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June 27, 2009
Six Months of "Something About Nothing?"
Today's piece marks the six-month anniversary of this column's existence since it first saw the light of day on 27th Dec 2008. I am neither a celebrity, nor a political commentator or film reviewer and hence it is only thanks to you readers that this column works, especially since the most angst I have expended has only been on issues such as cars blocking gates and the Rs. 90 valet parking charge at one of the local hotels, all of which make this column, in Jerry Seinfeld's words, probably just "something about nothing", in the process showcasing my firm belief that only small things matter in life...we have in any case, no control over the bigger issues around us.
People keep asking me where I get all my ideas for this column. Most of them come from what I see around me, and some from friends and family. If I then think that any of these suggestions is worth writing about or may perhaps be of interest to you, I then jot them down on my cell-phone for future reference.
I went through this list last week and realized that that most of these entries will perhaps now never get written up; some of them have passed their expiry date on topicality, some need more than 600 words and some others can be dealt with in less than 300.
For example, the first entry is titled, "Dumped by a Nutritionist". This was supposed to be a rant about an upscale "lunch-dabba" person, who makes a fantastic vegetarian lunch tiffin. However, I have a specific food allergy and they had to take special care to make sure that my food was prepared separately. After five years of being together, the head honcho called me out of the blue one fine day, and told me that since the workers were getting extremely stressed out trying to manage my lunch separately, I would have to find someone else. Just like that! Not even an "It's my fault, not yours" line.
The next entry is just titled "Jhumpa Lahiri". When "Interpreter of Maladies" first came out, I thought it was highly over-rated and said so in a long 1200-word review elsewhere. However, she seems to have partly redeemed herself with "Unaccustomed Earth" and I thought I could perhaps make amends with a more positive review. Well guess what...I've just done that, haven't I!
Then comes, 'Mr. First Name'. World over, if your name is Mr. Kiran Shah, you will be addressed as Mr. Shah. It is only in India, that you will be addressed as Mr. Kiran. I have banged my head against an impenetrable wall, trying to teach people, correct usage. Now with increasing age, I have finally reached a stage of acceptance and so this piece will perhaps never get written.
In the middle of that list, is the phrase 'National Anthem', where I was supposed to write about the inconsistent manner in which our cinema theatres play 'Jana Gana Mana' before the main show. Some screen the fast, 52-second, "peppy" version, whereas others show the Mangeshkar sisters doing a slow, "sad" rendition, which keeps going on and on and on for over a minute, which is really irritating because our National Anthem is supposed to be a "happy", celebratory song.
There are many other similar topics, but now that I am again out of space, I will run through the "unwritten" ones again at the end of another six months. In the meantime, this column runs on reader feedback, so please keep getting back to me.
Posted by bhavinj at 05:25 AM | Comments (0)
June 20, 2009
The Thepla, Khakhra, Chunda and Mukhwaas Bag
When Gujjus (and I suspect others as well) travel long distance, there is usually one bag that occupies pride of place on their luggage trolleys and carts and is protected with utmost care to ensure that nothing inside breaks.
This is what they usually contain.
1. Theplas.
These can be plain, sweet or made with methi. They have to be eaten quickly because even though they are well protected in foil or Tupperware-type containers, their shelf life remains short and they usually start spoiling after 2-3 days. They are great for a late night snack, for breakfast or for dunking in some readymade chai and land up being real lifesavers when there is no access to vegetarian restaurants, at odd hours, in strange cities.
2. Chunda.
What are theplas without chunda! Chunda is a type of pickle, made of small raw-mango strips, swimming in a gooey, sweet and sour base, usually orange or red in color. Though theplas and chunda are usually eating like chapatis and sabzi, one great way of eating a thepla is to smear it with chunda and then to roll it up like a Frankie.
3. Khakhras.
These are thin, crisp, papad-like chapatis. They however break quite easily and have to be packed with a great deal of care - I know some people who even bubble-wrap them. Khakhras can be eaten at all times and go really well with ghee and sugar or ghee and masala as well as readymade masala chai. As I wrote last year, there is a bewildering variety of khakhras, including Schezwan ones, available today.
44 Readymade Masala Chai.
No true Gujju drinks "dip-dip" chai, which is probably why the market for powdered ready-made masala chai is flourishing. All you need to do is add some hot water and voila! a cup of reasonably terrible and tasteless masala tea is ready. The bad taste can be mitigated by using the tea as a dunking medium; for theplas, khakhras, and if you have children in tow, Parle Gluco biscuits.
5. Parle Gluco Biscuits.
It doesn't matter which brand and which company brings out which type of glucose biscuits. In the end, it's only Parle Gluco biscuits. When you have recalcitrant kids creating a big fuss during meals, all you have to do is to open one packet, whip up a cup of ready-made masala chai and bingo! your kid is happy eating soggy, dunked Parle Gluco biscuits. Parle Gluco biscuits are so ubiquitous that according to popular folklore, every "Indian" store in the world is supposed to have at least one shelf dedicated to them.
6. Kela Wafers.
If you live in Matunga, you have access to some of the most wonderful kela (banana) wafers in India, either from one of the shops on the Circle or from the cart-vendor, near the Market, who makes them fresh. A couple of packets of crunchy wafers are extremely useful during picnics or long-day trips and with whiskey shots.
7. Gor-Papdi.
This is a sweet produced from jaggery, wheat-flour and ghee. Each small triangle is power-packed with calories and makes for a nice, small, post-dinner, desert treat.
8. Mukhwaas.
Which Gujju food bag would be complete without at least a couple of packets of mukhwaas made from a variety of colored substances! Today, as with khakhras, there are shops in Matunga that carry a mind-boggling array of mukhwaases and their individual ingredients.
Ironically, this bag is the only one that becomes lighter as the trip unfolds.
Posted by bhavinj at 04:40 AM | Comments (0)
June 13, 2009
Track and Be Tracked
For the last few years, I have always felt envious of my friends and family abroad, whenever they have driven me around in their cars from one place to another. Virtually all their cars are equipped with GPS tracking devices, which use detailed road maps to help them get from one place to another, without the need to refer to map books. These GPS (Global Positioning System) devices are palm-sized, use the power of multiple satellites orbiting the Earth's atmosphere and come with detailed maps so that once the destination address is entered, the device automatically calculates the most appropriate route and then guides the driver along the roads with audio-based instructions.
I may be mistaken, but I have not as yet seen GPS devices in India that work with the same precision as those in the US or UK. This seems to be less a hardware issue and more a software problem, probably related to the poor availability of detailed maps with updated road-names, considering our penchant for changing the names of our roads and cities ever so often.
But as with all things these days, there are workarounds, which I have been able to find using my Nokia E71, which is incidentally a great choice for those who want a full-fledged QWERTY keyboard for typing and find the on-screen keyboard on the IPhone a pain, and also hate the constant email beep-beep of a Blackberry.
If you install Google Maps on the E71 and then use both GPRS and GPS, you can clearly see your current, actual location with a high degree of accuracy. I have used this method to successfully navigate a route from Powai to Madh Island at midnight, as well as to make sure that my cabdrivers in non-familiar cities in India don't take me for a ride (pun intended).
GPS technology though can do more than give driving instructions, allowing other forms of tracking as well. For example, if you are an anally obsessed parent with control issues, you could potentially track the exact location of your son/daughter by either putting a GPS chip in his/her car or in a very dark Orwellian manner, surreptitiously implanting the chip in some part of his/her body.
But what really blew me away, early this week, was the way I was able to use GPS technology to track my running. On Tuesday, I stumbled upon a program called Nokia Sports Tracker (NST) and its companion website. NST works on a large number of Nokia models and I was able to successfully install it on the E71.
When you start NST, using GPS, it first pinpoints your exact position. Then when you start running, walking or cycling, it accurately tracks your movement, and on your cell-phone, shows you the distance that you are covering, the speed with which you are running or walking, the altitude, the time per km or mile and the total calories burnt. And all this information is real-time.
As if this is not enough, it actually traces the route that you have taken and superimposes this on a low-resolution map on the cell-phone. Then, once the run is complete, you can send the entire workout record to the program's server, which superimposes the tracked route on a high-resolution Google map, which you can then view along with the rest of your track record, on the companion website.
The best part? Actually what I've described is the best part...NST also comes with a "free" tag.
How absolutely cool is that!
Posted by bhavinj at 09:29 AM | Comments (0)
June 06, 2009
A Magical World
About a week ago, I was lazing on a stone bench in the mid-afternoon, between Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin and Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor in Disney's Magic Kingdom in Orlando, having just finished lunch, while the rest of the family was busy zapping aliens.
People were walking and strolling all around me, some fast, some slow, some with small kids, some with teenagers, many adults pushing prams, some fathers holding infants in their arms, other mothers holding backpacks and water bottles, some in no hurry, some checking the map for directions and others deciding which ride to get into next with their children.
The funny thing is that it did not seem to matter one bit what color or race the people were - white and black Americans, Brits, desi and non-desi Indians, Australians, Japanese, Arabs and other nationalities that I couldn't even figure out - all of them were behaving in the same manner. We were all families with kids, out to have a good time, all the parents trying to do the best for their children, making sure that they all had enough to eat, protecting them with sunscreen and making sure that they were not getting dehydrated in the hot Floridian sun.
I was half-asleep, in a Rousseauish "floating happiness" kind of reverie, when through the Magic Kingdom cloud, I had some kind of an epiphanic moment, which I am not sure I am entirely able to explain with words.
Whether it was at the Animal Kingdom or Universal Studios or Blizzard Beach, every father or mother knew instinctively what the other parents were thinking of, especially when waiting in the lines for the rides. There could be a German family in front of us or perhaps someone from Korea behind, but the children were all the same; some fighting, some well behaved, some sipping Coke, some talking nine-to-a-dozen non-stop, the older ones looking bored and the younger ones full of excitement. If my kids started to misbehave, no one else really minded, because it could be their unpredictable kids who might start to act up, the next minute.
And once you are in the rides, it doesn't matter what color you are when the car or cart you are in accelerates in a stomach-churning manner through space. The screams, the raised hands in the air and the scared looks on some of the faces...all look the same, irrespective of which part of the world you come from. And the word "awesome" mouthed by kids after each roller-coaster ride sounds the same, irrespective of the language.
And though a little dated for today's day and age, it is this theme of a single, connected universe, that the tableau "it's a small world" is all about, where costumed child puppets are dressed to represent a vast range of cultures, creeds and races, while the title song keeps playing repetitively throughout all the rooms, in a sappy and cheesy, but uplifting manner.
Sadly, once we all start making our way to the airport to take our flights back to the countries that we came from, and the Disney magic wears off, we all revert back to true form; with all our prejudices and dislikes and issues, pushing to the farthest parts of our minds the singular experience that we've had in Disney, where we all seemed to be part of a single, fun-loving organism without any distinction - in a way exemplifying the kind of utopian world portrayed in Star Trek - the one, single race of humankind.
Posted by bhavinj at 02:50 PM | Comments (0)
