m a n u s c r y p t s

He was told not to misbehave. He mumbled that he understood the momentous nature of the event. She replied that his behaviour in public was still a matter of concern. He figured this conversation was bound to happen when one was traveling by bus for the first time after six years of life in Bangalore.

until next time, riders

There are nearly seven billion people on this planet. Each one unique, different. What are the chances of that? And why? Is it simply biology, physiology that determines this diversity? A collection of thoughts, memories, experiences that carve out our own special place? Or is it something more than this? Perhaps there’s a master plan that drives the randomness of creation, something unknowable that dwells in the soul, and presents each one of us with a unique set of challenges, that will help us discover who we really are.

We are all connected, joined together by an invisible thread, infinite in its potential and fragile in its design. Yet while connected, we are also merely individuals, empty vessels to be filled with infinite possibilities, an assortment of thoughts, beliefs, a collection of disjointed memories and experiences… Can I be me without these? Can you be you?

And if this invisible thread that holds us together were to sever, to cease, what then? What would become of billions of lone, disconnected souls? Therein lies the great quest of our lives, to find, to connect, to hold on. For when our hearts are pure, and our thoughts in line, we are all truly one, capable of repairing our fragile world, and creating a universe of infinite possibilities.

Thus spake Mohinder Suresh in”An Invisible Thread”, the season finale of ‘Heroes’.

And as if on cue, a large number of conversations and experiences popped up as conversations inside my head. Yes, those nice voices in the head.

I remembered the conversations that Mo and i keep having on the subject of identity, purpose, character and other stuff that she completely gets. Okay i get too, but muddled up. I remembered how, when I was reading Archer’s ‘Sons of Fortune’..again, I suddenly figured out why he is my favourite author. In addition to that amazing gift of story telling he has got, its his characters, and their character. Good or bad, they seem to have a moral code. They are noble - noble heroes and noble villains. (remember that word, shall come back to it in a while) Even when they come in contact with their character’s grey areas, they have a rationale they can apply to the situation. They make you aspire for such clarity in thought and deed, in being true to themselves and their character.

Meanwhile, I see around me, a lot of young people eager to emulate - even things that I hoped would question and better. And as i keep a watch on that, I sense that they do it to belong, at any cost. They are willing to take their lessons from second hand accounts - not accounts of mistakes, which could be argued as a good thing, but enriching experiences that would shape their character. Of course, not every young person I know is like that. I also come across quite a few who have more character and maturity than many people double their age. But I do see more of the first kind. It is a different kind of conforming than what i was have seen earlier - a  need to fit into their peer group’s collective terms.

On twitter and Facebook and all the services which connect us, I see this set, and more coming in every day to add to their number. And in this collective consciousness, I glimpse the desperation in the need to belong at any cost - even  at the cost of a character that is still being formed. A shared identity and a strong character, can it co exist? I wonder, if in this age of possibilities, they will be satisfied with this belonging, I also hope that they will not wake up, one day, years later and rue this conformity that they created for themselves.

And then, I remember what a smart young lady from that age group once told me “Manu, this is so archaic. Only you could use the word ‘noble’ in conversation”. So, I wonder whether there is something in this connectedness that I don’t understand, whether the ‘plan’ requires all kinds of characters - with or without a strong character, to maintain the balance,  or whether the kind of disconnectedness that I’m feeling now is one that characterises that thing we all do - ageing.

until next time, time for adages?

It is quite an apt name for this little restaurant in Koramangala, for during our first innings in Koramangala, a few years back, this used to be our regular take away joint. Of course, the primary reason was the awesome beef roast, and that’s been my beef with them for some time now, they have stopped serving erm, beef. Anyway, to get there, take the road from Sony World (on the Koramangala - Indiranagar Intermediate Ring Road) towards Koramangala 1st Block. You’ll find it on the left after Umerkot. Here’s the map, ‘B’ is the correct location. Parking is a small problem, and you will have to find some space in one of those small lanes that dot the area.

This is the place to head to, when all the three conditions are met - you are in Koramangala, you want to pig on Mallu food (and want a break from the Empire/Imperial/Paramount trimurtis) and you don’t really care about the ambience. So, while the menu claims North indian and Chinese, with soups and kebabs and even a chopsey (sic) ignore all that and stick to God’s own food.They have thalis (Rs.55 and Rs.90 for veg and non veg respectively) and ‘Meals’ (Rs. 55 for veg, and Rs. 75 for chicken, and fish) but these options are only for lunch. Ditto for kappa and meen curry (tapioca and fish), that was a disappointment, especially for D, who takes her sun sign very seriously. [Why isn't there a sunsign for chicken or chocolate, I'd get serious too ]

So we took long hard looks at the menu and found quite a few chicken dish names that we haven’t encountered anywhere else - kakanadan, tawakiran, tamiya etc!! We chose to be eh, conservative, and ordered half portions of  chicken stew and chicken roast, an avoli (pomfret), and to go along with that a plate of appam and a plate of Kerala porotta. We’d have liked some kallumakkai (mussels) too, but they didn’t seem to have it  yesterday. At some point of time, when the initial excitement of all this stuff had passed, and we were wondering what next, we overheard a conversation about kaada (quail) and asked for a kaada roast too, and another plate of porottas. Ask for the takeaway menu, since that is more updated and you can find stuff like kaada and rabbit, duck etc too.

The food was just as we remembered, fantastic. I’d advise half portions because you can then try out more stuff. The stew was well made, with no stinginess on the coconut milk. The chicken roast has a paste like gravy that’s quite spicy, so if you aren’t a fan of stuff that sets your tongue on fire, stay away. The kaada roast is similar in consistency, and in terms of spice, starts off from where its chicken counterpart left off. Quails have crunchy bones,  and you really can’t separate the meat easily, so you could order one plate and figure out if you like it.  The pomfret was excellent, fried just right, well cooked yet soft. The porottas were a bit flaky, but soft enough, so I won’t complain. The appams were also made well, and it was really a tough call when we had to choose the stuff to go with the quail.For the record, the beef would’ve made the meal unforgettable, sigh…

All of the above cost us just under Rs.400 I assume, you get the USP of the place - awesome food at VFM prices. Don’t expect a fine dining experience, but when choosing a place for Mallu food, this one should easily be a front runner.

Little Home, No 1015,1st Block,Hosur Road, Koramangala. Ph: 25631504

Disclaimer: This is one of those trippy posts written purely for indulging the self.

It all started when we realised that we could never find Nagraj when work had to be done. Some even said he never responded anyway. And that’s when I suggested that we get a been, so that he would be forced to respond. And then I wondered if a been came with a been bag.

I nagged him about why he went missing. He said he was a movie buff and held the job only to pay bills. His favourite actress was Nagma. He slithered out to watch Bollywood snake videos on YouTube. That was his escape from the snake pit we called office. He called it his cobra pause.

Nagraj obviously had a bean bag, which he refused to lend. I challenged him to a game. Whoever got snake eyes first in a game of dice wins it. I was a charmer, but Nagraj was a hood. Punch me he did. He kept the bean bag, and I could never be a has been.

until next time, been there, done that

There’s an old man whom I meet almost everyday now – he’s a parking attendant. He has a speech impediment that renders most of what he’s saying incoherent. He claims to know quite a few languages and from what I make out of his Malayalam, it is quite passable. I did try to make conversation with him a few times, but felt uncomfortable every time I asked him to repeat something. Sometimes I see him talking to himself. Maybe he is relaxed when he doesn’t have to explain, or maybe he doesn’t want a response when someone cannot understand him.

A few experiences made me compare his condition to my communication on Twitter. I have always fancied Twitter for the lifestream capability. That’s one of the reasons (the fear of losing the lifestream) that I’ve even started hosting my tweets in my own space. But, while I can do that on the blog, the conversations and some interesting people I come across make an effective bonus that keeps me hanging in there.

However, last week, something made me question my Twitter existence. On two consecutive days, I was ‘forced’ (yes, I do take responsibility for forcing myself too) to explain tweets which were my reactions to a couple of stuff that were being talked about on Twitter. The reactions were not pro or against anyone, and did not even touch upon the central issues, they were just interesting to me from a thoroughly different perspective. No, I am not going to detail them here, but suffice to say that while I was explaining, I felt like the old man, who found it so difficult to communicate something that perhaps (and most likely) in his head, doesn’t suffer from any lack of clarity at all. It frustrated me that, even keeping aside barriers like language and speech impediments, it has become impossible for us (I blame myself too, and am generalizing, so those above all this, please ignore) these days to take a statement or idea and not immediately judge it and catalog it safely into some stereotype we have made in our head (in both cases, I was considered either pro something or against something, when I didn’t have an opinion at all, because the issues themselves were of relatively lesser importance to me)

Sometimes, I see the old man in conversation with others, and he seems to be enjoying it. Maybe his companions know him enough to figure out what he’s trying to say, or maybe they’re just nice people who would like to see him happy and make him feel that there are people who understand him, in spite of his disability. If it’s the latter, I hope he never finds out.

until next time, communication channel surfing

Cilantro is the Spanish word for coriander leaves, say some on the www. (D was sure, i had to check. Makes sense - she cooks, I eat)  It’s a restaurant in Koramangala, say Bangaloreans, and as it happens many a time, everyone’s right. To get there - at the Sony World junction on the Intermediate Ring Road (Koramangala - Indiranagar), take a left turn towards Koramangala 1st Block (when coming from Indiranagar), and keep going till the next signal (thats where the Maharaja restaurant is - map), take a left at the signal, keep going straight, and where the road takes a natural right turn, you’ll see the Halcyon complex, inside which is Cilantro. Two wheelers can be parked right outside, and there are enough bylanes around for four wheeler parking.

Cilantro is promoted as a ’sunrise to sunrise cafe’, serves North Indian and Continental, and is spread over a semi outdoor and indoor space. We hadn’t reserved in advance, and if you’re going before 8, you can just walk in. We chose to sit outside, and realised that the unspoken part was that the mosquitoes joined anyone else who came after sunset, for their dinner.

They introduce you to their salad, pasta, and barbecue counters, which you can go for, in case the regular menu doesnt appeal to you. We thoroughly ignored the salad counter, gave a cursory glance to the pasta counter, where there was a choice of 3 pastas, and deliberated over the barbecue counter, where there was fish, chicken, lamb, pork, calamari, prawns before settling for items in the menu. The chef is quite eager to help you around.

The menu has sandwiches - both veg and non veg, with prices ranging from Rs.125 - 230, burgers, priced between Rs.130-155, both of which are classified under ‘any time’.

During regular meal hours, you have a choice of half a dozen soups, including veg and non veg, appetisers - including a couple of prawn and calamari options, and kebabs. For the main course, you could choose from the continental options - veg/prawn/ beef/ pork/ fish/ chicken or the Indian section which offers decent choices in veg and non veg, with rotis and rice to go along with them.

We started with a Chunky farm style chicken veloute soup. Though there is a creamy flavour to it, it’s actually made from stock (not milk) and has chunks of chicken. A very good soup, and they bring you a bread basket from which you could take white/brown bread, bread sticks or croissants.

For the main course, D ordered a “Red Wine Chicken Breast”, (chicken simmered in red wine, glazed and served with home made pasta) which was recommended by the staff, and i went for a Char grilled pork chops with bbq sauce, (served with cous cous and buttered tossed vegetables) which was recommended by the web reviews. The chicken dish was very good, from what little i tasted of it, and was served with sphagetti. The pork chops were well amde and the gravy was fantastic. The cous cous complemented it well. There were ’strange’ vegetables, which I didn’t bother figuring out, since I had meatier things to consider.

There were the regular Indian and Continental dessert options - gulab jamun, chocolate mousse and the like, the only one that stood out was a coconut caramel custard, but we decided to skip. They also serve liquor. Our bill came to just over Rs.750. After the meal, have a few polite smiles ready, since the chef and at least two more members of the staff ask you if you had a pleasant experience, and also inform you about a Sunday brunch. You could check out the place - pleasant and relaxing ambience, with loads of greenery, and decent food.

Cilantro, PB 4708, No: 9, Drafadila Layout, 4th Block, Koramangala. Ph: 41102200

A search for a sticker - part of the memorabilia of a concert from about 4 years back - ended up taking me over a couple of decades back. I wonder if this is a coincidence - a lot of writing about memories these days, or am i consciously watching out for these trips so i can chronicle them?

The sticker turned up many interesting things, some of which I knew existed, and some whose existence I had forgotten - my old carnatic music books, letters and cards from almost a decade back, an autograph of Nonie - a favourite VJ from a long time back, some of you oldies might remember her :p , a few old board games - Scrabble, Monopoly, stickers used to label video cassettes!! And journals 1.0 - the stuff i used to pen down regularly, fun to read the stuff from half a lifetime away - seems more like a lifetime!! Each of these have several stories around themselves, and then some that I perhaps have forgotten.

It sits in the corner of a room in Bangalore housing these nostalgis triggers - a 25 year old massive veteran, not even Indian in origin - a Samsonite.

It came from the US in 1985, when my dad came back after a year long trip. We became friends immediately - no, not my dad, that would take more time - because in it were Lego - the soldier set I had specifically asked for after seeing a catalog, the View-master - with Superman disks, little robots that turned into cars, chocolates, remote controlled cars - one with a  wire which was chucked only years later for a wirefree one, and assorted things that mean so much in childhood - pencils and rubbers (yes, we were innocent enough to call them that then) and fluorescent colored marker pens with the ‘Made in USA’ inscriptions, battery operated pencil sharpeners - all you had to do was dip the pencil and it came out sharpened. As Arthur C Clarke has rightly said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”, and magic is anyway an acceptable commodity for seven year olds. The friendship came to an abrupt end, as soon as the above items were taken out.

We then got separated - mostly thanks to the distances - at home, it was kept on the top of a large almirah. Several attempts were made to reconnect - primarily because it was suspected of housing more booty. These suspicions arose from the fact that a lot of ‘Made in USA’ gifts were given to self and others on special occasions long after Dad came back. But we were kept apart, scraped knees, beseeching innocent expressions and bruised ego notwithstanding.

It took a decade for the ownership to be transferred, albeit without any words being exchanged. There were only a few remains of the treasure by then, and i wondered aloud who would be interested in such junk now!! I think it started coming down in the world from then on.

It moved to the less homely, and usually less cleaner habitats - the engineering college hostels, and played host to everything from the T Scale and other engineering drawing set paraphernalia to my favourite sliced green chillies pickle that was stocked and used with bread to survive the toxic waste that was regularly served in the hostel canteen. College mates used to eye it lustily because it was also suspected of containing quite a few literary works that kids at that age read for erm, pleasure.

Conditions seemed to be improving as it hopped on to a train and reached that paradise - Goa and spent two years there. However, its contents were nothing more interesting than sets of clothes, sometimes unwashed at that. To be noted that the lusty looks continued, as the literature was suspected to be growing in quantity and quality, and even to be technologically updated - floppy disks!!

It might have been happy to be home, but that was to be only for a year, and it soon traveled with me to Bangalore. And that’s where I stare at it now, a proud, dignified brown giant of a travel case, with the scars and keepsakes of its old journeys - the ancient tag of its first flight, Lufthansa, the light discoloration that happened when it served as a dining table, the scratch marks courtesy Indian Railways, and inside, the books, the board games and the posters that I used to stick on the walls of my college room……

I look at it and think absurdly how wonderful it would be if i could have  a conversation with it. It has seen how I have changed, and not changed. We could sit and laugh at the suspected literature and sigh wistfully at the loneliness of places away from home. We share memories. I realise that in many ways, it is like the room, but in many ways, its different - it has changed too, with me, as only a traveling companion in the journey of life can.

until next time, traveling baggage, literally

This post is special and the devil is in the details. Just as it is in the logo, according to some. Anyway, the details are simple – this happens to be the 666th post. Sau, what better time than this to coin an evil ‘pachpun’ - since this is also the blog’s 100th 55 word post?

until next time, a devil-may-care post

Hmm, while you could be pardoned for thinking about a special coastal train with piped music, its actually a restaurant and judging from the piped music, I don’t think a love for music had anything to do with that being the name. I’m guessing numerology.Don’t even think Ekkspress, evil soul!! :p

So, this place is a bit away from  our regular haunts but since we had to go to that part of town for some other purpose, we thought we might as well drop in at Shivananda Circle, especially since my previous experience there was wonderfully fishy . Here’s the map, and if that is confusing, lets make it simple. MG Road- Raj Bhavan Road-Race Course Road (Taj West End), take a right when you see Petals on your right, as soon as you turn, you’ll see the Solitaire Hotel on your left. Keep going straight and you’ll hit Shivananda Circle (its the next traffic signal) and see Coastaal Express on your left, but the other side of the road. So, don’t take a left turn at the junction, just go straight and turn left at the next bylane and another left, where you can park. Then just walk up the road, and you’ll have the place on the left. (Why do I get this feeling that these directions turned out more confusing, just like the erm, Left?) The first floor has the a/c section, and that’s where we went.

The ambience is quite good - they have this quaint display of old cooking utensils as soon as you enter, and the  seating is quite comfortable. We reached there around 8.15 and quite surprisingly, found only one table occupied, though by the time we feft an hour later, most of the tables were full. The menu starts with coastal food, but I also found an extensive Chinese section, complete with about 8 veg and non veg soups each, and a huge selection of starters and main course dishes. Ditto for the North Indian section (without the soups though) While you might wonder about the intelligence of this, i have seen enough people eating chow mein and dal makhani at such places for its presence to be justified. No, not that combination, thank God.

In the sea food section, there are different versions of squid, prawn and crab, even chinese and tandoor versions. Choices of fish too - anjal, kane, pomfret, silverfish, bangda. Mussels are not available, you could try a marvai sukka though. And to go with that - kori roti, moode, appam, pundi (rice balls) or if you’re a larger group, a coastal basket which has all these. And there are quite a few veg dishes too. There are thali options for lunch - veg, fish and chicken at Rs. 55, 80, 85 respectively.

We started with an anjal (king fish) masala fry - a single piece, we thought would be enough, a half portion of chicken ghee roast, and to go along with that, a plate each of moode and appam (2). Serving time will be at least 30 mins, the menu says. Bingo, and when the food got to us - we asked for it to be brought together, we realised that we would need one more plate of appam and also ordered a kane rava fry. The anjal fry would’ve been great if not for the all pervasiveness of salt, ditto for the chicken, in which you have six pieces with a pasty ‘gravy’. It went well enough with the appam and moode. The kane rava fry was excellent though - crisp and crunchy. The appam was made very well, and so was the moode. Moode tastes similar to sannas, but is  smaller and more cylindrical.

One word of caution here - the kane and anjal are priced according to size, so you might want to ask the price beforehand. We actually didn’t bother, and realised that one anjal piece cost us Rs.180, which was really not worth it. The kane rava fry (2 pieces) cost us Rs.160, over priced, we felt, but was at least worth it.

The dessert section had the usual suspects, from fruit sald and ice cream to gajar ka halwa and gulab jamun and caramel custard. For those who are wondering, they serve liquor too.

The total bill came to just over Rs.700. I’d say Something Fishy is a much better bet.

Coastaal Express, 6/4, Shivananda Complex, Sivananda Circle, Ph: 22355094/95

He felt it was below his dignity to ask his team member for the solution. After all he was the manager.
The team member, who had just gotten the solution, froze as he felt a hand on his shoulder, but relaxed when the manager asked, “Level 7, huh? But how did you cross Level 6?

until next time, bench warm up games..