I'm typing this on my dad's "EE PC" (sorry bro) , a really tiny laptop, while sitting in a car, on our way back from Mahanandi, a place in the middle of the great state of Andhra Pradesh. I have two backlogged blog entries that I was hoping to finish typing up before this but I just had to write up about this trip.
Apparently my dad visited this place before his marriage and he'd been trying to take my mom on this trip for the last 30 years or so of their marriage. It never worked out for some reason or the other. I had made a flying visit to Hyd to take care of some stuff, and I was here only for Fri, Sat and Sun. I took care of my stuff on Fri and I asked my parents what they would like to do during the weekend. Among a host of other suggestions, my mom threw out the Mahanandi plan. I liked it immediately. It was going to take a 5-6hr drive each way but seeing as my dad wanted to revisit this place so much, I jumped on it.
We woke up at 3am and started getting ready for the trip. Dad got one of the drivers from his company and we took off by 4:30am. I was really looking forward to driving on the newly opened PV Narasimha Rao expressway in the city. It was fun, I can see how young people in the city would love to drive on this road at night. The entire road is basically a flyover, and it is not flat, so you feel like you're floating down a river of lights as you cruise on this 11kms long highway. I am not sure of the utility, I don't think it saves more than 15 minutes for the passengers on their way to the airport, and if that's the case, I don't think it's worth it. We passed out almost immediately after leaving the city but woke up around sunrise. It was a really beautiful drive. The weirdest part for me was seeing herds of camels walking on the highway. What were camels doing in this part of the country! The highway itself was very nice and well maintained. The roads were clean and smooth, a far cry from the time our family took to Tirupathi many years ago.
Of course, the biggest problem with a trip this long is the availability (or lack) of bathroom facilities. At one point we spent 30 mins just looking for a neat restaurant with a bathroom. But even accounting for that and three other stops for coffee and food, we reached our destination about 6 hours after we started.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Time for another pictorial
This was at a mall slightly outside the city. Double level parking. I was very surprised to see this here. This is essentially long term parking because the upper car can't be removed till the lower car is removed. Either that or the owner gave the car keys to the attendant, and that's clearly impossible :)
This is a "stepney" in Chandigarh (you can see the Haryana license plate) covered with a stepney cover of a Telugu movie. And not just any Telugu movie, a movie dubbed from Tamil. How awesome is this country!
One driver on a motorcyle pulling along his friend on another motorcycle whose vehicle wasn't working. In addition to being shocked at the extremely unsafe practice, I admired the physical strength of both drivers to be able to maintain their balance and hold on to either handlebar for any amount of time.
The old man on the flight
"So what do you think of this Koda guy?"
That's how it began. I was on my flight from Delhi to Hyderabad for a quick visit. I was sitting next to this elderly Telugu couple. After I spoke to them in Telugu a few mins earlier, the man realized I was Telugu and decided to engage me in conversation. Koda is a thief of a CM about whom I'll probably write about later in this blog. For now, I told him how I felt about corrupt politicians and he suggested nothing short of actually killing all corrupt politicians. We went on to discuss AP politics. He wasn't a fan of any particular party but we both agreed that our former CM YSR was a brilliant strategist. That the entire Congress party is reading the situation in the country very well and playing their cards well - not caving in to the Telangana movement, not caving in to the "YSR's son for CM" faction etc.
At that point I was surprised by how many assumptions he made about me and how was OK with voicing them. He talked about how neat Dubai is even if it is run by a **** (a derogatory term for a Muslim). Then he went on to ask me about my caste, he asked me if I belonged to a particular caste! Just like that! I didn't hide it, and he went on to talk about how great that particular caste is and that they are the only ones who are capable of sustaining the culture of the state and the Hindus in general (he's from a different caste but has a great deal of respect for my caste, and that was a little weird to be given any respect solely based on caste). What was mildly surprising was that he guessed my caste based on my diction. I was brought up almost entirely in Hyderabad and I always thought I had a very "city" accent, but evidently not. He asked me about my age, if I was married, how much money my company makes and so on. I got the feeling that if I was single he would have fixed me up with a relative of his. His own daughters were a few years older than me and I really think that bummed him out that I couldn't marrry either of them. Hmm, mildly flattering.
The guy himself was very interesting. He seemed to be about 65 years old. He is a businessman, and never studied beyond 6th grade. He felt bad about it and later in life he donated Rs. 2 crores (an amount of money that I will probably never end up owning, let alone donating!) to a college, which now bears his name. He talked about the importance of education and how once the country improves itself in education, it'll improve a lot. He is a very strict vegetarian and his wife is even stricter and can't even eat food when there's meat nearby. The two were returning from a trip to Nepal, apparently the place sucked! (Good to know since I was planning a trip there myself at some point.) He and his wife went on to tell me about a particular devotional channel and some program by a religious head.
When the flight landed I left without saying goodbye. He did make me a little uncomfortable but ultimately I was just in a hurry to get home. I did think of calling him because he gave me his card but even that I skipped on. He did make the flight very interesting though.
That's how it began. I was on my flight from Delhi to Hyderabad for a quick visit. I was sitting next to this elderly Telugu couple. After I spoke to them in Telugu a few mins earlier, the man realized I was Telugu and decided to engage me in conversation. Koda is a thief of a CM about whom I'll probably write about later in this blog. For now, I told him how I felt about corrupt politicians and he suggested nothing short of actually killing all corrupt politicians. We went on to discuss AP politics. He wasn't a fan of any particular party but we both agreed that our former CM YSR was a brilliant strategist. That the entire Congress party is reading the situation in the country very well and playing their cards well - not caving in to the Telangana movement, not caving in to the "YSR's son for CM" faction etc.
At that point I was surprised by how many assumptions he made about me and how was OK with voicing them. He talked about how neat Dubai is even if it is run by a **** (a derogatory term for a Muslim). Then he went on to ask me about my caste, he asked me if I belonged to a particular caste! Just like that! I didn't hide it, and he went on to talk about how great that particular caste is and that they are the only ones who are capable of sustaining the culture of the state and the Hindus in general (he's from a different caste but has a great deal of respect for my caste, and that was a little weird to be given any respect solely based on caste). What was mildly surprising was that he guessed my caste based on my diction. I was brought up almost entirely in Hyderabad and I always thought I had a very "city" accent, but evidently not. He asked me about my age, if I was married, how much money my company makes and so on. I got the feeling that if I was single he would have fixed me up with a relative of his. His own daughters were a few years older than me and I really think that bummed him out that I couldn't marrry either of them. Hmm, mildly flattering.
The guy himself was very interesting. He seemed to be about 65 years old. He is a businessman, and never studied beyond 6th grade. He felt bad about it and later in life he donated Rs. 2 crores (an amount of money that I will probably never end up owning, let alone donating!) to a college, which now bears his name. He talked about the importance of education and how once the country improves itself in education, it'll improve a lot. He is a very strict vegetarian and his wife is even stricter and can't even eat food when there's meat nearby. The two were returning from a trip to Nepal, apparently the place sucked! (Good to know since I was planning a trip there myself at some point.) He and his wife went on to tell me about a particular devotional channel and some program by a religious head.
When the flight landed I left without saying goodbye. He did make me a little uncomfortable but ultimately I was just in a hurry to get home. I did think of calling him because he gave me his card but even that I skipped on. He did make the flight very interesting though.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Starstruck
On my flight from Chandigarh to Hyd (via Delhi), I saw a girl get on who looked vaguely familiar. Almost instantly I figured out that this was an actress, and definitely a lesser-known one. From that point on, this is sort of how my thoughts went - "Hmm, she looks familiar. You know what, she must be one of those N. Indian actresses who act in Telugu movies in small roles or item numbers. What is her name?" About 30 minutes pass. I couldn't recollect either her first name or her last name. So I decided that since she's traveling from Chandigarh, her last name must be "Kaur". So I wondered, "Hmm, Kaur. OK, what Kaur? Think, think, think." And finally I decided to try the brute force method and ran down the letter of the alphabet. "A something Kaur? B something Kaur?" When I finally came to N, her name popped up in my head "Navneet Kaur". She's done some item numbers and maybe even a small movie somewhere. Sadly I arrived at her name after boarding my Hyd flight, or I would have tried to talk to her. Or so I told myself.
As if to test my theory, on my return journey, in Hyderabad, a beautiful woman boarded the flight. This one I recognized. Anuskha Shetty. (She looks even more beautiful in real life than in her movies.) Before the shock wore off, I realized her seat was right across the aisle from me. Oh geez, thank you very much God for calling me out on my "I'd talk to an actress if I remembered her name" bluff. So for the remaining two hours I tried to think of some smart way to talk to her. Since she was across the aisle from me, I didn't want to have a lengthy conversation but I did want to wish her a Happy Birthday (her birthday was a couple of days ago) and tell her I liked her in "Arundhathi". But there wasn't a good time at all. She went to sleep almost immediately, and when she wasn't sleeping, she was reading a book on Yoga (She used to be a yoga instructor before becoming an actress). Even at the Delhi airport I saw her a few times and she even walked right in front of me but I totally chickened out. There's always a next time to try out my "be cool with a celebrity" behavior.
BTW, it wasn't totally random that I saw two actresses during my Hyd trip. There was a fundraiser in Hyderabad to generate money for the victims of the recent floods and almost every single big actor/actress in Telugu was in town. So I was bound to run into some or the other actor. Also, the reason I knew it was Anushka's birthday two days ago was because they announced it at the fundraiser.
As if to test my theory, on my return journey, in Hyderabad, a beautiful woman boarded the flight. This one I recognized. Anuskha Shetty. (She looks even more beautiful in real life than in her movies.) Before the shock wore off, I realized her seat was right across the aisle from me. Oh geez, thank you very much God for calling me out on my "I'd talk to an actress if I remembered her name" bluff. So for the remaining two hours I tried to think of some smart way to talk to her. Since she was across the aisle from me, I didn't want to have a lengthy conversation but I did want to wish her a Happy Birthday (her birthday was a couple of days ago) and tell her I liked her in "Arundhathi". But there wasn't a good time at all. She went to sleep almost immediately, and when she wasn't sleeping, she was reading a book on Yoga (She used to be a yoga instructor before becoming an actress). Even at the Delhi airport I saw her a few times and she even walked right in front of me but I totally chickened out. There's always a next time to try out my "be cool with a celebrity" behavior.
BTW, it wasn't totally random that I saw two actresses during my Hyd trip. There was a fundraiser in Hyderabad to generate money for the victims of the recent floods and almost every single big actor/actress in Telugu was in town. So I was bound to run into some or the other actor. Also, the reason I knew it was Anushka's birthday two days ago was because they announced it at the fundraiser.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Big egos in little Chandigarh
It's been a busy couple of days at work for me. The boss gave us a project and appointed me the leader on the project. All the work would flow through me, so I have been assigning work and training the newer engineers etc. After they worked on the basics, I took over and started the more detailed stuff. At that point the others didn't have much work and they were idling.
On this particular day, after a long day of work where I barely glanced away from my computer, I called up my boss who wasn't in town, and explained to him the status of the project. While I was talking to him, I had a game of FreeCell open and was idly clicking away at the cards. At this point I noticed a guy standing behind two members of my team. He had been looking at their computer screens for a while and then he was talking to them. I didn't pay much attention because I was on the phone. When I was done, he came over to my station and pointing at my screen, said, "What are you doing?" More than a little peeved, I replied, "I was talking to my boss." He replied, "No, you are playing cards". At this point I was no longer inclined to be polite, "Who are you?" "I am ******" replied Mr. Jackass Smallunit. The name sounded a little familiar. He was some sort of big shot, but I didn't know his exact title. So I swallowed my pride a little and continued, "Well, I finished my day's work and I was talking to my boss and yeah I was idly clicking through a game." He persisted, "No, you are playing cards. This guy's talking to his friend on the phone, and this other guy is shopping for mobile phones. It's bad enough that you're playing cards, because of that these two are goofing off as well." "OK," I interrupted him, "It's not fair to anyone to blame their behavior on me." "Hmm," the Jackass nodded much like his namesake, "Give me your names on a piece of paper and give it to me", and walked off.
Oh boy, were the tempers in the group high at that point! None more than mine. How dare he question us on our work practices based on his tiny window of observation! I calmed down my team members, assured them that nothing would happen and gave him the list he asked for. Then I called up my boss and explained what happened. He simply said, "I'll take care of it". That was enough for me. Except, none of us could stop thinking about it and it kept bothering us for a while. One guy even said that he wouldn't have minded if he got fired on the spot, but for the Jackass to stand there and talk to us in that fashion was just very unprofessional. As of now, no one knows the end result of that incident but it's probably somewhere in the middle - no one's getting fired or even harshly reprimanded, but on the flip side, we won't be getting our apology either.
On this particular day, after a long day of work where I barely glanced away from my computer, I called up my boss who wasn't in town, and explained to him the status of the project. While I was talking to him, I had a game of FreeCell open and was idly clicking away at the cards. At this point I noticed a guy standing behind two members of my team. He had been looking at their computer screens for a while and then he was talking to them. I didn't pay much attention because I was on the phone. When I was done, he came over to my station and pointing at my screen, said, "What are you doing?" More than a little peeved, I replied, "I was talking to my boss." He replied, "No, you are playing cards". At this point I was no longer inclined to be polite, "Who are you?" "I am ******" replied Mr. Jackass Smallunit. The name sounded a little familiar. He was some sort of big shot, but I didn't know his exact title. So I swallowed my pride a little and continued, "Well, I finished my day's work and I was talking to my boss and yeah I was idly clicking through a game." He persisted, "No, you are playing cards. This guy's talking to his friend on the phone, and this other guy is shopping for mobile phones. It's bad enough that you're playing cards, because of that these two are goofing off as well." "OK," I interrupted him, "It's not fair to anyone to blame their behavior on me." "Hmm," the Jackass nodded much like his namesake, "Give me your names on a piece of paper and give it to me", and walked off.
Oh boy, were the tempers in the group high at that point! None more than mine. How dare he question us on our work practices based on his tiny window of observation! I calmed down my team members, assured them that nothing would happen and gave him the list he asked for. Then I called up my boss and explained what happened. He simply said, "I'll take care of it". That was enough for me. Except, none of us could stop thinking about it and it kept bothering us for a while. One guy even said that he wouldn't have minded if he got fired on the spot, but for the Jackass to stand there and talk to us in that fashion was just very unprofessional. As of now, no one knows the end result of that incident but it's probably somewhere in the middle - no one's getting fired or even harshly reprimanded, but on the flip side, we won't be getting our apology either.
Monday, November 2, 2009
The wordless transaction
A few days ago I went shopping for a cable for my mp3 player. While walking around the strip mall, I got to pull off something that had been stewing in my devious mind for a while - the wordless transaction.
Let me set the scene. It was around 7:15pm on Saturday of a SaSuMo weekend. The strip mall was lightly populated with customers. I was thirsty and saw a small restaurant. This was one of those joints that is big enough to merit a place in a strip mall like this but still dinky enough that its doors were open and it had no air-conditioning. These places usually have a glass-door refrigerator with cool drinks in them. I walked into the place, went to the fridge, pulled out a drink, walked up to the counter and placed it there. Then I pulled out a Rs. 50 note from my pocket and handed it to the cashier. He simply gave me Rs. 30 back. Not a word was exchanged. None of the - "Hello sir" "How may I help you?" "Will that be all sir?" that you're bound to get in, say, an American store.
I loved the whole process and I want to see how many more times I can do this while I'm here. Meanwhile, if any of you have ever had a wordless or, even better, a gestureless transaction, I'd love to hear of it.
Let me set the scene. It was around 7:15pm on Saturday of a SaSuMo weekend. The strip mall was lightly populated with customers. I was thirsty and saw a small restaurant. This was one of those joints that is big enough to merit a place in a strip mall like this but still dinky enough that its doors were open and it had no air-conditioning. These places usually have a glass-door refrigerator with cool drinks in them. I walked into the place, went to the fridge, pulled out a drink, walked up to the counter and placed it there. Then I pulled out a Rs. 50 note from my pocket and handed it to the cashier. He simply gave me Rs. 30 back. Not a word was exchanged. None of the - "Hello sir" "How may I help you?" "Will that be all sir?" that you're bound to get in, say, an American store.
I loved the whole process and I want to see how many more times I can do this while I'm here. Meanwhile, if any of you have ever had a wordless or, even better, a gestureless transaction, I'd love to hear of it.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Soup and "Singhara"
It's a three day weekend that got off to a horrible start thanks to three crazy girls and I don't mean "crazy" in any positive sense. Anyway, apparently my body decided to join the fun and I had myself a nice upset stomach by Sunday. So I decided to keep off the solid foods and just have soup instead.
The problem is that my #1 option for my regular meals around here had decided to switch to a "winter menu" and is therefore offering lots of hot soup for public consumption. And their idea of "lots of soup" is diluting their regular soup with water! Disgusting! The last time I went there I even offered to pay more for the good soup but they just denied that they were even diluting the soup in the first place. So now I was forced to try the #2 and #3 restaurants here. I walked into the first one and prepared myself for the weird look I knew I would get when I ordered just soup. The soup itself was horrible. It tasted too synthetic and I desperately had to resort to adding the ubiquitous ketchup to make it tolerable. After getting that into my stomach, I walked over to the other restaurant hoping they'd have a better soup. Unfortunately while this soup tasted a little less of chemicals, they had added some other junk to the soup and it wasn't any easier to swallow. This really sucks because now I have no options here for getting good tomato soup in this area.
This being a Sunday, I went to the weekly fruit bazaar nearby to see if they had any good fruit. (The last three weeks I bought fruit I flat out forgot to eat the fruits and they just rotted away.) My eyes fell on this one stall. This stall was selling what looked like small animals hearts. I had seen these once before and then I was so unsure of what these were that I didn't even ask the vendor what these were for fear of having it be something that would make me throw up. This time I decided to be a little braver. The guy told me they were called "Singhara" and quoted a price of Rs. 30 a kilo. That wasn't so bad, but I still had no idea what these were. He then told me a little more about these. Apparently they grow in water, and you can eat them after skinning them and eating what was inside or just eating them raw. He even gave me a sample to try. At this point another lady walked up and asked what the price was, he said Rs. 20 a kilo and sold them for Rs. 15. My eyes popped out of my head!! I'm all for the guy making a buck but here he was flat out trying to rob me. After the lady left I told the guy I refused to pay any more than she did and he reluctantly agreed. I bought Rs. 10 worth of the stuff and went home.
At home, after some googling I found that these were nothing other than Water Chestnuts. So that's a cool new discovery. Apparently these guys still stay crunchy after being boiled and I hope to try that out sometime soon.
The problem is that my #1 option for my regular meals around here had decided to switch to a "winter menu" and is therefore offering lots of hot soup for public consumption. And their idea of "lots of soup" is diluting their regular soup with water! Disgusting! The last time I went there I even offered to pay more for the good soup but they just denied that they were even diluting the soup in the first place. So now I was forced to try the #2 and #3 restaurants here. I walked into the first one and prepared myself for the weird look I knew I would get when I ordered just soup. The soup itself was horrible. It tasted too synthetic and I desperately had to resort to adding the ubiquitous ketchup to make it tolerable. After getting that into my stomach, I walked over to the other restaurant hoping they'd have a better soup. Unfortunately while this soup tasted a little less of chemicals, they had added some other junk to the soup and it wasn't any easier to swallow. This really sucks because now I have no options here for getting good tomato soup in this area.
This being a Sunday, I went to the weekly fruit bazaar nearby to see if they had any good fruit. (The last three weeks I bought fruit I flat out forgot to eat the fruits and they just rotted away.) My eyes fell on this one stall. This stall was selling what looked like small animals hearts. I had seen these once before and then I was so unsure of what these were that I didn't even ask the vendor what these were for fear of having it be something that would make me throw up. This time I decided to be a little braver. The guy told me they were called "Singhara" and quoted a price of Rs. 30 a kilo. That wasn't so bad, but I still had no idea what these were. He then told me a little more about these. Apparently they grow in water, and you can eat them after skinning them and eating what was inside or just eating them raw. He even gave me a sample to try. At this point another lady walked up and asked what the price was, he said Rs. 20 a kilo and sold them for Rs. 15. My eyes popped out of my head!! I'm all for the guy making a buck but here he was flat out trying to rob me. After the lady left I told the guy I refused to pay any more than she did and he reluctantly agreed. I bought Rs. 10 worth of the stuff and went home.
At home, after some googling I found that these were nothing other than Water Chestnuts. So that's a cool new discovery. Apparently these guys still stay crunchy after being boiled and I hope to try that out sometime soon.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)