Playing Resident Evil on the road

There's a stretch of road, about a kilometer long on the way to my apt
from work. This particular stretch has big rectangular patches of
unfinished road at random. When you drive on the road, you try to
avoid these patches by swerving around them. They're not so bad that
you'll damage the scooter or hurt yourself if you drive through one of
them, but they're a nuisance nevertheless. You don't want to get
carried away and swing too much because there are other vehicles on
the road. So you end up memorizing, or trying to memorize the
locations of all the patches so you can anticipate and avoid them.
It's like playing a video game.

You know that scene in the movie "Resident Evil" where the guys are
trapped in a passageway and the lasers cut across the room and the
guys have to jump around to avoid getting chopped up? This stretch of
the road reminds me of that. And if you've seen the movie you know it
doesn't end well for the guys. It's the same here as well. After all
these patches of unfinished road, there's a big band of unfinished
road that stretches across the width of the road. And you can't avoid
it, so you end up going through it.

Game over.

I'm pretty sure I entered a red light district

(These are the first non-violent thoughts I've had since the attacks
in Mumbai. I don't think I want to share the violent thoughts yet.)

Friday evening I decided to go shopping at the Lakshmi road area but
that plan quickly disappeared due to too many choices. So I decided to
make the most of it and picked up about Rs. 10 worth of boiled and
salted peanuts and just walk around in the neighborhood. The area is a
lot of fun with plenty of random stores specializing things you
wouldn't think they'd have stores for. Like wooden horses, I saw about
three different stores selling those.

I parked my scooter at a big intersection and explored all the four
quadrants around that. I didn't even realize I was (probably) in a red
light area for a while. It wasn't the whole neighborhood but in one
area I saw a big group of women just standing around, standing very
close to each other. I assumed they were waiting for a bus but it
didn't seem like a bus stop, and the street was too narrow to actually
allow a bus in. Then I thought they were waiting for milk or some
other groceries. Again, they were a little too dressed up for that.
Then I noticed there were no men near them. Considering atleast of
them were dressed up like housewives, I thought they'd be accompanied
by their husbands. But then I kept walking and saw another group of
women standing around. And then another.

When it hit me I tensed up so bad my neck started hurting. I avoided
making eye contact with anyone and just walked out of there as fast as
I could. You always think you'll act cool when put in awkward
positions, but I did not want anyone to walk up to me and ask me if I
wanted a good time. I think I'd have a heart attack!

The only reason I am not sure I saw what I think I saw is that I
didn't see any negotiation take place. There were a few guys walking
on the street, and a few sitting in restaurants etc in that area. But
not a single one of them was talking to any of the women. Also, from
movies etc, I expected atleast a few women to be brazen and solicit
customers. These women just stood there. Maybe it was because they
didn't want any complaints about them harassing people. Or maybe they
were just really waiting for milk.

Somehow I doubt it.

View from a temple

Everyday as I go to work, I see this giant sign that says "Om Namah
Shivayah" (written in devanagri of course). I had wondered why it was
there but finally, about 10 days ago I checked it out. Turns out it's
the Tarakeshwara Temple. It sits on a small hill right next to the
busy Yerawada Bridge. I parked my scooter at the base and climbed up
the rather steep steps to the top, all the time wondering how people
managed to do any maintainance on that hill, seeing as it's so
inaccessible. I found out once I got to the top that there's a road
that leads right to the top of the hill :) Oh well, good exercise.
The view from the temple is just amazing. You get a great view of the
river and a bunch of buildings on either side. I decided this would be
a great place to shoot from early in the morning. I wanted to scout
the way to the hill first since I didn't want to be searching for it
and miss the sunrise. And that's how I got to meet another wonderful
Punekar.
Basically I got lost in some alleys and I stopped to get directions.
This guy was sitting on his scooter, talking to someone in a store.
When I asked him for directions he was dismayed that I was so very
lost. Then, instead of just giving me directions, he started up his
scooter and asked me to follow him. He only left after pointing out
how I could get the main road. Maybe he was going to leave anyway, but
he didn't have to do that.
(And yet I hear from these people who claim Punekars are rude and
annoying. Wrong!)

I never got around to visiting the temple during the daytime yet.
Partly laziness, but also the morning mist/fog these winter days is
too think to get good photographs of the sunrise. It provides for a
different type of look but I wanted a clear sunrise. Maybe I'll try it
anyway. But summer is when it should be fun to shoot.

India's Eva Green

Google "Kangana Ranaut" if you don't know who that is. And help me
figure out why she reminds me of Eva so much. I think it's the
extremely exotic look each of them has. Eva with her smoky eyes and
Kangana with her curly hair. And both are preternaturally pale.
Regardless, I think they're both very interesting creatures. Kangana
is probably the only Bollywood celebrity I'd like to meet at this
point. Maybe Gul Panag. The rest seem beyond vacuous.

Even the so called serious male actors who keep cheapening themselves
with the commercial cinema. Only exception is Nandita Das who seems
like she'd rather jump into a volcano than do a typical Bollywood
movie. Sadly the movies that does act in aren't inherently that good.
Otherwise I'd add her to my list.

The million dollar arm - update

Turns out the Million Dollar Arm kids didn't disappear into obscurity
like I'd imagined they would. They ended up signing with the
Pittsburgh Pirates.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/baseball/mlb/11/24/pirates.indians.ap/index.html?cnn=yes

A few notes -

a) When I saw the headline, "Pirates sign two..." I immediately
assumed the story was something to do with the Somali pirates.

b) The URL for the story as you can see says "Pirates.Indians". Now in
case you don't know, there's a team called the Cleveland Indians. So
one could be tempted to think the story was about a trade between the
Pirates and the Indians.

c) Can't wait for these kids to be traded one day to Cleveland so we
can have the Indian Indians. Dots meet feathers. The Universe with
explode.

Scrubs censoring in India

Just found out Scrubs is on TV here. And guess what I found gets
censored? You know when Dr. Cox refers to Turk as "Gandhi". Yeah,
that's out! I just laughed out loud when I noticed that.

Decadence

The lassi from heaven. Or is it hell?

Last week as we went out to get some supplies for the lab at work, we stopped by this dinky-looking restaurant very close to work. The place looks like it serves only milk products - plain milk, lassi, ice cream etc. Apparently this place is quite famous and the guys wanted me to try this item called "Lassi, Double Malai". Malai (మీగడ) is basically cream. The stuff you get when you churn unhomogenized milk; the stuff that when you melt in a pan you get ghee.) Except this is fresh, thick, greasy cream. The stuff I can imagine Lord Krishna craving for as a kid. As fatty as you can imagine. They add two spoonfuls of this (funnily enough, the menu doesn't have a "Lassi, Single Malai") stuff to the already sweet, thick lassi. This is the equivalent of one of those enormous burgers you get at BK or McD's - it looks like it could give you a heart attack just by looking at it.

On the other hand, it's sooo good. So decadent. Even if you got a heartattack from having this stuff, you'll die with a smile on your face. They serve it to you in simple steel glass with a spoon in it. It can't be more than a 100ml of liquid in there. You dig into the malai and lick the spoon clean. Sometimes by the time you finish the malai, there's hardly any lassi left. That's how much the ratio of malai to lassi is.

If you want to be jealous of one item of food I'm eating here, this has to be it.