God must be an Indian

Americans get their kicks from six flags parks and its vertical drop roller-coasters in the comfort of the knowledge that their restraints and the security devices will hold them.  Ah! Then there is bungee jumping and parachuting down a stunt aircraft, of course there is also eating raw meats and scuba diving with the sharks, ya what’s up with that?

Well ain’t we lucky we get kicked day in day out even if we didn’t feel like it, all one has to do is be an Indian! I strongly feel that we Indians are never more than 6 feet from god both horizontally and vertically! You may ask why not 5 or 7 feet, why only 6 and all I will say in my zen is stronger than yours and it seemed like a good even number.

Any way I get distracted easily, our adventures come in all shapes and sizes and most have differing number of wheels. My favorite ones are the ones that have three wheels; they have the most potent capability to bring you closer to god. Potholes, speed-breakers, traffic rules, traffic and passenger’s life are all thrown to the winds.  If you go by the theory that it is our belief that gives god his power then you can guess the strength a billion people remembering, thanking god after safely alighting out of the ubiquitous tripod.

God probably runs a 24x7x365 operation to keep the wheels on our country running, he probably cloned himself 330 Million times to handle our population but we beat him alright … who’s your daddy now eh? The near clockwork misses between life and death is proof of the operations. The question that arises is, are these operations efficient, I mean what if god too was as fallible as er … an Indian? I know it sounds blasphemous, I am spiritual and all that but just may be he/she is fallible … but on the other hand the fact that this country runs is proof positive that he exists and is trying!

Freakishly crazy storm his US and couple of people end up dead while we lose more than 10 times that cause some driver was driving a rickety bus at 41kph instead of 40! It does seem that god is unable to keep up with protecting all our population or probably he’s just found a more efficient way to do away with the lot … get them on a bus! Of course it’s also possible and more likely that only with divine grace did the bus run all this time in the first place with all the bad quality manufacturing, parts and lack of maintenance that we live with.

Look at the mess we create for ourselves, CWG! Need I say more? Not only do we tolerate a shoddy job and listen to really stupid excuses and irresponsible comments but we actually expect that our super corrupt politicians & babus will be put to shame and resign just because of some newspaper reports! Gods probably trying to make things as bad as he can for us to force us out of our stupor without hurting us too much so all he is doing is flood Yamuna (I never thought it ever did after Dwapara yuga!), spread dengue… etc.. but not actually make us select the couple that will go on the arc….

We all have heard the story where a drowning man refuses to be rescued by a log, a makeshift barge and a boat saying god will save him, and after he dies god tells him, “what else did you want … sent u a log, a barge and even a boat”…..I guess that’s us! 

Infuriating Candle Stand Illusion

Life is funny that way, and there is something wrong with it, can’t say if it’s just something wrong or something terribly wrong. It has this feeling that the answer to it all is either staring at you like the picture of a candle stand becoming two faces or the answer is hiding behind the sofa, personally I hate the candle stand picture, took far too much time to realize what I was looking at so I tend to believe it is hiding behind the sofa along with all the lost pens and all the dust, content in its belief that you are never going to move the sofa to clean behind it.

I don’t know about you but I have this strong feeling that there is a pattern, plan and even a logic in everything that explains all this madness of what is happening and is yet to happen and it’s all pretty obvious when you are able to see it but all I see is a candle stand. And it’s not a particularly beautiful candle stand either, one can argue that ‘evolved’ people take years of … well evolution before they are able to see it and what they see they are unable to describe in any known words or simple choose that the others discover it themselves.

You have the ancients describe it using all possible cryptic oxymoron as within, without, here and nowhere, endless, nothingness, etc. but I personally tend to believe it’s got to be something really stupid like a joke or something or even a science experiment, setup some energy-mass transformation rules and limits and wunderbar everyone is amazed by how it all started clumping together into something so inexplicably bizarre & unique. It even sprouted its own intelligence and rules of how to clump together and make more clumps and other general ruckus. I can’t help but quote Douglas Adams here “There is a theory which states that if ever for any reason anyone discovers what exactly the Universe is for and why it is here it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another that states that this has already happened.”  I totally agree and every time these evolved people look behind their sofas they just screw us a bit more then when we started off.

The clumped matter probably is not meant to find out the true nature of why it clumped in the first place and the designers probably ensure things got obfuscated when the realization was reached, like a trapdoor being triggered and the evolved clumps suddenly cannot articulate what they saw like a hallucinogenic dream in complex colors which men can’t identify or driving which women cannot explain (sorry couldn’t help but make the stereotyping crack). It reminds me of another author Issac Asimov and his series (Foundation series) where the protagonists chase their evolution across the galaxies in 4-5 thick books to find an answering machine on the moon apologizing for all the fuss and the fact that the original people who recorded the message couldn’t live long enough to apologize in person.

I just wish that I am proved wrong and that there is some serious business behind all this chaos, I am ok even if it may be that we are simply the lab guinea pigs used to investigate something of importance, but my sneaky suspicion is that all the answer will say is “we apologise for the inconvenience” - D. Adams again

Tokyo Lights

I love Japan, yes its official! It has its problems like you can’t blame trains or traffic for your delays, or lack of a tour package for not seeing the country, or the lack of muggers for not partying late into the night. The shared planetary memory of crowded, expensive, earthquake prone place, non-English speaking natives and the Hollywood portrayal of nasty Japanese businesses has hidden this jewel from all of us. Not to mention the crummy acting of Joy Mukherjee and over acting of Asha Parekh in the only movie we made in Japan.

Move over Bangkok, Singapore, UK, US, Canada, Aus or whatever else, we have rediscovered Shangri-La and it isn’t in Chinese section of Himalayas. It has its silly problems with peoples, egos, and the strict following of rules (the country will break into anarchy if the rule book is stolen) and their uncanny ability to see through you as if you didn’t exist, but every country has something similar don’t they?

Show me a place where your lost wallet comes back to you untouched? Or where you can leave your bag in a Friday night crowded bar and not worry about its contents or people leaving their iPhones on the restaurant tables as a placeholder. A country where unaccompanied women can walk at 2-3am in the morning without even thinking twice, while wearing miniskirts and stilettos (yes I had to mention the ladies). Or a land where stupid is a serious swear word! And the country side is every bit as picturesque as the post cards. For being the most populous city on the planet Tokyo doesn’t even come close to the population ‘show’ and problems that a Mumbai or Delhi do, there are only a few places where you see crowds like you do in our cities and believe me they are not maddening.

As for the expensiveness, yes it is but the quality is as good as the price you are paying and there is no getting around that, they just don’t expect anything done badly whether its food, clothes, electronics or anything else made in Japan. Yes we Indians (most of us) take them for a ride with the Indian food joints serving some crappy fare that was cooked a year back and frozen and microwaved till the end of the century or till the last drop is over whichever is earlier. Who knows how a curry tastes like anyways right worst case add some garam masala.... hmm maybe that’s what it was invented for?!?

I strongly feel that this country should not change into a English speaking McDonalds guzzling oversized diabetics, but unfortunately it looks like it is inevitable. The close to natural form of cooking food may be soon lost, raw proteins, simple carbs (sushi, sashimi) or cooked with veggies, seaweed cooked in water and not oil. Use of natural elements like bamboo (food, mats, furniture), all the great manners and the use of water in the loos and not paper!

The other day while travelling to a nearby temple town (yes they have tons of those) and i saw kids (tiny tots) carrying their own bags with their stuff in it and when one of them wanted to see out of the train window the kid removed his shoes and his dad then stood him on the seat to watch!! When I think of the culture shock that i got looking at this place and how positive it was I just try and imagine the poor Japanese first time traveler’s culture shock when he meets the world!

There’s nothing floating in my soup!!

Ordering food at a restaurant is usually a challenge with me, not because of any special dietary requirements but because I am like the kid who wanted something else after getting one thing. Ironies of life never end, anyways I stray… But being in a foreign country can elevate the challenge to completely new level as I soon started to discover. I had felt it would be rather easy for me after all I had eaten sushi, tempura, sashimi, and my kung fu with chopsticks was not brilliant but I could hold a piece of chicken while I took a bite of it or even eat rice with it.

There obviously are the omnipotent restaurants called Bombay or Italian ristorante & trattorias , French bistros & café, and Chinese .. well noodle house (?) or whatever they are called along with the ubiquitous American McDs, KFCs and Subways. I even got myself ready with few additional words, udon (white noodles), Soba (buckwheat noodles), gohan (rice), Tori (chicken), sakane (fish), yasai (vegetables), bifu and proku are obivious while nikku is meat and hai is yes, nashi is no or don’t add. So for no meat you would say nikku nashi, simple right?

The problem with Japanese is that they do everything with a lot of dedication, be it the quality of food or the way they speak or act to differentiate their place from others, you could deprive me of sleep for two days then allow me to fall asleep and wake me up 15 minutes later to hear a recorded voice and I could tell you without opening my eyes that it’s the subway sandwich maker from Aoyama twin building! They are very generous with their Japanese, all off the staff will greet when a new customer comes in, they confirm your order, they will tell you how much money you paid and then how much change is due to you and they will all politely thank you and wish you will come back when you leave! It is so much Japanese that it is not even funny.

The good news though is they all have wax food displays kept out or pictures so you essentially know how your food will look, so first problem solved you point noodle or rice looking thing on the menu and   then say bifu nashi, cool but can it be that simple? We did the problem and the good news but before we get on with the story we need to do a funny thing too right? Here it is, they speak to you in fluent Japanese (I am assuming) …… ok that was not the funny thing I promised; they speak to you in normal speed Japanese like they knew you from diapers, even when they can clearly see that I am not a Japanese and that I am actually pointing a figure at the picture on the menu and staring at them blankly… not sure if they want me to realize that I am missing speaking the most pleasurable language on the planet or that they are simply rude or daft!

Anyways I completely ignore her and point my finger in the general direction of noodle and tell her ‘bifu nashi’, then some more Japanese comes my way, I smile, she circles the picture with her finger, the noodles and associated bowls looks like they form a set, I say ‘Hai’, I point at the bowl she seems to have consciously missed, she says ‘tori’ (chicken .. that’s great), I nod my head… mistake, some more Japanese and she walks of and comes back with some bowls, not only is the pointed bowl missing but so is the meat from everything. Japanese value addition I get noodles in a spicy broth with some bean sprouts floating with plain boiled rice with sea weed on top all the fun stuff gone! I drown my English along with my disappointment in the soup, and eat my noodles pay and leave; good part is no one tips in Japan so thankfully no insult to injury.

Japanese custom demands you eat plain boiled rice served with the main dish separately as an accompaniment, no mixing that too to be eaten by  chopsticks … ya tell me about it. So using chopsticks slowly becomes second nature, it’s like the Saholin training you can’t sit chasing rice, grain by grain with a chopsticks in a 45 minutes lunchtime! First comes the spearing technique, it’s not good ‘manneru’, then you graduate to using them as shovels, amateurish, and then comes nirvana. But my theory is they don’t mix the main course with the rice as the sauces/gravy from the main dish makes the rice soggy and breaks its stickiness (now I want to see a Japanese eat this rice in 45minutes), of course you could have argued they could have just used or invented a spoon or simply eat by hand. But it’s akin to Greeks/Romans not being able to figure out a zero and making their building entrances wider and wider to handle the digits! It takes an Indian to figure out a zero and that a hand can actually be used to catch, clean, cook and even eat food … they have dedication we have logic!

Yakitori Nights

For a while I was starting to believe I was cursed to haunt the streets of Gurgaon, and the drastic change of scenery to Tokyo was a welcome relief, of course I continue to live out of a suitcase but for once even the suitcase is enjoying itself. Japan provides visiting Asians various levels of awe and shamefulness,  if you thought all that bowing was just movies then you are wrong, it still happens and in copious quantities and everybody is referred to by their name and suffix ‘san’ (our ‘ji’) and unlike our north Indian friends they really mean and act the graciousness of the language!

Like the mysterious Bermuda triangle Japan lies in its own triangle of idealness and everything here is gracious, detailed oriented and abhors bad quality. The kids are shockingly well behaved, the weather turns lightly bad during the weekdays and it becomes gorgeous over the weekends and holidays, people match the weather by wearing grey and black on the weekdays and transition to pastels (west would definitely declare them gay)! And everyone here is dressed immaculately with layers, colours , bags, shoes and styling gels, damn where do they hide their poor?

Universally a crow is known to have a shrill crowing in the ‘Ka-ka’ there are sufficient hidden ‘r’s but not here, here they can lull you to sleep! The dogs are designer, I almost thought these were the newest Honda Aibo robot with fur and all they don’t bark, they complement and fit well in the Louis Vuitton (LV is rage here women take loans to buy them) bags and if something happens that make them bark then they immediately bow their heads in shame for having done so.

I guess having a disease here is foreign, their food is healthy, bland and they don’t even know what diabetes is! I couldn’t find sugar substitutes even in Starbucks!! But whatever little they made in sugar free they took it to the next level … Asahi Beer Zero! Oh Alcohol here is plentiful, and the Japanese quality makes their whiskey, beer as good as the Scots  make their scotch or Belgians make their beer!  Their cuisine is fun to eat, restaurants aplenty and fortunately they eat the same set of animals as most Indians do which makes it a treat to eat anywhere in Japan.

The language is complex though, over engineered like everything else, adopted Chinese symbols (kanji), a script (hiragana) for writing natively Japanese stuff and a script for writing imported stuff (katakana) all used in the same sentence … go figure! But this has its hilarious moments in translations; like most Indian languages Japanese is a subject-object-verb (SOV) language while English is (SVO subject-verb-object) and unlike our 200+ years of colonization, English is here is brand new! Not that we don’t screw up but it’s funnier here; oh and by the way  they sound south Indian sometimes … biru (beer), taberu (table). Now you also know why you don’t hear English words in Japanese language, it’s not that they have a word for every English word it’s just the way they pronounce that one would never recognize unless trained!

I had this paranoid feeling that there is something wrong with the place and it’s not what it looks like but after two weeks I discovered that though it suffered from some of the Asian weaknesses related to gods, spirituality and women (in their psychological contemptuous thinking) but otherwise they are the most advanced, dedicated, detailed and work worshiping set of people on the planet today.

The cynic in me in the absence of finding anything to be cynical about turned to conspiracy theories of the supernormal kind. I believe that this place is cursed to be single minded in their approach to life and be seriously service oriented, which would explain the fact that a sweeper will use long tongs to collect cigarette butts stuck is tile cracks one by one and people in general will follow the procedures/queues for everything, the trains will be accurate to the minute and they will believe that it is their fault if they have been unable to understand you or serve you! But like everything there is a flip side, this living puts them under tremendous strain and when alcohol liberates them on Friday nights you see what pain they hide.