The Walk

The walk from my drop point from work to where I stay right now, is not a short one. It takes about ten minutes to walk cum run when am rushing to ensure I don't get left behind by the cab in the morning. Being a person who loves to cuddle up, and sleep a little bit more waking up early morning everyday is hard. Especially those mornings where the winter chill surrounds you and you are wrapped up in a cozy blanket, or even those days when the soft pitter patter of rain drops gives you a steady rhythm such that the music of the rain and the comfort of the blanket is too hard to miss.

So finally when I do wake up , it is a race to make it in time to the pick up point before the shuttle arrives. Evenings are not like that. Unlike the mornings, where I am the one in rush, and the world around me slowly wakes up, in the evenings the streets are alive with activity. Honking cars in narrow passageways , Benzes and autos squeezing themselves in a make- shift single lane turned double lane, the smell of something delicious wafting through the windows of umpteen restaurants- and in this mad bustle in the evening, I am at peace.

A car honks behind me, but I refuse to budge.. Moving 2 cms more to the left means a certain mucky slushy chappal, and no - I am not willing to make that compromise. He continues honking, and I continue to walk unperturbed. A whizzing motorcyclist at 80 kmph manages to squeeze through the traffic narrowly missing me in the process. A sleeping dog slowly stirs on the sidewalk. I soon descend to the quieter part of residential houses but rushing motorists and drivers all the same.

Earlier "PRADA"'s calls used to keep me company in these long walks. PRADA found his nickname for his fetish to everything branded, including PRADA. I guess if anyone spends their first 17 years of life in an ostentatious and brand conscious neighbourhood, they end up that way. However, the incoming calls stopped, and I found no point in calling again.

To keep company in the walk, I call up "Rock". Rock is an amazing foul-weather friend. However, drowned in miseries at work, of late, and certain other complications, he does not take the call. It can get certainly annoying when persistent calls go unreturned.

I call the"Next-in-line" in my have- to -call- to- know- if -alive- or- not - list. The phone rings away, and again no sound of any voice on the other end of the line. Ever since her Facebook status has changed from "single" to "in a relationship", it has been pretty difficult to catch hold of her. I know she still alive courtesy all the pictures she posts every fortnight from her crooning to her better half's mooning.

I finish my train of thought, and my line of walk with a call to Sweety. I tell her what a  crappy day at work it had been, some crazy things which I have always wanted to do, my bucket list and she advises me with enough maturity to complement my juvenile carping.

The walk is long but that is about the only part of the day when I get to have some " me" time. It is just my thoughts, and my music, and the only time when I can go hand in hand with independence and solitude, without feeling alone or rebellious.     

Welcome to Kerala

Kerala, AKA "God's own country" with swaying coconut trees and houses that dot the greenery, it is an ideal vacation place . Although technically speaking it is not much of a country as another state.

Besides the usual touristey stuff, some quirks about Kerala are listed below.

You know when you are in Kerala when :

1. If you are a female, everyone has to comment on the gold (or lack of ) on your body. If you have piercings for ear rings, and the ear rings are not gold, it will be commented upon.

2. In unfortunate instances, you would have to wear those .

3. Autos are way more reliable than any other means of transport in getting around. This would include cars or buses.

4. The only place in the world where you would probably find "English" Medicine in Pharmacies. The Malayalam medicine is of course Ayurveda, Herbal or a combination of those.

5. The recommended cure for everything is Ayurveda.

6. If it is not cured by Ayurveda, then you are undergoing a dosha samayam (bad time). Visit the local astrologer and find a pariharam (solution) around your problem.

7. You don't have a trash can for organic waste. It is you backyard. If the organic waste excludes bones and animal parts, it would also find its way in the fodder for cows.

8. Mango, Jackfruit, Coconut is what everyone grows in their backyard.

8. You are not surprised if some one breeds an elephant.

9. You are not surprised when you are greeted with a trumpet by an elephant in the local temple.

10. The symbol of the hammer and sickle is synonymous with Communism, not Maoism

A Blast of Chocolatey Weekend

It all began with a jar of nutella. Being a crazy chocolate fanatic, I went and bought myself a jar of Nutella from the store at the start of the weekend. Friday evenings are generally considered beginning of the weekend. Weekends in Chennai for me have been synonymous with boredom and frustration. Part of it may be Ambattur too. Chocolate has been a good healer. Call it binge eating, call it a chocaholic speaking , or call it the presence of phenethylamine (PEA) and tryptophan presence in it. PEA is the chemical the body produces which gives you the feeling of being in love. Tryptophan is the chemical which  produces serotonin in the brain. The higher the level of Serotonin, the happier you are.

I began my weekend with a Nutella sandwhich. And somehow the weekend just felt better than the usual boredom I looked forward to. It was followed by Gobi Manchurian from Shanghai Dhaba.

Come Saturday, I realized my regular hangout buddies have chosen to immerse themselves in the religion of India,  Cricket, and kindly chose to leave me with my obligations. Knowing a boring evening lay ahead of me, I drove from North to South Chennai to meet a long lost friend. I fixed myself again a Nutella Sandwhich before the drive which made sure my hunger did not burn out my stomach. It ultimately ended sustaining me for most of the drive.

Elliot’s beach is a popular beach in the South of Chennai. And I had been there just to eat at Mash. It is a popular hangout known for its sizzlers and proximity to the beach. I dined there for the first time about a year ago when my friends and I decided enough of Ambattur, time to head out to the beach. Mash was the defaulted  option for Dining. However, the beach did not let us appreciate its beauty. It was PACKED on the Sunday evening. An Ordinary Sunday and the beach was packed.

The night was different. The beach was empty this time. It was close to 10 pm on a Saturday night.  The beach was serene. It was a cloudless night, the stars blanketing the horizon and hovering over the water. This would have been an ideal night to lay down on the beach with your better half and count the stars under the sky.

Growling and rumbling stomachs led us over to Mash. I wolfed down the prawn dish I had ordered which came a good 45 minute after placing the order, in quantities not enough to satisfy the appetite. “Will that be enough”, a concerned friend asks.

“I’ll order dessert too”, I answered. Restaurants a lot of times, especially late in the night never have the full range of options given in the menu. I gave my order. What came turned out to be two scoops of cold vanilla ice cream over a hot brownie. In one word, Yummy and filling- My second chocolate dish for the day!!

The next day, I woke up when hunger pangs struck. My friend’s cook could not have been more welcome. After guzzling down idlis, we went for shopping and seeing Chennai on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Adyar is very different from Ambattur, and Chennai revealed another side to itself - Rows of quaint little shops, the beach, a decent crowd and ambience, very little dust, a friendly neighborhood.

We had lunch at a place called HOC , short for High on caffeine. This place had its own Foozball table and its own pool table. It also had a very nice ambience with small sofas set around the coffee table to create a relaxed ambience.

“This place is known for two things,” my friend explained, “Corn on toast and Mud. If you are lucky, they won’t screw up the corn on toast. ”

“Mud??”, I asked her.

“You’ll see.”

A short while later the Corn on toast came. It seemed like toast which was drowned in a corn curry of some kind. But driving around Chennai had, for some weird reason increased our appetites. And it did not taste as bad as it looked. Next, came Mud. Guess what it was? Yeah, a  chocolatey drink itself.

It was cold coffee with pieces of oreos and chocolate in it giving an appearance of a mud like texture. I left shortly thereafter and ended the day with a dinner of Maggi.

It was a satisfying weekend in Chennai well spent. The frustration that seemed to lurk with every weekend in Chennai was missing . Maybe it was Adyar, maybe it was the chocolate, or the tryptophan and PEA contents in it. But weekends in Chennai did not seem so bad after all.

(How I came to ) Land of Raavan @ Diwali time

When speaking to Westerners as in Europeans and Americans, I have often told them that Diwali is to us what Christmas is to you. It is true for a vast majority of the Hindu population in India. However, not true for all.

Hailing from Kerala, there are two primary festivals we celebrate, Vishu, the harvest festival and new year and of course Onam. The rest of the festivals are celebrated but with not that much of aplomb and festive fervor as these two festivals call for. Diwali, the festival of lights to a lot of people means good food, new clothes, lights, crackers , sweets and basically party. Diwali in my family is basically eating the sweets (which the Diwali celebrating neighbors  in Muscat give ), and lighting two smaller lamps and placing them at the entrance to the door. So by now you get the drift - I don't get oohed and aahed by "Oh it's diwali". I am more the type who goes like "So how many days vacation do we get for Diwali?"

Part 2 - Stuck in Chennai?? No way!!

Diwali holidays last year were on 12 and 13 of the November , which fell on a Monday and Tuesday respectively. Combined with the weekend that was 4 days of holidays, 4 days of paid vacation. And 4 days I had no intention of staying in Chennai. "Chennai is a beautiful city- with arts and culture, and a great place to hang out which you will love  " was what my Tamilian friends had told me before I landed here. And Whoa!! what a shocking surprise ! Chennai may be full of arts and culture, but it was polluted, dusty , had a weather which had no intention of giving you a peace of mind, red lights you can whizz pass by, and green lights you had to be extra careful while crossing,  auto drivers who love to splash out 3 digit figures to go to the nearest shop 2 kms away, and they blame it all on the metro. I can still go on, but I you get the drift. I am still not too fond of Chennai, though my Tamil friends keep telling me I still have not seen the real Chennai.


Moving on, the thought of staying in Chennai for 4 days straight was too depressing . I looked at other people in the crowd like me , for whom Diwali was no big deal and not going home was an option, and up came another Indo French partner in crime and a Mallu, who were not particularly doing anything for Diwali. We had two options ahead of us .. Delhi for Diwali for which the round rip flight was 12,000 Rs or Sri Lanka for which the round trip was 8000 Rs or so (though thanks to my last minute booking idea, we ended up paying more ). Thus the Diwali trip materialized in going to Sri Lanka. 2 Mallus and 1 Indo French forming the Michelin-teers (though Mallu 2 would love to hate the idea of another trip with the rest of us).

And So that's how I left Chennai for another country and celebrated Diwali, as my friend put it " the Land of Raavan". It was refreshing, relaxing and relieving to  leave Chennai behind and What a break from Chennai it was !! Lesser traffic ( lesser people ) , lesser pollution, and yeah, it reminded me so much of Kerala, courtesy the coconut palms that line the roads in the country, the cloudy weather and "pittu (aka puttu in malayalam )" breakfast served by the landlord at one of the places we halted.

Innocence Lost

I have loved movies. I come from India and that's what is ingrained in us - to love movies.
Our parents love them, our grandparents love them, and so we love them. Why even our global friends ( non-Indians ) love them. My first visit to France I was asked by some one if I knew Amitabh Bacchan. The dude was from Morocco, and believe it or not, Indian movies are big there.

As a child growing up, watching movies I just somehow found the same themes all over again and again. The theme of romance. The circumstances would be different but it was always the same formula. In the early 90s it was rich girl, poor guys parents oppose and depending on the movie (and the mood of the screenwriter) the couple get married or they commit suicide together (Romeo / Juliet .. sound familiar). Towards the later 90s love triangles seemed to rule the roost. With more movies entering the market, and when triangles seemed cliches, quadrangles, polygon, multiple love stories on different lines all entered the movie market. And ALL these movies are at least 2.5 hours long.

All these movies play on the sensitivies/ cultures and a different things common to the Indian mindset. Being Indians, being a family oriented culture a lot of things are ingrained into us. Eg : Listen to your elders, they know what is best for you, let them decide the life partner you live with etc. All these would have been possible in the 18th century.. maybe even the 20th century when joint families were the norm. People from outside families had to gel well with the families and that is why families stressed on the same religion, same caste etc. 90% of the romantic movies in Bollywood played on how the hero and heroine had the Herculean task in front of them on how to convince their parents .

While still a child , I wondered then why don't the parents let the guy and girl live together, let them figure out how to live life? Why do people have to complicate such an easy thing? When the hero told the heroine or vice versa that parents won't accept the other into the family why don't they convince their parents for that? Life is short and why waste time on complicating simple things?