Visitations

TRAVEL BUGS & OTHER INSECTS

Nalini and Arun arrived the other day. He asked me, "Kenneth where's the toilet?" to which I answered,"Inside that room to the left." And from that point on we were close friends.

Which is why I also allowed him to pick up the tab for dinner at the Taj Village. Truth be told I worry about eating at five-star restaurants, you never know which celebrity is sitting at the next table and getting all the attention while you desperately try to catch the waiter's eye. And sometimes the pedigree of the seafood is highly suspect. I mean, they tell you the red snapper is fresh but for all you know he's just been dallying with the shell fish! And you end up with an allergy. Uh oh! I can see Nadia roll her eyes and go,"Corrrnyyyy!!"


Note:watch out for the asterisks!
This is an amazing couple*. SHE moved from the US to the UK**, HE remains in the USA till the adoption is complete - oh! didn't i tell you? They are adopting a beautiful baby girl from a centre in Pune. And they bought an apartment right here, in our li'l ol' building in Goa! And made ME the Godfather ....... of the apartment.

They regaled us with their travels around the world especially the Greek islands which brings to mind the words of that famous Greek philosopher Polygamius of Sticitomaedia***. Words which when taken to heart by the ancient greeks turned them into famous athletes, notably runners,jumpers and running jumpers.This activity prompted the invention of the Olympic Games. Of course it also explains the high quantum and availability of all those vestal virgins standing around lighting the Olympic Flame.

Which makes me wonder why mankind always had a hunger for travel. Was it to get away from the humdrum of life's daily chores, was it to acquire a better class of neighbour, was it to discover new cuisine?
Marco Polo would be sitting around in Kublai Khan's court, eating rice noodles and he'd turn to his wife and say,"Dona I have a hunger for more travel." And Donata would instantly agree because she had reached the point where she was ready to hang herself if she read one more zen fortune cookie.****So off they went, to see new sights and discover new cultures, eat different foods and encounter new intestinal bacteria, learn new phrases for 'Where's the toilet' and eventually return home to Venice and ask the ancient traveller's timeless question, "Hey! Isn't this where our house used to be!?"

Modern day travel is so much simpler. In ancient times it took weeks, sometimes months to get from Bangalore to Delhi; but today, because of fog at Indira Gandhi airport you can't get there at all.
Besides much of ancient India was occupied by foreign empires such as the Mughal Empire, and the British Empire.
They had no concept of visas, did not accept credit cards, and had no bottled water. Travel was a dangerous experience due to wild jungle animals, highway brigands,***** and scurvy; but mostly it was very boring since they did not have portable generators to allow you to plug in your laptops or dvd players.

With modern day conveniences such as "Travel Agencies", "MagicalMysteryTours.com", and "Relatives Living at Your Destination" your journey and stay becomes a shoo-in.

Beware of travel agents though. The latest trend in marketing mantras dictates, "Tell the client whatever you think they want to hear."
They'll promise you a gourmet tandoori meal at The Castle Resort in Timbuktu, but when you arrive you discover that the only way to get to the tents you'll live in is on camel back, and you have to share a communal bathroom with several Tuareg tribes.
The food will be (of course) camel milk tofu and salt, and you won't be able to contact your travel representative, because he's not even in the country, because he's spending HIS family vacation at The Forum in Bangalore.


Of course you can decide on a domestic travel destination. Most domestic travel destinations are located right here in India, apart from a few exceptions such as Kashmir.
This is a big advantage since you are never far from a roadside dhaba and tandoori chicken, and there's the freedom of the open-air "organic" field toilet, and you can always feel like you are in a foreign country if you are a Hindi-speaking North Indian travelling in the South or vice-versa.

Best of all though you will be getting ripped off only in Indian currency.
In a foreign country you never have the slightest clue how much anything costs.
Foreign countries have confusing currency like the Dollar, the Euro, the Pound, the Kilo, the Yen, the Baht, the Shower and the Bidet.
Not one of these is equal to the Rupee and depending on the phases of the moon keep changing in relation to every other currency.

Of course you will still feel like the Universal Tourist when you arrive at your hotel in Anjuna and ask the modern day travellers timeless question,"What!? You don't have my reservation!?"

KEY TO ASTERISKS
(*) means asterisk
* Nalini and Arun, not the red snapper and the shell fish - "Oh Lorrrd!"goes Nadia.
** The Indian motherland,though many Goans still refer to their motherland as Portugal!
***"When in Rome do as the Romans do, but when in Greece don't bend over."
****Cookies like: Confucius say,"Money he talk - mostry he say,"Goodbye." and,"Never shove your granny when she shave".
*****they call them traffic policemen nowadays

Spell Check

We speeka da Engrish good

Don't you hate it when you see signboards that try to be cutesy or different with add-on letters like "The Bakers' Stoppe" or "Marys' Little Lambe Shoppe".

Methinx we should ask the Sales Tax Ministry to levy an add-on tax; say Rs. 50,000 for every frivolous extra letter. So for the word "shoppe" the proprietor will pay an additional Rs.100,000 per annum, flat and non-deductible. However, for any attempt to distort the meaning and add value by making a business sign look old and original such as " Marke and Fettles Olde Haberdashery" the owner should be summarily shot, without a trial.

Then there's the new Indian numerology fad that assigns numbers to the English alphabet- duh ! which allows the sum total of the letters of your name add up to your lucky number and J.Jayalalita becomes J.Jayalalithaa after which she promptly loses the election. If someone can pay for the services of a "Numerologist" ( I wonder if there's a recognised Doctorate course in Numerology!) to discover his extra letter, I say that, in the national interest, he should be required to pay an add-on service tax plus VAT, every time he signs his name.

And don't forget those restaurants with names such as Martin's Corner, Bosco's Vineyard and Anton's Shack which conjure up imaGES OF A GENIAL GREY-HAIRED POT-BELLIED GOAN "PATRON" ( arrrrgh! why did they put the "Caps Lock" key is right next to the "a" key! I say shift the "Caps Lock" key altogether .... to another room!) when in fact the ownership probably belongs to the guys responsible for approving defence armament purchases. Anyone found using such phony names should be fined heavily and made to display a signboard that reflects the actual ownership.( Hey! How about we go get some fried chicken wings at "Guys Responsible for Defence Armament Purchases".)

Tomorrow I'm taking Arun and Nalini out to dinner at 'Tony Carvalos' , a midlife crisis restaurant filled with middle-aged guys in shorts and sports shoes who claim they love 'Def Leppard', but actually think they're just OK. I wish they'd take those copper degchis, earthen pots with lights in them and farm plows, designed to create an ethnic, relaxed,old-fashioned decor but in fact creates an environment of funky wierdness, off the walls.... the food is great though.

Do you agree with me that "Ye Olde Mayor" in the picture there needs 40 lashes with a bull whip !

Viva Carnival 2008

Mommee! It's like the Circus!

Hear tell the Hillbillys (or are they the Billarys?) are on the rampage versus the Obambis, in what they are calling a "Super Tuesday" over at Uncle Sam's place.

America seems to be in a quandary; they are not sure whether this time around their pres. will be a white woman or a black man..... sort of the same question Michael Jackson asks himself every morning eh?

Meanwhile the Bears seem to be overrunning the stock markets, while Raj Thackerays MNS goons are overunning the North Indians in "Amchi Mumbai" and Amitabh Bachchan is running for cover. On the internet front MSN is gunning for Yahoo and Google is running for cover.

Al Gore received the Nobel Prize, George Bush the "Academy award for Funny Bushisms", Charlize Theron and Christopher Walken have been awarded Harvards' "Hasty Pudding Awards", Paris Hilton, Harvard Lampoons' "Woman of the Year" award and Jyoti Basu has been awarded the "Last Living Fossil" award by this blog.

Oh! You mean the Goa Carnival ! So sorry I sort of slept through it, but I intend catching the Rio Carnival telecast on FTV on the weekend, which I'm sure will more than make up for any excitement of the Goan Carnival which I may have missed. But hey, I did attend UB40's show as well as the Queen Experience, along with bootylicious Babs, all THREE of which were awesome.

I'm now looking forward to "Valington's" Day as my friend Bosco puts it. All those anonymous declarations of love make my heart beat faster even though I know it's coming from the sweet old lady down the lane!... or are they coming from her husband ??!! eh! well !

Of Weddings and other Oddities

Part I - Let's just get there first !

It’s a great time to be a newlywed, and an excellent time to be indoors together cosying-up, what with the cold wave sweeping the northern plains and all.

As you celebrity buffs may recall Abhishek and Aishwarya were married in April and it was so hot the ceremony lasted three weeks, that’s how long it took the groom to work up the nerve to leave his air-conditioned limo and sprint into the air-conditioned wedding hall.

Nandini however opted for the romantic version; the coldest part of winter in January.

So with a lot of trepidation and enough woolens to make a polar bear sweat, I board the flight to Delhi and the 2 degree cold. I listen to the safety demo given by the flight attendants (we called them “air-hostesses” before some of them became males.)

One safety feature that never ceases to amuse me is the one where those plastic cups drop from the roof when the plane is crashing, you put a cup over your nose and get enough oxygen so that when the plane hits the ground at 32 feet per second, you will still be breathing; another of course is that the seats float so in case you hit water instead of land, the airline can collect and recycle all those seats.

After takeoff I settle down to read my dirty book (ideal for a plane journey because the scenario is the same no matter which page you open the book to, the only question being the number of times.)

Unlike the Ambanis and Vijay Mallya who fly their corporate jets and drink Long Island Iced Tea at 30,000 feet, we lesser mortals are destined to fly commercial airlines where it is a rule to allow boarding of kids who are trained to start screaming above 500 feet. It’s absolutely amazing how a kid can keep squalling for as long as 45 minutes without breathing. This keeps the passengers from realising that they’re locked in a metal tube probably designed, built and operated by unknown refugees from Bangla Desh; instead they’re preoccupied with thinking, “Why doesn’t someone shut the brat up!”

Eventually I land in Delhi and see Lutyens’ buildings. They are large and pink just like I was told. (Lutyens is the Brit who designed and built New Delhi, and then poured red wine all over them to give them that distinctive colour. Sometimes you will find villagers from outlying districts licking the walls and looking very happy.)

Delhi is beautiful and its people are very disciplined thanks to terrorism. They have now been trained to stand in long queues and to submit their personage to being groped by strange men in uniform. All entry points to the Republic Day Parade had groping men and women, and by the time the last of the visitors had entered, the parade was over. Even at the mall (and this is true) there was a line of people a kilometer long, waiting to be groped to get in!

Part II - Unions & Re-Unions
So there we were Ronni, Rahul, Shweta, Amit and yours truly, wondering what madness prompted us to brave the cold and the groping of our fair capital city. And the answer was quite simply, “We’re suckers for punishment!”

So what goes into a wedding you may ask? Well if you plan to have a real nice wedding this is what you do:

First off you need to find someone reliable to get married to – meaning the person has to be an adult and should actually show up. It is preferable if one of you has a job, but if either one is independently wealthy a job is not necessary.

Announcing the wedding is easy if your name is Bachchan or Gandhi; the newspapers will carry the story as headlines, and you can send in a picture of Katrina Kaif. But with a common name like Kusum Kumar or Sunita Singh you will have to settle for a flyer on the local grocery store bulletin board.

The wedding invitation should consist of a box of mitthai, along with a large envelope, into which you place a smaller envelope with a foldable card with tissue paper in between and a gold tassel. There should also be a small visiting card which invites only the close and the very rich for a private pre-nuptial dinner. Remember NOT to clip this card with the general one, and send a larger mitthai box. Then there’s the map giving directions to the venue (predictably those you did not want to attend in the first place but had to invite anyway, will not show if you do not include the directions, and you can then blame the delivery packers) Remember to RSVP the card, not that anyone “s’il vous plaits” anyway.

Wedding costumes take on various hues and shapes. In South India the women wear varicolored 9- yard silk saris, all the gold with which they can weigh themselves down without tipping over, and rubber flip flops, while in North India they wear expensive ghagras and dresses so hideous that they can never be used again except for escaping from burning buildings.

The groom should wear a sherwani or a three piece pastel suit rented from the local theatre troupe. Grooms have it easy in South India, they go to the ceremony bare-chested, with just an extended loin cloth or dhoti to cover their peripherals.

For the arts remember to hire a group of hijras to dance at the mehndi ceremony, so that all the men folk can acknowlegde their gay instincts without feeling guilty.

For the wedding ritual it is preferable to install a few shrieking shenaiis and out of sync dholaks. And have plenty of rice and flower petals on hand to douse the couple with. (if the bride is pregnant used puffed rice.)

For the reception hire a live band with audio equipment loud enough to be heard in outer space. The band must repeatedly launch into the popular number “Om Shanti Om” so that aliens sitting in their continent-sized flying saucers armed with magma weapons and death rays and listening to this simple ditty of love, universal peace and brotherhood, over, and over, and over, and over again, will then send us a message saying, “LISTEN UP EARTH PEOPLE, WE WERE ENJOYING A PEACEFUL DAY SO FAR AND UNLESS YOU START PLAYING SOMETHING MORE INTERESTING WE WILL REDUCE YOUR PLANET TO THE SIZE OF A CRICKET BALL AND VAPORISE SHAH RUKH KHAN.”

Choosing a venue depends on the distance from your place of residence. The further away the better, snob value dictates a vast windswept football field (in case the aliens decide to join the party)with a zillion candlepower of lighting, a marching band to accompany the baraat, and a narrow approach lane to deter all but the most foolhardy.

Of course the momentous occasion has to be recorded for posterity so there has to be at least two video cameras, one VHS and one BETA, on hand, as well as Blue Ray and HDTV formats and assorted digital cameras to capture those poignant moments of the groom picking his nose.

Seated next to the groom in all the pictures should be the adorable little daughter of the brides’ sister. If her sister does not have an adorable daughter then she should rent one.

In the family photograph the sister of the bride stands next to the brides’ closest friends’ fiancé, followed by the oldest brother of the grooms’ father with her mothers’ sister. Then the brides’ oldest unmarried female friend stands with the most eligible male member of the grooms family, provided he can speak English.

Seated with the bride are of course her parents, grandparents and any great-grandparents (unless they are deceased, in which case they may be replaced by the grooms’ grandparents.)

Other photographic evidence can be recorded with anyone else present who is not stiff from the freezing cold and can be dragged from the warmth of the bonfires.

Payment for the wedding is as follows:
*The father of the bride pays for the invitations, the long distance calls, the mehndi, the pre-nuptial party, the hijras, the food, the liquor, the band, the hotels, the transportation, the dinner, the cake, the costumes, the wedding trousseau, and the honeymoon.
*The grooms’ family eats a lot of food and gets plastered.

After the honeymoon the bride switches from rolling chapattis with her mother, to rolling chapattis with her mother-in-law, and providing the entertainment for her husband.

She dreams of having her own house. All she needs is a large sum of money. And the best source of money is her parents in the form of savings, investments, pensions and insurance. She can get anything from her parents because she is not afraid to whine and pull her fathers sleeve, “I want a house, I want a house….” ad nauseum! So to preserve their own sanity her parents will get her one.

Part III - And the credit goes to.....

Although you will read nothing about this in the tabloids, who are only concerned with the birth of the Farah Khan triplets; it was a wonderful, unforgettable weekend spent in the company of some very gracious, warm and loving people, and of course i will not forget the gorgeous doe-eyed Shivani, nor the beautiful and limber Urvashi.

Ho hum, it's back to balmy Goa and getting psyched for next week's Carnival with UB40, the Queen Experience and those Brazilian dancers from Rio. Wish all you guys were here too.