tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24605651031473915782024-02-21T09:31:38.794+05:30Autobiography of an ordinary manAn ordinary account of an ordinary chap. Jazzed up a bit, occasionally. Do read on, if you have no economic function to perform...Narendra shenoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00435746867801885684noreply@blogger.comBlogger329125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460565103147391578.post-83491431898571473142016-05-05T10:26:00.000+05:302016-05-05T10:26:19.588+05:30The earworm<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
We had a power outage at work. Something major, evidently because a team of four or five people arrived from the power company, after about an hour of the power going. By this time, it had become very stuffy inside and people wandered around outside, trying to find a place which was breezy, in the shade, and not crowded. But it was two out of three, really, and I shuffled from one place to another without finding anywhere comfortable to stand.<br />
<br />
"Must ask the power company gents how long it will take", I thought to myself, and went off to institute inquiries.<br />
<br />
The power company guys were toiling. There were three or four really sweaty guys poking around in a jumble of cables, with a distinguished looking guy, also really sweaty, standing behind them and telling them what to do. The sight of all this, plus the bunch of open-mouthed lookers-on awakened the engineer in me. Actually, I'm a mechanical engineer and singularly ill-equipped to offer any kind of expertise in an electrical situation (for that matter, I'm pretty ill-equipped to offer any kind of expertise in a mechanical situation as well, but I digress) but that did not deter me from contributing.<br />
<br />
"That is the main cable?" I asked one of the sweaty guys who was poking around in that general area.<br />
<br />
"Yes"<br />
<br />
"Hmm. And that....that is an HRC fuse?" Another sweaty guy admitted it was<br />
<br />
"HRC stands for high rupturing capacity" I announced in the general direction of the sweaty guys.<br />
<br />
The distinguished looking guy gave me a look like he'd highly like to rupture something<br />
<br />
"That is a circuit breaker?"<br />
<br />
The distinguished looking guy had had enough. Tactfully announcing that it was too dangerous for people to stand near electrical equipment like that, he shooed us away.<br />
<br />
I returned, only to find even more people occupying the few shady and breezy spots. Also, I realized I had forgotten to ask the thing that I had gone there to ask those sweaty guys - when the power would be back. Just as I was turning around a bunch of guys standing in one of the shady, breezy spots started singing songs. A couple of them were dancing.<br />
<br />
"Nanananana Chicken, kukudookoo, nanananananana chicken, kukudookoo"<br />
<br />
I watched on in fascination at the spectacle, as I tried to make sense of the lyrics, which sounded daft to me. It turned out to be a song from the Salman Khan Bajrangi Bhaijaan.<br />
<br />
Just then, the power came back on and everyone scurried back to their ACs. The day wore on, and I reached home at my usual hour.<br />
<br />
"Annie, can we go to the mall?", missus asked<br />
<br />
"Right now? Why?"<br />
<br />
"It's your niece's birthday. We have to buy her a present"<br />
<br />
The fact of the matter is, my niece's birthday is not until next month, and I couldn't see why we HAD to go right now.<br />
<br />
I opened my mouth to voice all this and to my consternation, all that came out was "Nanananana Chicken, kukudookoo, nanananananana chicken, kukudookoo"<br />
<br />
"What?"<br />
<br />
"Let's go" I told her, sadly<br />
<br />
We shopped around for a while in one of missus' favorite stores which, happily, had a 20% discount, so she tried on something and asked me for my opinion.<br />
<br />
"Do you think it's a little tight on the hips?"<br />
<br />
The right reply is "No, no, it's just right" but instead, I said "Nanananana Chicken, kukudookoo, nanananananana chicken, kukudookoo"<br />
<br />
"What?"<br />
<br />
"I meant, it's just right"<br />
<br />
"Are you sure?"<br />
<br />
"Yes, yes"<br />
<br />
"Serious?"<br />
<br />
"Yes, yes"<br />
<br />
and so on, till she grudgingly accepted that perhaps I might be right.<br />
<br />
After we had finished shopping and in the car headed back home, she remarked that she was very happy with her buys.<br />
<br />
"Really good clothes for THAT price, don't you think?"<br />
<br />
"Nanananana Chicken, kukudookoo, nanananananana chicken, kukudookoo"<br />
<br />
"NAREN!" she said, with an angry look<br />
<br />
"I'm sorry" I told her "but that infernal song is just stuck in my head"<br />
<br />
Something in my expression softened her<br />
<br />
"Aww you poor thing. I'll tell you what to do. Get it out of your system"<br />
<br />
"But how?"<br />
<br />
"Sing it as many times as you can, while we are in the car, it'll get out"<br />
<br />
So I sang and sang till we reached home and sure enough, it was gone! It didn't pop into my head again till I slept and it stayed out even when I woke up this morning.<br />
<br />
Mornings are a tense time in the Shenoy household. There are milkmen to take milk from, paperwallahs to open the door for, clothes to take to the washing machine and so on and everything works with pretty much military precision.<br />
<br />
As I was leaving, I asked missus if she had decided if she wanted to watch a movie this evening<br />
<br />
"Nanananana Chicken, kukudookoo, nanananananana chicken, kukudookoo" she replied, sadly<br />
<br />
"Sing it out of your system" I advised.<br />
<br />
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Narendra shenoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00435746867801885684noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460565103147391578.post-17580637887364839842016-04-22T10:51:00.000+05:302016-04-22T10:51:01.794+05:30Ramdev Baba and the marinaded mutton chops<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Last evening, Sheela decided to try a new recipe - marinaded mutton chops. For all its innocuous sounding name, it needed many ingredients, among them barbeque sauce. So she went off to our favorite grocery store Shreeji (which seems to stock every single thing in the universe and is most conveniently, just down the lane) and asked for it. Alas, unlike us, who would pronounce it barr-bay-queue sauce, she calls it Baahbuhque. The chap at Shreeji was non-plussed.<br />"Baba ke sauce?"<br />"Baahbehque sauce", Sheela clarified<br />"Baba ka sauce?" asked the chap, with puzzlement writ on his face<br />To her credit, Sheela kept a poker face<br />"Nahi nahi,, baahbehque"<br />The Shreeji guy, doubtless disconcerted by the fact that for the first time in recorded history he might actually be out of something in his store, plaintively called out to his colleague<br />"Aapdi paase Ramdev baba nu koi sauce che?" lapsing, under duress, into his native gujarati (translation: Do we have any sauce by Ramdev Baba?"<br />This was too much for even Sheela. Dissolving into a severe case of the giggles, she finally conceded and said it right<br />"Barr-bay-queue sauce"<br />"Ah! barbeque sauce" Shreeji chap's countenance lit up with comprehension.<br />And thus were the marinaded mutton chops made</div>
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Narendra shenoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00435746867801885684noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460565103147391578.post-38394024070094774832015-10-18T22:01:00.000+05:302015-10-18T22:11:43.811+05:30Dear Diary stuff<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The last week has been enjoyable. First, we went off, the missus and I, with some friends, for a mini-vacation to Mahabaleshwar, a surprisingly pleasant 6 hour drive from Bombay. I was looking forward to this vacation. For one thing, it had been a particularly busy and high pressure time at work and for another, I had just found out that Mahabaleshwar was quite close to a place called Kaas which I've been wanting to see for ages. This place, also called Kaas Plateau ('Kaas Pathaar' in Marathi), is a large meadow on the top of a largish hill, near Satara, which has more than a hundred different kinds of wild flowers for about a month this time of the year. The timing was almost perfect<br />
<br />
But first, Mahabaleshwar. This charming hill-station has been the getaway of middle-class, mumbai based Gujarati families for decades, and shows its Gujratiness in a hundred different ways. Most hotels have a "100% Pure Veg" on their billboards (I've always wondered what a '75% pure veg or 47.328% pure veg' would be) and downtown Mahabaleshwar has several Gujarati thali places. Speaking of which, if you've never had Gujarati thali, you've missed something. It's a sit-down, all-you-can-eat meal comprising of some curries and the most awesome 'fulka' chapatis fresh off the tawa, followed by 'khichdi' on which a large spoonful of melted ghee is lovingly poured right before missus's horrified eyes. It's not something Miss Universe hopefuls would put on their dietary regime if they're vying for the title, but one is not, fortunately, a miss universe hopeful. Missus is, however, and sticks to the un gheed version. She makes several eye gestures indicating that she expects me to do likewise, which I spy through my peripheral vision and shrewdly avoid eye contact with her. The ghee bearing waiter, who has been looking saddened by missus' refusal to take any, is all smiles when he sees my acquiescent nod. After he goes away, missus asks me in an angry whisper what the hell I think I'm doing.<br />
<br />
"Ghee is good for health"<br />
<br />
"Sez who?"<br />
<br />
"Oh, hundreds of people. There is one Balaji Tambe who has this wonderful scientific explanation. According to him, the ghee that you eat enters the blood through the alimentary canal, goes right up to the coronary artery and lines it. This makes it difficult for plaque to stick and thus prevents heart attacks. I saw it on tv"<br />
<br />
Missus rolls her eyes and appears to be counting to ten "If you have another helping of the khichdi with ghee, I will hit you on the head with my umbrella"<br />
<br />
It is a reasoned argument and I am persuaded. I decline the waiter's insistent offer on his second orbit. He goes away downcast, possibly to the pantry to take some antidepressant medication.<br />
<br />
We head on to our hotel, the large and ostentatious, if curiously named, Evershine-A-Keys Resort which is quite empty, it being the off-season. The lobby is spacious and shiny, with french windows opening out into a garden. The place abounds, for some reason, with statues of lions. There are a few guests chatting up someone who appears to be an astrologer. He is an elderly man, well dressed for the part. Dhoti, kurta, a large red tilak on his forehead and the all-knowing demeanour that astrologers (and MBAs) seem to have.<br />
<br />
We are walking around in the lobby, having checked in, freshened up and gotten ready to go because we are waiting for our friends to get ready (we are going to Kaas Pathaar) and we are walking because we have to metabolize the ghee we have had with our khichdi.<br />
<br />
"Walk faster!" says missus and I take it up a notch, hoping these chaps will emerge quickly from their room<br />
<br />
Presently, they come out and observe that there is an astrologer.<br />
"Oh, look! An astrologer!"<br />
<br />
They institute inquiries and it transpires that the learned gent is indeed available for consultations when we return from Kaas Plateau.<br />
<br />
Kaas turns out to be a pleasant ninety minute drive from our hotel. Its a large, flat rocky maidaan which should have been carpeted with wild flowers as far as eye can see, but is rather less floral. "You should have been here two weeks ago" our guide, one Machhindra Kamble, tells us. "But don't worry. There are still a lot of interesting plants here". And there are, indeed! We see several kinds of ground orchids, some seven species of carnivorous plants, some very imaginatively named flowering shrubs (one is "shepherds hat" in Marathi, because the flower resembles the pagdi that itinerant shepherds wear on their heads. Another is called "Sita's tears" because they have spots on their petals which were the tears she shed when Ravana carried her to Lanka) and several other plants which have interesting tales which M Kamble tells with infectious enthusiasm but which I can't remember now for the life of me.<br />
<br />
We return. I am quite ravenous, and there is nashta laid out in the hotel which includes some very good looking bhajiyas.<br />
<br />
"Don't even think about it", Missus says<br />
<br />
"But I'm hungry!"<br />
<br />
"Aww. Here, you can have these nutritive biscuits"<br />
<br />
There must be hundreds of differences between a nutritive biscuit and a piece of cardboard but I can't spot a single one. Still, I AM hungry and it's either eat this or starve, and starving is not one of my super-powers, which is one of the major differences between me and Mahatma Gandhi. (The other difference, as missus will obligingly tell you, is the inability to be consistently truthful). But I digress.<br />
<br />
We find ourselves in the lobby and the astrologer is still there, looking wise, Our friends go over and chat him up. Missus and I decide to stroll around in the garden, which is looking awfully romantic by the light of the moon. We hold hands and reflect on the beauty of this place and how silent it is, compared to Bombay. "To be fair, a heavy metal concert would be silent compared to Bombay" I observe. Missus nods sagely in agreement. We're still strolling around when missus hears someone calling out her name. She looks around and sees our friends beckoning her to come on over and meet the astrologer. Missus is quite anti-astrologer and this promises to be fun. I tag along<br />
<br />
The astrologer takes a good look at missus' palm, asks for her date of birth and does some sophisticated calculations using his fingers. Actually, I've always wondered about the nature of astrological mathematics which I've been told since childhood is really sophisticated and complex, but which nevertheless yields itself to computation using one's fingers. How cool it would be, I find myself reflecting occasionally, if legendary badass mathematicians did their stuff the same way. Imagine Euler calculating carefully on his fingers and concluding that e power i pi equals minus one, or Godel checking and rechecking using the fingers of both hands, before observing that an effectively generated theory capable of expressing elementary arithmetic cannot be both consistent and complete.<br />
<br />
There, I wander off again. Sorry. Where was I? Ah, yes. The astrologer, presently having completed his computations, tells missus that she has wonderful children who love her deeply and will take very good care of her. Missus smiles. Encouraged, the astrologer continues. "Your husband is a gem of a man". Missus, to her credit, remains poker faced. "He is a pillar of strength in your life" Still poker faced. Red Indian Chiefs could take her correspondence course. "Your marriage is happy and will remain so for a very long time". And then, without warning "Your husband is indeed your god. You must touch his feet every morning". Missus gets a severe case of the giggles. The astrologer looks a little miffed. Missus controls herself and makes her impassive face again, but the magic is gone. The astrologer makes some general sounding predictions. We cross his palm with silver and push off to the dinner buffet.<br />
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Narendra shenoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00435746867801885684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460565103147391578.post-5141368795048274552015-09-12T21:51:00.000+05:302015-09-12T21:51:20.736+05:30Random stuff<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It's been a while since I've blogged (though I suspect no one's really noticed) and much has changed. My little babies have grown up and moved out to study engineering in faraway places, leaving missus and self mildly at a loss to find things to discuss. This is because, for a very long time, whatever we discussed was somehow connected with one or both of the boys.<br />
<br />
"He is playing the guitar", she would say to me<br />
<br />
"I can hear that", I'd answer<br />
<br />
This would usually fall below her standards of acceptable replies<br />
<br />
"He's supposed to be studying. He has tests coming up"<br />
<br />
"Hmm"<br />
<br />
"Hmm? What do you mean 'Hmm'? You are his father. You tell him to study"<br />
<br />
Missus comes from a fairly disciplined family. She tells me, though I find this extremely hard to believe, for my father in law is such a gentle soul, that when her father spoke, they would tremble. My sons have often rolled on the floor with laughter because of something I said or did, but I don't think they've ever trembled. But when missus is in moods like that, you don't quibble. You do as commanded.<br />
<br />
"Told them!" I would report back, confidently, for I had. I would shrewdly suppress the fact that not the slightest heed was paid to me by the recipient of that speech. Missus would diagnose this in about two seconds. She would say something imperious. Something like "There is a doctrine in law, I've been told, that an untruth has two components. Suggestio falsi and suppressio veri. Which means it is a lie, if you lie. It is also a lie if you don't report the full facts"<br />
<br />
"He said he'd study later"<br />
<br />
"You were supposed to make him stop playing the guitar"<br />
<br />
I would intently examine the floor tiles for minor defects.<br />
<br />
"Say something!"<br />
<br />
And every once in a while, we'd go back and forth about why the hell should they study (me), how the hell he'd never get into the IITs if he didn't (she), how virtually everyone I knew who was from the IITs was a bit of a pill to whom I'd never marry my daughter, had I had one (me) and finally, how people who derided IIT grads were usually people who didn't get into the IITs themselves (her). This would finally end happily thanks to a cockroach or a lizard, who populate our lovely city densely, who had sashayed into our bedroom and whom one non-IIT grad, to wit, your author, would eliminate from the surrounds, winning instant love and affection.<br />
<br />
All this has now ceased. The boys are independent and, more importantly, they know more than missus and I do about virtually everything. So, missus knits. I play chess on the internet and get beaten by virtually everyone I play with (I have, at the moment of going to press, excised the chess app from my computer and phone, having solemnly vowed never to have anything to do again with the blasted game). We go to the food court at the mall. Occasionally, the old spark resurfaces. Today, we dined on shawarma, and missus, for some reason, found my technique below par. "For heavens sake", she told me, "there's hummus smeared all around your mouth". It WAS particularly gooey, this shawarma. I tried to wipe it. :What ARE you doing? Now you've got hummus in your hair" and so on. Missus, of course, didn't have a single molecule of the damn thing on her person. She has supernatural powers, I tell you. As I was telling you, we don't seem to have a THING to talk about, these days!<br />
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File photo of when the tykes were young!</div>
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Narendra shenoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00435746867801885684noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460565103147391578.post-38446390384567908412015-03-17T09:34:00.000+05:302015-03-17T09:34:02.169+05:30An Alaskan Tale (groaner)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
"We have to find the impostor as soon as possible, of course" said the Agency station chief, "but with the utmost discretion"<br />
It was an unusual conversation for me. I am a specialist in the larger fauna of the Alaskan wild and in the course of my research, have spent many years living with the Unangan, as the Aleutian islanders call themselves. I speak their language and know their customs probably better than any non-Unangan would, but I had never had a stranger assignment than this one. I have studied bears and birds but now I found myself in a small research station interviewing locals.<br />
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"Would you be able to tell from just a conversation who the impostor is?" the chief asked<br />
<br />
"I probably would. There are unique intonations of some words. But I'd like to use a small feather, if that is permitted. Just to confirm it"<br />
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"Feather?" asked the chief, a little incredulously. He seemed to suspect I'd been having a couple.<br />
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"Feather"<br />
<br />
"Hmm. Ok, I guess"<br />
<br />
Later in the evening, the chief and I sat in his office. He had opened a Jim Beam in celebration and was effusive in his gratitude.<br />
<br />
"Thanks a million, Doc!" he said. "He cracked under the lights. He was a Russian plant, planning to open supply lines for them. But how did you know?"<br />
<br />
"Oh there are some words which are unique to the Aleut language which require an intonation of the vowel sounds that comes naturally to them but are quite impossible for the rest of us. The confirmation with the feather was the clincher"<br />
<br />
"You said something about the feather earlier. How does that work?"<br />
<br />
"Oh, the Aleuts have a peculiarity of the facial nerve which results in their being tickled when a feather is brushed DOWN on their cheek, but not in the opposite direction. Quite unique, I assure you"<br />
<br />
"And this one failed the test?"<br />
<br />
"Yes! I knew right away he wasn't a real native. He was an up-tickle Aleutian"</div>
Narendra shenoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00435746867801885684noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460565103147391578.post-64982372201279821782015-02-17T00:57:00.001+05:302015-02-17T00:57:31.854+05:30On my father's completing 50 years of medical practice<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Yesterday my father, who is a general practitioner, completed 50 years of being one. We had a little celebration in his clinic today, organized by my sister, who is a dentist and works with him. My sister and her staff decorated the place with ribbons and flowers and festoons and whatnot and got him to cut a cake. The celebrations lasted for about 15 minutes after which it was business as usual for him, with patients lining up with ailments, some real, some imagined.<br />
<br />
He nearly didn't get this far. He had some pretty radical cancer surgery in 2001 and pulled through with as little fuss as you could possibly imagine and then, a couple of years ago, a pretty difficult angioplasty which had everyone worried, through which he sailed with complete calm. (I'm writing this post mostly for myself because I'm kind of overcome with a great deal of I don't know what and I want to preserve that as best as I can. So if I'm boring you, my apologies. I'll try and come up with something jollier in the next post.)<br />
<br />
Coming back to the res, my father is the calmest person I have known. Calm in a quiet, unobtrusive way. Not in-your-face insouciant or a rebellious I-don't-care. He is simply calm. Some kind of inner peace keeps him going even when faced with situations that lesser people, such as I, would find impossible to countenance without substantial wailing and screaming.<br />
<br />
I'll give you an example. When he was being assessed for the surgery, the doctor solemnly warned all of us - including him - that since it was a long and radical surgery and since he had angina, hypertension and diabetes, there was a fairly high risk that he, well, mightn't make it. We were understandably downcast and on the day we went to admit him to the hospital for the surgery, we were choked by the possibility that this might be his last journey from our house and similar dismal thoughts. And him? He said he would like to go to Modern Lunch Home, an eatery en route to the cancer hospital, specializing in sea food, because he mightn't get the chance again. We went, my mother, I and him. The food simply turned to ashes in my mother's mouth and in mine but he ate heartily with the enthusiasm of a teenager. I tell you, when MY time comes, as it surely will, (though hopefully not for several decades yet), I hope I will be able to face the prospect of my own death with even one hundredth of that equanimity. Actually I'm pretty sure I won't. I'm scared of dying. Nearly everyone I know is. Everyone, that is, with the exception of my dad.<br />
<br />
But enough of this moroseness. His medical practice has been a tremendous success, if you count it in the number of people who see him as their saviour and cling to him for support. He has saved lives and given hope to literally thousands of his patients, many of whom acknowledge it in the most touching ways.<br />
<br />
He continues to work. His patients come to him, often for medical advice, but just as often for advice on their lives in general. People with troubled marriages, problem children, domestic conflicts and what have you, troop in regularly in the hope that he will counsel something that will miraculously make the trouble go away. Incredibly, ever so often, it does! Sometimes he will scold, at other times plead, but mostly, I think it is that wonderful inner calm of his that gets through to the most troubled soul, It seems to soothe the turbulent emotions that seem to be at the core of most interpersonal problems and I've seen it in action a few times. It's like magic!<br />
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So, congratulations, Pappa! Keep going!</div>
Narendra shenoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00435746867801885684noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460565103147391578.post-70723574363475771342015-01-23T10:45:00.000+05:302015-01-23T10:45:59.968+05:30The hazards of being a credit card customer AND a moron<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Here's some nuanced advice guaranteed to bring you peace and prosperity, advice which no one else will probably give you.<br />
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Do not be a credit card customer AND a moron. You can be one or the other but not both.<br />
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There. I have got it off my chest. The world knows now and is already a better place. As you heave a sigh of relief, dear reader, you are probably wondering how I was enlightened. Well, here is the story<br />
<br />
I am a customer of ICICI bank for their credit card. I have been a customer of ICICI bank for many things (including a demat account, a trading account, a savings bank account and a current account) and with great reluctance, have had to let go of each one of these because I would steadily find myself losing out to the sharp minds in that fine organization. With artistic flair and surgical precision, clauses, terms and conditions that they inserted into these relationships would quietly but surely ensure that they eventually got the better of me. If ICICI bank gets into a revolving door after you, and I mean this as a compliment, you can rest assured they will emerge ahead of you.<br />
<br />
I sportingly admitted defeat. It was a fair fight after all. They with their IIM Mbas and NLS lawyers, me with my, well, wits about me. I let them go, one after the other. But I hung on to the credit card. What, I figured, could go wrong? First, I had had it for nearly a decade and second, all I had on it was my cell phone bill payments which, to tell you the truth, I had no clue how to change to another subscriber while discontinuing this one. I had visions of two companies now paying the same cell phone bill to Airtel, resulting, of course, in the latter getting fat and lazy and probably acquiring a drinking habit. I love airtel dearly, as I would a child reared on my own money (which it is, sort of) and I wouldn't want it going to seed. The credit card stayed.<br />
<br />
So when one lovely December morning I got a call from some jolly old chaps purporting to be from the credit card department of the ICICI bank, I answered with nary a premonition of danger.<br />
<br />
The jolly chaps were worried. My reward points were expiring, they told me, and the only way to salvage anything out of it would be to buy this gift hamper containing shoes, sunglasses, a watch and some tremendously valuable discount coupons from a company called Deal@Once. I did find the thing rummy - they were asking me far too many questions, for one - but the jolly chap sent me an authentication message or something which seemed to come from ICICI, my trusted friend for so many years, and I fell for it. One thing led to another and before I knew what was happening, I had agreed to receive their gift hamper in return for 6999 reward points which were going to expire anyway.<br />
<br />
In the course of all this, I ended up giving them my credit card details and authorising the transaction - because I am a moron - all the while thinking I was authorizing the deduction of 6999 reward points from my account. And got a mildly nasty shock when I found it charged in my credit card bill in the good name of Amtec Engineers of New Delhi.<br />
<br />
I checked on the net and found that this scam has been going on for a good 6 or 8 months, if not more, and several of those victims were ICICI Bank customers. (To be fair, there are customers of other banks as well)<br />
<br />
I called up ICICI cards and whined but the lady at the other end was stern and unsympathetic. She told me to file a police complaint at the nearest police complaint and go cry someplace else, because SHE wasn't giving me any money back.<br />
<br />
So that is where the matter stands. I plan to go and file my police complaint. I was worried that the policeman might laugh so hard upon hearing my complaint that he might fall off his chair and hurt himself, making me liable to the charge of injuring a police officer on duty but a senior legal mind assures me that there is no law which will punish me for that, though he privately admitted that if more complaints like mine make it to local police stations, they might have to enact one.<br />
<br />
So here things stand. It's not ICICI bank's fault of course that I am a moron but I wish their fine minds would try to actively go after these fraudsters - after all, this has been happening for months now - instead of having conferences, meetings and off-sites devoted to inserting clauses terms and conditions in to their account agreements. We ARE morons, we customers, but we are God's children too. Aren't we?<br />
<br />
Here are some of the other sad stories<br />
https://www.bloglovin.com/blogs/icomplaintsin-online-consumer-complaints-7526159/dealatoncecom-credit-card-fraud-deal-at-once-2815285843<br />
http://www.icomplaints.in/credit-card-fraud-by-calling-through-mobile-027633.html<br />
http://www.scamadviser.com/is-dealatonce.com-a-fake-site.html</div>
Narendra shenoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00435746867801885684noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460565103147391578.post-33833930023490097312015-01-13T23:53:00.000+05:302015-01-13T23:53:34.194+05:30How I quit smoking and got a life<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It will be ten years come July that I've been a non smoker. Ordinarily, I wouldn't have blogged about this sort of thing because like the time I had that big pimple inside my nostril or the time I sneezed nonstop for two hours, they are anecdotes that hold little interest for the rest of the world. People faced with choosing between listening to those and watching, say, an episode of KrishiDarshan, would probably pick the latter. But one of my best twitter buddies, @TheRestlessQuil, declared she was going to quit smoking and I chipped in with (mostly gratuitous) advice. Another friend, @saffrontrail, urged me, diplomatically perhaps, to write it down in a blog post, which I suppose is sound advice because dear old twitter, for all its worth, makes it difficult for a verbose old fogey like me to express myself. So here goes<br />
<br />
I used to smoke in engineering college and then I had sort of given it up. When I married that goddess in human shape, the apple of my eye, the fruit on which hangs the fruit of my life, the.. well, missus, I was mostly clean. I would occasionally bum a drag when with old friends but that was it. Slowly however, it started as a cigarette or two when I was drinking with friends, then a cigarette or two in the morning because the head felt heavy and in no time, I was smoking a pack a day.<br />
<br />
The missus protested strongly. She told me that she hated my cigarette breath and she fretted over all those lung cancer ads. (at the time, I was very dismissive about the cigarette breath complaint. You women, you love to exaggerate, I remember telling her. But several years later, I happened to be seated next to a pretty young thing on a flight. Not as pretty as the missus, of course, but pretty nevertheless. Anyway, I looked forward to the pleasant prospect of chatting with the PYT, dazzling her with my wit and wisdom and whatnot, imagining her telling her children someday that while their father was a sound egg and a good person, they, the children, should have seen the distinguished elderly gent, (me, that is) who was with her on a flight once and so on, when she decided to open the conversation. And I had the shock of my life because her breath, which smelled of coffee and cigarettes, both consumed in copious quantities, was horrible. She spoke from a south easterly direction and I replied in staccato monosyllables in a north westerly direction till, after a couple of minutes, she gave up on me thinking I was some kind of crank. I realize now I wronged missus. Cigarette breath IS horrible)<br />
<br />
So, as I was saying, missus complained buckets-full and I kept telling her that I would give it up. This new years, positive. Ok, after my birthday, hundred percent. Well, after YOUR birthday, guaranteed. It never happened, of course, and we gradually started growing more distant. I would leave home extra early in the morning on the pretext of having work to catch up with and come in as late as possible, all because missus wouldn't let me smoke at home.<br />
<br />
Then one day, after an argument that was not particularly different from a hundred arguments we had had before that one, the missus ended up sobbing. Somehow, it stung me. I don't know why, it wasn't the first time she had shed tears over this topic of conversation, but I decided it was time to quit.<br />
<br />
And I found that I couldn't. I didn't last twenty-four hours. I would stride out in the morning, grimly determined to last the entire day without a single drag and by lunch I would be a complete wreck with no thought on my mind other than to race out and buy a cigarette. Someone suggested nicotine chewing gum and I soon found out I was addicted to smoking AND nicotine chewing gum. Someone else suggested homeopathy and you, dear reader, will be staggered to know I tried even that! Despite being a card carrying skeptic and a homeopathy-basher all my life (slogan - "NOTHING is as good as homeopathy"), I actually went to a homeopath who asked me all kinds of mildly daft questions like which side do I lie on when I sleep (you moron, how am I supposed to know that if I'm sleeping? But I didn't say that) and whether I held the cigarette in my right hand or my left. He gave me two or three bottles full of sugar pills with very detailed instructions on how, when and how many to consume. Needless to say, didn't work. The only positive thing about homeopathy was that that I didn't get addicted to those sugar pills like I did to the nicotine chewing gum<br />
<br />
Then one day, I met an old friend (whom I shall not name because he won't like it if I did) who had given up smoking, successfully, I might add, for he had not smoked a cigarette for seven years. He told me that smoking couldn't be given up by resisting the urge. I told him he was talking through his ruddy hat. Don't resist the urge it seems. Then what? Give in to it? No, he said. Just observe the feeling. It affects only your body, not you. I felt obliged to upbraid him again. Not me, only my body. Are they two different things? Dude, when I die, they're going to put up a photograph of my body, not me.<br />
<br />
He smiled mystically and told me to just think about it. Not the smoking or the cessation thereof, but who I was. He suggested I sit in front of a mirror and stare at myself for as long as I could and I would sense it.<br />
<br />
This held even less promise than homeopathy. If the missus caught me at it, I could forget about ever being taken seriously again. But I was desperate. I tried his silly little exercise, read up a lot about different kinds of meditation, psyched myself into determination mode and I don't remember what else.<br />
<br />
Then one day, I suddenly saw. The chap was right. I was different from me. I know what you're thinking. Old Naren has been having a couple. But I'm serious. I don't know what specifically set it off but I decided that day - I remember it was the 19th of July 2005 - the urge to smoke would not affect me. I began to observe it with distant curiosity, in the manner of a child looking at an exotic monkey in a zoo. My mouth would dry out. I could feel my temples throbbing. My eyeballs would hurt from the inside. A couple of deep breaths would make the feeling go away but it would return in a trice. I did not try to fight it.<br />
<br />
I lasted the entire day. This was a first. The next day was pretty much the same. And the day after. I observed myself getting more irritable, but I had read that this was expected. Managed to hold it in control, though I found myself being uncharacteristically acerbic, especially in my interactions with the loved ones.<br />
<br />
Days passed, then weeks and then months. I would go and sit with smokers, if I found myself in their company, and test myself (mildly Manu-Abha style, it now occurs to me). Sure enough, my mouth would water and I would occasionally feel my heart thudding away in extra-power mode but I could handle it.<br />
<br />
It was years before it stopped beckoning but now, I can't even dream of smoking a cigarette. Missus was extremely happy of course. She gave me such melting looks of gratitude that I regretted not having kicked the habit earlier. Entirely worth it. And if a weak, vacillating character such as mine could do it, there is no reason YOU can't.<br />
<br />
The question of course is why you should. Why indeed. There is no good reason. In my case, I did it only because it seemed to cause missus so much sorrow. But I am also glad to be rid of at least one master. It's freedom, however miniscule.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Narendra shenoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00435746867801885684noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460565103147391578.post-19760882817177170662014-09-28T18:45:00.000+05:302014-09-28T18:45:23.783+05:30The peacock in the mess<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The talk on one of my whatsapp groups turned to peacocks. This is rare. Most of my whatsapp groups feature a very high level of forwarded wisdom. One does not simply walk into them and start telling anecdotes but here was an actual chance. Discussion had veered to peacocks and I had a genuine peacock anecdote up my sleeve. I told it. People promptly shushed me - rightly so, because it was a pretty blade anecdote - and I slapped my forehead in delayed enlightenment. I should have posted my blade anecdote in the rightful place for blade anecdotes, namely my blog. So here goes, dear reader, hope you enjoy it.<br />
<br />
This happened back in Manipal's fine engineering college, where I was doing my stretch in the eighties. Manipal was a pretty rural place back then. Little farms dotted the countryside and large swathes of it was still forest. There were hyenas there, and leopards, but the prudent engineering student avoids adventure and we were mostly content with excursions to our local watering hole, the Red Sun Bar, and the occasional field trip to the nearby Kasturba Medical College in the hope that some winsome lass would fall in love with us at first sight. This had never happened - female medical students, for some reason, do not find poorly dressed, gawping, unshaven and mostly broke engineering students in dire need of some deo, sexy - but we'd keep trying our luck just in case.<br />
<br />
Coming back to the story, peacocks, porcupines and the odd spectacled cobra were the more commonly spotted species among the fauna. Cobras were sacred. No one harmed them though several hundred-meter sprint records had been broken there by diverse people following an unexpected cobra sighting. Our hostel warden was reported to have surpassed Bob Beamon's long jump without a run-up and in a lungi. Porcupines were eaten by the locals, though how they caught them was a mystery to me. Our warden, the same guy who had outdone Bob Beamon, would warn us. "The porcupine's prick is deadly" he would say, to the delight of students who, for some strange reason, would drag the conversation around to porcupines just to hear him say that. Bunch of juveniles!<br />
<br />
But the peacocks were mostly left alone. They wandered into campus and rummaged about in the grounds behind the mess kitchens looking for food. One peacock was sort of adopted by the kitchen staff of the North Indian Non Vegetarian (NINV) Mess and would be seen sauntering around in the mess in the morning. It would get spooked as people started coming in, and take off into the forest but every now and then, early breakfasters would find it pottering about in the dining hall.<br />
<br />
One day, one of our class mates, a lad who had been recklessly experimenting with substances, quite unexpectedly staggered into the mess at 7 am, the hour at which it opened. He would usually lie stoned somewhere till the gentle rays of the noon sun woke him up but today, somehow, was different. Bleary eyed, he sat with three or four of us regulars waiting for the pronthes and dahi to appear. As they did, our friend the peacock walked in. None of the regulars paid it much heed, everyone's attention being fixed on the pronthes which the cook stuffed with aloo and served with a generous helping of curd. Everyone's that is, except our substance abusing friend, who for some reason found the presence of the bird unusual and who found the complete lack of reaction from the rest of us even more freaky.<br />
<br />
He tried to bring the conversation nonchalantly around to the subject of large birds and their unexpected sighting but no one showed the slightest reaction. After a while, unable to contain himself, he asked the lad sitting next to him, "Boss, is there a large peacock here in the mess or am I seeing things?" As anyone who has spent time in an engineering college hostel will tell you, that is the wrong way to ask that question. Without batting an eyelid, the lad the question was addressed to, replied "Peacock? Here? Boss, didn't find anyone else or what, pulling my leg morning morning?" Our substance abusing friend laughed nervously and pretended he was cracking jokes but his confidence was shaken. He surreptitiously cast anxious glances at the rest of us in the mess and his sinking suspicion was confirmed. The peacock was visible to no one else!<br />
<br />
He ate whatever he could of the pronthe and fled. The ending is happy, though. The experience was enough to put him off drugs and he turned over a new leaf. Studied hard, went abroad and is now the head of some large software company in the US.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Narendra shenoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00435746867801885684noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460565103147391578.post-83512141829268458012014-06-22T12:05:00.001+05:302014-06-22T12:05:15.127+05:30More on the cow theme<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
In my previous post, I wrote about the unlikeliness of cows appearing in lectures on Electrical Engineering and the purity of the engineering student's soul being evidenced by his not knowing that. Today we shall examine the all pervading nature of that animal in an engineering student's academic life and how I bettered the Olympic 100m record because of cows.<br />
<br />
One of my closest friends, a fellow Wodehouse fan named Deepak, lived in a section of the hostel called the K block which comprised of single seater rooms and was architecturally inspired by a cowshed. So faithfully had the architect recreated his inspiration that cows from far and wide would saunter into the K block and reside for varying lengths of time, feeling completely at home. Non bovine residents of the K block seemed to accept their presence with generous equanimity but occasional visitors such as myself were more xenophobic. "Why don't you shoo them away?" I asked Deepak one day. Apparently the reason was that if you attempted anything in the nature of violence, the bovine would deposit evidence of its visit in the form of a cowpat bang in front of the shooer's door, and languorously walk away, leaving the hapless inhabitant of the room with the choice of either picking it up and throwing it out or inhaling bouquet-de-cowpat for the next few days.<br />
<br />
Deepak also had a bicycle. Back in the 80s, this was like owning a Mercedes 380- SL convertible which meant that Deepak was much sought after. Not by the women, ha ha, because we had just 40 girls in the college (there were 1200 of us manly guys), all of whom had very exacting standards of male beauty (Tom Cruise might have made it, and Salman Khan, but not Deepak or I). As I was saying, it was sought after by the likes of me who thought riding a bicycle in the hot Manipal sun was the fun thing to do. And it was, given the level of activity in Manipal on a summer's afternoon. Deepak was ever cautious, though. He would, in a manner reminiscent of how the UPA government gave out gubernatorial appointments, give his bicycle to only the most trusted of his friends, among whom, I am proud to say, I figured prominently. Also, I did not, like another hapless friend our ours, bang into a cow with the bicycle. Cows thus disturbed tended to poop or urinate on you (when you were lying concussed on the road after the collision) and Deepak was rightly concerned that some of it might fall on the bicycle.<br />
<br />
But my most vivid memory of that splendid animal is the time when I was endeavoring to clear my fifth semester workshop exams. I was, how shall I put it, dexterity challenged and in order to make up for shabbiness of the workpiece I had made as part of the evaluation, I had put my all into the written exam. I had drawn heart wrenching diagrams of whatever it was that we were doing that semester - I sort of recall it was foundry practice - and liberally quoted from Tennyson and Shakespeare. My plan was that after the examiner had seen the workpiece and recoiled in disgust, he would read the paper and realize, with tears welling up in his eyes, that here was a good man, a decent chap, deserving in all respects save the minor one of being incompetent, and would give me passing marks.<br />
<br />
The plan was working when suddenly I realized that I had rashly left the paper - my masterpiece - near the window and a passing cow, doubtless attracted by the brilliance of its content, had decided to snack on it. With a yelp, I rushed towards the window but the cow shrewdly withdrew its head and headed off in the opposite direction. Crisis brings out the best in me. I quickly marshaled my thoughts and lit out of the door, executed a sharp U turn and gained rapidly upon the cow. It tried to sprint away but it was, and you, dear reader, will forgive my humble-brag, no match for my superior intellect and athleticism. Within seconds, I had caught up with it and snatched the paper from its mouth. Miraculously -perhaps it was the force of my personality that had startled it into doing so - it released the paper undamaged. Observers quickly calculated that I had done about 100 meters in 9.7 seconds, but since it wasn't an official event, the feat never entered the books.<br />
<br />
I passed the exam.</div>
Narendra shenoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00435746867801885684noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460565103147391578.post-31584881169899589232014-06-12T17:09:00.000+05:302014-06-12T17:09:23.036+05:30Cows<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The talk on one of our whatsapp groups turned to cows. That is to say, someone forwarded something about cows. Whatsappers are great forwarders of things and many of the things people keep forwarding to me appear to have existed forever, rather like the universe. I know there is a school of thought that believes the universe began as a little dot of very densely packed matter (like some of our suitcases), and suddenly erupted to fill up everything in sight (like some of our suitcases) and by this logic, there must have been a time when all the whatsapp messages in the universe were tightly packed into a little dot. But this would probably be 11.6 billion years ago, and anyway, all this discussion is deeply in the realm of metaphysics which you, dear reader, would judiciously choose to give a miss.<br />
<br />
Coming back to the cows, the said whatsapp message dealt with how different economic systems would treat the possession of two cows. Between you and me, the thing went right over my head but the word 'cows' appearing so many times reminded me of the jolly old age when I was studying engineering and the class was being taught Basic Electrical Machinery by Shri K. J. Singh.<br />
<br />
Shri Singh was a splendid chap, from the rustic heartland of Bihar, and while he was a great engineering mind, his accent was a little different from ours. Very few people understood anything of what he said (but that was also in part because most of us were singularly daft). However, everyone sat solemn and attentive in his class - he had a great personality - and wrote down everything that he said which sounded important.<br />
<br />
So in one such class, he kept using the word cows. Some of the sharper chaps did find it odd - after all, cows and electrical engineering have little to do with each other - but everyone wrote it down faithfully in their lecture notes.<br />
<br />
It was only many lectures later that we realized that the good man was saying 'cause'</div>
Narendra shenoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00435746867801885684noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460565103147391578.post-71531118085380826582014-04-30T09:38:00.001+05:302014-04-30T09:38:50.205+05:30Astrologers and their part in my downfall<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I've never been much of a lad for the great science of astrology. It somehow does not inspire much confidence in me, given that its practitioners always tend to speak in very general, diffuse ways, some of which end up turning out right and suddenly, the astrologer in question is empanelled by the family to tell you what you should do next on the most personal level possible. Most officious, if you ask me.<br />
<br />
And yet I get dragged, from time to time, to meetings with astrologers, for such is life, and this here is an account of one such experience.<br />
<br />
It so happened, many summers ago, that a relative of the missus wanted a particular Bombay astrologer to be consulted for an answer to the question of when her son should marry. Since she, the relative, lived very far away, the missus and I were deputed to do the dirty work.<br />
<br />
It was the first time in ages that I was going to see an astrologer. The last time I went was with an aunt of mine who took me to a chap who would tell you all by rolling a few cowrie shells on the floor. I remember being particularly impressed by how specific the chap was .<br />
<br />
"Should my husband take the transfer?"<br />
<br />
"No" replied the astrologer, who was a pretty august looking guy, with bhasma all over his forehead and his hair in a bad ass knot at the back of his head and continued with "He will get a promotion here only. For this, he should do a navagraha shanti and every friday go to a devi temple and pour milk" or words to that effect.<br />
<br />
Both aunt and I were impressed. I couldn't help wondering if he could reveal similar specific things in other subjects such as say mathematics.<br />
<br />
"Auntie, can he tell me what the smallest number is that can be expressed as the sum of two cubes in two different ways?"<br />
<br />
"Hush child! So astrologer, what are the prospects of this doctor boy whom we are planning to see for our daughter?"<br />
<br />
"This doctor boy is a good boy but the Rahu in his Mangal is interfering with the Guru. If he is an anesthetist, he will put many people to sleep"<br />
<br />
"Or if he has a teaching position at the hospital"<br />
<br />
"Quiet!" hissed the aunt.<br />
<br />
Whereupon the astrologer impressed the daylights out of me by looking at me sternly and saying, in a low, magisterial voice "Seventeen twenty nine".<br />
<br />
But I digress. Getting back to the story, missus and I landed up at the astrologer's palatial flat. I rang the bell and we were let in by a minion into a room full of religious photographs and books. We had taken our younger son along, then a very adorable three year old, and missus was telling him which religious photograph was of what, with the lad listening with that wide eyed look of intense attention that makes the arduous task of bringing children up completely worth it.<br />
<br />
Presently the big noise himself walked in and so intimidating was his personality that I stood up instinctively. He motioned me to sit down and, divining with his astrological faculties who the real power int the family was, addressed the missus<br />
<br />
"So what brings you here, Amma?"<br />
<br />
Missus explained the relative, her son, the question of when, if and to whom he should get married, and offered him the said son's horoscope.<br />
<br />
Astrologer looked at it perfunctorily and kept it aside. He looked intently at the missus (actually he had a strabismus in one eye, so it was difficult to tell, but I guessed it was her that he was looking at, given that I am universally considered deficient in aesthetic appeal) and continued looking for a longish while. I could tell that missus was feeling a bit uncomfortable. Son had spied a cat in the house and gone off to make friends. So it was up to me to break the ice.<br />
<br />
"So, do you give only horoscope based advice or do you also advise on numerolgy and palmistry" I asked, just to get some conversation going.<br />
<br />
The astrologer continued looking at missus. An uncomfortable fifteen seconds of silence followed. Then the astrologer spoke.<br />
<br />
"Amma, you are saakshaat devi. You are the mother goddess herself. You exude the aura of divinity, the like of which I have never seen before"<br />
<br />
The missus looked a little puzzled.<br />
<br />
"Amma, you are destined to have a child. A daughter will be born to you. A girl of such unsurpassed goodness and divinity that she will bring peace and prosperity to the world. A girl who will .."<br />
<br />
"But what about this auntie's son?" interrupted missus.<br />
<br />
"Oh, he'll get married. But you? You will change the world by giving birth to this daughter"<br />
<br />
I laughed a little nervously and said "But we weren't planning to have any more children. We already have two, you see..."<br />
<br />
"Planning? The laws of Karma have no room for planning, sir. Things that are destined will happen, regardless of what mere mortals like us plan"<br />
<br />
He continued in this vein for a few more minutes and after a great deal of persistence, we managed to get his verdict on auntie's son. ("Will he get married?" "Yes" "When?" "In three years time" "To whom?" "A doctor girl" - For the record, only answer no. 1 was correct. Auntie's son married his girlfriend before the year was out. She works in an ad agency)<br />
<br />
As we rose to leave, he reminded missus once again that what was destined would happen, regardless of what we planned. Missus shot through the door like a bolt of lightning.<br />
<br />
For the record, we haven't had the daughter.<br />
<br />
Yet.</div>
Narendra shenoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00435746867801885684noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460565103147391578.post-56813187604217765902014-03-18T12:29:00.000+05:302014-03-18T12:29:43.207+05:30Roasting chicken on a wood fire!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The son was bored. He had just finished his class XII exams but had the IIT entrance looming over his head, and judging from the fact that he gnashed his teeth and furrowed his brow every time he was reminded of it, he wasn't particularly looking forward to the prospect. There are chaps who will excitedly jump up and clap their hands in childlike joy when told that the IIT entrance exam is just a month away and there are chaps who will not. Younger son was resolutely among the latter.<br />
<br />
"Play your guitar" I suggested. But his heart was not in that either. Apparently he had heard the guitar playing of one Joe Bonamassa and he despaired that he would never play anywhere remotely as well as him. "Look at Annie", consoled missus. Does the fact that he can't sing deter him from believing that he will one day be mistaken for Mallikarjun Mansur?"<br />
<br />
That perked up the lad a bit. Slanderous libel, of course. I sing very very well indeed. But mother and son had a laugh and the missus, going all "awww" at my evident inability to see the humor in that, said "Lets grill some chicken"<br />
<br />
"On the Berkely Darfur stove?" I piped up excitedly<br />
<br />
"Why not?"<br />
<br />
So we marinaded a kg and a half in one cup dahi, 6 tbsps chilli powder, 3 tbsps salt (it did turn out to be a tad salty so you can consider making that 2 tbsps) and let it rest for an hour.<br />
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That done, it was time to light up the stove. This is easier said than done for city slickers but I luckily found that missus has a decent amount of experience. After laughing impolitely at my very scientific approach at initiating combustion, she rounded up some dried leaves and wood shavings and lit it up in a few minutes</div>
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I remembered <a href="http://www.livemint.com/Companies/nqUwl9LbfbjKuDyVurFdNI/The-art-of-grilling.html">an article </a>written by my friend Madhu Menon, in my opinion one of this country's finest chefs, in the Mint newspaper. Dug it out surreptitiously on the phone and using his principles, grilled the chicken first on a hot flame for about two minutes (the Berkeley Darfur stove's capacity to deliver a very hot flame came in handy here) and then the second side for about 6 minutes on a side of the grate where the flames were not that intense</div>
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The result was chicken nicely charred on the outside and beautifully moist inside. Missus and son both loved the beautiful wood-smoked flavour!</div>
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I grilled a few potatoes and onions as well, and some cherry tomatoes plucked fresh from mom's terrace garden. Oh, and some fresh oregano leaves as well!</div>
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Cheers, and hope you had a great Holi too.<br />
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Narendra shenoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00435746867801885684noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460565103147391578.post-70782271270764956422014-03-09T23:50:00.000+05:302014-03-10T00:11:09.407+05:30In which we make Chicken a la Uday Velhe on the Berkeley Darfur Stove<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Uday Velhe works with me. He is our press operator and is mostly a shy and retiring person. Like Blair Eggleston, Wodehouse's fearless novelist, Uday would, if he found himself ensconced in a boudoir with a scantily clad Russian princess, take the seat nearest the door and talk about the weather. But let him loose with a knife and some provisions and he can knock you off your feet with the awesomest chicken curry you ever ate!<br />
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Here he is, in action, with the famous<a href="http://www.potentialenergy.org/why-stoves/"> Berkeley Darfur Stove</a>, an energy efficient wood burning stove developed by UC Berkeley for refugees in Sudan's Darfur.<br />
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The recipe is elegantly simple, serves 15 and uses 3 kg of twigs on the Berkeley Darfur Stove!<br />
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In case you don't have Uday (not looking his best in this photo, alas, because when I clicked him, he was straining to break a largeish twig)<br />
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you will need </div>
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2 chickens, dressed (about 2.2 kg)</div>
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1 kg chopped onions</div>
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250 gm grated coconut (preferably freshly grated coconut)</div>
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100 gm (or, if you're in Mumbai, 20 rupees worth) coriander (aka cilantro) leaves</div>
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0.75 kg tomatoes</div>
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100 gm garlic pods (shelled)</div>
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a 'small piece' (in Uday's words) of ginger</div>
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4 bay leaves</div>
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2 star anise</div>
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1 stick of cinnamon</div>
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2 tbsp Garam Masala</div>
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6 tbsp Chilli powder</div>
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1 tbsp 'Eastern' chicken masala (Rs. 5 only) though Uday says any chicken or mutton masala is good enough<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_GCXLLtMxmWCB-_5A6Vh_FEoRw2GaR39w-6lmpel3_peaizdY5eM6Oms8htEFZJ9mRhDTWyaH7i99BjvUeDAJyxNkfPEjgB40PVQEDHuKx8OFDjfW6e1ERj2UTHFfyCa2TAjlc1ySTSk/s1600/20140309_121913.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_GCXLLtMxmWCB-_5A6Vh_FEoRw2GaR39w-6lmpel3_peaizdY5eM6Oms8htEFZJ9mRhDTWyaH7i99BjvUeDAJyxNkfPEjgB40PVQEDHuKx8OFDjfW6e1ERj2UTHFfyCa2TAjlc1ySTSk/s1600/20140309_121913.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a></div>
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Some oil, of course (Uday prefers Sundrop super refined sunflower oil, the healthy oil for healthy people)</div>
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AND...</div>
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Salt to taste</div>
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Procedure:</div>
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1. Light up your stove (DUH!)</div>
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2. Sautee the onions</div>
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3. When the onions are nicely caramelised, says Uday,and you will know this from the smell, which is rich enough to spurn wall street jobs which promise seven figure bonuses, remove them and keep them aside</div>
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4. Roast the grated coconut. No oil and all, just roast</div>
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5. Grind the above, (i.e., the sauteed onions, the grated coconut, 3/4th of the 20 rupee worth coriander leaves, half the garlic, half the tomatoes, the small piece of ginger and the spices, ie, the star anise, cinnamon, bay leaves save two), into a paste on the mixie</div>
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6. Heat some oil (lots of oil, actually. About 200 ml.) and fry the rest of the garlic and the two bay leaves you saved from step 5 above, in it till it is nice and brown</div>
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7.Dump into this half the paste from step 5 above, the chilli powder, the garam masala and the Eastern Chicken Masala and fry it, till all the water in it is gone. You will know this, says Uday, by the fact that the oil begins now to float on top </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7x1mwkCIeeTTYvTfvZCbZ4v50Cg0WE_rqUu4X9bXPAmuWmqhwstUogi758yY5wLDovdZUQot29_NVhcpXiB5x9BV-WFnaZ3Fk4IQ-1YMjEZEPkCI_AvyIdsC9OYlzYojxESfFDoAmtfU/s1600/20140309_124753.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7x1mwkCIeeTTYvTfvZCbZ4v50Cg0WE_rqUu4X9bXPAmuWmqhwstUogi758yY5wLDovdZUQot29_NVhcpXiB5x9BV-WFnaZ3Fk4IQ-1YMjEZEPkCI_AvyIdsC9OYlzYojxESfFDoAmtfU/s1600/20140309_124753.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a></div>
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8.Then add the chicken<br />
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and fry it for about ten minutes</div>
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8. Add the rest of the paste, the rest of the tomatoes, the rest of the coriander leaves and about 1 liter of water and boil the bejesus out of it. Here, you have to add the 'salt to taste' which I measure out as about 8 tbsp. But I could be wrong (I was drinking beer by this time)</div>
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And Voila! You have Chicken a la Uday Velhe! </div>
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Best had with Pao or Chapati</div>
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Narendra shenoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00435746867801885684noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460565103147391578.post-30838480465449713992014-03-01T17:45:00.000+05:302014-03-01T17:48:41.513+05:30My black tea anecdote<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I grew up drinking regular milk tea till somewhere along the way I started drinking black tea without sugar. I think it was those Indian Airline flights. The air-hostess would walk down the aisle with a pot of black tea and black coffee and then return after a half-hour with milk, by which time such tea that hadn't spilled on your shirt because of turbulence had turned quite cold and when mixed with the lukewarm milk, was very difficult to send down the hatch.<br />
<br />
Anyway, I began to drink my tea black and once I got used to the slightly bitter and acidic taste of unsweetened black tea, I found that I no longer relished the with-milk version. This would occasionally be a problem in the industrial areas that I frequented, especially when I would visit someone's factory. Bombay's protocol demands the serving and drinking of 'cuttings', miniscule cups of tea which taste like very old tea leaves boiled in very stale milk for a very long time, which is pretty much what it is, but I soon evolved the ability to quickly swallow the foul brew without gagging. Whenever possible, though, I'd try to get my fix of my good old black tea, no milk no sugar<br />
<br />
On one such outing, I landed up at an Udipi restaurant and, encouraged by the warm and welcoming manner of the waiter (he asked me "kyaa chahiye?" instead of "kyaa mangta hai?", showing himself to be a man of culture and breeding), I asked him if I could be served black tea.<br />
<br />
"Of course" he beamed and went into the kitchen to place the order. He returned a moment later with a slightly apologetic look.<br />
<br />
"Cook is asking, black tea means what?"<br />
<br />
"Oh, simple" I told him "make the tea but don't put milk, and don't put sugar"<br />
<br />
He smiled benevolently and went back into the kitchen to relay my instructions.<br />
<br />
And returned after a moment, looking even more apologetic<br />
<br />
"Cook is asking, should he put tea leaves?"<br />
<br />
"Yes, please put tea leaves" I told him.<br />
<br />
My order was properly executed. The son, when I told him this, laughed and said the guy was trolling me but I don't think he was. Do you?</div>
Narendra shenoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00435746867801885684noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460565103147391578.post-83020541102352796442014-02-26T11:18:00.000+05:302014-02-26T12:22:10.504+05:30My Maruti 800 nostalgia post<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Back in the 80s, one of my closest friends was Rajesh. He was a stock brocker. Or, to be more specific, a species known as 'sub-broker', with the right to go into the ring and trade on the out-cry based trading floor. The basis for our friendship was that I used to consider myself a shrewd investor (until I craftily invested all my money away) and Rajesh was the chap who would execute my orders.<br>
<br>
Rajesh was passionately interested in money. He would spend every waking moment thinking of money and let no opportunity pass of making some, regardless of how ridiculous or unethical it might be. Applying fraudulently for student discounts on air-fares on the erstwhile Indian Airlines, booking flats meant for poor people and profiteering on them, selling Amway subscriptions, he did them all. He called himself a moral agnostic (his interpretation of which was that he did not believe in the existence of right and wrong) but despite all that, (or, more likely, because of it) was good fun to hang out with.<br>
<br>
One day, he announced happily that he had got an allotment for a Maruti 800. We were overjoyed. "When are you getting it?" asked Sameer, another of our faithful band of devotees<br>
<br>
"Getting it? I'm not getting it. I'm selling the allottment. The going rate is 50,000"<br>
<br>
There was a collective sigh of disappointment. "Buy, man. It is such a fantastic car. What will you do with another 50000? " someone advised, but without much hope, because we knew Rajesh was a hardboiled egg.<br>
<br>
So you could have knocked me down with a feather when the next morning, I got a call from Rajesh, asking me if I could drive. Apparently, he wanted to go pick up the car, the change of heart effected by his blushing bride Kamala, who expressed a desire to own one.<br>
<br>
I couldn't drive, alas. The simultaneous control of the steering wheel and the bunch of pedals below was too much for my rudimentary thinking equipment at that point in evolution. It was only after the missus entered my life and taught me how, did I manage to make a car move without causing damage to life and property.<br>
<br>
It turned out that none of our trusted band of friends knew how to drive a car.<br>
<br>
"Kamala knows, no?" asked Madhukar<br>
<br>
"Kamala has a drivers licence, yes, but I don't think she knows how to drive a Maruti 800"<br>
<br>
"A car is a car, man, lets take her and go pick the car"<br>
<br>
"Yes yes, lets"<br>
<br>
Rajesh was still hesitant, but he decided to ask Kamala. <br>
<br>
Kamala was a little reluctant. "I'm not very sure..." she said "I got my licence because the police inspector was my classmate's father. I've driven my dad's Fiat though"<br>
<br>
"Driven a Fiat, no? Then no problem" was the general consensus and Kamala and Rajesh went to pick the car, with four of us in tow.<br>
<br>
The showroom person laconically zipped out full speed in reverse with the car, making our collective hearts leap, and stopped it where we stood. Rajesh and Kamala did a little namaskar and Kamala put a red tilak on the dashboard and the hood. We got in, the four of us behind, Rajesh on the front seat and Kamala behind the wheel.<br>
<br>
The car started, most eerily for that age, in one turn of the key. Most Fiats of that generation wouldn't sputter to life without the starter making sounds for several minuters like Navjot Singh Sidhu laughing.<br>
<br>
Kamala shifted into the first gear and the car leaped forward. After a few dorso-ventral oscillations, the vehicle achieved a reasonable steady state and Kamala drove with something approaching confidence. Then, the road turned, but for some reason, Kamala didn't. The car headed straight towards a lamp post. "Khambo aave che!" yelled out Kamala, lapsing, in the panic, into her native Gujarati (it means "the lamp-post is coming at me"<br>
<br>
"Do something! Do something!" squealed Rajesh</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">"Khambo aave che!" Kamala reiterated</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">"Eek!"</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">"Rama!"</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">"Ayyo!"</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> </div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">observed the rest of the company and the car finally stopped against the lamp post. The front grill, the bumper, the radiator, a substantial part of the steering assembly and the blood pressures of the six of us went for a toss</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Rajesh was the picture of calm. He comforted a near hysterical Kamala and soon had everything under control. The insurance company very sportingly agreed to pick up the tab and all was well.<br>
<br></div>
Narendra shenoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00435746867801885684noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460565103147391578.post-31855827980451270402014-01-06T09:59:00.000+05:302014-01-06T09:59:52.468+05:30From where do you get your temper, Annie?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
('Annie', if you've stumbled on to my blog recently, is what my sons call me. The reason for this is a long story, but the boys, despite all kinds of protestations on my part, continue to call me Annie)<br />
<br />
The breakfast table discussion this morning turned to anger and display thereof and everyone very democratically elected me as the one with the fiercest temper. I dissented, of course, but who listens to me?<br />
<br />
"I'm the calmest guy in a crisis, I will have you know", I told the missus and the lads<br />
<br />
"Ha, you manage to get pissed off by mall parking attendants even" said the missus, invoking a stray case where I heaped vituperation on an uncaring shopping mall security guy who, just for fun, made me change the location of my car thrice. "And he was perfectly right too"<br />
<br />
"But my displays of anger are always bursts of sharp language" I told them "I have never hit anyone on the head with a coconut"<br />
<br />
"There is that, of course" conceded the missus and we proceeded to consume the excellent khara baath that my mother had rustled up<br />
<br />
"What coconut?" asked younger son, and I couldn't help smiling as I recalled the anecdote<br />
<br />
My great grandmother had a legendary temper. She was a strong woman and a very severe disciplinarian. My father, who grew up under her care, recalls how she would dump unfinished breakfast on the head of the person leaving it unfinished, the punishment being that he or she couldn't wash it off all day. One of the earliest lessons learned in that household was that nobody messed with her.<br />
<br />
She had five sons and all of them were devoted to her. So devoted that they would suffer all her displays of temper with equanimity. There was just one time when they broke that rule.<br />
<br />
My grandfather told me this story. It seems they had a maternal uncle who was a very lazy devil and would lounge around all day listening to Hindustani classical music, of which he was inordinately fond. My great grandmother, whose day was just work and more work from the moment she woke up - cook, clean, wash clothes, tend to cattle and god knows what else -, hated to see him lolling around, but she bore it silently.<br />
<br />
One morning, she was awakened by the sound of someone shrieking. It was extremely early, some 4 am or so, and she ran to the verandah, from where the cries seemed to be emerging. It turned out to be her brother, the maternal uncle, inspired by the mood of the hour, singing an early morning raga. Great grandmother lost it. She picked up the nearest thing she could find, which turned out to be a coconut, and hit her brother on the head with it. The coconut shell cracked, recalled my grandfather, and maternal uncle fell in a heap. By now the entire household had assembled and when they realized what had happened, all five of her sons yelled at their mother at the top of their voices.<br />
<br />
Luckily, maternal uncle, who had to be hospitalized and was in a pretty serious way, survived and went on to raise a family. 'He never sang again, though" recalled my grandfather with a chuckle. "I wonder why"<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Narendra shenoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00435746867801885684noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460565103147391578.post-88870473550934483372013-12-23T10:19:00.001+05:302013-12-23T10:19:35.807+05:30In which we watch Dhoom 3 and nearly die of cheese overload<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The missus and the son both wanted to watch Dhoom 3. Missus because she has been going nuts staying at home trying to motivate son to study for his fast approaching exams. Son..... for the same reason. Accordingly I was told to go buy tickets.<br />
<br />
"But it's only Friday. We're going on Sunday evening"<br />
<br />
"Go"<br />
<br />
I went. And good thing too, because, to my shock, the seats were filling up faster than Robert Vadra's coffers.<br />
<br />
"Five pm show?"<br />
<br />
"First row only, sir"<br />
<br />
"Don't want to end up with spondylitis" I said, with a smile, attempting some levity. The ticket guy yawned.<br />
<br />
"What's the next show?" I asked<br />
<br />
"Five fifteen".<br />
<br />
Wow. How MANY shows did they have?<br />
<br />
"Seventeen shows sir. So can I give you 6.30 pm? Third row available"<br />
<br />
I bought them, for roughly as much money as I had taken the family for their first vacation, to Matheran.<br />
<br />
Presently the day arose. Wearing all our finery - ok, the missus. Son and I looked exactly as we look on Sunday evenings -like flower people who have slept the night on the beach - and heard out the missus on how depressing it is to go out with people who look like ...like...like...<br />
"Out of work poets?" son suggested helpfully. Missus scowled and told us to atleast comb our hair.<br />
<br />
The cinema wore a festive look. People milled about. Popcorn was being bought. Son met some school friends and got busy talking to them. Missus gave my arm a gentle squeeze "Don't look so morose, sweet. This too shall pass. I'll sit next to you and we'll watch it together"<br />
<br />
The movie trundled along mostly featuring Aamir Khan and a cheesy back story about a circus magician and his son. Abhishek Bachchan put in a guest appearance every now and then. Uday Chopra, who irresistibly reminds me of the laughing cow on the Laughing Cow brand of cheese<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi96ivp95VKw67hLzEMBpRivhwUkZijNTp3qeW-7XeLwGoX1bwFeOhzF4L7U1lCGR3ZaGxELPeK_C8LQjc7NSjq6nSECurWCd6neT9bl_zbmjrmW-jTL54qjUk7EgReDdlKphF64FWIv6E/s1600/The-laughing-cow-cheese-mascot.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi96ivp95VKw67hLzEMBpRivhwUkZijNTp3qeW-7XeLwGoX1bwFeOhzF4L7U1lCGR3ZaGxELPeK_C8LQjc7NSjq6nSECurWCd6neT9bl_zbmjrmW-jTL54qjUk7EgReDdlKphF64FWIv6E/s200/The-laughing-cow-cheese-mascot.gif" width="200" /></a></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY9IL3_D1KwLS4glWXCMh8UjKKDGlgkxK6XOaCecHLzfo7QOGMdcsPA19HVmavveBqCFLAK3tscxKuZhPz4wsORIj36hN_5GodWEgWPrEwDVNCLYV8R-a7JmaKxu7RjETYWVd20h3sjTw/s1600/uday_chopra_001_nc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY9IL3_D1KwLS4glWXCMh8UjKKDGlgkxK6XOaCecHLzfo7QOGMdcsPA19HVmavveBqCFLAK3tscxKuZhPz4wsORIj36hN_5GodWEgWPrEwDVNCLYV8R-a7JmaKxu7RjETYWVd20h3sjTw/s200/uday_chopra_001_nc.jpg" width="150" /></a><br />
<br />
floated in and out making what appear to be comic remarks. The man has to be the worst actor in the world, though missus found him "kind of cute". All through the film, the cinematography was wonderful.<br />
<br />
One victim, unintended, I'm sure, was the entire field of Newtonian mechanics. Bikes, cars, people and random objects pursued trajectories through space which none of the sainted Isaac's equations could have described. I got a nice idea for a comic, which I shared with son. Here it is.<br />
<br />
Scene: Heaven. Cherubs are playing harps in the clouds. A happy faced sun is sending beams onto earth. A bearded St. Peter is smiling benevolently. Einstien is seen wandering in a pensive state.<br />
<br />
<br />
St. Peter: What is the matter, Albert? You look thoughtful<br />
Einstein: It is Sir Isaac. Ever since I got here, he has been avoiding me and refuses to even look in my direction. He was such a great physicist! I'd love to be his friend<br />
<br />
St. Peter: Oh, I know the reason for that. He believes that ever since you formulated your theory, people have stopped believing in his<br />
<br />
Einstein: Oh no! On the contrary, he still rules in the everyday world. Nothing works without recourse to his laws. Even space travel<br />
<br />
St Peter: Is that so?<br />
<br />
Einstein: I will wager my gluteus on it.<br />
<br />
St. Peter: Hmmm. We could tell him this..... but it would be so much better if he could go down and see for himself<br />
<br />
Einstein: That would be so nice! Can you do it?<br />
<br />
St. Peter: I'll have to ask the boss, but yes, I'll do it<br />
<br />
And so Newton is sent to earth to see for himself. He wanders around in amazement, steadily becoming happier to see that the world does indeed follow his laws. Then he sees posters for movies. He decides to see one for himself. Unfortunately he watches Dhoom 3<br />
<br />
St. Peter: Albert, we should have never done this. Isaac has been bawling uncontrollably ever since he got back and the boss is PISSED!<br />
<br />
Son agreed it would be a nice comic.<br />
<br />
"It'll be a bitch to draw though".<br />
<br />
We both reflected on the truth of that.<br />
<br />
So in conclusion, if Newton and his laws don't mean anything to you personally, I recommend one viewing. It is cheesy as hell, but well shot. Logicians can expect to die or be seriously addled. The rest of us will come back mildly woozy but in one piece. Like all Hindi movies these days, you can almost feel the desperation when they try to flesh out the 3 hour duration that the paying public expect the film to run for with songs, chase scenes, more songs and Uday Chopra giving his Laughing Cow impression. Katrina, who seems to have done some radical plastic surgery to get rid of her saddlebags, gyrates with a hint of desperation, but is generally pleasing to the eye. The music is mostly loud.<br />
<br />
Cheers. Enjoy<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Narendra shenoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00435746867801885684noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460565103147391578.post-64736670135071566772013-12-19T20:59:00.000+05:302013-12-19T20:59:00.763+05:30The Grilled Chicken<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
'Nooobody makes grilled chicken for me!" said the missus.<br />
<br />
The correct response, for those of you who have not married, is not "what?" "where?" "who?" or even "how?". It is "I will make grilled chicken for you".<br />
<br />
Thus it came about that I stood in front of our oven, aka OTG, trying to figure out how much 450F is in the stupid machine's settings of "warm", "hot" and "mallika sherawat". I'm kidding. The calibration was in degrees C and when you are a couple of decent single malts down, with a recipe culled from the internet and, sadly from an American website which tells everything in Fahrenheit, you're not at your best deducting thirtytwo, multiplying by five and dividing by nine. The lad came to the rescue, but not before he conducted some embarassing prelimary questioning.<br />
<br />
"What are you doing?"<br />
<br />
"Making grilled chicken"<br />
<br />
"Why?"<br />
<br />
"Your mom wants to eat it"<br />
<br />
"Oh. But why haven't you skinned it?"<br />
<br />
"She wants it Chinese style, with the skin roasted. Some roasted chicken chinese style or something"<br />
<br />
"You got the recipe?"<br />
<br />
"Yes. It says to sprinke salt and some oil, and grill at 450 F for thirty minutes"<br />
<br />
"Sounds easy enough"<br />
<br />
It was confession time.<br />
<br />
"Yes, but how much IS 450 F, blast it?"<br />
<br />
"Oh, easy, 232"<br />
<br />
So I ended up doing a decent job. The kitchen, for some reason, filled up with smoke. "The devil are you doing?" came the missus' distant yell<br />
<br />
"All fine, sweet, all fine" and then, to younger son "why the devil is there so much smoke""<br />
<br />
"Dude! You are cremating the chicken. You want 230. You've set it to 275"<br />
<br />
"Oh" and I corrected the setting. Damn these newfangled variable lens glasses the optician fobbed off on me.<br />
<br />
"How long do you reckon I should keep the chicken in there?" I cravenly asked the lad.<br />
<br />
"Half hour. Perhaps forty minutes."<br />
<br />
"Will you tell me if it's done?"<br />
<br />
"Dude! I have some kind of exam, you know"<br />
<br />
"I'll buy you new guitar strings"<br />
<br />
"Done"<br />
<br />
So at last the chicken is done. We are eating it with store-bought oyster sauce but missus has that expression which says "ummmm!"<br />
<br />
Reward enough.<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Narendra shenoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00435746867801885684noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460565103147391578.post-88336996865407003992013-11-20T09:43:00.000+05:302013-11-20T09:43:15.065+05:30Part 2 of the Walk-in-the-woods post<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
After our snack break, we carried on towards Kanheri Caves. Somewhere along the way we had been joined by a dog of an unusual shade of brown. He kept pretending that he was on an independent mission but that he was with us was unmistakable.<br />
<br />
Chuck promptly christened him Sanjay.<br />
<br />
"Because he has appeared to us as the spirit of the park" he explained.<br />
<br />
Sanjay strolled along with us without affecting to know any of us personally. Indeed, he would keep going off on tangents, investigating interesting smells and the occasional posterior of such fellow members of his species as would cross his path from time to time but his allegiance was unmistakable. We felt like the UPA government getting issue based outside support from a small regional party. Just as inexplicably, after a little while Sanjay vanished. Looking around, we found he had decided to tag alongside another group of people walking in the opposite direction.<br />
<br />
"Definitely small-regional-party-with-issue-based-outside-support", concluded Mohan, and we all silently nodded our heads<br />
<br />
The road had now become an incline. My age began to show in the shortening of my breath.<br />
<br />
"Damn" I thought "What if it turns out I'm having a heart attack?" and tried, unsuccessfully, to look nonchalant.<br />
<br />
"Why are you looking like a dying duck?" asked Harshal.<br />
<br />
"I -er -I was wondering if er- I was having a heart attack"<br />
<br />
Harshal luckily was quick on the uptake "Oh the breathlessness? Don't worry, everyone's winded".<br />
<br />
<br />
I was reassured. But this is an old failing of mine, this paranoia. I once went, with three other friends, to a high altitude lake in Sikkim called Guru Dongmar. I had read that it was at an altitude of some 16500 feet and was quickly consumed by a conviction that I would die of altitude mountain sickness. Two of my companions were dismissive<br />
<br />
"Dude, we are DRIVING there. Not walking. You wont have any altitude giltitude sickness" averred one of them.<br />
<br />
But the third chap was a man after my own heart. He did his own internet research and came to conclusions similar to mine.<br />
<br />
"Boss, we need an oxygen cylinder. Your dad is a doctor, no? As him where we can get one"<br />
<br />
The parent was puzzled "You cant carry an oxygen cylinder to Sikkim from Bombay. Have you any idea how much one weighs? Look for one locally"<br />
<br />
The local Sikkimese were equally non-cooperative. The mountaineering supplies shop we went to told us that the cylinders were all in his go-down and he would be damned if he would go down to his go down and open it just because a couple of weirdos wanted to go somewhere, especially since the mountaineering season hadn't begun yet, or words to that effect.<br />
<br />
And what luck we didn't find a cylinder! When we went to GuruDongmar lake, it was full of septuagenarian aunties and uncles happily strolling about and cracking jokes. Perfect doofuses we would have looked, a couple of mid-forties guys staggering around with a whacking great oxygen cylinder.<br />
<br />
Anyway, coming back to the res, after a longish climb, with the old heart thumping along in allegretto tempo, we reached the caves. A small stall stood near the entrance and when it was noticed that the said stall was selling soft drinks, a beeline was immediately made for it. Presently, everyone had slaked their thirsts and we decided, spontaneously, to climb up to the top of the hill.<br />
<br />
"You can see the Tulsi Lake from there" said Divya.<br />
<br />
The only dissenting note was from Srikeit who had had enough of all this climbing geeimbing and decided to sit in silent satyagraha. We left him there and carried on to the said spot, observed the said lake Tulsi, I showed off my knowledge of forestry by pointing out to a random tree and declaring it to be sterculia urens, and returned to base. On the return journey, mercifully, even the diehard commandos in our group agreed to take the bus back.<br />
<br />
I returned home and rounded my eight km walk to the nearest round number and told the missus I had walked ten kilometers. She looked at me with skepticism but I think my demeanor must have been sufficiently beat, because she did not challenge it.<br />
<br />
All in all, a day well spent</div>
Narendra shenoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00435746867801885684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460565103147391578.post-66240229161975049652013-11-13T11:45:00.001+05:302013-11-13T11:45:29.428+05:30In which I take a walk in the woods with some fellow lunatics<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
You would never believe this but there is a 103 square kilometer forest right within Bombay. "You mean Asaram Bapu's beard" you will say, with a twinkle in your eye, for you love your little joke of a morning, but you would be wrong (and not just because Asaram Bapu is not in Bombay). The place is called the Borivili National Park. At least that is what it used to be called when I was a kid. Now, like all things big and small in this country which fall within the government's power to christen, it is named after a deceased member of the Gandhi Nehru family and goes by the wordy title of Sanjay Gandhi National Park. Which of course suffers from the minor problem that it quite a handful to type and hence shall be hereinafter referred to, unless repugnant to the context thereof, as the lawyers like to put it, as SGNP.<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
My friends Chuck and Divya thought it would be a lovely idea to stroll around this place on Sunday morning and I enthusiastically jumped up with a "me! me!" when they asked around if anyone would like to come. Chuck and Divya are capable, among other things, of making jokes of unsurpassed silliness and their puns are so groanworthy that you are ill advised to carry sharp objects while hearing them lest you give in to the impulse of stabbing yourself. For instance, Chuck's recent masterpiece was this story about two Aryan priests one fine October morning in 1000 BC where priest-1 proudly declares to priest-2 that he has written this manuscript full of original hymns and spells which will surely guarantee him immortality when to his consternation he discovers that someone has changed all the words. So priest 2 tells him not to worry and recommends that he call it the Rigged Veda. You will have got the idea.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
Like me, a few other fans of Chuck and Divya also decided to tag along and when we assembled at SGNP gate on Sunday morning, there were Tony, Srikeit, Mohan, Harshal and another Divya who is called Dibba to distinguish her from the previous Divya. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
The entrance to SGNP was surprisingly crowded. Citizens of Bombay, for all their faults, love to sleep in on Sundays as far as I know, but on that morning many had decided to take in the park scenery. I had prudently lugged my eight seater minivan along because Mohan had mentioned wanting to go to Kanheri caves, a minor matter of eight kilometers into the park, several of them uphill, and I thought we would all fit into it. I had, alas, figured without the maniacal levels of biophilia sloshing about within the members of the group. "No, no! We will walk" said Harshal. "Of course" said Mohan who, being Australian, is given to practicing self flagellation in various ways such as running marathons and climbing Himalayan peaks "I used to come here to practice when I went for my last mountaineering trip". And to my dismay, I found no voices of support for my lets-go-in-the-van-its-such-fun doctrine. Feeling like a Marxist-Leninist at a convention of Tea Party activists, I shuffled along in a subdued manner.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
But the company was too ebullient to let me be morose for long. There were several groups of people with naturalist guides who were evidently pointing things out about the forests of the "this plant is an epiphyte, that insect there is a member of the order phasmatodea" variety. For a while, all that erudition cowed us into silence but soon, someone - possibly Chuck - broke out into a faux eco-tourist-guide mode and some wholesome fun was had by all.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
Presently, we came across a woman selling cucumbers and guavas and in true Bombay style, everyone took a snack break. A word about this snack break thing. I don't know if this is unique to Bombay -it certainly isn't evident in other places I have lived- but there is an overpowering urge here to be eating something all the time. The citizen of say Mysore, will hungrily consume his set dosai and strong coffee for breakfast and might even add a baadam halwa or two if he's particulary ravenous, but once that is done, he will steadfastly refuse to look at purveyors of foodstuff till it is time for lunch. But the Bombay guy? Scarcely will the chana chor have settled in his stomach when his eyes begin to yearningly seek out the batata wada so famous in that area. And even that will not sate him for long because there is this legendary sandwich walla to check out and so on. ... (to be continued)</div>
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Narendra shenoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00435746867801885684noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460565103147391578.post-41605490109513403432013-11-08T00:03:00.000+05:302013-11-08T00:03:27.889+05:30On the greatness of Sachin and other timepass things<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I've been inundated with TV commentary on the greatness of Sachin these last couple of hours that I've been watching TV. It's not something I normally do, watching TV, I mean -congenital defect - but today, I've been stood excellent beer by an old friend, who is also a bit of a Sachin-is-god pill, and one is obliged to indulge one's hosts.<br />
<br />
"Sachin", he told me, over an ill-suppressed beer burp, "is God Himself". I had surmised as much, given the gushing quality of the commentary pouring over the tube.<br />
<br />
"Really? I don't see HOW he is significantly better than, say, Hayden or Ponting" I rashly responded.<br />
<br />
"Ponting? PONTING?" my friend foamed at his mouth "You are lucky I am not Henry the Eighth, or I would have you beheaded"<br />
<br />
"A fate reserved for his wives, as far as I can tell". The beer had made me needlessly reckless<br />
<br />
"No, no. A vast majority of the people he sent to the executioner's block were chaps like you, with unsound views on cricket. Ponting, it seems!" And with the aid of a julienne of carrot and a peanut, both thoughtfully supplied by the restaurant to its beer consuming customers, illustrated how Sachin had dispatched an Andre Nel delivery to the cover boundary, a feat, apparently, beyond the cricketing capabilities of messrs Ponting and Hayden.<br />
<br />
Just not my day, in short. Earlier, the missus dragged me out shopping for bed linen.<br />
<br />
"We want duvet covers", she told me, "and they have to be bought NOW".<br />
<br />
"It's like the Nike slogan, Annie" said the younger one.<br />
<br />
"Nike slogan?"<br />
<br />
" Just duvet".<br />
<br />
He nimbly evaded my attempt to slosh him one and disappeared into his room singing "Duvet, just duvet" to Michael Jackson's "Beat It"<br />
<br />
We went to the most insanely crowded square mile in Bombay, the square mile around Crawford Market, and bought, along with the duvet covers, bed sheets, turkish towels, door mats, dupattas, salwar suits and one box of mulberries<br />
<br />
On my way back I was stopped for breaking a red light (Bombay is REALLY changing) by what must be the nicest policeman I have ever been hauled up by. "Sir" he addressed me, and you could have knocked me over with a feather, "can I see your licence please?"<br />
<br />
I kept the poker face<br />
<br />
"Here"<br />
<br />
"Sir, you jumped a signal"<br />
<br />
I smiled my most ingratiating smile and, proffering him my licence, muttered conciliatory things in Marathi. To no effect. He firmly and politely told me to cough up the princely sum of Rs. 100, wrote me a very legible memo recording the transaction, and wished me happy divali.<br />
<br />
The missus was not unduly upset. The successful procurement of duvet covers seemed to have mollified her. With a distracted "I wish you wouldn't drive like a doofus" she continued gazing at the package containing the duvet covers.<br />
<br />
The day, all said, seems to have turned out all right<br />
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Narendra shenoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00435746867801885684noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460565103147391578.post-13216229679628065062013-10-29T11:53:00.000+05:302013-10-29T11:53:12.262+05:30In which son compares Pink Floyd to Mallikarjun Mansur<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I've been a big fan of Indian classical music for as long as I can remember. The wondrous, fascinating, sophisticated world of western popular music never made sense to me, for which reason I was often the butt of ridicule in my college days, and the object of puzzled looks thereafter. My main grouse, as I have mentioned in <a href="http://narendrashenoy.blogspot.in/2012/12/in-which-we-go-to-gnr-concert-and-i.html">another post</a>, was that I could never understand what the devil the chaps were saying (Metallica, GnR and Michael Jackson were my main nemeses). The other problem was that I found it, rock-pop-rap music I mean, musically shallow. The same melodic sequences, it appeared to my untutored ear, were repeated song after song, and the rhythms too, for that matter.<br />
<br />
The younger son has been working hard to change that perception. He's a big fan of rock music these days. He used to be a big fan of rap, when he was younger, but nervously changes the subject when reminded of this. He now listens to Pink Floyd, and has taught himself to play some of their songs. I'm the captive audience (his mother resolutely refuses to listen to it, though that has more to do with the fact that he has to study for his IIT entrance exams than any lack of musical interest on her part - she rather likes it, I suspect) and he usually begins with an "Annie, listen to this". The current favorite is a song called Shine On, You Crazy Diamond.<br />
<br />
I proposed, in a moment of ill conceived jocularity, that, since we are all scientifically inclined here, we rename it with the more precise "scintillate, you mentally disturbed metastable carbon allotrope" but he just glared at me, and I soon discovered why. The back story of the song is that it is a tribute to the founder of the band, Syd Barrett, who went insane. The lyrics are indeed moving and the music is intense.<br />
<br />
I grudgingly admitted this to the son. "Very different from the usual nonsense you listen to, isn't it?" I remarked<br />
<br />
"Annie, this is the real thing. I want to become a musician" he said.<br />
<br />
"Well, you can start doing that the moment you get into the IITs"<br />
<br />
The lad made a harrumphing sound and continued. Presently, his music skills appeared to fall frustratingly short of his expectations and he decided to make me listen to the original.<br />
<br />
The song is intense. There are long, moving passages of guitaring and virtually none of the frantic demonstration of twanging skills that is so common in rock music.<br />
<br />
"It's Mallikarjun Mansur level" he told me, nearly knocking me off my feet. The late Mansur is one of my favorite singers and I was amazed the lad knew enough of him to make comparisons. He's never shown much interest in Indian classical music.<br />
<br />
"In what way?" I asked him<br />
<br />
"Floyd songs are different from the others. They never play fast licks just to show off. Just as Mallikarjun Mansur never sings ultra fast taans just to show he can. And yet, their music touches you in a way that just can't be described"<br />
<br />
I gazed at him in speechless wonder as he paused the song and tried to play a passage again. I would never have suspected him of knowing that Mallikarjun Mansur's singing had that unique soul touching quality. An irritated "Naren!" emanated from somewhere in the background. The missus, expressing her ire at the absence of parental exhortation to academic exertion. I absently told the lad to stop playing his guitar and start solving those calculus problems.<br />
<br />
But my heart was not in it.</div>
Narendra shenoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00435746867801885684noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460565103147391578.post-11189176056456248462013-10-07T09:14:00.001+05:302013-10-07T13:48:38.003+05:30Of Garbas and Baroda<p dir=ltr><i>Experimenting with a new app I downloaded on the phone which lets me post to the blog directly. Please forgive the following garbage, which appears by way of testing.</i></p>
<p dir=ltr>The missus and I made a quick dash to the charming little city of Baroda for the weekend to check out the garba scene at the invitation of some kind friends, the said garba being a religious dance which involves going around in circles.</p>
<p dir=ltr>"Sounds a bit like the bureaucracy", you are doubtless saying to yourself, and on a metaphorical level, you wouldn't be far from the truth. For instance, it consists, as far as I could see, of taking a few staggering steps in one direction, spinning about on an axis as if contemplating what to do next, turning around as though admitting that the initial direction was probably the wrong one and taking the next few staggering steps in the exact opposite direction, turning around and repeating the cycle. Which is a lot like how policy is made in this country. However, when all the backs and forths are netted off, the general motion is in one direction, again like the bureaucracy which somehow manages to miraculously achieve progress, albeit very little. (The direction, by the way, is counterclockwise, which is very rum, I thought, because there is a devi in the center and these gyrations thereby constitute a parikrama. So how did it come about that it is the wrong way around? Any way, deeper thoughts than my feeble thinking apparatus can accommodate. Back to the res)</p>
<p dir=ltr>Baroda, it is said, has the finest garbas in the country, and while I'm not a connoisseur (having witnessed a grand total of one garba in my life) it IS a gorgeous spectacle. There were several thousand people dressed splendidly in over colorful ethnic wear. "The dress is called a chaniya choli" the missus explained "and don't stare like that"</p>
<p dir=ltr>At the moment of going to press, we are shopping. This burg seems to consist entirely of shops selling garments. Sigh. I fear for my solvency.</p>
<p dir=ltr> Will post a little later. <br>
</p>
Narendra shenoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00435746867801885684noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460565103147391578.post-24873730437886683182013-09-30T22:57:00.002+05:302013-10-24T21:34:56.780+05:30My (mildly random) review of lunchbox<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The missus and I are just back from watching the critically acclaimed movie, The Lunchbox. It was supposed to be India's entry for the Oscar (but to everybody's consternation, was pipped at the post by a Gujarati movie called The Good Road). Artists and people of sensitivity gushed about The Lunchbox and the missus was convinced.<br>
<br>
'It's a love story" declared the missus, and in that declaration was the implied message "Take me to see it or else" because the missus is one for love stories, especially the kind that make you dab your eyes with your handkerchief and sniffle a bit. </div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">I don't mind them myself, I must confess. I've sort of mellowed down and replaced all the cutting edge kung-fu movies in my to-watch list with movies acclaimed for being sensitive and sentimental. But this one was different.<br>
<br>
It's a lovely movie, of course. Irrfan Khan is absolutely the finest actor in the world, as is the other guy, Nawazuddin Siddiqui. The female lead has also acted splendidly. The shots are completely un-bollywood-like. Crummy buildings, very ordinary clothes and, most importantly, no hai-rabba songs.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">To my untrained eye, however, there wasn't much of a point in the story. Brought up on a harsh diet of potboiler hindi movies, we expect one hero, one heroine, one villain, one comedian, one crisis and one happy ending. This movie had none. There is a housewife who sends her husband lunch through Bombay's famous dabbawala network and it reaches the wrong chap. The housewife is having a tough time getting the husband's attention and an unlikely kinda-romance blossoms between the wrong chap who is an elderly widower and the youngish housewife. They exchange notes through the dabba but never meet each other. And finally - spoiler alert - they part without having really met. It's really beautifully made, please watch it if you haven't, but a very long story about something <br>
which you or I would have narrated in about seven minutes.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br>
Missus loved it of course. The delicate nuanced expression of love or whatever it is that gets her these days. But I thought the whole thing was rather like something we studied back in college, namely, nucleophilic substitution reactions.A completely waste thing we had to study, in my opinion, but we studied it nevertheless because 'guarantee ten mark question' was the reward. </div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Since you're dying to know what a nucleophilic substitution reaction is, I'll tell you. If you add an alkyl halide to an alkali like say sodium hydroxide, you will get the alcohol of that alkyl group, the halogen having very decently detached itself from the said alkyl group -sodium, in our example- and considerately formed a salt with the halogen. But the way it was told us, and we had impressionable minds back then, it was a long drama of how the halogen atom tears itself away from the alkyl halide in the presence of a hydroxide, by being slightly more negative and thus making the alkyl group slightly more positive as a result of which the halogen group....it went on for a couple of more thousand words. </div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">This lunchbox story was a lot like that. A very elaborate, and as far as I could see, completely random exposition of a perfectly ordinary turn of events.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">And if you have deduced from the above that I am slightly pie eyed as I write this, consider yourself the victor of a cigar or a coconut.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br></div>
Narendra shenoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00435746867801885684noreply@blogger.com1