Mooching around

Critiquing critics

2012-01-26T20:26:00.001+05:30

So I've recently turned movie critic and as exciting as it sounds, it's beginning to become my albatross.

You see, I'm no cinephile. I'm not familiar with all of Woody Allen's filmography and only recently when a friend was discussing Kubrick, I went 'Stanley, who?' I keep very quiet at movie screenings, where critics around me yap about this director's cinematic skills and the prowess of an actor who I'd have never noticed onscreen if I hadn't eavesdropped on their conversation. I listen to them discuss what their Oscar favourites are, why they think that these films will win, why they loathe the Academy's choices, and why Meryl Streep should just be given a Lifetime Achievement award already.

It's not like I don't have an opinion. I enjoy movies just as much as any of these people here. I also observe proper cinema etiquette, like not loudly discussing how sleepy your taxi driver was on your way to the screening while the movie's playing. But these people intimidate me. I wonder how they'd react if I told them that Elle Woods was one of my favourite characters from cinematic history. I imagine about ten raised eyebrows, muffled laughter and very likely, a sneer. Or four.

I'd like to curl my lip back at them, and just get on with my job, but they worry me. Is this what will happen to me, once I watch more movies with only the intention of critiquing them? As time goes by, will contempt for what's popular set in? Will I feel the need to drop names of award winning European directors during polite conversation with other critics over samosas and wafers during intermission?

Ack.

The Bachchan baby & the rocky moral high ground

2011-11-16T13:45:00.005+05:30

So the Bachchan baby finally arrived this morning, and as expected news channels are staying studiously away, following a 10-point set of guidelines by the Broadcast Editors Association that doesn't allow them any more coverage than a 90-second package and a flash headline, among other things.

However I've been wondering how exactly this ban benefits anyone. My mum, grandmum and the neighbour's help all want to know about the Bachchan baby and not because they are carnivoristic voyeurs, but because the Bachchans are public figures of consequence and this is hardly bad news about them.

The moral high ground, I'm told, has been taken because of Justice Katju's remarks and the fact that Amitabh Bachchan himself loses no opportunity to lash out at eager mediapeople every time they line up outside his bungalow or broadcast a story about him. I'm sorry Mr Bachchan, but I would imagine that some kind of media glare would come with being a Bollywood actor, so I'm often wondering what all the fuss is about. However, in taking this decision to punish pretension from Bollywood's first family, aren't the broadcast media being pretentious themselves? It almost seems like a game of one-upmanship about who can seem righteous enough - the Bachchans, who despite being actors who bask in attention, plead that the media leave them alone, and the broadcast media, who despite being in the business of delivering news of public interest, have decided to impose restrictions because it was one snarky comment too much to take, and also this would be 'the right thing to do'.

It would hold some value if this were the rule set for all celebrity babies born from henceforth. But I hardly think it's going to happen when Lara gives birth or when maybe, Imran and Avantika or Aamir and Kiran have a baby. If it is, well then perhaps we are finally moving towards some sort of responsibility, that I don't particularly understand but still will shrug off. If it isn't, these guidelines have just served as one big ego massage to broadcast editors.

FYI, online media have no restrictions. So here's an alphabet book for Baby Bachchan and a guess at what celebrities will gift Baby Bachchan. Enjoy!

Crying for a crowd

2011-11-06T17:20:00.001+05:30

So as twisted as it sounds, do you ever wish your pain ever had an audience?

Like when you cry, for instance. Do you find solace in the fact that people are watching you suffer? And if the pain is caused by a person, do you secretly hope that they will somehow chance upon you weeping your eyes out or call at that moment to hear you sob on the phone?

I'll confess to all of the above, only I'm at a loss to understand what it says about me.

Why we must be thankful to Modi

2011-09-20T12:53:00.003+05:30

So Narendra Modi, for the 'secular Indian', is a bad man. Even Gulshan Grover wouldn't have a thing on him.

But we have much to much to thank Modi for in the last three days when he embarked on a 'historic' fast to absolve his image as a Muslim-hating, genocide-approving dictator. No, really. If anything, Modi's stage show of an apology has blown the puritanical cover of what has been my chief bugbear for the last month - the hunger fast.

Last month, another Modi fan and current messiah to the masses, Anna Hazare sat on a dharna that moved millions to protest and rage against the government. Both Modi's and Hazare's fasts were clarion calls of the gastronomic sorts for change. Modi wanted you to change your ghastly opinions of him. Hazare wanted your help for a change in how we held our public servants accountable.

As the dust settles from all the furore both fasts kicked up, I am happy to report that little has changed. Opinions on my Twitter timeline and from water cooler chat that revolved around the sadbhavana (now that all the sales at the stores have ended) seemed as polar as ever. Modi-praisers continue to praise, Modi-haters continue to hate. And Anna Hazare? He sinks deeper into the recesses of my morning papers, only raising a whimper when it's a particularly slow news day.

And the hunger fast? That's been the real casualty of this last month. No progress, or army, can march on an empty stomach. If Napoleon was alive, he'd have gone 'I told you so'.

Everyone cares, Bambi

2011-08-25T15:56:00.000+05:30

So I've facing a bit of a dilemma. And I've only got myself to blame.

You see over the past weeks, I've been holding back. Holding back from saying what I want to on Facebook, on Twitter, on GTalk statuses. I find that the more I put up bits of me on exhibition for the world to see on the internet, the more I want to withdraw into a shell.

They say the internet's one of the places you can best be yourself but it isn't like that anymore. Your spelling mistakes are picked on, you end up being trolled if you have an opinion against public sentiment and online communities are frat houses where a select few makes the rules of social engagement and look with disdain at others who can't bear to toe the line.

And then there's the 'what will they think' bit? I'm constantly worrying about how my parents, relatives, boss, colleagues, friends and random strangers will react to gibberish I put up on Faceboook or Twitter. I find myself typing out entire tweets on my phone before hitting backspace or exiting Opera. There are times that I really want to say 'fuck' because it's the expletive that best suits what I'm feeling at that moment, and yet I'm wondering about who's going to read it and what they're going to think of me later.

Oh, you say you don't care? Everyone cares, Bambi.

Take Facebook. Once upon a time, it was almost mandatory to change my status daily and sometimes, even more than once in a day. However this August, I've had all of seven status changes, and hardly feel the need to update it anytime soon. It's stranger that I'm slowly beginning to lose appetite for 'likes' and 'RTs', when at one time I'd log on several times within an hour of putting stuff out to see whether someone had given my random musings their stamp of approval.

I need a break. I'm taking a break.

My Culinary Bucket List

2011-08-22T17:33:00.002+05:30

So here's the list of stuff I'd like to eat before I die or am in a hospital being fed by a pipe. It's not terribly ambitious, but it's the stuff I often have wet dreams about, especially during lunchtime at my office canteen. Don't judge me. You don't know what they serve at work yet.

1. A bacon explosion

2. Fondue at a cafe in Zurich

3. A lamb shawarma in Iran (sans french fries, sans chicken!)

4. The Reuben sandwich at Katz's

5. Baklava in Istanbul

6. A croque monsieur in Paris (where I also hope to meet a handsome French man who's learnt to say it, not spray it)

7. The pork pickle I saw on an episode of 'Highway on My Plate'

8. Maple syrup flavoured bacon, apparently available everywhere in Vancouver

9. Bacon wrapped scallops, like the kinds William White feeds Elizabeth Wakefield before he decides to kill her (What? They sounded delicious)

10. A Kobe steak in Japan

Not you. Me.

2011-08-10T16:59:00.000+05:30

I'm not a snob.

I just don't have any reason to talk to you.

How can you be a friendly, arms-open-wide person at every waking moment? You've got to have times when you don't care to make small talk? Don't bother about the niceties? And especially with people who fill the large gray space between acquaintances and complete strangers?

Well, I'm like that 90 per cent of the time. So you see, it's not about you. It's me.

Really.

Some good ol' bookstore magic

2011-08-07T12:08:00.006+05:30

So despite the wonderful efforts of India’s Amazon.com (their words, not mine), Flipkart, I do not look forward to the day when I will finally have to fish out my debit card to buy a book online.

I know my days are numbered. Three years ago, my old copy of Natalie Babbitt’s Tuck Everlasting had mysteriously vanished and having finally given up on trying to find it in my now-upturned bedroom, I decided to hit the stores to buy it again.

It was an exercise in patience and restraint. Patience, because none of the bookstores seemed to have it. Restraint, because I was almost this close to pulling my hair out every time a store employee tried to coax me into buying the Alexis Bledel movie instead. I love Rory, I do. But the Disney movie was too cheesy-town for even a die-hard Swiftie like me. I finally found the book at Landmark in Phoenix during opening week, and nearly kissed the well-informed manager’s hand in the children’s section. However curiosity got the better of me, and when I reached home, I looked up the book on Flipkart and there it was. With the promise that it would be delivered to my doorstep within three working days. Sigh.

Do I regret my obstinacy now? Maybe a little, though not entirely, because I still feel the magic of browsing around a bookstore is still a lot more alluring that pottering about online. If it weren’t for several aimless visits to bookstores in town, I might have never discovered Henry Paget Flashman (on discount at the Bandra Linking road Crossword store). Or Jay Rayner’s The Man Who Ate The World, that was sandwiched between Tarla Dalal and Sanjeev Kapoor at Oxford. Buying online may be the wisest recourse for a woman on a mission (Locate Terry Pratchett Discworld novels, should you choose to accept it), but there are no moments of discovery. No pleasant surprises. I read half of Sunetra Choudhury’s Braking News, before I decided to put it back on the shelf because while it began nicely, it sagged in the middle. Online bookstores are wonderfully convenient, but you’d have to know what you wanted to read first and I’ve only made up my mind hours into the bookstore and five minutes before I head to the cash counter.

The romanticism can't last, something that Borders learned the hard way. Here's hoping it's a while before they sound the death knell for stores in India.

The curious case of the restaurant chair

2011-08-04T12:58:00.005+05:30

So yesterday evening, I went to Two One Two Bar & Grill at Worli and I was confronted yet again by an old bugbear - the restaurant chair.

I feel I must start by offering disclaimers about Two One Two, before I begin this rant. The food was lovely (special mention for the chocolate fondant and the roasted chicken salad with rocket), and the waiters were extremely helpful.

But the chair, that darn chair. It was so heavy that I could barely pull myself in and when I finally managed to drag a few inches, it knocked against the table and wouldn't budge further. I spent all evening perched on the end of my seat, hoping that after a second apple martini, I wouldn't slide off while discussing how wonderful a holiday destination Sri Lanka is (yes, we're still talking about that).

The supremely uncomfortable restaurant chair is now a given at most fine dining establishments across the city. I see where the owners are coming from. Vanilla seating must be a no-no, with edgy furnishing styles and theme interiors that ape international trends to make a patron feel that the meal and the feel would be no different if he was sitting down to dinner in Mumbai or in Manhattan. For example, take Wink at the Taj Vivanta with its dark wood furnishings and dim lights, where it is impossible to eat a meal at the tables without a considerable amount of discomfort. Or Vie at Juhu, that has a similar sofa seating arrangement, and where the only way I'd really have enjoyed that meal, is if I were holding my plate in my lap. The owners may argue that patrons visit these places to have a drink rather than have a three course meal, but then why not just offer high-end bar eats and do away with mains? What about the diner, yes the man or woman who came there to eat(!), and not get shitfaced on daiquiris? He's likely to ring up a bill as much as the PYTs at the bar but by forcing him to squirm in his seat all night, he's probably going to notice everything wrong with the meal a whole lot more than he would if he could actually lean back in between bites, and not be swallowed whole by the sofa while doing so.

Give me a boring chair over a couch anyday. Surely, you'd spend less on laundering the upholstery too.

Wake up Toto

2011-07-15T14:00:00.008+05:30

So the question about the use of gory photos raises its ugly head again as ethic-wielding, armchair experts again shower brimstone and fire on the 'irresponsible media' (if only I had a rupee for every time I heard that) for subjecting readers to the bloody truth that was the evening of July 13.

Do we really have to see those photos, raged a bunch of folks. Don't like it, do you? Not the kind of start you wanted on Thursday? Deepak Lokhande of DNA sensibily replied in a great editorial piece, "Was it a good morning of yours that we spoilt?" It certainly wasn't one for us.

The Home Minister would like us to know that it's been a whopping 31 months since the city's last terror attack. Once in three years is apparently a pretty good record. Is it therefore for this government, that the media must mask terror, put a sensitive picture out so as to not affect or enrage the masses? The PTI photographer who took this bloody picture of bodies piled up in a truck didn't go looking for it. It was there for everyone to see. He was doing his job, as were all the other photographers, cameramen and journalists who were witness to blood and guts at the site of the blasts. I'm unsure of what all these folks yelling ethics expected the journalists to do. Put away their pens and cameras until the clean-up was finished? Not visit hospitals where doctors were slogging away to stich up gaping wounds or extract shrapnel from festering cuts?

And then there's the question of children. Oh yes, the kids. The ones whose parents are lapping up Dexter, Bones, Castle or other shows that deal with homicide during family TV time. The ones who probably play games like Grand Theft Auto and Diablo that aren't exactly about rainbows and unicorns, FYI. Children are more exposed to gore and violence today that their parents ever were, so the standards that applied to you aren't relevant any more. If your kid's 12 or 13, they've already watched a plane crash into a tower and a terrorist run around shooting people in a train station. Maybe the real person who has to grow up is you.

Your children will grow up to witness more terror, maybe again in this city and across the world. The innocent will continue to be victims of planned attacks. And the media will or rather should, continue to hold up a mirror to these events when they happen to let the world know that their governments have failed, that terror is alive and that so much more still remains to be done to arrest the problem.

Wake up Toto, we're not in Eden anymore.

Mooching around: Sri Lanka

2011-06-30T17:56:00.014+05:30

So it's been more than 24 hours since I left Sri Lanka and I'm still finding sand everywhere. Not that I'm complaining though. It's been a holiday straight out of a postcard.

(Time spent well at the beach in Nilaveli)

More than a few eyebrows were raised when I spread the word that I was heading south for a holiday. "Sri Lanka?" "Isn't it raining there?" "Aren't there landmines around?" I almost reconsidered my trip given that all the critics (amusingly, none of whom have ever been to the country) proceeded to warn me about my destination that was beginning to sound like a poor man's Seychelles or Maldives.

To everyone who suggested otherwise, it was fantastic. Hah.

Prabhakaran is dead, long live Rajapaksa

(A cut out of Rajapaksa close to Colombo International Airport)

Sri Lanka may be a democracy on paper but if one went by the huge cutouts of its president Mahinda Rajapaksa, that are found everywhere, you'd be fooled into thinking it was an autocratic state. Our tour guide Prageeth, who also happened to be Lasith Malinga's cousin (degree of separation unknown), chattered on incessantly about the state of corruption in the country but the narcissism of the ruling government was apparent even if Prageeth had been a mute. Mahinda was everywhere, on 1000 rupee notes to hoardings for his airline Mihin Lanka(Mihin is another word for Mahinda), and the only thing more frequently spotted would have to have been the 7/11-like retail store, Cargills.

(A Rs 1000 note. We shit you not.)

That said, the government's work in providing world class infrastructure to the nation that had been ravaged by civil war and natural disaster, was remarkable. Most of our time was spent in Trincomalee, a city that had been disturbed for years by LTTE commandos, but had seen rapid development since 2009 with smoother roads than the Bandra Worli Sea Link, in even the most remote, rural parts. We stopped at a street stall in Kantale on our way back to Colombo for the yummiest yoghurt (laced with palm treacle) that I have ever had, and the owner told us stories of how they had to hide in the jungles every time LTTE soldiers passed by. The dark days may be over, but according to locals, not much has changed for the Tamil people who call several parts of the island their home. Prabhakaran may be dead, but some say that it's only a matter of time before another like him rises and civil unrest grips these paradise-like locales again.

We aren't in Kansas anymore

People in Mumbai are a lot to be pitied. Our idea of the beach is wading in ankle -deep into the always-gray waters at Girgaum, Juhu or Manori, or walking along the shore on a concretized walkway , turning our noses up at the smell of salt mingled with rotting trash. I grew up in Abu Dhabi where trips to the beach on Friday were common enough but even I don't remember a beach as pristine as the one I saw at Nilaveli. Folks may argue that the south of Goa has virgin stretches belonging to prominent resorts that would do us proud but this here in Sri Lanka, wasn't a fenced off part but an all-access public area where families and tourists rubbed shoulders comfortably without touts leaping at you or beggars heckling for alms. Our accommodation, the Nilaveli Beach Hotel, was a bit of national park in itself with langurs, squirrels and even the odd peahen, jostling for space outside our door that opened up to the sand and private hammocks. I'm a city girl; I like to stay on the promenade when others are getting their feet wet, but even I couldn't resist the draw and have returned with a fugly tan.

I'm also proud to say that I had the chance to snorkel in the waters of the Indian Ocean minus a lifejacket. I'm an exceptional Goan since most take to water like fish. However after nearly drowning in the DPC pool at Dubai when I was 10, I wasn't ever comfortable in the deep side again and petrified when it came to the ocean. It wasn't too much better when I jumped off the speedboat. Apart from vomiting violently in water that was several metres deep, I turned sharply for shore when the instructor pointed out a blacktip reef shark (harmless to humans, so they say) and nearly squished a bunch of fish when attempting to swim against a current, but I'm still telling the story to anyone who cares. Me! Alisha! Swimming! In the ocean! Woot!

(Fat chance trying to convince me that this isn't a dangerous animal)

Pigfest!

Anyone who knows me, knows I like bacon and the hotel did not disappoint. Every morning we woke up to a fantastic spread that included all the bacon you could eat. Of course, this proved disastrous on day two when I stuffed my face so full to put even Adam Richman to shame, and then threw up on the snorkelling instructor in the middle of the ocean. I ate in moderation thereafter, still keeping carbohydrates to a bare minimum but allowing for at least two hours before I went back into the water.

Sri Lankans eat a lot of Kankung (spelled most often and pronounced as 'Kankun'), a Chinese spinach that they serve sauteed with whole cloves of deep fried garlic. We happened to eat a lot of it and it was most often accompanied by chicken/pork/beef served 'devilled' or cooked in a spicy gravy. The other local delicacy we tried were hoppers, a sort of crispy appam with a soft centre that you ate with a garlic and chilli paste. I particularly liked this, it was everything a common man snack was supposed to be - fresh, flavourful, filling and most importantly, cheap.

(Kankung served 'devilled' with garlic at Trinco Village Cafe in Trincomalee)

Our brushes with seafood were strictly pedestrian, which was disappointing considering all we'd heard about the Lankan love for fish. The best thing I had was a grilled fillet of seer fish topped with garlic butter at our Trincomalee hotel but the rest was entirely forgettable.

Spice in Sri Lankan cuisine isn't designed to simply add flavour. It's meant to nuke your taste buds. A coconut sambol we had was the kind that made my friend break out into a sweat on a particularly pleasant morning. The sambar at the buffet, made presumably for the Indian guests at the hotel, was unbearably spicy and we had to swallow huge bites of bacon, not out of greed, but because we needed something oily and salty to help put out the fire in our mouths.

Okay. But maybe we were a just a little greedy too.

Dude, where's the dirt?

As Peter Rourke said, cleanliness becomes more important when godliness is unlikely. That bit of wisdom is wholly reflected in the streets of Colombo, and even the toniest suburbs of Mumbai would hardly be able to hold up a candle to it. How did this nation do it? It's less than a tenth in size in comparison to India with a population only a little more than Mumbai and yet their public systems seemed to be far superior. My friend argued that the comparison was unfair and that Mumbai had many more people to look after and care for that the local authorities in Colombo did. But I don't buy that theory. We have the richest municipal authority in the world and we are the largest contributor to the national exchequer, and yet we fall short.

(A street in downtown Colombo)

I have two hypotheses about why Sri Lanka does it better. The first is about having the chance to make a clean start. The tsunami of Christmas 2004 and civil war virtually reduced the livelihoods of citizens and infrastructure of the resource-rich country to smithereens. They have since had the chance to improve upon mistakes of the past, to make better what was worse and to rise, as corny as it sounds, like a phoenix from the ashes, much like Japan did after World War II and is continuing to do so after the tsunami from earlier this year.

The second is that of how autocracy, no matter how despicable it is sometimes, works to bring about efficient progress. We've seen how the world's largest democracy bungled up the Commonwealth Games and it's little wonder that FIFA awarded Russia and Qatar the rights to host the tournaments in 2018 and 2022 respectively, ignoring bids from countries like Britain and the United States. The press in the 'free world' might have gone to town with conspiracy theories about how these privileges were 'brought' by cash-rich nations but I suspect (and Time magazine does too) that they simply do a better job because when absolute rule is in play, there's a firm hand cracking a cruel whip, but the job gets done.

My wistful musings apart, I couldn't have asked for a better getaway - one done quite cheaply with great discounts offered by Kingfisher airlines and the absolute darling duo of Prageeth and our driver Michael (who'll have you know that he used to perform at Al Nasr Leisureland in Dubai and has cut an album) who were incredibly helpful.

(Here's a copy of Michael's album. We were luckier - we heard him in the flesh.)

Cheers to a bunch of memories that hopefully will live on long after all the sand's gone.

Grandma's delights

2011-06-23T13:55:00.006+05:30

So you know those stories about all the wonderful things that your grandmother used to rustle up in the kitchen for you when you were growing up?

Yeah, I have none of those.

My mother's mother is instead the kinds to dole out sensible advice and likes her fish fried to a crisp, which is just the way I like it too with no soggy middles. But labours of love that were fussed over for hours? If they ever were around, they've faded fast from memory. I listen with envy to folks who rave about slow cooked pot meals and cookies gobbled up before they had the chance to cool entirely on the rack, all courtesy their grandmothers.

A friend invited me to the preview of Rahul Akerkar's new menu at Indigo in Colaba. A quick search on the internet threw up reports of Akerkar being rather excited about his new offerings, including an offering he'd plucked out of his granny's recipe book: sea bass with shengachi aamti, a drumstick curry. Or as the chef himself described, fish with dal like his grandmother used to make it.

But it was one of those nights where we were at a table of hungry scribes all eager to taste as much they could from Akerkar's new exhaustive menu (21 choices for second course!) and someone had already called the fish. I settled for the duck.

Dinner started off on a rocky note. You see, I think that unless it was meant to be served cold, coffee and soup always need to reach your table steaming hot. Some may argue that you wouldn't want diners to scald their mouths at the first spoonful or sip, but this is soup for crying out loud and I don't think it's a tall order to expect it to be piping hot. The lobster bisque and tortellini in coriander chicken broth could have been the stuff liquid manna was made of, though lost out on top marks for being lukewarm.

Our first courses arrived, and this time they'd struck gold. The asparagus gnocchi was delightful even for a rabid meat-eater like me with a cold that was numbing my tastebuds. The other first course that stood out were the scallops with wasabi cream, and while I didn't particularly taste the wasabi (I again blame the sniffles), the seafood was cooked with the reverence that fantastic produce should evoke in fine dining chefs. On the flip side, my fellow diners didn't care for the palm hearts with spicy greens or the beet carpaccio that should have been more thinly sliced.

Our second entrees arrived and as I previously mentioned, I'd opted for the duck in an oriental sauce with spinach and a cauliflower mash on the side. I was disappointed. The meat seemed a tad overdone, chewy even, and I might be spoilt by all those crispy skin delights at Royal China, but this didn't hit the mark. The sea bass however had all the other diners humming contentedly. The pork chop (flown in from Coimbatore, we were told) was also delicious, fatty bites perfectly complimented by the tangy apple curry on the side. Another winner was the grilled chicken with a lime and coriander dressing, something that seemed pedestrian on the menu but was revelatory on the plate.

It was time for dessert and the gentlemen at our table (or just one) seemed to be the only ones not groaning about an already heavy belly. However, we seemed to order just about everything on the menu. I opted for the creme brulee, a "safe option" the waiter said in a stage whisper as he took my order, and I was not be disappointed. The jalapeno fondant, one of the few things that has survived from the old menu, was also a pleasant surprise but the crown jewel on the table last night was the apple shortbread - warm and comforting, just like you'd expect meals at Grandma's to be like.

I walked out of Indigo, smiling stupidly and slightly duck-footed, which should tell you much about the meal(and a little about me). But for a more composed review, go here and see photos of other things available on the menu below:

(The chocolate jalapeno fondant, salted toffee and lemon basil ice-cream)

(The potato and green garlic soup with shaved truffles and pine nuts)

(The tortellini of sweet potato and olives with arugula)

Found: A healthy beef burger

2011-06-14T18:17:00.004+05:30

So I stumbled upon a revelation on Monday night - a healthy beef burger that I liked!

I like stumbling. I've found that when I look up or am fiercely recommended a restaurant, my expectations rise to such gargantuan heights that I am next to always disappointed. Hakkasan, beware.

Stumbling, on the other hand, is an absolute delight. You're not only pleased with the food that doesn't taste like processed cardboard, but also happy that destiny decided that you needed a break.

I had the beef burger at Gostana on Monday night, and it certainly didn't look like anything to write home about. It came on a styrofoam plate, the kind that makes an appearance at impromptu weekend house parties or at Christmas when unwanted guests turn up at lunchtime. The epiphany came with the first bite. The meat was soft, so wonderfully spiced, that it's now wrestling for top spot in the list of my all-time favourite fast food experiences.

But because I doubt that bacon will ever be making an appearance on a menu that preaches good health, the undisputed king still remains Burger King's bacon cheeseburger.

Pity. It was really that close.

If Only

2011-06-13T11:20:00.003+05:30

So I wrote my first obit this weekend. I didn't enjoy it.

The gentleman in question and I were hardly fast friends. To write about him, after he had been murdered, was hard. Every uncharitable thought that I'd ever had of him, kept cropping up, making me cringe.

I attended his funeral on Sunday morning and as gut-wrenching it was to see his mother cry and his wife look shell-shocked, I felt worst for myself - that I no longer had the opportunity to improve my acquaintance with him.

Mercedes Lackey was right. If only. Those must be the two saddest words in the world.

Oprah Winfrey: MY favourite things

2011-05-26T18:08:00.006+05:30

So after 25 long years, The Oprah Winfrey Show's finally come to an end and I regretfully have to strike 'appearing on an episode of Oprah's Favourite Things' off my list of Things To Do Before I Die.

Oprah was one of the few things that my mum and I could agree to peacefully watch together without having to whinge about how retarded the other's television tastes were. It was also something that most broadcasters in the UAE could telecast without cuts and at one time, at least four channels in the basic eVision package provided by cable operators Etisalat, were airing reruns from various seasons.

Some of the episodes(and there were a lot) have left a more lasting impression than others. Here are some of my favourite Oprah moments:

The Bra Intervention episode
Confession - for a really long period of time, I simply assumed that there was no other cup size to bras other than a B. That was, of course, until this episode where Winfrey helped women find lingerie that fit them right. Of course, it made precious little difference considering that the stores never seemed to stock anything but the standard B sizes, though it was enlightening and maybe a bit relieving to know that a bra that would fit perfectly did exist somewhere out there.

The Choking Game episode
As all siblings the world over, my brothers and I were hardly the kinds who wouldn't punch, kick, bite, pinch, scream and occasionally, choke, when we were mad at each other. It was only natural I thought, and then not so much after I watched this episode where children playing the 'choking game' (that'd temporarily cut oxygen to the brain thereby making them feel light-headed) had died because someone had held on for only seconds too long. It was an episode that had even my otherwise-nonchalant father, hooked and I won't forget the faces of the parents who had lost their son any time soon.

The Neti Pot episode
Anyone who knows me, knows about my constant battles with a blocked nasal passage. And so it was one of those days when I was watching TV with my parents after dinner surrounded by heaps of used tissue (and some up a leaky nostril), when the very dashing Dr Mehmet Oz pulled out a nondescript object and told Winfrey that this was manna to the sniffling Israelites. The Neti Pot was a teapot-shaped device that would enable the user to pass warm saline solution through the nasal passage to clear out any built-up mucus there for instant relief. Having tried it only once, I can say that Oz was not lying but I have never managed to find it in pharmacies anywhere. Still a recommendation on Oprah has to count for something right? I'm still crossing my fingers that it turns up on a shelf near me sometime soon.

The Aishwarya Rai episode
The Rai, not the Rai-Bachchan one. Personally, the beauty queen I adore from 1994 was Sush, who failed to launch big in tinsel town, but still remains a clear favourite. So it was hugely satisfying, if not just a tad sadistic, to watch Ash giggle like a loon and deliver blonde monosyllabic answers. Even a title holder with an accompanying translator would have done better.

All the Oprah's Favourite Things episode
I didn't believe in Santa, but if I did, he'd have a face and body like Winfrey's. Every year I'd watch in disbelief as she doled out the most extravagant things to EVERY member of the audience present in the studio that day. And I would never tire of watching the reruns either. Back in the day, when it was customary to go to church every Friday or Sunday, I remember even praying once at mass after communion for a chance to watch that show live.

It didn't happen. And yet, it doesn't matter. Thank you Oprah. For all those wonderful TV moments and more.

Taste off: McDonalds McSpicy versus KFC Hot Zinger

2011-05-03T19:43:00.007+05:30

So, even as I write this, a chicken burger is still a compromise. The gallus gallus domesticus, as God intended it to be enjoyed by man, is best when grilled, roasted or deep fried in flour batter. A pox on the man who first decided that the sweepings of an abattoir could be reprocessed into what would be sold to the world in the guise of a chicken burger or frankfurter roll. But these are strange times, and we in India live in a stranger beef-free cosmos, and hence when one corporation decided to pit its regurgitated offering against the competition's, it had to be chicken.

McDonalds introduced its highly hyped(though scarcely available) Chicken McSpicy burger during Lent and hence I was forced to help myself to its cousin, the Paneer McSpicy, as I waited for that Paschal candle to be lit. However my inability to find a store that could sell me a burger was harder and after trying at two places(Mumbai Central and CST), I was resigned to give the Zinger a go first.

I have long avoided the Zinger at KFC in India since I found out that they did not have the Zinger Supreme on the menu. Anyone who's tried that 6" monster with chicken ham and cheese sandwiching a spicy breast, can agree that they'd clean give the pedestrian burger a miss. But something had changed on my television over the last few weeks. KFC had launched a spin off on their signature burger, the Hot Zinger (Rs 89, before taxes), priced tantalisingly similar to the McSpicy(Rs 89, with taxes), and the ads were better that the operatic buffoonery of the McDonalds spot.

And so began the taste off. The Hot Zinger looked wonderful. The lettuce was green, the chicken looked good and there was a definite crunch to the first bite. A friend who accompanied me on the taste test said that the bread was crumbly, but I didn't think that this was a deal breaker. What I was more bothered about was where the hot sauce was. The burger in the ad looked positively oozy. Mine was anything but. My threshold for spice is remarkably low (albeit, by my Goan parents' standards) but this wasn't packing a punch. And certainly not an accent-altering one.

My hunt for the Chicken McSpicy finally ended at Andheri station, though the outlet was packed to bursting point and I had to order it to go. The long ride from the station to Lokhandwala worried me about how the burger would taste but I thought that it would be far more unfair to eat it in on the long, rickety ride.

We finally touched stable ground and I pulled it out, surprised that it was still warm. Sure it looked a little worse for wear given the endless detours the autorickshaw had to take to get to Point B but it hadn't lost all its crunch on the ride.

And the chicken tasted good. It was moist, something I've come to stop expecting since my habituation to the McChicken burger. Also there was heaps of sauce, making the experience a tad messy, though hugely satisfying. The sauce wasn't as overbearing as I thought it would be and I certainly wasn't breaking into song after a bite. In all, it was fast food well meant - to satiate hunger and sodium needs.

Winner? The McSpicy. It delivered what its name said it would and while the Hot Zinger was a very good burger, it wasn't flavourful enough. The only thing that McD’s needs to work on now, is ensuring that the McSpicy is actually available for hungry customers when they ask for it. And then, they might finally have a true winner on their hands.

My wedding dress wishlist for Kate

2011-04-26T16:37:00.018+05:30

So call me HHC-inspired or plain bored if you please, but with three days to go and still no word on who'll be designing her dress, I've put together my own little wishlist for the gown that princess-in-waiting Kate will wear on Friday. So here's hoping with bated breath...

#1 That she'll wear her hair down unlike...

Lara Dutta

Call me unconventional but nothing kills a beautiful veil or tiara like a beehive on your head. Yes, I understand that an updo is often necessary to keep the damn thing firmly perched on your crown but there's something wispy and romantic about hair framing your face that a Maharashtrian-style ambada could never spell. Mrs Bhupathi must have also fallen for the logic of it all, given she had to balance a Miss Universe crown on her pretty head for a year, but it didn't work for me. The solution, I think, is to have a half-up, half-down style that makes place for the pins and allows your mane to flow out nicely.

#2 That she'll go full sleeves or none at all unlike...

Amrita Arora

Again, this is personal prejudice at play but I hate half sleeves on a gown. It's the most formal occasion of your life and the sleeve that ends above your elbow is just a tad too casual for a day like so. If Kate does decide to go for a full-sleeved look, here's hoping it's a-la Jennifer Lopez from when she married Chris Judd. Classy to the power of infinity.

#3 That her dress won't be all washed out unlike...

Stephanie Seymour

Yes, yes, it was only a music video but Seymour's dress from the Guns n' Roses November Rain single inspired a huge number of knock-offs. Rain threatens to play spoiler at the royal wedding on Friday but here's praying that the hemline firmly remains where it should stay - below the ankle

#4 That she won't be lost in a sea of tulle unlike...

Princess Diana

She's wearing her ring but let's hope Kate doesn't seek inspiration from her late mother-in-law's wedding dress too. Yes, Diana was breathtaking but that's all that saved this look. The exaggerated mutton sleeves, the 25-foot long train, that cut up could clothe every inhabitant in Ralegaon Siddhi, and the tulle petticoat, were one too many fairytale wedding gowns - all rolled into one.

That's not asking much. However I will rest assured, that even none of these come true, she'll still pass go. After all, she ain't no Camilla Parker-Bowles.

Update: And Princess Catherine scored full marks on this one! Her hemline wasn't ever going to rise too much above her ankle but she a) wore her hair down with a stunning Cartier 'halo' tiara, b) went for a full-sleeved gown by Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen that was a little like J.Lo's(see above) and, c) there was no tulle in sight! I could have shed a tear if I wasn't smirking at the big canary at the Abbey that was the Queen. Sorry for the earlier barb Camilla; you trumped her well and good this time.

Bidding adieu to the MiD DAY Mate

2011-04-06T18:37:00.012+05:30

So MiD DAY has decided to discontinue the MiD DAY Mate. I will miss her.

Why, you ask? Why would an independent, working girl like myself, espouse the cause of a bikini-clad, Caucasian woman, for whom her story (if it were destined for page 3) would be mercilessly shortened? Why would a reporter like I, in endless pursuit of the bigger story, endorse inches on a page intended not to inform or educate, but to excite and titillate?

Because she was an institution, one at par with RK Laxman's work 'The Common Man' or Khushwant Singh's column 'With Malice towards One and All'. Because of her purpose, the comparisons may invite ire but she shared the same characteristics that defined the others - she was always hugely entertaining and unapologetic.

In journalism school, I was taught about a chasm between broadsheets and tabloids. Broadsheets carried 'serious' news, the kinds our dads would read at the breakfast table and shake their heads at while bemoaning the state of affairs our country had come to. Tabloids on the other hand, was where the sleaze and screaming headlines came to stay. Those lines have long blurred. A story about a bar where a fight broke out between revelers because they couldn't choose between Munni and Sheila makes it to the front page of a broadsheet, while a story about the shocking real estate value of slums in Mumbai makes for three pages in a tabloid. The only rule remains is that there are no rules and it has predictably come to this in the newsroom of the 21st century where terms like 'readership', 'demographic' and 'advertisers' often come up in news discussions during the day. The Mate though, made that distinction clear and I never thought that it took away from a serious, hard-hitting story.

I worked at MiD DAY for three years (I don't anymore) where I fought for this girl. Angry readers, mostly mothers, would often call to complain that they couldn't bring the paper home anymore because of the Mates. There were two then, one on page two and one on the front page of the classifieds supplement. Mummies would call in to wail and say things like, "What disgusting photos. You, a woman, must understand how ashamed we feel." Having already been lectured that I couldn't tell these callers to sod off, I would bite my tongue and gently coo that there was little we could do and then encourage them to write to the editor.

I loved her. I was coy about revealing the identity of the man who chose a Mate every day (and I'll still keep your secret, Mr P). The paper had fun with her, like in the anti-smoking campaign, where they blurred the image and a caption read, 'Smoking causes blindness. Stop smoking to really enjoy the MiD DAY Mate' (or something to that effect). They even introduced a QR code with the picture in the paper to let people enjoy more photos if they so wished. She was truly revolutionary - this woman in an itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny, though not always a yellow polka-dot bikini.

Her clothes always stayed on unlike the girl in The Sun. Of course, there were times when the bosses would gently reprimand the desk for choosing a babe wearing a bunch of shoelaces parading as a swimsuit. "Keep those for private viewing," said one editor at a news meeting. "But ensure that the one that goes in the papers has all the, ahem, essentials covered up."

And then, there were the stories. The tales of men who had folder upon folder of the MiD DAY Mates cut out and neatly filed chronologically. The callers who would phone in to reprimand us that the Mate we had used today was the same we had used six months ago. Once, a crime reporter came in to say that in some neighbourhood in Kurla, cut-outs of the Mates were being sold for Rs 2 a picture - two-thirds the cost of the entire publication itself. Urban legends or otherwise, they all lent to her greatness.

Raise your glasses, coffee mugs and PET water bottles to her, all and sundry. The Mate is dead. May she live on in your memories forever.

Lenten musings

2011-04-04T15:17:00.003+05:30

So we're halfway through Lent and I'm already making a list of things I will do on Easter. Mass could possibly be one of the many, though no promises Mum.

#1: I will cram in all the bacon that my mouth can possibly take when I wake up that morning

#2: I will have a Flaming Lamborghini in honour of Team India's victory

#3: I will dial 66-000-666 and NOT order a McVeggie

#4: I will also try the new McSpicy burger

#5: I will go to California Pizza Kitchen, their ovens will be working and I will order the Meat Cravers pizza

#6: I will visit Mondegar's and wipe the frowns off the faces of all the waiters there who know me by ordering the Down-a-Six

#7: I will order a paneer roll at Bade Miyan's and then mock it by leaving it untouched while I enjoy two, no, FIVE plates of seekh kebabs

#8: I will be the nicest me you've known in the last forty days

#9: I will not stalk people smelling of a meaty lunch

#10: I will not so much as look at a Sambuca bottle for fear of what happened last year

Of course, none of this is set in stone. Well, maybe the bacon one.

Stick Men Will Rule The World

2011-03-28T14:06:00.003+05:30

So stuff like this(and see below) are only reaffirmations about how stick men are the shit. High fives all around from one spindly arm to another...

Btw, I'm still doubling over after the bit that refers to the synonym for 'baby cat'. And I'm assuming that if you like this space, you'll get it and enjoy it too!

Surviving A Common Cold

2011-02-25T21:18:00.006+05:30

So first - a disclaimer.

I may have been a health reporter for three years but don’t take a single word as the gospel truth. Had I been any smarter about my health, I would have been so pumped up with Vitamin C, that this day and this blog would never have come around.

You see, common cold and I have been good friends for years now and so when I turn up at work and parties with a nose to give Rudolph a run for his money, everyone’s sympathetic but no one’s really surprised. They are all however, full of unhelpful theories about how my predicament came along and how it can be solved. I therefore present to you, my personal survival guide to hell and back. It’s a bit long, a bit rant-y, so there, you have been warned.

Colds are caused by viruses
Ladies, gentlemen and mummies of the world, a cold is caused by a virus. And Wikipedia isn’t the only one to say it. It is NOT caused by cold drinks, ice, sherbet and ice cream. It is NOT caused from sitting under a draft for too long. It is NOT caused because I forgot to wear a sweater today. It is caused by the airborne transmission of a virus from person to person. Stop tormenting your friends and families about how their bout of the sniffles is because they knocked back a whiskey and cola last night that was topped with ice. They are more likely to have caught it from you when you were coughing up a storm last week.

Warm things help
Now while ice isn’t exactly what caused your cold, it’s not going to help you either. Stock up on warm stuff like soup, milk (I give it a miss since I’m a bit lactose intolerant), tea, coffee or just plain warm water. Also throw on a sweater and socks for good measure. A bad cold may or may not cause fever but you’ll be too bone tired from all the sneezing when you wake up freezing in the middle of the night. Going hunting for a wooly jacket and knee high socks at that time is far likely to grate on your nerves than it would before you took a nap.

Tissues v/s Handkerchiefs
Personally I’m a tissue person. While a hanky doesn’t exactly go to shreds once you’ve sneezed into it thrice, what are you going to do when it’s completely wet? Wring the snot out and drape it over your seat to dry? That’s social harakiri right there. Plus, I find that with most hankies, the cotton tends to irritate my nose a lot more than tissue does.

With tissues it’s important to be particular too. There’s 5-ply stuff being sold in the market but in my opinion, 3-ply will do just fine. Also if you’re taking tissues out with you, never stack them all up and fold together. When you need to grab one quickly just as a big sneeze is coming on, you’ll find yourself having to unfold the entire stack and in haste, may grab a single ply that will result in most of the snot landing in your hand. Bunch them up in a loose pile that goes either into the outermost pocket of your bag (ladies) or into your front pant pocket (gentlemen). That way, your tissue will be all scrunched up when it comes out but at least it’ll be whole to do the business it was brought along for.

I, for one, like Olivia tissue that is manufactured by Pramukh Paper. 50 pulls come in a little compact box that goes into my bag and sits fine on my desk. NEVER USE TISSUE FROM MCDONALDS or any other restaurant. The stuff is guaranteed to sandpaper the skin off your nose. When lost for options, get to a pharmacy and ask for a 2-ply or 3-ply toilet roll. The tissue, I find, is kind on your nose but if you’re a bit worried about what your friends might think, pull out a long length, break into bits and carry around like mentioned above.

Entertainment
If you’re like me and the sneezing usually results in your eyes brimming over and brings a migraine straight out of the recesses of Lucifer’s mind, skip reading. And television. And your computer (this is painful, I kid you not). Try music that requires only your sense of hearing. I find that a good compilation of the latest pop music (think Bruno Mars, Taylor Swift, Usher) at a tolerable volume works fine. Nothing trance-y or heavy metal like for me, but hey, if that’s your thing, go for it. The idea is to distract yourself from wanting to yank your head off.

Take some medication
But approach with caution. After many doctors and many different prescriptions, I find that Vicks Action 500 works for me but don’t pop it because it does me good. Some medication may work aversely if you have an underlying chronic condition like diabetes or hypertension. Be sure to pop pills or take syrup only after you’ve force-fed yourself something. And sleep. Yes, the advice that Oz gave out on Oprah all those years and got a big, fat pay cheque for. It works.

Don’t take any medication
You need to determine whether your cold is caused by a virus or simply an allergic reaction before you reach for the medicine box. Most mornings, I wake up with a heavy head that I find clears right up once I leave the dust bunny that is my room. So is your cold really one that’s a result of spring cleaning or an annoying virus hanging about in the air? These are questions only you can answer.

Also while Vitamin C could do wonders for your immune system BEFORE you caught this cold, it’s not going to do a thing once you’ve got it. So put all those fizzy Vitamin C tablets back in the cupboard, unless you like how it tastes and enjoy seeing it dissolve at the bottom of a clear glass (don’t judge me).

Keep a low profile
Of course, the wonderful thing to do would be to take a bunch of days off work to recover. But if you, like me, live in the real world where sick leave is frowned upon unless it happens to fall on the day that is your weekly off, arm yourself with what you need and march on to work. Don’t be an eager beaver at the office though. While your colleagues and boss may look sympathetic that your sneezing is louder than a fog horn, it’s not pleasant. And cover your face while you sneeze/cough/do anything that releases phlegm. If you don’t, the office will soon be a hot bed of common cold (oxymoronic as that sounds) and then your colleagues will really hate you. Unless they do already, in which case, I suggest checking around all corners while walking down a lonely street.

God did not give you this cold
For years when we were growing up, our Tamilian maid would make us stand bare-footed in the kitchen and wave red chillies and salt over our heads to ward the evil spirits away that were ‘responsible’ for the sniffles. Later when she left, my mother took it right up, waving the chilies and salt but making us recite the ‘Hail Mary’ thrice so that it felt less pagan-like. Note: Neither of the offerings ever brought any relief so you can take that piece of ginger, lemon or chilli, out from underneath your pillow now. It’s not going to help.

This blog of my experience comes after nearly 48 hours of heavy-head, runny-nose and sore-throat hell. It is a thank you and a bugger off to the well wishers with ready advice. It is also a ‘get well soon’ to you. Don’t have a cold? You soon will, my friend.

When Cricket Strikes

2011-02-25T14:50:00.013+05:30

So anyone who knows me, knows I don't like cricket. You didn't? Stop trying to add me on Facebook already then!

Anyhoo. I dislike the game. No saat janam ki nafrat here. But it's a tad annoying, especially when the Cricket World Cup happens to be taking place in your backyard and all the numbers say that content on cricket is the key to increased traffic.

And so I tried. I've put the funniest ones up here, and you can see the rest here. Feedback appreciated; you CAN be cruel.

A mockery of Bahrain

2011-02-18T11:43:00.004+05:30

So I've been monitoring the Bahrain situation pretty closely since protests broke out on Valentine's Day. As of Thursday evening, the death toll in the Manama rose to five and as I write this, Al Jazeera tweets that the military has imposed a lockdown on the capital city following a pre-dawn assault on demonstrators.

At a time like this you'd think that the unshackled media of a country like India would be in full support of a tiny nation fighting for freedom from oppression very much in the same manner that we did back in the 1940s. However this is what I read on Friday morning, that got me hopping mad.

DNA declares itself as Mumbai's fastest growing newspaper. It only recently did away with its editorial columns arguing that opinion and fact needed to present itself through all the pages and not turn into a blind spot sandwiched between city and nation pages. I wonder how this article passed go.

Here are only some gems from the aforementioned piece:

Indians working in the Gulf state are looking at these developments as a bit of a nuisance that will just have to be tolerated

Cherison, who runs an ad agency, had to give his employees the day off, but that isn’t the only reason he feels resentful — "The malls are shut and the highways and roads are blocked."

Well, boo-fucking-hoo. It's too bad you can't go to all of the end-of-season sales at the malls. The same gentleman quoted also had this to say about the protestors.

On his way to work on Wednesday morning, Cherison spotted more than 400 protesters in pitched tents at the Pearl Roundabout. “It was like a semi picnic area,” he recalls.

I may be no expert to comment on the state of affairs between the Shia majority and the ruling Sunni divisions in Bahrain. But it's a crying shame when a media house of the world's largest democracy mocks a movement for freedom, calling the sacrifice of the five protestors in Bahrain and hundreds in Egypt, a 'contagion'.

Adams till he dies (?)

2011-02-11T17:13:00.003+05:30

So maybe that's a bit extreme. But I am heading to the Bryan Adams concert this weekend and fending off jeers and boos.

It's been manic. "Bryan Adams? Sheesh. Why don't you listen to some real music?", "Bryan Adams again? Why don't they get some class acts to India already?" and "Bryan Adams? Haha. He used to be on my playlist in the 1990s!" are only some of the many things I've had to hear in the week that led up to this Saturday. There were the smart asses on Twitter (One more concert and Bryan Adams will be eligible for a PIO [Person of Indian Origin] card!) and others on Facebook (So, since Bryan Adam's is a PETA activist, Food in the VVIP tent is apparently going to be pure veg. What a joke right? Rs. 10,000 passes and veg food. I am going to faint inside).

Bryan Adams' detractors aren't wrong. He is old; he will turn 52 this year, an age that's alarmingly close to my mum's. He hasn't had a number one, top 10 or top 50 single since 2005, unless you'd like to count his performance on the Belgian charts. His set list is bound to include hit singles that are fixtures at house parties, Mumbai pubs and college festivals. Your parents like him too.

But let's look at why Bryan Adams is still a hot Indian favourite and rightly so. English international music was far more alive in Adams' glory days of the 80s and 90s than it is right now. There isn't a single radio station in Mumbai that plays English music dominantly apart from AIR FM Rainbow (107.1 FM) that manages to juggle some sort of 60:40 balance between Hindi hits and English music but does so with poor production values. Music channels like MTV and Channel V have turned into GEC (General Entertainment Channels) that show more reality TV than they do music. New english music is the luxury of a minute group of metro-residing, English-speaking, young individuals with high speed internet access. And that isn't a lot.

Bryan Adams though? You remember him. You remember the news of his concerts from way back in 1994 when he performed at Brabourne stadium in Mumbai. You do know ALL the words to more than one of his singles. Heck, you may even have bought an album before Napster came along in 1998.

He's also no one trick pony. As of reports from 2010, Adams' net worth is more than $40 million, a figure that's got a lot of zeros when you convert it into Indian rupees. He's collaborated with the kinds of Rod Stewart, Sting and flamenco great, Paco de Lucia and has had numerous Golden Globes and Academy Awards nominations. I'm missing the part about how he's "such a loser, ya" but maybe you've got some sound arguments. Maybe.

If anything, should you mock Bryan Adams, do so for his personal hygiene habits. You'd think that a millionaire would carry around an extra pair of socks at all times.

MMRDA grounds. 7pm. February 13. I'll be there. Will you?

Starbucks' New Logo

2011-01-11T15:05:00.009+05:30

So I certainly didn't ever attend Advertising 1.0 but I wonder how Starbuck's new logo is going to go down with the desi masses when it finally deigns to descend upon India.

For the uninitiated, Starbucks is an international chain that sells coffee. Expensive coffee. A 'tall' (oxymoronic because that's the smallest size), 'skinny' mochachino used to cost Dhs 12 when I lived in Abu Dhabi. Which was ridiculous because a chicken shawarma cost only Dhs 3 and a 'Snack Box' from KFC cost you Dhs 9 for two pieces of chicken, fries and a bun. But you still had to have it because all the cool kids did.

Starbucks has been mulling an entry into Indian markets for a while now. In December they again renewed rumours by bringing this up. Then came the news that they were deciding to drop text off their famous logo, making it go from this...

To this.

Colour me blind, but this new avatar hardly befits a coffee brand. The first logo, with its signature naked mermaid, didn't make sense either but it did have the brand's name on it, thereby making it pretty self-explanatory.

The new logo is also green. When I look at the colour green and think of products in the Indian market that associate itself with the hue, I don't think coffee.

I think Mortein coil.

I think Kingfisher beer.

I think Pudin Hara.

Coffee? Green? Negative. Or maybe it was a spot waiting to be taken since orange, red and some colour in the same family had already been scooped up.

R.I.P. Vivek Shauq

2011-01-11T11:08:00.004+05:30

So sorry Mr Shauq, I did not know you.

My childhood TV memories are of Peter Arnett in Baghdad, Captain Majed a.k.a Tsubasa and Channel 33.

Wiki tells me that your series, Flop Show, began airing in 1989 but we only got a set-top box in 1995 at our home in Abu Dhabi. There was precious little it gave us but Zee TV and Star World made us happy enough. You see, those were the days when kids actually went out to play.

I am however, amazed at the generous tributes that fans have made out to you since your unfortunate demise on Monday.

Let therefore, my first resolution of 2011 be to find and watch an episode of 'Flop Show' before the year ends.

A better tribute to you may be found here.

Rest in peace, Vivek Shauq.

Fashion Disaster : Rekha

2011-01-06T10:24:00.013+05:30

So fashion hari-kiri or getting dressed with a hangover in the dark? I can't really tell after looking at pictures of Rekha from the red carpet premiere of No One Killed Jessica.

With no Jagdish Mali to tone up her photos this time, it's quite frankly a little distressing to see the superstar of yore in what seems to be the first Bollywood Bjork moment of 2011.

Let's decode her outfit of horrors. First come the shades...

...so à la Aishwarya Rai-Bachchan at an awards function many years ago. We do hope that the sunnies are only out at an evening event to cover up the bags under Rekhaji's eyes.

Then comes the shoes (!)...

...black chunky sneakers that should have gone through an incinerator in the 1980s. Was she trying to make a statement? It's more likely that she was hoping to catch up on her workout on the red carpet.

We almost feel sorry for the Louis Vuitton Speedy bag here...

I'm sure that if bags could emote, this tote was weeping tears of shame when Madam X dug it out of the recesses of her closet to pair it up with all the aforementioned items.

All in all, an evening of revelations for Rekha fans and those not, alike. Even Amitabh Bachchan who came dressed like a Backstreet Boy, probably went home grateful for his stylist...and for the woman he married.

How to make a liquor consumption permit in Mumbai

2010-12-31T11:47:00.008+05:30

{An update on the update! Only a week ago, a blog about a raid at an Andheri pub hit the headlines bringing up yet again the big question about drinking without a permit in the city. Following the outrage over the same, I came across another informative article on the drinking rules in the city, and have updated the cost of drinking permits below for you. For the rest, read this.}

[update: So since this post, two things have happened. For starters, thank you Rachel Lopez. The citation to her article below now leads you to the original story on the website. Second, there does exist with the Excise department a revolutionary yellow ticket called the single day drinking permit. How you apply for it, I do not know. I do however remember the fantastic guys at Woodside Inn in Colaba giving every person who walked into their club on New Year's Eve, an individual ticket. Kudos!]

So the other day I read an alarming article in the most recent issue of Time Out Mumbai about carrying booze in the train and so I thought it'd probably be a good idea to put this out in public interest.

Now even though Time Out is a very good magazine, it has a poorly updated website and after searching for a while, I am still unable to find a URL for you readers and hence can only cite the reference to the article in the December 24 issue, What's Up With That? by Rachel Lopez, as so.

Moving along, the article says that the recently turned-conscientious cops with the Mumbai Railways have been ambling along platforms and bogeys forcing commuters who look like they're off to a party, to hand over their belongings to check for bottles of alcohol. Now if you are found "guilty" (I'll explain the quote marks later) of carrying booze, you're asked to fork over a bribe to the cop who patiently explains that this is a 'flammable' substance, thereby making it illegal to carry it aboard the train. The increasing number of such incidents have now forced wine shops in the city to paper their store walls with signs telling customers to note down the officer's belt buckle number and to call the store to find out about how to make a complaint against the cop.

Why? Well, because a bottle of booze (you may disagree) is NOT an 'explosive' substance. The good ol' chaps at the Excise department say so too. However you do need a liquor permit to carry it along with you and you're allowed to now buy two bottles every week as per the new regulations.

The thing is, that this handy little permit is also the stuff that you need to enjoy a drink at your local watering hole and while a whopping 56 lakh people drink in this city, I'm willing to wager big money that less than 30 per cent of that population's got that license. The trouble also is that being caught without a permit can land you in the slammer, because carting around bubbly without a permit is soon to become a non-bailable offence.

So how exactly do you get your grubby little hands on a permit? The rules state that any person above the age of 25, can put in an application to the Collector of Mumbai City or to the Superintendent of State Excise Mumbai. Some of the centres you can apply at are the Boribunder excise office, the Opera House excise office, the office of the Superintendent of State Excise at Old Custom House in Fort and the office of the District Superintendent at Meeth Bunder road in Thane. You apparently make out a form, affix a Re.1 Court Fee Stamp to the application, present it personally to the authorized officer, fork out Rs 100 for a license for one year or Rs 1000, for a lifetime one, and wham (!), you're supposed to get the permit immediately upon submission.

Now while your chances of scoring a permit this New Year's weekend will be slim, I suggest that you do hop over to the office closest to you on the first Monday of the new year to make one. Better safe than sorry and the view on this side of a station lock-up is so much better. Go to the state excise department's site for the form or click here for the same.

And have a fantastic New Year!

Why I hate New Year's Eve..

2010-12-29T20:07:00.002+05:30

So I've been around enough people who live away from home (being so myself) who look forward to family holidays with dread but nothing fills me up with trepidation as the rundown to the big daddy of them all.

New Year's Eve. NYE. December 31. The stroke of midnight. The falling ball. The countdown to 12. Party poppers. The phone calls. The hugs. And the hangover from hell the morning after.

Poor Pope Pope Gregory the 13th. His idea to introduce a standard calendar to figure out when the year began and ended is widely hailed as his finest achievement, paling even all of his other attempts to reform the Catholic Church that was the symbol of hedonism in the 16th century. However if the erstwhile messenger of Christ was alive today, he'd be squirming in his Papal Seat at the turn of the year that's turned into everyone's favourite time to wring people dry of money with the promises of a night of inane debauchery.

Last year, I spent Rs 9000 for a night that I spent squashed against a wall in a bar with dark wood panels that impaired my already compromised senses. I asked a gentleman wearing a white and black checkered scarf if he was paying tribute to Yasser Arafat for the evening and fought with a boy who insisted on fiddling with the air conditioner's vents in a steamy closet of a room where I couldn't breathe but where he, apparently, was catching a chill. I woke up and headed to work with the hangover to beat all hangovers and regret at all the alerts my bank sent me through the day to remind me about how much money I had spent during the evening. Was I happier that the year had begun like so? Heck, no. If anything I had squandered away a sizeable chunk of my salary and spent the first week of 2010 tottering around zombie-like, trying to shake off the last remnants of the migraine from hell.

Parties on New Year's Eve are overrated. Today morning, I read in the local papers about a Joe Blow from Bandra who stows away Rs 40,000 to spend for the night. Contemplatively, the most fun I've ever had in the last five years was at a formal sit-down event with my parents in the same room. No one at that party hurled, people left before the clock struck 3 and I actually had a full plate of food and went back to the buffet for seconds. But somehow in the big cities, and I say this relatively since Abu Dhabi can no longer be called the humble cousin of Dubai, the parties get wilder, more expensive and yet, leave you feeling oddly hollow.

Take Goa, for example. Six years ago, I was at party central in the state (read: Baga Beach) drawing circles in the sand outside a shack on the waterfront with the only celeb in sight being the man who played Nandu in Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin. Where were all the beautiful people who supposedly, had thronged to the northern shores for a night of fun and frolic? A friend from Canada and her cousin were also bewildered at the state of affairs, finally joining me in attempting to dig a hole in the beach that would lead us to China. Our sense of purpose occupied us fine until some cops shooed us away.

So what will I do this NYE? Set a spending limit, go to a place where I'll have an arm's length of breathing space around me, eat a good (if not great) meal, switch to juice after a few and wake up with a smile to greet the first rays of sunshine of 2011.

And hope that even part of this plan works out as it reads here.

J D Salinger's very best

2010-12-15T17:52:00.002+05:30

So I hated 'Catcher in the Rye' and for the longest time, I hated Salinger too.

And then I read this . And now I'm a fan and I want to read 'Catcher...' again.

What a lot can change in fifteen minutes.

When saying goodbye is hard...and easy

2010-12-14T13:25:00.003+05:30

So thus ends another significant chapter in my life, one that's brought so many changes to the personal in spite of it needing to stay professional.

Will I regret it? Never. Would I want to go back and do it all over again? God, yes. So do I have to move on then? Abso-bloody-lutely.

Change is the only constant. So for better or worse, cheers to moving away and moving on.

NDTV / Open Magazine Face-off

2010-12-01T15:51:00.012+05:30

So when all the dust has cleared and all the parties spoken for, who will have emerged the winner? The answer remains mired in gray even as rejoinder upon rejoinder is issued in the 2G spectrum tapes scam.

For instance last night's episode of The Buck Stops Here on NDTV may have been a brave attempt by the Roys to give their prodigious reporter a chance to explain her encouraging drawl when addressing the empress of all spin doctors, but it sure as hell was painful to watch. From personal attacks ("Manu, I don't think you quite understand how political journalism works") to comical allegations of misogyny on the part of the male panelists, this was Barkha at her worst - foaming at the mouth, teary eyed, vindictive and with bad (or no?) makeup.

To be fair, Manu Joseph wasn't painting a great picture either. His accent sounded like it was straight out of a period film, his sole intention seemed to be continuously wanting to badger Barkha into answering the one question he had already reiterated in the latest edition of his magazine (on why Barkha hadn't done a story on Radia herself) and while his comments on Barkha's pretty face were hardly misogynistic, they were petty as was snarkily telling Sonia Singh and Barkha that this was 'their channel' and they could say what they wanted, and pointing out the poor man hopping around with the placard to tell everyone that time was running out.

In the end the journalist like me, who's at the bottom at the food chain, misses out. My mother called me this morning to say that she'd found the show foolish, a shouting match more befitting an episode of Ricki Lake than on the 'last surviving channel where the news made sense at a pitch that could be tolerated'. Her words, not mine but it is reflective of a general disdain for all media in the last fortnight since the controversy has played out, and it is one that is quite gloomy for those in, and looking to be part of the fourth estate in India.

Barkha and Manu had already made it even before A Raja had appeared on the horizon but what of all the journalists they leave in their wake to deal with a disgruntled audience who watches a circus like they did last night?

I wish they'd let Sanjaya Baru talk a bit more. And made Barkha and Manu listen. Because sometimes it is just the best option to say sorry and move on.

Spot the Difference

2010-11-20T16:18:00.012+05:30

So if similar colours weren't enough already, Airtel India's gone from this logo :

To this new one :

And while I quite like the tune for their video calling advertisement, I wonder why they did it, as the competition's logo looks likes this :

Well, change is the only constant. So let's just hope customers wanting a Cornetto aren't thrown off. Why, you ask?

Harry Potter - Still Safe in My Mind

2010-11-20T14:39:00.006+05:30

So the end is here. And nowhere is safe.

I watched the first part of the final installment of the Harry Potter movie series yesterday with a lump in my throat at Cinemax Sion. This is in no way any compliment to Yates, against whom I am not a little prejudiced ever since they let Cuarón direct The Prisoner of Azkaban and gave the heave-ho to later. But there was still that lump, the one that forms when the end of any beloved series draws to a close and fans are awash with nostalgia, reminiscing about all that was, or in the case of the movies, of all that wasn't.

Harry Potter came to me when I was in Grade 10, a birthday present from my brother who was at the time studying in Florida. The book would soon be the only one with a Scholastic jacket in the series I now own. I remember looking at the book with disdain. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire? Sure, I liked to read, but this? This was the stuff that geeks at the turn of the millenia were salivating on, heralded to be the next big thing, and I with a healthy cynicism of all things populist at the time, stuffed the book into the section of the bookcase where I would most likely forget about it - right between the Bible and 500 Fantastic Facts For Kids.

And then maybe it was just providence that on a long, muggy day in the UAE, tired of reruns and stuffing my face with complex carbohydrates, I was bored and reached out for the copy.

Seven years later, after I'd turned into a working adult, I remember the morning of July 21 in 2007 as clearly as if it were yesterday. It was 5am, too early for my mother to have woken up and I crept out of my house in track pants, an oversized T-shirt and bathroom slippers. I caught a taxi to the Abu Dhabi mall and the Pakistani driver looked at me strangely but thankfully kept silent. I wondered why he was surprised. He was wearing a Pathani suit that looked like it was made for his wife.

The security guard at the store looked exhausted but assured me that the book store at the mall was still open. With 200 dirhams clutched tightly in my hand, I bounded up the now still escalators, and arrived panting at the Jashanmal store where bleary eyed salespeople were looking at me (and my outfit) unkindly. I bought my copy quickly and shuffled off. They were pulling down the shutters but they knew that this was only temporary respite as counters had to open again in four hours to deal with the morning rush of a thousand-odd Potter-manic kids in the country who were currently on summer break.

I took another taxi home, too excited to start reading and flinging the fare the driver's way when he pulled up in the parking spot outside my home. My mother had gotten up by then and was working up into a frenzy about where her daughter had disappeared to. Back then, my parents worried that I was going to throw away my life and elope with the next boy I saw. These days when I'm apparently fast approaching my marriage 'expiry date', I'm sure my mother rues that she wished it hadn't been just about a book.

The phone rang two hours later, after Hedwig and Rufus had both died, and it was a friend calling to say that she had just gotten her hands on a copy. It was my moment to laugh and say that I'd already finished a few chapters, and before 9 the next morning, it was over.

Fans may leave theatres this weekend feeling gypped about how the movie lived up to the book but the films can only remain a pale tribute to the original work, and therefore I'll reserve harsh criticism on the same. For the most fantastic memories of the series for me will remain from the years of 2000 to 2007. Safe in my mind. Safe from everything.

Uncanny again

2010-11-04T18:34:00.004+05:30

So my father's pretty photogenic but only until after a family wedding, did we realize whose good looks he reminded us of.

Uncanny stuff, I tell ya...

Five Star Fancy

2010-10-10T22:01:00.009+05:30

So there’s always been a certain amount of contempt I’ve held for five star hotels. With their imperious looking doormen and plush interiors awash in yellow lighting, there’s often the feeling that a hotel of that stature has been designed to make you feel that even in your Sunday best, you’re in no better than a house dress.

And I’m hardly alone. There are many who think the staff are screwing up their noses at your FMCG deodorant when you walk by or are silently mocking your less than perfect grammar when you ask for directions to a conference room.

I have however spent the last three days hobnobbing with guests at four of some of the best hotels in Mumbai and find that my scorn is misplaced. For even though the prices are high, my pockets are shallow and that meals at Wasabi and Vista are hardly going to become a habit, I will be coming back for more.

With relatives from Canada in tow, we first went to the Taj Hotel at Apollo Bunder where my aunt knew a friend who had enough pull to take us around for a little tour. It has been my experience that hotel staff are often wary when you mention that you are a reporter and they too, may have felt the slightest bit of trepidation as I walked in, surveying and sniffing the property like a bloodhound. They hid it well. A Mr Mistry at Wasabi was kind enough to let us walk around Wasabi and cruel enough (without malice though) to mention to my aunt that it was time for me to get married. Every door was opened with a smile, a namaste, a joke and a friendly nod. They were particular that my shutterbug of a cousin not take too many photos but they were hardly rude when they told him to put his camera away. No signs of the carnage that unfolded here two years ago remain except the Tree of Life in their lobby and that’s a far more elegant memorial than bullet holes in a window pane like at the café down the street.

Our next stop was the Taj President hotel where my aunt used to go to with friends thirty years ago. We trooped into Trattoria, that’s hardly unfamiliar territory as the coffee shop is often the final destination before home after a long night of dancing and drinks for pizza and sandwiches. I only remembered visiting the restaurant once before during waking hours but was surprised to find more than half of the tables taken when we walked in. Our order was for coffee, tea and a selection of deserts that were ceremoniously served and were as wonderful to look at as to eat. Well, save for the tiramisu. The damages were less than a thousand rupees, hardly an amount that would need you to break the bank.

Dinner now had to end on a good note since my Canadian relatives were finally beginning to look a little sheepish about their constant ramblings on how much better everything on that side of the globe was. We decided to stick closer to the hotel they were living at, and caught an autorickshaw to the J W Marriott in Juhu. While the ride there was less than pleasant, the meal was superb. I had the steak and fries, Madras style, that was almost too pretty to eat when it was ready. My aunt’s breaded chicken wad dry, she complained, but she decided to put on a brave face and stomach it even though the waiters offered to get her something else. For my cousin, I think all that mattered was that this was a place that would serve you beer. I haven’t still been able to completely explain dry days to the Canadians. This perhaps would be because I quite don’t entirely understand them myself.

And then on Sunday morning, two girlfriends and I went for the Vista brunch at the Taj Land’s End hotel at Bandra. There were scallops. There was bacon and cheddar cheese pate. A chunk of ham, the size of a mini boulder, called out to me. There was warm quiche with bits of prosciutto. A nice chef at the desert counter called Rahul C, insisted that I have the white chocolate balls. There was custard made like the stuff that Mum served us for Friday lunch. And because a friend was celebrating a hangover from her birthday the day before, the staff sang for her and brought a cake, softer than the warmest marshmallow, to the table at no extra charge. It was the closest thing to food heaven that I’ve ever experienced in this city. And yeah, it cost us a lot of money (think Rs 3000 per head) but it was beyond compare to any dining experience I’ve had yet.

And now I can only wonder if my earlier dislike of fancy hotels stems from a secret longing to be able to dine there every day.

The epiphany that came with a hair colour kit

2010-09-25T22:08:00.003+05:30

So I'm just like you. I nehvar thot I wood kholour my hairrr...

But in the real world ladies, you are not Penelope Cruz, he is not Javier Bardem, and your gray hair is making you look closer to Cruz's age of 36. And that's even if you are 24.

A month ago, I discovered my first white strand. How befitting then, that God, should two weeks later, send along marketers of a new colour creme to me on Twitter.

I filled out the survey because I was bored, and was later amused to find that they were actually going to be forwarding me a pack of this new product. I even chastised the person on Twitter a little that I hadn't gotten my kit yet, prompting a response that I would soon be receiving the same.

The kit arrived this morning at my office in a little white bag. It was all purple and shiny. There were gloves and a detailed leaflet that told me everything I needed to do to have beautiful brown hair in only minutes. There was also a little folder with pictures of two Bollywood celebrities and one hairstylist telling me about how fine my mane was going to look after I was done.

Only it made me feel old. Older than I felt on my 20th birthday when I knew that my wonder years were officially up. Older than I felt when I first made rent with a paycheck I could call my own. And even older than I felt when an Allergan representative at a Botox conference told me that I could do with a shot or two around my eyes.

It was not a nice feeling so pardon me, I'll be passing on the kit to my mother. She's using a product from your rivals now, but she's not fussy. That seems to only be the domain of her now graying daughter.

On Writing

2010-09-24T19:40:00.005+05:30

So I’m trying to write a book. Ok, you can stop rolling your eyes now.

The numbers are on my side so all I need now is to find something to write about. But that’s easier said than done and I’ve come along some inane advice on the way.

For example, some writers will tell you to ‘write what you know’. Yeah, but what happens if I’ve been leading this vanilla existence where the most fun I’ve had was last week when I got blindingly wasted and proceeded to relieve myself on a kerb outside a club? I’ve never liked reading about vomit. My guess is that you wouldn’t either.

Also others say that I should try and imitate the writers that I like. What may emerge then would be a seven part series on a pimply, bespectacled girl with magical powers. Or the saga of the 8 ¾ lives of a purple bobcat. Or how my very Indian parents are trying their best to get me married. Or how I got kissed, got wild and got a life.

And we all know what happened with that last one.

The truth is, and I can believe Viswanathan when she said, that you couldn’t ever be “aware of how much” you may have “internalized” the stuff you read. Like why would I ever use ‘droll’ in a sentence if I wasn’t so hopelessly devoted to Bertie Wooster?

And here I am still standing, waiting for some spark of genius to hit me like a sledgehammer, and when that does happen, the hardest part will be done.

You.Suck.Period.

2010-09-23T22:01:00.005+05:30

So there is a man I know, who I unfortunately am forced to spend breathing time with on most days. Who sucks. And that's putting it nicely.

Every interaction I've had with this person makes me feel like putting out a petition there for making murder a minor misdemeanor.

You know who you are. You smell. You're weird. I want to take the shirt that you seem to wear everyday and put it through a paper shredder and point and laugh while you run around looking for something to put on.

You are detestable. You've brought it on yourself. You may attack me with a paper cutter after this, but I'll still be right and I'm never going back on what I've said here. You're the real monkey with a machine gun.

And because I've put all sharp objects around me out of reach for the moment, I'm writing this so that you walk out of here alive.

Aargh. Boo. Ick. You. Suck. Period.

Good to be Goan

2010-09-17T22:08:00.010+05:30

So I've decided that I really have much to be thankful to the Lord Almighty for making me Goan.

Goa, for the uninitiated, is the smallest state in the Republic of India, but arguably the most densely populated around New Year's eve. Despite what you may think after watching movies like Julie and Khamoshi - The Musical, Christians account for only 30% of the population, thereby making them the minority. The local populace is fraught with idiosyncrasies that you would think might want to make them wander around Mapusa with a paper bag on their heads. But no. We are like this only, men.

But in my time in India and it's been three years today since I've been employed and living in the city of Mumbai, I have never, and I mean ever, heard a joke about Goans that made me raise my hackles.

We live in sensitive times, where a cabbie, who unless is a Bihari or UP-ite, will cringe when called a bhaiyya. Mallus don't want to be called Madrasis, or God forbid, Malabaris. I've seen everything short of sickles being drawn out, when a joke was cracked at a Maharashtrian acquaintance's expense on the Western Ghats.

But I've never heard about a joke about a Goan who walked into a bar and perhaps that's because, we are like this only, men. The recurring jokes about how we're addicted to pau (bread) are now old and tsk-worthy and bounce off like water on a duck's back. We drink a lot, but hey that's you too, and at least we've still got our pants on and aren't lying face down in the sand on Calangute for most of December.

But most importantly, you love us. I'm yet to meet someone who didn't go "Wow, Goa?" when you told them you came from the state, unless they're saying "Yeah, me too." It's that love that's keeping Goans impervious to catty barbs. You're going to come back for more, and we're not going to beat you up when you jump off that train at Thivim or Madgaon. So it's only fair that you're choosing a Punju-Gujju-Maru to be the butt of your jokes, because well, we don't deserve it. And mostly, we wouldn't care.

Thank you for your niceness. And thank you, Jesus.

The Birthday Blues

2010-08-14T13:46:00.004+05:30

So I think you know that you’re getting old when one of two things happen. The first was as below.

I am any young twenty-something in this metro with ever changing goals and an expendable income. I enjoy the pack of Classic Milds and innumerable drinks over the weekend. I’ve got 66-000-666 on speed dial and make the call at least thrice a week. The trainers that I bought two months ago are now neighbours with dust bunnies underneath my bed. Too little sleep on weekdays and too much sleep on my days off ensures I have puffy eyes on all days. But the thing is that until Wednesday morning last week, these things hardly mattered.

I was 34 days away from turning 25 and waiting to meet someone in the lobby of a five star hotel for a story. The jolly geriatric man arrived and shortly later we were talking over cups of coffee and almond biscotti. It was then when the pain struck.

Having been a health reporter for the past four years teaches you a little about heart attacks. There are stories about cold sweats, nausea and shortness of breath. But the chest discomfort – the clutching and collapsing that’s often the climax of the role envisioned for the ageing patriarch in a Hindi movie – is the thing that puts the fear of God in you the most. And that’s what was happening while the gentleman seated across me prattled on about his son’s schoolteacher.

I was finding it quite hard to keep a straight face whilst the pain radiated across my rib cage. I felt like a wet towel, being wrung dry of every drop and the little people in my head began to scream. It’s a heart attack! This is the end! Why haven’t I taken more care of my health! There’s still so much I need to do.

The old man’s face was now swimming in front of me. He could have been asking me to come up to his room at the hotel whilst I smiled on. All I knew is that I needed to get out of there quick before I was hitting the carpet at the coffee shop.

My next stop on my day’s agenda was a hospital, and it was there I headed but not to ask for help. I was embarrassed. There I was, a health reporter, going to meet someone for a story, oh and yeah, to help revive my possibly failing heart too. I met the people I needed to there, smiling all the while and wondering when the next bout of pain would hit.

Something then happened as I stepped out of the hospital to go back to work. There was an old man who was wheeled out to the entrance in his underwear and a smock. I heard enough from accompanying relatives that he had suffered a stroke and had been paralyzed neck down. His family had gotten a taxi to drive up to the entrance and they were now trying to shift him into the car without much luck. His limbs stuck out oddly and after much fruitless struggling, they wheeled him back in. The possibility of ending up like him before I struck 30, made me dial up a colleague immediately.

This colleague of mine had already had a heart attack last year at the ripe old age of 30 something. He referred me to his doctor, who I promptly called. The doctor nicely said that he could see me on the same day, albeit in a few hours from then. I hung up and then waited, wondering what to do.

Bandra isn’t a place where it’s hard to find a church but I felt like a phony for wanting to get into one. After all, I only made it for mass when I went home and had been successfully planning trips for months now to ensure that I was never there on a Sunday. So I instead walked into a shopping centre where my hedonistic spirit would feel at home.

Only shopping didn’t feel as good as it had even though there were huge signs everywhere shouting Sale! Flat 50% off! Starting Rs 199! I wondered if I was having an epiphany of sorts and if this was my ticket to write drivel on how I had discovered the meaning of life in a departmental store with an aching chest, and earn millions off royalties to support a lavish lifestyle from this moment on.

But it wasn’t. There would be no book, only this blog post and the epiphany I was having was only God’s way of telling me that I needed to stop blowing up my life’s savings on LITs over the weekend that I proceeded to throw up later. Oh and perhaps also that I needed to start having some fruit. And to stop dialing 66-000-666 so often.

It was time to see the doctor. There was a TIME magazine with Jobs’ face on the cover at the waiting area. That’s great, I thought. The fates are just mocking my uneventful life some more by presenting reading material to me of a man who’s made millions and still wears a turtleneck and 501’s. I still read the article, a thousand-word something ballad to the man and the machine by none other than Stephen Fry. They couldn’t have timed it more perfectly. I was at the part where Fry was describing how he was having to give up his iPad to the Apple staff and the nurse called me in.

The doctor, an animated man filled with dry amusement, looked at me over his wire spectacles and asked me why I was here. I told him and he rolled his eyes. Wasn’t I, he mused, a little too young to be thinking that my heart would give way? I shrugged, but still insisted that he should humour me. I might surprise him, I dryly added.

His uber-efficient assistant bustled in, carrying in the medical equipment equivalent of Paul. She attached the tentacles of the ECG machine onto my chest, hands and legs with jelly while I squirmed uncomfortably, only relaxing when I finally jumped off the bed, fully clothed and waited for the doctor to analyse the little heartbeat graph strip the assistant had now handed to him.

The good doctor snorted, wrote out my report, prescribed me no medication and told me to throw my cigarettes into a bin. Kindly, he did add that I could have all the drinks I wanted. My miserable face must have prompted that, as I sat there with glazed eyes envisioning the large source of entertainment over the weekend wiped out for good. I was then told that my heart was fine, but that I might be suffering from ‘repetetive stress syndrome’ where chest pain was not uncommon.

I thanked him, I walked out and took the first breath of air of the rest of my life from here on. Since then I’ve included more than a little fruit into my diet and have kept my alcohol consumption to what would render me hangover free. And I can only hope that this lasts for more than a fortnight.

That was the first. The second happened this morning when I discovered a grey hair, the very first I’ve had. Happy birthday to me.

Conundrum

2010-08-12T19:49:00.004+05:30

So I was at an event the other day when this Heller-like situation presented itself.

The venue had an open seating policy and so when the white man on the PA system told us it was time to sit down, there was a little jostling at the door to get in first and park your bum on the best seat in the house.

After the first half, a ten minute break was allowed to the crowd to let them 'spend their life savings' on a beer at the bar. And so while the people seated on the first row filed out to buy a Cosmo or two, four men who seemed suitably inebriated, decided that they had had enough of watching the side profiles of those performing on stage and proceeded to now occupy those now empty first row seats.

The original claimants re-appeared, appalled that their seats had been taken. Stern words were exchanged following which the hijackers conceded defeat and slumped back to find seating elsewhere. The show went on, hats were doffed, accolades collected and those of us who had a job to wake up early to on Thursday morning, giggled and groaned alternatively about the great show that had happened and the bitch of a hangover we were going to have the next morning.

But here's the thing that flummoxed me about the little panto that played out during intermission - who was right? A venue with open seating works on the premise of first come, first serve so do you lose claim to the seat the moment you leave it? Or are you entitled to it all through the program by virtue of the fact that you fought for it at the start of the show, knocking over that old woman who shuffled past with a walker? Sure it would be the honorable thing to let the person with the best seat in the house keep it even whilst they excused themselves to the loo or took an important call outside. But since when have we city folks been all about the manners?

Etiquette experts, tell us how to do it. That is, of course, if there have ever been ANY who've visited this space

With love from down under

2010-07-24T12:35:00.003+05:30

So morbid is not my cup of tea on any day even when I'm clutching my tummy and laughing at dead baby jokes (they're just really funny) but fate must have decided that I was long overdue.

I was on my way to work on a wet Saturday morning with a particularly chatty autorickshaw driver when a child came running up to me with a rose bouquet in one hand and a little bowl in the other. I shooed him away, as is my customary thing to do with urchins who try to sell me anything, from ceramic vases and Jeffrey Archer novels wrapped in cellophane, among other things. The driver snorted. Deciding that this could be the start of a good story, I stopped listening to Taylor Swift for the millionth time and asked the driver about why he was shaking his head like a doggie on a dashboard.

"May-dum, yeh phool Krishtian logon ke kabar se aate hain."

Yeah, you read it right. The roses teamed with baby's breath, and still wrapped in ribbon and plastic were from a grave at the nearest church in Bandra. My rickshaw driver laughed and shook his head while I pried my jaw off the floor. Those flowers were the ones you brought for funerals filled with weeping mothers and aunts. And the kind you'd pass on to the girl you were dating or for the office table you wanted to brighten up. It's apparently been going on for years and is common knowledge to many people.

But it doesn't make it feel any less eerie.

Paul, the Psychic Octi

2010-07-07T18:04:00.006+05:30

So was humming along to Puff, the Magic Dragon when my colleague began to goad me about having Paul for dinner.

And so I tweaked it a bit

Paul, the psychic octi, lived in a tank
And on his footie pre-dic-tions, you could safely bank
He might now soon be lunch in a bitter Nordrhein town
Cause’ he picked Spain and that’s making those bloody Germans frown

Don't pick on Paul. He's just another eight legged freak.

Racist faces, people, places

2010-07-06T15:05:00.004+05:30

So racism, eh? For the last fortnight, it seems to be have been everyone's new topic-to-sound-smart-while-talking-about. So it didn't make it to a trending list like the bandh or a certain Dehradun wedding but it seemed to have got plenty of our NRI brethren hopping mad.

I wonder what all the fuss is about. Yes, racism is a grave concern and easier a word to remember and sprout than xenophobia, which is what I suspect is the real issue at hand here. However, even as Indians across the world put Joel Stein on the top of their most-hated lists, advertisements in India for Master Card, Sprite and LMN depict Africans as loin cloth-wearing and intellectually challenged tribals.

Indians have dealt with xenophobia the world over but that doesn't mean we aren't giving it back. Take for example, this blog post that viciously describes the anger that Emiratis hold for Asian immigrants who 'clog up the roads' and 'cause accidents'. Haw. How could he say that? After all, aren't we the Indians who built their roads and high rise towers? They should be thanking us with folded hands and bended knees. Or like how Indians (like some in Maharashtra) thank immigrants from other states within the country for running our stock markets and driving our taxis.

Is there a country free of fear out there? I'm yet to hear of it.

Uncanny!

2010-06-24T02:02:00.003+05:30

So for the longest time while watching the game, I couldn't think of who Fabio Capello reminded me of. And then it struck.

Carl Fredricksen.

My Thieving (not!) Ways

2010-06-23T19:15:00.006+05:30

So there's not much that's upset me over the last few days but for this one thing. Spare me from detailing all that’s happened. All I want to do here is issue my rejoinder to being called a thief.

You see, I take accusations of thievery very seriously. After an incident at my aunt’s place from when I was five and stole my cousin’s crayons, I’ve always been petrified of being labeled a crook. Of course, this fear could have stemmed from the trashing I received for the crayon episode, but it’s been years free of klepto-like urges and I can today say that in that regard, I am an upstanding member of the community.

So when several individuals on a social networking site accused me of daylight robbery when I lifted a tweet for my story, it got me thinking. Had the ghost of Klepto-past come back to haunt me?

A little research threw up some interesting things. For example in the United States of America, you could not copyright a tweet. Web design expert Jeffrey Zeldman explains how a short phrase (of 140 characters) could not be licensed and could be used without permission on T-shirts or coffee mugs. The most you could do was apply for a trademark and wait till you’re covered in cobwebs or shake your fist at the assumed perpetrator and move on.

But ha! You scoff. We aren’t in the United States anymore, Toto. What weight does this argument hold for desi bandits? Well, the handbook on the Indian Copyright Act of 1957 states, “Subject to certain conditions, a fair deal for research, study, criticism, review and news reporting, as well as use of works in library and schools and in the legislatures, is permitted without specific permission of the copyright owners.”

Now you may say that the article’s news worthiness is debatable, but does that still make me a thief? I. Think. Not.

Why Skipper wears cleats too

2010-06-17T14:25:00.006+05:30

So the Football World Cup is here again. And I'm spending a considerable amount of time again explaining why it's not farcical for women to like watching the games.

When the Spanish team sank like the Armada to the Swiss attack (ironic, eh?) , my brother called me up, wishing to partake in my misery. "This is why I tell women who don't follow football all year around, to keep away from the World Cup. They get too worked up," said he, condescendingly while his fiancee harrumphed in the background.

Now he's my brother, so I can't send him anthrax mailers. More importantly, my mother loves him too. So we shall put off wishing him the bubonic plague for later and proceed to the more irksome matter at hand - the scorn that women with even an iota of interest are on the receiving end, EVERY time a major sporting tourney comes along.

Any woman who's expressed an interest in the World Cup has had to have encountered a eye-rolling, 'tsk'-ing man in the past month. You know those men. The ones with three buttons undone and chest hair on display. Who drink beer and get progressively louder on every pint. They're the men who insist that women who love sports should run along and do their hair. Or buy a skirt. Or watch some SATC and leave the ESPN to the man of the house.

Boozy louts do not a cool fan club make. Run along, trim your chest or button up. My eyes haven't been the same since you appeared on the horizon.

The other famous argument of sexist, sport loving men is that women are into the games only for the eye candy. This is true.

After all, when we're around men like you, what's to stop us from gawping at 22 men on television in superb shape and tight shorts? Who can blame us from drooling over a man who looks that hot running across a 100 yard pitch when you're dropping in a heap after a climbing a single flight of stairs? We're watching what we'll never have. Let us, Goddammit. It's not like we're living the dream when we turn the tube off.

Thing is, I believe that this male egotism arises from the fact that female fans no longer need men to explain how the offside rule works or that Platini isn't a kind of sandwich. I'm not in favour of the boisterous he-woman at the table, rattling off stats, wearing an oversize jersey and painfully trying to prove a point. It's 2010, I reason. They put a girl in space and there's a man trying to get pregnant because his wife was infertile. Surely, we don't have to lock horns about sharing seating space around the television when the match is on. I wear my skirt, you keep your shirt. How hard can that be?

Tsk tsk.

Wowowowowow.....

2010-06-05T18:12:00.004+05:30

So we've reached the big 3k, folks.

Again, I'm super pleased with myself as I've been managing to cross these mille-s faster every time. No really. My first thousand visitor mark was reached after 15 months, so this is plain fantastic. By the way, just to give you a shout out, visitor number 3000 was from Singapore. Congratulations on helping to push that counter over to the big 3-oh-oh-oh.

Thank you, dear readers for hanging on, through all my spates of bad writing and verbose rants. You guys are unreal.

Naked Fear

2010-05-31T21:18:00.004+05:30

So my colleague will disagree after Freedom Flotilla, but I still maintain that there is some good left in Israel.

There's been a considerable amount of angst leveled at Israel over the years by various parties. The flotilla incident will do nothing to check that, and will in fact, only make more people train their guns on the state. However it is still my belief that in a world where terrorists float in on dinghies and hold a five star hotel and its guests captive for four days, that no country can be paranoid enough about offensive tactics.

It is also my belief that the ire directed against the Jewish state is sometimes as irrational as the criticism we, as Indians, hurl at our Pakistani neighbours. I've had an acquaintance once chastise me for recommending the Karachi based band Strings soon after 26/11 happened. In the same way, a colleague who strongly supports the Palestinian movement will mulishly maintain that the state of Israel's every move is laced with anti-Muslim sentiment.

When I lived and worked in Abu Dhabi and was an avid follower of the UAE Community blogosphere it amazed me at the level of anger that Lirun, an Israeli blogger and commenter, was on the receiving end of from contributors and visitors. The Webster's dictionary that my parents bought for us from a local store had the words kosher, Israel, Jew and Judaism among others, blackened out with markers. Tennis player Shahar Peer's visa application was initally trashed on account of her citizenship.

It's no different for people from Pakistan in India. Fortunately on that count, the UAE was the great bridge where as Asian expatriates together in a foreign land, Indians and Pakistanis seemed to get on better than they ever have or ever will on Indian soil. And so one of my closest friends is Pakistani and he like logical, rational people the world over, condemns terror but is unable to do much about it because of the nature of his country's government.

The Israeli on the street didn't lob a missile at the boat. Neither did the man at the bazaar in Lahore. And the sooner we recognize the difference, the sooner we'll stop hating a million or a billion, for the mistakes of a few.

Paani Puri Mania

2010-05-13T13:34:00.009+05:30

So there's little that I enjoy less than a bad stomach.

After umpteen food poisonings since my wonder years, I am convinced that if stomachs ever had linings, God made mine without one. How else do you explain a missed accountancy exam after a hearty home cooked meal of pasta that everyone in my family devoured and lived to eat some more of the next morning?

Or that epic journey with my father to Goa by train where we ate nothing but guavas and cheese (not guava cheese) and I proceeded to have green stools and hallucinations that made my daddy, who is by far the world's worst nurse, gnash his teeth because no medication was helping?

My digestive system is cursed. But I haven't learned any lessons. And that is why I proceeded to go on a food crawl with a Twitter friend this week - a crawl of the paani puri kinds.

If there was ever a greater vegetarian street snack than the humble golgappa then I am yet to find it. I discovered paani puri late in life. I was in grade seven and my Tamilian maid took my brother and I down to the local chaatwallah in Abu Dhabi called Bhavana. The owners of Bhavana got by fine. They served south Indian breakfast fare in the morning, they had Rajasthani thalis for lunch and in the evenings, they turned a forlorn counter into a chaat stall. Indians on Hamdan street were happy. They were now able to nose down their cousins in Dubai. "You have Bombay Chowpatty? We've got Bhavana. AND Arab Udipi! Muahahaha". I myself, was a stranger to Bombay street fare. My maid's idea of a healthy evening snack was a big oily dosa. God bless her for all of those. But paani puri? Ragda pattice? She didn't have a clue.

So there we were, two roly-poly children and the maid and we were going to have paani puri when she suddenly stopped us. Ahead of us at the counter was a girl with a plait that nearly brushed her ankles and large spectacles. There was a plate of puris in front of her and suddenly she popped them all into her mouth in quick succession before the minute was over. The chaatwallah placed another plate in front of her and *poof* went the puris again. A tear trickled down her face, magnified by her spectacles. My maid was appalled. Any food that aroused such demonic fervour was surely heathen? We were going to have sev puri instead. But a tantrum later and it was our turn at the counter and I was wolfing down puris determined to beat Miss Chutney Mary. And I've never looked back since.

Since I've been in Mumbai, I've only had lots of paani puri at one place - Gobbet in Lalbaug. Kamal, our paani puri man, has never been seen digging his nose and I've never been sick after eating from him yet. But there had to be more? How could I think that this was the real deal, if I hadn't eaten anywhere else?

I therefore proceeded to three new places that worried me in varying degrees this Tuesday. Our first stop was Kailash Parbat in Colaba.

Kailash Parbat is a tony stall by paani puri outlet standards. We pay Rs 56 for two plates and a grumpy gentleman hands us our rather large puris, yelling when I don't take it from him fast enough as I fumble to take a picture. It's the right mix of sweet, sour and spice but the pastry is hard. Hard as in could-tear-your-esophagus hard. It does well to hold the water in without going to pieces but it was crusty. My friend says I obviously can't eat paani puri. I ignore him and continue to chew. This puri isn't going to cut me in the mouth anytime soon. He offers us sukha puri at the end - a puri stuffed with potato, chaat masala and topped with sev. I enjoy this immensely but am unhappy that I have to ask for it. Verdict? Strictly average.

Out next stop is the man at the VT Subway. There's a huge crowd outside the stall given that it's rush hour and we have been stupid enough to visit when a sea of sweaty, tired people rushing home threaten to sweep us away. We finally fight our way to the stall.

The first puri we get is warm and the pastry goes to pieces. My friend asks the man why the water isn't cold and the chaatwallah dunks in two slabs of ice. I view the now swirling chunks of ice with some trepidation and involuntarily clutch at my bag where there are indigestion pills waiting for me. The puri is blah and the water has a strange tang to it that I worry, has nothing to do with tamarind. We fork out Rs 13 a plate and leave the subway against the flow of people, forcing my friend to bump into vendors attacking battery powered mosquito bats with tinsel.

Our third and final stop is Baadshah Paani Puri at Marine Drive. This is iconic for me as I've never eaten at Girgaum Chowpatty fearing that I may never wake the next morning. What I find there though amazes me.

There are mats on the floor. Waiters jump at you wearing gloves and tall chef hats. Menus are the size of child writing slates. "What you want madam?" says one man, trying to lure me to the gola stand. I've got my eyes on the prize though and we walk over to Baadshah's where another one of these uniformed, chef hat wearing men is handing out paani puris to a Gujarati family of four.

We're given clean white dishes and our turn begins. The puri is just right, the mix sweet enough and the water is cold. I'm enjoying it, no really. The chaatwallah is cheery and the ambience adds to the pleasure. The friend remarks that it's amazing that people from all over the country come here to eat at these stalls. It boggles my mind too and I'm convinced that eating on the beach has to add to the experience. Why else would all these people travel many miles to eat a piece of puffed dough, or flavoured crushed ice on a stick?

But this is true of all street food, irrespective of whether you're eating crickets on a stick in Pattaya or grabbing a hot dog in Manhattan. And when you're in Mumbai, you eat paani puri. And you're allowed to lick your fingers later. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

IPL ShymPL

2010-04-26T03:14:00.002+05:30

So now that season three of this IPL circus is over, can I, really?

Can I watch the news without dreading hour long debates on this fiasco?

Can I log on to Twitter and have a feed that's not populated with the words Modi, IPL, match, Tharoor or Go Team Go?

Can I say goodbye to tweets from Shah Rukh, Preity, Shilpa, Deepika and Lalit, for a while at least? And for good measure, can you throw Farah Ali Khan into that lot too?

Can I have a news meeting that doesn't require us to 'pull up our IPL socks' ?

Can I go to a movie theatre that only screens films and not matches in 3D?

Can I switch channels without fearing to see Navjot Sidhu? Or his ties?

Can I say goodbye to IPL nights?

Can I call Mumbai Indians a lousy team without being pounced upon?

Can I shift my attention to FIFA, that's giving me goosebumps that have nothing to do with my office's central freezing system?

And can I finally stop pretending that I give a shit about cricket anyway?

On Writing

2010-04-24T21:25:00.004+05:30

So a colleague of mine was searching for inspiration for his column in the paper this week. He, like me, did not want his column to sound 'fatigued', as is sometimes the case with our news writing skills - a casualty that comes when your passion turns into a paycheck.

He first wrote about his experiences with dogs that occupy his habitat, a piece he hoped would be funny. He requested that I read it and I found the piece quite silly. He was affected by the censure, it came from more than one quarter. He found inspiration elsewhere soon enough but I won't give away his new subject.

I was feeling pretty cocksure at the time, thinking myself to be the all-powerful one who could tell bad writing from good. Retrospect came only a little while later when another colleague asked me whether I had finished reading Wings of Fire by APJ Abdul Kalam. Since the book was a gift from her to me, I was a little embarrassed to admit that I hadn't been able to get through the book as with most autobiographies. And then I wondered, if I was this authority on good writing, would Kalam be a bad subject? He after all, was one of the country's most loved presidents, a scientist, a philosopher, whose words had inspired so many people. I on the other hand, found the account, well, as exciting as day old toast.

You may now argue that it is unfair to cite Wings of Fire as an example. After all, Wings of Fire isn't entirely penned by Kalam himself. There is also Arun Tiwari, the co-author who worked under Kalam when they were fellow missile scientists. But then what excuse do I have for loathing my namesake and arguably one of the most quoted writers of the 20th century, Paulo Coelho? The Alchemist was a struggle. I was Santiago and I wasn't tramping along the Andalusian ranges but I was labouring real hard to turn over every page and counting down to when that tragedy would end.

But this was good writing, wasn't it? This is what millions forked out money for at the bookstores? And I didn't like it. I wouldn't gift you a copy on your birthday. I wouldn't give those books shelf space in my bookstore. I wouldn't touch them with a barge pole. I, in short, was a critic who disliked what the world was hailing as 'good' writing.

Anton Ego, the critic from Ratatouille (a classic), says, "In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so." Pretty deep for a cartoon. But gets the nail on the head anyway.

Who decides how good writing is? The Man Booker guys? I detested Vernon God Little, felt it was too reminiscent of disillusioned, fuck-you, fuck-me, writing that I first came across in Salinger's opus Catcher in the Rye. Oh and if you're wondering, I hated that one too.

I've apologized to my colleague since. He's not gone back to writing about pooches in the neighbourhood. But that's his gig. I'm hanging up my boots as the authority. I wouldn't know better. And that's a fact. Woof.

Why it all doesn't matter when it's about Shah Rukh Khan

2010-04-21T10:47:00.008+05:30

So after a few years of making this space a fun-filled, family entertainment zone, I suddenly woke up with a start to realize that Shah Rukh Khan still hadn't found mention on my blog. Well, unless you count this.

A French friend over the weekend, said that he didn't like Shah Rukh Khan. He thought Khan was gay. However a bunch of beers later, when the trapped opinions of a man usually emerge with a burst of bad breath and a lazy eye roll, he admitted that he found Khan fascinating. Any man, said Fabian, about whom strong rumours of homosexuality had been floating around for years must be fabulous to be so popular in conservative India and blinkered Pakistan.

So you could be one of three people now. You could have started making gagging noises the moment you read SRK. You could be a modern Rip Van Winkle seeing sunlight for the first time and have not heard of Khan. Or you could desperately be wanting to shake my hand and clap me on the back for profound and moving literature. Read on, all of you. This piece might hold something for everyone.

Let's first attend to the uninitiated. Shah Rukh Khan is a man, nay a Titan, who along with a handful of other extraordinary gentlemen, has the biggest film industry in the world under his little finger. He started off in 1992, playing second fiddle to Rishi Kapoor with self proclaimed 'hair like a bear' and now shares screen space with Kapoor's son in cola ads. He's had a blip or two on the way (read : Army, Maya Mehmsaab, Koyla, Baadshah) and hadn't ever been praised about his performance until Chak De! India. More recently, he's been in the news for midnight tweets, his IPL team, the Kolkata Knight Riders, that's crashed and burned, and the Shiv Sena-My Name is Khan fiasco that proved to be one of the greatest marketing exercises of all time for a movie that sucked (and that's putting it politely) post intermission.

Shah Rukh Khan, the man, also isn't devoid of shortcomings. He's vain as hell to start with. He frequently tells interviewers that his life would be over on the day when he walked out onto the streets and no one called out his name. A friend once told me that when Khan approached her boss (arguably one of the city's and even country's best known architects) to do up his mansion on Bandstand, the architect who himself is a puffed up foggy, turned around and said, "Khan who?". Khan hung up and never called back.

Then comes the infamy of his dealings within the industry. That he's not friends with Salman Khan is a story commonplace enough. That Aamir and him don't see eye to eye is understandable too, given that the former seems hardly interested in forging lasting friendships with anyone. However, it is little known that tongues were sent wagging when Hrithik Roshan's debut movie Kaho Naa...Pyar Hai took on Khan's Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani in January 2000. Apparently Khan was so rattled at the time about reports that touted Roshan as the Next Coming, that he worked extra hard to get newspapers to reassert his position as the undisputed King of celluloid. Much water has flowed under the bridge since then though. Now both stars are seen rubbing shoulders at parties while sycophants form mutual admiration societies and sprout praises about how wonderful the other person is. Within 140 characters.

You're now wondering why I like this man at all. How I can continue to say that my heart beat like a drum in a tin box when he came to our offices two years ago and I proceeded to scream like a little girl when he blew a kiss at me?

Well it's because it can hardly matter to me if he's horrible. He's hardly going to be my best friend any time soon. I'm not scouting for all access entry to Mannat. I'm not looking to score a few square feet at Ras Al Khaimah; certainly not when I've got friends in Downtown Dubai. His name is Khan, he's not a terrorist. He's just an actor, a bonafide star, who I enjoy watching on screen at a price of Rs 200 or above. I'm not wondering about his shockingly obtuse tweets, when I'm in that darkened theatre. I'm not shaking my head at KKR, when the trailers come on. I'm not seeing him and Karan Johar in a room with a big white bed in my head , when the opening credits play out. None of that stuff matters just about then.

Because when he's on screen, runs his hand through his hair, gives me a smile that dimples his cheek and spreads out his arms, it's Shah Rukh Khan. And I'm in love.

The number game

2010-04-18T20:11:00.003+05:30

So by nature, I'm a lazy shit. I couldn't care less if this blog exists. All I needed was one person to tell me that I did a good job or that I wrote well and that was what I lived on weeks. Lately, I've found other means of self gratification and thus this space has remained sadly ignored, unwanted and staler than crumbs on Oliver Twist's plate.

Sowiee readers. Inspiration will strike. But maybe just not right now.

Only ourselves to blame

2010-04-01T14:23:00.006+05:30

So this week I received a Page 3 assignment from my boss.

For those who don't get what that is, a Page 3 assignment is a party job. You go to an event where people who are famous for just being invited turn up. You blow a bunch of kisses into the air at no one in particular. You ask the women what they're wearing and the men about what deals they're striking. They both giggle, blush, haw-haw and move on. It's like being commissioned to perform fellatio to the egos of all present that provides gratification to everyone but yourself. You're left with a stupid smile on your face that you don't feel and leave the party with bunions on your feet and cynicism on your lips.

But I digress. At this party that was being hosted by some laa-dee-daa designer with IPL cricketers in attendance, it struck me strange that there were hardly any Indian stars of the kind on and off the pitch, in attendance. My photog, the poor SOB, who had been standing there sweating it out next to the big baby lamp that cast no shadows, said that the Indians rarely turned up. It was only the smattering of international busybodies who obliged the 'official' chronographers. One even was overheard saying 'Man, it's never like this back home'.

It made me laugh. As one writer says in this week's Open Magazine about Freida Pinto, it irks Indians that 'others found gold in someone we rejected.' Here the status quo's reversed but no less amusing where we make stars out of lumps of ash.

Jai Ho.

And now you know why...

2010-03-19T03:57:00.004+05:30

So I was burning the midnight oil on the graveyard shift and came across this on Twitter - the subliminal devil that's been taking up all my time on cyberspace these days.

The author's obviously fed up with the system. Or maybe he's just ranting about a boss and a job in the media that he previously held and was recently given a pink slip for. Note in particular the paragraph that goes, "The writers do not explain who is saying, asking or arguing. Their friends? God? The homeless man outside ranting about the government stealing his thoughts? Who are these people and how numerous are they? What are their qualifications?" That there, is not a happy man. But I'm too quick to assume that he's unemployed and blacklisted. A woman could have put him in this mood too.

Whatever his reasons were, the one thing that is clear is this - that his rage has blinded him towards some of the finer ways we journos 'cheat' and how awesomeness can sometimes be found in a mere word.

Take the term 'allegedly' for example. We in the print business, revere this adverb. Known to have saved many a scribe's ass from defamation suits, no adverb could be as sacrosanct as this. We pass it on reverently from generation to generation, seasoned reporter to intern, with words of caution, but mostly praise.

You're rolling your eyes but I am not kidding. Heck, the competition even italicizes the word. It's like 'Hey, we're telling you this, but let it be known that no one can be sure, no Sir-ee'.

You can't blame them either. There are enough of people tripping on weed from their infested backyards to take offense to even comments on their cat. Take them and the sea of unemployed lawyers swarming outside courts and the combine's got journalists swimming in defamation hell that will follow them from organization to organization till the day they die. And so it's only fair that on the seventh day, when God rested, he thought up something as beautiful and profound as the verb 'allege' and left it up to us lowly reporters, to conjugate.

And that ladies and gents, is a trade secret. And for the record, let it be said, that this golden nugget was allegedly heard in some dark alley from where it found its way onto this unsuspectingly innocent blog.

Love Actually

2010-02-17T14:06:00.007+05:30

So I'm sorry it happened but I was glad that this V-Day, papers were filled with news from the real world instead of the usual hearts and flowers drivel.

But had I have liked to have read something that would have restored my faith in that crazy little thing called love, it would have been about Eastern Frontier Rifles policeman Suraj Bahadur Thapa. And the woman he loved.

A colleague of mine who recently suffered a cardiac arrest, told us later that when he had it, he called his brother and told him to take care of his wife and kids. I, fortunately, haven't had that literary moment - the one where you know that death is upon you and your life flashes in front of your eyes. The ones who have been through this say that the most common emotion they experience is anxiety for their loved ones and regret that they couldn't do more for themselves or their family while they lived.

But what Thapa experienced is so outlandish, so awesome that any explanation for that burning need to pen down his amour for his wife Laxmi (or affectionately 'Lux') would fall short of the actual things he said. Some of the lines sound campy, cheesy and almost unreal but then you see that diary with the bullet hole and you understand why Bollywood songs of love and passion were the only things that immediately sprung to the head of a constable, waiting at the EFR camp in Silda to die.

And he did. And this letter is now on the front page of a national daily. And is being retweeted. And is being cried over. By the woman he loved and married on December 15, 1988.

Lessons from le Gemal

2010-02-10T13:04:00.006+05:30

So all this hullabaloo about national animal pride that's got everyone standing tall and quoting William Blake has me in titters.

They say here that animals are revered, that to kill a cow is a punishable crime. However on most mornings when I walk down to the ATM that's adjacent to Marine Lines station, I see this revered animal with dung all over its hide and eating straw that looks a couple of weeks old. To kill this animal, to enjoy its meat is equivalent to a trip to the fires of hell and yet I see that when people come forth to revere this creature, they're turning up their noses and reaching out gingerly to find a clean, dung free spot of hide where they can lay their hands, say their prayers and shuffle off, hankering around for hand sanitizer to burn the germs away.

Tigers are another story altogether. A fortnight ago, a colleague had done this story on this little village called Namuk in Arunachal Pradesh. The tribals there consider the big cat as sacred and yet they helped poachers to first weaken the cat with poisoned arrows, shot it point blank with a rifle loaded with poisoned pellets and then bled it to death. So much for fearful symmetry.

And then this morning, I saw this article about camel burgers that had a vegetarian friend squirming and going 'ewww, look at what they do to animals in the Middle East'. The fact however remains that camels, that aren't even national animal of the UAE (the falcon takes that position), are far better looked after in the Middle East than tigers ever were in India. Camel stables of Dubai head Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum were filled with child jockeys to ensure that the beasts were not burdened during races. In 2005, a local paper reported that a man was sentenced to three months in jail after he and a camel in Ras al Khaimah were found in a, ahem, compromising position. Apart from slaughtered gemal in a bun, you also get camel milk (chocolate flavoured doesn't taste half bad) and camel milk chocolates . There was even a camel beauty contest in the UAE capital in 2008.

Of course, all this may not fare well for the child jockeys, the men who have no options but bestiality (over incest), the creators and marketers of cow milk or deposed beauty queens who've run out of money to fund their Botox fixes. But the animals- they've got it good. And the irony of it all is that that they even figure lower in the food chain than the big Bengal stripey. Maybe it's time to take lessons from the camel eating, dishdasha wearing Arabs. Because they seem to have this notion of indigenous animal pride down much better than people from the world's largest democracy do.

Quality control anyone?

2010-01-27T22:55:00.007+05:30

So Republic Day is over. Lots of tricolours were sold, underground booze parties were held to mark the 'dry' event and people's favourite bugbear of the day? The 'Phir Mile Sur' track of course.

Now I don't remember much of Doordarshan from when I was growing up. My childhood was filled with Captain Majid cartoons in Arabic, the 7.30 reruns of the Bold and the Beautiful that my mother adored and my father loathed and the arrival of a set top box in 1993 with a Star bouquet of channels. There was no Magic Lamp, no Chitrahaar, no Captain Vyom. However I do remember Lataji belting out the original song in dispute, and thinking that Indian music was pretty fly.

Which is why it's astounding to me that this new song can sound offensive to the ears of a girl with remarkably little exposure to DD in the first place. If I told you that I didn't like this song because I thought it was insulting to the earlier version, I'd be faking it. I haven't heard the first one enough for it to be ingrained upon 'my heart and soul' as some of the phoney (and whiny) purists have been tweeting about. I just think it's a bad song because every time it's on now, I want to lunge at the TV and switch channels before I'm assaulted by another 16 minutes and 16 seconds of drivel.

Which again brings about the emotion of astonishment. Discounting Shiamak Davar who has zero business being there when we have far more talented dancers, the line up is pretty impressive. Did no one bother to go back and watch it after they were done with the video on the editing table? Did no one wonder why the damn thing had to be so long? Did no one figure that the army guy at the end who got 5 seconds probably deserved a stanza over Deepika and the lake?

Or is THIS charity? I can see the contract now with the lines going... 'By virtue of being a celebrity, I hereby render my services and pretty mug to light up your world and tacky video, but to never inject in my own inputs or criticism no matter how bad the product looked in the end, or how badly it's panned for days, months or even years later. Should I have an opinion about how abysmally bad this product is, it must be shared with the goldfish in my tank at home or with my shower head in the loo. Because nobody wants to know how I really feel about this cause. This is charity after all. I am to do my bit, shut up, smile and shuffle on.'

It kind of makes me feel sorry for everyone in that video now. Maybe it's for the best though. Maybe the celebs in question will make themselves their favourite charity for the year. Bring the damage control on.

Happy Endings

2010-01-13T20:00:00.003+05:30

So for all my cynicism (shocker!), I'm really all for happy endings.

Just this week whilst I was halfway through Animal Farm, I was this close to thinking that it was probably the best book I've ever read and then the Boxer episode happened and wham! it was just another addition to the shelf.

Happy endings work. It reinforces the utopia that happy people exist in and gives schmucks like me, the hope that a bird will not poop on your head when you're out of this dark tunnel you're presently in.

It might have just given Sanjay Leela Bhansali the hit he wanted with Saawariya. It's why you remember Abhay Deol's Dev D over SRK's long suffering rendition of the same character. Animal Farm works only because the 21st century knows that the Commies saw sense eventually. Even Twilight, that's been the tripe I've been reading over the last week, ends with euphoric animal blood sucking vampires gamboling across the horizon.

Of course, PETA couldn't have been thrilled with that outcome, but then did we really care?

Resolutions

2010-01-01T17:48:00.005+05:30

So 2009 sucked, save for the last month of the year. The other eleven months are best left to crumple up and die from my memories.

So what are the resolutions of this year? I've already got heaps after wonly six hours of New Year Eve celebrations at a bar.

First and foremost, do not discuss Yasser Arafat at a bar.

The manager of a lounge is not to be addressed as 'owner boy'. If you see him and have had six Long Islands, you must duck for the door. Conversation can wait for a teetotaler night when you're on meds.

The weather, Hoegaarden, ducks at Banganga - all good conversation starters. Yasser Arafat is dead. Let sleeping giants lay.

When referring to Obama as the 'hero of circumstance', ensure that the Americans drinking Buds on the next table aren't paying attention.

Always remain on the lowest flat surface. Steps are around to trip and embarrass you.

Do not dish out career advice unless you're doing something that makes you figure on a list of Top Ten Jobs You Know You Want To Have.

People who live and work in Ambernath have feelings. It is not right to make fun of them. Not matter how many people laughed. The same applies to those who live in Dombivali. And in Kalyan.

Vomit will surprise you. Watch where you step.

Singing songs from the soundtrack of Pyaar Impossible in a taxi is nearly as fun as singing Sallu songs in a rickshaw with green light. It helps even more if you remember the singing the next morning.

If you don't like the cold air, move away from the air conditioner. Do not turn the vents up. The air conditioner was there first.

And most importantly and because this cannot be said enough - New Year's eve or any other night is never a good time to bring up Arafat except if you've invited to Lou Dobb's new show to discuss the state of Middle Eastern politics.

Happy New Year all. Make 2010 count.

Coco....aaaargh

2009-12-29T12:20:00.008+05:30

So I'm not a great fan of coconut but I couldn't have said so this past fortnight. I imagine that if I had made my feelings known, they (my well meaning family) might have gone all KKK on me or called in the neighbourhood priest to exorcise all the cocos nucifera hating demons from the depths of my soul.

It's amazing that Goans haven't yet got enough of this inconspicuous thing that botanists don't even know how to classify. A search shows me reams of discussions about whether the damn thing is a fruit, vegetable or nut. You'd think that something mired in so much controversy should be set aside. Nay, my mother tells me. It only adds to the mysterious wonder that is the Cocoanut (Yes, that is NOT a typo).

A bunch of years ago I was living with a friend who hails from Uttaranchal whose dad was at a loss to understand why we use so much coconut in our food. The people up north were doing just fine without it all this while. They after all, also have festive sweets, curries, vegetables and alcohol, made of stuff apart from this fruit/nut/veggie. What was the big deal?

The entire thing came to a head during the preps for the bhuim jevonn, a community meal for the village that precedes the wedding (my brother's FYI). I had ten ladies in my backyard discussing coconuts, where you could get the best ones, how to crack it without spilling the water, how you could tell a bad one from the manna from heaven, and so on. I left soon after to wrap gifts - this coco talk was turning me loco.

And then came the profundity or absurdity of it all. This was culture, the great thing passed down from ages to generations that beckon, the stuff you don't get but nod along to anyway. It's the stuff you let your mother rattle on about never batting an eyelid and hope fervently that when you hit 50 that you won't be spewing the same lines.

But you will. I kid you not, you will. Muahahahahahahahahahaha...

Who decides?

2009-11-27T18:12:00.004+05:30

So at the Mumbai Stands United event at Café Leopold on Thursday, I am told that the protesting Sainik’s words to the management were, “This is how you celebrate martyrs? Shame on you.”

I was indignant, but my knee jerk sneer was born first out of snobbery. What did those morcha morons chanting fundamentalist slogans know about tributes? It was misplaced contempt. I felt pretty much the same way about the protests with hordes of high heeled, Blackberry wielding picketeers at the Gateway last year. What was really upsetting me was the dictation of how I was to mourn the dead.

In Goa during funerals, it is habit at the wake for all the men who went to the burial to raise their glasses (not filled with lemonade) to the deceased. And while this has, at some homes, denigrated into an excuse to get blinding drunk, a toast is traditionally a solemn moment of insight and the alcohol is just a footnote.

When I was at Leopold’s that evening seeing smiles and laughs, it made me wonder about how I would have felt had I been a victim of the attacks last year. I think that I wouldn’t have cared to be remembered by people drinking up. I would have been a happy person before they started shooting. I would have been with friends. There would have been beer and beef steak. I’d have been a happy bunny and I tend to not forget those moments of glee.

And just so my heartstrings aren’t linked to my tear ducts doesn’t make me an insensitive person - just a different one from those to express their grief in other ways. So I’m sorry if I didn’t choose to turn the monument into the Waxway of India. Or form a human chain. Or sing a song. Or write a poem. I took a walk, had dinner and said a prayer though not aloud. This is my tribute to the dead - I’m certain it’s reached all those it was meant for.

Millenium...

2009-11-23T14:02:00.002+05:30

So two whole thousand people...seems like a big achievement.

Ok I know its really nothing compared to the gazillion hits that some bad blogs managed by non-entities get, but it still feels good to know that I got the big 200-oh without too many requests, pleads and threats to visit my page.

I've changed the masthead to commemorate the occasion. Thank you, all you beyootiful people.

Quotes on Toilet Paper? Pfffft

2009-11-13T19:43:00.003+05:30

So I took the longest time wondering why the dustbin in the toilet of a public restaurant had 100% Pure Virgin printed on it. Were they talking about the plastic? Was Pure Virgin some kind of superior polymer? Or were they talking about about how clean it was? I was flummoxed...and intrigued.

Guilty of Phyanning fear?

2009-11-12T10:55:00.004+05:30

So I was on the web shift yesterday and a guy called up, launching into an abusive, verbose rant about why my paper and everyone else in the media were #megafail (sorry, Twitter hangover) because we made him sent his employees home fearing the great and terrible Phyan that flew over the city without so much as a whimper.

When I finally got a word in, he realised that he wasn't talking to the operator (a guy) and said a sheepish 'Shorry maydum' and continued on to chastise me about how it was morally irresponsible for us to put news out that Phyan was the start of the second coming.

I politely told the man first that if he was going to be jabbering about morals, he should know that it's not right to cuss at anyone, man or woman. I then told him to redirect his ire at the MET department; they told us, we told you, that's the way the news reporting works. Before he could launch another wordy rejoinder, I thanked him for reading the paper and hung up.

A lot of people have been pointing fingers at the media over the last few weeks for blowing the issues of the MNS, Raj Tacky-ray and now Phyan (what does it mean in Burmese anyway?) out of proportion. They should know that while an information overload can be a dicey situation, some news is better than none at all.

As for the man who called yesterday, cheer up. Your employees might love you a little better for cutting their day short, unless you're letting them have the same raw end of the stick you meant to deliver my operator yesterday and which inadvertently reached me. In that case, I wonder if you've heard about Cyclone Ward, the next thing to hit the Indian Ocean. I hear its going to be BIG...muahahahahaha.

The things you find at the bookstore

2009-10-24T16:02:00.006+05:30

So I had some time to kill on Saturday afternoon and so I wandered into everyone's favourite family bookstore Oxford though you'll be saying 'yeah right!' after you're done reading this.

Anyone who knows me a little (and now all my beyootiful readers too) knows that I trip on children's literature. I find Oxford and all these big, industrialized, commercial bookstores perfect therefore when I'm on the hunt for a good read. This is because the big, industrialized, commercial bookstore will sell children's classics at throwaway prices while the small, personalized cubby hole for 'book lovers' will scandalously mark them up to cost as much as the current bestsellers. I bear the small shops no ill will; children's literature is brilliant but I am cheap. And so Oxford/Crossword/Landmark/blah it usually is.

But I digress. There I was sitting cross legged on the floor and debating between George MacDonald's The Princess and the Goblin (Rs 110) or Michael Bond's A Bear Named Paddington (Rs 125) when I find 'Letters to Penthouse IV' with the Hachette sticker placed teasingly over the girl on the cover who was wearing very little. Ok I'll admit I read a little before putting it far away from the children's section but then went back to choosing my book (FYI, MacDonald).

As I got up to leave, I saw that the Penthouse book had vanished from where I placed it and was now being feverishly read by a guy in a green tee by the window who was sweating profusely. He looked up, saw me staring at him with my mouth open in a 'ha-ha, gotcha' sort of laugh, slammed it shut and picked up the Gabriel Garcia Marquez at hand (which isn't any less descriptive really) and began flipping through the foreword. I moved away, now slightly embarrassed for him and myself thinking that the poor guy probably felt like someone caught him with his pants down and chanced another peek through the shelves now separating him and me. Unfortunately, like Jumping Jack Flash, Green Tee had snatched up the Penthouse book again and was reading it, his foot tapping all the time and his free hand now engaged in mopping the sweat off his forehead. Yuck.

To say I that I left a little disturbed is putting it lightly. It only cost Rs 325, far less than what he'd pay for a room and a girl, and the print was tiny enough to give him enough reading material for a month (or more).

Just a word of caution to all. That black leather corner seat in the motivational self help books section at Oxford? Yeah, you might want to give it a miss, the next time you go around. Either that, or carry lots of sanitizer along to wipe down the seat, though while the stuff may work on germs, I don't know what it does to sperm. Or choose the floor. Dust bunnies never looked this good.

Could it be true?

2009-10-20T17:49:00.002+05:30

So I know I'm really stretching it here but here's Abhishek Singhvi in the TOI dissing the theory I expressed in my last piece.

Can I be foolhardy enough to believe that he might have wandered onto this blog, have been inspired and is now peddling the counter theory in a medium that reaches a gazillion people ? Yes TOI, you can eat your cake now...

Yes, I want to believe it. I am going to believe it. And I'm going to celebrate. Bring out the Kopiko.

Look! It's an Indian...

2009-10-15T15:21:00.009+05:30

So there are lot of people miffed about Venki giving us the royal write off. I for one, want to pump his hand, pat him on the back and I feel his pain at having to stand up there on the stage of 2009 laureates alongside Obama and empathize with him.

No matter how long and over how many drinks you want to argue this one, what the Chem geek said reflects the twisted logic we peddle around as patriotism, every time an 'Indian-born' or 'of Indian roots' person or thing makes it to the news and sadly, we as journalists are much to blame for this thinly veiled expression of jingoism and insecurity marketed as warm, fuzzy desipan.

World's most expensive curry? Let's raise a toast on a highway dhaba. Never mind that it was created by a London chef and contained caviar, sea snails, a whole lobster and slices of edible gold, ingredients that would NEVER be considered by the desi bawarchi. No matter, we are like that wonly. At least they bothered to call it a Samundari Khazana even though not much the catch came from the Indian ocean, not even starting on the gold that came from a dark, deep mine probably south of Johannesburg.

Even worse is this self styled posturing of people who claim to be the protectors of Indian culture. Of them is a astounding creature called Rajan Zed.

I have had the chance of talking to Zed once. He was bamboozled about how I had got his 'unlisted' number. I told him that it required a bit of searching and I was forced to do it after he hadn't replied to several of my mails. I also mentally added that a show horse like him couldn't possibly have not (if even once) put up his number on the thousands of press releases he sends to journos every year. All it required was a bit of determined Googling and wham! there it was on a page for the Nevada convention of do-gooders or something like that. I forget the details, but Mr Zed never lets me forget that he is Indian.

Take for example only some of headlines of the highly amusing releases he sends me everyday, this being the most recent :

"Hindus laud Obama for celebrating Diwali in White House"

Wait, there's worse...

"Hindus welcome rapper Kanye West’s plan of retreat in Hindu ashram in India"

"Aishwarya-Abhishek tell Oprah that living with parents was natural & normal"

"Hollywood’s Joy Bryant loves Kundalini yoga"

You get the gist.

It sometimes makes me want to run and hide when people ask "Oh, you're Indian?" and I imagine replying "Oh no. I fell off that subcontinent a long time ago."

If anything, if we have truly arrived as we claim to have, we should benevolently let the government of Albania have Mother Teresa's ashes as she is perhaps their country's only widely recognized icon.

Because how would it really matter where her ashes lay? For a woman like Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu really belonged not to a country, but to the world

Strutting my stuff

2009-10-13T10:38:00.003+05:30

So I wish I had discovered John Swinton earlier.

It would have helped to make the world I live in a simpler place. I wouldn't have gotten up most mornings gloomy about what I was going to read in the papers nor would I have gone to bed most nights, thinking that a cave in the mountains far, far away with ravenous lions and flesh eating slugs would be the perfect place for people I had interacted with during the day.

But I finally have and it just makes sense now. I am an intellectual prostitute.

Swinton, by the way, was a NYC scribe at some fancy schmancy do that was boring the hell out of him (not unlike an art exhibition in the city) when someone pompously asked him to deliver a speech on the independent press (at that art exhibition, it might have been a speech on the wonder that the absolute abysmal paintings were).

It was then that Swinton on righteous indignation and maybe liquid courage (?) delivered what has been posted on desktops of disillusioned journalists since the turn of the 20th century.

He said, "There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it.

"There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone.

"The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press?

"We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes."

Only I'd have written the first line like this "...no such thing, at this date of the world's history, anywhere, as an independent press..."

Perspective is everything.

A sword in hand worth crutches in a bush?

2009-10-11T19:27:00.004+05:30

So I couldn't find a picture of Saturday's rally but it always bamboozles me about this funda of wielding a sword at political rallies like the one the Congress held at the MMRDA grounds.

And especially when Sonia waves it around, she seems like the star quarterback who just had the ball in his hands replaced by the head cheerleader's baton.

Me thinks Madame should perhaps replace the sabre with a walking stick, perfect for the cold months when stiffness sets in. It'd also make perfect Diwali gifts for the PM Singh, Sushil Kumar Shinde and that 90 year old from Shirol that Rahul baba benevolently approved of.

Let the nice guy finish first

2009-10-06T13:23:00.006+05:30

So just for once, ONCE, I want to see Rahul Khanna happily married off at the end of a film

The poor sap never gets the girl and even when he does, she runs right out on him for the guy who's so obviously wrong for her (and let's not even get started the competition's dance moves)

On screen rejection must be an easy pill for Khanna to swallow

It's terrible, terrible thing though. It makes the bad guy look like the prize catch and the good, understanding and often rich guy look like the obvious option for idiots.

So for once, just once, I want Rahul Khanna to ride off into the sunset with girl in saddle and dignity intact. If anything it will restore sanity to the world of relationships and relieve poor Mr Khanna of the tag of the 'Biggest KLPD Lover Ever'.

To be fair...

2009-09-30T21:11:00.007+05:30

So this WAS her original idea, but maybe too sadistic for a broadsheet to swallow :)

Allie Shrugged

2009-09-28T18:00:00.004+05:30

So how do you measure the weight of your actions? On how bad you felt at that moment? Or on how hard your friends laughed later about how foolish you were?

The Warli are winning. Bummer.

Hanged, Drawn and Quartered

2009-09-26T19:41:00.004+05:30

So that is what needs to be done to people who slack off on a Saturday evening when you're done and you're waiting to leave, but the yahoo who's had all day to wrap up his shit has been dawdling around and waiting for the nth hour to get his act together

Aaargh...

how maaaach?

2009-09-19T19:23:00.003+05:30

So I'm in Pattaya and I've never seen this much of bare skin on display, but I find that as the days pass by, I can look at a bare bottom and not bat a lid. Still have to get over nausea pangs when a lady offers me crickets on a stick though...

Just got back from Natalie's at Walking Street where I walked in appalled and came out somber after playing Jenga with a girl who's been dancing on a table top since she was 15, had a baby at 19, and is now taking care of her six year old daughter and aeging mother while servicing men six days a week and most importantly, having to look into the eyes of the fat, UGLY Caucasians everywhere and tell them that they are the best thing that's ever happened to her

Walking Street is the revelation Kamathipura never was. I went to the Grant Road district a year back and saw dispirited women hanging out on street corners with their arms folded, a perpetual frown and tacky clothing. At Walking Street they were there, on your arm, slapping your ass as you walked by, giving you a view of the merchandise at hand every moment and some of the women were wearing shoes and skirts so cool that I wanted to ask them where they went shopping.

Worlds apart, I prefer this even though there's not much for me to do except gain fantastic insight. So refreshingly non-hypocritical.

Ramadan musings

2009-09-11T10:50:00.004+05:30

So I went to Mohammed Ali Road the other day in the dead of the night (though, it was bursting at the seams with people) and ate a bunch of things I liked and a lot more I didn't. It was all there, the bustle of families, tables groaning under the weight of bird and sheep, beggars in droves holding their little bowls out for Zakat and vendors trying to sell me attar.

But it didn't feel like Ramadan.

Excuse the spelling desi brethren but its always going to be Ramadan not Ramazan for me. When we were growing up, Ramadan wasn't a stuff-your-face fest but a super month, where time and worry took a back seat. School ended earlier, my parents used to both be home before 6pm (shocker at the time), and in spite of the little mosque montage on TV with the accompanying 'Allahu Akbar' prayer call that used to block out all local programming, everyone knew that it would end in a few minutes and the neighbour's kids would finally be out to play in the building compound.

That was when Ramadan felt right - the drive down to Marroush on the Corniche with friends past midnight to get shawarma and to be able to eat it without being jostled, the absolute peace of walking the streets during Iftar time when the roads were deserted, and when there was always time to eat breakfast with the entire family on most days and not just on a Friday morning.

The arguments of the holy month getting more commercialized, of it losing its meaning, of it being about sales and gimmicks, is only true since I've been in India where I get invites to Pawar/Deshmukh/Siddique iftar parties every day. Sure papers in UAE were filled with discount advertisements, shopping festival notices and more during that time, but I suppose I might have chose to ignore the hypocrisy of that.

No matter. My eyes are now open. More insightful observation tonight. While we gorge on Sarvi kebabs, of course

C'est Vrai?

2009-08-24T10:57:00.005+05:30

So I can agree with most of it.

Can a man in eight days on nothing but fruit, nuts and canned food sail all the way from Dubai to Mumbai, hit Gateway and walk out onto the streets unnoticed? Sure, that's how Qasab and his buddies from Karachi did it too.

Can an abaya really pass off as a foolproof disguise when you need to avoid prying eyes? Michael Jackson (bless his soul) would've passed notice if not for his shoes. Herve Jaubert must have taken a hint.

But can I believe it when a Frenchman claims that he's "a down-to-earth entrepreneur" who "didn't do the Dubai glitz and glamour" and who had a baby blue Lamborghini but "didn't use it to show off like other people in Dubai" because "it is 15 years old anyway" ?

Sorry, I'm too much of a cynic to swallow that lot. Especially when it comes from a man who's currently residing at Palm Beach.

Bet you didn't expect this

2009-08-16T13:54:00.002+05:30

So it's been a happy day so far. I woke up past noon, had a cookie for breakfast (it was a large cookie) and read an entertaining article in the competition's product, yet again. Fortunately, too few people from work visit this site for me to care, and a spade is a spade after all.

I try not to, God knows I do, but I hate publicity agents for celebrities.

Vinod Mehta once put it rightly that 'brand managers were incapable of understanding journalism and cannot deduce what a reader or viewer wants.' There's never been a truer word said. I've seen PR agents swoop around jittery reporters at events like vultures waiting for their prey to keel over. "No reference to Dubai please!", "No mentioning HER name", "Stick to the movie's promo material", "Here's a list of questions you can ask". It always amazes me that these agents seem to think that they somehow know more about what we should be putting together. If that were the case, why aren't they here doing our job instead of compiling 300 word releases on how Princess La-La wakes up to muesli and freshly squeezed orange juice?

It's for this reason that Vishwas Kulkarni's avengement was better entertainment that Adam Levine crooning 'Sunday Morning' over the radio today. One part that was especially entertaining in his piece on fashion designer Malini Ramani with her psycho agent Yakuta in tow, was this -

Is it true that her (Malini's) 40th birthday party will be designed like a wedding?

Yakuta: “Can we restrict this to just fashion, please?”

Can we please not be interrupted!

Yakuta sits, but at the bench next to us.

Malini Ramani (laughing): “How did you get to know about this?

In fact, it seemed like most of the article was a three way conversation between Malini, the writer and the PR girl. Yakuta certainly couldn't have been a happy bunny this morning (my guess is that neither was Malini) but it certainly brought some sunshine to my sadistic soul. Read that article here.

The food of love

2009-08-12T18:41:00.006+05:30

So I could never be as gushy as Mr Darcy about poetry, but a verse in the competition's product caught my attention and so here it is.

It's a little poem penned by Ogden Nash, who has long remained a favourite ever since we studied 'The Adventures of Isabel' in grade seven (or was it eight?). The only other poem that's stuck as long was Sir Walter Scott's 'Lochinvar' that was highly amusing to a giggly group of ninth graders, half of whom considered him as their prince-in-waiting and the others who considered him as a loon in tights.

But we digress. Here is Nash's gem on the germ, appropriate for the current state of affairs that's driving us all up the wall.

A mighty creature is the germ,
Though smaller than the pachyderm.
His customary dwelling place
Is deep within the human race.
His childish pride he often pleases
By giving people strange diseases.
Do you, my popet, feel infirm?
You probably contain a germ.

Where's the magic?

2009-08-10T16:49:00.005+05:30

So I just installed Google Analytics on this page and here I am 48 hours on, and still waiting for the magic to begin. Took the move after reading the positively gushy post at VieiraWorld, but am feeling a bit gypped at the mo. Where are all the amazing insights I'm supposed to be receiving about traffic on my site now? Boo Google

Between a rock and a hard place...

2009-08-09T22:06:00.003+05:30

So this week I went shopping for carrots and had to nearly empty out the basket at Reliance Fresh (yeah right) to pick stuff that wasn't mouldy or green. I then moved on to onions, but the lot there was so revolting that I decided that a seasoning cube from a packet would do well for all the flavouring I needed for soup. Appalled at my purchases, I headed home past the bhajiwala on the street who was getting a earful from a Gujju aunty over a sprig of coriander.
The soup was fine, a spectacular improvement over my usual diet of instant noodles with a cheese slice folded in, but the nagging feeling that remained long after the soup was done was how fresh the street vendor's produce looked compared to anything at the store...
Haggling is hard

ItIsALot, where art thou?

2009-07-29T19:36:00.004+05:30

So yeah it's yawnworthy, nothing new...Dubai, the pearl of the Gulf, the city of gold is sunk in debt so deep that they won't be seeing sunlight for a while now but what I liked about the Economist's article was this line

'Abu Dhabi is ahead of Dubai in terms of government openness and efficiency'

Now of course this isn't entirely true (case in point: The Skanky Misdemeanors of the Nahyans - soon to be a major motion picture minus all direct references of course) but for everyone who lived in Abu Dhabi and felt sorry for being referred to as people living in 'that city two hours away from Dubai', it's got to count for something.

Wonder why ItIsALot hasn't swung into action yet? Or is an editorial planned by John Fickle-thwait in the next edition on how petrosheikhs will one day save the world?

The things mummy and daddy do...

2009-07-27T20:39:00.002+05:30

So I like this photograph, I really do. It was taken by this American photographer Doug DuBois, I think it's of his nephew but I can't be sure because his site doesn't say much for lack of captions. Or perhaps, you have to buy his book to find out.

I also like this photograph for another reason. It reminds me of the horrendous photos that parents (mine are no exception) take of their children in bathtubs. DuBois' has to be the first I've seen that's pretty and that's why it's up here. Most of us, who have been subjected to the torture of being photographed in our birthday suits when we were knee high, will agree that it is by far the most embarrassing thing in possession of our parents and that they LOVE to pull it out during family get-togethers and holiday parties while we squirm and die in the corner.

My own (with my brother standing next to me, to boot) is no less of a horror and I'm only hoping that I get to it before my mother does so that she doesn't whip it out with flourish at the next BIG family event and coo about how cute (but in reality, so incredibly gross) we looked as kids.

Another lesson learned for when I have my own tots running around, and an invaluable suggestion for all authors of books on parenting.

Lessons in social habitation

2009-07-26T16:50:00.002+05:30

So I've always been a bit of an introvert when it comes to interacting with the neighbours. I'm the last person found on someone's doorstep asking for sugar or detergent with a smile and being invited to lunch to discuss the skanky misdemeanors of the building's aaytum (read: whore) Mrs Singh or ask Pappu about whether he was finally able to solve ninth grade trigonometry problems. That said, I was on the receiving end of one of these unusually benevolent bursts of hospitality that alternately amused and touched me, when I visited a friend to drop off a packet this weekend.

I've heard tales of people in Orlem, Malad. The colony, with a population that's largely Catholic, is situated in the heart of Malad and residents there are overflowing with neighbourly love. Of course, cynicism and my own experiences with neighbours who seem eager to find out what's cooking on your stove, leads me to be wary of such people.

I land in Malad with only a street name for an address and I amble over to the local laundry where lo! I meet someone who not only knows the street, but lives in the same building as my friend, knows the family AND the flat they live in.

I take her up on the offer to show me the way seeing that the packet contained fairly boring stuff, no contraband here. On the way I get the third degree, though she did it as politely as she could, about where I had come from, what I did, how I knew the aforementioned friend and why I was still single considering I seemed to be 'well over the hill'. Impertinent as her questions were, I bit down on my tongue and smiled my way through the interrogation, thankful when we were at last at the doorstep and I had to say goodbye to Mrs Nosy with a smile and profuse gratitude for showing me the way.

It turned out that my friend had stepped out for a little and so while I waited on her stoop, her next door neighbour popped out to ask why I was sitting there. Out came the story again and seconds later, the lock was turning and this little wizened old lady was asking me in to tea and offering to keep the packet with her. I didn't take the latter offer but agreed to tea and cookies while there was much polite small talk about the weather, Britney and Madonna's liplock pictures on the front page of BT again and whether we were ever going to get an accurate forecast from the weather bureau. There wasn't a single question on why I was sporting a rock on my ring finger (popular topic these days with nearly all the 'aunties' I meet), what my parents did, what my salary slip looked like, why I was living on my own and whether my siblings were suitably packed and on their journey to settled marital bliss.

I was almost enjoying myself too much laughing at Shantilal Meckoni's expense when my friend arrived. I quickly said goodbye and shuffled out, with at that point some regret at why I hadn't ever taken the trouble to know my neighbours better and had a better excuse than living in a closeted flat on the 17th floor of a high rise for most of my life.

My New Mantra

2009-07-18T13:41:00.002+05:30

So I have decided that with or without an umbrella over my head, or a windcheater on, it is impossible to stay dry even when the lightest of drizzles are on. And so I've given up and have begun a new train of thought that is of at least a little comfort when my feet are ankle deep in sludge and my hair is plastered across my cheek.

Water becomes me.

Tales of the Sell-outer

2009-07-13T16:29:00.003+05:30

"My only advantage as a reporter is that I am so physically small, too temperamentally unobtrusive, and so neurotically inarticulate that people tend to forget that my presence runs counter to their best interests. And it always does. That is one last thing to remember: writers are always selling somebody out."

Inspired stuff from Joan Didion, whom the more I read of, the more I am convinced, is one of those remarkable people who spoke with much sense on the big, bad world of journalism. The above quote was taken from the preface to Slouching Towards Bethlehem and couldn't be truer. Case in point - a journalist from NYT who outed her friend who was having an affair in an article in the Sunday edition. And while I don't think the particular case is exceptionally criminal, Gawker surely thought so.

But this blog is about that quote and how it true it holds for writers, or maybe just for me. It's not uncommon for my family and friends now to tell me stuff about people they know, companies they work for or places they hang out at (and the nefarious activities they indulge in there) without stern disclaimers that if this information ever so passed from my lips at work, I would be socially ostracized until the Second Coming. Because for all the affection and entertainment that I provide the people I love and know, they are now sometimes wary that what they tell me in jest might find its way to the papers the next morning. This is upsetting to me at times, since these friends quite openly berate me for my lack of concern for their best interests, but as Didion so rightly said, this is what we do. We treat information like the desperate call centre agent who hounds you once you've said that you MAY consider a post-paid connection. It's why we're paid, it's why we strive and frankly, it's why you read the papers because if we didn't go snooping around, you'd be reading vanilla rhetoric on 'historic mergers' and 'groundbreaking deals' supplied by government agencies and corporates because that's the ONLY stuff they want out for the public to see.

So keep talking. And you're free to hate me tomorrow morning. XOXO Gossip Girl.

Who'd have thought it'd happen at HRC?

2009-07-12T18:13:00.005+05:30

So last night whilst I was waiting for an LIT and a Tuborg, I think I met God.

My friends who were with me last night are probably rolling their eyes right now (that is if they ever visit this site!) but the profound wisdom and lesson in humility that I received in the span of five minutes from the stranger sporting the blue striped shirt and 5 o'clock shadow at Hard Rock Cafe has led me to believe the above.

I won't go into the specifics, you don't talk about the crap you've done once you're out of the confessional, but the brief gist is, we were both at the bar getting our drinks and had a chat when I said something caustic thinking it to be howl-arious but of course, it turned out otherwise. He then let me have it, though in the nicest way you can reprimand anyone for being cheeky. For good measure, he even threw in a bit of character advice and before I knew it, his large Teacher’s and coke had arrived, he stuffed the money for the drink into my hand and off he was. And I never saw him again all evening…

So I don’t know if you’re familiar with the story, but I was told it often enough in Sunday school when I was growing up. It’s the one about God taking the form of some common person to get the message through to the large and unbelievably daft masses, and the person changed according to the situation so at times it was the milkman, the little girl or the tramp.

No matter what the situation was though, it always was that the now reformed dodo who had realized the error of his ways would realize that it had been God he was interacting with but before he could turn around and pump the Almighty’s hand for showing him the light, the person would mysteriously vanish.

Bloody shame. God cleaned up so nice…

Pin-up insight

2009-07-06T03:20:00.004+05:30

So I've read a lot of chick lit and columns where bra burning women have attempted to analyze what it is they want in a man, what turns them on, blah blah blah...of the hundreds only few appealed to my sensibilities which was a bit disturbing as in real life, some of these female authors were seemingly intelligent, witty women but unfortunately they seem to unleash some bitter, green eyed, frustrated monster in their writing that does them no credit.

For all those women and others too, there was a hugely entertaining piece in the Sunday MiD DAY this week written by a hot blooded thinking man (I presume or he's an excellent liar) that made me laugh and awwwww in awe at his insight. My favourite part was this:

"The thinking man, secure in his false sense of entitlement, is convinced he deserves more, deserves better. His ideal pin-up had better have an IQ that's three times her cup size. And no, she isn't allowed to look like Jabba the Hutt either, because then the thinking man would have to accept the sad reality that he looks like Chewbacca. In short, for the thinking man, the interview had better be as good as the centrespread it goes with."

Read the entire thing here and put that Sylvia Plath away for a while

And oh Rohan Joshi, if the stuff in this article isn't entirely yours, who's your ghost writer-cum-muse and can I have his number please?

Thriller tee hee

2009-06-30T15:37:00.004+05:30

So omg I haven't seen anything this funny that made me cry in ages...Watch Chiranjeevi do a Michael. I nearly fell off my seat.

I didn't but I however did when my anti-Semitic colleague made this joke

Q. What do they call Jews in New York?
A. Apple Jews

ROFL...

All the president's men

2009-06-29T20:13:00.003+05:30

So I've spent a considerable amount of time at Azad Maidan police station the last few days and when I wasn't sifting through dusty records and playing with the happy tabby that's the station's sweetheart, I happened to take a look around and find the president's photo hanging there...but oops he isn't the president anymore.

My colleague had once lent me Wings of Fire and being a lazy reader with a prejudice against autobiographies (couldn't get through Biyani's It Happened In India and countless others) I put it away until one muggy Wednesday afternoon when I finally mustered up the energy to go through the first few pages...

What I found there was good stuff, the stuff that inspires you to be the change, but unfortunately before I could get through even half, I had to return to it to my colleague and haven't had the chance to get to it since.

This picture reminded me of that book, that man's amazing energy and the fact that even though he vacated that 'nominal' post in 2007, he continued to remain on the walls at a police station instead of his successor (who I have little to say about, with good reason).

And to think that when he was in power, all I cared about was why he didn't get a haircut.

What would we have done?

2009-06-21T20:53:00.003+05:30

So I just discovered Gawker, thanks to Danto on Twitter, and have been going a little crazy trying to read it on my prehistoric comp at work but I'm glad - it was worth the wait.

So why do I have this picture up and what the heck does it have to with Gawker? Well to explain that, we will digress for a moment...

Somewhere across the Atlantic (or the Pacific, you decide) there is a man called David Rhode, a reporter from the New York Times who was kidnapped by the Taliban seven months ago and who miraculously escaped the clutches of those evil, ugly men by hopping over a wall last week.

So of course news about Rhode, who was well known among journalistic circles in the Big Apple, was of great interest to several papers and fellow writers but why did no one pick up the Rhode story? Enter Gawker.

The article tells of the fascinating use of emotional and industry muscle of the Times to stop the story from getting picked up by the major dailies as family, kidnapping experts and government officials felt that it wasn't in Rhode's best interest for the story to get published. (It also tells of the intriguing, and perhaps a bit intimidating, tale of a paper that said jump and had others doing flips in the air, but that's another post)

And thus, we return to the question above and a hypothetical situation from 2007. What would Mumbai's media have done if a similar missive were released, from say the Mumbai Police, requesting media to stay away from the story for the sake of the life of 16-year-old Adnan Patrawala? Would or rather, could we have stayed away? I know I might say now that I would, but a wise man rightly, so rightly said that talk was cheap. And it is.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever

2009-06-19T20:42:00.003+05:30

So because it didn't make it to the pages in the end and because it was so worthy of applause, it's here. Sorry Satish, it couldn't be a poorer platform for acclaim but here it is, the most beyootiful illustration you've ever done for any of my stories

To read the story, go here

The crazy, the funny and the awesomely obscene..

2009-06-18T15:05:00.005+05:30

So within a month it'll be two years since I've lived, loved and been food poisoned in this city and country and there are still things that don't fail to crack me up every time I lay my eyes on them...

Family or Ladies Only (at restaurants, yet another manner of making single men feel like lepers)

Chienese Bhel (no it is not a typo)

Amrican Sev Puri (also not a typo, but awesome stuff from the guy at the Parel bridge)

Q I class (short and simple at train ticket counters)

On BMC duty (whilst the driver snores away)

Colaba to Vasai (right next to Love You Shaalu on taxis)

Horn Ok Please (on all rickshaws)

Isolating cock for air spring (on the new local trains)

There are so many more but I can't recall them all now.. Only some of the very many things to laugh at, love and loath in Mumbai...

Aaargh...

2009-06-14T11:18:00.005+05:30

So I watched a really bad movie yesterday evening called 'Bride Wars' for Rs 270 (!) at Inox and then being the incurable hopeless again, I looked it up on Wikipedia.

Wiki AND IMDB.com tells me that the movie was originally released on January 9 and so it makes me wonder why, oh why, that even though the darn theatres here took six months to bring the damn thing to our shores, that they would even bother given the absolute flubber the movie is...

Come to think of it, they probably didn't watch it at all or did at 3pm on a Sunday afternoon when your brain surely couldn't be working right...

What a expensive waste of time...

ode to a Cheeto

2009-06-12T15:36:00.004+05:30

So since this is my tribute to the greatness of all that is junk food, you may be wondering why I've decided to start with a Cheeto... well this is simply because Wiki says that a Cheeto is 'commonly considered a junk food partially because it is prepared in industrial kitchens and packaged.' Wiki also goes on to define junk food as that which has 'little or no nurtitional value', but what Wiki and Morgan Spurlock chose to ignore is the infinite vats of emotional satisfaction that a chicken nugget can give you that a shoot of asparagus could never match...

This is why I like junk food:

1. It's often cheap and easy to find. I once went looking for low-cal salad dressing at Reliance Fresh only to find some exorbitantly priced bottle of goo that tasted like my mother's dishwater and smelt like it too. Chances are, it might have been beyond the expiry date too but I blame Reliance Fresh for that (more on my next post)

2. It's really easy to eat. You can pop a fry, chow down a nugget, slurp up a milkshake and get through a Maharaja Mac with remarkably little effort and mess(unless you are a klutz and so God save you). I'd rather unwrap a Twister anyday rather that wonder if my fork was flat enough to eat my poached fish with or trying for the thousandth time to spear a olive only to have it roll out of my salad bowl, off the table and arrive under the foot of the diner adjacent to me.

3. It tastes good. Yes, I enjoy the odd bowl of muesli but when you're faced with the option between the Chicken Kiev with wedges on the side and the low-cal, low-fat, MSG free, vegan tofu stir fry, it isn't hard to make the "wrong" choice.

4. It makes you fat and decreases your average life expectancy. They always said the good died young.

making the world go round....

2009-06-07T13:28:00.006+05:30

So there are few things that I understand less and enjoy more than the idiosyncrasies of this crazy little thing called love. It's made the last month extremely amusing for me since even though the city doesn't experience a spring, next to everyone I know has been on 'heat'.

I'm not one for the romantic stories, the kindest thing that's been said to me about my blog is that my style is extremely caustic, so I'll put down one here that was told to me by a friend on a very lazy Saturday afternoon when such stories only add to post 3pm lethargy...

So Girl is sitting at the domestic airport, tucking into a three day stale puff from the coffee shop when Boy plops himself on the seat next to her. He smiles, she grunts, he continues to look hopeful for conversation, she's thinking that she doesn't have enough mustard. The airport PA goes out, Boy and Girl are both being paged in so off they head to the plane where lo! they happen to be sitting next to each other.

Boy takes deep breath, says hi, girl smiles awkwardly, brief handshake followed by perfunctory conversation, 'where are you from?' 'oh, me too' ' stupid flight's always late' 'they've never got change' la dee daa.. Boy continues to talk a mile a minute, Girl is bored, looks out of the window. Boy gets the idea, pipes down and the rest of the flight continues in silence.

Seatbelt sign's on again, flight's about to land, Boy leans in for a word, Girl noticeably rolls eyes. Boy takes in another deep breath 'Look I know that I haven't been the most interesting seat partner you've had, but thanks for listening anyway. Sometimes you've just gotta try, or else you're left wondering what might have happened.' Boy smiles and sits back. Girl's left feeling embarrassed because this is obviously a nice guy, a decent guy, far better than what she's been hanging out with every weekend. Boy notices that Girl's a bit red in the face so he leans in again. 'Sorry didn't mean to make you uncomfortable about it. I'll just shut up now and you'll forget me as soon as you hit the tarmac.' Girl smiles, looks his way. 'Well then, if I'm going to forget about you, you'll have to tell me what you were wondering would happen.'

The rest of the story is to boring to recount; sappy dates, handholding, eye gazing, tummy rumbles, the drill... needless to say, Boy stepped up admirably to answer Girl's query, and now they are firmly in their little lover's wonderland where pigeons are cute and Vodafone sucks cause poor reception is keeping them from hearing each other's voices every hour, on the hour...

The story on the plane though, is *ahem* cute and it's made everyone I've told so far, smile and go awww...so just for a change, a happy story on this blog... I promise to bring cynicism back with the next post..

I wish I was a kid again

2009-06-01T20:16:00.004+05:30

So there are several things that happened today that made me wonder about why God lets us grow up.

I wish I was a kid again so that when I had the Amul Raspberry dolly, I could eat it with bits dribbling down my throat and not have people go 'ewwwwww' or snicker and say 'Wow, her pants won't come up one of these days'.

I wish I was a kid again so that when I dug my nose, people would ruffle my hair and say 'Kids!' instead of spending hours being socially ostracized.

I wish I was a kid again so that Saturdays and Sundays would always be my days at home and I could finally have the first real 'family weekend' I've had since the last six years.

I wish I was a kid again so that I wouldn't have to work Mondays. Oh wait make that, so that I wouldn't have to work. Period.

I wish I was a kid again so that I wouldn't have to worry about pimples, tampons, rent, loans, investment payments, breakfast, lunch & dinner and where they were going to come from and most importantly, I wouldn't have to ever give a damn about what was the 'right' thing to do because I'd have the rest of my life to do better.

Happy International Children's Day...

The yay, bee, shees of it all...

2009-05-26T21:15:00.006+05:30

So everyone (almost) I know has a burning passion for some sort of creative art that sets them apart. It can be as obscure remembering who starred opposite Karishma Kapoor in Prem Qaidi, without referring to Wikipedia, or as populist as composing collage wallpapers of Bresson's work...

And so I thought about it and I found myself worried that I didn't have one of those burning passions myself. Sure I liked Shah Rukh Khan but I hadn't mustered the courage to watch cinematic masterpieces like Army or One 2 Ka 4. I liked N*Sync but I didn't know that Lance Bass was gay until I read an article about Perez Hilton and the fact that he had helped outing him. Needless to say, this was the cause of much vexation but I think I've found at answer, though perhaps at the cost of much public ridicule.

It's not that I haven't discussed a penchant for children's literature before...an interviewer at Asda'a public relations in Dubai will still tell you how gobsmacked he was when I told him that my prime area of interest was Harry Potter. At the time, I did it for a bit of fun. I had already made up my mind during the course of conversation that PR wasn't my thing and so it was my time to keep my eyes crossed and give inane answers. However spontaneous answers are often the result of dormant cerebral synapses that spark off at 3am in the morning when your lids are fluttering and you're mumbling to no one in particular about your heart's deepest, darkest desire.

I recently finished reading Walter Moers' The 13 1/2 lives of Captain Bluebear. A cursory glance at the book would immediately want you to pass it on to your 10 year old cousin. There's a blue bear on the cover, and massive illustrations that scream colour-me-in. But it's hard for a ten year old to understand what Carefree Cataplexy is, (unless he goes to an IB school *shudder*) and The 13 1/2... is full of terms that would make even the man with an above average vocabularly read the sentence twice...

Which brings me to the point I've been meaning to make (yes, there is a moral to this story) that the reason that I enjoy children's literature so much is that there are hidden themes for adults even though the author had a young reader in mind. Where else could you find the themes of immortality, death and love discussed with meaningful sincerity (this ain't no Captain Underpants) like in Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt? And if you're nodding like a doggie on a dashboard because you watched the Disney movie with Alexis Bledel, curb your enthusiasm now.

Me, I'm going to be tucking into bed tonight with 'The Magician's Nephew' by C S Lewis, the most underrated of the Narnia series and sleep soundly with that burning passion now firmly tucked under my belt.