My Space: New Year Curry

Prosit Neujahr! (Happy New Year!)

I have been either too busy or very lazy this year to write. 2009 was interesting enough to stir a few and a lot of fun to end with - some rather unusual highlights below:

Spared by the Wall of Death

I could have been long gone but I guess for some reason, I have been spared for another time. A 20+-foot high and 50 meter long stone wall next to my ancestral home and nearly 100 years old collapsed, missing my car by 15 minutes.

The car was parked alongside it all day and locals having seen it thru the day were convinced there was a car under the rubble! The wall is an extension of the wall of my ancestral home and is part of an old palace. The Wall of Death on the right of the picture below...

The Road(s) to Hell

I woke up one morning and found the road to my home dug up with a board by it that looked something like the above... Actually, if you wanna die a slow, very slow death, try the Crippled Road Works Zone. At least you know when you are gonna die unlike the stone wall above. 2009 was more like this ... Let’s hope 2010 is less crippled.

He Graduated Too Fast To Be True, He is Rising!

^^^My lil fella quickly graduated from cars to airplanes especially after that nasty blow he received on his head when we were negotiating the smallest pothole in town. He said No! to cars after that and chose to Fly! Hell! Who would not!!! Nevertheless, he along with the city he lives in, is Rising!

Enslaved, Insecure, Second-Class Citizens who read Third-class Newspapers

2009 saw the rise of many a childish Cyber Thug-ray who have a lot of world to see. They read newspapers that cater to less than ten percent of all newspaper readers, they don't wanna see beyond the boundaries of their towns, they wear beanies in tropical climes, they lie and spread lies, dig music reality shows and watch "mega serials"... If you thought there were Thug-rays only in Mumbai and Mangalore, think again!

Someone once said - "There is nobody as enslaved as the fanatic, the person in whom one impulse, one value, has assume ascendancy over all others".

Education and money and an internet connection alone can't make you a better person, can it? You cannot really change what is in your blood, no matter what!

Inspector Gadget is Confused
This is about that Big Story (oh no! Don’t quote that ten percent newspaper again ) conspired by the I-am-Red-But-I-Need-God-In-My-Life, Genius-Mallu-Nurse, All-Muscle-No-Looks, I-Came-Looking-For-My-Roots-In-The-Outback and a few other beanie boys. The Big Story on which they still orgasm resulted in a few innocent cops having to admit their mistake arising out of a situation where they had to listen to several masters under severe stress and long working hours!

"Crap" Girl-Friends

This blog has always been an effort to not focus on areas like Politics or Infrastructure - two things that don't really improve in this part of the world and can irk a few insecure online souls. Instead, I have been inspired to write crap by two of my girl-friends (i mean they are girls, my apologies ladies ;)), one - my new hire at work who blogs a lot of crap herself, she gets home at 7 and sleeps at 10 and yet finds time to blog! And the other - my friend from quite sometime who now lives in the UK and blogs for hours every day. We all are very random writers who write the way we speak and not with the dictionary next to us. We do not research, we do not quote boring statistics and statisticians, neither do we believe in bigger is better, lol.

Work, A Reunion and A Missed Cruise

Towards the end of the year, life was all about friends and family. Took a break from work and had to choose between a luxury high seas cruise off the Cochin coast and a 'Village' reunion with the Kiwis (people I lived, studied, worked, ate and drank with). At the end of the day, I just made sure we mates hung out while my family sailed on board the Aquamarine.

The kiwis and I would eat dosa every morning and head out like backpackers and drink in Bangalore's VIP lounges and spend the nights at my uncle's extravagant farm-house in the outskirts where urbanization is fast catching up. The last time I went there, there was only the famous Dance School - Nrityagram next door.

The Wifey's Shopping Trip Next Door

The wifey was happy I took her to Cochin for shopping after X'mas. But now, she wants to move out of the capital. She likes busy cities just like me. She says she was happy to see a mall (Oberon) in Kerala and more malls like the Lulu being built as big as the ones she sees in the US every year. Which of course means, she wants to do nothing but shop in Cochin, which I myself do quite a bit of, once a year. In the very little time I had between two parties and the holiday traffic, I managed to buy myself a nice pair of jandals and eat authentic shawarma which I had last tasted in Dubai a while ago.

The Times of Family

During the X'mas-New Year season, we attended a total of 6 weddings and the engagements, bachelor's parties and wedding eve parties that come with each wedding. And all of this in just a lil more than a week. It was like wedding in Cochin at noon, party in Kottayam at night or the other way around...! An entire generation of cousins just entered a new phase in their lives.

New Year's Eve was calm and early but eventful and thankfully I could not hear any Ganamelas in the neighborhood. Some cousins - around 40 of us brunch-ed on the shores of the mighty Vembanad Lake in the Sailing Club at Kumarakom. There was the finest tequila, malt, BBQ pork  and of course the music. We had to drive the Breezers down from Bangalore. Kerala offers no good liqour, all the liquor you get is so ugly brown!!!

We had another engagement to attend the same night, so we wound up with a ride on a cousin's luxury yacht with some beer and chips, into the last sunset of 2009...

So, that was 2009 in a nutshell. I just had to write something ... and I promise to try to improve my writing skills.

Merry X'Mas!

Merry Christmas!

A couple of funny Christmas Messages ...

"Dear Lord, I've been asked, nay commanded, to thank Thee for the Christmas turkey before us... a turkey which was no doubt a lively, intelligent bird... a social being... capable of actual affection... nuzzling its young with almost human- like compassion. Anyway, it's dead and we're gonna eat it. Please give our respects to its family... "

"I never believed in Santa Claus because I knew no white man would be coming into my neighborhood after dark."

Santa Claus wears a Red Suit, He must be a communist. And a beard and long hair, Must be a pacifist. What's in that pipe that he's smoking?"

God's Own Curry v1.2: Kerala - Welcome to the Jungle, We got Fun & Games...

Picture Courtesy: Malayala Manorama

Most of us in literate Kerala must have seen the above picture early morning today in the leading Malayalam newspaper, the Malayala Manorama (not just read by people in Kottayam, Ernakulam & Thrissur)...

This is a scene from the 3-day old strike by auto/taxi drivers in search of "greener" fortunes.

A lady carrying an infant to hospital in a rickshaw is stopped by another rickshaw driver who again tries to deflate the vehicle's tire so that they are forced to take part in the 'strike' - something which has not changed anything one bit...This little comrade who obviously is a product of Kerala's left-over politics which believes in 'if you can have it, why not me (but with no effort)...I wonder if this energetic little fella ever has had a wife or kids - to start with. Ever wondered why a lot (a lot!!!) of sensible people are trying a way out of this mess which still claims to be owned by the Gods!? Ahem!

Oh well, good to see a law-abiding citizen wearing a helmet in the background ;)!! That is the only positive thing you see in the picture! Lol! Welcome to the Jungle, ha?

Curry: Beef Madras

Beef Madras

I was getting dinner at a restaurant the other day and noticed something like Chicken Steak (steeeek) on the menu. I always thought Steak had everything to do with Beef and nothing to do with Chicken. Maybe (maybe!) I am terribly wrong!

Wonder how many of you ever heard of Beef Madras? Hmmm, Madras & Beef?

Walk into any food court in the City of Sails - Auckland in Middle Earth and you will find Beef Madras to be one of the hottest selling dishes. Madras is a city that prides on its vegetarian cuisine, at least as far as I know. The last time I was there, I had to walk nearly a mile on Mt. Road braving the summer heat before I could find myself a Non-Veg lunch, that too Chettinad! If I had known better I would have taken a cab. Oh Well!

Auckland has its own bunch of Indians from India and other parts of the world like Fiji, a country which always had a huge Indian diaspora. Most of them are from AP, Gujarat and UP. And, I am not too sure they are beef-eaters like the average Malayali. But they sure know that the best Beef recipes are available somewhere down south. The South generally referred to as Madras even in Mumbai is probably the only reason I can think of why Madras got tagged along with Beef.

Just like Schezwan Chicken which no authentic Chinese restaurant will ever sell. Even the BBC has a recipe for Beef Madras.

That is some beef you get everywhere but Madras.

Memories: The Day After

It was a winter morning in the charming Bangalore of those days. We, a group of 4 classmates were riding our usual route to college down Hosur Rd. The traffic those days was negligible. Stray dogs would jump the walls of the Military School and cross the road with ease. Students at the nearby Baldwins College would play their guitars on the sidewalk. The air was fresh, the grass was green and the girls were pretty.

So, again, it was just another winter morning in Bangalore. We were heading to college and were surprised to see Trucks entering the city with graffiti scribbled on their windscreens. Things like "Fu*k Advan**" "Suck Advan*".

Ignorant as we were, we entered our large campus to find more people leaving the campus than enter it. Someone told us "go back home before everything shuts down. there are riots all over, the Babri Masjid was razed to ground yesterday".

Yes, the Babri Masjid, an ancient mosque in the North was pulled down to ground by so-called "religious fanatics" and your local rickshaw driver was charging you 4 times more to get you home.

We did not realise the seriousness of the developments and all of us ended up in my flat in cosy Richmond Town. We sat through the day indulging in usual teenager activities. It was late afternoon when we heard a mob in the nearby street bordering the local market where there was a huge Muslim majority. We walked out of our daze and realized that many parts of the city just like all over the country were on Fire. Muslims in the nearby market rushed to shut their own shops while ordering the few Hindu shops shut. Your neighbor suddenly turned your enemy. Buses were stoned, people were thrashed. I rushed to my aunt's house on Cunningham Road just to be in a safer part of town. We watched TV as mobs all over the country turned violent.

India was never gonna be the same again. This was probably gonna be the darkest day in modern Indian history.  Schools and colleges were declared shut for nearly two weeks. It was the second December riot for Bangaloreans after the Cauvery riots of December 1991.

I boarded a bus home on a seat while many others sat on their suitcases for the 12 hour ride across borders...The youngster in me smiled secretly at the thought of the 2 week holiday ahead...not realizing that India's secular credentials were gonna take a beating in the years to come...