Quasimodo

Why Steve Jobs Was Not A Genius

2011-11-09T20:09:00.000-08:00

A lot has been written about Steve Jobs and how he revolutionized multiple industries by thinking differently, sticking to his gut instinct and not following analytical advice. I broke down some of his achievements and concluded what made Steve Jobs great is not that he eschewed formulae but that he stuck to them so rigorously. I cite here two specific examples: Steve the strategist, helping Apple achieve the highest market capitalization of all its peers, constantly outwitting the competition. Second, his legendary sales skills which emanated from charisma, as were evident during his release presentations.

The first lesson from Steve Jobs is from his triumphant return as Apple's CEO. Apple had recently been pulverized in the press, with Michael Dell famously suggesting it be sold. Steve Jobs' success emanated not from liquidating those assets but then defining what those assets were and directing them correctly. He realized that Apple had unique assets but lacked focus. In that very speech, he mentions Apple's immensely motivated employees who could produce great design but had engineers who were about as good as the next best competitor. The lesson from business school - play to your strengths. Target a customer who loves what is good about you, does not mind what is bad about you and is poorly served competitively.

This textbook strategy led Jobs to consistently target brand conscious customers who loved Apple's aesthetics, were confused by clumsy mobile phones and laptops and did not currently have a solution to turn to. A critical case in point, the launch of the iPod and the iTunes in response to youth of the early 2000s being hounded by copyright violations for downloading pirated songs through networking sites such as Kazaa and Napster. While he did not do market research that resulted in reams of ungainly numbers, he did his market research through observing the world around him- or technically speaking - ethnography. In hindsight, this formula, when applied repeatedly gave the world the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad.

When you are playing in a commodity market, how do you maximize profits? You could cut costs and lower prices. But business sense and foresight does tell you that price wars are always a bad idea, particularly against competitors who are equally well endowed with marketing power. Jobs decided his only way to survive was to expand the category Apple played in. When faced with Windows monopolizing the software world in the late '90s, Steve Jobs responded by focusing on a macro market that was a superset of Microsoft's target - that of consumer electronics. Similarly, Google and MySpace became successful by focusing on specific niches which Apple could have done too. It was since Jobs realized Apple's strength was design, not better software code.

When the going is tough, play to your strengths. When the going gets good, develop other strengths. And that is what Apple followed by starting off with great design and then quickly setting up a world class supply chain process that included hiring the now famous, Tim Cook. It was this textbook decision that further consolidated Apple's cash coffers and keeps them ringing to this day, even in the middle of global financial gloom. Steve Jobs genius lay not in waving a wand to create industries but truly understanding the formulae to the problems he was solving, breaking it down to brass tacks and then executing flawlessly.

I come to the second celebrated talent attributed to Steve Jobs, that of being a great salesman. I came across a YouTube video on presentation and compared it to Steve Jobs' style. It was astounding how accurately Jobs followed the recommended suggestions. He setup his themes early on, he used slides merely as a visual aid, he always tied all his points to the major theme and most impressively, kept the audience engaged by transitioning well between the ideas, almost like the author of a gripping novel. Clearly, he adjusted his vocabulary to suit his layman audience. Watch any video of a Steve Jobs presentation, and you will realize it is not the work of a genius but of one who practiced rigorously and executed repeatedly.

Roger Federer might be called a genius but he is also known to possess an acquired technique that has been honed close to being perfect. Freeze any of Pele's plays and you would be hard pressed to see structural flaws. No wonder they are each at the top of their games. I think what is surprising is not that these men are such geniuses but why there are not so many more of them? Maybe genius lies not in being gifted but in perfecting the right method. Why do businesses fail repeatedly fail to choose the right strategies? Even so, why does execution fail? What creates success? Working hard and finding the right formulae or being gifted by god with the exact skills?

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea

2011-01-27T09:08:00.000-08:00

Jules Verne is history’s least credited clairvoyant. Way back in 19th century France, he accurately described the mechanics of nuclear submarines in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, set the precedents for world travel in his epic Around the World in Eighty Days, and foresaw man landing on the moon with From the Earth to the Moon. In a way, his writings also envisaged a much more global world, albeit fraught with superpower rivalry, in that all his books have protagonists with different nationalities. From the British Phileas Fogg, the Indian Captain Nemo to the adventures of the German duo of Prof Von Hardwigg and his nephew in penetrating to the center of the earth through the lava tube of an extinct volcano in Iceland. It is this avant-garde world conjured up that keeps his works contemporary for eternity.

While most of the predictions in his book eerily came true within a century, a journey to the center of the Earth remains one of mankind’s unfinished tasks. Reading his book however, the reader is carried away into a world of unflinching scientific reason where the boundaries of human thought are continuously extended. In Jules Verne’s world, every phenomenon has an explanation, every land has its rules and the world moves around with clockwork predictability. What distinguishes Verne however from the best thinkers of the era is how lucidly his language captures the imagination of a layman audience. Today, most of his books, all involving advanced scientific theories, are prescribed even to children.

The Journey to the Center of the Earth narrates a subterranean expedition to trace the footsteps of a fictional 12th century Icelandic explorer, Arne Saknussemm, whose encrypted manuscripts are discovered by the German professor and his nephew. The journey starts with an accurate description of the Icelandic landscape that is today known to be the composed of extensive lava flows, geysers and geological formations endemic to that island alone. This is incredible since all Jules Verne had was academic knowledge without ever having visited that remote country. The crater of the extinct volcano Snaeffels is the start of the descent into the bowels of the Earth, where scientific observation literally gives way to the vivid imagination of Jules Verne.

The downward voyage exposes the travelers to innumerable adventures including an array of steep caverns, a subterranean river of steam, acoustic phenomena that allows voices to travel miles at once, a netherworld ocean with prehistoric creatures that have long been extinct from the surface. While, Verne’s scientific predictions in this particular novel, have since been refuted by the real world and the Earth’s interior is now known to be too hot for such an expedition, Verne does vindicate himself with some accurate geology that describes the eras of the earth peeling away as the journey cuts through the crust, with the scientists periodically finding fossils of animals and plants from progressively older times as they descend towards the center.

To cut the story to the chase, the practical impossibility of reaching the center is also made evident when they encounter a volcano at the final stages of the journey whose untimely eruption carries them back to the surface, only to become the travelers who have penetrated the deepest depths of the sphere but not quite made it to the center.

Of all Jules Verne’s classics, the Journey to the Center of the Earth is as relevant today as it was when it was first written. Today, scientists from the western world are working tirelessly in Chile to rescue coal-miners who have been trapped five miles below the surface. While using equipment to photograph their lives down under, NASA finds that even in those depths, it is possible to sustain existence for months on end. In the backdrop of this crucial rescue operation which is surprisingly being led by scientists and not the military, spare a thought for the sage who thought all this was possible a hundred and fifty years ago.

A Turkish Delight for Christmas Time

2011-01-26T20:57:00.000-08:00

If the story of human civilization were ever to be dramatized, Turkey would appear in every act. From the genesis of modern society in Mesopotamia to the ensuing advances of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, Turkey has a history that reads like a capstone of all worldly knowledge. Needless to say, god created the world and decided Turkey would have pride of place at the very center.

Being in the perpetual limelight eventually made it the most vaunted prize for all leading empires across the eras. The Hittites from Sumer made it their home before fleeing underground during the Phoenician conquest from today’s Israel and the Hellenistic invasions by Alexander of Macedonia. The Roman Empire took reins thereafter, building an eastern contender to Rome that they came to call Byzantium.

Byzantium became the leading light of the world, continuing to prosper after Rome’s decline. It was the passageway between East and West, the western tail of the Silk Route to China and later became the Eastern terminus of the Orient Express. It served as the beacon for Christianity starting with Emperor Constantine and evolved through the course of the Crusades into the Ottoman Caliphate of Islam by which time it had come to be known as Constantinople. And then in 1930, like an artist turning over a new canvas, Istanbul was born.

Having changed hands so often, Istanbul developed a delicate taste in food, music and the fine arts, galvanizing the best flavors from around the world. Epitomizing this is the Haghia Sophia, that was originally envisioned by Holy Roman Emperor Justinian as a leading church of the times, that became a mosque under Mehmet the Conqueror and now functions as one of the world’s finest monuments to religious unity.

Istanbul often went one up on its imported concoctions. The Sultanahmet Mosque was designed to exceed the splendor of the Haghia Sophia. Built with six minarets, which at that time were only allowed in Mecca, today the Blue Mosque of Sultanahmet imperiously towers over the lanes of Istanbul that have cradled humanity throughout its existence. The muezzin’s cry to prayer pierces the sky five times a day, as the devout hastily perform their ablutions and run in to offer namaz on a satin carpet amidst dazzling ornate Ottoman chandeliers that hang from the blue tiles that give the mosque its sobriquet.

In the days of the Caliphate, aristocratic Istanbul prayed at the Blue Mosque and headed off to the Topkapi Palace to pay their homage to the Sultan. En route, plebian Istanbul was populated by a variety of hawkers plying their trade, artists waiting for a scene to etch and lovelorn couples who wanted the artists to immortalize their affections. Today is no different. Hawkers dressed in costumes roast chestnuts while their neighbors sell the heavenly orchid milk drink Sahlep.

Signs of the west though are hard to miss. Trams ply their way through cobblestoned alleys climbing and descending undulating terrain reminiscent of Western Europe. Neon lights light up the sky. A steamer trumpets its way across the Bosphorous bringing in tidings from the other continent. The railway station at Sirkeci has erased memories of the Orient Express but for the very gothic exterior. Everything is written in the Latin script and the Turks have taken to ham and eggs for breakfast.

Typical of this schizophrenic shift to the west is Taksim square with its artery Istiklal Caddesi consisting of bars, bistrots and sweet shops lined in an orderly fashion. And then, it is the weekend crowd, the ensuing traffic jams, the blaring horns and the ensuing delightful interchanges that bring the traveler back to Asia. If you ever look up at the skyline, you see not skyscrapers but the uniquely enchanting pencil ends of the myriad Ottoman minarets, silhouetted against an amber sky, that buttress the devout Islamic soul of the city.

This soul grows more enchanting in the interior. Cappadocia, a vast plain sculpted into a Martian landscape of conical rocks made possible through the erosion of softer bottom sedimentary rock while keeping intact the harder upper lava crust. Besides the natural history of the giant volcanic eruption, Cappadocia also reads like an epic lifeline of mankind where the visitor can peel away the layers of modernity and step into a sepia tinted age that is all too forgotten today.

The vast underground cave city of Derinkuyu with seven self sufficient subterranean layers bears tell tale markings from the Sumerians starting 1500 BC, Jews and Christians thereafter. The cave churches in Goreme contain early Christian iconography from the sixth century and ornate images of Christ from the tenth. And unsurprisingly, that lifeline of history is still being uncovered. The Roman ruins at Sobesos were chanced upon in 2008 and unearthed the oldest complete mosaic art work anywhere in the world.

The Roman mosaics in time evolved into Ottoman carpets that have since become warmly evocative of Middle Eastern charm. To this day, tiny shops spill out their carpets on to the streets enticing the passerby to peep in to see how such a tiny place could possibly look so opulent. If thus trapped, the passerby would certainly partake of well sweetened Turkish tea and a few hours thereafter walk out with a few supposedly antique rugs that he or she had no intention of buying originally.

The Turks, call upon their Asian faculties to drive a bargain and often top it off with European sophistication. While an Iranian vendor at the Spice Bazaar wistfully told me that Turkey had no birthright to have named Turquoise after itself, he gleefully suggested I buy a pinch of the world’s costliest saffron that came from Iran. Seeing me unmoved, he suggested the cheapest alternative, which was the Indian version. Knowing well how Indian saffron looked, I realized he was selling turmeric for about the price of the rarest Kashmiri fragrance.

The cuisine of Turkey, more than anything else, represents the eternal dilemma of facing both Europe and Asia. The ubiquitous Turkish Delight is both quintessentially Asian in appearance and European in content. Kunefe looks like it was passed across the spice route from India, but along the way picked up an Italian cheese filling. Turkish coffee would pass off as a thick black soup if in Europe with only the cloying aftertaste reminding you of its very Asian essences. Africa, by the way, has never been too far away either.

Being at the center of the globe had made the Turkish indispensable allies and worthy foes at all times. To this day, the Turks identify equally with the Iranians to the east as much as with the Bulgarians to the west. Turkey’s past as the crown jewel of the Islamic world makes it an avuncular weeping shoulder for distressed Iraqis and Afghans. Its economy if allowed into the European Union could eclipse that of Germany while balancing the western world with a moderately Islamic heavyweight. Either way, if history is anything to go by, Turkey tends to choose sides and rapidly shinny up to the top.

China Paranoia is Irrelevant

2010-10-23T17:51:00.001-07:00

China's recent overtaking of Japan as the world's second biggest economy, immediately begs two questions – if and when China will surpass the United States as a superpower, and who can gatecrash China's party. In this two part series I argue that both questions are relatively unwarranted for sometime more to come.

I do feel for now that China is unlikely to surpass the United States as anything more than a much more populous, larger market. The United States, today accounts for much of the world's innovations and holds unmatched progress in negotiating the internet, which it invented and which has become world currency now. It's dominance in research is far too overwhelming, with a system that both encourages government funding and intercourses with the marketplace through corporate involvement. The consumer is far more a participant in American research than being a student. China's research potentials are restrictive, minimal and reminiscent of the Soviet utilitarianism. More often than not, Chinese research has resulted in creating pastiches of American progress and duplicating them cheaper. Chinese progress, although commendable are restricted to a few fields, while the United States is today the Earth's representative country in outer space. Its healthcare system, though straddled with a confounding polity, is still fundamentally avant-garde from the rest of the world. Its military prowess need not be advertised. Furthermore, the United States has often revolutionized industry, often creating new ones in the process, thus enabling jobs to be created all over the world – the Indian outsourcing industry being a prime example. China, is still a competitor to most countries in their industries.

In education, the United States has roughly fifty institutions, each which attract quality brains not just from within but from all over the world. It can be well postulated that the world's experts on most subjects from maternity to nanotechnology have at some point of time, been educated in America. More fittingly, the United States has created a selection system for these institutions that focuses merely not on academic prowess but on readiness to lead the world in change, as evinced by its interview and recommendation based evaluation. China, meanwhile is filling its universities with entrance examination winners, focusing on skimming away its top academics into the government. As a result, while China can lead effective think-tanks, it is only when they come out, that the thoughts are put to progressive and creative economic use.

The United States of America gains from the remnants of the English speaking erstwhile British Empire. The soft power of the United States is all too easily assimilated by the world's people compared to an almost incomprehensible, shadowy China. In world business, the United States is far more likely to befriend an alien culture than the People's Republic can hope to for some time. It is perhaps for that very reason that such a mass of highly skilled immigrants flock to the United States to settle down in the current era's definitive culture. The Chinese are yet an enigma, a country too homogenous and supposedly restrictive for intellectual osmosis to seep in.

Finally, in my opinion, China's place as the world's second biggest economy is only rightful as being the world's biggest marketplace. It's chief advantage in enforcing rapid growth has been a focused unchallenged leadership. However, as with the Soviet Union, Colonial Japan and with reservations, pre-war Germany (all of which were eerily second biggest economies), such alarming unidirectional growth only means an equally alarming disenfranchised lot that are barred from participating. As with dissident gulags in the USSR, Koreans and the Chinese under the Japanese to the rest of Europe under Germany, China with its singularly resonating march, hides a nation with seething discontent. China has to contend for the day this suppressed subcutaneous maelstrom can undo all its economic progress.

In today's world, the United States has been the showpiece of the Earth to the outside Universe. It is a veritable museum of many cultures, existing for the most part in harmony with each other. It leads the world's collective thought. Though it does not always do right, it remains ensconced in public imagination, enough to be the nation that matters most. In the distant past, China has played similar roles, advancing far ahead of the rest of the world. The Chinese civilization traces the longest years in continuous existence. China has a profound heritage that has cradled the rest of the world in its infancy. But from today, China will have to wait a long while and endear itself to many more people if one day, all roads are to lead to Beijing.

The Best Comedy Show

2010-08-02T20:26:00.001-07:00

Much of my life has been spent watching sitcoms. In some ways, they have influenced a lot of what became of my life. My daily dose of Friends and Seinfeld in late school years kept me away from my books for long enough to reflect in my persistently mediocre marks. Later on, after a hard day pretending to work, there was nothing that satisfied the idle mind than an hour watching How I Met Your Mother, Arrested Development or Two and a Half Men. I have always wanted to pen which I think is the best show of them all.

Two and a Half Men is disqualified as the top horse almost immediately. While, initial seasons were quite funny, the show failed to keep up with the aging of Jake from mischievous boy who innocently partook in adult humor beyond his age. As the seasons passed, the womanizing Charlie Sheen playing Uncle Charlie, often transgressed the lines between humorous and obnoxious with Jake clearly having outgrown his likeability.

The ending of Friends in the early 2000s left audiences gasping for more. Of all the clones that came out about late twenty-somethings stumbling through life in New York City, How I Met Your Mother early on crafted itself a perfect pitch with its next door characters in Ted, Lily, Marshall and Robin, and struck a home run with a dash of flamboyance in the enigmatic, overconfident Barney Stinson. Things seemed headed for legen-wait for it-dary fame when in season four, the producers seemed to have forgotten their title implying a search for the narrator’s wife and needlessly wove the audience into yarns that now seem impossible to untangle. Somewhere along the line, the producers of How I Met Your Mother simply gave away that almost their entire show was getting to be a predictable pastiche of Friends.

Seinfeld against Friends is a tough argument. Friends, for many, was the proverbial dinner time family unifier, that generations together would come together to watch. Children gleefully regaled the antics of Joey and Phoebe as much as matrons sympathized with the excessively finicky Monica. Ross and Rachel became the enduring symbol for a generation of strained amorous relationships while Chandler inspired many a socially inept man.

Seinfeld pioneered the idea that the common man as a theme could be more fascinating than anyone gifted with special prowess. If for nothing else, Seinfeld deserves all its critical acclaim for having stuck to its unassuming, quotidian humor that makes it all at once so realistic that we could actually think that the show was a live act. It does not attempt to pontificate. It almost self depreciatingly portrays its characters as elements of base instincts. While it may be easy to call George Constanza a self centered sloth, the show often capitalizes on his sheer humanity and never forces us to either cheer him on or ridicule him. Not all of Jerry’s jokes make us laugh and Kramer does get annoying at times. But we all are left thinking this is exactly how a live act should really be. The show’s one falling- a very steep fall in standards at its fag end. Jerry Seinfeld probably realized that his game was up with its final episode ending in all the four ending up in prison.

For my favorite all time however, I will have to stick with Friends. From all the failings of its characters, it taught many of us that life was scarcely intended to be perfect. It taught us to empathize even with the most unlikely of situations, such as Joey’s wishing to be friends with an eight year old. It made us twitch with anticipation, each time Monica yelled or Rachel sighed. Friends, for most of us was really about family, and taking heart even in the most desperate situation. Little wonder that, despite having watched it end to end a million times, it gives me great pleasure each time to be able to complete its dialogs. How you doin’?

A Feisty Teen

2010-05-23T00:11:00.000-07:00

Rio de Janeiro greeted us warmly, both with an exuberant sun and with characteristic traffic snarls onthe highways. Our large bus would periodically seek refuge in narrow lanes, with the frequent outcomeof getting stuck, obstructing other passers and eventually spreading the chaos of the roads to otherwisequiet localities. While repeatedly extricating ourselves from these knots, I got to see Brazil up close fromthe inside.

Brazil is the quintessential teenager. It often goes to bed at absurd hours and springs up buoyantlyprepared to exceed the previous night’s bacchanalian festivities. It has an overwhelming appetitefor meat, packing its churrascarias, specialized steakhouses serving different parts of the cow, oftenuntil midnight. It is also quick to forget its woes, drowning them amidst endless glasses of caipirinha,shaking to samba beats and spreading free love to all of humanity. It is both elegant, when it wishes anddelightfully chaotic while being itself. Brazil is all at once bold, wildly appreciative of the eccentric andwhimsically changing flavors to keep up with the times.

Daytimes in Brazil are slower than nights, not in the least represented by the traffic. These jams areoften lively affairs, sometimes the result of riots over the arrest of “innocents” as we experienced inRecife or the green light of a signal being stolen for someone’s private use. Alternately, these long waitsare a perfect excuse for acrobatic displays such as a back-flip over knives in mid traffic or a team ofpassionate skaters practicing on one side of the road.

Passion fills soccer stadiums as Brazilians voice their appreciation for the goalkeeper or disgruntlementwith the referee with equal ferocity. Passion fills supermarkets as couples embrace each other obliviousto oncoming shopping carts. Passion, once again brims over the beaches, feverishly rising with thetide, seamlessly blending the Brazilian artistry in football and volleyball to inspire hybrid games such asfootvolley (akin to beach volleyball played with feet) and fresco ball (beach tennis). The seafront quiteapparently is set for the Olympic spotlight. The other areas are making up their explanations.

Brazil gets away with explanations that would be quite unusual in other places. When suddenly facedwith a flat tire on an empty road, the driver blamed it on a stray bullet. A bar owner sensing an invasionby international students decided to turn it into a highly profitable hostage situation by charging aprincely per capita ransom of a hundred dollars ‘exit fee.’ With the Olympics coming visiting to Rio, theiconic Christ the Redeemer was busy being spruced up resulting in scaffolding obscuring the normallymajestic sight. A cheerful Brazilian explanation however was offered, “It is not every day that you see Jesus Christ being bathed.”

Brazil is vaguely aware of India but is unsure of what connotations to associate with it. A samba showput on for foreigners invited people from each country on stage to perform with them. Upon mycomplaining that India was conspicuously left out, the host of the show then told me it was the firsttime, he had ever seen an Indian tourist. When I told him, India had just about the same traffic jams, thesame disparity and the same neighborhood coffee shops as Brazil, he looked at me quite disbelievinglyand asked, “But why are Indians then known for discipline.”

That discipline was to earn me quite some embarrassment one day when I was dining with some EastAsians. As I walked up to pay my bill, an old Brazilian woman accosted me and asked me if I was Indianand vegetarian. When I responded in the affirmative, she then turned to my Oriental friends who weredeeply proud of their meat based diets and said sternly. “Indians are blessed souls since they do not killanimals while all of you will die of pain.” Needless to say, the rest of the evening was not very pleasant.

Brazil’s feistiness characteristically spills into the office. A certain Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, once pricked his thumb and refused to work ever since, preferring to go on strike indefinitely. In Brazil, they electedhim President. David Neeleman, the former CEO of JetBlue Airlines who now runs its Brazilian clone,Azul, invited us students to start up competing low cost airlines in Brazil and then served a warningsaying “I will then kick you all the way down hill”.

The hillsides of urban Brazil are frequently inhabited by the favela or shantytown dwellers. Thesesquatter settlements, much like slums in India have often been blamed for Brazil’s violent crime rate.However, most inhabitants of the favelas participate in daily Brazilian life, driving buses and washingclothes, being integral cogs enabling the richer class to function. Most importantly, that tucked away,misunderstood Brazil often exports the finest football wizardry and samba artistes known to humanity.

The outlandish is in vogue throughout. When we collectively decided to disrobe and change into business formals in full public view of an otherwise uneventful neighborhood, people came by to curiously ask us where we were from but took no offense at our absurd choice of changing rooms. Instead, people on the road, would invite us to their house parties to teach us how to party. If we saw a particularly raucous celebration going on, we tourists would be pulled in by the locals and forced to dance and drench ourselves in wildly colored cocktails. Whether by the pool, beach or lake, we salsa-ed in Brazil, only to find ourselves bettered everytime. After all, it was Brazil at its best.

On the Camel Trail

2010-01-03T13:32:00.000-08:00

She is clearly perhaps one of the most desirable members of a dream Hollywood cast. David Lean, often garbed her as Arabia, Ridley Scott used her in Gladiator, playing Ancient Rome. As Egypt, she terrified Brendan Fraser in ‘The Mummy’ and she plays motherland to Jesus as Palestine almost by default. She also played a generous host to Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart in her famous autobiography Casablanca.

I had recently crossed two oceans to start life afresh at the Kellogg School of Management, and within a day faced the prospect of leaving behind India, skipping across Europe, with a bunch of twenty five future classmates to a faraway corner of Arab Africa for a week of cultural sensitization. Meanwhile, Kellogg had imposed upon us a strict rule of silence about matters concerning our origins and career interests, topics that hitherto I had felt were typical prerequisites to any conversation.

The Mohammed V Airport in Casablanca fits rather well, as a white Arabesque castle in the vast emptiness surrounding it. It is an hour’s drive to Casablanca and is connected through well laid, empty roads. As our bus rumbled into Casablanca, I noticed a well ordered, city with an apparent grid network of roads, palm lined boulevards, an occasional French advertisement and numerous apartment complexes with manicured lawns and high separating walls. “It’s all the benevolence of our King.” Our guide Ishmael would say. “He has never done anything wrong.”
The beachfront, or La Corniche as the French named it, is a windy well laid spot made to resemble the French Riviera. An American McDonald’s, a French bistro and numerous Spanish taverns serve the urban elite who often drive down in their Cadillacs from their white mansions, not too far away, which give the whole city its name, Casa-Blanca or white house. Nightclubs abound till the wee hours of the night, where suited men and their ladies in waiting, make idle chatter clouded by smoke from the hookah. Every table gets its bellydancer, who will often climb up to show off her incredible skills to the Arabic music. Almost every dance ends with a back arching dancer finishing off in a gravity defying pose upon which the audience starts applauding to a beat.

Meanwhile, plebian Morocco wakes up to the muezzin call from the Hassan II mosque that punctuates the skyline as a lone skyscraper overlooking the entire city. The majestic mosque when empty seems like an ocean of opulence, with marble and granite floors, Venetian glass chandeliers all opening upto a massive courtyard that could, if necessary, house whole neighborhoods during prayer. The King has his own entrance, through a gilded door leading straight to the pulpit, from where he would deliver a Ramadan sermon to his subjects.
Below the prayer chamber lie the ablution rooms, which contain both water fountains for perfunctory rituals and for more elaborate cleansing, Hammams, which are shallow sauna baths sunk between marble pillars, in which baths are had in a community. The prayer hall meanwhile, opens up to the Atlantic Ocean and it is said, that if you fly straight enough, you would eventually sight land at New York City.

It is on the road to Marrakech that the hourglass turns back. The white of Casablanca is gradually replaced by a desert red, eventually culminating in a terracotta like hue, ordained by law that has since defined Marrakech. The roads become more slender, the houses become more dispersed, the walls get higher and palm trees give way to shrubs and cacti of the desert. As we move into the city, the smell of horse dung permeates. All of a sudden, the bus slows down to a crawl as it starts to wade through the rambunctious crowds, of men in jelabas and kaftans, women in abayas, holding screaming kids. The occasional pre teen pulls a long one at the bus, another chases it down in a mock charge. All roads from here can only lead to the souk.

The souk of Marrakech is so famous that it is almost an adjective in cultural lexicon. All smells, colors and sounds imaginable congregate at this square of souvenir salesmen, coffee houses, fortune tellers, circus performers and animal tamers. It is not uncommon for the occasional snake to be put around your neck by a snake charmer and then you being charged for the privilege of being able to scream due to having a reptile around you. The only scarier prospect is having a monkey run away with your passport and you having to negotiate it back from its owner, on whose open wallet, your passport has found its new home.

The souk also is home to mounds of spices, heaped up in cones, fruit hawkers, fortune tellers, one of whom told me that my life would improve considerably, which quite obviously he told everyone else. Antique sellers, among these are the most interesting since among all salesmen, they seem to have the most modern goods to sell. What they lack in age however, they make up for in tardiness. Most of these shops are ramshackle stalls which have been propped up by the odd Moroccan carpet or two strung together apparently by cobwebs.

Now and then, someone mistook me for a Muslim and wished me a Holy Ramadan. A man, who I had got substantial discounts from earlier, with a well orchestrated lie about fasting, caught me gulping down a coffee and glared at my blasphemy. “May Allah take pity on you” I am sure he said which to me was more credible than the predictions of the fortune teller.

The narrow by lanes flanking the souk, have often remained unchanged for many centuries. The antique shops here, despite being equally tardy, actually sell antiques. Also to be found are spice shops which proclaim remedies for all ailments, including, customized specifically to the foreign tourist, inability to find girlfriends. Carpet shops abound, often occupying pride of place, due to the large tourist traffic generated by them. These carpets are typically hand woven by teenage women of marriageable age, and tell stories of their families, their tribes and their plaintive longing for the perfect husband. In Moroccan, tradition, it is customary for a carpet to be offered as dowry by the woman to the man, who will in exchange provide the bride’s family with a few hundred camels.

For the record, one of my Kellogg classmates we found out would have earned at least ten thousand camels. Clearly, MBA’s had value in this part of the world. Also famous in Marrakech are Fantasia shows such as Chez Ali, which are themed restaurants, housed in typically Moroccan sets, with bellydancers, musicians and horsemen setup to entertain sybarite tourists. Horsemen perform acrobatics that include jumping between horses, riding them upside down and fire swallowing, to recollect the skill and valor of Berber nomads of the ancient days.

Marrakech, though, is among the richer cities of Morocco. It is as we went towards Zagora, that the real Morocco emerged. Despite Ishmael’s claims of free education, free healthcare and the overall benevolence of the King, Morocco did appear a nation of poverty. In many parts, electricity was scarce, economic activity was tough and sparse. The Atlas mountains, hardly saw a shrub growing and yet the occasional cottage would emerge every kilometer which made me wonder where they got their sustenance from. I noticed that most farmers here would have to practice shifting agriculture, which in itself was quite unsustainable in such a fragile ecosystem.
Meanwhile, given Morocco’s relative peace, it was a haven for tourists. Locations such as Ait Benhaddou were used every year to play Arabia to foster Hollywood imagination. Locals typically earned their wages as spot boys for the elite of Los Angeles and hence depended heavily on whether western tastes of the day demanded more dramatization of the Arab world. The last few years have not disappointed. Ait Benhaddou clearly lived up to the western stereotype of a Bedouin village, as a series of mudbrick cottages, rising up a hill, surrounded by the vast Sahara, as if a civilization clinging to the precipice of one of the world’s most daunting environments. In reality however, no one lived there. Over years, it had become a virtual Hollywood set waiting for the next movie to be shot.

To the east of Ait Benhaddou, lies the queen of all deserts - The Sahara. Bracing myself for a rough night, I was astounded to find that the Moroccans had constructed us an entire locality out of their carpets. Replete with toilets, beds and showers, it was clearly opulence in the middle of the desert. I often strayed away from the camp to soak up the Sahara night, climbed up the sand dunes and lay down on top of them, to look up at the most stars I have ever seen in a night sky.

A larger than usual moon and stars twinkling that could be grouped together to form any shape imaginable. The sky above lit the ground below of sand so bereft of humidity that it fell apart away like gold dust once I got up. I sunk myself into the most comfortable bed I have ever found, without ever needing a pillow, and fell asleep for a minute under the blanket of the Sahara night sky. That was until some howling wild dogs woke me up.

The next morning, I woke up to see a camel looking at me disdainfully as if disapproving of my late rising habits. A berber nomad bade us sit on top of it to take us right into the desert. Timbouctou, they said, was 52 days away on this very camel route. Even to this day, it surprised me that Timbouctou was a popular marketplace among desert dwellers. To this day, camel caravans plied the route that on an Atlas would read Morocco, Mauritania and Mali, but to these Berbers meant as much business as the ocean did to the seafaring merchant. Unfortunately, my trip lasted all of 52 minutes and brought us back to base camp. The Sahara, meanwhile, did not deserve a good bye since in Berber tradition, one never turned their back on the revered goddess. Instead, we all said Insha allah Maa Salaama Sahara or "Allah willing, until next time Sahara." Something told me as I bid adieu, that of all the comfortable places in the world, all humanity found a true motherland in that most inhospitable ocean of sand. It was almost as if the Sahara knew that I would one day return to pay homage to it again.

Back in Casablanca, sipping tea at the Rick’s Café, of Ingrid Bergman fame. I realized that despite not being allowed to reveal backgrounds, we had had no dearth of conversation topics. Over scooping tajine with msilamen bread, for lack of anything better, we talked about how the Sarbanes Oxley act should be incorporated into the Koran, how Ishmael had conned us into eating Tajine every single meal and in also guessing what the costs would be of constructing the Hassan mosque.

Meanwhile, in the next room, where the movie that made this café famous was being played, in a strangely familiar tongue Ingrid Bergman exclaimed. “Play it again, Sam. For old time’s sake.” I wondered, how many people in this country understood English, and then, in one of the farthest corners of the world, curiously in a posh restaurant surrounded by glittering cutlery and the idle chatter of the intellectual elite of the world, about to embark on a succesful career , I thought, how did it even matter? More appropriately, I recalled the Disney song from Aladdin,

Oh I come from a land
A faraway place
Where the caravan camels roam
Where it's flat and immense and the heat is intense
It's barbaric, but hey, it's home

Where the wind's from the east and the sun's from the west
and the sand in the glasspiece is right
Come on down, stop on by
hop on a carpet and fly
to Another Arabian Night!

Phnom Penh - Definitely not India

2009-11-08T01:53:00.001-08:00

History has not been kind to it, quite treating it as an illegitimate offspring of France and China. While Vietnam won a glorious war, Laos volunteered into monasteries and Thailand made itself available on world shelves, Cambodia was clearly the neighborhood’s sorrow. When I landed, I expected a struggling nation; its psyche devastated, its limbs torn asunder by its landmines, a country on crutches, being helped walk again by the United Nations.

I was quite right about the United Nations, which for once has played an immense role in reshaping Cambodia’s destiny making it a country safe for a tourist. The Pochentong Airport at Phnom Penh was quite posh dotted with Starbucks and McDonald’s, the parking lot seemed brimming with Land Cruisers. A peaceful traffic jam ensued as I made my exit, my Toyota Corolla inching its way through a scrupulously tidy road. On yonder horizon, rose a brilliantly decorated temple, glittering against the noon sun in gold and scarlet.

A few turns later, on the footpaths, shabbily dressed men sat drinking coffee, a few women in shorts ran around carrying screaming babies. A series of hastily parked tuk tuks completed the scene with the drivers indulging in a gossip session in nearby tea stalls. This marketplace, of butchers, vegetable vendors and the occasionally air conditioned supermarket ran for a few kilometers, reminding me of India, albeit with cleaner roads.

The central part of the city, majestically decorated, seemed a pastiche of Lutyens New Delhi. Immense Boulevards were flanked by massive government buildings, most of them built to dazzle and inspire awe. The Prime Minister’s house occupied pride of place, right at the city center, perhaps engineered by a highly qualified western architect. The Grand Palace of Phnom Penh gleamed in its golden attire, as if it was being repainted everyday. It probably was.

Inside the Grand Palace, lies a tribute to the Buddha lavish in scales unimaginable to such a poor country. A series of cottage pagodas populate a lush garden, with innumerable sidewalks where tourists and Cambodians alike loiter free from the beggars outside. At length, a policeman yawns in the distance seated beneath a tree. Here and there, a monk passes by, hurriedly pointing at your feet, beckoning you remove your footwear before you go into see the many Buddhas. Serene music is heard in the air as you walk into the Silver Pagoda that looks inside like a rich medieval emperor’s sanctum. In this meditative atmosphere, I reflected that Cambodia had quite left its past behind.

While the main roads were left to the local government and embassies, many posh bylanes were quite the privilege of the United Nations and other Developmental Organizations. Tina Mahler, a German girl I met on the flight, told me her government sent scores of undergraduates every year to aid senior Cambodian government officials on public policy. While no doubt, this was an excellent line on a teenage resume, I was not too sure if Cambodia gained in anyway from adolescent advice.

As the sun sank into the Mekong, I sat at the riverside Foreign Correspondents Club which during the war years had captured Cambodia’s past for posterity. Today, it was a retiring museum for old Cambodians and older tourists, who came to discuss politics and bemoan the meddling Americans. Joseph, my Indian friend who worked in the ILO, told me that the Cambodians were cousins to the South Indians. The Mekong saw yearly Snake Boat races, at a much more lavish scale than Kerala. They celebrated their New Year quite similarly to Vishu.. To my queries on whether Cambodia was the mythical Kamboja, Joseph shook his head and pointed out that the Khmer language, though cognate in many ways to Sanskrit, quite could not have been the parent since linguists had concluded that the Indian Paramadharma could have evolved into the Khmer Pamadamri, but not possibly the other way around. So, for most experts, India remains the home of the Ramayana.

Cambodia looked happy, as far as I could see. Not so much, warned Joseph again. It really was a country where people believed in an immutable fate. They accepted what was given to them without raising an eyebrow. It was in this emotionless lack of material attachment that citizens lined up to work for the Khmer Rouge as a preordained tryst with destiny. Most of them, in the 1970s taught their children that death was best for them. When I looked around, I noticed for once, that an entire age group was missing from the streets.

Adolescent advice suddenly did not seem too inappropriate. Half the country was still in childhood, their parents having, at best, reached their late thirties. On the other extreme were old people, most with disabilities, the few who had survived the last thirty years. The rest, had either been responsible for the crimes and got away, or had been bred outside and had returned with the normalcy. It was perhaps for this very reason, that Cambodia does not seem very interested in pursuing its war criminals. At some point in their lives, everyone had sinned.

On a narrow lane that could pass off in India as a busy market road, lies a decrepit school. Outside the stenches of seafood mix with the aroma of flowers, a legless landmine victim salutes you asking for a dollar and a few street children hawk souvenirs, guessing Delhi as my capital and astounding me with some Tamil words. They pursue you relentlessly until you are forced to oblige, one. And then you are smothered. ‘Well, it happens in India too.’ I said to myself as I stepped into the school.

The school could easily have found itself a respectable clientele in India. It had a large overgrown playground, large spacious classrooms with narrow corridors and narrower staircases where you could imagine rambunctious little ones skating and skidding, screaming their lungs out in their best years. You could quite imagine the tiny spots beneath the trees where puppy love would have expressed itself, relationships cemented, giggles and gossip ruled supreme. Then your heart sank as you realized that the Khmer Rouge had it turned into the largest torture camp of their regime.

As you walked through the corridors, you feel those corridors have seen true extremities of life. The joyous laughter of children seems eerily drowned by the moans and laments of the hundred of victims who were kept in conditions that were last heard of during the Nazi holocaust. With each storey, new stories are told. A woman had smashed her head desperately against the wall; a man had dared to ask for more food in his last breath, a series of three feet cubicles, wooden ones for the fortunate, brick ones for those with ‘special’ needs. A barbed wire encloses the corridors to prevent the suicidal ones from liberating themselves.

Those who survived Tuol Sleng, were transported to Choeung Ek, an airy Chinese Orchard 20 km from Phnom Penh. Thirty years after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, I took the drive, not in a prison van but a Toyota Corolla. From outside, it seemed like a war memorial set in an expansive lawn. Footpaths meandered their way around golf like dug outs, into which children jumped in and out in glee, roosters pecked their way and dogs had their afternoon siesta. In the middle was a concrete monument that looked like a shabby watchtower.

It is inside that watchtower that the sturdiest of human hearts can crumble as row upon row of carelessly strewn human skulls glare at you. Some are replete, most having been damaged while their owners were still alive. All these skulls belonged to sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, friends and sweethearts. Each skull once held a dream, once had desires, had cried, smiled and had known human emotions. To see this end to such a large number is shattering. Rather instinctively, as if in prayer, my camera went back into its pouch to give these souls a dignity in death.

Outside the assault on the emotions continues as the golf like depressions which could handle seven or eight people at best are revealed to have been mass graves of hundreds. A harmless looking tree once had babies smashed against it by parents who had been coerced to do so, another tree had heard the screams of men and women as they got vivisected, a branch was used as a gallows among other things, that are hard to put in words.

That evening, I took a flight to Siem Reap, much of during which, I could neither eat nor sleep, haunted by my experience, and given to pondering about the baseness of human nature. The megalomania of Pol Pot and the willingness of those under him to betray their dearest ones, not out of greed but out of faith. And then in a trance, an Indian life came back to me, with its myriad relationships, smiles, dejections, backbiting and loyalty. Above all, the trust in god, which was unshakeable but still discriminating. I thought to myself, ‘This is not India.’

Happiness Above All Else

2009-04-29T06:22:00.000-07:00

Happiness Above All Else

Large Hearted People in a Small Country

‘Taxis available at the tea stall outside Paro airport.’ Declared our Lonely Planet guidebook as our Druk Air meandered through the Eastern Himalaya and came to land on a jarring concrete strip amidst lush green foliage. A couple of wooden huts greeted us as we landed, as did an unsteady Himalayan breeze which rankled our hair as we walked down the tarmac to a structure, perhaps the lodging of a moderately successful businessman in India. Outside, true to our guidebook, was a nondescript stall with a congregation of men in traditionally Bhutanese gho each sipping besides carelessly strewn Maruti Vans, bantering on current Dzongkha movies and the last Archery contests.

We considered ourselves lucky when one such individual accosted us with an effusive Hindi, which we did not know was a de facto second language for any Bhutanese connected with tourists. When one engaged us in English, we hopped on. “To Thimphu” we said. “To collect our permits to the interior country.” With us came Amar, a nature enthusiast and his wife, whose name we never found out. While the man wished to photograph rare wildlife, the wife had accompanied him with the sole motive of shopping, relaxing and ruining her husband’s pleasure.

The government offices in Thimphu were neatly arranged like festival stalls on a single side of a main thoroughfare. A tiny square blue plate hung above each door, proclaiming the building as the office of a particular department. On each door was stuck a page torn from a notebook saying ‘Please dress in formal wear.’ Each door opened to a portrait of His Majesty the King of Bhutan and his father, beyond which sat two or three sleepy people who ran that department. RC, our driver, strode in majestically, and in an hour, got us permits.

‘No corruption in Bhutan’ said RC, en route back to Paro. ‘However, to get you permits on a holiday, RC needs to do some corruption. RC knows all government officials’ he triumphantly completed. Subsequently, RC also treated us to Tibetan butter tea which we reciprocated with a meal of Ema Datse, the ubiquitous Bhutanese delicacy of red chilies steamed in cheese sauce. ‘My wife has married four times’ beamed RC, taking pride in her accomplishment, ‘I was her second.’

Now and then, RC would doff his hat at policemen, who would sternly nod in return. He would park at off limit zones and even skipped the only traffic signal in Bhutan winking at the peeved constable. While speeding through the empty but narrow mountain highways, RC would periodically slow down near bypassing women and offer them rides in our car – none of which were accepted thankfully. When we learnt that our five hundred rupee notes were not acceptable in Bhutan, he gladly accepted them instead. His behavior, though clearly brazen was quite amusing to us.

Paro consisted essentially of two parallel streets, flanked on either side by ‘General’ Stores, each specializing in different groceries. A hotel or two was thrown in between, a saloon or bank would occupy the remainder. The Paro Dzong situated on a hill overlooked the entire township. In between snaked the Paro river, with crystal clear water. On its banks were men in gho practicing archery. The women of the family, bedecked in khira would be squatting safely nearby, brewing liquor, tea and gossip for their warriors. At length, we would pass monks, scurrying up and down steps to and from the Dzong where they lived. They quite seemed the only people in any sort of hurry since they anyway ran the country.

Of The Tiger’s Nest

It was at night, over the meal of Ema Datse and a cup of unique Red Panda beer that we realized that all RC’s claims of knowing everyone else, could be made by just about anyone in such a small city. Our five hundred rupee notes were not legal, but quite acceptable. And that nearly every one spoke English. In fact, at many places, though the permit was legally required, it could easily be substituted for by sheepish smiles and obsequious apology, as we found out at Taktsang.

Taktsang is to Bhutan what the Taj Mahal is to India. It liberally garnishes its physical splendor with fantastic legends. The local tale has it that Guru Rimpoche, who preached Buddhism to most of Bhutan, flew on the back of a tigress to subdue a powerful diety, giving it the name Taktsang meaning Tiger’s Nest. Since then Taktsang has been served well by a line of monks completely interred within its complex, a steep stairway for pilgrims on one side and a sheer cliff on the other.

At the foothill, that is simply named, ‘The End of the Road’, modernity concedes to nature as cars, restrooms and water stalls cease to exist. Occasionally, during the grueling ascent, the monastery peeps out, through the trees and Buddhist Prayer Flags. But for most of the time, the destination is forgotten and life is lived in the present tense. It is easy to overestimate your physical prowess and run up the hill. It is after the first half an hour, that you feel the weight of every step you take. It is when a Bhutanese toddler and his apparently pregnant mother overtake you that you gloomily decide to prod along.

‘How much more to go’ I would ask almost everyone I saw coming down. ‘An hour and a half,’ some Japanese pensioners would say. ‘You are young and can do it in one, it is really worth it.’

‘Two, then.’ I would think to myself feeling my energy seeping away.

Over half an hour, while my cousin Ajit had long vanished ahead of me, I found that I had scarcely covered a hundred feet. I then decided to aim at the halfway point instead, a solitary tea stall that provided the best view of the cliff and the monastery atop it. It also served the hottest Ema Datse, burning you just when your entrails needed some fire inside. My cousin, ashamed at my absolute lack of fitness had been waiting there for eternity.

‘I took many photos, and wanted to enjoy the scenery.’ I lied like an indignant child caught stealing jam.

Instead of jam, however, I gulped down some biscuits and suza. The tea stall also is a place where trekkers meet each other. As we went up, we met the family of Sonam Tharcheng, consisting of an impish four year old son, an exasperated wife trying to make her son wear his sweater and his two teenage nephews who had studied in Coimbatore. They were evidently setting up for a hill top picnic and upon meeting us, decided to let us partake of it. While coming down, we also met a trio, one of whose husbands was a waiter in New York, and another who proclaimed a crush on Ajit and promptly gifted him a bear hug.

It is indeed a proud moment when the trek ends and you reach the top of the hill. Taktsang, which hitherto looked as big as a pea, now covers your entire vision. You then wish you could just jump across the ravine, hug Taktsang and finish this journey. ‘Not so fast’, the monastery says. ‘First a steep gorge 200 metres down and up again. I have made it a trifle easier for you; the whole path has steps - a few thousand of them.’ From the other side, my cousin, having reached, was getting exasperated watching me pull myself up each step, four feet high and broad enough to keep half my foot. It was also getting eerily close to lunch, and Taktsang would close. Thankfully, I made it. To drive home the point, I made the same voyage back again – not that I had much choice. As the aged Japanese had sagaciously claimed, it was worth every bit.

Of The Top Gear Escape

It was perhaps a wise move to leave RC out of our subsequent scheme of things. Consequently, we had to give the slip to our Bengali friends too, who had been ensnared. For one, we would be much the fleet footed without RC’s machinations. To add to that, Kaka Tshering simply gave us a better deal. A deal of ten thousand rupees earned us a Honda Santa Fe four wheeled drive for four days, to use as we please. Punakha, Phobhjikha and Trongsa opened out to us.

Kaka Tshering was a burly archery enthusiast with rock star locks, betel nut stained teeth and a predilection towards the raunchy lyrics of Akon. While RC claimed acquaintance to Bhutan and made a huge show of it, Kaka never bragged that most of the country consisted of his cousins. At every restaurant, he would vanish behind the kitchen. He would materialize miraculously just as we wound up claiming to have eaten his due. His relatives would often peep into our car, stopped in the middle of the road, merely to ask us where we were from.

‘My wife lives far away.’ He grinned to us. ‘I need to go through Assam every six months to go visit her.’

The Punakha Dzong lies at the confluence of two rivers, named the Mother and the Father, to neutralize the bad effects of such a confluence, according to Bhutanese belief. The two courtyards house each the government offices and the monastic body. In the middle is the stupa or chorten of the highest stature, to be prayed in by the Chief Lama. Its towering whitewashed walls, elaborately decorated with woods in red and gold provide an artistic sight with the sun peeping from between the rooftops. Within the vast courtyards, monk children play, oblivious to the harsh and regimented life that awaits them. Elder monks shooed us as we tried peering into the sanctums. They motioned their hands, hushing us if we got too inquisitive.

Of The Lair of the Black Necked Crane

We climbed up the mountains to 3500 meters, at the end of which we were rewarded by a clear sky at Pele La pass, which is rare in any given year. At that height, Western Bhutan spectacularly made way to Central Bhutan with a breathtaking sight of an entire mountain range stretching across the visible spectrum. Jhumolhari( 7314m), Jichu Drakye (6989m) and several others appear like white capped students in a vast classroom. From that vantage point, our Honda sleighed downhill to Phobhjikha.

The snow that we had avoided thus far, hit us with full force as we trudged our way to Phobhjikha. A ghastly gale started blowing and we decided that it would be prudent to stop for some suza at a lone cottage. We walked in to find that we were clearly not respecting business hours and the family was watching its share of post dinner television around the fireplace. A baby was suckling its mother, a grandmother was knitting just as another daughter was fanning the embers of Bukhara. We, however, were most welcome. We not only got our fill of suza or butter tea, but also got choices of some traditional Bhutanese cookies and savories. We were politely asked not to pay saying we had come as guests and not customers. We promised them to come back for lunch – and pay, the next day.

All Phobhjikha has is a couple of farmhouses and badly equipped hotels to stay in. Being the haunt of the Black Necked Cranes from Siberia, electricity is not encouraged in Phobhjikha. Most activity happens thus in candlelight. For us it meant, sleeping without a heater, with a Bukhara that would certainly not last the entire night. It also meant bathing in freezing water since the water became cold by the time you removed your clothes and got ready for your ablutions. To add to that misery, the quilts in the beds themselves were frigid from the inside. You essentially had to grittily bear the cold and wait for your body heat to transfer, before the blanket offered you protection. For once, the bed was not very inviting. Conversely, it took courage, in the morning, to step out of your blanket and be frozen before you got to your sweater. It was as authentic as Bhutan got.

The valley of Phobhjikha is a vast yellow field, the size of twenty cricket fields punctuated by a few ramshackle cottages. The grass grows to knee level, the cranes fly at a distance, altogether avoiding our cameras. The field occasionally gives way to marshland. The hills surrounding us contain an impressive catalog of fauna that includes Red Panda, Black Bear and Sambhar Deer. Most memorably, in that biting cold, the caretaker of the local museum bathed merrily in stream water.

Of a Journey Through the Looking Glass

As we drove into Trongsa, civilization reappeared. It was a town the size of a morning walk, where Kaka gleefully let us alone to go meet everyone else in the city. We ambled around the city outskirts, observing an otherwise sleepy city, getting ready to celebrate its annual tsechu. The Trongza Dzong characteristically towers over the city. Above lies the Trongsa Tower which also has a museum. In the Land of the Thunderbolt, just as we reached the summit of the tower, we had to retreat, threatened by some flashes in the sky. As we descended, a fleet footed apparition robed in monkish attire rushed up to greet us. Lama Lopen Loday, the Deputy Curator of the Trongsa Museum greeted us as guests from the country he had studied in. “Many of my Indian friends from Gaya cannot make it to Bhutan, so I make it a point to help out Indians,” he said.

A discussion on politics ensued, where the Lama crossed his fingers that Bhutan is the most peaceful country in the subcontinent. He ominously predicted the fall of Bihar. “You cannot trust anyone there.” He said, then adding that the South, Chennai and Bangalore, were a lot better. Democracy he said had made Bhutan a lot more acceptable, although, it quite had not solved any problem. The Monarchy, he said had perhaps been singularly responsible for maintaining stability in Bhutan, through its excellent relationship with India. “India protects us, gives us food, access to ports and lends us electricity.” He added

It was the same electricity, imported from India that failed us again, when we finally decided to take up the Lama’s offer and visit the Museum. Bhutanese hospitality was once again on display when the guides treated us to an hour of tea and biscuits and then agreed to take us in candle-light after opening hours. Once we finally lit the candle, the lights came on. Dorji Zongma, who had studied college in Coimbatore, took us through a timeline of the Bhutanese monarchy.

Bhutanese education does not stop with factual history. Though the achievements of the monarchy are stressed upon, there is significant religious bias inculcated in the schools. The monarchy is mentioned as an effect of religion. The Shabdrung, who founded the Trongsa Dzong is revered next only to Guru Rinpoche, who is considered an incarnation of the Buddha. On a daily basis however, no one is quite as beloved, as the Kings, Jigme Singye Wangchuck and his young, bachelor son, Jigme Khesar Namgyal.

No article on Bhutan is perhaps complete without a mention of the benign dictatorship of Wangchuk dynasty for the last 100 years. The Bhutanese in turn, treat their kings as Messengers of God and show genuine regard for them. A portrait of the King greets you into most shops and each citizen wears a badge with the picture of the present King. The concept of Gross National Happiness, preached by the Bhutanese Monarchy postulates that happiness in spirit, religion and environment means more than material comfort. The King Jigme Singye Wangchuk also set a historical precedent by ushering in parlimentary democracy, allowing a two thirds majority, if ever, to depose the Monarchy. It is perhaps highly likely that by the end of his years, he will be hailed as one of the greatest kings to have ever lived.

The chief purpose of our entire visit was the Trongsa tsechu or festival, which Lama Loday took us through rather enthusiastically. “You are very lucky to see this.” He told us repeatedly, reliving his years when he used to participate as one of the dancers. The tsechu is held in each district once a year. It is considered an annual necessity to attend at least one of these. Predictably, the entire region, surrounding towns and villages tend to crowd the Dzong in full grandeur to witness a rendition of Bhutan’s Buddhist past. We even saw the baby, replete with family, in whose house we had had the most welcome glass of tea ever.

The Black Hat dance, Dance of the Zodiacs, the arrival of Guru Rimpoche and the capturing of the Imperial Throne by Ugyen Wangchuk trace the Bhutan of two thousand years weaving together mythology and history seamlessly. While monks perform the key roles, women contribute as singers filling in and village men, dress up as clowns to exhort the youngest section of the audience. These clowns had enormous significance, as the Lama pointed out, since amidst their jestering, they were also responsible for arranging the elaborate dresses of the performers and acting as prompters to those who missed their steps.

It was a five day affair, of which we could spend barely one. With a woeful countenance, we bid adieu to Lama Lopen Loday, who gingerly posed for a photograph and took the arduous drive back to Paro. If there is one thing we could take back from Bhutan, it is about the powerlessness of money towards happiness. The next evening, when we tipped Kaka, he handed it back to us saying that he would not accept it from his friends. The least we could do was to take down his email address and promise to mail him all the photographs. So far, we have not kept our promise.

Shanghai - Of Pearl Towers and Opium Dens

2009-02-20T22:22:00.000-08:00

The typical Shanghai stereotype conjures up an image of opium dens and of streets lit up at night with paper lanterns, through whose cobble stoned alleyways, malnourished rickshaw pullers run barefoot with a pipe smoking businessman toting whips. Pigtailed men scamper about in pyjamas rapping on wooden doors to be opened by grubby handed children and long faced women. The HuangPu River is an assortment of meat, insects, fish and vegetables being rowed by old peasant women from PuDong across the bank. Those were the days when Nanjing Street was an infamous thoroughfare where peasants, businessmen, thieves and nobility converged, in no particular order and where the uninitiated would have little chance of coming back unscathed.

A mere twenty years ago, Shanghai would have lived up to that expectation. Pudong was still farmland and the river that separated it from PuXi was a slimy mass of agricultural waste on which boats functioned as marketplaces. Today, however, Shanghai is leading the biggest economic boom in human history. Our first trip from the airport to the city typified this. From our Magnetic Levitation train, we watched in awe as the farmlands gave way to factories and factories merged into high rise apartments at the breakneck speed of 450 kmph. It was a cinema of development in fast forward mode. The panorama from our hotel room reinforced this fact. On the left was a market, not more than two storeys high, built of red brick in 1923. A horse cart had stopped to unload. On the right, emerged an array of skyscrapers with flyovers snaking between them. From one end to the other, braving an incessant drizzle, an endless line of people walked briskly to their workplaces, while old people exercised rigorously in the park below.

Nanjing Street is still the commercial centre today, but replacing the shantytowns of yore, is a swanky neon-lit pedestrian boulevard flanked by eateries and malls. The street vendors have long since graduated from sitting down in the pavement and yelling out their bargains. It is now done on rollerblades. A girl skates viciously on collision track with you, and stops just as you take evasive action. She then takes out her catalogue promising you ‘authentic’ luxury brands for a tenth of the cost. By the time you are done refusing one, you are accosted by the next.

On one end of Nanjing Street is the Bund, the riverbank of the HuangPu where the Europeans built their financial centre in the early twentieth century. Much of it still remains untouched, but for the flag of Red China now flying over all those colonial buildings. Look across yonder horizon, and there rises the jaw dropping skyline of PuDong, with the Oriental Pearl Tower living up to its name and illuminating the night sky. Plying the river today, are luxury yachts and cruisers, looking more like mobile amusements parks than their vegetable boat ancestors.

From the other end of Nanjing Street, a short walk away lies Renmin Square, the political and business district of the metropolis. One would imagine a newly wealthy city to look like a concrete monstrosity but at Renmin Square, high rise skyscrapers lie garnished in generous amounts by lush green lawns and wide footpaths. The ubiquitous aged, add to the scene taking evening walks and smiling at passers by.

Despite its commendable economic progress, Shanghai has cultivated its past, if not to preserve it, purely to maintain tourist interest. The heritage villages of Qibao and Zhaozhuang lie close by and offer a peep into a Shanghai that could have been true just yesterday. However, since you are already aware that they are settings, all the oriental charm is lost on you. Similar is the case with Yuyuan market, where you feel like you have walked into a Western Mall bedecked in an Oriental theme. However, there is a Shanghai tucked away beneath, which still has its insect markets and lantern drug peddlers skunking away in alleyways where the foreign tourist would have little chance of being comprehended.

At the foot of the Oriental Pearl Tower, lies an exhibition of Shanghai down the Ages. One relives the years, beginning from the Opium Wars in the middle 19^th century, through Shanghai’s colonial legacy on to its significant role in the People’s Revolution. In Renmin Square, lies a post modern building where the grand plans for a future Shanghai are made. The fact that the Chinese government down the ages has remained steadfast to their plans has helped Shanghai in no uncertain amount. It is the latest great city in the World’s Oldest Civilization, today, the gateway to the greatest enigma of our times – China.

Xi'an - Three Thousand Years in a Blink

2009-02-20T22:12:00.000-08:00

While planning a trip to China, my chief focus had been on Shanghai and Beijing. I had carelessly thrown in Xi’an into the itinerary, solely to see the Terracotta Warriors. I had heard it was a provincial city with an alarming crime rate and had assumed that the barren plateau city situated in the interior of China had escaped the progress that was propelling its coastal cousins. Had I known better, I would have caught a better glimpse of the sight from the plane.

It was only after seeing an Atlas at our hotel that I realized that the drab looking expanse of dull brown that would have been visible from the plane was the Great Taklamakan, once the haunt of such celebrated giants of history such as Genghis Khan and his legendary nephew Khublai. The city we had landed in was not a one wonder site; we had unwittingly landed in the Eastern terminus of the Ancient Silk Route. In its heyday, Xi’an was one of the largest cities in the world, popularly referred to in Chinese as the City of a Million People.’ Though many cities today lay claim to such populations, Xi’an having earned that epithet in the fifth century speaks volumes about it preeminence at that time.

Xi’an could be called the Grandmother of Chinese history. It has a past, not the least starting from the formidable Qin Shi Huang of the fifth century BC who built his famous underground army to protect him in his afterlife. The terracotta warriors were unearthed as recently as 1974 when a serendipitous pail of water drew up fragments of a warrior’s head from a farmer’s well. Today, archaeologists stay baffled at the incredible detail of each unique statue, from hairstyle to armor replete with decorations and epaulettes.

The matriarch periodically took centre stage for the next two thousand years, being the capital, of the Qin, Han and the Tang dynasties. While Europe descended into the Dark Ages, Xi’an flourished as paths converged from India, Japan, Rome and Arabia making it the largest marketplace of the last millennium. While even today, we often regard the coastal cities of Shanghai and Guangzhou to be gateways to China, far before those cities existed; Xi’an was at the terminus of a highway that extended as far as Justinian’s Byzantium and Caligula’s Rome.

The Muslim Quarter of Xi’an more than anything else, is redolent of the famous caravanserais of the Silk Route. Inhabitants following the tenants of Islam nevertheless, are decidedly Chinese. In this small section flanked by the Drum Tower, lie twisting by lanes and back alleys inhabited by a community with a shared inheritance of leather, wool and shanty shops which were bequeathed to them 40 generations ago. Quaint old Chinese men in skullcaps drink tea seated next to burning embers beneath a skewered Chicken. The kebabs, gosht and lamb curry have recipes last modified in the 8^th century.

For a tourist, Xi’an can be wonderfully easy to traverse. The ancient walls enclosing it have been restored and offer a breathtaking panorama spanning three millennia. As one goes from the Bell Tower end to the Drum tower end, a swanky mall stares down the Marketplace of the Muslim Quarter. History accompanies you on every turn and slaps you on the face with a thousand year old temple here and a seven hundred year old shrine on every sight.

The Wild Goose Pagoda is 1400 years old and at its entrance is an imposing statue of Huang Tsang, whose travels chronicle 7^th century India. Quite appropriately, the area around the pagoda is punctuated by a series of Indian restaurants where we satiated our vegetarian appetites. Although their food is authentic, their names clearly indicate a bad job at copying. As we strolled down, we came across restaurants called Amitra, Rummi, Aaja and one rather triumphantly, The India Vegetables Restoront. Our Chinese host, after blaming his countrymen for bowdlerizing Indian cuisine, graciously took us in one of them to certify the authenticity of their Naan and Paneer. If the recipes had been passed down through the Silk Route, need I have said more?

The recipes passed the Indian test but not the songs they played. My cousin rather politely pointed out to them that those songs really weren’t in any Indian tongue. The owner, excited at the first Indians to have tasted his pastiche cooking, then went on to play some songs in, of all languages – Tamil. A detailed discussion on the finer points of Indian cooking ensued and the not so subtle demarcation between North Indian and South Indian cooking was conveyed to the owner of a restaurant by a pair of Tamilians who had never cooked a meal on their own in their lives. “Marinate the dough in curd.” we told him professing age old sagacity. And then a more sensible piece of advice, “You must play Tamil songs only if you are serving South Indian food.” The owner nevertheless lapped it all up and at the end of the meal, it was he with a fuller stomach. Taking our advice rather seriously, he played us a farewell Hindi song after confirming with us that the language was suitable to the meal we had just had. If only, he had consulted us before naming his hotel Cacaja.

What is commerce but an intercourse of people with one set of needs with another? Above an exchange of goods, commerce enables people of differing habits to observe each other, learn about each other and more importantly, assess themselves in a larger classroom. Xi’an was that large multiethnic classroom for much of its past. Today, with the advent of modern China, Xi’an is increasingly littered with Starbucks and Gucci. Ronald McDonald greets you into dinner. A tourist feels pampered slicing into a pizza and looking out of the window onto the Bell Tower. But, it is exactly these influences that are etching away Xi’an’s unique place in the timeline of humanity. A tourist should rather be forced to eat the falafel of the Islamic Market than be allowed the hedonistic choice of a dozen French patisseries. If western commercialization is good for the rest of the world, they should leave Xi’an alone as a showpiece relic of the bygone era.

Behind the Bamboo Curtain

2008-08-25T01:30:00.000-07:00

The Chinese have been the biggest enigma of human history. For centuries, they have been a formidable force, best left alone by other powers. Their confounding language has been the best protector of their unequalled culture and at the same time limited them in their contact with the outside world. Intermittent exchanges did happen between China and the outside world, most significantly by Marco Polo, who on his deathbed when asked if he had made up his stories replied that he had hardly bequeathed a trifle of what he had seen to posterity.

If I told you I had gone into a cocoon to see the transformation taking place inside, you’d probably glare at me disbelievingly and then dismiss it as imagination working over time. But in the Beijing of today, it is transformation of a similar sort that is happening. The last hundred years have been but an aberration in the glorious book of oriental history, perhaps the only ones when China was relegated to poverty and ravaged by western powers. In the 21st century, the People’s Republic of China is busy setting things right.

The Chinese have done a remarkable job in seamlessly blending their oriental heritage with new age pragmatism. It is still a country where the older generation is revered and allowed to live on government expense, while the younger generation furiously tries to grasp English as a gateway to the western world. The young scurry to work cramming up the subway while cars on the road gently wait for a group of aged cyclists to pass. In historical monuments like the Temple of Heaven, one sees China as if in prototype. Besides the tourist thronging the Ming Temple, one sees the slow motion Tai Chi of the elders and the fast paced acrobatics of the younger through the same lens. You see games that seem simple, until you try them out on your own and then you realize why the Chinese have such mastery over the skill of hand-eye coordination. It somehow shames you that an eighty year old woman is capable of more exertions than you are. You then realize that there is a nation full of them.

The Chinese also blend rural hospitality with urban grace. “Which country?” asked a security guard at Tiananmen Square, in what was probably the only English he knew. “Ying Du” we retorted in the only Chinese we knew. “Ying Du!” he repeated with a toothy smile which was all the muscular movement he was allowed. “Ying Du!” yelled the bus conductress who proceeded

to tell our Chinese friends that we reminded her of a pair of Indian twins with such captivating eyes that she had permanently etched them in her memory. “Pyau Lyang!” she said, Beautiful. “Ying Du!” said the waiter at a restaurant, who proceeded who twist and turn his body then in mock Bollywood dance which was what he knew best of India. While on food, a couple of finicky vegetarians could not have had it better than in Beijing, provided one knew how to order in Chinese – or had people do it for them.

In most tourist monuments, we were party to a series of curious stares ranging from children to the toothless aged. Now and then, a child would wave to us and beam excitedly when we waved back in return. Parents of the child would ask us to pose with their baby, for a memorable photo with the Ying Du cousins. A pair of women at the Temple of Heaven forcibly shoved us together to click themselves with us, as if we were celebrities.

Beijing is a giant museum of art. The minor display is being dismantled to make way for modernity, but the priceless is being preserved for eternity. The extravagant Summer Palace captures the oriental glory of China best. Set amidst sylvan surroundings beside a lake replete with tea house islands connected by exquisite bridges, layer upon layer of golden houses for various strata of nobility, lead you up a hill to the grandest house of them all, that of Empress Dowager Ci Xi, with the nine dragons on the roof proclaiming it as the dwelling of the highest rank. The Palace also has a Venicesque canal side market called Suzhou Street which was meant for the Empress’ prerogative.

If the Great Wall North of Beijing is a scarf of golden silk draped over an endless mountain range, in the Forbidden City, these yarns of silk are woven into reams of scarlet and twirled around. A murky cloud gathered and rain began, adding to the mystique of it all, as we walked through the halls, chambers and harems reliving the last five hundred years of China’s royalty, braving the icy rain and strong gale retracing the royal footsteps of yore. It is enchanting to have been permitted into an enclosure where commoners were forbidden not so long ago and at the end of it all, we felt as if we had just witnessed an architectural symphony, in the largest, most mysterious, palace in the world.

Once out of the Forbidden City, the past quickly merges into the present – the vast expanse of Tiananmen Square, political centre of new age China. A portrait of Mao Zedong sternly looks on from the gate well across the largest public square in the world, the size of twelve football fields. At the far end of the square is the mausoleum with his embalmed body. In between are planted the famous flags of Red China. At every interval, stands a guard at stiff attention. A strong sound of footsteps signals a platoon of the world’s largest army staging a mock drill under the watchful eyes of their first General, Chairman Mao.

China has not only done justice to its erstwhile royalty, but also the common man down the ages. Designated areas called Hutongs still have the narrow plebian roads. The tourist is somehow pleased to see a familiar China that is so often portrayed in books and western cinema. The 19th century air is redolent of all the stereotypes that foreigners have of China, of long haired men in pyjama wear, yelling out wares in an overcrowded market place through which, you, as a foreigner, engage a hand pulled rickshaw to maneuver. More than reinforce the stereotype, the Hutongs dispel your misconceptions about a country marching straight ahead into the future.

During the Olympics, the Bird’s Nest Stadium will play host to the rest of the world and showcase China’s sporting might. Glittering hotels have been built, new roads laid and a plush subway soon to be opened. The Soviet Iron Curtain has long fallen and now covers only China. Behind the Bamboo Curtain, Beijing is the key performer of the show, adding final touches to her make up. In August at the world stage, the curtain will rise, the cocoon will break. But instead of the butterfly, the Dragon will emerge.

The One Night Stand - Singapore

2008-06-29T08:15:00.000-07:00

In a very perfect world, Singapore would be the capital. Blessed with an equable climate, ably guided by a benign dictatorship that has scrupulously stuck firmly to the highway to prosperity and infused with a delightful motley culture blending European, Chinese, Indian and Malay civilizations, it has few reasons to complain.

It was going to be one of my least planned trips. I had not bothered to set forth an itinerary for myself since it was my stop over en route back from China. Somehow, I treated Singapore with step motherly disdain after conquering the Dragon Kingdom. Vasudha had graciously agreed to chaperone me around and that was reason enough for me to throw up my legs and shirk off any responsibilities.

To the start up traveler, Singapore really needs no planning. One could land one fine morning and then expect to be taken care of from like a baby. Singapore opens up via the luxurious Changi Airport with interior decorations that make it look like a tropical island in itself. Changi is a resort on its own and it is of no surprise that many visitors consider the airport a tourist attraction on its own.

One just needs to know how to read for Singapore to open itself to you. The entire country is filled with tourist assistants and before you know it, you are taking the subway to Raffles Square. My pocket tourist guide, i.e. Vasudha took me home where I scrubbed myself clean and then took on Singapore, a lumbering lazy stroll.

Singapore really does not need a war foot. Not the least when you are blissfully protected by your cousin who is footing all your bills and stoically bearing with all your nuisance in a country that is known for its prudishness. What it needs is a laid back attitude, a willingness to stretch your arms, yawn and let the government do its bit for you. Just keep in mind the little things that Singapore really frowns upon, littering, chewing gum or keeping your car dirty – a fact that Vasudha had not so gently reminded me about.

The Subway or the MRTS as the Singaporeans call it, is a lesson in clockwork precision, something I really need. Every station could pass off for a five star hotel corridor in less scrupulous countries. And just in case you lose your way, go in and ask. You not only get directions, but you get a slip of paper with instructions clearly printed. The tourist is so welcome.

Singapore is a fussy matron, much like my fond sister and has made sure no inch of land is defaced. Since it does not have to face fallen leaves in autumn, every concrete flyover is covered with appropriate leaves. The 100 acre Jurong Bird Park for instance, hardly looks like a separate enclosure for birds than just an extension of Singapore countryside. Any exceptions from the equatorial rainforest are suitably camouflaged and made to appear very natural. You can walk into a penguin habitat which is a large refrigerator covered outside entirely by natural tropical vegetation. You would never guess from outside.
You just notice a complete absence of crows. The tourist does not even have to worry about being crow blessed since they have all been shot down.

I could imagine how Singapore reacts to the tiniest speck of dirt creasing its roads and of course, it is a great badge of honour to have been fined in Singapore for deliberately putting a wrapper of toffee on the road, but Vasudha did not share my sense of humour and I obliged her with mock disappointment.

My other mock disappointment was that my only association with a durian was seeing the shape of the Singapore Esplanade. The stinky fruit is forbidden in most other places including the MRTS. I tried around Changi Airport, confident that in the Indian stench, a durian could hardly be noticed, but then, Changi apparently did not want its passengers to be indulging in “foul” activities either.

I call myself a rugged globe trekker and I realized what a needless effort all that is, when in Singapore, all that the world can offer you is available on a platter. Singapore provides you gastronomic delight of the entire world’s cuisine, sights of all the world’s fauna and flora and acquaintances from the entire world’s people. All in a country the figurative size of a peanut. The benign dictatorship sees to it that your tiniest whims are met and that your precious belongings are safe. And for all this, I have seen Singapore but for a day. One day, if I do not have enough money to take myself on a honeymoon to Italy or if I am cursed with a particularly nagging wife, I might choose to come back to Singapore. Why bother with anything else?

A Wasted Power

2008-01-08T23:55:00.001-08:00

The outright ban by Malaysia on Indian workers is an unprecedented move by any democratic nation clearly raking of discrimination. However, the blame for this outcome of events solely lies with India not making appropriate use of its enormous historical and demographic clout throughout its independent history.

The Indian independence was a catalyst to the fall of the colonial era. It has remained the first and till date, only example ever of an empire bowing down to non violent protest – an achievement no doubt earth shaking. India in its early days, advocated just causes, with a clear mandate to the greatest good for the greatest number. This was best defined by the visionaries of the Non Aligned Movement which once enjoyed the membership of more nations than both the power blocs put together.

India, at that moment, was a new power rising in the East. To the economically emaciated third world with scarce opinion at global decision making, India represented hope for their perspective, a new voice to be heard, a voice that bespoke economic progress, security and above all peace, the world’s largest democracy whose success newly independent nations tried to emulate, a country that despite its penury had not surrendered its soul. The third world identified with India and the feeling was mutual.

All that ended when India, even as the de facto leader of the NAM decided to tilt its diplomatic axis towards the Soviet Union. The once paragon of truth and justice had shown its selfish opportunism in putting its myopic gains over the rest of the world. India further lost face when after the fall of the Soviet Union, India slowly but surely made an effort to realign itself with the American pole. India showed the rest of the world that it was no voice of justice but a sycophant whose allegiance is purely materialistic. The most severe ramifications of this have been India’s repeated failures to secure its place on several International High Tables including ASEAN, the G-8 and of course the UN Security Council. India, far from learning from mistakes, continues to be self obsessed.

A case in point is the racism charge by a visiting Australian cricket team against an Indian crowd. Since acceptance of a racist taunt by an Indian would be a fall of face, the politicians who run the game decided to stand that the particular taunt was not considered racist in India. Had the same been said by an Australian, India would have whipped up public frenzy and created for itself a sympathy wave. India twists justice to suit itself. Does not our caste system do precisely that?

Let a cue be taken from China. Despite its questionable polity, China has repeatedly made efforts to make itself matter on the world stage particularly on issues concerning Africa. Considering Africa’s might in sheer numbers at World Conferences, China has secured numerous allies and is almost always the second superpower of today’s world.

Consider India on the other hand, though lip service has been done in offering aid to Asian countries, little has ever been actually done. And when it has, it has often been to neighbors such as Sri Lanka where quid pro quo is likely. India does send its Armed Forces to fight in Africa as United Nations peacekeeping forces but its diplomats there instead meddle in internal affairs such as the supposed deposing of a ruler in Sierra Leone. Economic aid is unheard of. India constantly scrapes the bottom of the world human development index list, and still has the gall to claim that it is a responsible power. No other country believes it.

Despite the world’s largest diaspora, India makes little effort to woo its expatriates. A Pravasi Bharatiya Divas caters to the rich elite of richer countries only to ensure foreign currency inflow, further example of sheer materialism. India wants the United States to pay for its roads but will not support similar schemes in Burkina Faso. The millions of unskilled laborers and descendants of forced slaves comprising lower income groups are uncared for. These groups become disenfranchised in their countries and disillusioned with India, which is what precisely led to the Malaysia situation.

The Malaysian action has been a result of a cumulative loss of clout by India. Malaysia’s action deserves condemnation and is deplorable but a tiny introspection will reveal that had India chosen the right path long ago, Malaysia would never have had the audacity to take on India. In fact, similar to Malaysia’s plight are many other countries with substantial Indian expatriate communities, who could have well served the Indian cause. Alas, today, India claims to be a competitor to China while in reality, it is but an also ran on the world stage.

Some Censor-less Writing

2008-01-01T03:58:00.001-08:00

The Health Ministry claims that smoking on cinema encourages tobacco consumption. Going by the same yardstick, contemporary Indian cinema could serve society well by banning the following:-

Car chases – No doubt these encourage speed driving. They also encourage sending bullock carts in the air, treating the road as one’s own property and damaging a dozen cars, not to mention most of those cars don’t even have seatbelts – and possibly not even number plates.
Riding on motorcycles – I am not against car driving on movies, provided they have their seat belts on and publicly display their license to the audience before sitting in. But a strict no to motorcycles. How would the audience ever take to a song sung by a pair of helmets, knocking against each other in love? So, ban motorcycles all together. Imposing a helmet condition serves no purpose.
Marriages – In almost all Indian movies, marriages are an occasion to turn violent. It is perfectly acceptable for the third cousin of the bride to be and next door neighbour of the groom to be to come to clashes over the manner in which they were received by the bride’s ex-sister in law. Now, not only does this promote violence in the land of Mahatma Gandhi, it also encourages needless medical expenditure which will run insurance companies out of business.
Vegetable Shops – Besides marriage halls, wholesale vegetable shops are a perfect locale for fighting. The vegetables outdo an armory for variety, and the fish carts are used as the common ambulance to ferry out the injured. This encourages violence and disrespect for the Green Revolution and all the vegetables which came out of it.
Policemen – Indian cinema has led to the popular notion that the police are comedians, villains, heroes or pot bellied props in that order. This has led to severe loss to the Indian fashion industry. Tailors have quit their jobs, tea stall owners have shifted, leading to low morale in the general Police and hence, dereliction of other duties, such as traffic control.
Tea Stalls – These promote encroachment on the road.
One Rupee Coins - A ban on this will hit the film industry hard since the One Rupee Coin has a leading role for most Indian movies. However, on the flip side, the immense popularity of this evergreen hero has led to a rampant counterfeiting industry which needs to be nipped at its source. So, off with the heads! – And tails too.
Water – Since it is used as a body double for almost any liquid in the film industry, this is often mistaken for kerosene, which mother in laws use to threaten suicide. This, no doubt encourages arson and should fall under the ban hammer. Milk needs to be banned too since most of it, including maa ka doodh is anyway adulterated.
Jails – All movies with jails in them show plots by which the protagonist escapes. This gives inmates ideas and leads to security implications for the country.
Rajnikant – Apart from reducing the IQ of the average Tamil to well below zero, Rajnikant has exhorted millions of his followers to hit passers by with volley balls, stop counting beyond 3 and spoiling the environment with chants of lakalakalakalakala.

Once these bans come into force, I wonder if India can make a movie ever again.

A Washington Post

2007-11-12T03:37:00.000-08:00

It is strange to see a capital city that is so quiet and unassuming. Furthermore, the capital of a country that is almost perpetually in global conscience. It is hardly a lesson in novelty. The United States of America rather forcefully makes the government play second fiddle to capitalist business and as a result, most State capitals are not by far the best or most active cities. Washington DC is no different.

The Capitol is by far the most impressive building around. A majestic looking Parliament, however built in a style quite common to that era. The Presidential memorials though are repetitive. The Roosevelt, Jefferson and Lincoln memorials do have some miniscule variations, in the curves of the pillars and the domes or the paintings on the walls. However, they all point to a single inspiration – the Parthenon of Athens. The Library of Congress looks as if it’s been lifted out of Napoleonic Paris and the National Archive reinforces the Greek influence. Conspiracy theories however abound that all these are built by Masonic architects who believed in the insuperability of the golden ratio and hence, the Parthenon obsession.

The Washington Monument, too supposedly follows the Golden Ratio in its construction. Though not an architectural wonder, it does add some flavour to the Washington skyline. It has forcefully made itself the tallest monument in the entire city, prohibiting construction of any building taller than it within the District of Columbia. In between the memorials of Lincoln and Washington lie tributes to soldiers who fought all the wars of America including Korea, Vietnam and of course, World War II. A positive air permeates, not surprising, given the multiple successes of the American Army. They truly are a celebrated lot.

The White House is rather modest, and so are the many Smithsonian Institution buildings. The White House is rather small for housing the world’s Most Powerful man. But the most colorful activities that go on around it are by the protestors who seemingly do so more for the entertainment of the act than out of passion towards their cause. They gleefully pose for photographs and keep giving you pamphlets as a minimal routine towards their propaganda. The security guards oblige them, reserving their curt words for tourists instead.

The Smithsonian Institutions though, are remarkable. For boring exteriors, they make up indoors. An assortment of several museums, they are today the collectively house more artifacts than any other in the world. Most of their exhibits are casts but the information they provide and the presentation they make out of it is fascinating. Each part has a theatre section where a synopsis of the exhibits inside is provided. They are considered, one of the world’s foremost museums and deservedly so. The best thing is however, that they are free. The most visited of them are the Natural History, American History and the Air and Space museum. Most of the exhibits including Edison’s incandescent bulb and the Bell telephone, buttress the belief that this country is the single most sustained creative force in history (apart from the drab monuments).

Outside the National Mall area where most tourist attractions lie, Washington DC is a surprisingly quiet city. The occasional memorial like the Iwo Jima pays homage to soldiers but visitors to it are mostly the aged. A touching sight is the many aged wheelchair bound ex-military men who often frequent these areas. However them having, for most part, been on the victorious side, the non-American onlooker would not feel the tinge of poignancy normally thus associated. Rather, it is a warm and proud moment that is evoked.

Washington is perhaps the grand matron of America. The low profile capital that lets its rambunctious cousins do all the frolicking. Washington keeps its streets tidy and its traffic ordered. Its citizens have time to open doors and say thank you. They use the various parks in the city containing the monuments as exercising grounds. You feel like you walked into a weekend neighbourhood. Surprising then, that within its boundaries, occur daily activities that affect more humans, directly or indirectly, than any other place in the world.

Capital of the World

2007-10-23T12:35:00.000-07:00

There are some times you just want Time to stand still. You look at the world rushing away around you and wish you could press a remote and keep replaying it. You look up at the sky and see a lofty canopy of buildings from opposite sides, whose terraces are so far away, they appear to touch each other in the sky. Around you, the world is bathed in brightness enough to light up a small country. A limousine passes by followed by another. It somehow surprises you that those symbols of opulence have to wait behind an array of yellow cabs at traffic lights for pedestrians to pass. If you stand there long enough, they say, you run into everyone in the world. For Times Square, New York, I have done my bit.

Four women of different communities in the New York subway

The Big Apple does not yield to generalization. Within a ten mile radius, one steps across the seven seas and six continents in a single day. You order a dish in English in a shop where the menu is in Mandarin. Your metro card reads in Spanish and Hebrew is heard all around. A woman in a Burqa sits comfortably wedged between a skimpily clad fashionista and a cowboy in a top hat. The cowboy, wearing little else, consequently makes an appearance at Times Square judging a dog pageant. He is apparently the Naked Cowboy, a New York street singer.

Chinatown, Little Italy, African Square, Little India and Brazil Street together create a showcase of the modern world to the entire universe. Lofty skyscrapers of Manhattan seamlessly blend equally into typically middle class Queens and the shantytowns of The Bronx. Plush and staid Wall Street is minutes away from hippy Greenwich Village, and adjacent to the world’s most glamorous Fifth Avenue, is the perfect family outing of Central Park. Serially Numbered Avenues and Streets form a checkerboard of roads with that famous theatre thoroughfare, Broadway, cutting through them diagonally, meeting Seventh Avenue at Times Square.

Nothing quite characterizes the self appointed Capital of the World than its effervescent people. After the setbacks of 11-September 2001, New York has spring boarded ahead, letting bygones be just that. Ground Zero is a grim reminder of that fateful day when New York’s tallest pair of skyscrapers came tumbling down but all around it you feel the optimism so endemic to a New Yorker. “There ain’t no World Trade Center anymore, buddy, but you jus’ wait and watch, we gonna getch ourselves a better one.” says street vendor Malcolm who claims eyewitness to the 21st century’s defining moment.

As I strolled down Fifth Avenue agape at all those prices, I stopped to buy some memorabilia from Hamid, an immigrant Pakistani selling on the sidewalk. “You are Indian, so I will give you one more for free,” he said. “Someday, we’ll be brothers again.” Equally memorable was Austin, the Wall Street banker who sat beside me on the plane and when he saw me whipping out my camera to take pictures of the skyline from the sky, decided he would give this impecunious Indian a cab ride down to Manhattan. “It ain’t not a cheap city to live in son, when someone gives yer rides, yer jolly well take ‘em.” New Yorkers are also capable of virulently negative sentiments though. “Could you tell me where to get off Ma’am?” I asked a bus driver who replied. “You look out! I’m drivin’ and ain’t gonna be lookin’ aroun’ ta getch ya off this bus.” It takes all sorts to make a world and that’s most evident in New York. If the world is turning into a global village, New York became one a long time ago.

Once upon a time, France gifted a struggling United States, the most historic gift ever. At that time, America was an economic cripple, struggling to shake off its dependence on a slavery driven economy. The Statue of Liberty was meant to inspire the wretched, downtrodden masses, most of them immigrants in one of the world’s most dangerous cities. A little over a century later, the Grand Old Lady of New York is dwarfed by the myriad skyscrapers of Downtown Manhattan. She holds aloft the torch of opportunity, promising better means and livelihood to the multitudes of people, many who have left behind shattered homes to build better lives in the world’s most diverse city. What a success it has been!

Vision 2020 - Indian Cricket

2007-09-25T03:10:00.000-07:00

I doubt if Dr Kalam had this in mind when he said, India should strive to be a superpower in 2020. (Twenty20)

In a way, his wish has been fulfilled.

A Landmark Moment

2007-08-29T04:17:00.000-07:00

I finally get to be a finalist at the Landmark Quiz, the Olympics of all Indian quizzing. And the icing on the cake, a Page 3 photo in The Hindu. Attached below ( the thoughtful one in green):

Now I can hopefully claim to have performed on Independence Day at the Music Academy in Chennai.

My Seven Wonders of the World

2007-07-16T03:04:00.000-07:00

A very personal list of what I think should be the Seven Wonders of the World. The criteria to be in this list are typically that it should have been man made before 2000 A.D.

1. Great Pyramid of Khufu, Giza, Egypt - The eternal Pyramid is the only remaining wonder of the world from the original list. The tomb of Egyptian pharaoh Khufu is as ageless as time itself. Men have come and men have gone but the Pyramid has remained for ever the onlooker. For nearly 4000 years from 2600 BC to 1300 AD, the Giant Pyramid was the tallest man made structure on earth.

2. The Grand Canal, Venice, Italy - No mean achievement, the grand canal is so grand that we often forget that it was man made. It is perhaps like an arterial road in a city where water is the most common mode of transport. Today Venice contains more man made land masses than canals. The fact that the whole city is sinking only adds to its tragic mystique as a few centuries later, the charming city of Shylock and Antonio might be entirely underwater. Nevertheless, Venice is unmatched as the abode of love, of ballads sung with harps accompanying wafting gondolas. The Grand Canal typifies that.

3. Terracotta Warriors, Xi'an, China - A few thousand living size models of the entire army of Emperor Qin Huang Di who reigned in the third century B.C. No two statues are alike and each extremely life-like figure is way ahead of its times in its depiction of physical traits even as minute as shapes of eyebrows. A remarkable feat of Engineering, it might as well be one of the first examples of Assembly Line Engineering - creating basic forms and assembling them individually later.

4. The Great Wall of China - Length is the strength of the Great Wall. Even today, it forms a silken thread right across China from near the Russian Peninsula in the east to the Gobi Desert in the West.

5. The Taj Mahal, Agra, India - Some call it the most beautiful building in the world. The marble mausoleum supposedly of the Mughal Queen Mumtaz has a tragic story behind it. The man who envisioned it, Shahjahan spent his last days in a windowless cell with a small peep hole just enough for the aged Emperor to pine away at the sight of his magnificent monument.

6. Times Square, New York City, United States - Times Square might not have art, history or mystique supporting it. But for what it lacks in past achievements, it makes up by being the most happening place in the world currently. Every trend of modern existence is set out in Times Square and then, the world follows. If it is outlandish to others, its all welcome in Time Square.

7. The Moai, Easter Island, Chile - Mysterious larger than life statues of human figures in a hitherto uninhabited island in a remote corner of the world far away from all habitation leads to that most inevitable question - how did these get here? Made of volcanic rock, dating to more than 2000 years, long before any mode of transportation was known that could transport such gigantic masses across the sea, the Moai are among the biggest unsolved mysteries of today's world and very deservingly of a place in the Wonders of the World list.

Around the World in Eighty Centuries

2007-01-05T23:35:00.000-08:00

Most eras of the world’s history has been dominated by a single city. Throughout time, these cities have been the beacon to the rest of the world and set a benchmark to succeeding generations to look upto. In some cases, the ascendancy of these cities over their contemporary rivals has been so great that their history has eclipsed all other events in lesser states and have come down to us as the sole remnants of that era.

The earliest city that is known currently is the ancient Sumerian city of Uruk. Uruk is so long back in history that all records of it lie blurred in the thin and often unclear line between mythological fantasy and archaeological fact. It is mentioned as the apparent site of the Epic of Gilgamesh which is considered of mankind's earliest works and equally by many skeptics as a figment of hyperactive imagination. However, the legend of Uruk still lays a very credible claim to have played an essential part in the etymology of today's Iraq.

History is still not clear when we move on to the now tiny Greek village of Sparta. Their world was a lot indoctrinated in rigid rituals and arcane beliefs. Man and woman were chained to a primordial sequence of activities that were to be unfailingly executed with pristine precision with preparation for war being the foremost and perpetual activity. Free thought was prohibited and thus Spartans did not bequeath much to posterity.

The age of Sparta is far away in time, clouded and blurred to vision. As we look through the glass of history, perhaps the first lucid image that appears is of Athens. A perfect antithesis to Sparta, Athens gave the world its first chapter in history. Starting from around 500 BC, Athens was where man for once settled down and observed the world around him instead of engaging in relentless warfare. With the advent of Athens, out sprang buds in philosophy, democracy, theatre and the world’s earliest forms of entertainment. Mankind decided that life was not for internecine fighting, but also meant to relish and savor.

Towards the Christ era, however, the focus shifted to another great city that stealthily crept upon the Greeks and finally stole their religion, their orgies, their limelight, altered it to their convenience and promulgated it to the entire progeny as their own. The Roman reign as the beacon of the world, a city that lasted approximately 800 years as the cultural center of the known world.

While Athens had kept to itself and its surroundings, Rome advanced mightily. Across the Meditteraenean into Carthage, Judea and present day Spain, Rome gave the world a demonstration of what it was to be more than just a cultural center – also the world’s first superpower. Rome gave the world its own patois of Greek Mythology and made it ever more popular. From the legions of Julius Caesar to becoming the Papal city, Rome ensured that it was the vanguard and what more, the world followed in line. Eons later, the effects of all roads leading to Rome ( once upon a time) are still felt in that most European languages are descended from Latin.

The demise of Rome was gradual but tragic nevertheless and it did leave a vacuum at the top. By 479 AD which is considered the date of the Fall of the Roman Empire, there were not many cities that could ably replace Rome. During the interregnum, perhaps the most formidable city that dominated the ages was Byzantium.

Byzantium used its position as a geographic center of the world to considerable advantage and soon became the central world city albeit for a short time. However, rather than intimidate would be invaders, Byzantium changed hands as frequently as modern day coalition governments and even suffered two name changes in the process, to Constantinople during the Roman period to Istanbul under the Turks.

The crystal ball looked foggier than ever between 600-1500 A.D till the baton passed from the Meditteraenean shores, across the Alpine highlands with a short crossing of the Atlantic where it settled down on London. Though London’s position at the top was always challenged at best of times by Lisbon, Amsterdam and Paris, the erstwhile Roman colony of Britannia used its relative isolation from mainland Europe to best advantage and so sallied forth to dawn upon the New World.

From land, the power struggle turned to the sea. London leading a Kingdom surrounded on all four sides by sea was impenetrable by land and invincible at sea. A gradual but steady conquest resulted in an Empire stretching across the entire globe, an endless line of colonies ruled over in spirit and pride by London. The biggest and mightiest empire of all time which even defied sunset.

The next power shift was geographically the biggest ever. Ironically, in a country nurtured by London well across the Atlantic in a remote far flung corner of the globe which was hitherto regarded to be non existent. It was also the first ever globe city that was not even a political capital in its right. I speak of New York City.

Though London still holds on to its aficionados, there is simply no other city which can afford not even to be a provincial headquarters and still haughtily call itself the capital of the world. Let’s face it. When New York burns, the world sheds tears to cool it down. In under a century, a swampy village has evolved into the largest, brashest, most presumptuous megapolis on planet earth. New York City is best summed up by the common saying. If you stand in Time Square long enough, you will run into everyone in the world.

The reign of New York has relatively just begun and is unlikely to lose face in the coming century. But looking beyond and daring to extrapolate, which really could be the beacon city of the future? If the world’s most respected clairvoyant Nostradamus is to be quoted, such a crown will eventually settle on Paris. On the other hand, could the crown turn oriental and settle in Asia? Beijing perhaps or in a resurgent India, even Delhi. Or would the mantle decide upon another great geographic shift, to another non capital, Sydney? In any case, is it highly likely that the capital of tomorrow is yet unbuilt?

Athens - Once upon a time...

2006-11-28T06:13:00.000-08:00

Athens, it is said, sprung out of a contest between the Greek gods Poseidon and Athena as to who would be the patron of the village. While Poseidon rammed his staff to the ground and brought out a spring of unpalatable salt water, Athena gave the citizens an olive tree, which symbolized peace, victory and most of all gave them lot of olive oil. To commemorate Athena, the Greeks built a huge citadel with a Temple dedicated to her at the entrance. The citadel has come to be known as the Acropolis.

Athens had long fallen into obscurity and only recently woken to find itself having slept through all the ensuing scenes in the drama of life that it had first created. Rousing itself rather quickly, it was a shaky start to the re-founded Olympics of 1896 when Athens was still yawning but by the time it was 2004, it was finally wide-awake.

Ever since then, Athens frequently goes back to bed at the wrong time. Traffic can reach nightmare proportions at 2 AM in the night and at that hour there is loud cacophonous music blaring from the innumerable taverns that litter and pour into all its narrow wobbly lanes. In the midst of it lies a simple, slow moving city that simply wants its afternoon siesta. Old curly grey haired men sit chewing tobacco right under the streets below the Acropolis and recite stories of Greek mythology as if they had really been there to see it all. Going by their looks and professed sagacity, you’d be tempted to believe it.

Athens is a proverbial two-sided coin. For every chaos it exported, it also perpetuated democracy and the Archimedes Principle. For every war they started, the also ignited the first ever Olympic flame. Every Sophocles tragedy was accompanied by an Aristophanes comedy. While Greeks started the concept of justice, it was they who fed Socrates with hemlock.

Today, it is a similar story – for every breathtaking Acropolis, there is a shabby Temple of Zeus. The cramped, dirty, tiny lanes of Monastiraki flea market are just a stone’s throw away from the posh, sophisticated but still tiny Kolonaki market with upmarket branded goods. Luxury sedans honk at modest two wheeled vespas and supposedly five star hotels share walls with Youth Hostels.

Every part of Athens has a distinct colour. Under the Acropolis lies brown. Buildings with a rather muddy look beige and brown dot the streets, which are so narrow that the opposite buildings almost seem to touch each other. Lying about in between are splotches of yellow and pink. Patches of green sprout up in spores until the seashore and islands are all bedecked in white.

The jagged coastline results in some of the most awesome combinations of land and water. The blue-green Aegean Sea, in some parts, merges effortlessly into the white sandy beaches. And in others, it relentlessly bangs the sheer cliffs, which stand impassive to all. They are often a far cry from the crowded Athens metropolis. On the Greek coasts or islands, one can really find some calm and sangfroid.

Greeks have not inherited much. In fact they are the original progenitors of what the world follows today. And one goes back in time merely by observing them. And there are certain improvements in the other parts of the world which have still not reached Greece. The change of guards at the modern Greek parliament is a case in point. Apart from their outlandish attire, two Greek soldiers are supposed to stand perfectly still for an hour until when they have to make way for the next. That transition seems to have no practical purpose other than provide free entertainment for the ongoing public. The march-past somehow resembles a man on crutches and their habit of banging their rifles into the ground till all the tiles chip beats all logic.

As one walks down Plaka, the commercial center of ancient Athens, it seems the entire city dines all the time. Dinner in Greece is no hasty affair. It is savoured slowly along and garnished with generous amounts of gossip about everything that does not concern you. A game or two of Poker ensues while the women of the house carry on their discussion about their neighbour’s activities. And if you really prefer to be leaving, Greeks would pack you an extra meal or two to take with you with an hour of storytelling benevolently added on.

When one looks around the panorama, it is true that the –us of Ancient Greek has been replaced by the –ou of present day, (Herodotus is called Herodotou). The ancient dust paths have been paved with cobblestones or concrete and honking for way in the lane is a diesel drawn Mercedes and not a horse drawn chariot. However, while the Jesus Christ era changed Greece, Greeks have decided to stay just the same.

Barcelona - A Discovery Indeed

2006-11-10T09:37:00.000-08:00

A 2005 survey by Discovery Channel Travel and Living voted Barcelona as the No 1 tourist destination in the world. A city, mind you with not much historic significance and a city also not blessed with strategic location geographically or, at any point in history, economically. The city, nevertheless has coloured itself in iridescent hues solely due to its endearing motley culture that encompasses and galvanizes South America, Africa and Europe and garbs itself in every colour imaginable. Barcelona has used the Olympic stage of 1992 to springboard from an ordinary provincial headquarters into a must see attraction for backpacking tourist and weatlhy sybarite alike.

Plaza Catalunya is Barcelona’s heart. And Las Ramblas are the arteries that pump enthusiasm and embrace vivacity, irrespective of time, weather, man or season. A set of 5 roads succeeding each other, the Ramblas consist of a broad pedestrian walkway in the centre flanked by tiny paths for cars to pass through. A gentle reminder that in Barcelona, time is meant to run slowly. Fun is to be had along the way and not at the very end. Along the thoroughfare, in the centre of the street, one sees human statues, musicians, magicians shops and many entertainers wishing an extra buck from a passerby or just to showcase their outlandish talent. I saw for example, some really fascinating demonstration on spray painting by a graffiti artist who created every possible view of the Universe all with his bare hands and a set of spray cans.

Las Ramblas end at Columbus’s statue which imperiously points to South America, where Spain sought its colonial era glory. Beyond that is the Barceloneta beach and the Barcelona harbour that looks like a disorganized queue for a cinema ticket. Only, the queue is made entirely of yachts. Back on the shore lies the Cuitad Vella or the Old city which leads via tiny by-lanes, cobble-stoned pathways, shops and warehouses spilling out into the street, a perpetual humdrum of people of all shapes and sizes into the walled city of Barri Gotica.

Barri Gotica, a set of torturous, narrow, unlit cobblestoned pathways flanked by tall gray row houses with tiny windows on either side, throws you back to a bygone era whence walking was the sole mode of transport. Hawkers cry out for best bargains, touts and pickpockets ply their trade discretely and omnipresent street performers. Only the sound of si, senors and gracias, and the rambunctious Spanish tongue perpetually reminds you that this is not India but Spain.

Few talk of Barcelona without mentioning the eccentric architect Antoni Gaudi. The intricately decorated Sagrada Familia or the gruesomely attractive Casa Batllo and La Pedrera appeal to all five senses in surreal amounts. Surrounding the monuments would be neighbourhoods that could easily have fit into any major city in India. To me, the Sagrada Familia could easily be put into upmarket Alwarpet in Chennai and the setting would not be altered a bit.

The Parc Guell, another ingenious Gaudi creation, provides a hill top view of the entire city, and also contains some truly breathtaking architecture that include stone viaducts with some mind-boggling sculptures, serpentine pathways and houses without a single sharp edge that would make the most sea worthy sailor sea sick but still are so attractive to the tourist’s camera.

At night, when not in Las Ramblas and having our ears throbbing, we headed to the Montjuic Hill which quite famously hosted the Olympics of 1992 and now boasts of the famous musical fountain in front of the National Museum. A steep climb of dysfunctional escalators leads to the magnificent Olympic village which provides another perspective of Barcelona from atop.

The romance of France, the proverbial hedonism of Timbuktu and the sashaying spirit of South America, all cover Barcelona. Barcelona is no longer a noun in the English language. It is an adjective. Fantastic weather, life-long partying and a charming cityscape, appeal to and accommodate all walks of life. It has neither the aristocracy of Rome nor the haughtiness of London. Once called the poor man’s Paris, plebeian Barcelona has got its own back.

Scandinavian Sojourn

2006-10-31T06:00:00.000-08:00

The best lesson Denmark has taught me is to avoid travel when it is an obvious low season, never to be too venturesome when the laws of season are highly staked against you. Late October is not the best time to visit Scandinavia and I learnt it the hard way.
Denmark was, by its own standards, welcoming. The forecasted rain stayed away from us and for October, it was surprisingly warm. But we are mortal Indians and 5 degrees Celsius is not reason for one to be gallivanting around a Nordic country with the North Sea huffing a steady puff.
For being the literal roof of the world, Scandinavia is synonymous with costs that touch the ceiling. Not following the Euro currency and converting for each currency to Danish and Swedish Kroner can really hollow out your pockets and leave your head spinning around.
Moreover, we Indians come from a gregarious people filled country, and when you get into a public train and realize there is no one around to drive it, and that all the trains are remote controlled from some central tower, your hair tends to stand up on one end. But to be kind to them, the transport in Denmark symbolizes innovation. Completely automated trains within the city solve the low manpower issue. And for reaching out to more people, the countries of Scandinavia have well connected themselves by some breathtaking ocean architecture like the Oresund bridge across to Sweden.
They are blessed with idyllic landscapes. New Zealand is often called the most beautiful place in the world and it merely was named after Zealand Island on which Copenhagen is perched. A trip to Helsingor where stands the famous Kronborg castle, of Hamlet fame, covered the beautiful Zealand coast and took about an hour. But when we reached there, we realised the onset of winter when the castle was shut down at 1600 hrs. We turned back to face the Marauding north Sea, green in colour, ominously ready to blow a ghastly gale at you, and in the yonder horizon rose Sweden, visible through the slight fog, a greenish monster.
Before we beat a hasty retreat, the sun set rather rapidly. Back at Copenhagen, trying in vain to see the Little Mermaid, we realised there wasn’t even light enough to see her if she accosted us. As for asking for directions, there were a lot of buildings around but really no one to ask. Eerie. We went around to the squatter location of Christiana and found it rather full of people in trances. Eerier.
The next day we walked back around Copenhagen and visited a few major attractions such as the beautiful Nyhavn harbour and of course the wistful Little Mermaid. The normal charm that is associated with Copenhagen was so evidently missing and the world’s oldest amusement park, Tivoli, which inspired among others both Hans Christian Anderson’s fables and Walt Disney’s Disneyland was closed for autumn. No shops selling Danish pastry and the absence of Danish cookies from the breakfast palette made us gloomier.
The high point of the trip was crossing the Oresund bridge into slightly more sunny, slightly more expensive, Malmo in Sweden which had a few more people making us considerably more cheerful. Over a course of two hours, we almost covered the entire city on foot looking around to find an entire city shopping solely on high end branded goods. Broad bridges crossing wide canals connected wide boulevards. A small but well governed city.
People from Scandinavia descend from the venturesome Vikings and Norsemen and have inherited their traits for sure. The erstwhile hardiness and fitness have evolved into most enterprising human beings who have made their countries super wealthy. Only, meeting a fellow human being around here is an enviable achievement and is normally celebrated with some downings of beer.
The men look their Viking part. Huge, sturdy and not very well maintained. Rather ghastly grins which emanate dull, soporific baritones. In striking contrast are the women who all resemble Barbie dolls. You really cant tell the difference. The Nordic predominantly keep to themselves these days, not trying to influence anyone. Despite their tendency to scare a bunch of timid Indians, people are actually very helpful, polite and are well educated but eerily seem to lack a purpose. An isolated community with too few people, too much unwieldy land but with all the trappings of a rich country, have made the people rather unsure of their role in a global society.

Lilliputian Luxembourg

2006-10-24T09:09:00.000-07:00

Not many maps have space enough to fill its letters and conveniently shorten it to Lux or absurdly lu. Hardly anyone outside its borders even knows of its very existence, let alone them knowing that is officially the richest country in the world with a whopping 44 thousand US Dollars filling up every citizen’s pocket every year. Far ahead of second best Norway’s 35 thousand and way ahead of Japan’s 28.

Wrapped rather cosily like a sleeping infant between the two European giants, France and Germany with Belgium avuncularly looking on from the north, Luxembourg is not far from what heaven should look like. A green crib of rolling meadows with sheep grazing in the horizon passes by. Here and there, an odd cud chewing cow lie dangerously close to the railway track. The meadows intermittently give way to quaint forestland.

Luxembourg is characterized by silence. It is to be understood that this sleeping tiny little tot is not to be disturbed. The brooks that pass through reserve their gargling for their lower reaches and merely tiptoe through this territory. Tourists are few are far between and the settlements wear a deserted look any time after 7 PM. Shhh.. time for bed.

The capital area of Luxembourg city would not be called so in any other land but for convenience reasons, a garnishing of banks and public offices have been thrown into a few kilometres surrounding the Grand Ducal Palace. The Palace in itself is a lesson in humility. With neither compound nor imposing façade, it just naturally appears out of a tiny lane and could easily be missed but for the small Luxembourgish coat of arms on the gate. Even in the middle of the city, nature creeps in and holds court at the Petrusse Valley, with the tiny river gently flowing through flanked by a riot of colour on either bank.

Every settlement maintains a 12th century air. Streets are small, narrow, winding and more suitable for horse carriages than vehicular traffic. Time is still kept with the local churchbell tolls. And people are few and far between.

Our hotel was near a lake and it took some walking to get there. Looking at it from a distance, it seemed right out of a Wilkie Collins mystery. An incongruous villa silhouetted against a black cloudy night right next to a placid inland lake surrounding by temperate foliage. An absolute absence of any living soul made spines chill.

The border village of Echternach is not called Little Switzerland for nothing. The quaint, picturesque village has a stream running through it, on the other side of which, lies Germany. Swans ply regularly and provide the only movement in idyllic surroundings.

Luxembourg is a rich duchy with nothing to weep about. A blissful infant caressed and nurtured by all of Europe’s rich and elite. A well behaved one at that which purely minds it own business and solemnly reinforces its royal motto motto Mir wëlle bleiwe wat mir sinn “We wish to remain what we are.”

Amsterdam Sojourn

2006-10-06T04:45:00.000-07:00

After nearly a month here, I finally get down to writing the most awaited of my travelogues, Amsterdam.

Being Dutch
My first mention I must make of the Dutch people. They all seem very well versed in their manners and unlike us Indians who live in an atmosphere of distrust of our neighbours; the friendly and amicable Dutch make it a point of Good Mornings, Goodbyes and holding the door for the next person. It is all very normal for a perfect stranger to wish you a Happy weekend and also inquire about your past weekend and dish out tips to visit Europe. They have a rather laid back work culture which nevertheless means a lot more than the Indian one and they tend to manage a lot more within their day.

Indian Software Industry frowns upon anyone leaving office before 7 PM and anyone putting in less than 50 hours of work a week even if most of it is spent without purpose. In stark contrast, the Dutch bring in a lot of meaning to their marginally lower working hours( upto 4 everyday) and have clearly demarcated times for their personal lives. Every one here has a vocation and they know they work to spend on their personal pursuits and not earn to hoard like Indians.

Life, Lust and Amsterdam

Now to the all important city of Amsterdam. When I landed, the weather was a scorching comfort zone for me and I got to see the sin city in all its lasciviousness. My very first day( night rather) at the Hippy centre in Leidseplein was a carnival of pomp and light. Street shows, clowns, human statues and mannequins thronged the entire district at night. The highlight was a rumbling caravan, which decided to stop right next to me and pitch up tent for an impromptu rock concert. To put things in perspective, the scene resembled an Enid Blyton circus night.

A brief walk from Leidseplein involves crossing the numerous canals that punctuate the topography of this city. Houseboats anchored on the canals and the numerous cycles locked in various positions all over the bank are the most enduring sight. Fashion shops, boutique and restaurants spilling out onto the street nevertheless maintain a squeaky tidy road that led to the centre of the city, Dam Square.

Dam Square’s main attraction is the Dam castle. Adjacent to which are a series of classical looking museums all painted in Orange, the colour of the Netherlands Kingdom. But just opposite is the Amsterdam version of the Madame Tussauds museum which was my first stop.

Canals and Cycles
The best thing about Amsterdam is its compactness. In figurative terms, it would fit into a pocket. A 10 minute walk from the central station to Anne Frank house and I found out I had traversed half the map. The canals on the way, each more picturesque in the other, the cobble stoned pathways each transporting you to a dream realm of make believe and some old fashioned sailboats which each could have been the inspiration for the logo of Old Spice are a common sight everywhere.

Cycles tied to the bridges, lampposts, bus stops and even traffic lights are a common sight. And the best way to ensure no one steals your cycle is to fasten it to another cycle. The cumulative effect is a thick barricade of cycles everywhere that seems to most resemble a mop of unkempt hair. It is said that a generous layer of stolen bicycles sediments every canal.

Masterworks and Masterpieces
With all the scenery, Amsterdam has had its fair share of nature aficionados. Vincent van Gogh, Rembrandt, Vermeer and Brugel hailed from here and there are museums to vouch for them. To see all of their creations would take eternity and would be still heavier on the Indian pocket. The Rijksmuseum showcases Dutch history mainly as a maritime power and also the works of Rembrandt and Vermeer among others. Rembrandt's magnum opus The Nightwatch occupies an important spot and is the most visited attraction. The Van Gogh museum also is a heaven for photography enthusiasts with an excellent display on Cold War photography and also a spectacular exhibition on rare Japanese Meiji art. Vincent Van Gogh is said to be inspired by Japanese art and is said to have settled down at Arles in France since it most resembled his idea of the orient.

It is October now and the sunny summer has given way to a persistent rain. Days are dreary but picturesque nevertheless and nights are cold. A steady wind further chills down the air. For Indians, winter clothing is mandatory. It is only the beginning of my second month here and I am sure to have a lot more to write. This is just the first instalment.

Paris - City of Delight

2006-10-02T06:18:00.000-07:00

Paris is a city that can be described only in superlatives. For any visitor, it is impossible not to fall in love with the city of lights. After having spent the last 2 days there, all I seem to want to do is to turn the clock back 24 hours and sip in the nectar of the Parisian air.

The whole city is a breathing work of art. The panorama from atop the Eiffel Tower has centuries of history beneath it but instead of layers peeling away, the entire landscape has a simple, balanced and yet artistic feel that seems as if the entire city was crafted by a single person.

Despite being synonymous with laissez faire and debauchery, Paris is not garish by any means. Whether it is the lavish symphony of rooms that is played out in the Versailles Palace of Louis XIV or a seductive night cruise along the Seine, the monuments in Paris seamlessly blend into each other to create a spectacle.

The Eiffel Tower at night erases any doubts about why it is called the most romantic spot on earth and the sprawling Louvre museum clearly explains why people come from all over the world just to see a peppering of what is inside.

Paris does no advertising for itself. No neon lights or billboards greet the traveller. And most travellers already know what to see without any guidance. But what the traveller does not come prepared for is to get completely swept off his feet by the sheer seductive charm of the city.

Take a walk from the breathtaking Les Invalides to the majestic Palais Royale. Just when you feel that there is no other better place in the world, you turn aside and face the most famous thoroughfare in the world, the Avenue des Champs Elysees with the Arc de Triomphe proudly looking over it. Autumn comes in early to Paris and at first it lines up the Champs Elysees. The whole area seems blessed as you peer down the road and see a canopy of trees in summer or a carpet of leaves in autumn covering the path for you.

Everyone in Paris seems to be happy and that joy is infectious. Whether it is a perfectly respectable gentleman performing a free for all puppet show on the train or the hordes of couples embracing each other in various positions around Paris, the very people add garnishing to the delectable Parisian cuisine.

Parisians are stylish and fashionable. Beauty and delicacy are not exceptions. In Paris, they are inborn traits. Nothing ever looks out of place and however outlandish you seem, there is always room for an extra dash of colour.

Paris is a perpetual carnival of pomp and artistry. Everyone who goes there is charmed forever. Whoever you are and whatever you do, however long you stay in Paris, you will always want to come back.

Hari Painted the Mona Lisa

2006-10-02T04:18:00.000-07:00

Hi Vasu,

Yesterday i felt a bit bored so I decided to re write a bit of history. I found a small insignificant corner of Amsterdam called Madame Tussauds Art Gallery. The big book of history was kep open there for me to write on it. En route I rubbed shoulders with some common people here . One of them was called George W. Bush. He works around here as a museum showpiece and has a part time job as President of the United States. Some other people have strange names too, there was a vegetarian butcher called Adolf Hitler and also a nice modest young woman called Marilyn Monroe. While i was talking to her, a gale blew up her skirt. She was quite calm about it and just gave me a demure smile. I also met a Mata Hari ( no relative of Hari Sripathi) who greeted me by removing her underwear. I guess I should have returned the greeting but I obliged with our namaste.

I met Leonardo Da Vinci who is quite busy these days after all the publicity due to the movie on him. So he asked me to help him out with some work. An old widow called Mona wanted her picture taken and I had to do it for him. He asked me put my signature on it but I put in my own face in it just in case they forge my sign. With explicit permission from Mona Lisa( for that is her full name), I am sending it to you.

The letter I wrote to my cousin after seeing the Madame Tussauds gallery in Amsterdam. Somehow thought of putting it in its original form in this blog.

Grand Holland

2006-09-25T08:43:00.000-07:00

The much awaited windmill was seen. Also wooden shoes and Delft pottery. Justice has been done to the International Court of Justice at The Hague. Also in the way Rotterdam and Scheveningen was seen. And at the end of the day as if in summary, the whole of Holland was seen at Madurodam in miniature.

First stop : Rotterdam, a cosy but big harbour which once was the busiest port in the world. Scrupulously tidy and filled with skyscrapers that differentiate it from Amsterdam. En route, my wishes of all things Dutch were fulfilled with a tour to a wooden shoe maker and also to a Delft pottery exhibition.

The dutch wooden shoes are famous. Since the dutch get a large amount of rain, they could not walk about in leather. And so, they used what the rest of humanity missed, wooden shoes.
In the case of Delft pottery, the Dutch found Chinese clay tough to import and so invented their own local version which is today sold for about 40 times the price of Chinese pottery.

The route was filled with polders on either side and the bus was travelling on the famed dykes. The countryside sated my appetite for Netherlands culture with milch cows grazing lazily before "windmilled" farms.

Sleepy country really.

The city that missed out - Berlin

2006-09-25T08:41:00.000-07:00

The very name Berlin conjures up an image of metal boots and a woollen helmet marching down an ice-laden street with a grim impassive look on its face. Sixty years hence, the cliché of Berlin still remains. The sunny weather and balmy summer breeze do not hide the inherent frigid disposition of its denizens.

Berlin is a city that has time and again made the mistake of purging its past. It was customary in the middle ages when new dynasties wanted history to start from them; it was also done as part of propaganda by the Nazis but even today, the present German leadership thinks it best to wipe off the world war defeats from history books and completely obliterate memories of a certain Adolf Hitler.

What the Germans have done instead is made an abortive albeit commendable attempt to rebuild their city into a modern day metropolis and at the same time rejuvenate its pre-Nazi majesty. The years from 1914-1945 for which Germany is detested the world over is desperately being forgotten. It does not take long to figure out the list of contributions Germany has made to the world. Einstein, Freud, Beethoven, Marx, Bismarck et al have luminated Germany’s hall of fame and yet, a few dark years were enough for a great nation in the making to fall from grace and be condemned forever.

But for being dragged down by history, Berlin could have been a match to Paris. Its Pergamon museum is commendable and offers the best original display of Greek history in the world. The Reichstag, Government buildings and the new Hauptbahnof would be masterpieces in any era. Berlin possesses vast lawns and lush foliage and is one of the least polluted capitals in the world. Its Unter den Linden is a clear match to Paris’ Champs d’Elysees with the Brandenburg Gate, a perfect foil to the Arc De Triomphe, majestically imposing itself on the scene. And in Potsdam, it possesses a counterpart to Versailles. Ironically both world wars were decided by treatises in either locales. Both Potsdam and Versailles share an eerily similar history.

If history gives a city character and brings it to life, Berlin has been condemned to suicide through erasing its past. The Berlin wall is all but a stub, an example of ‘history cleansing’ by the Germans. A photo exhibition on the holocaust tells you in passing about Himmler and Goering but blatantly leaves out their boss. You would even mistake the Berlin Wall as something relevant to the Nazis and not to the Cold War. At places like Checkpoint Charlie subtle demarcations can be seen between the Soviet and the American spheres of influence as West Germany and East Germany converge. In the face of rigorous attempts to hide this difference, the tiny nuances become that more conspicuous.

Germans are an enterprising lot nevertheless and they promise to bring to life a new Berlin, the most modern city in the world. Its scrupulous tidiness is unmatched in any other country. And Berlin plans for the future with seven league boots ensuring that Germany remains a cut above its contemporaries. Their Parliaments for example, are undoubtedly the finest creations of the 20th century. They make an attempt never to be quiet, so that activity allows them to forget their terrible past and take pride in a ruthless efficiency. When I was there over a weekend, two marathons were going on. I have also never seen so much sporting activity. No wonder Germany is a powerhouse in everything they do.

However, beauty and tragedy are favorite companions. That is so poignantly underscored in Berlin - a city that started off to achieve the glory of Rome and London, but took a disastrous turn in the middle and ended up on the wrong side.

Belgium - Fairy Tale Kingdom

2006-09-22T11:09:00.000-07:00

Brussels and Antwerp have never really figured on my list of top places to visit. But I realized how wrong I was in a one day tour covering the cockpit of Europe.
Antwerp turned out to be a quiet fishing village and there were no diamonds on the soles of feet as expected. What I found instead was mythology and folklore peeping out of street corners and a weekend street life that seemed more akin to an Enid Blyton fairy tale.
Long years ago they say, there was a giant who levied a toll on anyone who crossed a particular bridge. The giant was cruel and cut of the hands of anyone who could not pay. Till along came a David-esque boy who cut of the arms of the Goliath thus giving the city its name which means “cut-hand”.
Antwerp was the first page to an enchanting journey to the city they call Bruxelles. Sumptuous, historic, cosy and a whole list of adjectives run into your mind the moment you enter this charming city.
The Sacre Coeur Basilica is the most famous monument but Brussels has more to it than reminders of the past. A heaven for chocolate connoisseurs, beer lovers and a must see for anyone with a tinge of artistry in them, the eurocrat city which has been named the headquarters of the European Union is not a city that could be decided on the internet. Take for example Manneken Pis, a small statue of a boy which “pisses” beer.

The first structure we saw was a giant replica of the structure of the atom, magnified by around a billion times. And then the bus left us at the city center to leave us in the middle of a carnival.

The city of Tintin and Hercule Poirot needs no introduction to make believe. From the word, all we saw was a see of human statues performers, a mannequin float including some Scottish bagpipers and some Moroccan flamenco dancers and some chocolate factories that made Willy Wonka look pedestrian.
It was my opportunity yet to try out my newly acquired French on some unsuspecting Belges. What I got in return was a flurry of words that were too fast for me to comprehend and I had to, disappointingly, settle down and converse in English.
Steeples and gothic cathedrals stick out of the horizon and the tiny balconies jut out into the sidewalk giving the entire city a cosmopolitan and yet neighbourly feel. Forests practically on the doorstep and tiny brooks though them make for picture postcard moments to be treasured.
The tour back showed us the European Parliament but we were all elbow deep in treacle to even notice.

Salaam Bombay

2006-09-12T08:05:00.000-07:00

I must proudly proclaim that I have now successfully visited all the metropolitan cities of India and have lived to tell the tales. My last week en route to Amsterdam was spent at Mumbai. What was supposed to be a day long trip was extended to three days on account of Ganesh Chathurthi which was overlooked by us in Chennai.

Bombay is at its best at Ganesh Chathurthi. Nothing captures the city better. The whole city echoes with deafening cries of Ganpati Bappa Moria and all television channels dedicate their telecasts to the large hearted elephant god. A furious rain embodies the effervescent spirit of the people and enhances rather than dampen their spirits. It looks quite like Holi in Delhi and Ayudha Pooja in Chennai.

For the wannabe traveller, there is no better news than an entire day spent in scouring through the city. All of a sudden, doors opened to me and I was able to spend hitherto impossible time at The Gateway of India, take a boat ride to The Elephanta Caves and while away the evening gazing at the Victoria Terminus after its sex change to Chatrapati Shivaji.

To provide an opinion, Bombay is not a tourists delight. The financial capital of India certainly does not have the history of Delhi or the culture of Calcutta to boast of. Its beaches at Juhu and Chowpatty are but patches of dust compared to the sprawling bays of Chennai. What it can boast of is denizens who are the most rational and forward looking in India. Where else can girls go out at 11 o clock at night anywhere in the city? And public transport which runs 24-7., people who value their lives and work towards their goals. The whole city is in a stormy hurry irreverent to the vagaries of nature or to whims of terrorists. It resembles an army of ants marching to a beat, with a single-minded purpose oblivious to external interventions. It is that resilience that gives the city a never say die spirit despite the never-ending rain and persistent terrorist attacks.

Bombay is costly. It caters mainly to riche and finesse. That is an oft heard statement and I cannot gainsay it. But Bombay has not the snootiness of the Delhi elite nor the presumptuous pride of proletariat Calcutta and certainly not the false prudishness of the Chennaiite. It is a city that minds it business and minds it well. And in true concordance with all Indian cities, Bombay being richer than the rest also has an equally large slum population that also includes the worlds largest slum at Dharavi.

Lofty skyscrapers illuminate themselves at night and lend themselves to the only skyline in India worth photographing. From Marine Drive at night, it is hard indeed to believe that we are in a third world country. Nevertheless, Bombay is still India. It has more than its share of dinghy lanes and shady alleys, perhaps more than any other city in the world. Pockets of green at Malabar Hill may even make it seem like a hill station but poverty is never too far away. A large and visible underworld to add on, makes Mumbai a candidate in the ilk of New York City and Rio de Janeiro. In my opinion, a lot more intense.

Almost everyone in Bombay lives in a flat. And the flats are not always impressive even from outside. No one can get comfortable accommodation in Mumbai and has to do with some sacrifice or the other in terms of space or money. But people love it. Anyone who has lived in Bombay for the shortest of durations would swear by it against any other metro and I agree with them.

Going Dutch

2006-08-01T23:07:00.000-07:00

This is to inform all readers, ( one if I am lucky) that I will shortly be travelling to Amsterdam on a short term posting. The initial stage of the trip will involve a brief stop over at Mumbai for the visa process, thus completing my desire to see all the metros of India in complete accordance with my prophesy a year back about all roads in corporate life leading to Mumbai.

I spent the whole of last night formulating my Theory of First Foreign Trips. This theory basically posits that for all people related or close to me, trips abroad are likely to fall in near vicinity of their respective birthdays. A few months back, my cousin landed in Paris, just one week after her birthday. Ten years back, my sister landed in Moscow on her 6th birthday and on Sep 2, 2006, 22 years of age, I shall land at Schipol Airport, Amsterdam.

Going by grapevines and wagging tongues, Amsterdam is a city known for all the wrong reasons. Having seen it through the innocent eyes of an ice cream toting 11 year old, all I can remember of it is an endless maze of tunnels, rivers, boats and lots and lots of cycles. I remember it to have a slightly more amenable climate to other European cities largely on account of its proximity to the sea. Nevertheless, over the last few years, my impressions on the dutch capital have undergone a radical change. After much deliberation, I have realised that I might have after all missed much of Amsterdam.

This time I have grander plans. No more dutch windmills, no more wasting time on chocolates, no more plucking at tulips. I have firmly decided upon taking recourse to history and do some information digging or in technical parlance, data mining. Nothing related to software of course. Apart from a desk job at ABN Amro, I plan to utilise the weekend to wade back in time till the second world war. The Anne Frank house, concentration camps. For dessert, I plan a visit to the German capital Berlin right in winter. I shall also pay necessary heed to Amsterdam's rich artistic lore and visit the Van Gogh, Rijksmuseum and the new version of Madame Tussaud's Gallery.

Watch this space for more. I have finally got more topics to write home ( homepage rather) about. And no treats folks, I am after all Going Dutch.

Democracy A Cycle of money

2006-06-14T19:54:00.000-07:00

Democracy is today, the world’s most respected form of governance. Apart from a lot of respect, a democratic country is often presumed to have an equitable flow of wealth. Why then do we find many democratic countries to be the most corrupt on earth? Irony or unwritten caveat?

First of all, the concept of democracy makes an intrinsically fallacious assumption; that the people who vote make informed choices. More often than not, it is not the proven track record of a candidate who wins votes but the oratorical skills, persuasive power, capacity to exhort mobs and sheer accessibility in numbers that wins the day. Where exactly do you find a soft-spoken politician who is stage shy, is a bookworm or for that matter in power? Winning in a democracy is all about advertisement. Certainly not being the best, not even pretending to be the best but merely being the most.

Consider a school election for example. It is unlikely that a leader is going to be chosen for his ideals, his level of maturity or even marks for that matter. A large percentage of voters go by grapevine information and a still larger number go by sheer accessibility. If A dresses better and seems to have a better voice, better looking and has more money to throw around, vote for A. B might really have a vision and radical ideas as well as the drive to achieve them, but never mind. A simply has more charisma. Thus, elections are not choosing for a country an able brain but more so an able face.

Extrapolate that to the national context, and add to it the various favors an average Indian is bound to expect from his leader. One would certainly be an admission for his grandson in school, an admission for his son in college, assistance in paying off his daughter’s dowry, waiving off his house rent and free liquor. And the catch here is people always want something that they cannot achieve on mere merit. It is natural to want something beyond you?

On a larger scale, to reach out to the maximum, politicians are always obliged to constantly shell out. Take for example, a politician who went around villages exhorting parents to stop asking their girls to work and instead opened schools for them. Take for example, a politician who sat with a village panchayat and instead of discussing how to steal land from the next village, put forth a financial plan for each family so that every parent could feed, clothe and shelter itself throughout. Would he ever be successful against a politician who simply gave the town leader a wad of currency notes, got his son in law, who had never seen a car, a driving license and further a job as a taxi driver?

And who exactly is affected? There are two important classes. A. The middle class which does not ask for favors, prefers to eke out its own living but pays taxes dutifully and B. The poor man who voted for the wrong party. But for the man who voted right, the cycle of money flows back to him.

Is corruption then justified? Definitely not! Can corruption be prevented? Definitely not! And finally is corruption good? Definitely not! Nevertheless, rooting out corruption is impractical and no government calling itself corruption free can function as a democracy.

500,000 USD - A small but significant difference

2006-05-27T11:04:00.000-07:00

I feel the entire Kaavya Viswanathan issue has been blown out of proportion. First of all, if plagiarism is the green eyed monster it has been made out to be, how credit worthy exactly are people like Shakespeare and Tolstoy. Also, the very passages that have been purportedly “lifted” do bear a resemblance, but in no way does it infringe upon intellectual property of any kind.

What else of a 19 year old?

At the impressionable age of 19, when emotions and intellect are at their most pliable, how easy is it to internalize an influential piece of work and sub consciously regurgitate it in your own language? So, is Kaavya being castigated for being a voracious reader? If so, how exactly is one to learn to write if not by reading and that too, extensively?

Photocopy or Concoction?

Going by news reports, it is purported that the novel has not been influenced by any single source. Rather, the story of How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life has a rather mongrel genealogy. Reports suggest that it might as well have origins in Salman Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories, a few works of Megan McCafferty and one of a certain Sophie Kinsella. If that were so, allegations of plagiarism continue to fall apart. Though, the novel can in no way be called a literary vanguard achievement, it cannot be relegated as a facsimile of an earlier work. It has been inspired by various sources and has been concocted into a veritable mishmash that reads well and sells. How then, is it different from just another trashy piece of chic-lit? It might never be worth reading at all, but it certainly does not merit all the slander, and certainly not being taken of all shelves.

Deja Vu

Plagiarism has been mankind’s earliest art. The first drawing a child makes is copied from a story book. The first song a bird sings is in imitation of its parents. I strongly feel we would not have come this far had it not been for efforts over the ages at copying, improvising and enhancing what our forbears have created. Has not Shakepeare been accused of plagiarism time and again? But does that in any way, undermine his achievements? He might have been influenced by others, but did any of them bring it out in so novel a manner as to captivate generations of readers into glassy eyed hypnotism.

The essence of human sustenance is after all in improvement and not in creation. The manner of bringing it out makes the small but significant difference. Looking at it through Sherlock Holmes magnifying glasses, there is no such thing in this world as a completely pristine creation. Calculus drew upon Ancient Mathematics, The Taj Mahal was inspired by earlier Hindu temples and certainly all these in their own right have been inspired by their progenitors.

Spoil- Sport Yankees

Coming to the sinister socio-economic ramifications that this issue has had, Kaavya was being touted as the latest example of Indian American achievement. The story of young Indian lass storming a bastion, long heralded as the sole prerogative of Britons and Americans was regrettably tough for the American literati to digest. The fact that she had got herself a USD 500,000 grant to continue writing was too much to take in. In an era where merit is judged on money, the elitist American Publishers Association could not fathom a non native English speaker commanding such a following and thus making a statement, not only for herself but for the scores of other Indians who excel at the English language.

An Indian trait?

The entire issue shows Indians at their whimsical best. Well, let’s face it; we give more reverence to reproductions than creations. How else do you explain why millions of Indian students spend all their mental faculties memorizing their lessons verbatim? How else do you explain the ascendancy of Anu Malik over the world of Indian film music? It is not a detestable trait. In fact memory is a much wanted gift. Positives of such reproductive abilities (Pun intended!) are that Indians unfailingly have been victors at National Spelling Bee contests in the USA and also make up the largest ethnic group in Mensa. Going by the same yardstick, Indians must not complain about copy cats. Why then, is such a hue and cry being made about the whole plagiarism issue? At first, calling her the next Salman Rushdie and the next moment vilifying her as if she were in direct, responsible for all our woes. It is a sheer case of giving the dog a bad name and hanging him.

Novel Factory

All said and done, Kaavya alone is in no way responsible for her debacle. All she must feel sorry for is to have fallen for the guileful manipulations of the ubiquitous factories in the United States that claim to churn out (churn in rather) successful Ivy League graduates. One of these happens to be Katherine Cohen of IvyWise. Desperate to make her a sparkling statement of purpose, Katherine Cohen was singularly responsible for driving a small time article written by Kaavya into the novel that it is. For Ms Cohen, what was meant to be another challenge and thereby redemption of her marketing skills, backfired into the scandal that is.

Agencies such as William Morris which brought out Opal Mehta are in essence, novel factories that offer young aspirant writers a platform to air their thoughts but at a heavy price. That being, a strict adherence to well established storylines and a stricter contract underscoring the mammoth share of profits earned. The unwritten caveat being that such houses conveniently cleanse themselves of any ignominy slung on their writers. Thus, the sinister role played by such houses can hardly be gainsaid.

A Last Requiem

In a recent visit to Bangalore, I read Kaavya Viswanathan’s How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got A Life. It was a boring day and I found it an ideal way to kill time. The book is no Booker Prize winner and it certainly does not mirror a Salman Rushdie clone. But in retrospect it was a very contemporary and refreshing look at the life of an American schoolgirl. It could easily be compared to Chetan Bhagat’s Five Point Someone. Considering the runaway success of that book, all I can say is Kaavya has not been denied a piece of history, (she might never have made it) she has only been denied 500,000 USD, as you can see, a small but significant difference.

Walk the Line

2006-04-11T19:39:00.000-07:00

Bio Pics are normally made long after the person’s death. I refrain from citing examples in this sweeping generalization and concede to exceptions. But the fact remains though, that bio pics are made more often that not, to re-inject into memory, a public figure, long gone and out of sight. With Walk the Line, James Mangold seems to have jumped the gun of sorts by largely kick starting his reel life portrayal soon after the real life demise of Johnny Cash.
The story of Johnny Cash and June Carter has been in public eye long enough. Throughout the swinging 60s (a fact to which Wikipedia will attest credibility), and with his death in 2003, within months of June’s, I can clearly remember most tinsel town tabloids waxing eloquent on their eternal love.
Walk the Line, all said and done, is but a plain, ordinary biography of a country lad stumbling through the normal adversities of childhood to make it big in life. The story could have been inspiring but for the wrong audience and certainly the wrong time, at a moment when the Hollywood has had more than its share of true life stories ranging from A Beautiful Mind to Ray.
The movie charades through the usual trials and tribulations that a death of a brother, an abusive father, drug addiction, a nagging wife and a complete lack of responsibility on the protagonist’s part, can bring. As expected, his salvation lies in his music, and his infatuation with a small time stage artiste June Carter.
The breeze of fresh air is Mangold’s positive thinking. Not much time is wasted by Cash standing outside prospective producers and begging for chances to strut his stuff. His career is shown as fast moving and successful. As is with Reese Witherspoon’s portrayal of June Carter. The pain of being a single mother struggling with career on tenterhooks is made suitably evident. But at no point is the viewer expected to reach out for his handkerchief.
The music is superlative as is expected. Commendable indeed is that Joaquim Phoenix as Johnny Cash and Witherspoon have voiced the songs themselves. In fact Phoenix is said to have rather over-rehearsed his role trying to get under the skin of Johnny Cash, imitating his style of holding the guitar, his gait and most of all his simple but legendary “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash!”
Evergreen melodies of Walk the Line, Fulsom Prison Blues and the Man in Black keep the audience foot tapping throughout the movie and June Carter’s mirth keep the audience smiling throughout. The happy ending leaves you with a feeling of your money being well spent. While Johnny Cash is at the core of the movie, Reese Witherspoon as June Carter delivers its soul, a performance worthy of her Oscar. Nevertheless, Mangold falls prey to the old biopic formula. He stretches and dilutes the core story until it resembles less a biography of a great man than just another mediocre hit.

Memoirs of a Geisha

2006-03-04T10:09:00.000-08:00

Japan today is synonymous with development. The richest and costliest country of the world. An economic monolith. With skyscrapers, bridges, neon lights and boulevards, Japan has nevertheless lost out on its traditional lustre. With Memoirs of a Geisha, director Rob Marshall does a reasonable job of providing an insight into pre World War Japan. A commendable portrayal of the times when Japan was powerful but nonetheless vulnerable and poor.

The movie traces the life of one of Japan's proudest institutions, the Geisha. Geisha are custodians of Japanese song and dance. Often paid companions to the rich and powerful, they pride themselves on being living works of art and little else. Selling their talents to the highest bidder but keeping their bodies untouched. The proverbial FACE VALUE theorem is apt for their lives: while putting up a face for the rest of the world to see, they often give up on their own identities.

Memoirs of a Geisha, is the cinematic rendition of Arthur Golden's eponymous novel narrating the poignant story behind the chalked mask. It portrays the life of young Chiyo moving from the seamy unfashionable districts of pre-World War Japan to the Arms of her Prince Charming. The childhood rather convincingly shows the strict and often harsh code of discipline enforced even today in Japan. A life consisting largely of whippings, bread crumbs and an oath of silence about her mistress' misdemeanours.

It is with the entry of Mameha(Michelle Yeoh) that Chiyo is manumited and transformed from a match girl into the captivating Geisha Sayuri(Zhang Ziyi). In time, Sayuri is forced to compete directly against her mistress, the malicious Hatsumomo(Li Gong).

What follows is a story of a modern day Cinderella. While Li Gong and the matron of the house reprise the roles of step mother and sister convincingly, Mameha is a veritable fairy godmother, solely responsible for giving Sayuri something to live for. Under her able guidance, Sayuri becomes the arm candy of high society and gets embroiled in a war of sorts with her ex mistress over one up(woman)ship. Needless to say, Hatsumomo is gradually defeated and those provide some of the best scenes of the movie.

The superficiality of beauty is conspicuous with Hatsumomo playing sore loser and burning down the house in sheer jealousy. However, her exit only underscores the poignant impermanence of youthful pulchritude. Sayuri acknowledges Hatsumomo's similarities with herself and concedes that someday, she might have the same fate.

However, for story's sake, there is a happy ending. Sayuri breaks from Geisha tradition and finds her true love in the Chairman(Ken Watanabe) who she has desired since childhood.

Rob Marshall's achievements lie in the setting up of Chiyo/Sayuri's surroundings. The movie has been shot in amidst others Singapore and Hong Kong and generous amounts of Tokyo thrown in.

To say the least, the scenes are cogent and convincing. I am yet to see a more realistic portrayal of Japan in colour. With the screenplay, Rob Marshall turns composer and walks the viewer through a sympony of colours, pageantry and beauty. All woven into reams of cloth and swirled around.

I frankly do not understand China and Japan having banned the movie claiming inappropriate portayals. China may have a point in that many real Geisha's were actually forcibly recruited for ungainly activities from mainland China. But the Japanese contentions that the life of a Geisha has been sacrileged holds no good. For a movie with such a story line, Memoirs is devoid of any unnecessary mawkish moments. The line between a Geisha and a lesser woman is clearly outlines at all moments. Anyone having seen this movie, will have nothing less than respect, albeit loads of sympathy as well for a Geisha.

( Edited version published in The New Indian Express dated March 10. This is the unedited version)

Saturn - The Lord of the Rings

2006-02-05T21:00:00.000-08:00

The past week has been the nearest that the ringed wonder Saturn gets to the Earth. With that having been published in the local vernacular newspapers but not in the English dailies, the RM Birla Planetarium at Chennai has seen some hectic activity over the last few days.

Yesterday I had my chance to peep through the telescope and relive Cassini's moment of joy.

The sight was absolutely fantastic. Through a 203* resolution telescope, I could see Saturn the size of a pea, a pea with a halo around it. The myriad moons of Saturn appear as small dots which may easily be mistaken for blimps in the telescope screen until the astronomers there point out to you that they are indeed Titan, Iapetus and Tethys, the heavenly consorts of the Ringed Lord.

I also got a complimentary view of the Moon. Apparently it was the best time to see it since the craters on the moon had cast shadows on the surface thus making it more clear to see. Contrary to popular belief, a full moon day is not the ideal day since the moon appears merely as a plain disk that day since shadows are few, making the relief features difficult to distinguish. I saw the Sea of Tranquility, the supposed lava flows and the myriad craters that scar the moon's surface making it look a bit like a semi fried appalam.

THrough the high power GPS enabled telescope, one can also locate various other stellar formations including the Pleiades constellations and the Orion Nebula both which looked like mere spots in the sky albeit a few times bigger than when seen with naked eye. As for the nebula, the faint cloud was somewhat discernible through the telescope.

The Red Planet, messenger of the gods, Mars was playing hard to get trying to hide behind the moon and each time I tried focussing, it would vanish and start playing peek a boo. So I gave up in the end owing to constraints of time and prods by other people wanting a peep at the telescope.

Sadly the planetarium does not have facilities to capture photographs and release them to the press and so only the chosen few who dare to go have a sighting of the Lord of the Rings.

Saturn is visible over the horizon till the end of March and this is to exhort all wannabe astronomers to go see it as fast as possible. To the more adventurous, Jupiter rises at around 1 in the morning and is visible upto sunrise. It is said that the Great red spot and the storms of jupiter are visible.

( This is an article I am rather sentimental about. It is the first and only article that was given to me as an assignment by The Birla Planetarium. Published by them in their annual journal.)

Ramblings of a Senescent Youth

2006-01-23T07:42:00.000-08:00

The blog was originally started by me to enhance my creative writing ability to score well in the GRE. Now with all that way back in my life. I must say the blog's myopic purpose has been achieved though its ultimate ambition of gving me wings to fly away to distant lands has been blunted.

Today the blog has degenerated into unmitigated ramblings of a senescent youth in search of his own true self.

So in keeping with this blog's narrow ambit, I continue to chronicle the pages of my life as and when I rest to write. My job has been kind to me to say the least; I am certainly grateful to Infosys for all. Disappointments in their manifold manifestations come and go, and I have long since become immured to their inevitability .

There still is a lot to look forward to in life. Life changes course so often; I hardly seem to exercise control over it. One of the best things I did in the last few days has been taking out my cousin for a tete a tete. It gave me more than just plain joy to share the hopes and ambitions of one so dear and near to me. And one who I consider my crib-mate. On her part, she has been a lot more forthcoming of late and that has by and large made me immensely happy. The sad thing is she will leave the country soon and I will miss her sorely. Though I doubt she will the same.

I continue to act as unofficial travel guide to all and sundry. Republic Day 2006 will see me taking a few Chinese "delegates" and a few children on a trip down Indian Heritage in Madras. A lot of expectation on that front. Alliance Francaise will continue to drape my resume in the colours of le tricolore with another level of La Langue Superieur. So if it is shut doors to the United States, I can hum La Marseillaise someday.

So all in, China, France, India, Australia and a host of other countries contribute to my daily existence. All except the land of opportunity; the land of the free and home of the brave. Strange life it is.

Back to square one

2006-01-01T02:12:00.000-08:00

After the blissfull life at Mysore Infosys, I am back down on Earth with a huge thud. I've been reluctantly pulled away from Mysore and conscripted into Infosys facility at Mahindra City against my wishes of being posted in Electronics City Bangalore. So it is goodbye to five star facilities, good bye to amusement park like swimming pools, goodbye to global education centres, goodbye to world class sporting facilities, good bye to round the clock cyber cafe and library. Goodbye forever to the excellent weather and goodbye to the sparkling cleanliness. Goodbye to the amiable Kannadigas, to the automatic laundromat, to the multicuisine food courts. Most of all, a tearful adieu to my friends from the People's Republic of China.

So back to square one it is, the dusty plains and sweltering heats of Chennai. On its part though, Chennai has been kind with the weather. The roads here are good but Mahindra City is too far away from any signs of civilization for such arguments to hold in its favour.

A Mysore Odyssey

2005-12-06T23:37:00.000-08:00

This week marks the beginning of the end of training. All modules have been dealt with and my final POST project will commence shortly. I have certainly learnt more in the last four months than I ever did in four years of professional education. In a few weeks time, I shall be a full fledged software engineer ready to take on the world. Yay!!. I hope to be placed in Bangalore or Chennai, but since I have become immured to the unrealistically high standard of living here, I shall ostensibly find it difficult to come back to monotonous, mundane living conditions.

I have been drilled into with software languages, computer architecture, and in general all the things that are generally called “Geeky”. Infosys has ensured that I speak and dream UNIX,C,C++ and lots more. Consequently, the erosion of my extra curricular talents has been exposed in this blog already. Powered by lack of ideas and Driven by an urge to keep my blog running and updated, I have decided to pen down a brief recap of a few of my activities that kept me on my toes in Mysore.

I have not allowed the software industry to stop me from traveling around the city. In all sincerity, I think Mysore is the most culturally vibrant city in South India. From having settlers from Gujarat, Kerala, Andhra and of course Tamil Nadu, the Palace city, imbibes and nurtures a multifaceted culture that is an onlookers delight. The Dasara celebrations are a huge tourist attraction here and deservedly so. The oriental wealth of the royal city is on full display Mysore Dasara Parade. The lights in the palace are a breathtaking sight comparable to the Rashtrapati Bhawan illumination in Delhi

However, the ancient capital city of Mysore’s most famous denizen – Tipu Sultan, is a huge let down. All that remains of Seringapatam is a heap of stones. So all a traveler can sate himself with, is Tipu’s supposed tomb and the Ranganathaswamy Temple. The Daria Daulat Bagh is a museum of sorts, all about Tipu but the exhorbitant entrance fees play spoilsport.

However, I visited the other famous Landmark of Mysore, the Mysore Palace. That more than makes up for Srirangapatnam’s shortcomings. Well maintained and tourist friendly, it is an entertaining visit. What must be deplored however is the pathetic tourist guide facility. The visit to Mysore Palace also reminds me of the visit to Talkad which is described in detail in my previous blog. Talkad is still being excavated and till now the Curse of Mysore Palace seems to be in full effect.

The other important heritage sight is undoubtedly the Chamundi Temple. A rather ugly looking statue of Mahishasura greets you, if you decide to go the wrong way up. The correct way to go up is to climb up the 1000 steps and announce your arrival to Nandi Bull before carrying on to the temple. The temple is in excellent shape and we were extremely happy with it, but the sights at Sravanabelagola eclipsed it.

The most satisfying trip in Mysore was my trip with the Chinese to the Jain site of Sravanabelagola. Certainly the symbol of Karnataka state, the imposing statue atop the Bahubaleeswara hill makes every inch of the climb worthwhile. At the time of my visit, the preparations for the “Mahamastakabhisheka” was going on and the statue was undergoing renovation, so the full beauty was not seen. However, the hill provides among others a bird’s eye view of a city that has not undergone much change since the old ages. It is as one would say, a trip down the ages.

That trip was followed by a visit to the twin cities of Halebidu and Belur, the capitals of the Hoysala Empire. Halebidu was originally the mighty Dwarasamudra, the pearl of South India during the 1100s. When it fell to the invading Afghans, it was the most vibrant city in this part of the world, a trait which Mysore of today has proudly inherited. It has suffered severe vandalism from the invaders during the Medieval period, and many statues are defaced beyond recognition. The ancient palace is also grounded and one can only see the entrance intact. Nevertheless, the intricate sculptures are simply out of this world. Needless to say, the Hoysala’s were great craftsmen. The name Hoysala derives from a king who killed a lion thus getting his eponymous name “Sala”. Several statues at the entrance bear testimony to that. The Hoysala’s seem to have been devotees of Shiva. The whole palace is filled with depictions of Shiva. There is also the statue of the bull Nandi outside the sanctorum.

Halebidu is an enchanting sight but Belur surpasses it. The sculptures are yet undamaged and speak volumes about Hindu culture. Many mythological stories are told through the magnificent sculptures. And unlike most heritage sights which require professional cryptographers to read them, the depictions in Halebidu and Belur are as lucid as to enable even a child to draw inspiration from them. The Chinese were breathtaken and many wanted to go there again.

Apart from unique heritage, Mysore has excellent nature reserves for those seeking calm and quiet. The Mysore Zoo is the tip of the iceberg and a rather impressive one at that. Though not as big and imposing as the Chennai Vandalur Zoo, and definitely not blessed with the same facilities, it is a quaint, simple place which offers an excellent morning walk. It also boasts of the only captive African Elephant in India.

The famous Brindavan Gardens and KRS Dam are renowned for their Musical fountain. It is well maintained and fully deserving of all the attention it gets. However, the Musical fountain has taken up playing Hindi film songs and so often the fountain degenerates into a cheap disco.

Next up, the Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary. This provides a significant part of the iceberg’s body. We took a boat around the lake and were thrilled to have crocodiles swimming with us. It is wonderful but sadly the authorities do not seem to have too many information brochures about the birds. Or it is not available to the tourist?

On the whole, Mysore is a tourist’s paradise. Everything a newcomer can ask for except glam and glitz. An unassuming city, with the simple hospitality of the Kannadigas all too evident. I must say, leaving alone the politicians, the people of Karnataka are the most friendly and broad minded in India. Extremely knowledgeable and willing to go out of their way to help you, they love to talk about their progress over the last few years. They are certainly a state with a bright future.

One flip side of every tourist destination is the hordes of hawkers who descend upon you at all times from all angles, like a swarm of bees. It is a harrowing experience endemic to India. I am certain it is one of the primary reasons why some people consider India a tourist unfriendly country. Also, many places demand a dual entrance fee for NRIs and foreigners. While the rates are all friendly to Indians, it is quite unfair on foreigners from not so prosperous lands. For example, the entrance for Indians to Srirangapatna is Rs5 and for foreigners is USD 15. Apart from being unfair, it also shows the Indian government as thirsty for foreign money and apathetic to not so rich traveller. For a world leader, it is an unnecessary image.

If only this problem was solved and factual information be more readily available, India can be back on the tourist map of the world. As the Chinese have told me time and again, the rest of the world wants India to develop. Everybody wants an India to look up to. India needs to reach out to other developing countries and stop trying to satisfy merely Western interests.

The Curse of Mysore Palace

2005-10-07T06:11:00.001-07:00

The Mysore kingdom, founded by Yaduraya in the year 1399, consisted of only the areas surrounding the Present Mysore City and in fact the original fort was supposed to have been at a place known as haDadana - an extant small village on the southern side of Chamundi Hill. Wodeyars ,like all others at that time were under the suzerainty of Vijayanagar Empire. The viceroy of the Vijayanagar kingdom headquartered at Srirangapatna. Wodeyars after Yaduraya slowly and steadily increased their influence and territory over the next 200 years. Raja Wodeyar the ninth Ruler of the dynasty was a remarkable man known for his valor and patronage of art and culture. He Ruled from 1578 to 1617. In the year 1610, he conquered the fort of Srirangapatna from Srirangaraya –the then Viceroy of Vijayanagar. Srirangaraya is said to have retired to Talakad along with his two wives. One of them Alamelamma was known to be a staunch devotee of Sri Ranganayaki- consort of Sri Ranganatha the presiding deity of the famous Adi-Ranga temple in the island fortress of Sri rangapatna. She is said to have fled to Talakad with the jewels of Sri Ranganayaki.

Raja Wodeyar on coming to know of the disappearance of the temple jewels sent his army to Talakd. Alamelamma to escape the wrath of the Mysore Army uttered the legendary curse on Raja Wodeyar and jumped in to the whirlpool with the jewels and escaped unscathed. The curse which has survived the folk lore of last four hundred years is known thus:

May Malangi turn into an unfathomed whirlpool, May Talkad turn into a barren expanse of sand, May the Rajas of Mysore not have children for all time to eternity.

Hearing of this extreme step taken by Alamelamma, Raja Wodeyar was truly repentant. All he wanted to do was to return the jewellery to the temple and not confiscate them for his own use. In grief, he had an idol of Alamelamma made in gold, installed it in the Palace and worshipped it as a deity.

Even to this day, Alamelamma’s idol can be found inside the Mysore Palace and is worshipped by the Royal Family. One can see the same huge pearl nose stud adorning both Goddess Ranganayaki and Alamelamma even today.

Dasara Festivities inside the Palace ends on the evening of Navarathri with a formal pooja to Alamelamma and the Kankana worn by the Royal Couple is removed there after paving way for the Vijaya Dashami – the next day. For these nine days the Royal Couple are bound inside the precincts of the Palace.

Another very interesting part of the story is that this Alamelamma Temple is under the care of the legal heirs of Alamelamma herself and they still stay inside the Mysore Palace fort. Strangely even these priests/caretakers appears to be cursed and even they do not beget children and follow the same pattern afflicting the Wodeyars!

Here a brief sketch of Raja Wodeyar which is necessary to get a historical perspective:

Raja Wodeyar after shifting to Srirangapatna is credited with starting the famous Dasara Festivities for the first time in 1610. But his only son died (effect of the curse !) just a day before the commencement of Navaratri, but the king after consulting experts has laid down the rule that the celebration of the ceremonies will not be interfered even due to the death of Royal members.

Raja Wodeyar was a devout of Vaishnavaite and he donated the famous bejeweled crown to the Lord Cheluvarayasvami of Melkote, which is celebrated as the Raja Mudi car festival even today. ( Even this Crown was confiscated by the Karnataka Government from the Royal Family during Emergency !)

Legend has it that, Raja Wodeyar having entered the garbha–griha of Cheluvarayasvami Temple on June 20, 1617, became one with the deity (aikya). Even today one can find a bhkati vigraha of the king inside the Temple. Another bhakthi Vigraha of the King can be found inside the Lakshmi-Narayanasvami Temple inside the Mysore Palace Fort.

Malangi and Talakad are two small towns near T Narasipur on the banks of Cauvery where the river takes a bend. Talakad`s temples lie buried in the vast expanse of sand and are dug up and exposed every 12 years. On the other hand, at Malangi, the river is at its deepest. Whether these phenomena started only after Alamelamma`s curse in AD 1610 is a matter of conjecture.

What can be stated with certainty is the fact that the curse on the royal family seems to have come true.

After Raja Wodeyar’s death in 1617 to Chikka Devaraja Wodeyar in 1704 (there were four Rulers in between), Kingdom was Ruled by the surviving progenies of Yaduraya, but none could beget legal heirs! Incidentally Chikka Devaraja Wodeyar is credited with the composition Gita Gopala – an opera in kannada.

The sole exception was Chikka Devaraja`s deaf and dumb son Kantheerava Narasaraja Wodeyar II ( also known as mookarasu).

What followed was a succession of nominal rulers adopted by the surviving queens to continue the tradition. Traditional Army commanders known as Dalvoy’s virtually Ruled the Kingdom and paved the way for the ascendancy of a foot soldier like Hyder Ali by 1762. After the famous Mysore War IV and the resultant death of Tipu Sultan , the legendary Arthur Wellesley ( also Known as Iron Duke ) conquered Srirangapatna in 1799. There were five Rulers from 1732 to 1796. In this period a definite pattern emerged wherein none of the natural heir to the throne born to a King(adopted or otherwise) could beget children, whereas one who became a King by virtue of adoption or otherwise was blessed with a legal heir. Even Hyder and Tipu continued with the tradition of having a nominal wodeyar king on the throne and even the Dasara Celebrations continued as usual. But after the death of Khasa Chamaraja Wodeyar in 1796 Tipu stopped even this practice and destroyed the Wodeyar Palace at Srirangapatna and also destroyed the famous Saraswathi Bhandara containing the Ancient Scriptures and oriental treasures. Infant Mummudi Krishna Raja Wodeyar and Rani Lakshammanni and other members of the Royal family were in a miserable hovel when the British found them. British restored the Kingdom to the four year old Mummudi Krishna Raja Wodeyar and shifted the capital back to Mysore.

What follows is recent history:

Mummudi personal life is very fascinating. A modern day Krishna in many ways. He survived a Kamsa in Tipu. He fought British and took the war to the British Parliament and got the Kingdom restored to his adopted son. He wrote his Gita in SriTattvanidhi and svara choodamani and other epics.He had his Rukmini and satyabhama’s ( Five pattamahishi’s) and he had his share of Radha’s too ( Fifteen gandharva vivahas). Surprsisngly he had children from his other wives. He had three sons and many daughters from these minor queens. He had one son- Nanajaraja Bahadur- from a Brahmin lady known as Puttarangamba Devi and even today this lineage survives and is known by the name Bahadur ( Nanjaraja Bahadur Choultry is a famous heritage structure in Mysore). But ironically none of the three sons survived him ! One of the descendents- a successful American citizen has recently started B.N.Bahadur Institute of Management under the auspices of Mysore University.

Mummudi adopted Chamaraja Wodeyar X as his legal heir in 1865 and when British refused to accord recognition and restore the Kingdom to him, he took the campaign to the British Parliament where under immense pressure from many Parliamentarians, British Government accepted the adoption and agreed to restore the Kingdom to the adopted son on his coming of age. Thus in 1881 the famous Rendition of power took place and Chamaraja wodeyar X, ascended the throne. Chamaraja Wodeyar X died in 1894 at Calcutta, leaving behind two minor sons and three daughters. While the elder seven-year-old boy was crowned as Nalvadi (the fourth) Krishnaraja Wodeyar, the Regency was entrusted to his mother, who came to be referred to as Vani Vilas Sannidhana. On turning 18, Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV was invested with full authority personally by the Viceroy, Lord Curzon, in 1902. His brother Kantheerava Narasimharaja Wodeyar was given the title of Yuvaraja. Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV died without children and as his brother had predeceased him, His son, Jaya Chamaraja Wodeyar was crowned in .His only son, Srikanta Datta Narasimha Raja Wodeyar, is now the scion of the Wodeyar family. He has no children.

It is amazing that the curse, barring that interesting exception narrated in the supervening paragraphs has survived from the year 1610 till today, for almost 400 years spanning 17 Maharajas. A miracle Or sheer coincidence? The curse, unlike the Privy Purse abolished by Indira Gandhi, seems to be still in force!

A Retrospection

2005-08-19T03:33:00.000-07:00

I pause upon a memorable period of my life. I step aside and see the phantoms of those days pass me. At the end of college life and the ensuing holidays, the longest vacations of my life, a retrospect at the last four years.

Parting times are always hard. And when the hour of departure strikes at last, I feel remorse at leaving behind all the familiar environs of the last four years. But all things that begin must end, no exceptions. And with each new horizon come new faces, new acquaintances, new tasks and new challenges all which must be met. To me the first challenge will be shake of the strands of complacency that have made me a contented couch potato. It is unlikely ever again that life will give me a chance to be so sedentary again for such a long time.

College life for everyone is special. A last age of innocence, of carefree existence where your immediate worry is if you'll get enough time for lunch. College life will always evince memories of quizzing, dumb charades, acting, writing, singing and speaking and all the other activities that have added charm to the four years. Least of all, I mention attending class, since I very rarely did it and even if I did, I was often too late for it to be of any use to me.

My fondest memories are of University Challenge in the final year and the first NCC camp at Lonavla as a first year. I went to the camp again as a senior but then that did more harm that good to me. The culturals I attended, all without winning a single pie and the quizzes that I won too all occupy pride of place in my heart. Not as achievements but just as experiences. I am perhaps the best quizzer who's career prize earnings still do not cross single figures in any currency. Me and money were perhaps not made for each other. To leave out the Malaysia trip would be blasphemous. Though the trip was worth around 30k, it still didnt come to me as money. All the aforementioned have found mention and detailed description in earlier blogs.

And to leave out the many symposia I conducted would be unnacceptable too. I have proudly been involved with conducting bits of WAVES in my second and third year and most of it in my final year. Add to that my experiences with two years of Techofes and being the dept magazine editor for two years. The quizzes I have conducted for others, both inside college and outside also are innumerable. I have often thought of leaving engineering for event management.

As and when I come back to college sometime, I see familiar faces which were once labeled as second years and third years, ( and who for me will ever remain so), all gone ahead by a year. The canteen where I spent a substantial amount of time still holds the same attraction as ever, and the universally detested Electrical Laboratory stills appalls me. It will be so for a few years to come till the last of the familiarity fades and college life in turn becomes a page in a voluminous novel that is turned over and forgotten.

I join Infosys at Mysore on Aug 22. I for one have no expectations and look forward to it with neither eager anticipation nor reluctance. I have learnt in the last few years to expect the unexpected. I consider it highly likely than I shall both shine where most unexpected and falter where in the past, has been my forte. Where the winds of time blow me is for time to reveal and this blog to tell.

Vellore Mutiny

2005-08-18T12:14:00.000-07:00

Mangal Pandey is regarded as India's first martyr. Not many however remember the Vellore Mutiny that predates the 1857 revolt by half a century.
A groups of infantrymen stormed the historic Vellore fort in 1806, to rescue the second son of Tipu Sultan who'd been incarcerated there since 1799. It was put down by the British regiments staioned at Arcot. All mutineers were shipped in chains to Calcutta. It was of very high sginificance since it is purported to be the reason why Lord William Bentinck was recalled as Governor of Madras.
Wonder why no one wants to make a film on the Vellore Mutiny?

Mangal Pandey - The Sinking

2005-08-17T07:59:00.000-07:00

It is customary for a lot of hype surrounding a movie of real life happenings. Moreover so when it is seen as the return of a star from a two year long sabbatical. Nevertheless, it has also become customary for much hyped films to sink without a trace. Mangal Pandey- the Rising satisfies both the above criteria.

Based on the events that led to what we Indians call the Frist War of Indian Independence and what the British dismiss as a Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, Ketan Mehta's Mangal Pandey has been long billed as a landmark film for Indian theatres. Apart from being Aamir Khan's comeback film, it boasts of being the first film made on one of the most significant occurences in India's history.

The movie starts showing the dhoti clad Aamir Khan( Mangal Pandey) being led to the gallows. The dusty surroundings and the colourful attire of the natives does provide a sense of deja vu a la Lagaan, but that's where the similarities end. In trying to recapture his best ever portayal, in what is arguably the best Hindi film ever made, Aamir Khan overdoes his "wronged native" image. The music by Rahman is insipid at best and seems to be a poor remix of a few of his earlier hits. The cast also leaves much to be desired, the roles of Amisha Patel as a female rescued from Sati is unnecessary and that of Rani Mukherji's too is not convincing.

Critics have often claimed that Mangal Pandey has got more than his necessary dose of adulation. Historians ( both Indian and British) say that the man in question was just a drunken footsoldier who one day decided to disobey his commander. He is also believed to have been an incurable opium addict and an indifferent British Armyman and not the hero he is made out to be. Also, the credibility of a mutiny in Barrackpore( where Mangal Pandey served in the 34th regiment) having immediate repercussions in Meerut where the actual revolution is said to have started is also dubious. These ambiguities could be best attributed to a suppression of the facts by subsequent British governments leading to us having to rely purely of fables and folklore for such stories. The real truth will never be known.

It is universally acknowledged that the soldiers refused to use cartidges greased with pork and beef, since they were blasphemous for the Muslims and Hindus respectively. In the movie the veracity of this issue is questioned by the British commanders till a Parsi manufacturer spills the beans to the natives. This manufacturer seems to be a fictional creation since it is held that the greased cartridge theory has never been completely proved. It seems to have remained a rumour till the end. Thanks again to the British suppressors of the time. The director in fact himself states before the movie that a few incidents and happenings have been modified to suit contemporary audience tastes.

To sum up, 1857 is definitely an issue that has long waited to be made into a movie. However, the makers of the film have made a mockery of such a strong topic with such vapid storytelling. All this when the 150th anniversary of India's First War of Independence seems to be just around the corner.

Chariots of Fire

2005-08-10T21:47:00.000-07:00

Sporting events today have become mercenary, ruthless and fame driven where the motto, more frequently than not, is "win at all costs." Exhibitions of good sportsmanship are about as rare as selflessness. Everyone is out for themselves. So it's refreshing to look back at an era when victory didn't demand isolation, bitterness, and hatred of one's rivals. Chariots of Fire, the Oscar-winning 1981 film, transports us to the 1924 Olympics, and, in the process, highlights such commendable qualities as commitment, perseverance, and fraternity.

That's not to say that winning isn't important to the competitors in Hugh Hudson's film. On the contrary, for British track stars Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross) and Eric Lidell (Ian Charleson), it's a paramount concern, but neither is so obsessed by their goal that they lose sight of the larger picture. Eric is a devout Scot Christian who runs because he believes it glorifies God. Harold is a Jew who competes as a way of proving his worth. A law student at Gonville and Caius, Cambridge, he is driven by an intense hatred of defeat. Both are driven by an inner fire, and have nothing but respect for their rivals.

The title is said to be inspired by a William Blake poem The New Jerusalem which has acquired cult status in the United Kingdom and is to this date considered one of the most patriotic poems of all time.
Bring me my bows of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spears! Oh clouds, unfold
Bring me my Chariot of Fire

Chariots of Fire tells the story of the British triumphs at the 1924 Olympics, where the UK representatives took a number of medals over the heavily-favored Americans. With Abrahams and Lidell leading the way, the British track team had one of their best-ever showings. This film traces the two principal athletes' paths to the Paris games, where their on-field successes form a surprisingly low-key climax. Chariots of Fire doesn't rely on worn-out sports film cliches; it's more interested in motivation and character development. Yes, it's important to know that Abrahams and Lidell win, but the real meat of the story is contained in what leads up to the races. Lidell holds fast to his beliefs and Abrahams gives all he has to give.

There's barely a whiff of melodrama in Chariots of Fire, which makes the film-watching experience all the more effective -- director Hugh Hudson shows respect for the integrity of his material and the intelligence of his audience. The absence of mawkish moments provides the narrative with a genuine quality that supports its factual background. Not only do we care about the characters, but we accept that they really existed. In fact, the entire production claims that same sense of verisimilitude. Most sports movies rely on nostalgia and adrenaline -- Chariots of Fire stands on strong writing, direction, and acting. Appreciation of this picture doesn't demand a love of sports, merely an understanding of human nature.

Gauhati and Shillong

2005-06-17T07:48:00.000-07:00

The Lokopriyo Gopinath Bordoloi Airport is an hour away from the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport, Dum Dum. Its earliest discernible, from the heights as a patch of grey amidst a vast expanse of green inundated by a blue green stream. The stream in turn widens on both sides of the expanse. While on the east it increases in girth till the horizon absorbs it as an extension of itself. On the west, it meanders its way through mounds of green and vanishes amidst the thick foliage. As one lands, the whole sight is engulfed with the small grey patch growing larger and larger, till you hit the earth with a thud!. Welcome to Guwahati

The airport is in fact a make shift Air Force base and civilian aircrafts are more an exception. The intense checks you are subject to, only compounds your fears of having landed in the wrong country. And once the check is over, you are expected to have someone waiting for you to pick you up, preferably someone with security cover. First time visitors are not often here.

With a name that translates in Assamese to city of Betel nuts, Guwahati could easily pass of as a city in the windward side of the Western Ghats. A persistent aroma of rain and greenery as far as the eye can perceive but wasteland nonetheless. Population explodes in bits and pieces as one rides through the city. The insecurity of the natives is all too obvious in a land where half the population consists of military personnel. Guwahati is a haphazard collection of many settlements connected by a state highway.

It is all of a sudden that the carpet of green abruptly gives way vast expanse of blue. Drivers of an unsuspecting car could easily be taken unawares and find it too late to turn back. The other end of the blue at best of times cannot be seen. All you can see is patches of green growing out like fungi from it. This is my first sight of the mighty Brahmaputra.

Guwahati is a town that is completely overwhelmed by monster river flowing through it. Rather than saying that the Brahmaputra flows through Guwahati, it is more apt to say that Guwahati is a city on the Brahmaputra. Ostensibly the river is a major source of livelihood for locals. When calm, it is the most benevolent giver of food to the natives, inundating their farms, providing food alongst its banks for their cattle. A mindblowing variety of marine life exists there which is all left to the natives to exploit. The very same giver can, and does every year exercise its destructive power swelling to twice or thrice its size and snatching back all it gives. India’s only male river, an awesome sight when calm and composed, is frightening to contemplate when in spate. And to think that the river is at its narrowest in Guwahati.

With such an awesome power, it is not surprising that not many bridges exist across the river. Most villagers build their houses on stilits on the banks of the river. This has today become a symbol of Assamese living. There are many shrines on the many islands of the river that must be visited. Umananda, being the most famous of them. The only way to get there is by ferry. It is a temple of Shiva in the middle of the great river and locals claim that even the river in spate takes care not to submerge the temple. On the island, one must climb around 500 steps to reach the shrine.

Facing the Umananda shrine, back on the banks is the shrine of his wife, Kamakhya. Kamakhya is more or less the presiding diety here. From all Umananda’s destructive tendencies, she provides maternal protection. Kamakhya temple is definitely the most visited of Guwahati’s attractions, and even more so in a state that has been torn apart with so much strife of late.

Shillong, the capital of Meghalaya is about four hours away from Guwahati and en route on can visit the Kalakshetra museum, a showcase of North East Indian heritage. The road to Shillong is discontinuous and dangerous and entirely at the mercy of the monsoons. Catastrophes are a weekly happening around here and in the face of insurgency; timely help is not always available for the needy.

As our gypsy began its ascent through the foothills, the scene outside the window was tropical: dense jungle, bamboo clumps, banana and pineapple plantations. Now, as we pant up a steep gradient and corkscrew around rocky promontories, the road edge falls away into deep gorges. Valleys open up between the folds of the hills, lakes sheen silver in the pale sunlight and cottages cling to hillsides festooned with flowering creepers and wild ferns.

As we approach Shillong, at a height of 5, 000 feet above sea level, a cool breeze carries with it the tang of pine and wood smoke. Shops and tea stalls flank the road, and houses spill helter-skelter down the hill slopes. We dismount at Police Bazaar-a swirling hub of traffic, vendors and pedestrians.

Shillong was established in the mid-1800s by Colonel Henry Hopkinson, agent to the Governor General of India, as a refuge for the officers and staff of the East India Company during the sweltering summer months.

To make the best of Shillong however, it is advisable to first proceed to Shillong Peak, a vantage point that offers a birds eye view of the entire city. It is inside an Air Force Base and prior permission is required to go there.

Shillong is simply a beautiful place with innumerable waterfalls year round and it is impossible to see all of them in the one day that I spent there. So instead I just sated myself with a cursory tour of what was the Imperial Capital of the Assam province when the seven sisters had not yet been created.

Meghalaya, no doubt is one of the more peaceful states in the North East but being isolated by its violent neighbours has not had much development in independent history. Added to that, apathy of successive central governments, and a feeling of unrest is slowly brewing. It consists of the Jaintia, Khasi and Garo tribes, Shillong almost entirely populated by the Khasis.

The Khasi dress is very strange. The women wear western T shirts and wrap around it a sarong kind of shawl that covers the rest of the body from shoulder to foot. Every adult seems to have a baby to carry on their back. I have never seen so many babies in one place. With tiny slits for eyes and heads resting on their mother’s backs, they are the most enduring sight of Meghalaya. They ride piggyback on their parents wherever they go and seem to play a very important part in society. A common observation is however that everyone seem to be chewing betel nut. It is much a state pastime.

The Khasi women are traditionally involved in housekeeping and tending to the farmlands, the men are expected to be hunters. This explains why archery as a sport is still so popular among the menfolk. Since, internecine tribal warfare has been a part of culture, the men have a streak of bloodthirstiness in them. In today’s world, with heavy government restrictions, the men are not allowed their weapons and this perhaps makes them unemployed and hence liable to arson and petty thievery mostly at night. Thus, in Shillong, people are adviced not to venture out after dark.

A strange consequence of government clamp down on the tribal warfare has been the vanishing of all fauna in the forests. Unable to hone their fighting skills on fellow humans, the Meghalayans have systematically wiped out all traces of wildlife. Today, no wild animal exists inside the forests since they have all been killed for food by the locals. The lingering fear of insurgents and terrorists has also hindered the work of the State Forest Department with the result that poachers have a free run if at all any wild animal is to be found.

I could not make the trip to Cherrapunji and Mawsynram since the sky was getting overcast and the roads are not always conducive

Calcutta Mail

2005-06-15T03:15:00.000-07:00

The longest holidays of my life and a keen sense of wanderlust left me with an option between the two metropolises I hadn’t been to, Mumbai and Calcutta. Since my corporate career was likely to take me to Mumbai in later days, I settled down on Calcutta.

Calcutta is a city that has stood the test of time. A city so fiercely proud of its tradition and past, that it has spurned all the advances of modernity and instead wrapped itself in all its oriental charm. A land where Rabindra Sangeet still tops charts, where the average Rossogolla seller is busier than Cadbury and Nestle combined, and where Pepsi and Coca Cola bend in defeat to Lassi. While the rest of the world debates on economic reforms and a free market, Calcuttans willingly relinquish all such freedom to a communist government that remains the only elected such government today in the whole world. And it has been in place for the past 30 years, talk of political instability.

We Indians excel in branding people with good humoured clichés. The nasal voiced Malayali, parochial Tams, uncouth Telugu or the Surd who’s handicapped at mental faculties. But if you ever land in any of these cities, it is unlikely that you will ever find a living demonstration that supports your assumptions. Not so in Calcutta. There is no paucity of characteristic Bengalis. The dhoti clad, pan chewing short man with graying hair and square spectacles, with an affected limp and a fractured English grammar to go with is omnipresent. Brought up on a strict diet of Rossogolla and Sandes, to him Rabindra sangeet still tops box office charts.

Places to see in Calcutta are undoubtedly many but shoddily maintained. Calcutta has everything one can offer to a history or culture enthusiast. Through the ages, Calcutta has been India’s second most important city and it is only losing its sheen today due to the advent of South India. Nevertheless, Calcutta possesses generous amounts of old world charms that is its main attraction.

Reminiscent of the British era, when it was the capital till 1911, are the regal Victoria Memorial and St Paul’s cathedral, and the impressive though badly maintained Writers Building which Is the seat of government. As is the Army headquarters at Fort William, that dates back to the 17th century. Calcutta also boasts of the huge Moidan which probably is the largest acre of free land in this heavily congested city. Many of these locations have not changed a bit since the Brits left. Near the Victoria Memorial are horse carriages which still bear the number plates V- standing for Victoria.

The Town Hall museum is a recent development in Calcutta. It takes one down memory lane depicting Calcutta’s progress from a hamlet called Kalighatta, to Siraj ud Daulah to the British Imperial capital and its significant contribution to the freedom struggle. It is one place that is tourist friendly and where one is free of the rancid odours and morbid scenes that permeate all aspects of existence otherwise. One must also visit the Botanical Gardens that boasts of the world's biggest Banyan tree and is today the last refuge for privacy seeking lovelorn couples

Calcutta has made significant contribution to world religion. Ostensibly, the most famous of its sons being Ramakrishna Paramahansa and Swami Vivekananda. A visit to the Belur Math where Ramakrishna taught and the Dakshineswar Temple, where he attained enlightenment. Of these the Belur Math is well maintained. Also noteworthy are the houses of Aurobindo Ghosh and the erstwhile offices of Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan and the Brahmo Samaj which is today defunct.

For a further trip down memory lane, there always is Kalighat, The temple that supposedly, gave the city its name. Adjacent to it is the Missionaries of Charity where Mother Teresa once worked. However they are located in the most squalid localities of Calcutta where theft and looting are common. Travellers would be adviced to accompany locals in there.

Perhaps the most enduring of Calcutta’s landmarks are the Haorah bridges. There are two of them now, named after Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and Rabindra nath Tagore. They are no doubt engineering masterpieces across the Hugli( locally called Ganga), which is also considered holy. The connect the main Calcutta city to Howrah, which is where a majority of the muslim population lives. It is certainly the most congested and crowded city I’ve ever seen where buses, trams, taxi and cars jostle for space in narrowest of lanes. Added to that are the innumerable pedestrians who make it a nightmare to navigate through. Nevertheless, Howrah is considered a craftsman’s haven. There is nothing that cannot be repaired there. Most of the metal works in the whole country are from there. It is also the location of Calcutta’s (in)famous railway station that is nevertheless deeply proud of its nasty appearance.

Calcutta is most proud of two of her sons, Rabindra Nath Tagore and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. Netaji, obviously is as revered as Gandhi in the rest of India and statues of him are ubiquitous at street corners. His car, in which he made his getaway, is still intact in his house, called Netaji Bhavan. Sadly, it is badly wanting an facelift. The same is true of Tagore Baadi, Gurudev’s residence which is run by a trust now that does not seem to be doing it much justice.

No visit to Calcutta is complete without a visit to the New Market and College Street. College Street is the most famous hangout of students, where every book on earth is available second hand and first. It also houses an array of food stalls that have been in existence since time immemorial. Most famous among these are the India Coffee House and the Paramount juice Shop which even after 40 years of brisk business still run out of a tiny shed.

Talking of food, sampling the Sandesh at Girish Ch Deb and Nakor Chand Nandy is a worthwhile experience. It is the oldest sweetshop in Calcutta in existence since 1290 A.D and boasts of a choice between 140 varieties of Sandesh. Rossogolla must be had at Chittaranjan on Jatindra Mohan Avenue and great Lassi is available there too. Puchka is the local version of Pani puri. The New Market locality boasts of unforgettable tastes in that regard. In terms of heavier food, all meals end with Mishti Dahi, vegetarian cuisine will certainly contain loads of Chhana, which is terrific Paneer. Largely I think due to their superior quality of milk. There is no paucity of food in Calcutta and one wonders why so many people still look hungry.

To sum up a rather long essay, Calcutta is an incredibly cheap and easy place to get around. You have the option of Buses, Taxis, Trams, Rickshaws or the surprisingly tidy Metro Rail or you can always hitch a ride. Though, the standard of living is very ordinary in comparison to other metropolises and all around a sense of poverty prevails. Nevertheless, the people are among the friendliest and you realize that their poverty is more a result of an inborn lethargy and laid back attitude than anything else. They remain much happier, amidst all the squalor, than most other people of more fashionable cities. In today’s fast paced world, it is heartening to see such a huge city strolling ahead in such a carefree fashion. It certainly does not have any qualifications to figure in a tourist’s itinerary except that it leaves you with a feeling, somehow, of unbounded Joy. It is comprehensible why most people brought up in Calcutta would never leave it for all the treasures in the world. Equally understandable is why no one from outside wants to settle down there. In today’s mercenary fast moving world, Calcutta is one city that values its sentiments and values above all else and intends keeping itself that way. It is a city that exists and flourishes purely to satisfy its own denizens and not to prove itself to anyone else. It is a city that keeps pace with itself purely for old time’s sake. Truly, the City of Joy.

A Beginners Guide to Kolkata

2005-06-12T01:50:00.000-07:00

Remember In Calcutta:

1. No one cares how you look

2. Don’t ever wear a Reebok shoe in Calcutta, it is unheard of. You’ll probably get hounded for autographs by street kids. And kidded for autographs by street hounds.

3. Same applies to any extra fittings. Do away with sunglasses, walkmans or jeans pants. They are unheard of too. Moreover you run a heavy risk of coming back without them.

4. One announces one's arrival at a guest's place with an audible burp. And if the people hear you, they burp back in agreement. If they don't, burp again.

5. Never TIP a waiter in Kolkata, if you are pleased with his service, leave for him a whiff of F.A.R.T behind you when you go. Apart from the waiter, other customers also appreciate your generosity.

6. You are not expected to leave any morsel of food untouched. No waiter will ever take back your plate if it is not cleaned already by your tongue.

7. Rule 6 probably arises because of a paucity of detergents, the same applies to clothes also. Remember in Calcutta: NEVER WASH YOUR CLOTHES and NEVER CHANGE THEM.

8. Also contributing to your social status is your ability to expectorate paan faultlessly. Most civilized people do so in the streets. Last heard: Calcutta was going to be named the world capital of expectoration.

9. To expedite the aforementioned, today in Calcutta, children are taught to expectorate along with their nursery rhymes( read Rabindra Sangeet)

10. In case, children learn English, the only nursery rhyme they learn is “YELLOW YELLOW DIRTY FELLOW”. The Calcutta Taxi association has honoured this noble rhyme by painting all their Taxis so. Last heard: Big B sought inspiration from this, and tried to market Rin here without much success( you must have seen the “Maine Poocha Kya” advert. )

11. If taxis are yellow, all teeth are too. Though you’re respected a lot more nowadays if you add on to the yellow, a tinge of black which signifies noble blood or a tinge of red which signifies… well, blood.

12.No wonder, the toothpaste industry never took off in Calcutta. I have honoured Calcutta by writing this blog in the color of their teeth.

13. While the rest of the world uses email, Calcutta’s preferred mode of communication is The Telegraph. No wonder a newspaper of the same name does brisk business only in this city.

14.A UN survey indicates that Calcuttans are the least stressed people in any metropolis across the globe. Well, if everyone has the secutiry of a government job. Plus where the work timings are 11 o clock to 5 o clock( inclusive of 3 hours lunch break), what more (less rather) do you expect?

15. Even if your office starts on time at 11 o clock. Never fail to be late. Bengalis are trained for this since school. Apart from usual awards, there are best latecomer awards that are very prestigious.

16. Give way to cattle on the road, they are of higher social status than you

17. The most famous, best selling shops are 150 years old but still haven’t graduated from being run out of mangy sheds. To Calcuttans, sentiment counts more than career enhancement.
Don’t be surprised to find the most famous paan shop in the world where no doubt, people from Indira Gandhi to Sachin Tendulkar have set foot( he claims so!) being run out of a mid size dining table on the footpath at College Street.

18. If you are ever homeless in Calcutta, free accommodation available at Howrah Station and Alipore Jail. ( No difference between the two)

19. There are no hair saloons in Calcutta, only as shown below

20. People in Calcutta eat "Phish"( pronounced p-hiss), a local sea food for breakfast, another local seafood callled "Phish" for lunch and "Phish"- a local delicasy for dinner. All three meals end with Mishty Dohi. Losshi- a local substitue for Coca Cola is also common.

21. Anyone from Calcutta, has the entire world revolving around him or her. They created the world and so never argue with them.

22. By mistake, if you start arguing even for the most genuine of purposes, the safest remedy would be to leave before the number of participants with alternative view points crosses 20.

23. If you still don't leave, you could still manage to slip away unnoticed before it crosses 40.

24. When it crosses 40, a war is likely to ensue, so SAY YOUR PRAYERS, or just say.. JAI KALI MAA.

25. Every newspaper promotes lateral thinking by running opinion columns like which is better, An underwear(spelled andervier) with red stripes or An underwear ( spelled andervier) with red dots.

26. Over time, Calcuttans became so well versed in lateral thinking that they won Nobel Prizes, but someone made a mistake in the dictionary and ever since Calcuttans started thinking late.

27. Amartya Sen wrote the book "Argumentative Indian". He somehow had to be a bengali for titling it so and also to think that India stopped in Calcutta.

UC Bloops! " Blanket Problem"

2005-02-06T01:44:00.000-08:00

We had won our first round match. One of my favourite, all time level answers had been an on the spot worked out DEAD MAN WALKING, and hence the name of this blog. Back on the train to Chennai, we were seated next to the SVCE team in the centre of a bogey, sandwitched by a couple of Basketball teams from Chennai and Delhi

In the morning I woke up to find one of our blankets missing. It was evident that one of the Basketballers,( whom one blanket served as loincloth) had conveniently pillaged it for use. The task of going and asking them for it was decided by a toss( to this day, i think the coin was one sided), Vijay and Venkat conveniently used their lack of knowledge of Hindi as an excuse to avoid the life threatening task. And anyone who knows Dipak's luck, in such circumstances knows that his opponent might as well be waging a lone war against Hitlers army. Added to that my usual misfortune and habit of losing tosses. Obviously, the man for the job....... ME

All the basket ballers had their blankets covering them and I decided that instead of asking them for it, I'd be safer to steal it and run away. Not mustering enough courage for that too, I decided to pick on a smaller man, of my own size who had this peculiar affinity for the train's toilet. That made my job all the easier and all I had to do was to pick up his blanket and walk back.

I am quite a professional at these things, but for a small faux pas( I'd say deliberate) by the SVCE team which shouted in chorus waking the whole train.

" Oye HAri, got back blanket eh, where did you take it from?????????????"

The train( since the small man was in the toilet) soon checked their blankets( stolen and otherwise) and finding them intact, went back to sleep.......................... I did too. "Problem Solved. "

It was in the evening that the small man came to our compartment to politely ask us if we had seen a blanket. Our usually noisy cabin suddenly became stone cold. Venkat, who had been practicing for post of loudspeaker decided that he preferred to play a sleeping 'bhooth'y. Me and Dipak, decided that we knew none of the languages that the man knew which included English and Hindi. All we had to do was keep giving bewildered glances at each other. Vijay, didnt have to act, since he anyway knew neither.

The harassed man called upon one of the Tamil players and asked him to ask us in Tamil
Basket Baller: Ennanga, kambli neengathane eduttheenga?

Dipak and I: ( decided we didnt know Tamil too): kept giving each other bewildered glances.

Venkat: starts snoring

Vijay: ( having no recourse to take( in Tamil)): Enna kudukkanom, Yaar nee, yethukku inga vanthurikkinge?

Basket: Day, enna vilayadariya, mariyathaya kudutthiru.

Vijay: Nanga Kudukkamudiyathu..... Ithu Yengaldu. Neenge vennna ongultha kudinga.

Venkat: snoring

We are joined by the SVCE crowd and the rest of the train as well as onlookers

This rgument goes on for sometime, the Basketballer is ready to hit us

Basket: Adippen

Vijay: Naan thirippi Adippen

Basket: Police ta complain pannuven

Vijay: Pannikkunge, naan parthikkaren

AND NOW IT GETS SPOILT

Small man( who had of late been giving the bewildered looks during the Tamil exchange)

: Is ladke ne chori kee( pointing at me)

Dipak( showing signs of fear): Hey Hari, you only stole it. Give it back

Hari( Since i still hadnt learnt English): (Bewildered look at Dipak)

Dipak: Hey Hari Give it da

Venkat: still snoring

Hari( wants to hit Dipak but cant show that he understood what he said)

Dipak( to man): Jee sab, hum de denge, koi baat nahin.

Basket: Enna Moonume pesaringe?

Small man: Yeh badmaash bacche.. teen language baat karte hain lekin acting to dekho

Hari: ( since the game is up): @$%&^**^* to Dipak ( in English), ^%*^%(*)to man (in Hindi)
and mustering up courage ($#%$&^& to Basket( in Tamil)

Venkat: wakes up and gives over the blanket

After they go
Dipak: Hey hari, i think you should go there and offer apology.

Hari:
$%(*&(*(%##$*&&*($#$#(*&$%#((*&&(*&$ ( In a language which has not yet been deciphered)

Malaysia - Truly Asia

2005-01-02T12:15:00.000-08:00

A few months back, Vijay and I got ourselves our most valuable quizzing success yet, beating some of the top quizzing teams in the city. Looking back, there is no one quiz, that was more tailor made for me, as this one was. Based on all my specializations of capitals, currencies and socio geographical issues, I had a field day at the end of which we earned ourselves a trip to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

It was certainly a trip I had been looking forward to with bated breath. I had spent a huge amount of time, drawing up itineraries. To see all, we decided to spend an extra day there which we paid for ourselves. So there it was, Day one at the Hilton hotel Petaling Jaya, KL

We landed at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport. There is no one word to describe this place. Massive, Majestic, Sprawling, truly breathtaking for any Indian. The lavishness of the architecture seemed of proverbial oriental lore, the floors shone with a persistent sheen and the people working seemed to go about their chores with a meticulous dedication and machinelike precision. We were completely caught by surprise by the whereabouts of the exit and could not follow the old policy of following the crowd as in India, simply because there was no crowd to follow. The people seemed to have dissipated into the vast expanse that was the KLIA. At length, we spotted a monorail and gingerly holding our possessions clambered into it, not yet sure of which direction we were destined to go.

We landed a bit too fast and a bit too close to the exit; before we even realized it, we were facing a gigantic neon screen that read KELUAR- Malay for exit. This was our first sighting of what eyes would become accustomed to seeing throughout the city. Just a few metres away, we were received by a driver who looked more like a rock star, with shoulder length hair and a conspicuous goatee. Just outside the airport was a benign, welcoming board in blue SELAMAT DATANG KE MALAYSIA. Just a sight at that message seemed to give us a warm embrace into this magnificient country.

The roads were wonderful, I felt a sense of déjà vu, having seen similar such wonderful roads back in Europe ten years ago( only it was left hand drive) and it was comfortable to go ahead at 110mph. Our first stop, before even the hotel was Putrajaya. Much to Vijay’s indignation, I decided to postpone morning chores and instead start off on our itinerary on a war footing.

We set foot on Malay soil at the new legislative headquarters of Malaysia, built in memory of their first Premier, Tunku Abdur Rahman Putra. Putrajaya maintains the traditional Islamic Architecture and added to it a flamboyant style that gave it a contemporary but not garish look. Again to further Vijay's indignation, we also decided to have a early lunch at an incredibly authentic South Indian restaurant that even cost less than Chennai.

The sultan’s palace was of expected grandeur, Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy where the monarchy revolves between the Kings of each state. So, the Palace was meant to house whoever sat on the throne for five years. Also of importance is the Putra Square which is like Vijay Chowk in Delhi or Tiananmen Square, BeiJing.

We took a zip around the micro city on our way to the hotel. We decided to visit the Batu caves, a temple of the immigrant Hindu population from India and of the indigenous practitioners from Indonesia( Bali) and nearby. Vijay by this time, was going red all over. And to soothe him, we had to head to the hotel and take a long sleep which by Vijay's standards was a nap.

We returned to KL city for a trip up the Kuala Lumpur tower to get a panoramic sight of the city. Super fast lifts, mp3 based tour guidance which we just had to strap on and a thorough insight into the phenomenal growth of the city awaited us at an altitude of nearly 450m up in the sky. The history of Malaysia was told to us and I was truly impressed.

Towards the evening, we went around trying to knock off items from the shopping lists we’d been handed out by friends back home. That included a visit to Chinatown and the IMby plaza famed for electronic goods. Chinatown’s best buys are undoubtedly the 10RM fake ROLEX and Rado watches. You can basically get anything there at half the price of it in India though a generous compromise on quality and authenticity has to be made.

My friend had come with a view to savouring non vegetarian Chinese and local cuisines but my vegetarianism would not aid his ambitions. Added to that, he yearned for seafood( near which I could not go) which he had to sacrifice and that did not go down well with him. Suppressed emotions were at a high soon when dinner was forced to be a local Malay affair, albeit vegetarian. Vijay, furiously refused to eat and ordered food back in the hotel which read Chinese Chicken Congee, thinking it was some delicacy. When he found that it indeed was a delightful marketing ploy of what we locally know as KANJI, the daily gruel that old people eat, he literally burst. I, meanwhile also helped myself to a generous helping of the grated cheese to provide a nightcap. My greatest accomplishment was surviving the night with a man who had every reason to murder me.

Day II

Our tour had officially started, we checked out from the Hilton to our hotel that was supposed to be free, the Grand Seasons. It was one of the tallest hotels in KL, and we bagged a room on the 36th floor. The USP being a splendid view of Malaysia’s very symbol- Petronas Towers.
We also made a trip to Genting Highlands, the island of entertainment purely to soothe Vijay's fulminating interiors. Skeptical at first, I thoroughly enjoyed myself at the amusement park. We didn’t have time to go on many rides since we had given ourselves only half a day and had to content ourselves with a round robin tour and an enlightening tour nevertheless of Ripleys Believe it or not and a horror room. Among the things we missed were zero gravity room, chamber of mirrors and casinos.

Back in KL city, we visited the KL war memorial and a traditional Chinese Confucian temple in the evening. It was a building in true Chinese architecture, with the swooping roofs to ward of the devil and made of various levels to signify the hierarchies of the gods. The Chinese seem to have religious beliefs very similar to the Hindus, burial of the dead, honoring them and the belief of a life after death etc. As also, they do boast of equally arcane and mysterious rituals and are governed by superstitions which bear an uncanny resemblance to the Indian life but which have weathered the onslaught of Westernization nevertheless. Their dedication to cleanliness and hygiene is praiseworthy. We also had a fortune telling session, the card to which I still carry around in my purse.

We stopped for dinner( much to Vijay’s relief ) at the MEGAMALL foodcourt where all sorts of food were available and I could keep my vegetarian vows intact while Vijay sated his throbbing appetite. The MEGAMALL is Asia’a largest shopping plaza and stretches for aroung three streets. Everything about it was big and fascinating. Decks upon decks of shops selling everything under the sun at a price very much comparable to India’s at better quality. Ostensibly, a considerable number of items in our shopping list got knocked off.

My best sight of Kuala Lumpur and probably ever in my life was the sight of Petronas Towers. The steel giant eyesore at day looks like ear rings dangling from the sky at night. A wonder to look up to in all senses of the phrase. We went to what had become the centre of the city for a nighttime view up close and it beats the Eiffel Tower( all bedecked, in maximum splendour) hollow. The sight of half a kilometer of steel and glass sends more than just a shiver up your spine, the sight of the Twin Towers like two sentinels watching over the city at that awesome height is at once frightening and overwhelming to contemplate. One feels a plethora of emotions, of man’s genius, man’s wealth, man’s enterprise that has gone into the creation of this masterpiece of human thinking. It dominates the horizon for an entire kilometer and the top is not visible from anywhere less than a hundred metres to it. The fact that it is an office with people actually working, only adds to the mystique. I remember clearly looking back from the car to see it receding bit by bit. I just couldnot have enough of it.
Back at the hotel, I still spent a great time looking out from the window for a view of that spectacular creation.

Day III
Most of our third day we spent at a Chinese Temple of the Dead, where the Chinese preserve the remains of their dead in urns. These urns are booked well in advance and can cost upto 4000 dollars. We also finished up what remained of our shopping, a small trip around Little India( aka Masjid India) and the old Kuala Lumpur city including the old legislative buildings, courts etc, the Army grounds and other government establishments. We packed in a second trip to Chinatown partly attracted by its items and also an urge to splurge on the last day.

We couldnot find enough space to fit in a trip to an ostrich farm and trying out our luck at a casino in Times Square. The day of our return, we spent considerable time roaming around the vast expanse of the KLIA, shopping for chocolates to please all those back home who’d be expecting foreign goodies.

In retrospect, the tour to Malaysia was the greatest three days of my life. The fact that I’d earned it myself made me immensely proud. Malaysia is a country that started off similar to India, ruled until 1955 by the British. In the beginning, they say, it was a marshy area, Kuala Lumpur being the Mouth of Muddy River, the name being its Malay translation. Along came a man called Mahathir Mohammad. 30 years of his benign dictatorship and the results are evident to anyone who sees. Almost everyone in Malaysia reveres him. Needless to say, he has the status of a demigod.

The Malaysians greatest asset is their tolerance. When we in India speak of discontent between three relgions, we must take a leaf out of the Malaysians who comprise three different ethnic backgrounds, Chinese, Indian and local Malay, all with distinct cultural heritages living amicable, developing their country into an economic powerhouse. Malaysia today produces surplus power, surplus fuel and has a per capita income which is the third highest in Asia after Japan and Singapore. And the tourism industry today has ensured that in the coming years, Malaysia’s growth has only just started. It is one of the most tourist friendly country in the world, and it does not cater merely to the Western riches, but offers you a lot for a very reasonable price. You’ll never feel you stepped out of home. All this for a country that the British though a burden to govern and left to its own destiny. Malaysia, not just truly Asia, but a beacon to Asia.

UC Bloops!! Part 1

2004-10-10T11:00:00.000-07:00

Episode 1:

July 21st had arrived, D day to us, none of us wasted time in getting ready. Even Vijay, who generally gives sleep precedence over all, woke up early and had a bath!!! We were soon to face IIT Kanpur in a matter of a few hours and the previous night bravado had of late given place to butterflies in the stomach. To add salt to the wound, we had spotted a girl at our breakfast table who we presumed to be from IIT Kanpur, and Vijay got himself this, as-of-date unquialified theory, that girls were dangerous opponents when it came to UC. The SVCE team which was preparing for their match against IIT Bombay had still not woken up when we left.

The quiz was delayed due to the late arrival of 2 IIT Kanpur participants, to our great relief we found that that girl was not on the team but just one of the team members sisters who had accompanied them.. Ha what a relief!!

It was during the mike testing that CEG Chennai proved to be the great entertainers of the year. We had reached a consensus on speaking only Tamil on the mike. That would not seem to difficult to Vijay who cheerfully carried on conversations all over. It was when the lapel mikes were attached to us were switched on

Vijay to Dipak in uncharacteristically pure, audible English

" Day Dipak, see da, that girl in red looks hhhhot da. "

Needless to say, we were not audience favourites for that quiz.

WE MADE IT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2004-06-17T23:16:00.000-07:00

Date: 11 Jun 2004,
Venue: In a Bangalore traffic jam on a rainy day
An apparition inside an auto that looks like a clone of Frankenstein, sits. There is darkness everywhere! A deafening silence that permeates all aspects of existence, broken by the ring of the creature's cell phone. In a short time, onlookers see the hitherto stationary auto springing into convulsions. Terrified spectators flee for their lives. Preparation for the auto driver's funeral are made. But for one radical soul( maybe press?) who decides to look in for further details................................................

I was in the auto on a gloomy, despondent day coming back from a particularly gloomy session at IISc where I was doing a project, life had long since lost meaning. All it was lost and lost was all. And that's when I received the phone call.

The proverbial leading from darkness to light, the proverbial lamp that lit up a cavern, did the panels of my cell phone on that day. The light at the end of the tunnel seems imminent and fast approaching, and it has never been this bright. If winter comes, can spring be far behind?

We have made it!! To BBC University Challenge 2004, with me as CAPTAIN. That makes me the second from my family to have made it thus. I shall hope to be worthy of my cousin Ajit Narayanan, better known as Q in IIT Madras who captained the team to their victory over the Brits Champs in the inaugural UC last year. Incidentally it was the only Indian victory in a series of 4 matches, the other 3 being won by the Brits.

The aforementioned phone call was from my friend and team partner over the last year Dipak Krishnamani, who told me that we'd made it. A confirmation came later from Vijay, my third team mate and the fourth Venkatram had been informed.

Along with us, the formidable team from SVCE consisting of Goach, Prashanth, Nandan and the God AC( Arjun not on team) have also made it as have IIT Madras from Chennai. the favourites this time are no doubt IIM Bangalore with QED level studs like Swami and my good friend Dushyant captaining them. Also other formidable teams are RVCE Bangalore, IIMs from Calcutta and Calicut, IITs from Bombay and Kanpur and Delhi, JIPMER. Though we are wary of the South zone teams, the north teams are no pushovers. Its more likely we'll face one of them. I'm hoping to meet my ex classmate, a man who i regard as my guru, the man who watched my baby steps in formal quizzing way back in school and was one of my first ever teammates. R Ganesh who heads the BITS Pilani team. Needless to say, I've never beaten him ever( faced him only once--- on my debut) , could I pull it off at the highest stage? and if we lose to him, I dare say, it'd be no less an honour.

As of now, I'm prepared to go all out and aim for the sky. I'm familiar with the pattern and Siddartha Basu's famed accent, I'm sure Venky'll have done his homework too. Dipak wants to be placed before staring out and Vijay seems to have enough in his head already to obviate necessity for prep. I, for one shall treat placement just as a formality. Henceforth, this semester, it shall be UC all the way. I need to be in Chennai on June 20th for TCS placement followed by Infy and CTS. and have shelved all plans for waiting for core companies lest they clash with UC.

Any post'd be incomplete without a complete SWOT analysis of ourselves. Vijay and Dipak have been established quizzers in the Chennai circles, I have joined them on two occasions and we have proved to be a formidable team. It perhaps comes as a surprise that I should be captaining this team and not Dipak but frankly, I appointed myself and I have signed treatises with Dipak for him taking over as captain in the unlikely event of us qualifyingg..

Now that the impossible has happened, time( and a few trades punches) will tell who'll carry the college banner.

Coming back to the SWOT analysis, Venkat is a fresh recruit for UC to supplement me. Dipak and Vijay seem to be quite confident at present. Since we've worked as a team in the past, we should gel well on screen. Venkat is a maestro of Indian history, politics and a veritable god of literature and mythox that sort of eases the pressure on me. Dipak and Vijay are sports manics who need no further. Our real weakness lies in entertainment and movies where we all draw blanks. That job has been entrusted to Dipak with me supplementing him when possible.

To fancy our chances, is counting unhatched chickens. We are a GREAT team, but the limelight has turned on us now, this is the stage that is going to matter for all time to come and to prove ourselves here would be to showcase of our talent on a world scale. As a captain,( at least i savour it while it lasts) we'll win University Challenge, that' s the spirit heh?