Pani Puri spelt with a capital ‘Pee’

The recent video of a Pani Puri wala peeing in the same vessel used for serving customers has created quite an upheaval. There are pictures and videos of the act everywhere. The article published in TOI reports that when the ‘guy in question’ was arrested; in his defense he said that there was no other place for him to relieve himself - therefore the vessel.

This incident must have grossed out a lot of people.

Some may have been grossed out to the extent of not trying Pani Puri ever from a street side vendor, or to the extent of not trying any street food ever, or even to the extent of not eating any outside food ever.

But the worry is, that apart from grossing people out, this incident has also exposed the lowest form of violation of ‘trust’ that one places on another individual.

When one buys a product or a service in exchange of money – how can one be sure that the product/service  one is buying is not adulterated or is not of low quality vis-à-vis the price one is paying for it?

How does one find the trade-off between ‘the many good things that money can buy; like food as in this case’ AND ‘the few things that money cannot buy; like Trust’

Can anyone ever equate these two factors?

The answer, after this Pani Puri incident, is NO.

The realization that the so called phenomenon as ‘honoring one’s trust’ cannot be expected by default (with or without a cost attached to it) - is shattering.

Imagine for a second, if it was possible to attach a price to 'ensuring that the trust bestowed upon another individual is honored'- even then, would there have been any way of confirming whether the trust was indeed honored unless the person in question is captured on camera conducting otherwise or owns up himself/herself?

Going back to the same Pani Puri incident, say if people decided to pay one rupee extra over and above the regular cost to the Pani Puri fellow for not peeing in the vessel used to serve customers- who could guarantee that he has indeed not peed in the vessel unless he himself claims otherwise.
If the act had not been captured on camera –the Pani Puri fellow would have continued to serve Paani Puri with some added flavor of his piss to his customers without anyone realizing it.

Well, the fact remains that there is no limit to the extent of external policing one can do to ensure everything is just the way it is supposed to be but the final responsibility always lies with the person who is supposed to act – however, the sad part is that we seem to have forgotten this responsibilty.

Anyways, my sincere sympathies are with those people who cannot do without a tangy and spicy plate of Pani Puri coming straight out of the road side vendor’s stall.

As for me, thankfully enough, I have never liked Pani Puri much. But I cannot claim the same for a lot of other things. So until the next person is caught on camera doing something as preposterous as our “Pee-ep-li Live” hero who rose to stardom overnight - I shall pretend that I am safe!!

Dork - A Book Review

Dork written by Sidin Vadukut, is a compilation of diary entries which chronicles the sequence of events in the protagonist - Robin ‘Einstein’ Varghese’s life from the first day of placement in his reputed MBA College to his sudden stardom as a consultant.

Well of course the real story is the journey between the start and the end.

I finished reading up about Robert Einstein Varghese in 4 days with two hours of read every day.

Day 1
Robert Einstein Varghese (REV) is a very optimistic human being with extraordinary abilities of turning sand into gold with sheer imagination in his mind. However most of the people around him would hold a contradictory view. He never gets bogged down with anything except for intermittent outbursts of Hindi/English slangs to express his disgust for other people’s doings. He is in love with a young pretty thing in college and thinks of ways to impress her and but the young pretty thing is not really aware of his deepest feelings for her.
He settles for a decent job. Well ‘DECENT’ is what other people thought; but with REV’s optimism – the offer was no less than extraordinary and specially tailored for his grey matter!

He leaves college on a hung-over note with alcohol playing the mischief when the entire college witnesses the sight of him sitting on the divider of the road outside his college campus with his shirt ripped apart.

That was not all, when the young pretty thing attempts to help REV move into his room along with another batch mate, Mr. Einstein bathes her in puke.

Well the puke smell may not have been such a good idea for a parting gift – but it sure served the purpose of having a lasting effect on his lady love! Mr. Einstein, on the other hand however, does not remember any of this. Thank God for that! Alcohol sure has some advantages.

Day 2

REV lands in the city that never sleeps (aamchi Mumbai). I can relate to this part of the story :P

He goes through the usual grind of moving into a new city like finding a house to live in, getting used to the climatic conditions. It is in this part of the story that he gets a little carried away and manages to plant a big hole in his pocket because of his optimistic expectations from the firm. He deep dives to grab the goodies on offer at the company provided hotel accommodation only to realize that they are not covered and with this realization Mr. Varghese lands on a hard rock solid bottom without a life jacket on.

The job keeps him quite busy with plenty of things to deal with, ranging from misleading the client into believing that he is senior personnel at the firm by goofing up the conveyance that was meant for senior officials with his own; to another alcohol driven act at a party with a senior partner which makes him the talk of the firm. And it does not stop at that, the party act gets captured in a video upload on you-tube for the world at large to watch.

Day 3

Robert Einstein Varghese turns out to be a stud, who not only manages to win the girl (remember the YPT from college) he had been chasing (in his dreams) but also manages to evoke interest in another one and finds it difficult to choose between the two. Work life continues to be the regular grind of wining some and losing a few until one day when he is lost totally and loses all hope of moving up the ladder on speed as he had imagined, when the infamous you-tube video spreads its wings and lands within the client’s radar!!

Day 4

He reaches the rock bottom levels of his frustration with the job and one last time again under the influence of alcohol he does the unthinkable! He lashes out at senior officials, the firm and the client over a line which gets copied to the entire network of the firm. (This time blame it on technology along with alcohol).

The interesting thing to notice here is that on all the three occasions where alcohol plays havoc in his life – he wakes up the next day morning with an erased memory of the previous night!

So it is only the impact that guides you to the intensity of the actual act.

Nonetheless, the story ends with REV becoming the international hero and a management guru overnight. I shall leave it up to the reader to read the book and find out how.

MORAL OF THE STORY: When you are too bogged down with life; turn to Alcohol! It may not solve your existing problems but it sure gives you the ability to think through them like a King who has all the power. And while you are in power you can do whatever you want – who knows you may just do the right thing like Mr. Einstein!!

Mumbai Dairies:

March 29, 2011 – The idea of getting to work by train is quite exciting. One of my co-passengers recognized me today and said hello! She is a regular traveler.

Nothing much on the work front. Everyone at the client site is busy with year-end activities and they don’t really have time to entertain an auditor for this week at least. So that just means a lot of reading, planning and surfing the net for me.

Surprise of surprises- my firm has declared a half day off tomorrow on account of the eventful match between India and Pakistan!!!So we get to pack our bags and head home at 1.00 in the afternoon to sit in front of the TV with popcorn and cold drinks!!

Incidentally, the TV remote which had stopped working at my sister’s PG has also been replaced with a new one. So no more hitting the remote or running to the TV to increase/decrease the volume or change the channel.

My stay in Mumbai is proving to be quite exciting, touché wood!

Mumbai Dairies:

March 28th, 2011 – Today was my first day of train travel all by myself in Mumbai. Although my adorable little sister had left no stone unturned in getting me familiarized with train travel, I was nervous nonetheless.

The day before, both of us had run from pillar to post to figure out the most convenient way to get to Chembur (my place of work) from Andheri East (my sister’s place of stay).

After about half a day of running around followed by a very relaxed lunch at Kohinoor Continental where we got a chance to put together all the information that we had gathered, we managed to establish that there are only a handful of direct trains from Andheri to Chembur . However there are quite a few trains from Andheri to Wadala and from Wadala I can get on to one of the many trains going towards Chembur.

I was ready to live with the idea of changing trains at Wadala to get to Chembur.

So with this information in my mind and the train pass in my purse I reached very early at the station and managed to get into the designated train to Wadala. As planned, I was to get down at Wadala and take another train to Chembur.

However, lady luck was in my favor. When I got down from the train at Wadala and enquired about the connecting train to Chembur- I was directed towards the same train that I had gotten down from.

I was elated!! I had managed to board the direct train without realizing it. And that just meant that I need not change trains at all to get to my destination if I manage to stick to the timing.

Quite happy with the first day experience of Mumbai Local!

Speed of Mind

Light travels faster than anything else known to man. But a human mind can travel faster than light. And a fickle mind like mine can beat all records of speed whatsoever perceptible to human kind.

I was made to realize this when I was a child. Well being fickle minded isn’t really considered a virtue. If it were, then all this propaganda about keeping your mind in control would have been meaningless.

It is indeed very difficult to control your mind or your thought process. And you could test that anytime anywhere without having to do much. You just need to sit at one place with eyes closed. Eyes need to be closed to shut out all distractions. But if you are one of those who can shut out their mind to the outside world with or without eyes closed then you need not really have to keep your eyes shut.

Once you are in that position you got to try to channelize your thought process towards just one thing and try to bring your mind to a state of nothingness. Simple, right? Is it really?

Well I tried and this is what happened in my mind -

“I can see nothing. It is pitch dark around me. Of course! What else do you expect when you close your eyes so tight? Yeah, but do I really need to keep them so tightly closed. I can just normally close my eyes. After all thoughts will not enter my mind through the eyes .I need to keep my mind focused on one thing. I should be thinking only about that one thing. What should I pick? Movies are my favorite. I could perhaps think about one movie and concentrate my thought process on that. But wait no, movies shall have more than one character so my mind would still be thinking about more than one thing at a time. Ok let me concentrate on one actor. Who should I pick? Kareena Kapoor is a good choice. She always looks pretty. But how should I imagine her in my mind? What was the latest movie that she acted in? Oh boy- I cannot remember. Yeah got it – Golmaal 3 it was. But I haven’t watched the movie and neither have I seen too many promos. Don’t remember how she looks in the movie. Remember Ajay Devgan though .And he looks pretty weird with that short haircut, Guess that was just to add the humor quotient to his look. Not that he had any better hair earlier. I actually liked Farhaan Akhtar’s hair styling in Rock On. Oh what a movie. That movie reminds me of caramel popcorn, Diwali and my friend Elizabeth. I remember having gone to watch the movie with her during diwali and also we had had caramel popcorn after long. It was quite an experience. Actually caramel popcorn tastes very nice when mixed with plain salted popcorn. The sudden ‘sweet taste’ of caramel thrown in between the salted taste of popcorn just makes you want more of it. Come to think of it I am quite hungry right now. Hell with meditation, I don’t mind making some quick microwave popcorn and catching a nice movie !!!!”

And that was the end of my concentration. I forced my mind not to think any further in search of the ultimate truth rather focus on the current for now.

Julie and Julia

Feb 04, 2011: Last night I watched this movie called ‘Julie and Julia’ on TV. It is a story about a famous cookbook author (Julia Child, played by Meryl Streep) and one of her ardent fans (Julie Powel, played by Amy Adams).

Julie works with the Customer Service Department of an Insurance Company and is quite hassled by the calls that she gets from irate customers. She tries hard to solve their problems but loses a bit of herself every time she gets screamed at. Back home she has a loving husband; a cute little house and a bunch of super successful female friends.

Just when, the stress at work and the feeling of not having achieved much in life begins to break her from inside; she hits upon the idea of starting a blog. Her supportive husband encourages her to write a blog on cooking – her only stress buster in life.

Julie picks the famous cookbook by Julia Child which has 524 recipes and decides to take upon the task of trying them all in 365 days! And she also decides to maintain a daily blog of her cooking experience.

The film showcases her experience in completing the feat and the reaction within her and of the world outside to her daily blog. Not to mention the fantastic visuals that corroborate the whole cooking experience.

The interesting part is how the film goes into flash back every now and then highlighting Julia Child’s (the author of the cookbook) endeavors to get her recipes published. Now although these two characters are several years apart in time, space and circumstances- the film is successfully able to sketch some very profound similarities between their lives. Especially how they achieve what they achieved. I particularly liked Meryl Streep’s performance in the movie. She has demonstrated the ability to bring sheer joy to your cooking experience just by watching her.

There are some fascinating elements in the movie which is sure to grab your attention for example, when the movie depicts Julia Child’s quest to do something with her time; she tries everything possible from hat making to taking bridge classes before she finally discovers her real passion for cooking! On the other hand even after Julie figures out that one thing that will keep her mind off her stressful job, She never tries to quit her job in the movie, instead she shifts her focus to that one thing that brings her joy.

All I can say is that the movie is sort of going to stay with me for long. I feel I connected with the story at many levels!! That’s not all, there is some good news too. After watching the movie I feel like blogging more (good news for the readers) and cooking more often (good news for Vikram)!!

So happy reading people and happy eating Vikram!!

Relocation

Relocation is a just a 10 letter word. But the process is not that simple. There are various things that one needs to plan and execute. House hunt is one – for example. Infact one of the key factors.

Vikram and I began our house hunt journey on the 20^th of November 2010  (Saturday) at 5.30 in the morning! We had an early morning (7.20 am) flight. And we managed to miss it :P:P . We reached exactly thirty minutes before departure- which going by Kingfisher standards is EXACTLY 10 minutes late because the check in counter closes EXACTLY forty minutes before departure!!  This was clearly stated in the ticket print outs that we got but the fact remains that neither of us bothered to read it – how inexact could we have gotten there now???

Anyways, even after several sessions of begging, trying and talking they refused to let us through. So then we had no choice but to look for another flight. But luckily, or so we thought then, due to bad weather and low visibility the flight , which was due to depart at 7.20 , couldn’t take off.

Vikram received a message saying that the departure had been postponed to 9.20 am!! We were very excited and ran to the counter again – but they said that they still couldn’t let us in. So within 60 seconds of excitement  we were  upset again because we didn’t quite figure out the reason why they couldn’t let us through when we had the time, the flight was around and this time for a change we were also present well within time. We insisted on speaking with the manager and finally when we managed to speak to the Manager we couldn’t argue further when he explained that once the check in is done – there are a lot of procedures that follow to make sure that the aircraft is balanced with the given number passengers on board. All this calls for a hell lot of formalities and plenty of documentation. So any increment in the number of passengers would mean going through the entire ordeal again and that would mean pushing the landing time. 

The only way they said they could let us through was if and only if, I saw the two lettered word being spoken in CAPITALS there,  two people from the flight decided to cancel and get off the plane: P.

Now keeping ourselves in an onboard passenger’s shoe (rather two of them while keeping in mind that the summation of their weight is equivalent to  our weights put together), which we would have loved to even if that meant wearing the wrong shoe size, we couldn’t see ourselves canceling the flight and getting off the plane.

We were left with no choice but to keep shut!

But someone up there, much above the aircraft was very  kind - for the manager offered to reschedule our tickets for the 4.45 p.m. flight to Pune that very day without any extra charge!! We were relieved that at least we would make it to Pune the same day just some ..er.. may be some more than ‘just some’ hours later.

We got the rescheduled tickets done but that’s when  wisdom dawned upon us and we realized that we had some eight hours to kill at the airport because there was absolutely no point going back to the city given the distance and the cost involved .

I could imagine how Mr. Steven Spielberg  got the idea of making the movie ‘The Terminal’ . In case you are wondering- well it is the same flick where Mr. Tom Hanks gets stranded at a very fancy airport with access to all the modern amenities that one can imagine of and along with  Ms Suave, Catherine Zeta Jones, to romance with at sporadic intervals.

But don’t get any ideas because our 8 hour long wait was not even close to  the celluloid  experience that Mr. Tom Hanks had because all the book stores, shopping areas and drinking areas were beyond the security check point. So we decided to make do with whatever was available on our side of the airport and began our own eating and shopped spree. Got two books for ourselves and somehow managed to stay awake till 4.00 in those extremely uncomfortable chairs: P

During that long wait, approximately, about every two hours we did have to fight the strong urge within us to request the airport authorities to get us past  the security check in advance so that we could make better use of  time. But the thought of having driven away from the airport on account of  being strong suspects for terror , given that we had created enough uproar in the morning to get everyone’s attention to get on the plane, we kept quiet.

Finally we reached Pune at 7.00 in the evening!! Need I mention that It was quite an experience. 

Lastly, coming to the point which I had started to write about – The house hunt. While we were waiting at the airport I had managed to call up all the prospective house owners and rescheduled our appointments for late Saturday evening and the whole of Sunday.

But despite, some very good leads, or so we had thought then again, we hadn’t seen even one good house until 6.30 on Sunday evening.

Vikram, my dearest, believes that one should always have a plan. In case the first one fails there should be a backup plan. Now since things were not going the way we had planned right from the airport- he was ready with what we wanted the most – the backup plan!!!

So the backup plan was that I would stay back for a day and hunt for the house while Vikram would report to work cause he couldn’t take any leaves in his notice period.  As the day was coming to an end and we were nearing darkness with increasing reliance on our backup plan with every tick of the seconds hand in the watch-  the broker showed us one house which all of us liked!

But as luck would have it – it was quite dark when we visited the place and being a new construction they still hadn’t fixed the electrical appliances! So we had to check out the place with whatever light our mobile phones could generate  JJ 

We finalized the house in the hope that it would turn out the way it had seemed in the dark :P 

Our return flight on Monday was scheduled to depart at 7.20 in the morning again. So having been through all of this we didn’t really want to take any chances so we decided to book the cab 2 hours and 20 minutes in advance to cover a distance of about 10 k.m. that normally gets covered in 20 minutes given the traffic in Pune.

But given the luck we had with flights guess one last time!!  Well Vikram got a message at 12.30 in the night saying that the flight had been delayed to 10.20!! Thanks to my dear hubby’s insomniac attributes, he was awake until then to read the message and reschedule the cab. I got to know about it only when I got up at 4.30 a.m. and woke up Vikram reminding him of the early morning flight.   But this time around we were indeed very happy to have our sleep back!!