wHIRLWIND mUMBAI

I was in Bombay for a whirlwind two and a half days visiting a friend, a combination of Madhu's enterprise and advance plans helped us exploit the time fully though! :)

I thought a photo collagey thing would be a better expression of the trip than anything I could write :) I cant seem to fit it into the blog post space so its just above this, as the main blog pic. So this has the sunset from Juhu beach, the rocky seafront at Bandra, bangles at Colaba causeway, the awessome chocolate brownie at Theobromas (apparently they deliver all over now, note!!),the posters at Prithvi theatre, the Bombay symphony orchestra at NCPA and the amazingly skilled elderly man at Prithvi's cafe who made(is making, in the pic) cheese pav bhaji :), the Einstein head from the National gallery of Modern art, the famous wall to wall Hussain frescoe at TIFR, and of course, us, at Bandra seaface cum mysterious fort..the writing was long gone so no idea what the fort is :)

I came away with the feeling of having stepped into a kaleidoscope..The bits of Bombay I met were friendly and efficient. And in the relatively upmarket areas, very aesthetic..cobbled lanes and houses as restaurants in every gully..Like a friend pointed out, probably Indranagar in disguise :)Of course the starkest contrasts between rich and poor are still probably here..the slums reside side by side with Ambani's bungalow..but I certainly felt that the eateries (damn expensive, thats definitely a downside :( score very high..amazing Parsi, Iranian and Italian fare that I can vouch for! They should have a Mumbai Michelin :)

And..I now know how much a glass of tea costs at the Taj- for those who dont- believe or not- its 400 rs. I mean, at that price I'd want the tea plant so generations could thrive on it!! We were so shocked (or I was:) and discussed leaving quietly in such an obvious way that I suspect thats what got us free chocolate cookies :))

food books

I think almost all food tastes better if had with the right book in hand. Of course the right company makes it very, if not more, enjoyable, but now I think about it, the taste buds get a raw deal. You re too busy composing the next answer or listening to soak in the food (assuming its worth soaking in of course- all beetroot and papaya related things excluded right now). But books are more passive, you can read, put them down, chew,savour, think and pick them up again. If you like some section you can saunter down that part, guess what comes next, and then do it all over again. As a side angle, eating with a book also draws far more attention than eating with any live person does. I dont know whether out of sympathy (paapa she doesn't have any friends) or curiosity, but everyone wants to know more about you the moment you re caught eating with a book in hand. In short, although vetoed as a bad food practice, I think theres something to be said in favour of book- eating too :)

So what are your favourite food books? Here is my list:


THE BEST: Wodehouse: I think the easygoing and mad happenings of Wodehouses stimulate gastric juices or something, I always eat more and feel happier with them!

Agatha Christie: Non gory, very gossipy and such a skilled character sketcher! great with food

Enid Blytons: Fabulous!Her food descriptions alone were enough to sustain a meal (fresh farm tomatoes, hot bread from the oven, and hot many other things I didn't even know the meaning of, but it didn't matter)

Harry Potter: The coolest,ALL Of them :)

Gerald Durrell: Feel good independently and with food, always

Also William, Rex Stout, Tintin but not Asterix (dont know why), Edith Nesbit. Don Camillo. Roald dahl- the non scary ones ONLY. Triveni (not the sad ones, again)

specific books : All Mma Ramotswe stories, Raga n josh, The microbe hunters. City of djinns.

THE WORST- P.D. James (the goriest murders ever, and you ll just sink into a dark mood)

the so so ones-

Ngaio marsh, Calvin (too restless I think?), actually comics in general are not great, except Tintin somehow..Frank o connor, Somerset maugham, Kuvempu (I think guilt. he s so scholarly and polished that you feel it cant be taken so lightly..feels like sacrilege).

Palace walk (too much detail to absorb) and The Kiterunner (too sad).

The WORST ever- Analytical chemistry- the Bangalore university prescribed one. I tried it once,obviously when in dire straits, and it put me off lunch AND dinner. It just gave me a hopeless feeling. Even the cover is especially unappealing, and am sure also unappetising, for poor foraging paper mites :(

Of course you cant insult the best books by reading them with sidey food..that wont give you any sort of good feeling. It needs quite a mix and match perrsonallized standardization..good luck :)

food for the soul and stomach :)

1) The most spirited rendering of the old favourite 'bhagyada lakshmi baramma' that I have heard. I re-heard it after years and cant stop..WHAT a voice, and what a simple powerful rendition of this simple classic!! I really felt like anyone would feel like granting wishes or coming instantly (lakshmi baramma!)hearing this !!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tdYY6lUw9g

2) A guaranteed feel good full meal combination recipe

Cheese chapati with pickle, and cauliflower something rice (i havent decided what to christen it :)

Simplest way to make a cheese chapati-

Make two chapatis, grate cheese, sprinkle (liberally) on one, add the other on top, pat gently and put on the tava. don't try rolling it again though, if it doesn't break, it ll definitely push the cheese somewhere in the dough and the taste is quite different. Eat hot, and with lemon pickle for best mood lifting :)

The cauliflower something rice:

Cut cauliflower florets, keep soaked in salt water for half hour. Cook them with minimal oil, add just a pinch of asofateida ('ingu'- i can never spell the asof-..) and karben soppu/ kadi patta for taste (remove it later) also add haldi liberally, keep it covered and let it cook for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile saute finely chopped onions on the pan in minimal oil. Cut tomatoes in quarters and cut away the pulp so that only the dry seedless part remains.Take near-fully cooked rice (i used the regular, but basmati will be great), add a little oil in pan and toss around the rice till it browns. keep aside. mix the rice, cauli-tomatoes and onions, keep in pan and cook for maybe 5 minutes. if you like herbs, sprinkle basil on top (namdharis!) . i actually ate it with kadi patta chutney pudi..i dont want to boast but oh god it was delicious!! :)

the new year new age questionnaire :)

1) What do you have a natural gift for? (not a talent, just a character trait)

i) Guilting myself:

:) i was damn good at this even at the age of 8, when an (evil! grr..) cousin convinced me that my grandfather was going to be arrested because i had laughed so loudly..although way better now, i can still spend completely unnecessary guilted times, provided the guilter does a good logical job :)

ii)Seeing the lighter side of things:

this is a plus for me, but am sure can be dampening for others at times! it also means very little scope for reverence or belief about things without tangible proof of them. come to think of it, that can be damn irritating if stretched to its maximum. like my mother often says as a favourite exasperated statement 'for you everyone else is right' :) just the irritating habit of seeing all points of view leading to the conclusion that nobody is wrong..but luckily i take sides nonetheless, on principle :) also luckily, things like seas, books, mountains, children,music and rainbows exist, and can generate quite enough reverence to keep me in touch with the sentiment! :)

iii) Paranoia:

i still look under the bed every night..if i m not allowed i would sit up with a torch and get bleary eyed.

and any smart would be murderer would just have to lock me in a room alone with 'the ring' or its equivalent on autoplay...

iv) sensing emotion

I dont know how to describe this!:) but i could always tell even in school if the teacher'd had a fight at home in the first 10 minutes..and it always bothered me that nobody cared to be gentler with her that day :(

2) Do you like self help and 'designed to inspire' kind of books?

No. as to why..I think because I don't learn anything from them, and they don't evoke any feeling from me! like someone said, touches neither mind nor heart :) atleast the few i ve read i ve found either pretentious (meaning fairly obvious truths cloaked in fancy terms) or just plain uninteresting :(..i cant say a thing to anyone raving about the book 'jonathan livingstone seagull', for example! (though what a lovely name :) But i believe the category has expanded so i may be generalizing unintentionally. there are apparently more concrete ones written now, for instance with people's life stories..i havent tried them but atleast i can see that they must have some content, so should try..


3) What do you respect in people around you?

well of course thats a long list! But I think it d boil down to strength of character and a sort of tenacity. Strength of character sounds like a conveniently loose term :) but I mean it as some mix of sincerity, passion,interest,conviction and hard work. I think its a poor way to spend a life if done with a half hearted interest in what you do and in people and things around you. I m also among those who can unfortunately admire some facets of people, even if i dont like them (damn :) :)

4) What bothers you in people?

Lack of tolerance bothers me very much. Both at the personal and at the larger..for instance in evidence right now, country level. Maybe it partly stems of working in a field where variety is admired and is the basis for everything else.. I find it incredible that one cAN object to people doing things differently, instead of being happy to learn that there is one more way of doing it!

so does lack of sensitivity.

so does a sense of extra bhaav ( i prefer it to 'ego' :)..even the merited kind can be hard to take, the unmerited generates sand-pit ducking impulses in me!!

5) What are you bad at?

i) drawing

ii) accepting a compliment

iii) pretending

iv) Going to a bank or office and not fighting with a lady

v) Convincing the IISc security that i m a legitimate student here..

i would have added waiting in a queue but thats not true anymore! yay i ve learnt tons of patience :)


6) What are you bad at understanding?

i) An inability to laugh at oneself:

Somehow I think the rigidity born of this attitude diminishes anyone's personality :(

ii) Politicians and businessmen donating to temples in crores while letting schools and hospitals languish:

I have nothing against it being both, but in a country like ours I find it really sad that people with money to give often choose to soothe their own consciences apparently to wash away sin, while someone's life can be changed drastically with it. Thankfully I believe many places run associated charities, i hope they expand.

iii) Imposing your views or preferences on others:

Not happening!though a healthy argument is very much happening :)

iv) Many society driven 'ushoo's :) :

must be plenty such taboos, and some that i agree with by virtue of my own personality or upbringing or inhibitions, but a taboo that has no basis other than that someone has decided its 'bad' or immoral or whatever, carries no conviction with me..unless of course its proven harmful

8) What do you think is essential to growth (as a person)?

i) Travel! :)

ii) Interacting with people (like R.K.Narayan and Miss Marple have pointed out in two v different cultures, a village can provide as much scope as the world if rightly tapped :)

iii) A general willingness and effort to explore and accept

9) Are you good at forgiving people and yourself?

Yes! :) and no :(

10) Do you get enough exercise?

No.But am getting better in small doses!

11) Would you enjoy working in industry?

I doubt it v much..but I might like it for a short time, just for the experience. On the whole I m all for academics or any private freelancey thing for a sane balance of things in life :) not to say you cant get madly involved and slavedriving academics, of course you do! but if you re calling the shots you can arrange it your way in a quiet non madly competitive place, and have time to call your own :)

well thats a longish list..happy new year everyone! :)

Felix felicis :)

Felix felicis or 'liquid luck' is a potion that brings luck, and for the non Harry Potter people, it makes its appearance in the sixth book and gives the drinker a nice heady feeling with success in everything for some time period. It sounded a highly desirable potion (takes six months to brew) to me,it just made even stronger the case to not be born a muggle..But then I though about it, we don't do that badly in the non magic world either :)Here are my inevitable comfort and peace and happiness givers,and not all that hard to get, either! how different are yours?

1)Having a good hearty laugh about something ridiculously trivial

2)Meeting old friends

3) Dark chocolate. preferably hot! and particularly in sauce form with vanilla icecream and a brownie, or even just the smell will do (I can get high on cocoa)

4) Good food in general..particularly if associated with cauliflower, bhindi or cheese, and garnished with good company :)also good books in general

5) Good food with a good solid mystery or a good 'food book' in hand! Some books just go well with food, some, like Japanese thrillers, totally dont. Dont know why, probably just the styles..clinically precise and logical books are bad with food i ve figured, the best are slow paced or humorous (wodehouse, roald dahl and gerald durrell are all fantastic food books! )or should periodically talk a lot about food..like the enid blytons. It has to add to your enjoyment of cauliflower and tomatoes if you re reading about 'freshly picked tomatoes glistening with dew' :)

6) Looking at masses of Flowers- particularly tiger lilies, zerberas and the little purple ones..

7) Sleeping insanely late on saturday nights and getting up insanely late to the smell of chai on sunday morning..also an unexpected afternoon nap when reely reely exhausted but virtuous :) (like if you ve wrapped up some work or feel satisfied with something)..i ve read that people feel cheered up waking up with the sun..would be nice, say twice a year :))

8)A good movie in a relaxed environment..best with company, but could be fine alone too, depends on the movie also :) (I wouldnt dare watch something like 'the ring' by myself)

9) Shopping for books and clothes :) books anytime, rest has to be after some months of respite, then works like a charm. it also helps if you re looking for something for someone else and find the perfect thing

10) Hearing or telling stories..this should have come higher up

11) Watching rain..nothing like a thorough downpour to wash out all low feeling :)

12) Clinching an argument with that ace that nobody had thought of :) this is a total cheap thrill but rare enough to be looked fwd to!! :)

13) Playing with children young enough to be fond of things like hide and seek and ignorant of dvds and facebook..that is if they still exist :)

14) Unwrapping a gift

15) getting a compliment. actually getting a compliment secondhand. that way you get the pleasure minus the embarrassment :)

16) Listening to the kind of music that always gives me goosebumps or tears or a high, depending which.. in general for upliftment i d pick mozart, kishori amonkar, paluskar's bhajans, some by the beatles,violin by M.S. Gopalakrishnan and flute by N. Ramani.but definitely also the sound of rain, chimes and laughter :)

must be plenty more, but these atleast should give felix a run for his money!

The tale of the ricksy auto

'Give me a Bangalorean and I ll give you someone frustrated with autorickshaws' ,Archimedes could have, but didn't, say. Which of course, is only because he was never caught in the rain haggling for 10 rupees 'over the meter' with an auto driver who wasn't 'going in his direction'.

Autorickshaw drivers are said to be ruder in Chennai, ignorant of the meter in Delhi, and almost non existent in Mumbai. But I defy any other city to produce the range of entertainment and eccentricity that Bangalore does. Bangalore, like the rest of 'old Mysore state' infact, long had a reputation for being easygoing. Shops opened late, siestas were common until recently, and all in all you didn't find the average Bangalorean volunteering for any strenuous activity, much preferring a dignified afternoon alu bonda with steaming coffee, watching the world go by from the window. Having grown up in faster paced times, I hadn't really observed this dying out tendency, until I became a frequent auto commuter.

I wanted to go to Residency road, and naively got into the first empty rickshaw saying where I wanted to go (something I wouldnt dream of doing now!). The driver looked highly disinterested and said he had to go home for dinner. I was taken aback, dinner at 6. 30?? Yes, he said firmly, his wife would be waiting. So i had to get down, unsure whether to laugh or protest. In the next half hour, I started to get exasperated as more and more excuses turned up. One,businesslike- 'Twenty rupees extra'. 'Why?' i demanded, outraged. 'Isnt there a meter'?? 'Meter doesnt work','then extra over what'?? 'I know how much it is, you give twenty extra'.

Another, languidly- 'My house is in Indranagar. If you want I can drop you there'. By now i was beginning to feel i was asking for a favour and maybe i should just go to Indranagar..By the time I got one I could have paid twenty rupees extra from sheer gratitude! These are routine, though.

There was one very nice man who was deeply concerned as to why I was keeping a handkerchief on my nose. 'Allergy'? he asked. I nodded, surprised. 'This allergy will eat your life, you have to do yoga', he announced. and then, confidentially, 'once i was also like you. everytime i sneezed my mother would ask 'who will marry this boy'?' then i started yoga, got married at 40, and one day also don't miss now'. I was v impressed, not having met a health conscious auto driver before. 'Dont eat fried food'!he added, glaring. I promised I wouldn't, trying not to think of the happalas I d just devoured, and the rest of the journey was friendly.

The overriding characteristic (other than inducing frustration!) of course is curiosity. This is an old Bangalore tendency that still prevails. Some years ago I was collecting samples of cowdung from the road to look for certain kinds of E. coli bacteria for my work. Having put them in sterile containers, much to the amusement of onlookers ,I nearly bumped into an autodriver who was leaning over so much that in two seconds he d have landed in the dung himself. 'College'? he asked with full confidence. I said no, I had to go to Tata Institute. 'Come, come', he was extra welcoming, an otherwise extinct trait among autodrivers..'What are you doing with this'? I explained as best as I could that I was looking for small germs, the best I could do in Kannada. He looked superior 'Oh, micro organisms?' I didn't know where to look, but hastily agreed. For the rest of the journey I was quizzed on why I was using them, what PCR was, and what I worked on. We finally parted on the best of terms and with much respect on my side.

The ultimate though, was being told off by one, when a friend and I got in a Brigade road, in a rather extra cheerful mode immediately after the toughest exam we had. We were laughing about something and it stretched on a bit, to be interrupted by the driver- 'your parents send you to good colleges and you come here to get drunk and take drugs'? he thundered. We were stunned. For some reason it didn't strike either of us to deny it, infact he was so sure i almost felt it must be true. We got a withering look and much mutterings of 'wasting money' and 'modern girls' and went all the way in the kind of pindrop silence teachers ask for in vain.

But of course, the largest population by far lounges at street corners and refuses to come anywhere. If anyone can explain the mystery of how they earn a living please tell me. I m convinced they all have alternative sources of income, or just black money from some source, and they have to pretend to work! Thank God there are still the odd entertaining and genuinely nice people, otherwise the burden of 'twenty extra' and 'khaali barbeku' would be just too much to bear!!

I liked the one I met last week. Leaving a friend at the gate, I said something to her ending with 'We ll take a rick'. 'Mount Carmel college maydam'? asked the lounging one. 'Yes' we chorused automatically, without stopping to think why he should want to know. Having (miraculously) agreed to kindly drop us where we were headed, my friend asked what he d meant by the college.' Usually no, people say auto', he announced. 'Only like Carmel college saying rick'. And only someone also belonging to a local girl's college of apparently 'fashionable' (read 'notorious') reputation can understand what that smirk did to us..Of course the fact that he no doubt had it dead right made it worse :)

Ricks or autos, I m willing to pledge undying gratitude to a being who agrees to come by the meter, and anywhere you humbly choose to go, however against his critical taste. I know its a laughable wish. Sigh.

The science of writing

'Writing is an art' said someone airily, and bought fame easy. Now if they d said 'Science writing is an art' I'm sure a larger (and haggard and glassy eyed) audience would have agreed wholeheartedly. After all, nobody HAS to write (certainly not in these days of outsourcing)..well except people who earn a living by it, like writers and journalists.And they like it anyway. For the rest, the literature haters can and do gleefully throw away textbooks the moment that exam is over, having anyway spent 10 years passing chits in the language classes and wondering moodily if the neighbour has solved more CET question papers in his tuitions.

Scientists on the other hand, attempt to work with some exercise of creativity, but HAVE to sell it by writing! Take some other creative pursuit, say painting. Imagine da Vinci being asked to submit a 10 page description of the Mona Lisa, before it could be publicly displayed!(Please give a short abstract and we feel the smile is too enigmatic, change it).

By common consensus or because knowledge is free and eagerly gobbled, publishing in peer reviewed journals is not just the accepted way of publicizing your scientific work today, its pretty much the only way. While Leeuwenhoek (the 'discoverer' of microbes ),got away with his rough notes of 'little animalcules' and made it big, the average scientist today attempting something similar would be laughed straight out of a job. Unfortunately, there is no apparent correlation between good scientists and good writers. While in many professions this may not matter much, in a setup where communication is critical to progress, it creates quite a problem. People do point out that science has the advantage that even in the most hideously constructed papers, the 'results' section can be decoded from the graphs and tables, and so, that the knowledge is not really lost. True, but every such writer must be earning enough curse points from PhD students looking for a 'can prepare in two hours' paper to land up in Slytherin without a password.

Personally, I was taught this in the best possible way by receiving a rude shock soon after entering research. Like many others, I came in bursting with ideas of varying impracticality. Also like others, I soon learnt that its nicer to hold on to enthusiasm than to results, partly because there isnt much of the second. Alright, I told myself. I may not be able to persuade the enzyme to 'adjust madi' with different grades of water, but what I can do is write a dazzling report. And I spent nights composing it too, and was quite proud of the final product. So that it came as a double shock to have it turned down with a thud and with the stern admonition that it showed a lack of seriousness, and to 'spend some time' on it. It took me some time after this to realise that science writing is very different from regular creative writing. In some ways its even opposite. Fewer adjectives, shorter prose, nobody cares for beautiful sentence constructions,nobody cares about your hypotheses unless backed up by some clear data, and most of all, the results have to be to the point and worded so that they convey the message and dont assume too much. In short, quite a task. It may come naturally to some people (lucky things), but it took me quite some time to get halfway decent.

It was the Royal Society which first systematized the collection, discussion and publishing of all scientific data. Apparently Robert Hooke, as its President, was asked to demonstrate 'one new law' every month or so!! Even for a genius, and even if 'law' is read as some new phenomenon, it seems quite a call. I looked for a picture of his before remembering that Isaac Newton had ordered every known portrait of his destroyed, in a vindictive burst.

If eccentricity is a necessity to be described as 'creative' science seems to be right at the top.Though I do feel it must have been more exciting to be doing science in the days when it was a more leisurely pursuit, and there was less of the 'publish or perish' spirit clouding true innovation, there's no doubt having access to all work in your area is a huge gift, too! I suppose nothing will convince the scientific community that not starting a paper with 'The transesterification of 2',3 hydroxy- something' or 'Dopamine induced aggregation of gangliar neurons..' may encourage not only the public, but also fellow scientists, to actually read the papers even when in a different field. I cant do better than to quote a master scientist cum science writer, Francis Crick, 'There is no form of prose more difficult to understand and more tedious to read than the average scientific paper'.

Somebody suggested that with the advent of the sms era, science writing (like other writing) will only get worse. Well, I hope not. But even if it does, the plus is that it would have to get shorter (dis nzym dsnt wk). And even if it does, there's always the library and the internet to read masterpieces of prose like The Microbe Hunters (which I just re-read and would strongly recommend to everyone!).