train journeys: a bellyful of tastes and flavours

there is something about train journeys that re-assures us that not all transport is at light speed, hurtling hapless humans into voids only to arrive at destination before they have even begun to adjust to the departure!

india being a railroaded country, most indians travel from one station to another for work, love, escape, holidays, marriage and all the myriad occasions that make up a typical indian experience. from toy trains to local trains to metro trains, the great indian train journey is an experience beyond compare! we ourselves have been part of this merry throng on countless occasions and the experience has always been exhilarating, though not always the most comfortable.

for us every train journey has been all about food [we don't care much for staring out of the window, especially when we are travelling 2nd class sleeper, non-AC across vast distances]. and the bombay-howrah geetanjali express, a 1,968 kilometre way of life [it just cannot be called a train journey] would rank high up on our list of favourites. it cuts a huge slice across the belly of the indian sub-continent, linking sea, hills, plains and rivers in one vast canvas of colour, smells, flavours and people! the journey is best divided in to meal times rather than departure and arrival times, else 31 hours will seem like a life time! from soggy omelettes to die for to crisp singhara with tea in clay pots to a chicken curry redolent of the empire origins of the railway, every morsel is a delight.

our school holidays were wrapped around the mandatory "visit to native", in our case to the far western town of jamnagar in kathaiwar. in those days, differences in gauges meant that the journey was divided in to two - bombay to ahmedabad and ahmedabad to jamnagar. with a 4 hour halt at ahmedabad [viramgam actually]. since the bby-abad journey was at night and the onward journey was during the day, breakfast was at viramgam and elevenses somewhere along the way. the traditional kathiawari cuisine has a lot going for it, especially its avoidance of sugary tastes, and the spice, tang and coarse flavours are ideal for a journey through the semi-arid region that is our home region!

european trains are of course a world apart in terms of speed, design, comfort and cleanliness. but then if they were to travel 1,968 kms west to east they would be kissing the russian border! we used to travel frequently between our work place in holland [hilversum] and amsterdam. a 55-min journey punctuated by copious quantities of saucijzenbroodjes [sausage rolls] and a large thee met melk [tea with milk]. all that a student budget would allow us.

we had wanted to do train journey in africa but when the tracks disappear into elephant grass midway you know that isn't the best way to reach point B from point A. one day we shall!

and yes, our journey bucket list includes london to edinburgh on the flying scotsman. we wonder if they have haggis on board. with a wee dram.

Change - the new normal

no we are not talking of loose change [we live after all in a plastic economy where change is passé]. we are returning to our blog after over a year [where did the time go?]. 2015 was a year of several changes, some minor, some tectonic, all refreshing.

first off, we changed house thrice in the space of 2 months. and in a move that tested our nerves, we moved to sharjah. apparently the culture capital of this country but currently the stationary-car-on-the-road capital. thankfully the spirits protecting this bedou heard his yelps of help and made him move back to dobuy [the sharjah place was shut down by the authorities in a fit of pique over unpaid dues]. we are now safely ensconced in noo dobuy.

then, we changed jobs. after 9 years in the job that got us to dobuy in the first place we finally gave up hope of getting rich through advertising and left the industry. neither the industry nor we seem to have missed each other - the ads are still as bad as ever and our BP is still normal. we moved into yet another start-up and so far its been good. our battered self-esteem is reviving although the bank balance is still under 6 fathoms.

third, we changed cars! we are now the proud owner of 'erbie - a 7-year old french lass who likes to go topless occasionally. barring some minor nips and tucks she is in good shape so far and has given us some good rides.

finally we changed our FB status. not something that we will talk about on this forum, for reasons of privacy.

so yes, its been a rather hectic few months. while we thrive on change, sometimes we do wish to pause, catch our breath and savour the present. c'est bon n'est-ce pas!?

random musings on a hot july day

on this 1^st day of july, 14 days from the day of the bastille, 15 days from the birthday of our youngest niece and 20 days from the birthday of our eldest niece, a few random thoughts with the morning potion!

like, the holy month of ramadan could prove to be one heck of a tough month this year. nearly 19 hours of fasting for the pious and the believers, with nary a gap in between. we wish them a blessed month.

like, we are currently in a mind battle over the desire to lose weight and the urge to just chill on our sofa and watch the world go by on the beeb. but this is not a battle that we can afford to lose. we have to get into a normal shape chop chop. for reasons that are not meant for the public!

like, the 2^nd half of the year promises to be as weird as the 1^st half. that is the downside of working with people whose brains are parked behind their knees. and while we shall not regret working here [all part of the life experience] we shall certainly opt out of working for indians. esp those who are abaft 18.5203° N, 73.8567° E

and on that note we bid our readers ta for now and to await with bated breath the next portion!

dubai through a different lens...

we recently listened to a lady friend of ours who and posted a series of photos on fb. the idea being to spread good photos and [to my mind] make fb a little bit more interesting than dish water. because we blog [!] about life in dobuy as lived, the photos capture stuff that most tourists do not see. so here goes!

the first one is of something that is usually associated with desert and araby but which is rarely seen in the glitzy environs of dobuy - the camel! we see these single-humped dromedaries on our peregrinations around the country and being somewhat sympathetic to voiceless animals take a liking to them!

the next photo is something that is ubiquitous in this part of the globe - sand. with our propensity to walk with head down [the ancient greeks did it too...] we tend to notice things below eye level. this was interesting simply because of the numerous sets of footprints that were on the patch ahead of us, now all we need to do is give a fancy title and an even fancier description of the photo and rake in the doubloons!

this one was on a hot thursday night and we were drained after a few hours in sonapur - where construction workers are housed in dormitories called "labour camps", which description causes no little angst to the PC-brigade - and we needed to rehydrate ourself with speed. the interesting thing about this glass is that the word "perrier" turns green when cold liquids are poured into it. good brand initiative and slaked our thirst as well!

the clock tower in dobuy was till the 70s the end of the road - the city ended there! today it's a massive hub with jams (cars not camels). the clock was gifted to the ruler of dobuy by the sultan of oman and rolex has got its brand recall sorted.

 a dose of reality just 45 mins away from the glitz, glamour and bling of dobuy. this is a side street in umm al quwain, the "poorest" of the 7 emirates. and given that india can never be far away from indians i met a tea seller from santacruz [a suburb of bombay] who's been here 35 years!

democrazy?

the Great Indian Tamasha is rolling on and lots of people seem to be having a lot of fun taking potshots at each other in various media.

but spare a thought for the sheer logistics and management skills required to pull off a feat where over 800 million folk like up to show their finger! and to get a functioning government - even if it looks like a patchwork quilt stitched by a navajo on kaya - is by far the best salute to the indian spirit!

we read somewhere that "matching voter expectations with government capacity in such an astonishingly complex nation is a daunting governance challenge" and whoever wins the elections will know that he / she has work ahead!

lounging on our sofa here in the sands, we have been dwelling on the merits of the city state and its ability to foster a better quality of life. we are of the firm opinion that the motherland is just too massive for effective federal governance. we are especially peeved that bombay is treated like a dark horse both by the powers and by its own residents!! we need to be carved out as a separate territory, centrally administered and freed of the burden of carrying aspirations of politicians from the mofussil who care more for their patch of dirt than bombay.

and finally, the day the NRI can vote from his adopted country will be the day when india will truly stand out as a model of democracy!

simple philosophies of life

we do not claim any particularly deep knowledge of wines [though we have a dream of suffixing "MW" to our name one day]. however we do know what we like and our tastebuds are firmly within the hexagone! not for us the plonk dished out in our native land or in the land of the free. nor for us the stuff coming up from down under. the occasional zinfandel has titillated our buds but only when someone else is paying!

its not just drinking the wine. its also about the traditions, the lingua franca of the amateur du vin, the entire experience...and yes its also about our cultural underpinnings, our values and perhaps our desire for association. and we will never drink for the sake of drinking, for advertising to the world that we are above the pedestrian in our lifestyle!

so while the rest may mangle grapes with their feet [heathen habits still exist unfortunately] we shall listen to the soft sigh of a cork being pulled from a bottle [a sound akin to a kiss from someone we love], the gentle gurgle of the amber liquid as it decants into a glass and inhale the heady bouquet.

we daresay there are harder ways to spend a day! 

the camels welcome the year of the horse!

and so the year ends and a new one begins. or will soon. the year may have gone by quickly but when it is punctuated by unexpected black swan situations, we tend to think that it suddenly developed the consistency of molasses! we shall not regret the year that went by. the year to come is as yet an unknown and we have learnt the hard way not to forecast what will be.

but there were bright spots too. we shall not comment on the world as we usually leave it to its own devices. and to the media. but our numbers improved dramatically, and the challenge is on to maintain or lower further! we celebrated 45 years of bachelor status and managed to keep the tonnage in check. well it didn't increase...! silver anniversaries were celebrated, a new anniversary situation was kicked off and wee tots gave us all joy and faith in the future!

given that we try to be optimistic we shall hope that the year to come is full of bonhomie and cheer. we expect it to be a good wine year and shall continue our explorations in that domain. and we shall spend time and cranial effort to plan better this year. for the unexpected, if expected, stops being unexpected! more blogging, less tonnage, more engagement and less solitude. less badvertising and more selectivity. and we shall try to abide by what winston said:

bonne année all!

Happy birthday to the guv'nor!

We raise our hat to our father Vinayak Baxi MBE (Member of the Baxi Empire) on his birthday! An absolute privilege to be your offspring (though we shall never be able to match your felicity with crosswords!) and we hope this day is full of joy. Thank you for the wisdom, counsel and a house full of books! Tally ho and lots of love 

goofing off [aka eid mubarak!]

the last three days have been very zen-like! especially since we rejoined our reading library and the pretty lass behind the counter separated us from 200 camels with a charming smile and some strategic corporeal display! but we now have stuff to read and pass the time. not the usual high-brow stuff but material that entertains!

this was interspersed with much needed sleep periods. necessary and essential in today's stressed times, to recharge batteries [that old saw!] and so on. we are amazed at our ability to sleep at the drop of a pillow. truly.

then of course there was the degustation. regular food intake is important for sound sleep and we adhered to tried and tested principles to aid digestion.

all this because 'twas eid here and we had a 3-day holiday. bad time to be a goat but otherwise quite bracing! and now the weekend is nigh so we shall do more of the same!

a burnt roti and memories of a gurkha

tonight's dinner - dal chawal and a roti - took me back 30 years to my first meal with a fine body of men: the 3/11 Gurkha Rifles.

i was a mere beardless youth at the time with pretensions of serving the country. and the gurkha regiment seemed to be the best place from which to do so.

i distinctly remember grumbling about the quality of the meal - the 1st day of a training camp under the benign gaze of a [surprisingly for a gurkha] 6 ft tall subedar - bhim bahadur chhetri. known as BBC behind his back [never in front of him for he had a habit of pulling out his kukhri and running his thumb along the leading edge with a rather menacing glint in his eyes]. he had seen combat in 1971 so a burnt roti was a mere bagatelle for him. besides he was the mess chief so we couldn't mess with him. BBC was the man responsible for the few times i almost stopped eating. but he had a fund of stories and late at night when i was part of the quarterguard for some misdeameanour or the other and he was suitably primed with rum he told us of gurkha traditions, of battles inner and real, won and lost. but for all his story telling he was a terror on the field and struck the fear of god in us ungodly youth.

move forward 17 years and i was in darjeeling. i went to ghoom loop to pay homage at the gurkha war memorial and came across a man on a wheelchair who looked strangely familiar. i did the homage thing and was walking out when the man in the wheelchair called out "baxi". in a voice that was disconcertingly familiar, loud and authoritative. the shoulders straightened automatically and i turned back. straight to a dusty field near deolali. it was BBC. but a BBC who seemed to have shrunk. was this the same BBC who had kept me up for 3 nights for not polishing my boots? i walked up to the wheelchair and knelt besides the man who had demolished a bunker single handedly in1971. took his hand and felt his thumb. serrated and full of the power of a gurkha. he had retired and returned to his home. he still remembered my grumblings about those meals in that dusty field near deolali. and i was grateful that of all the men he had commanded or trained he remembered me. all because of a burnt roti.

death can be a breath-taking experience...

i do not normally write about the dark side. however recent developments have led me to ponder on the suddenness with which death visits!

one moment life is going on as usual, the world is a pleasant place and all is well. the next moment everything has changed. new status labels are in place. a wife has become a "widow", children are "orphans", in-laws are no more parents-in-law and the person becomes a past tense!

the process of death begins at birth and we are all geared to the eventuality in some way or the other. but it is the suddenness of the event that leaves me wondering "why". coping with such suddenness is not easy. nor does it happen overnight - to me the coping process is a lifelong process! avoiding the voids, filling the emptiness and erasure [ok, fading] of a person from our collective memories is perhaps part of the process but does it work?

longevity is something that we all look forward to and hope to achieve. but we have not yet developed the ability to look at the possibility of death squarely in the face and still live life on our terms, not overshadowed by the worry and fear of one day not being there!

take the long way home

with apologies to supertramp...we like to believe that we generally have the placid outlook of a monk but 4 days at home after 18 months is NOT enough!! and when the 4 days are granted 3 hours before departure the matter turns grey enough to be a human rights issue!

be that as it may we were home last week and gladdened some hearts [we hope]. the parentage of course took the whole whizz-by in their stride - in fact they even asked us if we wanted to get a bride while we were around - while 3-decade old friends refused to believe till we landed up in front of them. the siblings were busy but managed to make the come over for a wee and for that we are grateful.

home food, warmth of home, the times of india with the first cup of the day. simple pleasures. worth more than many treasures. for once we did not look forward to returning to the sands.

the grandmother of all grandmothers!

today we celebrate the 100th birth anniversary of my nanima [maternal grandmom]. to me she was always "batiben". and she could make maggie thatcher look rusted!

i was perhaps more fortunate than her other grandchildren in that i grew up round the corner from her massive house [where my mother and aunts grew up]. so a daily round to check on her and on her kitchen was the norm. her kitchen was of especial importance to a growing lad like me as she would always have something or the other sizzling. her fondness for sprinkling liberal handfuls of red chillies in her food was something that literally and figuratively afire! mondays were important for thats when she made "sabudana vada". she sure knew how to speak to a guy's heart! my nana was sure a lucky guy!

i sadly did not know my dadi [paternal grandmom] too well as she passed on when i was just 10. so batiben was to me the epitome of all things "grandmother" - the love, affection, care, occasional raised voice [she could be heard down the street] and general being around for all the sundry dilemmas that a lad could have. some of my fondest memories are of sitting on her swing and chatting away with her. this was a lady who had a string of stories to tell [i have a photo of her somewhere on a beach in france way back in the 50s- perhaps thats how the french bug hit me?]. she was not given much to drama and emotion - stoicism was built into her. but when i went to france she came home and wept. and i could have just cancelled the whole thing and gone over to her place to check out the kitchen.

ah i could go on and on. but the best memories are always savoured in privacy. she passed away in typical style: no fuss, brave till the end. and i will always regret that i was not with her in her last moments.

batiben, you live on in our hearts. thank you for all the grace and wisdom and fun! thank you also for your progeny - my mother and my aunts [fine women all]. and today is monday so i hope that that sabudana wadas are sizzling up there :) happy birthday!

uncorking champagne: art or science??

came across this slightly dated but still relevant article from the telegraph:

with the festive season going on people have lots of reasons to pop that bottle of bubbly and now scientists at Coventry University have developed a mathematical formula which enables people to uncork the bottle without wasting even a single drop of champagne.

The formula, which has been named "Smith's Law" after its founder, Dr. Steve Smith, is P = T / 4.5 + 1, where P stands for pressure and T indicates the temperature.

It is based on the well-known fact that the pressure in a typical bottle of champagne at room temperature is equivalent to the pressure of a double - decker bus tyre.

As per the formula to stop the cork from flying off, the temperature of the liquid should be between 5C and 7C, which means that the pressure will be 2 to 2.5 atmospheres, a third lower than when the bottle is at room temperature.

The researcher says that keeping the temperature right is the most important thing as if you get the temperature right, the pressure will be right and you will be able to enjoy the champagne at its best.

we get confused by so many numbers. for us the hold and twist method of uncorking has always worked - not for us the "pop" which sounds quite vulgaire. we prefer the soft, gentle sigh of the music being released and the golden drops staying in the bottle rather than being sprayed all over the folks gathered for a fluteworth of the liquid!

a tale of two cities

two crimes against women - one in india and one in pakistan - are poised to be  a tipping point in the way women are treated in these countries. both malala in pakistan and the unnamed one in india [we have some rather quaint rape laws that prevent naming of rape victims] have engaged public opinion like no other incident involving women. malala is likely to be nominated for the nobel peace prize. the unnamed one has got her peace, having lost her battle for life.

both cases have reinforced the inherent "unmanliness" of man - malala's case because one cannot imagine a frail, 15-year old being a threat to large, bearded, machine-gun wielding gentlemen [who probably smell], and the unnamed one because how "manly" can 6 men be against a puny 21-year old girl?

two cities, mingora in the swat valley and new delhi, could just turn out to be the fulcrums of women's fight for justice, emancipation from "manly behaviour" and access to simple and basic freedoms: the freedom to learn, the freedom to be happy, the freedom to live.

Dragons and Snakes

ah weel and one more of them years comes to an end. and another one starts. all part of the great chakra as buddha or one of his contemporaries put it...

do we feel like contemplating highs and lows of the year past? do we feel like previewing the upsides of the year to come? or do we just feel like letting it go and letting it come. without a titter.

be that as it may, we bid adieu to the dragon and welcome the snake, and hope and pray that the year will be a fun one for all. we will enter our 7th year in dobuy and hopefully that augurs well for both dobuy and us!

we look forward to wine classes, a whiff of la belle france, a langourous vac at home and a slightly V-er shape than the one we currently have!

and as you uncork the red, spare a thought for those unfortunate enough to subside on water, milk and similar. or rum and coke. santé!

rape: repressed libido or heightened testoterone?

we find the act of rape rather unfathomable. copulation at best is supposed to be blissful, wonderful, rejuvenating etc etc etc [we have not indulged in it so far but have read up extensively]. at worst it  is a mechanical act resembling pistons moving in rhythm. several psychological aberrations are attributed to lack of or excess of the act. of course for wannabe monks like ourself such aberrations are not applicable.

but given that is a natural urge and a requirement for the continued wellbeing of the human race, we would have expected it to be as natural as, well, breathing. but alas that is not so. in our native land the act of copulation is considered to be terribly unclean and impious. funny coming from a country of over a billion but there you go. the topic is taboo, it cannot be verbalised, drawn, picturised, caricatured, written about or otherwise brought up to the public eye. for we are indian!

hence the average indian man is an extremely repressed individual with little or no recourse to physiological relief. he starts to resemble a bubbling volcano and break out in spots or pimples due to the excess glandular heat generated. while the hideous practise of marrying off the boy at 21 helps mitigate this matter to some extent the vast majority of the men in the country have to practise manually or raid the cattle shed if available. this also is due to the fact that there just arent enough girls to marry off to all the men around. which in turn can be attributed to female infanticide in some areas, deffered motherhood in others, etc etc. which in turn can be attributed to socio-economic dysfunctionalities, engendered by skewed development rations.

the point we are trying to make is that rape is not a single solution problem, like mathematics or nuclear physics. it is an outcome of a complex set of factors that lead to one cataclysmic moment when lust overtakes prudence or manners. we submit that is is not enough to change laws and make rape punishable by death, etc. those are post-facto reactions. we do not have solutions at hand of course, but we can start by demystifying sex and treating it as just another bodily function. and stop hidebound morons from making a song and dance about the insolence of using "radha" in a "provocative dance". or morones, since this particular incident was by a lady. who has a child. no doubt generated through a tube, given her attitudes towards the act!

however, changing the great indian attitude is another matter. perhaps a book can be hacked out of it. we can only pray that one great indian attitude - that of respecting women - comes back to the fore.

herbie's l'il cousin!

all right folks, here she is - herbie's l'il cousin! cute as a button, zips along like a scalded cat and is a bit hard to control on the curves :) we hope to get some wee lass to drive around, especially those with kittenish tendencies!
tell us what you think of her!
herbie is missed of course, but then the differential doesnt always run true with the gear!

we are going global

heck! we have just learnt that we have several readers. 25 nos in all! comprising of:

Ukraine	15
United States	7
India	3

we have absolutely no idea how we appeal to folks along the dneiper but who are we to crib about readership! all we can say is welcome! and we hope you continue to enjoy what we put forth!

we are also amused that we have readers in the US. thought they only read gun manuals...

we are encouraged by these findings to give more of our best so stand by!

'car'ried away

we arent known for being one of those emotional "SNAG" [sensitive new age guy] types. truth be told we tend to model our outlook on life along the lines popularised by monsieur bond or jeeves - maintain the impassivity of a sphinx.

however a recent development has left us rather heartbroken [not to put it too mildly]. we had to put herbie1 out to pasture for reasons of cold economics - the cost benefit analysis had gone haywire and we were obliged to fork out increasing amounts out of  the treasury to maintain her in the style to which she was accustomed. so one grey saturday evening last week we went online and she was given away to another man in under 60 seconds [we kid you not]. the man came, he saw and he went with her that same evening, leaving us to trudge back home alone in the chilly evensong.

3 years, 100,000 kms, a few dents and loads of happy memories, including herbie meeting herbie [see above] made our first car a treasure and a pleasure to own and ride.

two days ago we saw herbie parked by the roadside and we fought down a lump or two. she had always been sheltered in a garage and to see her in the open like this was wrenching.

herbie shall always be around - just the shape and make will change. and herbie1 will be the benchmark.