Surreal Conversations

I don't know if it is something about me or what. But I seem to get into these surreal conversations with the unlikeliest of beings. Like customer care, admin guys, HR of course, my maid, sometimes my boss.... Where, oh where would I be, but for this interesting human interludes.

This is a specific conversation I had with the admin department head of the company I work for. The background is that one fine day I wake up to discover that my phone connection is dead and I have to be on a conference call with some important dudes calling from the US. Frantically, I call Airtel customer care. For once in this lifetime, I manage to have a straightforward conversation with customer care, who gleefully informs me that my corporate connection has been disconnected on the instructions of my admin department and no they cannot forward calls and no they cannot temporarily activate it unless admin permits.

Ok, this ought to be easy, I thought, taking a deep breath. After all, I was in the right. I had actually paid bills regularly. So there is no reason for my phone connection to be cut. I had severly underestimated the capacity of Shri.Adminji.

Me : ``Hallo,hallo (falsely cheerful)!! Sir, apparently my phone connection has been disconnected by admin yesterday.''

Adminji : No, no. How can that be? Your phone has not been disconnected.

Me : Actually, I spoke to Airtel. My phone was disconnected on your department's instructions.

Adminji: No, no. They don't know what they are saying. Check your phone, it is on.

Me : Right. I checked my phone - from all angles, switched it on and off. took out sim card and put it in again. took out battery and put it in again. No connection. Nothing. And Airtel confirms they have disconnected me.

Adminji : If you do all those things to your phone, no wonder it is off. Thatz why Airtel must have disconnected.

Me (slightly desparate): Actually, Airtel disconnected because you told them to.

Adminji : I did not tell them anything. LEt them prove I talked to them. I haven't talk at all.

Me : Ok, so it is someone from your department.

Adminji : No, nobody from my department spoke to them.

Me : Ok, so they sent out a mail.

Adminji : Ah, that may be true. They sent some mail yesterday. Some connections were disconnected. But I am sure yours was not.

Me : Mine was too (loudly and firmly)

Adminji : Ok, so what do you want me to do now?

Me : You can ask them to reconnect me, for instance.

Adminji : (All sarcasm lost on him) Ok, I will do that.

Me: When? I have an important call in two hours.

Adminji : Two hours, no? no problem, I will go to office. I need to arrange for some lunch to be served. Then I have to look at some problems with some hotel bookings for our CEO. After that I should be able to do this. No problem.

Me(shouting now): I have a business call with people from the US in two hours. Surely this is more important that hotel bookings. Can you please call Airtel??????

Adminji : Why are you shouting? Are you bigger than the CEO? Why don't you call the US, instead of shouting at me?

Me: (sarcastically) And you will, of course, pay the bills for the US call

Adminji : (Sarcasm completely lost) Why are you so cheap? You cannot pay phone bills, is it? If you cannot pay, I will pay them from my salary. Don't shout.

Me (completely losing my head): Right, you disconnect my phone for no reason and you won't even make an effort to correct that and you want me to call people around the world to explain that my phone is not working and then you call me a cheapo.

Adminji : (interrupting my impassioned speech) You know what is the problem with you? you are a negative person. you cannot take anything positively.I gave you all possible options. You don't want to consider them. You just want to shout at me.

Me : (in what I think is a dangerous tone) Ah, I see. Could you, with your brilliant analysis, point out what exactly I need to consider positively, when I am going to be fired for missing an important call.

Adminji : See,see. You are again thinking negatively. All you people, think you are so important. Always shouting, always negative.

Me : Mr Admin. I have had enough of this - apart from being so incompetent that you cannot even understand what I am saying, you are also being insulting.

Adminji : (suddenly) Do you believe in God?

Me : (thrown off track) What does that have to do with this conversation

Adminji : If I have insulted you, God will punish me. And I am fearful of God. So I don't do wrong. So I have not insulted you.

Me : BANG PHONE DOWN!! (LATE REACTION)

Later, sanity prevailed. And I did manage a Machiavellian response to Adminji. I sent him my telephone bill, which he so kindly offered to pay from his salary. Airtel is now chasing him. I love my life. and such cheap thrills.

Transience of Greatness

I've always wondered how it is that greatness doesn't spawn greatness? This is true of all great leaders or visionaries, irrespective of their fields - Buddha, Confucius, Alexander, Harsha, Gandhi, Mandela, Churchill, Da Vinci, Michaelangelo,Einstein, Newton, Spielberg, Hitchcock,Jack Welch, Rockefeller......Is it because brilliance is a gift, vision is personal? Or is it because vision and brilliance are transient, changing with the times?

New Year Debut

Ah, A grand title! Basically this just means this is my first post in the New Year and indeed after a long time. So with New Year here, I did what the whole world (of advertising) tells you to do - took a good look at myself. It is perhaps not the best thing to do if you are looking for a cheerful beginning, but then looking at yourself at anytime other than those times when you are smug and complacent or happy and at peace with the world, is not too good. If that very long sentence has confused you, never mind. Anyways, to go back to the beginning, I was taking stock and did not want to dwell too long on myself, but since that is the point of the exercise, one can't very well ruminate on George Clooney.

So anyways, I was trying to figure out something,and was struck by the fact that I had stopped resenting living in Madras or Chennai, for some time. That was rather surprising and also inconvenient - one thing less for me to crib about. But I can't shirk facts, I am comfortable living in Chennai; I even like it here.

Much of this sense of well-being is because of the past few months - there has been a lot happening in Chennai. For some reason, Hindu Friday Review has taken it upon itself to create events such as the Theatre Festival and the November Music Fest(which is more about Hindustani and fusion music as opposed to the December `Season'). I don't know that the quality of reviews on the Friday Review has seen any improvement but the fests have certainly done a lot for the social scene. While theatre is still not comparable to the variety of Mumbai, there is something happening and music-wise, the last year was really good - Indian Ocean, Shakthi, instrumental fusion and of course the regular sabha kutcheri's - a lovely variety.

Also,I think Madras is a great place to make good friends and the pace of life allows enough time for friends and friendships.

Of course, this year may turn out to be different and maybe at the end of it I will go back to cribbing about living here. There are all these problems of moral policing, collapsing infrastructure and of course, the bad weather. But at the moment, it does feel nice to feel at home, here in Chennai.

Gandhi-ism Vs Gandhigiri

One of the debates that the latest Munnabhai flick (Lage Raho Munnabhai) has started off is this debate of Gandhi-ism Vs Gandhigiri. Basically, what is means is that the people who favour Gandhi-ism believe that Munnabhai has sort of cheapened and commercialised Gandhi's teachings in the form of Gandhigiri. And those in favour of Gandhigiri, defend themselves saying that Gandhigiri is not about commercialism but making Gandhi accessible to the masses by simplifying his ideals.

Personally, I have no opinions on either Gandhi-ism or Gandhigiri. I believe that Gandhi is one of the most relevant leaders of our times - simply from the perspective that he believed in bringing out the best in most people. War, anger, terrorism on the other hand bring out the worst in most people and the best in a few. And to add to that he was in favour of widespread wealth creation - hence his strong views on agriculture, small industries etc. That is also the better form of socialism.

Actually, I think he was not against the hierarchy of wealth - i.e there is a chain, where a few people are fabulously rich, a larger number is well-off, the next rung of larger numbers is a comfortable middle class and then there is the working class which, while not comfortable or well off, is not dying of poverty either. I am basing this on the fact that he was on excellent terms with most industrialists, who were in fact in the legion of the fabulously wealthy.

Gandhi-ism vs Gandhigiri follows the same chain - people who can afford to and are able to think/reflect follow Gandhi-ism, which is in the form of greater understanding, while Gandhigiri, while sticking to the basic spirit of Gandhi-ism, applies it as a simple formula in daily life. To me, both are equally important. And if there are a few more forms of it like Gandhi-dadha's vs Gandhi-thathas, it will still be welcome.

The God with 360 brides!!

For some reason, I have recently been visiting quite a few temples. Not that I am complaining - I love temples, especially ones with some story behind them. This is about one of them with an interesting and entertaining story. The temple is called the Nithya Kalyana Perumal temple and is located in a place called Thiruvidandhai, on the ECR, 3 kms past Kovalam as you drive from Madras. Historical references to this temple apparently date back to the 10th century A.D.

The story goes as follows : A celestial damsel who was cursed to mortality approached Sage Kalava for redemption - if he married her, she would be redeemed. The sage obliged, but as it turned out, she was admitted back to heaven but the sage was not. So she stayed back for a while and the couple had 360 daughters and she returned to heaven leaving the sage to grapple with the offspring! The eldest daughter was called Komalavalli and she was intent on marrying Lord Narayana and prayed to Him everyday asking Him to accept her as His bride. Since Komalavalli wouldn't marry anyone other than the Lord and she being the eldest daughter, the other daughters also could not be married off. The sage was a very worried man. One day he met this bright young man with whom he was very impressed and asked him if he would marry his daughter. Komalavalli, though, was not interested in anyone other than Narayana Himself. Subsequently, the young man is revealed as Narayana and Komalavalli accepts him. Now that the sage knew who his son-in-law-to-be was, he asked him to marry all his daughters which the Lord did. So for one full year, Lord Narayana married the sage's daughters one a day and the sage found his way to heaven!!!

Since the Lord marries everyday, the temple is called Nithya Kalaya Perumal Temple. The main deity is Lakshmi Varaha Perumal (Narayana in the form of a boar) with - Akhilavalli Thayar as the consort (all the daughter finally collapse into one consort). There is a separate shrine for Komalavalli Thayar. The site is supposed to be the ashram of the sage.

I read the story in a newspaper and went to the temple with huge curiosity. There are several unanswered questions - why the form of a boar? why was the sage refused admittance to heaven in the first place? why 360 daughters? why does the Lord marry all of them?

While I haven't found any answers to the above questions, I did find this interesting piece in Chennai Online : `Vaishnavite lore has it that all of us are females and the Lord Narayana is the only male - Purushothama. For ultimate salvation we have to seek eternal union with him. It is only in this context that Thirumangai Alwar offers 10 hymnal endearments (pasurams) to the Lord yearning for merger in him. The ‘Nayika’ (bride) seeks merger in the ‘Nayaka’ (bridegroom). This is, in essence, bridal mysticism. It is against this background that Thiruvidanthai assumes special significance when we pray to the Lord for marriage - wish fulfillment in an earthly way but with a sublime connotation. We must understand and appreciate the spirit and significance behind a reverential pilgrimage to this temple.'

The temple though is very earthy in its operations. The temple is famous for the fact that unmarried people who come here and complete 9 pradakshanas will quickly find the spouse of their dreams!

Madras Musings ...

Well, after the tour of Mumbai, I also wanted to do the Madras city round-up with places to visit etc. But somehow, I could never write it well and after several aborted attempts, I finally decided to give it up. I can probably just list out the places I was going to include, just for ready reference - Chennai Museum (with Museum Theatre and Connemara Library also thrown in), Marina, Elliots, Valmiki Nagar and Neelankarai Beaches, Kapaleeshwarar Koil, Parthasarathy Koil, St Thomas Mount and Santhome Church, Madras Music College, Theosophical Society, Kalakshetra, Dakshin Chitra and Cholamandalam Artists village for culture and Rippon Building, Chennai Central and Egmore just as reference for colonial architecture. I was going to throw in T.Nagar for city experience too!!! But, you see(this is such a typical Tamil expression), unlike Mumbai where I have wandered around to heart's content, each of the above places means you go there with some purpose. So I can't find that comfortable wandering spirit, but I just love most of the above mentioned places (yes even the Museum and the stations!)

But I did want to mention Parthasarathy Temple for a special reason. Tho' I've been there before, this time I paid attention to what was around me and found something curious. The main deity, i.e Vishu as the charioteer (hence Parthasarathy), has a distinctly Dravidian look, with a big meesai(moustache) and rolling eyes. For some reason this rather thrilled me. So far, Vishnu in any of his avatars, has always sported this clean-shaven look which is associated with Aryans.I found this Meesai look, look very true to the local interpretation(it closely resembles some of the village statues!) and I wanted to mention that specifically.

Further online search, as well as some columns of S.Muthiah, put the origins of this temple sometime in 800 A.D which is around the time of the Pallavas. The basic architecture is supposed to be similar to the Pallava style, though there are some extensions and modifications. And here is a bit of trivia - the main deity, whose looks I was so thrilled about, is supposed to resemble Mamallan or Narasimha Pallava!! I am really curious, why would the Pallavas build a temple, in honour of one of their greatest kings, in the obscure Chennapatnam rather than in Poompuhar or in Mahabalipuram? It is a mystery, so any historical background or interesting stories in response are very welcome.

Incidentally, the temple also played an important role during the Indian Independence movement and is said to have been the location of the Youth cell of the Congress. There is a small commemorative stone outside marking the place from which the Southern equivalent of the Dandi March to Vedaranyam started. Very Indian style, this bit of monument is ignored completely and you see a lot of chappals propped around it. Triplicane itself, which was considered a hot-bed of fervent rebels at the time of the independence movement is now a rather sad and bourgeoise neighbourhood!

My Morning Adventure

I think my life is definitely taking an adventurous turn. Otherwise, why would I have strange encounters with jungle inmates within the walls of my home?

Time 6.00 a.m; I have just stepped off a formula 1 morning auto-rickshaw ride from the station. Feeling rather dazed I stepped into my house, dumped my bags in the hall and rushed off to make my morning cup of filter coffee. Mission accomplished,changed and a bit less bleary, I step back into the hall where I have left my precious cuppa and I am confronted by King Kong. I rub my eyes a bit and stare - well, it is not King Kong, but there definitely is this very large monkey sitting in the middle of my hall. I wish I had taken my coffee inside while I changed; now the monkey will probably drink it and wander hyperactively all around my house while I cower in my bedroom and try to think of someone to rescue me. I realised then the importance of having Blue Cross number on my mobile list. And I also think of what will happen when my brother walks in and confronts the monkey. I would give a monkey to see his face, but dash it if I am going to get out of my bedroom.

10 minutes pass and there is no sound. Cursing myself for leaving my balcony door wide open for all sorts of creatures to come wandering in, I cautiously peer out hoping that the monkey has gone away through the same balcony. No such luck, the monkey is still sitting in the hall with a wondering look on its face. At least, it doesn't seem to have touched my coffee. I felt slightly indignant, I really make very good coffee and here is this monkey sitting there, not even attempting to reach for a nice strong cuppa, conveniently placed right there.

I was slowly backing off and realised that the monkey was doing the same. We had eye contact and it seemed to me that the monkey was as uncertain of my intentions as I was of its. Well, it went off into my brother's bedroom. I quickly grabbed my coffee and dashed back into my bedroom. I really am obsessed with coffee the first thing in the morning and it was just about the right temperature now. Fortified, I peek back to look for the monkey. It had by then finished its inspection of the bedroom and was back in position in the hall,looking none too impressed. Ha,ha! I just loved the thought of saying this to my brother.

Meanwhile, monkeybhai(we were now very familiar and calling it `the monkey' somehow seemed strange) was now meandering in the direction of the kitchen. I followed at a cautious distance, racking my brains to figure out a way of opening the door between the kitchen and the balcony for monkeybhai's exit, without being attacked myself of course. But evidently monkeybhai was unimpressed by my kitchen also. He(I assume it is a he) had rattled my dustbin and seemed disgusted with the silence. I felt like defending myself - really I hadn't been in town or else the bin would've been full of....ummm...junk. What was I saying? That I junk the dustbin? Or that I manage to generate masses of trash when I cook? I felt both defensive and indignant.

And meanwhile monkeybhai had got into the spare room. In a flash, I rushed and closed the door behind him. I realised there was no latch outside and all the monkey had to do was to rattle the doorhandle and he could get out. But anyways, I felt slightly braver, dashed into the kitchen balcony and shouted for the watchman.

``Yes,madam''.

``Watchman,zara upar aao. Ghar ke andar bandar hai'' (Watchman, come upstairs, there is a monkey in the house).

``Woh,kaise?'' (Howz that?)

I thought it was a singularly stupid question but since he was to be my rescuer,contented myself with ``Upar aake dekho'' (Come upstairs and see)

I peered through the window into the spare room. The monkey was sitting there with a bewildered look. It probably was one of those unfortunate creatures that had ventured out of the trees of Kalakshetra into the residential area behind and was as much at a loss being confronted by strange human beings.

The bell rang - two watchmen had come up. I couldn't suppress a slight grin. One of them stayed back to lecture me on the eating habits of monkeys, while the other more practical one cautiously opened the spare room door. The monkey dashed back to the hall and attempted to resume its post at the middle, but the watchman wasn't having any. Shoo,shoo and he managed to get the poor creature out at the balcony. It sat there on the parapet for a moment, watching with sad eyes and then jumped down. Thankful it had disappeared from my house, I quickly bolted the balcony and said encouragingly to the other watchman ``The monkey is probably in the house downstairs now. Why don't you check?'' Both of them went off downstairs to see but apparently ours was the only home to be graced with monkeybhai's visit.

My brother just then walked in and I told him about my morning adventure, slightly embellished to make me look much braver than I had been - till I realised I was actually narrating conversations between me and the monkey and my brother was grinning as I came to the last part. ``So the monkey came to visit you, is it?'' He was highly amused as was anyone else whom I narrated this story to.

Well, all I can say is that my life is taking an adventurous turn. Otherwise, why would I have strange encounters with jungle inmates within the walls of my home?

To Sir, With Love

I think one of the privileges in my life has been to have very good mentors and teachers. I am writing this specifically to mention one such teacher who inspired and continues to inspire me.

Prof.G.P. Rao, or Geeps as we called him behind his back, was a special teacher who made management education very interesting to me and I think my classmates would agree whole heartedly. His classes were always interactive, unexpected and interesting. He was very kanjoos with his ratings, but if we got an A, believe me, we would float in a cloud of happiness for the rest of the week. He was a professor who inspired his students to excellence and always pushed us to think for ourselves, as he did in an interactive session last week. Sir, I loved this class too!

I am going to sum up here some of his tenets which I found very interesting in class and that have proved to be of immense practical use to me.

1. Think Basic :
One of the problems with being a management student is this continuous need to spout high sounding stuff and I have heard many friends say `These MBA types, na! They love jargon'. But Geeps' class was entirely based on `Think Basic'. What he meant was to state the basic problem or premise and then build the layers of complexity on it. If the basic is not identified properly, the rest of the layers are pointless. This is universally true, in all situations. This sounds basic, but often it is not very easy. And of course, it isn't conducive to building attitude! But it works very well, as I have found from experience.

2. Professional attachment,emotional detachment
This is the one topic I would have argued the most against in my student days. Obviously, Geeps would not agree and would just leave with an enigmatic smile which was very,very infuriating. But experience is not as kind and has taught me the meaning of this statement fully. My earlier argument was that passion leads to commitment leading to performance. So if you are emotionally detached, it means you are dispassionate and thereby would limit your performance. What I understand now is that passion is equal to professional attachment, it is the need to achieve, the need to perform, the need to excel in whatever you are doing. Emotional detachment is equal to reasoning and objectivity. The two co-exist and are not in conflict with each other, as I earlier believed them to be.

3. Aim for Perfection and Achieve the Optimum
As an idealist, this is the best maxim for practical success that I have ever come across. In any situation or decision, imagine the perfect result and aim for it. But don't forget that there are other variables as well as other people and their interests involved. Wholistically, the best you can hope for is an optimal result. Narrow the gap between the perfect and the optimal continuously. Curiously, perfection is not completely achievable since that is a changing target as well as a relative value. Hence you can achieve the highest level of optimisation which is closest to perfection. But the basic assumption here is that you set the highest standards for the perfect goal and keep improving your achievement optimisation. But NEVER compromise on the quality of perfection. Then the whole system collapses as there is no more impetus to excel. The second assumption is that your perfection is a target that is significantly out of reach at the moment and hence you stretch yourself to reach it. But NEVER set yourself a goal that is outlandish and ridiculously out of reach. Then you are bound to fail.

This what he taught in class and these are teachings which apply both to life as well as work situations. But there are also lessons I learnt from him by example

1) He never gave us an answer, because he believed that there is no one best answer. The best answer changes from one person to another depending on his circumstances, values and needs. But he gave the tools which are above based on which you can make a judgement of what is the best answer.

2) He was open to suggestion and discussion. But he was always focussed on the outcome. One class was dedicated to a particular result. It had to be achieved within that time.

3) He was able to raise the bar of quality,he pushed all his students equally and was patient but relentless.

It has been 10 years since I passed out of his class and I lost touch with him. But recently he came to Chennai and met his students for a short interactive session and I found that I still enjoyed his class as much. He is a teacher I am proud of and one day I hope he will be proud of having taught me.

Wandering around South Bombay

Today I will start from Churchgate Station. Lets assume that we start there at around 10.30 a.m. Anytime before you'd have been crushed by the peak time crowd of about a million people pouring out of the station. I would start the day with some exotic tea at Cha Bar in the Oxford Bookstore. From there I would cross the green CCI cricket maidan and head to the Prince of Wales Museum. This should complete the first half of my day.

After lunch at again any of the faboulous restaurants in this area, I would make my way towards Navy Nagar. A beautiful Navy Colony area, as the name suggests, this is again a fantastic place to just walk away the lunch. And in this can be thrown in a visit to the fabulous Afghan Church, built as a memorial to soldiers who fought in Afghanistan!!!

From here walk back towards Nariman Point, the commercial headquarters of Mumbai, and land up at the Oberoi's (Hilton today) from where the Queen's necklace as Marine Drive is described starts. Across Oberoi is the NCPA & Tata Theatre, the first experimental and the second commercial theatre. There is no beach in Mumbai, just a small patch at Chowpatty, which is 2 kms or so down the road. This I guess more or less covers the beautiful haunts of South Mumbai. I would have in some part of the day found time for tea at the very feudal Tea Centre near Churchgate station, sampled the Bhelwala opposite the station and tucked in chilly ice cream or fresh fruit and cream at Bachelor's opposite Chowpatty.

The sights left would be the very posh Malabar Hills & Kemps Corner localities where the famous Hanging Gardens are located and they do warrant a half a day walk around. Then there is the famous Mahalakshmi temple on the sea shore, the Haji Ali mosque at Haji Ali, the beautiful Worli Race course and the Planetorium at Worli and of course the Siddhivinayak temple at Prabhadevi. All these provide a slice of life from Mumbai rather that being places of tourist interest. Dadar is the best area to find outlets for authentic Maharastrian and Konkani cuisine and also offers crowded roadside shopping experiences.

Bandra has the Mount Mary Church and the lovely sea promenade at Carter Road. Bandra and Khar are also the shopping areas and Linking Road is the primary shopping centre.

Mumbai offers great night life in South Mumbai as well as in Bandra and Andheri West localities which have some famous pubs.

South Central Mumbai which is also a part of town, is an area which has textile mills converted to Mall complexes as well as trading markets (textile, gold and others) which I don't find interesting but maybe of interest to others.

And here,my dear friends, we draw to the close of `Sights of Mumbai', my virtual tour of my favourite city.

A Tourist in an Indian metro - Part II
Yeh Hai Mumbai Meri Jaan.

Immortal lines those.... Mumbai Meri Jaan. Ok, before I get maudlin with nostalgia, let's start our tour. From my point of view, the interesting point of Mumbai is what is referred to as `Town'. This is equivalent to downtown in the Western context and in Mumbai, means South Bombay and geographically refers to the area lying between the Docks to Dadar. Dadar onwards, including Matunga & the western,central and harbour areas, constitute the suburbs. Incidentally, I don't think the whole of Town is interesting, but well, most of it is.

I am going to start at the Gateway of India. A monument of our colonial past, built by the serving British as a point of welcome to their reigning monarchs, the Gateway of India is from the very Indian point of view no architectural wonder. But the monument itself is quite beautiful - tall and set right on the waters of the blue Arabian stretching behind. There is a small green park front(optimistically termed garden) and there are several small boats moored on the side, which take you to the Elephanta caves. The area within the arch is quite cool even during the hottest points of the day, when there is no sea breeze. There is always a crowd of people hanging around these places and it looks quite happy at all times.

Facing this is the Taj Mahal Hotel which also looks like a colonial structure and is really beautiful to behold. The Gateway and the Taj are lit at nights and it really looks very,very beautiful then too. An important point I would like to make is that the Gateway presents the best Photo location. Somehow all photographs in this place look beautiful and romantic.

The road here is called the Colaba Causeway and there are some of the jhatkas (horse-drawn carriages)which take you around for a spin. All this adds to the feudal, colonial air which is a rather lovely experience.

Behind the Taj is Colaba and this is are area with a myriad of lanes which have lovely shops, bars, restaurants and old colonial buildings plus the quaint Colaba market, where your street bargaining starts. This is a great place to walk around just like that. You will land at a junction of the Regal Theatre, an old colonial theatre building which has now been converted into a cinema hall. It was here that I first heard of the term `Dress Circle'. This refers to a special set of seats which are between Balcony and the normal classes and they are normally the centre seats offering the best view of the screen (and in earlier days the stage, from where this term derives its name).

Leading from there, is the road which will take you to further areas of Colaba on the left, Kala Ghoda and then Nariman Point (with Mantralaya in between) straight on and Fort on the right.

Kala Ghoda has the famous Jehangir Art Gallery which has a different painting display everytime you go and also has the delightful Samovar Cafe inside where you can get the most amazing parathas and chai. Very simple but excellent food in a nice intellectual atmosphere. Opposite Jehangir is Rhythm House - which is one of Mumbai's oldest music stores.

I would now take the right, past the Mumbai University buildings getting to Flora Fountain. This is nothing but a fountain as the name suggests - a European sort of fountain, behind which lies the delightful Fort area with its myriad little lanes. Fort is a place to just walk around - you will find offices, big and small including the Reserve Bank and Bombay House (Tata HQ), the lovely Horniman Circle (with a garden), the huge Asiatic library, the stock exchange building and colonial and modern structures co-existing. Fort consists of alleyways which are densely populated as is the state with Mumbai everywhere and walking here is the jostling crowds is an experience by itself. My earlier office was in Brady House which was a heritage building by itself and I used to walk around Fort everyday and I love the area. Right next to the Stock exchange is a khao gulley , eating lane if translated literally where you find street chinese food, which is a beet red in colour!!

In these lanes will you discover The Bombay Store, a lifestyle store, (it was a great favourite with me and has caused several dents in my wallet) and The Strand - a quaint bookstore which has different books which are piled on the floor at many places. You get lovely hardbound books at a steep discount and I just loved going to this store to browse through.

This side ends at the Victoria Terminus (which is Grand Central equivalent in Mumbai) a beautiful architectural sight, especially in the evening with the lights on. This of course, is only on the outside. The insides are crowded, dirty and smelly. But it still is a wonderful sight. Opposite this is the Times of India building which is also a beautiful colonial building and the famous JJ School of Arts, which in my point of view is housed in a rather drab and droopy campus. From Victoria Terminus, I would just cross the road and explore some more of the Fort Area before landing up on the M.G Road which is a lovely road to walk on. On the right is the Bombay Gymkhana, on the left is VSNL HQ, on the opposite side is Fashion Street which is a road shopping paradise for the college students. At the end of the road on the right is the historic Metro theatre. And behind Fashion street across the Circus Grounds is the Churchgate station.

I will end my first day here. And through all these (which are really within a 2-3 km radius) I would have thrown in `vada pav' at CTO (opp.Flora Fountain), Brun Muska chai(crisp bun and tea) at Irani Cafe in Fort and bhel puri at Vittal (opp Sterling cinema) as a part of my day experience. Ideally I would trace my route back to Colaba through the lovely M G Road and the high court building this time and get back to Colaba. hangout can be bars like Cafe Mondegar(which serves warm beer and great music),Leos or Athena for the more upmarket, which will complete the first day Mumbai experience. Colaba has many great restaurants too.Near VT is also the Crawford Market and Chor Bazaar(literally translated as the Thieves Market), which offer phoren (Indian for foreign) goods to Indian fruits at the cheapest bargains

Ok, so the next post will be day two.

A Tourist at an Indian Metro - Part I

Last weekend I had an emergency call from a friend ``Hey Anu, we have a friend visiting us from Germany. This is his first visit to Chennai and he wants to see the town. What do we do? D'u have any suggestions?''

I'm sure all of us Indian city-dwellers have had this sort of a traumatic experience at least once in our lives. We have favourite haunts in a city and this is the place where we live. We do all the regular things like eating out, movies etc for entertainment and our weekend haunts are usually located away from the city anywhere between a two-hour drive to an overnight trip. But how do you show a friend or a visitor, how interesting the place you live is. Obviously there are selfish motivations, you don't want them to go back to wherever they come from and say ``You know what? Poor so & so... living in a dead place like that. I'm sure (S)he is bored to death.'' Even if you do live in a place like that, admitting it is a different cup of tea altogether.

I remember clearly, when I was living in Mumbai and a friend came to visit me. I am in love with Mumbai (even now long distance) and that was when I was still in the throes of thrill of actually living in Mumbaiite. I think I had told the world and its brothers,sisters and friends about how great a place Mumbai is and how interesting,blah,blah. But when my friend asked me what we were doing, let me tell you I was stumped.... Ummmm Gateway of India, Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Marine Drive,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,DUH!

I had no idea about city tours, country bumpkin that I am. And never having been anywhere outside the country or dumping myself on a friend to be taken around, I really had no experience of coming up with quick responses like `Oh, this city is not historical or cultural, you know! The interest is in living here, you know...'' sort of stuff. Not that I believe any friend who spouts the lines above. Well, yes, you come to know and like a city after you've lived in it for sometime or sometimes you go to a place with great expectations and find out that life is not in the least bit colourful as you expected it to be (as was the case with me and Ahmedabad). Most often than not, India's cities have something of architectural value like monuments, temples,churches, mosques et al. While we may be familiar with monuments and their history, we very often do not consider religious monuments (temples,churches, mosques) as places to visit, because somewhere in our minds, this is entangled with places of worship and relegion and hence we can't go, don't go,etc., etc.

On the other hand, if you go to Europe, cathedrals and churches are considered places of tourist interest. They usually have to do with period of construction and the then prevalent architectural style, stained glass windows as well as paintings and murals in the Church/cathedral. There are other spots of interest like museums and flea markets and monuments and beaches and many more.

I did take my friend to Siddivinayak and Mahalakshmi in Mumbai, but contented myself with intros like `This the famous Siddivinayak, you know'' kind of statements.Obviously he did not know and at the end of the tour remarked that he did not know Mumbai was also a pilgrim centre. The trauma of that remark still exists, let me tell you. But then he was a lifelong resident of Chennai and having grown up with a lot of temples around, I guess this was not of interest to him at all.

Anyways,to somehow end this introduction, which is rambling a lot without too much point, I decided that I will mark out a list of places of interest in some of the places I have lived - namely Mumbai,Chennai, Ahmedabad and if I still feel upto it and nobody is throwing rotten eggs at me, Madurai.

So amigos....here ends the intros and the next post is about the different places in my beloved city of Mumbai.