dhabha diary

You are in Pondicherry. Turn north at Pattanikadai junction and you are on West Boulevard. Maybe 50 meters down the road, on the left side of the street, there used to be a movie theater called Navina (I think). Close to it was this little hotel. Don't remember the name. Small frontage, but deep. Remember the hotels of small town Tamil Nadu in the 70s and 80s? Green neon light at the entrance. Also, the large tava upon which the master (the cook) would make podi mash (scrambled eggs), expertly beating out a ringing tattoo with two metal spatulas.Like Pavlov's dog, your digestive juices should be flowing now.

This hotel made the best parotta/mutton kurma that I have tasted. The parottas were small, only a little bigger than iddlis. Soft and redolent with ghee, they would melt in the mouth. The kurma was thick and spicy, with perfectly cooked soft chunks mutton.

for heaven's sake

Some years back I had occasion to trek through Ponmudi as part of a team conducting a survey among tribals. The jeep left us at the edge of the forest, where the tarred road came to an end, and we set out in search of tribal hamlets. The ‘road’ narrowed progressively and then began to climb, and soon we were pushing our way, single file, through shoulder-high grass. After an hour or so of this, we stopped to rest. Everyone was too out of breath to speak and it was then that we became conscious of the stillness. So accustomed were we to the sounds of city life that it came almost as a shock to us – this absence of noise. And yet I recognized it; it reminded me of something, I’m not sure what. Of time spent in the womb, perhaps. Or my childhood days in small-town Oddissa; a time when cell phones had not yet been invented, when 24-hour music and news channels were just fanciful thoughts, when the few cars on the road did not make irritating PIP-PIP-PIP sounds in reverse gear, and when the neighbor’s teenage son did not have a 5000-Watt music system to fool around with on a hot Sunday afternoon.

There must be only a few havens like Ponmudi left in this jangling world. That is why I was so pained to see G. Madhavan Nair insist upon—and get—Ponmudi as the site for the prestigious IIST. Another bit of paradise gone! Imagine if, instead, he had asked the government to give him the worst, most useless, piece of land in Kerala and if he had then proceeded to use all the cutting-edge technology at his command to convert the wasteland into something that would rival Ponmudi. That would have been an achievement to be proud of. Much better than sending a rocket to the moon half a century after the Russians and Americans had done so.

voices in the wind

Summer is drawing to a close. There is a slow breeze blowing in from the west. This is the breeze that will soon bring the monsoon to Kerala. This must be the breeze that billowed the sails of Vasco da Gama's ships as he sailed into Kappad on May 27,1498.

On this hot afternoon, I sit in the shade of the mango tree and feel the light breeze on my back. If I listen carefully I can hear the excited calls of the Portuguese sailors as they approach land after almost a month on the sweltering seas.

Did they walk through the streets, gaping at the bare-breasted Malabarese women carrying baskets full of mambazham to the weekly market? One of the sailors must have picked up a yellow fruit from a bamboo basket and bitten into it and felt the warm juice soak into his scurvious gums. 



              According to Merriam-Websters dictionary the origin of the word mango:

              Portuguese manga, probably from Malayalam māṅṅa

              First Known Use: 1582

Sachin Tendulkar: 99 is enough

Why is everyone so afraid to say that Sachin Tendulkar must go? I have just been watching a Karan Thapar interview of Bishen Singh Bedi. Even the otherwise outspoken Bedi just wouldn't come out and say it. Instead, he says: Sachin must be allowed to decide. If he does not make the decision, the Board must decide (to drop him?). When cornered by Karan, Bedi takes recourse to statements like "we are just pygmies compared to Sachin" or "imagine what he has done for the country."

Exactly what has he done for the country? Did he make some great sacrifice? Did he risk life and limb in the service of the country? Did he sincerely grind away at some boring government job so that he could take home a few thousand rupees?

All he did was to continue doing what he enjoyed most--playing cricket. And, what is more, he got paid for it. He earned not a government employee's salary but unmentionable sums.

Ask not what he has done for his country, but what his country has done for him. May be it's time for him to retire and coach youngsters. To give something back to the country that gave him everything.