The joy of playing

I ran for cover as my partner rushed to the net with her racket raised high over her head and cried "haaaaaaa ya".  The poor shuttle was destroyed as she hit a smash over the net and we won the game 21-16. The smile never left her face for the remainder of the day and since it was just 9 in the morning, it was a good ten hours before the day wound down.
We played badminton regularly for eighteen months.  By regularly I mean every day Monday to Friday. From 8.30 to 9.30, this band of seven girls of varying proficiencies.  But we all excelled at screaming, shrieking, shouting and bruising the poor shuttle when we failed win the point.  The oldest among is at fifty six was also the loudest. You wouldn’t believe this otherwise sauve woman could scream like a neanderthal on court…totally unapologetically.I have never seen women so uninhibited in movement and completely unhinged decibel levels.  It was liberating, to be able to move the way you wanted, to trip and fall and not worry about where your limbs were or whether your t-shirt rode up or the neck line plunged low.
Sub-consciously I think we kind of tried to outdo each other (I always failed and then I gave up).  I was the serenest of the lot! That game of badminton set the tone for the rest of our day. Win or lose, we moved, ran, rushed, sweated a hell of a lot and it was so refreshing at the end of the hour. Total workout guaranteed and it was so much better than the gym-based workout and If I am to be honest any orchaestrated workout that might be current rage.It was too much of a good thing for a whole one hour.  Since it was seven to eight of us, the game always continued even if two of us had to drop out.  Everybody hit the court at 8.30 sharp, looking sharp, brandishing rackets and feeling like that battery bunny. Our game improved collectively, our drop shots and smashes were to die for. There was absolutely no awkwardness in moving however we wanted.  The freedom was intoxicating, quite the opposite of what women experience in public life, while walking on the sidewalk, or waiting in the back, in a queue or on the bus. We move in a man’s world conscious of ourselves, worrying too much about our clothes and and our actions, our movements, adjusting our bra straps and pulling up our t-shirts.I am so tempted to get on the rant train right now.  However I shall concentrate in the fitness aspect of it first and then jump on the feminist bandwagon tomorrow.  Playing a sport allows you the luxury of exercise without being so aware of it or being bored by it. The hands of the clock moved magically fast and before you now it, the hour is up, your muscles are sore, you are stretching to negate the effects of crazily lunging at the net trying to return a drop shot.  It gives you the gift of easy comaraderie and kinship. It builds around you a bubble for that hour to rave and rant through your game or gab about the kids or the hubby who has been unreasonable of late.  You can have an intensive 15 minute workout, take a break and gossip about anything and everything. You can celebrate with your mates or you can off- load your rage.  We were there for each other and god did we take advantage!  It was one of the best eighteen months of playing badminton and making friends.  After a year and a half, I guess we had run our course, people moved out of the city, got jobs, struggled with their fitness and we eventually fizzled out.  The friendship remains though.  Birthdays are remembered and wishes sent out on watsapp.  Plans are made to get together and everyone responds with enthusiasiasm. The moral of this story ofcourse is to pick up a sport girls! Be it baddy or tennis or even frisbee, anything that makes you move, help you shed those inhibitions and score!

Walking and ruminating

I never thought I would walk...least of all as a means of exercising. No sir, walking was meant for old, old people who have always been old and will always be old to do anything else but walk as exercise.  I had never noticed them and when I did I wondered how could anyone walk for a workout. I ran, on cricket ground, up the hill, on the hill, down the hill, proud of my gait, my stride, my speed, leaving behind the old people who walked slowly hunched over their thoughts.  

I really didn’t give them any thought, other than to say a polite hello.  That was then, now I walk like a person possessed and hard as it is to admit, walking is hard, harder than running.  It is very difficult to get in 'the zone', to establish a rhythm that naturally needs a minimum speed. I have seen people on the phone while walking.  Maybe it works for them, but walking while on the phone is too dangerous for me, especially on our roads with open man-holes, people zealously breaking traffic rules, cables lying carelessly on the streets and a whole other dozen reasons.

I have found my own way (I  think it's rather innovative).  I started memorizing Shloks, and have been able to establish a beautiful rhythm that is a combination of my gait and repetitive chanting. I write a part of shlok that I want to memorise and that's how I start my walk. By the time I finish, I have a fair bit down pat. The downside is if I were to treat it as a spiritual exercise, it is entirely pointless even though I have hundreds of hours of repeating the shloks....for the simple reason that for every line of shlok, I also have a dozen gaalis (expletives).  

The  moment I step out on the street with a 'shree ganeshaya namaha'....which is followed by "hey asshole watch it", a motorcycle rider has appeared out of nowhere and decided to ride within an inch of my life. Kaushik Rushi would be tsk tsking me out of this world entirely and it would be reasonable to say that it would be hard for me to find a place on any planets above (or below).  

I inhale, "Om Shanti, shanti, shantihi....", I exhale "you idiot".  And so the saga continues, a breath of the spiritual, followed by several breaths of street-crassness and mad waving at people who refuse to be considerate. These crazy Shumachers and Danica Patricks make life of pedestrian walkers a living hell.  Driving close to them, around them, into them and over them. 

It’s quite funny actually. All the while, I am jumping hoops from the footpath onto the road and back again, over ditches, manholes, skirting trash and trash cans, holding my breath when I am close to the flies  and releasing my breath when I am past them. 

On a serious note, I am young and can navigate the worst of the lot on the streets.  I see senior citizens trying to negotiate the same and they have the hardest time. The footpaths or sidewalks are impossible to get on to, they are more than a foot above street level.  They go on a couple of meters and then suddenly there is a drop.  One has to climb down from the sidewalk, onto the road, and back on to them again. It is very very hard. There are motorcycles parked on the footpath, hawkers, istriwallahs, squatters, flower sellers, construction material in ugly piles discouraging people from using their legs to commute.  For older people, walking is very hazardous for health and life.  My brother has a morbidly funny take on this. Whenever he sees an old person walking on the street (middle more like) completely clueless as to the direction or reason of the journey, he says that they have been been deliberately loose on the streets without supervison.  If they come back home, its another very normal day and if they dont, then...... 

Walking and cycling (more on that later) has given me a perspective on our cities and their inhabitants. Where I live, the sidewalks are not sidewalks.  They are an extension of shops, homes, restaurants, tandoors and trashcans.  I have to steeple chase across and over...every day.  On the other hand, people are kind. They move out of my path to make space, the motorcyclist will be move his motorcycle to give me way, a tempo will wait giving me right of way (most of the times).  I never mess with traffic signals.  I move when the lights flash green and stop when they glare red.  It gives me the right to wave my menacing walking stick at people who have not heeded the rules.  It gives me poetic satisfaction. It protects me against stray dogs that get too close at times.  It gives me the strength to walk on lonely stretch of roads that may be too dark or too quiet for comfort.

It makes me smile as I pass by a hot chips shop, with their crisp banana wafers tempting me, it holds me back from the samosas being fried and deposited on the huge tray. And it heaves a sigh a relief when I am inside the gates of my home. I rest the stick in a corner (it has earned a well-deserved rest) my shoes have borne the brunt of my weight and the filth of the streets.  

The scrap of paper I had written the shlok on is now in tatters wet and torn from sweat. 

I have just had a great walk! 

Person of the Week- Priyanka Chopra

"I guess you will never know now!" is the confident retort of Alex Parris to a random stranger who she indulges in a wham bam with before leaving him without either her name or number.

Congratulations Priyanka Chopra- you are as at ease with American TV as you are in Indian Cinema.
You can act, you can walk, you can wield (a gun) and you can TALK.  For all the naysayers, Priyanka has passed in flying colours her diction and dialogue delivery exam.  No, her accent was not jarring, it was as natural to hear say Ellen Pompeo's or Sandra Oh's.  No slip-ups, no boredom of diction or an obvious faked one. Keep it up.
PC is the most exciting actress I have see on screen.  She lost her way some years ago in Zanjeer, Anjana Anjani or even doing the explicit number in Ram Leela.  It can call ir explicit but it takes enormous talent to dance the way she did.  Okay - ticks on all scores- dance- tick, act- tick, perform- tick, screen presence- tick.  Now lets focus on quality of content.  Lets hope Quantico is here to stay like Castle or Grey's Anatomy and PC becomes the toast of American television.

Switching off

One week in the Andamans has given me a contentment hangover and i hope it never wears off.  I don't expect anyone to call me, I haven't missed anybody so far, I dont 'want' anything and am just as I said earlier- content.  And now before i utter the the c word again, I won't for the fear of it going away!
But with the 'good' hangover comes the bad as well...of sorts.  I cannot bear the crowds, cannot bear being among them, cannot bear interacting with them and alas I am a householder and therefore by definition my life rests on interacting with people to take it forward.  To the extent that I now plan my grocery/ shopping forays @ 8pm when the crowds start thinning, I contact the anonymous customer service that does my work so that I don't have to step out, so far it is working out fine. I fully realise that this idyllic world will end once summer vacation ends.
Sigh! Till then I am floating on the c cloud!

Andaman Holiday- A week in Paradise

One of the best holidays every and no trip to Europe or other island destinations can rival this one!

That said let me give you the itinerary we followed (which should be ideal for a family with two kids (as little as 3 and 6 or as old as 10 and 16)

Day 1-

Arrived in Port Blair by the Spicejet flight at 12.15pm.

We checked into Hornbill Nest at Port Blair. This is a guesthouse run by the Department of Tourism, Andaman and Nicobar.  The tariff is the cheapest and the views are stunning.  The rooms are decent-sized, clean and there is hot water.  Each room as a view of the Andaman sea.  What more could you want.  After checking in, we decided to have lunch Peerless Sarovar which is on Corbyn’s Cove beach.  We had the most ordinary food and five star prices.  Please avoid this one if you can.

After lunch, @ 3pm, we decided to visit cellular jail.  Enroute, the kids appeared to be tired and so we repaired to our guesthouse for beers, cold drinks and Snacks.  At 6.30, we left for the sound and light show at the Cellular jail.  This show shows you the grim side of this paradise called Andaman also knows then as Kaala Paani.  For it was infamous for its cellular that incarcerated political prisoners.  The show is for 40 to 45 minutes and is worth a visit if you can spare the time.  The ride back to our hotel was beautiful.  The road wound around the stunning coastline all the way up to the hotel and beyond.  The moon overhead reflected in the shimmering waters of the sea.  We spent the night in Port Blair.

Day 2- Port Blair to Havelock

We caught the Makruzz Ferry from Port Blair to Havelock at 8.15.  Our taxi dropped us at the jetty and a bus (presumably a Makruzz company bus) gave us a ride till the jetty office.  We checked in our baggage and boarded the ferry.  The Makruzz was absolutely comfortable, clean, air conditioned (that came as a relief in humid conditions) and spacious.  Go for it.  We arrived at Havelock at 9.30.  The timings are always punctual, no delays at all.  The first sight of Havelock took our breath away.  We were quite expecting to see dirty, oil-laden waters especially in the jetty area, but the blue, green waters resting on white sands under it was magic and the magic stretched everywhere around Havelock.  It was like we were enclosed by a rubber band of white tinged with blue.  A porter operating a four wheel cart helped us with our luggage and deposited it in the waiting taxi.  We had booked into Dolphin resort in Havelock.  This resort is operated by Tourism department as well.  The location was stunning- bang on the beach close to beach no 2.  Again the same view- white sandy shallow beach with waters that dappled green, blue, turquoise.  Could we have asked for more?  Check in was a pain as we got our rooms at 2pm after which we had lunch in the resort restaurant and then headed straight for the beach.  

The waters are safe for kids as they are shallow for at least 100 meters into  the sea.  We swam like we were in our pool with kids and inflatable toys floating around.  We didn’t have to worry about the kids as there are no waves and waters are shallow, the littlest kid in our group (3yrs) was like a tiger in these waters.  So there you have an idea.  The waters here are quite rocky so you need to select a sport with less rocks/ corals but it is not a big deal.  Just plonk all your stuff on the beach (books, water bottle, towels, camera) and get in the waters.  We easily spent 4 hours in the waters and came out only when the sun set which is at @ 5.45 and even then we lingered, such is the allure of these waters.  We spotted a guy whose hobby was underwater photography and who visits these islands at least twice a year, we spotted bird life and fish who were frolicking alongside us in the waters.  For dinner we went to Wild Orchid restaurant next to Dolphin. It was OK nothing exceptional but it did the trick- it served us beers, the kids got their cola fix.

Day 2

We decided to go snorkeling today at Beach no.2 (I needn’t tell you about the waters and sand again)  Our driver Sujith dropped us at Beach no.2  right into the hands of the snorkeling folks.  And even before we could go inside the waist- high waters, we spotted shoals of fish- some were shaped like eels, some were the amazing shade of black.  They took is in a group of two.  We put our snorkeling gear, the safety ring around our shoulders/ waist and were led in for our first sighting of under-water marine life- we saw trigger fish, live sponge, a host of asymmetrical sea life throbbing and pulsing and closing instantly as they sensed out coming.  Sadly the coral has bleached but you do spot some yellow and purple coloured coral here and there.  Our group snorkeled twice.  The kids were having so much fun with this relatively easy activity that we decided to buy our own snorkeling equipment which is nothing but a mask with a tube attached to it and of course an inflatable water-bed.  We had a dozen coconuts with sweet water and ate the coconut inside it that was so tender that you couldn’t scoop it, it came slipping through your fingers like mercury.  Amazing and I could live on this stuff.  We came back at @ 2pm just in time for lunch.  We went to Munjoh Ocean resort for lunch and thought that we should spend some part of our vacation here as well.  After coming back at 4pm we hit the beach as the kids were clamoring to try out their new snorkeling gear.  Beach till 6pm and then back for bath and dinner.

Day 3

We checked into Munjoh that came as a relief after the relatively spartan digs of the government guest house and just as we were wondering if the beach could get any better, we were handed another stretch of a beach that was wider, whiter, bluer, greener, clearer, shimmering  like a soft throw beckoning us toward it.  But before we could dive head-long, there was sea-walking to be done at Elephant Island.  Reluctantly, after check-in and packing our swim suits for sea walking we set off for the jetty.  At the jetty, we bought our tickets for sea-walking and got into a motor boat that would take us to Elephant Island.  Our package also included snorkeling.  

After a 25 minute wonderful ride in the azure waters, we had to leave the boat and get onto a big, two storied boat that was anchored off the beach.  We changed into our suits (though you don’t need to, you could be in your shorts or pants as you are going down to the ocean floor anyway, it is just convenient to wear as little as possible).  For sea- walking which literally mean walking on the sea floor- we were lowered onto a ladder which was fixed to the walls of this ship and that went right to the floor.  You get down just so your head is above the water. Then they lower an astronaut-type helmet onto your head that rests on your shoulders.  As soon as it is lowered, your guide pushes your head down into the water so that the pressure prevents the water from entering the helmet.  Then you descend the ladder and onto the floor.  We had difficulty adjusting to the pressure as you get no time to deal with pressure at all.  It happens in an instant and you are constantly breathing hard to keep the water out and also gulping to keep relieve the airplane-like pressure on your ears.  My 10-year old son was thrilled and terrified and he chose to leave almost immediately.  The sea-walk lasts around 10 minutes, you are at eye level with corals and the amazing marine life that is actually well and living.  But most of the time is spent on ensuring that you pose right next to the fish/ corals and you are struggling to stay in one place at the same time breathing right, gulping and it all happens to fast that by the time you are relaxed enough to enjoy the marine surroundings, the guide is nudging you towards the ladder.  And just like that it is over. 

You change, you are handed a CD of ‘you’ with fish and corals and it’s time to get off the ship into to the boat that then speeds you the Elephant beach for some more water ‘fun’- snorkeling.  There are hundreds of people there- most of them day-trippers who are there for a couple of hours before heading back to Port Blair.  The waters again are exceptional (just as everywhere in Havelock) but there are just too many people.  Snorkeling too is no fun though you get to see enough fish. It just is no fun when you have snorkeled at Beach No.2.  For me Elephant Island trip was a disappointment, a very expensive piece of disappointment – sea-walking comes at 3,200 per person and the ride to Elephant Island sets you back by 720 Rupees per person. The ride was great though.  Walking itself lasts just 10 minutes and you are rushed through the route (which is maybe 20 paces or less) and the photo- op.  So skip it If I may advise you and instead go for snorkeling at a leisurely pace at Beach no. 2. It costs just 600 per person and the guy is willing to negotiate if you are a larger group.  You can also have daab (coconut water) at 10 buck a pop and chat with the guy who sells it as he scoops the tender coconut as you are resting on an upside down boat.  The atmosphere is friendly and there is no hurry at all to get anywhere.   

We came back at @ 3pm and were hungry.   Right on Havelock jetty is a two storied wooden structure that says Barefoot Bar and Brasserie (discount the ‘bar’ part, they no longer serve) .  we went in and ordered Pizzas, virgin mojitos, garlic bread, chicken Franks (the most amazing chicken franks ever) and of course coke and apple juice.  The weather was great and the sea breeze did the trick. We lunched at the waterfront! With great views of the jetty. We could see the sea planes and water scooters and clippers that bounded on the seas.  All in all a great way to end our not so great sea-walking experience.  Water-front dining/ lunching? In Mumbai? No way! Chennai? Are you mad?

Back at the hotel, the kids were already on their way to our pool/ sea by the waters of the Andaman with their snorkeling gear and so were we.  We played Frisbee, swam, just floated and rode the gentle waves till 6pm.  Back at the hotel, the kids climbed into a Jacuzzi as I emptied whatever bottles I found in the bathroom- moisturisers, shampoos, shower gel.  The roaring Jacuzzi was a delight, we settle in for chilled mojitos and beers as the children shouted and shrieked in the Jacuzzi.  End of Day 3

Day 4

The big day! Diving! Can you imagine, we were going diving with Doongi Dives outfit run by Nikhil Kalra, a gentle soul with a smile and if it is anybody you are going to entrust ‘yourself’ to, it has to be this calm, unruffled person.  Strangely there was no trepidation. My brother and I donned out wet suits and got into the Omni that would ferry us again to Beach No.2.  We were first time divers, never ever having experienced anything like diving outside of TV.  We were given our instructions in water by Amit who would  be my guide and god underwater.  After all you are leaving terra firma and delving into the womb…..:) (well not quite, for you are always a couple of seconds away from the surface and sun) just the same when you are inside, you feel like you are in Marina Trench! We were asked to float on our backs and then gently tugged into the waters for our gradual descent in to the sun lit interiors of the Andaman sea.  The pressure was nil and you got time to adjust to the mask, the breathing (you are breathing in pure oxygen from the cylinders) and the pressure.  And there you are, floating as one with the fish and the myriad sea creatures who are sure are looking at you in curiosity!  There were sea cucumbers, clown fish, trigger fish, white salmon, eels, carnivorous sea fauna that shuts its wide mouth if a fish get in, and hold your breath- an octopus……. . I swam among these creatures, and there was wonder on my face (albeit covered with a mask, you couldn’t see it)  It was the best 25 minutes of my life and worth every penny and anxiety and doubts if you have had before you went in.  Amit, my guide, constantly used hand gestures to confirm my comfort (like Buddha mudra- form an O with your index finger and thumb) I was exhilarated.  It was as natural for me to float in the ocean as it was for me to walk on land.  There were absolutely no teething troubles- no pressure troubles or breathing problems. The trick is to completely give in to your instructors and their suggestions.  Listen to briefing before diving carefully and do exactly as they say.  My prize for this diving trip was a certificate and a CD with pictures and a video.  Also I came away with an addition for diving.  I went for my second dive the next day!  Back at the hotel, we had lunch and thought about checking out Beach No. 7 or Radha nagar Beach- voted as the best beach in Asia blah blah….

Now it was nearly 3pm, the kids were tired, sleepy and we debated if we wanted to visit the beach as a tourist or would we rather stay at our private paradise?  After all how much more beautiful would Beach No. 7 be?  But we gave it and were on our way to Radhanagar beach.  Well the kids were in for a disappointment as rings are not allowed and we wouldn’t let them go in without a ring.  So swimming was out.  The beach was thrice as wide as out beach and the seas were rougher, the waters were the same turquoise blue that we have now come to expect.  We hastily beat a retreat.  Beach no.7 is always crowded with tourists and so it was just not our thing.  For somebody who has gotten used to a heavenly stretch all to herself, why would I want to spend time on a beach filled with two hundred other people. We quickly took some pictures and were back on ‘our’ beach J

Day 5

Having been there and dived in, I wanted another taste and this time, I was under water for a full 35 minutes.  I am definitely getting my PADI certification!  It was our last day on Havelock and we would be checking out at 2pm. The ferry back to Havelock was at 4pm.  We thought of having one last ‘waterfront’ lunch and were glad we did it. Munjoh gave us a free ride till the jetty, we checked in (ticket check in only, no baggage check in), after our lunch we clicked a few snaps in the jetty and boarded the Makruzz for a relatively tame Port Blair.

Check in was again a nightmare as the reception at Hornbill resort told us that we did not have reservations.  After the problem was sorted out, they said that they didn’t have any extra mattresses.  Well were a group of 8 people- 4 adults and 4 kids. We asked our kind driver Guddu to buy us two mattresses from the Bazaar.  He was completely bamboozled but realised the problem.  So after arranging our own mattresses we checked in and had dinner at Sinclair Bay view further down the road.

Day 6

We visited the cellular jail and were surprised to see it maintained in pristine conditions.  The walls are white-washed, everything is spick and span, the information is neatly tacked, I went inside Veer Savarkar’s cell but it was too white-washed and sterile to feel any horrors that he experienced.  I mean to say that I actually felt good after visiting the jail , the roof has great views of the sea and we spent an hour on the roof, just standing like we would on our balcony, mute, spellbound by the views.  I apologize here, but the cruelty and injustice is not on our mind when you fix your sights in the sea.

After the visit, we thought we would visit Ross Island but decided against it as it is another incarceration structure in ruins and with kids, we wisely refrained from going (even without them we wouldn’t have gone, for what is the use of a beach if we can’t go in?) We had lunch at TSG Emerald which is a bit inside the city and has no views of the sea at all.  The food was OK, but our stewardess was great going by the name of Vanilla- Cute.  It was almost 3pm and we debated about what to do next? Our driver suggested we visit Chidiya Taapu for a view of the sun-set.  The ride was about 40 minutes and a perfect time for the kids to have a small nap.  The decisions was great, after ups and downs (in which we got a glimpse of the island of Port Blair) we reached Chidiya taapu- a narrow sliver of a beach which is a part of protected forest area with mangroves that rich and fish and reptilian life.  There are sign boards warning the visitors of potential dangers of crocodiles, tides, fish that harm and corals that cut into your flesh.  I found a rich haul of shells.  My brother and his little one napped on the wooden benches while we explored the beach.  What I would suggest here is if you have the time, you should do a boat-trip through the mangroves.  The forest police clear the beach goers at 5 as it is forest area and you can watch the sun-set a little further down the road.  It is a great spectacle.  But honestly, if you have been to Havelock , Chidiya Taapu is a bit of a comedown.  That being said, the analogy is having tasted god’s own nectar, would you  be willing to settle for ice cream (however premium- Hagen Daz, Valrhona……etc etc)

But the time we had, Chidiya Taapu was a wise choice.  We headed back to the hotel and had an early night, we were really tired.  Bu the night was not without its thrills.  My husband got trapped inside the bathroom (the resort supervisor said that and I quote ad verbatim- yeh to normally screw driver say khul jaata hai.  Yeh lock mein yeh problem hota hai) Jackass, shouldn’t you warn us?  Anyway my husband really scared the wits out the supervisor by yelling “heart attack ayah toh? Darwazaa tod do.  Finally the reception guy came in and kicked the door- lock and all. 

Day 7

Time to come home.  I normally can’t wait to get home, this time though it was with extreme reluctance.  I just couldn’t bear to see the crowds and be among them.  I was further depressed by the sight of a group of people who were clicking away pictures of a mural at the arrivals…..it was a god forsaken ‘cultural’ mural of some men and women and dhotis and sarees with dhols and some such.  Jesus! People will click anything!  But I am home now and am writing this detailed blog to encourage more people to go the Andamans.  It is the final frontier for the intrepid traveler…Oh you may have grand canyon, and Yukon and Alaska and Hawaii, but Andaman is IT.  Yet I know I will come back even more raving mad as I explore more and more of this jewel .  I am putting down some information here that I hope will be of help to plan your Andaman holidays.

Some Information to help you plan your trip

Best Time to go- Obviously from November- March.  But for me first week of April worked equally well and the tariffs were lower that the Nov- March window.

Best base in Port Blair and also the Cheapest-  Hornbill Nest operated by the department of Tourism.  It’s impossible to book by phone- phone lines do not work and email (what is that).  You need to have some local person go there and book it for you. Tariff is as low as 1000 Rupees per day.

Booking Hornbill Nest- I booked mine with the help of Mr. Arvind Patil of Maharshtra Mandal (09732476001).  He will go to Hornbill nest and put down an advance for your reservation.  Always ensure that you have a booking receipt.  He will give you his A/ c number and you can transfer the advance to him.  He does it as a favour and it is not his business.  My suggestion is to take a usable gift for Maharashtra Mandal or leave a donation or give him a small fee (say 500 rupees) .  The tariff for the rooms here is 1000/- per day.  The rooms are sea facing.  The resort is located on Corbyn’s Cove beach.

Meals at Hornbill Resort- You need to tell them in advance about your dinner/ lunch plans and also tell them what to make and how much.  The food is home-style. We usually had fish fry (passable) dal with light tadka, rice, mix vegetable and jeeera rice.  You can but liquor once you get into Port Blair and ask them to chill it for you  in their fridge.  Water here is potable.  So I suggest you simple refill the water from the filter here and not buy bottled water and add to environmental woes.

Transportation at Port Blair and Havelock- Contact Guddu for taxi- 09476071444.  And you can plan your Port Blair itinerary with his help. You can ask him to book your sound and light tickets for you.

Number of Manager at Department of Tourism- Mr. Rajesh -9474212595.   After you get confirmation from Mr. Patil that he has booked your for the your dates, call up Mr. Rajest and get a confirmation from him.  He will ask somebody to look into the reservation book and confirm.

The tickets also have pre-assigned seats. So everything is chilled.

Diving- Doongi Dives at Munjoh Ocean Beach Resort.  As you drive along from the Jetty towards beach No.2 you pass by plenty of diving outfits.  They seem to be good- Andaman Bubbles and Island Vinnies's also seem good since i have communicated with them and gut feel was positive.  Finally i can vouch only for Doongi Dives since I dived with them.  But the other two outfits have equally good reviews on Trip advisor. You can decide depending on which one is closer to your acco.

Ferry tickets- Again since there is a government hand in this, you can book only by physically presenting yourself to the ticket counter.  But not to worry.  I discovered a website that does your job for you- http://www.paradiseandaman.com/ferry.php. This is not a real time website.  They go to the counter to get your tickets.  I got mine on the second day of my filling up their form and transferring the payment for tickets.  My contact person at Paradise Andaman was Ms. Tamara Sutreena- 09933287276 / 09531923560.  Friendly and helpful as are all the islanders on Andaman.  Just remember when dealing with them be polite and soft not aggressive and business-like

Booking Dolphin Resort at Havelock- As with Hornbill, ask Mr. Patil to book it for you by paying an advance.  Be very clear with dates and ensure you have a booking receipt.  Here paper is the Ultimate Reality.  If Mr. Patil is not able to scan and mail you the booking receipt, ask him to send it with your designated driver (which is what I did. Guddu gave me my booking receipts upon arrival in Port Blair).  Internet lines are very fragile and intermittent. So count on it (or rather don’t count on it). The tariff again is 1000/- for deluxe, 2000 for semi-deluxe and 2500 for super deluxe..  There are villas as well but don’t even bother.  Unless you are Sonia Gandhi’s son, supreme court judge, first cousin of Raghuram Rajan’s secretary’s wife’s first cousin, you won’t get itJ

But never mind, all accommodation is spacious and 50 meters from the beach.  Tell them in advance about your meals, confirm if they will give you extra mattress and always keep the booking receipt pinned to your chest.

If you are tired of this then move to Munjoh Ocean Resort or Sea Shells Resort.  They are luxurious and what can I say, they are non- government, everybody is welcome!

All these numbers are fresh from my use and as as recent as 14^th April 2014. 

Go ahead, pack your swimsuits, ring, inflatable bed and get on a flight to the Andamans.

Hair- Our holy grail!

Hair is our holy or hell-y grail, depends on how you look at it.
We carry this grail everywhere searching for droplets of succor- from the newest shampoo in the market, to flashy hair conditioners and product that is flogged by beauty parlors to home tips that mothers and grand mothers specialize in.  But be warned, once you have tried home remedies, your kitchen and bathroom won,t ever smell the same again. Add to that there pots and pans will have piled up in sink that bear strange substances stuck to the bottom.
Here are the many reasons I am constantly preoccupied with my hair but have been freed from this bondage lately (but more about that later)
1. If I use a conditioner, people tell me "your hair looks thin, sorta like brittle rice noodles, what have you done to them (with a suspicious gaze hovering just above the fringe of my hair)?
2. Your hair looks flat and listless, why don't you use a conditioner (I am in kill this person right now mode).
3. Hey, your hair looks as dry as hay (here the person touches the hair a bit to prove a point), oh god the dryness will lead to dandruff!)
4. A friend who has just used the bathroom will advise me on the right shampoo and conditioner and will also throw in the beneficial uses of egg yolk and beer for good measure.  Believe me I have tried it once and i feel eggs are best eaten and beer is best drunk or worst smelled...on hair, it is pointless.
5. Mothers (I have only one, but i refer to a section of society as such) and grand-ones will wage an all out war on the amount of product they find in my bathroom.  "Believe me, you will barely have hair by the time you reach our age.  Shampoos, conditioners, lotions, hair smoothing agents, this-shoo, that-shoo"
I am at my wits end.
Thus I carry my hair like a cross that I must bear- empowering and hurting us me the same time.
Living in a city that has dust, heat, sun, humidity and sweat wrecking havoc on my most prized possession is like watching your baby in the pool learn to swim under the tyranny of the coach while you look on helplessly! I am itching to wash my hair at least thrice a day.  When I step out to cycle is when my hair bears the the brunt of external onslaught. Oh yes did I forget to mention, I smell of traffic as well?
I need something that will recharge my hair and free up my life bandwidth.  I won't go to the beach for the fear of the salty and moisture-laden breeze, I avoid wearing a helmet for the fear of clamping hair with sweat, I would love to grow my hair but need to keep it manageably short so that hair care is not a pain and does not eat into my time. I would love to leave my hair untied and then stylishly swish it back with my ring finger like hip people do. I would love for my hair to be in the limelight for the right reasons and not like those mentioned in points 1- 5. I would love for my hair to be wavy, fluffy, alive and breathing instead of looking like a wet, timid mouse.
I would love to come up for h'air' more often than being held down by worry over my hair.

The shenanigans of the not so 'tarun' Tejpal

My mother says that when things take a turn for the worse, laughter is the best medicine and hence I am going to make Mr. Tejpal the butt of this blog to make my sisters smile.

And also rub it in I am going to refer to this person as Mr. Tejpal, the annotation preceding the name being as discordant as the act that he committed.  So as events turn out, Mr. Tejpal was in Goa for a ‘Thinkfest’. Aha what better a place to make a drunken fool of yourself, alas a young lady was at the receiving end of those antics or shall I say ‘drunken banter’.  So a few, loose slurred words, free conversational snippets thrown at the lady as a result of inebriated state; heck we are in Goa for God’s sakes so what’s a few one too many and what’s a few words here and there so what if they are sexual in nature, come on we are Goa, the young lady should learn to take in the right ‘spirit’, the right spirit of course being indulging Mr. Tejpal his ‘banter antics….” Young lady you have a lot  to learn here.

That lesson being delivered to the young lady, shall we now turn our attention to the esteemed Mr. Tejpal who pioneered sensational journalism in pursuit of justice and bringing the high and mighty on their knees (err…not for those reasons.  Then Mr. Tejpal still wore the righteous ‘Fab India’ Kurta Pyjama literally and figuratively and had a pen stuck in his pocket).  Now he looks like Ass I am Bapu. And follows his spirit too!  The managing editor of Tehelka (which Mr. T founded and edits and chief) has said that the victim was attacked on two occasions by Mr. Brilliant and these incidents were followed intimidation the sort that run on these line- you know what you need to do to keep your job’  Sheeeh, I almost spat out in anger and disgust.

But wait, Mr. not so young and no longer brilliant has been swept by remorse and has apparently shot off a letter to the lady asking her apology and that there was a ‘bad lapse of judgment’  Well what do we have here? A bad lapse of judgment indicates that he decided to molest lady but that doing it in this fashion was a ‘bad lapse of judgment’.  Because this is what a lapse in judgment means. It means hiring the wrong people, it means making deals with people you are going to regret, it means taking up the wrong job, it means making out in the elevator knowing fully well there are ccTV cameras.  It means trusting the wrong people. Now all this are instance of lapse in judgment.  Since when has molesting, raping, heaping sexual innuendos become a part of ‘bad judgment’? You are ready, dick in hand, drink in head, with full intent to make wrongful advances of the non-mutual kind and go ahead later only to realize what you stand to lose….now now, boy, that is not bad judgment that is bad moral fabric, rotten, thin on the verge of tearing. That you perceive it is bad judgment only means that you thought it should have been done at some other time maybe? Or with another person?

I am so disappointed with these excuses.  Being inebriated is the oldest excuse in the book. Well if you were drunk Tarun, then why didn’t you jump in the pool, or the sea with your clothes  or without, dance on the table a la Shabana Azmi *( but she was not drunk and did not molest anybody).  Why didn’t you start a laugh riot or  make an advance on a young man instead of a young woman? Why did you not indulge in a bit of rumpy pumpy with your male colleague?

All people in power (men and women) are drunk on power and also shrewd. You did the right thing (for yourself) by shooting off a letter as a form of unconditional apology and even indulged in a little righteous self- flagellation by recusing yourself as the editor for the next 6 months.  

What’s the hurry Mr. Tejpal? Don’t want the world to know that what a naughty boy you have been?  That you wanted chase some skirt and take the chase to its rightful conclusion (I don’t know how that was possible in a drunk state though).  Now that we know, really,  there is no need to hurry.  Let your name and mug be flashed in newspapers across the country, let the heinous word ‘rape’ be associated with your name, let us subject you to complete humiliation in your chaste kurtas.  I hear you have a wife and kids (daughter among them).  What do they feel?  Do they look at you in disgust, refuse to let you come near them, refuse to touch them?  A touch that was once fatherly, paternal, encouraging? 

What’s the hurry for doing ‘penance’ for the act that ‘lacerates’ you?  Now that the public has knowledge, let there be ‘chee tu’  and a complete fall from hallowed grace that you enjoyed.  Enjoy the ignominy and mortification because you showed ‘lapse in judgment’.

Sister, my heart goes out to you. Be strong and take the effing bastard down!

I pledge that........I won't marry a girl who is below 18 years of age

Women and Child Development Minister, Krishna Tirath launched the campaign against malnutrition in India and Aamir Khan was roped in to be the ambassador of this much needed campaign in India.  Aamir Khan with his deliberative and emphatic style of speech (I think he is the next Vajpayee in the making where the pause between two words and thoughts will compete with eternity) and record for all do-good things is lending his image to this noble deed.

So far so good.

I saw the first of the print advertisements exhorting us not to have our girls married earlier than 18, as they are not mentally or physically ready to bear the load of that very obese institution called marriage and consequently will be in danger of giving birth to a child who very likely will suffer from malnutrition. I read and pledged and then hedged! Pledging was easy, why would I wish that my daughter marries under-18? Good for cricket but bad for everything else. And the reason has very little to do with malnutrition of a life that is a consequence of entering into matrimony when she is not yet 18years of age.  I read and re-read but could not connect the dots between the cause and results.  Marriage is out of question because of several reasons like- I do not want her doing the juggling act so early in life that takes her eyes away from her education, her career, her choices, her finances, her development and that’s right, her well-being.  Visually, I find the wordings of this advertisement all wrong -   ‘A girl of 18 years of age isn’t physically and mentally ready to become a mother.  If such a girl should have a baby, the child is at risk of malnutrition’.  Excellent for identifying the girl child as the root cause of malnutrition.  A pat on the back for declaring girls under 18 as incapable mentally or physically……(to become a mother).  Boys are fully developed since birth! Aha I forger, perhaps it’s a girl who has crossed that golden cusp of 18 years that has given birth to such a boy!  I find this ad skewed.

Besides holding girls responsible for the biggest fallout of poverty- malnutrition, her well-being has completely been ignored even while keeping her at the core of the campaign- “I won’t marry a girl who is below 18 years of age so that……our child will be protected from malnutrition, the girl be damned’,  (well the last three words are a thought bubble) The man who is shown with a steely resolve in his eyes and hands crossed over his chest looks to be at least 35 years of age.  Good going Govt of India, but then such clumsiness was expected from you. 

Oh also I forgot all about the Lady Panchayat (straight from hell-hole of HIndi serial on TV, something to do with female infanticide) one hand on her hip and other brandishing a stick (to drive the rats away) looking sternly at the readers forbidding them to marry away their girl children.  By the by, I have seen such Panchayat only on TV.  In reality all the female panchayats or corporators are trembling, bumbling, skittish doves under veils (figurative) fronting for their husbands with political aspirations, who have no say except to say aye aye to the males behind them.

Now back to malnutrition.  How is malnutrition defined? When  one does not get enough food or food that is of such low quality that it impacts health and mortality of the person consuming it.  Close to 42.5 per cent of Indian children suffer from malnutrition which means that every second child is not getting enough food or being deprived of life-sustaining food. It means that millions of people in India are still living below poverty levels that they cannot afford to buy at food that has at least 2000 calories in it- 4 Idlis or the same number of Rotis, a couple of bowls of Dal and maybe (when the going is good) a half a bowl of sabzi.  Though we have surplus food, it does not reach the one who needs it more and this is the problem. This can be attributed to corruption and mismanagement, which does not allow the right distribution of food. In various villages government has opened subsidized food shops that get fund from the Public Distribution System (PDS). These are supposed to give 35 kg of rice or grain in a month to every family that is living below the officially declared poverty line. But most of the times these do not contain enough supply to meet the demand. Grains rotting away in poorly built silos being destroyed by rain and pests while our poor live out a life of indignity  in pursuit of food.

In the above I do not see the satanic hand of an under-age girl who has given birth to a child straight into the crib of malnutrition.  Public distribution system- underage girl, corruption- underage girl, public storage system- underage girl, draught management system- underage girl, lack of employment with minimum wages-underage girl .  I want to see the connection but alas sir I fail to do so and I am not an underage girl, I am a good sized 40 year-old woman.  This advertisement inadvertently reduces the role of women reproduction at the wrong age, holds them directly responsible, medically to giving birth to children who might not survive.  How about holding the partners/ spouses as well for not providing for decent maternity and post-delivery medical care, for providing two square meals for the mother and child in question?  I know this is all twisted logic but then the best I can deal with this twisted advertisement under the guide of a benevolent social deed is to strike it with twisted reasoning.    

Preventing child marriages is going to prevent malnutrition is like saying Manmohan Singh is responsible for all child marriages, after all he is the head of the family and nothing in the family happens without either the head being aware of it or his tacit approval or that he is merely the titular head while someone else pulls his strings!

Sheee! Ms. Krishna Tirath, hai hai Govt of India, we need a better idea, sound reason and at the very least better editing.

The Bold and The Botoxed

Sigh! The serial that set the television world on fire in the early 90s- The Bold and The Beautiful is just not the same anymore. I happened to catch it on Z Cafe the other day and curiosity got the better of my future embarrassed self and it persisted in seeing what the bold and beautiful people were up to!
Well i 'll be.....
The soft focus effect was still there, only now I rubbed my eyes to see better.  The effect was actually 'cataract-y'
Eric and Stephanie looked ridiculous trying to look fit and in control. It was as if they were frozen in a coffin of talcum powder and ice and the tanning machine that made them look more brown than the neighboring Panamanian or Fidel Castro. The leading ladies- most notably Brooke looked altered- the areas above the lips, the eyebrows looked funny. They looked broader and of course who can forget the spectacularly, rank, bad acting by these folks who ruled the world of fashion from their mansions.  And Dr. Taylor Hayes, Ridges' other love who I thought looked so beautiful and fragile looks like a monkey now, her lips look abnormally bloated, eyes look out of place on a human face....she looks like that frightening-looking Duchess of Alba.  I mean in a few years she will definitely get there.  The males look old and well preserved like Karl Lagerfeld. Who wants to watch this serial? bad music, bad acting, bad kissing, bad love-making scenes, faux fashion and....hey wait right there, there needs to be this perverted desire in the makers and producers of this serials to carry on. I mean why spend mega buck on making the suave vampire series? You already have one! The dead and botoxed!

Star of the Aircel Chennai Open 2012- Vishnuvardhan

At last something to cheer about on the sports scene other than cricket. The overfed, overpaid, underperforming giants put to rest the long-held opinion that they are giants in their part of the forest. All top-order giants collapsing one after the other and giving the new Australian pacers the debut of their life. Enough of bat-ball and allied headaches.
Okay now, back to the object of my admiration and reason for cheer this week- Indian tennis- an oxymoron in itself isn’t it? I am not saying that there is a star on the horizon or that Indian tennis has got its knight in shining armour and all that blah. What I am saying it that I saw great tennis coming from the racket of a young 24 year old Indian called Vishnuvardhan and surprise not as a part of a doubles pair! I saw booming serves (207 kmph) and cracking passing shots, cross court forehands and down the line backhands that didn’t end outside the court or worse in the net. Vishnuvardhan’s play had me engrossed totally while he engaged world no. 35 Ivan Dodig of Croatia. There was a solid confidence about his play and I as a spectator never for a moment doubted his shots that sailed effortlessly over the net and into the opponent’s no-man’s land. Something that I have never experienced while watching Sania Mirza. Watching her play is being subject to agony over every point. That’s another story though.
Vishnuvardhan’s world ranking is 313 and who know where he might be one year from now! He might knock the 3 on extreme right or the first digit from the left. Eitherways he is a winner and I wont be surprised if he does. He has age on his side and the attention of the mentors who matter most on the India tennis scene- Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes. This tall, dark solid guy who hits the best down the line forehand and backhand (that I have seen of Indian tennis players) even has a B.Com in computers and works in HR for ONGC. He has his basics right- few unforced errors and winners that land right in. Though I did notice that most of his volleys got in the net or landed wide off the court. In the end, he lost to Ivan Dodig but not before he showed consistent quality of play that is the hallmark of all players aspiring to break into higher ranks.
Go Vishnu Go. Vamosss!

Fantastic holiday followed by disaster- Don2

I have been lazy for the past couple of weeks, been completely unproductive. I have had a block, a writer’s block. I have had plenty of ideas but none have translated into a post or that those elusive hundred pages of a book I have been trying to write. So it’s been frustrating and yet I have had the most amazing holidays in recent times. We switched off completely- no television or newspapers, no modern day elements to entertained save the magical night-time sky to keep us busy counting and identifying stars and the bonfire to keep us warm. Our three night stay at the foothills of Kodai was absolutely primitive in that sense. The all-pervading quiet of the property was like a balm to me and ideas flowed thick and fast but my fingers simply didn’t have the strength to hack away at the laptop. So I left it at that and I am still struggling to find words within me to carry in the plot of the book….until yesterday when Farhan Akhtar unleashed that fire in me!

I saw Don2 yesterday and the block lifted. I was simply bursting to post in the blog about what I didn’t like in the film. I have seen Don1 and when I see Priyanka look longingly at Don I can’t think as to what Messrs. Excel Entertainment were thinking when they planted the idea that Roma could have had feelings for the criminal who killed her sister, brother and brother-in law (is that correct?) in cold blood. Don is chatting conversationally with Roma to tell him about her ‘story’ with her cop colleague Arjan (it is Arjun actually but maybe Priyanka has been given a diktat to sound and look as artificial as possible, just like Sonam Kapoor in Aisha and to talk without making an ‘O’ of her lips) .

I understand the need to look glamorous but when a film-maker has Priyanka his job is in glamour department is DONE. Priyanka is glamorous; she has fantastic screen presence- check Aitraaz and the scene where she devours Akshay alive. It gave me the shivers. In Aitraaz she fit the part perfectly, but sometimes a filmmaker needs to work a little hard to make glamour look credible and she certainly doesn’t look the part of a police officer (and I find the director guilty) And what about Don aka. Shahrukh Khan? Many dialogues for Don start or end with ‘sweetheart’ and it doesn’t seem natural, it sounds grating, forced, and not effortless. And I truly wish the scriptwriter would have etched Roma’s role as the perfect foil for Don, in her single minded pursuit for vengeance. I would have enjoyed Don better if it were a vehicle for Roma as well. But her vengeance is not only forgotten, it is given a thorough kick in the rear by the director as we are treated to the Don’s verbal strut when he not only dares to suggest that Roma is in love with him but also has the arrogance to believe it and (here I kick myself on the rear) he has made his arch enemy gaze at him longingly, eyes dripping the forbidden and lips parted.

Oh my god! Where is the Farhan Akhtar of DCH?

Vidya Balan and the Dirty business of movies

No no no, Vidya balan has nothing to do with this column or the views personally. Her association with this post is purely on the basis of her job as an actress. Her latest movie only reinforced my age-old beliefs that the film industry is not the right business for women to be in (the other is the armed forces). I was quite rightly embarrassed by our actors/ actresses doing what they did for the whole world to see. I wondered as to how a man and woman could touch each other with love and without (witness all those nightmarish rape scenes) in front of the film making crew and then put out their work for the world to see. It was something I could never understand. Then over the years, I thought it’s a job like any other. Maybe it’s not so hard after all; that the person playing the lothario, or the prostitute or the villain or the vamp with a thigh-high slit is definitely not like that in real life, maybe it is easy to alienate yourself from the role and people’s perception and go on living a normal life (I don’t believe this one bit though)
Then came cable TV and numerous shows (even news channels started actors like they sat in Lok Sabha). The actors started losing their exclusivity bit by bit by giving interviews, participating as judges in competitive shows, or even in programs where the camera followed them wherever they went and thus the ‘star’ became human or even ordinary with the same values as you and I, the same ethics and moral code that we live by. The film industry that I thought of as debauched, rampant with casting couches and leery personalities suddenly became like a garden when I could go for a breath of fresh air. I mean if hotties like Bipasha Basu, Vidya Balan, Mallika Sherawat, Mallika Arora can blossom in this rough industry then it must be a nice place. If they say that there is no casting couch and that the couch exists everywhere (it is solely our choice to decide to park in the couch on our way to good roles) even in the corporate world then yeah it must be true. Surprisingly men are more realistic when they admit to sexual favours being a very ‘there’ form of currency that you exchange for favours that range from roles to party invites…that proverbial foot in the door. I guess it is easier for men to admit to this than women (exactly like the way they admit so freely to losing their virginity at 15 or any other age…have you noticed that all ‘admittors’ of ‘virginity losing’ stories are men).
So I was saying how actors are shooting their mouths off on every channel about how the industry is a nice place, their constant talking is making the film industry almost sound like something I might want to cuddle up with on a cold winter night! Then I saw trailors of The Dirty Picture (not even the whole movie) and my innocent visions came crashing down violently. First and foremost, let me commend Vidya for her courage in taking up this role. Then let me also do an about turn and say that I will not let my daughter do such a role. Even if it’s a role, I do not want my own flesh and blood to be on the posters that are really dirty and violate your most intimate space (read- Vidya Balan looking on with the faces of three men being shown at three vantage points of her body- namely her breast, neck and shoulder). I hope this poster/ photo was not shot and that it was put together by morphing pictures. Even for art’s sake, the very thought of doing a movie like dirty picture where my daughter goes through all these motions is unbearable for me. Yup it’s just art but what the audience is doing in the theatres while watching the films and taking home Vidya in the their minds do all sorts of things is not what I want my little baby (let me clarify by saying that ‘my baby’ refers here to my daughter. The clarification is necessary due to over sexualisation of the word ‘baby’).
I do not want my daughter to go up there and pander to the male ego and fantasies even if it’s in a movie. And who says its confined to just the reel world? Fantasies start where the film ends. I have the ‘third eye’. It’s way different than that of Lord Shiva’s in that it cannot burn down entities; though how I wish I could those men who mentally strip women and worse you can see it in their eyes. The third eye tells me if the man’s gaze is just that or it is ‘laced’, ‘spiked’, ‘lustful’ and more than just a gaze. It tells me to avoid such men and if I cannot then alter my behaviour in a manner that will make him scoot. But I cannot do this in a profession where I am a ‘man magnet’, where I need to look good, wear revealing clothes (or risk being labelled boring) and also wear dizzy stilettos and shake a leg or two. No sir, Films is no good for a girl. As a mother I get slapped both ways and so does my daughter. Sample this- if I were to accompany my daughter to shoots, I get labelled as the dominating mummy and my daughter gets labelled as ‘being dominated by mummy’ , as incapable of taking her own decisions. So how does this work? Do I let my little one go out there in the world of wolves all alone? Don’t be daft and compare this world to any other, say IT for example. Don’t believe it when the actors say that the couch is everywhere and that it is a matter of choice whether you give in or not. I say these actors are just protecting their names and their turf. Men might be men everywhere, but the proximity and opportunity has just multiplied 1000 times more in films then say in the automotive industry or IT or publishing or research.
All in all I might be sounding just the opposite of the feminist in me. But Films is not a suitable profession for women. Maybe the TV industry where the (god alone knows why or how) all women are clad in the way normal people are (discount the heavy jewellery and silk sarees). Oh okay not normal really, but at least they are fully clothed just like the men. And to end this, have I said that films stars (particularly actresses) are 10000% deserving of their remuneration (allegedly in crores) for all the risks they take and the courage they need to be in such dangerous profession?

The only thing I envy about Europe

is the open borders (oh ok there are others things as well but this is first on my envy list). I first heard about it from a dear friend who lives in Moenchengladbach in Germany close to the Dutch border. She told me how her friends planned impromptu weekends in Amsterdam or any other part of Netherlands. I asked her about visas and permissions and lengths of insurmountable red tape. She looked at me not really understanding my question the same way I hadn’t grasped the ease with which Europeans crossed borders. And this is the sore, sole sticking point with me and my romantic ideas of travel across the length and breadth of the Indian sub-continent and south-east Asia.
I have been careful about preserving these feeling that were harboured in college. My love for Geography and cartography kept fuelling travel adventures in my head. Then of course reality set in and neighbours like Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Burma soon acquired different and undesirable associations. Ideas of going to places like Dushanbe, Samarkand and Tashkent from Skardu (alas Skardu is in Baltistan which is a part of Pakistan) were deeply buried in the fast-shifting geo-political conflicts of the sub-continent and with the onset of terrorism my romance all but died a swift death.
This was until now when the IRTC announced a new train that would connect Kanniyakumari and Dibrugardh (or Dibrugarh) passing via Trivandram-Coimbatore- Cuttack-Midnapore and Guwahati. Wow, 4,286 km of pure, uninterrupted ‘express’ pleasure that ends only after 82.30 hours! I started making plans and my feverish imagination came back from the dead. I would travel upto Dibrugadh (and its location is fantastic- right on the banks of the Brahmaputra). From Dibrugadh I would take a bus to Senapati in Manipur and then cross over the border into Burma. What a delicious thought. Little did I know that this wondrous border town (in my mind of course) of Senapati has been a hotbed of violence due to clashed between the armed forces and insurgents. So there went my plans..put paid by events not in my control. Still I could rough it out if wanted to. My first destination in would be Mandalay, the second largest city in Burma. It was here that Lokmanya Balgangadhar Tilak was incarcerated here from 1908 to 1914 and where he wrote ‘Gita Rahasya’. From Mandalay, it would be Yangon or erstwhile Rangoon (remember- mere piya gaye Rangoon, wahan se kiya hai telephoon…) and then who knows? Maybe Chiang Mai, Bangkok? But as easy as this is in the head, the ground realities are far, far different and dangerous.
Then I thought if not Senapati, I can certainly go upto Madhubani and then cross into Nepal! Howzzat? This time though the problem is not one of ‘foreign hand’ but of internal location. Madhubani falls is Bihar and to pass through Bihar is like passing through the badlands, the wild, wild west and basically living and travelling on a prayer. But if you are successful then Nepal is yours for the taking. Or is it? Leafing through the latest of issue of Tehelka, I read about how Madhubani is the most porous patches on the Indo-Nepali border and basically reads as easy ‘entry’ and ‘exit’ signs for all nefarious elements (read terrorists).
So not where do I go? Which direction? How about Sri Lanka? Suffice it to say that Sri Lanka no longer issues us visas on arrival. We would not have to apply online for a visa prior to making travel plans and yes…pay for it too!

All chors rise as one to defend their house and rights!

The unthinkable happened yesterday when the ‘parliament rose as one’ to condemn attack on Pawar. Janata Dal chief Sharad Yadav criticised the electronic media for showing one slap as 50 slaps by repeatedly broadcasting that one tight slap.

Good I say! Time and again our democratic leaders have been given this wake up call and I must say that any form of physical pain is any day to be feared than let’s say a weekend getaway @ The Tihar. Mr Pawar said that the people had the right to raise their voice in a democracy but not at the cost of its institutions.” Thank you Mr Pawar for this short and succint lesson in democracy.

As you say this system of country management is for the people, by the people and of the people and when the people think that their voices are not heard (never heard by the way) they will resort to one tight slap which will resonate across the House of Chors and deliver a little warning. Little because you will go back to consorting with criminals and looting the country. Case in point being his declaration of income and assets as being worth only 12 crores. I think even 12 crores will make him liable to be sued in the court for earning through illicit means as a man of only modest employment (read government of India). We spend our entire lives honestly paying tax through deduction at source and still struggle to earn even a quarter of what Sharad Pawar has declared on the Prime Minister’s website.

When things go south laughter is the best policy, so please do check out these comments the readers posted on Times of India website at http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-09-06/people/30115719_1_sharad-pawar-assets-move-privilege-motion
You will laugh till the tears in your eyes wash away the 12 crore silliness!

Sharad Pawar slapped by ‘serial slapper’ Harvinder Singh

I loved Anna Hazare’s comment “what only one slap?” when Sharad Pawar was giving one tight one by the aam aadmi.
Alas slaps are wasted on politicians because by the time you want to slap them they are already being inhuman, I mean incapable of feeling normal human emotions like shame, scruples, embarrassment. So a slap would be like a mere fly sitting on their cheek. The fly could derive some satisfaction when the person ends up slapping himself while attempting to drive the fly away.
We need more such serial offenders. I say we need to go beyond slapping and indulge in some good old-fashioned activity of the donkey and chappal-garland variety.
Kidnap the politicians, make them sit on a donkey, paint their faces black and hang a garland made of chappals around their neck. Of course stoning is mandatory. Let us drive fear in the hearts of these useless and very expensive (witness scams) leaders so that they think twice before indulging. It’s about time we make them realise that the price of ‘leading’ a country might occasionally lead to such occupational hazards

The excitement of watching the ATP tour tennis tournament at O2, London

The one sport that I watch with total involvement is Tennis. I actually sit in front of the TV set with an intent to watch, complete with involuntary jerks and hand motions imitating all the shots that the players should have gone in for. My agony at a netted forehand or a drop shot that falls a hair’s breadth outside the side lines rivals that of the player who at the moment is digging a hole in the court with his racket using it like a pickaxe. I must have been a failed tennis player in my last life or at the very least a failed singles player who turned to the doubles game (mind it! The doubles version is quite entertaining and players earn a decent livelihood. Point in case- Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes).
I am completely transfixed. Never mind Wimbledon and those high falutin Grand Slam championships, it is the ATP 1000 World Tour at the O2 that I wait for every year. Held in the dying weeks of the tennis season, this is a tournament only for the Top Ten of the World. Meaning, only the Top Ten are invited and they play each other in a round robin till the champion is distilled through the finest and the best ten layers to emerge as the only person on the podium. There are no easy opening draws as with other championships where a good player has it easy by playing wild cards or players outside the top 50. Here it is grunt, shovel, grunt, sweat, pant from round one.
This year’s ATM 1000 was no different. Federer playing Tsonga in round 1 and then Federer and Nadal battling in O2 gladiatorial arena with blue light washing over spectators and white light flooding the center court. It’s like going straight to the dessert part of dinner without having to eat your broccoli and fish soup. And the tickets! That’s the best part of this championship. You don’t need to bankrupt yourself or dip into your retirement fund to see a spot of action between top players. Even at this moment, you will find tickets available in boxes closest to the court going for the cheapest ticket of 179 pounds to the most expensive of £ 950. There are other tickets available also immediately around the court perimeter for as cheap as £ 119. The tickets for the finals again the box close to the court goes for as high as £1950 and as cheap as £ 227. Well there are also tickets available for as little as £ 96.99 and £ 179 for a night and afternoon play session respectively. These tickets are for seats at the top tier which if you consider the court as a fish bowl then the top tier would be the rim of the bowl. Oh there also the prize money of $5million to consider. A neat pile to earn at the end of the season so that you must stop at a bank on your way to the Caribbean or Bali for a well-earned r&r.
Compare these with any other Grand Slam tickets and you will notice the difference. For all Wimbledon’s claims to be a Middle Class, genteel sport where heads wear lovely hats and hands hold the customary bowl do strawberries and cream, it is anything but. The ATP World Tour Finals is a more egalitarian venue where tickets are available for as low as 20 pounds for initial matches and you don’t feel cheated because even that early in the tournament you get witness world class action from players who play a far different level of sport than say Qatar Open or Dubai Open.
So folks I suggest unless you are given free tickets in the corporate box, do check the ATP World Tour Finals at the O2 in London. The tickets are cheap, the atmosphere very sci-fi and the location awesome. Am I promoting this event? Absolutely, especially after my initial outrage at the astronomical prices of the premier tennis events.

The cost our leaders extract from us for the job of leading us

My very ordinary mind tries to grapple with the figures that our Esteemed Leaders take away from us and then give some back to the society. Mind you my subtraction skills are adequate enough to realise that the difference is a huge one obviously in favour of what they charge us in return for leading us as a country (is that right?)

The numbers game was triggered by a news article yesterday (a small one on Page 12 of the Sunday Times of India). It read that the entre has declared Rs 6000cr sop for weavers in UP. Is that UP alone or for the entire handloom sector in India? It has the stamp of ‘authorship’ of Rahul Gandhi ahead of UP elections and has left little doubt that the package is his ‘personal gift’. Personal you say? Then I have no problem because I am not middle class and ordinary to not the know the difference between public money and personal. So it means that Rahul Baba overcome with sadness for the plight of weavers has pledged money out of his personal fortune for the betterment of the weavers. Still 6000k crore must be a pretty big sum……

It is not big as the sum quoted by the CAG caused due to the 2G scam and that stands at 1,76,645 crores. Or the commonwealth games scam that hurt us to the tune of 8000 crores.
Ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, ten thousand, lakh, ten lakhs, crore, ten crores…..my counting abilities stop here and I cannot even for the fear of a hundred lashings imagine a thousand crore. Can you?
Liquor scam cost us 3600 crores where IT officials raided distilleries and discovered that excise duty evasion amounted to 3600 crores and It is believed that 5% of the total excise duty thus saved is paid to political patrons. India lost a stagerring 452 billion dollars due to illicit financial flows due to tax evasion, crime and corruption post-Independence, according to a report released by Washington-based Global Financial Integrity.

Now compare that to what our mai baap gave us- Two things come to my mind as of now because I live in Chennai and these figures are pretty recent and appeared in The Hindu-

Amount spent on Anna Centenary Library- 172 crores
Cost of improving Aanganwadis in Tamil Nadu state- 98 crores
You think my mind is like a headless chicken? Well I will dwell on one more fact before putting my head back on and then trying to walk on the straight line of logic and reason.

Try this-The financials of the Nehru- Gandhi family. Theirs it the bluest of the blue blood. Rahul Gandhi is in his 40s. He has never worked. Rajiv Gandhi worked as a pilot in the Indian Airlines but that was a long long time ago. His Mother, Indira Gandhi also never worked except the 14 years that she was the prime minister of India. His grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru was in and out of prisons during India’s freedom struggle and then became PM from ’47 to ’64. His father Motilal Nehru was the only person who actually used his law degree to run a practise. So I am wondering how such a family like the Gandhi survives in these very hard times- costs of vegetables, petrol, housing, interest rates, gold, milk and bus fares have all gone north.

These questions have always plague me. And the same goes to all politicians like Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Advani, Sharad Pawar (to name a few but most of our political leaders fit the bill in my line of questioning) who have come so far on very very meagre earning. And mind you they are all octogenarians (Sharad Pawar is approaching that zone soon). My grandmother-in-law too outlived her husband by a good thirty five to forty years but then she lived frugally as well and he was a doctor with a flourishing practise, not a political leader!
Folks, this is something to think about- Our Leaders give with a closed fist but take with shovel and a dump truck!

Have you ever chucked things you didn’t need?

I have and if not for experiencing the spiritual lightness it lends, then do it for the fun of just junking stuff that you absolutely do NOT need.
I clear my cupboards with an amazing regularity and not it has become addictive. So sadly you will not find wrapping paper, chart paper, sundry tissue papers, springs, footwear, clothes, kitchen items (like dishes, bowls, glasses, katoris, kadhais, vessels) electronic items (though I will admit that I can start a small enterprise on the footpath selling USB ports), plastic bottles and containers, empty pots that held dead and withering plants, extra plastic buckets blah blah and blah in my home. I clear things whether spring or not.

Its spring time in my house all the time. Once my zeal got the better of me and I ended up with having to shop for clothes. No regrets though. A healthy home is one that doesn’t have to lend its corners for stowing all sorts of garbage. Literally and figuratively….for that’s what this post is about.

Just as you junk what you don’t need, have you tried to trim the excess baggage that your mind carries inside it every day for the rest of your life? Sit back and evaluate- bitterness, sadness, reluctance to let go, grudges, memories that you regularly dredge up and let your mind well in unpleasantness all over again. You are a walking talking house with junk falling off the balcony. I came across this thought is a magazine by the Bihar School of Yoga. I couldn’t agree with more.

Just let go of thoughts that increase your heartbeats (that is my test for unwelcome thoughts. These days I feel my pulse do a head banger’s ball when an unpleasant memory swims to the surface) I play a quick twenty questions with that memory as if it were a personified object. Let’s say I replay an incident where I feel that the person in question has wronged me. I feel outraged at the unfairness. The wrong hasn’t yet been righted and never will be so I will forever feel ‘wronged’. Is it right to let the memory pummel me till I feel sick? The person has been bad to me only once but I take over from that person and like a sadist let the memory dictate me into feeling anger and helplessness each time I think about that incident. Enough! Is Enough!

Believe me trashing things you don’t need is fun. So is trashing things in spirit a lot more fun. Imagine you have lit up a bonfire (just like on Holi) and are tossing things into it, one by one. You will be surprised how light you feel, how easy you will breathe when you toss that excess baggage (of people, emotions, feelings) . You feel free. You think it is easy? Ha! Try it. It is like flying. Once you have learnt how to fly, can anyone stop you?

I am fed up of fitness advice that people dish out for free

Hmm so I have been deliberating a lot on food and exercise of late. I have come to the conclusion that what was good for us as kids then is good for us as adults now. Waran, Bhat, poli Bhaji, can’t think of anyway that this food is gonna make you go to fat unless of course you eat a mountain full of it a la Bakasura or Chhota Bheem who keeps popping in Laddus like Churan.

If I am eating curds someone who is watching me eat says quickly “try buttermilk, buttermilk is good for health”. If I am eating Phulka then I am told to try whole grain Phulka (I thought what I ate since time immemorial was bloody whole grain aata, except aata didn’t have such a fancy name as whole grain. My mother went to the local kiranaa maal shop, bought about 5 kgs of wheat and then made a trip to the flour mill to grind it. Voila! Whole wheat aata is ready for you) If I am eating a piece of toast, I am told I should eat oats. I am eating ‘whole grain’ (mind you) aata phulka I am told to mix it with one part soya and one part oats to make it more wholesome and more healthy. If I am eating grapes, I am told to eat peaches and strawberries. If I am eating Upama, I am told to eat couscous. If I jog on the treadmill I am told to do pranayama, If I talking, I am told sleeping is better and when I am peeing, I am told shitting is way better. If I am scratching my nose, I am told scratching my bum will burn more calories. I mean this is ridiculous.

Too many people are thinking way too much about way too many things. I have no problem except that these people want to share their new-found knowledge with me and help make the world a better place. Oh I forgot about rice- If I eating my usual type of rice they say I should be eating brown rice.

Ok now that more or less completes the list of things I do and what I should be doing instead. The other day I was peeling a banana and my friend shrieked at me pointing at the banana. What? Banana makes you fat, didn’t you know? To make matters worse, I didn’t seem to appear too perturbed or emotionally shaken at the F word. I relished every bite. She told me that well what was done was done and I could do an hour of extra walking on the treadmill the next day.
Folks, listen to me. Go back to the diet of yore. Ok I don’t want to make you sound that old. Go back to the food that your mother cooked for you and go back to those portions as well. Go back to healthy living and eating, Go back to the times when you washed your hands and feet after you came home, go back to the times when you lit a naranjan (lamp) and said a shlok before you sat down to eat. Go back to the times when you said vadani Kavala before you put that first morsel in your mouth. Go back to the times when you scrounged around for Pohe, gul and milk (rice flakes, jiggery or palm sugar and milk) since there was nothing else to snack on.

Mother promise, you won’t put on a gram of fat. Of course did I mention stop going to the gym as well because you didn’t do that in those days? Liar, I didn’t say that at all. One of the best things of this age is that there is such a variety of fitness regimes to choose from- gym, tennis, yoga, kickboxing, dancing, Tai chi, Pilates, this tes and that tes but to offset the advantage you also have a gamut of food to choose and from at that too at any time of the day. Times were when tea and coffee were meant for morning and evening (or when you came back from work, to drink to perk you up a bit) and there was no such thing as ‘grabbing a bit’. You had a civilised lunch and dinner.
Times are a changing and while we are thinking too much about weight loss we are doing zero about it.

Nothing in life prepares you for death

My mother in law’s sister’s husband passed away on Monday and though it was no one close, strangely I felt as close to death as I have ever in my life. This despite the fact that I lost my father when I was 18 and have seen how it disrupts life (though briefly). We were back in college (me) school (my brother) and at work (my mother) on the third day after my dad passed away. Too much was happening too fast for us to be away for all those 13 days for indulgences in all rituals and customs and besides I have never been the one for observing them. A person has died, let him be and let me grieve in my own way (which is away from people and privately).

Looking back at our lives we did an amazingly good job. It is truly a
miracle that we survived on 1200 rupees that my mother earned in 1989. The absence of my dad did intrude once in a while but really, we were just busy getting on. My point is, you might have overcome the harshest challenges that life throws at you, you might have come out the darkest tunnels a survivor and yet nothing prepares you for death, that final separation, never to meet again the person you have spent your life with- spouse, parent, sibling, children and friend (have I missed anybody here?)
It is grief mixed with a complete dead-end kind of a feeling. What do I do now had I suffred a similar loss? Should I wake up? Have my tea, go to the gym, do my chores, work, surf the net, travel a bit? I have no idea. I am trying to be in the shoes of the person who lost her husband at the age of 83 and I am lost. I just cannot imagine.

All the books that I have read, films that I have watched or the conversations that I have had with my walking buddies and friends do not give me the slightest idea on how I would deal with this blow. Today’s post has no conclusion. It has no answers or suggestions. I guess it is for each one to find it for himself or herself. AND I am in no hurry either!