Food for thought

I am a true blue Kannadiga with my ancestors hailing from a hamlet called Sosale in the heartland of the erstwhile Mysore state. The gastronomical inputs in my growing years were such Mysore delicacies like Maavinakaai Chitranna, Nuchina Unde, Hulitove Majjigehuli with a reward of Gasgase Payasa on festival days.

I presumed that one day I would marry a pretty damsel from T Narsipur or Arsikere and my food preferences would be taken care of in the manner I was accustomed to. In fact I would have encouraged my bride to add Gojju Avalakki to the menu.

However, fate had something else in store for me. I ended up marrying an Iyer girl from Palghat. Since then the dining table is full of dishes with tongue twisting names like Keerai Moologootal, Maangai Araitchukalakki, Vazhakkai Mezhukkuvaratti, Nendrapazham Pulissery, et al. In fact my wife goes gaga over something call Olan. Once she made light brown chutney which I sort of liked. She quickly corrected me that it was Parippu Thogayal and not chutney. I retorted that I knew chutney when I saw one. This argument went on for several years till the well known writer V. Gangadhar (also from Palghat) wrote in his column, “Slice of Life” that Thogayal and chutney were two different items. That newspaper cutting, now yellowed occupies pride of place on our fridge door under a magnet.

However, being an eternal optimist I put all my hopes on my two sons marrying dainty girls from Narasimharajapura or Hosagrahara. I was confident that our dining fare would be become a cheerful congregation of delicious Hurli Saaru, Kosambari and Kayi Hollige.

Thanks to the machinations of my wife and her crony my elder son married an Iyengar. Now the dining table repertoire includes Kandathippili Sathamudu, Vazhaikai Kariamudu and

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Akkaravadesil .It was rather confusing in the beginning when my daughter-in-law referred to something called Thirumadapalli. I later found out that was the Iyengar reference to the kitchen.

To rub salt on my wounds I had to utter et tu Brute when my younger son somehow persuaded a Gujarathi girl from Kutch to marry him. With the addition of Bajra no rotlo, Guvar nu Shaak and Dal Dhokli our household menu reads something like the one in the Indian cuisine restaurant at the Taj.

I have somehow survived my sacrifices over the years. Unfortunately my culinary skills are limited to heating food in the microwave so I could not really overcome the deficiencies in my diet. Driving all the way to Malleswaram to eat Akki Roti at New Krishna Bhavan is not practical. It is particularly stressful for me when the Avarekai season arrives. Imagine a life without Avarekai Uppitu or Saaru…..

The Real Big Bull

By S V L Narayan

My father was so scared of losing his meagre savings through banks collapsing that he divided the amount equally among five nationalized banks. I inherited his genes of financial conservatism.

In my early career I was invited to a lot of soirees at five star hotels. I was quite a misfit among the chiffon-clad, diamond dripping society women and the Christian Dior suited men. I was happy standing at a corner nursing my tomato juice till it was time to make a quiet exit. One day I saw an ad in the newspaper for a course in “The Art of Small Talk”. I went through sessions on how to integrate with people whom I thought were more sophisticated than me. I was taught to read up on a subject just enough to start and hold a conversation. My focus was on some person called Harshad Mehta who was referred to as The Big Bull.

I devoured all the information available on the financial pages of dailies and magazines and was soon ready to be let loose on an unsuspecting P3 crowd. At the next party I joined a group of five people who were discussing the stock market. One worthy was talking about FMCG stocks. I butted in and said, “The future is in banking stocks. Harshad is very positive on SBI.”This immediately had the attention of the group. As the evening progressed I harped on the profits to be made on stocks in the metals and pharma fields. By now my audience had swelled to half the guests.

This continued for the next few years long after the worthy Mr. Mehta. By now I was clued in about Futures & Options, too. Invitations to parties increased manifold. At one gathering I distinctly heard a Hugo Boss suited gentleman whispering, “There goes Bangalore’s Big Bull.”Thanks to the new TV Business channels and the Internet, information was spouting out of both my ears and I switched over to another flavour of the season. At the next party a Neiman Marcus clad gentleman asked my opinion about shipping stocks. As if on cue I pontificated, “Stocks are passé. The direction to go is Commodities. The Rain Forests in Paraguay are being denuded. There will be a global shortage of Mentha Oil. There are millions to be made trading on that.”

My wife is paranoid about speculators sending goons after me to recover their losses. I have not put in a paisa of my own in any of these activities all these years. I still live in my modest apartment in Jayanagar. And, yes whatever little money I have saved is safe and sound in State Banks of Hyderabad and Mysore.

Weddin chow-chow

When I was a kid I remember my parents talking about their wedding that was spread over four days.
I could never imagine how the guests spent their time for such a long period and also the strain that
must have been on the hosts.By the time it was my turn to wed the whole process took just over a
day.That was more or less the norm for south indian marriages during that era.

However, of late the saas-bahu serials and surfeit of Bollywood films extolling the ceremonial virtues
of north indian weddings seem to have penetrated the mindset of people in the south, too. Thus,
Mehendi, Sangeet and Bidaai seem to have become an integral part of most nuptials that I have
attended in Bangalore.

Recently, not realizing the enormity of the situation, I agreed to be part of the baraat at the wedding
of my friend’s son.I was ordered to come for dance practice at his house.We were met by a
professional choreographer imported from tamil films.The briefing given to us was that we
were to beat the bride’s family in the dance face-off at the Sangeet. The next few days revealed
to me the number of disused muscles in my body.Some of us oldies had a tough time keeping
steps with the younger members.Meanwhile, my wife was busy as she was part of the mehendi
group.Unfortunately, we were trounced at the dance competition as the opposition had younger
and more energetic members, plus they wore matching costumes.

The other custom imported from the north is the practice of the bride’s side hiding the groom’s
footwear and then selling it back to him at a price.At my nephew’s marriage in Mysore,in their
innocence the bride’s family,who had been raised in the north did just that.Unfortunately,they
had not reckoned on my sister-in-law’s reaction.When she got the the information of the filching
she marched purposefully to the bridal party’s room and in a no-nonsense tone demanded the
chappals back.Taken aback,the other side meekly returned the footwear.

With many NRIs holding their weddings in India, some of the western procedures have also
been adopted. One such is the Toast, normally delivered at the reception or Sangeet. Thanks
to having raised Toasts a couple of times at my Rotary inaugural functions, I seem to have been
targeted by friends and relatives to write one for them. In most cases, depending on whether one
is from the bride’s side or the groom’s the idea is to pass light-hearted comments about the pitfalls
of marriage and the opposite sex. Thanks to online bookstores I have a large collection of quotations
to draw from. Without a qualm I pilfer liberally from them. Needless to say, some of the quotes could
be termed chauvinist.

Overall,these weddings are great fun for the guests but pretty tiring for the hosts.But one regret that
I have is that I have never been invited for a ‘Destination Wedding’ where guests are flown in
chartered flights to exotic islands. Maybe someday…

Taxi,Taxi!

It was heartening to read in the press that our very own Ambassador was voted the best taxi in the world. Over the years, I have travelled in taxis in several countries right from a Maruti 800 to an obscenely ostentatious Lincoln stretch limo. The experience varied from place to place.

I love getting in to conversation with taxi drivers. Unfortunately, my pseudo "Burra Sahib” ego stops me from sitting in the front passenger seat. However, this does not prevent me from holding unfettered discussions with the cabbie. I suppose that being cooped up in the front seat the whole day, the driver also craves for some banter.

Taxi drivers in Singapore do not encourage idle gossip. The distances are short and they are already looking for the next passenger. They return your change exactly and are on their way. So is the average London cab driver. He is polite but the way the taxi is designed, there is no way one can have a proper dialogue. The private taxis in the UK are slightly different from the London cabs. On my first visit, there was this smart guy in a black suit with a board with my name. I presumed that he was a senior executive or the owner of the taxi company. I later found out that this was the standard uniform for these drivers.

The China cabs are a bit funny. The driver sits inside a fibreglass cage. I was quite puzzled until I was told that it was to protect the driver from a possible car-jack. Apart from this, of course, is the language barrier. At the airport, they help you with a diagram to your destination that you hand over to the driver. So, until the destination there is no conversation.

In the US, things are a bit different. It is not in every city that you get a proper city cab. New York is a good example to chat with drivers as they are invariably from the Punjab (it does not matter from which side of the border).I have had a tête-à-tête in my poor Hindi about Bollywood films, the popular stars and their personal lives.

In Detroit, I had a Pakistani driver. He was a qualified doctor from a proper medical college in Lahore. His was an arranged marriage with a US citizen and so relocated. Poor guy could not practice in his new country. He revealed to me that unlike Asian doctors, the US medics would never come to a quick diagnosis, in spite of clear symptoms, for fear of medical malpractice suits. There were times when the local doctors consulted him for his opinion.

However, in India itself there are varieties of taxis. The most “dented-but-not -painted” ones are in Kolkata. In the seventies right in Park Street, my driver parked his car, got out and joined a morcha that was passing by. I looked silly sitting in the back seat not knowing when I would reach my destination.

One danger of becoming too familiar with the cabbie is that you end up being morally bound to be generous with the tip. Nevertheless, that is a small price to pay in return for some verbal stimulation.

Queen of the road

QUEEN OF THE ROAD

In the early nineties though we had a car for several years my wife did not show much interest in driving. However, one morning out of the blue she insisted that I should teach her to drive.

We set off from home off MG Road and reached Cubbon Road. I showed her the various controls. She immediately wanted to take over. That was the exact moment when I started greying. The car took two jerks and the engine stalled. The stop and go routine continued for several days. At the cricket stadium we would turn left and on to MG Road and then back home. Every time I gave her advice on braking or releasing the clutch she told me not to distract her. Each day once we reached home it was recriminations from both sides which ended by her accusing me of not wanting her to drive. This situation was resolved when she joined a well-known driving school. Soon she flaunted her driving licence and promptly stopped wanting to be mobile.

After we shifted to Hyderabad she again had the urge to drive. But now she claimed that the traffic in that city was disorganized (this coming from a Banglorean!).So off she went and joined a driving school near our home. Pretty soon I had to buy a second car(a brand new bright red Santro) to satisfy her wanderlust. Every time there was a scratch or a dent the fault was always the other person’s. “I had the right turn signal on and also put my hand out, but still that fool kept coming straight and hit the side”, was a constant travail. But soon she got used to this love-hate relationship with Hyderabad traffic and the roads and it was quite peaceful for the next few years. Meanwhile, she had also managed to renew her licence, courtesy her best friend’s uncle.

We then returned to Bangalore in 2005. By now she was older, wiser and more patient so she did not crib about the Bangalore traffic. She happily drove around handling her chores or visiting relatives and friends. One day she found that her licence had expired four months earlier. Further, as we had shifted cities there was the issue of change of address, and NOC. There was panic all around. One tout offered to get a new one for her for Rs 4000.My wife being rather prudent with her purse strings refused. She found a better solution, in which she had past experience. She discovered a driving school in our neighbourhood and immediately registered with them. Every morning she would drive to their office in her  new Hyundai i10 and then get in to their training car. She soon graduated from her Learner’s licence to the real one. Every now and then the Bangalore Traffic Police smartphone spews out her misdemeanours. But she has reached a point of no concern. After all I am always there to pay up the fine.

Now she has ambitions to drive my pristine white,unscratched SUV.Like hell!

Big Brother is still watching you…

In his book “Nineteen eighty-four” George Orwell had coined the term “Big Brother is watching you” basically to postulate a theory of state surveillance on citizens. Today, the ominous tone of the book may not be there but increasingly the internet has provided a flexible media to various commercial organizations to peep into our lives.

Last week I made an internet search for hotels in Amritsar while planning a visit. After browsing through some of the hotel sites I moved forward to other subjects. Imagine my surprise that in less than 24 hours I started observing advertisements of hotels in Amritsar whenever I opened any online newspaper or magazine pages; on social media sites, and even received emails promoting hotels in that city.

This was not an isolated case. The story repeated when I showed interest in shoes, blue-tooth headsets, coffee-makers, etc. Some unknown entity seems to be fully aware of all my interests. Not only that, now has it even known the locality I live in, because out pops up advertisements for stores near my house.

This should not have come as a surprise to me. In the early nineties when I entered the IT industry I had never sent an email nor knew what a “url” was. Increasingly we started hearing about the term “search engine”. Those were the early days when the now defunct Alta Vista and Netscape were glamorous brands. Our technical team started briefing us on terms like “web footprint”, neural networks, data mining, analytics, etc. We were told that the more we browse the internet the more it understands our behavior and likes and dislikes.

Today web technology is slowly trying to take over our homes with what is referred to as Internet of Things (IoT) where all our appliances are also networked. Every evening our maid gives me an inventory of vegetables in our fridge. Based on our requirement she cuts the vegetables for the next day’s meals. Imagine, soon that interaction is replaced by my refrigerator sending me messages that I have run out of ridge gourd, or beans, or pumpkin. Or, god forbid, the washing machine telling me that my golf trousers are so dirty that they need a longer cycle of wash.

Some decades back along with my sons I would watch a TV serial called “Knight Rider” where the driver would have a two-way conversation with his car. It is hard to say whether the American entrepreneurs were inspired by that serial but today they are already testing driver-less cars that take verbal orders over the net.

But now my favourite gadget at home is a voice activated speaker. Alexa obeys me implicitly and plays my favourite songs or the latest news any time of the day. But even she draws a line when I ask her awkward questions, particularly on politics or personalities. But she does regale me when I ask her to tell me a Rajnikanth joke.

Blame it on the genes.

Owing to some eccentricity in our family’s genetic code there were no female births in our family for almost a hundred years.

My parents had four sons and my two elder brothers and I had two sons each. This obviously played a major role in our rather one-dimensional approach to life as we grew-up. With the most influential part of our life being spent in Delhi the typical South Indian way of life was for the most part missing. I presume it was a rather a lonely furrow to plough for my mother to bring in our usual festivities. For us Dussehra was watching Ram Leela and no display of dolls at home. No tinkling of anklets and no Bharatha Natyam teacher or Carnatic music vidwan. Instead it was the cacophony of sibling fights, stinky socks and sweaty school uniforms. Once there was a Kurukshetra battle even on the rear seat of our car.

When it was time for us to get married it was rather monotonous being always on the Bridegroom’s side. Presumably we were supposed to behave with a certain dignity and not let down our hair. The only time we had a bit of a laugh was when my eldest brother was driven round the streets of Coimbatore in an open Rolls Royce. Later at my nephew’s wedding baraat in Los Angeles the steed became a bit frisky and gave us all anxious moments.

Things had become so matter-of-fact that when my elder son was born my father, over the phone asked my younger brother about the sex of the baby and was told “the same.”However, the advantage my sons had while growing up was an unending stream of hand-me-downs from my nephews in the USA.My wife used to look longingly at little girls in pigtails playing in our colony park. I thought I heard her sighing once or twice. Particularly once when my younger son climbed up the window curtain and brought the pelmet down.

When the boys got married I took the easy way out and told the respective Sambandhis to conduct the wedding as per their custom. I didn’t want to go through the tension of our priest standing on ego and fighting with his opposite number.

But after a cold winter can’t spring be round the corner? One fine day there was rejoicing when my eldest brother had a grand-daughter. We all felt that the family had turned the corner. Then arrived our grand-daughter. My wife went berserk. All her pent-up desires boiled over. I think she secretly wanted to buy stuff which she had wanted in her childhood. Off she would go every now and then all by herself. She would return with bags full of girlie dresses, hair clips and bands, sandals. She even parted with her own childhood doll and gifted it to the little girl. Life seemed fulfilled.

But then my younger son had two boys…