Me Anna Too!!

Three score and six years ago almost to the day, an allegorical novel was written about how pigs took over a farm from humans to govern themselves and slowly they changed.  What George Orwell described is an essential truth of human life.  Humans need pain misery and everything else in that category to live their life, remember the extremely convoluted speech of the architect in Matrix revolutions, the one with words like ‘ergo’?  Exactly!! 

We elect a bunch of representatives periodically to manage the day to day operations of our country and our country’s founders established a constitution as a framework for sustaining our way of life.  Somewhere along the way the ‘pigs’ forgot the ‘for’, ‘of’ and ‘by’ the people logic of a democracy.  There have been debates if the Anna is holding the democracy hostage, the govt. claims that the present revolution’s expectation is in violation of the constitution.

While I am no constitutional or legal expert, I feel that constitution along with prevailing moral code are processes that the elected representatives need to abide by, while the owners (people) need to follow them too but in extraordinary the owners can come together to change them.  While Anna has the demonstrated support of at least a few million people the ‘(S)ingh parivaar’ has only 552 plus their associates as supporters; rest of the Indians by keeping quiet can be considered as fence sitters, by this logic Anna wins by a land slide.

Of course one can argue on technicalities like if the higher judiciary and PM came under the lokpal, the lokpal will be bigger than both!  But I feel that’s too simplistic a view, if a lokpal focuses only on corruption related aspects and if there are certain procedures implemented to manage how the higher judiciary and PM are handled when they are still in office then there is no need for them to be exempted.  In US both Nixon and Clinton came close to impeachment, Nixon even had to resign.  Why should our PM be exempt?

The best part about this outpouring of support is its truly genuine nature, unlike the usually mockery of justice that we see this time the fate sided with the common folk to prevent all attempts to malign it.  We had congress spokesperson helping the cause by trying to tarnish Anna’s character, his army record, etc. which backfired.  We had the illustrious yoga guru try to capture headlines which backfired faster than one kapalbhati cycle, he is now trying to protect his quarter of billion dollar yoga/ayurved empire! Sri Sri ended up having to justify that while he himself doesn’t own even a car his ashram had capability to host few hundred people and their 25^th anniversary was being celebrated in Berlin!  Its almost like the stars are aligned towards honesty and they won’t tolerate corruption or enven people trying to milk the situation.

To express solidarity to the cause and also see the mass outpouring, I went to freedom park in Bangalore, It was a unique site where people came of their own accord painted their face with the tricolor shared their thoughts and decried corruption by sloganeering.  People were pouring in groups and consisted majority of young people.  I hope it was only cause they were more enthusiastic rather than the older people not supporting the cause as they felt they could get their job done (either side) without corruption!  I will do my bit to bring down corruption by not giving bribes so while Anna fights to bring in an enforcement law for the same.  Anna all the way!!

Animal Farm

Every city bred person (well most) have this fascination for country life, running streams, vegetation, mountains, farms, clean air, you get the point. I had my visions rolling hills, coffee plantations, snaking pepper wines, great big trees and lots of greenery. So when the opportunity presented itself in form of a overnight trip to mudigere to a friend’s plantation deep south in Karnataka, I and another friend jumped at it.

We set off on a gorgeous Saturday after a hearty SLV breakfast, armed with a tooth brush and an excellent bottle of well Scottish Scotch! We rolled, we talked, and we rolled up and down the rolling Mangalore highway in the friend’s Scorpio. I guess all the rolling was the suspension of the SUV rather than real rolling, you get the point. Being with a nature loving friend has its advantages as we stopped on the way to pay homage to a unique tree that had been the nesting grounds of vultures being felled for widening the highway, who would have thought? We stopped for a chai and then for oota (that’s food in Kannada) before we got off the highway to head off into snaking small roads.

The ride was nothing short of test of all four the driver, the driven, driven in and driven upon; even with my height advantage, I was just shy of touching the roof quite a few times. Well one thing is for certain that my city car would not have survived this trip. So finally we reached, the outskirts of the village and stopped for ‘shopping’, I thought it was a bit odd since we already had the toothbrush but I soon realized we were buying food by the truckloads of biscuits, loaves of bread, buns, etc. I was too much in a happy state to question or think.

We reached the farm, a dirt track led to a gate, we passed though to arrive at this brightly painted farm house and as we opened the car door my friend was greeted by a bunch of paws and lot of whining, I stayed put in the car till the excitement died down a bit and then got out to see three diverse ones, one named camel (the brownish one) in Kannada, the other a bitch named rani (black) and third another bitch (just 3 months old) Mudhol hound called lightening (white) in Kannada, this motley crowd was totally enthralled by their master arriving all of a sudden. Soon the packets of biscuits started disappearing; the clean air of the farm seems to have been invigorating as the dogs just wouldn’t stop eating!

After taking stock of various things in and around the farm we sat down outside the house just resting and chatting, next thing to happen was lot of mooing and jingling bells and out came a couple of cows and calves, then the whole loaves of bread disappeared (that’s what they were for!). Did I tell you that there a 10 hens clucking around in arbitrary desperation? After all the animal husbandry our host got down to the serious art of cooking a dinner, he did a damn good job with it too. After a few drinks and the dinner we moved to more usual useless discussions around life, money and women (in that order) and as we are all aware they tend to go downhill pretty quickly. It’s odd that for something that actually triggers such pensive topics it hardly helps keep the cognition required in control. For example I had delusions that I could train the dogs to sit by offering them incentives of biscuits, for a while it did seem to work, but I am just thinking that the dogs figured out that if they touched their butts to the ground I would offer them a biscuit … hmmm stupid humans!

So we had a midnight stroll and finally crashed, got up to a splitting hangover of epic proportions, we took a stroll through the farm and around the paddy field hoping that at each step our foot came back with our footwear and nothing but the footwear! Host was gracious enough to make great upma for breakfast and after shutting down things we made a move back to Bangalore.

As we headed out the entire animal farm seemed to be saddened and was making all kinds of noises hopefully they were missing their master and not suffering from upset stomachs (with all the biscuits and bread). As we started driving back with a heavy heart and heavier head we wondered if all the bugs, clean air, fresh food, animal friends and jack fruit trees would make us move out of our cities and move back to the farms … de-evolve? … No way!

I am home and it’s..hmm....more gay!

Ahem, I meant metro sexual! After a gap of few years I returned to NYC, it's one of that cities that immediately gives me a feeling of being at home, I get that when I am in Mumbai too! I know you are thinking it's the love of the stench or rats or people or all of it, but the other cities that gave me that feeling were London to some extent and Tokyo, Tokyo even had a banner saying welcome back, and Tokyo is very clean. May be it's got something to do with lots of people being packed into an old mass transit system or may be just the energy of people desperately trying to ignore each other. Cities like Delhi do not have that, there you get the constant feeling that no one is ignoring you, many are judging you and the most are trying to think of ways of screwing you.

Anyway moving back to one of the greatest cities that believe in letting you live your life. NYC is always cutting edge as far as US is concerned and when you see its buildings, people, infrastructure you can very easily attach superlatives like tallest, smelliest, most crowded, most fashionable, richest, costliest, weirdest, etc,. I came in on a cold snow-covered Sunday into JFK and took a taxi to Jersey City, the ride to Manhattan took 25 minutes (about 20 miles) and last 5 miles of city and tunnel took 45 more minutes. The taxi driver an elderly American broke every written and unwritten rule to get me to my hotel, maybe that's another link to the 'home' cities …mad cabbies!

I love walking through the streets of the city and watching the sheer wealth and power hidden in those buildings, walking through the Times Square which they have now completely made a tourist attraction with chairs, elevated platforms and HD displays. The other place that I love walking through is under the constellations of the grand central station, its New York cheese cake serving concourse and of course the fifth avenue it gives you the pulse of the fashion, changing times and unchanging times all at once. The unchanging ones are the Rockefeller Center ice rink, Saks on fifth, the string of designer shops, Crowne Plaza Hotel at the base of Central park and the changing ones like the arrival of upstart jewelers, Best-buy and the ownership of Crowne Plaza hotel. My favorite buildings on the fifth are the St. Patrick's cathedral, the crown building (home of playboy) and now the glass cube of the apple store.

The thing that struck me this time was the overall impression left by the New Yorkers, not the tourist or new migrants is that they have started to look more feminine. The briefcases have become hand bags, the umbrella styles, the high strung twangy girly speech that you see on so many TV shows.... It's reality. The clothes are too fashionable ... body contoured shirts, jackets trousers 'slim look' as they are known. The other thing is everyone’s carrying a brown paper bag at all times... not sure it’s for snack or panic attacks though and well women, fortunately are looking even more feminine, I wish the Indian ladies would take some hints on that :)

I saw a similar trend in Tokyo too, it's like the big city men are frustrated with fashion being a feminine word and are getting back with their own versions of it. With the guys wearing layers of colorful clothing, sporting hats, chains on their belts, clutch type wallets and the works. In US the music and pop culture is not helping either the rock music, metal and grunge are gone , all we hear now are Katy Perry with Snoop Dogg doing a feat in California girls and Akon singing in his not so masculine voice, the only male amongst them seems to be the ironically named Lady Gaga! Hollywood too has been left in the arms of ageing Denzil Washington to stop trains, while rest of it is stuck on asexual aliens, rom-coms, and all other comedy is relegated to booze infused men caught in some sort of overtly gay situations.

With the much prophesied end of the world next year we will seemingly be left with women, some more so than the others. How will New York survive?

Lady luck Shines!

I know the title will cause a stir but let me get the story out first then decide where it stands. I have always believed that life has a sense of humor and it just needs a bit of observation and interpretation to see it. Or maybe it's just that one needs a sense of humor to see life in a different light. I personally go with the first as I strongly believe a meta-intelligence is in operation, not necessarily cognizant or caring for the individual but in operation nevertheless. Well you are reading my blog so you might as well go with this conspiracy theory for now!

Coming back to the story, it begins with my monthly astrological outlook for Jan/Feb; the forecast claimed that it would be a string of 'hot' dates literally for the single, especially with love and social parts of my chart being lit up by like Diwali! Oooh! It even ventured to say that after a very difficult couple of years things were on easy street with all guns firing in the right way (of course), I had goose-bumps just thinking about it!

Finally the lady luck shines! May be the stars will make me look cooler probably like a rock start to the ladies (may have watched too many axe ads); so as prophesized the year starts with a bang, I tag along with a buddy for a new year’s party, it's a kind of party that one has heard off from a friend who knows a friend who got invited! So armed with my powerful star power I walk in almost with a swagger and a strut... new player in town! And as one would have it it was an amazing party with girls, music and booze right out of a Bollywood set. The ladies were dancing to the bollywood numbers and the guys watching in a stupor, good start is what I thought … maybe my swagger will score next time.

The forecast continued with more blistering dates being highlighted and dates where I would be pampered and so on. Lovely I thought and kept the swagger on and the sequence continued, got cute hairdresser to cut my hair, a mind blowing masseuse, dropped several grand in shopping for trousers, shirts, shoes, couple of more good parties happened. Had friends visiting from distant lands and even undertook trips to not so distant lands.

The forecasts continued into February and I found myself hosting relatives, but those were the good kind the ones that thought that since I was single and living alone I deserve to be fed on good home cooked meals (which they cooked) and fattened up, yum! I even hosted couple of 'nice' (understatement used to avoid embarrassing them) lady friends who also decided I need to be fed! Yeah I know' tell me about it.

With Feb moving into March it got me thinking and it finally sunk in that I was being played on by the stars, social meant friends & relatives not wild parties, pampered so long as I pay for it, hot meant I will get to ‘see’ action in the literal sense of the word. To cut the pain short the lady luck came at a price and these days I can't blame my stars for sending a bill along with their services! More importantly the words lady luck meant just that, my mistake of associating more meanings to them!

A French town, highway, City car, iddiappams and other oxymorons

Having heard of Pondicherry as a quaint French colony, well I imagined up the quaint part. So when the opportunity presented itself I grabbed it, friends both recently back from france too i guess wanted a flash back. Took my brand spanking new car and drove off into the sunrise. Cautious 80kph became a regular 100kph and even 140kph when possible, ah this is going to be fun. As we got of the NH to the state highway we started seeing the first cracks on the highway, the cracks started widening into erosions and soon we were tiptoeing around moon craters in my fancy city car at a mind bending 20kph!! The whole drive to pondi took a back breaking 8 hours for 300 km! Apart from roads tamillians also do not believe in street side food and the drive had nothing to eat or rest at.

I strongly believe that like all humans we too love food, and evey region has smashing good food too, the only question is if we love family cooked food or other family cooked food that drives the existence or the lack of dhabas. The other thing that seems to have come out strongly in my travels is as you head out of the cities taxi/rikshawalls become more loutish, not sure if taxi/rickshas are organised business for the ethically challenged.

As we drove into Pondicherry I keep looking around thinking probably the highway authority also got the signs wrong and we are in some nearby township, the place was like any other small Indian town well it was a small town period. With the typical scene of loutish rikshawalls standing in a huddle discussing inflation and root vegetable prices, chaotic traffic and we seemed to always have to go nere (that's not French that's Tamil for straight). Have you ever noticed why people seem to get lost and yet don't in india? The answer always is go straight except you had to turn when you didn't ask, I am dead sure that this is symptomatic of a bigger sub conscious pattern in human evolution just can't put a finger on it.

After asking around for directions to go straight we reached the French quaint town, it was like we had walked into a village fair, crowds milling around a windy board walk with raging bay of Bengal and hawkers selling local version of bhel and few crumbling French buildings converted to guest houses. The entire stretch was a kilometre wide by half a kilometre deep, of course they had French street names rue de sarcouf (er...) Dumas and gubert ave etc. There as the standard French notre dame inspired church and a crumbling mansion.

Indians have a great assimilation skill .... resistance is futile you shall be assimilated. That's what we do to everything, in misplaced jingoism oops nationalism we put a great big Mahatma Gandhi's statue facing the old French quarter to remind ourselves and the old building who the big daddy was. I agree that he came he woke us up, brought us together and lead us to kick out foreign rulers and get our own but that is no excuse to put up out of place statues. As i said we don't leave anything a cafe (le cafe) in the French sector on the beach with the Riviera architecture selling samosas.

Nature doesn't give a damn about us and irrespective of what we do does it's own thing. In this case it decided to dump one of the most awesome wave beaches in india on this undeserving bunch of ingrates. There in the milling crowds were a lot of foreigners mostly the low budget travelling beach bums but our reverence of the fair skin has them in raptures of us and our seemingly unending friendliness. We are the last bastion for the remaining flower-power followers i guess.

We wanted to stay on the beach front and tried quite a few beachside hostels some run by the aurobindo foundation but what we concluded was that our skin was not fair enough, tree seem to be lot of availability as many rooms looked obviously empty but we were told no vacancy. We went around looking for French food we even risked the car into unnatural roads to reach the famous auroville in search but all we found was an Italian joint which in true Italian style was run by a zesty food lover. The food was brilliant and the tiramisu & chocolate ice cream were some of the best I have ever had! Rest of the time we ate south Indian thalis and iddiappams ... Good stuff but what a let down! Sigh!

The road back was not only tainted by the bad road but also by the let down. We friends rescued each other and had we remembered that a pizza, wine and a french movie would have taken us lot closer to Paris and back!