A Friends Wedding

Jan 23rd, Erode, Sakthi Duraiswamy Wedding Hall (Owned by owner of Sakthi masala)
One more core member of “Varuthapadha Vaalibar Sangam” (some might claim that we aren’t “Vaalibars”any more) took his marital vows, even though he didn’t do much other than smile all through the ceremony.

Jaanu and his wife, Raghav and his mom, Nanda and I boarded the day train – West Coast Express at around 11:30AM from Chennai central. This was the first time I met Raghav’s mom and she probably would have concluded that I too was one of the lost for good guys in Raghav’s circle. The first thing Nanda and I did was start the honours of brunch-Podi coated Idlis from Raghav’s mom and some accompaniments from Saravana Bhavan. Even as we were made fun of, owing to our ability to not say “NO” to any offerings in edible form, we continued on until we ran out of resources. As usual, there were jokes plenty, some involving those present, and quite a few on those who were not present in the scene. Time passed by and we reached Erode junction, where Raghav caught up with his partners-in-crime with whom he had collaborated in harassing Basha during the engagement ceremony. There were stories plenty about Basha and there seemed to be no love lost between him and his cousins/friends/his wife’s cousins…

Moorthy, Basha’s college mate who sported a Kakha-Kakha style moustache, was scurrying around doing all the hotel check-ins and local commute arrangements, even as his employer BSNL sought his assistance in fixing some outage. The true friend that he was, he told BSNL in no uncertain terms that he was not be disturbed. And we complain about BSNL’s services !! After freshening up in the hotel room, we headed to the wedding hall, which was one of the biggest and grandiose ones we have ever seen. Basha was beaming ear-to-ear on the dias with his bride. We couldn’t help smiling mildly (we never laugh out loud) as he appeared to repeatedly dive-in (he had to do that to owing to his custom made dress)while seeking blessings at the feet of elders. The bride for the evening literally had a knight in shining armour by her side– Basha chose a dazzling all off-white outfit that radiated. Guess who helped him choose that thundering dress – our own Raghav.

The hunger pangs did us in and we proceeded to the buffet style dinner laid out in the front of the hall. The food was delicious and the best part was the 3 types of dosas which were being made in front of us and served hot. More useless talk followed at the expense of some beleaguered friends (primarily Prabhu, another do-gooder for the function) . My biological system had initiated its shutdown sequence and we had to literally drag Jaanu, who is the ultimate sociopath given to prolonged bouts of conversation with everyone at every given opportunity, back to the hotel room.

The next day morning we got the expected dressing down from Raghav’s mom owing to our slippage with regards to being on-time. We reached the venue to see Basha tie the sacred knot with Sathya, which was a very quick affair compared to the versions we have seen so far. There was no recital of Sanskrit hymns or the “homam” which would have left the bridegroom teary eyed. We somehow forgot to buy a gift for our pal and hence tried our level best to get an envelope in which we could pledge our monetary support to the newlyweds. That plan has been shelved temporarily and we have vowed to take care of that once Basha returns “officially” to work. Meanwhile, Basha tried hard not to be overly concerned about the jokes we were cracking amongst ourselves about his outstanding qualities. M.Ned who had joined us in the morning and being the senior among the guys, led us to the dining hall for the customary breakfast. My next shutdown sequence had started and I coaxed the entourage to head back to the hotel for a short nap.

Raghav and his mom headed to Coimbatore, where Raghav decided to implement our close friend Simbu's copyrighted move of gifting “used” laptop to one of the unsuspecting relatives in exchange for a bigger item in return:-) After a sedate lunch at the nearby Hotel Jardin, Nanda and I took an autorickshaw ride to the station that turned out to be the most exhilarating and heart pounding ride I have ever taken in any vehicle. The driver displayed a maniacal zeal to take us to the station, and the way he drove his vehicle, I supposed he had “higher” plans. However, the journey back to Chennai on the Allepey-Dhanbad express was relatively sedate and tiresome.

Our heartfelt best wishes to Basha and Sathya !!

It’s not just about Cricket

Pakistan is crying hoarse about being "snubbed". N.Srinivasan from BCCI, who happens to be one of the franchise owners, gives bland and non-committal statements - as good as they come. While the roots of this stand-off can be traced back to the 26/11 attacks, the political machinations seems to have been spun after Jan11th, leading up to the auction day of Jan 19th. Jan 6th was the deadline for lining up the players who were to go under the hammer ( the Pak players alone have been singled out for literal hammering, at least their egos have been ), and at that point of time it would have taken at least one franchise to express interest for a player to be drafted for the auction. So at the end of that deadline, 11 Pak players, including the combustible Afridi and the T20 miser Gul, are identified as worthy enough of bargaining for.

Come the D-day, IPL team owners develop cold feet. Conspiracy theories (some might be for real) that abound:
1. The collective boycott by all franchise owners does not come as a surprise, and would not be presumptuous to rule out the direct involvement of P.Chidambaram and S.M.Krishna. The former is known to be quite close to N.Srinivasan and hence would have not had to exercise any arm-twisting.
2. Indian govt wants to derive the maximum effect of alienating Pak with little effort. No war cries, no build up around the LoC. Just pure last minute volte-face.
3. The dying interest in Ind Vs Pak cricket clashes can be revived with this kind of needling. In effect, BCCI wants to reap more dividends from the next big clash between the two countries, i.e. whenever the cricketing ties resume. But for that the national teams would have had to be in good form coming into that clash. From its current form, Pakistan will have to raise its game by more than just few notches.
4. One way of expressing resentment to the US sale of its drones to Pak that are apparently intended to expedite the latter's offensive in Waziristan against Taliban and Al-Qaeda. This comes in the background of US fears that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal could fall into wrong hands. Wonder how they are so sure that US drones won’t be usurped by the militant groups.
5. To tell Pak to bring to justice the perpetrators of Mumbai attack, instead of crying out loud about lack of credible evidence from India.
6. Warn Pak that it better ensure that a repeat of 26/11 doesn’t occur, given LeT's alleged plan of dropping suicide bombers by air.
7. Bring to knees certain ego laden Pak players, especially Afridi, who sure didn’t make many friends during his association with Deccan Chargers last time around. (Not that our super heroes don’t have one. Ask Bhajji, SSanth, Praveen Kumar and Yuvi)
8. The most buyable one: Given the current tension between the two nations, there is no guarantee that the teams will get to see their Pak sign-ups in India.
9. With 11 games scheduled in Mumbai, Mr.Thackeray's threats for disrupting matches do look real. By then even MNS and the state government would have ran out of ideas to build on their facade for Marathi values and would join hands in playing spoil sport to IPL matches in Mumbai. IPL committee would probably find it too hard to re-schedule matches in different venues, which could affect their earnings adversely.
10. Force Pak to voluntarily break all ties with India, including withdrawal from World Cup Hockey and Commonwealth games.
11. Pakistan would probably want to assume a higher moral ground in this IPL stand-off and it has reacted angrily, as expected. Hence, they would probably be inclined to foist more incursions and foment trouble in Kashmir, but unfortunately their current dependency on US for financial and military aid would mean that they would not be in a comfortable position to back such anti-India activities pro-actively. However, this sort of logical assumption has been proven wrong in the past.

The after effects:
1. Ijaz Butt and Rehman Malik have already spoken their mind, sometimes without even making up theirs. Predictable and along similar lines, just like their political utterances. Mr. Butt butted in first that it didn’t matter to anyone that Pak players have been ignored in IPL, only to take up the issue with ICC shortly. Waiting to hear from Mr.Querishi as well.
2. Afridi standing up for his brothers. Some of the questions he has raised obviously seem pertinent, with regard to players like Martyn being valued higher than T20 exponents from Pak. All that they are seeking are honest and straight-forward opinions, and not to be kept in the dark about being accepted into the IPL fold.
3. The Pak government is calling for boycott of screening Indian movies and channels inside their borders, which they hope would lead to a wrangling between the entertainment industry in India and the Indian government.
4. The camera friendly showman, Lalit Modi, getting another chance to get some media bytes.
5. Maybe, a blog for this year's anonymous IPL player blog is already in the works...

While the above theories are in a lighter vein, on a serious note: Cricket fans would probably feel that the IPL would be poorer without the maverick Pak players. But there would be the other section who would think that this kind of non-engagement serves the Pak establishment just right. They would opine that Cricket and any kind of dialogue with Pak are best relegated to the background for now, at least until the lost lives of 26/11 have been accounted for and credible steps are taken to dismantle the terror network.

Benjarong - An oriental awakening

Benjarong - the name for some reason rings a "gong". But figured it actually means "five colours" in Thai, and the more common usage is for referring to painted porcelain. There may not be many Thai restaurants in Chennai, and when one talks about it, the only name that crops, not surprisingly, is that of Benjarong. The restaurant is located near The Sheraton Towers on TTK Road, Alwarpet.

I reached the destination for once, without losing my sense of purpose and direction :-). The restaurant logo - A traditional Thai dancer with hands outstretched sideways - adorned the front porch type entrance. My two friends lived up the virtues of punctuality, which meant I was the last one to take my seat at the table. This particular drive from Tambaram to Alwarpet on my bike was one of the most painful ones, thanks to billowing smoke from all kinds of vehicles and the mad-rush on a Saturday afternoon. The guys had already started on a rather exotic looking tender coconut water and what I believe, was Jasmine Tea. I was hungry beyond reasonable limits, but decided to expunge the grime and soot on my hands prior to digging in. What followed was comedy of epic proportions!! Preeth made the first move to the wash room, and I opted to wait outside for my turn. While I waited for my turn, I even had time to make two calls and still there was no sign of Preeth. The third call I got on was with Preeth and apparently he couldn’t figure out a way to unlock himself. Like any good samaritan, I volunteered to unlock him from his misery, only to find that I was unable to unlock him and worse, I locked myself too in the wash basin area. Nihal had to be our saviour, so I buzzed him and he responded, tongue-in-cheek, that he didn’t want to lock himself too with us. After some embarrassing moments and good laughs, Nihal turned to be our saviour but he safely chose to outsource the job to one of the restaurant staff. Not to be done with the fiasco, I used the wash room and once again I locked myself in. After the final rescue act, we were re-assured that we were not the only smart-alecs to go through this experience. But am sure we were unique in doing a double-act in this one.

To liberate our senses, we ordered the Thai staple Chicken Pad Thai, a custom ordered Chicken Red Curry and the special Chicken Jungle fried rice. The food portions were quite acceptable, and seemed reasonably priced given the ambience, taste and location of the restaurant. However, the items that are laced with Prawn cost a premium - somewhere around Rs.545. The Pad Thai was little too sweet, but complemented the other two spicy offerings. While the overall restaurant setting was really good, one should not expect waiters adorned in traditional Thai attire, as was the case when the restaurant started off. I am assuming the place would probably look more beautiful during the evenings, when the Thai handicrafts and paintings would come to life in the dim lights. That remains to be tried out though. Of the items that we ordered, I would surely recommend the "Jungle fried rice" which had generous doses of fine fried onions, but the Red Curry was nothing extraordinary. Preeth really liked his coconut water, which apparently had a zing to it :-). I enquired if they had the sticky rice for dessert and unfortunately they didn’t. Preeth recommended that we could head to French Loaf for trying out some pastries and cakes. The overall meal for the three of us at Benjarong cost around Rs.1400, which was expected, given the pricing standards set by most of the restaurants from Oriental Cuisines stable. So with a heavy heart, a relatively lighter purse, and a satiated feeling, we hit French Loaf and tried out the Mango pastry, a Carrot-Walnut Cake and a Blueberry Pastry. All yummy and delicious!! While Preeth and Nihal headed for the Chennai Open, I laboured back home.



Benjarong@Chennai

New Year/Avatar/Kokum

Compared to last year’s New Year Eve in Kathmandu, this year’s celebration in Chennai was more comfortable and enjoyable. First off, we got the official go ahead to bunk half a day’s office – my colleagues at work along with their families descended on Sathyam for the matinee show of Avatar-3D. The chaos called “corporate booking” with Sathyam was a different matter altogether. However, thanks to a complete team effort we did manage it pull it off.


The movie itself was quite spectacular: the visual imagery, as written in every quarter, is breathtaking in the first half and the second half is more action and some loosely scripted plot and dialogues (remember “300” – all that bravado backed by some inept acting and very poor speeches). The toddlers in the audience were awestruck and weren’t scared, and hence made it easier for their dads to watch the movie in whole. Even though, as is my custom, I missed the first few minutes, I picked up the futuristic plot (whatever there was) which talks about a distant planet – Pandora – habituated by Na’vi people. The US armed forces led by Col.Miles (Stephen Lang) is commissioned to extract a mineral – Unobtainium, from that planet. He enlists a paraplegic ex-marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) to aid Dr.Augustine (Cameron favorite – Sigourney Weaver) and her team, with the intention of persuading the Na’vis eventually to settle for a negotiation with humans with regards to the giving up their sacred place which houses the mineral. So Jake and Augustine’s minds take on the incarnation (aka Matrix) of Na’vis to befriend and gain their trust in an effort to avoid the potential mayhem. The love angle is provided in the form of Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), who is entrusted with the job of training Jake in hopping trees and taming wild aerial dragon-like creatures in Pandora. As love blossoms between Jake and Neytiri, Col.Miles runs out of patience and calls for bombarding Pandora and usurping Unobtainium. But Jake and Augustine by now are totally against the military showdown and try their level best to persuade the Colonel against it, but to no avail. The second half is all about flying battleships, dragons, warriors on horses, big elephant like creatures stampeding and some very badly written call-for-war dialogues. As one would expect, its triumph of good over evil, albeit the loss of precious human and Na’vi lives. Cameron is the big bad splurge master, equivalent of our own Kollywood Shankar, when it comes to spending a fortune in film-making. But at the end of it all, Avatar-3D is an enjoyable fantasy laden action adventure, set in a Utopian planet.


Post the movie, a splinter group (8 out of 38) made its way to ID in Sathyam. I had my share of pre-dinner appetizers, while majority had their full-dinner. I had few other friends to catch up for dinner and after some serious thought in deciding the dining place, we settled for Kokum (Another oriental group specialty restaurant). The restaurant is located in MRC Nagar and is pretty cut-off from the city’s hum-drum. The restaurant specializes in predominantly Kerala cuisine, but had fair share of Goan and Mangalorean delicacies as well. Buffet, priced at a princely sum of 545INR, is a very rare feature of this place and they had one, owing to the New Year ’s Eve. I checked out their ala carte menu and figured that the buffet had a representation of the main dishes from that menu. So the eventual price of the buffet works out to be cheaper if one were to try out those dishes from the menu. The place is a well decorated (just like any other oriental group restaurant ), the food is authentic and really good, and has luxury apartment complexes in its vicinity. Apparently Hotel Leela, being constructed there, is set to be inaugurated by Dec 2010. We also met few third party acquaintances who happened to work for Nila ventures (holding company of Hotel Leela) and were currently residing in the apartment opposite to that of Dhoni’s (he bought that flat for Rs 2.crore).

Post dinner, it was drive back home at around 10 PM, by when the roads were already being battered by few crazy drivers in bikes and cars in spite of the heavy patrolling (in numbers alone, not by their ability to chase down the offenders). Back home, I popped in the “Eagle has landed” DVD……

Happy New Year to everyone !!