Ooh I don't want to say it! Oh, well, here goes...Bangaluru

I was in mourning when Bombay's name was changed to Mumbai. When Madras was changed to Chennai, I was a bit concerned, but I dealt with it. But Bangalore to Bangluru makes my hair stand on end.

During my short visit I stayed at a nice $100 per night hotel called Ramanashri, in the heart of the city. About 20 years ago the room rate was about $10 per night, I learned. Everything was good, including the flat screen-TV, but the only thing that let me down was the shower. The hot water wasn't hot enough and the water power was weak.

I had a good view and it seemed to represent what was happening to Bangalore on a massive scale - construction and crazy traffic. Skyscrapers are mushrooming all over the city. People walking on the streets are far better dressed than they were a few years ago. I remember a stark difference between dressing styles in Mumbai and the rest of the metros. No longer. I had breakfast at the hotel restaurant called The Legacy Of Punjab. The designers had some nice ideas such as the suspended kite strings.

I flew Kingfisher into Bangalore and Jet Airways back. The service and quality of aircraft was great both ways. Kingfisher had staff to help you with your luggage as you arrived at the airport, which is a great plus. They also have live TV on board. Jet has Video on Demand which has its advantages too. The Jet plane was brand new and it was great to sit on spick-and-span seats.

Second Life

I was driving past Yashwantrao Chavan towards Cuffe Parade when a drunk driver in a Tata Indigo taxi skidded and rammed into the right of my very precious Honda City, who has been a constant companion these past few years. I went back home and then with my parents and brother reported the accident to the police. The doctor at the hospital in Crawford Market where I had to do an alcohol test, randomly noted that I was "smelling of alcohol" when all I had was a small glass of white wine a few hours before the accident. But they got the "not under the influence" part right, luckily. We must have reported the accident around 12 AM and we were home only by 4 AM, a bit shaken. The police left me without charges.

The Salubrious Hills of Malcom Peth (aka Mahableshwar) 1

The Mahableshwar market has changed so much since my childhood. I remember two kinds of shops - one with leather goods especially simple footwear, and the other with wooden walking sticks and other handicrafts. Now you have glitzy restaurants (with crappy over-priced food no doubt), fancy clothing and footwear stores, video game parlours, expensive glass handicraft and toy shops and so on. Now what remains of the old-school stores are the street vendors like the one in the photo. There is so much advertising and branding going on as well. There's a famous chanawalla called Dada Chanawalla, and then there's
Mama Chanawalla and can you believe it, Bapu Chanawalla! You can't ignore the advertising for the Mapro farm and Sherbaug, both between Panchgini and Mahableshwar. "What is Fun" is the slogan used by Mapro to draw vistors to the Mapro farm, a pseudo-theme park. You can see how strawberry and other fruit products are made into a juice concentrate, you can sample them for free and you can finally buy them. You can even take a walk in the garden near by. A great time-pass idea. The Sherbaug advertising is very creative as well. There are couple of ads made in a film poster style and the others, like the one on the upper left, are also quick to catch your attention. But despite the commercialization of the town, Mahableshwar is still beautiful in a lot of areas. I have to admit that the Market area, and the area around the lake remind you of a crazy Mumbai suburb. But once you go a few kilometers away from the hub of the town, you feel you are in paradise. And the salubrious weather relaxes you again.

Personal Insecurities and the Development of Indian Counter-cultures

Yesterday, I was watching a show called Youth Now on the Times Now channel. Adults below 30/35 were featured which included a theater actor, a musician, a graphic designer and a teacher trying to develop young political leaders. Each of them was self-confident, passionate and fired by a strong ambition to live his/her life on his/her own terms. One of the men featured, an artist, liked to wear saris and said that the sari was well suited to the male body. Another man was an actor who lived in an urban commune with his fellow actors. He was a tall good-looking man with dreadlocks. I winced that I had chosen a safer path than they had; I've always had a desire, sometimes burning, sometimes simmering, to be a rebel, and to live life in a way that I felt suited to me. I'm doing that in my own non-confrontational way. But the absence of any direct rebellion, causes me to be perceived as a placid cow. I am seen as a conformist, a nice guy, who does what his parents and society tells him to do. But I don't see myself in that way at all, and am therefore constantly shaken when people say, "Oh what a nice boy you are!" Eeks! I do hope that in a short time my publishing will be ground-breaking, and give me enough confidence to believe that I have taken a peaceful yet revolutionary path in my life. Personal insecurities aside, I was glad to see that India is rapidly developing counter-cultures, which means that I will be able to publish a wider range of books than I am doing right now.

Freak Rain and then a Freak Movie

The November Rain was a surprise. I heard some pattering which sounded like heavy rain as I was finishing work last evening. But I didn't take much notice. When I walked out of my window-less office, the black and yellow streets was glistening with fresh rain. It was dark and wet. The city was caught unawares, and people huddled below bus-stop shelters or shop window roofs, waiting for the rain to stop.

The freak downpour was a good appetizer for the movie No Smoking by Anurag Kashyap, a delightful dark comedy. It stars John Abraham as K, Praesh Raval as Baba Bengali, and AyeshaTakia as K's wife. K, a relentless smoker, is on a rehab program run by Baba Bengali. The strategy is simple, if K smokes, a loved one will be killed.

The movie does a great job of showing the breakdown of K from a macho, over-confident asshole to a psychological wreck, who ultimately sheds a tear. The scenes are surreal, and fresh. However, it is vaguely reminiscent of Naked Lunch based on William Burrough's book of the same name. Reality, dreams, and imagination are fantastically inter-vowen with well edited and enhanced images of Mumbai's congested roads and slums. Add to that moments of madness, and pseudo-drug-induced perceptions (No Smoking seems metaphor for drug use, especially for hard drugs like cocaine and heroin). There's a great scene in which K is looking for the rehab program in a slum area and he goes through a path that even Escher would have been proud of. The burkha-clad call-center employees were another superb invention.

Baba Bengali is fascinating mix of a north-Indian dacoit, comedian, and saviour; almost a god-like, cult figure. He puts Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now to shame.