The times they are a-changin'

When the local chronicle replaces the one since 1878,
so much that you wonder where it was all this while,
but still go back for them crosswords,
When irani cafes are in and posh eateries are passe,
so much that you stop asking for what you need,
but have it served by raising a hand, a nod of the head,
When your mother-tongue pips the world's Lingua franca,
so much that you switch to frustrate those non-speakers,
but still inject a few words to rile them purists,
When old habits fall to the ground like winnowed rice paddy,
When new habits emerge like sprouts left overnight,
When old friends hug you like you've just won the derby,
When new friends feel like you've known them for ages,
And in the process you find yourself, again, and yet again,
and see that you are very much at peace, piece by piece,
When you love where you are going,
Just as much as where you came from,
You have to wonder,
You have to think aloud,
You have to ask yourself ,
If this ain't life ... what is ?

Night-In-Gale

It started with James Gregory's memoirs
Of Robben Island's most famous prisoner
Followed by a Liam Neeson double bill
Biopics about a biologist turned sexologist
And Sinn Fein's most famous Irishman
It didn't stop there as we found them inspired
By Lynard Skynard, no, not the "define irony" one
But the other one with the title itself
And finally prison walls that were adorned by
Rita Hayworth, Marilyn Monroe and Raquel Welch

It was morning by then and the Best Cafe it was
Did they ever freeze over in hell and rename it from the Sad
The morning news was nowhere to be seen
So with Passion and a Ten-ner he roamed the concrete
Met one barely 20 metres from where he revved up
No exact change with either got him one free
And Ogilvy smiled from wherever he was
Customers are wife material indeed
The coffee took longer obviously
See, the benefits, of being an insomniac !!!

Oona baby ...

"Eat me", she seemed to cry as she lay there rather stiff
She wriggled to a corner, like she were shy, like her first
He knew she'd never been "done" before
She wouldn't have been in front of him in that case
Understandably, she was fairly hot
It had taken her quite a while to get there

His mouth watered at the sight in front of him
He was starving, he wanted her badly,
He took her gently, and squeezed her midriff
Taken aback at the way things flowed he quickly bit into her
She tasted just like he knew she would, magical, virginal
He seemed to have heard the rest of her cry out again,

"Eat me", a little more desperate, hoarser, more guttural
It seemed to come from the bottom of her stomach
He couldn't wait anylonger, he needed the whole of her inside him
With a scoop he took in the whole of what was left
It was the best fish and caviare he had in a long time
Amma makes it beautifully, Sigh what an anti-climax

P.S: Shouldn't the title have been Tuna Baby !!!

The London Underground Blues ...

Heard on the Public Announcement System at London Bridge Tube Station: May the lady with the child not rush down the escalator please.

My conversation with the London Underground Security Staff, while trying to get from Bank to Monument Tube Station via the platform: My dear Good fella, as of Friday the 14th of November, you can not transit from Monument to Bank, due to escalator works. You need to continue your journey overground, but if you do wish to try this route then you must come back in 2 years.

And ofcourse today's random poem from the TFL web site
Western wind when wilt thou blow
the small rain down can rain
Christ if my love were in my arms
and I in my bed again

I failed the Tebbit Test ...

"A large proportion of Britain's Asian population fail to pass the cricket test. Which side do they cheer for? It's an interesting test. Are you still harking back to where you came from or where you are?"

A worried Norman Tebbit, a Conservative British MP, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times in April 1990 made this comment as he felt immigrants and their children from Asia (Pakistan, India, Srilanka and Bangladesh) could not show loyalty to Britain and hence would fail to assimilate with the mainstream until they supported the England team at Cricket.


In 2008, in the Euro Football final a bunch of Indians in Dusseldorf faced a similar dilemma. All of us wanted Spain to win because of the wonderful brand of football that they played and their total domination on the event by remaining unbeaten throughout the tournament.

The problem was that Spain was playing against Germany, a country that we were living in at that point of time. My heart wanted Spain to win and my mind was rooting for Germany. More than the loyalty that arose from the comfortable home and the great job that I had over the past two years, I wanted Germany to win because I wanted to revel in the all night celebrations that would have seized Dusseldorf after a German victory.The best Team did win and I failed the easiest form of the Tebbit Test, considering that India wasn't even in the equation.

Those weird eaters

After living on and off a suitcase for close to 6 years, I decided I'd write about some food habits that have stood me in good stead when the going got tough. As you'd realise the going never really gets tough ...

1. Corn Flakes goes better with yogurt than milk. Ranjith introduced this to me when he came over to London for a weekend and I didn't have milk in my fridge. As a Telugu I usually tend to have yogurt for my regular cravings of Perugu-Annam with Aavakayi Pacchadi (curd rice with mango pickle). I haven't moved back to milk ever since ... except in rare occasions when I've had milk but no yogurt in my fridge.

2. Poha tastes amazing when prepared with a little white wine in it. I was making breakfast/brunch for Ranj and Chandra and I decided it would be Poha day. Mid way through this Ghati preparation I found something amiss. I added a dash of white wine and everything fell into place. Both of them were unable to place where the additional zing to the Poha had come from and when I did tell them they found it pretty interesting. (Even if they didn't show it they must have found it freaky to find a place other than church where they could have something made of wine at 10:00 A.M on a Sunday morning).

3.In general, if I thought my guests would find the food too spicy, I'd add a dash of lime. If I thought that's not going to work I'd add tomatoes and I'd continue with yogurt and wine and end by removing the green chillies from the food (I call it the placebo effect). If this still don't work, just order from a take away. (Don't forget to ask for spicy food else I'd bet you a silk pajama that your guest is going to find the food bland)

4. I have decided to call my sandwich invention as yogurt and pickle spread sandwiches after realising how simple it was to make them and how much better they tasted compared to those vegetable and cheese sandwiches that I had grown tired of. This tastes best with Priya's garlic pickle (though taking this to work means you need to carry some mouth wash along as well). The preparation is simple:
a. Toast the bread (Optional). For best results try brown bread
b. Spread pickle on a slice of bread
c. Glaze it with some yogurt.

5. At any point of time if you started cooking and realised you've run out of spices Don't Panic (Yes, I know, even the Hitchhikers Guide tells you the same). Just pick up a pickle and add two tablespoons of pickle into your curry. It works like a charm. I tired this in Potato Korma, Brinjal Curry and even with Chicken.

First Amendment and Article 19 (Part 3)

[Blogger's Note: This is the last in a series of 3 articles]

"Who is this Ram? Is he a Civil Engineer ? Which Engineering College did he graduate from ?" When I first saw Karunanidhi's translated tirade as subtitles on NDTV it took me a couple of minutes to realise that the kalaignar was actually taking potshots at the adarshapurush (Perfect Man) of the Ramayana, Lord Rama (a.k.a Shri Ram, Ramar, Ramudu ...). The debate was on the Archeological Survey of India's petition to the Supreme Court. The petition had urged the Court to not treat the lime shoals between India and Srilanka (Adam's Bridge/ Ram Setu) as evidence of a bridge that was built by Lord Rama and his Vaanar Sena (Monkey army) to cross over to Lanka and fight Raavana.

It wasn't surprising to hear this from the DMK. The DMK has always felt that the Ramayana was an allegory to the victory of the Aryan Race over the Dravidians and the eventual sanskritisation of then India. While the rest of India looks at Lord Rama as the ideal man (husband, brother, son and father) who went to war against a tyrant in Lanka, the DMK views Rama as a son who was too meek to stand up to what was right, as a brother who let a pair of slippers rule from Ayodhya, a husband who doubted his wife's integrity and a dad who fought his own children out of arrogance. To the contarary, Ravana is treated as a tragic hero, a learned and spiritual man with a keen ear for music, a man who respected women (though he abducted somebody else's wife) as he never forced himself on Sita during her days in Lanka. Things were more militant with DMK in the days yore - Periyar, the founder of the Dravidian movement would make it a point to garland Rama statues with slippers every Ram Navami.

Well, the Dravidian point of view is not what I'm trying to convey through this article. What struck me was how Karunanidhi, an elected head of the state said what he said. As a Freedom of speech proponent I don't find anything wrong with someone expressing their beliefs. As an elected head of state in a pluralistic society, he may well have crossed the line and should have acted with more restraint. It would be interesting to see the reaction if he said something about Jesus Christ (Who is this Jesus ? Is he a Marine Biologist ? How did he know exactly where and when to cast the net to catch a bounty?) or the Prophet Mohammed [PBUH] (Who is this Prophet [PBUH] ? Is he a Sound Engineer ? Did he have any patents on quality hearing aid techniques? How else could he have heard the message of the Lord broadcast from so many millions of miles away without any glitches ...[except for those Satanic Verses]?). Personally, I think the Central Government in a bid to portray itself as the protector of the minorities would have asked him to step down as the Chief Minister of Tamizh Naad.

Well, the double standards of the current central government is not what I'm trying to hint at through this article. When Columbia Uni invited Ahmadinejad as a guest, he went onto his pet topic - questioning the occurrence of the holocaust. It’s difficult to refute something that occurred so systematically, but if a person has a particular belief then we must either let it be or prove him wrong. What we should not be doing is to try convicting him for an alleged crime. I still do not understand why denying the holocaust should be treated as a crime or even be treated as Anti-Semitism. In those lines Mr Karunanidhi must be convicted as well and so should Mr Rushide. In Columbia, Mr Ahmadinejad was more conciliatory - he felt there should be an open debate on the holocaust. Maybe a handful of undergard researchers is all it takes to open Mr Evil's eyes.

It is impossible to draw the line for freedom of speech, just as one man's Freedom fighter is another man's terrorist. In such a case not having a line is the only line that must exist. Say what you feel like and pay the price for it - burnt State buses and a daughter's house damaged as in the case of the Kalaignar or a fatwa in the case of Mr Rushdie that has kept him in constant fear and hiding or a probable conviction for the Iranian President in some land when his diplomatic immunity ceases.

First Amendment and Article 19 (Part 2)

[Blogger's Note: This is the second in a series of 3 articles]


Columbia University invited Global Terrorist No.1 (or 2, depending on the mood), Enemy No. 1 (or 2 depending on the mood), State sponsor of Terrorism (it’s not George Bush Stupid …) and Holocaust denier - the democratically elected President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a part of the World Leader’s Forum initiative. The bosses in Columbia will pass the buck if there’s too much heat about giving a platform to an extremist (it wasn’t the President but a Professor of some nondescript course who actually made the invitation) and others will pat their backs and say how Columbia upheld Freedom of Speech by listening to a tyrant ramble on stage. Lee Bollinger, the President of Columbia in his opening remarks said, "Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator" and then added "You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated". In between he exposed Iran's "hideous designs" on various issues, and wrapped it up with a parting salvo "I doubt that you will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions". Mr. Bollinger’s remarks reminded me of a hymn from the Vedas:
"Mathru devo bhava
Pithru devo bhava
Aacharya devo bhava
Athithi devo bhava"
(Respect one’s mother, father, teacher and guest just as you respect God).
Sure, Mr. Bollinger would not have read the Vedas but I think he did go overboard in inviting someone and then being so extremely judgmental, that the very values that Columbia stood up for in making the invitation i.e. Freedom of speech looked like mere lip service. What Mr. Bollinger did was to exemplify the perception of American Foreign Policy in the Middle East – ignorant, belligerent, bullying and ugly.

Sometime in March 2006 Mr. George W. Bush, who in some parts of the globe is perceived to be Global Terrorist No.1, Enemy No. 1 and State sponsor of Terrorism, visited India. The Indian government tried very hard to have him address the Indian Parliamentarians in the Parliament house. When a significant number of Parliament Members threatened to heckle him, the Government decided to have Bush address the masses from Purana Qila, the Old Fort. When Bush did address the group of Parliamentarians, he was given a standing ovation from time to time. He wasn’t heckled and he wasn’t reminded of his numerous gaffes that he had made. Athithi devo bhava indeed!!!

First Amendment and Article 19 (Part 1)

[Blogger's Note: This is the first in a series of 3 articles]

I seem to be going on a blogging spree whenever India wins in cricket. Beating Pakistan is no mean feat and winning the tournament in a format where we've just played one international T-20 match prior to this World Cup surely needed tons of self belief. To do that without the trinity of Indian cricket is like America winning the war on Terror in land-locked Afghanistan with just the Navy. The Indian media have covered this so much that the only risk I’d carry if I continued talking about the Men in Blue is that I’d sound like a broken gramophone record.

What I would like to dwell on is an interesting comment that Shoaib Malik made in the Post Match Award Ceremony. His exact words were “First of all I want to say something over here. I want to thank you back home Pakistan and where the Muslim lives all over the world."(Many thanks to Cricinfo’s Mukul Kesavan’s blog at: http://blogs.cricinfo.com/meninwhite/archives/2007/09/scenes_from_a_final.php for the comment). If I were to take Shoaib’s comments at face value, what he meant was one or more of the following:
1. Shoaib’s team was not only playing cricket for Pakistan but also for the entire Muslim world.
2. The Indian Muslims do not count as Muslims in his eyes or they were rooting for Pakistan en-bloc and were sorry that India won. I think the latter is extremely improbable as we had Irfan Pathan picking up 3 wickets for a measly 16 in 4 overs (which included the prize scalp of the other Pathan, albeit the Stupid one – Shahid Afridi)
3. Muslims in Chechnya and Bosnia, the Abu Sayyaff in Philippines and the Palestinian brethren, who probably don’t follow the game anyway, want Muslims to win across those dirty non-believers. As if they haven’t had other things to worry about.

For a moment let us assume that Shoaib as a non-native speaker got done in by the occasion (Young captain, losing a nail-biting final to arch-rivals India, not sure of the reception back at home). In such a scenario we could construe what he meant as one or more of the following:
1. Shoaib meant “Pakistanis back home and Pakistanis all over the world” which would make it a pretty innocuous comment. I still do not agree with his apologetic tone though, he made it sound like it was a disgrace losing to India when to the contrary Pakistan should have been proud of their fight back. Shoaib should have acknowledged the fact, that at the end of the day, the game of cricket won (pardon me for that famous cliché being re-used)
2. Pakistanis and Muslims are interchangeable. In such a case, (as Mukul points out in his blog) spare a thought for poor Danish Kaneria. The Hindu in the Muslim team, who was just made Muslim.

Either way, there is no point castigating (or castrating ... sorry couldn’t help that one either) Shoaib Malik. In a free world he has the freedom to speak what he wishes to (ofcourse with a certain amount of discretion) and I don’t think Shoaib crossed the line irrespective of what he meant. At worst, he sounded foolish, stupid and parochial. At best he sounded like somebody out of sorts with a foreign language and maybe he should start using more Urdu in his post match speeches.

Haleem, Ladoos, Lab rats and the 'M' word

In Nagesh Kukunoor's Dor, Zeenat (played beautifully by my senior in school, Gul Panag) asks Meera to sign a letter to forgive her husband who accidentally kills Meera's husband. Meera, sick of her life as a Hindu widow, doesn't agree and in the ensuing discussion asks "Tumhara Quran bhi yeh kahta hai naa …badle ke liye badla ... mujhe badla chahihye" (Even the Quran justifies revenge and asks an eye for an eye ... I want revenge). Zeenat replies by saying that the Hindu scriptures encourage forgiveness and pleads Meera to sign.

For a religion that started in the 7th century when the world already had enough religions to contend with, the adoption of Islam has been phenomenal. If a religion in the new age had to succeed, it had to be militant, aggressive and forceful. Islam gives you all of them in equal doses. It had to grow at the expense of all other religions and the only way it could do so was to preach Zero Tolerance, be unforgiving to people who blaspheme and elevate itself as the purest and most supreme form of worship. Thomas Friedman in his article in the New York Times talks about the Islamist view "Muslims are raised with the view that Islam is God 3.0, Christianity is God 2.0, Judaism is God 1.0, and Hinduism is God 0.0." If this is indeed true then we are in deep trouble.

Exactly 108 years to the day when a bunch of stupid men flew planes into buildings, a man clad in saffron addressed The World Parliament of Religions in Chicago. It was September 11th 1893. Somewhere in a speech that talked about universal acceptance and tolerance he had time to translate an old Sanskrit hymn "As the different streams having their sources in different paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee." Vivekananda captured the hearts and minds of Americans with his speech (obviously Mr Bush wants to do it differently with the Iraqis), but all he was stating was what is so obvious in the Hindu religion.

India today is trying to reconcile with the fact whether Hindus and Muslims will ever be able to live again peacefully. One religion talks about acceptance and tolerance while the other considers all other forms of worship blasphemous. Amartya Sen in his book "Identity and Violence" talks about how having a single identity that eclipses all other identities can cause friction. He argues that every person is not only a Hindu, or a Muslim, but also a male or a female, a doctor, engineer or an actor, a communist, socialist or a capitalist, a rock music fan or a carnatic music fan. In a nutshell the more identities a person has the less likely is there a chance of friction in the name of religion.

The Indian Muslim who has multiple identities is never the problem. A Shahrukh Khan, a Mohammed Kaif, a Shabana Azmi or an Azim Premji will never fund a terrorist outfit or become a suicide bomber. However, the Indian Muslim below the poverty line is being slowly moulded to have only one identity (which is the identity of religion). He is taught to belong to a different league and is continuously reminded of his superiority. His frustration only mounts when he is unable to come to terms with his standing in real life. It would be a difficult task to get the poorer Muslim to be more pluralistic, but that doesn't mean it can not be done. To start with, a part of the fault lies with the Hindu Majority. From a religion which was based on acceptance and pluralism we have seen a more uncharacteristically militant form which reeks of all things which were never the basis of Hindu teachings. The problem with today's Hindu is that we don't give the Muslims a second identity, albeit a more important one, that they are Indians just like any body else. That would solve half the problem to begin with.

In "Chak De …", when Kabir Khan walks out of the Indian Hockey Federation meeting after asking if he could coach the Women's Team, his friend (a character inspired by Negi's real life friend Jyotikumaran) consoles him of his missed penalty stroke by saying "Lekin … Hum Sab ki Ek Galti to maaf hota hai" (Everyone is forgiven for one mistake) and Kabir retorts "Sab ki naheen" and repeats it again "Sabki naheen" (Not everyone's first or only mistakes are forgiven). That pretty much sums up the feelings of the ordinary Indian Muslim. Making Lab rats out of them and asking them to wear their loyalty on their sleeves is something that has already begun to isolate them.

Every Ramzan I make it a point to be in Hyderabad (partly because it is the safest time in the year to be in Hyderabad and partly because I love the Hyderabadi Haleem). On Vinayak Chaturthi, my cousin, a friend and I went to the Al Saba Cafe and packed a Haleem for dinner. I can't speak for the other two, but consider me sacrilegious, a voracious meat eater or a plain stupid dunce, I still managed to add 3 new identities to the ones I already have. On a more serious note ... How many Muslim's would eat Tirupati Prasad after they see the moon come out during Ramzaan? … Clearly it takes two hands to clap …!!!

Saala Madraasi ...

A lot of us often think of the Tamilians as a race with militant ideas and a misplacced sense of Dravidian/Tamil nationalism. To a large extent, this is because of the language struggle, where they genuinely believed Tamil to be a 'logical' alternative to Hindi and the fight for an independent Dravidian homeland, that consisted of Tamil Nadu and northern Srilanka. Now, consider this:

1. MG Ramachandran was a mallu Nair from Palakkad
2. Rajinikanth (Shivaji Rao Gaekwad) is a Marathi from Bangalore
3. Jayalalitha is a kannadiga from Mysore
4. Khushboo and Simran are Hindi speaking. Incidentally both of them have temples constructed for them in Tamil Nadu.
5. Thyagaraja who wrote the Pancharatna kritis was a Telugu based out of Tanjore

Sure for every MGR we have a Kaurnanidhi, and for every khushboo and a Simran we have a Radha and Radhika, but the dichotomy for me seems too sharp to understand for them to fit the cliche. How can a race that is believed to be so gung-ho about it's identity continuously elevate people from outside to the pedestal. So are they miltant, confused souls with a bit of an identity crisis or more liberal than we make them out to be ?

The birth ...

I must thank Abhilash for getting me out of my self induced slumber of 5 years and pushing me to write ... It happened at Rajahmundry airport ... Nuthan had just finished nourishing some vegetation on the compound wall when this dude calls to see how Suri's wedding went. We talked about the days of yore, his research into something sinister and the fact that we weren't talking enough ... The blog name (Eat your own ....) is a tribute to a German colleague (?) at work ... his way of saying that you can give something to a customer only if you are sure you can use it yourself. Think it's some wise German saying translated badly using Babelfish. Blue Buffalo is a great oxymoron. Of all, it is a pet food company that specializes in dog food.

Racist South Indians

I've always called myself a Racist South Indian. I've often been asked what that means and my definition has always changed every single time I've tried to respond (based on my mood, state of mind and a host of other things that included the price of onions) ... This is my attempt to be consistent ...

Racist South Indian
- Noun (Usage: I was eating Mutton Madras and bloody hell ... I realised I was a Racist South Indian)
1. A bunch of like minded people who dig thunder thighed actresses, prefer moustaches on their heroes (and heroines given a choice). They can gorge on dosas, vadas, MLA pesarattus and bisibela baths 3 times a day, think that Amitabh Bacchan (who is he?) comes a close 29th after Rajini, Chiru, Upendra (not necessarily in the same order) and a bunch of other pot-bellied and not so pot-bellied actors. They believe that Article 343 (Hindi as a national language) should be scrapped or ammended and filter coffee goes best while reading The Hindu