Budapest Diary - Day 6

There are only two Indian actresses who are recognized out here – one of them is Aishwarya Rai, whose photo you’ll see in any shop that sells L’Oreal (er…yes, I’ve gone into such shops) and…Shilpa Shetty! I woke up quite late today. Without bothering to rise from the bed I switched on the TV, and almost fell off the bed. Here was Shilpa Shetty on DW (that’s German) TV, in a full-fledged interview, harping all about her self-respect and all that we’ve heard umpteen times before. I wonder why she never had the self-respect to walk off that show in the first place!

There’s nothing much to talk about office, though the guys over here seem to have a quirky sense of humor. In the meeting room, someone had given ample display of his/her talent for drawing with pictures of a cat begging for food and highlighting the similarities between Berndt – whoever he was – and a sparrow. I failed to see the similarity though since Berndt – whoever he was – had a pair of spectacles and beard, neither of which the sparrow had. I try to be serious and somehow succeed. I fell asleep for a short time in the afternoon in what was a drowsy day. In addition to reading specification documents, I also spent a lot of time reading on the Ku Klux Klan (no! that doesn’t amount to Ego Surfing!).

My learning curve seems to be going up. Frank had asked us to confirm with the bus driver as to whether he would stop at the HEV railway station. For the past three days, he had indeed, and hence today we took it for granted that he would stop today too. To our utter surprise, he sped past the station, and finally stopped after the Arpad Bridge a full ten minutes later. To our delight we found out that this route took almost 20 minutes off our travel time. Tomorrow might be a day for experiments.

After dropping Pragati off at the hotel, I decided to head back into the city, with the idea of exploring the Elizabeth Bridge. I had somehow made up my mind that I had to get down at Kalvin Tere, without even consulting a map. It was only after I alighted from the metro that I found that I had got off a station too sooner. Ahead of me lay the dark green Liberty Bridge. But as fate would have it, the road leading to the bridge was blocked. I had to take a round-about way to reach it, during the course of which I almost managed to lose the direction and run over by a tram.

It was once again an evening to enjoy. Storm clouds were gathering and the sun was playing hide and seek and cast its golden glow all around. The Royal Palace was once again, a sight to behold, silhouetted against the evening light. The Szabadság híd or the Liberty Bridge is the third oldest bridge in Budapest, being built in 1896 (the chain bridge being the oldest, built in 1849), and is painted in a dull green color. Gellert Hill - which houses the Liberty Statue and the citadel - towers over the bridge on the Buda side, where as numerous piers dot the Pest side. I crossed over to the Buda side and as usual, walked along the river side to the Elizabeth Bridge. It was the first time I was walking across a suspension bridge. I had missed the golden opportunity (pun unintended) to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge last year, and the KR Puram Hanging Bridge does not exactly qualify as a suspension bridge in my standards. The bridge quivered uneasily each time a huge bus or truck passed by.

To my dismay, I found that my camera was running out of battery. Not surprising since I hadn’t charged it even since I had arrived here. So I decided to shut it down and conserve the battery for the big shot of the day (I would still go on and click 20-odd photos). Roosevelt square was as usual busy with crisscrossing cars and tram. One guy was so enamored by the sight of the trams that he was chasing every one of them for taking photographs – even walking into the tunnel under Roosevelt Square to click them. The place was thronged by tourists, and one look at the crowd confirmed the obvious – that they were all waiting for the same thing as I was – the lighting up of the Chain Bridge.

I sat there on the river side for an hour and a half – listening to the band playing classical music – for the magic to begin. And I was not disappointed. At Nine O’clock, the lights along the roadway blinked on (immediately followed by a long ‘ooh’ from the three girls who were sitting on the edge of the pier). A minute later, the lights adorning the cables came on, and a further minute later, the huge towers were lit up. In the meantime, the lights in the palace were slowly brightening up. A few minutes later, with the lights fully functioning the whole structure was lit up like in a fairy tale. It was another half an hour before I left the place – trying desperately to find a perch to keep my camera for shooting the spectacle. I succeeded only partially.

Pic of the Day: Once upon a time, there was a bridge...



Observation of the day:

Pragati had a look at all the applications installed in my laptop and exclaimed: “Yeh kya? Apne laptop ko Brigade Road banake rakha hai!” (You’ve converted your laptop into Brigade Road)

Budapest Diary - Day 5

What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died? That she was beautiful and brilliant? That she loved Mozart and Bach, the Beatles, and me?

I was up late into the night watching what is – arguably - the greatest love story ever filmed. Maybe that’s why it is simply called “Love Story”. There’s nothing in the story – you would have come across it in innumerable Hindi films. But still, it makes you shed a tear. The review of the movie will come later sometime.

“Listen, what are you wearing today?” I asked Pragati when I called her up in the morning. For the past three days, we’ve been wearing identical colors, and I didn’t exactly want another “coincidence”. You might think I’m crazy to have such considerations, and yes, I am crazy in my own way.

Vorosmarty tere is one of the terminuses of the old metro line (Metro 1). It is a small dimly lit underground station, quite different from the spanking and bright stations that you see on the 2nd metro line. The everyday commuter would perhaps not even give it a second glance. But look closer and you would notice that the whole station is laid out in white and brown tiles, as in the style of the old underground stations of London and all other cities. Green ornate metal pillars support the roof. Even the trains have the old look – perhaps the best way to preserve the historic aspect of the railway. I read yesterday that the line is more than a hundred years old.

The exit from the station leads you into the grand and exquisite looking Vorosmarty Square (that’s what ‘tere’ means, I presume). The place is filled with small cafes. A huge statue is almost dwarfed by the buildings all around it. A steel monstrosity (called “Heroes” or something) that claims to be a multipurpose building juts out like a sore thumb amongst all those beautiful old-style buildings. We discovered that this place was near to the Intercontinental Hotel, about which we had had an interesting discussion on Sunday (as to, in how many years with SAP could we afford to stay in such a hotel). A few steps further to the west lead you to the pier on the Danube.

It was raining when we stepped out of the metro station. But now, it had stopped temporarily. The rays of the sun were streaming out from behind the dark clouds, casting a golden glow on the dome of the Royal Palace upon the hill. On my left, with the backdrop of dark storm clouds stood the Elizabeth Bridge and the Liberty Statue (no relation to the lady who stands on Ellis Island). And on the right, loomed the majestic Szechernyi Lanchid – the “Chain Bridge”. I decided to head for it.

By the time I reached the bridge, the sun had come out of the clouds, and was not painting the waters of the Danube in a golden hue. It was a glorious evening. A small restaurant under the shades of the bridge had a troupe playing lovely music. I stopped for some time to take in the atmosphere. The bridge was bathed in the golden light of the setting sun.

It took me close to forty five minutes to cross the bridge and return back. I later discovered that I had clicked at least a photo per minute. There are obviously some advantages in having a digital camera – you do not need to be stingy about the film that you use up. You do not need to consider that perhaps once I develop the photo, the shot might not look good – just delete it if it doesn’t! But then the shots were worth the trouble. The American family from Indiana, who made the crossing along with me, had perhaps outdone me.

During dinner at Vaci ut (one of the major shopping streets in Budapest) Pragati educated me about Mango – no not the fruit, but one of the leading clothing brands in the world. I professed my ignorance about fashion, when I promptly stated that I had never heard of it. She informed me about how the latest trends in fashion appear in India only six months after Europe. Well, as I already stated yesterday, you learn something new everyday.

I still hate that escalator!

Budapest Diary - Day 4

Escalators are funny things. If you are on one of them, and you look to the side at the other escalators running parallel, you’ll notice that people would seem to be either leaning forward, or leaning back, depending on whether they are going up or going down. That’s the beauty of physics. Here they have huge escalators in the metro stations, some of which scare me because of my vertigo. I was reminded of Universal Studios, Los Angeles, where they use some six or seven escalators to take people down a mountain. But they are not as scary as some of these escalators.

The train was also quite funny. First of all there was this lady who was carrying a fluffy dog, as if she were carrying a baby, on her shoulders. Second, the loco pilot (yeah, that’s what you call a ‘train driver’) seems to be driving the train for the first time. Just like what I did to my car (refer to my report on Day 0), she seemed to be “stalling” the train every time it started from a station. Fortunately we reached office safely enough.

At nine o’clock, as the office starts, the blinds open automatically. And then, there is a collective groan from everyone around, who do not want the light streaming in. Today, the people and the place looked livelier. During lunch I decided to have my first taste of a traditional Hungarian dish called Hortobágy Palacsinta, a sweet Pancake from the Hortobagy region made from a filling of meat or sweets. The experience was quite good, unlike what I have experienced in Germany, where trying out traditional dishes had always ended in disaster. The office is situated on the riverside and after lunch we went for a walk on the shore of the Danube, and I found many huge stones, perceivably from the Roman times, displayed all along the software park. I remembered that the ancient Roman settlement of Aquincum was nearby. Frank also pointed out that I would get to see more such stones if I decided to visit that place.

By evening, it had drizzled a little, but there was no effect of that when we left office. The sweater that I’ve brought with me, anticipating “European weather” (my definitions have definitely gone wrong) has been lying in the wardrobe till now. Well, you learn new things everyday. And today I did see a new side of Budapest. Stretching from the Arpad Bridge to the Margaret Bridge on the banks of the Danube, you can see the poor quarters of “The Pearl of the Danube”. A row of old worn-down apartments dot this stretch, their walls faded, and the paint replaced by the bright colors of spray paint that make up the new form of art that’s now quite familiar to me here – graffiti. Believe me; these guys draw some awesome pictures with those cans of spray paint.

It seems that Budapest has the most shopping centers in Europe. At least wikipedia says so. Maybe I should try and find out before I leave this place

Budapest Diary - Day 3

First day in office! I thought I would dress decently, in a shirt, and appear before the colleagues who had never seen me before – not even a photo on the SAP Address Book (If you’ve bothered to check my address book page, you’ll know why). However, when I checked the shirts I found them badly crumpled. Hence I decided to switch back to T-shirts and put on my favorite tiger-eyed black garb. To avoid an extra bag I decided against carrying the lap-top case. The result was a huge backpack containing my camera and the laptop, and I looked the part of someone on the way for a trek in the Austrian Alps. First day in office!

It’s a long way to office from the hotel – three trains, totaling to almost an hour. The journey takes me from one end of the city to the other. It is quite beautiful in its own way – on one side is the sparkling water of the Danube, and on the other, the apartments filled with graffiti. These guys seem to have something for graffiti. You can find it everywhere – even more than what you find in US city. As is the case in Bangalore, the office is situated in a remote location on the outskirts of the city, in a so-called software park. Over here, software parks are not characterized by hip-hop crowds and shopping malls aka ITPL.

Once I reached the office all the guilty feeling that I was not properly dressed for the occasion evaporated on its own. There was hardly anyone who was formally dressed – most of them were in shorts. The office itself is quite pretty, more of the Bangalore model than the Walldorf model, with open cubicles, which my colleague declared that it irritates him at times. Pragati found it quite to her liking, and for me it doesn’t matter. Lack of meetings in the morning meant that I could finish my work faster. Lunch was nothing much to talk about, and now, we were back on the Walldorf model, with me not able to figure out what I was eating!

The afternoon, as expected was spent in meetings, discussing what we are doing, and what we had to do (the usual stuff), and the evening was spent in the shadows of the enormously beautiful Hungarian Parliament building, where Pragati was adamantly staying away from a cute dog, with an ever more cute owner.

Observation of the day:
On the whiteboard of the meeting room was scribbled the following phrase:

Make oneself heard/understood/felt.
No matter how ugly/homely/plain (however ugly/homely/plain) she is.

Am still wondering what it means

Budapest Diary - Day 2

It looks nice outside. Today it rained in Budapest. In fact we encountered a storm itself. I am not exactly in a mood to write, and hence the report falls short of its length. And of course, not everything can be conveyed through words…

Early to bed and early to rise, makes you healthy, wealthy and wise. I could not exactly follow the golden rule, as I got up pretty late today. It does not exactly matter since:

1. Healthy: I consider myself healthy enough by my standards
2. Wealthy: I’m wealthy enough to survive on my own
3. Wise: It’s too late. If I had been wiser, I would have been better off

However, it didn’t take me long to get ready. Breakfast is always something that I enjoy in Europe, and it was no different today. Soon, we hit the road for our first real glimpse of the city. The day could be summed up in three phrases: the castle district, the Heroes Square and the great basilica of Szt Istivan. But then, as I said before, not everything can be conveyed through words. This is a place that has to be seen with the eye to be experienced fully.

After a glimpse of the enormous parliament building, we headed off across the river into the castle district in Buda. This is the old city, as compared to the plush shiny buildings of Pest – a fact that prompted Pragati to say, “Ganda Hai”. The Heroes Square, built in 1896 is a tribute to all the heroes who were instrumental in building up Hungary as a country. Overlooking the square is the huge Museum of Fine Arts. It reminded me of the Asiatic Society Building in Mumbai reminiscing the night when I and Sumeet walked the whole distance from Colaba to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, so that I could take photographs of the building.

A pleasant surprise in the form of a mild drizzle greeted us in the afternoon. We headed for the Szt Istivan Basilica which had enamored me the previous day. Similar to most other big European churches, the basilica is situated in a huge tiled square. We were greeted by a huge crowd, which seemed to be captivated by a group of dancing ladies. We stood there watching them for quite some time. The interior of the church was grandeur in its own with enormous murals and tinted glass windows. Pragati in particular seemed overawed by her first visit to a European Church.

The rest of the day was spent in shopping (more of window shopping), until Pragati declared that she could walk no more…

Budapest Diary - Day 1

The flight was immensely forgettable. Cramped up in the middle row, with barely room to move my legs; my sleep was filled with nightmares – one of which was the dinner served to me. Waking up in the morning was of no help since the first thing I saw was the nightmare playing on the in-flight monitor – Dhoom 2. Needless to say, I was quite relieved when we arrived in Frankfurt. And to my surprise, the flight from Bangalore seemed to have got a promotion today, as we were directly led to a gate, instead of having to suffer the ignominy of waiting for a bus on the tarmac.

We had an hour and a half to kill, and I pointed out the Duty Free Shops to Pragati. She was completely enamored by what was on display. Little to wonder since, even after making three previous trips to Frankfurt, the airport never ceases to amaze me. And perhaps, traveling with a girl who loves to shop (thought I’m yet to come across one who doesn’t love to), can sometimes be useful since you can also indulge in something which you have absolutely no idea about. I vowed that on our way back, I’ll buy something from here. Memories of my last stop at Frankfurt brought a smile to my lips. I had held up the flight to Bangalore because I had to buy a Brazilian football jersey.

Pragati spent the rest of the time frantically trying to make calls from her calling card, but to no avail. She finally gave up and chose to immerse herself in her i-pod instead. By the time our flight was called, she was ready to go to sleep again. This time, we could not escape the bus. Pragati was quite amused that except for a couple of aircrafts, the only airline visible anywhere was Lufthansa. The flight was, as expected, a small one, with barely perhaps a hundred passengers. We were seated next to the emergency exit and that meant that we would at least have enough leg room. Pragati immediately curled up and went to sleep. I too, gave myself up to the temptation, and slept for half an hour, before the smell of food woke me up. Breakfast consisted of a chocolate and a sandwich. It was good exercise to the teeth and the jaw muscles as the bread as well as the cheese was really hard. Pragati gave up after a few brave attempts, but I managed to finish it.

We landed in Budapest at 10:30 AM, to huge applause from the passengers. “Umeed nahin thi kya?” Pragati asked me jokingly. Perhaps they were not expecting a smooth landing. The Feirhegy Airport looked comparable to the Bangalore Airport, and just when I was about to dismiss the airport as fairly commonplace, my eyes fell on an impressively huge Delta Airlines jet stationed among all those small and ignorable planes from the Hungarian national airline.

The terminal though, was spic and span, and resembled a mini-Frankfurt. It took quite a while for Pragati’s gargantuan suitcase to appear on the baggage belt, and after dilly-dallying for a little bit, we were finally on our way to the hotel. As soon as we exited from the airport, Pragati gave a gasp at the speed at which cars we flying. “We’re going at 80!” she exclaimed. I reminded her that German highways would see speed up to 150. The old gentleman driving the taxi was exuberant about what a nice country India is. We could not help agreeing, though I had the impression that he was talking about Indianapolis, since he happened to mention it once.

The hotel was situated just on the outskirts of the city, and resembled an apartment complex from outside. The first thing that I noticed about it was that it was located in one of those “Zentrum”s. Opposite to the hotel, there was a bus station, a tram station and to top it all, a huge Euro Park shopping mall, replete with Pizza Hut, Mc Donalds, KFC etc. The hotel closely resembled that nice place we had stayed in Leimen on my last visit to Germany. We split up and decided to catch some sleep before lunch. Once in my room, I promptly headed for the tub.

At 2:30, we decided to hit the road. The weather was not much different from what we have in Bangalore, though it was not sweltering hot. My first job was to educate Pragati about crossing the road. She however, seemed to be keen on frequently running across the road at most junctions, and I had to frequently keep reminding her that over here, it does not exactly work like India. We headed to the mall for lunch, and I need not explain what the effect was on Pragati. I wanted to get a decent tourist guide which we could refer on “what to see in Budapest”. Unfortunately, I could not lay my hand on a single one in English language. In fact the whole place doesn’t sport many English words or names. Most of the Hungarian names seemed unpronounceable, with the Magyar language seeming to have a curious aversion to the use of the vowels in words.

Pragati solved my problem about the tourist guide by promptly declaring that she wanted to see the chain bridge. I concurred that she wanted to see the famous suspension bridge across the Danube – the Széchenyi Lanchid (you can realize what I meant about pronunciations in the previous paragraph) – that’s been made famous in innumerable photographs. So be it, I decided, and led her into the metro. The Budapest metro is not as complicated as the one in Singapore, except for the fact that the station names can be easily remembered in Singapore. After getting off at a station with yet another unpronounceable name, we came up to ground level, for our first glimpse of the beautiful city of Budapest.

We were in a grand square, with plush modern buildings on one side, and the looming facades of old-style apartments on the other. The huge dome of the Szt. Istvan’s Basilica dominated the surroundings. For a moment, I was completely disoriented by the surroundings, and forgot our bearings. I rummaged through the map for five agonizing minutes (for Pragati), before I finally found the way to proceed. We walked around for quite some time. The roads were lined with exquisitely laid out parks. All kinds of mighty motorbikes were whizzing around. Pragati spotted a casino and wanted to immediately go in. I restrained her pointing out that European casinos would perhaps require a proper dress code of an evening gown and a tuxedo, and we cannot simply walk in dressed as tourists. As we looked ahead, the Danube sparkled in front of us. Across the river loomed the castle district. And to our right, spanned the majestic bridge, made famous as “Rome” by Sanjay Leela Bhansali.

I wanted to walk on the bridge, but Pragati was not exactly in the mood for that, so we decided to proceed to the city centre. But halfway through she declared that she could walk no more. So it was back to the metro.

Budapest Diary - Day 0

It was the BIG day! My first attempt at driving a car started out disastrously (No, this is indeed me writing, and not my ghost). It took me almost an hour to reach office, and I stopped counting the number of times I stalled. But thankfully no accidents! Of course, it proved the point raised by Venkat yesterday that, perhaps I should not try driving the vehicle home from the showroom.

Our much awaited Hungarian Visa would be arriving. It was like waiting for Godot. Even though I had been advising Pragati every day to be ready for traveling, I personally had given up on the trip, and had planned elaborate jaunts in my car. And yesterday suddenly the call had come, that our visa would be arriving. The whole day was spent preparing and planning for the trip. In between there was the small matter of work (the half-hour presentation I had to give to the team) and some driving lessons from Namratha. By the time I had made my third trip of the day to the campus, I had got better – provided I decide not to park my car.

Campus…now that was something nice. For a change, I went there and did not get into a fight with anyone. After collecting our tickets and the money, the travel desk informed us that the passport would take another 20 minutes. “Why don’t you guys go back and return after 20 minutes?” they quipped. Being wiser by experience, we decided to stay put. I decided to use the time to drop a cheque at the basement, and had to wait for five minutes for that lift to make its appearance. And to my surprise I found that the drop-box had now been shifted to the cafeteria. All that trouble for nothing!

It was seven by the time I reached home. I was driving the bike like I was in the car – not bothering to ground my feet whenever I stopped. It sure is a good day, since for the umpteenth time, I didn’t have any accidents. I had to finish my packing, but I ended up watching Nikolai Davydenko matching Federer shot by shot. By the time I actually finished packing, my cab was almost at the doorstep. At the last possible moment, the driver had called me up to inform that my cab booking had been advanced from 9:30 to 8:30 due to some (later found to be non-existent) politician holding up traffic on Airport Road. As is usual with every cab driver, it took him quite some time to figure out where exactly I lived in that small village. I took the opportunity to call up my friends and say goodbye (as if I were not going to return, but then you never know).

The airport was a buzz of activity. And of course, as I had anticipated, it was way too early for me. I sat down in front of the Departure Terminal, to observe the crowd. There stood a long queue, stretching to the horizon. To circumvent the trouble, some intelligent persons decided to remove the barriers kept at the entrance to control the queue and make way for themselves. Contrary to “popular” belief, it was a group of foreigners who were indulging in such “niceties”. There were some feeble protests from some Indians standing in queue. They fell on deaf ears until some foreigner decided to raise a ruckus about it. Soon enough there was a horde of policemen heckling with those “nice guys”. Yeah, I know you will never find a queue to enter Frankfurt or Los Angeles airports, but wait till we have that International Airport of ours up and running.

As I sit in the airport and write this, I notice that the place has indeed changed for the better.

What a Misconception!

"Immaculate Misconception" - well, purists might wonder what in the world that's supposed to mean. But here in our company it is a cubiclehold name (if I may boast so), for that is the name of our immensely successful - measured on a scale defined by yours truly - quiz team.

The origin of the name dates back to January 2006, when in a pathetic attempt to steal the best team name prize, me and Herr Vinay Schenoi (sic[k]) scourged the net and stole the name from a list published in one of those pub quiz sites. We thought it was hilarious, but the quiz organizers failed to concur and we missed the prize. Of course, we went on to win a few other prizes, but that is an entirely different story ("singin' in the rain" and all that), and it is not my intention to cover that here.

A long time ago (in 2006 to be precise), in a galaxy not so far far away (in our galaxy - location: Goa to be precise), our story starts. On the holy day of Ugadi, four friends decided to spurn all the thoughts of lying half-naked on the sun-baked sands of Goa, and decided instead, to visit its temples and churches to atone for their sins. And so it happened that after a visit to the magnificent Bom Jesus Basilica, there we were, sitting in that small dingy restaurant opposite to the church, eagerly awaiting our lunch. Priyananda Shenoy, as usual, was quiet and sporting that now-familiar look of a geek in a porn movie show. Aravinda Hegde was busy lecturing us on the virtues of using Coconut Oil (for the contents of the lecture, please contact Professor Hegde), whereas Herr Schenoi was wasting no time lambasting about what big hypocrites we were (being an "auspicious" day, me and Hegde had vowed that we would refrain from eating non-vegetarian food for the whole day). As the speakers were blaring out "Jhalak Dikhla Ja" for the umpteenth time, I took out our tourist guide, and decided to skim through it, reading out word by word, intent on irritating Herr Schenoi. Needless to say, Schenoi did get irritated, until I stumbled upon the entry for the "most photographed church in India" - the Church of Our Lady of Immaculate Conception in Panaji.

Schenoi immediately sat upright. A grin appeared on his face extending from one ear to the other, even though he was yet to be served with his umpteenth order of pomfrets. "Man! is that for real?" croaked Schenoi. "So we named ourselves on a church that really exists!". I was quick to point out that he'd perhaps missed a spelling or two. It was Conception, not 'Mis'conception. "Never mind!" he said "you could always use that as a question in one of your quizzes!" I strived hard to hide a smirk, for that was exactly what I had in mind, as we resolved to pay a visit to the church before we left Goa.

Come the final day of our stay and we still had not seen the church. The guide said "the church is situated on a hill, overlooking the town of Panaji", and we had not seen anything that resembled a hill in the town. Perhaps the Goans' idea of a hill was completely different from that of the rest of the world. Nevertheless, we decided to drive down from Dona Paula and search the whole town to find the elusive church. Schenoi screamed his usual warning at Hegde: "Don't rip on that bike!" , perhaps peeved by the fact that Hegde, on that Hero Honda Passion, always managed to speed past Schenoi on his sleek and shiny Bajaj Pulsar. Unperturbed by Schenoi's threats, Hegde took it upon himself to be the navigator for that last leg of our Goan adventure. No sooner had we come down from Dona Paula to the outskirts of the town, it was evident to me (riding behind Hegde on the bike) that he had no idea where he was going. He wisely stopped the bike in front of an old lady and blurted out: "Madam, where is the Immaculate Misconception church?"

Needless to say, the lady was taken aback by the question, but she managed to compose herself and guided us to go straight into the town, all the time sporting a look on her face which clearly indicated that she would be happy to see us vanish from there. Taking the cue, we sped on right into the town and again lost the way. This time it was my turn and I repeated the question to an old gentleman: "Sir, where is the Church of Immaculate Misconception?" Thankfully, he didn't notice anything wrong and showed us the way. We finally did manage to find the church, an imposing white structure, with multiple steps that faced a thoroughfare. One look at the church and Herr Schenoi was not convinced that this was it. Hegde meanwhile, had not yet seen the church. His eyes were riveted on a Kamat Hotel on the roadside. Soon we started arguing over a plate of dosa, as to whether he had indeed found the church. Finally, Hegde had the brainwave: "Why don't we ask someone?". Coming out of the hotel, he promptly corned the first person he saw, and pointed at the church: "Boss, yeh Immaculate Misconception church yahi hai kya?" Unfortunately the guy couldn't answer. He was too busy laughing.

We'd finally found our church...



Dedicated to the memory of Mr. Vinay Shenoy whose name I have Germanized, ever since he left our shores in search of greener pastures in Eastern Europe. May he rust in piece.

"Theirs not to reason why"

IMDB Title: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077416/

Twilight descends on Clairton, a sad-looking town, somewhere in Pennsylvania. A massive steel plant looms over the rain-soaked streets. The spires of the Russian Orthodox Church rise up into the sky, but they are dwarfed by the chimneys of the factory where Michael, Nick and Steven work for a living. It would be last few hours they spend happily together in that sleepy town, for their decision to join the American war effort in Vietnam would irreversibly alter their lives. “A drama of friendship and courage and what happens to these qualities under stress” is how Michael Cimino describes his 1978 epic, “The Deer Hunter”. The film was nominated for nine Academy Awards and won five, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Supporting Actor.

On the eve of his departure to Vietnam, Steven (John Savage) is getting married to Angela. His friends Michael (Robert De Niro), Nick (Christopher Walken), Stanley (John Cazale), Axel (Chuck Aspegren) and John (George Dzundza) join in the revelry and then set off for their last hunting trip before the war. During the course of the war, Mike, Steven and Nick are captured by the Vietnamese soldiers and forced at gunpoint to play Russian roulette. Steven loses his mind, but Michael manages to outwit his captors and rescue his friends. However, the game takes its toll on Nick and he goes AWOL from the hospital where he is recuperating. Michael returns home, but is unable to comprehend the muted life after war without his friends. He tries to find solace in the arms of Linda (Meryl Streep), Nick’s girlfriend. On his visit to the hospital to see Steven, who has lost his legs in the war, he learns that Nick is alive and still in Vietnam. With the intention of fulfilling the promise he had made to his friend, Michael returns to Saigon to bring back Nick, only to find him playing Russian roulette professionally.

Though there is only about 25 minutes of war footage, “The Deer Hunter” is one of the most poignant anti-war movies ever made. Inspired by Erich Maria Remarque’s 1937 novel Drei Kameraden (Three Comrades), it was the first major American film about the Vietnam War. Holding back the actual horrors of Vietnam, the director tries to portray the impact and repercussions of the war on the survivors as they strive to pick up their shattered lives. The central cog around which the story moves is the deadly game of Russian roulette, where the players gamble with their lives, brandishing the revolver with one bullet. On the hunting trip with his friends, Michael stalks the best deer and fells it with a single shot. “A deer has to the taken with one shot!” exclaims Mike, and it is that One Shot – the lone fatal bullet in the chamber – that tears the three friends apart, as Nick loses himself to the mad game of death in the dark streets of Saigon.

The film courted controversy in its portrayal of the Russian roulette – there is no record of captives being forced at gunpoint to play Russian roulette by the captors during the Vietnam War. Critics also claimed that “The Deer Hunter” sparked off a string of suicides with viewers trying to imitate the roulette scenes. Deric Washburn’s screenplay, though at times elongated, keeps the viewers captivated in the surreal narrative of love, friendship and disenchantment. The long wedding scene in the beginning (reminiscent of The Godfather) and the hunting expedition that follows, perfectly etches the portraits of the lead characters in our minds. The haunting “Cavatina” written by Stanley Myers and performed on the guitar by John Williams, floats through the movie like an unseen ghost, invoking a feeling of dread and agony at the fate of the war veterans. The cinematography of Vilmos Zsigmond is mesmerizing and serves to hold the film together.

De Niro is perfectly cast as Michael, the natural leader of the group, torn apart by his inability to protect and bring home his mates. But it is Christopher Walken - in an Academy Award winning role – who steals the show as the doomed Nick – Michael’s lovable and loyal friend who loses everything to the dangerous game of death. Meryl Streep – as beautiful as ever (sigh!) – gives a smashing portrayal as the subdued and suffering Linda, uncertain, whether to wait for Nick or surrender herself to the love of Michael. The supporting cast is equally brilliant. But spare a thought for the tragic John Cazale whom you will love to loath as the eccentric and self-centered Stanley. The immensely talented Cazale did not live to see the release of the film, succumbing to bone cancer barely a month after the completion of the film. His sparkling career last just five hugely successful films (The Godfather, The Godfather II, The Conversation, Dog Day Afternoon and The Deer Hunter), all of which were nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award.

Though the leading cast went on to establish a name for themselves in Hollywood, Michael Cimino never rose to the heights that he achieved with “The Deer Hunter”. With its moving story, “The Deer Hunter” touches your heart and leaves you numb with horror. A few images leave an indelible imprint in the mind: the old couple resting peacefully in each others’ arms as the guests revel in Steven’s wedding party; As Steven and Angela toast to the crowd and drink together, two drops of blood-red wine drip down on to Angela’s white bridal dress – the omen of dark days ahead; The gaunt and ghostly face of the heroin-influenced Nick, as he steps into the dark room to face Michael in his last game of Russian roulette. But the most poignant scene of them all? On a hunting trip after his return, Michael stalks the best deer. He has the deer in his gun sight, but cannot bring himself to shoot the animal. He pulls up his gun just as he pulls the trigger, and lets the animal go.

Perhaps never again will he be able to take a deer with One Shot…

Delhi Heights (...and lows)

"For God's Sake! Please dress and behave decently tomorrow! I've told my parents that my boss is coming home for dinner!": warned Pragati on Thursday afternoon. Boss? Me? Uh...Since when? I felt like responding in typical Robert De Niro style: "You talking to me?" And what about the decency part? As I was always fond of telling Sundar C Narayanaswamy, I consider myself the epitome of decency. "I don't want you turning up in one of your orange or yellow garbs, and please put away your Australian jerseys", she continued. Ah! so that was it! "Don't worry", I assured her: "I'll be on my best behaviour tomorrow". Knowing me, she looked a bit skeptic, as if I'd just told her the Martians had landed on the ITPL grounds. For me, all this meant a little bit of unpacking, since I needed to take out all those flashy T-shirts I had actually lined up for the trip.

It was my first trip to New Delhi - and it came like a bolt out of the blue (pun unintended, as events later would clarify), courtesy the travel desk in our company, who informed us at the last possible moment that we needed to personally visit the Hungarian Embassy, if we wanted our Budapest trip to materialize. Neither am I allowed to slander about them in public, nor do I consider it my moral right to abuse anyone, so i'll let that pass. Anyway, a little bit of travel never harmed me, and abiding with Pragati's wishes, I turned up in full black - backpack and all - at the office the next day. I further managed to infuriate her ("show-off" was her comment), when I showed her the tie I carried in the bag, "in case I needed it the next day". We had opted for an evening flight from Bangalore to Delhi, which meant that we had to leave directly from the office. We had to take a detour to her house so that she could also pick up all her tax papers (on my insistence). By the time we reached the airport, the sweltering heat had almost drained us - the cab driver had refused to put on the AC claiming that this was "non-AC duty"!

No sooner had we cleared the security checks that Pragati found a seat, crawled into a foetal position and went to sleep. I found a copy of Mid-Day, and got myself busy figuring out the various crosswords(it even had a "Bollywood" crossword! Yuck!) in the paper, all the time trying my best to bug Pragati. To her credit, she managed to stay asleep until the flight was announced. We were in for a surprise when we boarded it - what looked like another teeny-weeny aircraft, actually looked impressive inside. Even though we had non-reclineable seats, they had enough leg space, and not to mention, they even had inflight entertainment capsules. I soon immersed myself into a couple of documentaries ("Some of his quiz stuff", as Pragati would later inform our friends). Food came and went and I gobbled it up with glee. For the starved soul, anything to eat is like manna from heaven - though Pragati seemed to disagree. It seemed like an uneventful flight, until we reached Delhi. Then all the hell broke loose... (...for me. Pragati slept through the whole thing). First came the announcement that we were 15th in the landing sequence at Delhi. Then came the turbulence. The aircraft was being tossed around like a rubber ball. I confessed to Pragati that I was indeed scared. She was quick to point out that a woman was piloting the flight and hence it was no surprise. By the time we landed in Delhi, it was well past 10:00 and we had got a free ride to Jaipur and back. And the biggest surprise of all? It was raining cats and dogs in Delhi.

Since it was my first time in Delhi, I decided to follow the leader and promptly followed her into the pouring rain. By the time we got into her car, we were fully drenched, and I was cursing myself for not carrying the one thing that a Mallu-born-and-brought-up person would never forget to have - the umbrella. It was another half an hour ride to her home, and yes, I did manage to surprise her with my nice manners - I let her do the talking :) The dinner prepared at her home was extremely delicious and mouth watering. By the time I reached the SAP guest house I was half asleep. I do not exactly recollect what happened next, except that I collapsed on the bed, anticipating a long sleep. When I woke up, the day had lit up. But to my utter surprise I saw that the time was only 5:30. Huh? In Bangalore I never get to see the sun until I get out of the house at 7:00. Anyway, since I was awake, I decided to take a tour of the guesthouse. It was a sprawling mansion in itself with magnificently arranged rooms. The room overlooked an elegant park. The cloudy sky gave hopes that perhaps we would get a respite from the heat. Switching on the TV, i found that all the news channels were busy reporting the rains in Delhi. So far so good. After a quick shower, I went down for a breakfast of parathas. Sathish was already there at the table. He related his tale of woes as to how he reached the guest house only at 1:30 in the morning.

Pragati arrived at 9:00 and the three of us left for the embassy in her car. The roads of Delhi are superb, and the absence of traffic jams like the ones we find in Bangalore amazed me. The embassy proved to be another surprise. Before I left for Delhi, me and my cousin had joked about it that perhaps they would be employing people to queue up before the embassy to give an impression that Hungary was also a destination for Indians. Hence it amused me to no extent to actually find a small queue outside the visa counter. The woman at the visa counter proved to be a trifle too much. There were barely 10 people ahead of us in the queue, but this lady was taking almost half an hour to check each visa document. An exasperated Pragati promptly declared that she could no longer stand in the queue, sat down on the ground, and started cursing the country of Hungary. By the time our turn came around, it was also clear that we had to PAY cash to submit our visa documents - a fact that was conveniently forgotten by our travel desk. My expert advice that "we wait and see whether we actually need to pay" meant that Pragati had to go hunting for an ATM as me and Sathish waited at the counter. The lady at the counter dropped another bomb when she informed us that we need to be back in Delhi to collect the passports and possibly for an interview too. So far it had been a day of surprises.

After a whirlwind tour of what's-there-to-see-in-Delhi, Pragati took us out for lunch (that's just a way of speaking - it was not her treat) at United Coffee House in Connaught Place. It was supposedly a place steeped in tradition, since it was in existence since the times of the British Raj. The ambience of the place was good - a jazz joint, with huge chandeliers, it appealed to me immediately. Pragati's sister Manvi also joined us for lunch, and they had a tussle to decide what to order. Finally they agreed on murgh changezi, and I was left wondering how the chicken was related to the Great Khan (Genghis, not Shah Rukh). The highlight of the lunch was, however, a drunk lady who was sitting a table behind us. Perhaps she did not have enough cash to pay for a bottle of beer, so she started a shouting match with the authorities. To drown the whole affair, the volume of the worldspace radio (which was until then murmuring something) was cranked up, but somehow, the lady kept winning. Pragati immediatley declared that she'd lost her appetite. So it was left to me to finish off the chicken, which I didn't.

They dropped me off at the guest house and I immediately went to sleep in the cool surroundings of my room. I was woken up by the buzz of the cab river, who was supposed to take me to the airport. Take me he did, to the International Airport ("Are you so stupid?" asked Pragati, once she was back in office) where I learned that the domestic airport was a further twenty to thirty minutes away from there. I hassled with an auto driver and finally got to my destination, to find that it was across the big runway. Maybe they should just allow people like me to run across the tarmac to reach the other side. As the day ended, there were no more surprises left for me in Delhi. The flight was late, and Jet Airways was no longer like the vision we had on the previous day - just another one of those drab dark blue flights, where I had to entertain myself with the sad songs I had on my iPod. But nature seemed to have something up her sleeve for me....

It was raining when I landed in Bangalore.

Raindrops keep fallin' on my head...

Yesterday it rained.

It was not a shower, but a storm - a storm that came from nowhere - the first of the season. I hope it is the first of many to come, for I love it when it rains.

Memories of childhood come running to me whenever I see the rain. Perhaps I shouldn't be happy, but I wonder why I am. The monsoon in Kerala has a charm of its own. The earliest memory I have is the pitter patter of the rain on the tiled roof of our house at the Hill Palace. I was a show-off right from my childhood, as I loved to flaunt my colourful umbrella to everyone around. I used to know at least four different designs for making paper boats and I cannot recall how many times i have been scolded for playing in the rain.

Perhaps there might be very few people around who have not been scolded for playing in the rain. It is always a reprimand about catching the odd cold or fever. As time passes, perhaps due to the effect of all the warnings that we get, we come to dread going out in the rain. I can still recall all the miseries I have endured as a result of being caught in the rain at the wrong moment.

But yesterday was different...

I stepped into the rain for a moment, only to be chastised by my friends - "Don't behave as if you are Shah Rukh Khan!" For a moment, I thought of myself as the child I was once - running around with all the paper boats under my arms. Alas, we no longer have that childish innocence with us to enjoy the rains. As I put on my helmet in the months of June or July, I look up at the sky, and wish that it does not burst forth when I am driving. "Have you taken your jacket?" was the last thing I heard from my parents today morning, as I sat on my bike.

It's raining again now, and once more, I'm off in the rain.

I wear my glasses so that you can't see my eyes...
I walk in the rain so that you can't see my tears...

"Kalyanam" for Dummies - a beginner's guide to Iyer marriages

DISCLAIMER: No Iyers were harmed during the composition of this article. However you can be rest assured that at least one Iyer might come to bodily harm after the publication of the same.

“Welcome to the wedding of the season!” - The media screamed about Mira Nair’s “Monsoon Wedding”, a few years back. Marriage - A function I distance myself from every time one of those comes around – for reasons not known to me. Indian marriages, as you might be aware, are spectacular affairs – the lights, the colors, the music all encompassing – and iyer marriages are no exception to this general perception.

But what makes an Iyer Marriage (or “Kalyanam” as it is known in the local tongue) stand out? They are a ritual unto themselves - the bride and the groom, and the relatives who attend and join in the revelry. And God help the hapless soul who fails to ignore the small nuances that come along with the package. Mine is a humble attempt to educate those naïve fellows who might fall into this trap.

As the big day looms, sambandhis (relatives) from all over flock to the venue – some of whom the groom (we’ll take the groom as the “reference object) would never have seen in his life! There are usually “courtesy visits” undertaken, when all and sundry turn up one after the other at the groom’s house. The visit usually starts with a question like “Ennada, readiyaa?” (Are you all set for the marriage?). I’m yet to come across someone who responded with a “No”. The one good aspect of such visits would be the hot cups of filter coffee handed out to everyone, including the groom. One can imagine and shudder at the caffeine levels in the poor man’s blood, by the time he gets to the altar.

Come the big day, the poor guy would more or less resemble the proverbial lamb for slaughter. But then, this is not his story or account. So let’s just leave him to face the music…er…the chants. Marriages are also like quiz competitions – you request people to register in advance, and 90% of participants turn up at the venue unregistered! A sizeable number of relatives turn up only at the Mandapam (Marriage Hall). The first few hours would be pure mayhem, as most of these people would not have met each other for ages (at least not since the last marriage in the family).

What happens next is akin to what used to occur at the gates of the Nazi Concentration Camps of yore – men, women and children to different sides of the hall (not the most apt metaphor, but I couldn’t resist the temptation). The final outcome is always the same – gossip – the difference lying in the levels to which it rises or falls. The women perhaps are predictable – it mostly centers on the unfortunate souls who could not make it to the marriage. The men, I’ve never been able to figure out, since it is too dangerous to go near this group – due to the risk of electrocution from high voltage gossip. And the “children”? - No matter how much you grow up, the elders always refer to you as “kuttikal” (children) – it consists of trying to decipher what the other groups are talking about, only to be shut up by a severe reprimand: “Pesamirungo da! Anga function nadakkarathu!” (Keep quiet! Can’t you see that there’s a function going on?) – wonder when they realized that!

That’s something you need to be aware of – the reprimands. The people who bestow unto themselves the title of “periyavaal” (No…Not “big sword” you idiot! It means “elders”), are always around to warn and advise if you step out of the line. Your first encounter with them would inevitably be when they come in. If it is someone you’ve never seen in your life, be on guard! The first question would be: “Ennada, naan aaru therinjutha? (Hey kid! Do you know who I am)” The safest option would be to act like the proverbial child-in-the-topless-bar and blabber out a “no”. The reaction to this answer has been recorded many a time by experts in the field of psychology as a tirade from the elder about how you used to play in his/her lap when you were a kid. A more adventurous approach would be to boldly say, “Yes! I do”, but the consequence can sometimes be injurious to your ego, as my unfortunate cousin once found out. If the elder in question retorts back: “Oh! Yeah? Then tell me who I am!”, you're in deep water. Personally, I have a reply to such a retort: “Do you mean to say you don’t know who you are?” But the prerequisite for giving such a reply is that you have already prepared your will and appointed an executor.

Iyer marriages are equally well known for their culinary delights as for their pomp and splendor - four-course meals, filled with sweet and spicy delights that make your mouth water. As the clock strikes 12:00 (no obvious connection to Mrs. Cinderella Charming) it is time for the first meal. Strangely though, there won’t be any rush for the first serving. It always starts with the elders commanding the younger ones: “Dei, chaappada varungo!”(Come and have your lunch!) – Mostly since they don’t want to be embarrassed at being the first ones to rush into the dining hall! We of course, will never be there (some hapless children do suffer the misfortune of having to sit in the first round itself, fearful of a tongue-lashing from their parents). We try to make it as late as possible, after the elders have finished their lunch (there’s always enough for everyone). Of course, after their lunch the first thing your elders would ask you is: “Neengal ellam chappatteloda?”(“Have all of you had lunch?”), knowing well that the answer would be “no”. Another embarrassment for you.

Lunch again, has its own “code of conduct” – and men usually bear the brunt of it. Any guy who was gone through the sacred thread ceremony, is not supposed to touch the food until rice and ghee has been served and he has uttered all the necessary mantras (something popularly known as “neer chuthal”) – and inevitably, rice is served last. It starts with the sweets, followed by umpteen curries, and above all, the small serving of “payasam"(kheer). We watch in dismay as the ladies slurp the servings with glee (I don’t need to emphasize what would happen to you if you try eating the payasam before the rice comes around). And when the rice finally arrives, it is an anti-climax – try as you may, the person serving would make sure that the rice is served on top of the payasam. There goes all for nothing!

Etiquette does not end here. First comes the sambar, followed by rasam, a few varieties of payasams, and finally, buttermilk (oops! Did I forget the double dose of “appalams” - papads - in between?). By the time you finish your lunch, the banana leaf on which the food is served should have been wiped clean. Rasam – now that is a dish every Brahmin loves, with the exception of me. Being old enough to disregard the advice of elders, I’ve never had rice with rasam as long as I can remember. But you cannot try the same, if you have your parents or any other relative sitting next to you. If you do not prefer the rice-buttermilk combination to have a sweet taste, and hence prefer to skip all those varieties of payasams, think twice. In our circles, it is considered a heinous crime not to have payasams. Of course, after eating all these (an endeavor that you can compare to a cross country race), you might need to crawl on your belly to get out of the dining hall. Ever wondered why we have pot bellies?

Afternoon is the time to relax and enjoy on your own, with elders enjoying their siesta. Times have changed though, and nowadays you cannot even enjoy a private session of antakshari or dumb charades without the elders challenging you for the same. And if you thought that your array of remixes would serve as ammunition, you’ll be bombarded with those obscure tamil songs from the time when K L Saigal was crawling around in diapers. All said and done, this is the perfect time to impress them and get on their good side – provided you can sing well, and possess rudimentary knowledge in Carnatic Music. There would of course, be the odd expert who might claim that their grand nephew, once removed, could sing a thousand times better. But if you possess a decent voice, you can floor most of them.

The evening starts with hot bajji and…coffee again. After that it’s a mad scramble to get ready for the evening festivities on time. As you would expect, the ladies take the maximum time – to deck themselves up in smooth and shining Kanjeevaram silk sarees and put on tons of gold ornaments that would probably throw any weighing machine off calibration. The guys just have to put on any shirt or trousers they can lay hands on, or drape on any “veshti”(dhoti) lying around. Nobody pays much attention to us – something that might be evident from the Santoor advertisement of yesteryears. Honestly, have you ever seen a guy featured in such ads? I have tried dressing up elaborately in kurta-pyjamas, but the result was not much to talk about. Looking down from the ceremonial dais, you can see an ocean of dazzling color on the side of the auditorium where the ladies would be sitting. It’s time to start from where they left off in the morning – the only difference being in a new topic introduced into the agenda: the origins and family tree structure of every silk saree on view. In another corner you can also spot a splinter group, busy practicing songs for the “oonjal” ceremony the next day.

Talking about music – the kalyanam is never complete without the nadaswaram, the world’s loudest non-brass acoustic instrument. Nowadays the nadaswaram is usually found only in Hindu marriages – the genius of Rajarathnam Pillai, Karukurichi Arunachalam and Sheikh Chinna Moulana has sadly been forgotten. It is the duty of the nadaswaram vidwans(experts) and their accompanying troupe to entertain the audience with Carnatic keertanams. You can perceive the men in the family nodding their heads as if in appreciation of the skill of the artists, even though their attention would be on their on-going gossip session. He would have just finished a glorious raga-alapana, ready to start the pallavi, when the hand of a priest would shoot up from the dais asking him to stop. It is now the priest’s turn to show off his prowess in the Vedas – though for the untrained ear like mine, it would sound like a modem trying to connect to the internet. The unfortunate part is that the groom is expected to repeat whatever the priest recites. The greatest responsibility of the nadaswaram guys however is to play a definite piece of music at regular timed intervals. Those who attend marriages regularly might comprehend what I am referring to but for the uninitiated, this piece may sound similar to the theme music of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Since this is an oft-repeated piece, I did fancy whether it would be a good idea to provide a free CD of the same along with this article. The nadaswaram can then be dispensed with and you just need to run the CD in repeat mode. But the fact that this article might well end up being banned in most agraharams, thus rendering the CD useless, put me off.

Oh! And spare a thought to the groom and bride. Here they are, sitting merrily on the dais: the guy decked up in a blazer – the only time he would ever wear that in his life – and the girl, well, she has to change her garb once in a while. It would have barely been ten minutes since she changed into a brand new silk saree, than the ladies of the family would come and take her along for another costume change. In between, the guy would have had to make a visit to the near-by temple. Nobody knows exactly when this happens, since everyone would be busy in gossip to take notice. The biggest ordeal for them however, is the photography session. Even if the groom and bride are not photogenic, the photography session is mandatory, since all the guests would have primarily turned up for that moment. Each photograph would take 10-15 minutes of arrangement, framing and composition. Add to this, the fact that there would be at least five hundred odd people eager to appear on film. It’s simple mathematics as to how much time this whole exercise would take. A study of this photograph album would enable the groom and bride to trace and draw their family tree. The photography session is the last major act before the grand finale of the first day – the dinner (sadly, for the groom and bride, this may not be the case).

And the dinner? Please refer to the section on the etiquette for lunch. They are the same.

The next day is perhaps the biggest and most important day in the life of the bride and groom: the day they are bound together in wedlock – an event which, in reality, 90% of the people present would never get to witness. All the relatives have to be at the hall early in the morning, and with the unwritten rule that you have to dress up better than the previous evening, you can be sure that for people like me, it would be the one day of the year I see the sun rise. The first important event of the day (no…not breakfast cum another cup of coffee) is the “oonjal” ceremony. The bride and the groom exchange garlands and are seated on a huge swing. Tladies of the house go bananas…er...I mean, feed them banana and milk. The aforementioned “splinter group” who spent the previous evening rehearsing their voices, now take over for a performance of their own – but only after the priest or his assistants announce “aaravathu paattu paadungo” (somebody sing a song) – as if to convince everyone present that they are just obliging on the insistence of everyone. If you listen carefully, you will invariably get to hear only one song – that “laali" song (in reality it is a beautiful piece composed in ragam Kurinji), with all the ladies (never heard the men) competing against each other as if this were an audition for Indian Idol (at this juncture, the idea of staging an “Iyer Idol” did tempt me). Be whatever it may, I have to confess that I personally have sung this song (perhaps the only guy in history to achieve this) at a relative’s marriage, albeit when I was some 10 years old – a fact my mother always tries to bring up during marriages, prompting me to quietly slink away from the place.

At the end of the audition, the groom and bride take up the pole position on the dais. Thall would be choc-a-bloc full with relatives, friends and acquaintances of both families, most of them blissfully unaware of what is happening on the stage. For:

Theirs is not to reason why,
Theirs is but to do and dine…
(Copyright: Lord Alfred Tennyson, the Charge of the Light Brigade)

On the dais, the groom and bride are completely engulfed by hordes of relatives, eager to witness and help in the rituals. Their efficiently in shielding the two would put any black cat commando unit to shame. I’m one of the privileged few who’ve actually witnessed the “thaali kettal” (tying the knot) ceremony that happens in the midst of this security blanket – thanks to the fact that I carry a high-tech digital camera. Ever heard of the term “Paparazzi”?

For the general public, the only indication of something important happening out there would be the periodic outbursts of the aforementioned “theme music". After a while the bride and the groom finally come into view and realization would dawn that everything’s done and dusted. It’s time for lunch.

Really? Maybe the groom would not agree. Here is a guy who has to now sit for over an hour and brave all that smoke, trying to decipher what the priest wants him to recite. And wait, there’s that small ceremony of lifting up his wife’s feet and dragging it on top of a huge grinding stone. It marks the first time that he falls at the feet of his wife – something that he has to keep doing throughout his life…

The grand and sumptuous lunch marks the end of the festivities for most people who turn up (the bride and the groom get to eat last, and are always accompanied by the photographer and the videographer). For the relatives this is the end of another memorable outing whereas for the bride and the bridegroom it marks the beginning of their life together. And people like me? We heave a sigh of relief – for all's well that ends well. All said and done, the Iyer marriage is perhaps the most beautiful and meaningful ceremony. People might dismiss me as cynical and disrespectful. They would advise me: “You can go on teasing. When it is your turn, you’ll realize its important”. But then, I’m still a bachelor and as they say in Hindi: “Bandar kya jaane adrak ka swaad?”

P.S: The incidents detailed here are purely based on the author’s experiences in attending marriages, and do not strictly constitute a “must-do” list for the functions. Elders being elders may always find new ways of reprimanding you. If you come across any such unchartered incidents, do send in your experiences to the author.

This photo was taken on 25th of December, 2006 during our trip to Badami.

Being Christmas Day, we were for a minute astounded to see the entry "Jesus and Milkshake" in the menu of the restaurant.

Blessed art thou, who drinketh my juice...

"Children below 4 feet are not permitted"! Now what's that supposed to mean? I've never seen a child who has more than two feet (like any other human being)

Blast from the Past

"Jeena humko raas na aaya, phir jaane kyon jeete hai?"....floated out the voice of Lata Mangeshkar (from the movie Raat Aur Din) from my Worldspace Radio, late into the night. It was 10:30, a few minutes after the lights had come back following the mandatory powercut (it never happens so late in any other area, according to my utterly knowledgeable sister). The song set me thinking - do we really know the life that we are living?

There are a few moments every day, when we sometimes stop to reflect on small incidents that perhaps change our whole day. Today it happened to me again. It was evening as I sat in the vast coffee corner in the campus, busily clickety-clacking on the precious laptop that today fills my life. A few minutes later, I heard a couple of voices. They were that of some friends whom i did not even know existed anymore. "What are you doing here?" they asked - not reproachful, but filled with surprise and warmth in seeing a face that had forgotten them. There was no hint of acrimony or animosity in their voice. For a moment, i tried to recollect when i had spoken to them the last time, and not surprisingly, I found that I didnot remember. These were not people from the past - for "past" is not a word we can use for times recently passed. These were people with whom I had shared jokes, had laughed with and confided in, a few years back. And now when I had acquired new friends, I had conveniently forgotten them. As we continued our conversation, I felt something tug at my heart. This was not perhaps what I had wanted...

Long after they had left for the day, I sat there wondering about my experience. A new thought stuck me...It was not what I had wanted, but it was something that I had ALLOWED to happen. Sitting here at home, once again in front of the laptop, I can remember a few more forgotten faces I had passed by, somewhere on the road to success. Perhaps tomorrow someone would return the favour to me. We always like to say that we live in the present, conveniently ignoring that it was the past that shaped our present and today's present would be tomorrow's past.

It is almost midnight now. Time for me to sleep. Tomorrow, when I walk forward, I will look back over my shoulder at the people whom I walked past, and smile - a smile full of recognition and friendship - and hope that they smile back at me.

If you are reading this now, it is because I remember you. I hope you too feel the same

What's in a name - Part II

The Super Eights are finally here. The grand circus that goes by the name of "Cricket World Cup" has come alive now that the clowns (read as India and Pakistan) have finished their act and the tightrope walkers have taken over.
Somebody had the bright(pun unintended) idea of staging six matches in Guyana, popularly known as the "Chennai of the West Indies" - It never stops raining here when a cricket match is scheduled. Of course, the matches in Guyana and Antigua are to be played at brand-new stadia. The aptly named "Providence Stadium" in Guyana, as I hear, is not even 100% complete. So you'll probably have the Lankans and South Africans wearing hard-hats on the field - "Safety First, Sports Next". The other stadium is the majestic Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in North Sound, Antigua. Ah!...finally, the King gets his due. I remember during my school days, when West Indies had toured India after the 1987 World Cup, we used to dread seeing this guy bat, demolishing everything that came his way. Unfortunately, the kids of today have never seen anything of his like (Sachin Tendulkar and Ricky Ponting please excuse). By the time, the World Cup comes back to the West Indies, I hope they have stadia named after Sir Gary, Joel Garner, Andy Roberts, Michael Holding etc.

The master-blaster now has a World Cup stadium named after him! Now how many guys can boast of that? We have the MCG, SCG, the Wanderers, Newlands, Eden Park, Basin Reserve, Headingley, Edgbaston and all those. Thomas Lord (after whom Lords is named) is the great exception...unless you are in the Indian subcontinent!! Over here, every other stadium is named after somebody! Have a look:

Bangladesh: Bangabandhu Stadium
Srilanka: R. Premadasa Stadium, P. Saravanamuttu Stadium
Pakistan: Gaddafi Stadium (that's the height!), Faisal Stadium

...and how many international centuries or wickets do these guys have on their name?

Oops! Did I forget India? Perhaps Mr. S.K. Wankhede, Mr. MA Chidambaram and Mr. M Chinnaswami are the greatest international cricketeres this country hs ever produced. And the biggest irony is that every other frigging city has a cricket stadium named after the biggest idiot of all - Mister Jawaharlal Nehru!

Rahul Gandhi might disagree:

"If the Nehru-Gandhi family had been running the BCCI, India would have won all the World Cups so far"

Someone should send him that e-mail which is doing its rounds nowadays about how his grandmom was responsible for India's defeat in the 2o07 World Cup - after all, it was she who created Bangladesh :)

Perhaps they can take a leaf out of the West Indian book, and name some stadia after Kapil Dev or Sunil Gavaskar - never mind how big a prick he is. But strangely, I feel that future events might get slotted to the Sharad Pawar Stadium or the Lalu Prasad Yadav Stadium

The boy who asked for more...

"Please Sir, I want some more"

Who can forget those immortal lines? The little orphan boy requesting for more soup in Charles Dickens's evergreen classic, Oliver Twist... and that is exactly the feeling I had after watching Roman Polanski's version of this classic on TV yesterday...

No. It was not because, I was so impressed that I was left wanting for more. But Polanski could have done a little more justice to the final product that he has presented before us.

Polanski has taken up one of the finest classics and churned it out into an impressive movie. Perhaps he found inspiration in his own childhood to detail the story of the little orphan boy on celluloid. As a child he spent the years during World War II wandering around Europe, after his parents' imprisonment in the German concentration camps.

Technically the film is impressive. The art design and cinematography are excellent in the way Polanslki has managed to recreate 19th century London. Barney Clark does a fine job as little Oliver. There is a certain sadness in his face that endears him to the audience. But it is Ben Kingsley who steals the show in the role of the roguish, but immensely lovable character of Fagin. He simply walks away with all the laurels.

As the movie progresses, Polanski digresses from the classic and has completely erased out the characters of Rose Mailey - Oliver's Aunt and Monks - Oliver's stepbrother. For a two-hour long movie, Polanski has deliverd! It is definitely a must watch for movie lovers. But for ardent lovers of the Dickens classic, it falls short as a representation of the little boy's travails on the silver screen

Of Bridesmaids and Miracles

It was perhaps the second biggest match of the World Cup - the bridesmaid in all sense: Australia v South Africa. This was the clash between the top two teams in the World - their first World Cup meeting ever since THAT semi-final at Edgbaston.

So why call it the Bridesmaid? Because of April 15th 2007. The Super Eight schedule read thus:

April 15, Super Eights - B2 v D1 - The Kensington Oval, Barbados

The fact that this match was scheduled at the same venue which would feature the finals, a little after two weeks to this encounter did not escape my attention. It was slated to be the Final before the Final - the biggest attraction of this World Cup:

India (B2) vs Pakistan (D1)

A lot of water has flown under the bridge since then, and now the schedule reads as:

April 15, Super Eights - Bangladesh v Ireland - The Kensington Oval, Barbados

I didn't see Pepsi's "World Cup kola" ad on the telly yesterday. So much for jingoism...

Returning to the bridesmaid, for those of us in the subcontinent who had come to terms with the exit of the self-proclaimed power houses of cricket, this was THE match. South Africa, crowned the current world number one - barely beatable in their own backyard, and barely unbeatable outside it, were up against Australia,from whom they'd wrested the world number one title. People had forgotten when was the last time they had won against a test-playing opposition.

Reaching home from office, I switched on the TV and saw to my surprise something that read 1 0 4 6 6 - oh! they were at it again. But wait a minute! This was no ordinry part time seamer. They were taking Shaun Pollock apart! Fifty overs and umpteen power outages later, I was still watching as the Aussies piled up a whopping 377 for 6 (in between switching channels to see the lone cameo being enacted by Steve Tikolo against the English).

Nathan Bracken ran in for the first ball of the fifth over, and Graeme Smith, like a man possessed, charged out and in a flash, despatched the ball to the long off boundary. It was perhaps the most audacious shot of the day. The old warhorse, Glenn McGrath, trudged in to replace the erratic Shaun Tait, and was greeted by three consecutive fours. The bull had been taken by the horns. Memories of March 12 2006 came flooding back - the last time these two teams met in a One Day International - THAT match at the Wanderers in Johannesburg. The legacy of that match seems to have left an indelible mark on Australia-South Africa clashes. Pitches might never again be prepared to entertain us with the brilliance of a Brett Lee or a Shaun Pollock. Perhaps never again, would we get to see a low-scoring thriller in the likes of Edgbaston. I pray for the bowlers...May their souls rest in peace.

When you are playing in the World Cup, miracles do not happen everyday. Yesterday, it took a miraculous throw from the deep by Shane Watson to stop South Africa in their tracks, and from the Aussie point of view, it might have been divine intervention that prevented Graeme Smith from continuing.

But for the blue billion, miracles and divine interventions may have come a day too early...

Perhaps, God is not Indian

-The Klansman

Future Attractions

Coming soon to this Klavern:

1. What a misconception!!

2. Kalyanam for Dummies: A Beginner's Guide to Iyer Marriages

-The Klansman

Reminiscing Goa

One year ago, four of us - Me, Aravinda, Priyananda and Vinay - set out for Goa. It was a memorable trip in various ways - speeding around the countryside on bikes, splashing aournd the waters of the arabian sea, enhancing our vocabulary, and finding out new uses for coconut oil. A few shots from that trip...

Calangute

Calangute

Baga

Baga

Sinquerim

Palolem

Palolem

Vagator

Vagator

The Dark Side of the Moon - review of "All Quiet on the Western Front"

IMDB title: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0020629/

“This story is neither an accusation, nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped its shell, were destroyed by the war”…Thus begins one of the most influential war movies of all time – so influential that, years after its release, it was still being banned in countries mobilizing for World War II. Based on Erich Maria Remarque’s book and directed by Lewis Milestone, “All quiet on the Western Front” won two Academy Awards - for the Best Motion Picture and Best Director - in the year 1930.

“All quiet on the Western Front” relates the story of young German recruits in World War I, as they pass from idealism to disillusionment. A classroom lecture inspires the group of young men led by Paul Baumer (Lew Ayres), to enlist in the army, eager to serve the fatherland. As their teacher says, “To be foremost in battle is a virtue not to be despised”. However, their induction into the “2nd Company” at the front is far from cheerful. Stomachs cringe for every morsel of food, whenever it comes by. The fear of death lingers in the trenches as deadly shells whiz past. One by one, they fall by the wayside – Kropp, Behn, Kemmerick, Mueller, Albert – either into the jaws of death or losing their mind in the absolute madness of “the war to end all wars”. As what he expected to be a “short war” stretches on for four years, the passion of fighting for the country turns to frustration, and finally to despair for Baumer, leading to a fatal conclusion.

The movie digresses from the proverbial “good v bad” theme. There are no stereotype “enemies” out here. Rather, it paints the picture of a war that nobody wanted. Trapped in a crater with the enemy soldier he has killed, Baumer echoes these very sentiments: “You’re just a man like me. We only wanted to live! If we threw away this uniform, we can be like brothers!” For those of us brought up on the steady diet of the technically brilliant present day war movies, “All quiet…” has all the drawbacks of black & white movies of a bygone era – over-dramatization of emotional sequences, the editing that sometimes tends to make the scenes a bit too long, and not to mention the least, the complete absence of a background score (a deliberate ploy by Milestone).

Lew Ayres gives a convincing performance as the young protagonist, Paul Baumer, though at times he goes overboard with the portrayal. This was his stepping stone into an illustrated career that would stretch well into the late nineteen eighties. However, it is Louis Wolheim as the cynical Corporal “Kat” Katczinsky – the 2nd Company’s ‘canteen’ – who holds the movie together. His sardonic wit lights up the whole film. His prophetic statement – “the war won’t be over until they get me” – ironically comes true when he is felled by a shell during the last days of the Great War.

“All Quiet on the Western Front” is a collection of now-famous cinematic moments: The first meeting of the young recruits and the veteran soldiers, Baumer’s anguish as he lies in the crater with the soldier he has killed, his pacifist speech to his astonished schoolmates, and that final moment, when the enemy soldier fixes Baumer in the crosshairs of the rifle, as he reaches his hand out for that fatal butterfly…

Far away in the hills of Kohima, in an immaculate cemetery, lie the graves of the Indian Army soldiers who fought in the Burma campaign of World War II. On a monument at the foot of the cemetery, one can find the poem:

When you go home
Tell them of us and say
For your tomorrow
We gave our today

This is a story of a lost generation – of young men, who gave their today for no tomorrow. There is rarely any glory in war…only the stark reality of death! As Paul Baumer says, “We live in the trenches out there. We fight. We try not to be killed. Sometimes we are…that’s all!”

-The Klansman

Babies' Day Out

It was the usually dull Saturday evening. When all of India (or at least half of it) was heading towards Palace Grounds for the Iron Maiden concert, here i was, sitting before the telly, with nothing else to do, but catch the action from the World Cup.

"JUST IN - Kumble, Karthik, Pathan and Sreesanth rested" - screamed NDTV and CNN-IBN. Huh? Is this a World Cup encounter, or a practice game? "I expect a clinical performance from the team", mused the captain, and I guess, the team took his words literally - they just laid themselves down on the operating table for the Bangladeshis to dissect. Virender Sehwag seems to be the most innovative of the lot - trying to discover new ways of getting run out.

However, two hours of ennui was alleviated by an SMS from my friend: "Forget India. Watch the Pakistan match". I switched channels - there was a match being played on some ground, where you couldn't distinguish which was the pitch and which was the outfield - everything looked green ("The Irish are coming out in green" screamed Aamer Sohail, and then corrected himself: "Their version of the green"), and the pakistanis hopping around like the proverbial cat on the tin roof (where the heck did they find a fossil like Azhar Mahmood? Dug him out of some archeological site?). And just when things were etting interesting, my cable guy pulled the plug!

It sure was the Babies' Day Out. But not necessarily mine. Spare my cable operator's indiscretion in cutting off the cable and going to sleep, but the world cup is yet to inspire me to stay awake till 3:30 in the morning and watch the action. I've had to rely on cricinfo the next day, to catch up on most of the action.

Talking about cricinfo, ever since last Tuesday, the guys take you automatically to what they call their World Cup Page. The first thing you see when the page opens is Hrithik Roshan calling out "Oye Pappe". Makes you think whether they've got the right topic, before you realize that it is an ad for some satellite television network. Following him would be ads from Reebok, Airtel, LIC, monster.com et al. The whole place is also filled with blogs. Now that the World Cup is here, every Tom, Dick and Ravi have taken it upon themselves to be cricket writers. And the players themselves are not far behind - Sangakkara, Sarwan and Gayle, to name a few. Enterprising chaps. At least they have a fallback option, if they don't click on field.

-The Klansman

The Colour of Spring

A Hard Day's Work

Fowl Play!

Dear Mr. Eoin Colfer,

It has always been a delight to me to read your works. I have been following the exploits of your young criminal mastermind Artemis Fowl. I cannot tell you in words how much I adore him and his adventures. I have just finished reading your latest book, and I found it simply awesome! I finished the book in one go, without putting it down. You are simply a genius. But I guess you must be getting a lot of such mails from Artemis's fans...

...and maybe that's why you've lost your brains.

...for that's the impression I got after reading "Artemis Fowl and The Lost Brain" (er...sorry, "The Lost Colony"). I have indeed read the previous four titles. I loved the first three and managed to read through the fourth last year (though I don't remember what it was all about) . It was only recently that I laid my hands on Book V of the series. The blurb seemed quite interesting - Artemis Fowl has a competition! Wow! Now that's something to read for...

Read, I did - until 11:30 on Saturday I read and read and read, and it was impressive - No.1's dilemma, Minerva's plans and Artemis's execution of the counterplan. And then, you seem to have thrown in the kitchen sink. Maybe it was something you ate in Taiwan. Speaking of Taiwan, how much did you get for promoting the tourism industry there? Or do you have some strange fetish for Taipei 101?

What the hell were you thinking when you wrote those last 100-odd pages? Time-warp, time tunnel, some goddamn extinct volcano...huh?? Someone get me outta here...and so much for the good side of Artemis, puberty and all those mushy stuff. What are we in store for in Book VI? The "Harry met Sally" version of Artemis Fowl? Are you seriously suffering from the JK Rowling Syndrome?

-The Klansman

The call that never came...

It was like waiting for Godot. On 25th January, as I was gleefully loitering along Fergusson College Road (ogling at the girls) in Pune, I got the call from Arindam informing that I was one of his choices for the "phone-a-friend" lifeline on KKK...KBC.

The opportunity came a year late perhaps (I would've loved to talk to the Big B), but I was delighted - not for the fact that I would be talking to whatsisname. It's not everyday that you get to feature on prime-time television.

To say the least, the news did not go down well with you-know-who's fans in the office ("why not me?") - some of whom wanted me to put them in conference when the call came. I was given a one page instruction sheet that informed me the modalities for attending the call - above all, to "sound surprised" when I receive the call - "After all, it is not everyday that you get to speak to Mr. Shah Rukh Khan".

As the D-day loomed, I was getting more and more jittery - not at the prospect of hearing whatsisname stutter, but at the thought of making a fool of myself in front of the zillion people who would be watching. To compensate for the change of the anchor, at least the quality of questions had gone up (to give an example: "Which product was voted by TIME magazine as the Best Invention of 2006? a. Google Desktop Search b. Ipod Nano c. YouTube d. Orkut", compared to "Which of the following animals would you come across in a desert? a. Bull b. Elephant c. Camel d. Cow") , and being the quizzer that he is, I was sure Arindam would gimme a call only when he was THAT desperate.

On the 14th of February, on St. Valentines Day, I refused to attend any other calls on my mobile - something which I guess, many others would not approve. But THE call never came...Later I found out that Arindam had lost the hot seat by less than a second. How Sad! After all, it is not everyday that Mr. Shah Rukh Khan gets an opportunity to speak to me...

I feel for him...

-The Klansman

What's in a name??

Courtesy: American Heritage Dictionary

klutz (klŭts): n. Slang

1. A clumsy person.
2. A stupid person; a dolt.

[Yiddish klots, from Middle High German kloz, block, lump, from Old High German.]

klutz'i·ness n., klutz'y adj.

Before you take offense to my change of name, let me assure you: Personally, I do not have anything against blacks, or any other so-called 'coloured' individuals. In fact I am not any "fairier" than you (and neither is life). Rather, I would consider myself to be a thoroughly colourful personality.

The emphasis is more on the second word, which perhaps (v)indicates my brain.

As they say, "what's in a name anyway?"

Bombay....

The city of dreams...Yes, we'd heard of it. And now, we got a chance to see it. But what did we see?

Before I embarked on the trip, I was told: "Chowpatty is a must-visit".

The truth is:

• We didn't visit Chowpatty
• We didn't vist Juhu beach
• Neither did we loiter around the Marine Drive (of course, the customary visit was included)

For a day and a half, we walked and walked....in and around Old Bombay ("Bombay" should have been old enough, what with all the renaming crap, but for me, they're still "Bombay", "Madras", "Cochin" etc.), revelling in the splendour of the grand buildings from the bygone British era - enticed by the Taj Mahal Hotel, enchanted by the old University Building and enamoured by the Old Lady of Dadabhai Naoroji Road (they called her "Victoria Terminus" in those days).

That's me for you...and that's why I changed the name of my blog...

Solitude....

The soft hum of the Air Conditioner permeates the eerie silence. Steely rays of the sun penetrate the blinds on my left. As I look to the right, I can see immaculate rows of black chairs placed strategically on either side of the passsage. The whole room is lit in heavenly white light. There's nary a soul here except for me.... And the question I ask myself is:

WHAT THE HECK AM I DOING IN OFFICE ON A SATURDAY??

Well, you sow what you reap...
And miles to go before you sleep...