Perils of Volvo

Volvo town buses are a great hit in Bangalore, especially amongst techies (I can see some techies objecting to the term ‘town buses’ as condescending, after all IT guys are of a rare pedigree and isn’t town bus a trifle demeaning?). It will generally be not that wrong to assume that a travel in Volvo ought be a nice, cool and pleasant experience and especially after shelling out  quite a generous (or extortionate) fare. Alas, things are not that simple in this complex world. From outside everything looks swanky and great, but inside it’s a different story altogether.

The music system will blare all the inanities dished out by the plethora of radio stations and the ads repeated ad nauseam. The repeated requests to the conductor to tone down the volume will go unheard. You can’t do anything except grit your teeth and endure the torture. The office hours will be crowded like hell and if you don’t get a seat you really had it. You will have to sway as the bus sways and believe me this is not a laughing matter and more so as most roads in Bangalore are in perennial repair mode. Getting a seat is another issue and you may even have to indulge in some strategies to grab one. You have to watch with eagle eyes for the slightest movement like somebody putting their books, music headsets or such paraphernalia in their bags or making a gesture to get out. Also listen keenly for the slight rustles and so on, I think you got the point. Then you jostle your way to that place either brashly or subtly, even if it means trampling on someone’s toes. If the goddess of luck smiles then you can have the seat. But most of the time Murphy will always smile on you. The moment you move from the place where you were standing for a good 45 minutes, the seats in that vicinity would get vacated only for you to see someone who had just hopped on the bus to occupy it and you will let out a silent scream, curse your luck and what not!

The seats aren’t that wide and if by any chance a person of liberal girth sits besides, you really have a nice journey trying to wriggle and squirm in your seat in your futile attempts not to get your shoulders chaffed. The biggest peril of all is the backpack missile and you really need to be ultra alert in negotiating these perilous and pernicious things. Techies as is their wont, will stuff their laptops in the backpack, sling it on the shoulders with an air of superciliousness and care two hoots about fellow passengers. They are IT, and if you cannot see the bright halos and the mysterious aura around them, well that’s’ your fault. At every twist and turn of the bus, accentuated by the air suspension in Volvo, you will be scrapped, chafed, frayed, brushed, bruised, pressed, squeezed and even compressed. Some of these bags are made up of material that really cuts thru the skin! It’s really an art dodging these obnoxious objects. You have to keep watching them closely as you have no idea when the guy will shift the weight to the other leg or turn any side or slump on you. Whatever may be the case one thing is for sure - You will get hit if you relax your vigil.

Another quirky thing is the a/c, one moment you will be blasted with cold air and you would want to close the vents above you and to your dismay you will find that it does not work in most of the buses. The next five minutes you will turn the vents in different directions to deflect the cold air blowing on you and finally give up throwing up your hands. For the next 20 minutes you will not have any air coming at all and again you will fiddle with the vents hoping something positive happens, after all did not Alexander Pope say –‘Hope springs eternal in the human breast’. Finally you emerge out of the bus raked all over, bent and bruised and heave a really big sigh. Deliverance at last!

Religion

Religion has been and is the curse of humanity. If one cares to browse the course of history it would be self evident that most of the horrors, massacres, pogroms, injustice and destruction have been perpetrated in the name of religion. Whether religion advocates or sanctions such gruesome acts or not, they are invariably committed under the banner of religion. Without a shadow of doubt, religion has been the root cause of untold misery and pain, both voluntary and forced, whether it’s the Spanish inquisition or burning of witches or the incarceration of people for innocuous reasons (Galileo), or the rigorous punishment meted out to innocent people or people inflicting pain on themselves in all manners.

It endlessly talks about renunciation, self-abnegation, abhorring all good things in life in exchange for some intangible things that you are supposed to gain after your death. All religions preach simple things like love, affection, kindness, mercy, compassion, charity, altruism, forgiveness, simple living, truth, honesty, veracity, justice and righteousness. Look around and you can see that these tenets are not followed and the champions of religion embrace all negatives of religion, twisting and interpreting the incomprehensible teachings in their own mendacious and flagitious ways. That is why we witness an orgy of violence, death and destruction from these angels of peace and love. They spew venom, spread hatred, incite violence and instigate divisiveness day after day.

The other unsavory side about religion (the soft underbelly) is that, it has been usurped and hijacked by the mandarins of ritualism who believe in endlessly muttering meaningless mumbo jumbo, which nobody understands or cares. This has really reduced religion to a farce, which is supposed to be a guiding light for leading a peaceful life. Rituals have become a sort of identity for people to cobble themselves into communities, clans, cabals, castes, sub castes, sects, factions and what not. These factions clutch and cling to rituals as if it’s their exclusive private property. What a funny thing, instead of people giving meaning to such rituals, they think that these rituals give them a meaning! God can be forgotten, love and kindness can be thrown to the air, mercy and compassion can be disregarded, truth and honesty can be buried, forgiveness and altruism can be blanked out, justice and right can be mangled but rituals alone should be held steadfast and continued like zombies. God save the people!

7 Taste Uthappam

7 Taste Uthappam

 It’s not everyday one tries something new and ends up with an of egg on ones’ face, not really an egg, but something close to that. Something that you did not expect and definitely not on the positive side or what you desired, even remotely. 

That was what happened to me on the other day at Hotel Saravana Bhavan at Mylapoor . Something which cannot be so easily forgotten and perhaps not to be forgotten either – It’s all about a fashionably sounding dish called 7 Taste Uthappam.

 Eating daily in hotels is not very exciting or enthusiastic. Deciding what to eat itself becomes an arduous and Herculean task, taxing your acumen and sapping your mental energy. Thinking what you ate in the morning, noon or night or the previous day, then trying all sorts of permutations and combinations and going crazy in the process, straining to conjure some new or different combination which will have to be within the boundaries of your habits, tastes and of course your dogmatic prejudices, is a daunting task of gargantuan proportions and the very thought will bring you dread and wrinkles on your forehead (kannu overaa  kathudhey). Needless to say it deprives you of precious time which otherwise would have been put to better use like solving the intractable problems of the world. What a pity for the world!!

 In this somber mood I and Srinivas graced hotel Saravana Bhavan in Mylapoor one night in January 2009. After going thru the motions of scanning the same old menu card which I almost memorized, I was on the verge of ordering the plebeian rava dosa when suddenly my eyes caught some quirky item called 7 taste uthappam. With a jerk I sat upright, read it again (not that it was in Greek or Latin) and for some time toyed with the idea of having that. People don’t understand the amount of courage and bravery required to do such things. To sail in unchartered waters, to walk the unbeaten path, to venture into the unknown. I called the waiter with a bit of fizz and I suspect the decibel level of the beckoning was a trifle more than desirable. And in a transient moment of injudicious enthusiasm and audacious daring bordering on reckless folly (this I only realized later) I ordered the 7 taste Uthappam rather triumphantly, which I presumed to be an exotic dish. The waiter gave me a sort of smug smirk and scurried away or rather I had a presentiment that he did. I was sort of beaming; you know the kind of mood when you make a momentous decision to try some great thing, like a great adventure into uncharted territory (to use a cliché), like having done something momentous. Now, it’s not the smugness which George Bush talks about WMD or the Iraqi - Al-Qaeda link or about ushering democracy to the barbarians (Bush thinks so) of the Middle East. I am not that unenlightened nor can stoop to such abysmal depths. But I still had a sort of stiff upper lip. Haven’t I done something smashing!! With this supercilious disposition I sat humming and drumming. Did I smack my lips in anticipation? Perhaps I did.

 Then the dish I ordered with so much zeal, a bit of smugness and a dash of adventurism – the so called 7 taste Uthappam came. I looked at my plate, shook my head, blinked, rubbed my eyes, and looked at it again. In awe struck consternation, unconsciously I let out a whistle or may be a shriek who knows! In front of me were seven dosais (I know that I am committing a travesty of justice a great disservice to the dosai species, I am constrained to use this term simply for want of a better word), each one just the size of a Horlicks bottle cap. Hmm! on second thoughts, may be even smaller than that. On top of each of these giant dosai were seven side dishes. The crowning glory of my great impeccable choice was in front me. On the top of dosais were dashes (you really can’t have less quantity than that as that would require the services of a magnifying glass) of white chutney, green chutney, red chutney, potato masala, Kissan jam, Ketchup and some other concoction. I wish I had looked at myself in the mirror at that moment. You bet my countenance would have been really worth watching. My jaws didn’t close, for how long I don’t know and I am sure my eyes were quite wide.

 Did I look sheepish! Of course! My god what a moment! And what a crash to my vaunted intelligence, knowledge, wisdom, erudition and what not! What a splendid way to smash an ego to smithereens!  Wa! Wa! 

I wouldn't dare to order a 7 Taste Uthappam anywhere in the universe. Once is enough. Indeed!