Looking Back At That Decision

Courage, panic, happiness, disappointments, fun, victories, losses, explorations, anger, fights, pleasures, laze, solitude, friendships, frustrations, excitements, jubilations…

All that (and maybe more) over the past 365 days. Glad I took that decision a year back.

A cup of coffee

Today morning I woke up to a heavy rainfall. It made me go back to sleep. Few minutes passed by, and mom’s rebuke made me get out of bed. With no will/motivation I freshened up and took the newspaper. Turned a few pages, saw pics of flooded Delhi streets and Airport Terminal 3. Rains make me gloomy. They really do. As I continued flipping through, I noticed a simple ad that looked very similar to Tender Notices that get published in newspapers. Instead of “Call for tender”, it read “Make a career out of tasting coffee”. No wonder it caught my attention. Here is the online version (which looks quite different than the newspaper print). “Wouldn’t that be super cool career option” I thought, and immediately I decided to taste some myself. I usually do not prefer instant coffee, but had no other alternative at home. Better that than nothing. I intentionally added more-than-usual amount of coffee to some hot milk, few spoonfuls of sugar and it was ready. It felt awesome, like, really awesome. Somehow I got all the willingness to brave the rains, and get to work.

And then followed these good moments, or rather little pleasures of life that we often overlook.

1. Walking through the heavy rain, carrying an umbrella, wearing shorts and floaters. One of the few things I like about rain. Fun, fun, fun. Watching people running around, looking for cover. Jumping over the puddles. It just felt great.
2. People at the bus stop were busy discussing the rains and water logging at Lajpat Nagar. I just love how the conversation at bus stops change with time and season. I have rarely seen a debate. Usually everyone is in the same side of the discussion.
3. An empty AC DTC bus came out of the depot right next to the bus stop. A very rare thing to happen. Today the luck was on my side. A window seat of my choice on a rainy day in an air-conditioned bus. What more?
4. Right at the next stop a random person ran towards the seat next to me. As he reached close enough he flung his handkerchief onto the empty seat, gestured me to take care of it with a bright smile on his face and turned towards to conductor to get his ticket.
5. The radio station talked about the increasing petrol prices, cracked humorous jokes (like gifting your wife a chain having a locket containing 2 drops of petrol) and played some wonderful music. I didn’t care about petrol prices. I rarely drive.
6. Sitting next to the window in an AC bus as it rained outside gave me some good vibes. The entire city looked washed and cleaned. Nowhere throughout the ride from home to office did I find any appreciable water logging. And that’s a good 23 kms. Probably many waited for rains to go away, and so there were hardly any traffic snarls (except for the last km).
7. About halfway through the ride, the clouds cleared up and the sun trickled through. The air was amazingly clean. Every time the bus was atop a flyover I could see the Delhi skyline, far far away. It brought back memories of my days in Chandigarh where I could see the mountains from my hostel after rains.
8. As I got down the bus at Nehru Place, I noticed that the authorities had restored the footpath and the service lane leading to the subway. Don’t know when they had done it, but it felt good to notice it today.
9. A blogpost after quite a while. I had started writing one long back, but due to sheer laziness haven’t got down to complete it. Hope to finish that soon.

Today’s experience makes me feel that the #1 way listed in the 7 Scientific Ways Coffee Gives You Super Powers is for real.

Ah, the pleasures of a cup of coffee. :)

Public Transport – I’m sold.

Of all the cities in India that I have lived in, Delhi by far has had the best public transport infrastructure. I was a regular user of the city buses during summer vacations in class 8th and 9th when I had joined a computer programming course out of my personal interest. Following this the next major phase of my life when I used city buses came in class 11th and 12th. I would take a bus to travel from school to my coaching classes and also back home. Back then, I had no choice. There was a car at home, but I neither had a license nor did I know how to drive. Also at that time, most buses were Bluelines. These buses never ran with a motive of serving the public. Money making was the only motive. Given the helpless circumstances back then, I was definitely not fond of the buses or the public transport.

Things changed as I joined college. I regularly travelled along the Delhi-Chandigarh route on buses and trains. At the same time, I learned to drive and got myself a driving license. I did drive around the city for sometime, but soon Metro operations expanded in Delhi. From the day Metro connected Dwarka to other parts of Delhi, I realised the convenience of driving only up till the closest Metro Station. Following my graduation, I moved to Mysore and Bangalore. I had no personal vehicle. Autos in Bangalore (and Mysore) are a nuisance. As a result I always favoured the buses and often had to fight the reluctance of my friends in order to take the buses. And now that I am back in Delhi, I have been making the most of the public transport over the past four months.

Over this time I have had a change of mindset and my attitude towards public transport has changed a lot. I no longer perceive it as the cheap, painful and poor-man's mode of transport. At the same time, I am far from considering myself as a socially responsible citizen who takes public transport to help save fuel, lower pollution, lessen traffic on the roads. While I do support these causes, they are totally unrelated to my ever-growing fondness of the public transport.

One of my reasons for preferring public transport is that carrying around your own personal vehicle is slowly turning painful. Traffic is too slow too often. Parking has always been a problem (at least since the day I started driving). Petrol is burning bigger holes in your pocket. And then there are these occasional unpleasant cases of breakdown (I recently had a flat tyre). All these add to the pain.

The primary reason for my attraction is the experience in itself. This tweet by Rungta sums it up: “Never a dull moment on the public transport crush— err, systems of India.”

Truely, there is never a dull moment. Unlike the monotony of driving your vehicle through slow traffic, switching gears between 1 and 2, and finally searching for that non-existent parking spot; there is some spark in almost every ride on the public transport. The joy of boarding an empty bus, the competition for a seat in a jam-packed bus, the funny comments in the air, the sigh of relief at the end of the journey. In addition, the noticeable (as well as subtle) traits of individuals coming from diverse backgrounds (regional, cultural, economic etc) add to the exuberance; imagine a Haryanvi letting out his frustration in a crowded bus. Somehow these tiny highs and lows makes the entire experience worth it. And when I think back, and recall all these experiences there is a sense of achievement and satisfaction.

This post is a consequence of the same feeling, and I decided to share some of those moments. Even if they don't convince you about the beauty of the experience, at least they would humour you.

• One of the important difference between the buses in Delhi and Bangalore is the ease with which people start a conversation. Maybe because language is a lesser divide among the people in Delhi as compared to people in Bangalore. For some reason there is a “general assumption” that the people around are eager to talk to you. So don't be surprised if the guy next to you strikes up a random conversation with you. The topic can be, well, anything depending on the day, the mood, the person, the co-passengers, the weather, the cricket match; as I said, it can be anything. Some of the topics I have come across in the recent past: overcrowded state of public transport; the Government not functioning well; the distressing traffic situation; lack of trees; the performance of the bus driver; the insignificance of the Metro Airport Express Line; or a one-sided monologue where a random “enlightened” guy decides to spread some gyaan.
• While there are no shortage of frustrating moments, more often than not you will find some humour being born out of those situations. For example in a bus, every now and then you will discover newer (and funnier) ways of stealing seats. If your happen to be the unlucky victim who gets beaten in the contest, you can either humour others by letting out your rage, or simply learn from it and outsmart your fellow co-passengers the next ride onwards. Sometime back two of us took a metro from HUDA City Centre. Since the train originates at this station, people usually scamper for a seat the moment the metro door opens. We did not participate in the scamper as we were making a very short trip. Just as someone was taking the seat right next to where we were standing, a guy runs in and manages to force his potli onto the seat (under the other guy's half-seated posture), which obviously gets crushed by the butts. What followed was this huge argument - one claiming that he sat first, while the other claimed that his potli was kept on the seat before the other guy sat. The argument concluded with both adjusting themselves on the seat.
• On another occasion I was travelling in a jam-packed metro from Rajiv Chowk towards Dwarka wearing a backpack. Having no control on my movements due to the rush, I happened to accidentally give an old man a slight nudge with my bag. Incidentally the old man was travelling with an elderly companion, and both happened to be in a drunk state. The nudge made this old man start talking (actually, more like announcing) to his friend “Ek to duniya mein samasya yeh hai ki logon ko apna basta sambhalna nahi aaya”. A third aged co-passenger (no, this guy was not drunk) participated in the conversation and blamed the Government for not doing anything about the helplessness of the passengers. The conversation took wild turns as more people got interested. For quite some time the three old men kept talking and conversation nearly turned into a meaningless argument. After a little while the sober old man got off at this destination. Following that the drunk old man decided to address his co-passengers “Aap kahin bhi jaoge aapke aas paas zyadatar log murkh milenge aur bohut kum samajhdar milenge. Hum sub mein bhi zyadatar murkh hi honge. Bus ye batana mushkil hai ki kaun murkh hai aur kaun samajhdar.” The pravachan continued as everyone listened to the old-man-on-a-high with a smile on their faces. When it comes to carrying bags in public transport, I now have a golden rule – “keep it below the belly”. From that day onwards I converted my backpack into a sling-bag.
• The roof of the bus stop near my house was blown away by strong winds quite sometime back. Only a small piece of the roof still remains stuck. On a peak summer afternoon as I waited for a bus, two persons came in from different directions and sat alongside me. They realised that the sun was too strong, and so decided to look for a shade. Eventually both ended up cramming themselves under the little shade provided by the broken piece of roof. And this initiated another fun conversation, and as expected they pulled me into their conversation. They went on to criticise the DTC, the Government and even the MCD for not planting trees on that side of the road.
• Most of the new buses procured by DTC are an engineering marvel. These busses run on CNG. Have the engines at the back of the bus. They are low floor. Automatic doors. Automatic gears. The manufactures did almost everything right except that the engines generate very low power. You can distinctly hear these buses scream with pain as they try to pickup from a dead stop or climb up a flyover. The situation worsens in an AC bus, when the AC is turned on. Often the bus drivers turn the AC off when the buses need more power for pickup. And almost immediately you can hear a comment or two from the crowd – “AC chala do. Paise to hum poore dete hain, AC chalane mein aapka kya jaata hai.”
• Even though the bus route I usually take has a very good service frequency, there have been times when I have had to wait a lot, specially at the Nehru Place Terminal. About a week back I was at the terminal at about quarter past seven in the evening to catch an AC Bus plying on the same route. There is no fixed platform at the terminal from where the bus might originate. If you need a seat, you have to be attentive and look out in all directions. Whenever a bus moves, or starts, or shows any other signs of departure the crowd would rush towards it. The key to get seats is very simple; win the race. If you are lucky, the bus would be plying on the route you're looking for. On that day we had been running around without luck for about half an hour. After some more time, as we all started our sprint towards another bus, someone among us shouted aloud “Itne mein to Dilli Police ka physical clear ho jata.” Even that bus turned out to be on a different route.

Public transport rides are a mixed-bag of emotions – fun, frustration, humour, exercise, excitement, anxiety and more. Most importantly it is a break from monotony. The person facing the music enjoys as much as the person observing these moments. While there are many more incidents worth sharing, I'd rather not make a long blogpost even longer. Instead let me point you to some tweets by me and my friends:

https://twitter.com/rungta/status/68676611809091585
https://twitter.com/rungta/status/64377491216801792
https://twitter.com/rungta/status/55524957639282688
https://twitter.com/rungta/status/51287585775034368
https://twitter.com/rungta/status/36997949665837056
https://twitter.com/souvikdg/status/55888370190127106
https://twitter.com/rungta/status/53472583194116096
https://twitter.com/lokallobaat/status/71820202173673472
https://twitter.com/souvikdg/status/71823844670840833

As pointed before, hopefully these anecdotes have at least humoured you, if not convince you about the beauty of using the public transport.

Food for thought

A couple of days before Bengali New Year (Poyela Boishakh) my mom expressed her desire to have breakfast at the newly opened Sagar Ratna near our house. For those who are unfamiliar with Sagar Ratna, here is how they introduce themselves on their website: a well known Brand of Restaurant chain in Northern India serving vegetarian cuisine with a speciality in South Indian delicacies.

For the record and from my experience, they did start off being a South Indian speciality restaurant, but in their quest of business they ended up serving all kinds of vegetarian food including Burgers and Noodles. Their start as a specialised South Indian restaurant chain was pretty impactful and it still is the first place that a Delhi-ite thinks of for having a South Indian meal. I reluctantly agreed (why reluctant? - will come to that shortly).

So on New Year’s Day, I took mom to Sagar Ratna. I ordered my last year’s favourite breakfast. My mom, as usual, couldn’t control her greed and ended up ordering much more than what she could have herself (obviously expecting me to take care of the leftovers). This was the third time I was about to have South Indian food since my return from Bangalore (excluding the occasional chomps at the roadside vada vendors), previous two occasions being at Southy (Nehru Place) and Karnataka Bhavan (Shanti Niketan). Each time my experience has been unsatisfactory and I have sworn not to have South Indian food again in Delhi. Not that the quality of South Indian food has degraded over the years in Delhi, just that over the past year and a half I have had awesome Vadas, Dosas, Idlis, Filter Coffee and other popular South Indian food right in South India. I have grown a basic understanding about how it aught to be. I keep expecting the same softness in an idly, the same crunch in a vada, the same aromas in filter coffee. They did not keep us waiting for long. The food arrived within a few minutes. And it strengthened the cause for my reluctance to have South Indian food in North India.

I have had a fantastic time having South Indian food while I was staying in Mysore/Bangalore and while I visited the nearby states. At the same time I have had an equally horrible time searching for North Indian food in South India. On one hand I feel this is good because it makes me want to visit South India. But on the other it is really bad. It induces this false notion, a false perception of the kind of food available in other region.

I believe that good food is not just about taste. I am a strong advocate/believer of relativity. Taste in spite of being important is relative. One’s favourite might be another’s nightmare. In a slightly vague manner the problem can be explained by this example: Imagine an unaware sweet lover who is given a laddo instead of barfi which he ordered at a sweet shop. Even though what he had might be tasty, in reality he did not have what he intended to have. More than taste, good food is about authenticity. It is about “not being cheated”. So when someone who knows little about your South Indian cuisine walks in to a South Indian Restaurant, it is not just about cooking food the way it is written in cook books and serving the same. Instead, it is about making the guests realise how authentic South Indian food is supposed to be. The food must speak out the qualities of food back in South India.

I am not a person who has visited plenty of countries. So I do not know first-hand whether International cuisines available in India are authentic or not. Even if they are not, it is not as big a problem as authentic Indian Cuisines not being available across India. International cuisines may not have a market for selling authentic cuisine in India profitably. There are differences in taste, culture, lack of ingredients and cooks from other countries may not opt to come to India. But these reasons make little sense when we talk about Indian cuisines in India.

Another factor that worsens the problem are the Food Awards that do their round in the market. Here is a page highlighting the awards won by Sagar Ratna. Some new doubts have raised in me. Do these companies assign the job to food-critics taking into the account the region he/she belongs to? i.e. People from South India being sent to evaluate South Indian restaurants. Even if the food-critics belong to North India, are they asked to evaluate a South Indian restaurant after they are made to try out food in South India. While these awards do help businesses woo consumers, at the same time any scope for improvements must be conveyed to the businesses. Unfortunately, as pointed by Rungta in the movie Inside Job, these awards/ratings companies have defence which is both strong and weak in itself: “It’s just our opinion and people are free to not go by it.”

I just can’t accept that South Indian cuisine cannot be authentically reproduced in North India and vice versa. So where does the problem lie?

• Lack of availability of ingredients locally? Not possibly. Even if some of the ingredients are not available, they can be easily procured from South India. And, I am not paying less for the food. I pay nearly double the amount charged at the best places in South India and get something which is not even half as well made. Procuring authentic ingredients should not add much to the expenses.
• Unavailability of cooks? I won’t buy that. Most certainly there are enough South Indians who can cook well in North India. Additionally in quest for jobs and better pay thousands migrate in both directions. We are not talking about speciality dishes whose recipes remain secret to generations of a family.

Sharing one of my food-related experiences I have had in Bangalore. I once went to Tunday’s Tunday Kababi outlet in Bangalore which serves the famous Tunday Kebabs (Galouti Kababs) from Lucknow. One of my Punjabi friend ordered a parantha, which turned out to be made from flour and was very different from usual Punjabi paranthas. He asked “What kind of parantha is this?” “Sir, Lucknow mein aisa hi banta hai”. By the way, the kebabs were delicious. About a month later, I took my mom to the same place. Aside from the kebabs, we order a preparation of Chicken. The moment I tasted the gravy I got the pungent smoky taste of a burnt gravy. I called the waiter to complain. “Chicken ki gravy jal gayi hai” “Sir, Lucknow mein aisa hi banta hai”. Heights of denial. I immediately snapped back “Kuch din pehle tak to aisa nahi banta tha”. He called the manager and we were served a different preparation as the entire stock of that preparation for the day was bad.

I think the problem lies in the intent. There are very few businesses in the food industry that intend to do things right, serve authentic food and sell the right experience. It’s sad.

Not my Cup

Most Indians are driven by obsession over intellect. Now don't mistake obsession for passion. Being driven by passion at times is not bad. But being driven by obsessive passion or passion beyond reasoning is harmful – both for the individual and the society at large. India recently won the Cricket World Cup. I was happy for it. To be honest, the feeling was a mixture of happiness and a sense of national pride. Now does this feeling call for a party? Yes, it does. Every reason for celebration should lead to a celebration. Now imagine a person celebrating the happiest moment of his life; dancing on the roof of his car right in front of India Gate. Is it justified? Debatable. But surely if you happened to be at India Gate watching someone do that, you would classify him as mad. And you may not be wrong. I recently heard on the radio that obsessive behaviour is a psychological problem and is often a result of extremely low self-esteem. The moment India won the world cup, thousands gathered at India Gate (and other locations all over India), and many danced on the roof of their cars in a similar manner. Apparently, somewhere down the layers of their decision making was an attempt to make themselves more noticeable to the public and compensate the low self-esteem. And then there was this extremely acute case in which a fan committed suicide because Sachin did not score a well in the final.

On similar lines many Indians have the obsession for recognition. And in this quest they go far beyond personal achievements. Any remarkable achievement by a person of Indian origin, and Indians would be more than happy to share the credit. To a great extent the Indian media is to be blamed for such a behaviour. Even the remotest of connection to India, and the media will be the first to advertise the news highlighting the fact that the achiever was a person of Indian origin. Remember Sunita Williams? Now (obviously) this world cup victory is also a victim of such an obsession. And I feel this problem is very well explained by this tweet. Reality check is important. It is not our cup. It is their cup. It is a cup won by a few individuals representing India. It is ok to say that the cup belongs to India, but saying that it is my cup or our cup is far fetched. The ONLY way I contributed to this victory was by NOT playing for India. Nothing more.

Now why are these obsessions bad for the society at large? Well for a start, the cricket-biased reactions exhibited by the crowd, pushes back the other sports. I can think of plenty of other reasons but I'll highlight the one that has provoked me to write this post. It is bad, because we are a democracy and our current generation is not being led by the right politicians. In an ideal situation, a politician would work to the best interest of the country. In reality they work to appease people and get re-elected. They align their efforts to take advantage of the sentiments of people and they decide to honour the heroes (i.e. the cricketers). Unfortunately, as I realised sometime back, Indians make the mistake of confusing money with respect (I did tweet this the very next day after the finals.). They announced cash awards without realising that they paid no respect. They paid money. Money is not respect.

One of the insane reason to give away cash award to cricketers might be that it will motivate them to do better. Another insane reason might be that young cricketers would get motivated to play better and improve the overall standard of sports. But does it work that way? I don't think so. In fact, I believe it misleads people towards wrong goals. The goal of a cricketer is to improve his skills, do well in the sport and aim to win the games. But now when you announce an award after they win, you are slowly trying to replace the real goal with money. I am not entirely against giving money. Almost all sports competition do have a prize money associated with the event. The players know that the money is an associated prize if they win that contest. But if you declare a cash award after the event, you sow a hope for the years to come. Every sportsman would start expecting a "surprise" cash award on their performance. God forbid, if ever the country is not in a financial position to give such awards to the players, it will leave them dejected. Because by then a "surprise" cash award would be as important as the cup. And look at the amount of each cash award. The cricketers in the National Team are already so wealthy that an award in lakhs doesn't seem to be a respectable amount. Most states/institutions gave 1 crore per player (Another reality check – Most Indians make lesser than that working their entire life).

Another question to be answered – It it fair to the other sports? There are so many sports persons in India who do not earn a decent living. One of the well known case is of the Indian Women's Hockey Team. I distinctly remember reading a newspaper report (most likely, TOI) couple of years back while travelling by the morning Shatabdi Express to Chandigarh. This report featured on the first page of the newspaper covered the financial situation of the players in the Indian Women's Hockey Team. Most of the players were the sole earners in their entire family. Their monthly income would not even place them in the middle class strata. Often they have considered quitting owing to extreme financial crunch. Pay such sports persons; lack of money is definitely affecting their performance. I am not too attached to hockey. Hockey is just an example as I have little information about the condition of other sports persons in India. But my guts say that the sports persons who play less popular sports are negotiating even worse financial crisis. So even if cash awards given to the cricketers were taken from sports budget, I'd say it is a bad investment.

A quick search on google yielded these links: Karnataka Government award for Cricket World Cup and Karnataka Government award for Hockey. If you are not convinced here is one of the millions of pages on the internet highlighting the plight of Indian Women's Hockey Team.

If not money then what? Honour them. Have a look at this: Gujarat Government award for Cricket World Cup. This is how you pay respect.

While there are some voices being raised against these cash awards, it is being largely ignored by the cricket obsessed Indians. I personally feel it is nothing less than a corruption scam. It is a scam against me, cause even though these actions make me unwilling to pay my taxes, I'll have to oblige.

And finally the cherry on the top (the sad way). It is really disappointing that this tweet comes from one of few journalists in India whose work I like.