Guess The Brand

Ever shared a workday morning lift ride down to ground with a maid who (evidently) works somewhere in the same apartment complex? And had her stare at you so intently you would have wondered if your fly was open or you’d spilled chutney on your shirt– except that you’d just spent half a minute in front of a sheesha making sure none of that was true? You might then begin to get the feeling she was lavisciously undressing you in her mind, playing Mrs Robinson to your stuttering Dustin. Nothing wrong with that, but there’s no point getting yourself excited when there’s nothing you can do about it for the rest of the day, is there? (And those damn elevators are so slow, you have to keep your eyes forward for so long you begin to feel like a cart-horse, you know?)

Or maybe my aftershave was too strong, that’s all.

Pass The Ashtray, Please

Ah, being smashed. The feeling of helplessness that comes as you stand bent over the shitpot, hand braced on the wall in front, world spinning ceaselessly around you—the realisation that you’ve drunk too much, you’re fucked, and there’s nothing you can do to save yourself until it passes with time. Just around then is when you start kicking yourself for being a kid, and vowing never to touch a drop of the dirty juice ever again, now and for evermore.

Let me tell you what’s worse, though. It’s falling ill after a weekend of over-exuberantly boisterous raging, as they call it over there in Mumbhai. Seriously, violently sick. Making you miss work for 2 days 2 weeks into your first jawb.

It was not fun at all, lying there all alone, gasping with pain that assorted tablets were unable to relieve. Eyeballs burning like little suns; burning so hard I began to fear for my optic nerves. Bringing up everything that went down, and farts smelling of the medicines I’d taken, meaning they weren’t being absorbed too well. Brr.

It makes you realise just how stupid you have to be to fuck with your health. It may be time to vow to stay off the dirty smokes for now and evermore. Yes, I think so. Chest infections, productive coughs, and dirty hankies are unattractive even on Hugh’s Jackman.

Bombay was awesome, though. Great weather, great London-returned friends who put the bills on their account, and fucking where else in this country can you take an auto from anywhere to anywhere and be charged only 9 bucks as the meter fare? 9 bucks! And they even give you the 1 rupee change! I stood on Carter Road that evening, lovely breeze whipping my hair around, and listened to Ohj rate all the hot women who walked by (and there were quite a few) out of 10. One of them in particular quite perplexed him: he’d revise her rating every time she walked past. He finally settled on 7.5. Me? I don’t need ratings. It’s more a yes/no proposition, and it’s almost always ‘yes’. Life is a lot simpler that way.

And then you get back to Madras airport and hear the autowallahs spout ridiculous shit—250 rupees to Velachery (maybe 10 km?)—and you sneer at them with all the contempt you can muster, and walk towards the main road to find a more reasonable man. (100 bucks.)

I’m trying to find one distinctive thing about this city that I can point to and say, “Look—Madras is a nice place because of this.” Not doing very well, so far, am I. The beaches are a candidate, if you fancy oily pakodas and a distinct taste of salt in the air you breathe, but the seas aren’t safe to swim in and the beaches aren’t safe to hang out in, thanks to liberal moral-fucking-policing by our moustachioed brethren as well as (sadly) gangraping by fishermen and others, so what’s the bloody point?

Ah, being smashed. The feeling of helplessness that comes as you stand bent over the shitpot, hand braced on the wall in front, world spinning ceaselessly around you—the realisation that you’ve drunk too much, you’re fucked, and there’s nothing you can do to save yourself until it passes with time. Just around then is when you start kicking yourself for being a kid, and vowing never to touch a drop of the dirty juice ever again, now and for evermore.

Let me tell you what’s worse, though. It’s falling ill after a weekend of over-exuberantly boisterous raging, as they call it over there in Mumbhai. Seriously, violently sick. Making you miss work for 2 days 2 weeks into your first jawb.

It was not fun at all, lying there all alone, gasping with pain that assorted tablets were unable to relieve. Eyeballs burning like little suns; burning so hard I began to fear for my optic nerves. Bringing up everything that went down, and farts smelling of the medicines I’d taken, meaning they weren’t being absorbed too well. Brr.

It makes you realise just how stupid you have to be to fuck with your health. It may be time to vow to stay off the dirty smokes for now and evermore. Yes, I think so. Chest infections, productive coughs, and dirty hankies are unattractive even on Hugh’s Jackman.

Bombay was awesome, though. Great weather, great London-returned friends who put the bills on their account, and fucking where else in this country can you take an auto from anywhere to anywhere and be charged only 9 bucks as the meter fare? 9 bucks! And they even give you the 1 rupee change! I stood on Carter Road that evening, lovely breeze whipping my hair around, and listened to Ohj rate all the hot women who walked by (and there were quite a few) out of 10. One of them in particular quite perplexed him: he’d revise her rating every time she walked past. He finally settled on 7.5. Me? I don’t need ratings. It’s more a yes/no proposition, and it’s almost always ‘yes’. Life is a lot simpler that way.

And then you get back to Madras airport and hear the autowallahs spout ridiculous shit—250 rupees to Velachery (maybe 10 km?)—and you sneer at them with all the contempt you can muster, and walk towards the main road to find a more reasonable man. (100 bucks.)

I’m trying to find one distinctive thing about this city that I can point to and say, “Look—Madras is a nice place because of this.” Not doing very well, so far, am I. The beaches are a candidate, if you fancy oily pakodas and a distinct taste of salt in the air you breathe, but the seas aren’t safe to swim in and the beaches aren’t safe to hang out in, thanks to liberal moral-fucking-policing by our moustachioed brethren as well as (sadly) gangraping by fishermen and others, so what’s the bloody point?

Just To Say

Work went well today! Some responsibility and some praise from a partner. And I have nowhere else to commemorate it that I won’t eventually discard as scrap paper or as an extra file cluttering up my hard drive.

I hope this weekend lives up to its raging expectations. And that Bombay doesn’t flood, stranding me there on Monday morning. Happy first-weekend-after-Perakath-started-working to you!

Zenzibar?

It turns out I’ve joined the kind of office where people don’t stay at work late.

It’s a small office; 15 lawyers plus half again administrative staff. Multiple window units rather than central air-conditioning. The IT system is competent but not high-tech: I have completely unrestricted internet access and administrator privileges on my system. I would give dirty stuff a go if I weren’t stuck in a cubicle positioned such that anyone walking to or from the office door is bound to glance at my screen as they go by.

Official hours (as far as you can have such things in a law firm) are 9.30 to 7. People start streaming out at the stroke of 7.05, smiling goodnight to one and all as they pass. By 8 pm there are usually only two or three lawyers left tapping away at their computers. By 8.30 the office boy on ‘late duty’ goes around switching off lights, air conditioners, and the library computer (which has access to special databases). Ever been in a bar at closing time when they want you to just finish your damn drink and get the heck out of there?

But this poor soul (like the barmen) has to stay behind until the last lawyer leaves, lock up, bike to his home, and still be the first to reach the office the next morning. I can’t bring myself to stay at work later than 9 pm, for his sake. Seeing as I have no woman or family or even tv to go home to at night, and seeing as I’ve just started work (4 days in!), and seeing as I really enjoy the work I’m doing, I’d be quite happy to stay at work until 11 or so each night. Get something substantial done each day, not simply wind up at a specified time. But I can’t. Dammit, Kyle!

***

(Yup, so I can whine even about being kicked out of work early each night, instead of being made to slave ungodly hours all week. I thought so too.)

This weekend– BOMBAY! Hope I don’t drown before I make it to the Hard Rock or wherever it is we’re going on Saturday night.

One Time I Just Looked At One, But It Didn’t Pop Open

So before brassieres became widespread, around the start of the 20th century, women in the West mostly used corsets to support them awesome li’l jugs on their chests, it would seem.

But what of the subcontinent? The Western shirt-pant-shoes-chaddi style of outfittage has been relatively widespread for centuries now, but before the whities came along in their large wooden sailing boats, what did the average Indian woman wear to support her twin cups? Did she wear anything? The sari blouse performs that function, I suppose. But were saris all women wore, all the time?

Relatedly, does the average contemporary woman off the street in rural or semi-urban India wear a bra? Is it a widespread fashion, or something only the more upper-class wear? What is the desi version of the bra?

Do any of you have any idea? Pictures will go some way to support your argument.

Dentistschair

Do you know what it feels like to be lying there, have the fellow peer into your mouth, then drop everything and excitedly call his colleague: “Philip! Come and look at this!”?

It was the excitement that got to me. Two grown men standing around chirping animatedly about what the heck that thing in my mouth could be.

You don’t want to know, I’m sure, so I’ll let it lie.

Singara Shit

The man standing behind the bar is paunchy, unshaven, dirty, wearing a purple vest and a lungi, and smoking slightly at the ears.

“RC, Old Monk, ethuvum illainga,” he says dryly as he turns his attention to the next rowdy thrusting a note at him and yelling for what he wants. Awesome. They don’t even have Royal Challenge whisky. I look around me and shudder with disgust.

In Delhi too people drink on the pavement and road just outside a theka, but at least it’s mostly only beer. They buy roasted peanuts from the inevitable stall outside, smokes from the paanwallah squatting on the ground near the peanut man, open their bottle crowns with their teeth or with an opener proffered by an old hag who charges for her services. Then they hang around near their vehicles and drink quietly.

In Madras the ground outside the theka is covered with a sea of plastic cups that dirty Tamil men have used to swig their horrible hard liquor. They’re so fucking dirty, those unshaven men in their dirty clothes. They’re dirty, and smelly, and ugly, and they know no better. I can’t imagine how girls buy stuff to drink in this city– I wouldn’t let any girl I know anywhere near the service window.

And what horrible stuff it is. Old Monk rum is a rarity. ACP whisky (my poison of choice) isn’t even available. MGM is the de facto vodka– and let me tell you, it’s fucking pigswill. “EmCee” is a standard whisky here– McDowell’s No. 1. That’s the whisky my chowkidar used to drink. Pthooey. Old Cask, Three Crosses, Dead Man– what fucking shit brands are these? Why can’t they sell Bacardi and Breezers and Smirnoff and Romanov and Cap’n Morgan and Jack and Jim and scotch and at least, for goodness’ sake, Shark Tooth or (yuck) Magic Moments or Fuel vodka and Blue Riband gin, like they do all over the rest of the country? And would it kill them to have a few bottles of wine in a ‘wine shop’? Do they want to remain dirty, ugly shops selling dirty, ugly booze? Maybe they should be sent to visit the store I used to frequent in Gurgaon. Stella, Kingfisher, and Carlsberg; that’s all we bought from there! And the storekeeper used to at least wear a shirt.

There are few things more depressing than a Tamil Nadu TASMAC wine shop. That experience (we were eventually stuck with a half of EmCee) brought on a rather severe wave of Delhisickness– enough to make me not feel like drinking that night. I miss the damn city like hell. I am after all South Indian, so I feel slightly traitorous saying this, and Madras is nice enough in small doses, but fuck, I hope I’m out of here in a year.

I need to go to a nice bar and order a gin and tonic and see the more upwardly mobile side of this city. Stat.

My Cat Died

Grandmother cat, she was. We stopped naming our cats after the first four or so; they were all toms who’d eventually wander off and get run over on the road that bisects the campus, or get killed by stray dogs, or some such.

Grandmother cat was the first female we took in. I don’t recall who we got her from; I think she was Nebu’s cat Speedy’s sibling. I remember her cowering under the fridge the day we got her; frightened to death of these giant legs who kept trying to rub her on the head.

Her personality changed the day we got her spayed by the Blue Cross, after two sets of litters (which produced Mother Cat, Big Fat, Wee One, and all the other siblings). Those fucking bastards took out her ovaries as well, which was needless and mean. I swear to Lucifer her personality changed after that. She became far more reticent and aloof. Eventually we shifted house and she refused to shift with us. She adopted another house instead; the Balraj’s. They fed her well, and she’d hang around their garden when she wasn’t off doing her own thing.

And it was in their garden that she died yesterday. Died painfully. Ripped apart by two stray dogs in her own home. Fucking dogs. Fucking dog-lovers. I hate them. I hate you. Have you ever heard of a pack of cats hunting down and killing a dog? They don’t need to. They don’t need to prove anything to anyone. Not like a horny, salivating, smelly, drooling, leg-raising mutt. Thoo! I remember when Dhurgoose lost one of his kittens (Salt, or was it Pepper?) to a pack of dogs as well. Bloody mongrels. Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, as Salvor Hardin used to say.

Dr B buried the mangled remains of Grandmother C in his garden at 11 last night.

I never used to understand why before, but don’t make fun of people who get upset when their pets die.

The Son Ran Track For the US Junior Team

On my first night at home (that is to say, namely speaking, the Parental Abode), we had over a guest and his son for dinner. Bigwig at the University of California, was the guest: so biggywiggy that he just called it ‘UC’, not UCLA, or UCBerk, or UCIrvine, or even (sneer) UCSD.

Bigwig medical researcher told us about a student he had interacted with the previous day, a Muslim called Mohammed. Mohammed is a Hazaara Afghani, and if you’ve read The Kite Runner you know what that means. Persecution and rape by ethnic Pashtuns in your own country; all that kind of thing.

So Mohammed’s dad was killed by the Taleban, poor fellow. His mom remarried, but their troubles didn’t end, what with the Soviet invasion and all. So when Mohammed was 14, he crossed the border– solo– into Pakistan, and managed to apply for and receive asylum in the United Kingdom despite not speaking a word of English. He went to that country alone, taught himself English, finished high school, graduated from UCL, and now, 8 years after landing in England, is a medical student at Cambridge ( = fantastic grades in college) and a visiting scholar at Vellore. He plans to visit his parents in Afghanistan next month, for the first time in 8 years.

Now that’s what I call courage, Volume 1.

Feel good about what you’re doing with your life right now?

MBA Peraface

So this one time, I was at a Gurgaon mall, killing ten minutes before going in to waste two hours of my life watching Ice Age 3 (although I did laugh a fair bit), and we hadn’t had dinner, so I was feeling peckish, so I bought myself a doughnut, eventually picking the blueberry filling over the cinnamon ring, and I went to the register to hand over my 35 bucks to pay, and the guy at the register pointed out their summer special offer, which meant that I could get that selfsame doughnut (any ‘nut, in fact) PLUS an iced tea (any drink, if nact) for five rupees less, that being to mean 35 bucks for the doughnut alone, but 30 bucks for the doughnut plus tea, that’s the most stupid limited period business plan ever, just give me the drink for free, ye fool, don’t reduce the price of your product AND give me a freebie when I’m perfectly happy to pay full price for the dough in the first.

I didn’t even want the damned tea. I never want iced tea.