दिलदार बीडी नो: २०२

There I was minding my own business, like I always do on the tube, miserable and tired from the daily grind, eagerly looking forward to going back home to a hot cuppa and a lot of food when I was given the lesson of my life on globalisation.
 
I was on the 1945 train from Uxbridge to Aldgate, the precise geographic location eludes me, suffice to say, it was in England! Completely knackered from a hard day at the office, I could barely keep myself from drifting off over the book I was trying to read. As is normal, I checked my surroundings just to make sure I was not surrounded by any dodgy looking characters (wink, wink!!!). To my left was a slightly inebriated gentleman; opposite me was another elderly gentleman, the very vision of calm, with the wizened air that only age can bring.

Diagonally to my right, were two girls who were carrying a suitcase and carry on bag each, chattering away in a language I did not quite understand, it must therefore, be French. All this is regulation occupancy for the train thus far. What made it unusual was the luggage they were carrying.

The suitcase for girl 1 was nothing remarkable, regulation airline baggage, soft suitcase. The carry on bag this girl had was also not quite remarkable, it was a shoulder bag with a lot of paint dabbed on at strategic places, but not making any sense. A modern artist might interpret that as the calm waves an ocean creates or a soothing orangish river of lava flowing toward the sea. I'm no artist; leave alone modern artist, hence the bag shall remain, in my mind, a shoulder bag over which paint spilled.

Girl number 2, on the other hand was the one who gave me the education on globalisation. She too was carrying a regulation suitcase, hard plastic this time. Her carry on baggage was also cloth. The writing on it was in a language that was strangely familiar. The bag had a picture of a sunrise between two mountains. The square picture was divided into four quadrants, the bottom 2 quadrants were black, depicting the mountains and carried the writing. The top left quadrant was a bright orange indicating sunrise and the top right one was blue indicating night. A beautiful picture and that's probably why the girl picked the bag up in the first place. But the writing carried the surprise...

I squinted my eyes and jogged my tired mind before identifying the language as Hindi. My second language in school was Hindi, several of my friends are Hindi and the operational language in Dubai, where I worked for three years, is for practical purposes, Hindi. Having identified the writing, it took but a minute to read it. The writing read:


दिलदार बीडी नो: २०२
दाम कम, स्वाद उथ्थम
वितरक: निजामुद्दीन बीडी कंपनी 
दुलियाजान, मुर्शिदाबाद (पंजाब)

Translated, that is:
Dildar Beedi No: 202
Low price, supreme taste
Distributor: Nijamuddin Beedi Company
Duliajan, Murshidabad (Punjab)

I was blown to bits by this. A French girl in England holding a bag advertising a beedi from Punjab was such a stupid marketing strategy!!! Did the boffins at Nijamuddin Beedi Company think someone looking at the advert in England will hop onto a plane to India to buy their beedi? A beedi for heavens sake, who did they think we are, Rajnikanth? A few minutes of gaping open mouthed at the bag later, I realised NBC probably did not advertise, but it was globalisation at play here.

NBC probably didn't have a clue as to how the girl got the bag or what it's doing in the UK. For all you know, the owner of NBC probably hasn't stepped out of Duliajan. By some stroke of global networking, I suppose some visitor from Punjab left the bag in the house of the people he/she visited in the UK, who would have given the bag to carry some shopping to their neighbours, who in turn could have left it with the girl, it is a small world after all! Or quite simply the girl could have picked up the bag on her last visit to India (which is a little far fetched considering Punjab is not quite on the top of the list for 'foren' tourism).

In any case, NBC has presence in the UK and girl mostly likely thinks the letters form part of the artwork. Little does she know.

PS: I suppose you would have noted that the punch line for Diladar Beedi No: 202 is that it's cheap, agreed, but it also says that the taste is supreme...does tobacco have a taste? All I know is smoking makes you stink a stink that's not too different from a skunk, while a beedi makes you stink a stink that is not unlike a skunk, that's angry and has a serious gas problem after eating a diet of baked beans while it is eating raw garlic and onions.

Stick around and you are toast....burnt toast

I'm not quite sure who did it or when the fire alarm was invented and I'm too lazy to check it up on Wikipedia. It's normally an extremely useful device when things go wrong. Although I am sceptical at times on the real use of the thing in small houses. I mean, when there is a fire, one could possibly see flames, smell the smoke, feel the heat or even hear the crackle of burning furniture. For an alarm to be of real use, the person in the house on fire would need to be completely challenged of all sensory perceptions or they need to be unconscious, in either case, the alarm itself is moot. If a person cannot hear, see, smell or feel, I suppose there is no point in an alarm screaming its little heart out or flashing all colours of the rainbow. I am aware of a certain camp that insists fire alarms are creatures that warn you in advance and all that, they may have a point. Maybe it is, I don't know. The only experiences I have had with fire alarms have all been unpleasant, comical even.

Situation #1:

Back in the heady bachelor days, there was a strong urge to create food. I use the word 'create' deliberately since chefs in many hotels do believe they 'create' food and make sure this is adequately reflected in the description of the dish in the menu. Said urge to create food stemmed from the fact that I was too lazy to leg it to Chennai Dosa for a decent Indian meal and there is only so much pizza you can order for delivery. And don't even get me started on the costs...

While the mind understands these factors, the stomach wouldn't and it would begin nagging the brain at regular intervals and my brain, weak as it is in these matters, would let me know I'm hungry just to shut out the din the stomach was creating. Everyone knows the brain 'controls' all actions of the body, however, my body is more democratic and my legs would, well, put up its legs and say, "no way I'm going out in the cold all the way to the hotel, just so the lump of lard above me can fill up, I ain't movin' out of my place." The brain would then run to my hand and ask if it was willing to help out in the overall scheme of things. After initially rejecting any notion of movement, the hand would grudgingly agree to help. Persistent fellow, this brain of mine. Once the support of the hands was obtained, the brain would take the hands and stomach along for support and convince the legs to make their way to the kitchen. That's the story of how I began cooking. Each day. Bi-weekly to be more precise. God bless the refrigerator.

I digress, as usual. Countless films and an even greater number of youth have discovered that cooking is an unforgiving art and it takes only the smallest error in judgement or the lightest delay for the food to burn. I'm no artist; hence the burning function would happen quite often. All it takes is a bit of smoke from the burnt food to set the smoke alarm, lovingly placed just outside the kitchen, off and it would start clanging away. And boy, does it clang! It would take an adrenaline filled few minutes to fan the smoke way from the alarm to make it shut up.

My question is this, why did the blasted thing go off? Don't I know I'm burning my food? For heaven's sake, I'm going to eat the ruddy concoction, burnt or not, so I, of all people would know the food is burnt. I see no need to advertise the fact to anyone who cared to hear.

I have battled the urge to connect hammer to smoke alarm several times and got married before my resolve weakened. The wife, I'm glad to say, has only set off the alarm twice in her 10 odd months in the kitchen in our house. The fire alarm lives to this day...

Situation #2:

My job requires me to visit different clients, virtually one a day. An office is a commercial establishment. All commercial establishments are plagued by the misery that is health and safety. Different clients have different approaches to fire safety. While all of them would kindly advice you to run like the wind should the fire alarm go off, they have different approaches to ensuring the alarm goes off in the first place. I might need to mention that none of them test the alarms with burnt food; they should try it, highly effective.

Some client's test the alarm once a month on a designated date and time. Others test them only at the frequency required by law. Still others test them every week. There are client's who are in buildings with more people on health and safety than the number of people who built the building. Here the tests are insane. Twice a week, random tests, extended tests, PA test, this test, that test. It's bonkers.

The alarms themselves are different in tone and method of notification. I have tried to reproduce some of them. Since I am running out of ideas on how to emphasise the type of notification and the urgency of notification. The urgency is denoted by the space (dots) between the tones.

My office: beepbeepbeepbeep...beepbeepbeepbeep...beepbeepbeepbeep...beepbeepbeepbeep...beepbeepbeepbeep...beepbeepbeepbeep...
Client#1: krrrrrrrrrr.krrrrrrrrrr.krrrrrrrrrr.krrrrrrrrrr.krrrrrrrrrr.krrrrrrrrrr.krrrrrrrrrr.
Client#2: tingtingtingtingtingtingtingtingtingtingtingtingtingtingtingtingtingtingtingtingtingtingtingtingting and my favourite,
Client#3: Attention please........attention please.........we are investigating an alarm condition..............it MAY be necessary to evacuate the building..........please stand by for further instructions.............................Attention please........attention please.........we are investigating an alarm condition..............it MAY be necessary to evacuate the building..........please stand by for further instructions.............................

You guessed it right, the maniacal testing of the alarm happens at Client#3. I've never quite stopped doubling up with laughter each time they test it. An alarm, as the word quite rightly puts it, is an alarm. The very sight/sound of it ought to invoke an adrenalin rush, which in turn is supposed to trigger the fight or flight mode in humans and make us get our backsides out of the place ASAP. Telling some it MAY be necessary to evacuate the building conveys no sense of urgency. If the makers of this alarm wanted to have a human voice for an alarm, it should probably say, "ATTENTION YOU LAZY BUMS, THERE'S PROBABLY A FIRE SOMEWHERE IN THE BUILDING AND IF YOU DON'T GET YOUR BACKSIDES OUT OF THAT CHAIR AND GET THE HELL OF THE BUILDING, YOU'RE PROBABLY GOING TO BECOME HUMAN BARBECUE AND THEN GO TO HELL ANYWAY, BUHAHAHAHA!!! MOVE, NOW!!!" Now, that would get people moving not someone telling people they MAY get fried if they stick around...

What I'd like to know is this: is the rage I have towards fire alarms normal?