A Century of Posts: 2

In Praise of the Stenographer

If you look back over the last 15 years or so, the stenographer as a species has totally vanished from the office scene. You do not see him anymore. The advent of the PC and the laptop, word-processing programmes with spell check features and the unblinking focus companies have brought to bear on headcount-related costs have all played their part in vanishing what was once the constant in any organisation chart..

The Biscuit tin Rider

One hot summer day in May, I find myself stranded in Mangalore without a ticket to Bombay. Lugging my suitcase, with sweat trickling down my spine, I visit the tiny offices of all the major bus operators for a seat on a bus leaving that night, only to be turned away every time. No seats are available. All buses are totally booked out...

Landing in Mangalore

The problem was that the mere prospect of landing in Mangalore airport in the ageing Boeing 737s of Indian Airlines filled me with such abject terror; I could not sleep for days prior to the flight...

Strong Medicine

It is one of those early morning departures and predictably enough it is going to be an Airbus A320 that will fly us to Bangalore. At 6.30 am, we are securely strapped in our seats and about to start taxiing for take-off when Mike surreptitiously palms something onto me.

It is a miniature bottle of whisky...

An Unforgettable Dinner

I indicated to BS that there could be a small problem: while I knew for a fact that Iyer liked beer, I was equally certain that he was a strict vegetarian. He was, after all, a Tamil Brahmin from traditional, conservative, orthodox Chennai and maybe he would have eggs at the most, but fish and meat were definitely a no-no...

Subbudu

The drinks menu is passed around and Subbudu first orders orange juice. Seeing the others order scotch and soda, he changes his mind and asks the waiter to bring Chivas Regal because “he has heard so much about it.” By the time the others have barely finished the first round, our man is onto his third drink and showing alarming signs of inebriation...

Sivakasi Revisited

The Bell Hotel in Sivakasi, when it opened its doors to the public more than fifteen years ago, was not a hotel at all. It was just a restaurant. Set in the middle of a huge grove of fruit trees, it was a long rectangular dining hall kept cool by noisy air-conditioners, where the itinerant business traveller could find safe haven during those languorous hours from 1 pm to 3 pm, when the heat was its worst and the whole town hunkered down in an uneasy siesta. The menu was madly eclectic, mixing and matching the South Indian-Tandoori-Chinese cuisines with reckless abandon. But the food was decent and that was all that we cared.

When I visited the restaurant the second time, there were already changes in the air. Mr RS, the enterprising businessman who owned the restaurant, had purchased two 40-feet containers, mounted them on iron girders at a height of two feet from the ground, cut out windows on the sides and had converted them into hotel rooms with air-conditioning, TV, attached bathrooms and room service from the restaurant.

As innovations go, this one was simply marvellous and became a big hit with the small traders and businessmen who came to Sivakasi from all over the country and who, hitherto, had to make do with dingy lodges with smelly toilets near the bus stand.

Within a year or so, the number of “hotel rooms” multiplied–one part of the grove began to look like a well-maintained container park, with fresh water and sewage lines discreetly laid underneath the sturdy, metal trellis. I stayed in one of those rooms once; it was a refreshing experience to wake up to sound of birdsong and sit on the narrow veranda outside (it was actually a narrow platform running on all four sides of the room) and have my cup of morning tea.

But all this was just the beginning. The tip of the iceberg, if you will.

The visionary Mr RS had a few more aces up his sleeve.

Photo Courtesy: http:// fusions.files.wordpress.com

The Honeymoon Suite

At ten in the night, Tirunelveli bus-stand is a beehive of activity.

Buses turn in from the main road in reckless abandon, scattering waiting passengers and stray dogs alike in all directions. The little shops that dot the perimeter of the holding bay are adorned with blinking, coloured lights as if in a fair ground. Tamil film music blares out loudly from unseen loudspeakers. The food stall owners hoarsely advertise their menu which runs the full gamut from “masala vadai” to “appam and chicken curry”. The smell of food is inviting and churns our stomachs.

But we have to find a hotel for the night before it gets too late.

Most of the hotels look decent and well-maintained, at least from the outside. Unfortunately, most of them are running almost full and can offer us only non-ac accommodation. Finally, my colleague and I end up at an establishment where he gets an air-conditioned single room and I get the suite.

“It’s the honeymoon suite, saar!” says the guy at the reception, grinning widely.

In my dirty, dishevelled state, I couldn’t care less even if it was the gallows suite. I quickly check-in, have a shower and meet my teetotaller colleague in the bar. Nothing like a bottle of chilled beer to raise one’s spirits. We have dinner and return to our rooms.

That is when I really notice the “honeymoon suite”. It is extravagantly furnished in shades of pink. There is a small drawing room area with sofas upholstered in pink satin. In the centre of the bedroom you have a large circular bed with a dark pink satin bedspread and matching dark pink pillows. The curtains are pink and so are the light fittings. On the walls, you have pink wallpaper with some flowery design. I sigh and get into my nightclothes thinking this is how the rooms in a French bordello may look like.

And finally when I lie down, I find myself staring at my own reflection on the ceiling.

There is a circular mirror, strategically placed on the ceiling, just above the bed.

Just before I fall asleep thinking of lovemaking couples and French bordellos, I notice the circular mirror is set in a pale pink, plastic frame.

God is in the details.

Photo Courtesy: The Hindu

Sivakasi

Twenty years ago, when I first visited the industrial town of Sivakasi near Madurai, it was a smelly, fly-infested place known for fireworks, match boxes, and low-quality offset printing. The industries that dominate the town and give its folks their livelihood remain the same, but the town itself has undergone a subtle transformation now. True, it continues to be a hot, dusty place with mounds of garbage piled up on the roadsides, but now, at least, you have proper hotels to stay in and decent restaurants where you can have a meal without risking a massive stomach infection.

Reaching Sivakasi itself was an effort: you had to make an uncomfortable overnight train journey from Chennai by a metre gauge line to Madurai first, from where it was another two-and-a-half hours of bone-shattering ride along a national highway up to Virudhunagar, where you turned left and drove along a small, ill-maintained country road, all the way to Sivakasi. Air-conditioned taxis were unheard of those days, so invariably you got down from the taxi, caked in dust and with aches and pains all over your body.

I will never forget my first visit to Sivakasi.

The hotel itself looks well-maintained from the outside in the early morning light. But I step into a dark, unlit lobby that smell of decay and disrepair; a surly clerk pushes a thick register towards me and gestures that I fill in the details. The ritual completed, he presses a bell when an old man appears from the darkness and tries to take hold of my overnighter. The clerk hands over to the old man the key to the room, a cake of soap, a pillow cover, and a bed sheet. The old man trudges up the staircase and shows me to my room.

I look around the room and my spirits sink to my feet. It is a fairly large room but has not seen a broom or a mop for a long time. There is dust everywhere and while I cover my nose with the handkerchief and try to open the windows, the old man proceeds to put on the cover on the pillow and sheath the dirty and stained mattress with the none too clean bed sheet.

But it is the toilet that destroys me. I take one look at the “Indian” type commode, streaked liberally with shades of brown, yellow, and green and encrusted at the edges with dark matter of indistinguishable origin and I am out of there, screaming. But there are meetings to be held and appointments to be kept. I brush my teeth and take a shower with my eyes shut tight and am out of the place in less than half an hour.

The whole day I survive on a bottle of water (purchased from the station in Chennai), a packet of biscuits and several cups of sweet, milky tea and coffee offered by customers.

But I have chalked out a two-day programme in Sivakasi. What is to be done? Staying in that hell-hole of a hotel is definitely out of the question. A colleague, who has accompanied me on this trip, suggest we take a bus to the town of Tirunelveli, 140 kilometres away, where, he assures me, there are better hotels to spend the night.

And thus we board the evening bus to Tirunelveli, where another adventure awaits us.

A Barman in Galle

It was not much of a bar. But then, it was not much of a hotel either.

We had arrived that afternoon in Galle, taken a narrow winding road that climbed up steeply and offered spectacular views of the Dutch fort and the sea to reach this old colonial mansion masquerading as a hotel, perched upon a desolate cliff-top. It was cloudy and overcast; a fine drizzle accompanied by sudden gusts of wind from the sea, added to the misery. The hotel seemed to bristle with menace, a feeling its forbidding exterior with its pitiless geometry did nothing to dispel. If we shivered, it was not only from the cold. The hotel somehow brought back memories of Wuthering Heights and the windswept, wild expanses of the Yorkshire moors.

An old lady and her manservant check us in. The room is huge with a high, vaulted ceiling and wooden floorboards that have not seen a coat of wax or polish for a long time. An old ceiling fan, the kind of which I had last seen as a small boy in the waiting rooms of Indian railway stations, starts rotating very slowly, creaking and groaning with the effort.

We feel depressed. It has been quite a long journey from Kandy through narrow, winding roads and we can feel the tiredness in our bones. It is an effort to unpack, but when we finally do, find that there are already somebody else’s clothes in the ancient chest of drawers.

The old lady is apologetic: Apparently, the clothes belong to a long-stay guest from Europe who has gone off somewhere for the weekend. Would we please leave the clothes undisturbed and she will give us another cabinet to keep our stuff? We nod dumbly.

An hour later, unpacking done, we get out of the room and walk along the corridor to reach a balcony that overlooks a verdant valley. It is almost dark now, but the rain has stopped and the wind has also subsided. But the atmosphere is heavy with humidity and very uncomfortable. Too early for dinner, I decide to pay a visit to the bar. The wife and the daughter decide to accompany me because they do not want to be left alone in the room.

The bar turns out to be a makeshift arrangement on the terrace of the hotel, with a temporary roof and netting all around to keep off the nocturnal insects. Sofas with lumpy upholstery are arranged haphazardly for the benefit of the patrons of whom we can find nary a trace. In the dim, dirge-inducing light of the incandescent lamps, we spot the barman, sitting and gazing at the sea in perfect solitude.

The barman turns out to be a young lad--a student earning some extra money by doubling up as a bartender--and a cricketer to boot. He seems happy to have our company and we spend an almost an hour talking to him. We discuss Sachin Tendulkar (but, of course!), the state of Sri Lankan cricket, and the cricketers Galle has contributed to the national team—players such as Romesh Kaluwitharana and Upul Chandana.

I remembered that surreal hotel in Galle and its solitary barman recently when I was watching the T20 World Cup finals between Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

I am sure he would have been very unhappy with the final result.

Photo Courtesy: www.asiaexplorers.com

Hotel Ships on the Rhine

Like all great rivers of this world, the Rhine has an awesome majesty and a certain timeless quality to it that leaves an indelible impression when you first see it. The Rhine has always fascinated people and inspired artists and poets like no other river perhaps. Today, during its majestic 1320-kilometre journey through the heart of Western Europe, this river links people and cultures, unlike in the previous centuries when it chose to separate them.

Originating in the Swiss Alps, the Rhine becomes a major transport route by the time it reaches the Swiss industrial town of Basel. Flowing through the Alsace region of France, the river enters German territory, going past the cathedral cities of Speyer and Mainz, followed by the famous wine-growing regions and finally by the romantic Middle Rhine with its wonderful castles some of which have been converted to exclusive hotels now. After leaving the Slate Mountains, the river passes through such important German cities as Cologne, Dusseldorf, and Duisburg before it enters the Netherlands and joins the North Sea somewhere near Rotterdam.

Dusseldorf is a city known for its many trade fairs. Although the city has hundreds of hotels, ranging from luxury properties to relatively basic accommodation, availability of rooms can be a real problem during important trade-fairs. This is when hotel ships—ships which are normally used for Rhine cruises so popular with the tourists—are brought in to cope with the influx of business travellers.

Staying in such a hotel ship can be a very unique experience. The cabins are painfully small; while it can be cosy and romantic for a honeymooning couple, a twin-sharing arrangement with another office colleague can be testing within such cramped quarters. And if the cabins are small, the attached bathroom cum toilet can only be termed as tiny, something you squeezed yourself into, every morning.

But it was fun. The ships were always berthed close to the Altstadt, the nerve centre for the pulsating night-life of Dusseldorf and you were always close to all the nice bars and eating places. On those evenings when you did not want to go out, you could have a quiet beer at the ship’s spacious bar, have an early dinner, and go up to the top deck where you could spend hours, enjoying the cool evening breeze and watching the slow-moving river traffic.

And finally when you went down to your cabin and stretched yourself on the narrow but comfortable bed, the river gently rocked you to sleep.

Photo Courtesy: www.simplygroups.co.uk

An Unforgettable Dinner

Companies tend to stereotype customers. Most times this is done deliberately for marketing purposes, the underlying belief being, if we know the context in which the customer is placed, we can service him better. The context here could be gender, profession, industry, religion, geography, and myriad other factors.

But often, stereotyping can be an unconscious process which could be based less on factual data and founded more on our own personal and cultural biases and prejudices. Leading exponents of management theory caution you to tread carefully around stereotypes and one of them, Stephen Macaulay, puts it very bluntly: “Be wary of stereotypes—they may be a useful template but they conceal as much as they reveal. At best, they are a starting point for further exploration; at worst, they are totally misleading.”

When I read that statement, I suddenly remembered a dinner I had in Germany with BS who was my boss at that time and a customer who shall, for the purposes of this blog, be called Mr. Iyer.

We were in Dusseldorf to attend a trade fair where the company had a huge presence and where Mr. Iyer had signed with us for a substantial order. This, combined with the fact that Iyer had been a loyal customer of ours for the past two decades, made BS feel obliged to offer him dinner. BS wanted to take him to the old part of the town, the Altstadt, which was known for its narrow, cobbled streets, old churches, trendy bars, high-class restaurants and of course, the famously special beer of Dusseldorf, the Altbier.

I indicated to BS that there could be a small problem: while I knew for a fact that Iyer liked beer, I was equally certain that he was a strict vegetarian. He was, after all, a Tamil Brahmin from traditional, conservative, orthodox Chennai and maybe he would have eggs at the most, but fish and meat were definitely a no-no. BS, who was Danish, was rather dismayed by this piece of information, but finally we decided to go ahead with the programme anyway. In a worst-case scenario, Iyer will have to be content with a salad and some bread.

At seven in the evening, we hit Altstadt, which is also (rightfully, I must say) known as the longest bar in the world. The atmosphere is electric. The narrow streets are already filling up with friendly revellers and we get pulled in by the tide. A few hours later, after imbibing vast quantities of Altbier from many way-side bars, we land up at a quaint bistro, off one of the main streets. It’s a warm, cosy place with bright lights, loud music, and young, smart waitresses hurrying about with trays laden with food that looks absolutely delicious.

This is the moment of truth. Seated at a corner table, BS turns around to address Mr. Iyer, who is good cheer personified, after all that beer. “So, Mr. Iyer, what would you like for the main course?”

“What I would like,” says Mr. Iyer with great satisfaction, “is a juicy rib-eye steak, medium-rare, with a side order of fries, please.”

BS glances at me briefly and suppresses a smile. And I, the self-confessed expert in customer stereotypes, watch in fascination as, during the course of the meal, the rib-eye steak is polished off with clinical precision.

Photo Courtesy: www.nycotto.com

A Wedding in Jaipur

These days if you have to travel by train from Mumbai to Jaipur, you have convenient direct trains connecting the two cities. For example, if you board the Jaipur Superfast Express from Mumbai’s Bandra terminus at 3.45 pm, you are in Jaipur the next day by 10.40 am.

Such was not the case 25 years ago, when my friend Tata Kumar got married.

During those days, to reach Jaipur from Bombay, you had to travel in one of the main line trains plying the Delhi route up to Sawai Madhopur, where you got down and changed over to another train to Jaipur.

Tata Kumar, no stranger to the regular readers of this blog, is from Kerala and his wife-to-be, also his colleague, is from Rajasthan. The course of true love, steadfastly adhering to a familiar script, has not run smoothly in this case also--the girl’s family has vehemently opposed the match. After many episodes fraught with emotion and drama, during the course of which our hero has unwaveringly withstood with admirable dignity all threats and inducements to break off the relationship, finally good sense has prevailed and the girl’s family has relented and agreed to the marriage, which is to be held in Jaipur and as per Rajasthani traditions.

Thus we find ourselves on a cold morning in Sawai Madhopur railway station, boarding the first class compartment of a metre gauge train which will take us to Jaipur in seven hours. What we did not know at that time, of course, was that the bride’s uncle was a high-ranking official with the Western Railway and instructions had been wired beforehand to the local railway authorities to “take care” of the baaraat.

The “baaraat” is a motley crew consisting of a few members of Tata Kumar’s family, a few of his friends, couple of colleagues, and my uncle MK and his family.

It was to be an unforgettable journey. The entire first class compartment, washed clean, dusted, and beautifully bedecked with flowers, had been exclusively reserved for us. As the train pulled out of Sawai Madhopur, we were handed over toiletries and fresh towels to spruce ourselves up after the grimy, overnight journey from Bombay. By the time we were back in our seats, a refreshing cup of steaming tea awaited us, followed by a fruit platter and an elaborate breakfast served by attendants who were intent on fulfilling their guests’ slightest whim and fancy. It was as if we had moved backward in time and were in the India of the British Raj.

Finally, we arrive in Jaipur to be welcomed, to our acute embarrassment, with rose garlands and much fanfare.

And that night, the members of the baaraat, most of whom are equipped with two left feet when it comes to shaking a leg, bravely try dancing on the streets of Jaipur, in front of the decorated, open-decked car in which Tata Kumar sits in his sherwani and turban, a picture of silent and heroic stoicism.

Picture Courtesy: www.planetware.com

Snow in the Mountains

That winter in Switzerland throws up a lot of memories, most of them amusing.

On the first day, there is a welcome dinner to which I go in casual wear. To my horror I find I am the odd man out with everyone else attired in formal suits.

Heinz Lehman takes me out for lunch to a posh restaurant in Zurich. As a starter, I order a “Crisp Californian Salad” from the menu and get a small, lovely cabbage cut in half with an elegant dollop of white sauce on the side.

In Frauenfeld, I walk into a bar after purchasing a Rubik’s Cube, which was a rage those days. Sipping a beer, I take out the undisturbed cube, turning it around in my hand, admiring the smooth finish and reluctant to start rotating the panel. Suddenly I find myself surrounded by excited people who look at me admiringly and ask me to demonstrate the solution to the puzzle.

Then travelling by train to Engelberg and taking several ski-lifts to arrive on top of Mount Titlis to be greeted by the Sri Lankan in the souvenir shop with: “Vanakkam saar, neengal Tamizha?” (Welcome sir, Are you a Tamilian?).

Schmick giving me a short lecture on how to drink beer: The first beer should never be sipped, but gulped down in one shot or maximum two. That is the only way the beer can hit your sweet spot, he says with utmost seriousness.

Lucerne. The picturesque lake nestling under the majestic gaze of snow-capped Mount Pilatus. The famous wooden bridge across the river Reuss before it was partially destroyed by fire in 1993.

Snow. Miles and miles of it. Enchanting to behold. Exhilarating to touch, to feel, to hold in your hands.

I was seeing snow for the first time in my life.

On the last day, there is a farewell dinner to which I wear a tie and a jacket only to find I have got it wrong this time also.

Everyone else is in casuals!

Photo Courtesy: Abhishek's Public Gallery, Picasa Wb Albums

The Serbs' Dilemma

At six in the evening, the bells of the St. Mauritius Church in Zofingen start tolling. Being winter, it is already pitch-dark outside and it is eerie and depressing to sit inside your room and listen to the heavy, sonorous sound of the church bells.

Not that there is much you can do outside. The tour of the entire town, consisting of the church, a cinema, a few shops, two hotels and three restaurants including a pizzeria can be completed in less than ten minutes and I have already done it twice.

In an alcove near the hotel reception, I come across a small cache of German and French paperbacks and amongst them, a historical romance in English which I take up to my room and try to read. It is heavy, ponderous stuff and combines well with my travel fatigue to act as an excellent sedative. I fall asleep.

The two Serbians check in the next day morning. They are to attend the same training as I and we travel together to the office of the Swiss company who is hosting us. The Serbs speak little English and are taciturn to the point of being rude when I try to make conversation with them. They chain-smoke and look unsmilingly out of the car window at the snow-blanketed countryside flashing past. They look depressed.

For the next four days life follows a fixed, familiar routine where we are in training from 8 am to 4 pm and dropped back to the hotel by 4.30 pm. Once we reach the hotel, for the rest of the evening the Serbs disappear only to manifest themselves at the breakfast table the next day, looking like death.

On Friday evening, the Serbs ask Rolf, our trainer, about night life in Zofingen.

Rolf, a cheerful young man with a fine physique tells them there is no night life in Zofingen. “You guys should take the train and go to Zurich,” he says.

The Serbs smile, showing yellowed, tobacco-stained teeth: “Yes, we went to Zurich... last four nights,” they say.

Rolf shrugs his shoulders and tells them maybe they should try Zurich tonight also, this being a Friday evening.

There is a long silence when one of the Serbs speaks up.

“What about the bar lady in Hotel Garni?” he asks Rolf, “She is very friendly.”

Rolf looks at the Serbs for a moment but his expression does not change: “The bar lady at Hotel Garni is the sister of my best friend,” he says evenly. “If you guys so much as try to act fresh with her, I’ll mash you both up into a Rosti”.

The silence this time lasts even longer.

Hotel Management in Switzerland

I land up at the entrance of Hotel Garni in Zofingen on a Sunday morning. It is winter and bitterly cold. The streets are eerily quiet and not a soul is in sight. There must have been heavy snowfall the previous night, for the few cars parked on the street are blanketed in white.

I lug my suitcase in and look around. The Reception is empty. I press the small buzzer affixed to the Reception desk and wait.

Zofingen is a small town, about 60 kilometres from Zurich. For the next three weeks, this hotel is going to be my home. I am cold, hungry, tired after a nine-hour flight from Bombay, and want nothing more than to get into the relative warmth of a room, have a shower, have some breakfast and sleep for as long as I can.

After what seems like a very long time, an old lady appears who introduces herself as Mrs. Schmitt. She seems bright, chirpy and in excellent spirits the reason for which was to dawn on me within the next thirty minutes. She checks me in and we take the slow, ancient lift to the third floor. She opens the door of room number 31 and ushers me in.

It is a small room with just enough space for a single bed, a table and two chairs. There is an equally small TV, placed on a bracket fixed on the wall. There is no English transmission though, she informs me sadly. Only German and French.

Acceding to Mrs. Schmitt’s suggestion, I have a quick shower and go down to the breakfast room adjacent to the Reception. To my surprise, I find her dressed in outdoor gear, car keys in one hand and an overcoat in the other. She quickly shows me the kitchen, the pantry, and the fridge and asks me to help myself to whatever I need: there are eggs, sausages, butter, cheese, marmalade, milk. There is a grill, cooking range, the works. Before I can get over my bewilderment, she informs me cheerfully that she is about to go on a short holiday and will be back only next week, but don’t worry, her replacement shall be at the counter sharp at 6 am on the morrow.

But what about the other inmates? I ask.

You are the only guest we have this Sunday, she says. Then, thrusting a bunch of keys in my hand which includes that of the main door, with a wave and a bye, Mrs. Schmitt walks out of the door.

And thus it came to pass that I managed a Swiss hotel all by myself for almost 24 hours, without causing any mishaps to life or property.

Dusseldorf

Once every four years, a certain trade fair takes me to the city of Dusseldorf in Germany. Although lagging behind other German cities such as Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Frankfurt in terms of population (actually, it ranks ninth with a population of over 600,000 inhabitants), Dusseldorf is a bustling metropolis and is the centre for the German fashion, advertising, and telecommunications industries. It is a nice, sprawling city, dotted with huge public parks, wooded areas, and wonderful old buildings which include some of the most beautiful and imposing churches you can see anywhere in Europe.

What never ceases to amaze me as I walk along the streets of Dusseldorf is the fact that this city was virtually reduced to rubble during World War II and whatever I am seeing now, has been rebuilt from the ground up afterwards.

It was geography that did Dusseldorf in during the war. During World War II, the Rhine-Ruhr valley was one of the primary targets for aerial bombing by the Allied forces, especially the RAF. After all, most of the steel and armament industries of Hitler’s Germany, which fed the awesome German war machine, were situated within the valley and throughout the war, the Allies targeted the area relentlessly. Dusseldorf, being a city bordering the Rhine-Ruhr valley in the north, bore the brunt almost by default.

History records the city going up in flames on September 10, 1942, after a particularly punishing RAF attack. Again, towards the end of the war, in the spring of 1945, with Germany’s anti-aircraft defences all but destroyed, Dusseldorf faced another massive aerial onslaught. Round-the-clock air attacks for seven long weeks brought the city to its knees with thousands dead and half the city’s residential and industrial areas completely destroyed.

There were of course other German cities in the Ruhr valley which faced even greater damage: Essen, Cologne, Dortmund, Wuppertal...the list is long. I have travelled through or have been in many of these cities; if you didn’t know your history, you will be hard-pressed to believe that they suffered so much damage sixty years ago, such has been the precision and care with which they have been reconstructed.

I sit this evening on the terrace of my hotel by the Rhine, enjoying a glass of beer, watching the families enjoying the weekend getting ready to push their little rowing boats into the river. The children’s excited screams hang in the clear summer air for a moment and vanish.

Hopefully, these children will never grow up to experience the horrors of war, at least, not in their corner of Europe.

Photo Courtesy: Kreuzherreneck's Public Gallery. Picasa Web Albums

Bhusawal Blues: 3

I have a cloth bag. I have a beard. I am thin and look emaciated. The Bhusawal cops are convinced I am a naxalite from the forests of Chandrapur.

There follows a long, arduous conversation with the cops questioning me in Marathi and I trying to reply in my faulty, constipated Hindi. I am terrified the cops will haul me off into custody and that will be the last anyone would hear of me. I fish around in my wallet and find a crumpled business card of mine which I proffer, with much humility, to the custodians of the law. I can see they are not impressed.

The senior one switches to Hindi and addresses me in patient, measured tones one normally reserves for the mentally challenged: “You have come by the morning train. You say you have come here to visit your friend. But there is no friend. You don’t have your friend’s address or phone number. Now we find you sleeping here in the station. Does it make any sense to you?”

“No,” I say helpfully, “I am waiting for a train back to Bombay.”

“Where is your ticket?”

“Err...” I stammer, “I was planning to get it, once I woke up.”

Somehow, my interrogator finds this answer unacceptable and utterly irresponsible.

“Which train?” he thunders.

“Varanasi Express,” I say quickly, having already looked it up on the timetable painted on the wall of the railway restaurant.

The cops frog march me to the ticket counter and make sure I purchase a ticket back to Mumbai. Then, with a stern warning of dire consequences if I am ever found in the vicinity once the Varanasi Express has left the station, they slouch off, in search of more interesting victims.

So I return to Mumbai and immediately start planning the murder of Bisque.

Only after a week do I come to know of the real story behind Bisque’s absence in Bhusawal station that morning. Apparently, the previous night, he had been diagnosed as having acute appendicitis and had been admitted to the hospital in great pain. When I was having my little misadventure in the station, Bisque was undergoing emergency surgery for removal of the infected appendix.

I felt like a worm the next few days.

But then, as you might have guessed, Bisque’s surgery was successful and, after a period of convalescence, he recovered completely to become the famous Bisque the Collector, two decades later.

Bhusawal Blues: 2

At Bhusawal station the next morning, I am not in a good mood.

The whole of the previous night I have sat wedged underneath the washbasin of a stinking toilet with five other people. It has been a hot, humid journey in an overcrowded compartment, the predominant impressions of which have been the smell of sweat and urine and a sort of in-your-face intimacy such large number of people in such confined spaces inevitably brings about.

There is no Bisque on the platform.

I splash some water on my face from a public tap, brush my teeth, and go have a cup of tea. Even though it is hardly seven in the morning, one can already feel it is going to be another hot, sultry day. Hours go by and by ten, I conclude something seriously has gone wrong and Bisque is not coming anymore.

I curse the man. I also curse my stupidity. I have no phone number, no address, no way to contact him.

I get out of the station and walk up to the bus stand, with a vague hope of finding a bus that will take me to the Bhusawal power station. The bus stand is milling with people and every bus that turns into the stand releases clouds of fine, red dust that have me running for cover. The heat has by now become unbearable and I beat a hasty retreat back to the cooler confines of the station, ruefully accepting the fact that I am not made of stuff that make for great adventurers!

The silver lining in the cloud comes in the form of golden brown toast done to perfection and a fluffy omelette, with liberal sprinklings of onions, tomatoes and green-chillies, from the station restaurant. Hunger satiated, I walk along the platform and find a comfortable bench under a strategically-hung ceiling fan. It is close to noon and the station is deserted except for stray dogs playing between the tracks and groups of weary porters slumped against the pillars.

I fall asleep only to be rudely awakened an hour later by two belligerent policemen.
Photo Courtesy: Indian Railways

Bhusawal Blues: 1

The Calcutta Mail is one of the oldest and most prestigious trains of Indian Railways. Every day, she leaves from Bombay’s Victoria Terminus (now renamed Mumbai CST) at 21.25 hours, embarking on a journey that will cover over 2100 kilometres and take close to 38 hours. She will stop at 48 stations in between, before arriving at her final destination in the eastern coast of India. It is a long, dusty haul along the states of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal and now, after the formation of new states, I suspect even Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.

Sorry for the Paul Theroux impersonation, but I had to give you this information so that you have an idea about the large geographical region that is serviced by this train. As you can imagine, this train is a lifeline for the large migrant population of North and East Indians and even Bangladeshi immigrants living and working in Bombay. Being less expensive than the super fast trains such as the Gitanjali Express which ply the same route, the Calcutta Mail is preferred by the poorer sections of the society and pulls out, every night from Bombay, with every seat and every berth taken and the unreserved compartments literally bursting at the seams or at the welds, if you please.

So I decide one day to take the Calcutta Mail on an overnight journey to Bhusawal in North Maharashtra. Bisque has been working there in a power station for a year now and has invited me to spend a weekend with him. The train reaches Bhusawal early morning the following day and Bisque has promised to pick me up from the station and take me to his quarters, 15 kilometres from the main town.

Three factors combine to make this journey one of the most unforgettable in my life:

I undertake this trip in May, at the height of summer when the mercury in interior Maharashtra can touch a searing 45 degrees Celsius.

Fully confident of Bisque’s ability to carry out a simple task such as picking up a friend from a railway station, I carry neither his address nor his phone number.

In a spirit of reckless adventure, I decide not to book a sleeping berth and travel in the unreserved compartment.

The retribution comes swiftly enough.

Photo Courtesy: Anir's Public Gallery, Picasa web Albums

A trip to London

With much prodding and pushing from Herman and Bernadette, I go on a weekend trip to London. The tourist coach is full of foreign college students studying in Paris. They are extremely friendly, but there is a problem: They cannot speak English and I cannot speak French. We manage to communicate though, using a combination of nods, hand signs, head shakes, and smiles.

We get to Calais and take a ferry. As you approach the coast of England, you can see the awesome white cliffs of Dover. Suddenly, I remember Mathew Arnold and his poem “Dover Beach” and think fondly of my father, the English professor, who had never been to the land of his favourite poets and dramatists.

We are staying in a hotel near Gloucester Road and I find myself sharing a very large room with two Algerian girls and a Mexican boy called Filiberto. We quickly become friends and over a cup of coffee, they anoint me as the de facto leader of the small group, the overriding qualification for the post being of course, a working knowledge of English.

So we do the London tour bit: Hopping on and off open top buses, we feed the pigeons at the Trafalgar Square, gape at the graceful contours of St. Paul's Cathedral, admire the Big Ben and complain bitterly about the exorbitant entrance fees at Madame Tussauds. By evening, we are thoroughly exhausted and decide on an early dinner. Rather selfishly, I suggest Indian and, to my surprise, everyone agrees.

It is my first Indian meal after three weeks and I have tears in my eyes at the end of the feast.

The meal revives our spirits and the girls suggest we go to a night club. Both Filiberto and I are a bit apprehensive but the girls are full of enthusiasm and drag us along. It turns out to be a frenetic but a thoroughly enjoyable experience, even though we run out of money after three rounds of drinks. A bunch of giggling English girls who have smuggled in gin cocktails in quarter bottles share their booty with us and a good time is had by all.

The next day we visit Windsor Castle. I do not remember much of that visit; I am sure, neither do my three friends of the previous night.

We were quietly nursing our king-size hangovers.

Photo Courtesy: Openphoto.net

Paris Diary: 3

There is much about that spring in Paris that I have forgotten, but a few memories remain.

I am sitting in a sidewalk cafe, at peace with myself, watching the world go by. Across the river, I can see the graceful Notre-Dame cathedral, silhouetted against the evening light.

After coming to Paris, I have fallen in love with the wayside café which for the French is not just a place to eat, but also a centre for socialising, relaxation and even rumination. If people-watching is your hobby, hours can be spent just watching various parallel universes revealing themselves all around your table: men in business attire unwinding with a glass of wine before going home; young couples kissing or holding hands oblivious to the world around them; matrons with dogs in tow; old men in chequered caps reading the newspaper or staring emptily into space. For a gifted writer, I think to myself, every table can be the beginning of a story.

On my way back to the hotel, at a newsagents’, I see a stark black and white billboard with three words: Sartre est mort. Sartre is dead. With a mild sense of déjà-vu, I recall reading how the French intellectuals of the post-war era, Jean-Paul Sartre included, were hosted and celebrated by the well-known cafés of Paris of that time, some of which exist even today.

A few days later, Sartre’s funeral is attended by over 20,000 mourners.

I do not go, not knowing where exactly the funeral was taking place. I feel inhibited going alone.

I wish I had gone.

Photo Courtesy: Emilia. Paris. Picasa Web Albums

Paris Diary: 2

One week into my stay in Paris, I meet up with a group of Indian students. Most of them are pursuing post-graduation in Cité Universitaire. They are a helpful lot and especially one of them, Shaji, takes me under his wing. Both of us have studied more or less at the same time in Trivandrum, though we never knew each other then.

Shaji works the night shift in a hotel near La Madeleine. It is a small hotel, Shaji warns me, but, breakfast included, costs only FF 84 per night, whereas I am paying almost three times that in my present hotel. Shaji urges me to shift and I readily agree, the attraction being of course that I will have company in the evening.

What Shaji conveniently forgets to mention is that the hotel is used by streetwalkers to turn short-time tricks and also by amorous couples for illicit liaisons, not that I would have changed my mind even if he had warned me earlier.

So I shift hotels the second week. It is good fun because by the time I come back from work, Shaji will be behind the reception counter. He would have brought with him a small plastic bag which contained stuff for our dinner, mostly the long loaves of the French baguette, sausages and a few cans of beer. There was a pantry behind the reception and we would reminisce about Trivandrum and cook dinner and talk well past midnight, when I will reluctantly, turn myself in for the night. Shaji will try to catch some sleep in a small room adjacent the pantry and would be off to his hostel by 6 am.

Normally the action started after 9 pm. The “working girls” were easy to spot with their heavy make-up and high boots. While the customer pretended to look elsewhere, the girl walked up to the reception and chatted with Shaji. Money will change hands and Shaji will push the key across. Half an hour later, the couple came down the lift and the girl will hand over the keys, again making friendly small talk. It was all very civilised and done with a lot of, what the French call, savoir-faire.

Shaji had an understanding with the owner of the hotel: He could rent out a room two or three times a night and the Patron did not mind, as long as he got one night’s rent.

This was the Patron’s way of letting a struggling Indian student make some extra money.

Photo Courtesy: Emilia. Paris. Picasa Web Albums

Paris Diary: 1

My idea of exploring a city is to throw the guide book away and wander aimlessly. While this method can have disastrous consequences when exploring an Indian city, it works for me every time I am in Europe. In the case of Paris, wandering aimlessly can yield surprisingly delightful results, as every unplanned detour or every unexpected turn of the street has literally the ability to stop you dead in your tracks, such being the aesthetic riches the city has to offer.

Such serendipity brings me one late evening to the Place Vendôme, after all the shops are shut and the beautiful square is lit only by the streetlights. I remember standing there for a very long time, completely overwhelmed by the architectural grandeur on display and the serenity that seem to prevail all around.

To start from the beginning...

I land in Paris on a bright spring afternoon. It is a Sunday and the taxi takes me through deserted streets to my hotel, near the Latin Quarter.

A letter awaits me at the hotel. It is from Herman, the person who will be my trainer for the next four weeks. Herman, writing in an elaborate cursive, welcomes me to Paris; gives clear, precise directions how to reach La Défense, the major business district of Paris where our office is located; apologises for the sorry state of the Metro. Apparently, the sanitation workers of the Metro are on strike and it is in bit of a mess.

Used as I am to the suburban stations and trains of Bombay, I can hardly find anything seriously wrong with the famed underground rail system of Paris. True, the trash cans are overflowing and there are scraps of garbage here and there, but I travel in air-conditioned comfort and the morning rush hour hardly holds any terrors for a battle-scarred commuting veteran from Bombay.

Herman is a tall, jovial man in his fifties. Bernadette, his assistant, is younger, but equally friendly. The couple go out of the way to make me feel at home that first day, showing me how to operate the coffee maker, where to find the cafeteria, and how to work the buffet during lunch time. As the days go by, they become really close and start advising me how to see little bits of Paris every day and what to do (or, not to do, according to Bernadette, clucking like a mother hen) during the weekends.

Thus begins my obsession with a city which I keep revisiting in my imagination even today.

Photo Courtesy: Neil - Vacances d’automne. Picasa Web Albums

Unsaintly Thoughts

A letter has come from the Rajneesh Ashram, enquiring about a product that the company markets. I am asked to go and make a sales presentation.

I am both thrilled and nervous. The controversial teacher has been making headlines in the Indian newspapers and magazines of late, with his advocacy of sex as a means to spiritual enlightenment. There are reports about the hedonistic lifestyle adopted by his followers and unconfirmed rumours of wild orgies within the confines of the ashram. Bollywood has already made an eager beeline to the doors of the ashram, with celebrities like Vijay Anand and Vinod Khanna sporting the rudraksh and donning the saffron kurta, both considered to be trademarks of a true Rajneesh follower.

The letter is signed by a Ma Yoga P____. In my mind, I imagine an old lady with steel-grey hair tied into a severe bun at the back, peering at me through steel-rimmed spectacles and speaking sternly in a dry, gravelly voice.

Two days later I realise the ethereal creature languidly reclining in the sofa in front of me is far removed from the original mental picture I had of her. This tall, shapely, golden-haired, blue-eyed beauty is a Scandinavian goddess. She welcomes me in a voice of honey-dipped huskiness, offers me an orange drink and flashes a brilliant smile, encouraging me to start my presentation.

I have difficulty breathing.

Half way through the presentation, I am distracted by the thought perhaps she is not wearing any garment of a restraining nature underneath her ochre robe. When she leans forward to look at the samples or reaches out to pick up the brochure, I have glimpses of, what at least in my fevered imagination seems to be, an alluring and endless cleavage.

I continue with my presentation.

Ma Yoga P___ has a sort of guileless self-confidence that comes so naturally to most good-looking people, so when she crosses and uncrosses her long legs that makes her robe ride up her calf, it is with no deliberate intent to tease or to provoke. She is just being herself. She seems to be a genuinely nice person and I warm up to her.

To my surprise, after the official discussion, I find myself discussing Philosophy with her. We talk about J. Krishnamurthy and Acharya Rajneesh and the difference in their respective approaches to the same spiritual issues. She takes me to a huge, impressive library lined with books from wall to wall and asks me to choose a book. I pick up Rajneesh’s treatise on Tao.

On my way back, I dwell on the extreme dualities that can co-exist in the human mind. Sex and Spirituality, for instance.

I am smiling.