Orderly Disorder

I was on invitation for a business meeting with our German business associate coinciding with their participation in a trade exhibition in Hamburg. Having dealt with them over the years but I never had the opportunity of meeting most of them.My hostess was their effervescent Export Manager, a smart lady in her early to mid forties, a Peruvian by birth,French by her education and German by her domicile. As I was to learn, she was a live wire who amazed me with the ease, speed and dexterity in switching from one language to another. Spanish ,French,Italian,English and German , she had it all in her bag, attending to business associates like me and visiting prospects at the stand in their respective language of comfort. After close of play, four of us waved a taxi just outside the trade fair gate to get us back to our hotel. My co-inhabitant colleagues were a German who knew little English, A Spaniard who struggled with both his German & English, myself with my plain vanilla Engl

A true measure of any city is never complete without savouring it's street food. Bangkok's street food is reknown and this lady on the right seemed to be the local street food queen tossing out pancakes like a well oiled production factory on her street cart parked just outside the Hua Lam Phong MRT station. Locals queued up and it did not take long for Kalpesh ( standing behind) and me to leave our Simha beers and join the locals. The recipe seems quite simple, Refined flour, lotsa butter, eggs and a generous helping of Thai Banana's topped in the end with Condensed Milk.Huge Calorie count here but this sure was one worth indulging in.Our veggie Gujju bhai Kalpesh was quite apprehensive before biting in to it and once he started, I did not get any more pancake. Go for this one, the next time you are in Bangkok.I believe Chocolate flavours are also available.

1.Be Patient. 2.Understand the difference between Soap & Shampoo.Soap is for body and Shampoo is for hair. 3.Get used to terms and products such as Conditioner, Nourisher,Enricher etc. 3.Keep Scrunchie's (elasticised fabric bands - hair band's yaar ) handy all the time - few in the office, few at home, few in the car, few in your pockets. 4.Remember, you cannot tie wet hair.Wait untill hair dry!! 5.Enlist the help of wife, daughter, mother to tie a Pony Tail. 6.Bond with Daughter - Go Srunchy shopping together. 7.Start using hair brushes - combs will no longer serve the purpose. 8.Sunday's and holidays are hair maintenance days. 9.Get a Hair Dryer - Start Blow drying your hair More Later - HAIR GROWING HERE. ps: I did not know of the word Scrunchy as a hair apparel , till one of my female friends pushed it in my vocabulary.Acknowledgements in order.

I drive from home to work every day using the busy six lane Sion Trombay road.For a short two kilometre ride I have to contend with 4 sets of trafic lights and no I am not complaining. At the same time when I am approaching my office, the three lane traffic in the opposite direction carying hundreds of office goers in public and private transport have to negotiate a section, before the Diamond Garden at Chembur ,which has a popular school in the by lane. There are no public transport bus stops in the vicinity and most school children seem to be dropped to school by private owned car's or by school buses.Most drivers have no respect for traffic lights let alone zebra crossings and this section was a chaotic crossing irespective whether you are a pedestrian or vehicular traffic. Till a few years ago, I could see that the school going children had a tough time crossing the road and getting to school.Recently I have seen a set of parents volunteering as traffic wardens and they rally

I do'nt believe this but yes I am devoting space to the latest cinematic irrelevance by Karan Johar (KJ) and yet again so effectively hammed by Shahrukh Khan (SRK). So Thursday evening it was, one evening before the official release,with three hardcore SRK fans in tow and mind you each ticket priced at Rupees 500.Yes - Five Hundred each so that sums up to Rs Two Thousand and that quite justifies my ire and this essay. Read a web clip which says that KJ is looking for 'public approval' audience acceptance.I am sure the only part of the movie the audience accepted was the 15 minute interval. In the first few frames of the movie we have two strangers meeting on a park bench, a furlong away from the girl's wedding mandap ,discussing love,life and relationships and escape routes out of them.Seconds later we have SRK involved in an accident which we never hear of later.( was it Arjun Rampal).This is just the beginning of 3 1/2 hours of torture briefly spiced with chocolate,la

The year was 1980. It was in the second semester of my engineering course when we were allotted rooms in the Brabourne Hostel.Allotment was on merit and I barely made the list,having flunked in my 1st semester mathematics examination. Room mates were chosen at random.I was given Room # 20 and my mate was Shivraj Ghatge - with whom I never got along while we were room mates.In fact we hardly met.I used to be sleeping when he woke up to go and attend lectures.And he used to be sleeping when I used to trot in late night or was it early morning.Our interests were different - he wanted to study and I did not want to.Every single day I found new ways of not going to college.Today, Shivraj and I are the best of friends and recall our anti polarity in the college days. We were all thrown out of Brabourne Hostel over an eve teasing issue. It is widely believed that the perpetrator of this incident was yours truly. I believe Brabourne Hostel is now a Ladies Hostel. Wow!! I want my ro

I am pondering over a solution for Bombay's traffic woes. The footpaths of Bombay are proportionally shared between the illegal migrants to our city and the illegal hawkers.This leaves pedestrians no place to walk, our squatter and hawker friends having taken over most part of the road. We do not believe in the concept of parking lots, since we have to pay and park.So we have taxi's, autorickshaw's, private cars jostling for parking space on every motorable road, preferably near a busy commercial or resedential area, leading to our way of life - Traffic Jams. Great. So we create flyovers and elevated roads for vehicular traffic. The roads are then left for the pedestrians. Foothpaths are renamed to hawkpaths, as it is we do not have them. No traffic jams till the hawkers are allowed to invade the elevated roads and flyovers.Happy Driving (till then)in Bombay.

I have discovered a new agonising trend amongst many car drivers in Bombay.They flash their hazard lights when driving during heavy rain. Oh God no. Please save us. As it is we are a disaster when at driving and have scant regard for traffic rules and now this. Universally Hazard Lights are regarded as a signal for disability in your vehicle. There should be a public awareness campaign on stopping this rising trend.Local FM stations, news papers should take this up, among other traffic issues, and educate the public on traffic rules and courtesies.

Annually we waste crores ( ten of millions) of rupees in the process of tendering,buying,contracting and applying reflective white paint used to mark lanes on Indian roads. Most of us driving or being driven on Indian roads do not even bother to stay or drive in a lane.I try and most often end up in vain, as a looser being outwitted by a fellow criss cross lane driving expert or having my car scraped or dented by them. I remember going to the movies as a kid.Irrespective of the movie the real treat was the Samosa (fried triangular pyramid-shaped pastry shell with a savory potato, onion and pea stuffing) and the Mangola( a bottled mango drink) during the 10 minute interval.Now picture this - Movie Theatre Canteen, lots of eats on offer and a melee of movie goers and just 10 minutes at hand before the second half of the movie begins.Action time begins with people one over the other, jostling and hustling for attention of the server. Am sure the canteen floor has seen many a Samosa on t

The airline industry in India is booming. Cannot even remember the names of the airlines and one is spoilt for choices when you are travelling say between Bombay and Delhi or Bombay to Goa.But the accompanying infrastructure required is pathetic.The airports do not have enough toilets, we will talk about cleanliness later, nor do they have adequate seating nor signage.For many sectors the flying time is probably shorter than the time required to check-in and clear security. With the advent of the low cost carriers , Europe reinvented and remodelled all it's IInd world war airstips and converted them in to efficient alternatives compared to the mammoth monstrosities of the modern day airports we use. India too has numerous air strips dotting the countryside, often used by politicians,bureaucrats and upcoming industrialists which with some appliction and initiative could be readily converted to alternate and ease the traffic and chaos on our over stressed airports.