The Host Who Mocks
There is a reason men are men and women are women except may be in Bangkok where the men are actually women who are actually men. Whether God created Eve from Adam`s rib will always be a ..well...bone of contention. For it indeed were so, then women should have atleast had a sense of humerus. But men are differrent and in fact according to many articles in Cosmopolitan are no differrent than dogs. In fact so much so that most men when mediacally indisposed, visit vets. Take the example of playing hosts.

Just take a look at the scene when you have guests over. I always thought guests to be rational human beings who will drink when thirsty, eat when hungry and will casually but discreetly hide the shards when they break the hosts expensive crystal (NOTE: Crystal is basically defined by wives as glass that can only be seen by husbands through heavily locked showcases but can be freely abused by guests). So when guests come over , I am perfectly comfortable to lie back and engage them in light banter where as my wife will barbeque me with her glares ,

a) For not having asked the guests for a refill
b) For not having insisted them on repeat helpings during dinner till the point they reach the size of Adnan Sami
c) For not having provided them with tissues (also called as serviettes by the same people who call glass as crystal)
d) For having smudged the centre table glass top
e) For having failed to arrange the newspapers in a chronological sequence
f) For having all my finger nails of unequal length etc

This is where guys are so gifted. I remember in my bachelor days when we used to have "guests" over, we did not even know their names which did not really matter as long as they could tell dirty jokes

"Hey, is that friend of yours with Bad breath (hereforth always called as Vasu by us) going to bring the Beer "?

"Yep and POM (short for Pile on Master) is going to take care of the Pizzas"

"POM is actually buying Pizzas !!!"

"Naahh.. he has a 20 % discount coupon which he will claim as his contribution to the dutch Pizza
fund "

But there is something about a marriage that takes the above experience and pushes it into a parallel universe where out go the newspapers and in come something called as coasters and you actually use napkins instead of the front of your trousers. The Dr Bruce Banner of the carefree unmarried host morphs into the terrifying hulk of the married host. There is no point in trying to convince the wives to take things a bit lightly because most wives that I know just happen to be women.

I cannot imagine any women having a party together where the discussions can get passionate over the claim that a perfectly vertical egg can bear an elephant's weight (a fact which was pooh poohed and also scientifically disproved by Darshan Singh by making me hold the egg vertical , while he placed an extremely heavy object i.e. Kenneth Tan on top of it). The subject was more important and not whether the guest had his plastic glass refilled or whether the the host has worn a mismatched pair of shirts and shorts. You could pretty much eat food making noises like an airplane toilet flush and no one would even notice. But with women coming into the picture, all the gaiety goes out of the window and you are reduced to eating your dinner with the trepidation of a kangaroo going through a minefield. That is the problem with women.

If women were to lighten up just a wee bit then they would know how to balance 16 dinner plates on top of each other in the sink for a week before they gather enough lifeforms to qualify for a Union territory status. They would also know that cigarette butts lying around actually prevents cockroaches from entering your house, (so what if you have to leave them smouldering). But this fact is lost on the wives is for the simple reason, that guys have the double helix DNA where as women have their DNA lying in ironed out, parallel strands with carefully matched pairs of amino acids (Cytosine goes very well with Guanine ).
So all those bethrothed bachelors out there, my advise is just have a freak out night at bachelor`s party and make sure POM pays for the Pizzas.

Elements of Credit

Dimitri Mendeleev was a Russian scientist, who came up with the periodic table. A periodic table is a table which arranges all the nature's 118 elements in an orderly manner ....till dinner time when the kids come and make a mess of it. That's just goes to show what the Russians are capable of , when they do not skull Vodka (i.e. between 3 AM and 3.30 AM on Wednesdays). When they do drink Vodka however, they produce some phenomenally boring movies for Doordarshan (e.g" Life cycle of the Siberian tapeworm" ) and invade central asian countries. I can imagine Stalin swigging a few and ordering his shivering Komissars

"Let uz shoot mizziles at Uzbekistan"

"Da........ but we already shot at it yesterday"

"Izzit, dan let uz shoot Turkmenistan"

"Da Vee Kan but we already have it for 4 years"

"Dammn, then let us shoot "Adventures of Vladimir at the Potato farm". Heaven knows, Doordarshan needs it".

Cutting to the cheese again, unknown to Mendeleev however was the fact , that his table was going to be a huge catalyst for one industry....albeit a hundred years later. I am referring to Credit cards. Credit card companies who started with the Silver card (To those who have arrived) and later moved to Gold (To those who have really arrived) and to Platinum (To those who have arrived again) and now to Titanium (To those who have arrived again and left) and finally Iridium (To those who have arrived again and left and would like to arrive once again but are in 2 minds if they arrive again will it be the Platinum card or will it be considered as arriving again and again). Wonderful chaps ....these marketing guys.

That is what is called differentiation and in the process forgetting the original purpose of the credit card. The marketing speak would be "We are not selling just a card but a lifestyle". A lifestyle, which is spilling over to some kind of surreal scenarios

Silver - You can get access and discounts to more than 5000 restaurants in the world

Gold - You can get access to Airport lounges, Golf Clubs, Royal palaces and ladies toilets

Platinum - You can get handcarried by 4 bankers into First Class airplane seats while a personal concierge will breastfeed you Dom Perignon Champagne.

Titanium - You can get access to a round the clock personal back scratching service by a concierge (who BTW has a Gold card of his own), a personal gold threaded underwear

Iridium - You can get a free replacement heart , lungs and some common sense to realise that 90% of the times you get offerred things, which you will never need.

Sometimes I wonder if the banks really are no differrent than these new fangled coffee shops or the so called wine bars , where snobbery is a sport and pretension is a skill. Ever since they started , by offering it by invitation (only to realise that it is not enough of a market) then later on steadily diluting the idea to such ridiculous extents that the whole exclusivity idea looks rather silly. In order to maintain a balance between that verdigris of exclusivity at the upper end and a mass market which is reality, they just keep on attaching new lifestyle elements (Pun intended) to have these exclusive credit cards. In Singapore on one hand you have these super duper Iridium cards and on the other hand the same company's bankers will thrust Gold credit cards in to your pockets with unsolicited alacrity, in what technically can be called as hit and run incidents. I am sure that the banks will say that they have their reasons which sounds the same as Gillette saying that it has it's reasons it will keep on coming up with twin bladed, 3 bladed, Quattro bladed razors etc untill a point where razors are going to make your cheeks so smooth that after your next shave, when the mob of Playboy playmates try to plant juicy kisses on your cheek, they are going to lose their grip and fall over your shoulder to their deaths. Infact, Gillette has already lost theirs.

At the rate at which more and more exclusivity is being stamped out by these banks, a day will arrive when they may not run out of ideas but surely they will run out of elements. Will having a lifestyle is going to make people use their credit card differently ( "Hey finally got my Iridium card so now I can record my mp3 songs on it ") or is it going to change their lifestyle ( "Let me see I have a Platinum card so may be I will try driving blindfolded in reverse to office today"). How many of us use the card differently just because it is Silver or Gold or Platinum. For majority of the population, a card is a card is a card and for the minority who do live beyond their means, will continue to do so regardless of Gold, Silver or Platinum. Will the banks come clean with their marketing stables and just have a couple of credit cards. Nope.... as long as there is a steady supply of aspirational naivete in mankind, we will keep on having new cards and that day is just another 114 cards away when we have the final of these Ununhexium cards.

Spanish ....on the Fly IV

Madrid is a relatively new city as it was bombed pretty badly during the Civil War but what a city. The average Madrileno seems to be take in sleeping hours well below the recommended daily allowance. Either that or they have the DNA of Owls. You could go out at midnight and see families with kids sauntering their way to restaurants. At 2 AM, the coffee shops and the tapas bars have people jamming themselves in through the windows as though trying to get on the last lifeboat on the Titanic. You know the oft repeated cliché, about how a particular city never sleeps blah blah. Never did it ring truer than in Madrid. Mumbai, Hong Kong, London etc are non starters.

It also has a couple of Museums and depending upon which side of the Art divide you stand on , boasts tons of really pretentious or/and mind blowing art. The Reina Sofia (which has Picasso’s famous La Guernica) boasts 2 floors of modern art including a painting by an artist called Miro, which had just 7 black dots on a huge piece of canvas. People had it surrounded by awe struck expressions staring at it with awe like Class IV students at a copy of Penthouse. Tuhin (always Tuhin) was explaining to me the virtues of visual appeal and surrealistic delineation of imagery. It was good that he did because I decided he was so full of crap that his new name for the day was Mr Huggies (now with soft feel) . Beauty may lie in the eye of the beholder but I and “Art” do not really see eye to eye.

The sins of the Sofia however were washed away by dipping in labyrinths of Prado. The Prado has such an amazing collection of paintings that by the end of the day you are ready to pass by even the Taj Mahal without any change in gait. The problem with imbibing art in such intense, concentrated doses is that it really deadens your senses pretty quickly. Paintings which normally would cause multiple orgasms in eunuchs end up being seen collectively with the passion of a man who has overeaten.

All said and done, it still has Europe’s third most valuable collection after the Louvre and the Hermitage. This is a remarkable feat for a city which was torn apart during the Spanish civil war. Spain, which was a dictatorship till 1972, was savagely fought over in the theatre of a Civil War with Madrid being the stage. Even today there are buildings and places where you see the marks of the battle for Madrid. Bullet scars, dud grenades, etc, I guess it is not so different from Patna after all. After 3 years of war, Franco finally kicked out the monarchy and the socialists and attained power and held on to it with the tenacity of a one armed guy hanging on to a cliff edge. A devout (genuine but misguided) catholic, he was genuinely surprised why people hated him , a problem which thankfully our own CPI(M) leaders are lucky not to have. Till he died, he ruled with absolute power. At the time of his death, Spain was the sick man of Europe. However in the past 30 years , it has caught up with the rest of Europe and today proudly sits at the same table as the West European nations and one of the few European nations that truly believe, the “Euro” is not a four lettered word.

Our Spanish holiday was coming to an end and we were still hunting for the perfect paella. Finally Tuhin found out a place where they made the best paella. He had a knack of finding these “Best” places…all of which would happen to be in Mumbai.

You could show him the Mona Lisa at the Louvre and he would, without hesitating for a moment, that characterises the conversion of sound in to neural impulses, retort

“You moron, I know where they make the World’s best Mona Lisa. It is at HimesBhai in Juhu”

One has little choice in these matters but to follow him for any point in arguing with him just leads you to find the place where they have the world’s best arguments. Eventually, we , I must agree, did end up having a really fantastic paella. Not recommended for the cholesterol watchers, it is in tune keeping up with what I mentioned about the Churros earlier on. The ideal Paella has really fresh sea food which is steamed and the stock is then used to cook the rice together with saffron and other Spanish spices. As a result, it takes time and if you are the impatient, hand wringing, table banging sort of patron at restaurants then you are best advised to refrain from ordering it.
That was a good note to end our Spanish vacation on. As with all vacations, the sign that it has gone on for too long is when you start missing the loudmouth back at the office. Fortunately here, we had Tuhin with us so we never really felt it but I must say I know where the best loudmouth in the world is.

Spanish on the Fly .....III

Arcos is a nondescript but pretty white walled village on the road to Seville. You know the sort which you see in coffee table books at the upmarket hair salons. It is about 40 Kms from the Sherry capital of the world , Jerez (the word Sherry comes from the English attempts to pronounce the Spanish Jerez . The J in Spanish is a pronounced like a guttural “kh”). The only worthwhile thing to do here is to do nothing , which also explains it’s popularity as a holiday destination with the Spanish civil service. Really.. .there is nothing to be done but just the idle sipping of the local Sherry (an extremely dry, almost acidic wine …not to be confused with the sweet Sherry wine) and gaze out on the Andalucian countryside from the hilltops.

It is nice to be free from this ant like compulsion to be doing something or the other, all the time you are on a holiday…to get the bang for your buck. As a result many a times, one ends up missing the purpose of travel which is not just sight seeing. To enjoy the ambience by sitting in a cafe, catch the local music at the bar , chat up with the local cabbies, polish your foreign language skills, bargain with the street side fruit sellers etc are just as much a part of your holiday as the sight seeing.. Unfortunately the average Indian tourist’s idea does not seem to extend beyond guided sightseeing from behind glass windows. A testimony to this being the travel agency ads in the Indian papers, which pride on squeezing the maximum cities in Europe in the minimum time till a day is going to dawn where the space time continuum is going to collapse into a travel maelstorm, which is going to suck you in and spit you out barely conscious. The purpose of travel to my mind should be broadening your thoughts by experiencing other lifestyles...but then that’s just me.

We left Arcos the next day and despite our best efforts at exorcism, Tuhin was still behind the wheel along with his evil grin. This time he did slow down to 120 kph but that was only at the toll gates on the Auto Pistas to Seville’s Santa Justa.

I had sort of done my preparation for the holiday by taking a crash course in Spanish that came in handy for asking directions to the Santa Justa train station. The average Spaniard speaks decent English, we were told. While this might be true in the touristy places, your average Spanish (with the honourable exception of Othello) certainly doesn’t.

My standard exchange used to be

“Perdon, Senor, Habla usted Ingles ?”
(“Excuse me , do you speak English”)

“No Mordió yo le puedo ayudar si dice mí lo que su problema es. Somos muy amistosos. Infact que somos tan amistosos que en este momento yo le doy a mi hija a usted en casamiento. dijo eso … »

“No but I can help you if tell me what your problem is. We are very friendly. Infact we are so friendly that I am giving my daughter to you in marriage right now . Having said that…”

(Did I mention that Spanish tend to speak a lot)

“Bale,Bale; Donde esta Estacion de Santa Justa ?”
(OK, OK..Where is the Santa Justa station ?)

“Vaya directamente, Gire a la izquierda.. la vuelta izquierda otra vez. el derecho ..turn. ..take la segunda izquierda. ..you verá una farmacia.. lo ignora. Eso es Pedro, él me debe 100 euros. Nunca tome las medicinas de él y también su esposa es fea. ....then toma la tercera izquierda y usted verá un Hotel. Usted puede preguntar allí porque yo no tengo la menor idea cómo le hace llega a Santa Justa”

“Go Straight, Turn left…turn left again...turn right...take the second left...you will see a pharmacy….ignore it. That’s just Pedro, he owes me 100 euros. Never take medicines from him and also his wife is ugly.....then take the third left and you will see a Hotel. You can ask there because I have no idea how do you get to Santa Justa”

With my vocabulary of 150 words , you can see understanding that was a bit of a stretch. But one rule of travel communication is that, a smile can get a lot of things done for you …actually so can a mini skirt but I somehow just couldn’t find one that fit me.

Sevilla (or Seville in English) is the 3rd biggest city in Spain and the birthplace of the Flamenco dance and host to the World’s 3rd biggest Catholic cathedral and the friendliest Hotel manager in the Hotel Alcantara.. (He was so friendly that at one point I started suspecting that he was gay … recovering from abstinence, While speaking to me he used to stand so close that we looked like Siamese twins). It is also the place where Bull Fighting is not a matter of debate like elsewhere in Europe but a cultural tradition like legalising slums in Mumbai. Seville is also one of the hottest places in Europe. In the summer of 2003, when Europe was burnt to a crisp under a scorching heat wave, average Sevillan temperature was around 45 degrees. However, given the moth like attraction to heat of the north Europeans, it is common to see once pale Britons and Scandinavians roam around Seville with a brick coloured complexion and their internal organs just fused together in a molten fudge.

The cathedral in Seville was for me the best building that I saw in Spain. Outrageously huge and tall and incredibly ornate. The Christian Spain had obviously decided to wear it’s heart on its’ sleeve. The people of Seville liberated from the Moors, had apparently stated that we will build a Cathedral so big that people will think this was the work of mad men …and if this indeed madness be , then there is no greater joy than to be insane. You are so dwarfed with the silent opulence of the cathedral that even non believers are forced to believe in the almighty, for the simple reason, this could not have been the work of man. Lined with amazingly ornate chapels , it was like being in the womb of Venus. The Giralda or the cathedral tower at about 200 ft is also pretty impressive when you consider that it was built 500 years back. There are no stairs but ramps as 500 years back the muezzin (the muslims did live on in Seville) wanted to preserve his stamina for the prayer calls and he wanted to ascend it on a horse. If you climb all the way to the top you can get an absolutely fantastic view or a heart attack….depending upon your body fat content.

The piece de resistance was to be the Flamenco dance. You sort of associate certain things indelibly with certain places and Flamenco seemed to straightaway conjure up images of hunky men and Spanish Rositas dancing a seductive, hypnotic dance around each other with increasing tempo ,trying to draw one another in to the crucible of passion. This was the Flamenco which I had seen so far. I.e. the Gypsy Kings kind, which admittedly gave me goose bumps and in some cases was exciting enough to cause bladder leakage. In the pursuit of authenticity , we insisted on watching an original dance. Seeing the original version was something like mistaking the main course for an appetiser. It was original alright. Sure there was the hypnotic combination of lighting fast heel and toe jabs with the flashy swirling of the skirts but was just too austere. No accompanying drums, castanets , sounds and lights. It might have been pure form but then so are Bengali art movies, which are god’s ways of punishing people for voting communists. To me, this Flamenco was akin to taking a guy addicted to Hindi pop to a Hindustani classical concert. As Tuhin, whose biggest grouse during the dance was the complete absence of popcorn, also said ,

“Boss , there is no way you can do Dandia to it ?”

While in Sevilla, we also wanted to catch Bull Fighting. When I say we , I mean only I. To my intense surprise Anju (“What, you want to see innocent animals being killed ?” said she biting into her chicken which was presumably guilty.), Tanuja (“Rahul, How can you see so much pain being inflicted ?”. Tanuja incidentally or may be just dentally is a Dentist. Talk about the pot calling the kettle) and Tuhin (“Dude., Are you nuts ? Those Bulls are an important part of my Milkshake supply chain”) simply stayed away. But try as I might, the Bull Fighting had to be missed. For one it is only on Sundays and two, tickets are sold way in advance. You might hear scalpers selling the tickets on the gray market but trust me that is just a load of Bull. Anyway, that effectively ruled out the most Spanish of the Spanish experiences.

Sevilla to Madrid is best accomplished by taking the high Speed train. But we had Tuhin with us. Best accomplishments are not accomplished in the presence of Tuhin. That is one of the fundamental laws of the Universe ranking right up there with the law of conservation of energy and the law for Ministers to develop heart pains when served with judicial summons. Tuhin had a choice of a Train or a Car to Madrid. It was like offering a choice between a Ayurveda camp or a duty free shop to an alcoholic. Finally, we took the train after convincing Tuhin….which was easily possible with the help of the National Guard and 2 muscled men with tattoos on their biceps which said “Giovanni, the knife, Brasi” and “Pedro, the cobra, Salieri”. Tuhin willingly accompanied us. There is not much free will that you can assert when in a gunny bag.

Spanish ......on the Fly II

After about 4 days in the Barcelona sun (sunset used to be at 10 PM), we creaked our way to Granada in the south taking an overnight train. There must have been some goof up and we were most probably travelling the first class compartment. The train itself was luxury defined, complete with an onboard restaurant car, which reminded one (i.e. me) of those 1960’s Hollywood spy movies. In what was an act keeping up with our suppressed middle class desires, we made ourselves comfortable, read the Spanish menu, exchanged meaningful intelligent looks and ordered 3 Coca-Colas ….and a Batido.

Granada was that part of Spain which was not Spain for about 700 years till 1492. It was ruled by Moors ( or Arabs who come from what is now called Morocco . Othello, was another Moor who became famous in history for speaking funny words like t’wixt, thine, thou and actually understanding them as well). As a capital of one of the grandest Moorish fiefs, which pledged their allegiance to the caliphate in Cordoba, it has all the glory and the adornments of a royal city. The best, and possibly the only thing, that is really worth coming to this city for, is the Al-Hambra fortress- palace constructed in classic Moorish architecture. Crowning the mountain top, in the Al-Hambra you can imagine the life that the Moorish sultans must have enjoyed here. The palaces are still intact though the fortress has worn out a bit. Rich and intricate carvings Watching out for the enemies from the towers, slicing the infidels’ necks off, leaning on silken cushions to accept the tax collections, walking round the harems etc. The Al-Hambra palace was erected by the Ummayad rulers, (the caliphate based in Cordoba was related to the Ummayad caliphate in Damascus, Syria).

NEEDLESS MENTION: Spain has all this towns sounding like Musical instruments. It is perfectly acceptable to answer
“Does your son play the Cordoba?” by,

“Oh No, he’s taken to the Toledo”.

These rulers made sure that all grandeur that can be accumulated in 700 years of peace, found it’s way in the Al-Hambra. On the way out , Tuhin took me aside and confided to me in a quivering, emotional voice, that to him, it will always remain the world’s most magnificent Bra.

Eventually Granada was taken over by the Christian Queen Isabella (who had undertaken a vow that she won’t take a bath till Granada falls) of Castille, who expelled the Moors out of Spain (by now, presumably, boasting a body odour strong enough to be on the weapons of mass destruction list) and asked them to come back as illegal immigrants 500 years later. Many of Granada’s small streets are filled with shops, cafes run by Moroccan, Algerian immigrants. They have created a little Arabia in a corner of Spain …albeit without the suicide bombers.

A day is about enough in Granada although the tourism ministry seems to have worked late hours in coming up with ideas to exploit Al-Hambra in order to extend the tourist stay. So you have tours like Al-Hambra by moonlight, Al Hambra with the birds, Al-Hambra with the bees, Al Hambra with sweaty touts, Al Hambra with the illegal immigrants, Alhambra with illegal, sweaty bees etc.

In Granada, Tuhin came up with the brilliant suggestion that we rent a car and drive it to Seville. We all heartily agreed like with our chins collectively doing enthusiastic bungee jumps. Tuhin drove at the average speed of 170 kpH. Now Spain is not Germany where 170 KpH is the average speed in the Car Parks and neither is SEAT anywhere close to a BMW or a Mercedes. That did not stop him. Once he went into that 5th gear , he had that beady look in his eyes and drool trickling down through a wicked smile that played on his bearded lips. He drove like a man who has no fear except waking up one day and suddenly finding that he had become lactose intolerant. Tanuja, in the meantime had recited the Gayatri Mantra several times over before we reached the dainty little village of Arcos de la Frontera. Anju, who had been inured by years of Tuhin’s driving had a blasé been-there-done-that look on her and I…well I was trying to collect my eyeballs which were pushed to the back of my head.

Spanish ....on the Fly I


Ok, here’s a little quiz.

Which country is famous for the Flamenco Dance ?

Where in the world would you find more men queuing up for Bull Fighting than for a free pole dance by Angelina Jolie ?

In which country would Tuhin not think twice before sitting down in the middle of the road if he does not get his milkshake ?

If you find yourself answering “Spain” to all the three above then let me just say , “YOU LIARS…….TUHIN WOULD SIT DOWN IN ANY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD IF HE DOES NOT GET HIS MILKSHAKE………. EVEN IF IT IS FROM MILK OF MAGNESIA”.

Excuse me , excitement sometimes just gets the better of me. The closest answer is indeed Spain as anyone who has been to Spain will tell you. Of course what follows now is an account of what any one who has been to Spain will never tell you.

We (I, Tanuja, Tuhin and Anju) decided to go to Spain by pure default. The original destination candidates were Amazon Basin, Trans Siberian rail, The silk road and Spain. That’s what happens when you discuss your travel plans with Tuhin. He pulls all these mind blowing destinations out of thin air and just scribbles them on the back of an envelope and then before our nervous systems have had a chance to start pumping adrenaline, he starts crossing them out when he realises there is no air conditioning or room service but other than that , he is all adventure. In fact so much so that he won’t even think twice before strapping on his gumboots, snapping on his hunting knife, putting on his Indiana Jones hat and check into a Hotel that doesn’t even have Cartoon Network. I can almost see him in a movie, “Tuhin Parikh and the Theplas of Valsad” (For mature audiences only). Spain, our last candidate standing, was however unanimously agreed after we realised that Spain had culture , history and cheap milkshakes.

Spain is a wonderfully friendly country and loves to welcome foreigners though the Moors may not perhaps agree. But what else can explain Real Madrid spending entire rainforests of money to get in Beckham and still not caring a damn about winning the championship. Their Xenophilia was pretty obvious when the immigration officials (who in Germany have all the charm of a peptic ulcer) looked at a third world me and my passport with as much interest as the censor board would look at news broadcasts and just let me and Tanuja pass. No interrogation, No stupid unverifiable questions (“Are you planning to stay on illegally?”, “Are you in possession of illegal drugs which carry some really terrifying punishments in our country , some of which involve IMAX screens and Kumar Gaurav movies ?”) or No supercilious expressions. Just go right in.

Barcelona was our first port of call. We travelled the Iberia Airlines (the only Airline where I had to buy my food on the flight. Rumour has it that in case of an emergency, they also accept VISA for the Lifejackets) from London to Spain.

Barcelona is the commercial hub of Spain and the capital of the semi autonomous region called Catalonia. Catalonians speak their own language (not a dialect as some friendly locals like to amiably remind you with a friendly punch in the nose and a kick in the butt) and are fiercely proud of their cultural identity. You will see grafitti “Catalonia is not Spain” sprayed everywhere. …or may be it was just painted for hopelessly lost headstrong husbands, who refused to ask for directions. It was the Olympics , which sort of elevated Barcelona to a status of a really international city. The city also plays host to the creations of one the most famous architects of recent times… Anton Gaudi.

La Sagrada Familia (or the Holy Family) is a rather unique cathedral that is the perhaps the most enduring reminder of Anton Gaudi. Looking more like a amusement park on hormone injections, it is actually a church with 12 towering spires (representing the apostles) and creates a rather arresting view from almost anywhere in the city. To fully take in it’s grandness , please note that the church, which like our own Mumbai airport approach road, has been a work in progress for more than a hundred years (with all modern technology) and is synonymous with the city like the Taj with Agra. Nowadays architects are trying to project Gaudi’s idea and finish the church as the original plans were set on fire by some anarchists during the Spanish Civil war and the world was left guessing at only what could have been. Gaudi is Barcelona and vice versa. All trappings of a tourist economy have suffocated Gaudi. Gaudi T shirts, Gaudi Beer mats and more importantly…Gaudi Batidos.

A Batido is a flavoured milk shake , sold in bottles and turbo vacuumed in by Tuhin. Batidos on our meal tables had the life span of those cold fusion experiments. That was the closest thing I have seen to mass just vanishing. Einstein be damned. Like a magician basking in the collective gasps of the audience after his master trick, Tuhin used to giggle in the collective “What the he..”s of me , Tanuja, Anju and the awe struck Barcelonians, who used to peer in amazed, with their faces plastered against the windows. We could have sold tickets. Our “What the he..”s were not limited to Tuhin’s Now you see it-Now you don’t tricks with the batidos. They also came out during the Churros.

Churros are sugar frosted, deep fried dough fingers to be eaten with molten Chocolate (not drinking chocolate mind you but pure molten chocolate). You can also have a generous dollop of whipped cream on top and this is what the Catalonians eat for breakfast. These things were like calorie bazooka bombs. You could eat those , open the doors and walk yourself straight into the fires of hell. There was enough sin in there to be condemned to be burnt at the stake and enough fat to make sure that you will stay burning. But somehow this factor does not seem to have been any specific area of concern for the Catalonians because for lunch they have pork pickled in lard (called Chorizo or Spanish sausage) with oil after which they queue up outside graveyards while the dieticians watch on patiently from their lines at the employment exchange. The Spanish have some amazing dishes , the one which really got me was Jueves Del Toro (or the family jewels of a Bull). Highly recommended by all the websites and heartily protested by all my travel companions, that is one thing I could not get to sample till I left. With these kind of dietary habits, to me, it was indeed a revelation that the average life expectancy in Spain is 78 years. I tell you if the average Spanish Juan had cut out the churros and the chorizo and the smoking and the siesta, I would not have been surprised to see Christopher Columbus still around.
Most European cities have a street or a plaza that is a sort of icon e.g. Champs Elysses in Paris, Unter den Linden in Berlin, Grote Markt in Brussels etc and it is the Ramblas in Barcelona. A normal unassuming street covered with abnormal and over assuming characters, it is the ideal place to retire for an evening glass of Sangria. Sangria is red wine plus citrus juices with ice and although Spanish in origin, it can be used to fleece tourists and locals alike at the Ramblas. I might be being a bit uncharitable here about the bar bills but admittedly Barcelona is far cheaper than the north European cities, which in Summer, loll in the blessed conviction that most tourists are Directors of oil companies. e.g. you could take a taxi here without your name being mentioned in G8 donor meetings.. The Ramblas which loosely means Gutter in Arabic is the social watering hole for the city and all the usual suspects that you see on European cities from the “statuesque” people to the street magician to the busker are here as well. This is one aspect which is noticeably absent from Asian cities. Walking in these cities’ well designed, squeaky clean and air conditioned places, which are devoid of all these characters, is like having your beer warm.

(to be continued)

All Work and More

If ever you have an opportunity to work in Japan, I would suggest just pass it by unless it is in the quality control section at a Beer factory or better still, at a contraceptive factory. Else you better have a steel constitution and are a professional sword swallower or Fire thrower or such. I am sure the Japanese can handle that. The Japanese seem to have an almost inhuman capacity and will, to work till the point where their famous last words are

" Regards,

Yours sincerely

Kenji Tanaka".


You might think I am joking and well face it, I am but I can guarantee you that you can safely expect 2 Japanese colleagues to have a conversation like

"Say, what are you doing on Friday , after work ?"

"Nothing really, why ?"

"Why don't you join us, Kenji and I are going to write some emails and do some Powerpoints ?"

"Really, sounds great man ? Will you be making copies too ? "

"Muliple man..multiple "

"I am your man guys. I will be there"

" Great , see you there. Get your mom too "

It is really tough to imagine a Japanese relaxing. Have you ever seen a young middle aged Japanese tourist ? Either they are retired hat wearing hordes or young unshaven backpackers. One with a lot of money and the other with a lot of time. Once they enter the working world, they just cross the portal into a parallel universe where the Birds don't sing and no paper ever gets stuck in their copier. It is not that the Japanese do not get any leave. 20 days annual leave is common practice but the average leave taken is only 8 days per year and falling. 8 days is what I take to recover from the hangover of a vacation. Their normal working day almost seems to be an Olympian endeavour for sheer perseverance. Assuming they have the same DNA as the rest of us, I don' t really see how can they keep it up ? When I used to go to sleep , I could see the IBM Japan towers from my Hotel window where the lights used to be up everyday till midnight. I guess sleeping is something of a capital offence in Tokyo.

The contrast is especially glaring if you compare it with Germany where people will not even be able to recognise you without some DNA fingerprinting if they see you in the office after 6 PM. In fact even the German Outlook "Out of Office assitant" does not work after 6 PM. In German, the official word for Friday is Freitag (or Free day) which should tell you something about scheduling important meetings (or even emergency operations or invasions on Poland) on Fridays. May be that is what explains Hitler's moustache. Must have started shaving before he relaised that it was Friday. Also, have you ever seen a Japanese with a moustache. You do the math.

I personally believe that work is as important as play unless my boss is reading this in which case "What exactly is play ?". You heard the saying All work and no play makes Jack sought after by all Union lawyers but not in Japan which has ridiculously low labour unrest. So the question is what makes them tick ? The answer is, " I don't know " but I am guessing, if I write a few more mails and prepare a few more presentations, I will.

When Wings give you Fear


17 hours caught in a steel tube moving at 600 kph at 36000 feet was never my idea of relaxation. But ever since my company understood (after a few tries) that it was not possible to send their employees to the USA as attachments to emails, they rather reluctantly asked me to fly to San Francisco from Singapore. It was a good idea that I told them I couldn't swim, as that was the first option. So I prepared myself for the long journey by buying a thick paperback, which I was sure would keep me captivated for the first 15 pages, before sending me to that vacuous semi comatose state that all long haul passengers go through. As soon as the familiar boarding announcement came on that only the last 10 rows were to board first, the entire crowd listened, got up and organised themselves in well disciplined formations that are seen at the Kumbh Mela. I never understand why they even bother to announce…

I settled down in my aisle seat, trying to ram my 6-foot frame in a seat which was obviously designed by some seriously evil Pygmy women who, had they seen me at that very moment, would have been heartily slapping their 8-inch thighs. The seat next to me was empty, which was enough cause for most men (i.e., my friend Tuhin and I) to harbour a fantasy that some nymphomaniac Supermodel was going to occupy it along with her micro mini skirt. This fantasy however vanished when a bearded, middle-aged man rather rudely pulled my Supermodel out of the fantasy and occupied that seat. This guy had the disturbed look on his face that has you convinced that on full moon nights, he must be fondly caressing a pet axe mumbling lovingly to it while lying in wait at some lonely country passes. Well, my fantasy would have to wait as try as I might (and I swear I didn't), I could not imagine myself in a bathtub being fed grapes by this topless Beardo. The Captain made his familiar announcement in that typically overtly smooth voice and we were on our way.

After landing in Taipei for a brief refuelling stop, we were on our way to the US. The beer was taking its effect on me and I started to doze off as well. A few hours later (or may have been a few years later, time passes by so fast when you have drunk half a dozen beers at 36000 feet), cruising above the Pacific Ocean as I was about to enter my Supermodel's bathroom, I felt a tug on my left shoulder.

“Vous avez vu cela? Sur …laile?” Beardface asked me nervously.

If there is anything more irritating than being woken out of the middle of a stupor at 3 am Singapore time and being asked if I see something on the wing, it is being asked the same thing in French. A language, which I learnt so hard to impress the French exchange students at IIM, Ahmedabad (the ones without a beard and most often in an 'O-la-la' short skirt and the ones who in spite of me wanting it so badly never really woke me up in the middle of the night).

I rubbed my eyes to peer at some vague dark spot in the Pacific skies, which my bearded neighbour was trying to show me.

“Yep,” said I although at that point I was irritated as I had a Supermodel waiting for me and I had to rush back and was in no mood to refresh my French at that ungodly hour.

“Je ne l'aime pas.” (I don't like it.)

I didn't like it either …to be woken at 3 am Singapore time by some nervous passenger pointing at some indiscriminate point outside.

“Ce n'est pas bon. Je veux voir le capitaine.” (It's not good. I want to see the captain.)

I made myself a beer-inspired mental note not to sit next to people who were afraid of flying. (Unless they are Supermodels... or ordinary models in short skirts. Well, I am a complete believer in the equality of models.)

“Il est correct,” said I calmly. These were the right words to calm him down especially as I had forgotten to say, “Go to sleep you tight ass, you are scaring my Supermodel” in French.

“Non, Il n'est PAS OK. JE VEUX VOIR LE CAPITAINE.”

Great! Now he is getting vocal. I turned over the other side and pulled the eye patch tightly over my eyes and just decided to ignore him. There was not much you could negotiate with a drunk, who didn't exactly appear to have his mental compass in place to start with. But obviously a raving, ranting man at 36000 feet is not something that Air Stewardesses are trained to ignore. They should learn something from Air India, where as a standard procedure to call the stewardess, you have to set yourself on fire.

“What is it, Sir?” asked the stewardess in a calorie-rich voice when she in reality wanted to pluck this guy's beard out so he had something else to occupy his mind.

“L'aile d'avion!! Il se déplace trop…juste trop.” (The aircraft wing!! It is flapping too much ...way too much.)

Well, it is certainly not flapping more than you, thought I.

“Sorry sir, do you speak English?”

“NON… vous ne comprenez pas. ...JE VEUX VOIR LE CAPITAINE.” (No, you don't understand... I want to see... Awww, you know it by now.)

Now he was slowly making his way up the obnoxious scale, and ranting in French on a flight to San Francisco was not exactly going to make all the people in the flight queue up to invite him for dinner. He was also attracting a small audience of sleepy red eyes focussing on him, most of whom would have gladly flushed this jerk through the commode. He kept on pointing to the wing and used gestures which resembled very much the dance Red Indians might be doing on their castration ceremonies… and in French at that. His zonked out looks were not exactly helping his cause, whatever that was. As a conscientious passenger who had irretrievably lost his Supermodel, I refused to translate his craziness for the crew.

“Please Sir, you are disturbing the other passengers. I assure you. This is an Airbus A340. The most reliable of all aircrafts. There is no reason to panic.”

“Vous bâtards... ... JE VEUX VOIR LE CAPITAINE.”

'Bastards' translates very well across languages. I realised this the moment the stewardess rolled up her eyes till the whites showed and marched off. She came back with a male steward who, I was hoping, had at least a tranquiliser gun on person to handle this drunk... or lunatic… or both. For the next 15 minutes, the above conversation was repeated in a much higher sound frequency and volume till the crew just had to get the Captain.

I was looking around for another seat when the Captain strode to Beardface and told him in a firm tone…

“Mr. Chretien, I am the Captain of this plane and I can assure you there is no reason to panic. I have been flying for 15 years and know a thing or two. However, if you continue to act in such a rash manner, I have no choice but to hand you over to the American authorities when we land.”

Even though perhaps the words did not get through, the Captain's tone made sure that the message would have been understood by even most of the single cellular bacteria. He then turned to the steward and said something in Chinese, which I hoped, meant to look for volunteers to gag Mr. Chretien or even better to help him make an exit at 35000 feet. But I was out of luck; the steward rushed in helped by another, who held Monsieur Chretien down and gave him an oxygen cylinder. This seemed to have the desired effect on Mr. Chretien as his words slowly died out and he drifted into the realms of slumberland.

The rest of the flight passed without event and finally we landed at the San Francisco Airport. As we were taxiing to the Terminal building, I looked at a red-eyed Mr. Chretien and said extending a verbal olive branch, “Ainsi Monsieur Chretien. Aucuns problèmes. Nous avons débarqué sans risque. D'ailleurs, Je suis Rahul. Je travaille pour Vino Systemes.” (See Mr. Chretien. No problems. We landed safely. By the way I am Rahul. I work for Vino Systems.)
Giving me a 'how could you' look with his bloodshot eyes he said, “Huh… Je… Je suis Jean-Pierre Chretien. Je suis Ingénieur d'études pour Airbus.” (I am Jean-Pierre Chretien. I am the Design Engineer at Airbus.)

Laughing Pass


One thing you will notice about Germans, is their lack of humour unless the German in question happens to be a topless model ..in which case you will notice two things about her. But seriously let topless models aside, ....not too far though, you will indeed find that most of the Germans tend to have a sense of humour which is so dry that you turn into fine, dehydrated, human dust by the time they get to the line ."....zo the Doktor zays " Kut it luse".......Ha ha". It is not the jokes I am talking about. Universal Jokes which are present in every language and have been around since ages. Jokes, which have the entertainment value of a root canal. Jokes, which have been permanently etched in your ear drums by repetitive hearing but at which you still laugh hard enough to dislodge your dental fillings, when your boss or customer ........or may be your parole officer cracks them. Laughter has a way of flowing towards authority. Ever wonder about, where do these jokes actually originate from. They seem to come from nowhere. I have a theory about these jokes. Guys, these are actual incidents which happen to actual people. There is actually someone out there who mistook the copier for a shredder and there is someone who peed in the Refrigerator (i.e Ravi Sisodia, from Class IV, New English school, circa 1980) . There are enough weird things happening in the world to make some of these jokes a reality. The people, to whom these things happen then start spreading it usually by saying "Here's a new one ". So the next time you hear an original joke, you know who is the original joker too.

Germans can tell these jokes as good as your average Joe but if you were to tell them to see the lighter side of life, Wolfgang or Helga will most probably bring his/her electrical Werkzeugkasten and start looking for bulbs to repair. I never saw a German sitcom or a major German newspaper that carries a regular cartoon or a humour column. When I use to tell them that I write a humour column, most people looked at me as if I told them I make candles from ear wax. i.e They had no idea how enjoyable it can be......although I must say sometimes it did take a lot of wax . Their movies too, though good are never really comedies. A film called "Goodbye Lenin" , which had a good comic plot but was really sub average as a comedy but ran to record ticket sales in Germany. If that movie was funny then I promise you, the following jokes, if cracked in a German pub would have die Bundesburgers rolling in the aisles, wetting their pants.

How many electricians does it take to change a light bulb ?
One

Knock Knock
Who's there ?
Me
Me Who ?
Me, Johannes Widdmann

You will rarely meet the happy go lucky German who will ever air drop jokes on you like the British or the Americans or even meet a German with some joie de vivre like the Italians or our own Sardars. I had once walked in to my neighbourhood library and while looking for my account records the librarian said,

"Entschuldigung, I hav forgotten your Nam , Ya "

"Well, You are lucky I still remember it"

This was a light joke which really could not have been lost in translation but at least merited a gentle smile. But no sirreee... no smiles, no show of teeth. He just looked at me with the expression which suggested that "Hey if I wanted to have fun I would have read the Old testament in Braille". So it is this everyday lighter side of life that just don't stick on to. I know one swallow does not a summer make but if you compare it with the general scarcity of humourous movies, books, sitcoms, stand up comedians etc, you just realise that if ever Hitler had won the war, the rest of Europe would have rather swam to the Antartic with the enthusiasm of Sachin Tendulkar signing up for a surgery and survived on penguin droppings.... except for the British. They would have stayed on in England where it is just as cold and the food tastes just as well. Atleast in the poles, they could have had some humour

What do you call a happy penguin ?
Sanguine

What do they call toilet Paper in the Antartic ?
A penguin paperback

Why is the Antartic such a degenerate place ?
Every dance is a pole dance.

The possibilities just numb the mind.

I don't know the causes behind the humourlessness and I don't want to find them out either. If I do , I am certain to deprive some PhD student somewhere of a 300 page thesis titled "An examination of the psychosocial criteria influencing the lack of encrustation of general audiovisual amusement inducing laughter in contemporary Germany". But you know what, someone should write that thesis...... or else what would the Germans read to have a good time.

Reservations- A Future Press Release


In a significant move today, Congress announced 50 % reservation for all Left Handed people in IITs/IIMs. Said a congress spokesman , "In 60 years of independence there has not been a single left handed CEO. It is time to set the system right " . This reservation will be over and above the existing reservations taking the total reservation to 99.73 %. In order to take care of the fractions, the government also announced an increase in the number of seats taking the total IIM seats to 1000.

The official bill would be signed soon by the PM's office ....with his left hand. Predictably, the Communist parties cheered this announcement saying that "We have been on the left for years and it is time the system is set right....I mean left....no Sorry ...I mean right....well may be left, AWW What the... any side will do as long it is not the American one" . This was a move which was long overdue and if the parliament had not held it's seasonal sessions throwing flower pots at each other, it would have been passed right back when V P Singh was still the prime minister and Lata Mangeshkar could actually still sing in the sonic frequency range. This move is not totally unexpected. Indeed before enjoying comparisons with another hugely popular figure , Homer Simpson, ex Prime Minister V P Singh had actually considered reservation for left handers but made it as a second priority as with it, it would have taken just too long to screw up a nation.

While fielding questions from the media at the press conference, the UPA government defended the decision saying that this reservation is not applicable for a creamy layer. It applies only to those who are born left handed and not those who are all left hands like Parthiv Patel. Also, this will exclude those left handers who think they are always right e.g Saurav Ganguly, Mahesh Bhatt etc. Amongst the first few bodies to react, the Left Handed Albino employees Union have welcomed this move saying that this move is the correct step on the direction to ensure quotas for the left handed Albino employees family members . For generations, they claimed that left handers have been oppressed by the right handers. There are many instances in history when the non left handed just came down with a heavy hand on the left just because they had the right. Many ancient Indian leaders like Akbar, Ashoka, Jyoti Basu etc were all right handed. The left handed were not given by due by the society to date that even 50 years after independence , there exist places in states like Bihar where the left handed are not even permitted to kidnap or kill people. Even traditionally, left handers were depicted by media as pure evil i.e. Ravi Shastri etc.

Political parties in the opposition have reacted differrently . BJP leaders promised to take a rath yatra first before visiting the issue. Jayalalitha promptly unveiled a statue of herself at the Meenakshi temple. Shiv Sena Supremos insisted that unless all Maharastrians were classified as left handed , he will ask his loyal Sainiks who numbered 7 at the time of going to the press, to burn a few trains( headed out of state). However if they are classified, the Shiv Sena will unlilaterally volunteer to restrict itself to looting shops belonging to right handers. TDP leaders announced a left handed technoclogy park and made a SWOT analysis and a statistical model about the impact of this move and announced the the formation of a sub commitee which will explore the advantages of making a powerpoint presentation using only the left hand. Dewe Gowda after a brief period of confusion in trying to differentiate between the right and the left , finally managed to get a few moments with the press and reacted , "What about the left handed farmers ?" before his last words were drowned by his snoring.

Some regional congress administrations have supported this move with Vilasrao Deshmukh legalising all slums built by Left Handers. A few organisations like the National Right handed weavers have actually claimed that they were orignally left handed but were forced to change to the right owing to the system and hence should qualify for this. Some hitherto neutral organisations like The Mumbai Rickshaw Drivers association have stated that even though they might have obtained their driving license on the basis of the Playstation 2 skills, they are actually closet left handed people, so much so that even when they want to turn right, they still signal left and decided to go on a strike to ask for their right to be left.

The IIT and IIM directors met at a meeting in Delhi to confabulate on this topic before they realised that no one in the media was really sure what "confabulate" meant . They have now decided to merely discuss and then directly submit their findings to a high powered shredding machine in Delhi, in order to save some time. The UPA government spokesman further said , "Ensuring primary education for all people might be a good form of ensuring social justice but it takes too much time and brings in too few votes. The UPA government as a part of it's manifesto is committed to rapid social justice before anything else....even if it happens to be left handed"

Ujwala Bayaji
PTI