Amongst the rustling mustard fields in a 700 year old Fort!

 

What a wonderful way to end the year! Here is my recently published article on Hill Fort Kesroli, a weekend getaway from Delhi.

Read it here.

 

 

Coastal cuisine in Delhi

After months of hearing about ‘Gunpowder’, the little nook of a coastal restaurant in the eclectic Hauz Khaz Village market, one sunny Sunday we decided to make the long trek down from dear ol’ Noida. The drive took us an hour, the parking 15 mins (finally settling for the DDA maidan) and finding the place another 15 mins. Lovely as it may be, wandering the cobbled winding lanes of this market, finding this place is quite a task. There’s an interesting shop we passed on the way which stocked old movie posters and maps, an old passion of mine. We even crossed the popular Kumzum cafe which works on a non payment model and is a place where travellers just go and chat with each other, sharing experiences and leaving tips to keep the kitchen running. Finally, after asking 3 people and getting exact instructions from a pan wala, we found our way around the block, over dumps of garbage and street dogs sunning themselves and found the building. Surprisingly, the restaurant has chosen not to put up a board declaring its presence. The only clue you get is an A4 sheet stuck on the ground floor declaring its arrogance of allowing only pre-booked customers.

Well, we decided to take the chance, climbed the very steep 3 floors and cajoled the manager to give us a table. Which he thankfully did, considering he refused 4 groups of people right in front of us! The first thing that strikes you about this place, is its view. Set in the back lane, directly overlooking the little known Deer Park and lake nestled in it, this place is a hidden gem. One can sit for hours in the sun, sipping coffee and staring at the unexpected oasis in this populated city. The second thing one notices is the crowd. It’s the kind of crowd I would often see in Ahmedabad in some hidden eateries only known to students of NID, CEPT, IIM and MICA. Journalists, students, expats…people discussing grass root microfinance or a heritage walk in chandni chowk!

The menu was not a very extravagant affair, in terms of the options. The prices on the other hand, rivalled even Swagath which I believe is very steep! We decided to order the dry Andhra Prawn Masala(Rs.350) and for main course we settled for the Kerala Mutton Korma (Rs.260) with Appams (Rs50 each) and buttermilk (Rs.65). The prawns,unfortunately were a huge let-down. Not that they were bad…just that they did nothing to excite the taste buds like a mutton fry in Andhra Bhawan would have….at 1/10th the cost!! The korma was flavourful but not one for which I would repeat the cross country drive I had undertaken. The buttermilk thankfully salvaged the situation and was absolutely delightful. Alas, a bill of Rs.1100 just wouldn’t let itself be justified by an exceptional buttermilk.

 

As much as I liked the view, the next time I want some Andhra food, I’m heading to Andhra Bhawan and Swagath for Kerala food! Gunpowder just doesn’t pack the punch!!

Rating: 2 on 5

Must Try: Buttermilk

Go for: The view…and the poster shop in the market

Address: 22, Hauz Khaz Village, 3rd Floor, New Delhi. Ph. 26535700

Website: www.gunpowder.co.in

My Book List

Apparently BBC came out with a list of 100 books that they term as 'must-have-reads' and they reckon that the average person has read just 6 out of them. Well, dont know about that but their list of books left much to be desired in my opinion. So here is my list of 49 books that I have thoroughly enjoyed over time and recommended at some point of time. How many of these have you read?

1. Sister of my heart - Chitra Bannerjee
2. Secret Daughter - Shilpi Somaya Gowda
3. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
4. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
5. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
6. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
7. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
8. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
9. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
13. Comedies by Shakespeare
14. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
15. Emma -Jane Austen
16. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
17. A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini
18. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
19. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
20. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
21. Love in the time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
22. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
23. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
24. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
25. Mallory Towers Collection - Enid Blyton
26. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
27. Jeffrey Archer - Paths of Glory
28. John Grisham's courtroom dramas
29. City of Djinns - William Dalrymple
30. Nine Lives - William Dalrymple
31. Two States- Chetan Bhagat
32. Inscrutable Americans - Anurag Mathur
33. Mayada - Jean Sasson
34. Shantaram - Gregory Roberts
35. Not without my daughter -Betty Mahmoody
36. One Amazing Thing - Chitra Bannerjee
37. Seven Years in Tibet - Heinrich Harrer
38. Q&A - Vikas Swarup
39. Love Story - Eric Segal
40. Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
41. The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
42. The Namesake - Jhumpa Lahiri
43. The Godfather - Mario Puzo
44. Flora Rheta Schreiber - Sybil
45. Right Ho, Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse
46. Papillon - Henri Charriere
47. Curfewed Night - Basharat Peer
48. PS I Love You - Cecelia Ahern
49. Tuesdays with Morrie -Mitch Albom

Ek 'Guzaarish' Hai Bas Itni Si....

Sanjay Leela Bhansali is in a league of his own. When you start your career writing a movie like '1942 A love story'....move on to making the very touching 'Khamoshi' after 2 years....prove that you are not a one movie director by releasing the absolutely beautifully made 'Hum dil de chuke sanam'...and then further hone yourself with 'Devdas' and 'Black'.....not only you but the world then knows what you are capable of! Except for Sawaria, each movie made by this man has been nothing less than iconic. And when you take an actress like Aishwarya Rai who has been repeatedly slandered for being such a plastic heroine and make her deliver absolutely breathtaking performances like these, you know you have got to give the director some credit!

Guzaarish comes with the heavy expectation load of Black on its back. Another Bhansali film with the main protagonist severely disabled (in this case, a quadriplegic - paralysed from the neck down) and the dark hues that characterize his films of late. But no, like each of his films, this one stands firmly on its own two feet, refusing to be compared to any other and stands tall.

Hritik Roshan plays the very successful magician who loses his best friend, career, mobility and almost his life in a magic act gone wrong. Refusing to let life beat him down, he becomes a radio jockey, a favourite of all in Goa. He is taken care of since the past 12 years by Aishwarya Rai Bachhan who plays his nurse. Hritik does an exceptional job with his role, portraying the helplessness of not being able to move or live with dignity inspite of having an especially sharp mind. Look out for a particular scene involving a fly and also the way he sits on his wheelchair...the way his shoulders stoop, make him smaller than he really is. Phenomenal. Aishwarya chooses to hold her own and delivers a performance par excellence. Part nurse, part friend, part secret lover...she is the outside world to him. Dressed in beatiful long skirts and dresses, often with a tasteful scarf, she not only looks pretty, but acts and even dances with elan. Some other performances worth a mention...or even more are by Hritik's friend Devyani who is also his lawyer, his doctor played by Suhel Seth, Rajit Kapoor as the prosecutor and many more. But equal credit as the main protagonists must be given to Aditya Roy Kapoor, an upcoming actor and VJ who plays Omar Siddiqui, an amateur magician who wishes to learn magic from Hritik.

Set in Goa, the film gives a glimpse of the portugese town unlike ever done before. The stately but delapitated villa in which Hritik lives, the lush green fields that they drive through...all of this allows the viewer to see this beautiful town through the eyes of a local and not a tourist.

The only flaw in the film is a stretched out farewell party thrown by Hritik for his friends that seems like a deliberate tear jerker. But you forgive Bhansali of these 10 minutes for the other 99 minutes of pure genius that he lets you be a part of. It is not a sad portrayal of a disabled man's life. Instead, it is almost a celebration of the life he lives, his quick humor and wit bringing more smiles than tears.

Dont think twice. Watch it.

Rating: 4 on 5
Paisa Wasool Moment: The scene with the fly

Without you

You are the jigsaw piece
That makes me complete
You are the melody
To which my heart beats
Your smile
Keeps me warm all night
Your breath
Gives my soul respite
Days stretch out without you
Nights seem to last forever
No sense
No purpose
Till when we’re together
Life without you
Just seems so still
A test of love
Seems god’s will

The Deathly Hallows doesn't live up to it!!

I've been avoiding writing this review. It seems like a sort of a betrayal. To an era of loyalty and of pure reverence of the wizarding world. So I take a deep breath and here I go, hoping now that the ministry has fallen, they dont send me off to Azkaban as a traitor.

Potter films are expected with a fevered anticipation perhaps never seen before. With each book, the mania for this magical beautiful world increased and made the producers, actors and ofcourse Rowling very rich people!! But it was justified as each book outdid the earlier one with the grand finale spiralling into a lovely piece of work which tied up the entire series together closing loops and ends that dint quite fit before making it the best book in the entire series in my opinion.

Unfortunately, the movie couldn't match up. I feel the same disappointment I felt when I saw Goblet of Fire. The book provides so much fodder and such a lovely base to characterize but the films just couldn't match up. They tried hard, I give them that, but they couldn't reach the pinnacle.

Perhaps because there was so much to tell, which the very thick book takes its time weaving, the film seemed to be edited in a manner that it was hacked and then stacked together. Scenes changed too fast, were not easy to comprehend and continuity seemed to break much too often.
I do believe that Draco is one character who has grown into his role and must be given his due adulation. No other character except for the 3 on their camping trip seem to be given much prominence in this film, though Dobby did get some minutes of well deserved prime time. And yes, I could really have done without that completely random scene in which Harry and Hermoine start dancing together in their tent right after Ron has left, seemingly to celebrate their freedom from him at last!!!

All in all, if you've read the books, you would probably enjoy the film living out each scene and seeing it played out before your eyes for the last time but one. But if you are a fan of the films and havent read the books, I have a feeling you may leave that hall with a sense of frustration and need to google up how things fit in and who said what why. Watch it, but dont go with stars in your eyes.

Rating: 2.5 on 5

DON'T WORK. BE HATED. LOVE SOMEONE

Similar to Steve Job's speech....long but a good read...

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Written by Adrian Tan, author of The Teenage Textbook (1988), was the guest-of-honour at a recent NTU convocation ceremony. This was his speech to the graduating class of 2008.

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I must say thank you to the faculty and staff of the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information for inviting me to give your convocation address. It’s a wonderful honour and a privilege for me to speak here for ten minutes without fear of contradiction, defamation or retaliation. I say this as a Singaporean and more so as a husband.

My wife is a wonderful person and perfect in every way except one. She is the editor of a magazine. She corrects people for a living. She has honed her expert skills over a quarter of a century, mostly by practising at home during conversations between her and me.
On the other hand, I am a litigator. Essentially, I spend my day telling people how wrong they are. I make my living being disagreeable.
Nevertheless, there is perfect harmony in our matrimonial home. That is because when an editor and a litigator have an argument, the one who triumphs is always the wife.
And so I want to start by giving one piece of advice to the men: when you’ve already won her heart, you don’t need to win every argument.
Marriage is considered one milestone of life. Some of you may already be married. Some of you may never be married. Some of you will be married. Some of you will enjoy the experience so much, you will be married many, many times. Good for you.
The next big milestone in your life is today: your graduation. The end of education. You’re done learning.
You’ve probably been told the big lie that “Learning is a lifelong process” and that therefore you will continue studying and taking masters’ degrees and doctorates and professorships and so on. You know the sort of people who tell you that? Teachers. Don’t you think there is some measure of conflict of interest? They are in the business of learning, after all. Where would they be without you? They need you to be repeat customers.
The good news is that they’re wrong.
The bad news is that you don’t need further education because your entire life is over. It is gone. That may come as a shock to some of you. You’re in your teens or early twenties. People may tell you that you will live to be 70, 80, 90 years old. That is your life expectancy.
I love that term: life expectancy. We all understand the term to mean the average life span of a group of people. But I’m here to talk about a bigger idea, which is what you expect from your life.
You may be very happy to know that Singapore is currently ranked as the country with the third highest life expectancy. We are behind Andorra and Japan, and tied with San Marino. It seems quite clear why people in those countries, and ours, live so long. We share one thing in common: our football teams are all hopeless. There’s very little danger of any of our citizens having their pulses raised by watching us play in the World Cup. Spectators are more likely to be lulled into a gentle and restful nap.
Singaporeans have a life expectancy of 81.8 years. Singapore men live to an average of 79.21 years, while Singapore women live more than five years longer, probably to take into account the additional time they need to spend in the bathroom.
So here you are, in your twenties, thinking that you’ll have another 40 years to go. Four decades in which to live long and prosper.
Bad news. Read the papers. There are people dropping dead when they’re 50, 40, 30 years old. Or quite possibly just after finishing their convocation. They would be very disappointed that they didn’t meet their life expectancy.
I’m here to tell you this. Forget about your life expectancy.
After all, it’s calculated based on an average. And you never, ever want to expect being average.
Revisit those expectations. You might be looking forward to working, falling in love, marrying, raising a family. You are told that, as graduates, you should expect to find a job paying so much, where your hours are so much, where your responsibilities are so much.
That is what is expected of you. And if you live up to it, it will be an awful waste.
If you expect that, you will be limiting yourself. You will be living your life according to boundaries set by average people. I have nothing against average people. But no one should aspire to be them. And you don’t need years of education by the best minds in Singapore to prepare you to be average.
LIFE'S A MESS.
What you should prepare for is mess. Life’s a mess. You are not entitled to expect anything from it. Life is not fair. Everything does not balance out in the end. Life happens, and you have no control over it. Good and bad things happen to you day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment. Your degree is a poor armour against fate.
Don’t expect anything. Erase all life expectancies. Just live. Your life is over as of today. At this point in time, you have grown as tall as you will ever be, you are physically the fittest you will ever be in your entire life and you are probably looking the best that you will ever look. This is as good as it gets. It is all downhill from here. Or up. No one knows.
What does this mean for you? It is good that your life is over.
Since your life is over, you are free. Let me tell you the many wonderful things that you can do when you are free.
RESIST THE TEMPTATION TO GET A JOB. INSTEAD, PLAY.
The most important is this: do not work.
Work is anything that you are compelled to do. By its very nature, it is undesirable.
Work kills. The Japanese have a term “Karoshi”, which means death from overwork. That’s the most dramatic form of how work can kill. But it can also kill you in more subtle ways. If you work, then day by day, bit by bit, your soul is chipped away, disintegrating until there’s nothing left. A rock has been ground into sand and dust.
There’s a common misconception that work is necessary. You will meet people working at miserable jobs. They tell you they are “making a living”. No, they’re not. They’re dying, frittering away their fast-extinguishing lives doing things which are, at best, meaningless and, at worst, harmful.
People will tell you that work ennobles you, that work lends you a certain dignity. Work makes you free. The slogan “Arbeit macht frei” was placed at the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps. Utter nonsense.

Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate so that you can spend the small remainder sliver of your life in modest comfort. You may never reach that end anyway.
Resist the temptation to get a job. Instead, play. Find something you enjoy doing. Do it. Over and over again. You will become good at it for two reasons: you like it, and you do it often. Soon, that will have value in itself.
I like arguing, and I love language. So, I became a litigator. I enjoy it and I would do it for free. If I didn’t do that, I would’ve been in some other type of work that still involved writing fiction – probably a sports journalist.
So what should you do? You will find your own niche. I don’t imagine you will need to look very hard. By this time in your life, you will have a very good idea of what you will want to do. In fact, I’ll go further and say the ideal situation would be that you will not be able to stop yourself pursuing your passions. By this time you should know what your obsessions are. If you enjoy showing off your knowledge and feeling superior, you might become a teacher.
Find that pursuit that will energise you, consume you, become an obsession. Each day, you must rise with a restless enthusiasm. If you don’t, you are working.
Most of you will end up in activities which involve communication. To those of you I have a second message: be wary of the truth. I’m not asking you to speak it, or write it, for there are times when it is dangerous or impossible to do those things. The truth has a great capacity to offend and injure, and you will find that the closer you are to someone, the more care you must take to disguise or even conceal the truth. Often, there is great virtue in being evasive, or equivocating. There is also great skill. Any child can blurt out the truth, without thought to the consequences. It takes great maturity to appreciate the value of silence.
In order to be wary of the truth, you must first know it. That requires great frankness to yourself. Never fool the person in the mirror.
BE HATED.
I have told you that your life is over, that you should not work, and that you should avoid telling the truth. I now say this to you: be hated.
It’s not as easy as it sounds. Do you know anyone who hates you? Yet every great figure who has contributed to the human race has been hated, not just by one person, but often by a great many. That hatred is so strong it has caused those great figures to be shunned, abused, murdered and in one famous instance, nailed to a cross.
One does not have to be evil to be hated. In fact, it’s often the case that one is hated precisely because one is trying to do right by one’s own convictions. It is far too easy to be liked, one merely has to be accommodating and hold no strong convictions. Then one will gravitate towards the centre and settle into the average. That cannot be your role. There are a great many bad people in the world, and if you are not offending them, you must be bad yourself. Popularity is a sure sign that you are doing something wrong.
LOVE ANOTHER HUMAN BEING.
The other side of the coin is this: fall in love.
I didn’t say “be loved”. That requires too much compromise. If one changes one’s looks, personality and values, one can be loved by anyone.
Rather, I exhort you to love another human being. It may seem odd for me to tell you this. You may expect it to happen naturally, without deliberation. That is false. Modern society is anti-love. We’ve taken a microscope to everyone to bring out their flaws and shortcomings. It far easier to find a reason not to love someone, than otherwise. Rejection requires only one reason. Love requires complete acceptance. It is hard work – the only kind of work that I find palatable.
Loving someone has great benefits. There is admiration, learning, attraction and something which, for the want of a better word, we call happiness. In loving someone, we become inspired to better ourselves in every way. We learn the truth worthlessness of material things. We celebrate being human. Loving is good for the soul.
Loving someone is therefore very important, and it is also important to choose the right person. Despite popular culture, love doesn’t happen by chance, at first sight, across a crowded dance floor. It grows slowly, sinking roots first before branching and blossoming. It is not a silly weed, but a mighty tree that weathers every storm.

You will find, that when you have someone to love, that the face is less important than the brain, and the body is less important than the heart.
You will also find that it is no great tragedy if your love is not reciprocated. You are not doing it to be loved back. Its value is to inspire you.
Finally, you will find that there is no half-measure when it comes to loving someone. You either don’t, or you do with every cell in your body, completely and utterly, without reservation or apology. It consumes you, and you are reborn, all the better for it.
Don’t work. Avoid telling the truth. Be hated. Love someone.