The Smoking Ban

Hurray! The hardcore libertarians can complain all they want but I favor smoking bans.

Starting Oct 2nd this year, there would be no more public smoking in India. There a lot of details about how and when you can smoke, particularly in restaurants but bottom line is that I don't need to be sitting in a coffee shop worried if there's a going to be a fag next to me. A cigarette that is.

Apparently there are 120 million smokers in India. That seems like a very large number. And I thought maybe there were a lot of smokers in the villages but the problem is actually more in my neck of the woods. Turns out the percentages for smokers in the upper class and upper middle class stand around 40. Again, seems very large, but what do I know.

I just have clean air to breathe and that's all I care about. The next step is to just destroy all the autos that pollute excessively. If we catch a few auto drivers (Chennai auto drivers in particular) sitting in those autos ... well, a man can dream.

Subway in India: Main sauce

The original plan was to eat with my dad at Subway. Except, the last two times I was in Hyderabad, something or the other kept coming up and I kept missing it. So it was going to do this in Pune.

I had to pay Rs. 10 to park my scooter in the first place to get into this place! What struck me as I looked at the menu was the all the sandwiches were 6" ones. They do have footlongs but they're hidden somewhere in the menu, I had to search for them.

I ordered a Panner Tikka sandwich. It's made similar to the chicken sandwich, where they have seasoned pieces of Panner in small cups and they microwave them and put them in the sandwich. Another thing I learned is that most people just add all the fixins on their sandwiches. Makes sense, Indian being cheap would ask, "What can I get for no extra charge?" and go ahead and add everything they can.

After added the veggies, the guy asked me, "What sauce sir?" So I asked him if he had any Chipotle sauce. He said he didn't. So I was looking at the sauces and he says, "Would you like to have some main sauce sir?" I looked at him, "Main sauce, what's in the main sauce?"
"It's main sauce sir. It comes with the sandwich."
"Yeah I know, but what's in the main sauce."
Now it was his turn to stare at me.
"Sir, with the Paneer sandwich the regular sauce is the main sauce."

This was rapidly turning into an Abbot and Costello routine. Finally I looked at the sauce and it was green in color. "Do you mean MINT sauce?" I asked him.
"Yes sir."
"OK! I'll have some of that."

"OK sir, any more sauces?"
"What do you have?"
"We have Southwest sauce."
"What?? I just asked you if you had Chipotle sauce."
"Yes sir, this is like Chipotle sauce."
I didn't want to argue anymore about how the name of the sauce is "Southwest Chipotle". So I just asked him to pack it up. Interestingly he packed the two halves of the footlong in seperate packages. Like it was inconceivable to him that any one person would eat the whole footlong.

Hmm, maybe that's a sign.

Just avoided getting a ticket

It was partly my fault. Well entirely my fault.

I went to check out an electronics store on my way back from work. I wanted to see if they had an electric stove so I could start cooking. They didn't. The store was on the other side of the highway and while I used a car as a cover while crossing over to the other side, I didn't have that luxury while driving back. So I decided to just drive on the wrong side of the road. This is relatively common and there were a couple of drivers who were doing the same. The plan was to switch to the correct side after I got to the big intersection ahead.

As I reached the intersection, my side of the road (shoulder in particular) had a bunch of lorries parked there. So I kept weaving in and out of them. Suddenly through gaps between the lorries I saw a bunch of motorist talking to cops!! They were getting pulled over for jumping the red light or going the wrong way or something. Basically the police presence has increased because of the Commonwealth Youth Games in the city. So they were cracking down on bad driving. I was saved because of the lorries! So I immediately got off my scooter, turned off the engine and started pushing my scooter as I got out of the lorry maze! The cops didn't bother me. I gave the other drivers my best sympathetic gaze as I crossed the intersection, got on my bike and drove off.

I hope my luck has turned with respect to getting tickets!

Screw you Emran Hashimi! I hope you disappear from my world

(This is in response to my brother's comment.)

I hate Emran Hashimi. I loathe him. I think he's symptomatic of everything that's wrong with this world, and Bollywood in particular. Emran, just go away.

Who is Emran Hashimi? He's a nobody. He's a 5-foot nothing of an ugly man who should by all rights be a name I shouldn't have heard till now. How did he become famous? For making out with Mallika Sherawat for a whole 3 hours in a "Murder", a remake of "Unfaithful". Really? We're rewarding people for being the foil for probably the biggest attention whore in Bollywood? It takes talent to make out with a woman who's such a big whore that she's only got her clothes on screen because of censor laws? After "Murder", I rightly assumed that Mallika's career would take off with plenty of silicony cleavage to satisfy everyone. I did not realize that there were people who thought, "Hey, this is the stud who seduced this whore who's pretending to be a housewife into a life of debauchery, maybe he's got a hidden sex appeal we didn't realize."

And bang! He started getting offers left and right. I can't turn on the TV now without looking at his ugly mug. Emran, you bloody midget, please go away. Take Mallika with you.

Aamir Khan can't sing, saala!

Aamir Khan has clearly transformed into the Kamal Hasan of Bollywood, to quote a friend of mine. He was a great actor, the pride of the industry. But now he's become very aware of his unique position and takes himself too seriously. 

My problem with him is much more personal - I can't stand his ads. He does one for Tata Sky (my satellite dish provider) where he's dressed on the left side a man and on the right side a woman and he argues back and forth as both characters. Then there's one where's advertising a cellphone that has a karaoke feature (which he pronounces just as it looks, car+a+oke). He's singing to himself in this ad and then shows us that he's reading the lyrics from his cellphone. Except, he can't carry a tune. Chiranjeevi sang in a movie too, and it was a little painful, but that was more of an experiment. This is just inexcusable. In the end of the ad he says, "Stop talking. Start singing." How about you stop singing as well Aamir?

The Saturday Palace on Saturday: Pune's biggest romantic spot

What a difference a day makes! I am watching cricket at my apt, typing up this email on gmail on my laptop, sitting on my fantastic reclining chair and just finished a long call to Preethi. Life is good. 

Yesterday as I went out in search of the chair, I saw the beautiful palace fort of Shaniwar Wada. This wasn't wholly unexpected, I knew it was on the way. I just wasn't sure if I wanted to check it out then. Then I remembered that I had nothing to do for the rest of the day and went right in. Shaniwar Wada was a palace built by the during the 1700's, a relatively recent construction, but still older than independent USA! 

As with most Indian tourist attractions, the place had a much higher price for foreigners. This is one place where it sucks to be White or Asian I suppose. Someone from the middle east, or any other country from South Asia, or even say Latin America could walk in without much comment. There were a lot of school children on the outside, I imagine this is a big favorite for excursions in the city. The palace itself was acceptably impressive, but doesn't compare to the magnificent Mughal palaces or the ones in Rajasthan or even the Golconda fort in Hyderabad. It was primarily meant for recreation by the looks of the gardens, but it's hard to be sure because most of it was burned down in a great fire. 

The best part of the visit was seeing all the young couples in the palace gardens. Clearly this place is a big meeting spot for college kids since there aren't enough parks to hang out. They were there all over the place, everytime I turned a corner to explore a slightly hidden part of the palace, there was a couple there. Talking, sitting next to each other, sometimes sitting so close they were touching and (gasp!) holding hands! One couple was being even more enthusiastic, I was surprised the policewomen nearby didn't stop them. 

To be fair there was a decent number of college kids who were there to study. They brought their books and notes and were pouring over them. I guess for either set of people, at Rs. 5 per person, this was a nice cheap alternative to Domino's pizza or Coffee day as a gathering spot. 

It made me really appreciate Austin as a nice place for young people. With all its parks and river banks, coffee shops where you can sit for cheap, Mount Bonnell and "the Cliff", there are plenty of places for couples to hang out in private without running into people they know. It also gave me a glimpse of what my life would have been like if I was in Pune in college, with a girlfriend :)

God! That felt good!

Chandu, you were right. I should gone for the full treatment at the barbershop ages ago! 

I finally managed to clean up my apt. I also found a reclining chair for my apt that I'm really excited about. I'm getting pretty close to the dream configuration of my apt. Anyway, after setting up everything, I went to the closest barbershop to my apt. I've never really asked for any extras with my haircut. Even now I didn't. In the middle of  the haircut, the guy did a dusting motion through my hair. I thought that was a nice touch. And then he went to town on my hair and scalp!! He did a rapid scratching type motion with the balls of his fingers through my scalp. And then he started massaging my scalp. He was so rough I was worried I'd lose all my hair, but it felt so good I didn't care. I didn't quite get why he did it. Perhaps it's part of the standard package over there. Or maybe most of it was to just dust the clipped hair from my head. Whatever the reason, I just didn't want him to stop as I felt all the stress of the day melt away. I'm really jealous of the Indians who get to enjoy this service gratis, or atleast for really cheap. 

I'm going back for more. The next time I'll be getting a "tel malish" - an oil (scalp) massage. Now if I can add a TV playing the game and some scintillating conversation, I'll be in heaven.