Temperature tantrums

All said and done, the human body is a completely arbit work of art.

Take this for example: the temperature rises to 7 degrees Celsius in Utrecht, Netherlands and I see the first set of people in t-shirts. Back home in Chennai, the temperature dips below 30 degrees and invisible ear muffs become all the rage to fight the 'cold'.

As Amit Varma would say, such it goes.

The random adventures of garbage boy

Since I've moved to the Netherlands, I've seen a lot of strange and amusing things. People, of course, have always been the most amusing of these sights. Especially this one kid that my wife and I call 'Garbage boy'.

In this country, everyone is obssessed with cleanliness in a way that cannot even be dreamt of in Chennai unless you stay in Poes Garden. Garbage boy embodies this principle. Before you start visualising a ragged kid cleaning up the streets, let me correct that picture. Garbage boy must be about two years old and is made up mostly of winterwear. He waddles across the street with the help of his mother and two siblings and is most enthusiastic about throwing garbage in the differently coloured bins they have here, some for paper, some for bottles and some others for things I've not translated yet.

After the waddling, the boy arrives and stares transfixed at his mother as she begins to toss bottles in the bins. His mother eventually yields and gives him some precious garbage to throw in the cans. The first time around she didn't estimate the child's enthusiasm correctly, so she had to stand around for half an hour after her garbage was over while garbage boy patiently picked up every inch of garbage from the surrounding 3 km radius. Even after that the boy had to be dragged away from the bins and tossed it into the bins.

Today garbage boy was made up of even more winterwear. He came with the same gang to play in the snow that has been piling up in the town for the last couple of days. He didn't seem to realise that they had come out to play, so he kept waving at buses while his siblings maimed each other with snowballs. After a couple of buses, his mom gently turned him in the direction of the sled which was on top of a 4 ft high mound. After  serious effort, he has now successfully trekked scaled it.

At this moment, garbage boy is pointing at something in the snow and his whole entourage is huddled around him. Who knows - maybe he's found a piece of garbage.

Naughty commandments

Tomorrow: Thou shalt not sin, munchkins.

God help us please - Mr Anderson

Yesterday I was at a great party where among other things, I had my first viewing of Sam Anderson. Although I don't understand Tamil, his acting, emoting and dancing blew me away. I am forever a fan. I post this small sample from his movie 'Yarukku Yaaru' as a tribute to his greatness. Sam plays an automobile engineer who dreams of building a low-cost car, but is so poor that he can only use crayons for his engineering drawings. In this scene, he meets his college girlfriend who has just returned from Canada with his visa, passport and money. She convinces him, fairly easily, that he should go back to Canada. It is also our protagonist's birthday. And yes, Sam Anderson speaks English.

Doctors in Chennai

I recently visited a 'big' hospital in Chennai, and this is what happened:

Me: I get slightly dizzy these days in the evening, and have a recurring cough that fails to go away.
Doc: So which 'industry' do you work in?
Me: *rolling eyes* The IT industry.
Doc: Hmm... *blood sucking mode on; intelligent look and phony contemplation* Have you hit your head somewhere?
Me: What?! No!
Doc: Do you tend to go towards one side?
Me: Only when I ride the bike.
Doc: So you have a tendency of going to one side? Which side is it?
Me: The left side. That's the side of the road we're supposed to drive on.
Doc: Hmm... ok. Any family history of insanity/ mental problems?
Me: (Wha... motha... fug...) No.
Doc: Hmm.. and what of this cough? Are you spitting blood?
Me: No - although I would be pretty sure to mention it if I was.
Doc: Hmm.. and phlegm?
Me: A little.
Doc: *more contemplation and phony intelligence display* Here, do these battery of tests. (sounding very please to use the word 'battery')
Me: What are these tests?
Doc: Well, you need to go for a brain scan becau...
Me: What what what! A brain scan? What's wrong with me?
Doc: You never know, you could have injured your brain or ...*inchorence*
Me: And what about the cough?
Doc: I suspect Tuberculosis. Very common in Chennai, don't worry.
Me: So you're saying that I have TB and brain problems?
Doc: Most likely, but there is nothing to worry at this stage.

Fortunately, I later found another doc (not affiliated with the hospital) who said I have a mild case of vertigo and gave me something for my cough.

Adding to the really long list of social objectives that this blog fulfils; here's another piece of information - when in Chennai, find a good physician preferably not inside big hospitals.

In the past year, I've had TB, brain problems, blood pressure, back spasms and many other issues for which I've been sucked dry of urine and blood. A doctor at another large hospital where my company has a free Master Health Check tie-up prescribed me 3000 bucks worth of meds for blood pressure when I just mentioned that I had a spike the previous week. And then he told me that these meds would apparently help me lose weight, causing my BP to fall.

And then there's the standard fare when you go in with anything above 98 degrees Fahrenheit. Anitbiotics, vitamin B Complex supplements and paracetomols. Yes, antibiotics are the first thing they write down.

Now not all docs in big hospitals are bad, but one needs to be aware of the pitfalls and the strategies that many of these guys use to screw patients over. I for one, am happy to have found a physician who knows what she's talking about. And happier to not have TB and brain tumors.

Shared auto embarassment

It was a day like many others. I was on my way back from my office in what can be described as the worst transport money can pay for, or as is referred to in more prosaic terms in Chennai as a 'share auto'. It had rained in Chennai that day. Ok, so maybe it wasn't a day like many others.

As I sat in the front portion of the rear part of the vehicle, two young ladies got in behind me. To make this clearer, please understand that my rather voluptuous behind was unintentionally touching their feet as they sat on an elevated seat behind me. As the ladies felt more and more uncomfortable, especially since where I was sitting was surrounded by muck, they began to pass remarks about how uncomfortable it was and how they couldn't sit properly etc. My buttocks may have been mentioned once or twice.

It was a while before they realised that I was getting irritated with all the complaining and ka-pow! I almost got disoriented by what happened next. Lady 1 tapped my shoulder and said, "Excuse me, you have broad shoulders." followed by a barrage of compliments about me and my appearance. Now, this is bizarre in most places, but in Chennai this is downright miraculous. Of course, it wasn't so miraculous when I realised that the lady was from Delhi, but at that stage I was reeling from the opening line anyway.

Much later I understood that Lady 1 was apparently trying to flirt with yours truly and I didn't realise this till we got off the wretched vehicle and Friend of Lady 1 told me that Lady 1 was asking me for my card because she wanted my phone number. At this stage, I articulated something on the lines of, "Ungh I'm married aagrh help."

And that was that. I turned around and have never looked in that general direction again for fear of seeing these women again.

So what I'm saying is that it's really embarassing for me when a person of the opposite gender makes a move on me. Being the decent man that I am, I'm usually found fumbling with words and my expressions are randomly swinging between perspiring-embarassed-dull-gaze to glorious-ego-boosted-smile.

I wonder how other dudes treat these situations. Any comments?

Update: Another interesting Chennai travel story.

Day 36 - Semi final 2 - IPL 2

They had the most expensive purchase of the IPL - Kevin Pietersen. Still they stood at the bottom of the table till he was there, and one thought that they would repeat their last year's performance. However, after a match that swung more times than Lindsay Lohan, RCB who were the second worst team from last year's IPL joined last year's worst team into the IPL finals - what a story! Anil Kumble's captaincy won them 7 out of 9 matches including the semi-final match against the Chennai Super Kings.

Hayden's rest unfortunately worked against CSK, as he got out cheaply, given how solidly he scored throughout the series. Dhoni's slow innings ensured that CSK never had the momentum to set a total that would really challenge the Challengers. It was still a big match though, and having runs on the board should have been pressure enough to cause some mistakes. However, it was not until Dravid and the tyro Pandey got out did CSK really feel that they were in with a chance. A couple of bold sixes followed and it was all over for the Super Kings. Pandey and Dravid gave the solidity and volume and Virat Kohli closed it out for his team.

I'm still in shock. Only consolation for me is that it's just the IPL. It's not India that has lost, and I like to think that I am more patriotic than regioniotic. IPL is almost over now - I need to start getting a life.

The Chennai book launch of Amit Varma's 'My Friend Sancho'

There was a warning that the news of Prabhakaran's killing may cause riots in the city, so the company that I work for let me go one hour early today. No doubt they'll keep me back one hour late somewhere in the near future.

So, given the risk of venturing out into the city on a dangerous day, half my blog's readership (my friend PJ) and I decided to do what most rational souls would have done - travel for about 10-15 km to the Landmark store where India's most powerful blogger (or something like that), Amit Varma was making an appearance to promote his book.

The book reading was good, although for those of you interested in celebrity trivia, Amit pronounces that as 'dat'. The passage that Amit started out with contained swear words and orgasmic sounds; these were greeted by silence and a muffled gasp by the Chennai audience who are not used to such potty mouths. And after the discussion with Sharanya and another reading, came the funniest part of the session - audience Q&A. Some gems from the evening below:

1. I am a journalist, and as a journalist I know what journalists go through. Since I'm a journalist who's written a couple of books called '?????' and 'The ???? of ????', my journalistic question to you is about journalistic writing. What is it?

2. Why don't you start a website?

3. WHO IS THIS YOUR FRIEND SANCHI?

The last question came from a really grumpy but cute old gentleman. The end of the session was followed by the book signing and the most anticipated part of the evening - snacks. Unfortunately, my Ayurvedic diet mandates that bread cannot be eaten, so I had to keep away from the sandwiches. :(

Oddly, Amit seemed to remember me and insisted on getting his photograph taken with me. Here's the picture we took after a nice, short conversation about writing, Mumbai, blogging, wives (all good), work and books.


Amit signed my book with, "It's nice to finally meet you." The feeling was mutual Amit. :)

Also, check out Sunil's more detailed coverage of the event here.

Day 27 - IPL 2

It's the first time in the history of the IPL that the Royal Challengers are living up to their team name. What a show beating Chennai and staying in the hunt to get to the semis! As a dozen people crowded around a PC at the office hoping for some of the Dhoni luck to rub off on their team, I had only one thought: "We're toast if Taylor is still there at the end." And toast we were. CSK is now more dependent on Hayden than India were on Tendulkar in the mid-90's - and that's a lot of dependence. Doesn't bode well for the team, even thought they've been winning. Hope they prove me wrong.

Then followed the best match of the IPL so far, even better than the super over one, given the state of the tournament.

Speaking of Sachin Tendulkar, today we saw a master stroke by the Mumbai think tank. "Why open with Sanath and Sachin?", they thought. "Why not make them bat when three wickets are down, the required run rate is ridiculously higher and most of the middle order has melted away?" And it was with this iron-clad philosophy that Mumbai almost muffed up a gettable target. Sachin came it at no 5, Duminy at 6 and Jayasuriya at 4. The supposedly injured Shane Warne was bowling beautifully and ended up with 3 wickets. It was his passion again that seemed to be egging the Rajasthan Royals on. (Was he playing despite the injury, or was he never injured? Can someone fill me in on this?) And then came Abhishek Nayar. Aur usne kya maara na-yaar! An unbelievable blitz of 35 pushed Mumbai right to the brink of victory, but KKR flu was in the air. Nayar got stumped. Only 6 runs were required from 8 balls. But the Royals prevailed after an unbelievable last over from Munaf Patel with two run outs. And that difference of two runs means that Mumbai move a step away from the semi-finals and the Royals, a step closer. What a match - so many twists, and the Royals win yet another very tight game - they have the gumption to do this over and over. Will that be the rush they need to defend their title? The next week shall reveal all!

And guess what, SRK's having a really bad time of late - his team plays with the IQ of Mandira Bedi , his cheerleaders couldn't perform in South Africa and it turns out that that Bollywood role for which those women were selected during the games is all hogwash. They're not going to be in any movie-shovie. Go figure!

Day 7 - IPL 2

Good news for Chennai Super Kings - Flintoff is injured. He was the most expensive expensive bowler in the tournament so far. Will this mean a change in fortune?

About the match, RCB put up a good fight to end up with 168. Another one of the 'test' players (not Dravid this time) played well - Kallis with a brisk 62. Seeing how Chennai suffered under lights yesterday, I predicted a victory for the Royal Challengers if they bowled their pace bowlers. Unfortunately, I assumed a similar bowling attack and discounted the lower target. Kings XI are finally on the board. KP walks out dejected - another expensive Brit delivering too little.

P.S: Prempanicker is a good follow on Twitter.

Day 6 - IPL 2

A binge last night with friends, a strike in Chennai, playing Scrabble with my beautiful wife and having Pepperoni Pizza made today lazy and enjoyable. Bring on the heart attack.

IPL, of course, was on. Chennai lost. Not gay for Dhoni no more. :( Still great performance from CSK, at least they got close and gave it a good fight. First close-ish match of the tournament. Daredevils were more than Super.

[Later]
A second, and finally a really close game. I always wanted a Royal Knight Riding, the Royals were underdogs I felt, hence the support. They came back because of their captain's passion and competitive spirit.

A Gayle storm threatened to start with, then Warne quelled the storm. After that, Ganguly almost took it away. Kamran Khan effected a run out off the last ball leading to the first tie this season. I was half expecting a bowl out, when they announced a Super Over.

For those who don't know what a Super Over is:
1. 6 balls bowled to each team starting with the team that batted second
2. A max of two wickets can be lost, after which the over is deemed finished
3. The chasing team needs to chase the target set by the team batting first

And Mr Kamran took the Super Over! Talk about giving responsibility to your young players! Shane Warne certainly was bold in his captaincy. Hopefully this gives India a lot of young talent to choose from.

After waiting for an eternity, this happened:

KKR Super Over: 1 1 Wd 4 4 4 W
RR Super Over: 6 2 6 4

Gayle was reduced to a strong wind with 14 runs in the first over. Yusuf Mendis-ed his ways, didn't go across the line this time and closed it out in four deliveries. What a match!

Good night!

Day 5 - IPL 2

The bottom two teams of last year in the top scoring and probably most interesting match so far this year. The chargers look scarily solid. Virat Kohli finally finds form. Dravid regains the purple or pink or whatever-color cap. Missed most of the match because of a proposal we're chasing at work. Hope we win that, else this IPL match miss would have been for nothing.

Chennai is off tomorrow. No, not because the Super Kings are playing. I'm so gay for Dhoni. Anyway, political parties have decided to reduce their state's productivity due to the war in Sri Lanka. So tried to get drunk tonight. But nothing. No effect. I'm up at night writing blog posts that in all probability only I read. I suppose I could sleep if I wanted to. At the moment I feel like Megadeth's track from Risk that goes 'Ins-omni-omni-omni-omni-a'. Check it out, you might like it.

Good night. Or is it?

Chennai traffic gets to ATC

Bizarre news of the day: An air traffic controller shouts at an IAF pilot to shut up.

I don't know why, but my perverse brain finds the conversation on the left insanely amusing.

On a more serious note, I don't blame this guy. The traffic in Chennai is awful. It took me a hour and a half to get from OMR to Adyar last week.

Mumbai under fire, Chennai under water

While Mumbai is reeling under fire from terrorists, Chennai is underwater due to rain from cyclone Nisha and poor drainage.

Making the most of it: A child plays in the water outside her colony at Adyar while her grandfather (not in frame) takes her picture.

How to get Chennai autodrivers to talk in Hindi

Grow and straighten your hair.

In the last week an average of one driver a day has confronted me with rates ranging from 'bajaas' to 'ek sauu bajaas'. Things are only going to get worse after today's petrol price hike.

CRAPman would be ashamed.

P.S: Sorry for the poor formatting, but one can only do so much while moblogging.

The CAW effect - Chennai Autowallahs

Today was yet another rude chapter in the book of my experiences with the Chennai Auto Wallahs (CAWs). I was appalled as I encountered a new bargaining strategy that was as insidious as any I've encountered.

For the unitiated, what normally happens in Chennai is that you see them quote a ridiculous fare with what they consider a customer friendly expression. "I have to go from Adyar to Tiruvanmiyur", you say - a distance of 2 km. "120", comes the reply with a vigorous side to side shake of the head and a smile only a blind mother could love. You then settle on a price or repeat this for about three or four CAWs and get a feel of the best price you can get. It's not pretty, but the Chennai-ite takes it with a pinch of salt and carries on.

Today I was the victim of another ingenious scheme. I quoted the name of the area where my office is. He pretended to misinterpret the name and muttered the names of two or three places under his breath that sounded like the place I mentioned. Every time, he agreed to a pauperly sum of 80. Finally he confirmed that he heard the exact place I said and conceded to 80 again. This was shocking because the charge by meter is 67. No, that's not the shocking part. The first price that these guys quote to start with has been an average of 150, after which they settle between 80 and 100 after intense argument and an acceptable level of personal insult.

The strategy that ensued was pretty unethical even by CAW standards. After we sat, the yellow auto was set into motion. Very inconspicuously, he blurted,"120". My civil senses restrained my hand from slapping the fellow and I only managed a few unfriendly pokes on his back asking him to stop. Although, this wasn't really terrible (even I've have had worse experiences), I shudder to think what happens when women travel alone in this city. I've heard incidents ranging from CAWs spitting on women when they argue too much to them trying to ride off into the night when a lady argues. The lady is in the auto, of course.

The autorickshaw community has long been considered by many as a form of crime control, with most potential goons taking up that occupation. Although, I don't completely subscribe to that philosophy because I've met some real angelic CAWs, I do think that it's about time that the authorities start looking at this as a very real threat in terms of potential crime, rather than a votebank. After all, an auto or any private mode of transport renders the traveler at the mercy of the drivers, and that's a matter of life and death.