Winters and I

 I hate winters, in general. The worst ones I remember were at Delhi and Lucknow, during my stay there. I barely survived.

But good things can happen in winter too. You can snuggle under your quilt, endlessly drink cups of spiced tea, or brandy to keep the cold away, have New Year/Christmas parties, or sit and brood- not necessarily a good thing, depends on what you brood about.

You can always go to places that have no winters- like Chennai, Mumbai, or any coastal places. 

Snow is good from a distance, if you are warm and cozy. 

Cups

 They say a cup is half full, or half empty depending on how you look at it. I always thought mine was full of joy. Here's a celebration of cups large and small, always full of life! 

Discussing Marketing With Kanika

Sometimes you end up discussing marketing (of the self, and a few products) in the most unexpected places. So it happened when I met a talented, and chirpy ex-student, Kanika, from IMT Nagpur recently. We had actually bantered online about photography, after I saw a couple of extremely good pics on her timeline (for which she won the DP awards too :) ). In jest, I also appointed her my personal photographer from then on..so we had to meet, naturally.

But when we met (Jab we met) we ended up talking about marketing of specialty teas, and how it's different from marketing those garden variety (intended!) teas that you and I consume every day. Well, we talked about a lot of other things too, like life in Kolkata and Delhi and Nagpur (where we actually had lived around 2013, me a little before too), and the merits of the teaching profession. It was wonderful catching up, as it always is with your students.

Some pics-

Coffee Room Banter

That's just a term-the beverage could be tea, which it is more often in my case. But it's not the beverage, it's the banter that is the focus here. We underestimate the power of socialisation, methinks. It needs effort. You can always have tea in isolation-doesn't taste the same. You can watch inane stuff on TV and comment about it, joke about it, or have a serious discussion about the world's problems and solve most of them in the course of one morning -or afternoon. I have done it many times over!!

The tea break relaxes you like nothing else, when you are busy working on something or thinking- we in academics need to do a lot of the second, and it can be hard work, though some think it's vella-giri ( an Indian term for fooling around, wasting time).

Therefore, I recommend a tea break as a restorative, if you are doing something serious, once in a couple of hours. Of course, after a break-up, it's even more important- just kidding!

Lemon Apple Resort

There is this resort in Coonoor. Except a swimming pool, it's got everything you need for a holiday. You can book on makemytrip and booking.com too. Good location, about a km. from Sim's Park in Coonoor, beautifully done up rooms, a garden sit-out, a sit-in inside, and a couple who will cook to order (that's extra). Some pics that I took there last week. More on this link. http://lemonappleresort.com/

 The drive to get there-this is via Kotagiri to Coonoor. Also approachable from the other side.

No wi-fi, but a Golf academy and a tea estate at a stone's throw. You can learn Golf and take walks. And drink Nilgiris tea grown right there. Evidence- A pic of the tea-tree.

How to Beat the Heat

Not literally beat it, but how to tackle the hot, hot, hot days.  Hot tips-

Drink some buttermilk. Actually, lots of it.

Become a tee-totaller. Make some tea and drink it. Preferably, every hour on the hour. This does two things. It prevents you from going out in the sun, and you also get some fruit for your labour.

Read interesting stuff that takes your mind off the heat. And the heat off your mind. Just finished a Bertha Cool-Donald Lam mystery.

Talk to Alexa, about anything that interests you, and her. It's the digital assistant I am talking about, not a real person. That, you do at your own risk.

Play golf in a cool place. I am going to try it - not just preach. You'll hear more of this, I am sure.

Drink iced tea, kokum sherbet, or solkadhi, or rooh afza, depending on your likes. All good solutions for the summer heat.

Hold your head under a cold shower, or wrap a cold towel around your head, if everything else fails.

If Today Was My Last Day

If today was my last day as a human avatar, I would (depending on when in the day I knew)-

Drink at least three cups of tea and a glass of Single Malt - tough to choose from, but my current stock would help me narrow it down.

Call and say goodbye to about a dozen people.

Watch a favourite film scene from a film or two- Anand and Padosan, or Chupke Chupke probably.

Read my favourite jokes over again.

Look at the photo albums of the years on the planet.

Write a will (unless the World was also ending-then there would be no need).

Play a round of Golf-I should have settled near a Golf Course by then :)😇

Listen to as many favourite songs as I could in the rest of the time..maybe sing a couple.

T Time

The importance of T cannot be underestimated in life.

It wakes up so many people daily and makes them functional human beings, somewhat tolerable to the rest of humani-tea.

You exclaim when something is going exactly right, that "it fits to a T."

Golf actually uses the tee in two ways. Starting off is called a Tee-off, and the wooden/plastic ball-holder on which you put the ball before swinging at it is also called a tee.

What I do for a living begins with a t- teaching!

The easiest gift to give someone is a t- shirt.

When someone is feeling down, you give them TLC- tender loving care.

We live on Oxygen. And who gives us that in exchange for carbon dioxide? A Tree, of course.

Fifty Six and More

How long you live is not known. But you do have aspirations for yourself in the years that you do. Here are some of mine.

That I have lots of small joys every day. An unexpected mail, or meeting. A smile, or a guffaw, a shared joke..

A well-made cup of tea, with the right amount (for me) of milk, sugar and the tea. With music.

A nice book.

An intelligent, witty comment, or turn of phrase from someone on a facebook post. Or a funny forward.

A beautiful photograph, of a person, place, thing.

A pleasant memory coming back to haunt me.

A great biryani at regular intervals. Hyderabadi, preferably.

7th Pay Commission being implemented ( a sour note? I just want the govt. to be more efficient).

Opportunities to travel, as long as the limbs can move.

To see the sea, every once in a while. Hoping to make it to Sri Lanka in 2017.

Peace (no news channels, hopefully they'll disppear from the face of the earth one day).

Munnar Musings

Going to God's own Country, Kerala, makes you susceptible to musings. Atal Behari Vajpayee mused when in Kumarakom. So did I, between bouts of Golf in Munnar. We drove from Coimbatore there, but you can also drive from Aluva or Kochi in Kerala, the nearest points of entry by air (known to me)-about 4 hours by road. Trichy or Madurai too, a little longer I guess-5-6 hours, maybe. We saw a lot of windmills turning out power on the drive from Coimbatore. Chinnakalan is actually where we stayed (at Sterling Resorts, pic below), about 20 kms. away from the golf course which is close to the town. It is a town that reminded me of Coonoor, or Kotagiri

.

The quiet greenery only turns boisterous in the town centre, with lots of taxis (jeeps are ubiquitous), autos and tourists jostling for space. The wannabe guides are many, wanting to show you around. Since we were focused on golf, we did not use their services.

Half the town is owned by the Kannan Devan plantations of the Tata group, and another quarter by the Harrisons Malayalam group, both into growing tea. The Malayali tea shops were in good numbers all over, and so were the shops selling fresh crop from the plantations, along with spices, oils and home-made chocolates. It rained in the afternoons, but we managed a good game thanks to the friendly staff, in the mornings.

My major musings were that-

1. We make too much of a fuss about the small things, while the big ones remain unattended.
2. It takes (a lot of) practice to get good at anything.
3. It is great fun to go on road trips with a bunch of guys you know well.

And no, we did not take a selfie! Nor did we eat Muesli while we mused.

Cups and Saucers

The cup of joy.

The World Cup.

Not your cup of tea.

I cupped my hands around the bowl/his neck.

         Why not saucered? as in

My saucer of joy.

The World Saucer.

Not your saucer of coffee.

I saucered my palm while showing off the tattoo/mehendi, or whatever.

Why this step-brotherly treatment to the humble saucer?
The cup of secrets holds the answer, I am sure.

What Can make you a Better Person?

This is a quiz of sorts, while being fully mindful of the fact that ‘better’ is a subjective adjective. Which of these would you say makes us better people?

  

   

1. The latest mobile phone
2. The ability to connect to people
3. Ability to tell a joke
4. Kindness to people
5.  Being contented
6.  Being grateful
7. Listening to music
8. Sharing a good time, however defined
9. Travel to a new place
10. Observing nature
11. Watching a news channel
12.  A sport- playing it, I mean
13.  Contemplation over a cup of tea/coffee
14.  Writing
15.  Reading
16.  Complimenting someone
17. Being liberal
18. Being conservative
19. A luxury car
20. A great laptop computer

I have left out a few things such as meditation, as I have no personal experience of these.

Conspiracy Theories

Did Modi want his supremacy stamped and did he therefore sideline Jaswant Singh?

Are criminal cases against MPs and MLAs motivated?

Did Chidambaram back out of Lok Sabha elections because he was certain he would lose?

Was Tarun Tejpal framed?

Did the Sahara chief get into trouble because he stopped sponsoring the Indian cricket team?

Is there fixing of every cricket match we see on TV?

Was the Malaysian plane really hijacked or is the truth being hidden from the world?

Did that guy in your office get an undeserved promotion?

No one really knows the answers. Therefore, the conspiracy theory is kept alive, and acquires a life of its own. Making the chai-pe-charcha (conversation over tea) an interesting thing.

Yercaud and Kotagiri

There was an excuse to come to Coimbatore this weekend, and so we ( a couple of friends from here) took off over the weekend to two places in the hills on consecutive days.

First, Kotagiri, a lesser known hill halfway to Ooty from Coimbatore. This, coupled with the excellent weather, made it a memorable tour de force (ok, the usage may be wrong, but it expresses what I want to). Cold but a healthy kind of cold, clouds passing by and then standing still, magnificient tea-trees-ok, plants-everywhere your sight went, and all this from the big window in the room too. Orange pekoe was the name of the hotel, and I recommend it for its location and view, not to mention good service.

Yercaud, the second leg, had a magical mist all through, and we enjoyed it sitting in the balcony of the cottage we were in, and on the drive down. The depression in the Bay had also caused rain on the way there, so it was a combination therapy for the blues, if any.

Yercaud is an unhurried kind of hill station, and a year-round one, being only halfway up the heights of the colder ones such as Ooty, Shimla and Nainital etc..that's my guess, by the way. That makes it one of my favourites, and this must be my nth trip there, n being between 10 and 20.

Making Tea in a Rice Cooker

Whoever said a rice cooker is only for cooking rice? On the lookout for new ways to make tea since my only gas cylinder got exhausted and while I waited for the replacement to arrive, I focussed on 'what I have' rather than 'what I don't have' (this is deep,.... think).

And came up with the bright idea. Make chai in the cooker. So here is the recipe. Put water mixed with a little milk in the electric cooker. Put it on cook. Cover. Wait 10 mins. Take out mixture and pour over tea in a strainer into a shallow bowl so the tea can interact with the hot water/milk mixture. Pour remaining hot water in the drinking cup. After a minute of soaking, pour the red mix from the shallow bowl into the cup. Add sugar if you need it.

You have got yourself a nice cup of tea, and saved some gas-though not electricity. Helps clear some cobwebs (the tea, and in the brain).

The Pleasures of Inefficient Service

The title may sound oxymoronic or simply moronic, but there are occasions when slow and inefficient service is better than the quick, cut and dried version. I had an experience like this at a McDonald's a couple of days ago. With some friends, we ordered three things, one of which was promised to us soon at the table, and it never arrived for about 45 minutes. We reminded a passing body (employee), and then it did arrive. If we had not, maybe it would have been even later! The whole point of the Irani chai joints in Hyderabad and elsewhere was to have a long chat with friends with a single chai (half a cup of tea). You can of course, carry on at a Coffee Day or a Barista too, albeit at a higher out-of-pocket expense. And you may get some dirty looks if the place is full. This is guaranteed not to happen in an Irani chai place. Here is a pic of one here that does not exist any more- used to be in the Osmania University campus at Hyderabad, and a favourite with students.

Anyway, we were doing nothing in particular except (real) chatting, and so, it actually did not matter. Gave us more time to do the needful, anyways. So there are occasions like these, when slow service may be better than fast service. Elderly citizens may go to a bank to socialise if they are lonely, and turning them out in a jiffy might offend them. They don't use ATMs in some cases, because you can't talk to an ATM.

Of Sequels, Prequels and Teaquels

Maybe we need more categories to quell the preponderance of sequels...like the pottery related ones with a lot of wizardry, or the blood-sucking vampire tales, or the Dhoom machaoing ones creating a lot of Dhamaal and hoping to be Houseful (!).

Instead of a sequel, some have also tried prequels like Star Trek and some others that I can't remember too well. I hear the Dabangg team is making a sequel too, with hardly any of the originals in it..not even Munni, who apparently jiggled the cash counters at the box office, along with various parts of her anatomy. And shared the status of item girl of the year with the equally illustrious Sheela. She also had a cure (Zandu Balm) in case you had a headache from watching her lightning-fast moves.

A teaquel would be a simple tale told with no resemblance to the original, except that over a cup of tea, one could watch it in about ten minutes. The idea is that you would at least enjoy the tea, if not the head-or-tail-less story, which most of the 'quels' specialise in. An IPL version of films, if you will. It would save the producer a lot of money, and potential watchers, a lot of time. Which they could put to other uses like improving the self, or saving the world. You can't leave the latter to the superheroes/heroines alone, after all.