(I was in Sri Lanka, by which I mean Colombo, for a week recently. While not the first country that pops to my, or your, mind when one thinks of traveling abroad, I was adequately excited about the journey. A new a country is a new country is a new country is a journey that might lead to a blog post about it. That might lead to travel book contract. Who knows? Anything to get out of Dwarka no?

Also they sell booze in Sri Lankan supermarkets. Just like that. No fatwas or anything. So.)

Sociology

There are good things and bad things about flying from Chennai to Colombo. The good thing is the fact that you land in a foreign country after just about an hour in the air. I find this endlessly fascinating. And a little bit fraudulent.

Perhaps the years of shuttling up and down on the Kochi-Abu Dhabi sector leads one to believe that all international flights should take at least 3 hours. In fact any serious flight, it is somehow ingrained into my head, should take at least three hours. Less than that is infra dig. More than that is glamorous.

Now I know what you are thinking. “But surely you will tell us why it is ingrained into your head like that? This is not Christopher Nolan picture for you to reveal things randomly for kicks. Maybe I should read this post in reverse…”

!ecneitaP !nam etunim eno tsuJ

Thanks.

See, the thing is there is, or at least used to be, this unspoken caste system amongst NRIs.

At the bottom of the pyramid were the guys who went to the Gulf: UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and, the horror, Oman. (Within this there were the sub-castes: Abu Dhabi was superior to Sharjah but inferior to Dubai. Ajman, an emirate so small that I once tripped over it and fell into Umm Al Quwain, was inferior to everyone else.)

Life size picture of Ajman

Right on top though were the American, European and Austro-Zealander NRIs. They travelled in nine-hour flights, lived in cosmopolitan environments and their children developed accents. And when they brought back cheeses on holiday it was not in bottles and not made by Kraft.

When we brushed past these non-resident giants in the airports, we cowered in awe in our Thai clothing bought from KM Trading during sale.

(KM Trading official slogan: ‘A company with a state of mind.’ See here.)

And in between us, in this hierarchy, were the South-East Asian NRIs. They were mysterious and rare, these fellows. So rare that if Vasudevan lived in Singapore, back home they would call him Singapore Vasudevan. But Abu Dhabi Sunny was just Sunny. Boo.

Therefore the duration of the flight that brought you home, or took you away, was indicative of your NRI-intensity. Anything less than 3 hours meant a domestic migrant, who deserves only to travel by train, and anything greater than 4 or 5 meant endless sophistication.

Which is why to this day I find short international flights a little… thought-provoking.

So one moment you’re taking off from Chennai, the next moment you’re landing in Colombo. A completely different country. Visas are given on arrival, yes, but still a different country. Surely this is make-believe?

Entertainment

Yet the sucky thing about this is the fact that Jet Airways treats the Chennai-Colombo sector like a bona fide international route. They provide you with all kinds of in-flight entertainment options, most of which are pointless under the circumstances.

Let me illustrate. (hh:mm)

0:00 Flight has taken off and you have started movie: Saving Private Ryan. You look forward to a nice non-veg meal, and much disembowelment.

0:07 Pilot interrupts to wish you a safe and pleasant journey, as if there is any chance this can end vastly differently for both of you. In the panic you hit a wrong button and restart the movie. Advertisements roll again.

0:15 Just as that American fellow’s arm falls off, the cabin crew interrupts to tell you that even if the alert is switched off you should still leave the seat belts fastened so that in case of any turbulence you are able to comfortably develop hernias. This same announcement is made in many different languages. Hilarity ensues when Anglo-Indian stewardess from Tamil Nadu laboriously reads Hindi instructions off a sheet and mistakenly says “Yeh udaan shauchalay hai.”

0:17 As tension is building up on the beaches of Normandy, cabin crew interrupts programming to inform you that you are welcome to buy exciting things, such as plastic planes, plastic watches and premium Patek Philipose watches from the in-flight duty free.

0:18 Hello there, says the announcement, beverages such as beer, beer, other beer and one small bottle of red wine will now be served. By now you are beginning to lose patience. Every time the movie is stopped for an announcement it automatically rewinds two or three minutes. You have seen the same bastard being shot four times.

0:25 The only non-hot stewardess in the flight taps you on the shoulder to ask if you want the paneer or the chicken. You pause the movie, think about it briefly, and then ask for the chicken. She informs you that there is no chicken, but there is paneer. You say ok to paneer. She serves the guy next to you chicken.

0:34 Just when you are able to make sense of the bloodshed on your screen and the story begins to make sense, the guy in front of you leans back completely in his seat. The payasam falls into your lap as one congealed lump. You reach forward and stab the old man in his eyes with your fork. But only in your mind. Thankfully the restroom is nearby and it is free.

0:37 You are back in your seat. Moments after you put on your headphones, the pilot announces that the plane will now begin its descent into Colombo. Convinced there is no point in trying to see this movie anymore, you switch it off and settle into a terrible funk.

0:48 The plane still shows no sign of landing. Meanwhile the guy next to you is racing through Friends episodes. Inspired, you put on your headphones and restart the movies.

0:49 Immediately the shauchalay lands in Colombo.

Slightly bewildered by the whole experience, and more than a little grumpy, I walked into the altogether decent Colombo airport. I spotted security staff everywhere, but they all looked clean, happy and actually welcoming. “Ayubowan!” said a woman in uniform as I walked past her into a concourse of some kind, “Welcome!” She smiled broadly. My anger cooled.

Ayubowan

The narrow but tall-ceilinged concourse had dozens of huge Buddhist lanterns hanging from the top. There was some crowd in the airport but there was little rush or hustle or bustle. I didn’t feel completely at home, there were too many strange brands being advertised around me for that, but I didn’t feel completely alien either.

Lanterns. And Micromax.

I strolled about in panic for a bit before spotting the lines for immigration. And then I suddenly remembered. I might still not make it out of the airport.

There was this small matter of passport validity.

I was going to be in Sri Lanka for just a week. But my passport was only valid for another two weeks after that. At Chennai airport that morning, an officer at passport control gave me some grief. The girl, with braided hair, gold rimmed glasses and sex-less churidar, looked exactly like one of those ladies who graduate from Electrical Engineering without once speaking to anyone on campus. Except maybe God.

She said I could not go to Sri Lanka because my passport would expire soon. I told her that I was coming back in a week and I had tickets. She said that Sri Lanka would deport me on arrival. I told her I was prepared for the consequences. She said she had to discuss with her superior. My heart bungee jumped into my belly.

Nothing good comes of anyone in an Indian airport discussing anything with his or her superiors.

Customs inspector Shailaja. On weekends.

She first spoke to one guy, who told her to go speak to another guy, who told her to speak to someone in a room who sent her back. She then called up someone very, very high up in the Indian government, maybe Mukesh Ambani, who asked her what my profession was. “He is saying he is a journalist,” she said, looking at my press card.

Kindly note the sentence structure.

Immediately everything fell in place. She said it was ok. My passport was stamped and I raced through various check posts.

At Colombo passport control I prepared for a repeat. The man at the counter had a nice round face, signature Sri Lankan facial hairlessness, a ready smile, and was dressed in a smart white uniform. There was a picture of the President, Mahinda Rajapakse, on a wall behind him. And various tourism board advertisements around Rajapakse’s portrait.

“Hey! Your passport is getting over sir.”

“Indeed. But I am leaving in a week.”

“Ah good. Make sure you do. Or you’ll get stuck in Sri Lanka. “

Behind him there were pictures of waterfalls, jungle, beaches, seafood, and jolly men in skimpy lungi-like clothing.

“I will try my level best not to get stranded in your country,” I promised insincerely.

And that was it. What usually took at least an empowered group of ministers back home had happened in two minutes with much smiling thrown in for free.

I was very much liking Sri Lanka already.

The rest of our business tour party, including some young children, waited for our transports to arrive. Meanwhile I went to change a traveller’s cheque.

Again: smiling, cursory identity check, profuse politeness, endearing Sri Lankan accent and hassle-free efficiency. I was wearing my orange beach shirt with yellow flowers, and had just got a haircut, but there was more to the politeness and enthusiasm of the women at the exchange counter than just my animal magnetism.

These people were, perhaps, just generally nice people.

Galle Face Green

Our itinerary in Colombo included a conference the next morning and several days of meetings over the course of the subsequent week. With at best an evening or two of leisure thrown in. As we bussed to the Taj Samudra—sweet—most of the gang made plans for a shopping trip that very evening.

Personally I was keener on getting some sleep, and then going for a long walk on the Galle Face Green, a sea-facing patch of lawn right in front of the Taj Samudra hotel. During the “war”, as most Sri Lankans call the period of conflict with the LTTE, Galle Face Green had been roped off by security forces. This was to prevent crowds, and the temptation for LTTE suicide squads to have a blast.

Isso Vadai Central

But now it was open again, the crowds were back, and at night it made a great place to walk by as the choppy sea pounded into the sea wall.

There was food to buy too. A Sri Lankan colleague at Mint had recommended that I try some of it, especially the Isso Vadai, a prawn cracker with whole prawns stuck to a crunchy little pancake. Like Delhi chaat, vendors topped Isso Vadais with chopped onions and a squirt of special sauce.

After checking in, and a quick nap, I nipped down to the beach for a walk and some new-atmosphere-inhaling.

The sea that first night was tremendously violent. Within minutes my spectacles were so flecked with spray that I took them off, and tottered down the walking path. Galle Face Green has little illumination save for food cart lanterns and the occasional wash from streetlights. So every once in a while I’d almost walk into someone or sideswipe a food cart.

Prawnage

At one point I went and sat right next to a couple who were, how to put it delicately, making out like bunny rabbits hopped up on Musli Power. I apologized quietly, and quickly went away. No scene was created and sadly there was too little lighting for BlackBerry photos.

But then slowly I began to realize something; Sri Lanka hardly registers on the decibel scale. You could sit all day in the lobby of the Taj Samudra and the loudest conversations would be invariably from the Indian tour parties, or from inside the bar showing World Cup matches.

Even the college and school kids at Galle Face Green, excited like young people anywhere who were in the midst of necking couples, wouldn’t create a ruckus. Bad language, at least in the forms I could understand, couldn’t be heard anywhere.

This was a nation with no market for noise canceling headphones, I thought to myself while demolishing an Isso Vadai.

But the real culture shock would hit me as I proceeded to do two things over the subsequent week: stand in buffet lines, and go shopping for clothes in Odel, one of Colombo’s biggest department stores.

All that and more in Part 2 of A Straits Apart. Shortly. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe in August.

p.s. Pictures of Ajman, Galle Face Green from Wikipedia. The wonderful picture of Isso Vadai from Skyscraper City here. Shailaja’s portrait thanks to Blaft. The rest of the pictures are all mine. Ahem.

Related posts:

1. Recently noted around Delhi – Part 1
2. The Unforgiven Srinivasan
3. The Diligent Malayali

Image via Wikipedia

(As seen in the Lounge edition of 16 April 2010. I had a much longer uncut version somewhere. Will post when I find it.)

It might seem presumptuous to judge a country by your experiences as you land for the first time at the airport. But sometimes, airports are splendid barometers of culture. Heathrow, for instance, immediately has you thinking: “What atrocious advertising! Surely, this is the kind of nation that would give rise to Monty Python…”

Zurich’s airport, on the other hand, is all straight lines, simple signage, orderly queues, meticulously timed shuttles, pressed uniforms and insurance advertisements. The message is simple: “Welcome to Switzerland. We have banks. We are very clean. And our very clean trains run on time.”

So sterile and generic is the airport that at one point it felt exactly like Dubai airport in the minimal pre-Burj 1990s. But only with Nordic white people instead of Malabari muscle.

But don’t let that fool you. Switzerland is rightly held in high esteem by tourists of all races, colours and packages. It is the sort of country where you could, if you had the stamina, photograph everything in sight. Even the policemen.

Having had our passports stamped by two splendid samples of the Zurich constabulary, my colleague and I ran to the railway station across the road. The two of us were on a hectic business trip that would have us visiting Basel and Geneva, with our base in Zurich.

Thanks to a shortage of rooms, a bus load of Singapore Airlines cabin crew, and an unrelenting Turkish man at the front desk, we suddenly had 4 hours to roam around the city before we would be allowed to check in.

Off we went on an inspection of one of Zurich’s premier museums, the Kunsthaus. Literally, “House of Art”. The word kunst, not to be used without some practice, is something of a hold-all German prefix for paintings, sculptures and such art forms. So you find kunsthauses and kunsthalles all over German-speaking Europe.

The one in Zurich is easy enough to find. There is a Kunsthaus stop on the tram network. Pop out of the tram and one sees a stately, if boring and bank-like, building. Inside, however, is the most delightful art museum, with a compact collection that spans centuries. From works by old masters, such as Van Dyke and Rubens, to the sculptures of Cy Twombly that belong to the “What the…” abstract genre.

It is a rich, busy and varied collection, with something for every kind of art lover. One floor alone of the museum had works by Warhol, Lichtenstein, Giacometti, Rothko and Pollock crammed into a corner. There is nothing to not like about Zurich’s Kunsthaus, except for the very poor collection of fridge magnets in the gift shop.

After an hour and a half of walking around I suddenly noticed something very strange. “Hey RS,” I asked my colleague, “where is all the security? I don’t think there is anyone on this whole floor…”

“Oh the Swiss are very trusting,” RS said with the wisdom of someone who has travelled many times to Switzerland on work. “They expect you to follow the rules here.”

The rest of my trip I couldn’t get this out of my head. Trams had no ticket checkers. Entire 2,000 sq. ft shops had one aged Fräulein minding the counter. In department stores such as the popular Globus chain, you could wander through acres of merchandise without a security guard ever peeking from behind pillars.

This trust reached its peak at Sternen Grill (details follow), where they let you pick up crusty buns from an unsupervised box kept on the counter. They trust you to pick exactly as many as your bill allows. But they don’t check. You could spend all day walking past that box picking up buns and no one would notice.

By contrast, I am not allowed into the kitchen by myself at home.

RS and I spent that night in the hotel room debating this bewildering tendency.

Much is made in local promotional material of the fact that Zurich has overcome its staid reputation for being a banker’s den. And has now become something of a regional party town. But these are not luxuries meant for the per diem-ed. Instead we focused on experiencing Zurich through its eateries. After all, a man has to eat. Even the guys in accounts understand that.

A quick hop from the Bellevue tram station, Vorderer Sternen is a combination of restaurant, bar and food stall. The food stall, called Sternen Grill, serves up its signature bratwurst with a hard crusty bun (CHF6.50, or around Rs270), called Gold Burli, and a little cup of fiery mustard.

The first bite into that veal sausage, with its abundant meaty insides and crisp but not un-pliant casing, is a moment of epiphany. The bread, on and in the other hand, is crunchy on the outside but soft inside. The kind of loaf that hurts the corners of your mouth. But satisfies. The mustard was so good, and it is good everywhere in Switzerland, that I bought back a large tube of local Thomy mustard to Delhi.

The next time I had a free evening in Zurich I went hunting for the Zeughauskeller, an ancient armoury-turned-beer house and restaurant. Even if you don’t have a penchant for beer, meat and potatoes, the Zeughauskeller has great atmosphere, period architecture, and is a good place to spot the locals in their natural environment: with beer, meat and potatoes.

Nati the waitress handed me a menu in English and I ordered a Zurich speciality: Kalbsgeschnetzeltes nach Zürcher Art.

Yes, you order a portion by pointing at it in the menu.

In plain English that would be: sliced veal Zurich style (CHF33.50).

The sliced strips of veal are pan-fried and then doused in a creamy white wine sauce with mushrooms.

While I waited, I sipped on beer and looked around. There were noisy, bald, beer-drinking frat-men. Tourists from Japan. And a near-romantic local couple who were sharing a large table with some young college boys (table-sharing is quite usual in Switzerland. As I would soon learn at Hiltl).

On the walls around were large etchings of fearsome Swiss medieval badasses in armour. I didn’t linger on them much till I realized one prominent part of their armour. A huge, er, cod piece. They were the size of little buckets (enter bratwurst joke here).

Thankfully Nati soon came with my little bucketful of veal and massive roesti.

The food was very good. The service was superb. And the ambience was spectacular. Do not miss Zeughauskeller when you visit Zurich, and don’t forget to look at the sign at the door which prohibits smoking there because of the “live grenades” stored nearby (imagine if these guys weren’t neutral when it came to wars).

Now before you throw up your Iyer/Iyengar/Jain vegetarian hands and curse the veal, beer and potatoes… hold on. Let me introduce Hiltl, considered one of the best vegetarian restaurants not just in Zurich or Switzerland, but in all of Europe. Initially we ignored such claims, assuming Hiltl to be one of those tourist traps at best. And new-age organic, raw food type places at worst. But one night, RS, an uncompromising “One-spaghetti-carbonara-but-no-egg-no-fish-no-shrimp-no-meat-please” veggie, had enough of eating bun and mustard left over from my bratwursts.

Hiltl was a revelation. First, there is the concept of paying for your food by weight. After each trip to the buffet you weighed your plate, printed out a little receipt and kept it with you. At the end of the meal a trusting waiter totted up all the receipts.

Second was the food itself. An utterly respectable spread of hot and cold vegetarian food, with everything from a splendid cheese quiche to green peas samosas and paneer (cottage cheese) masala.

Third, we were squeezed into a huge oblong table along with at least four other groups. There was some initial awkwardness and elbow jousting. Till the quiche and paneer happened.

Then just as we got up to stagger back to the hotel, the waiter, till then a silent apparition, suddenly asked us if we were Indians. We nodded. “Hi. My name is Virat. I am from Rajasthan. You guys should come for Bollywood Night at Sugar Lounge on Thursday.”

Virat handed out invitation cards for the event. On one side it had pictures of a man in mammoth sunglasses, spiked hair, looking trendy and far into the distance.

“Who is this guy?”

“That’s me.”

“Who, DJ Happy? You are this DJ Happy?”

“Yes. I do DJ on the side to make money.”

Virat then told us about Hiltl, about how Morarji Desai once ate there—“There are photos in the office”—and how it was something of a meeting place for Indian tourists. He assured us that his Bollywood Night was a not-for-profit social initiative.

“No no. No money for that. It because there are very few Indians in Zurich. Mostly computer people. Come for one or two years. There is no community spirit. I am the president of the Indian community in Zurich. I am trying to get them to socialize.”

Virat then gave us a quick list of things to do and places to see in Zurich. Which we enthusiastically noted down. And then never referred to again.

You see, we had meetings.

My parting dietary engagement with Zurich was at the Sprüngli outlet in the departures duty-free. Sprüngli is a chain of bakeries and confectioners with outlets all over the country. They are world famous for their Luxemburgerli—mind-blowing-light-as-air macaroons, and fresh truffles.

How fresh? There was a lady from Sprüngli actually making truffles at the airport. She let me sample one in dark chocolate. And then one in milk chocolate.

“They are very good yes,” she said matter-of-factly. “They are the best.”

“Uhuh” I said as tears of joy welled up in my eyes.

I want truffle. I want bratwurst. I want visa extension. Now.

Related posts:

1. No more chocolate, cheese and watches!
2. Dumbass Media Product of the Day
3. Beer mat market goes flat

I am back. Again.

Ahem. Hello there. Welcome back.

As you may be aware this blog was away for three months doing authorly things like launching, reading, interviewing, posing for pictures, reading good reviews, reading bad reviews, crying ourselves to sleep and so on. And amidst all the celebrity-ing, Pranab Mukherjee presented a Union Budget. The union budget is pretty much the highlight of the annual calendar for the business journalism business. (Whatay play on words.) Which means the Union Budget is one of those “do anything as long as you are doing something” periods in the office. And boy did we do things. Many, many things.

Of course today no one remembers anything Minister Mukherjee said or announced during the budget.

(When I say no one, I am NOT referring to professional and hobbyist economists. Those guys are still going at it with shouts of “Good golly there is fiscal widening happening here!” or perhaps “I am perturbed by the supply-side inflationary tendencies of the moneterary policy implications of this policy shift…”.

Economists. Oh yeah. Those guys are fun.)

But for the rest of us the Union Budget was the Rashomon to the Rail Budget’s Wrestlemania XII.

FYI: That’s the one in which Shawn Micheals beat Bret Hart in the first ever WWF Iron Man Match.

PFA budget. @shashitharoor Pls. RT.

Mukherjee needs to do something about the public recall of the budget. How can he get people to talk about his budget for years and years after he presents it? How can he get coverage on every channel from CNBC to Dwarka Entertainment Network?

Exactly. Get Shashi Tharoor to live tweet the budget. Preferebly a day in advance.

So now that all such matters are behind us and in the past, I can perhaps share some of the more memorable moments from the last many months of hawking Dork to all and sundry.

First of all there was the wonderful experience of seeing Dork at the Full Circle Bookstore during the Jaipur Literary Festival. Which is where we cracked open the first ever cardboard box full of copies fresh from the press. In complete, reseplendent, uber-literary lemon-rice-yellow glory. Aayush Soni and Samit Basu were amongst the first buyers to ever pay for the book and indirectly earn me Rs.15.92 per copy. (Yes. Name-dropping.)

Next morning:

Sidin: “Aayush Aayush Aayush, have you read it, have you read it, have you read it, did you like it, did you like it, did you like it…”
Aayush: “I started reading it. And then I fell asleep.”

My lips said “That’s ok, Jaipur can be pretty exhausting Aayush. Tell me when you finish.”

But my mind said “Sidin stealthily approach one of those Festival khullar chai-wallahs. Steal his huge bronze tea drum. Then batter Aayush to death with drum. Write literary book about experience and block calendar for Jaipur 2011 invitation. Working Title: A Humpty Drum Tea Murder.”

Thankfully the response I got from the venerable Samit Basu was drastically different.

Sidin: “Samit Samit Samit, have you read it, have you read it, have you read it, did you like it, did you like it, did you like it…”
Samit: “I started reading it. And then I fell asleep.”

As you can see, the initial market response for the book was less than stupendous.

But things went up from there. We were 13,000 copies down some three weeks ago. And Dork continues to sell.

That was not the only Dork-highlight involving the Mulleted Basu.

Oh yeah.

The Mumbai launch had Samit and Gul Panag launching Dork, and me trying to gurgle up complete, gibberish-free sentences while talking to Gul Panag. During the un-gift-wrapping of the book, Samit ceremoniously pulled on the pink ribbon, and then let the book fall to the floor. There was an audible gasp from the crowd… who saw the book fall and then collectively internalized the spectacular dress Gul was wearing.

But then things went well after that and the Mumbai launch, much like the Delhi launch with Jai Arjun Singh, comprised laughter, banter and reasonable sales. The flightless ones are pleased. And so am I.

Book launch season also means many interviews and some photo shoots.

I will be honest with you here. After a point, there is a tendency to lapse into auto-pilot during interviews. Mind you, it’s not that interviewers don’t try. It’s just after a point, it is well nigh impossible to be asked an un-asked question. So there is an element of going through the motions.

Except, that is, when the interview stands apart. For bizarre reasons.

Like the guy who was paranoid that I would eat something expensive at the restaurant we met in, and make him pay the bill. When I ordered the Chicken Kathi Roll and Diet Coke, the blood drained from his face:

Sidin: “…so no, I dont think of any of the characters have been directly inspired from…”
Dude: “Excuse me…”
Sidin: “Eh? Yes.”
Dude: “I would like to tell you that I am not carrying any money in my wallet.”
Sidin: “Ok… Umm… Ok… No problem…”

And then moments after I completed the food and asked for the bill with not a hint of hesitation:

Sidin: “…so many inspirations. Books, movies, TV shows. Especially a lot of British…”
Dude: “Thank you so much for your time. I will go now.”
Sidin: “…”
Dude: *poof*

I don’t need to tell you that only the worst possible pictures from photo shoots finally make it to print. Or that around a quarter of my interviewers made desperate attempts to get me to bitch about Chetan Bhagat.

Sea Harrier doing its thing.

But then now, when I am thoroughly over the emotional roller-coaster of launches and reviews and interviews, I sit back and wonder. About the questions I’ve never been asked yet. Including those about books. And me. And the Harrier Jump Jet capable of V/STOL.

(I might cover ground I’ve blogged about before. Or not. I don’t remember any more. Afteryouth.)

For instance when did I really begin to read? As in read even when it wasn’t mandated by the CBSE or ambitious “At least read the newspaper for ten minutes, instead of watching Different Strokes on TV no?!” parents.

It all began sometime around 1985. I remember the incident clearly, if not the date, because there was a fire. A tiny little fire, confined to one corner of one room of one apartment. But a fire nonetheless. One that needed fire fighting. How exciting for a six year old no?

The fire broke out in the mostly empty flat next door, occupied by a Malayali family a day or so away from abandoning Abu Dhabi and moving back to India. (In the 80s. Who left the Gulf in the 80s?? Maybe only them.) They’d already started emptying the flat, room by room, and shifting everything into a cargo container. All that remained was one room which had some old clothes, old toys, kitchen utensils and such things that had no functional utility, would be a waste to ship, but were of borderline sentimental value.

And books. A closet in a corner had a man-sized stack of books. Most of them were damaged with covers missing and broken bindings. Others were useless ones like out-of-syllabus textbooks, and orphan volumes of old encyclopedias.

The fire had already begun to leap at the stack of books when mom and I started a bucket chain relaying water to fight it. (The brain works in such weird ways. I recall orange and red buckets, and mom running out of our front door, around the stair well and into the neighbour’s house. In her petticoat/nightie.)

As reward for my valiant fire-fighting, and in order to save on shipping costs, I was allowed to keep a few books from the stack. Mom, ever proud and independent, allowed me to pick up only one. I took the cover-less, slightly browned single-volume encyclopedia with the big colourful pictures in it.

For many years after the book had a strong smell of char and smoke. And then it began to pick up smells from my own cupboard: old blankets, pencil shavings and fountain pen ink. Finally it made up its mind and decided to smell comfortingly of home.

Mohenjo-daro Mr. T.

At first I liked only the pictures in it. Then I began reading the captions. Statue from Mohenjo-Daro. Man building a roof. Spectrum of colours. Isaac Newton. How a nuclear reactor works: in three steps.

And then, slowly, I began to read the paragraphs.

Soon it got obsessive. I’d lie belly down on the floor and read it always. Mom, and to a lesser extent dad, were staunch believers in the fact that 100% school attendance, well eaten meals and plenty of sleep in the afternoon were essential for growing children. (And indeed much physical widening happened in the years hence.)

So I would secretly slip the book under the bed, and when everyone else fell asleep, I’d roll over to the edge, pull the book out and read it. Sometimes with one slyly open eye.

Thus it began. With non-fiction mostly.

We never had too much money for years, and I normally got my books as a post-examination reward:

More than 5 A+ grades = Hundred dirhams for books and Atari cartridge.
3 to 5 A+ grades = Atari cartridge.
Less than 3 A+ grades = Name removal from ration card, visa cancellation, legal separation from family and “go and become a coconut tree climber or something…”

I got a lot of A+ grades. The first time I won a 100 dhirhams Vadukut gift voucher, I spent it all on one of those “Monster Book Of How Things Work” type publications. (It was the book Dad liked best from my shortlist.)

This was a stupendous achievement in publishing. Spectacular pictures, copious data, tremendously fun narration. It was here that I first read about:

1. Ayer’s Rock
2. D-Day and Normandy landings and therefore,
3. The Second World War
4. The Harrier Jump Jet with vertical/short take-off and landing.

The book had a wonderful hand-painted map of the beaches at Normany with hundreds of little markers and flags. And then there were comparative illustrations of American and German soldiers. Every few sections there’d be an illustrated three or four-page graphic story or biography. Gordon of Khartoum. Florence Nightingale. Famous mountaineering tragedies. Pele. And so on.

D dei!

That book kick-started a life long passion for World War II. At least 25% of all the books I have bought have something to do with the war. (And history in general.) Indeed it wasn’t till years later, maybe when it came up in school, that I began wondering about the first world war. (Between you and me, I’m working on a ambitious-ish World War II book idea. Proposal due early 2012. Fingers crossed. And of course I need to do that PhD in history.)

Forays into fiction are owed to a pro-active school library, the inevitable Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew clubs and excellent children magazines published by local Abu Dhabi newspapers. And, perhaps most importantly, a trip to a discount supermarket once that ended in a big bag of cut price children’s versions of classics: Moby Dick, The Last Of The Mohicans, Man In The Iron Mask etc.

It must have taken at least 5 years for me to work through that shopping trip. To this day I find it harder to cope with fiction. A stack of begged/borrowed/bought New Yorker magazines in a cupboard here in Dwarka. And not one page of fiction even touched.

Salaried employment, author discount, review copies and online bookstores now ensure that I don’t need to get grades or top exams to get books. I can always buy them when I want to. Provided the missus lets me.

But of course you don’t care for all this do you? Of course not. Or someone would ask me all this in an interview.

Sigh.

Have a good weekend. I have weeks of columns and a couple of longer pieces to complete. And yes, book reading trips to Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune.

And we are merely 800 words in to Dork 2. Manuscript due June.

Take care. Give kids books. (GiveIndia can help with that. Click below.)

P.S. One of the Pastramis became a father in December. The mother is healthy. The child is very healthy and already shows a propensity for bond market trading.

Photo of Mumbai launch from Raven_b’s superb Flickr stream. I am most grateful. See more here.

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2. PR kiya toh darna kya
3. My Calling…

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.

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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

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Defenceless prey

So we’re all trooping out of the in-law’s place in Ashok Vihar last weekend for a spot of shopping. We walk out of the door, past the stairwell and down the narrow drive way with low boundary walls on both sides.

Suddenly the mom-in-law freezes in her tracks. She cranes her neck over the chest-high boundary wall on the left. Like an alert documentary lioness, she has spotted something far way in the prairie grass of… er… Ashok Vihar BA Block. (Since the in-laws are staunch vegetarians let us assume that the prey is a wildebeest-shaped block of fresh paneer. Or kulfi.)

She turned around and asked us to be very quiet indeed. And then, following her lead, we all proceeded towards the car in a crouched posture. As soon as reached the car, we leapt into our seats nimble-fully and careened out of the colony at full speed, through the gates, swooped into the main road outside and then took a tyre-screeching u-turn before stopping at the Reliance Fresh on the other side.

Mom-in-law emoted the Punjabi equivalent of “Phew” and then explained how we’d just managed to avoid one of her more nosy neighbours, the retired VRS-accepted bank manager, uncle Zaphinder Singh Beeblotra (name changed).

Beeblotra, like Arnab Goswami, is renowned in Ashok Vihar for having an instant solution(s) for everybody’s problem and for tirelessly following up for months and years to ensure that his suggestions have been implemented. Failure to do so leads to quarrelsome discussions, incessant hounding, sting operations and, ultimately, prolonged feuds.

Which is why Bhatia from 4C refused to invite Pillai from 5B for Arunima’s wedding. Because Pillai put up a split AC unit, on Zaphinder’s tireless persuasion:

“Pillai saab…kya ajeeb batein kar rahe ho yaar! Window AC?? Chi. Huak thu! Aaj kal to zamana hi split AC ka hai ji. Chalo koi na. Aap busy lag rahe ho. Aap morning meditation continue karo. Main 11A hoke aata hoon. Sehgal sahab de Babloo di mummy de gift wali Scorpio da stereo kharaab ho gaya hai. O paagal Sehgal Kenwood lagva raha hai. Kenwood! Bewakoof na honwe taan!”

Pillai’s split unit then began dripping water down the outer wall and into Bhatia’s kitchen. Where it fell directly into steel pot placed under the Aquaguard. Which is how Arunima’s fiance’s entire family got dysentry when they came for girl-and-environment-inspection in February. (Bhatia rejected Beeblotra’s plan of making the ill drink the water of raw boiled papayas. But in exchange he had to let Idea Uncle choose the paan supplier for the wedding.)

So when the missus occasionally goes for walks around the colony she does so carefully. With an eye out for Beeblotra. There is no saying when he will leap out of a corner and plead with her to join swimming classes immediately. Because, just twenty-three years, ago the colony had gone on a bus trip to a beach somewhere and the Missus, who was extremely cute as a child I have been told to say, refused to approach the sea. For fear of being swept away. Beeblotra immediately made it his life’s mission to convince the missus to learn swimming. To this day.

In short I would faster attend an “Indian Students Tweetup” in Melbourne before teaching this man how to use Twitter.

As we trotted around the Reliance Fresh buying things, the mom-in-law recounted one of pop-in-law’s run ins with Beeblotra. (Apparently the incident was one of those family “in” jokes. You know the type. Where everyone is rolling on the floor howling just three words into the telling. Which puts immense pressure on you, the recently wedded-in, to laugh as much as everyone else. Which is a problem, as everyone else is from Jallandhar. And laugh like Royal Enfields.)

Scene: Pop-in-law generally hanging outside the house minding his own business. Whence Beeblotra pounces upon him from his secret hiding place behind the ironing-fellow’s push cart.

Pop-in-law: Woah teri!
B: Oh Kapoor saab! Kya haal jee!
PIL: Bas badhiya. Waiting for the workers to come!
B: Workers you say…
PIL: *ugh*
B: Carpentry work is it?
PIL: No no. Some masonry…
B: Oh ho! New room? New wall? False ceiling? Hamara Arvind Denver mein ghar ke andar jacuzzi banva raha hai you know?
PIL: Yes of course. No no. Bas we cleared the garden and some rubbish in the back of the house and soch rahe thhe ki what we will do with this extra space…
B: Oh Kapoor saab! Socho hee mat! Socho hee mat! Best suggestion deta hoon. Tussi majjan paal lao.
PIL: *Reply rhymed with “ittefaaq”*
B: Haan ji. Solid idea hai. Majjan paal lao. Space ka use bhi ho jayega aur sehat ke liye to badhiya hi badhiya! Kaash mere ghar mein aisi free space hoti… Main toh kukkad bhi paalta.

Reminded of the incident PIL, MIL and Missus unleashed waves upon waves of uncontrolled laughter standing in the Biscuits and Cereal aisle. On hearing customers make such a loud mirthful commotion a Reliance Fresh employee came running to find out what was happening. And would you believe it if I told you that the badge on his uniform t-shirt showed his name to be Phani Prasad!

What are the odds right? Impossible no? Correct. I made that bit up.

All this while I am standing and wondering what the joke was all about.

“Majjan paal lao”.

What DID that mean. My Punjabi is ok as long as it comes to Sukhbir lyrics. Otherwise it’s all a little gal ban gayee. So I began to process it in my mind. While I fake laughed away gripping on to a large pack of Bran Flakes for support.

1. Majjan paal lao = Majjan + paal lao
2. Majjan = mazaa? Mazaa = enjoyment / fun / amusement
3. Paal lao? Perhaps the same as the paal lo in “Bhangra paalo”? Reasonable assumption.
4. Paal lao = take it / pump it up / do it
5. Therefore majaa paal lao = have some fun! enjoy it! rock the place!

What the…

Beeblotra was basically telling them to use it as a party room? A den of some sort? Some enclosure to play Dumb Charades, Pictionary and other all round enthusiastic procurement of the phatte and subsequent chucking of the same?

What in god’s name was funny about that? Why are these loving, doting people laughing like maniacs? Why do I not get the clearly ground-breaking joke?

All these things went through my mind as I wiped fake tears of joy from my eyes, like everyone else, and proceeded shopping for something called “kharbooza”.

Later the missus clarified.

What thought leader Beeblotra really meant was to convert the space in the back into, and no urban residence should ever be without one, a buffalo shed. (Majjan = buffalo. Paal lao = domesticate.) His hare-brained theory being that the family which had recourse to its own source of fresh, free range diary products could save money and stay healthy.

A simple and spectacularly stupid plan.

Thankfully PIL installed a roomy bedroom in the space instead which I regularly use whenever I visit. Beeblotra does not know of course. I would be obliged if you don’t tell him.

However later, on further rumination, the incident also generated this Malayali thought process:

1. Majja = buffalo
2. While alive = milk, paneer, ghee, butter etc.
3. After dying purely natural death from heartbreak or tripping and falling = first class biryani (Buffalo is beef for real men.)

So really, when you look at it from my perspective…

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London? Aye!

No use at all, is what.

The very first time I went to London was about three years ago. A team of three of us went all the way from Mumbai to London for a forty minute meeting that ended in twenty-five excluding tea break and LCD projector downtime. It was a Mashrafe Mortaza-level waste of time, other people’s money and effort.

But then those were heady times. This was 2006. Well before bankers everywhere realized that David X. Li’s Gaussian Copula model for the pricing of collateralized debt obligations was flawed. Many moons before banks collapsed, Iceland went bankrupt and banker Pastrami was forced to make severe cut-backs to his expenses: no more separate iPod Touches for each decade of Bollywood music, definitely no new Macbook for bathroom browsing and emergency discontinuation of the “Power Yoga” add-on to his Gold’s Gym membership.

(Pastrami was not available for comment for this post as he is in Hong Kong for, and I quote, “the weekend”.)

So off we went on our 6-month single-entry business visas, landed at Heathrow, sailed through customs before being whisked away to our hotel by one of the most meatiest human beings I have ever met. I don’t mean meaty in the sense of “fat” or “obese”. Oh no. I mean meaty in the sense of medium height, of almost cubical dimensions with enormous hands, neck and nose. Plenty of muscle to suggest a man with much physical labour in resume. But also enough meat to suggest a lack of enthusiasm for “Power Yoga”. When he settled into the driver’s car after tossing our luggage into the boot, we audibly heard his suit stretch into a new shape.

A somewhat meaty Georgian

The three of us then sat very quietly for the rest of the forty minute trip to our hotel in Central London. Every few minutes the driver would get a call from someone. They would then chatter away in animated, guttural Russian. Nothing of which we could decipher. Every once in a while he’d mention our hotel, or one of our names, and we’d all stiffen in our seats and look out of the window while surreptitiously texting loved ones ATM pins and safe combinations.

That was also the only time I’ve ever (been) driven out of or into Heathrow in a car. It’s much more convenient, and cheaper, to just take one of the underground tube trains from the station below the airport.

Which makes this a good time to briefly chat about the Briton’s obsession with maximizing cash flows. You maybe forgiven for thinking that the British have lost their ability to run global businesses like they once used to. (Indeed, we ask ourselves, what are they today except a nation subservient to the US, with excellent topless women in their newspapers, a bizarre talent for international cycling and a tendency to bestow people with Gordon Brown’s orc-like speech skills, high public office?)

Yet you can still sense a glimmer of that famed knack for business in the way they obsessively install cafes and gift shops in museums. And how, depending on how much money you have, you can take not one, but three different train options from Heathrow: regular tube (4 pounds something), the Heathrow Connect (7.40 pounds) and the Heathrow Express (16.50 pounds). In dosa terms that would be the Sada, Mysore Masala and Organic Free Trade Brown Rice Paneer Dry Fruit Special Masala respectively.

Note: If this in any way gives you the impression that you have an inkling of how the UK railways work I apologize. It does not. In fact nobody, as far as I know, knows how the rail system in the UK works. This is because of the complicated web of tracks, routes, companies, lessees and lessors, and what not, that work in collaboration. Examine this lucid paragraph from the Wikipedia entry for the Heathrow Connect service:

To access the airport spur without crossing the fast lines, trains in both directions use the flyover track originally built for Heathrow Express trains heading towards Paddington. This arrangement means Heathrow Connect trains to the airport use the flyover in the opposite direction to normal operation, and trains from Heathrow must cross both slow lines on the flat. If Crossrail goes ahead, the flyover will be rebuilt to overcome these limitations.

Just as James Joyce meant it to be.

Homework: Imagine the above text as a Hindi announcement on the Delhi Metro. Shudder. (Hindi scholars feel free to send a formal Indian Government Hindi version of the above para. Will publish thathtsamay).

But coming back on track (ha!), so in April 2006 the Georgian engined us (ho!) to our hotel stationed on (wah!) Bedford Avenue and watching London for the first time sent an electric (overdid it) sense of joy down my spine. It was all narrow two-lane roads, curling around little green squares with the crispest, coolest weather you can imagine. Sigh. And the plain, no-nonsense budget hotel, the team leader’s choice, was just a short walk away from Leicester Square and the British Museum. If you were in Mumbai this was like living in a 1BHK right inside Flora Fountain in terms of centrality.

Expecting to be budget-housed in a cheap, drug den in some far-flung suburb by the company I was quite pleased. Until I slipped my card into the electronic slot, swung open the door into my room, took two steps, and ran face first into the wall at the other end. Considering that I am one of those people who automatically become happy when they walk into a fresh hotel room this was quite a bummer.

Deluxe hotel room (life size image)

It was astonishingly, mind-bogglingly small. The room was exactly the length of the bed plus another two feet. And in the two feet gap they’d managed to fit in a miniature heat radiator and a weird tubular steel thing I later learnt was used to keep your luggage on. The room was also two bed-widths across and wedged into one corner was a writing table with matching chair. The table had two drawers, one with a hair-dryer and the other with a Bible in it.

The bathroom door was a sliding number that opened up into a space a little bigger than an airplane toilet.

In the first ten minutes, I poked myself in the eye twice and once tipped over the chair which toppled over the dust bin which collapsed the luggage holder which activated the trouser press which flopped out of the wall and hit me on my knee which made me bend over in pain when I hit my head against the door and fell over backwards dazed, and bounced off the chair into the bathroom where I got wedged between the bowl and the wash basin. It was like the infamous Honda advertisement. But with pain. All through the night, when claustrophobia and pain kept me awake, I reached, as always, for my one source of spiritual solace. I often reached across, opened the table drawer and, after a moment of silent solemnity, pulled out the hair dryer. A few minutes trying to inflate a pillow-cover always calms me.

I also noticed after a few hours of loitering around in the hotel and chatting with the staff that London was quite the melting pot of cultures. You already know our chauffeur was Georgian. The reception staff at the hotel comprised one British Born Confused Desi Sardarni eager to visit India and find her roots, and one Eastern European type who’s motto was “Service before self if it must come to that”. The concierge was a jovial Caribbean, the room service guy was very Arab and some of the house-keeping staff were Filipino. I think the great British contemporary poet Ronan Keating put it best when he once said:

Take a pinch of white man
Wrap him up in black skin
Add a touch of blue blood
And a little bitty-bit of red indian boy..

Curly, black and kinky
Oriental sexy
If you lump it all together
Well, you’ve got a recipe for a get-along scene
Oh what a beautiful dream
If it could only come true
You know, you know…

How true! London is one such get-along scene. And despite their native cultural variety, somehow the city infuses all these people with a little bit of the stiff British upper lip. Which I will illustrate with a little incident that happened the morning of our doomed meeting. As is usual I was standing in front of the mirror in the mini-bathroom shaving, dressed only in my underclothes (focus on the story ladies) when there was a knock on the door. An Arab man said: “[inaudible] room service [inaudible] excuse me [inaudible]”

I replied: “NO! NO! NO! COME LATER!”

With stunning attention to detail he swiped his card, opened the door, slid in sideways and then stood perfectly still staring into the bathroom while I looked at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. After a few seconds he said he would come back later as “I looked busy” and left. Without even batting an eyelid. I ran after him to lock the door and then returned to my shaving but not before tripping over a telephone directory and comprehensively engaging a 14-inch TV with side of head.

All these thoughts came rushing back into my (healed) head three years later as I emerged with the missus out of Heathrow and into the waiting arms of Bill, my dearest brother-in-law. The punjabi in him had ensured that he came with bags of sandwiches and beverages for our pleasure. He pounced gallantly upon our trolley, picked up all the luggage himself and chaperoned us into a grim tunnel that led down to the Heathrow tube station. Within minutes we minded the gap and boarded a train (sada dosa). Shortly thereafter the missus and Bill launched into brother-sister re-bonding with cries of “Woah teri!”, “Shub-BHAASH puttar-uh” and, of course, “Oy hoy old boy”. Meanwhile, equally emotionally, I made my acquaintance with a Marks and Spencer smoked salmon sandwich and a banana yoghurt smoothie.

As you might imagine it was a very sentimental moment for all of us.

Holloway Road Station. You can see Arsenal's stadium from here

As soon as we walked in we spotted the tell-tale signs of accommodation of bachelors without frequently visiting female friends. Used socks lay about in three feet high mounds while the path to the kitchen was clearly demarcated, useful in case of smoke related emergencies, by a continuous line of semi-empty Papa John pizza boxes. In the living room what I initially thought was Bill’s roommate huddled under a blanket on the sofa, turned out to be just a bag of restaurant left-overs. Largely spaghetti, humus and and pita bread from early February now turned into a thriving child-sized colony of fungus. When I approached it to have a closer look it made a growling noise exactly like, you guessed it again, Gordon Brown.

We dropped our bags and the missus immediately embarked on a cleaning spree, with Bill helping, while I lay back and switched on the TV to watch the awesome Challenge channel. (More on Challenge and the dhol-playing sikhs with the red-shirts later.)

Normally such a night would be spent in all-night gossip and catching up and planning. But alas we had a train to catch at seven the next morning to Edinburgh, the city about which Gerald Butler, the hero of “This is Partha!” 300 movie fame once said:

I sang in a rock band when I was training as a lawyer. You know, not professional, we just did it for fun. We just did gigs all over Edinburgh and some in Glasgow and some at festivals.

Butler is not a man known for his quotes.

Venti-size Starbucks cup

a) Wake up early enough to reach King’s Cross
b) Find our train
c) Find our co-travelers who had all the tickets
d) Avoid getting killed in the middle of the night by the mysterious fungal life-form in the living room

Therefore it gives me great pleasure to tell you that at around quarter past 7 the next morning the entire party had somehow managed to locate the right train, find the right seats, purchase several bags full of light travel snacks such as Egg Cheese BLT on Rye sandwiches and Venti-size hazelnut lattes from Starbucks, and settle into a comfortable trip to Edinburgh full of merry conversation and jovial over-eating.

Join us next time, perhaps in a day or two, when we discover the merry city of Edinburgh, the little piece of Bombay that sits right outside the castle there, the best sausage roll in the entire world and Irn Bru. Shudder.

Till then, as they say in Morocco when parting from dear friends, [inaudible]!

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If you are going to screw around with your blog template at all, then Sunday is the best time to do it. Weekend traffic is the worst!

So after many people told us that the old, warm orange Domain Maximus was boring and oh-so-Web1.0, we decided to clean up things a little and get a shiny new, busier template. The idea was to get something that would not only be easy to tweak and upload but also a design that would give a little more flexibility. Now we can not only highlight the latest post, but also pick a popular “featured” post, clearly list out the last five and also occasionally type out an Aside. Basically shorter posts in a para or two, mostly with links to something.

A lot of the randomness in the sidebar is gone. Navigation through categories is better and search has been improved. We are also trying to connect the blog to other columns and articles in a more meaningful way. (I am testing out a nice, visually pleasing embedding method.) It might all seem a little too comprehensive for a blog that is hardly ever updated. But the idea is to both clean it up and also use Whatay as a more useful tool in the months to come when a few newer projects will be announced. Wink nudge.

The blog has been on the back-burner ever since I started work on the book. But now that we have crossed that bridge, let’s hope things get busier here. With the new design done, pardon us while we go and work on a few new blogposts.

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First of all I solemnly declare that I really did like Watchmen. Decent story, nice snarky sense of humour all over the place and lots of things, like costumes and guns, for little boys to gush over. Also heroine in latex suit. And heroine out of latex suit.

But also I had the chance to laugh verily at that oft-overlooked barometer of the social zeitgeist. (No idea. Just sounds cool.) The customer service feedback book.

Once you’ve done many weekends of women’s clothing shopping with the missus, as I have, you learn to, discreetly of course, find other things to amuse you. And within the sterile enviornment of our malls and department stores this is no mean feat. So I end up hanging around reading the vision statements of retailing companies, memorizing the US-European-UK-Asia-Klingon size conversion charts for shoes and internalizing material on why the design irregularities in Fabindia merchandise celebrate the eccentricity of handmade production.

And sometimes I go to the LCD/Plasma TV department, where they have all the TVs wired to the same DVD player. If you stand facing the huge display wall and then the image on the TV’s suddenly flip to one side, like in an external shot of a passenger jet, you get this awesome dizzy feeling. Try it. Don’t throw up.

And then a couple of years ago, at a W store, I discovered the customer feedback book and stood at the cash counter reading it cover to cover. It was freaking awesome. Seriously, somebody should publish one of those.

Sure most of it is just the usual "SMS when there is sale" and "Customer service is good, but price is slightly high" variety. But every once in a while there will be this awesome gem of humour or human frailty that cracks me up.

Ever since then I always make it a point to flip through these feedback books whenever I can.

So imagine my glee when I discover one at PVR Saket. It was just lying there by the popcorn counter, unloved and covered in mysterious sticky patches. With hajaar time to go before the 11:10 PM show, the missus and I began to flip through the book. There weren’t many entries. Someone from the staff had ripped off a good one-third of the book from the front. But the dozen or so pages left had plenty to think about. I present a few choice, mildly amusing pickings in the form of blurry BlackBerry photos and associated transcripts:

No. 1:

Okay making fun of someone’s English is a little below the belt. But come on. If you can spell ‘ambience’ you should be able to spell ‘great’ too right?

Text: ‘Grat service, ambience is very good.’ Yup. Cheap shot.

No. 2:

Some customers can be very choosy indeed you know. For instance, a few insist that the staff maintain the highest standards of personal hygiene.

Text:  ‘clean, friendly staff’

No. 3:

Don’t you just hate those movies that simply refuse to get along with you? They just refuse to listen to reason.

Text: ‘Nice place, reasonable movies, seating needs to be more comfortable.’

No. 4:

The best customers are those who leave clear, actionable feedback right? Right? Then these are the worshtest ever.

Text: ‘Its a fun place to hangout with friends!!’ Followed by ‘same’ and ‘same’. Thanks a lot!

No. 5:

This one is without doubt my favourite.

Text: ‘It is a beautiful and romantic place for 3 guys.’

Don’t ask me. I just report it as it is.

(P.S. Big scale blog redesign is being contemplated. We might post less frequently than usual because of that. Heh heh. Ayyo.)

And now before you go please contemplate donating for a good cause. Choose from one of the many certified NGO’s at GiveIndia.

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(A travelogue in many parts–I promise–written without any restraint at all. Truthful mostly.)

Trained by years of three-hour long summer vacation flights across the Arabian Sea, I am not one to dawdle with drinks and dinner inside an airplane cabin.

When you flew the dreaded Gulf Air connection between Abu Dhabi and Bombay your whole strategy was about speed and accuracy. Drink your first Johnnie Walker miniature too slowly and you were doomed. By the time the drinks trolley made its circuit and came back the only spirits left would be cans of lukewarm Heineken from within the bowels of the trolley and a couple of mini-bottles of white wine from great wine producing nations such as Turkey and Paraguay:

“This exquisite wine, also available in distinctive looking tetrapak boxes, is fruity with echoes of berry that give way to an after taste of burnt toast followed by full-bodied projectile throwing up.”

This was because two rows behind you sat bachelor boys Anto, Johnny and their friend Anto Johnny. All of them veteran Gulf Air flyers, who, over many years of annual leave trips, had perfected the art of hitting the drinks trolley harder and faster than a majestic Venkatesh Prasad cover drive crashing straight back into his stumps.

Miniature bottles of whisky, which Malayalis frown upon as a matter of principal, were thrown back by Anto and company two at a time in rapid-fire succession. Sometimes even before the stewardess has turned back with plastic glasses and peanuts. While the hapless crew-member shuttled between seat and trolley, a few bottles were stealthily slipped into pockets for the drive home from the airport. By the time Anto reached home in Chalakudy he was very, very happy and enveloped in a mixed mist of Johnnie Walker and Brut pour homme.

So you can imagine my chagrin when the cabin crew of my Delhi-Dubai Emirates flight not only kept all of us well nourished with many assorted beverages–”We only have Absolut vodka sir. Will that do?” “Alas! I will manage somehow. GLUG.”–but I was also among the first few people in Economy Class to be served dinner.

This may sound very grand and all, this being served before everyone else. However two things can make this very uncomfortable.

First of all you must realise that Economy Class travel is one of the great social levellers of the modern world. No matter what you are in the world outside–consultant, journalist, social media evangelist or investment wanker–if your boarding pass says Economy you have been grouped up with everyone else sitting around. So what you if you have a Blackberry and a tiny, almost pointless laptop? Since you clearly can’t afford Business or First shut the eff up and eat cold butter and drink warm beer like everyone else bro.

But this forced social homogenity also means that any preferential treatment by the cabin crew causes cabin-wide consternation.

“What did that boy just get? A coloring book! I want one immediately!”
“But darling you are 34!”
“So what stupid man. We are entitled to everything they are… Look someone’s getting an extra BLANKET now!”
“Oh please be mature woman and pilfer the cutlery like we planned.”

(I won’t tell you exactly who but one of my relatives is an expert at pilfering things from an airplane. When people visit for dinner parties she tells them that the cutlery, dining set, toilet paper, moisturizer and most of the sofa cushions were gifted to us by someone “high up in Cathay Pacific who get these things for free during Diwali.”)

So in all things Economy class passengers must be treated alike. Anything less could lead to revolt, uprising and eventually the guillotine. So when the stewardess placed dinner before me many a malicious eyebrow was raised. Apparently Emirates had actually taken the meal preference I had entered online seriously. And they brought me my seafood special before the regular meal trolley made its rounds.

Excellent customer service, but the craning necks and irate whispering was disconcerting. I waited for everyone else to be served before launching into an excellent prawn cocktail appetiser and salmon fillet main course. Most excellent.

Adding to my difficulties was the second factor: the pregnant German woman sitting across the aisle on my left. This big-boned frau was in that stage of pregnancy that medical professionals call “Feed or avoid”.

She polished off her meal tray in seconds, bread roll and all. And then, after shifting around in her seat for comfort, demolished her husband’s meal tray as well. Utterly unsatisfied she then turned around and glared. At my food. Incessantly. Not a prawn went from bowl to my mouth unobserved. My engagement with the fillet and her keen observation of the same was a remarkable case study in my hand-her eye coordination.

When she finally realized I had a different meal she summoned a stewardess demanding an explanation. Which was promptly offered in the form of a third defenceless meal tray. I quickly finished dinner while Mother Germany was distracted.

The missus, meanwhile, was having her own set of problems with another German who sat next to her. This gentleman was a standard issue Lonely Planet traveller perhaps en route to a connecting flight back home from Dubai. A nice short, stout fellow who spent the entire flight reading a German book.

Not that the missus did not try to quash his attempts to do this. First she dropped half lemon welcome drink in his lap. He laughed it off. And then, during the beverage service, most of a glass of orange juice fell over as well. He smiled and she apologised profusely. The glass of water she tipped over during dinner did not amuse him one bit. And then, in a stunning last act, the missus let go of the inflight entertainment system remote control which snapped back on its spring-loaded cord, whipped across the meal tray and leg-glanced the chocolate pudding over and onto his foot. He was enraged and looked this close to invading Poland as is the way of his people when pissed.

Needless to say she remained motionless for the rest of the trip while I sat back and enjoyed an in-flight entertainment system that, for once , was not programmed in Fortran.

And as I sit in the cabin watching grim, grey televised interpretations of Kurt Wallander novels with Kenneth Branagh playing the title role, let me tell you a little about the fortnight’s worth of travelling and sight-seeing that lay ahead.

The missus and I had cherished plans of a fortnight in South Africa for a couple of years. What with the brother-in-law having moved to Johannesburg a long time ago. Also Bill, as we shall henceforth call him, had this great Punjabi need to take me there all expenses paid and treat me like a king. Who am I to say no.

Alas just when it looked like the missus and I had managed to wheedle out some leave time together to pay him a visit the global economy crashed. Bill’s employers were not immune to the meltdown that hit the banks. And after weeks of turmoil and tension he was finally asked to suddenly move permanently to London. Off went Bill to a cozy two-bedroom two-bath place in Islington, just a few minutes walk from Arsenal football club’s Emirates Stadium and around the corner from Holloway Road tube station.

Weeks later when we found that Emirates was giving away Delhi-London-via-Dubai return tickets at around Rs23,000 per person after tax we did not hesitate. Tickets were booked and Bill was immediately asked to set aside a sizeable portion of his 2008 bonus. Bill, dear loving Bill, did even better. He booked tickets for a football match, a West End musical, and even arranged for a local SIM and mobile phone.

(Remind me later to tell you why and how you boys must marry into a Punjabi family only.)

Later after some group gmailing the two week long trip became much more exciting. Since we’d be landing just before the long Easter weekend the first item on our agenda would be a three-day road-trip across Scotland. Edinburgh and Inverness would be the highlights. And joining us, yay!, would be a jolly group of eight friends, all bankers in London. None of them, let me assure you, had anything at all to do with CDOs, CMOs and sub-prime mortgages. I don’t mix with those types anymore.

So where was I? Ah yes watching Kenneth Branagh as Wallander on the Emirates inflight entertainment thingie. Before the flight I had no idea that Henning Mankell’s Wallander books had been made into a TV series. If you are one of the few people I haven’t already forced to read Scandinavian crime fiction then I implore you to do so. Mankell is most good. But my favourites are the ten books of the Martin Beck series written by Sjowall and Wahloo. The husband-wife team produced delightful crime novels all set in the Sweden of the sixties. The books are all very grim with short days, long nights, grumpy people and overcast skies. Still they manage to be funny and utterly enthralling.

After one and a half episodes of Wallander I began to drop of to sleep and so switched the channel to audio tracks of Seinfeld stand-up. I had heard every single one before. Perfect background chatter, then, to fall asleep to.

The changeover in Dubai was smooth as butter. We deplaned, ran our shoes, belts and bags through an X-ray, did a quick circuit of a huge, shiny and impersonal Duty Free section before swiftly boarding the connecting flight to Heathrow.

A splinter of nostalgia shot through me as I picked up a copy of the Gulf News from a trolley outside the plane door. (NRIs nod in understanding please.)

And then in just a few minutes we were inside, the doors were pulled shut and I continued watching Wallander where I had left it off before.

Now I will spare you detailed narration of six hours of flight travel as I have to run right now. I just turned thirty years old a few moments ago and I am celebrating by cracking open a packet of Lindt dark chocolate to celebrate with the missus.

Do return in a day or to when we will continue on into Scotland and talk about the most complicated problem tourists face when they fly to the UK. Exactly… the Mensa puzzle device that operates the shower in hotel bathrooms.

Till then, as they say in the United Kingdom, ciao!

(By the way the people at GiveIndia do good work. Check them out. Click below. Go on.)

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