Vinyl records and the joy of old Hindi songs.

Listening to your favourite song in the time before the iPod, the boom boxes on music channels, in my generation was restricted to whatever came on Chitrahaar on a single monopoly (Remember DD?), in some cases the radio (Vividh Bharathi) and in other cases tape players if you had enough cassettes and they survived the tropical weather.

For today's instant generation of getting everything on youtube or the variety of stores that proliferate the smart phone market depending on which vendor you want to pay, this is a reminder that there existed something known as the LP record or the gramophone record where you had a needle run on top of a vinyl record (yeah something like that round thin circular disc that you saw Dr. Lode hand to King George VI in the King's speech) . Yes, one can listen to Mukesh, Rafi, Kishore, Manna Dey on a CD that's been digitally reproduced with whatever bit of computing power can be thrown at removing extraneous noises and enhancing certain chords. However there is a certain joy in listening to that needle scratch through an old record and when it manages to get it right as it does right now , the nostalgia evoked with the days of listening to the songs is quite a nice feeling. It getting stuck on a particular track as it does once in a while is another bit of nostalgia. It wasn't just the Hindi film songs that one enjoyed, it was also classical music - having one of the few LP's where the 3 violinist brothers (L Shankar, L Subrahmanyan and L Vaidyanathan) play together, or listening to the MS performance at Carnegie Hall or listening to music from the slightly forgotten figures today ( ChittiBabu on the veena, Lalgudi on the violin). It wasn't just that - waking up on a Saturday morning at 6 a.m. to listen to the Venkatesa Suprabhatam or even the Vishnu Sahasranamam and Bhaja Govindam was a nice thing to listen to even before one got a cup of the truly Tamilian beverage ( filter kaapi).

One of the ways in which one caught some decent music (before the age of the tape recorder) was essentially Vinyl. This was the mode in which yours truly listened to old songs till the time the gramophone at home conked off at which point there was a hiatus of nearly 8 years till a new one was procured in one of the trips abroad. Of-course by then Dad had moved on to listening to tapes and then on to CDs, having supplemented his collection into tapes and later CDs with the result that one inherited the LP collection.

There are a few folks one has to give thanks to here, one is an aunt who instilled the joy of listening to old songs rather than watch TV and of-course the other is Dad for having carefully and meticulously collected, catalogued and maintained a large number of old LPs and 45 rpm records which I've inherited now (some of which are older than yours truly). It would not be right not to thank the cousin S who held on to a large number of these records when there was that long hiatus .

So if anyone is looking to get rid of some old Vinyl Hindi LP records, STOP !! Think twice about it  - we are happy to find a way of accepting such records and giving them a home . Give me a shout !!

Bollywood jai ho.

So, after a long time I've been watching a Bollywood movie and the movie we got out of our monthly DVD service happened to be Dabang. I had seen parts of this during my last trip to India and it appeared to be a laugh riot, so it was worth watching this on DVD compared to what you get on the back of a airline seat. The story is typical Bollywood - take all the cliches, think about a large number, multiply the 2 - then take the result and raise it to itself. Angry step-father, righteously corrupt (Robinhoodesque) police officer, dumb step-brother, favouritism, a corrupt police force that still reaches late to a crime scene, the vivacious but stubborn leading lady with an equally stubborn drunk dad, stunts typically stolen from the Matrix ( replace bullets with flying glass panes in slow motion) , the Transporter ( the oil layered fight scenes) and what not . A villain who tries to shoot sallu with a powerful sniper rifle and misses 25 shots ...

Some of the dialogues were simply laugh riots - chedi singh ham aapke badan mein itney ched kar dengey ki kahaan se saans  logey aur kahaan sey .... Typical Salman Khan dialogues,  some nice music and a nice way of spending an evening with the wife.

The Autorickshaw effect !

Alert readers would remember that a while back I had commented about how to get even with the infamous Madras Autorickshaws . Needing to get to a place where there was unfortunately no MRTS connection I decided that it was time to haggle. Now themadrasi of 3 years since that post is a little more mellow, portly stout chap who beats the heat typically in a cotton shirt and 3/4th of a pant left specifically in the old homestead for precisely the purpose of use in such hot weather. The auction for the contract was unspectacular . Going to Adyar signal - sir, 60 rupees - illai 50 rupees . ok let's go. Having conducted the business I needed to , I needed to find my mobile and then discovered that it was missing. Now losing a mobile phone is a bit of a pain especially as you don't know how many numbers you end up losing. There is ofcourse the spectacular crash in the brownie points index with the wife and the sheer pain of having to try and retrieve the phone number of every person you knew using other means of communication. No this ain't a smart phone that can sync contacts etc. !

Muttering curses to self for being so careless I decided to hunt this down in a systematic and organized manner. First established the fact that the missing mobile phone hadn't accidentally been left at home. Past performance has suggested such a behavior and it was time to nip this rumour in the bud. So, it wasn't at home and the mother based on descriptions of the autorickshaw driver named a name and it was time to go back and try and see if I could find Muthu at the auto stand near home. Thanks to Kutty the other auto-rickshaw driver at the stand, I managed to track down the elusive Muthu and I gratefully received the phone from him. This has been an eventful trip so far and not short of fun, but Muthu and Kutty today managed to restore some faith in the old creed of Autorickshaw drivers. We still agree to disagree on "meter"ing issues .

Themadrasi - 0 Autorickshaws - 10000

Travel o travel o travel - Covering the miles all 1835 of them !

The next day started with a flight out at 730 a.m. from Bombay to Calcutta to be followed by a 3:30 hour train journey from Calcutta to Jamshedpur. Since I had to get to Jamshedpur from Bombay a distance of  1835 km according to google maps, the best way was to actually take the flight to Calcutta ( 2:45 hours) followed by a 3:30 hour journey by train. There were a couple of variables here, one the journey between Dum-Dum and Howrah and the infamous traffic jams on Howrah Bridge and the second was the company that one would get in a sleeper class compartment on the train journey to this place. The first variable was pretty well handled by a competent local cabbie and the journey ended up taking only 1:10 minutes of the alloted 3 hours.

Howrah is one of those huge stations that you love to travel from - well planned with 23 full sized platforms and 4 more planned with each set of 4 platforms has 2 service roads , so folks after the payment of a fee can *actually* alight next to their compartment (no there are no 'a' and 'b' type platforms as in the UK). It is the largest station that I have travelled from and I suspect one of the largest stations in India but no one seems to be able to confirm this suspicion.

Taking the train in a 2nd class sleeper compartment (for those who don't know what these are see the linked photograph though look at the compartment behind the kingfisher.) was an experience after nearly 8 long years . I had forgotten the experience of being seated in a heated tin-can with the sights and the smells of the country-side or urban area that you were going through. Ofcourse the fun bit was in the various cries of caffee cafee or chai jhai and looking out of the window seated in a forward facing seat ! The cheap thrills of looking out of the window on a curve in the tracks to spot the locomotive or the tail of the 24-25 compartment long train are unmatcheable. The company on this trip was a cute little kid who was hell-bent on teaching me ABCD and counting numbers from 1-100. This was interspersed by a few attempts to throw out the latest Frederick Forsyth novel that I was reading .

In the middle of this , the kid also managed to read the book by flicking through the pages, cheated on a spelling game and checked if I could spell G-A-P . Just when you thought that the temperature was reaching it's heights and you would continue to swelter it was time for a refreshing summer shower.

It's remarkable how many times nature manages to cool things down especially one when is going through a really hot summer afternoon, if it were the UK I would have cursed the rain given that we only seem to get a lot of it and it would surely interfere with my cricket game ! , but here it was fresh, pleasant and the smell of fresh rain on what had been a hot muggy and sweltering afternoon was extremely refreshing. The biggest advantage of travelling in a second class compartment is the ability to actually take in the weather, the sights and the smells of the places you go through. It can be tepid, boring and quite ghastly in some of the urban areas but that's all made up by the smell of the first rains hitting a parched ground but if you really want to travel through India there are no places better than a seat in a super-fast second class compartment with the odd forays to the door of the compartment to sit down and soak up the scenery. Soon enough it was time to alight the train at Jamshedpur to be welcomed by the gang of 5 who made sure that everyone at the station knew that I had arrived with garlands, placards, a homemade director of events and quite a few noisy statements .This sometimes begs the question - with friends like this .... I leave it as homework for the astute reader to finish ......

Travel o travel o travel - Part 1 - Bombay

After a frenetic journey over the past weekend it's time to take stock in the hottest of all seasons in a place with just 3 seasons (which reads hot, hotter and hottest! ) . The temperature hasn't been spectacularly high in the places I've been to but the humidity has been the killer. 30+ deg C and nearly 90% humidity in some places has been fun.

So the journey started rather uneventfully till I got to India -  decided to be self-reliant, adventurous and think like a local again ! This meant giving up on the hyper expensive but comfortable AC pre-paid cab from inside the terminal which was 3X the cost of getting an air-conditioned coolcab. Ofcourse the cool-cabs are a bit of a hit and a miss and despite my earnest appeals got a 40-50 year old Premier Padmini which had an air-conditioning system that seemed to work in fits and starts (when the engine ran) . The first initiation to the heat of the day was when the car engine decided to splutter and stop somewhere in the middle of Ghatkopar and hence you had to get down to push and jump-start the cab. Ofcourse despite the attempts of the powerful AC had just kept me on the borderline from sweating buckets ; however this effort repeated thrice more in various busy intersections made sure that I ended up sweating a good bucket or 2 inside the cab. I am sure watching a portly man pushing a cool-cab from behind and then running to the seat to jump in once the car had started after going through some fits and starts would have provided entertainment to a few and much deserved exercise to yours truly. If there is a city full of Premier Padminis it is this, it is this, it is this ! There was one point at which I did decide that if there was one more breakdown I would get out and take an auto-rickshaw ! In the middle of all this the conversation ranged around the cricket, how many taxis he owned, the world-cup win, Tendlya, Dhoni, the traffic, the pace of the new metro , Anna Hazare and his anti-corruption drive and what the taxi-wallah thought about it etc. etc. etc. Time to catch up on all the gossip . Reaching home after that meant that I could enjoy a nice lunch, a nice nap and then a good dinner with family before the next part of the travel kicked in.

The new AC100.

I got a new AC100 today running a Tegra2 and Android 2.1 on it. The first thing I did was to try and make it into a dual boot machine with a usb hard drive connected to it and boy is it spiffy and fast while running something like Ubuntu 10.10 . Thanks to ogra for pointing me towards the necessary bits and the #ac100 channel on freenode.

It's reasonably spiffy and based on recommendations from someone else I decided to get going with chromium and that resulted promptly in a crash because of an illegal instruction which might or might not be a compiler bug ! Talk about eating your own dog food eh !

Firefox does seem a bit heavy on this but reasonable. Flash doesn't seem to work out of the box so you have to rely on gnash and other bits and pieces. The biggest showstopper for my wife adopting it is the lack of sound on this but it might be solved by upgrading the emmc to Android 2.2 . Overall not a bad experience so far.

The irritating questions hall of fame.

The sister recently created a hall of fame with respect to questions she dreads and gets totally irritated by. The last few days in the trip have been fantastic but have equally been irritating in terms of questions one has had to answer . Just to do something different lets start from the very end.

- Train journey from Bangalore to Coimbatore - Which berth is yours ?

Man next to me with an RAC ticket ( RAC stands for Reservation Against Cancellation) - Saar, which berth is yours . I point straight at both our berths (1 and 3) and say this is mine. He then proceeded to ask, so where are you working saar. I gave him a non-commital answer and just said Bangalore because I was in no mood to discuss with a total stranger the joys of living in Cambridge or discuss any further details regarding my life history especially when one is recovering from an illness.

- What's your salary abroad ?

Err.... it's decent enough to feed me and my family and to make trips as I choose to .

- Are you planning to come back ? If so , when ?

Err. The question can take many tones. Some old family friends will wonder and make declarations about your future and decisions neither you nor your wife have any clue about at that point of time. All you are interested in is the next meal, making sure you aren't sick and hoping that the jet lag would wear off. The best way of fobbing off such questions sometimes is to speak the truth and honestly say "Don't know" . Some day yes, not tomorrow is usually a good answer.

- Sir do you want a discount card ?

Err. no  , not interested, thank you.  Sir you'll get 1 point per 100 rupees and each point is worth 20 paise for you to claim. Thus the only way one can get any rewards out of customer loyalty is by buying for life at that store. Imagining the mark up is extraordinary.

Go back a few years, pesky little things used to call up and offer you discounts, personal loans and credit cards with cold calls. Never have I considered going further with any of these calls because it usually leaves me in an irritated state of mind.

Go further back to when one was studying.

What does your father do ? A follow up question was usually how much does he make ? The answer varied from he works in the CBI ( to a pesky traffic cop who was looking for a bribe for no fault of mine), to the truth and to a brusque none of your business. The follow up question was usually ignored.

Vacation vacation vacation.

Ah the vacation draws to a close. Everyone sighs - oh you've got 3 weeks off but it's amazing how the days and the hours fly. Some fun activities have included driving around in India by self with the family. The last post dealt with the joys involved in this activity. It wasn't great fun falling ill 5 days into the trip especially with a 20 hour train journey to be managed. The train journeys were fun, ofcourse one of the high points of the trip.

Oh, attending a wedding, meeting old friends and making new ones, singing ghazals and old Hindi songs in the evening in public causing jaws of members of the family to drop beyond measure , pleasantly surprising the wife with such an act of lunacy ! However members in the audience were too polite to point out the resemblance my singing would have had to a donkey braying .

A rest day later it was time to begin the remainder of the travelling down south to Coimbatore and Guruvayur where I saw one of the best sights there is to see at the Guruvayur temple. It was 9:15 p.m. and time for what they call the Srivali seva. Like most temples in India, there's a strict ban on photography inside the temples for fear of the art thieves and in addition the belief that there shouldn't be photos of idols stored elsewhere, however this was one time I really wished for my camera. All Indian temples have a sanctum sanctorum, in Guruvayur this sanctum sanctorum has space for 1000s of oil lamps on all 4 of its walls. Once the temple was to be closed for the night, the closing ceremony on certain days (either requested for/ paid for my devotees or on special occasions) all the lamps would be lit on all 4 walls. This means that once it's night you've got all walls lit up by small oil lamps which are in perfect symmetry and is one of the most amazing sights one can watch. This is then followed with a procession by 3 of the temple elephants all decked up in gold and with men alternately seated and standing atop the elephant and transitioning between these states without *any* support from the sides. These men were athletic, nimble and showed some of the finest traditions that exist still deep in the South of India. Sadly I couldn't find any photos to show the same for a reference.

After this it was time to move to the city with just 3 seasons, hot hotter and hottest . I'd say we are in the "hotter"season where it's usually tepid, miserable and usually a pain to stay. A day trip from Madras was to Kanchipuram and to the ancestral village which had to be visited for some personal reasons. One of the things I came across in these villages was the use of solar power to light street lamps in every nook and cranny. This by itself has reduced the dependence these villages have on electricity boards for electricity and providing the village with safe renewable energy.  The village in question had a school that's now in the process of starting Classes 11 and 12, there is hope and there is education and there is a choice in such villages for growth.

In the last 19 days we've been to 8 places some of which have included day trip in sweltering 35 degrees C. The measure to which I've been spoilt now shows with the fact that if I am to survive in Chennai or Madras as it was known earlier , I need the AC on to bring down the temperature to a bearable 28 degrees C . But boy has this been worth it and have I needed the break ! Certain improvements are visible, the tendency to check email has dropped - I've checked email 5 times in 3 weeks which is a significant improvement compared to previous pyrrhic vacations.


And on that note - sigh, mutter, next Monday is just 4 days away and 2 plane journeys away :( ...

Honk, mutter to neighbour, curse, shout

Politely ask others on the roads if their affairs are in order, ( the Tamil way of asking this is Enna Vootla sollitu vanthutiyaa ... ) and then decide that it's all not worth it .

If you are wondering why all these words are in the title of this blog post, it's not very hard to get to the bottom of why I'm doing this and my locus can very well be guessed.  After all this the world is at peace again, the sun rises from the East again and there is a nice cool breeze blowing in the city of Pune in India.

Given that I've deliberately not started driving in the old blighty just to preserve these essential driving skills in India, where if you go into a roundabout, the first person in wins it's been fun. Driving around on the first day of the trip, there were still a few rules left in me . Anyone on a zebra crossing wins, I stop my car and let them pass . However the stares I received in return were as though I was a person from a different planet or a member of a species totally different than the one that inhabits the country we like to call India, Bharat, Hindustan, Jambudvipa ...

Driving down the expressway and then driving in heavy traffic in downtown during peak hours has a cathartic effect. You can put your window down, curse to your hearts content at idiots who decide to overtake you from the left and go to the right or cut right across your path from right to left.  There is no place for gentleness, the odd driver of the scooter who decides to sit in the fast lane and plod along at 40kmph on a polite enquiry for overtaking asks you if you are flying a plane to go past him and you respond with either the finger or politely inform him of the risks of a gentle push that is enough to send him and his family flying under other forms of traffic which vary from smoke belching trucks to the odd auto-rickshaw.

Playing cricket. ...

So, here we go after a long time - about time for a blog post and something regarding a passion for every Indian, cricket. Given that I'm due off on a trip soonish to the old homestead it's probably right to post this now.

 Living in the driest part of the UK and having long days in the summer allows you the flexibility and freedom to play. Cricket here is played on a ground - (yes, yes I can hear folks saying where else would you play it ..) without 10 other matches happening simultanenously, on pitches and grounds that vary in large degrees with respect to their quality. Oh and yes, cricket here is played with 22 players wearing whites, a cricket ball ( not a tennis ball, cork ball or a rubber ball) though there are times when you start a game with just 8 players with 3 turning up later. There have been occasions when folks have arrived at the wrong ground because they misheard which team was playing at which ground !  Of-course the fickle English weather can play a devastating effect on the quality of the square not to mention the effect  of rabbits and moles on the outfield  (Ask my ankle!) There are some groundsmen who've maintained an absolutely high standard throughout this season (think Gonville and Caius)  while others who've not bothered and instead  have allowed enough grass on the pitch so that it looks more like a tennis court than a cricket pitch (Oh Jesus!) and further others who've just given up (some of the village squares that we played on).

Of-course 20-20 has had an effect, all weekday games are 20-20 while the weekend games can vary between 40 and 45 overs depending on which division of which league you are playing. The 20-20 games are played usually as 15 8 ball overs which makes overweight geezers like yours truly struggle to get past the popping crease after bowling the 4th ball in an over and then curse the innovators ! It is all very civilized - sledging is not something that you do normally nor condone, idle banter usually happens - most folks usually walk and the opposition usually congratulates the bats-person when they reach a major milestone. The best games are when you play an opposition that consists of team-mates from the mid-week games especially if it contains your mid-week captain in it!  This is when the banter could reach some dizzy heights. The mid-week games are played at a very different pace to the weekend ones, the weekend ones demand tons of concentration and sustenance, there was one game we played where both the opposition and us scored less than 120 in 45 overs and the opposition won in the very last over, thus there ends up being a good tussle between bat and ball. Ah and that is a par score in 20 overs during the mid-week games.

However the significant achievement of the year for yours truly was hitting the winning runs in a match that meant we tied joint tops in the mid-week leagues. After years of growing horizontally it was interesting to be able to hit the winning runs in a game nearly 9 years since university !

Freeview ... yahoo !

On a lazy Saturday morning, one woke up grumbling about toolchains and life in general and then came the thought about  the IPL starting. Going through the normal routine about reading more about cricket than watching it thoughts slowly started filtering through the fog. A vague curse rose to the lips regarding planning regulations. Consoling one self about the new youtube channel on cricket and IPL, one went back to thinking and the the penny dropped. You see, this year the IPL would be available on terrestial television in the UK and as resignation turned towards expectation and increasing degrees of smugness, one tuned the t.v. to ITV4 to see Tendulkar walk out to bat. The reason for this gradual increase in smugness is that for 1 year one has felt like a prize goof everytime a good game of cricket has gone on in the world and the television has apparently mocked back at me.

Last year one wrestled up a 42 inch HD t.v. in a hurry hoping to get a particular brand of satellite television and get to watch all the sports in the world. The application for the satellite television had gone out before the television was procured and the engineer turned up 3 days later, took one look at the south wall and went on about planning regulations and having dishes poking out of walls. A red mist descended, though it has receded slowly over the year the feeling of being a prize goof hasn't gone away that quickly.

Gloating was never good for anyone but once in a while one can afford the luxury of saying .. Ha jolly ha !

Yeah yeah I was there when Mr. Tendulkar hit 200

Yeah yeah, me my uncle , my mother and everyone else's chacha were there when Sir Tendlya, the boss of cricket scored a 200. We were all there when the following events also happened.

100 - Headingley 1990 England - Test drawn

114 - Perth - 1991 Australia - India lost.

155 - Chennai - 1998 Australia - India won.

136 - Chennai - 1999 Pakistan - India lost.

98 - Centurion - 2003 Pakistan - India won.

241 - Sydney - 2003 Australia - India won.

Last over - Calcutta - 1994 South Africa - India Won. (The Hero cup semi-final)

5-36 - Kochi - 1998 Australia - India won.

143 - Sharjah - 1998 Australia - India won.

117 - Sydney ? - 2008 Australia - India won. (Finals of the CB Series)

175 - Hyderabad - 2009 Australia - India lost.

163 - Chennai - 2008 - England - India won.

And like most Indians we cheered loud and clear. Reading about it on websites left one slightly disgruntled at planning regulations. The BCCI's speed at removing highlights videos from youtube for copyright claims left one wondering about efficiencies. Finally finding an opportunity to watch it now leaves one contented after a long week's work and getting the chance to visualize certain comments.

The beautiful flick of the wrists that got a boundary from outside off stump to the midwicket boundary. The non-chalant flick from outside off stump to the midwicket boundary to move from 162 to 168. The double to go past a certain Mr. Anwar who got 194 with a runner in Madras on a humid day in 1997.

But on this day - all ijj well, the cold disappears ever so slightly , the sun appears to stay out longer (only till 5:45 p.m.) - the best batsman in the world has 200 off 147 balls. However the wife, who's typically agnostic to cricket forwarded me an analysis possibly also seen by millions others.

Agree you have done GREAT......

BUT BUT BUT BUT

• 25 x 4s = 100
• 3 x 6s = 18
• It implies that you have scored 118 Runs in 28 Balls.
• And 12 x 2s = 24
• 58 x 1s = 58
• It means you have scored 200 Runs in only 98 balls
• Hence wasted 147-98 = 49 balls
• Considering only 1 run scored on each of these balls you could have earned
• 49 valuable RUNS **for the team*

And hence scored 250 and India 450 - Given this performance the manager has no choice but to award you an appraisal rating of someone who's only achieved expectations and not exceeded it !

If only we were so demanding of the road contractors after the monsoons in Pune...

It certainly does look like this man is on a mission - a mission to win the 2011 world cup. All ye cricket fans plan your vacations in advance, there is only one place to be in 2011.

P.S. It sounds as though cricinfo has ordered some Tendulkar servers ...

Serendipity

Sunday - Valentine's day - what does one do to earn brownie points ? The easiest thing to do was to take the fast train to London, cruise about the Temz and explore parts of London by foot with the wife. Rumours had reached our ears about the existence of an area in London called East Ham and the presence of Saravana Bhavan, Vasanta Bhavan in the general area. This was supposed to be where a Tamilian would find the worth of his salt in the existence of Tayir Saadham (a.k.a Curd Rice, with a seasoning of Curry Leaves, Mustard seeds, salt , green chillies ) ! and the presence of a large number of Cash and Carry stores. Entering one of the cash and carry stores for grocery shopping resulted in a substantial transformation of a swipe into weight for the hands !

Saravana Bhavan is one chain of hotels that prides itself on the taste of its' food being the same across *all* it's kitchens. It was time to verify if this was the case even with the East Ham branch and needless to say that after sampling the necessary items including a full South Indian meal (Full meals Saar!) , an Onion Uthappa , 2 Ghee Pongals the conclusion was reached in the affirmative even if the kitchens are the proverbial 7 seas apart ! There was a consideration to order a Bisibela Bhat or a Ghee Roast but then we've left this for the next time. Advice for others attempting this stunt - please go only after fasting for a day or two !

However as a part of this process, one was asked to sacrifice the Semiya Paayaasam ( a.k.a Kheer, a sweet made with milk and Vermicelli) and after due consideration (which was half a pico second) promptly refused ! Bad Move !

Still searching for the brownie points :(

Books list.

The BBC in a survey in 2003 said that folks only read 6 out of this list of 100 . I've read 36 - the wife's read 36. Is it just the amount of reading that has reduced. What will be the result 5 years hence when the ipad and the Bookstore are all pervasive ? The mind boggles.

P.S. The old adage goes on something about marriages being made in heaven and all that...

An ode to the German Bakery.

Reading about the cowardly attack on the German Bakery today was quite a scary proposition. The German Bakery holds special value for a lot of folks - foreigners and locals alike. The lethargic ambience, the cup of tea and the wonderful pastries was one of the reasons for it to be a popular hang out joint in Koregaon Park. Having spent many a moon near that area and passing it on the way to work on a daily basis it was quite sad to note the blasts in the area. Immediate thoughts went to friends and family who would usually hang out in that area for a quiet meal or whatever. If one had remained in Pune, it wouldn't have been uncommon to have been having a meal at one of the many great restaurants on North Main Road or transit that road en-route to other restaurants. Saturday evening = Dinner around North Main Road, movie at Ad-Labs.

I hope folks injured by this blast recover quickly and may the souls of those who died rest in peace.

3 idiots - All ijj well.

A bird told me that Cambridge was hosting the 3 idiots. It meant that we would wander over the few 100 meters to the theatre on a lazy Sunday afternoon. There was no room for us in the theatre. What ? A hindi movie and house full in Cambridge, you must be kidding right ?

It was time to put the record straight - resolutions were made - improving the compiler could wait for a day, dinner out , movie at 645 p.m., leave nothing to chance - book tickets online , buy dinner at the Friendly neighbourhood Subway and let's try and catch it. At the end of 3 hours All ijj well , nothing like a cannily crafted movie with enough subtleties to leave an audience tittering and holding their stomachs as though gongura (or the Faal for the more of my British readers) had gone through it ! Painful ecstacy !

There were some traditional jokes which were very well conveyed including a metaphor passing as a Sanskrit verse ! It was situational comedy at it's very best , a genre being perfected by Rajkumar Hirani - as the NDTV review says (read in hindsight) , this truly is Munna Bhai Part 3. Despite all the controversy about 3 idiots and 5 point someone, one must say that the genesis might come from the book , but the screenplay and plot in this is totally different from the book and probably is far better in its conceptualization. Also the true hero for me isn't Aamir Khan or Madhavan or Boman Irani but Sharman Joshi as Raju Rastogi. True there are exaggerations with inventions out of no-where but who says it's not possible.

If you haven't seen it already , go watch it - enjoy it and probably relive some of your college days - for anyone who's seen any form of hostel life this will ring some wonderful bells and remind you of times long past and incidents that will bring a smile to your face. Everyone will remember a Chatur Ramalingam , a Rancho of the class, a Raju Rastogi , initial ragging for the class and a Viru Sahastrabuddhe !

At the end of the day - All ijj well .......

Economy Drives and Cattle Class.

Reading about the Economy Drive in India reminds me of a certain Economy drive in one of the greatest political satires of all time - Yes Minister. All the classic ingredients are present in the mix , a recession, (the 2008) inflation, (this year's) deflation and a perilous state of public finances the world over. Think of the political classes to come up with an Economy Drive !. A request is made by the finance ministry that all ministers travel by Economy class amid a few protests that they are too tall, too fat or too thin !

The press have their controversy courtesy a tweet , a couple of ministers travel economy class in airplanes , the leader of the party in government travels by Economy class but spends more on security and an MP travels in first class on the same flight ! A train in which a youth leader travels is damaged, the cost of which should be surely higher than a first class ticket in a commercial plane. Nice - all similar to the Economy Drive. Now will 69 diplomats from a Western neighbour be expelled or will the courtesy be extended to some of the diplomats from across the Himalayas for the economy drive to pause.

The mind boggles .....

Goodness Gracious Great Balls of Fire.

The first thought that came to mind on reading this story happens to be the title of today's blog post. Too long has the country been held to ransom by parties expecting to get great power without equitable representation. How else would one explain a party with just 18 seats expecting to get 9 plum ministerial berths and expecting the party with 206 seats to just give it all away ? It's nice to see the Congress party stand up to be counted and play hard ball with these small parties . It's not about arrogance but just sometimes people have to be put in their place. An 87 year old man just found his right level of incompetence.

Elections, Sensex and Mayhem.

Waking up on a Saturday morning 4-1/2 hours behind the good old des one was immediately struck with the thought - Election results => streaming NDTV, shiny new ADSL2+ broadband. Thanks to the time difference there was no surprise left in the results by the time I got around to looking at the results and seeing Prannoy Roy for what must be the infinitieth time run us through the election results. It was indeed interesting to note that this is the first time a government that has completed 5 years has been almost reelected. Streaming NDTV 24X7 live on a webcast worked like a charm though one did get the feeling that the ad-breaks were a bit too long. Watching the spoilers like the 3rd, 4th and even the 999th front get a pasting from the voters was quite a nice feeling.

Our Prime Minister must be wondering about there being no sense with the traders. In 2004 the markets fell the maximum in a day because the Congress had been voted in, in 2009 the markets had to be closed again because the Congress was voted in. What will happen in 2014 ? The mind boggles.

The market's reaction today is the burden of expectations on this government. The cry has gone out, Perform or Perish. The Indian voter will no longer tolerate political slogans ! As for me - I'll go back to watching the Beeb muse about the expenses row here in the U.K. I wonder what will happen if MPs in India were asked to disclose their expenses.

Happy (Tamizh) New Year

Iniya Putthandu Vaazthukkal – Happy Tamil New Years Day.

As the easter weekend meandered to a dull close and having returned from the humble abode of one's cousins, a dull boring evening appeared to be on the cards for the madrasi. Given that the bird was hosting dinner to other birds and having spent a good deal of time and effort in unpacking and arranging empty vessels in the kitchen of the new tenement, themadrasi felt it was time that the vessels were put to some use. The cry or rather the shrill cooker whistle went around, themadrasi is cooking. Excursion trains were to be run to witness this great event in the history of mankind but then Colonel Murphy in the form of Sunday timetables on Easter Monday as well as planned engineering works struck.

Given that the paparazzi wasn't around and the glorious sunshine at 5:30 p.m., themadrasi decided to put paid to the rumour that there was another South Asian store around by going out for a jog and exploring the neighbourhood in mufti . It turned out that this was also run by a fellow Tamilian from Sri Lanka and having said Omam to him themadrasi returned with all the ingredients required for successfully stocking the kitchen of a respectable TamBrahm inclusive of the famous LG Perungaayam.

At this point of time there was a flash of light and enlightenment dawned on themadrasi. Cook Ven Pongal, the supreme dish to celebrate all Tambrahm occasions. One must ofcourse point out that the w. had also reminded him that it was the new year the next day and there were no satisfactory answers to questions posed about how the occasion was to be celebrated. Beginning the task at hand themadrasi realized that if this was to be done there were a few matters of chronology to be sorted out. There was help was at hand in the form of the iphone call to the cousin to help out.There were approximations made including substituting Gingelly Oil (Nalla Ennai ) with Vegetable Oil, (the supreme act towards national integrity by substituting) Basmati Rice for Ponni or Nellai Super. The proportions mixed, the tadka made, the cooker put in, the chimney turned on (with the LG Perungaaya dabba on top) for good luck it was time to wait . Drat but where were the cashews. Whilst the cooker shrilled themadrasi pattered down to the good old Tesco found just a bag of cashews , came back up – opened the fridge for the pat of butter to fry the cashew in ( No half measures – note the jogging bit above)

A reasonable approximation to the Pongal was prepared and consumed – Dr. Onken supplied the necessary yoghurt, the entertainment was provided by SPB on the blower going on about Maarugo Maarugo Maarugazhi (Chittirai) and to hand were Bertie and Jeeves preparing for their next escapade at Market Snodsbury. All in all capital one would say and to paraphrase the bird – it was time to put on the silk hat , find the pipe and write this blog.

P.S. Rumour has it that the new year in Tamilnadu will not be celebrated on the 14^th of April because an old man wants Pongal to signify this event in January. It's time I fedex'd some of the basmati ven pongal to him.