But I’d pestered the Penguin people for weeks and I suppose cracking open a box at Jaipur seemed ceremonial enough. The guys who ran the shop, the same guys who run the Full Circle outlet at Khan Market in New Delhi, promptly took a stack of fresh Dork copies and dumped them on the lowest rack of a bookshelf, next to Shoba De and Sidney Sheldon.

As the day progressed the stack receded farther and farther into the dark nether regions of the bookshelf while, in more prominent positions, books by Geoff Dyer and William Dalrymple literally vaporised by the stackfulls. Still I was most thrilled. Every few hours I’d pop in and check on status. And the Dork stack would cough and wheeze and splutter and shorten itself one comforting copy at a time.

Very quickly, however, I was engrossed in the festival itself. Sure, I spent hours agonising over what those early buyers thought of my book. Things were not helped by Samit Basu’s motivating quip one morning that he had started reading the book, but had fallen asleep after a few pages. (A terrible cameo awaits him in book three.)

Jitters apart, I was truly enjoying the festival. In many different ways.

Now when I went to Jaipur I had no idea who the organisers or founders of the event were. I knew Dalrymple was involved in some capacity. I had no idea what their ulterior motives were, what their political or ideological agenda were and whether they cared about other Indian languages. (I say ‘other’ because it is ludicrous to think English isn’t an Indian language.)

I also did not know what their criteria for inviting authors were. Was I jealous of some of the invitees? Of course. Did I want to be invited one day? Of course. I still do. The appreciation of your peers is highly valued in any profession, not least in a creative and particularly criticism-prone one like writing.

Also at no point was I thinking to myself “What does this festival achieve for the nation as a whole?”

When I was at Jaipur the only things playing on my mind were: Which are the good sessions? Which authors should I be listening to? As a young author coming to grips with this vocation, who should I talk to, what advice should I be asking for and what lessons did these fabulous writers have for me?

And my experience was absolutely fascinating. And very fulfilling. Lawrence Wright’s bag of tricks and tips for reporters I will never forget as long as my messenger bag includes an audio recorder. The session on travel writing was both amusing and informative.

A remarkable session on terrorism and the Middle East involving Wright and Steve Coll exposed me to nuance on a subject that is often analysed with staggering, stifling polarity. That session led me to buy and read several books.

I also met a few people at Jaipur who have remained friends and twitter-buddies since.

All in all, I had the time of my life.

I say all this because this year JLF has been the cynosure of attention for many reasons, most of them negative. There was that Rushdie imbroglio that overshadowed everything else. Then there were the readings of the Satanic Verses, the assassins, the quotable quotes, the outrage and, most distressing for me personally, the reams of punditry condemning the festival as pointless, irrelevant or a schmoozefest.

Most of that is perhaps true. But my point is: so what man?

Tell me this: what can possibly make a literary festival vital? At what point in a society’s evolution does a literary festival assume a position of critical importance? Which nation in the world can standup and say: “Look, we’ve solved all our critical problems. All our vital shortcomings have been alleviated. Now we start with our frivolous shortcomings. And top on that list is a thumping huge literary festival.”

I don’t think even one. Even Norway, with all that HDI and GDP, has to deal with insane gunmen and Indian parenting quirks.

In fact, when you think about it, literature and literary festivals are perhaps important precisely because they are not vital. They distance–some would even say elevate–us from the brutal and mundane that frustrate us in our daily lives. Why do you come home after work and see a rerun of Friends? Because you identify with the moral rectitude of Matt Le Blanc and Courtney Cox? Because you are 100% certain that the producers of the show don’t have some ulterior political motive in their scripts?

Who knows? More importantly, who cares?

Then why demand of literary festivals, organisers, participants or even audiences the morality, clarity of purpose, sanctity of intentions and social relevance that we demand of hardly anybody or anything else. And especially so of a privately organised literary event where the public is allowed to visit freely.

Can you spend the whole week schmoozing at Jaipur? Of course. Can you spend the whole week stalking celebrities or sucking up to the clique-ish publishing industry? Certainly. Can you spend the week in the midst of a few wonderful authors and artists enjoying discussions, debates and perspectives? Yes you can, even if the quality of sessions can be very uneven and often helmed by bizarre moderators. But hey, it is free and you can vote with your feet. Bad JLF this year? Don’t go next year.

Disagree with the mandates of the festival? Want to focus more on translated fiction, Marathi poetry or Malayalam travel writing? By all means organise your own festival. JLF does not have an exclusive national license on literary festivals.

If anything we need plenty more festivals all over the country. As any Chetan Bhagat event in a small town shows, there are readers everywhere in this country. And they love meeting and talking to authors. There are more languages, topics and issues than can be handled by a dozen large Indian festivals. But chances are that any such festival will be tinged by controversy. We are not a country famed for our ability to get along with each other. Or for our restraint when it comes to putting public figure on pedestals.

You are welcome to try to organise a literary festival that will condemn any kind of schmoozing, celebrity worship, low brow conversation, political partisanship, NRI fixations or ideological leanings. Feel free. But literary festivals can seldom be less polarising than literature itself.

However a lot of the analysis I see right now is saddening. It is akin to saying let us burn down cinema theatres because too many people watch crap movies.

No screens. No crap movies. No movies at all. Victory for good cinema?

Hardly.

***

p.s. No. I am not trying to get an invitation. Why would you think like that?
p.p.s. I am getting old.

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

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

We are all good again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Whatay Wishlist:

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

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

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

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

Excerpt from UAE Embassy site:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dey murder: ACP says allegations against him absurd

14 Jun 2011, 1858 hrs IST, AGENCIES

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

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

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

Creepy.

Small world.

But I also miss reading.

So then I did the math. Unless something drastic happens to medical science or to my income levels, I simply will not live long enough or have enough free time to read all the books, magazines and Wikipedia entries I want to in life. It is physically impossible.

This is a depressing thought no?

But of course I do not want to depress. So please go read this bizarre New Yorker Shouts and Murmurs piece.

Alternately, my woefully neglected Instapaper RSS feed is here.

What else?

Oh yes. There are positive developments on the Cubiclenama front. But I cannot confirm it right now.

Bye.

P.S. Apologies if these little posts are clogging up your RSS feed. Things will be likewise for a while. Feel free to temporarily bury feed at sea.

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

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

I hated it.

But that kind of thing does leave residual tendencies.

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

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

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

Sometimes your parents make complete sense retrospectively.

***

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Beirut Panorama. Image via Wikipedia

The most time I’ve ever spent in a single city in the last 22 years, before packing up and moving somewhere, is the four years I spent in engineering college in REC Trichy. Otherwise it has always been brief stints of two or three years before education or employment or pub-lust, has me moving once again to Ahmedabad or Delhi or London.

I am not complaining of course. I think I enjoy this relaxing frequent nomadic-ism that ensures you never get too bored of any one city. Or language. Or food. Or Milan subway.

However this kind of thing does lead to some behavioral quirks.

For instance you are almost always coming across furniture or wall decorations or shopping mall sculptures that you are itching to buy–because it could make your house look like Frasier’s–but can’t because you’ll surely be moving somewhere soon.

You are also constantly somewhat jealous of friends who’ve bought magnificent homes and splendiferous cars because they’ve decided they’re never moving.  This feeling usually bubbles over violently when you see the magnificent wooden bookshelves they’ve installed in their hallways or living rooms. (Also a lot of people in London leave their windows open in the evenings. With all the lights on inside. Just going to the nearest tube station is a tortuous parade of bookshelves and open-plan kitchens and plush sofas and ottomans and wall hangings and such like.)

Personally this also leaves me constantly thinking of myself as a tourist. Therefore I am one of those people who shamelessly strike up borderline-intimate conversations with taxi drivers and auto drivers and waiters. I don’t know if their views of a place are reflective of the average inhabitant’s, but I’ve always had the most amazing chats sitting in the back of battered old car stuck in a jam on Wadala bridge.

For instance the very first day I went to junior college in Thrissur–11th class for you hep folks–I struck up a chat with the dude who was driving my auto from the bus stand near Swapna theatre to my college. The college scene in Kerala at the time was intensely political. There were huge left wing and Congress movements and a laughably small, token right wing set-up. Even before my first day in college I was leaning towards signing up for the commies. Because at the time they seemed pro-poor, anti-religion and corruption-free.

Not to mention all the movies in which Mohanlal portrayed a crusading commie.

As we rattled on in our auto we passed a small procession of commies protesting something or the other. “Are you a leftie?” I asked my driver.

“I am a member of the trade union. But am I friends with all of them,” he said.

“The left is good for poor people…” I ventured, half as a statement, half as a question.

The driver thought for a while and then said something I’ve never forgotten. “They are the same boy. Both of them steal. But there is one difference. When the left win elections only the chief minister’s children go to study in England. When the Congress win elections, everybody can steal a little. Everybody’s children can at least go to an english medium school in Guruvayoor.”

Later I realised that the commies were hardly distinguishable from the Congress hordes at college. But the Congress type tried to convince you to vote for a student councillor with beef biryani. The commies preferred to serve you with fresh cycle chains.

Then there was the cabbie guy in Mumbai who picked me up, late one night, outside a club in Bandra. I don’t remember exactly which one. But I recall it was on top of an ICICI bank, and the dance floor had huge backlit manga cartoons on one wall.

That night there was a huge crowd looking for a ride, but somehow the cabbie gave me the once over and then told me get in. This “once-over” business in Mumbai is utterly revolting. And invasive. I believe I lost my virginity to a particularly slow, excruciating once-over on Marine Drive during my summer internship in 2004. Women have been known to miss their cycles after one.

After a general meandering chat about traffic and cabs and Bandra, I asked my cabbie why he gave me the once-over. He said he was making sure I was a ‘decent party’. I asked him if he was alluding to prostitution. No, he said, he was alluding to couples who made out in the back of a taxi. “I don’t have a problem with that. Children are modern these days. But how can I drive properly from here to Nariman Point if they are doing it in the back? Sometimes they make noise. It is very distracting. And then other taxi drivers make fun of you if they see. Why can’t these boys and girls just wait for 45 minutes?”

We laughed the rest of the way to Wadala. Where I discovered he had a dodgy meter.

And so on to the guy who drove my mini-cab two weekends ago. Mini-cabs are the cheaper, shabbier cousins of the famed London black cab. The London cab, like so much else in London, is fiendishly expensive and best enjoyed from a distance. Public transportation is the cheapest way to get around. But if the night ends too late, or the day starts too early, then a mini-cab booked by phone is useful.

So last fortnight I went with Mr. and Mrs. Pastrami to a splendid and quite fru-fru night club. Which we left shortly because frankly we’re getting too old for this shit. So we went back to Pastrami’s house–yes, with bookshelves and even a fireplace–and threw back a few drinks. The missus, if you’re wondering, wisely decided to sit at home, read a book, watch some comedy and do some baking.

Well past midnight, after the trains had stopped, I reluctantly called up a mini-cab. (The reluctance was due to mental arithmetic that multiplies mini cab charge by 80 to get approx. Indian rupee figure.)

They’d sent a spacious silver Mercedes-Benz that looked at least five or six years old but sparingly washed. The driver was a big, strong, lightly-bearded chap in a jacket and woolen cap. Who looked of vaguely mediterranean extraction.

After some silence we somehow started talking about something or the other. Maybe the weather. I don’t remember.

“So are you married sir?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“You went to a club tonight?”

“For a little bit.”

“Alone?”

“Ha ha. Yes.”

“If I went to a club on my own my wife would cut my balls off.”

And then he told me he was from Lebanon. And a big Amitabh Bachan fan. In turn I impressed him with my rudimentary Arabic–hummus, shawarma, tabbouleh, Abu Dhabi, Tahrir. The conversation turned to the topic of unrest in the Middle East.

“Like your country my country is also very beautiful,” he said. “Good food, good nature, good women. No peace. No peace even for five minutes. You have no peace with Pakistan. We have no peace with Syria and Israel.”

I asked him when he’d left Beirut and come to London. At which point he began telling me his story.

When he was 13-years old Israel invaded Lebanon. At which point my driver, let’s call him Rafik, signed up for the Lebanese army. Five years later he fled to the United Kingdom seeking political asylum. The UK let him in but the asylum visa came with a ten year ban on going back to Lebanon. Rafik taught himself to become, of all things, a graphic designer for a magazine publishing company. He married, had children, and occasionally visited his sister who’d found asylum in the US. And then his company decided to shift base to Dubai Media City. Rafik followed but left and came back soon because he couldn’t handle the people, the place and the distance from his family. But by then the economy tanked. And media, as you know, imploded. So Rafik now drives a mini-cab to make ends meet. It is not a terrible living, he told me. Yet he pines to go back.

“I want to go back. I want to die and be buried in Lebanon. You know what I mean? It is my country. This is not home. These people don’t like you. They don’t understand you. Some of them hate you…”

We spoke for a while about racism and home and London.

And then I asked him what he did for the Lebanese army as a teenager. He thought for a while.

“I was a sniper.”

Whoa. I play as many sniping flash games as the next guy. The missus was a proficient sniper during Unreal Tournament LAN games in business school. But I’d never met a real life sniper.

“Did you… did you… kill a lot of people?”

“That is not a good question. We were at war. They invaded. I was a soldier.”

But he no longer hated the Israelis, he said. At least not as individuals. Rafik said that he often ferried Israelis in his cab and some of them were also soldiers. In fact, he said, they’d often swap war stories, shake hands and chat like old friends.

And now, he said, the Shias and Sunnis were killing each other.

“But… how terrible to be made to kill people when you were so young… how do you deal with that…”

Honestly I was expecting a filmy outpouring of emotion. Rafik didn’t say anything.

And then after a silence he rattled off a list of the guns he still had at home: Kalashnikovs, sniper rifles and hand guns. When he went to to the US, Rafik said, he still liked going to a shooting range.

“They are crazy there man. Before 9/11 you can buy a gun from anywhere. Any time. Go to a range. Shoot. It was crazy man…”

“But… what a horrible childhood to have…” I just couldn’t get over the fact that he was a sniper and shooting people at an age when I was merely water-boarding my dad to get a GameBoy

Again Rafik didn’t say anything.

Just before he dropped me at home he whipped out his iPhone and showed me an app.

“Unbelieveable app man. You just press on the picture of a gun and it makes shooting noises. And it is so accurate. You will not believe. It sounds exactly like a gun in real life. Kalashnikov… exactly the same…”

I paid him, added a generous tip and wished him good night and peace to both our countries. He called me brother. And then before starting his car he made a couple of shooting noises with his iPhone guns. And then my cab-driver cum graphic designer cum sniper drove off looking very pleased with himself.

Is there a moral to that story?

The only one I can think of is that I am perhaps much luckier than I sometimes realize.

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.

Cover of Wolf Hall: A Novel (Man Booker Prize)

Have I told you about my obsession with author podcasts? About how I diligently download as many author interviews as I can onto my iPod and then listen to them many times?

Personally I like to skip the parts where they talk about one, or several, of their books. Instead, I like to focus on the writing process they follow. Do they wake up at 4:30 AM and start typing? Do they carry moleskine notebooks around to jot down ideas? And how did/do they go about researching their books?

The latest addition to this collection is an iTunes “Meet The Author” interview with Hilary Mantel. I haven’t read the Booker prize winning Wolf Hall yet. The book is one of the many I abstained from while editing up Dork. (Fear of “inspiration”, insecurity etc. etc.)

You can listen to that episode, and archives of the “Meet the Author” podcast, here.

My favourite-st author interview show however is the BBC’s excellent World Book Club. Superb interviews with great authors. And extremely accessible. Plenty to listen to online and on the iPod, here.

The latest episode of WBC featured John Boyne, author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas:

Some of the other authors featured on WBC include Annie Proulx, Kiran Desai, Wole Soyinka etc. etc. Splendid archives.

Another superb place to evesdrop on the “writing process” is the wonderful “Writers’ Rooms” series at the Guardian. The last update, however, is dated last July. Pity.

But before I launch into blogging-as-usual-from-Delhi I must drop a line about an interesting incident that happened on the Metro a few days ago.

So there I am with the in-laws and the missus on the blue line from Connaught Place to Dwarka. The train is crowd-less but there aren’t any seats free. Somewhere mid-way, after Rajouri Garden I think, the mom-in-law gets a seat. She is wedged in between a Japanese mum with a PSP-clicking child, and a couple of African guys.

One of the African guys get up, my dad-in-law ushers the missus towards the empty seat. But before she can sit the African guy mumbles something and and scrambles his way back to the seat. The dad-in-law is very miffed and begins to say something when we calm him down and tell him to let it go.

Someone mumbles something about “better not take pangas” with “these African types”.

There is much wrathful eyeballing happening all around till both men get up just before Nawadah. Both the missus and dad-in-law take their place. I still stand. One of the guys comes over and says: “I give the old man a seat but he give it to that young woman. Young woman can stand. I want him to sit because he is old. In our country we respect old people.”

He sounds half-offended when he speaks.

I tell him that we respect old people in our country too.

Soon, but of course, we begin talking about India and Nigeria, which is where they are from. “Some things about India we like. Some things we don’t,” they say honestly when I ask them about living here. Turns out both guys are professional footballers with the Ruia Royals, a football team in the local Delhi league. (Anyone who can throw light on this please do. I could’nt Google up anything.) Both of them live in Nawadah and they were just back from a match.

When their station came we shook hands, patted backs, traded smiles and then they were off.

“These African types” were actually very nice people indeed.

I felt very, very sheepish after the whole incident.

Regular nonsense postings will resume from this weekend. Have a fantastic 2009 everyone!