Tea, coffee, chai, vada...

I usually don't eat a lot. I'm happy for people who know me to disagree, but that's besides the point. I'm more than happy with my 3 sq. meals a day, sometimes even 2 are more than sufficient. However, I become a different animal altogether when I travel.

I'm not quite sure what harmone travel ticks off, but the moment I hit the road, sea or air, I start eating. It's almost like my stomach sends a petition to the brain. I think I've even figured out what the petition says:

                                              Memo for internal use only

Issuing department: Stomach and surrounding areas in collaboration with Tongue and Co.

Intended recipient: Brain

Dear Brain,

We note with a great amount concern that our ecosystem, i.e., the human we inhabit, is showing signs of increased movement. This, to us indicates that the human is travelling. As you are, no doubt, aware, travelling results in a great deal of action and involvement of other organs. To give you a few examples, the eyes are flooded with new information and sights, the ears are treated to new sounds and the skin, overall, senses new things such as weather, clothing etc., we, the stomach and surrounding areas in collaboration with Tongue and Co. (hereinafter referred to as "the petitioners") do not get any action at all until the destination is reached. Even there, depending on the human, we are sometimes provided with the same old food to process.

This results in daily taunts and bullying of the petitioners by the rest of the body. Unable to tolerate this anymore, we hereby humbly request you to issue an order to make the human feel like eating during travel.

Thanking you,

Yours sincerely

The Petitioners

Having received this petition, the brain, which happened to be in a particularly good mood, what with all the new sights and sounds of travel that it was suddenly reminded of, issued an order. A standing order, no less. The order stated simply: Granted. Human to feel like eating at all times during travel.

Whether that is the sequence of events, I will never be sure, however, it is pretty close to it, that I'm positive.

Ever since I can remember, I've always felt the urge to eat DURING travel. Whether it was during trips around the Nilgiris with my father on the old Avanti Kelivinator, or annual holidays to some place in India, travel became associated with eating. My father would take care of that. He would buy more or less anything and everything vegetarian to eat and he would buy it often.

Back then, the best trip I could think of would be on a train with a pantry car. That automatically ensured a steady supply of food. With a huge variety of food dished out by the IRCTC (the catering arm of the Indian Railways), the whole trip was filled with vadais, masala vadais, samosas, bread omelette (all time favourite, more on this below), all variety of dosas, idli (not very often, as it was not my favourite food), puris, tea and coffee (the coffee used to taste really bad, but we'd drink one anyway). Every major station would vastly improve the list to include parottas (also a fav.), biryani, varieties and varieties of rice.

The ideal trip was by Inter-City Express from Coimbatore to Chennai or Bangalore. This particular train had a very good pantry and the journey was only 6-8 hours long, which meant you could eat all of the above in 20-30 min intervals and not have to repeat the process till the return journey starts, a few days later. Besides, the cost was also sustainable as a whole day of eating would typically set us back around Rs. 150, this level of spending couldn't be sustained on longer journeys. Longer journeys meant the first day or two were covered by food from home, typically puries and my favourite type of potato curry, which we've helpfully named picnic curry, followed by biryani, puli sadam and thayir sadam which my mother would have packed and kept ready. These journeys were all about family time, with such a lot of food to be polished off!

Later on, as I grew older, the tendency to eat while travelling did not wane. Any road trip I took would be interrupted by food stops roughly every hour and a half. I remember one particularly adventurous journey from Coimbatore to Chennai (a distance of around 525km). I had managed to evade parental radar and travel by motorcycle. I left home at 5 a.m.

With the initial adrenalin kick of taking such a long trip on two wheels and the fact that I wanted to put enough distance between myself and Coimbatore before what I had done was discovered, thereby rendering an order to ask me come back to base and take the train futile, I made it non-stop to Salem, a distance of 150km in 3 hours, which, for the state of roads at the time, was faster than taking a bus and just half an hour slower than the train. As I entered Salem, I had to take the ring road to continue along the highway towards Chennai. Around 10km into the ring road, stomach and its henchman decided enough was enough. They had put up with me and kept quiet up until that point simply because of the control adrenalin had over them. With Salem breached, there was no way a return to base order would come now. They decided to erupt in protest and I became despertately hungry. Helpfully, there was a Saravanaa Bhavan in the vicinity and I started my first pitstop. Turned out to be a longish one since it took me the best part of an hour to start the bike up again.

Satisfied, I hit the road again and from then on, I would stop at every town that had more than a tea shop. Remember, I mentioned that at Salem, I was faster than a bus? Going by that logic, I should have reached Chennai around 3pm that afternoon. When I actually pulled into Chennai, it was well past 7pm, closer to 8, in fact. Around an hour of that delay could be reliably attributed to enjoying nature. The rest is all food.

The love of food during travel did not end when I left the shores of India to start my first job at Dubai either. Needless to say, I munched my way through most of the first flight of my life. Once there, I fell in love with discrete little tea shops that dot the highways of the middle east. These are all, invariably, run by a bloke from Kerala. These guys have the knack of making the best every omelette sandwich.

At this point, I feel obligated to differentiate the famous bread omelette of the Indian Railways and Gelf omelette sandwich. Please indulge me here. The bread omelette, is made up of 2 thickish slices of the softest white bread I have eaten in India. For some reason, I have not been able to find bread of comparable softness outside the railway. I do not, for the life of me, know why. Anyway, between these slices, there would be some ketchup and a perfectly spiced omlette made from 2 eggs with very finely chopped onion, tomato and green chilli. That is it. Nothing else. The Gelf omelette sandwich on the other hand was not exactly a sandwich. It consisted of a piece of malabar parotta, the layered, fluffy one, which would be made into a roll. The stuffing was a perfectly spiced omlette made from 2 eggs with very finely chopped onion, tomato and green chilli. That's right, the omlette was the same taste, not complaining though!

On the average trip of 200km in the UAE, I would make around 2.5 stops. Bear in mind that my average driving speed then was 100kmh, so that's 2.5 stops in 2 hours...just saying.

The UK is no different, the only difference being there is no one food that I can look forward to. Every 20 miles on the motorway, there is either a Burger King, starbucks, Costa or some such equally bland choice of food, but I still hit the brake every 2 service stations!

Moral of the story... this is an appeal to any enterprising Malayalee reading this post, my request is, the UK sorely needs an omelette sandwich and chai shop. Please invest!

Minnd the closing doors please!

Some are quiet, some a loud, some are meek, others ferocious. Some use the blessed phone, others don't need to. Some mumble, some jumble, other scream and we moan. Some chitter-chatter, others are aloof...you get the point, don't you? An astute reader of this blog would have already figured out what I'm talking about. If you haven't, you're just not astute enough. Yes, I am talking about train drivers/engineers or whatever fancy designation is given to them. In this post, they shall be called train drivers.

No brainer wasn't it? Allow me to explain.

"The average Londoner spends an average of 2 hours in a below average train on the average day". It's a fact no one can deny. Around an hour of each journey is spent hurtling down a dark, narrow tunnel with nary an idea as to distance or direction. The journey is bumpy, noisy and prone to "earlier signal failures" (wonder why  none of delays are due current signal failures or even signal failures...). In these dark and confusing times, the only beacon of hope is carried by train drivers. They pick up the public address system and enlighten the dull lives of their passengers by telling them which station they can look forward to next, why the train is not moving and even give you the excuse you can give for going late to your meeting. Just keeps the general excitement level up, keeps passengers on their toe and all that.

As with all good things in life, sadly, train drivers are human. So you will hear different accents, tones,  male voices, female voices, males with female voices and females with male voices. You also have wheezers, mumblers, screamers, chatter boxes and quietly efficient drivers etc. That's a lot of jargon there. I'm obliged to elaborate. Along with, where applicable, phonetic representations of the announcement, "Sorry about the delay ladies and gentlemen, we are just waiting for the signal to turn green ahead of us."

Wheezers: These are the fine people who breathe into the PA system. Passengers are treated to their every movement, breath or lack of it. "phphphphphph Sorry about the delay ladies and gentlemen, phphphphphph, we are just waiting phphphphphph for the signal phphphphphph to turn green ahead of us.phphphphphph phphphphphph phphphphphph phphphphphph ..."

Mumblers: These people think aloud. The PA system just happens to be overhearing their thoughts and transmitting it, albeit in a muffled way. (Smaller font indicates a lower volume) "Sorry about the delay ladies and gentlemen, we are just waiting for the signal to turn green ahead of us."

Screamers: These people haven't heard of the wonderful invention that is the PA system. They've never heard of them, nor do they need them. They only hold that black phone-like instrument to their ears 'coz the manual tells them to. They have no idea why they should hold them either. "Sorry about the delays ladies and gentlemen, we are just waiting for the signal to turn green ahead of us."

Chatter boxes: These guys tell you everything happening in their very exciting lives at all times of the day. "Sorry about the bump in the track, ladies and gentlemen, the track is uneven every 200 metres and I'll be talking to you every 200 metres and apologising for the bumpy ride." " sorry about the smell ladies and gentlemen, I shouldn't have eaten that can of beans last night" and so forth.

The quietly efficient blokes are usually very pleasant, they don't utter a word and quietly go about their job ferrying people from one corner of London to another. The only time they get annoying is just before the train starts from the first station. Normally, irrespective of the type, the driver would say, "this train is ready to depart, mind the closing doors please, mind the doors" (they always ask you to mind the closing doors twice, is it because there are 2 doors to each entrance that we need to be mindful about?). The quietly efficient ones just shut the door and make like a jack-rabbit that's spotted the fox. So when one tries to save time by walking all the way to the end of the platform BEFORE the train leaves, just so he can be the first to get off, the train doors just close, leaving you high and dry!

The worst offenders, you will find, are hybrids, who as the name suggest, either wheeze and scream or mumble and chatter or some similar annoying combination.

For those among us who think I've lost my marbles, I'm only talking about this since I had to endure an hour with a wheezing, screaming, chatter box this evening on the long commute back to the cozy confines of my residence. At one point in the journey, I even contemplated jumping ship and getting off at the nearest station and waiting for the next train, only to be foiled by the lovely weather we've been having recently.

So, "thank you!" to the driver for keeping me enlightened every step of way and "thank you!" to my dearest wife for relieving me of my noise canceling headphones. I had a lovely journey home.

How I saved £9,970

My morning routine is just what it is, routine, getting up with a great deal of difficulty and around 7 ‘snoozes’ of the alarm, followed by daily duties part 1, a hot cuppa coffee with the newspaper, daily duties part 2, breakfast and running out of the house, late as usual.

The first 1.5 hours of this morning were no different and I found bursting into the train, huffing and puffing in a way that would shame Mr. Wolf, for I had done a manic 200 metre, 2 storey (3 storeys to them Americans) dash to catch the train, carrying my considerable bulk and around 15 kg of equipment and book (more on the book in the next post), breaking several land speed records in between.

I found a place to sit and tried to calm my breath, which incidentally, had no intentions of doing as I begged it to do. Textbook stuff so far. Then things changed. The man sitting opposite my seat was an elderly person of the English variety i.e., suit, tie, polished black shoes, newspaper in hand with the obligatory spectacles. Little did I realise, that barely 10 minutes later, this man would make my day…

With breath finally under control, heartbeat slowing down from humming bird speed to human-like speed, I was able to take in the finer details of other occupants of the train. I feel obligated to explain matters a bit here. Sizing up occupants of the tube is a national pastime here. You can’t find it in culture books; you won’t hear anyone talk about it. All it involves is a surreptitious peak through the corner of one’s eye while appearing to read a newspaper. Everyone does that and no eye contact is made whatsoever.

So here I am, sitting down, ‘reading’ (wink, wink) my book and looking around when I notice this person’s wrist. A shiny, golden object catches my attention and immediately looks familiar. Deeper analyses confirm my suspicions and I’m getting jubilant by the minute. Yes, his watch is the same as mine. I can see most people reaching this part of the post and wondering what is wrong with me and why am I getting so excited about finding another person wearing the same watch as me. Can skeptics please allow me to explain?

The watch was visually identical to mine, same cut bezel, golden dial, magnified date, silver metal strap with a golden strip in between. The only difference is that his was a Rolex and mine is a Paolo Gucci (in Mr. P. Gucci’s defence I don’t think he is in anyway related to the fashion designer Gucci. They just share a surname much like you would get a zillion people with surnames like Kumar, Rao, Reddy etc.). That discovery had me thinking – did the cheapskates at Rolex copy Mr. Gucci or was it vice versa or was it merely a case of great minds thinking alike? It’s probably vice versa, but whatever!

The fact that actually made my day was this. This poor loser had probably shelled out £10,000 for that watch while the good Mr Gucci decided to supply mine for £30. So is my watch a cheap knock-off or is his an overpriced rip-off? Let me know in the comments. Before you jump at the opportunity of knock-off bashing and beat me black and blue, consider this. If PG can sell a watch for £30 while still making a profit, what is the justification for Rolex selling it at £10,000? Quality wise, on a scale of 1 to 10, if we blindly give Rolex a 10, my PG would surely come in at 5 (reliability and looks), so is the fit, finish and goodwill of the Rolex for the remaining 5 points worth £9,970?

If the Rolex loses 1 second in a 1000 years (that’s 1 minute in 60,000 years), how are you going to find out of that claim is true? Not in your life, or your children’s or theirs or theirs…with the PG, it probably loses a minute every 2 years and all that’s required then is to pluck the crown out, increase the time by a minute and push the crown back in. Process done in 10 seconds. No sir, I am not paying £9,970 to save 10 seconds for the 601st generation of my family. I’m sure humans wouldn’t even exist then, let alone that watch.

Finally, I urge you not to dismiss me as a bloke who supports the piracy industry; I assure you I am not. I am merely a person close to the heart of well meaning people who gifted me the Paolo Gucci watch. So then, should the title of this post be “How I saved £10,000” because I haven’t paid for the watch in the first place?