A Room with a view...

[Wrote this a week back when I was in Chennai, Have moved to Hyd now and Bangalore in between...]

At Chennai, I'm put up at a place called Hotel Mount Plaza just five minutes from my office in Teynampet. And one interesting place it is. After a hectic day, the menu card is a huge comic relief, they have 'Milk Shake with Milk' and 'Milk Shake without Milk' on the card. By the way, the 'Milk Shake with Milk' is cheaper by five rupees at forty when compared to the forty five rupee 'Milk Shake without Milk'. They also have 'Chinese Chowmein', 'Chicken Manjurian'and 'Chicken Shekh Kabab' on menu. I only hope no one from the Middle East turns up at this hotel or I would not imagine his feelings on seeing 'Chicken Shekh kabab' on menu. In fact, thare are too many gems to list!

The room otherwise is clean, air conditioned and has all the amenities but what takes the cake is the view from the window. The window actually opens to a Petrol pump some twenty feet below. And believe me, it is one heck of a time pass to stand there and observe the proceedings! This brings me to another famous window, the one at the Marvel Residency at Punjgutta in Hyderabad which I had mentioned here. This Marvel Residency has been in news lately for all the wrong reasons, and the window too because the thieves who broke into Alukkas at Punjagutta stayed in the same hotel and had the same view as me, that of the wall of adjoining Alukkas, one and a half feet away. I must confess that those thieves were much more creative than me coz its only now after the seven crore heist has already taken place that I could think of this possibilty!

All that apart, i found most of the people I met here in Chennai to be much simpler than those in the other parts of the country. A few of them who refused to part with samples made the kind of excuses which were really really naive. As for the food, the little said the better. I had south indian in dinner today at Saravana Bhavan in Pondy Bazaar (Yes, I know its a funny name) because I could not find any place which would dish out decent north indian around my place. I actually wasted a lot of food last afternoon after having ordered at a good looking restaurant simply because I found the food to be literally unpalatale. I can very well imagine the plight of a Southie up North now coz I can make out the difference between the South Indian that they serve here and what our restaurants generally serve as South Indian. The Sambhar at most places in Delhi is cooked like a dal, Dosa is not much different from the way a Parantha is cooked and vada almost tastes like a Pakoda.

Although it is difficult for an outsider to adjust to this city quickly because of the massive language problem, Chennai otherwise looks like a fairly decent place. Probably because the weather has been great for the last two days, it rained today in fact. I'm planning to go to Marina beach tomorrow evening. I'm already missing the energy of Mumbai.

Mumbai.......

I generally take my time to form opinions about anything and probably this was the reason that I didn't blog about Mumbai, although, I've been here for more than eight days now. I've travelled far and wide, from Vasai Rd on WR to Thane on CR. And I've seen most of the places in between. And probably never more than today, I understand why many people think of India as a land of contradictions. In all likelihood, from wherever they might have formed their opinions but surely they would be reinforced (if not made) in Mumbai. As a pakka Delhiite, my natural instinct would be to write off Mumbai as a city with crumbling infrastructure. Travel on its local trains and you'd notice it pass through heaps of garbages on both sides, full of slum clusters, unkept and stinky beaches, bad traffic management, narrow roads, archaic buildings and what not. Compare this to the modern day Delhi: Swanky Cars all around, gleaming Metro, Wide roads and flyovers, much much cleaner, less polluted, still plenty of open spaces and thankfully not as vertically extended as Mumbai.

But when one tries to delve beneath the surface, the beauty of Mumbai emerges. Mumbai is much more of a melting pot than Delhi. Far more cosmopolitan and far more accomodating. Very easy for an outsider to dissolve in the crowd. And much better behaved people than what we get back home. Travellers looking to board the local would wait for the others to get down before boarding. Compare it with Metro or our local buses. Doesn't look like the taxiwallahs or the Ricks are there to loot you, they charge by the meter and generally don't refuse whatever be your destination. Compare it with our taxis and autos. And in whatever has been my interaction with businessmen here, ppl are much more simpler and professional. Comapare it with the game of one-upmanship that is the hallmark of Delhi. Astonishingly for me atleast, I found quite a few high rises just next to slum clusters. Had this been the case in Delhi, we would have used all our connections or sources to get those slums demolished, but it seems, Mumbaikars have a much better sense of co-existence. (Don't know but probably the need to travel by the local for most of the junta might have something to do with this tolerance.)

Culturally, it is totally different from Delhi. Delhi, most of it atleast, remains a feudal society. It has never learnt to respect its women. In contrast, Mumbai provides a lot of freedom to its women. You generally don't get to see cars full of 'fukras', loud music blaring out and chasing girls. I had heard that you could see females travelling at night in the local, and only today at around 11:30, there were many of them travelling alone whom I noticed when I got down at Churchgate. And just give a thought, what would you think of a female travelling alone at midnight in Delhi? I must say that despite of the fact that the quality of life for an average person would be much poorer in Mumbai compared to Delhi, I must say that he is culturally much better off. With a good education, he can be sure that his offspring would be tolerant and a well behaved citizen. I'm not sure if that can be said of Delhi. I hate to say it but its the truth nevertheless, Delhi has a long long way before it can be a patch on the socio-cultural life of Mumbai. Three or four weeks ago, Oulook had this cover story on Delhi, comparing it to a drunk, unshaven, and wife beating bully. It was quite a lop sided story. I was in Kolkata then and I was enraged. After mumbai, I'm much calmer.

P.S. For those of you interested, an article in the subsequent issue of Outlook by a Delhiite was a real good read. Do read it!

Boy! What a city and what people!!!

I was walking to Nariman point last night with Deepak Goyal. On the way, Deepak Goyal asked for directions from a young lad:

Deepak: Nariman Point ka raasta kidhar se hai?
YL: Aage se...
Deepak: Aage road khatam hai, aage se left jaane ka ya right....
YL: Aage se...
Deepak: Bada haramkhor hai, aage kahan?
YL: (smiling) sahi pehchaana, mujhe nahin pata...

I'm jawabless, again....

Delhi Diary

I wind up the Delhi leg of my All-India trip today, I now move on to Mumbai. Delhi was a useful stay of around ten days. But as always, in the end, it was the same old story of too many commitments and too little time. Here are a few thoughts/events that occured to me during the period:
1. Visited a few areas of Delhi which I had always sort of bypassed. Dariyaganj, Paharganj, Okhla, NOIDA Ph II, Greater NOIDA, the masjid on the ITO crossing and a few other places.
2. Strategy of introducing myself as a management trainee backfired on more than one occassion :( Will remeber my meeting with the MBD guy for a real long time.
3. Hometruth: MT doing a market survey is treated no differently than a salesmen doing a market survey.
4. Met a few really savvy baniya-traders, Really Really Surprised.
5. Thanks to VIP, Television proved a source of real hearty laugh after a real long time. Their new lucky draw campaign is tiltled 'chaddi pe gaddi'
6. Wondering if there is any auditing of all the freebie/lucky draw schemes happening. Opportunity to win a mercedes by eating a pack of biscuit seems too much to digest. Are these companies 'actually' giving any prizes?
7. Really regret not having a digicam, my handycam would be too cumbersome to carry to all the places I'm going to visit.
8. A miraculous incident, spotted Murali standing by the roadside the other evening (back in India after some three years). Ended up having dinner with TG.
9. Looking for info on the computer gaming industry in India.
10.Those around in Mumbai, Plz let me know good places to eat around Colaba.
11.Really amused with some of my conversations with Tarun of late. Tarun has a desk job now and I have a field job. Stories are similar but the protagonists have changed.
12.Boss at ITC is a tough guy to please, really not used to getting so-so feedback on my work. More than the project, it is more of a personal challenge for me now!