Bhutan Diary: Page One Of Dunno How Many...

I’d promised my butter half that I’d take him to see the Himalayas, and when he had introduced me to the pristine beauty of the Nilgiris, I’d been quite embarrassed at the thought of taking him to see something like Mussoorie or Simla. Then the opportunity to visit Bhutan came up, and we jumped at it!
After a BLR-CCU-IXB (Bagdogra) flight-hopping session, we were driven to the border hamlet of Jaigaon by a maniac in a Maruti Van. Theme song: “Bangali mein kehte hain, aami tomake kamikaze” The waiter at our hotel asked: “What will you see in Bhutan? It’s only mountains and roads….nothing to see…” His idea of a vacation was probably getting tripped and pickpocketed on the escalator of Forum Mall by a group of ladies with babies and baggage, which goes to show that the grass is always greener on the other side, except that there will soon be no grass or anything green except bank notes in …
Crossing over to Phuentsholing, Bhutan was really a journey into another country! If the British Airways crew sprays pesticides, insecticides and homicides in the cabin before taking off from India, the Bhutanese folks spray water on the car tyres, leaving you wondering if they’re getting the Indian muck off or symbolically washing your feet most respectfully… I remain mesmerized and ignorant…
Across the border, everything was neat, clean, traditional, and also very modern! All those fancy Toyota SUVs and buses get into Bhutan by road through Jaigaon! Wow! We’re a conveyor belt for goodies we never get to sample!
Our first stop was Thimpu, and since Phuentsholing-Thimpu is a main trade road, we ended up in a major traffic jam caused by a landslide. Which was great, because my dearest co-passenger, who had been awestruck by the sublime grandeur of the Himalayas for half an hour, was now in a red and molten condition with wet palms and dilated pupils… Alti-Dude sickness! Having come from a family of mountain goats, I did not know what to do to help, so we just sat and counted trucks till he regained his wits. The break helped immensely!
Having road-tripped across Sikkim-Darjeeling-Kalimpong some seven years ago, I was expecting a similar experience here, but I was pleasantly surprised when the landscape was much better preserved. Architecture was strictly regulated and every little building conformed to traditional design. The road meandered though the mountains and valleys, and we spent whole days drinking in the beauty of a land that takes great care to preserve itself. Back home, my days there all seem to blend one into the other. We used to wake up early, travel almost all day, stop for lunch and a little stroll, arrive at our destination, explore a little bit, and retire early. We ran into several tourists, and with the exception of a couple and a family, none of them were Indians.
Curiously, the consistent neatness and cleanliness we saw everywhere was missing in the monasteries or dzongs, where litter and foul smells seemed to have taken shelter. Ever since I came across Buddhism in my school textbook, I had thought of it as a possible religious faith that I could embrace. Sadly for me, the dzongs, the many gods, the tussles for power, and the prevalence of myth quite destroyed that hope. Perhaps I just will continue to believe in Divine Justice and hope for the best.
Did Bhutan take my breath away? Yes! Was every possible shade of green on display? Yes! Were there rhododendrons painting the mountain faces pink? Yes! Is the art and architecture by far the most fascinating I’ve ever seen? Yes! Is it pointless to go on about all this for another six hundred and twenty-five words? Yes!
I’ll post pictures as soon as the photographer has chosen the ones he wants over at his place. You know you’re a “ghareloo babe” when you remember to put naphthalene balls in the drain before you go on a trip, and pack a sterlisied syringe for travel emergencies, but leave your camera on the table at the last moment. Still kicking myself!

Happy Mother's Day all!

Back from a great trip, and now doing my eighth round of laundry, cleaning the house, stocking up the fridge, shivering at the number of work mails, and watching movies daily (Iron Man & Speed Racer: Definitely not my idea of a film festival)!

P.S. The detailed travelogue has begun here. I'll post my short and lazy one sometime soon!

Yukon Ho!

My tiger friend has got the sled,
And I have packed a snack.
We're all set for the trip ahead.
We're never coming back!

We're abandoing this life we've led!
So long, Mom and Pop!
We're sick of doing what you've said,
And now it's going to stop!

We're going where it snows all year,
Where life can have real meaning.
A place where we wont have to hear,
"Your room could stand some cleaning."

The Yukon is the place for us!
That's where we want to live.
Up there we'll ge to yell and cuss
And act real primitive.

We'll never have to go to school,
Forced into submission,
By monst, crabby teachers who'll
Make us learn addition.

We'll never have to clean a plate,
Of veggie glops and goos.
Messily we'll masticate,
Using any fork we choose!

The timber wolves will be our friends.
We'll stay up late and howl,
At the moon, till nightmare ends,
Before going on the prowl.

Oh, what a life! we cannot wait,
To be in that arctic land,
Where we'll be masters of our fate,
And lead a life that's grand!

No more of parental rules!
We're heading for some snow!
Good riddance to those grown-up-ghouls!
We're leaving! Yukon Ho!

-Bill Watterson

Mr and Mrs Inky hope to post complementary travelogues in some days.

37 Degrees and Clear

Dekha ek khwab toh yeh silsile hue
Bangalore ki garmi mein hum pilpile hue
Yeh geela hai gutter ke phat jaane se
Baarish se kahan humare jootey geele hue…

TOI Story

If you’re reading ANY article on the Times Of India website: be it murder, scandal, sports, films, technology, the scandalous murder of sports film technology or whatever, you’ll see this ad under the headline, in the top left corner. It is all very well to pepper my reading with ads: as a freeloader, and that too on the Times, I expect nothing else. But to have this mysterious ad stare at me everywhere I go? I mean, is there anyone out there who understands what’s going on here?

The Making
Ok. So Allianz paid TOI lots of money to get a highly visible slot on the website. Then they probably gave someone the task of coming up with an ad. The someone took a medium-sized advance, and then forgot to make the ad. Three days after the deadline, the client asked him where the ad was. He said he’d be at Allianz with the ad in fifteen minutes! He leapt out of his seat, took a picture of the man in the parking lot outside, wrote some copy while navigating his bike with the other hand, and reached the client’s office in thirteen minutes…. There is really no other explanation.

The Interpretation
Now if an Insurance, Asset Management and Banking concern used a scantily-clad babe, it would be perfectly easy to interpret. She’s pricey, so the bank, your wife might find out, so the insurance, and from the lots and lots of her that’s visible, you can figure out that she’s managing her “assets” pretty well. But what’s with a constipated-faced hassled man parked outside a temple and trying to save his rear view mirror from getting knocked off by a couple on a bicycle who’s obviously doing something to bug him and not letting him get out of the car? What do we make of this work of art? First the man on the bicycle…is he wearing a lungi? The passenger behind him: do his/her fingers naturally end abruptly like that? Or is he/she holding on to a big placard? What’s going on behind that killjoy blue rectangle? Why is Driver man so upset? What is the message of this ad? Is it “This is how hassled Allianz employees are, coz they’re trying to protect your assets (rearview mirror) for you from the big bad wolf of fluctuating markets (Lungicycle and Stubfinger)? Or is it that Allianz’s insurance, banking, and asset management will make sure you never have to constipatedly clutch at your car accessories in a traffic jam ever again, because you’ll be financially secure, and can buy a million rearview mirrors (you pervert) with your pocket change?

(H)Arz Hai

Sabzi mandi mein saalon baad woh bewafa mil gayi
Haftey bhar kambakht pyaaz ne bahut rulaaya...

(Admit it, it was better when I wasn't updating!)

Mild Antibiotic and Lactobacillus BD x 5 days

While waiting for my turn at the doctor’s clinic today (it’s just an upset tummy), the only other dude in the place came up to me and asked if he could please go in before me, because otherwise he would be late for namaaz at the mosque? He said he only had to show his reports, and since the mosque was a 20-minute drive away, it was quite important he go in first.
I had been waiting for over half an hour, which is not very fun with an upset tummy, and I tried to tell him so. There is a mosque across the road from where we were, but I decided not to tell him so. He said it was Friday and it was very important for him to go to the mosque. So I said ok and let him go. As soon as he went in, the receptionist girlie scolded me! Why did I let him go? He ALWAYS does that!
Why I let him go is quite simple really. I am trying to cut down stress levels, because I’m on the verge of a breakdown. So I’m being patient with people. And the first set of people I’m being patient with are those who do unethical stuff in the name of God. Why? Because if it turns out there’s a God and there’s a Hell, they’re gonna be my dorm-mates or something!
And by the by, as he was drifting out and I was shifting in, I heard the doctor say: “You can use an earbud or a spoon, anything that is convenient…” “A spoon????” said the God-fearing queue-slasher, with those many question marks in his voice. Now, tell me honestly, isn’t that a lovely fragment of conversation to mull over? Hehehehe!

Word of the Day

Con Job: The output from your desk when you're stuck to a job that is clearly not cut out for you, just because you are pessimistic about your market value and wonder “mujhe kaun job dega?”

If you miss the train I’m on you will know that I am gone
You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles…

I Have Written On My Wall

Social Networking had its golden days with Orkut. You made your profile, put up a picture of your eye/hair (a cartoon picture if you were a guy), added a few showoff communities, continually weeded out FRanDsHiP requests from coolAmit and Dude1987 (who is old enough to be your son, knows it, and yet will not give up). Then you decided to track down long lost schoolmates, and unless you NEVER had any class, you’d find your class community online… Precocious Pumpkins Public School, Class Of 97… and check out the profiles of the dudettes who used to sit around you and make fun of your long skirts in the playground. You were warmed to the core to see that Alisha has moved to New Zealand and married a techie there! Pappykutty has married a techie and moved to Australia! Barbie is single, in the US, and a techie type is leaving her XOXOXOXOXOs in her scrapbook! The school uniforms still exist in their metaphorical avatar, and your skirts are still too long….

Just when Orkut was reduced to a pain that hampers office productivity, Facebook opened its doors to all and sundry! Suddenly everyone is inviting you to join, people are putting up their real pics, and a million crazy applications are spreading like ..well…now everything spreads like facebook applications, so that itself is the metaphor….
What colour is your metaphysical liver? Which kind of dental cavity are you? Which social networking site matches your underwear?... There are people who have added so many applications to their profile, that they regularly use an app called “Which apps should you purge this week?”… and while everyone is free to do what they want on their own homepage, it makes me mad when I get involved willy nilly! Every fortnight or so, Facebook tells me people have compared me to their friends on various criteria, and here are the results:

I am the least attractive, have the worst hair, would make the worst date/kisser/girlfriend/partner, have a terrible sense of humour, cannot speak, and yet, I am the perfect potential mother… these people are obviously thinking of single parenthood and some kind of parthenogenesis! And then there are those who think you are a hottie, which means they have been forced to think everyone is a hottie, coz otherwise they cannot add the “Which fictional character would rather be dead than be seen drinking cheap booze on Friday night with you?” app. And the things people throw at each other! Tinkoo has thrown Humpty Dumpty at your wall! Pinkoo has thrown a tractor at your nose! Pappu has sent an elephant in one ear and out the other.... Uff!

Then there are the games…the ones that have prevented me from deleting my facebook page! The never ending movie quiz which is just a never ending ego battle, and says “I have more time to click random FAQ answers than you do”. The online Boggle, which shows you that you were probably the gully champion ages ago, but you can eat some humble veg pie now. The perfect addiction, I say! Can get too addictive even. Am already thinking of adding the "I need medical help getting off Boggle" app...

Just got a poke! Rimpy from school who IS a techie lives in Canada with her husband wants to play Boggle! Tada!

Dial 101

The kitchen of the Andhra restaurant across the road has caught on fire and the whole area smells like a huge havan-kund. The smoke is sneaking in through the cracks, and everyone is coughing in office. Hopefully nobody was hurt. The restaurant has already been responsible for many casualties due to insufferably long waiting times, and we don’t want any more trouble.
Shops around the establishment are conducting business as usual, traffic if plying normally, and people are crowded around the restaurant. It takes more than a fire to stop the mad scramble that is Namma Bengalooru…

Jodhaa Akbar

How can I resist writing about the movie which I’ve been so eagerly waiting for?? So I finally managed to catch Jodhaa Akbar, and three and a half hours later, I have just one question: what made me not leave or atleast wiggle restlessly in my seat?? There is barely any story, nothing EVER happens, wild horses (or elephants) cannot drag me into Aishwariya fanhood, Hrithik’s overbuilt torso is dis-gus-ting, the song choreography reminds me of Sports Day at school, and the supporting cast is just about ok.

I am guessing I am a woman after all, and can gape in wonderment at jewellery and gota-patti ghagra cholis for three and a half hours. That and Hrithik’s acting. The booming sasurji in the background has good reason to worry about bahuraani if that boy looks at her like that!

And the scenes with all the food right before intermission: was THAT a deal between Gowariker and the popcorn wallahs? Talking of food, here’s Mr and Mrs Inkspill’s version of “Kehne ko jashn-e-bahaara hai”:

Kehna ko baingan baghara hai
Taste kuchh aur hi aa raa hai
Lauki sa koi milaa milaa hai baingan mein
Kaddu bhi koi gir hi padaa hai bartan mein
Saare log to khaa rey hain
Hum to sochtey jaa rey hain
Baingan aise thode hi banaatey hain……

Don’t ask why.

Do you want a partner oh partner?

If you scratch your head long enough, you’ll surely remember your time in school. Where you sat on an uncomfortable wooden bench, next to a creature assigned by the Higher Powers to be your: partner. Benchmate is a better word, but naah, when you’re stuck with someone six hours a day in such close proximity in an unventilated room full of respiratory infections, lice, and the fog of fear emanating from bagfuls of unfinished homework, you call the other person a partner!

The partner system works well as a support group (Can I lend(sic) your rubber(sic)), or a vigilance mechanism (Miss! She is eating her tiffin under the table), depending on the equation between partners. There are those who help you answer tests, and there are those who are eating YOUR tiffin under the table while you asking to lend their rubbers! There are those who weep inconsolably when your seats are changed, and there are those who draw impermeable Indo-Pak borders with a compass to demarcate your area of the table and theirs… And there are always those who have been too busy for weeks to have a bath, which is the reason your mom talks in serious and low tones to your teachers at the PTA, even though you have topped the bleddy class!

The partner assignation processed can be classified into three kinds: Simple, Arbitrary, and Rocket Science. Simple is when the teacher lets you sit next to whom you please, which results in Ekta Kapoor ke soap-like politics among people, and location-wise as well, there will be some prime seats that everyone wants. Also, the people who nobody wants to sit with get emotional scars for life, which is very helpful if they’re gonna grow up to be artists, but very bad if they’re gonna become prime ministers, and since you never know, the simple system should just be considered unsustainable.

The arbitrary system is when the harried lady who steps into a 10feet-by-10feet room consisting of 60 kids, their unwashed aromas and their lunch smells has to, without fainting, assign people seats. Based on an assessment of their characters and natures made during the 40 minute class, where she glances at them once in a while, she decides who sits where. The smart teachers make the tallest girls sit at the back, and the rowdies sit next to the nerds, and thereby all human curtains for mischief are gone! And the nerds never really benefit from being with the rowdies, they just bury their noses into Moral Science books as the rowdies make fun of them TO THEIR FACE!

The rocket science system was tried once or twice in my school with moderate success. It works like this: each row of twin seats has a left side and a right side, right? So all the people on the left stay static in their seats, and all the ones on the right move one seat ahead every week, and the frontbencher moves back to the last seat, like a conveyor belt. So you have a new partner every week, which in the adult week is called being a jerk or being a player, but in school world is called social adjustment 101. When you sit with so many different people, you no longer care who your partner is, you don’t know who has your rubber or whose tiffin you just ate under the table. You learn to go about doing your own thing, and grumbling each time you are forced to accept change JUST when you got used to the previous idiot, and this sort of prepares you for adult life more than the stuff in the books!

Ok. I have spoken enough. In fact, I had spoken enough 100 sentence ago. Now if you please, leave a comment about your most memorable “partner”.

Kallumall ke jalwe!

Ok, so you've probably had a fancy cellphone for years and my raving and gushing seems stoopid, but hey! Be a sport da!

So the new phone allows me to play nice music on it, and if I switch out of the music player mode, it shows the song name on the home page, just above the location. So it's "Just the way you are Bannerghatta Road" and "Shaam dhale gagan taley J P Nagar". Not bad, right?

I've put the "Rock" equalizer on, because that's the only way I can hear anything above the traffic sounds... so Umrao Jaan is now rocking on the phone, but what the heck? Zindagi jab bhi teri bazm mein BTM Layout!

And the next thing is setting personalized ringtones and photuss for regular callers. So I set "Pal Pal hai bhaari jo bipdaa hai aayi" for my boss, and told him as much. He even posed for a cute Ravan-like photu to go with it!

I got the internet to work on it today, and it's amazing how legible everything is on the kutty screen! I heart kallumal!! Ok enough!

Introducing Kallumal!

Got an early Valentine's Day gift (yeah yeah!) My first music phone! My first 2 megapixel camera phone! My first fancy phone! Heck, my first real Valentine's Day gift!



Feel like singing (both to the phone and to the dude who gave it me)

Meri zindagi mein aaye ho, aur aise aaye ho tum
Jo ghul gaya hai saanson mein woh geet laaye ho tum
Tum hi kaho
Tum hi kaho
Dil jo aise gaaye
Koi kyun na gungunaaye?

(Kallumal is black, so nazar nahin lagni chahiye! :) Touch wood!)

Fiction*: A New-ish Mother Wonders

This is all so bizarre and all so strange
And so way out of my fancy-free range!
He pines for me when I’m not around
And I cannot bear that heart-wrenching sound
But when I’m around, he doesn’t seem to care
What I’m doing, as long as I am there!
Coochie-cooing leaves him in giggles
He imitates my smallest twitches and wiggles
Even if I look like rag, he sees a halo and wings
And he pouts his way out of unpleasant things
Talks gobbledygook most of the time
Thinks missing meals or sleep is a crime
And all this is bizarre and strange because
The baby’s not mine, it’s Mom-In-Law’s!

*Behold the flying pigs!

Tu Hai Mera Lucky Number, Tera Number Hai 12!

Rediff has given us a sneako peako of Saif Aashiq Aawara Khan ka naya navela tattoo. Ab bhai aapka to pataa nahin, but I think this bhaiyyaji has done kamaal ki future planning...

Let's face it Kareena Aunty ke saath future is shaky. But she wants tattoo, so what to do? Humre bhaiyya bhi ishmart hain! Ek teer se do shikaar! Agli baar toh bahut kam effort lagega! Check out humraa artwork in red...



Kitni soni lagegi jodi! Saif and Kaif!

Pondicherry Ki Sair

So we went to Pondy (first everyone calls it that and then they snigger! People, I tellya!). The first thing that hit us, apart from the highway fog and the uncontrollable urge to pee, was the Pongal preparations everywhere. Where we stopped for breakfast (at the driver Sri Murugan's orders), we saw one of many rangoli color stalls:



And then there are the ropes.... I've come to the conclusion that the smaller the settlement, the more the proportion of shops selling ropes of all kinds....and it can't just be because of all the coir...coz this is definitely for local retail... so is rural life held together by ropes? The sample below is skewed because it seems to have lots of cattle jewellery as well, but you get the picture.



And then there were these mountains whose strange rocky formation seems to have only one explanation: Ladies and Gentlemen, presenting Mount DinoPoop:



There was an imposing fort at Gingi, but we sped past, and reached here:



Now Pondy is nice and all, but as the Sistah said, veggie teetotallers are not really the target audience. We got to do some anthropological study, though. Check out out conclusions on beach etiquette: The gora way versus the bhoora way.





And then there was this sadistic take on the thirsty crow's story....notice the hole in the jug:



The French architecture was all very pretty, and very easily copy-able, as many under-construction buildings showed. The Bharat Sarkar office, however was a "site for sore eyes". So here's the French one only( Wee, Vella France :P):



After ogling at the expensive silver jewellery and designer clothes in town, we finally ended up at our home-away-from-home and did some token Pongal shopping!



And of course a visit to Auroville: mostly for the bakery, and also for the hype. Nice place, but this mandir really scares me, especially the desciption of what's inside. Too scifi baba!



And finally, what I've been avoiding all this while: the hotel we stayed at! Please avoid Tata ki hospitality ka azeem-o-shaan namoona: Ginger Pondicherry. Whoever came up the 2 room colours idea totally appropriated the privelege of setting the tone for your holiday: Check it out. Which room you get surely determines how you feel, doesn't it?



Stuck in the blue one, we were also plagued by three men trying to repair our AC at 10pm (we had woken up at 4:30am to beat the traffic) crazy kids banging our door and running at 11, a call from the reception to please return the keys for some random room at 11:30, and a drunken dude knocking and asking me for his keys at mignight. Add to that the cold and exorbitant buffet and the already falling apart room accessories, and you have the Hotel from hell:



Ginger is a crap name for a hotel anyway! So when Sri Murugan decided we must leave before the Rahu Kalam on Monday Morning, we were more than happy to get out. The holiday was good, but it made us love Bangalore more!

Sober version of the tale here.

Signing off with my newly-acquired Tamil Nadu manners: "Vanakkam and Nandri to all and sundry"

Jet Lagged :)

Mumbai is clean, cool, quiet and pretty at four in the morning. And it looks like Taare Zameen Par when you take off at five thirty from the fancy schmancy airport.

Can't they put early morning sometime between 12 and 1 in the day?

Help!

Does anyone know how one can get married in court in Bangalore?

Happy New Ear to You...

...As I not only happily listen to and tap my feet to "X Machi Y Machi" but also realize that Machi is probably dudette here and not fish as I had previously imagined. As one bacterium said to another, how far we have come in one ear.



This is from the same time last year, when we were Honeymooning. On New Year's Eve this time we saw two films, both set on the South Bank! London yaar tu mera peechha chhodta kyun nahin????

The usual resolve to post daily, of course. How cutely we kid ourselves again and again... Anyway 2008 seems to be the year of spooky song coincidences if today is anything to go by. We were generally looking around for houses and the song in the property dealer's car was "And I'm sorry for all the lies" or something like that, and then at the "beauty" parlour as the hapless technician's feeble thread equipment struggled with my steel eyebrows, the radio asked "Naazuk yeh dor hai kyun..."

Ok. That's all. Must leave something for tomorrow na!