Shantaram By Gregory David Roberts - Book Review (5/5)

The big tome was gifted to my wife by someone about 3 years back. I think it came in 2005 and I finally picked it up from the top shelf of my wall clinging shelf-mesh-cum-library last month. Its 900+ pages and I am not a big fan of such heavy books, being a lazy reader I often take few life-times to finish one but of all the gambles I have taken in picking fat books (including 'Zen and the art..') I have been always able to finish.

So I finished this a while back and waited for couple of weeks to settle my oozed-out wonder-stuck eyes, gives some rest to my often-excited lower left pump and sort of let-it-sink before I attempt to write a quick review. Often the initial excitement dies down to a more informed insight and time makes you better.

My overall rating for the book is 5/5, after a long time. The last one I guess was 'The Kite Runner'. Here's a short scoop



Its based on Robert's own life in Mumbai, an Australian fugitive who is on a run and finds Mumbai interesting enough to hang-on. Its not an auto-biography but its a fact based fiction , now that sounds like a lawyer-lingo. Well, the protagonist is the author himself and he goes through his life in Mumbai as an expat, as a slum-dweller, as a mafia and finally finding himself amid Mujahideens. The plot is brilliant and characters are juicy and full and David ensures that the narration is engaging, novel but at the same time full with thrill.


The book is a Philosophical fiction by someone who takes us into those areas where a bulk of us have no access viz. Jhoparpatthis (slums), Black Markets / Mafia, Jails, Drugs and what not. Its a great read for academic purposes since it deals with today's world and while it would have its own share of writer's creativity , the details around Arthur Road Jail, Durgs, Cold Turkey are something which doesn't look far from reality. And mind you, the book is not about the main character, Lindsay aka Lin Baba aka Lin Bhai but it gives equal justice to all the others and doesn't make it into a self soul-search saga. Too many things happen all the time and all the characters go through a lot of transformations, in the end it almost reads like a suspense thriller where you would want to know, what would happen now.

There is a plan to make a movie where Johnny Depp is going to play the lead role, directed by Mira. The latest plan for release is 2011. For more than few times, I felt like doing a movie playing Lin and after some deliberation with myself, I settled for Nazeer.

Here's the wiki link and there is also a official website here.

Shantaram is the 2nd of a quartret which David has planned but I dont think other 3 ever made it or made it so far.

The book is also greatly recommended for folks who are looking beyond thrilling-engaging-edgy reads, some of the lines are exceptional.

I know with 900+ pages, it may sound thick but read it for 'Character Building' and one which you would enjoy unlike the traditional 'Character Building' activities. If you read the book, I would be delighted to read your views about the book in the comments section. I am hoping that if you chose to read this after my recommendation, I didn't let you down.

I just finished 'Outliers' by Malcom Gladwell and that review should happen shortly.

'Its Greek To Me' - Restaurant Review

I found myself at this joint last week and thought that I would write a small quick review. Right opposite 'Deer Park', this place is a food-cum-drink place in Safdarjang Enclave. Very well located if you are somewhere in South Delhi else its a bit of a distance to cover. Here's an interactive Google Map for directions.


View 'Its Greek to Me' in a larger map

Its a Greek-Roman style of frugal seating with clean, light wooden chairs and tables , a light music in the background and no rush anywhere at all. I was there on a Sunday Lunch and the fact that I didn't see many people makes it a good place, who needs the ever crowded Gulatis on a hot summer day. Its on two levels with an open kitchen. Its a good place for a group of 4-6 people who just want to enjoy a gulp over lots of conversations.

They have a very decent collection to wet your throat with the usual Beer to more sophisticated Wines. You can get a Wine by glass and thats really very practical. The food is Greek/Italian/Roman class with baked chicken etc. I do not understand much about food so I would skip this part but you do get a rich collection to choose from and it seemed and tasted good. You do not get North Indian or Mughlai cuisine.

I dont think there are any happy hours because I didn't see any obvious mention of it anywhere but I wont be surprised if they have special deals for weekedays.

Price wise it seemed right priced. Mocktails at Rs 100 a piece are a steal. A lunch for two where we ordered two mocktails, one starter (Roast and Toast Lamb), one main cuisine (Vasilikos) set us back by Rs 1100 and the potion was enough for two people. You replace a drink/cock-tail in place of mock-tail, and it wont go beyond Rs 1600 which is nice.

The staff is courteous, effective and they dont sell which is good.

All in all, a place worth trying. My next goal is to convince my boss to take us out there so that I can have my share of bubbly at someone else's pocket.

Hope this is useful.

Tuborg Pint has a tin kind of opener

Most of the beer in India have non-twistable or non-screw caps which means that you need a bottle opener to open them. While this may sound perfectly logical and right way to do, you would find a lot of (esp of American origin) beer pints in America which can be just opened using hand by twisting the cap. You open them the way you open a half-a-litre Coke Pet Bottle.

Recently I found something which I have not seen so far here so thought that I would write a small blog. Well, I found a pint which has a cap which can be pulled off. The beer is called, Tuborg and for the pint (dont know about the full regular bottle) you do not a bottle opener. You simply pull it, the way you open a Coke or a Beer Tin, and it pops out. Happy.

Let me click some pics and show you, how it looks.

Here I am. The first two are the ones when its bottled.





And here's when its gone.




hope you like this information and by the way, I was saving the caps to shoot them some day and write this blog, the ones where the cap is intact are getting chilled for the evening.

'Tasveer - 8 X 10' - Movie Review

It was a free lunch and I happily grabbed it, since wifey was out and Pihu (my , I am 3, going on 4, kid) was at Nana's place. I am a big fan of Nagesh and would love to pay for my lunch anyday for Iqbaal, Dor, HB so the decision was made so much easier.

The movie is mostly shot in Canada and that's refreshing. Watching the greens, sparkling water bays, upmarket houses and what not. 'Precept' which produced the movie along with T-Series is not a great name to reckon but they did spend some money by shooting in Canada.

The plot is around Akki who can look beyond a photograph and can go back in time when the pic was shot. He is usually seen going back by a minute since by then he gets unconscious and is usually taken to a hospital after such a act. The film moves very well in the first half, tight editing, no-fuss dialogues, good locations, clean camera work and no distraction (Sorry, Akki doesn't bare. Ayesha looks beautiful and thats about it).

So far a good movie but come 2nd half and it falls apart. Let me give you the plot.

Akki's dad is murdered (a oil baron) and he makes his wife as the sole winner of the fortune. He has some friends and they were all there on the boat from where he fell and everyone thought that it was a case of accident. Come Javed Jaffery (He is Super, he acts as a HYDi, super) , a dismissed cop who claims that the dad was murdered and that starts Akki's journeys into past life.

Actually before the accident happened, a group photo was clicked by Sharmila (Akki's mom) and with that photograph he now goes behind the scene (1 minute past) and tries to figure out. I wont give you the complete story but once the truth is out, the film still goes for another 20 minutes. It reminded me the grueling last sequences of movies like Dar (KKKK....) and Bhoot where director/script-writer just got carried away.

No great music to write about. Javed shines brilliantly. Ayesha does well and Akki was pretty good.

My high point in the whole movie was to find old TV stalwarts on big screen after a long time viz. Benjamin Gilani, Anant Mahadevan and Girish Karnad.

Not recommended.

'Aahar India - 2009' - A quick run

On a Sunday afternoon, if you have nothing else to do then probably you pick up anything. Its not that bad and probably I am glamorizing it more, as all times. Today's HT edition had this little government kind of b/w advt which said that 'Aahar - 2009' (Aahar means food) is on at Pragati Maidan. So we decided to check it out. It came out to be pretty nice and I thought I would write a small note with few pics which I shot.

As per susta.org (Southern United States Trade Association), AAHAR, a premier exhibition for food, food processing, hotel and restaurant equipment and supplies, has been recognized as one of the leading events of its kind in Asia. SUSTA invites southern U.S. suppliers to participate in a trade mission to exhibit at AAHAR and meet with important industry players at the show. Pre-arranged one-on-one meetings, a guided tour of major retailers/food service organizations, and a market briefing are included in the mission, as well as free shipping for up to 100 lbs of product samples.....

Pragati Maidan is this vast unlimited exapanse of exhibition ground which has large (rather huge) halls and a good number of them, a cinema hall, few open-air theatres, few good large big restaurants and n number of food kiosks, fountains, lawns and what not. No wonder that during 'IITF' (India International Trade Fair), this place is easily able to manage a 1L+ crowd every day.

So after having our share of parking wows, we went it. The exhibition is spread in Halls 7-11 and in Hall 18. Hall 7-11 is more aimed for serious, professional folks. We could see machines which would sharpen knifes, pasteurize eggs, make cofee, juicers which could give gallons of juice and what not. Look at this pic, the machine was called 'Fire Coffee' maker or something like that.



Apart from equipment makers, there were folks like Sula Wine, probably they just bought space for good-recall factor since big names from hospitality sector must be visiting.



There were a lot of kiosks who were just displaying a specialized stuff, though a lot of them were showcasing fine and eye-catching crockery stuff. These were not for sale but to get leads or to invite potential buyers for a discussions.


Eager to say something


Polka Dots

We also noticed few cake-makers kind of kiosks, where they were making cakes right there using a mix of machine-n-man. Check this pic, its a cream-flower, notice the yellow lines (kinda stamen/pollen heads)


Yummy

Hall 7-10 are in continuation so you do not need to step out. We kept going. Apart from food folks, there were folks who give furniture, mattresses, other hospitality related stuff as well but mostly it was about food.


Waiting..

There was this interesting thing. Check it out.



Then we moved out of 7-10 and headed towards Hall no - 18 which was more popular among touristy types like us since it had ice-cream places, masalas, frozen foods and with some of them allowing you to have a taste as well.



Perils of a Digi-cam. This I shot while on the way, its the place which has food-kiosks. During bigger fairs, this place is full to brim but today we could pass through it.

As we entered, my little one was very excited to see these large sized fruits (of course, fake).



There were many stalls who were giving you a little cheese or a tea-spoon-scoop of ice-cream or chips and so on. Of course, good enough reason for 'gelato ice-cream' to gather a good crowd. We had our bit as well.



Hall 18 was spread over two levels. We looked around, did a bit of shopping, bought some frozen stuff and came out. It was close to 6 when we were out but Delhi Summer has started to set in so days are getting long. The light was pretty good to take a shot at our tri-color.



Thanks for reading this far. Its time to have a couple of KF pints.

"Imagining India" - By Nandan Nilekani - Quick Review

If you are a subscriber of Outlook, that now iconic weekly news magazine, then you would know that you get a mini-book kind of thing every few weeks. A very good concept from the point of readers since now they can taste the book and then decide whether they want to buy or not , as well as from the stand point of Author, since now at least they have a bigger chance to reach more people.

The last book-excerpt which I got was for Nandan Nilekani's book, titled "Imagining India".

The book reads like an essay and talks about various issues around development, IT, policies, population and likes. Since this booklet is of a size of a mini-book (5 inches BY 5 inches), its not the complete book but it has 100 odd pages so I would think that it has good enough to introduce you to what the real book would carry.

I think 'Imagining..' borrows heavily from the works of other people and they tries to distill that information with his own opinions in a essay or factual kind of way. There are interesting things which you learn like 'Population Dividend'. Essentially a concept where large population is not a bane but a boon. This concept is not Nandan's but he has incorporated this in great detail by including the works of lots of economists, with due credit given at multiple places.

In another chapter it talks about various programs which Government of India is pursuing in the areas of land reforms, BPL subsidies, information dissemination , electronification of rural India. Again most of the text is not his but a great collection and a good amount of hard work must have gone to research this.

The book is not very easy to read since its neither a story, nor a travel log, not even a piece of opinion. The closet this book reminds me is 'India ' which Publications Division, Ministry of I & B, used to publish every year. That book was like a bible to all IAS aspirants and it used to have all the information about government policies, all the data and likewise. I am also not sure whether you would want to keep this book as a reference material because its not a reference material book.

I was talking to someone the other day and I found out that the famous title of Thomas Friedman books was actually Nandan's line, viz. 'The World is Flat'. There is a mention of Thomas at few places in the booklet.

The byline of the title is "Ideas for the new century" and that would make one expect that the book would talk about clear, crisp, implementable ideas. In the booklet, Nandan touches upon the need of having a common identifier for all Indian Citizens. He informs that there is a PAN no for all Tax Payers, there is a Voter Id card for all 18+ registered voters, there is a ration card for BPL folks and then there are Passport IDs, Driving License Nos and so on. Though the need for having a common ID is well felt and people understand that we would get benefit from it, Nandan fails to address the need through a simple idea.

All in all, I would think that one should probably wait for another book from Nandan.

The New "Honda City 2008" is going to be a rage

The news was out almost 6 months back but Honda would not make it public. "Honda City 2003" model still looked very new and stylish and probably no other car has been able to move them from the top position. Whether its the design or the finesse, so much so that at my workplace, Honda City was the de-facto standard car for anyone who wanted to buy a sedan which is plush, valuable, has good post-sales service and overall a value for the expense.

The new one is not bigger or powerful rather in terms of spec its a tad below than the previous one but it deliver greater performance, power as well as fuel efficiency, and thats something which is credit worthy.

Interior is plusher and have been designed to keep the Indian home maker in mind who prefers to have boxes, small packets and what not when she is taken out by her better half or goes out by herself with her family.



In terms of audio capabilities, there is no CD Player. Instead you get a USB connector and that's a bold step assuming that iPods are now household items, at least for the junta who drives a car like Hondy City.

The boot is bigger because the fuel tank have been moved. Infact the boot is now bigger than the Civic.

The greatest thing which I liked was the safety. All the models have air-bags and have ABS. Unlike all other vendors (leaving Skoda), they are not restricting the option of Airbags to a particular variant, rather they are setting this as a benchmark. I still remember that when I bought my first 4-wheels, there were no seat-belts on the back seat, now its mandatory. I hope that government makes air-bags as mandatory at least for > 1000 CC segment.

And before I windup, one more salute for the Arrow design which looks so much ahead of its times. Great work Honda Team.
Check more at Honda website

iWoz - Autobiography of Steve Wozniak - Book Review

I picked this book from Khan Market about a month back and from the cover, its a easy decision since this book is about Steve Wozniak who created first computer or so the cover claims.

It was a easy and quick read since its been written in first person and has tons of events. Even though there is a co-author, it doesn't appear like ghost-written book. The style of expressions is very frank, fluid and on the face. It starts with Steve growing up as a child, getting influence and impressed by his Engineer Dad, doing pranks and all that.

Later he meets Steve Jobs, and Apple is formed. As a co-founder of such a impressive and change-leading organization, probably you would start to have great expectations and you would keep discounting the author for the so much I-I-I kind of statements in the beginning but as the book matures, it seemed to me that if Woz would not have met Steve Jobs, he would have been another hard working bright engineer. And somehow the book doesn't focus much on that. A better part of the book covers the time when Steve was designing Apple 1 and later Apple 2, the computer which sort of introduced computing to home users.

He was instrumental in starting Apple and till the point it created Apple II computer and after that he was getting disconnected and later moved out (though he was still on payroll). Later Steve started another company called CL9 (Cloud Nine) and they wanted to create a 'Universal Remote' and that didn't work. He had three marriages, first two didn't work too well. Finally he spent lot of time teaching kids.

For one thing, this book doesn't sound like a piece of inspiration. Rather it might piss you off as you read claims after claims of being first in lot many things. Its a good read and one should read it for the facts and to get Steve's side of story. But beyond that, its just another book.

"Kabab Kings" in Shoprix Mall - Sector 61 is GOOD

We had lunch at Food Court in Shoprix Mall, which is located in Sector - 61, Noida. Its right on the road which connects the GIP with NTPC and goes all the way till Flex. I never too much admired the 'Food Court' of Shoprix because its very noisy and overall ambiance is more like a open food street. I like that ambiance but it has to come at a cost which suits it, at Shoprix the prices are still of that of a restaurant. So anyway, it was a large group and some of us chose to have Indian Mughlai.

We ordered food from Kabab King and it was awesome. These days they are giving a deal where 3rd dish is free. We order a chicken-based platter, a mutton-based platter and we got a ghost-biryani free. For each platter, we got 2 rotis/naan , a bowl of Dal Makhani, a small potion of Kabab (Burra or Kathi) and a small potion of Tandoori chicken/mutton. We ordered more Rotis since we were a group of four and we had a full meal. The total damage was Rs 420 including tip. Not only it came with a reasonable price, the food quality was super, it was served in clean plates and it was very fresh. Interestingly, it was funny to see that people who have ordered thing like Pizza from other counters had to wait more.

I am going to go there again soon.

'Superstars Noida' - Pub, has lost its sheen

I was at Superstars the other day with a large group. We had some business guests from the other side of ocean and the team wanted to have some fun time together.

Superstars with all the great reputation was not a difficult choice. There were about 40 people and we had lot of fun since we could get hold of some free space to let loose. For about 2 odd hours almost every one danced to the desi (Ashok Masti to be more precise) tunes belted out non-stop by the DJ. We had got into a deal where we were to be served any Indian Beer or hard liquor, unlimited, a buffet for snacks and a buffet for dinner. All this at Rs 900 per person. It didn't seem like a expensive deal considering that Superstars has always been expensive (but valuable).

But the euphoria started to get a taste of real life when a colleague of mine was refused Fosters Beer, for no good reason since it was covered under 'Indian Beer'. My experience with these events have made me more mature and I let it go. Then I was refused any cock-tail, even though it could be out of Indian liquor. I failed to understand that if Bacardi is covered, soda and cola are covered then why can't they spare some lime, a little mint and some crushed ice to make Mojito. I was not really asking any Belly's or Cointreau or a triple-sec or a tequila. They did end up giving me one but it started to get unpleasant. I moved on and ignored and decided to have my share of fun with RC Beer, the only Indian Beer they were serving. Its such a shame to just stock one Indian Beer and that too a RC (I love RC though), when we have Cobra (UK fame), Tiger (Singapore) and Carlsberg (again available locally) around. Its not a Rs 100 a beer pub, its a Rs 200 a beer pub which we are talking about. Anyway, ignore.

Time to look at snacks buffet. It was a fairly Kake-Da-Dhaba kind of arrangement with 6 choice to choose from. Then came dinner which was a truly a flop-show. All this was understandable since they could always tell us that you dont get a fortune out of Rs 900 per person and I would not have any argument.

But can you explain following
1. The balls at the pool table were taken away.
2. Bar counter was closed much before time for us.
3. The guy who was supposed to help us serve the food was himself found chewing the green salad, picking his favorites every few minutes.
4. They wont put enough Vodka since they wont use a 'measure'
5. Some of them were im-polite

Enough was enough and even though I was not doing anything, a fellow colleague could not stop and he got into a chat with the super visor, one Mr. Rawat. Mr. Rawat listened to us and it was very clear that he had no intention to do anything and he was just trying to be patient. I would not blame him since it seemed that he had no good control. On being told that a gentleman called 'Jeet' has been rude, he summoned Jeet and challenged him. Contrary to what one would want to believe, Jeet refuted and challenged Rawat back :)

The only thing they could think at that point was to offer me additional beer, after 11 PM, and some ice-cream scoops for the handful who were still hanging around.

No sweat but I am fairly sure that I am not going to blow up my organizations' hard earned money on these folks. I am not a regular pub-hopper but some of my close friends have been and we always looked at Superstars with respect.

It seems that it has lost its sheen and at this rate probably its a matter of time when it goes down further.

'A Wednesday' - Movie Review

A low key movie which was released couple of weekends back have failed to evoke much excitement but somehow I was recommended this movie by a my half-brother. Also incidentally I wanted to watch this movie since it has Naseer and Anupam, one of the two all time great artistes. I was eye-ing the poster for a while.

I did get a chance to watch this on last weekend and what a delight it was. Its a tight, not so long, thriller which keeps you almost on the edge, has stellar performances from everyone, brilliant editing and camera work and most importantly a fine piece of overall cinema. A great story and screen play, a small dose of humor and a high-impact social message.

The story is of 'A' Wednesday when Anupam who is playing as the Police Commissioner of Mumbai receives a call from Naseer for releasing some of the terrorists. I wont give you the story so that I dont kill the fun. Anupam is ably supported by a team which is led by two Sub-Inspectors Arif and Jai. Neeraj Pandey as a director has done a great job and I am certain that big assignments must be on his way. Right from character establishment (esp of Jai and Arif) to continuity to timing, everything has been really spectacular.

Some things which one of my colleague mentioned and I agree with him is that we as a nation are still not doing a good job in terms of researching the topic and trying to make the movie more real. There was definitely one thing which could have been handled with more maturity. This was around finding a hacker who could geo-locate Naseer. There were other small things which probably could have been done better, like managing to get the convicts (I would argue that in the current system it would be next to impossible to arrange four high-profile convicts in one place in a matter of 2 hours, the paper work would probably eat half a day if not more). We do not seem to be doing research the way Hollywood does. May be as a nation we work more out of guts then a real planned data-driven decision. Anyway, dont read too much of this.

All in all, a must watch. If you can't catch it on a theater then wait for the DVD and do watch it. If you watch it and have things to share, then please write a comment.