epicurus

I know I havent lived in Bangalore long enough to comment on its food scene, but the past twelve months' experience qualifies me to hazard one...

long ago and not so long ago, Bangalore and it's counterpart Hyderabad used to abound in what were called the Kamats and Shanbhags... those remnants of a beautiful era gone by, and sad, they have to be addressed as remnants... where men in white who waited the tables were more than anything else, smartly and neatly dressed and by the virtue of which were qualified to wait the tables... ask those Murthys, Sharmas, Mantripragadas, Rangaswamys, Raos and those dozens of Kannada, Telugu Brahmins who swore by it and by those tumblers of filter coffee... these places were the perfect addresses for the old world charm which is an oasis now... the chutneys and sambars would be gorged and gulped by gallons and these good men were only too happy to refill those perfect round vessels every time they went dry... the tables were clean and simple... no frills no jazz, and sometimes the better off ones in slightly upmarket areas were well cushioned... but all in all simplicity was the theme... this extended to the lighting as well... these were also the addresses for a few maddos like us of K-Circle, whose BBbath guzzling activities were meant to be witnessed... Quite sadly these are disappearing from the scene... they are far and few between in Hyderabad and it isnt much different in Bangalore... while a few Kamats can be spotted, Shanbhags, I fear are dinosaurs now... Masala Dosas would never appear that perfect brown, and roasted to perfection... or wait!

Circa '96 and '97....Bangalore was witnessing a mini revolution which later took Hyderabad by storm... these guys from northern Karnataka simply rewrote the rules what with their Darshinis and Sagars... get in Shiv, Sukh, Krishna, Sudha, Mayura to add to the names and more often than not you had names of the hotels that were literally a combination of any of these with darshinis and sagars as the tail... kind of incestuous, I must add... others stood up to their success stories, and quite literally... out went the chairs and the tables... people had to make do with round tables and some of which were attached to the walls, albeit in different shapes!!! you were the king if you could elbow your way out into the middle and find a place for yourself... the focus was on fast food(no, not the food we have come to associate that phrase with), okay quick food... where there was no time to reminisce the good days of The Indian Express or the Sudha Raghunathan concert at RangaShankara... eat and leave!... the prices were competitive and one didnt mind loosening the wallets for one got one's money's worth... quite a fatal blow to relatively high brow Kamat brethren, who came at a premium... the other aspect that interested a lot of folks was the fact that most of the fare was made could be witnessed, barring a few exceptions... again more often than not the focus was on cleanliness and promptness...
they were big enough to accommodate the Aryan food as well and may be, just may be the success of these places could be attributed to this...


somewhere in between were squeezed the small time players, who faded slowly into oblivion... these were the Gururajs and Raghavendras and the like... these were characterised by huge sign boards with huge embossed name plates adorning the entrances... these led to the cash counters that stocked apart from the obvious, a pack of Bournvita, a small charity box, a small case loaded with vadas and Mysore Paks... not to forget, the huge Raghavendra Swamy laminations that decorated the walls with their multicolored serial lights... they could be regarded as the poor man's Kamats and catered to the basic instincts of their clientele, culinary of course... they can still be spotted in small towns, mostly temple towns... wooden tables with flat perfectly rectangular uncushioned sofas, typified these joints...

no elaborate menus, the options were limited and could be rattled off by the waiter faster than the TGV...


the general feel that I get about Bangalore is that here people love to eat out... and I repeat, Bangaloreans love to eat out... there is absolutely no reason required for them... a general feel good factor prevails about this eating out phenomenon... men and women in all sizes and shapes and all counts of teeth come out and simply enjoy themselves... and it doesnt bother them if they have ordered Upittu or a Rava Dosa or a Kara Bath or a Chow Chow Bath for the evening, something which they would have eaten the same morning at their own places... and which by no means is a speciality for them... the feel good factor also percolates right down to the food and the decor... the biggest draw is the way food is served on a banana leaf that just takes the gastronomic experience to altogether a different level... right time for this? quite obviously the breakfast time... the food is almost always served in the most perfect manner and the visual satisfaction cannot be discounted... the decorations and the embellishments are all trademark Bangalore, to the extent of serving a bhelpuri with coconut gratings and groundnuts... the Grant Road, Matunga, Mahalakshmi, Dadar citizens would die of a heart attack...


ignore the carts that sprout as the dusk sets in and that rule late into the night at your own risk... take them for no dingy places... they serve the most sumptuous and quite surprisingly neat fare that you could lay your hands on... and may be these dudes want themselves to be taken seriously for their prices are quite high... end result? hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm... the civics, the wagon-Rs, the altos in the bylanes of Jayanagars and Malleswarams would vouch for that... car seva anyone?


then there are the Little Italys, the Mast Kalandars, the Grameens, the Olive Orchards, the Civets of JP Nagars, Indiranagars, Koramangalas, and the ITPLs... these are essentially heavy on your purse and that goes without saying... each one tries to carve a space for itself in the junta's minds with food that is meant to be different, esoteric at times...

tucked away in those little pockets of Bangalore are also the ghee stores that double up as idli vada stalls and like I said they are meant to be ghee stores that also sell coffee powder... quite mindboggling... items of breakfast double up as the savories for snack time with a few changes here and there... so dont be surprised if you find Janaki Hegdes or Prashant Gowdas ordering idlis at 6.00 in the evening something which would be met with a chee chee in Hyderabad ( "aur kuch nahi mila be khaane ku... item yeh kya khaara re... item hai kya"), a phenomenon Bangalore can afford to call its won... Madras comes close, I reckon...


Bangalore is not short of any Andhra style chains that probably would have made more moolah here than what they would have in their native... the non-veg delicacies served at Mayuras, Bheemas and Nandinis are touted to be part of folklore out here...

speciality ice cream shops that whip up the best of cold stuff money could buy here and with zany names attached to them, could be found at places deemed important...

messes both North Indian style and the southern could be easily spotted and my theory on how to spot and differentiate a North Indian customer from his southern counterpart all by just the eating habits with a special note on the Bengal species will form another post... coming soon

cuisines from all corners of the globe find themselves represented at some do or the other in Bangalore and speciality restaurants aren't any less...


all in all Bangalore is a paradise for gourmets and gourmands alike, quite a far cry from my Hyderabad (sad to say that as we do not want to budge from the plates that serve biryani and khubani ka meetha) dishing out stuff for all ages, colors, purses and ultimately doing best in what it can... keep up the feel good factor...


Red Herring: the diameter of the Masala Dosa is shrinking by the day out here and at a rate faster than my girth size... while I see my girth shrink stop at a point, the Masala Dosa refuses to stop, quite disproportionately to the cost... be warned, my dear budd from Ypsilanti, these round small wonders threaten to disappear before I count all odd numbers from 1 to 10 starting with 3, and remember, you read it here first... trust me, next time you come down here you shall be treated to such fantastic fare, you will refuse to leave these shores again, maa kasam...

Unreal Estate

what's with these tv channels and the print magazines that seem to have run out of their creative juices of late ? Not that the juices had been overflowing in the first place... but the scene looks parched quite clearly... and it's quite disturbing no hyperbole that...

dont we deserve much better? one look around and it could be noticed that the media abounds in stories and features on either or almost all of the following, and the latter is more likely...

an annual states and CM's survey to begin with on a "serious" note and if the press wallah had the balls not to suck up to some political bigwig's derriere, a report card on the PM and extend it further, the Italian of the East too...

ten best towns to live in, ten big stocks to go in for, ten best shopping malls, ten best lingerie brands, and for me the ultimate annual farce--- the best MBA schools... as if the b-schools produce some ground breaking results in those twelve months that warrants a groundbreaking survey which have these schools fall down a few notches or rise up and raise the bar!!! what have we here? a column or two from the experts, get in an aspiring i-banker who is in the 0.001 of the cream after having been culled and chaffed from the lesser mortals, page or two on the occidental biggies and how we differ from them, and the yes that proposition that all this holy farce revolves around... placements and more placements... of day zeroes to PPOs... it's definitely not a case of sour grapes and good for the people who go through it... but the way our fourth estate goes on about it, with either TRPs on more circulation in its minds, drives me up the wall

the most powerful people, the most powerful people in the industry, the most powerful people in Bollywood... the usual suspects? an ambani here, a mittal there, a chopra here, a king khan there... throw in a Mazumdar, a Reddy, a Jain, a Nooyi for the balance... yes read on, in short well framed boxes adjoining the well framed photos, about their work ethics, their favorite cigar brand, their penchant for big wheels, if they like set curd or a loose one...


do a cover on a one film wonder only to be ripped apart later when the junta doesnt want to go ga ga anymore for they have found another wonder... what a blunder!!!

steam up the scene a bit... do the annual sex survey... tell us how we like to kiss our spouses... which side of the bed should we be waking up on to find our mates more appealing... bring in statistics from the surveys you have carried out in bhatinda, kanpur, jhansi, lucknow, asansole, bhilai, tirupur, alleppey, vijayawada, surat and shimla...tell us there has been a revolution of sorts in the years gone by, when we have become more open and have warmed ourselves to the idea of erotica in open and the age of coming out of the closets... tell us atleat 34% of the respondents wants its share of extramarital flings... tell us people are no more "shy" to ask for their strawberry flavored latex.. or is it vanilla? gothilla... then as a tail piece get an NGO to pen something on AIDS awareness and the need for sex education right from primary school level and carry out an opposing piece, all worthy of a debate, to balance it out... balance it out??? when all the titillation and sales factor is taken care of???? make no mistake, i am no prude, and for all my openness in the real sense of the word, I find it quite disgusting to take this pre-chewed-ill-packaged fare ... sorry I cant digest that


ok ok i forgot... the annual car survey... how we have moved on from our and the best source of nirvana in 1993, the Zen and are ready to lap up the maseratis, the endeavours, the camrys and the hummys... how Chunkey Pandey still likes his 95' Landcruiser and watch Upen Patel and Queeny Dhodie debate over whether automatic transmission or not? what to expect in the Fall '07 and '08 with all the letters in the English alphabet turning out to be insufficient to describe the mushrooming segements in cars... and ha yes ! how on earth could I forget Rajinder Puri with his piece on his first and beloved '800 and how he has had to be on the waiting list for aeons and among the first few to be handed over the keys by a certain Kapil Paaji...

give us all "the milestones of the decade", "the milestones of the millenium", " the red letter days".... get in all here again...through a lensman's eyes.... the freedom struggle , the hoisting of the flag on the ramparts of the red fort, the first annual budget, Appu'82, Lord's 83 and punch in the line "when david downed goliath", Maruti Udyog, Indira behinds the shades, Milkha Singh, P T Usha, a saffron clad NTR atop his Ratham and fighting for our aatmagauravam, the ushering of new age soft gloss ads of the 80s, , Ravi Shastri in the best of lankiness with his audi and irritatingly audible now, show the boost boy in his first roots and branches of moustache, still wet behind his ears gearing up to W & W....have P V Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh in a single frame and laud them for their liberal thoughts, the Sriperumbudur'91 massacre, the gargantuan barjatya monster HAHK with an olive green clad Dixit showing a well etched posterior to the devar deewana, walk us up through the streets of Bombay of '93 and remind us of the ghastly blasts... oh it's '98 now... tell us how a chubby lad with johar for a surname has "revolutionised the economics of Indian Cinema and changed its face forever", with his in-your-face Polos, DKNYs, cool bracelet offerings all the while have us chant Om Jai Jagadeesh Hare and Vandemataram, stoking our patriotic flame... oh it's also '98 now... time to get a little serious, balance it, right? show us a Kalam and Vajpayee in their red caps and battery of officials and scientists going nuclear,,, Buddha is definitely smiling... the dotcoming of age of the net in '00 and ever so cool hotmail Bhatia, ... it's '00 and '01 -- dish out a little on the booming sunrise sectors IT and ITES nah BPO for us... tell us the spending patterns and ever so burgeoning disposable incomes Pharma, you can wait... '02 ,yes we stand up to the shirt whirling dada in the balcony again... the years pass by... tell us about the real estate of Bangalore and Gurgaon and Noida and show us the best abodes money can buy in Amby Valleys and Puravankaras... or sorry reserve that for "the ten best homes you should see"


carry out a special on good things in life, we are so starved for them... the best perfumes, villas, sarongs, the hot haute, the pret-a-porter lines, the best of art(it's such an investment thing now) get in anjali ela menons and gujrals to talk art... the islands we shouldnt miss, the best of casinos...


it's time to get serious again... carry a special on money matters and how serious life insurance business is now... talk of investment options and the need for your child's secure future... tell us what the experts have to say... give us cosy pictures of couples and families from Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Pune, Chennai, Cochin, Jamshedpur and tell us how they have sailed through their tough times... get in Mahesh Bhupathi, Suniel Shetty, Annu Mallieek, Gufi Paintal and have the experts in them tell us what to do and how they manage their finances or dont...


yes, those urban phenomena that come with a regularity of a Hailley's comet and change the face of the world as we know it... use juicy acronyms, DINK (Double Income No Kids) ABCD (American Born Confused Desis), KANK.. tell us the world is not the same after what they have told us... atleast not after KANK...


tell us about the feel good factor prevalent all over.... rehash the same stuff... old wine, older bottle... get Dr.Balasubramanian, Mahesh Bhatt, Shobhaa De in... also give us an insight of what Diya Mirza and Chunkey Pandey think of "the decline of communism in China and Russia and it's global implications"...


it's that time of the year again... get serious again... annual best colleges survey... quite earth shattering!!!


ok ok the best hits of the year so far... why? it's June, Joneses... the blockbuster time... tell us the hits so far and the misses so far.. tell what to expect in the coming months and how crores ride on such films... tell us what taran adarsh, amod mehra think of them... do a special on the "new breed of bollywood" and do wonderful boxes on choreographers, cinematographers, hotshot editors, and publicity designers... it's perfectly okay by us if it's not a serious article as long as the spice factor is taken care of, we can gulp it down...


matter for the mind?... what's that??? below the belt ... hmmm that's like it!


my intention is definitely not to sound cynical here but going by the trend and that which is unlikely to change, there's no choice... and I haven't dared getting into that dirty zone called TV channels and P3P and I better stop here...

"for those yearning for some good stuff there's always Reader's Digest na!!"


yes, my ultimate source of credibility and magical realism, of hope, of joy, of inspiration, of mega tonnes of laughter, of the connect, of the belief, of craziness, of LIFE and of again loads of laughter...Reader's Digest... I am afraid the rate at which it also is changing, it might cease to be...

and that's no good Final Condensation, Mr.Wallace

of teental and strums-2

nah! i am not bitten by the sequel bug prevalent now, it's just a recall of my earlier piece on how magical the strings-on-the-percussion combo is and something which could turn mundane, dry tracks into music for ears (pun intended)


for the two marvellous tracks "tere bina" and "ay hairathe" and that out-of-this world operatic piece "jaage hain" many thanks...

for the almost orgasmic, close to mesmerising and intoxicating backing vocals on ay hairathe, many thanks...

for pushing the envelope yet again effectively, and smartly, many thanks...

so what if it might not be heard on the disc spinning trance techno club spurting pubs, and mofussil orchestras, many thanks...

for a work that truly grows on you and lives with you as years pass by, many thanks...




truly you are an Allah Rakha...

Hyderabad Hues

no sooner had I stepped out of the picturesque station, than I was besieged by an army of autowallahs...

"Lodge" asked one...

"Kahan ko jaana saab" questioned the other...

"aaoo baitho"!...

Armed with a confidence that I would get a fair deal further ahead, I marched... in despair.

Within that short walk of mine, I began to notice something... the autos were looking fat, obese and yellow!!! that was quite a departure from the prim prom counterparts of Bangalore...

was the color of an auto coloring my tastes and opinions?? had Bangalore taken over?

and within that short span of time, I wondered if I had changed... if I had started already unbelonging... One of my buddies had also the same complaint... I had no answer then...

cut to the present... I was losing my patience and an autowallah managed to convince me... the auto had moved a small distance and the conversation started..

"kahan chodna saab DSNR mein?"...

"Chaitanyapuri"

"One and half dedo saab"

"Kaiku"?

"Return khaali aana padtha saab"?

"Return khaali kaiku aathe?? bada centre hai naa... dekho! naye aaye so logon ku bolo yeh sab... chaubees saalon se jeere yahaan... yahi bade hue"


The auto dude went silent... and all I could hear was the revving Bajaj engine

WOW... I was jubilant... for a guy who becomes tongue tied at the right moment and just gives in to the demands of others to keep it going and to retain the good will, this was a surprise...


I wanted to shout out loud...


Maaki kirkiri

pick '06

here's my pick of the year, that has been cinematically really good so far, and he descends only in December.


Omkara
Rang De Basanti
Lage Raho Munnabhai


Rang De Basanti just swept me off my feet and went on to become a cult, a well deserved status. Take a bow Rakesh Mehra for the sheer gumption... Aks wasn't a flash in the pan...


Lage Raho Munnabhai had Raju Hirani in an amazing form, continuing from where he had left in the first installment... It just showed how a feel good fare, in the Hrishikesh Mukherjee mould, could be made without being overtly maudlin and confining syrups to medical stores... Thanks


I could talk nineteen to the dozen about Omkara and yes, I know that... and I also know I will run out of adjectives... my hero of the movie? Sorry Saif! for all your fireworks that would put the Sivakasi factories to shame, you get a consolation! It's a tie between Vishal Bhardwaj and Tassaduq Hussain... If Omkara was anything to go by, all its filial and sibling expletives notwithstanding, Vishal Bhardwaj should be one auteur to watch out for...

The magician should be smiling...

Double Ecstasy...

I first did it in the late Fall of '99 and was panned by a certain lady in The Indian Express for "showering encomiums" on the MRF man, who had just then added his first 2T to his overflowing, back-breaking kitty.

Cut to seven falls and as many summers later, I can't help but recall this and there we go, I am tempted again...
I shall follow Lord Krishna's sermons and forget the "phala" and focus on the "karma" here. In the final stages of this "karma" the MRF man settled once and for all, why few men are entitled to those precious three letters on their willows.

Steve and Brian would nod in agreement.


How often has one seen a cover drive being converted into a maximum over the ropes? Atleast for me, a first... and not once, not twice but thrice in a short span...If the janta had gone ga ga over the slash cut of Johannesburg '03, they had better watch this one...


I am also tempted to draw a parallel by bringing in another maestro from the deccan who has more or less matched his counterpart across the Vindhyas in terms of popularity... Both lads burst into the scene with a bam, and took the term "whizkid" to new levels; and by not dying early deaths, thank god, they have been sources of pleasure to their audiences... The flashes in the pan, for a change, were here to stay...

Both have been accused of being too text-bookish, too straight, repetitive and what not, over years.. and yet they have retorted only with sober silences... Both were under the tutelage of their godfathers, and yet they escaped being in their awe forever...

One has had disturbances in the form of lads and clones from the north of the Ganges- high on testosterone, gel-haired, long flowy locks, less diplomatic mouths, and very high on the typical Aryan aggro... The other had nasal waves threatening to wash away his serene houses by the shore, with crooners wailing away to glory what with their "wet lips" and "thirsty hearts" .

The two were low on their TRPs and recall factor and yet they bounced back and how! While the soundtrack of Jan '06 was simply put KICKASS, yesterday's climax act was class, a denouement of sorts... One had an array of shots within an innings and the other, a spectrum of tracks in a single album. talk of versatility!!

I wonder how difficult it would be for stars to keep shining always when a few luminous freaks seem to come with a dazzle and hog the limelight. When the high priests of two religions in India decide to take the centrestage, it's a pleasure being at the receiving end.

My error of '99 seems justified now.



Sanjay Manjrekar! go take a walk...

Fiddler par excellence...

In an enormous ocean called music of seemingly endless boundaries, a tide came, a low one at that and literally swept me away with its aural grandeur... I was witness to one of the more exhilarating and amazing experiences in recent times and for some time to come... If a novice could consume it in all its glory in such a short span, I can imagine the joy of purists...

Age, form, stage and just about nothing seemed to come in the way of this magician who connected to the audience in a remarkable way. He was akin to the dude from Hamelin, with a bow for the pipe and was eminently successful in guiding the folks on a journey on which they didn't mind submitting themselves totally...

His amazing repertoire had the novice in me glued so much so that double stops, vibratos assumed a totally different nuance... The remarkable ease with which he used the bow made me wonder if it was actually a magician waving his wand... mind blowing...

Words fail me at describing what I went through when the fiddler performed "Himagiri Thanaye Hemalathe" and when I realised that he had packed five different gems of compositions into that single gem and every single time he cut into Himagiri, I couldn't help but be left agape...


The child-like enthusiasm and the sheer energy in him bore no proof of his age... the facial muscle contortions and the tweaking of his contours had the crowd guffawing, while I smiled... I also wondered if such acts could be mistaken for the lack of seriousness by the more orthodox... but then that was the mark of a genius who was playing to the purists and the galleries alike, all while making sure he wasn't diluting the art or insulting it in anyway...

Vatapi Ganapatim Bhaje, Raghuvamsha Sudha, Nagumomu Ganaleni sounded extremely dulcet and his accomplices' remarkable support on mridangam, ghatam and tabla only compounded the effect... ... the considerable amount spent on the extremely difficult lower octaves and even before you had settled on it, the shift to the higher ones left me spellbound... the best part was that this transition was made look a child's play and totally effortless... well, it was not...

Kora kagaz tha yeh man mera of Aradhana had its roots in namma Bilahari, so said the genius... Aaja re pardesi of Madhumati assumed new levels of pathos on his weapon...

His rendition of Oothukkadu Subbaiyer's Alaipayuthey Kanna had me smiling, albeit for altogether different reasons... The final mellifluous English notes had me asking for more... all this surely warranted an encore...

I have forever justified the eccentricities of the geniuses in my own mind saying that if we liked them, adored them we had better like their eccentricities as well... but suprisingly the readiness with which he acceded to some of the requests, would have endeared him to a few tag-alongs also...

For an evening that was truly enthralling and magical, many thanks to you... Dr.Kunnakudi Ramaswamy Vaidyanathan





I am still wondering how could anyone, I mean anyone, migrate from Raghuvamsha Sudha to Sare Jahan se Achha and then effortlessly get back to Himagiri Thanaye which he had started off with...

I dread...

It wasn't long ago when I would like something or take to something immensely, it would be extolled, by my own admission, to the point of absurdity... If I liked something it wouldn't be too late before that liking translated into that something being the the ...est in its category. Well its coming down now. I better brace myself to it; my idols are shattering. Nothing or no one is as they seem. It appears as all that I saw was a response to that moment or those set of circumstances and well, it continues... the highest, the BEST, the worst, the fastest, the most, the slowest, the darkest, the costliest and such superlatives do not seem to make sense to me any longer...thankfully comparitive never existed in my life, for I consider it a sin comparing two unique creations of that man with the blue umbrella... while I would enjoy it while it lasts, i had better be prudent to realise the futility in expecting it to last longer...to borrow a cliche, "change is the only permanent thing"...
I know I also run the risk of not looking upto anyone or idolise , adore any great creation in times to come... so till I pick up my next God or idol, things shall occur to me only in positive...

an apple a day keeps the peers at bay...

Uncluttered, simple and straight forward, and yet so very effective... I am referring to the Jobs' wonder that is apparently so free from the jazz that the others abound in...the lethal combo of earthy ergonomics and the heavenly aesthetics is surely a clincher, I should add... be it the products themselves or the paraphernalia that come along... and while setting up the Pod, for once I felt really happy and was at ease...


As for the others, they would do well to take a leaf out of Jobs' book if they harbor any dreams of endearing themselves to the masses and attain a cult status, moreso...


Did I hear premium?


Well, lest the aspirational level come down, nice things in life come at a price...

...Elvis has left the building

alas! he has

The Motorcycle Diaries

from Stem Cells to Quantum Computers, from biodiesel to eco-architecture, from Maggi noodles to Mercedes Benz


If things fall in place, if Saturn decides to smile on me, if the right planets are in the right houses, if Rahu and Kethu are aligned at the right angles to one another, I shall embark on a month-long trip, spanning the length and possibly, the breadth of India on a Bullet in some time to come...




and NO, I shall not turn a Marxist at the end of it...

Salaam Bombay?

Wonder what it is about Bombay that it gets reported about and is in the public glare more often than not?

"bombay sneezes makes for a good breaking news. bombay burps makes for a good piece".

Reams and sufficient bandwith are dedicated to the mumbaikar's indomitable spirit... indomitable spirit??

No life, no matter which part it belongs to, can be an object of ridicule... due respect to all those innocent souls who fell prey to the blasts...

Now how less important or how less valuable are the hoi polloi of a Srinagar or a Baramulla? what about those who have been living there for aeons despite the eternal fear of death lurking somewhere in the corner; who go to beds not sure if they would wake up to the sun shining on them the next morning? Has the lack of any glitterati in these regions made these lives insulated from our concern and thought?


I wonder if the regularity of such occurences out there has made people take it for granted that it's ok... this is the norm, yeh sab hota hai... nothing much can be done there...

Often I have asked. just why dont they leave the place and relocate?... and yes, I have been met with silences whenever I have asked... I should have known.

Can nothing much be done there? nothing?

For the fervour with which they go about with their daily grind, claymores or no claymores, and for the stubbornness shown in adhering to their roots, the little that I can do is doff my hats to their spirit...


Srinagar's indomitable spirit...

Zoom barabar Zoom...

"You will want to read this mail", said she.

"What", cried he.


Photography Brownbag session Nalanda 3.30-4.30... From:Param
To: @HEALTH HCIITS Acute Care Eng India...
Hi all,On popular demand (!), here's a session where I'll talk about the basics of photography, including... blah blah blah...
Pls feel free to fwd this meeting request to anybody else in other teams who may be interested in this session.
Cheers,Param

Happy as he felt, he reverted to his desk swivelling in his chair with a sense of dejection written on his face. Dejected because he never took to bulk mails and chain mails. Impersonal they are, he always thought.

Ctrl-Alt-Del got punched in in no time almost mechanically and the Outlook was there as if almost silently chortling at him and never looked so villainous.

Inbox(1) declared the dutiful dead monitor.


Double-clicks would never have been so quicker and faster and only the keys themselves would have been the proof of the weight and the force when pounded upon.

Photography Brownbag session Nalanda 3.30-4.30... From:Param
To: @HEALTH HCIITS Acute Care Eng India...
Hi all,On popular demand (!), here's a session where I'll talk about the basics of photography, including... blah blah blah...
Pls feel free to fwd this meeting request to anybody else in other teams who may be interested in this session.
Cheers,Param

"Yeah, what's new? The shitty server had to bring this to me and that too this late", he was left thinking to himself.

Little did he realise that this one was different... Indeed it was...

Amidst all the familiarity of the content, courtesy the previous reading, lied an interesting line that put a glow on his face and boy was he happy?



Required attendee: Santosh Kumar T K

maudlin? ...like i care

In this world where every relation, at the risk of sounding cynical, has turned into "you-give-i-take-i-give-you-take", one connect that has remained pristine and shall remain so, is the parent-filial one;between the mother and the child,moreso. In this perennial breeding ground revolving around the Sun, where people are finding it increasingly difficult to relate to anything and anyone, what tells a mother to nurture her young one to good health, what tells her to caress, fondle the baby in good times and against ALL odds? All this when she might not even have the faintest of an idea about the reciprocation of the same love in her withering days? Where there is only an unconditional give and no iota of expectation or a take. Yesterday came an answer from a source who I have started looking upto of late and to whom I shall remain indebted for furnishing those little yet pregnant words and making it easy for me when answering the sceptics and the like. He said it is God. For those ever-ready to sneer and scoff at this I only have to add that God lies in that indescribable, intangible feeling and not in those stones and shrines that we seem to have built. Godliness is a feeling and not a theory to be dismissed.

Point to ponder, a thought to mull over...

... nee evide?

she symbolised that stereotypical lady to me...

of a small town naivete... of a small town boldness that serves as a defense mechanism... of small town timidness... of small town "i-see-world-as-chess-squares" nature... of a small town heart-on-your sleeves nature... of small town love- of small town display of love... of small town frailty... of small town insecurities... of small town desires and dreams...

of small town brashness, of small town crudeness... of small town refinement...

of small town ways... of small town rant... of small town gab...

of small town vision... of small town lack of vision... of small town like for Raj and Simran... of small town hatred for men...
of small town readiness to cocoon... of small town need to be cocooned...

of small town love for thenga chutney and appam... of small town like for pazham ... and of small town love for pachha pazham chips...

of small town glint in the eyes... of small town fire in the eyes... of small town moist eyes...

of small town desire to break free... of small town resoluteness...

of small town thing to cling to the roots...


remya, where art thou?

Mr.Goody-Two-Shoes

wonder why it is so goddamn difficult to get a decent pair these days? last evening i would have traversed most of, if not all, the commercial districts (that scream "happening") of the city i live in,and yet i found none satiated my need for simple, well cut, no frills, classy leg-gear... all the places that i went to abounded in what i would mercilessly term junk and that wouldn't demand a second glance from me... ... what boggles me is they are obsecenely expensive and you had better watch out...


why is it so difficult to embrace simplicity? why has junk and crap come to symbolise fashion, of late? why do comfort and feel-good factor take a back seat and almost get eclipsed by the need to fit in? why is there so much weight in the theory that the taste of the youth of today is all the janitor box variety?


... can this be extrapolated to other phenomena as well? of cars, of bikes, of movies, of sports, of accessories or looking at the bigger picture our tastes, our lifestyles and our ideologies woven around them? or is it the mass factor that has come to influence us big time... which is what probably explains the immense craze for Dhonis over immensely talented, a zillion times more, Laxmans...



is it too much asking for that oasis called old-world charm?

FEET OF CLAY?

wonder what is it about the red mud that proves a constant thorn in the flesh for the greats so much so that a genius gets Rogered himself... ... ... quite ironically

Paint it Yellow

My tastes are getting Yellow...
i hate Yellow... Yellow journalism...


i hope this is a passing phase... i seek recourse to meaningful and fulfilling stuff...


craving it, would be an understatement...

solitarius...

"seethamma andaalu ramayya gothraalu
raghu ramayya vainalu seethamma suthraalu

ekam avvalante enni aathralu ekam avvalante enni aathraaalu ekamaina chota veda mantraalu"

ekamaina sotaa veda mantraaa......

the smile on his face and the naughtiness in his voice is something to watch out for... music to my ears, for years ...




SRAVANAANANDAM

Exit Wounds

...O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead...

they said the off-side could be his, if money could buy it; many reckoned it was already his,... they deified him... when he danced down the pitch to hoist the ball out of the park, and with it the opposition's hopes ... as fate would have had it, he was shown the door...

what was his crime? was it that he chose not to succumb to the demon of double standards and speak his mind out.. or was his fine balance between on-field aggro and off-field genteelness at fault? did he err on his effort in infusing that requisite dose of self-respect, honor into the boys, something the doctor had ordered for? whatever, we seem to have meted out to him a treatment no self-respecting athlete would dream of...

quoting Lord's'96, Dhaka'98, Taunton'99, Lord's'02 would do no justice when quantifying this majestic Prince...

Walt Whitman... thank you...

...My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
Walk the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead...

A FEW GOOD MEN...

bush has them... manmohan has them... G-8, the UN... ... and so do jacques chirac, blair ... mush not far behind...

dapper in their look and the move, and hidden behind those shades, they bow to none... with a no-nonsense, stoic look, their body language screams alacrity and business...

atleast for me, they bring life to any visual on air,otherwise mundane...

adding their own element to the Safaris, the Chevys and the Lincolns they are aboard, their arrival marks the entry of the power they are out to protect... and in it lies their power...

In all a frame, a treat to watch.

... and maino has them more

...bhatt for him

its a nice sight watching him debate on anything this side of atlantic and if he had age on his side, the other side as well... the felicity with which he shares his two cents on anything under the sun or the readiness with which he takes up the cause for his fraternity, something your folks warned you about as the resort of jobless and ever so bad, endears him to a lot of people who dont even know him and earns the wrath of his own...


the filmdom sneezes, he is up there... he is up there at the first signs of the movieland catching cold... the phone starts ringing, he is there... fingers are pointed at, he is awake... all this while he is being parodied on some channel or pilloried in his own circles, quite ironically, by the same people he takes up the cudgel for...


it requires nerves of steel and balls to stand up for something others wouldnt even want to be remotely associated with... yet the conviction with which he does all this, just shows there are people who believe there's a life beyond their creative and professional domains... a life that is defined by their set of beliefs and principles they value...


is there a subtle hint out here for others? bhatt naturally...


a perennial object of ridicule, will he go on?... bhatt of course

...never say.... never again

i wonder... it baffles me, yet i let it disturb me... for i realise its the ULTIMATE truth we cant run away from...it would be naive of us to do so... the truth that seems to have taken a backseat, pretty unfortunately, courtesy some commonplace elements that we seem have to been obsessed with or that have come to define our lives... thats really a tragedy...



its the question of our existence, of why we are here, what are we we here for, where are we heading and WHO is controlling us? a conundrum of sorts... i have always wondered and made it explicit in various forms and across endless sessions of yapping, as to how we have taken so much for granted regarding what we see around us... how we seem to have an answer for everything... how we rationalise everything... of how we attribute reasons for everything that seems "scientific" and start pigeon-holing everything that can come in the purview of this "scientific"... of how we can never be in absolute awe of anything... seem to reason everything and when we dont have any, term them as "anomalies" or "exceptions"... this attitude applies to a whole lot of theories that we seem to abound in...


of God, of universe, of existence, of Time...


my simple, naive,yet very clear argument is... when we arent the creators of anything around us, how do we even seem to define the rules ?? when we are just here to enact the roles assigned to us in the huge scheme of things that have come and gone by and that are yet to unfurl... what do we mean when we say " there is no god.. god is all sham... there has never been a proof for his existence"... then what is this all about?! what are we seeing around us??... may be there are no Gods sitting up there in the skies aboard their vehicles and ensconced in their thrones... but then there has to be some force driving everything... we seem to be satisfied with everything that falls in our limits of understanding or field of view... we forvever seem to be ignorant of the devil in the darkness that seems to be ever so lurking... is it because we do not believe in something just because we cant see it? blame it on limited and minuscule human comprehension...



The idea is not about atheism or belief... the idea is not at all about atheism or belief...its about the accepting the reality of the force that is driving all this and that aspect of openness to anything... i repeat, whatever has happened so far neednot happen in the future, whatever hasnt happened in the past, might find its way out... perhaps not even in limited lifetimes that seem like specks on the humongous Timeline...


its about uncertainty, thats the truth... we are forever comfortably satisfying ourselves by doling out rational theories and trying to exemplify to corroborate those theories... the universe is so and so many years old... if the universe was our BIGGEST entity we could ever fathom and think of, something all inclusive, what was there before say a month before that time limit... whatever existed, was it outside universe? what was that "what" made of? the questions could go on and on...


we also seem to be defining boundaries for everything celestial... barring some relatively smaller entities, how on this earth can we define the outer boundaries for the extreme things??!!! what exists beyond, say a kilometre, beyond the mentioned boundary???!!!



there are questions and then there are questions... while for some we have answers and thats truly all our hallmark, i should say, and that's something has defined our superiority compared to the other beings and touchwood, that will continue to be so,,, We had better be in awe, enjoy it while it lasts and not fall prey to some stupid theories, and lose out on fun... there can never be a better teacher than Nature herself and lets submit ourselves to her, in toto...


as for the others , there will NEVER be answers... our scant grey matter wouldnt suffice here, and there shall never be answers...

for your eyes only...

nothing beats the sight of watching him in action... naturally bestowed with a frame most would die for, he is a visual treat... neither short and stump nor lanky and gawky, just perfect... this perfection translates into magic when he pulls the cherry from outside the off-stump and dispatches it to that distant corner of the park... his frame lends itself to a lot of ethereal stuff... watch him drive into the covers and in the course, me crazy... the silken grace which underlines and defines his cuts in the square is unparalleled...the straight drives down the park will do any geometry faculty proud... the wrist-mechanics could be analysed and dissected across tables and over cuppas...


Reinforces my belief in the game best played in the old-fashioned manner... loads of grace, style, white clothes and nonchalance ...


Ask the nawab of hyderabad, who he has allegedly modelled himself on, or.... better go down under and check out with the mates whose apple he turned into, in the Garden of Eden...

past imperfect... future tense

looking at him gives confidence... there's much brewing around him on all fronts one could think of, yet he goes on undeterred, undaunted with a smile plastered on his face... without an iota of artifice... because i reckon he realises these are times which he would smile at, yet again characteristically, when he reflects on later... till then the count of beneficiaries of his smile refuses to stagnate... its scary at times

pigeon-holing

this is something i have strongly felt about for long and will surface sooooon

bad traveller in Xanadu

...i never would want to feel at home when i am travelling abroad...

no home food, no comfort zones, no nothing...

of teental and strums

i have liked music in various forms, forms as varied as they could get...
there's this particular element, i use "element" for want of a better term, or rather limited knowledge of music, that i have taken to of late and liked immensely... where desi mixes with firang, to put it more clichedly
i am talking about the combo of a tabla with a guitar on the ascent, an electric guitar more so... ditto with a dhol or a dholak...

the result is made for gods... it kind of melodifies the rawness of the percussion and gets a more international feel by balancing the earthy feel of the skin... both act complementary to each other, not displacing the other... thats the key...

"mitwa" of lagaan is testimonial to that...

my pick

quite unapologetically, here's my list of the sexiest men in India, for the sheer rawness they exude and for much more

prannoy roy... NDTV
srinivasan jain... NDTV
lucky ali... Ballads and Blues
srinivas venkataraghavan... ICC Elite
shekhar kapur... Celluloid merchant
naseeruddin shah... cinema avante garde

5 and half yards of eternity

this is the story of radhamma and ninjappa...

Bangalore-76

"As much as I like to see unconventional faces on television, I hate seeing unconventional faces on television", said he.

"Goddamn, you are so very obsessed with celebrities and the like", said she.

"Celebrities"? he wondered.

"Your set of people is so limited. In fact, I should say even your sub-set is so limited. You are forever obsessed with celebrities", continued she.

he was left agape... "celebrities" he pondered... that was as far from truth as could it get, yet with the conviction that it was said, he had no answer...

He really didnt have an answer...

heck...

and i thought scrapping was something we did way back in standard two through four, pasting profiles, dead leaves, a collage of items, a potpourri of sorts...

visual zoom... tends to infinity

a big dial watch on your wrist... a monsoon jacket just snug enough not to project you as an eskimo... semi wavy mane on your head... denim worn to perfection as if it were made for you... boots that make you feel in paradise... by the door of a mumbai local chugging away to glory, slicing through the moisture-laden-post-shower air, de jure... in control of a Carl-Zeiss fitted Sony... a burning desire in heart to unravel the ethereal beauties in the simplest of objects around us that we so ever seem to be taking for granted... the eye to see the beauty in the marked and stamped ugliness... difficult?

of paanch point and singal chai

of paanch point and singal chai

of Pulsars, Engineering colleges, of Chirus, of "mass", Thursday Gods, of Biryanis, of Baawarchis, of DDLJs, of "Youth", of boot-cuts, of Kachiguda cross-roads, of teen-mar, of everything with the flow....

of paanch point and singal chai

utopia

south indian brahmin family - lots of folks - great uncles, gorgeous aunts, gems of cousins- academically bright and sound - subtle romance - respect and immense love for carnatic classical music - financially decent - Monsoon rains - a house in Malleswaram, Bangalore - white Fiat car - Red-oxide flooring - diverse careers and backgrounds - The Hindu - piping hot frothy filter kaapi - kanjeevaram pattus in different and bright hues - dudes and dudettes though having studied abroad for long, singing kirtanas to perfection - vegetarian platter on a banana leaf - masala dosas - Bose Home Entertainment - surreal great indoor lighting - open central verandah - jal tarang, saxophone, santoor - great dress sense - greater sense of humor and music - lots of trees - copper vessels - old heavy fans - moss laden terrace walls - curvy refrigerators of the 70s - engineers, economics professors, filmmakers, journalists, space scientists, doctors, mountaineers - m.s.subbulakshmi on a Bose - white walls - brown wooden columns - striped shirt, red sweater, rimless spectacles - terracota tiles - well stocked mini-library - high roof - levi's 501, white t-shirt - Casio digital - old, wooden furniture with simple lines and curves - idli-vada-virgin coconut chutney for breakfast - Reader's Digest - mechanically wound analog watches - good beds - late nights - curd rice with mango pickle - white striped bedsheets and pillow covers - maniratnam on a Philips / Hitachi 42 Plasma

c'est moi

i begin