Hmm Hindustani

I have a new business plan. I'm going to be an AutoYogi. After over two years in Bengaluru, where the roads are rivers of yellow and black, I'm close to mastering the art of coping with autorickshaws. I can definitely whip up an audio-learning course with basic breathing exercises to tackle the stress of meters that tick a bit too fast, and the anxiety caused by a long string of autos that refuse to take you to your destination without extracting your day's salary. Available in mp3/mp4/wma/wtf and downloadable off the iTunes store.

Almost burst into tears when the Bharatbala rendition of the national anthem (the Siachen version) played in the cinema hall yesterday. I thought I was numb to it all.

Meanwhile India's battles against itself continue on the roads, where yesterday a non-Kannadiga passenger, obviously fleeced by her burly auto driver, was involved in a huge bye-lingual (two people speaking to each other in languages the other doesn't understand, so that they could as well bid communication bye bye) argument. The girl lost her cool finally and yelled at him: "Don't talk in that phonetic language!"

Bharat bhagya vidhaata…

Shush

We speak too much. Online, offline, and usually out of line.

Shut Up!

Behka main behka…

…ek hi nazar mein sab manzil-wanzil paayi!

J

Bee Are Bee

I is shlightly bishy and alsho shlightly tipshy becosh of liqueur chocolate that turned out to be not so subtle after all.

Big things are happening, or threatening to happen, so the blog is suffering. Thankfully it does not get cobwebby like the windows, fungussy like the balcony floor, or overridden with flying insects like Foodworld rice. So it's gonna be neglected some more.

 

 

How The US Elections Affect Life In India

Early this morning

Me: Wake up! I made tea for us!

He: Uh…Buh..Guh…Phhhh

Me: It's getting cold!

He: Hhhhhhh..Guh

Me: Look! Obama is winning!

He: Yay! Coming, coming!

By the way, what is "Change We Need" supposed to mean? It doesn't seem to make grammatical sense. Is it a corruption of The Change We Need? Or perhaps it is an excerpt from Yoda Speak: "Spent beyond our means we have. Around our heads our stocks crashing are. Change we need."

Thanksgivingy

Have become addicted to about 10 new blogs, which leaves me with no time or inclination to post on my own. Also going through a bad patch in the vocation department, and my facial screensaver is set to grumpy-grouchy.

Must list ten good things about life right now, to cheer up self:

1. Amazing Bangalore weather
   
2. Doting Husband
   
3. Wise Sister
   
4. Google Talk
   
5. Minesweeper
   
6. Air Tickets to Delhi (to be with parents)
   
7. Upcoming Diwali holiday
   
8. Feluda
   
9. Chocolate desserts at Barista and Coffee Day
   
10. Access to movies
    

This list is in no particular order, of course!

Kadva?

Dear Husband-Man,

Since you and I are both too militant for me to observe today's fast, let's just be careful to avoid accidents etc. Knowing your propensity for dreaming up stories and writing code in your head while you walk, I dedicate this song to you:

Babuji dheerey chalna

Karwa chauth pe gir na padnaa

Haan badey bhookey hain

Badey bhookey hain is raat mein

 

P.S.: With all due respect to the fasting ladies. Wish you and your loved ones a long and happy life.

Curious…

Remember how in the good ole days, when your mobile phone was lying next to your computer, the computer screen used to go all weird about two seconds before a call came? That no longer seems to happen! What has changed? The computers, the handsets, or the micro-waves???? Most puzzling!

A Non-Song

written around this time last year for a colleague who wanted me to write song lyrics for him. Goes to show I dunno how to write song lyrics.

पाँव थके तो हैं पर दीवाने भी तो हैं
जहाँ नहीं हैं रस्ते वहां बनाने ही तो हैं
उस धुंधली सुबह से जो वादे किए थे
चाँद डूबने से पहले निभाने भी तो हैं

तो चल के यह हसीं मंज़र तेरी मंज़िल नहीं
इस मोड़ तक आके जो रुक जाए वोह तेरा दिल नहीं
कुछ दूर अभी है अंजाम तेरे इस सफर का
ओ बाँवरे भंवर यह तेरा साहिल नहीं …

My Neanderthal (Great^100) Grandma Should Have Booked For Me...

This is the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs trying to help me find accommodation in Prague*

(The drop down list, of course contains two more years: 3909 and 3910.)

I don't think it is year 3908 according to some non-Gregorian calendar, unless they're also one day-of-the-week behind for some reason. It simply means that all hotels in Prague are full till Kingdom come, although there might be limited vacancy for the week before.

*Not going there anytime soon. I was window shopping for a vacation. Is that so bad?

What's That Rubbish Your Kid Is Reading???

Right between Johnny Johnny Yes Papa (moral: Lie all you want and get away with a big smile) and Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew (moral: students in the West have an awful lot of spare time), there is this stage when every kid reads cutesy stories with hardcore morals in them. Some memorable morals are that in all Russian families, there are 3 sons and the youngest one is the most kind, intelligent and forgiving, small animals are kinder than large animals, demons are vanquished by the cute and not the brave, and anyone with three kids is either gonna die and leave them squabbling, or face a lot of sorrow in life.

I read an awful lot of moral stories too, but the one that probably defined my attitude to life was an unfortunate little book, of which, for some inexplicable reason, we had two copies at home. Probably some wise kid, not realizing she was inviting two sisters to her party, gave us both the same book as a return gift… there is really no other explanation.

Now in my ripe old age, the title of the book has escaped the zoo of my mind, but the story was roughly this: there's a barnyard in which there are many little animals, and they're all hungry, so Mother Hen says let's bake some cakes… I now wonder where barnyard animals got their fascination for processed food from, but at the time, hen-made cakes sounded like a good idea. So she and her kids gather some grains, and nobody wants to help them….she asks some random critter to thresh the grain, and he flat out refuses. She approaches someone else to knead the dough, and they make excuses; for baking again, nobody helps and she makes it herself…ultimately, the hen and her babies do everything, and the cakes are ready. Now almost-ready cakes give off this nice cakey smell, even those made by hens…..so all the barnyard critters are sooper excited and run up saying hooray let's have a cake party!

And then comes the masterstroke: Mother Hen tells them all to bugger off and has a party with just her kids! No being nice to lazy asses! No being charitable! Pure, unadulterated, triple refined, iodized justice! I dunno if the book was intended to teach me the steps of baking or the basics of the English language…what it entrenched deeply into my kiddie brain was that if you're working your ass off, what you get out of it belongs to you.

And therefore, despite spending 14 years in a school that made kids have debates on topics like"which is better: sharing & caring OR loving & giving?" I am a staunch believer in earning and keeping.

Grr

Since nobody else is updating this blog, I'll just have to do it myself, won't I? Huh!

With the new long working hours, I feel like a machine. All my waking hours at home are occupied by non-voluntary activities, and that makes me mad. Never ever have I sat in one place for as long as people expected me to. I like to think I work faster than most, and can finish most exams in half the time allotted for them. I also rarely have problems meeting deadlines, so I think I deserve and extra star, or atleast the flexibility of leaving when I am done. The school teachers who did not let me leave after I finished my paper were plagued with the crashing sound of my sketch-pen-castle collapsing in a silent exam hall, or elaborate drawings on the question paper, which they had to scan for "cheating" material embedded into the artwork. I am still thinking about how I can make an entire office miserable so that they'll let me go home. It's tough.

?

One night last week, a bunch of people stopped us at the Brigade Road-Residency Road junction around 9pm. The group of two men, two women (in bright pink saris) and two kids (ten and one) asked us for some money for food, since they had not eaten for a while. In my usual Dilli ki Bandit Queen style, I walked past without paying attention, but the darling Husband stopped to listen. He offered to take them to a restaurant instead of giving them money. The only place we knew of nearby was closed, so we walked up Brigade Road to a shady-ish place. They sat down and we ordered Dal, Sabji and Kerala Parotas (is that how it's spelt?) The Husband paid up the bill and we waited for the food to arrive.

Ten minutes later, there was no sign of the food, and knowing we had a long walk ahead of us, we were keen to leave. However, Cynical old me was convinced this was a scam and right after we left, the folks we brought in would leave too, either with half the money from the restaurant manager, or without anything, coz they'd get thrown out of the place. So we decided to step out and stand in a place from where nobody in the restaurant could see us, and watch what happens.

As I had suspected, barely ten seconds after we stepped out, a guy from the restaurant came out, saw us, appeared to walk past, made a call, stared at us again, and then went and sat on the nearby steps. We stood our ground for a few more minutes, and then walked past the restaurant again. This time, we saw the waiter laying plates on the table. No food was in sight still. The spy was still sitting on the steps, looking at us.

We gave up and walked back home. We'd like to believe everyone was honest, the folks got fed, and the spy guy was probably doing something else. But I think the reason we walked away is because we sort of knew that would not be the case…

Can’t Bank On Nobody!

So after the grand success of the marriage registration, we moved on to step 2, getting each other's name added to our bank accounts. The husband took the initiative, and we submitted our papers one Sunday to ABN AMRO (Pronounced Yeh Bhi Hain. Aa Maro!). Fifteen days, two visits and many phonecalls later, we were told that no such request has been received. As I sat in the waiting area playing City Bloxx on the phone, the bank lady (there's only one person in the branch on Sundays, and employees take turns to do the Sunday shift) had the following conversation with my husband.

 

Sir, who did you hand over the form to?

One of your staff members, she was sitting in this same seat. You must have records of who did the Sunday duty on Aug 24.

What did she look like?

Umm…medium built, no spectacles….(my wife is sitting right here you idiotic woman….)

Did she have long hairs? Like till here? (pointing to hip)

(most uncomfortable) I think her hair was long…

Only one girl has the long hairs in our office, rest all have short hairs (this girl herself had fairly long hair, by the way)

I can surely recognize her if I see her…Do you have photos of all your employees? I can tell you right away!

No sir… but did she look like she was from here… was she pertaining to Bangalore?

Umm..er…maybe she was from here…yes

Oh then it must be XYZ!

Yeah I don't know her name….the next week on Tuesday she was sitting there (pointing to reception)

Oh PQR! You gave the form to PQR!

 

I have lost all hope of ever getting my golden debit card from here. The husband is also quite shaken, and we are thinking of shifting to HDFC (yeh chadhi, yeh phansi) or ICICI (Hai! Syaahi Syaahi!) bank. If you are pertaining to Bangalore and are knowing of any bank with equal hair length employees who may or may not work on Sundays but who do not lose forms, please let me know!

Gone Home To Mommy Daddeeeee!

Baby Brush has already flown South, but we had/are having an awesome time!

Marriage Registration In Bangalore

Here's a guide for those who are temporarily living in Bangalore and are trying to get their already-solemnised Hindu marriage registered.

Paperwork:

1. A copy of your wedding card. Make sure it's not tacky looking, because that arouses suspicion.
   
2. Photographs of your wedding: 2-3 showing you guys at various stages of the ceremony should do. Make sure you have one with both sets of parents in it. If the parents are looking happy, it proves that they are not absent from the registration venue because they are mad at you, just because they're not in Bangalore.
   
3. Five photographs of the two of you in size 2B. This is a mythical size that is not explained on the Internet, and is perceived differently by photo studios and registrar offices. A 2 by 3 inch size is ok, you can cut it smaller right there if needed.
   
4. Proof of age. A tenth class certificate is good. A passport is also good, but causes problems if your address there is your permanent address from your hometown, and not Bangalore. Go with the school certificate.
   
5. Proof of residence: This is the tricky one. Lease deeds don't work. Mobile bills don't work. Private bank statements don't work. The jury is still out on national bank statements. The usual suspects: passport, driving license, gas bill, ration card, voter ID all work, but I am guessing they are all marked with "back home" addresses for many of us. Loan receipts and Airtel fixed line bills have worked at one office each, but don't bank on it.
   
6. There's also a form to fill which is available online. Print it back-to-back, else it's invalid. Even then, some offices have a different version of form, and that requires witness signatures in two places instead of one, so it's just safer to get the form from these folks.
   
7. You'll need three witnesses to sign, and it's better - though not compulsory - to have at least one relative of the bride or groom do this. The witnesses need not be present at the time of registration.
8. Take a pair of scissors, a fine felt-tip pen (for signing on photos), a gel pen, a ballpoint pen, a stapler, and a glue stick along. Helps a lot!
   

   
   

Where this will happen: At the sub-registrar's office. Each area has one assigned, and you can do it in the area where you live, or, if you got married in Bangalore, in the area in which you got married. The complete list is available at: www.karigr.org . It's ok to call up any one of the less busy ones during office hours (Mon-Fri 10:30 to 5:30, Sat 10:30-1:30) and find out the phone number of the one you need to go to. They're helpful, and will put you across to someone who knows English if you're Kannada-challenged. It might even help to pay a preliminary visit and have your documentation checked out when you go get a form.

Miscellaneous: I cannot go into too many details here, so I'll leave you with some pearls of wisdom.
Take a good, hard look at the person you've just married. Are you willing to go through endless days and nights of torture with him/her? I'm not talking about the life that lies ahead of you, just the registration process. Remember, after you have been through this ordeal, you will be unable, out of sheer exhaustion, to be able to divorce him/her for the next 100 years.

P.S. This blog is not ad-driven, so it's just out of zeal to help out others in my condition that I request you to click on this often, and share it with anyone who needs this info, so that it shows up in the early Google results and saves some folks a lot of time and worry.

Rassipi: Batman Paneer*

1. Take a kadhai and heat a tablespoon of oil in it.
   
2. Add some chopped garlic or garlic paste
   
3. Step back and shout four letter obscenities as the oil sputters angrily out of the kadhai.
   
4. When the sputtering stops, add 75% of a 200ml tetrapak of tomato puree into the kadhai.
   
5. Step further back and shout mother tongue obscenities as splotches of orange appear all over the walls and shelves when angry oil reacts with benign tomato water.
   
6. Steps 3 and 5 can be avoided using a cover for the kadhai, but then what's the fun I say.
   
7. Add salt and pepper to the puree, and cook it for some 7-8 minutes in all.
   
8. Add finely chopped pieces of paneer (up to 250 grams should be good). Stir.
   
9. Add 50 ml of milk. Stir.
   
10. Add some fresh chopped coriander or some kasoori methi, let it all heat up nicely once, then switch off gas and cover and leave until you wanna eat it with hot hot ragi-and-atta chappatis.
    

*This quick-fix recipe has this unusual name because it was thought up while we were coming home after watching The Dark Knight, which finished at 9:40pm. (Fifty minutes later, we had finished dinner)

29 is the "prime" of life!

Hum Bhi Agar, Bachchey Hotey

Naam Humara Hota Dabloo Babloo

Khaane Ko Miltey Ladoo!

Aur Duniya Kehti...

Auto!

This morning I had my third quarrel with autowallahs in a row. It seems that the new 14-rupee meters have been successfully rigged en-masse. Now there are various opinions about haggling with autowallahs over fares, especially when the amount is so small, and it means so much more to them than to you, and all that sort of thing. So my rule is usually to pay up quietly for up to 15% rigging, argue at anything between 15-25%, and politely tell the autowallah that his meter is very, very obviously rigged and I am paying only what I pay everyday, if the hike is 25% plus. Only in the middle case does the autowallah shout at me, in Kannada of course (to ensure I feel like an encroacher and a cheat and an ignorant ass). So now I need to find a non-hypertension-inducing strategy to deal with this situation.

 

While on the subject of autos, there's this nice system in Bangalore where the autowallahs display their licenses on the back of their seats. Except the typist at the transport office often does not care for spacing and punctuation, and so I've had the pleasure of being driven by a CLINGARAJU and a TRAMESH. And yesterday, the auto ahead of mine read: "I must be dead because this is heaven and you are an angel". Which was nice, except our heaven was a traffic jam, and the angel, my autowallah, was honking like a maniac at the auto that bore the wonderful words. AND his meter was rigged. Sigh.

The Devanahalli Dilemma

So it's official. The new Bangalore airport (henceforth BIAL) is falling pathetically short of space, not to mention the pain and expense of commuting for an hour at least. One of the solutions under consideration is opening up the old airport (HAL) for certain flights. Now my question is: Suppose you were to decide how the load is to be divided, what would you do?

There are three possibilities that I see:

1. Budget airlines move to HAL: Lower airport taxes and commuting costs mean the cheap flight is cheap again. Or is it? Who'll want to fly Kingfisher from BIAL when Spice is leaving from their backyard? The business traveler loves luxury, but does he/she love waking up at 2:30 am for that 11 am meeting in Delhi? And again, if the demand for cheap tickets goes up, will the budget airlines raise prices and use this chance to come out of the red?
   
2. Fancy airlines move to HAL: The corporate traveler wakes up at 6 now. The budget folk spend 1000 bucks on the taxi, 200 for airport food unless they pack their poori sagu along, and pay huge airport tax to fly. What the heck! I'll give that extra 1200 and then some to Kingfisher and fly outta HAL! (Another twist to the tale which I thought of was making the HAL people pay BIAL airport tax, and vice versa. Keeps BIAL tickets cheap as an incentive for those who have time at hand.)
   
3. HAL operates flights only at peak times: Every airline has a primetime flight or two that leaves from HAL at a higher cost than from BIAL. If you have commuting issues, just pick from these. If the flights are sensibly spaced out, every airline gets to profit.
   

   
    

Would you vote for any of these? Do you have a better solution? Please post it here!

Unrelated: One of the Bangalore bombs went off at the end of my lane, exactly where I walk every morning on my way to work. Not so funny anymore.