Fall of man - Redux

At the beginning of time, there was Adam and Eve.

The Lord God took them and put them in the Garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.’

But the evil serpent seduced Eve into eating an apple from the garden of knowledge. And thus man was banished from the garden forever.

This evil serpent later evolved - got limbs, a neck, a pair of arms, hair and an opposable thumb.

The descendants of this evil serpent became the auto drivers of Bangalore.

Vicious Bastards!!

Fair - Unfair

The Baliga men are born liars and become compulsive liars as they hit adolescence. Not really harmful, their lies are little, just for the heck of it I guess. They are also grand exaggerators. When they narrate a story to you, you should know what to filter out and what not to. I've learnt that the hard way. One more thing about the Baliga men is that they are fair-skinned. One of the family traditions, I could not carry forward. "The black sheep of the family" as the cliche stands.

The Baligas' pride themselves on how fair they are (actually it is a very South Canara Konkani thing). Well, the pride stops with one glance at me. My darkness has been an area of concern for my grandparents almost since the second I was born. Large amounts of "Fair & Lovely" were applied on my countenance by my grandmom. Getting permission from her to play cricket against the neighbouring building team in the afternoons used to be a major ordeal. Some of my relatives also slyly mention the new "Fair & handsome" in their conversations, not leaving much to be deciphered.

She was not the only one on "Mission Whitewash Adi". My babysitting ayaah found it quite unbelievable that my dad and mum were so fair and I wasn't. She had ideas of bathing me in milk. Thankfully, I left the creche before her fantasies materialised.

I have also been a victim of constant racial abuse. "Nigga", "Charcoal", "Kaliga". One of my cousin wouldn't talk to me because I was dark! Well, I obviously wasn't a favourite with my grandparents. Few of the girls have also mentioned how disappointing it was that I am dark, considering my gene pool is rather rich in this aspect.

Well, this is funny because I'm a guy. Prospective brides of some of my uncles and cousins have been straight away rejected because they were a shade or two darker. With the fairness cream one of the major drivers of the cosmetics industry, it doesn't seem soon that people are going to get rid of their prejudices.

Restaurant Tag

I was tagged by Meghna to post about 5 restaurants I like in Bombay... well, since I've explored more of Bangalore than Bombay, I'll be talking about restaurants in Bangalore.

I must start of by telling you that for me a restaurant is more about the feel rather than the cuisine. Oh yeah .. and they have to be easy on the pocket. :)

Pecos: A rather non- descript building off Brigade road, Pecos is more of a music paradiso if you love the blues. Its been a hangout for "The Gang" since college. Pecos serves only beer (and mostly flat at that). The food is brilliant there, do try the chilli beef or the chicken curry and dosa. The place is mostly attached with memories of college days when we used to get drunk in the middle of the day and pull out every coin we could from our pockets to pay up. (Actually, Pecos deserves a longer post .. some other day).

Pecos has a younger sibling called Mojos, off Residency road. Its not quite good enough for the faithful but its plush (only comparatively).

Fanoo's: Mim is going to hate me for this mostly because they were accused of stuffing their beef rolls with dog meat, but they just serve the best rolls. Simply brilliant. They have their rolls in jumbo, mumbo and rambo sizes in that order. The rolls are filling and bloody cheap.

CTR: I'm not quite sure what it stands for (some Tiffin Room). They serve the most amzing and butterilicious butter dosas. The dosas will leave you licking your fingers. The rest of their menu is damn good as well. You just can't leave Bangalore without having your evening kaapi here.

Oh yeah.. and the coffee here .. make that a double coffee .. It is the best SOUTH INDIAN FILTER COFFEE ever. Period! Countless hours were spent here fattening ourselves and dousing caffeine discussing the vagarities of life.

Infinitea: This place is a tea lover's delight. Teas from Darjeeling, Sri Lanka, Assam all at your service though I still prefer my pot of Masala Chai. The desserts here are yumm, do try the Italian truffle when you are here .. it just melts in your mouth. Oh yeah .. very friendly waiters and according to the girls .. cute too!!

Casa del Sol: I went to this place last time I was in Bangalore. Amazing ambience, lovely food. Its a roof top restaurant so the breeze of Bangalore makes this a rather romantic experience. This place is not as inexpensive as the rest ... but then Mim paid when we went there .. so what the heck!! :)

Lot more little hangouts in Bangalore ... may be another post beckons .. some other time ...

Ok ... so this is the fun part ... my turn to tag ...

I tag Nitish (Hyderabad), Siddhu (Delhi/Chennai/Bangalore), Lokesh (Mumbai).

There is no sicker feeling
than
being alone.

Holier than thou ... yeah right!!!

Check out the home page of ibnlive.

Do I need to say anymore ... bloody eediots I say!!! What do these guys take us for??!!

Of not much acclaim

Motion

I look back and see what was there,
Probably what was not.
What has become and what is becoming
Into what is being ventured and what is being left behind
Moving ahead sometimes seems like moving behind
Sideways seems the way to go
A vague horizontal and not much of a vertical
Oblique, skewed
Distances become immaterial
Direction seems indifferent
No vectors for me
Scaled may be, scarred and bruised too
Fuck it, my life has a come a full circle
What was ahead is what is behind
What is ahead has passed me by

We didn't start the fire ... we just weren't there

On this year's edition of the annual Goa trip, we landed up in this place called "Lounge Fly, (thanks to 3 always drunk, late 30s, masti Bangalore guys we bumped in to at our shack, it is at Baga, near Tito's and a must go-to), Mim and me had this very interesting conversation with the DJ there.

It was about old music v/s new music. We were just casually discussing the music he was playing there, which was basically lounge and world music types, I must admit the music was realy good there. He asked me what kind of music do I listen to and "rrrreeeetttrrrrrrroo" was the quick reply, bands like The Beatles, The Doors, The Who, etc. He asked me why I listened to older stuff and not the newer stuff like the ones he was playing. I said "I said I donno ... I guess I don't like the music today's industry comes out with.. ". The conversation went on from there, he drew corollaries from there about how he thought people who listened to older stuff were people who were caught in the past and could not appreciate what was happening today, may be didn't want to accept the revolution that was probably was happening today.

It still gets me thinking sometimes, are we too scared to may be make a choice about today's stuff and are happy accepting what has already been declared to be "God-level"? Or are we just disgusted by the media and the over-exposure it gives to the shitty music of today gets rather than the good music that is churned out which is probably played on the radio at 3 in the morning or stacked away in some dark corner of the music store?

I guess, I probably just can't relate to today's stuff... to the commercialisation of it, thanks to the media. I'm sure the music of the yester years was also made with a grave commercial interest but I am not exposed to that aspect of it. I just see the music for what it is. We do hate hyped up things .. we want to read the "Da Vinci code" after the hype has died down ... we don't want to go to the INXS concert because it is too hyped (though they might have made some good music in the 90s).

Actually, its paradoxical I have been using "we" in the previous paras. "We" comprises of the smaller percentage of the (the retro-liking) population. Most guys as the "we" percieve are sell-outs. Sold to the circus the media is running. This takes me back to one helluva drinking session I had with Sid and Nitish at TC, Gurgaon. We were discussing about how it was so hard to find people who had the same interests as we did. The movies that we watched, the music we listened, the books we read, the sports we watched. The 3 of us are the retro types (Nitish, I'm taking the liberty of classifying you here!). We were kidding about how it would be easier to find friends if we were the Bollywood types :-).

It is each one to his own. I guess I like old stuff and most of the others don't. I am in the small minority that would have loved to be a part of the 60s, be there at Woodstock, be there when Beatles ruled the world (they still do ;) ), be a part of the revolution. Today's revolution??!!! We all are a part of ... but in a little more cosy manner ... in our armchairs.

P.S: The picture is of "Lounge Fly"... super place!

P.P.S: Finally .. TC in my post :-)

P.P.P.S: Sorry bout the long posts... just bored in life .. lot of time to think of junk

Love, solitude, a little more love, a little less solitude

I read two books by Gabriel Garcia Marquez recently and if you haven’t read any of him so far, well you should period!

Marquez invites you in to his world with open arms, shows the world through his eyes and in the end leaves you totally distraught. Mostly because you can’t believe the book is over and the second because of the simplicity and the beauty he explores. In both the books I read I knew the ending, but it ain’t gonna matter buddy. Marquez’s storytelling doesn’t let you drop the book. The story grows on you, in you, around you (like beer :)). Sometimes I caught myself smiling the whole day after reading a few pages of Marquez, when the books ended I had a lump in my throat.

In a hundred years, the way he brings out the “magical realism” is nothing short of, well, magic. He paints such an amazing picture of Macondo that you can actually see the children grow, smell the banana plantations and party with the gypsies. The way he brings out irony and cyclicity in his books is nothing short of stupendous. There is this story of these twins who are exchanged at birth, grow up to be identical in every which way you can think of, then go in opposite directions, then get back to being similar in every way when they are old and are finally, exchanged in their graves. It is just very beautiful.

Love in the time of Cholera, is like an encyclopedia of love. Love is all its forms, at all ages, under all circumstances, defying time, society. Marquez becomes very cunning here, his protagonist Florentina Ariza sleeps with around 622 women with widows, with underage girls, with pretty much anyone he can find but you never judge him for it. You just are mesmerized by the love he has for all these women that there is no space in your heart or your head to think of anything else but of love. In fact in the end, he ends with the love of his life and he tells her he remained a virgin for her and you don’t hit your head but you just smile, because even his love knows he is lying but she appreciates his thought (mostly because it just sounds romantic J)

In both books, the central characters are women, strong, independent women. For me, a hundred years is about Ursula her struggles to keep pace with her husband, then her sons, grandsons and so on so forth, her sacrifices to keep the family together and sane. You are in awe of her character by the time she passes away. In love in the time of Cholera, it’s the head strong, strong willed Fermina Daza who casts her spell on you (Dominique Francon can kiss Fermina’s ass).

Another common thing about both the books is the way he plays around with the time and the way he presents time to you. In a 100 years, events keep repeating and you will be hit by the déjà vu effect at least a dozen times. In love in the time of Cholera, he keeps moving back and forth in time that you have to be very careful or you might land up very very confused.

There is actually quiet a huge debate about which is the better book, a hundred years or love in the time of cholera. My take, I don’t give a rat’s ass. They are both brilliant, both magical and the both blow the hell out of you. They are books which gave me different perspective. A 100 years made me a little less wary of time and love in the time of cholera made me a romantic.

If anyone ever meets Garcia Marquez, thank him profusely from my side.