Grandad

I know I haven't written in a couple of years. 
I know that this might just be another start to a series of fabulous literature but in all likelihood it may be nothing. 
Today my grandfather would've been 85. He died after battling lymphoma for about a year and a half. I wrote this in the middle of all of that. It's all I can think of writing for now. 

I've started this many times... just a little something about my grandfather. It began when we first heard that he had cancer back in November of 2011. At that time this was on paper. With ink. Because I thought it was something that had to be romanticized and perhaps pontificated. Ink doesn't work well on wet paper. Six rounds of chemotherapy, the scare of imminent death and gradually watching him recover from half the man he used to be to something maybe stronger made thoughts of writing this recede to the back burner. Till the cancer came back and today he gets admitted again for another round of chemotherapy. Another 6 cycles of fear, uncertainty and perhaps a consummation that no one really wants or wishes for. 
Like all things now I begin to write again. A memoir, perhaps. Memories of him and me. Not his biography, not a paean. Just what he means to me as a person, as a grandfather, as a friend. 
The reason I write is because when I think back the first clear memory I have of people is one of him. He was younger then, as was I he would have been about 56, a head of white hair which apparently had always been that way. There's a picture of him when he got married where he has some black hair I think. It was a cold Delhi winter, much before global climate confusion made Delhi hotter and colder, cold enough for a 3 year old me to not want to wake up and walk across the arctic floor to wash up. He'd make me stand on his feet and walk me to the basin. 'Thatha Chappal' we'd call it. I remember that as clearly as yesterday. The rest of the times at that age blur and are only clear in photographs and thus not a memory I relate to, just perhaps ones that I recognize. 
I spent two years in Delhi and I'm not quite sure when we moved from a little home in Patel Nagar to a swanky deal in the Asiad Games Village (built at a time when Mr Kalmadi had nothing to do with Games and Village). Perhaps these are memories from many summers I spent there. But I digress. I remember him clearly then too. Tall, fit as a fiddle for a middle aged man. He'd religiously run Brylcreem through his hair every morning. And when a curious me would explore the tin I'd be warned that my hair would turn white just like his. Still I loved that smell, and I still do and I suppose that premature greying gene just skipped us by. 
I also think the Brylcreem was sourced like many t-shirts from Mustafa in Singapore and Malaysia where he went every month. 
I remember his ritual waking up and a short puja, coffee, newspaper, bath, longer puja, which was always interrupted with calls from Agartala and Kapurtala, and a full lunch made by a usually grumpy grandmother by 9.30AM. He'd then leave. And come back later when I'd usually be quasi awake from all the consumption or exertion of a child in summer. 
There were days he'd leave earlier, where I wouldn't hear the bells in the puja room as I woke, or have to answer phone calls and grandmom seemed unusually cheery. Bombay I was told. He'd come back always with a box of alphonso by dinner time. 
Years later after he retired and came down to Bangalore, the apartment became a second home. It lay en route from home to school and there was always food, anecdotes and the option to curl up and be pampered. 
It was a different man who I learnt to love over those years. He wasn't obviously as busy as he was when he worked but still would infuriate my grandmom by taking walks to the local bank/post office/railway ticket counter/market/temple/sweet shop immediately after lunch, at 10.30AM nowadays and once more in the evenings, usually clocking about 10-12km a day. 
He'd tell us stories of his time as a boy, an orphan at 8, brought up by his poor yet proud grandmother. On how he and other boys his age used to play football barefoot, swim in the local river and walk 10 miles to the nearest town once a fortnight to watch a film and  eat onion sambar, which wouldn't be made at home. He went on to become a civil engineer and then from the PWD to the Railways. Spent most of his time in the north and in Vishakhapatnam, which he still calls Waltair and made a bunch of friends. 
It is with these friends that he'd tell my grandmother most evenings that he was "going to bridge" and proceed to play a few rubbers. He learnt to drive a Jeep and did not, despite being in Raipur and then Delhi, learn Hindi. 
This time again is a blur and filled with little anecdotes of how his part of the rail track was always so much better, how he built a railway line across Malaysia and Singapore working only in the night, how bridges are beautiful and tunnels difficult. And how street food, no matter how good a cook grandmom is, has its own charm. The only clear story though is of a time he and a colleague quaffed about half a kilo more than what is considered gentlemanly of "soan halwa". And made like well fed boa constrictors for the better part of 3 days. 
Our times in Bangalore, when I was in school had 4 major components. Him trying to get me to learn math. The old way. "If 3 and 3/4 raw bananas cost 2 and 2/3 of an anna, how much would 4 and 1/3 raw banana cost." A wrong answer would get me a "mandu!" (imbecile). 
Him trying to get me interested in sports, where I suspect he still thinks he's a failure but his other grandson more than makes up for me. 
His sweet tooth, which involved looking expectantly and grandmom after lunch and every 3rd hour hence. For her part there usually was something. If not a spoonful of sugar accompanied by a guilty look would do. 
Walks, to the aforementioned local bank/post office/railway ticket counter/market/temple/sweet shop, where we'd discuss life, the universe and everything and listen with rapture at his stories. And be treated to a coffee. 
A lot of what I am, or perhaps what I want to be is born out of those talks and that time. 
As time went on our talks changed. To life, religion, his interpretation of Hinduism and the respect he has for his parents and how they are central to prayer. Of death and sadness as his friends and contemporaries fell to disease and age while he still was healthy enough to feel their loss. 
And I don't know when but somewhere along the way he decided that he would walk up the seven hills of thirupati every year to ask for his children's and grandchildren's happiness. I think it was when my cousin was diagnosed with autism. I don't know if he blamed himself, or what made him do that, but he did. Every year till 2011. For everything. I had the good fortune to accompany him one year. 2007. Me in dri-fit and Nikes and a knee brace, him in a dhoti and shirt and chappals. And he wasn't even short of breath 7 hills later. 
We spoke of marriage, of how my happiness was more important that just being married. And I saw that I'd gained much more than just a grandfather... He was now a friend. 
Ever since I've known of his condition, it's been a constant battle between being a doctor and knowing the statistics and being a grandson and weeping with him. I wish I were a tenth of the man he is, for even now he comforts me when I want to weep and asks me about the chemo when I feel like being a doctor. 
I was with him the last time he was in pain following chemo when he looked at me, his eyes a combination of sadness and anger and he said that he would not want to go through this again and I promised him he wouldn't. 
Last weekend when he knew it had returned, he said he needed to be there for us and would go through with it again. 
It's taken a bit to not breakdown with him there. But I was with him last weekend.
In his house there's a divan, frozen in time. A divan where even today at 32 I become a 5 year old and fall asleep in ten minutes with him sitting in an adjacent armchair reading the newspaper. 
I wish that time stood still...

He lived another 6 months, the last couple of which were in pain. Sometimes bearable sometimes much worse than that. 
In all that pain and agony the day before he died he found a brief period of lucidity when he told me the last words I'd ever hear, "Don't worry, Savitr. I'm fine. I'll be alright."

Google Minus

So for some reason anything I post appears on Buzz. I already have Google=Skynet issues and this particular bit of nifty-we-own-it-all-anyway code that makes whatever I write appear in bold all over the internet frightens me. I admit that's great advertising but this also censors what I write.
Which is good too... sometimes...
Anyway we decided to go off Google plus since there's just too much social networking going on and I'm beginning to feel that my entire social life is currently sitting on a rather precarious fence between real and virtual.
Again, I have to pose a counter-argument to my own rants with the old  - "some people are better off being virtually networked than in real life". And there are enough of them to make hiding behind millions of miles of fibre optic and copper cable and facebook a far better option than meeting over coffee.
But those concerns apart, this is largely a test post to make sure this blog is not broadcast across the fields of google and thus read advertently or otherwise.
More on the travails of the cooking bachelor and the undying nature of the world's most annoying coming up if this doesn't go viral.

Peace out

A Dramatic Turn of Events...

So, it turns out that the jump from resident to consultant is interesting to say the least. Most often the moneys don't increase much (most often, remember), but the perks are to die for. 

I've been a consultant for a couple of months now. A jump so to speak from mid level slave to mid level slave driver. The grass being greener, the hours being better and the power being colossal on the other side.

Bazinga!

Ok that was bad, he stopped writing even before I did. 

Practical jokes and with great power comes great etc etc apart, it's a world of difference between me, the reluctant student, to me the over-enthusiastic-I'm-so-fresh-from-exams-I-know-everything assistant professor. Mostly now I shake my head sadly at the lack of intention to learn in my students, both in the past (my current problem) and in the present (soon to be current problem)

Thankfully I don't let them too near my patients. Or patience. 

In other news, I've finally flown out of the nest and settled comfortably in a wilderness not so close yet not too far. That translates loosely to no nagging and the potential of a good meal once in a while. This living alone thing is nice too. My house, MY rules. My f***ing laundry and dust and damn it pave the parking area before it rains you wankers so I don't bring mud into my house. Like so. For you lazy I don't like clicking on links people, or oh no not again people, it points to this.

So it's a rather annoying thing to have always wanted to live like a slob without having the folks nagging about picking up behind oneself and making the bed and all that jazz and finding out, rather distressingly, that given a choice one would pick up behind oneself and make the bed and all that jazz.

The good part of course is the freedom to cook. Though we've been restricted, mostly self imposed, to processed meat, chicken and fish. Which have turned out satisfactory. I'm still alive, which is something. 

In a summary of facebook statuses since I wrote last, I came back from Singapore. Spent a rather cold, very drunk december in Jaipur for a conference with a terrible scientific session but incredible entertainment. Absolut flowing like water and belly dancers from Ukraine or Belarus or some such. 

Six months of the usual nonsense that happens in the loony bin. Moved out. Discovered Vietnamese Basa. Tossed an iphone for a good old nokia due to signal issues, stressed about iOS5 and found Infected Mushroom to be the ideal background for masochistic working out. 

And finally after mourning the departure of Mike Portnoy from Dream Theater, I got to listen to their new album and I find, albeit grudgingly, that I respect the new drummer's skills. Feel free to decide for yourselves here.

Life following the return

So day 2, which I promised to wax eloquent about a couple of months ago, was as good if not better than day 1 at Singapore. It culminated in the most exquisite black pepper crab. Facebook has some rather gruesome pictures of me battling the crab with utmost relish.
Anyway life's back to it's monotony of cracked heads and all that, barring of course the possession of Angry Birds for PC. (No I don't have an iphone or an android and the #$!@#$ Nokia 5800 doesn't have the game)
It saps productivity in the cackle of victorious birds and the occasional plaintive oink of the pigs that are decimated one by one.
Play it at your own risk. It's free on the android and obviously paid on the mac. But well worth it.
In other news I found a grill pan. Neat bit of kitchen appliance-ry that is. And on it's maiden voyage this is what it created.

That's chicken marinated in olive oil, lemon, paprika, mace and allspice with a tomato salsa and mashed potatoes.

Hungry kya?

Singapura day 1

So I had to be fingerprinted at the Singapore Immigration just beyond Johor Bahru and as a result missed my bus from the border to Lavender Road.
The bridge across the Johor strait looks like so in the rain, though.

Pulled some Tamil out of the hat and convinced the next bus to take me to the aforementioned street.
Anyway having reached the city with dreaded thoughts of it being a lot like A Brave New World thanks to my cousin programming me so, I took a quick bus ride to China Town with MrD. I should have linked his blog in my sidebar but if not it's called the Other Side and pretty much a lot of fun to read. Had a quick bite at a local restaurant of sweet and sour pork and rice and proceeded to spend a little time exploring Chinatown.
Now one of the things I remember watching about Singapore on World Cafe Asia or some such was them interviewing this German sausage cart owner who had cheese stuffed sausages. In a cliched, yet very serendipitous moment while ambling through Chinatown, lamenting the fact that every toy store was closed, I find Erlich. Austrian, not German, he still sells those delectable wursts. And this is him.

And this is a temple of sorts.

Next was a trip to the highest point in Singapore with a 360 degree view of the city which is truly breathtaking. Again no camera but you could easily google 1 Altitute at the UOB building.
A nice walk along Clarke Quay next with the standard lineup of bars, very drunk expats and tourists and a really nice beer at Brewerkz. Both the India Pale Ale and the Oatmeal Stout are worth writing about and a trip to the joint. That was followed by a shot at Mulligan's the Irish bar and a good evening at Blue Jazz on Ophir Road. Which is opposite the interestingly titled Gotham Building.
Now we left Blue Jazz with it's very talented jazz band at 1AM and proceeded to China One (another bar on Clarke Quay). Nice little joint with some decent techno and electronica and the occasional hip hop track. However a Flaming Lamborghini later. It seemed they also had a nice alternative rock act doing a gig there. Amateur but very very tight. I have no idea what they're called though but they were great. And not just because of the alcohol.
And after that crazy night, punctuated with music alcohol and one very strange multiple martial art instructor from New York who insisted on teaching dance, martial art and finally walking till at 5 we ambled home to sleep.
Day two follows

The straits of Melaka

So my little sojourn in Kuala Lumpur came to end in a hungover morning. Hoegaarden, Guinness and Laphroiag being blamed sorely I proceeded to a temporary make shift bus terminal called Bukit Jalil. Temporary and makeshift is the primary impression the place makes in one’s mind with large sheds and tarpaulins covering some twenty odd buses.

And therefore a two hour bus ride later I was at Melaka.

As the British would say, it’s a charming little town. Quiet, largely bored with everything.

Things to do in Melaka – go to Jonker’s street. Visit the only joint to have featured in the lonely planet – the Geographer Café. Drink down another Hoegaarden with batter fried calamari. Hop down the road to this roadside Chinese joint and have a Tiger beer with pork. Proceed up the road to a chicken with rice ball joint and proceed to consume them with relish.

Settle in to a nice boat to take the river cruise – a 45 minute up and down through the river which is pretty as can be. Better at night since the graffiti on the walls of the buildings on either side is lit up as is Kumpung Morten, a riverside village.

Try to ignore the rain pelting down on you. I missed Portuguese street because of that rain.

I will have to come back here over a weekend sometime, there was a pub with an open mike night that I couldn’t visit due to companion constraints. Companion restraints rather…

I’m off to Singapore. Pictures will follow.

Update - I'm in Singapore. Happy joy!

Chamarajpet to China...

... or KLPD part 2

So the day began on a good note... bbq cheeseburger whist wistfully watching folks gorge on KFC at 8.30AM. Yeah the time when one hears the last fading notes of the suprabhatam and is hurrying to work. That time. Beef burgers and KFC. As the most important meal of the day. Need I really say any more. Things largely went downhill from thence, with mostly boring conference lectures barring one on stem cells (incidentally those little buggers are so big, folks have begun randomly injecting them around in the hope that they'll prove to be a Lazarus Pit). By evening once all was done I headed out the Central Market(Est circa 1888, much after Mangal Pandey refused beef and began it all) which is close to but not at KL Sentral. It's just off the Pasar Seni station and en route one finds this off the Pasar Seni station.

and for a better view...

Apparently Melaka, where I'm headed to next has bigger and better ones.

That apart, the central market is like Malaysia's partially regulated handicraft emporium, not unlike the Cauvery in home sweet home. So many, "I'm sorry I'm not looking for a batik sarong with a matching shirt", later I escaped and moved to Petaling Street. Where if you have a cycle you cannot be petaling because it's too crowded, la.
So this is Chinatown. What a trip that joint is. As usual fake china made goods at potentially rock-bottom prices if you have the time and energy to bargain. Street side restaurants with beer and pork. And the occasional accost from a commercial sex worker (I wanted to say whore but it's kinda politically incorrect).
Now if I'd only remembered to eat Haagen Dazs...
Anyway the day ended with Hoegaarden, Guinness, chicken and pork. And Laphroaig.
I could potentially die and go to heaven but I still have Melaka and Singapore to write about.

KL diary...

... or KLPD part 1

Yeah ok sue me, my phone's camera sucks and I'm too cheap to buy a real camera. The 5800 is a waste of a phone if you're looking for any kind of picture quality. Actually it's a waste of a phone if you're looking for anything.
That apart I'm in KL, Kuala Lumpur for the uninitiated, the capital of Malaysia for the geographically challenged and for the few who've tried to call, I'm not at home and am a proud user of Maxis 3G.
I'm in KL on work (would you believe that) and today work is almost done so I shall begin to wax eloquent about the joint.
At first sight, it's deceptively like home. Hot and humid, a mess of an immigration counter, positively scary looking cab drivers, Indian restaurants and of course Tamil.
Then the drive from the airport changes everything. Gas stations with attached 7-11 type stores open all night, an awesome road system, well planned city and all that. It's been a good two days. For brevity and due to a fast failing memory (remember my bad phone camera? it's why I prefer to write) here are some of the salient points that I'd like to remember...
- 2.30 AM day 1. Drive with cab driver who says the following,
Teksi driver - you from India? Bengalore? where is that? north India?
Me - no south, near Chennai (much as it pains my heart)
Teksi driver - but you're not dark?
Me - I was but I haven't seen too much sunlight in the last 3 years...
Teksi driver - Aaaaah! ok. So you know Priyanka Chopra?
Me - we used to play hide and seek as kids but now that she's a big actress and all that we've lost touch...
Teksi driver - Really? I read in the news paper that she's looking for husband. Maybe you get lucky la... hahahahahaha
Me - facepalm.

Then did some cool d-i-y travel from Kl Sentral to KLCC, and gaped astonished at the subway entrance and exit gates that swallowed up my ticket and let me in and out and felt like it was the whole town mouse, country mouse deal all over again. Anyway KLCC is a beast of a convention center and beautifully done up.

The conference goes on for another day and honestly barring some strange names and stranger people who would effectively be in abundance at a November (as opposed to august) gathering of brain surgeons nothing spectacularly interesting's been happening except for meeting the who's who and all that.

But then again discovered that Starbucks in 10RM a cappuccino and Carlsberg's 7RM. Do the math.
8.30 AM Day 2 KLCC - saw people licking their fingers at KFC.

Agar firdous...

The food's of course fabulous.
The conference  banquet featured octopi. Chicken kebab and the the most amazing red snapper, steamed Cantonese style. I'm threatening to like fish...

More in the next update - Melaka

C&H

So, here goes today's funny of the day...

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

He has a point I think... though i'm not sure what to do with the layout.

In other things that move and shake and all that I'm back to my one flu over the cuckoo's nest state of mind. And the immortal words of Ace Ventura ring painfully in my head - It is the mucus that binds us.
But we'll have to do something about the frequent viral infections. Get out of the cesspit of infection you work in, you'd say. However that is not a consummation that will eventualize.
Yes that is MY word. Eventualize, verb, To become an eventuality.
Other options include cod liver oil (yuck), general green leafy vegetables (cysticercosis, here I come) and my top favorite immunity enhancing concoction - Waterbury's Compound. Which turns out has an I love Waterbury's compound page on Facebook.
I'm sure I've mentioned Waterbury's before, 40% alcohol and and eary morning buzz... It's there somewhere.
Anyway me off the get me some of that or brandy.
And for those of you who live in Bangalore, there's a nice little place tucked away behind Richmond Road called Under the Mango Tree. It's good. Go eat there.

and here's to 2010

It's 1.30AM I'm having the first of possibly many insomniac spells and I'm writing my first post on a mac book air. It's a nice machine. They keys are responsive and make me honestly believe that I can type faster, longer and perhaps funnier than I could on my Dell Latitude. Which I must admit is the hardiest laptop I've ever seen. Barring the stuff that they sell to children nowadays.
This blog's been dormant for over a year. With possibly good reason. I recently became a licensed neurosurgeon and the better part of that year of ignoring this little space was dedicated almost solely to the pursuit of this lofty ideal.
Now that I realise that my current situation is not lofty and hardly ideal, I do suppose this is a good time to get back to writing.
What do we write about? My last wish list was a hopeless failure. I didn't get any of them. Thank you gentle readers.
There's the deteriorating traffic but that's now so much a part of our lives in Bengaluru (or I could just launch about how terrible a name that is) that the average 7 minute drive is 7 minutes because of a minimum of two snarls.
There's the metro, who offered a hundred thousand in cash for a cool 4 second jingle, in mp3 format preferably. mp3? Seriously?
There's the new ink pen from Flair. Called Inky. Which I quite like actually, not withstanding the fact that it's less than 1/20th the cost of the Sheaffer Valor which I so completely lust after it's borderline pathological.
There's the Hidden Orchestra, if you can find them, they're a very good listen.
And perhaps work and it's skullduggery it involves. In every way possible.
There's a conference in Malaysia, a host of new TV shows that I came across - old ones with new seasons and new ones.
There's Android phones and the N8 with Symbian 3 (Symbian 3? Why?) and the Chiphone, Chokia and Blackcherry that crack me up every time I see them. And the Micromax with a universal remote.
And perhaps the intense masochistic joy in soaking chili flakes in vodka for a month and then gingerly tasting one drop.
As Bill Waterson said, it's a magical world.
Time to go grab it.
Watch this space. I just might be back.

Been a while, alligator...

So it turns out that planetary alignments being favourable and a syzygy in the offing led to my suddenly finding 36 hours of absolute absence form work. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a gift. Not one to be squandered on beer, beef and blogging, but one to relish those moments of peace, of solitude, of getting back in touch with the inner Mayan...

But since the only thing Mayan that I'll ever have anything to do with is a llama steak, medium-rare, I settled for beer, a nice ham quiche and kick starting this blog with a brand new edition of the usual nonsense.

Considering my contact with the outside world has been limited at best for the past few months we'll do a quick round up on the current state of entertainment before we launch into the topic of the day.

Dave Matthews new album is a treat. It's heavy, at least heavier than the earlier ones but just as enjoyable. Shake me like a monkey and the oft airplayed Funny the way it is would be the run of the mill picks. The others of course are the ones that really make you happy.

In other music, Dream theater has an album out of the usual insane riffs and time signatures that look like something Mandelbrot and Julia produced after a hot night in Peru. Nice if you're into some self-indulgent progressive thing. If not then there's always pop.

Wolverine was a disappointment. Vastly digressing from print for sake of popularity. Special effects were again not very impressive and the plot was at best, weak. Transformers 2 will need to be seen on a big screen and not some Russian camera print before anything can be said of it's affects, story and everything else that makes a movie. Megan Fox is reason enough to watch it in theater. So that comes later.

The highlight of today is a wish list.

Not a bucket list.

A wish list.

1. A Sailor pen.

2. A Back lit poster of the Matrix. This looks good but any of the others with the green letters would do.

3. This.

4. And this.

5. And any one of these.

I am as you can see a simple man.

And I'm sometimes glad I don't have the time to think.

Peace be on ye.

Baaack

Oh my God! This is what this blog looks like. Derelict, dilapidated, abandoned and all that. Hell I'd like to say I was insanely busy doing this and that and hacking the occasional head and dealing with didactics but nay, those are just excuses for the lack of a muse. A-muse, get it? You do? Great! We're back in sync gentle readers and this ride's going to be a roller coaster.
So it turns out that we've decided to vote again and despite every reservation we had about democracy being a waste of good money and in this part of the world it being a way to waste bad money too, we filled the forms and dropped it off at the local poll office. We jaago-re-ed so to speak. Rose to the occasion. Woke up and smelt the sweaty armpits. Needless to say Murphy chuckled in his grave and we found that the good name was not on the good list. Or the bad. Or any list outside of the list of residents posted for emergency this month. And despite writing to the EC, Jaago Re and the local MP promising him my vote in an act of final desperation, we ended up inedible ink less. (Yes, I know it's spelt differently but it's supposed to be a pun. I couldn't have been gone so long, could I?)
But in funny news I know someone who wanted to vote but didn't want to be marked for a month so she painted on transparent nail polish and did a quick one with some acetone and now all she has to show for the whole franchise deal is... nothing. But a good idea it is.
In other interesting bits of information the sixth pay commission comes to the rescue of all previously underpaid doctors who worked for the central government (not the state government if you've been reading the papers). As a result of recession and fiscal policy Doctors apparently rule the roost at shaadi.com and bharatmatrimony. The hits have, if google analytics has to be believed, risen exponentially. Of course we are at our usual Murphy moment of being the dog in the manger sitting on the proverbial golden egg largely due to the lack of time to spend the new found booty. And I am talking of financial booty. Not the other one. The one that can be attracted with sufficient finances.
Add the arrears to that and we have a new Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and a black acoustic guitar. And the dream that little white boys and girls will one day play with little black boys and girls and realise that white men can't jump.
Flight of ideas apart, I can't for the life of me remember why I've stopped writing. It's fun and even the thought of repetitive stress crippling my wrist doesn't deter me. I've learnt that there's light at the end of the carpal tunnel.
Oh yes, there's a few months worth of bad puns coming your way.
In cooking this month, we speak of 2 interesting ways of eating bread. The first was featured on some travel and food show on one of the travel and food channels on Tata Sky (my life is jhingalala, yours?) . The first involves a whole loaf of unsliced bread which can be easily sourced, albeit with the risk of a suspicious stare from the local bakery. Speaking of which there's one in Pondicherry called "Bangalore's Famous Iyengar Bakery", run by a malayalee of course. So we have this loaf which we shall cut in half. The only way it should be cut in half, before an inane doubt creeps up in your mind. and we scoop out the inside to make a bread bowl. Fill it with some nice chicken masala or beef stew or even the bhaji of the pav fame and proceed to demolish it with the inner bits and thence to consume the bowl piecemeal. While not spectacularly different from the taste of sliced bread with any of the aforementioned accompaniments, it is novel in its presentation and therefore worth a try before the realisation sinks in that it really tastes the same.
The next bit of bakery wizardry comes from the National Law School where an enterprising cheta decided to slice a bun in half, keep a good sized bar of chocolate within and pop the result into a microwave for 30 seconds at full power. Here we shall stop and imagine the molten chocolate sandwiched in soft warm bun. Once done we shall mop up the drool from our keyboards before typos become the norm.
Speaking of drool on keyboards, there is a commercially available rubber key board that rolls up in to a crepe bandage sized cylinder and being rubber and all that is impervious to drool, coffee, coke and single malt scotch. Other hazardous substances may be tried on request and the promise of replacement if the rubber dissolves or something.
There's been little on the music scene. David Cook and American almost Idol or Idol or somesuch is out with an album that sounds identical to Daughtry so it is miss able barring maybe one or two songs. The Dave Matthews Band releases it's interestingly titled album next month, the single "Funny the way it is" from the same is brilliant. As is the Freddy Jones Band whom I just can't find enough of despite scouring the web.
The Big Bang Theory is the new addiction. Remarkably sharp comedy that is and it comes highly recommended.
So that's all there is considering I have about 4 hours to get back to work for the night and I've already pulled myself up off the computer for falling asleep on it. Hope there's more in the coming weeks.
Toodle-oo and pip-pip.

Long delayed...

... has this post been on the state of affairs in the world. I'm largely bored which explains both the lack of something to write about and the lack of enthusiasm to write about something. But we're changing that. The cobwebs that have grown around the keys have been wiped clean and those little bits of dust stuck in between have been dealt with an ingenious device - the USB powered vacuum cleaner. How cool is that? USB powers the world at large if no one's noticed. After cell phones and Microsoft, USB is binding us and bringing us closer.
How? I don't care it just sounded cool to give the port importance.
Slumdog has swept the Oscars. Leaving a very disgruntled Sukhwinder Singh moping on the sidelines. Little unfair but c'est la vie, apparently. Resul Pookutty is da man. But seriously best film and best director? Think the Academy needs to take stalk of where they stand. It's a good movie, different from the rest of the stuff that comes out of Hollywood and apparently different enough to make Benjamin Button, Frost, Nixon and the rest of them seem - ordinary at best. In any case it won and a bunch of Indians are jumping around claiming that it's our movie. No it isn't. It got shot in Mumbai, that doesn't make it our movie. If it were our movie, it would have never reached the Kodiak Theater. It wouldn't even have run longer than Billoo Barber (which till I got to know better, I was hoping was a rip off of Sweeny Todd).
So stop calling Slumdog an Indian movie and feel happy for AR Rehaman. His work is finally being recognized.
And global and local warming has arrived making life a sticky sweaty mess most of the time. Polar bears are apparently turning bipolar with the glaciers melting, and Arctic Terns have decided to no longer migrate. I'm looking at a Honda Civic Hybrid and coming with a cruel reality that even the electricity that would charge the car is generated by the burning of fossil fuels.
It's all going downhill and the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep. Before we go back to the stone age. Though I still believe we were at the height of peaceful coexistence then. Largely because there were too few people to make a difference.
Morbidity apart, I've blissfully rediscovered the Star Wars, comics in .cbr/.cbz, pakistani music, lounging around in a lizard like fashion and other such hedonistic pleasures that would at best last the next 3 days till I find myself back in Emergency.
Oh well, that's fun too. May the force be with you.

Path, Pasta, Pod

So, some many unfinished prematurely done posts are beginning to clog up my thought process. The saved drafts section is slowly growing to near epic proportions. There are posts about music, movies, new year rants, resolution promises and even that magnum opus on the evolution of pornography that I've been planning for many a year now.
The last one of course is never ever going to get published. For many reasons. One my research (purely academic) is never going to get done. Every day I think I have enough material to go forth and wax eloquently but a cursory check reveals some new and often unimproved piece of absolute kink that warrants more investigation. Now if we'll avoid the innuendo and the puns and the general nonsense in the comments for that I'll be glad but then again one can never be sure. Anyway thankfully all is streaming and none is stored. So they can't find me.
Got me a bigger and better iPod recently and have spent the better part of one early morning filling it up and drooling over coverflow. It's not rocket science and seeing the album covers whizz by is never ever going to change music quality but I still choose to drool.
And speaking of drool since when we have very little to actually talk about outside of an absolutely terrible start to the year with respect to work , I decided that my month in Pathology (this one) is going to be spent in the pursuit of updating this place a tad more regularly. Maybe even the porn post.
Pathology is a strange subject. It deals with the dead. In a convoluted not-so-comforting way so does neurosurgery but that'll change in the next many years. I hope. The joy in having the absolute last word is omnipresent in jars of formalin and bits of paraffin. People stare rapturously into bifocal and confocal and fluorescence microscopes deriving pleasure from little bits and blue and pink and ultimately pronouncing life and death judgments. And as I found out today, destressing with Shakespeare. They didn't take too kindly when I picked a skull up and proclaimed in a baritone, "Alas, Yoric! He was a good friend." Or when some technician was heating a beaker full of some noxious looking fluid elicited a"fire burn and cauldron boil."
Tomorrow there promises to be a session on gross anatomy (yeah that's what it's called. with good reason.) of the brain. Where we slice and dice a real thinker to learn how the hippocampus curls in around the dentate gyrus and how the choroid fissure runs in the inside of the brain and how if time and circumstance permit, the perfumes of Arabia will never wash the smell of blood off my hands.
No such humor is not appreciated. Though strangely referring to a malignant brain tumor which would translate from slide to reality as a life expectancy of 6 months, as beautiful is considered standard behaviour.
And of course the jabs at neurosurgeons who never remove the right part, neurologists who never send enough tissue for diagnosis and radiologists who never supply enough clinical data are a part of the daily schedule.
But enough about pathos.
Dinner sometime ago was a tomato and pepperoni pasta.



Straight forward stuff really. Blanch tomatoes, peel and cut roughly. Saute some finely sliced onions in olive oil, toss a crushed clove or two of garlic. Once they're soft, in go the tomatoes and some tomato puree. Add salt and paprika and oregano/basil/mixed herbs. Let it all simmer away merrily till it looks, tastes and smells cooked. Feel free to throw in some pepperoni slices/cut up sausage along the way. Al dante some pasta in the mean time and drain out the water. Mix it all up. Top with grated parmesan.

Bon appetit.

Legal Eagle

So, a while ago, I solemnly swore that I would tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth on the matter in question yesterday. Was called in to give evidence for a sod who came in from the cold a tad too late for anybody to do anything about. It all began with a cop who walked up to me one morning and presented me with an arrest warrant in my name. Bailable with payment of Rs 500/-. Why? In order that yours truly doth show his countenance at the 2nd MM traffic court on such and such a date and time... "Where was the summons", I enquired. Oh we stopped issuing those. We find that a warrant makes responses quicker and you fellows also turn up only when threatened with arrest.Point.

So I landed up at this crowded courthouse and ambled around trying to locate my liason in the servers and protectors of society. Got accosted by three lawyers who wanted to represent me in whatever matter I was apparently caught up in before I made my way to the aforementioned 2nd MM Traffic Court and met the cop in question. About half an hour of roll call later I was asked to step up in the witness box. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, an actual witness box with a judge and a court reporter and evil eyed defence lawyers hanging on to my every word. So I told my story and was politely asked to exit stage right soon after.

While I was pleasantly surprised about the speed of it all I was a tad disappointed that I wasn't cross examined and all that.

Anyway a good double lamb burger from ice and spice and all was laid to rest.

Brilliant how Ice and Spice has turned out be some really nice deli type place. Cheery interiors and a lamb patty and mayo to die for.

I remember it being some bathroom tiled joint some many thousand of years ago with the same to die for lamb patty.

Times and people have apparently changed so the place has a new look enveloping the old burger.

Go try it. St Mark's Road, opposite the State Bank of India. Sandwiched between a wine shop and Noon Wines.

Speaking of Noon Wines when one is feeling substantially brave and all that feel free to drop in and have that battery acid that he serves in the guise of "house wine". It's potent and honestly the fact that it doesn't taste like any wine you've ever had gets significantly blurred after 3 glasses.

And then last week I decided that Ice and Spice is too far to get to for a burger and one happy day decided to try my hand at making them.

Lamb mince, chopped onions, seasoning (whatever you want, I used salt and red chilli powder(yeah I toyed with saying paprika)), and egg and bread crumbs went in to a bowl and got shaped into patties and cooked on a skillet with just a little oil till both sides were wonderfully done. Buns sliced in half, lettuce, slices of tomato and onion, mustard and mayo and voila...

Bon appetite.

Virtual Reality

So after many profound brain things inside my head I'm back on Facebook. While my angst against social networking is not entirely gone and now that there are a million others claiming their individual superiority and new nifty applications that get sued by toy manufacturing giants, I've decided that a known evil is better than an unknown possibility of a good time. Yes, I humbly accept that that makes no sense. It wasn't meant to.
And thus I'm back on the wild world web having decided to let nifty little applications determine my social life. Of course there's also the fact that compared to the real world, the illusion of the matrix is pretty good.
Anyway profile updated and random socially acceptable likes and dislikes are in situ and I can go back to ignoring the site.
In interesting news Madagascar 2 has finally arrived in our fair part of the world and much as i would like to see it... again... for the fourth time I think I shall pass. I can now recite King Julian's new and improved insanity when woken up from a dead slumber. I feel, deep inside, that it will not be appreciated by the hoi polloi around me. So I shall continue to watch it in the privacy of my laptop. Streaming is so cool. As are cheap dvds of the streamed videos. Except of some time lag in the audio which was, after much wrestling, fixed.
But as I wanted to say but as usual got sidetracked, Madagascar 2, some say is not as funny as the first installment. Nay. I refute thy claims, critic. King Julian of course has been put on steroids for his mental condition and it's worsened. The penguins are a trip.
Alex, Marty and this time even Gloria and Melman go into the usual sentiment trip and considering this time it's in Africa, some much self-discovery and emancipation and yada yada happens that serves only to distract us from the real hero.
Bernie Mac will be sorely missed.
Go watch. Watch it. Maurice, you naughty little monkey, shake my arm.
In other such things the Mekaal Hassan Band (which I remember mentioning) and Shafqat Amanat Ali's solo album (Tabeer) and to say the least very good. I'm not going to go into the cool production, the mature fusion of hindustani and rock and the very excellent voices in detail but you get the gist. Some disappointments though especially with Tabeer. Dum Ali Dum and Naina in particular lack any kind of substance. But like always it's worth a listen and some songs will stick on.
So there it is life in a nutshell. More whenever.

PS I'm back on facebook because some mental plans for ganging up and consuming insane amounts of alcohol are made and propagated therein. It's just easier to plan the hangover thus.

Legal Eagle

So, a while ago, I solemnly swore that I would tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth on the matter in question yesterday. Was called in to give evidence for a sod who came in from the cold a tad too late for anybody to do anything about. It all began with a cop who walked up to me one morning and presented me with an arrest warrant in my name. Bailable with payment of Rs 500/-. Why? In order that yours truly doth show his countenance at the 2nd MM traffic court on such and such a date and time... "Where was the summons", I enquired. Oh we stopped issuing those. We find that a warrant makes responses quicker and you fellows also turn up only when threatened with arrest.Point.

So I landed up at this crowded courthouse and ambled around trying to locate my liason in the servers and protectors of society. Got accosted by three lawyers who wanted to represent me in whatever matter I was apparently caught up in before I made my way to the aforementioned 2nd MM Traffic Court and met the cop in question. About half an hour of roll call later I was asked to step up in the witness box. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, an actual witness box with a judge and a court reporter and evil eyed defence lawyers hanging on to my every word. So I told my story and was politely asked to exit stage right soon after. 

While I was pleasantly surprised about the speed of it all I was a tad disappointed that I wasn't cross examined and all that.

Anyway a good double lamb burger from ice and spice and all was laid to rest.

Brilliant how Ice and Spice has turned out be some really nice deli type place. Cheery interiors and a lamb patty and mayo to die for. 

I remember it being some bathroom tiled joint some many thousand of years ago with the same to die for lamb patty. 

Times and people have apparently changed so the place has a new look enveloping the old burger. 

Go try it. St Mark's Road, opposite the State Bank of India. Sandwiched between a wine shop and Noon Wines. 

Speaking of Noon Wines when one is feeling substantially brave and all that feel free to drop in and have that battery acid that he serves in the guise of "house wine". It's potent and honestly the fact that it doesn't taste like any wine you've ever had gets significantly blurred after 3 glasses. 

And then last week I decided that Ice and Spice is too far to get to for a burger and one happy day decided to try my hand at making them. 

Lamb mince, chopped onions, seasoning (whatever you want, I used salt and red chilli powder(yeah I toyed with saying paprika)), and egg and bread crumbs went in to a bowl and got shaped into patties and cooked on a skillet with just a little oil till both sides were wonderfully done. Buns sliced in half, lettuce, slices of tomato and onion, mustard and mayo and voila... 

Bon appetite.