Finally, the fine taste of Cow Urine!!!

Piss dilemma came back to hit me in a vicious way today. Our office was inaugurated in Pune today and since I and Saumya were the only couple present, we were asked to represent in the ceremonies which the priest conducted. I was fine with this role because I recently went through a big ceremony with all kind of recitals in my marriage.

So this thing started...and I am perfectly fine. Then this guy starts preparing something and everything looks fine. Milk, Curd, Honey, Ghee...and damn it...I see one more thing...some yellow liquid from a bottle...the bottle says in Hindi: Cow Urine. I am 100% sure that we would not be required to drink this mixture. Doesn't happen that way..he pours a spoonful in our hand and ask us to take it in....DAMN IT DAMN IT DAMN IT...

I and Saumya officially are now part of that group of people in India who have drank cow urine. I used to hate that program on AXN where they would show people in Benares drinking cow urine before going to work. I would hate every bit of that episode because I really thought that it was creating an image of India that was not true( and really...as you can see in the picture..a child bathing in cow urine..that should be so rare). I was also sure that very few people have had the pleasure.Now I am sure that this problem is wide spread considering that priests are dishing it around in these kind of ceremonies.DAMN IT DAMN IT DAMN IT...

My 9/11

9/11 has a certain ring to it since terrorist hit America that fateful day in 2001. There are certain aspects of this date which are worth observing. If you are in America, 9/11 would mean 11th September. In Europe, India and a lot of the wider world, 9/11 would mean 9th November. So all depends on how you write your days and months.

My 9/11 was very interesting because it was wedding day for me in Jaipur. While the whole day and night, and following day was quite surreal, there are some observations which I thought I will share with the readers:

1) Clearly, dancing is not the forte for a majority of people who do end up dancing in an Indian wedding. It definitely does not come naturally in my family, proof being awful dancing by my father and I can definitely match him step by step for some awful steps. There were quite a few on the wedding day, especially Rob, who did try but was awful. I guess he should be given the benefit of the doubt because it was his first Indian wedding. If you had seen Bhupesh grind, you could see that he doesn't dance a lot but is super with wedding numbers...so take in some alcohol, get inspired a little and shake it for your friend somehow managing on top of that cranky horse.

2) India has a big eunuch problem and our party was not going to escape this menace. They do their job well and have you by your balls at the very time when you would definitely not get into an argument with them. Their deal is simple: give them good amount of money and they won't do what they can(too shitty to describe here). Not so easy for us...this one came to us and asked for money...my dad offered some which was much much below his expectation...and the nuisance started...somehow we managed to get away but not without our share of embarrassment.

3) Finally, a lot of people offer cash as a gift to the bride and the groom( Unlike some who really find and get time to come up with something really innovative). So we got our share of envelopes and believe me, the number of these envelopes during the period of the ceremonies can be quite substantial. I am wondering while sitting on stage( because after some time, what is happening becomes quite repetitive) what would be an average contribution if you take out the outliers...I am thinking somewhere between 150-200 rupees per household. I am also thinking with th total crowd around us that the number of households would be around 200. So that makes it around 40,000 rupees in gifts. Now this number does not seem very big to me and I am wondering if my mind is already in the recession mode where it has already factored in the suppressed desire of the participants to gift cash and save money in this turbulent time!!!

Swing States, Tendulkar, Manicure, Pedicure, Facial & Aircraft MRO

Too many things happening in my head when I finally agree to visit the parlor which is a regular hangout for Saumya. I somehow have started believing that she would want at least some semblance of aesthetic symmetry from her partner in the event tonight( I am late posting this entry by 2 days!!) as well as on the wedding night on Sunday.

So I sit down and the guy convinces me to get bleaching done as well...I thought bleaching was a term used for clothes...anyways, I will let him do that to my face. He says that bleaching would take out the blackness from my face and facial would give it a glow....did he know that when he was using the word black in somewhat of a denigrating way, thousands of people some ten thousand miles away were beginning to line up to elect a black president for the most powerful nation of the world. So he is blurbing out things and I am resigning to yeses...because now Obama is in my head...what will happen in all these swing states...i think he will pull it off in Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Pennsylvania...what about the big two: Ohio and Florida...and what about Virginia...can he pick either Indiana or North Carolina...

So all these things are happening...and this guy starts applying a thick coat of some white cream on my face...I see that I can keep my eyes open so I decide to start reading the latest edition of the magazine Tehelka. Cover story is about Sachin Tendulkar and some chap called Suresh Menon has written it. I stumble upon a pic in which Sachin is throwing the ball and the caption says something like Sachin is one of the greatest fielder of all time...WHAT THE FU@#...but such is the nonsense that flies around when people really have to evaluate Sachin, that its better that you suck up your rage and move on..

So this cream thing sits on my face for sometime and then the guy removes it...I guess that was the end of bleaching phase...in the meantime, one guy has started working on my feet...I guess the phrase that can be applied is I AM BEING MANNED!! For some random reason, I am beginning to think about the kind of manning that happens in commercial MROs...8000 man hours of work packed in a week in 3 shifts on one airplane...you can imagine the kind of buzz around that baby....too much work I guess that is making me think about these things...but really, it is becoming a situation where I cannot be manned anymore...three people are working on me and too much male breath is hanging in the air...this thing has to end soon...but it doesn't....the work is hardly worth 30 minutes but even in a fixed price thing when your solution really is not worth much, you work with a time material mindset...so anyways, I am done with this ordeal after some 60 minutes wondering how big a win Obama would rack up...

With Obama Elected, A New Phase In My Life Will Start on 5th November

The first polls on 4th November will close at 5:00 Pacific Time. That would be 5:30a.m. on 5th November here in India. In next 3 hours, America would have elected a president it so badly needs after 8 bull headed years of the incumbent. America would be sending a clear message to the world that it is ready to engage again. And hopefully, America would again be providing the leadership that is expected from the most powerful and the biggest economy in the world.

I will be using this auspicious occasion to start a life of my own. While America is electing Obama, I would be busy preparing for the first of several fucntions that will finally culminate into the wedding on 9th November. The function on 5th is called Sangeet and I will be on stage doing some moves myself along with Saumya. The practice has been tough and I even walked out once on the choreographer. But all that is past now. I practiced once, the video is in the camera and I am poised to practice some more. Hopefully, that should save better dancers of the night the embarrasement of being introduced by an awful awful dancer!! Needless to say, this night and other functions to follow would have one star and I would be a kind of side show...but I guess that is ok. I have seen the effort on the bride's side as well as the dresses and there is no way I can match that

Slow but definite gang rape of Maharashtra

It is not enough that pretty much every thing is missing in Maharashtra. If you leave aside the sheer resilience of people going about their daily lives unperturbed with basic support, then there is pretty much nothing. I am going to get settled in Pune soon and believe me, whoever painted a very rosy picture of the place needs a tight kick from you. Very basic infrastructure is missing. There are no roads in very big areas of the city. Airport does not let flights take off or land after 7 and it is hell to find a cab. That does not mean that you will pay top money to rent any apartment.

So you would think that someone would start putting these things together. Pune was the favorite manufacturing destination for a very long time but then Sena did to industry in Pune what Communists did to everything in Bengal....go and ask for money from the industrialists or make life hell for them. No wonder, a lot of manufacturing has migrated to Chennai and Hyderabad. There still is a lot of industry left and especially because hiring people from so many colleges in Pune is easy. But the latest nonsense is classical. This whole hoopla about kicking out North Indians who are taking up jobs from Marathi people could be the final nail in a city which looks like a very very big slum. If it needed one final push, this might be it.

The Piss Dilemma

The Deccan flight from Jashedpur to Calcutta is about to take off and the person with me finds himself in an interesting situation. His seat has signs of some liquid which looks like water. Problem is that this water does not smell but has a lot of drops on the back part of the seat. Now this being not a full service flight, waiting for the air hostess to come and do something about the wetness is too much hassle. So this person goes ahead, takes out his handkerchief and wipes the wetness away.

Alas! The smell is now all over us. But still we are not sure if it is coming from the liquid that just landed into this guy's pocket or something else. Well, after cleaning the seat, he decides not to sit on it...talk about sacrifice!!! So he is sitting next to me and I am talking aloud about what if it was piss, against all our fears. So the gentleman takes out the hankey just to make sure and YUK...it has to be piss...both of us would have puked...we tuck the hankey in the seat and are fortunate to find two vacant seats...doesn't matter that we were ascending and the seat belt sign is on...this was a true emergency!!!!

I have thought about this incident for last one week and wondered how the whole thing could have been different. One option( which can lead to deflation of your ego) was to bend down and go close enough to find signs of smell which would have proved conclusively that it was piss. Now that seems like a good idea now but at that time, how could you commit yourself to smelling piss volunatrily!!! Other option, as one of my friend Rajeev Singh suggested, was to carry a litmus paper( not sure if it is called pH strip) and see if the liquid shows some alkaline inclinations...well, I have heard that Rajeev has done this to bull's excreta too without reaching any conclusions!!!

So jokes apart, what do you do in these situation. It seems to be the work of an innocent kid with an insufficient diaper. And with so much ambience smell hanging in the Indian air, it does take some effort to really find out if the liquid in front of you is piss or not. I have one learning: I would never use my hanky to clean some liquid in front of me...its something to struggle with this problem but it is too much of a stretch to go out and get that smelly wetness all in your pocket!!!

Kennedy Slain On Dallas Street!!!

This headline in Dallas Morning News of November 23, 1963 says it all. I am in Dallas for a customer conference and was staying at the Adolphus at the Main Street. Not far from there is the 6th floor of the then Texas School Book Depository Building on Elm Street where, allegedly, Less Oswald killed the president with a rifle shot in his head. This floor has been converted into a museum with videos from Kennedy's speeches and everything surrounding the assassination. The place is sombre as well as elating for the work presented. The most chilling part is to look out of the window down the Elm Street going into the highway and imagine what happened there on that fateful day. I find out in some of the literature in the museum that Kennedy actually had received a lot of threats from Texas for his pro-civil rights position and his numbers had fallen dramatically in this state which was Democratic at that time. Preparing for his reelection in 1964, he was out trying his best to be as close as possible to the people( and hence an open car)...and that was his undoing.

There are a couple of things which are interesting to note about Kennedy's presidency. He clearly evoked very strong responses from the young who enrolled in droves in the newly created Peace Corps.Another achievement was a road map he created for a lot of civil liberties for black people which came to fruition once LBJ came to power. The committment to land on moon was another example of his visionary capabilities. He also enunciated a very positive vision for America along with strongly standing up to the threat of communism. Probably, his biggest moment of glory in terms of foreign policy was the successful resolution of the Cuban missile crisis....not to forget that speech in Berlin which ended with Kennedy proclaiming Ich bin ein Berliner( I am a Berliner).

Having said that, foreign policy was one area where, I contend, Kennedy administration also committed massive blunders. Bay of pigs, escalation of commitment in Vietnam and erection of the Berlin Wall- all happened while Kennedy was at the helm. Interestingly, most successful foreign policy since 2nd World War was probably run under Richard Nixon who is considered the most uninspiring of all the US presidents in last 50 years( Did I forget Jimmy Carter???).

Anyways, it was quite a moment at the place where all this happened and it is still soaking in. To be so close to what was a sort of myth for a very long time with the video of Kennedy hit and the slow slumber into Jacqueline's arms and then her climbing up the rear of the car in her pink dress...everything happened right there...right where my eyes were.

I actually bought news paper prints from the souvenir shop of two editions of Dallas Morning News for November 23( with the headline: Kennedy Slain On Dallas Street) and one for November 26(35th President Finds His Peace On Slope In Arlington Cemetery), 1963 and they are just chilling. Imagine Texas in 1963, walking into a house to find a copy of these newspapers lying on the coffee table!!!

Veggie King, King Pommes, Tomato Ketchup and Coke at Zurich Airport

...sounds pretty mundane to everyone who is reading this post? Well...not so soon. There is a story in this title too. So I am at Zurich airport and see my first Burger King in Switzerland. I am pretty sure there would be nothing veggie there but I decide to try my luck...so I go through the menu and to my delight, I find something called a Veggie King. I make sure with the guy at the counter and he confirms...so quick questions from him...you want fries? Yes...Tomato Ketchup or Mayonnaise? Tomato Ketchup...Coke? Yes....very good. I am all set for 13 Swiss Franks. By the way, I am kind of surprised by the preciseness of the questioning...are they trying to save money from people who waste Ketchup by taking tonnes of sachettes???? You never know what solution a consulting company might have puked out!!

The big surprise comes when I take a bite into the burger. I was expecting a soy patty like the one you get in US in the name of veggie burger. Not here...this one is a crisp mix veggie( potatoes, peas, kidney beans and carrot) burger and I am reminded of the wonderful veggie burger you can have in India in McDonald's. To the grief of all vegetarians, McDonald does not have anything veggie in their menu outside India. I am beginning to wonder how long it would be before they introduce at least a couple of items from their menu in India around the world. I have come across enough veggies especially in big cities in US and I am sure it is just a matter of time...

Valerio, Varun Matta and Brutal Defeats

Squash used to be one game I thought I was good at. I actually was captain of our hostel squash team in 3rd year and a member in 4th year and we won Bronze both the years. By the way, Bronze reminds me of a pretty pussy performance from Varun Matta against a pretty pussy player called Shirshanka Das. Our whole strategy against a hostel depended on giving 2 games to their best players and winning the remaining three. That would have taken us to the finals where we would have a decent chance. Didn't happen that way courtesy a very bad game from Matta.

Times moved on from those good days of 1999, 2000. My game went completely downhill and I stopped playing altogether. In last three years, I started getting the opportunity to play again and at three crucial times, my game has let me down.. First I lost to a Berkeley guy at C4C tournament in 2006 at Stanford in 15 minutes before my friends in Bay Area could even arrive for cheering. I promised that I would quit smoking, practise hard and build up my stamina for next year. Same result in 2007 but this time I got many more points. I won the first game, was leading 5-2 in the second and ended up losing in three games to another guy from Berkeley. Definitely my hard work was not enough. I should have used some "Maa-Behen ki gaali" against this guy who was also from IIT Delhi and was now doing his MBA from Berkeley. I decided not to despite encouragement from Jasbeer who was cheering me from outside. So I decided to have my sleep( haar ki neend in words of Ashish Bhatia) and forgot about it.

Then came La Chaux-de-fonds and a guy at my client site about whom people told me that he was pretty good. They did not tell me more and I did not shy away from throwing a challenge at him. Soon the information started trickling in. This guy Valerio was a regular in tournaments near French border of Switzerland and was very very good....but the die was cast and I had to play him. The result was again a crushing defeat...9-0, 9-0 in swift 10 minutes even though he definitely was not playing at competitive level to give me some chance.

I guess time to do something about this recurring problem....these nights after defeats are pretty dreary..

My French Is Old...

So airports in general are interesting places. You have so many people around you and you are still all alone. Interestingly I feel the same about marriages too!!! So I am at Frankfurt airport walking towards my gate to catch a United flight to San Francisco. Now this airport is crazy for the amount of walking you might have to do to reach from one place to other.

So I start walking and the gate for my flight has not been decided. I just know that it is going to be C something. So I sit down near C1 waiting for the exact allocation of the gate. There is this old female security person who is trying to explain something to this old guy. She waves some directions and he goes along. She looks at me, throws a smile and starts a conversation. I have absolutely nothing to do and I don't want to waste money on any duty free shopping as well. So I grab my chance and shower my attention on her. I guess she is sick of answering to so many people but really not talking to anyone.

First thing she says:" You know, my French is old"!!! I immediately ask her, " You mean, your French is bad". No, No...comes the reply. I used to know French when I was a teenager( and she promptly adds that people don't realize how old she is. You know, I am 50. I feel like shouting, I definitely knew you were not less than 50!!). So she tells me that she learnt French and Spanish in her teens but now can only understand it. So this guy to whom she was telling directions, he was French and she was having difficulty answering his questions in French.

She goes on to tell me how even if someone asks any questions in Japanese, she understands it a lot of times...why? because most of the time, people are asking for toilets which majority of the times are inside the gates and very few in general terminal area. So she has to keep reminding everyone to not go out otherwise they would have to go through security check again. People keep wondering how many languages she knows. I call this the language of experience. If you are a security guard at the airport and people keep stumbling upon you with questions, how many different type of questions they would have? Where are the toilets? What gate is my flight on? How can I reach terminal 2? When would the gate number be announced? So pretty much, you can have a list of 10 questions which would cover pretty much all the cases. Now this person has answered these same 10 questions for last 20 years and no wonder, she can answer anything asked in any language.

How long would it take to train someone to this level if you decide to lay off folks and then hire them again? I guess a lot of people struggle with this question these days...

The problem of too much proximity

I got some time from my stay in Switzerland to visit Jungraujoch and the highest point in Europe. The trip was fantastic. I started at 7:00 in the morning and after my changes...La Chaux-de-fonds, Biel, Bern, Interlaken OST, Kleinn Scheddig, I reached Jungfraujoch...the final leg of the trip is all in a tunnel dug into a mighty mountain called Eiger. This tunnel is a wonderful example of the no-holds-bar engineering that you see in these parts of the world. You also wonder how much lead time people have in Europe with respect to engineering knowledge. I guess right from the time of Renaissance following the medieval ages, they have been at one thing or the other...Did someone whisper in my ear that Da Vinci had the design of an airplane??? Well, making Da Vinci part of any discussion is making sure that you really cannot discuss any other thing at all.

So 5 hours later, I am at the top of Europe...I walk around...see the glacier and all....and I am done in 10 minutes!!! Is there something wrong?? Did I have the same feeling at some other place as well? Yes...last year...Toronto...Niagra Falls...Prateek drove me down to Niagra...there was the huge Victoria Lake in between and I kept asking Prateek when will the falls come....I had assumed that there would be some buildup in terms of difficulty of terrain and all to get to such a big fall....Not at all...we drive all the way up to the fall...Ahhhhh...it was such a disappointment. To some extent, I feel the same at Jungfrajoch. The difference this time around probably was a wonderful train ride at a pretty steep terrain but it takes you right there...right there and that probably is my problem.

I like this big things at some distance...too much proximity kills my interest. I remember watching the mighty Nanda Devi from Auli more than 10 years back and the sight of that mighty mountain at a distance is still pretty vivid....not so much for either Niagra or Eiger...I went right there, felt them happen in front of me and the myth was washed away!!! Nanda Devi still remains at quite some distance...a 7000 meter plus mountain and when people decide to track it, they have to cross a ferocious Alaknanda on a rope...at times, an unlucky one even gets washed away....

Refusing Money From A Customer "Make My Trip" Way

So now I am in India and I will try to be more regular at this place than I have been in the past.

One of my first shopping experience was with Make My Trip, India's premier travel portal. I try to book a flight using the website and they stop me from doing it because I have a non-Indian credit card!!! No problem. I try to find a way to go back and change the information I gave. No way. You have to start the booking all over again. I am pretty sure not many people are using this website. It is actually quite a surreal experience. If you have used it, you will know what I mean. None the less, this comes as no surprise. I was told that Internet in India is not used a lot for transactional purposes.

Now I try to use the next channel...a phone number in Gurgaon. The initial prompts are smooth and the system is quickly able to identify that I want to purchase a domestic ticket. Now comes the human interface. Someone called Arti picks up the phone and I tell her that I want a flight from Jaipur to Bombay on Sunday. Her first question is: Are you calling for informational purposes!! hahahahaha....these people are beginning to irritate me but I have some more patience left. I say no, I want to buy a ticket. She says ok...there are some flights on Sunday and I say I want the one with Indian Airlines in the morning. Her reply is awesome...rather than making sure to close the sale, she tells me whether she can put me on hold for as much as 5 minutes!!! Lovely....yeh jo des hai mera....whoever is managing the call center operations of makemytrip should be kicked in the a$%. I still keep the patience. Ms. Arti comes back every 2 minutes and asks 2 questions and then disappears...interestingly, she never took my credit card information. Talk about the desire to not make money...I am wondering if she looks like Indira Gandhi? or probably Prakash Karat!!!

Finally, she comes back to tell me she cannot buy travel insurance for me. I say bye bye and decide to write this post. Do I need to explain the problem with what just happened? I guess no...it seems pretty self evident.