The not-so-secret diary

Feel massively proud that India has launched a successful Mars mission on its first try. Some cool statistics show that : a)The ISRO scientists took just three years from inception to successful launch of the Mars Orbiter Mission (aka MOM). b) It cost India just $74 million to launch the Mangalyaan (literally Mars Craft). This is a fraction of the cost that it has taken three others (Russia, USA and Europe) to do the same. c) India is also the first country to have launched it successfully on its first attempt. Yippee! d) There has been a fun twitter chat between the US Mars Rover Curiosity and the Indian Mars Orbiter as they acknowledged each other. e) Last interesting anecdote: It cost $100 million to make the Hollywood space movie 'Gravity'.    Jai Ho!

I may have come five years later than everyone else but I like to think that, like seasoned wine, Dishoom's food is tastier now than it was at the start. So I heard all about yet another new Indian restaurant in town a few years ago. It was styled along an old Bombay cafe. Funnily enough I was about to re-locate to Mumbai just around then (and that's also the time when i started this blog). So needless to say, visiting a Mumbai-style restaurant in London was not high priority! When back in London after my short India-stint, I felt sated enough for about a year to keep away from desi food hang outs. But last year was a turning point in more ways than one and I found myself making more rotis/ paranthas in a month than I'd done in a decade.  In my quest to avoid this weekly grind, scouting for good Indian restaurants became a temporary past-time. It was finally a cousin and a friend who dragged me to Dishoom for afternoon tea, leaving me hooked (perhaps for life) to t...

In fact they are better than the best. Walking along one of my most favourite parts of town, the South Bank in London, I saw the little van parked just past Riverside Wharf (west of Blackfriars). I know it's been there for some time (a few months? a whole year?) and I've always managed to walk past it without slowing my stride. On this day, the sky was slightly overcast, there was a post-rain chilliness in the air and a light wind was blowing. Aided by the wind, the fragrance of freshly baked donuts wafted across the pathway, bumping lightly on the tall heads of passing tourists and heading right into my tiny nostrils. My feet carried me, in a zombie-like state, to the little van where a nice lady was scooping a fresh lot of mini-doughnuts out of her large pan. I asked for £2 worth. She smiled and put some in a bag. Now I must state that I'm not a crazy doughnut fan. I usually find them too sweet and give up after having a quarter. But these mini donuts were bite-siz...

Not that my blog was ever in danger of becoming extinct, but it did require some virtual affection. So I'm back with some gupshup. Before I moan about August, the summer month that is increasingly turning non-summer, I must mention the surprise that June had in store for me. While wading through knee high grass in a certain district of SW20 in London I chanced upon clumps of shiny red fruit peeking out from wide green leaves. Closer investigation led me to squeal in delight. Rows of juicy-looking strawberries stared at me,  just in time to welcome the start of the tennis season. I instantly went strawberry picking till both hands were full. Dusk was falling so I stopped. The following day I went out better-prepared and filled a small tupperware box. Soon two friends joined me in picking the latest 'crop' of strawberries. The unanimous verdict was something like 'yummm'. It wasn't long before Friday came and I found myself heading for the tennis courts a...

For better or worse, the Tescofication of India is still some years away but I have no doubt it will occur. In the meanwhile several domestic supermarket chains (Big Bazaar, Reliance Fresh, D-Mart and Spencers) have sprung up all across urban India. Often quirky, these superstores have loud announcements, piles of goods and BOGOs (Buy One Get One offers) at every aisle-end. A friend tells me they did extensive market research and found that the ' middle' middle class which they want to capture feels more at-home in this bazaar-type atmosphere albeit in an air-conditioned, enclosed setting. These superstores are mushrooming around towns as city-dwellers get used to sashaying down the aisles with their trolleys. Alas, the fruit and vegetable markets such as the Monday Bazaar in Mayur Vihar Phase1 (a part of east Delhi  I have grudgingly come to accept as the 'new family home') may soon become a thing of the past. Is it just me who thinks that cities across India wil...

I’ve probably been to Ahmedabad as a child but my first memory of the city was attending a university festival in CEPT in the late 1990s. The enthusiasm and pranks of college days combined with fun dance and antakshri nights make any city exciting and the same happened with A’bad. My first realistic take on the city was when I travelled there on work in the year 2000 and later continued to visit friends. I've always found it a well-planned, friendly city with lively residents who like to eat out, shop and wander around town in the cool summer evening and even late at night. The one thing that always impresses me are the young girls zooming around purposefully on their scooties. They are all identically dressed as mini-dacoits with jazzy sunglasses, colourful duppattas covering head, mouth, nose and long gloves covering their forearms. You wonder why? Well what better way to counter the impact of the heat, dust and unwanted tan! Ahmedabad is also the place for maska-b...

The feeling of being at the extremity of any land mass is interesting. But being at the southernmost tip of the Indian sub-continent was exhilarating. I managed to dip my toes in the cool blue-green waters of Kanyakumari , the southernmost tip of India a few days ago. Lying in the state of Tamil Nadu (not far from the border with Kerala), this piece of land has seen a rich history, passing through the hands of several kings and colonial powers. I have dozens of beautiful, touristy pictures of Kanyakumari but I must first share the one below. Here is yet another Indian 'trinity' that says a lot about India, similar to  something I spotted in Delhi a few weeks ago. Facing the Indian ocean, at the southernmost tip of India is this pillar-based temple structure. A temple at the end of land is very apt for a country where religion, culture and nature are bound closely together. On the left are some bags of cement. Over my few weeks of travel across India I have seen...

I could have spent several days or weeks just looking at the seaside activities that form a part of the typical day at Papanasam beach in Varkala. I must start by admitting that I only caught the sunrise once. That too from my room which faced the Arabian Sea and was close enough to hear the waves crashing all through the night. The sun rise was lovely but my pillow felt lovelier so I went back for a snooze! Had I ventured out before the crack of dawn I would have seen a dozen or more priests create little mounds of sand and prepare the prayer material for religious visitors who arrive at dawn to perform specific rituals.   This is what the scene is like just before breakfast time when the priests have started their prayers. Around the same time local fishermen who have been parked out in the sea the night before come back with a haul of fresh fish. We saw the dots of light every night where their tiny boats were bobbing up and down on the huge...

  A few weeks ago, with moderate encouragement from my sister, I found myself at the seaside town and health resort of Varkala in Kerala. After an hour’s taxi ride from Trivandrum we found ourselves at Papanasam Beach (Paap = Sin, Nasam/ Nasham = Destroy). There are two legends about this beach. The first is that Brahma (creator of the universe in Hindu mythology) instructed a Pandyan king to build a temple here to wash away sins. The second legend is that Narada, at the request of some pilgrims who confessed wrongdoing, threw his valkalam (piece of cloth) and it landed here where pilgrims now come to dip in the holy waters. This post is about the sandy beach and the lovely surroundings which you cannot miss. A more tongue-in-cheek take on Varkala is saved till my next post!   If slowing down is what you need (and I sure did) then this was the perfect place for it. Luckily we arrived towards the end of the tourist season so ...

I have been traversing a bit further than my usual haunts this time. It's been over 12 years since I was last in Kerala on one of my earliest assignments with my very first employer. I recall wide avenues leading to the State Secretariat, a daunting lady to whom we presented our results (she seemed pleased!) and a short visit to the backwaters and Kovalam beach which in those days was still relatively quiet. This time, while enroute to Varkala a stop at Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum) was an opportunity to renew my memories of the town and do the regular 'tourist run'. With just about half a day at our disposal, the first stop was the Napier Museum which is housed in a pretty building in the beautifully landscaped 'Museum and Zoo' compound. The museum has a moderate range of 12th century wooden statues, ivory and metal sculptures. However it is pitifully lacking in labels, information and dates. Across the road is the new, interactive museum which we didn't...

Just as Meerut links me to my naani (maternal grandmother), Mathura links me to my daadi (paternal grandmother). This spring, as I travelled through northern India I saw both small towns and large cities crying for infrastructure. However the cities of Delhi, Mathura and Agra have less  reason to complain as just a handful of cars zoom on the three-lane Yamuna Expressway connecting these towns.               Aligarh and Mathura, both once-renown centres of learning and spirituality, appear to have lost some of their sheen amidst dug-up roads and mushrooming shops and houses.             These street scenes below are again reminiscent of anywhere-in-India. I have yet to come across a town in India that doesn't have a tangled mess of wires in a public space!           ...