Leader of free world

Twas all because of two twee tweets that the tree, bloody twat, broke in twain and wiped me out. I am sure of it.

An international conspiracy, no less.

As some of my tweeple maybe aware, the minutes and hours after Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, for really really truly deeply madly wanting world peace more than anyone else, yours truly madly deeply may have poked an inordinate amount of fun at this decision. The idea, of course, was not to make light of the venerable Obama at all. Take that thought and immediately perish it I say.

I am a total Obama fan boy. The US president is tall, fit, good-looking, immensely intelligent, a wonderful public speaker, a good writer and a terrible bowler of right arm leg-spinners. What does that mean? Exactly, he is the anti-Laxman Sivaramakrishnan.

But being the Bizarro-Siva alone does not qualify one to win the Nobel Prize for Peace. Maybe a Hero Honda “Most Crucial Player Who Assisted In A Turning Point During A Powerplay (Day-Night Only) of The Tournament Award” with cash prize and free bike. But little more.

So I was quite tickled by the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s decision to award the prize to the big O.

Off I fired a couple of tweets in mirth.

Number 1

Number 2

Of course it was meant with no malice whatsoever. It was all as if I am standing next to Obama and gently poke him in the ribs with my elbow and wise-cracking. Like friends you know.

Said tweets were retweeted merrily and one was even quoted by a magazine state-side.

I believe this was the incident which triggered retribution. I was no longer with him, I was now against him. I believe this media coverage was subsequently picked up by that US agency responsible for the capture, slow torture and eventual assassination of foreigners resident in other countries: i.e. Kentucky Fried Chicken.

I kid. I mean the CIA. The CIA then alerted the Delhi branch of Obama’s black ops team who then prepared a stake out in order to eliminate the threat posed by my Twitter feed. It was an audacious attempt. One meant to tell everybody never to mess with the leader of the free world.

I survived. Just.

CSI New Delhi

The attack transpired as I left the safety of my office last Thursday and walked out to the Costa Coffee at CP. The missus, Pastrami and Lover Boy were already waiting for me at the cafe in our usual spot in the right-handed corner of the ground-floor section. I confidently walked out looking all journalist-like with my man-bag and Blackberry. I stepped out of the office and took a right, putting me on a path that flanked the American Center immediately on one side. And Kasturba Gandhi Marg on the left side.

Till this point I had always regarded the American Center very highly indeed. They have a good library with many superb magazines and often host interesting lectures, talks and movie shows. And recently they also had this mural stuck on the facade which showcased Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther together. Nice.

But housing clandestine belligerents? Not so nice.

Not knowing any of this, I quickly strode, late for our meeting as ever, past the the police jeep that is always present outside the American Center. For a moment I slowed my steps as I prepared to update Twitter with this message: “The MTS mobile service launch has to be the lamest ever.”

(You’ve seen the billboards? Guys with spiked hair surrounded by low-budget photoshop thingies. Epic Network Fail.)

And then blank. Nothing. Zilch. Nada. Oblivion. I suddenly feel like I am asleep but dreaming dreams without visuals. Just noises in the background. Very confusing. An Adoor Gopalakrishnan dream. All the sounds were mostly people talking, with the hint of a police siren now and then.

Next moment I am limbering onto a bed at the emergency ward at Ram Manohar Lohia hospital. My specs are missing, my shirt is all over the place, my mouth feels numb and my head feels as if it’s been through a washing machine on full speed spin as the machine tumbles over Niagara Falls during an earthquake.

Remember how you’ve made fun of those 80s and 90s Bollywood classics where the hero recovers from blunt trauma to his cranium? As his eyes open everybody looks blurred, like the Loch Ness monster…

Recovering hero: “Mein Kaun Hu? Mein Kahaan Hu?”
Hu Jintao: “Vijay bete aap aspatal mein Ho…”
Ho Chi Minh: “What?”
Hu: “Was not talking to you Dude…”
Kamaal Rashid Khan (KRK): “Yes...?”

Oh how much we all have made fun of that no?

Well stop doing that.

Because that’s exactly what I had to do too. Groggy, I asked the policemen standing next to me what had happened. Where was I? What day was it? What time was it?

And then he told me what had transpired: “Bhai saab ped gir gaya aapke upar.”

Even in that concussed state my mind thought to itself: “Ah. So in hindi tree is masculine!” And then shortly after: “Wait. A tree fell on me? LOL.”

Apparently I was walking by the American Center when suddenly, without warning, without natural motivation, a large portion of the tree outside the American Center entrance broke and fell right on top of my head. This was not some small branch of a huge tree. But a sizable chunk of the tree itself. One bit knocked me out as it struck me on top of my head, the other smashed and slithered down my back, and assorted bits bruised me all over.

Similar memory loss, identical body type

But that is all conjecture. I have no idea AT ALL what happened. Oddly enough my left ear and cheek, and my left big toe were hurting as well.

One of the cops confirmed that it had been only 30 minutes since I left office. Then I suddenly realized that I didn’t remember anything of the previous several hours. And when a cop tried to fill in a form I realized I didn’t remember my phone number or home address either. This was all getting very creepy indeed.

At which moment my phone rang and I remembered that I owned a phone. It was the missus.

The gang set out for the hospital immediately. Meanwhile a doctor came over and I told him that I did not remember anything. “Oh that’s alright. You have retrograde amnesia,” he said with a tad too much enthusiasm. And then gave me a tetanus shot on my Side B. Then the cops wanted me to call someone besides the missus. So I looked up my last dialled numbers and phoned my boss. The man can never lose composure in any circumstance and coolly asked me if I remembered lunch.

I did vaguely. It was at The Chinese. Thankfully this kick-started the memory retrieval process. (Now I clearly remember eating the Home-Style Stir Fried Fish.) Boss immediately dispatched a fact-finding mission from the office.

Now I’d like to regale you with hilarious details of my X-rays and CT scans in the emergency ward but unfortunately I don’t remember much. It’s all a fuzzy blur of grubby tile-walled rooms, brusque doctors and crowds. Later I was told that my brain would act like a little pen drive: all the things I picked up while amnesiac would fade away and be replaced by forgotten things that happened before the accident.

But thankfully due to a life full of high cholesterol diets and a head of hair of helmet like consistency I seem to have escaped with nothing more than a few bruises and a very badly strained neck. Much of the foliage merely bounced off my cellulite.

I do occasionally wear a neck collar when it gets particularly painful. (Brief digression. True blurb from box containing neck collar: “Collar offers comfortable immobilization!”) This takes the pressure off the neck muscles somewhat. And prevents me from suddenly swinging my head from side to side when I am in the office and one of my smoking hot female media colleagues walk by breaking news flashes across the newsroom demanding instant editorial attention.

Also I was pleased to note that people in Delhi are extremely polite when they see the convalescing with their neck support collars. Just this weekend I was crossing one of the inner roads in CP when I almost got run over by a bike. But the biker turned around, noticed my collar and politely–unbelievable this–smiled and referred to only one close female relative as he rode off. I was quite moved and clapped a little.

However while I have survived the ordeal with some bruises, a week’s worth of physiotherapy, and scratches on the backside of my BlackBerry, my hatred for the US Government is total. Clearly the US Government had arranged for the encounter outside the American Center and made it to look like an entirely freak accident. Many conspiracies theories have been spiraling around at home, but I am convinced it was a death ray from one of their spy satellites hovering over New Delhi that hit the tree and led to the assault. Triggered by operatives, “cultural attaches” no doubt, housed in the American Center.

Americans, your retaliation was a pathetic cowardly attempt at trying to silence my voice. I am not fazed. I will not step down. I will not stop. I shall overcome. I believe in miracles. I’m the Neal, I’m the man, rockstar, superstar. I contain multitudes.

You don’t scare me. However I am willing to settle this peacefully in exchange for a green card and a country farm house somewhere in New England. Or controlling stake in Chrysler. Or a Kindle 2.

***

p.s. For the record this blog never broke up, it took a 12 week vacation

p.p.s. Expect major book updates sometime next week. A little bit of exciting new paperwork needs to be completed. I want to blab. But it would be premature right now.

Related posts:

1. Nope they still don’t get it
2. Notice: Write well. Write little. Make money.
3. Recently noted around Delhi – Part 1

Earlier this week, the night before the solar eclipse thingie happened, I am sitting at the barber shop in Dwarka under the KFC outlet. And I am feeling particularly unsettled. It is my first visit to this place you see.

Style has no language

I have no idea if this true for all men, but I think it is. Guys hate going to strange, new barber shops. When we find a barber shop we are comfortable with, we like to stick with it forever. A hair cutting ‘saloon’, as it is called in any place in the world where there is a local Malayali population, is one of those low-mental-overhead decisions that guys make. We don’t think about it, analyze it or agonize over it in any way whatsoever. Once we find a place that can cut hair, deliver a decent massage and has a reflected TV screen in the mirror in front of us at a convenient angle we are pleased. We drop mental anchor.

And this has nothing to do with the barbering process itself mind you. It’s not like I plan my haircuts or need to have it done in a particularly artistic way. I am pretty sure that if I had the right combination of long arms, flexible elbows and curved mirrors I’d probably just cut my hair myself. And do it in the exact same way I first got it done when my mom realized my dad was old enough to take me to the local saloon unsupervised.

So unlike the missus, who is fraught with the turmoil of choice every time a haircut comes up, I just walk out of the house, entirely in autopilot, settle into a chair and say “Medium short, short sideburns, keep it short in front”. And 99% of the time that is the entirety of my conversation with by barber. For the next half an hour or so I sit coma-like. Like a vegetable and my mind blanks out, leaping from thought to thought to thought in no particular order.

Even those conversations that men traditionally have in barber shops–politics, sports and such like–are entirely pointless and transient. If you ask us what we spoke about just 10 minutes after we step out of the air-conditioning we probably won’t remember a thing. Barber shop conversation, from the male perspective, is like a screensaver for the mind.

Which is why, when you consider all the factors, that men and women have completely different conversations when it comes to haircuts.

Woman One: I am going to get a haircut
Woman Two: Oh awesome! Where?
Woman One: [Refers to a new haircutting place. Normally named after the ladies who own the place, i.e. 'Anamika and Anandavalli' if classy, or, if more edgy in an MTV sort of way, named after entirely unrelated concepts. For instance 'Sepsis'. Or 'Opticuts Prime'.]
Woman Two: Oh wow Sepsis! Awesome. Ask for Vinod, He is the best.
Woman One: Fingers crossed. I’ve asked for him. But apparently they can’t be 100% sure.
Woman Two: Best of luck. What cut are you getting?
Woman One: I am thinking of getting a Deep U in the back with short bangs in front.
Woman Two: Wow! Trendy and all! [NO WAY you can pull that off. But whatever. Fool.]

Contrast with the following:

Husband: I am going to get a haircut
Missus: Buy milk when you come

Which is why I was sitting in the saloon in Dwarka the other day super-aware. This was the first time I was partaking of the outlet. Nerves jangled. Everything felt a little strange. There was yet another shady brand of locally produced talcum powder on the counter, the swivel chair felt particularly unsteady and the TV, alas, could only be seen in double reflection off mirrors on the back and then front walls of the shop.

India TV was on. And had a complete pre-eclipse astrology package going on.

Which brings us to the real topic of this blog post. Excuse that bit about men and barber shops. Think of that bit as an AA Gill-ish rant.

And that topic is: The curse of alphabetical order in our lives.

Let me explain.

Having cornered the paranormally paranoid segment of the Indian TV viewing market, India TV had one of their staff astrologers in the studio explaining how the solar eclipse could impact your personal life. And in order to deliver true TV 2.0 personalized service the astrologer was doing this in order of first letter of name. And agonizingly slowly.

Through the entire course of my haircut and head massage, he only managed to go from A to C. Which meant that by the time he reached S, the first letter of my first name ‘Stud’, it would be well past midnight. And since the missus and I had already decided to catch up on Law and Order Special Victims Unit DVDs when I returned, I would miss my eclipse prophecies entirely.

So during the walk home after the cut, paper bag full of KFC in hand, I began to wonder about alphabetical order. About how, almost from the moment we are born, the alphabeticality of our names begin to haunt us. And finally, like a crazy weekend with a Facebook-account using friend, the experience haunts us for years after. With a first name starting with S and a second starting with V, that meant a lot of waiting for things to happen. And opportunities missed to Andrews, Anils, Deepaks and so on.

Shirley was the first consequence of the alphabetical order of my name. I had to sit next to her on my first day in kindergarten and was quite traumatized by her pastimes of choice: playing with either a plastic toy camera, or nasal mucus… the latter not always her own. I was quite troubled at the time and would have left Kindergarten severely scarred if it wasn’t for Jibu Jose who always shared his lunchbox. (Sausages in ketchup. Always. Awesome.)

(Note: Shirley later went on to grow up and look almost exactly like dusky hot shot model Nina Manuel. Jibu sadly did not.

Booger babe

Of course at that tender, innocent age it seldom occurs to the child’s mind what’s going on. When you are in kindergarten anything is possible. There is no systemic bias and human prejudice. As long as you ran to Jibu’s seat immediately as the bell rang, you got sausage.

But reality began to seep in when, a year or so later, yours truly qualified for one of those poetry reciting competitions.

In the beginning being called on stage in order of first names seemed like a cool idea. Why be the first to go on stage and embarrass yourself when the audience is still alert? By the time Sidin Vadukut’s turn comes along, the audience has long since disintegrated into several little Dumb Charades and Chinese Whispers games. Unless you screw up in spectacular fashion–forgetting all lines, peeing in shorts before going on stage, break down into tears and so on–no one will even realize you came and went.

But then Andrew M happened. Andrew M, who I am sure I have Whatay-ed about before, was the Sachin Tendulkar of poetry recitation.

No wait. No. What am I saying.

Andrew was the Bobby Darling of poetry recitation. The moment he walked on to stage the audience felt silent, the judges perked up ready to imprint 10s in the mark sheets, and the English teachers picked up the biggest prize parcel of wrapped up books and began writing his name on it.

That’s because victory for Andrew M in any pursuit that required emotive speaking and a high pitched voice was just a matter of turning up. This boy made the BeeGees sounds like a sub-woofer. He could sing any word in the English language, ANY WORD, and people melted into little puddles. Andrew could stand in front of a mike and go “Gangreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeene” and the normally frozen Principal Sister Margarita would go open mouthed, roll up her eyeballs and collapse.

Which meant that Sidin Vadukut, who usually came four hours after Andrew M, could simply do nothing to out-recite the Falsetto Fiend. (Once we both chose to recite the exact same poem, something about a Snowman who’d eventually melt and die. Andrew ran around the stage like those Olympic ice dancers, arms flailing, tears welling up in his eyes. Later I stood in one place, LIKE A SNOWMAN YOU IDIOT FOOL JUDGES, and delivered my lines. Andrew won his eleventh copy of Wren and Martin later that evening.)

The months, years and competitions went by. But even as I could never reconcile with the Fiend, our class was declared old enough to use the student’s library. This was a super-huge deal of course. Our library had the complete Hardy Boys, Nancy Drews, Jughead Double Digest and a sizeable archive of Young Times and Junior News. (Local children’s newspaper supplements. Mostly posters of Milli Vanilli, Spot the Difference puzzles, recipes with yoghurt and banana, and Dennis the Menace and Shylock Fox comics.)

Alas once again I had to deal with the nomenclature nemesis.

Our school was (still is) run by nuns who imposed discipline and orderliness with a certain Burmese Junta elan. (Burmese Nunta? Ha!) If someone fainted during the morning assembly under the hot Middle Eastern sun they just left them there on the ground. Only to be trampled over later as we marched back to our classrooms to the beat of a mildly hypnotizing drum. (Ok I exaggerate. They sent a nurse to pick up the kids, who then took them to the medical room, drugged them and then sold them to this kidney racket out of Ras Al Khaimah.)

So in order to maintain quiet corridors, the nuns decided that classes would visit the library, once a week, in alphabetically ordered groups of five or six.

Woman on top

I NEVER EVER got a Hardy Boys issued from the library. As for Nandy Drew I think I only ever got that Secret of the Golden Pavilion book in the usual routine of things. The good books never lasted by the time it was the turn of the Ss, Ts and Vs.

Instead I had to make do with the terrible, imported from India or [shudder] donated by well-wisher books that sucked. My first ever library book was, for instance, ‘The Sign of The Snake Tattoo’. A terrible book with an anatomically impossible oil painting of a turbanned man on the cover. He looked to one side, with his slightly dislocated shoulder, floating independently from the rest of his body, thrust in the opposite direction. The upper arm had a, GASP, snake tattoo on it just in case the title wasn’t emphatic enough. I remember nothing about the book except for a chase scene in it through ‘the bazaar of Agra’.

Sidin, Shirley, Sunil, Sneha (wonder where she is), Vincent and company all had to make do with the detritus left by then or wait till the end of the academic year by when everyone had already read the good stuff.

Soon a black barter market developed in library books.

We identified suitably named Elsa, Delbert, Franklin types in the class who cared nothing at all for books. And bribed them to go earlier and bring us the good stuff. (Later in life we did MBAs and became management consultants. The suitably named inherited their father’s footwear chain and bought Maybachs.)

Of course I am not saying that the Dreaded Alphabet Curse (DAC) did not come with a few benefits. It was, in fact, helpful in several cases. For instance when the nuns decided that EVERYONE must try out for the sports day teams. They lined us up in DAC order and made us all do the long jump. (Andrew M landed on his face. Which was awesome. But then he began to cry in pain, like that Coldplay fellow, and the girls went wild. Which sucked.)

By the time I landed in the sand with the grace of a birthing giraffe, no one had any mocking laughter left.

Also later in high school when he had John B. the psycho maths teacher, being Sidin helped. He’d take the attendance register and go down the list one by one asking each fellow the homework problem. By the time he reached me I’d have done my homework in the interim. Or at least managed to give an answer that was no stupider than anyone else’s. (The idea in high school pressure situations, of course, is to never ever stand out. Always, always get punished collectively.)

John B.: What is Gauss-Jordan Elimination?
Santosh: Gauss-Jordan elimination is a process to scientifically eliminate, after proper calculation with requisite data and mathematical…
John B.: Next!
Sidin: Gauss-Jordan elimination is a method to mathematically resolve, after adequate processing with necessary numbers and quantitative…
John B.: NEXT!
Santosh and Sidin: Under the table high five!

Now you’d think that DAC would go away by the time you reach business school right?

He overcame

V for very. W for wrong.

I spent all of first term sitting in the last row, in an extreme corner of our amphitheater-like classroom. Way over professor radar, mostly making faces at other people across the classroom over professors’ heads.

It was awesome. While it lasted.

In second term they flipped the order and I found myself in the bottom of the class where I stayed for the rest of my ‘diploma equivalent to an MBA’.

In the years hence DAC has continued to haunt me occasionally. There is that embarrassing moment outside bars and clubs as the bouncer looks for my surname in the list of authorized invitees. (It doesn’t matter if your name is Zalim Zardozi Zabaglione. The bouncer will always begin with Aarti A. Aravindan and work his way down.)

During things like campus placement, interviewers are so exhausted by the time they come to Vadukut, that any above-mediocre joke is enough to grab their attention and get a second round call. By then their bodies are beginning to shut down having heard 400 people tell them that “my goal in life is to learn enough on the job and then set up my own company”. (This because the Professor in charge of Placements said at the seminar that a good strategy is to tell companies that “your goal in life is to learn enough on the job and then set up your own company. This will make you stand apart and look uniquely risk-taking!”. 400 people noted this line down verbatim diligently.)

In my case DAC has taught me patience while I wait, the ability to think on my feet as John B. worked his way down the name list, and a disturbing Harman Baweja-esque ease with performing in front of an audience that does not care. It also gave me something that all of us strive our entire lives to find: something entirely outside our control to blame all our failures on.

So all these thoughts were going through my mind as I walked home from the barber’s. And I thought I should share this with you guys. Because, who knows? Perhaps you are an Aditya or a Bernard who had your own set of troubles when you were in school. Do tell what it feels like to be first by default.

But then I’d forgotten to buy milk from the market and I had to go back again.

Note: Barber shop photo from Failblog.in

Related posts:

1. Mind over Alma Mater…
2. The birds and the bees who are all boys
3. License to … umm … drive…

When we first met and got talking, it sounded just like another one of those coffee-shop mouth-off sessions with Pastrami. (No. Not that Pastrami. This is about the other one. Different business. Same complicated personality.)

Every couple of weeks Pastrami, the missus, a few other mutual friends and yours truly get together to, by and large, make fun of each other. Take each other’s trip. Now you might be forgiven for thinking that this sort of routine gets lame after a while. How much fun can you poke at the same people fortnight after fortnight right? Right?

Wrong.

Pastrami and I once spent an entire overnight train journey making fun of a particular female friend’s nose. Five, maybe six hours of purely nose-based humour.

It was quite a remarkable nose of course. Long, pointed and with a mid-stream course correction that made it hook downwards, and slightly to the left hawkishly before ending in a well-tapered, not at all chunky point. It was not a freakish nose. Some people could have pulled it off. Alas our friend was not one of those. And when extreme boredom struck Pastrami and me minutes after leaving Aurangabad station, we quickly converged on the nose for amusement:

“So does it echo a little bit when you sneeze?”

“Can you touch your tongue with the tip of your nose?”

And the classic:

“How can you possibly head-butt anything at all?”

Alas this particular evening Pastrami had other things to talk about. Which, if I had known about, I would have made up some random excuse, something marriage related perhaps, to avoid meeting him.

Let me explain.

As soon as we settled into one of the tables in the corner at the Costa(lot for) Coffee at Connaught Place, Pastrami squirmed a little uncomfortably in his chair, as men do in such circumstances. And then he said: “Sidin. I have fallen in love. I have asked her to marry me.”

I kept scrolling through Twitter updates on Blackberry hoping that the moment would pass and Pastrami would move on to something else. But he did not. He repeated: “Dude! I am in love. I have asked this girl to marry me! Dude. Listen!”

And so I had to.

Now in most cases when a close friend falls in love and decides to propose to someone, this is a cause of great joy for the entire friends circle. And naturally so. Aren’t we all glad to see a friend find that someone special to spend the rest of his or her life with in love and affection, till some form of gaming console or broadband connection do them apart?

Not exactly. In reality there are several base, negative and downright selfish reasons why we are glad to see a friend hook up with someone.

For instance married men love to see single male friends hook up because there are really only so many times you can laugh off other people’s bachelor exploits before slowly crying yourself to sleep on your side of the double bed. Single men also love to see other single men hook up because, thanks to the weird probabilities that govern male life, your friend is going to date some smoking-hot Anjana Sukhani look alike. A babe who is SO out of your league that she is in some completely other sport if you know what I mean. (Anjana will then fool around with you because you are harmless and call her “bhabhi” all the time, when your actual mental train of thought is more along the lines of “slutty nurse”.)

I am not one to hypothesize how women’s minds work. But when a girl decides to hook up with a guy, I believe her female friends’ mental flowchart is as follows:

1. Wow she is going out with someone!
2. The bastard better agree to marry her…
3. Because she would look so AWESOME on her wedding day (leading to the most important and critical next thought…)
4. AND THEN I CAN GET MEHNDI DONE!!! WOO HOO!!!

But in Pastrami’s case things are not so. When Pastrami tells me he is in love, my train of thought is along the lines of:

Oh. Shit.

This is because, for all the years I have known gentle, sensitive, prone-to-auto-accident Pastrami he always, without fail or exception, falls for the MOST CRAZY ASS WOMEN in the world.

I do not jest. These women are freaking night-mare inducing, restraining order generating insane. Stark raving. And that is saying something for that gender.

For instance there was the one that would always drop in, to say hi and possibly make out a little, by barging into his room without warning Kramer-like. Initially this was a cute quirk that temporarily suspended Pastrami’s “I will be naked when I am alone” habit. Later we discovered it was because she wanted to know if he was ever with any other women in person or on the phone.

Then there was the one that, in her spare time, wrote jolly comic verse about people who wanted to commit suicide.

And who can forget that crazy girl from Goa who’d break up one day, drop in for the night the next, then break up again. And then sex chat with him on Google Talk only to break up again and then make up again and then sex chat again all in the space of a brief afternoon. She left poor Pastrami a mess of mixed messages and hair-trigger emotions for weeks. I’d ask him if he wanted to do coffee and he’d ask, reflexively, if it was because he’d ”screwed up something again without knowing.”

And in each of these cases Pastrami wanted to marry them immediately and have children and a house in the hills. Alas it would be left to his friends to pick up the pieces and console poor Pastrami and nurse him back to sanity. Largely by making jokes about unrequited love around him till his sorrow was spent and he laughed along.

So when he sits in a cafe and breaks the news that he is in love yet again, ideal responses would be to talk him out of it, hit him over the head with that humongous cup at Costa and hope he develops retrograde amnesia, or stab yourself in the throat with that ridiculous cheese twisty thing they serve there and then die a slow death. Anything but the crazy woman you’d have to handle for him.

Alas I was just in the middle of Retweeting something on the Berry and, before I could pick up an ornamental polished marble ball from the potted plant, Pastrami blurted it all out.

The young lass was well-known to all of us having been a year junior to us in college. She was of sound mind and had a penchant for some emotional poetry. And a looker to boot. So prima facie there was nothing to suggest a mental imbalance other than the usual womanly foibles. (Stuff like “You just like Yoda because he talks funny.”)

And then Pastrami began to speak of how they’d been in touch for a long time over email and chat—the lass works abroad. And how after a recent visit by her to Delhi he’d decided that they were meant to be together forever:

P: “Sidin, she came all the way to Delhi just to meet me. For a few hours. From XXXXX!”
S: “No shit. Did she say that? Did she say she came JUST to see you?”
P: “Well not in as many words. But she has no other friends. No other family. Only me. ONLY ME! DON’T YOU SEE! IT IS FINALLY HAPPENING!”
S: “Are you’re sure she did absolutely nothing else at all in Delhi?”
P: “There was this friend’s wedding. But otherwise every minute of her day was Pastrami-time!”
S: “Oh shit.” (Reaches for cheese twisty.)

And if that wasn’t weird enough Pastrami then narrated, in great unnecessary detail, about all the conversations that they had and all the subsequent insights into her personality.

For instance he was going to propose to her in Paris (The city. Ha!). Because that’s the place she’d got on her “Which is your favourite city in the world?” quiz on Facebook. Also he had discovered that her favourite poem in the entire world was Rabbi Ben Ezra by Robert Browning. So he’d asked for her hand in go-out-ship by quoting the “Grow old along with me, The best is yet to be.” lines from that poem.

Pastrami also said that the few moments they’d spent together in her hotel room was heavy with sentiment and emotion. They had hugged at some point and according to Pastrami it felt “just right”. And even the woman said that she “loved the hug”.

So far things seemed normal. Apart from a penchant for poems that are over 190 lines long, our lass seemed largely harmless. And then, just when I thought he’d finally found a sane woman, Pastrami said:

“Just yesterday she called me at 4 in the morning and asked me to write a poem for her on the spot. It was magical Sidin. This despite the fact that she is yet to come to a decision whether she loves me.”

Completely unlike the CBI, I was stunned by this new evidence. What? She did not love him yet?  She was still making up her mind? Extempore poetry at 4 AM? WTF?

Apparently, Pastrami explained, our girl was still coming to terms with the fact that someone was in love with her. Apparently she did not know if she was ready to reciprocate. She was still not getting “goosebumps” when she thought about him. Also it seems she was sill trying to find out what the “concept of love” really meant to her.

Pastrami asked me if I got goosebumps when I thought about the missus. Because the missus was sitting with us at the time, I told him that in many parts of my body the skin was permanently goose-bumped, like a durian, from intense affection. I then asked Pastrami how HE knew that he was in love. He said that the magical moment had been when he had escorted her to Delhi airport.

They’d reached well in advance of her flight and he’d taken her to that shady south Indian restaurant near the terminal for a coffee. After snacking and chatting, presumably about weird poetry, they got up to leave. Both of them approached the cash counter and she’d insisted she’d pay. Suddenly her mind went blank calculating her bill, she fumbled for her wallet and, according to Pastrami, “she just looked so darned adorably silly fumbling with a simple bill.” Pastrami immediately swooped and picked up the tab.

She said that her brain was suited more for poetry than mathematics while Pastrami’s mind was so analytical and fast. Never to let a moment like this go waste, Pastrami uttered a line that has never been used between a man and a woman in a romantic setting before:

Multi-faceted

“Darling I just love to see you doing silly things. And fumbling with math. Frankly my dear, I think my left brain is in love with your right brain…”

She was left speechless. Also all of us and one passing-by Costa waiter.

It was clear that Pastrami was quite pleased with his monumental pick-up line. He sat back in his chair at Costa and smiled smugly. He asked me what I thought. I told him that it was a great line. And then made a joke about how Pastrami and Poetry Babe had at least one good brain between the both of them.

The rest of the night all of us just sat and mostly made fun of Pastrami’s brain. Or the left half in any case.

As for their love story it progresses gradually. The lass is still waiting for her moment of epiphany when she suddenly gets goosebumps and realizes her passionate love for good old Pastrami. Pastrami spends most of his nights, pen in hand, ready to create magnificent poetry for her at a moment’s notice. This is what he wrote that day at 4 in the morning:

To understand a love that is unrequited
Consider a candle that is, at one end, ignited.
If you respond that it’s the standard way it is conflagrated
Wait! I’m not done. Let me make it a little more complicated.
This one-side-lit candle, further, balances about a delicate axis
and, as one side wanes the other, relatively, waxes.
And this creates an imbalance which, as we know, Nature abhors.
But what is to be done when one party is indifferent while the other adores?

And the only thing keeping this world from going completely crazy
is that while A loves B, B loves C all the way through till Y loves Z.
Though the As, Bs, Cs, all the way through till the Ys will complain
that, with one-sided love, imbalance is, only, a minor pain.
And when A speaks of B
you can clearly see
that B’s mere presence
justifies A’s existence.
But when B speaks of A
suffice to say
from how A is derided
Love is, clearly, one-sided.

Unrequited love also, it seems, makes the skin thick.
Words from B that would, earlier, have cut to the quick
no longer seem to affect A in any way.
Also rendered ineffective is any passion A might display
What A and B fail to realize
is that as each candle diminishes in size
A and B, inexorably, draw near
and where A ends and B begins becomes unclear.
And while B is resisting and A is pining
even this dark cloud has a silver lining.

Let the Lovers and the Loved always recall
that ‘tis but one wick that connects us all.

Yes. Pastrami is really, really in love.

Crap.

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Over the last few weeks many people have asked us why we chose, of all the places in Delhi, to live in Dwarka. Isn’t it boring? Are there any restaurants? What do you do for coffee or IIT coaching? What do you do with the money you save on rent?

And we say:

1. No it is not. We have old men who come outside our window every morning and do laughing yoga. I have never had better digestion in my life.

2. There are tons of restaurants. KFC, Bercos, Moti Mahal, Colonels Kababz and, most of all, KFC.

3. There is a Costa right across the road from an Akaash Institute.

4. I buy Blackberrys. The missus buys blankets. We have two of the former and thirty-seven of the latter. Apparently blankets are a Delhi thing. The in-laws gift us three or four every weekend. We have no idea where they keep them. My ‘study and writing room’ is now mostly a ‘blanket and knitted goods room with laptop.’

But the single most important reason we have moved to Dwarka is for the cultural scene. Surprised? Don’t be. Peruse below the poster of one such cultural phenomenon snapped by the missus at Dwarka Sector 5 market, near the ICICI bank on Saturday. Watch in wonder. Also weep:

Faaaahhhhhhn Claaaahhhhhb

I particularly like those spectacles.

Those two heads at the bottom, if you are wondering, are the national chairman and the Delhi chairman of the fan club.

P.s. I do not mean to mock Kumar Sanu or his fans. That man was truly a bollywood phenomenon in his time.

P.s.s. But then so was Mamta Kulkarni. I am just saying.

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Wednesday was one of the tougher days I’ve had at work. I was multi-tasking on several stories, never a good thing for a writer, and had several Google Docs windows open on my workstation. A farewell lunch for a colleague, who is in her notice period and leaving early December, at The Tasting Room at Raghuvanshi Mills didn’t help with my rapidly overbearing workload. After a well-proportioned Tuna sandwich I ran back to the office to polish off an editorial piece on business education. It was filed an hour late.

A short intro piece to a pictorial cover story scheduled for later this week followed. And I was barely half way through it when I got a call from my contact at a PR firm: “Your request has gone through. They will give you an hour-long slot from 6:00 to 7:00 PM. Dinner is out of the question.”

The CEO of a very important and large international company was in town and I had requested an hour-long dinner meeting with her. This was for our popular weekend profiles page. They had reverted on Monday with a 6 to 6:30 half-hour slot. I told them it was pointless to talk to her for half an hour. And then, two days later, the PR firm had managed to inveigle out an hour long slot. It would be in her suite at the Taj Palace hotel near the Gateway of India as she already had dinner plan that night.

Around five, just as I ditched the intro piece to run downstairs and catch a cab, the publicist called back to say that the interview had been postponed by another half an hour. My meeting would now be at 6:30 PM. I gasped in relief. Now I would reach early and have enough time to chill out at the Taj lobby, double check my audio recorder and take a leak before I met the CEO for our interview.

I found a cab almost immediately and ran over my interview questions in my head for a while. Then I pulled out my Diwali-gift PSP and played the penultimate stage of God of War (on Easy mode of course). As the cab pulled into the road by Regal Cinema I saved it just before the final boss battle, stuffed it back into my messenger bag and then pulled out my audio recorder.

There was a line of two business types in suit jackets ahead of me at the metal detector. When my turn came I handed a security guard my messenger bag and walked through the metal detector. The guard felt all over the bag and then handed it back. I, in a split second, ran through all the jokes me and the missus make about these insipid security checks they do all over Mumbai at malls, hotels and multiplexes. A quick feel, nary a glance and a wave through.

Walking into the Taj lobby is one of the most dependable ways to reduce my blood pressure. The AC kicks in first, then the piped music and finally the shiny, warm, clean, buzzy ambience. I look to see if there is a guy on the piano. I always do this. Its a habit that can’t be explained.

That night there wasn’t. The piano sat quiet.

The next thing I do, without fail, is marvel at the doors into the Zodiac Grill and wonder what lies behind. Who lies behind? What astronomically large bills are being presented and paid? And then, like always, I promise myself that once the book is out I’ll make a million bucks and take the missus there. (She doesn’t admit it but a meal at the Zodiac Grill is clearly one of her short-term life goals.)

I walked around for a bit, made one circuit of the arm-chairs and sofas and then settle into a corner of a two-seater still fiddling with the audio recorder in my hand.

Oh wait, some of you might remember the audio player. Remember that Benq mp3 player I bought so long ago from Abu Dhabi and which some of you readers dissed me for? That very same, now replaced by a mighty 80GB iPod, serves as an audio recorder. It records audio superbly, is tiny and can store up to six and a half hours of recording in serviceable wav format.

In the minutes before every interview I handle I tend to fiddle with the player to calm my nerves. I switch it on, check capacity, then battery, switch it off and then do it all over again. I can never get used to the process of suddenly turning up one evening and probing into the personal lives of CEOs. Most oblige but it can still be a little nerve wracking.

The lobby is not as busy as usual. As I wait, a suitably socialite looking woman speeds down the lobby followed by an older woman who reassures her that “It is okay to wear shorts here baby!”

I recognize no one except for a Mr. Wickmann. (My memory may not be precise on this.) I know his name because of the quaint and subtle way in which the Taj summons people waiting in the lobby. Someone walks around with a little whiteboard, with a name on it, stuck on top of a stick There are two small bells on the stick which jangle as it is carried about. Around 6:20 or so someone comes looking for a Wickmann. Wickmann is a tall, white-haired man with spectacles. The staff member escorts him away somewhere.

The publicist picks me up around 6:35 PM from the lobby and we walk down the corridor that connects the new Taj to the old one. To me that walk is the shiniest part of the Taj. The windows and floors and lights all combine to make it this shimmering tube of light. I noticed little of the walk, though, as the publicist made small talk about the global economy and recession and what our paper thought and so on. In fact the only thing I did notice was a show window. It was empty except for a bottle of Dom Perignon on a little stand in the corner. At the time I thought it was a very poor display for Dom Perignon.

We went up the lift to the sixth floor of the heritage building and then took a left, over a flight of stairs to the CEO’s suite in the corner. I was too strung up for the interview to notice the wooden barristers and ornamentation of the corridors of the old Taj.

Our interview started late but lasted for just over an hour. She spoke about her life in the industry, her weekend pastimes, the Indian market and how she once served in the Israeli army. Then it turns out that she has dual citizenzhip: Israeli-British. I quietly admire the cosmopolitanism of it all and then sip on a black coffee. She offers a few hotel chocolates and biscuits but I refuse.

We get up after I switch off the audio recorder and exchange business cards. We shake hands and then she tells me that she’s off to meet a few local business associates for dinner. We share some small-talk and then I finally leave after a short but interesting interview.

This time when I step out I look around and smile.

The old Taj is quite simply a stunning hotel. There is so much to look at everywhere. The walls, the carpets, railings and art are all pretty special. And I have plenty of memories strewn all over the Grand Staircase. There was that quiz that we came third in a few years ago thanks to a stunning last round on Tata history cracked by yours truly. And that evening, after a horrible training session that may have damaged my brain permanently, when I first thought perhaps I should really write for a living.

I am accompanied to the lift and then down to the lobby by the CEO’s personal assistant. We talk about how beautiful the hotel is, how awesome London is and how we must meet when I am in the city next time. We go separate ways at the bottom. She scurries away to organize something about dinner and I walk back through the connecting corridor back to the lobby.

I stand in the lobby for a second and think of what I should do next. I could go and buy some sandwiches from the Taj deli for later. They are very expensive but you do get good authentic cold cuts. Or maybe I could call the missus down to South Bombay for dinner.

But then she has been feeling guilty about missing the gym for so long and I decide against it. Dal roti at home it shall be. I walk around the lobby a bit. And give myself an eyeful of all the rich and famous. I also note to myself that the flower arrangement tonight looks very lame. Sometimes the Taj places absolutely fantastic arrangements. Not that night. After ten minutes of loafing around, and bidding farewell, I turned around and walk out through the glass doors. I stand on top of the steps, look out to the sea for a brief glimpse and then trot out to a taxi. The publicist then runs up and offers to share a cab and drop me at Prabhadevi.

We leave the premises at around 8:15 PM give or take a few minutes. Two hours later those bastards attacked. That night I see the Taj burn. The fire leaps from a room on the sixth floor possibly right next to the one in which I interviewed my CEO.

I will never, ever forget that sight.

My CEO was located unharmed the next morning. Perhaps many of the other people I walked past and nodded at politely were not.

When the Taj returns to business, as it must, no prizes for guessing who will be among the first to go back into that lobby. I must.

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Many of you think believe that us blogger/writer/journalists live lives of luxury and excess. What with the traveling, the informal work attire and the fluffy deliverables. “Maybe this week I will write a piece on the potato!” is what most of you think we are thinking about all the time with our feet propped up on our tables and pint bottles of Carlsberg in our hands. No meetings to attend, no spreadsheets to crunch and no reports to file.

But alas the truth must be told. Our lives are not all milk and honey. We do not live merry lives. And this current economic downturn is hitting us very hard indeed. To highlight this I present the photo of a note the maid left on our refrigerator door a few days ago. Merely the act of embedding it here is causing tears to well up in my eyes.

Look what the global melt-down has done to the Domain Maximus household:

Balanced diet. Not!

Merely a diet of pulao and nimbu pani is what fuels this blogger. Have mercy readers! I am accepting donations in the form of cash and Nintendo Wiis.

Okay now I need to go get another Carlsberg.

p.s. The other blog has a little graph you might like to check out. Especially if you have an MBA.

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The Capital Train

I have great pleasure in informing readers of this blog that the venerable Rajdhani Express trains of the Indian Railways continues to maintain the highest standards in passenger service, comfortable travel and catering that has a “must do trans-fat” attitude.

If one ignores my near fatal cranial concussion, there is much to still rejoice about the Rajdhanis.

Our little jaunt to the capital, for the missus did accompany me, suddenly happened a few weeks ago. It was not a pre-planned thing. What with the short holiday to the “gelf” last month and the traumatic Sensex movements, this blog’s solvency has come under severe strain these past few weeks. Not everyone can be a Member of Parliament with feeble party loyalties no?

So when the brother-in-law announced he was flying in from Johanessburg for his annual leave we were at a quandary. On the one hand flight tickets to Delhi were mightily pricey. And on the other there was little point in using up most of the plain vanilla two-day weekend in a train.

But then there was the biltong.

The brother-in-law had graciously agreed to bring back a kilo of this unique South African delicacy. Now I am not one to be seduced by exotic food in most cases. But:

1. Biltong is made of beef
2. He brought a kilo of it
3. The entire wife’s side of the family is vegetarian
4. IT WAS ALL FOR ME.

This was exactly the sort of thing that my grandmother told me happened to good catholic boys if they prayed regularly, confessed at least once a month and did not skip engineering coaching classes to see Mohanlal fillims at Jose (not pronounced hoe-ze) Theatre in Thrissur.

While the missus weighed the pros and cons of the expenditure, I convinced her by saying that we had to stick to our priorities. “Darling,” I told her, “I just cannot take the risk of missing out on fresh bil… brother-in-law dear… fresh from Johanessburg on his leave. It is our duty to meet him before two to three weeks from date of packaging.”

She nodded both sideways and back and forth in that way she does when she wants to reserve the right to blame me for the decision later, and I immediately pounced upon the internet.

Within minutes I was online and worked out a great compromise. We booked train tickets to go and, ironically perhaps, Go Air to come. It was what mathematicians call an “elegant solution”.

I don’t know about you, but the missus and moi always get very excited about travelling by the Rajdhani Express. And the 2653 August Kranti Express was amongst the most prestigious. Don’t believe us? Well it has the ultimate post-modern, globalized, BRIC-era symbol of greatness to itself: a Wikipedia entry. So there.

Now many of you readers may not be aware of what “August Kranti” really means. (Yes I am talking to all you fellows who attended all the events at your college literary festival except the “boring” India quiz where they asked questions about Mahalanobis and Homi Bhabha. Instead you went and saw, shudder, pot painting.)

August Kranti is another name for the Quit India movement which began in 1942 from the August Kranti Maidan in Mumbai. It was during this movement that Gandhiji began a Civil Disobedience Movement which, as you can see on Wadala Bridge every evening after 6 PM, continues to this day.

But coming back to our train of thought (ha!). There is something romantic and mysterious about a Rajdhani no? It is of course the flag-train of the vast and very profitable Indian Railway system. And therefore, commensurately, there is a sense of travelling in the best of the fleet, if you will. The Rajdhanis are always clean and well maintained, efficiently manned by a hive of worker ants and great value for money. It is hard to find anything unimpressive about the train.

So even while I was marching down the platform at Mumbai Central, panting and gasping for air as I walked to coach number A7, I was looking forward to the trip. I reached first–the missus was held up at office–and I quickly marked my territory on the side upper and lower berths with luggage. Next to me, sitting on the full length lower berths were an elderly couple.

The woman gave me the suspicious, judgmental look that middle aged and upwards passengers save exclusively to be thrown with venom at youths and youthful people who sit next to them on long distance trains. They furrow their foreheads, sit as far away as possible and then stare for ten minutes. After that they steal glances every five minutes and whenever the youth opens a bag, stands up, sits down and so on. This was understandable when I boarded the Trichy – Cochin Express during my engineering days. Back then we carried three bottles of “what looked like Coca Cola” per passenger and traveled in groups of 15 or more. And then suddenly, after the fifteen minute stop at Erode Junction, the bottles would miraculously fill themselves with “Coca Cola” again. Antakshari would start at 3 AM or so with a Sukhbir special.

But here I was no coke swigging engineering stud.

The missus arrived shortly but this only raised the suspicions of our co-passengers further. At any sign of intimacy, like talking for instance, the elderly woman would gasp barely audibly. Finally I used a quick phone call with Pastrami to dispel her suspicions:

Pastrami: Whats up Sid?

Sid: Oh nothing much I am waiting in the train with MY LAWFULLY WEDDED WIFE for the the train to start. My WIFE OF A YEAR AND FIVE MONTHS is sitting right next to me. We intend to SPEND THE ENTIRE TRIP READING BOOKS and in QUIET PERSONAL INTROSPECTION.

Pastrami: What the… Stop talking in upper case goddamit!

This pacified aunty somewhat.

We settled down soon and looked out of the window while the efficient staff of the Rajdhani quickly stepped into action. Like clockwork a fellow in a smart white uniform went around distributing pillows, bedsheets and blankets. Another with a splendid pair of handlebar whiskers followed shortly after and asked us what we wanted for dinner and breakfast next morning.

By this time the coach was packed and all the berths around us had been occupied. Unfortunately all our neighbours asked for vegetarians meals. And then they looked at me while I ordered. Non vegetarians will be familiar with this situations when they get crowded in by veggies who all look at them ordering food with a hawkish demeanour.

As if the restaurant/pantry car people just wait for us to order biriyani in order to drop the guillotine on some poor unsuspecting chicken.

I succumbed to pressure and ordered veg dinner and veg breakfast. (Then secretly went behind the fellow a few minutes later to change my breakfast order to omelettes. High five!)

For a government run operation of such scale the Rajdhani has half decent catering of passable quality and excellent quantity. But its real strength is in the frequency. On some Rajdhani trips it’s as if you are constantly being fed, tea-d and coffee-d. And then just when you are leaning back to relax and settle into the romance of a train trip, handlebar moustache is back on his next order taking routine.

It’s all remarkably like the first few times you go to the in-laws’ place after marriage.

(Completely fictional, illustrative conversation follows:)

“Beta, one more gobi paratha no?”

“No no no.”

Paratha placed on plate.

“And some butter of course…”

“No no no.”

Thick knob of butter drops onto sizzling hot paratha. Your heart decides to save time by going ahead and arresting on its own.

(Four seconds elapse.)

“Beta, one more gobi parantha no?”

“NO NO NO NO. I can’t eat any more gobi parathas jee… One more of this and I will die. I swear. Jee.”

“Koi baat nahi.” Says the father in law to groom’s relief… “Now let him have the mooli ke parantha instead.”

One relents eventually.

And then mother-in-law, who is absolutely not based on people I know in real life, whispers audibly to the missus: “He has put on weight since last time. Kuch tho gym vym karvao…”

On the Rajdhani, therefore, you are eternally arriving on a decorated horse.

—

Saapaadu ready

Our dinner arrived just as we’d settled in and opened our books. So we had to quickly rearrange the side lower berth and make space for the trays. Everyone ate quietly-the rice was a little dry and I found the dahi handy (whatay seasonal pun!). And then for a few minutes the entire coach reverberated with satisfied, synchronized burping. Now that dinner was done, the missus decided that she would turn in for the night and climbed upstairs. I helped tuck her in and then she cocked her head to one side in that endearing way and whispered that she wanted one last thing before she nodded off.

“But there are people around darling…” I said, a little bashful at the thought of a good night kiss in a train with all these other people watching. Deyvame…

“So what?”

“You said you wanted…”

“Your iPod…”

I gave it to her with a smile secretly hoping she would fall asleep in a few minutes and not roll around too much. That makes liberating the iPod later almost impossible.

Slowly the lights began to go off, people began to change into pyjamas and other night clothes. I settled down to read by the few remaining lights (Pico Iyer – Sun After Dark).

For the first twenty minutes it was bliss. The AC buzzed in the background in a comforting fashion and I read while occasionally looking out of the window at streaks of rain and dreaming of traveling and writing like Pico Iyer. But with less gravity and more fun and frolic.

And then it started. First it was like thunder in the distance. It rumbled and rolled. Gradually it grew in strength till it proudly established identified itself: our neighbouring uncle’s snore. This was no ordinary snore. No snore that was to be smiled and then ignored. This was, my friends, a powerful snore. A snore that made me sit up and take notice. A snore that spoke of years of experience and uncommon lung capacity.

This was how perhaps Lance Armstrong snored. It was loud, strong and repeated with metronomic regularity. Now normal bloggers would have made some wisecrack here about Deva Gowda or the phrase “sound sleep”.

But I am also a journalist you see. And we journalists need proof. Sometimes. So here I am proud to present a Whatay exclusive! At great risk, under the cover of night, we obtained a recording of uncle snoring next to me in the train on my Sony Ericsson P990i. It is only 30 seconds long so you might want to listen to it a few times. Turn up the volume and ignore the random chatter in the background.

Vivaldi’s Snore Seasons: [audio:http://www.whatay.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/recording3.mp3]

If you graduated in engineering… wait. What am I saying? Of course you graduated in engineering! Well you probably did one of those resonance experiments where an object successfully picked up a frequency from another object, like a tuning fork, according to your lab record. In the same way, in the space of a few minutes the entire coach began to snore. There were all types of snores:

• Uncles growling thunder with atomic clock level regularity
• Aunty’s deep intake and whiny outgo
• That fellow across the partition who snored completely randomly in terms of frequency and volume
• And finally some guy further down the aisle who every few minutes exploded in a barrage of grunts and roars and howls, woke up, looked around to see if anyone noticed, and then went back to sleep

The wife suddenly leaned over her berth and looked down at me. There was terror in her eyes. Like most women she is a light sleeper who, at three in the morning, wakes up at the slightest noise of the refrigerator opening. I advised her to turn up the iPod to drown out the snoring.

It took me another three hours to sleep. The snoring was un-!@#$%^&-believable. The noises of our coach is probably dopplering away into space as we speak/read.

I finally nodded off just around dawn. Two hours afters above mentioned dawn, a little after seven or so in the morning,  the dedicated caterers of the August Kranti Rajdhani Express went around waking passengers gently by thumping on berths with palms two centimeters from ears.

I woke up, shook up the missus and  prepared for breakfast. In a flash tea and coffee sachets were distributed and breakfast trays were doled out. It was during one of these hurried bouts of distribution that Handlebar Moustache lost his balance and slammed the pointy end of his elbow into my head. It was a perfect strike. His joint landed precisely at right angles to my cranium. For a few moments I completely blanked out. Zilch. Darkness. It was a near death experience I tell you. For a brief moment I even saw a light at the end of a dark tunnel. But this was because we were actually in a dark tunnel at the time.

When I came to, Handlebar smiled in apology and slammed down a Veg Cutlet breakfast in front of me. But it was a good smile, a sincere smile. A smile that said “Totally unintentional. Okay. Enough. Shut up and eat your Veg Cutlets boy.” I forgave him immediately. And wiped out the Veg Cutlets in seconds.

We spent the remaining couple of hours rearranging all our luggage, freshening up and trying to eavesdrop the conversation our neighbours were having. “Wait for it… wait for it…” the missus whispered. And just as she predicted, minutes before the train eddie-currented into Nizamuddin, Uncle and middle-30′s young man shook hands and exchanged phone numbers.

“They will never ever ever hear or see each other again you know…” the missus declared. “There are few signs of permanent separation like a shared telephone number in a railway compartment.”

She is both fair AND wise.

We stepped out of the train, a few minutes later,  into the arms of the in-laws (mom, pop, bro) and I quickly inquired about their health and well-being. (It was perhaps too much to expect them to actually bring a little biltong to the station itself. I hid my disappointment well.)

Behind us in the compartment Handlebars and his sidekicks counted out the baksheesh they had collected earlier in the day. Used sheets lay folded to one side. Meal trays had already been cleaned and washed.

As we walked out to the car the mom-in-law threw her arm around me reassuringly:

“You look so tired beta! Don’t worry. We will go home and have Gobi Paranthas, Pakode and Gajjar Ka Halwa as mid-morning snack…”

Oh yeah baby!

—

Picture of train courtesy Government of India.
Picture of meal courtesy JuicyRai.

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If inadequate manhood was not enough reason to make me potentially feel insecure, them SPAM sending fiends have taken this psychological attack on yours truly to newer, higher…er…heights. This snapshot is fresh from my Gmail spam folder:

Focus your eyes on email number 3 and 8.

Ugly and insubstantial is this man. Sigh.

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So the missus and yours truly are at this birthday party at the neighbour’s. Which one you ask? Let me explain.

Opposite our humble abode lives the sweetest woman in the world. Coming to think of it, she is exactly like that old woman in Rosemary’s Baby. (Except for the devil worship and baby stealing bits of course. So far.) The dear Mrs. P is lively, caring and always eager for a quick daily chat in the little corridor outside. And she makes wonderful tea with lemon grass (tannis root?) and a crackerjack sali par eeda (thin potato fried strips with an egg cracked over them and fried. Or vice versa. It’s a Parsi thing.)

Mrs. P also has a hybrid spiritual side to her: half mildly reformist Parsi and half whirling bhajan singing Art of Living adherent. So she has both a large knitted portrait of Lord Zoraster on the wall and a little picture of the one with two Sri-s. She also has tons of old furniture and precious looking china in cabinets that I am sure is worth a truck load of cash on Ebay. Exactly the sort of things that old people routinely bequeath to their young neighbours in their wills. (Fingers crossed. Wait patiently ye private wealth management people.)

So last week she asks us to attend a party she was throwing on her birthday. “You must come Sidin and missus. It will be a fun birthday party!” And in order to further kindle our enthusiasm to never seen before heights she continued: “Everyone from the satsang is coming!”

Now I have nothing against the Art of Living types. Most of the committed satsangis I know are nice, peaceful people. The kind this world needs much more of, no doubt. Yet the average satsangi isn’t the sort of person the author or his wife normally part-ays with. And of course the satsangis here were going to be at least 50 years old. We both nodded and mumbled in that way we all do when we want to say no, have to say yes and try to say nothing.

There I am exiting from the lift carrying a nice bouquet of roses and daffodils (not sure) for the neighbour lady when a man in an embroidered kurta immediately welcomes me with open arms, slightly bowed head and pleasing smile that screams “Extreme internal harmony and oneness with self all thanks to guruji”. I tell him I need to pop home for a wash and will be over in a second. And then I sit cowering for the wife to arrive.

If you are one of those people who keep a running track of the ways in which men are different from women (and not just in that way though it is an interesting one). I have one more to add to that list: Woman have a natural ability to endure any social gathering even if it means eating large slabs of egg-less chocolate cake and sitting through kirtans and pujans after a refreshing day of risk management at the office. Things like bua’s son’s wedding, landlord’s brother’s shaadi and colleague’s house warming. Married men have no idea what to do in these surroundings. We stand around in a corner trying to look sad and moody so no one (except chicken tikka bearing waiter) will talk to us and we don’t have to explain why we gave up consulting to become a writer and such things. Or, even worse, explain why the Sensex is up and whether Suzlon is a good buy.

The wife, getting all woman-y, quickly drops her stuff and runs next door. I follow her a few minutes later when she called and told me I’d better pop over pronto or she would do something terrible to me (clue: rhymes with ‘ditch flap’). I stand behind her, with my arms crossed over my chest and aloof. In front of us three dozen people milled around the birthday woman while a large chocolate cake was being cut into pieces and someone was giving out disposable party thaalis. Suddenly I see an old man chatting with the missus. I take a step back so as to avoid even over-hearing something and being sucked in. Suddenly, shudder, the wife turns around and points at me.

(Enter: Uncle from front right with wisdom of the ages gleaming in eyes. Also cake precariously balanced on plate.)

“So why did you give up consulting to become a writer son?” he asks me while the missus moves nimble-footedly around behind him and grins over his shoulder.

I try to tell him about creativity and imagination and making a difference.

“Do you know what is the problem with the Indian media?” he suddenly asks me. Oh crap. I knew, from that inflection in his voice which made it sound more like a statement and less like a question, that I was in trouble. “Of course uncle. I know the problem… it is terrible and I think we should spend a few moments now silently contemplating upon it and then perhaps meditating upon the solution?”

“Son… let me tell you EXACTLY what is wrong with Indian media. There are seven or eight things actually…”

Drats!

The missus can barely keep a straight face. Little does she know two can play at this game.

(Sidin deftly swings uncle around by the elbow and plants him in front of unsuspecting missus who, meanwhile, is tucking into a heart portion of veg biryani.)

“…Uncle at this advanced stage in your career I am genuinely surprised, nay concerned, that you may have not planned for your retirement years. Missus why don’t you tell uncle about that wonderful capital guarantee scheme you guys launched recently… the one that not only creates wealth but protects it too!”

If looks could kill I’d be a photo in one of those handouts they give away in church after the funeral. I walk away cake-wards while the missus begins to expound upon Section 80cc or some such.

As my wife explains capital guarantee to him I am approached by Mrs. P who asks me what I think of the party. “Oh the food is just superb aunty. And good show with the plastic plates. We don’t want anything to happen to them china plates no?”

Suddenly, without a warning, I find uncle next to me. “So I hear you are a big fan of quality management. My company is getting ISO 14000 you know. We are very proud. Very proud. I am sure you must eager to know about ISO 14000…”

Ayayyo! ISO!

The smirk the missus had on her face. Punch? Counter punch!

“…Uncle did you just say you used to run a factory! Will the coincidences never stop? My wife used to live next to a factory in her childhood and many are the nights she has told me how she is dying to share those hundreds of memories with another like-minded soul… Missus! I have finally found someone who is simply jumping to talk about that factory in Ashok Vihar…”

The wife was not one to give up easily. A few moments later…

“Sidin… uncle was telling just telling me about his pest control company. Isn’t it true you once caught malaria from the ancient (UNESCO heritage) toilets at the Mysore Palace and took a solemn pledge to further the cause of pest control till your last breath???!!!…”

Thus began an hour of the most fine verbal thrust and counter-thrust you will have heard in your lives.

“…indeed you raise a poignant issue about global warming. We are irreversibly destroying the world … OH GOOD GOD MY PHONE WHICH I ALWAYS LEAVE ON VIBRATION IS THROBBING IN MY PANTS AND I MUST ANSWER IT… Missus will you keep my company with uncle while I answer this phone in the stairwell outside where the signal is best…”

BIFF!

“Uncle my husband is an eager student of the US Presidential elections. Perhaps you should discuss your opinions about the immaturity of Indian political reporting with Sidin who is in the kitchen eating cake…”

POW!

“While on the subject of India versus China, uncle, I am remembering my wife’s recent trip to Hong Kong when she was able to get a holistic sense of the raison d’etre of the Chinese realpolitik…. MISSUS! UNCLE WANTS TO DISCUSS THE RAISON D’ETRE OF THE CHINESE REALPOLITIK… YOU KNOW, THAT THING YOU GOT A HOLISTIC SENSE OF!”

CRASH!

“Of course young people today have very little morals. I agree with you completely uncle. If you just read some of these blogs young people write today! By the guru, I swear they are all filthy. If only we had someone who knew blogging really well… Wait a goddamn minute here…”

JAB!

Spare a moment here to reflect upon uncle’s sheer unflappable conversational stamina. The man was going on and on, only stopping to pop a little channa puri into his mouth.

“… yes yes inflation is a serious problem in today’s age and times. I have no idea how these banks manage with loans and all in this difficult scenario. Oh what a coincidence! You won’t believe who in this room used to work in a bank before she moved to insurance!”

KERBOOM!

And on and on it went till I finally had to do something that had a fifty-fifty chance of working. I told him which business school I graduated from.

WAIT! Stop saying all those “He is such a pompous prick after all!” type things to yourself. The thing is this: when I reveal that morsel of information one of two things happen. Either people completely clamp up and go silent, or they have a million new things to ask. (I have been told this is because they either immediately hate me and assume my is IQ in the mid 1000s, or they go ga-ga and want to know everything about life at the IIMs inspite of the fifteen “MBA lit” books that are out there. Even a new one apparently titled “Watch out! We are MBA!”. Sigh. I don’t know what to say.)

Uncle immediately went quiet. He never spoke again after that. To either of us I mean.

We partook of our channa puri, biryani, cake (eggless) and quietly made an exit after handing over my bouquet.

The tension at home simmered for a few minutes before we both declared a truce and went back to our favourite past-time of late: two-player golf on the PS2. (So much potential for innuendo-laden golf jokes. I know. But the wife proof reads all blogs. And this is, at worst, a PG-13 blog.)

And, if you’re wondering, the wife picked Annika Sorenstam and whipped this blogger’s ass by 14 strokes. (Ha!)

Aunty had a wonderful birthday of course. And we have passed on all your kind regards to her.

P.S. The MBA book news is true:

Nakul Kapoor walks into a premier B-School in Mumbai, Nurturing huge ambition, albeit with little direction. Soon he develops a circle of friends, each of who is a world apart from one another. Yet, there is an apparent force which keeps them together – a bond that heralds a joyous journey ahead.

Watch Out! We are MBA!

And please to find a recipe for sali par eeda here. The pictures are wonderful. Food porn if you will.

Related posts:

1. In absentia… Was away for the last few days at …
2. Dumbass Bakery Product of the Day
3. Join the party…

Ok before you get your hopes up I need to tell you that this is not a brand new full length blog post. No sir. That will take another day or so. (I have been very busy sorting out some work-related stuff. Some announcements maybe expected on the weekend coming.)

But in the meanwhile you might want to check out a Rediff article recently posted and, more importantly, the comments that follow it.

I will keep a framed, blown-up copy of this image on my wall at home for keepsakes:

Please join the party here: 10 days to score a Valentine’s Day date.

Sigh.

Related posts:

1. Dumbass Bakery Product of the Day
2. Swatting cyberflies…
3. Party Animal. Sort of.