And so it was this morning. Our B&B, the best bed and breakfast in the whole wide world so far, is a brisk 40-minute walk away from the city centre. Most of those 40 minutes are spent along the banks of the river Cam. Though it does seem a little embarrassing to call the Cam a river. I’ve seen potholes in Thrissur that are wider, deeper, have more consistent fluid flow, and have a livelier water sports scene. 

But if the locals insist it is a river, who are we to disagree?

This morning the Cam was, as usual, fabulous. Swans and ducks and college rowing teams jostled for space on the Cam’s surface as your blogger and his missus and other pedestrians calmly walked by in the biting cold and glorious sunshine. (This is, without a doubt, the worst weather in the world to dress for. Every layer is one layer too much for this much sunshine. Every layer is one layer too little for the cold. Bloody nonsense.)

So we walked, occasionally stopping to watch the rowing teams piston by, and generally wondered how much it would cost to buy a little house in Cambridge. And then, suddenly, without any warning whatsoever, the smell of somebody burning some kind of wood wafted over on the back of a gust of wind, penetrated my nostrils, activated a vast array of nerve endings and smell receptors, all of which then relayed a burst of electrical signals into my brain.

Et, as the french say, voila. Suddenly, clear as crystal, I could see my grandmother hunched over the wood-burning stove in the kitchen of my old ancestral home in Kerala.

Smell is the WinZip of the brain. One moment somebody is burning something somewhere. The next moment you have a full 3D diorama in your head of something that happened years and years and years ago.

We don’t burn wood in our stoves back in Thrissur any more. We don’t have grandmother anymore either. But the memories are vivid. I can still smell the bits and pieces of dried coconut palm fronds and coconut shells fogging up our kitchen and sooting up the insides of our massive chimney. We cooked simple meals in those days. (We still do, mostly. You need a lot of wealth to wash away even the slightest run in with poverty.) But depending on where you ate your food it could taste completely differently. Eat in the kitchen and everything tasted smoky and sweet and, frankly, a little grainy. Things got better in the dining room. Take your plate outside to the courtyard and the tamarind in the fish curry and the coconut in the kadala curry began to slowly emerge from beneath the smokiness. 

There are other smells that mean much to me. The smell of the carpet in the lobby of my building in London is a powerful sensory marker. It tells me I am home. And that everything is ok. And that you no longer have to use strange toilets or eat strange breakfasts. The smell of carpets, though, is an ancient totem for me. The smell of carpets also remind me of my flat in Abu Dhabi. Of how we’d come back from the airport after annual vacation in Kerala, open the door, inhale the smell of carpets and… suddenly realise that it was time to go back to school, and read the Khaleej Times, and eat sausages from a plastic bag. It meant that you no longer woke up each morning to hear cows being milked and grandparents fighting and uncles battling with scooters and cousins carving wickets out of wooden sticks. It was a sad feeling. It was a happy feeling. And it was all because of the carpets.

Yes. Smells. Awesome things. I just thought I’d share. 

Why did I choose this new system? There were many reasons.

First of all I wanted to run in the British 10K and raise money for an education charity in India. Pastrami’s wife, a woman of uncommon enthusiasm, signed me up. At the time I thought to myself: “Ten kilometres? Ha ha ha. Where is the challenge? Can I run it twice to raise more money?”

The next day I changed into some casual gym-type clothes of t-shirt, shorts, towel socks and sports shoes and went to a nearby sports stadium that has a splendid running track outside. I took a deep-breath, started my stop watch, and set off. It took me merely seconds to cover the first 12-15 meters and another five or six minutes to regain consciousness. It had been a hard experience, but the lesson was clear: several hundreds of poor children in India would have to continue with their informal education without the institutional limitations of a school. Perhaps through Khan Academy.

Unfortunately for me Mrs. Pastrami has the mental flexibility of a large inter-state bus terminal. She wouldn’t budge. “If you start now you will definitely be able to complete the run by July,” she said, as if she is talking to Ravichandran Ashwin.

And thus, in order to avoid humiliation in front of thousands of London runners and the local media, I embarked on a running program.

“IIM Ahmedabad graduate collapses hilariously during British 10K. Subsequently run over by 23 members of IIM Bangalore London Alumni Association.”

Shudder.

But also I really did want to get fit. Over the last few years I’d let myself go just a little bit. The pressures of work and the incessant newspaper deadlines had begun to show in my chunky gut and my 1.6 chins. This run seemed like a good chance to shed some of that excess weight and top up some of that legendary chickmagnetism that has always driven ladies all over two countries (India and UK) mad with desire.

So far my plan has been a total success. Every day I am approached by men and women who want to know how I’ve managed to lose so much weight and get so trim. I am fitting into my old clothes once again. And even as I write this I can once again feel both my thighs as separate entities. 

How did I do this? How can you also learn the pleasures of running? How can you bring some Vaducuteness into your life?

Let me distill all the wisdom of my experience into ten easy to remember bullet-points. This is the outcome of one year of hectic running, research, online socialising, forum-ing, reading and documentary-watching. Follow these instructions and you will become as good a runner as I have.

1. Like any other form of exercise, running is not without its risks. Always consult a physician before you start.

2. Do you now own a small telescope, a Van de Graf generator, and understand the wave-particle duality of light? Excellent. This is because you consulted a physicist by mistake. Go back to step one.

3. So now ready to hit the road and run, run, run? After all, how difficult can running be right? Wrong. You have now been physically incapacitated for life. Sorry.

What mistake did you make? You chose the wrong clothes. Running is no longer what it used to be. Depending on the weather in your native place you need to buy the appropriate clothing for running. In places with mild, temperate weather, such as southern Europe or Kerala, you need nothing more than a high-tech sweat-wicking top, a minimal pair of running shorts and sports socks. In colder places you might want to add a layer of thermal clothing, unless you are one of those mad people who run without a shirt on in London in the depths of winter. The good thing about these mad people, however, is that they are incapable of propagating due to frostbite.

Finally, if you live in very hot weather in places such as Mumbai or Delhi, it is better to take an auto.

4. Have you hit the road running? Big mistake. You no longer have functioning legs. Sorry.

This is because you thought you could run in whatever shoes you had. This is a common error with unsophisticated runners. Nobody should run even for five centimetres before undergoing a complicated procedure known as ‘gait analysis’. Here a professional gait analyst-certified on the internet-will ask you to run on a treadmill in your existing shoes while pointing a video camera at you. After a few moments the analyst will show you the video and show your how you are running. This is when most runners realise, for the first time in their lives, that they have enormous buttocks that, on the video, seem like an alien trying to eat a pair of their shorts. They also realise that their ‘running form’ is all wrong. Ideally your feet should hit the tread mill at a perfect 90 degree angle.

Alas. Most people have feet that hit the road at wrong angles. Either your feet slope inward. Or bow outwards. This means you need to buy special shoes, made by a company called Saucony, that cost at least £80 a pair. 

At this point you may be wondering: Isn’t there a conflict of interest here? Does the gait analyst, who usually works in the shoe store, ever have an incentive to say that you’re running form is correct?

Such questions are not welcomed in the running community. Avoid.

5. One important point here regarding Vibram Five Fingers. Many of you, while driving around in posh neighbourhoods, may have noticed people wearing ridiculous running shoes that seem to cover their feet like a glove. This is called Vibram Five Fingers. Next time you see them, point your vehicle in their direction and continue on your journey, ignoring any bumps.

6. Feeling exhilarated as the wind blows past your hair, and you pump foot in front of foot? Tragedy! I wish you best of luck finding the perfect pig that will provide you with replacement heart parts.

This is because you have put on your new clothes and shoes and just run out of your door like a caveman. Where is your heart rate monitor and GPS watch? Without these pieces of equipment how will you know how much you are running and if you’re working your heart too much? I expected much more from you. If educated people like you are doing this then how people from IIM Calcutta will run properly?

Remember, every individual has an optimum target heart-rate band. You should aim to run in such a way that you hit a rate within this band. Below this and you’re not running hard enough. Greater than this and you’re treating your heart like it is some sort of traditional Indian family in Oslo.

I know it is frustrating to wait for Amazon/eBay/Rediff Shopping to deliver the heart rate monitor. But, as Oscar Wilde once said: “Be patient, or be patient.”

7. Before you rush out of that door, just one more piece of advice: take your phone. There are many benefits. First of all this means that you will have to buy one of those Velcro arm-bands that you can put your phone inside. This, along with a minimum of one item on the body in fluorescent green, is the current global symbol of a serious runner. Without this you are just a suspicious type possibly running away from a crime scene.

Also phones are capable of helping you run better. There are many apps such as RunKeeper and Runtastic that keep a track of how much you run, count your calories burnt, record your route and even help you pace your run through cheerful voice prompts: “Next interval! 10 seconds! Fast! Sieg Heil!”

Normally most runners download between 35 to 75 running apps before they find their perfect one: the native iPhone music player.

8. Next you must choose the perfect place to run. Normally you will find yourself asking the question “Where do I go and run today?” only seconds before you leave your house. Therefore you will then go back to your house, open your Macbook, switch on your iPad or use some other poorer quality computing device and go to Google Maps. You will then spend 30-45 minutes crafting a perfect route that blends both challenge and entertainment. And then just, when you have everything planned out, it starts to rain.

This is very common among beginners. Which is why a basic gym membership is essential for all aspiring runners. On days with bad weather, the treadmill is your friend. However do remember that running on a treadmill is fundamentally different from running on the street. Compensate for this by increasing the incline on your treadmill by a few degrees. But how do you know if you are using the treadmill correctly. This is a basic thumb rule: If you are bleeding from the mouth and/or ears your incline is too high. Reduce immediately. On the other hand if your face is directly positioned in front of one or more armpits that may or may not belong to you, you are in a Pilates class. Replace dislocated shoulder and return to treadmill.

9. My second last, but not second least, point is on breathing. Even the most accomplished beginners have trouble getting their breathing rhythms just right. Usually personal trainers say that when you are running at the right pace, and breathing in the right manner, you should be able to just about speak with a little difficulty while running. However this is easier said than done. What if you are not a talkative kind of person? Or what if you’re running by yourself in a park, try to whisper to yourself to judge breathing, focus so hard on this that you don’t notice the young woman running ahead of you, who then mistakes you for a sex criminal? (This happened to a friend’s friend.)

Use this simple timing technique instead: for every cycle of inhalation and exhalation you should be able to take four steps. This could be as follows: “inhale, step, step, exhale, step, step” OR “inhale step step step step exhale” OR “inhale exhale step step step step” OR “step inhale step exhale step step”. However watch out for this cycle: “inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale”. This means you have stopped.

10. Finally we come to nutrition and hydration. A common saying in the running community is “Show me a dehydrated runner and I will show you someone who will die soon and then we can decide which of the two is more tragi-comic “. This is not a very positive community. But the message is crystal clear. Stay hydrated. But find your own personal rhythm. Some people like to have a small drink before running. And then a small drink again after. Other people drink while they run. Experiment and see what works for you. If you’re running with a large group of friends, secretly fill one person’s water bottle with mulligatawny soup. Hilarious.

Avoid all food at all times. Food is what got you into this mess.

Conclusion: I hope you enjoy this wholesome collection of running tips and tricks. And I look forward to our impending Vaducuteness.

Tee hee.

Sorry. So what I mean to say is that if you’ve ever met me you know that I am the kind of person Punjabi parents say “is from a very prosperous family” and also “can we find a slightly slimmer boy for our daughter?” So I am slightly fleshy in some regions but remarkably taut in others.

But overall the effect is one of jollity and butter nan.

So in January this year I wondered what it would take me to lose a little weight and get a little exercise. Some time in late 2011 I’d started talking to a Twitter friend who studies in the US and is one of those bizarre people who run marathons “for the fun of it” and look natural in hot pants. This friend suggested that I try running for some 20 minutes at a time, three or four times a week till I began to enjoy it. And so I started, very slowly, in fits and starts. It was very hard in the beginning. I would routinely collapse after 500m or 5 minutes whichever came first.

And then one day Pastrami’s missus, the posh Soubhagyavathi, sent me an email about running in the British 10K in July 2012. She had recently started working for Pratham UK and wanted to know if I was prepared to run to raise money for a good cause. I immediately did some research. (Due to a previous life as a management consultant I am somewhat aware of charities that raise tremendous amount of money only to spend most of in ways that would make Rajat Gupta blush.) But Pratham UK is the 100% authentic real deal.

Pratham’s flagship program, Read India, aims to improve the reading and basic arithmetic skills of the children in the age group of 6-14 years in rural India. At its peak, in 2008-09, the campaign reached 33 million children across 19 states. It covered 305,000 out of the 600,000 villages of India and mobilized 450,000 volunteers. Over 600,000 teachers/ officials/ government workers have been trained in accelerated learning methodologies. Where the government and Pratham have come together, we have seen the learning levels of all children in the state jump at least 20 percentage points.  24 states have taken up learning improvement programs. Read India was a response to the shocking results of the first Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), which showed that 50% of India’s school going children could not read. ASER is a survey of learning levels on the 6-14 age group, facilitated by Pratham, and conducted by 32,000 volunteers sampling 704,000 children.  As many as 13 states are using ASER like tools to measure the progress in reading and arithmetic.

You can read more here.

How can you possibly not impressed by those numbers? No you tell me. How can you not? Imagine what could happen if Pratham was supported more broadly and eventually got all the children to read more thereby by eventually becoming potential future buyers of all MY DORK BOOKS BUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…

I kid.

But I was impressed. These guys genuinely seemed like people who cared enough to make not just chota mota difference, but large scale big bang changes. Which is more than what I do with my daily typing. And more than what most of you do with your typing and trading and tweeting and all that. (Also Soubhagyavahthi is the most upright, honest person I know. She would never work with anything but a white-dove-pure NGO.)

But now there was only one problem with running the British 10K. Running the British 10K. So after much googling I started on a plan called the Couch to 5K program that gets you from  nowhere, to running 5 kilometres comfortably three or four times a week. I’ve never enjoyed physical activity more in my entire life. Not only did I blast through the 9-week program, but last weekend I managed this:

Those are in kilometres boss.

I know won’t be participating in any Olympics with these timings, but hey I am trying. (And who knows what political intrigue will happen to the Indian Athletic squad for the London 2012 Olympics?)

So now if everything goes according to plan I will be running in the British 10K on the 8th of July. It will be long, hard and I will most probably stop many times in between when I run out of horsepower. But I. Will. Finish it.

Are you prepared to do yours soldier?

I humbly request you, my dear readers, to donate generously to the Pratham cause. In return I promise to somehow, someway complete the 10K circuit.

But there is more. Besides the fact that £10 (Around Rs880) can keep a child in school in India for a whole year, which is reward in itself, I am prepared to sweeten things even further. Spare a little change for a good cause and I’ll do what little I can to incentivise you. As follows:

For every £10: I will send you a signed copy of one of my books with intensely personalised, borderline pornographic messages.

For every £25: I will send you a signed copy of both of my books PLUS put you on the list to get a signed copy of the third book the very moment it comes off the press. Not to mention a a printed copy of the original, pre-edited Dork 3 manuscript signed and in a proper yellow envelope.

For every £100: I will make you, an individual, a character in my third book. You give me your name. And I decide how I put you in there. In a nice way of course. (What an excellent gift for a friend or lover!)

For every £200: I will put your company in my third book. And tweet about this fact on my Twitter handle. Thereby giving you temporary and permanent fame. WHAT MADNESS OF A GREAT OFFER IS THIS??? (However please check with me before you donate. Just in case you are a business school with free-laptop-tendencies or your company name rhymes with ‘Dovernment of Dreece’. Contact form link above.)

Any combination of these offers are also possible. So you can donate £200 and ask for two Dork characters. GASP! Also they are valid anywhere in the world.

But if you’d rather just do this from the goodness of your heart, that is also ok. Donate as much or as little as you can to help a charity organisation that actually works. And I will make sure to run my ass off to make it worthwhile for you. Remember six months ago I couldn’t run 500m. And today I am running 10 kilometres. Only for you and the children.

Deal? Deal!

Just go here to donate. Please? All of you fellows are so well off no? Some of you have family businesses also. Then? Click below urgently.

 P.S. After donating just make sure to choose the “share email address with Sidin” option. This should appear after the option to leave a message on the message board. And I will be in touch with you for the formalities.

I am 50% sure this is a hoax comment. And 50% certain it is someone who has painstakingly translated their thoughts on the run from Tamil to English. I don’t care. It is so bloody funny.

Click to the page here. And search for the comment by Perumselva Pandiyan.

I reproduce it here in full. Enjoy.

***

Panicker saar: You are telling Pakistan is not having skin and India will bat out Pakistan skin and chase match for winning.

How India can chase Pakistan skin? Like that nonsense why you are telling public type of commentary? You are telling cricket commentary means you tell cricket commentary – why you are telling about skin and all? India also is not having skin because it is getting defeat in three times from Pakistan.

Also Tendulkar is Oozing, Balaji is Oozing and all India fellow is Oozing – bit Mohammed Kafi is not oozing because he is not brinjal eating fellow. But also I am putting open bet on you – you are having mustache means you take bet. I am telling starting for straight and putting bet: India will not win saar. If India win means I will wear komanam and run around your house and I will not keep mustache. If India is getting defeat means you except that Pakistan is super type of fellows and India name is in public toilet. Also please don’t keep mustache. Mustache is for male type of fellow. You are male type of fellow means you keep open bet.

Also Agarkar is useless only. Also Kumaran is best bowler for India why he is not getting chance? Also peoples are always telling that Aktha is putting 150 meter per second his balls, also Bert Lee is putting 150 meter per second in his balls. Kumara is bowling 200 meter per second in his balls. But Kumaran is not getting chance. Why you are not telling for Kumaran getting chance? Can you tell in open type of way? Are you seeing Kumaran’s balls in Ranji match and Test match in Australia? Even Steve Waugh [ Images ] is seeing Kumaran’s balls and getting afraid of his balls swinging and reverse cutting.

Kumaran is Tamilan and Dravidan man. He is not false Dravid like Dravid and he is also not false Tamilan like Balaji and all. Kumaran is clean Tamilian. Give Kumran chance also for showing reverse balls.

Yours Faithfully

Also Kumaran is original Tamilan with chest, mustache and all.

***

And also where is the time after all the Twittering and cooking and posting photos of food?

But here I am. Here you are. *Platonic hugs for the men.* *Platonic pecks on the cheek for the ladies.*

We are all good again.

Also, no. This is not about the second Dork book. I have been very tardy with the promotion of that masterpiece. But then sales are not bad at all. And I am not complaining. So we shall do the shameless marketing later.

Today, instead, I would like to talk about some politics. Now as you may know India should be going to the polls to elect the next Lok Sabha latest by 2014. Some people, who have much greater granular knowledge of such things, tell me that depending on how the UP state elections turn out the UPA may be forced to seek a fresh mandate even before that. Which is very well. Anything, I say, to get rid of the putrid, paralysed, populist panjandrums currently running things into the ground.

But what bothers me is this: what next? What happens when the country goes to polls again? Who do you vote for? Who do I vote for? Why do I vote for them?

Ever since I’ve been old enough to vote in elections I’ve voted in a combined total of three panchayat, state and national polls. This is not for want of trying. But in most cases the legacy NRI status, the constant movement between cities every few years, and a variety of permutations and combinations of the name ‘Sidin Sunny Vadukut’ has left me with a trail of horrible documentation. As some of you may know my passport, school certificate, taxation records, bank account, PGDM diploma all have different versions of that name. Which is why, to make things simple and for international tax purposes, I write books as both Sidin Vadukut and Haruki Murakami.

Most recently, when it looked like I was finally going to get my name included in the Delhi electoral rolls, I moved to London. (Oddly enough, thanks to a ridiculously simple process and some colonial hangover, I am now registered to be a bonafide voter in the UK. And I have already voted in one referendum. Bizarre.)

Each time I have voted in India I have done so from my ancestral home in Kerala. Back home we are a family of medium-strength Congress supporters with the odd godless Marxist uncle who people crib about secretly. That is not to say that we don’t vote for independents or even Left candidates. We do. We have. Or that we vote along religious, caste or even wealth lines. Mostly, we don’t. In fact I always find it amusing to see how the family gets together post-election day and everyone tries to avoid talking about who they voted for. I think they do this sincerely and because while the elders try to pass some sort of family whip, not everyone listens.

I haven’t been back home in my village during election season in some time. But my memories are always of a healthy, rational atmosphere. There is a lot of the usual alcohol, cash and illegal megaphone usage. And rare bouts of brutal violence. But by and large the process is… sincere. Candidates are evaluated not only for their party affiliations but also for who they are and their track records. Representatives are accessible not just before elections, but after it as well. It is, to put it briefly, not the hackneyed, hopeless process that people tend to generalise elections as. Maybe it has changed now. But those are the feelings I am left with.

Growing up, sporadically, in this politically charged, fairly well-informed environment means that I like to think before voting.

And the more I think about the next Lok Sabha polls the more… I am left thinking.

On the one hand there is the UPA. I was one of those people who thought that the last mandate in 2009 meant that UPA2 could now shrug off coalition politics and get things done. I can still remember that evening in the newsroom when the numbers all came in. Overall, there was optimism. (Note: I conducted a blind-blind survey in the office that evening. Around 60% had voted for the BJP. Just in case you were wondering with your chormedia hat on.)  As you may be aware, things did not turn out well. So far it has been a terribly disappointing government that has not only robbed of us years of progress, but also of years of hope and optimism.

On the other hand there is the BJP. The party has produced moments of brilliance during Parliamentary debates. But I think there is much more to being a meaningful opposition. Personally, with my limited understanding of how these things work, I have found the opposition wanting. It has a crucial role to play in government. A role that cannot be reduced to a simple choice between ‘well-prepared speech’ and ‘walking out’. Time and time again the BJP, I thought, had a chance to step up and make its presence felt. In most cases I thought the opposition let politics rather than policy get the better of them. And in other cases they seemed outmanoeuvred with little effort.

And sorry, but there is a difference between ruling India and ruling Gujarat. I have had a chance to live in Ahmedabad for a couple of years. And the city and state is easily in my top 3 places to live in. Modi has done some remarkable things. But giving BJP the credit for Gujarat is akin to giving BCCI the credit for Tendulkar. I am not convinced of that argument at all. And I am not convinced of that man. (Please try to not spout hatred in the comments.)

Then there is the third front. That has seldom gone well for us.

I am still thinking of all these things. And right now the only reason I have to vote is if the LS candidate in my constituency is a worthy man/woman. From a national perspective I see little clarity.

But if I had to make a decision, I am going to do it on the basis of a wishlist. So here I am going to put out a list of things I’d like to see the next government do. Some of them may be impossible due to constitutional process. And some of them may seem irrelevant to the vast majority of readers. But it is my wishlist. And these are issues that I care about. I am pretty sure not one politician will read this blogpost. But at least the process of writing it down will help me as we get closer to the ballot box. It will help me take a call.

The Whatay Wishlist:

1. I’d like to see the next government write into law that the Prime Minister has to be a member of the Lok Sabha.

2. I’d like to see the Lok Sabha implement a Prime Minister’s Question system akin to the one in the House of Commons. The post of PM is not a ceremonial one but an executive one. The current prime minister has shown a revulsion for saying anything that is not delivered from a pulpit or behind closed doors. This has only compounded the feeling that nobody is in charge. I find this utterly ridiculous.

3. The next government must pledge to implement reform in the judiciary and police systems. It is not enough to parrot out year after year that millions of cases are pending in Indian courts or that “police reforms are very important”. It is incredulous to hear the law minister to say that “something must be done”. Too many discussions I have with people on issues ends with the lament: “but who wants to go to court??”. Again I fail to understand how, in a system that has crores of pending cases, nobody questions the system of vacations for courts. The last time I raised that someone reminded me that the American have vacations too. Fine, but they also have 104 judges per million people. We have 12.4. Much more such depressing data in this PRS data sheet (PDF).

4. The next government must take up the case of Indian NRIs all over the world. The average NRI is not the guy who sashays in on Pravasi Bharatiya Nautanki Divas and delivers a speech with one mouth and an MOU with the other. Thousands of them live in abject conditions, in countries that treat them like second-class citizens. While consulate services have improved from the horror it was when I grew up in the Gulf, they are still far from being adequate to handle the sheer numbers of people working abroad. For instance 12,000 Indian prisoners, according to one estimate, are held in UAE jails. Forget giving these people votes. Give them adequate consular support and welfare services. I could bring up consular services served up by other countries. But baby steps first.

Excerpt from UAE Embassy site:

The Library is housed in the premises of the Indian Embassy Abu Dhabi. It has a well stocked collection and comprises books on Indian History, Culture, Arts, Politics, and Literature. We are in the process of adding content to the library. It is currently not open to the public, however in near future it will be made available to the public.

5. I would like to see the government pledge to a certain benchmark target of work done, hours of business achieved and member attendance in the Lok Sabha. This is meaningless without the opposition signing up too. But one party doing it could force the others.

6. DO. SOMETHING. ABOUT. SCIENCE AND TECH! The growth in broadband in laughably slow. These recent dabblings in low-cost computing are well-intentioned at best, and perhaps a scam at worst. Vilasrao Deshmukh is the Minister for Science And Technology. Kapil Sibal is that for Communications and Information Technology.

We will carry on when you’re done laughing. Done? Ok.

So is it me, or is there a fundamental problem in the way these ministries are set up? There are some sub-optimalities I see. The Ministry of IT is sitting on a policy mess post-Raja. Solving the mess, increasing the breadth and depth of connectivity, and building a national broadband network are not technology issues as much as policy ones. Let one guy do that full-time. Why is the same chap worried about giving school kids tablet computers? Because he has too much free time?

Next, the Min of S&T’s key mandates includes things such as:

• Co-ordination of areas of Science & Technology in which a number of Institutions & Departments have interests and capabilities
• Support to basic and applied research in National Institutions

Then why in Mark Knopfler’s name is it de-linked from the department of higher education?

I can hazard an uneducated guess for the legacy behind this disconnect.

We keep moaning about the lack of science research and output and that our young people don’t care for careers in science. One simple chart should explain the problem. This is from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research’s website:

The website never really explains what this Zionist conspiracy chart is supposed to mean. But I suppose it means that the CSIR coordinates laboratories which are somehow connected with these departments. (Oh look, there is a Dept. of S&T AND a Dept. of Scientific and Industrial Research. Puke.) But the pertinent thing to note is this: the department of higher education figures nowhere in this equation.

In other words the system that processes our young people has NOTHING to do with the system that needs scientists. You make your own inferences.

Someone needs to sit and see the writing on the wall: This is a steaming pile of Department of Suckage.

The next government must stop giving lip service to our problem with research. And do something about it. They can start by cleaning up this mammoth mess of stakeholders. Draw up sensible hierarchies. Marry the education and research processes. This might make a great way to mark the 100th session of the Indian Science Congress. For now we can only point at the website for the 99th Congress, and lament at the fact that one of the top links on the home page is for ‘Best Poster Awards’.

I would like the next government to commit a workable plan that is revolutionary not evolutionary.

7. I would like the next government to commit to improve the plight of our brethren in the north-east. That part of the country has to stop being a national afterthought. In many ways they are like wretched NRIs. Of course it not all a question of neglect as this interesting article (PDF) seems to show. But there is much that can be done in terms of connectivity, commerce and infrastructure. Don’t spout that bullshit about keeping infra poor to prevent Chinese invasion. The People’s Army will lay roads, construct bridges, inaugurate airports and conduct an Olympics in Gangtok before your under-secretary is done with his progress report.

8. I would like whoever is in-charge of the entire passport processing system and the Regional Passport Office network to be shot in public once in front of each RPO in the country. And then he should be thrown out for entering the office without having a token. After which he should be fed to ‘agents’. Surely this great country is capable of building a passport issuance and renewal system that does not involve obliteration of human dignity and towering incompetence.

The new government must overhaul this system as soon as possible. And while they are at it, they could perhaps overhaul the Foreigners Regional Registration Office network as well. That shit is insane yo. That is borderline hate crime. They don’t tell you because then you’ll call them racist.

9. Mobile banking is a fantastic idea. And will genuinely bring financial services to the under-banked. But so far the execution has been hampered by the RBI’s mortal fear that telcos will try to enter the banking sector through the ‘back door’. Now I can understand the RBI’s apprehensions. Indian telcos are as trustworthy as a Samsung employee standing outside an Apple design office. But this unspoken impasse will not solve the problem. If this means preparing a special kind of banking license to enable telcos and banks to better work together, then so be it. Solve the problem, unlock the potential to change lives. The next government must show a willingness to do this.

10. I want a Minister for Freedom of Speech and Expression. Or an ombudsman. Or whatever. Anybody who will stand up to this bizarre trend of threatening to ban ‘offensive’ things. I am afraid many, many people in this country will actually support this kind of ridiculous censorship. Given our propensity to defend the omnipotent, all-powerful and mythological with our mortal little lives, anti-offense will be a popular platform. I want a government who will not only defend our freedoms but also convince critics why this is crucial to our democracy.

11. Yes. We have a problem with our media. However I am not from the school that wants to regulate or shut down all of them. Or think that they need a morality infusion of some kind. The problem, I think, is a combination of immature producers, immature consumers and a market skewed heavily in favour of advertisers as opposed to subscribers. Things will begin to change, I believe, when a media outlet can make money selling high-quality, well-produced content to readers. Someone has to pay. If readers don’t, someone else will.

Recently I went to a business school to give a talk. Afterwards I had an informal chat with a couple of dozen students who had strong views on the media. Ok, I said, name two or three newspaper or magazines you think are top notch. Names like The Caravan and The Hindu came up. Very good, I said, now how many of you subscribe to them? If I recall correctly, the number was zero. Not one. They all subscribe to the same old rags they were most critical of. Good media does not run on goodwill. (But this is a post by itself. More later.)

The government should not be overly regulating media. But it can set an example by cleaning up Doordarshan and All India Radio. In some cases, like Lok Sabha Television, the intentions are great and the programming sounds good on paper but looks terrible on TV. There is no dearth of untold stories in India. Start with one world-class program. Blatantly copy something from the BBC. If it works, it works. It will make the private guys sit up and take notice. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. We get the media we pay for.

And finally I would like the next government to buy me a Rolex Explorer II 2011 edition. Ahem.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. But these are some issues I write and read about every day, and feel very strongly about. I hope, against all hope, that one of the parties will have views on some of these issues.

Otherwise I am going to put my vote up on eBay and leverage some benefit from it.

By the way, I am sure you disagree with my list of critical issues and have a list of your own. Do write a blogpost or something and send me a link. It will be nice to know your thoughts.

But then for some unexplainable reason–middle class culinary hubris perhaps–we simple stopped slathering butter on toast and then demolishing it in that state. I am sitting here and thinking why this happened.

Nope. No idea. I just don’t know why. Maybe it was a flaky reason like over-dependance on cereal for breakfasts.

Ha ha. Sorry. I have a corn-y sense of humour.

And then one weekend three years ago someone invited us to Pune for a wedding jamboree at a place called the Corinthians.

Oh my god. The Corinthians. This is what their website has to say:

 

Who says that palaces and the royal life are a part of the past?

Surely not those whom we have had the pleasure of serving at The Corinthians, Pune.

Built to the lavish standards of a Morrocan fairy tale palace with elements of Egyptian influences, it offers you a grandiose setting for a variety of occasions.

Come tasteless people of India! We are eager to service your Plaster of Paris desires and ‘loose bermuda commando swimming trunks’ passions.

 

I made up that last line.

But to be fair to them while the resort does have all kinds of superfluous obelisks, sphinxes and Greco-Egyptian pillars all over the place, it was actually very well built. The rooms were nice and roomy. The swimming pool had water in it, and the grounds were quite huge. There were lawns and little benches everywhere and we spotted many young couples in a recent state of marriage staying there. As pharoah as I could make out, there was a lot of mummification happening.

The friend’s wedding jamboree was to take place over two days. On the first night a whole group of us decadent party animals–Pastrami, me, the women in our lives and other assorted buddies–sat up all night playing cards, antakshari and other wild party games popular in the North. (In the south we prefer Mastermind South India, Pictionary-Famous Western Classical Music Composers Edition, and the delightful-to-the-point-of-criminal game ‘Who said this in which book by Proust?’)

Hunger, like France, usually strikes Pastrami suddenly, intensely and without warning. That night too it hit Pastrami just as he was taking a breath between the line ‘Giri Giri Giri Giri Bijli Giri’ and the line ‘Oh Ispe Giri Uspe Giri Lo Girpadi’. He immediately called up room service and demanded a full run-down of all available delicacies. As it was well past midnight the only hot things available on the menu were buttered toast and masala tea.

Pastrami: “Do you have brown, whole-grain or multi-grain bread?”

Room Service fellow: “Ok. Thanks.” Click.

Half an hour later someone brought us a pot of tea and one of those small wicker baskets lined with foil and stacked with 8 slices of thick toasted sliced white bread generously buttered. I mean serious generosity. If the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation decided to butter toast–and they should–this is how they would butter it. The chef had kept going with the fat till the toasted bread could absorb no more and the remaining fat just stayed on the surface. Yellow, soft and shiny. Before this I had only ever seen butter stay yellow on bread on Amul butter billboards.

This simply never happened in real life.

And the toast. Oh the toast. The toast was of the perfect temperature and consistency. It was not so hot that you could hardly ruminate–as you must–between the imminent delight of biting and the animal violence of chewing. It was not so cold that the butter was beginning to coagulate into grease. And the texture. Toasted stiff, but not so much that at each bite the corners of your mouth hurt from the crumbs. Yet the centre was tender, without getting soggy under the pressure of all that cholesterol.

There was no doubt in our minds that this was excellent bread, fresh Amul butter and sincere toasting.

The eight slices disappeared faster than you could say: “Hey! Where is that Adarsh scam file I kept here…”

Over the course of that night we ordered four more baskets of toast.

It revived, in the missus and me, a passion for the brilliance of buttered bread that has seldom subsided since.

My earliest memories of butter toast are the slightly counter-culture version my mom used to make in Abu Dhabi when I was a schoolboy. She used to place two slices of Modern Bakery or Arirang bread, buttered on all sides with salted Lurpak, between the plates of one of those electric sandwich makers. No filling except the generosity of her heart. What has always amazed me is the versatility of that end product.

Eat it fresh and the bread is hot and delicate and crunchy. I particularly liked the crusty end-bits where the heat and clamping sometimes fried the bread. To this day I cannot handle the fiends who throw away the crusts of toasted bread. Philistines.

I even loved mom’s clamped butterwiches cold. Which is usually how I had it during the vacations when I woke up very late indeed. By then the bread would have become cold, and slightly soggy. But also the sweetness in the bread would shine through better at lower temprature. This late consumption also confuses the butter. What is this, the butter thinks to itself. It is warmer inside the mouth than outside? Confused, it slowly melts in your mouth, melding with the masticated bread into…

I have left the rest of that sentence intentionally blank.

Over the years since then bacon, ham, eggs, beans, waffles, muesli, puttu, kadala, prantha, enthusiastic mother-in-law, bedmi puri, appam and egg roast have stood between me and the simple pleasures of fatty bread. When you’re staying in hotels, for instance, tanking up on toast somehow seems a waste of all the other scrambled, fried, poached and griddled delicacies. Especially if a breakfast buffet is involved.

Can anything not made by Apple compare to the experience of waking up in the morning and walking up to large 4-foot wide vat of scrambled synthetic eggs armed with a ladle, a large warm plate and no adult supervision? My first few hundred breakfast buffets on business trips were a haze of eggs and meat and the odd guilty yoghurt.

But now, with the passage of age and the slight dilution in sex appeal, I have corrected my youthful ways. I now appreciate the simple pleasures of a bowl of cereal, some milk and some slices of thick, rustic bread toasted sensitively.

I then pick each slice up by the corners. The finger tips immediately process the vital characteristics: crunch, give, heat. Butter must be applied generously, quickly and systematically. Amateurs start in the centre and then work towards the edges. Fools. The centre is usually most warm. So the by the time you are done with the edges the centre is wet and soggy. Fools.

Also never waste time repeatedly moving from slice to butter container. This is usually seen in the case of guilty, gym-going hipsters who start with too little butter hoping somehow that this will be sufficient. Fools. This is why they are still slightly fat and mostly unhappy. You can always remove excess butter from a slice of warm toast. But a slice of toast will never wait for your hesitant, cautious buttering. There is also the chance that you may be offered cold butter, or butter in tiny fiddly containers. Demand warm butter in case of the former, and open the container fully in case of the latter. Don’t peel back the foil half-way and assume you can manoeuvre with your knife.

Scoop a generous helping of warm butter in one go, enough for the slice and then come. Then dab it strategically at one or two points towards one edge. Then work it across the whole slice in broad, confident strokes. Only in one direction please. Otherwise you will apply, remove, apply, remove, apply, remove like Pakistani life cricket ban. At the end take any excess butter and throw it away. Do not reuse. Especially don’t think you can move quickly and butter another slice with this. That is the kind of reckless, wasteful adventurism that led to Pune Warriors.

Butter and eat one slice at a time. Make each bite count. Crunch, think, chew. Ruminate upon the simple things in life. More than anything else, let this remind you of that old adage: Good things happen to those who weight.

Enjoy your toast.

This happened in the summer of 2004 when I was an intern in Mumbai, wrote blog posts, discovered DJ Suketu, and was still something of an up and coming star on the national junior body-building circuit.

Ok fine. Everything from this point onwards is absolutely true.

So in the summer of 2004 I was being subject to the most depressing summer internship in the history of summer internships. Yes. I was ‘subject’ to it. It was that bad.

My two-month long project was to go around Mumbai and Pune asking surgeons if they would consider using my employer’s latest model hernia mesh. I had to wait outside their usually grubby office for hours at a time. And then emotionally blackmail them into filling in a 40-part questionnaire about this superb, high-tech new hernia mesh.

Which begs the question: What in god’s name is a hernia mesh?

A hernia mesh is, I can reveal to your considerable delight, a piece of surgical gauze that is used to temporarily cover the aftermath of a hernia operation. My first week involved not only reading about various types of hernias and meshes, but also watching DVDs of operations, pre and post-op photos, and working with a surgery simulation machine at a training centre located on the back side of a hideous Mumbai local railway station.

Some of the stations on the Mumbai network have a back side that is nothing but an exit for the overpass. There is nothing else. No facade, no ticketing windows, nothing. Just metal sheets welded to each other, dust, heat and miserable people in a hurry. So imagine my joy. Whenever I wanted a break from my surgery training machine, I could look out of the window and see above mentioned visual delight.

After a month I had a terrible heat stroke and passed out in a taxi while coming back from an appointment. My project guide suggested I take a week off to recuperate, rehydrate and refrain from mailing him for mentorship. A week later he told me to basically abort the mission and spend the rest of the second month working on the final presentation.

One Friday afternoon, around lunch time I think, I took a taxi to make the short trip to a friend’s friend’s house somewhere near Babulnath. My health was somewhat better now. But it was not like I was back to daily early morning powerlifting again. That would take another few weeks.

I got out of the cab and paid the cabbie. Then I walked around one of those old building where all the stairs creak and rattle, the flats are huge and there is a general sense of decay when there really isn’t. The sort of place where business families and their dogs in Mumbai have been living for generations. I went up two or three flights of stairs, waked up to his front door, and then…

And then realised that I’d left my mobile phone in the taxi cab. I immediately ran back down with the moderate velocity of one who is hopeless but wants to give up after a fight.

There was no sign of the taxi. The embarrassment and anger and frustration hit me like a brutal inguinal hernia.

I went back upstairs. For the next few hours my friend and his friends all consoled me and told me that they would all pitch in for a second phone of some kind.

And then my friend got a call. Come immediately, said a gruff voice in Marathi, to a police headquarters of some kind. He told us to ask for a certain police officer when we reached there. It was regarding my phone.

Unfortunately I do not remember the exact details any more. I remember it was a Crime Branch office of some kind. It was a huge compound with many labyrinthine office and pakka PSU style name boards and peons and all that. Two friends came with me. All three of us were terrified of the place. Finally we found this Inspector’s office and asked his peon to let us in. He popped into the Inspector’s office, came out and then told us to wait. Then, just before letting us in, he warned us: “Be careful. Don’t anything unless he asks you. He is a dangerous party.”

We went inside. He was on the phone and asked us to sit on a row of benches against the wall opposite his table. One of my friends, a veteran Mumbaikar who used to know all the DJs and bouncers at Insomnia at the Taj, told me to keep quiet. He would communicate if required. Meanwhile the Inspector spoke on the phone with a slow, ominous drawl.

“The memory card is not working,” he told someone. “You are selling faulty memory cards to a police officer?” And then he hummed with satisfaction once or twice and then cut the phone.

By now tension hung in the room thick and cold like supermarket caramel custard. The three of us sat ramrod straight. Of course there was no need for this. He would just return my phone. It was not like there was anything incriminating on my phone. But not one of us had ever spent any time inside a Police facility ever before.

After a few moments of silence he asked whose phone it was. I told him it was mine. He asked me if I was Madrasi. I leapt from my chair, reached across his table and slapped him across the face, saying firmly: “BLOODY FOOL! WHAT DO YOU MEAN MADRASI? MALAYALI OK? DON”T STEREOTYPE!”

Ok not really. And thank god for that. I just nodded nervously.

He picked up the phone from inside a drawer and handed it to me. Be careful in future, he said. The taxi fellow was a friend of his. And so he returned the phone. I had been very lucky. Most things left in cabs are never found.

Also, he added, I should call my family in Kerala and tell them what happened. He had dialled ‘Home’ on my phone and left a message with my grandmother in bad english involving the words “Mumbai Police, Inspector, Problem”. And then he had dialled my last called numbers one after the other. Till he got my friend.

We ran out of the office and I made the necessary clarifications at home. We joked about this for a few months after. And then completely forgot about it.

Till suddenly, earlier this week, I suddenly spotted the fellow in the news again.

Dey murder: ACP says allegations against him absurd

14 Jun 2011, 1858 hrs IST, AGENCIES

After his abrupt transfer, a senior police officer, who could be questioned in the killing of investigative journalist Jyotirmoy Dey, today said he had nothing to do with the murder and that allegations against him were “absurd”.

Assistant Police Commissioner Anil Mahabole, in-charge of Azad Maidan division in south Mumbai who was shunted to Local Arms Control Room in suburban Naigaon yesterday (June 13), said he was being falsely implicated in the case.

“The allegations against me in the case (Dey’s killing) are absurd and wrong. I have nothing to do with the case. I hope the investigating officials would be able to detect the case early and catch the culprits soon to clear the air,” Assistant Police Commissioner Anil Mahabole told reporters at his residence in south Mumbai.

Creepy.

Small world.

We’d be walking along some side road in Abu Dhabi hunting for ‘sale’ when suddenly Dad would disappear. We’d look around and see him mimicking walking, but not really moving at all, outside a Rivoli or Al Fardan or Al Futtaim gawking at an Omega or a Patek or a Kolber of some kind.

Over the years he did develop a small collection of watches with one or two expensive ones in them that he, I daresay, nurtured like children. After a while he infected a bunch of co-workers with the watch bug. And then every few months they’d all buy and sell watches to each other and feel quite posh.

I hated it.

But that kind of thing does leave residual tendencies.

And now I write about watches for the newspaper. And I bloody can’t get enough of the thing.

I can’t afford any of them. But, as you will see, just looking at them is a balm for the soul.

Hope you enjoy our second watch special (below) and the first in what will be a periodic series of MintWatch specials. This one is on the SIHH fair that happened in January. There should be at least two more this year.

Sometimes your parents make complete sense retrospectively.

***

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But the other day someone left a comment on old write up I put up. It was about a delightful week-long trip I went on to Colombo. The commentee wanted to know when I would write A Strait Apart – Part 2.

Chances are never. I don’t think I remember enough of that trip anymore. Though I still have notes somewhere. On my old phone I think. So who knows.

But as providence would have it, someone who was on that trip with me suddenly sent me an email earlier today. The email had some picture attachments.

I’d borrowed Maria’s camera at the National Museum in Colombo after running out of space on my own.

But as with most of my trips, and almost all photos I take on such trips, I’d completely forgotten about them minutes after boarding the return flight to Chennai.

Maria, none too unforgetful herself, also never emailed them to me. Till today.

I’d like to post just one of them. The most interesting one.

The National Museum in Colombo is as good as any museum of such scale in India. When I visited, the place was over-run by local school groups. However because this is Sri Lanka, and even the kids here are given a glass of coconut arrack in the morning, things were still languid, humid and relaxed. In one room, near the entrance, there was a flat screen TV in one corner looping a DVD on Sri Lankan history. In the opposite corner a museum staffer sat at a wooden table and snored luxuriously. And no one seemed to be bothered by this. There was no embarrassment or sniggering.

Sri Lanka is that kind of country.

But there is plenty to look at in the Museum. Sri Lankan might be a small country that is only half as big as Tamil Nadu–and even then 40% of that is Arjuna Ranatunga. But they have great history, wonderful architecture and were mean engineers in their time.

So as I was floating from gallery to gallery I suddenly noticed, lined along one end of a connecting passage, a line of toilet-like things. All made of stone.

Some of them were easily recognizable as ‘excretion stations’. Others looked slightly more bizarre:

Ass-tentation. Tee hee.

I don’t know about you. But the above toilet looks a little bit like the PWD contractor was trying to make the most of an extra window and his lowest bid.

But in fact that toilet was found in a Buddhist monastery. I was told that toilets like this were found inside dwellings for monks that were otherwise devoid of any ornamentation. The only element of their living space that had any decorative stonework was this toilet you see here. Why was this so?

Apparently at the time non-Monks on the island were spending vast sums of money building palaces and castles and such like. Monks, as you know, abhor such ostentation. (Which is why that fellow sold his Ferrari remember?)

In order to ridicule the luxury of non-Monk homes, and drive home that such things were evil, only monastery toilets had decorative carvings. The monks hated luxury so much… they crapped on it.

On the way out I walked through the TV room again.

This time a bunch of children were watching the screen. Behind them one of the parents sat at the wooden table. And snored luxuriously.

But that’s ok. Sri Lanka is cool with that.