Orderly Disorder

If you have eating troubles, I can assure you that have landed on the wrong page. All I have done is literally translated - Eating Locho - into plain speak english, ie Eating troubles. Being brought up in Bombay, I am fairly familiar with the Bombay street lingo, which has a fair sprinkling and huge influence from the native Marathi and Gujarati colloquial. Locha traces its etymology to Gujarati and means trouble and hence Locho , the plural of Locha means troubles. While locha was made popular by Raju Hirani when he had Munnabhai mouth an unusual combination of words - "Chemical locha" . And in yet another another Raju Hirani caper, he has Kareena describe Gujarati food - Dhokla Faafda Handva Thepla Khakra - as missiles. But our Surti's take the cake. They have redefined the traditional missile' khaman into a hugely popular variant called Locho .  I was in Surat last week and savoured this awesome variant of Surti food at the Gopal Locho

There were two things typical to India that I thought were difficult to automate. First was our staple bread -  roti  or  chapati  and next  paan . I recently saw some very neat rotimaker videos on the internet. Till they do not invent and automate paan making, our neighbourhood friendly paanwala will continue to offer us our dose of Indian after mint with all the warmth and personal touch that a  Paan maker would lack.  My friendly neighbourhood paanwala is Pandit ji, as I address him fondly - my way of honouring and addressing a person who is so skilled in his craft - he is a maestro at the science and art of making paan . Pandit ji has now been vending  paan  from the same location for the past twenty eight years. He always has a smile on his face and like most of his ilk has the ambidextrous capabilities so much required in this trade. He has the abilities of whipping up paan of different specifications with the same cool and composed demeanour.  Chaurasiya's tr

Thirteen days ago a dear friend of mine lost her father. She had sent out text messages informing her family and friends of his demise.  I chose to call a few days later to speak with her and convey my condolement and my advice, something I learnt years ago from another friend - Do not dwell in his death, instead celebrate his life time. She said that she and her family were just doing that. She had sent out text inviting people to attend a morning meeting today . It was the thirteenth day after his demise. It was not the usual prayer meeting. Nor was the text a usual terse message. They were calling to invite people to share and celebrate his life.  The family had spent the last thirteen days collecting memorabilia from her father's lifetime - pictures, sketches, telegrams, letters , his art kit and many more. They reached out to his friends and colleagues, many long lost, in India and abroad and stitched together video and audio bytes of their connect with her father. 

It's easy to get peeved by our indisciplined traffic in India. Most Indians weave traffic snarls by the way we drive or we encourage or rather do not discourage those who drive us. The trouble now is that we are getting quite adept at causing human traffic jams in the air. Yes - when we fly . Any frequent air traveller in India knows the routine. Queue up for entering the airport, deposit baggage ( if any), check in & collect boarding card if not web checked in, x-ray handbags and mobile devices at security, queue up for security frisk, board bus or walk through aerobridge to enplane. Simple. Now here is where we invent commotion. Many travellers tend to carry more than the allowed number of handbags or have overweight handbags or both. Then we saunter past the aisle and with swift well practiced moves we randomly juggle the already placed handbags of other passengers to suit our needs. Once plonked on our seat, we like to make our last minute, always so urgent p