportation is far better in mumbai. 'best' buses and the 'local trains' are more reliable and safer. (ask any lady in delhi if she would travel alone in a bus or train in delhi after 8 pm.)

even the taxis and autos in mumbai score much better. they are, by and large, reliable, relatively more honest and its unlikely that they would take you for a ride, literally and figuratively.

3. power - the situation in mumbai is threatening to get worse. but the situation in delhi is much worse with no signs of any significant improvement in the near future. one expects the capital of the country to have adequate power. the state government just doesn't seem to manage to fix the 'power pilferage' problem.

in my next post i will cover 'work ethics', 'people', food', 'water', and 'academics'.

do let me know if there are any other parameters that you would include!

being vegetarian in india!

being a vegetarian in india is a piece of cake (the eggless variety, of course)! i didn't realise how easy it is to be vegetarian in india as compared to other parts of the world till i started travelling.

here in india, whichever part of the country you are in, you will find enough choice available to you for vegetarian fare. even if you don't find a 'pure veg' restaurant you will find enough options on the menu even in a non-vegetarian restaurant. (for those of you readers who are not from india or have never been here, these are how the regular restaurants are classified!).

in india, we also have regulations which require all packaged foods companies to clearly color code their product with 'green' and 'brown' dots on the packaging to differentiate veg and non-veg foods. in many restaurants you will find separate kitchens or separate vessels, cutlery, etc being used in deference to the sensibilities of the vegetarians. (the vegetarians in india, i have come to realise, are very well taken care of!)

but the moment you set foot outside the country and you realise how different the world out there is as far as this distinction in culinary choice is concerned.

in most parts of asia vegetarian dishes include fish or egg. some places even do not think anything wrong in topping your vegetable fried rice with fried shrimps, shredded pork or a fried egg.

you can't even walk into a mac-donald's and hope to grab a quite bite like you would do back here in india. you will not find a single veg item on the menu there, except for the sodas and the ice-cream. while in india almost half the options on the menu are vegetarian. (i think it was a smart move on the part of mac-donald's to cater to local tastes!)

most of the people i meet and interact with in places outside india wonder how i survive as a vegetarian because they cannot think of managing it in their own countries. thats when it struck me that in india we have so many different choices and cuisines and there are so many different ways in which the veg dishes are cooked with all the myriad ingredients. a vegetarian doesn't ever find it challenging or boring to be one in india!

and i don't know if it is completely true, but i believe that even the non-vegetarians in india do have 'pure veg' meals more often than they have non-veg meals. and in indian we also have many occasions and festivals where non-veg food is avoided.

i believe that 'vegetarianism' which has ingrained itself as a value in our collective psyche (even if we don't adhere to it) has strong cultural and traditional roots. its as deep and strong as our value for the divinity in ourselves and others around us - don't we all touch the other person with our fingertips and touch our foreheads when we accidentally kick or brush our feet against them? i think our sensitivity or appreciation of vegetarianism is also as deep-rooted!

p.s. i think india must be the only place in the world where pizza hut has a 100% veg outlet. (the one at marine drive towards chowpatty. i am not sure if there are any more of them.)

do you have any interesting stories about food that you would like to share here?