Mumbai

Bombay, Feb 26 to 28^th, ‘10

Didn’t really plan to write a travelogue on this one because this was hardly set to be a travel adventure. Was off to a conference in Mumbai on Neurotology, the very subject that my heart beats for, and I knew I won’t be able to find the time to sight see.

As it is I don’t know a lot about Mumbai except for what I have read in Film Magazines, seen on TV and gathered from a few friends during casual conversations and since I was not in the ‘travel’ state of mind, no research was conducted before landing at this place. What ensued were regular work day on Thursday and a morning Kingfisher flight to Mumbai on Friday. The first indication that fancy things could really after all be afoot met me at the bus that offers transport between the boarding gate and the aircraft. Kiran Kher was there. I assumed she probably wouldn’t like being disturbed so I passed a casual smile, and she smiled back. The next step obviously was a nod of acknowledgement to which she gave a suitable response. So I decided to have my picture clicked with her.

On reaching Bombay what struck me first was how different it was from Delhi. Two Cities whose name is often placed together one after the other in most forms of News were so amazingly different that it was almost annoying. The sluggish taxi took me to the conference venue through potholed roads which led my inherent merry and mirth to fall flat on its nose. At the conference the lectures were nice and my talk got a decent response but during the journey post conference the evening traffic turned out to be a bitch. Stuti was kind in extending an invite to her home but the even more sluggish traffic on the even more potholed and dug up roads left me with little courage to undertake adventure. I gave the thought a slip, went to my hotel, changed into something less formal and went out on a foot journey. Walked upto Hotel Leela, turned around, went to another part of town (close to my hotel) and had dinner at Tunga residency’s Tao restaurant which Stuti was kind in suggesting.

                                                                                                

The next day found itself rather different. It was Eid mounted on a Saturday that eased the traffic considerably.  I liked Bombay on this day.

Finishing with the conference at late evening I decided to travel and see Mumbai in a braver fashion. I already had the Mumbai Map and Stuti’s address so I took a rick to the nearest Local Railway Station and stood in the queue for the ticket.

When I reached the ticket booth after a few minutes wait and asked for a first class ticket to Sewree (pronounced Shivdi), the man looked at me surprised. He told me I needn’t have stood in the queue as first class passengers were exempt from queuing. Well, I didn’t want all my standing and queuing to go for a waste so I asked the chap to continue with cutting me a second class ticket. At times it does sound odd, when cognition without good reason allows the emotional judgment to overwhelm, but then it is exactly this that makes the human behavior different from that of a preprogrammed machine. Adventure, fun and really wild things.

                                                               

The second class was fun to be in. Obviously I was still dressed in my conference attire which is generally a well ironed suit and shirt and it did draw me quite a lot of attention at the Railway station and the train, but then it didn’t bother. It was educative to learn what not to wear on a Mumbai Local.

I got in at Vikhroli on the Central line, changed at Kurla for the harbor and alighted at Sewrii (Shivdi) to get to Stuti’s house. There were plans to take the Western Line on the way back for the sake of completion but it didn’t materialize.

Stuti has again done wonky things to her leg. She had met with an accident four months ago for which she underwent a surgery on her leg and got steel plates fixed to her bones. She has now got herself operated only day before yesterday to have those orthopaedic plates out. Her reason to me was that the wound was getting infected and the surgeon suggested the surgery, but I personally think her Crutches were probably getting all rusty and she wanted to draw benefit out of them one last time before they rendered themselves unusable. She is indeed a Madu afterall.   

Anyway, she offered me a Bombay special Vada pao at her residence, and we were to feast on the Pav Bhaji too but alas the man who makes it at the local restaurant near her place was on a holiday for Holi.

Soon Anuj, Stuti.S.Gupta’s brother joined us and we went for a Bombay Night out. Pali Hill, Mary Church, Mannat  etc were some on the way attractions. Band stand was nice and the couples were really getting all mushy and stuff. Had nice Kebab rolls at someplace I have forgotten the name of and Icecream at Baskin Robbin’s, after which Anuj cruised us through the Bombay Sea Link and then back to my hotel at Andheri East.

Back at the hotel at half past twelve, I ended up watching a fast and racy low budget movie on Sony Pix called Three Way or something. The plot appeared to be based on a James Hadly Chase novel but this is irrelevant to the blog and I am not sure why I even bothered to mention this here.

Day three was at the conference venue for some spellboundingly nice talks by Prof Giorgio Guidetti who is the balance expert for many things including the Ferrari folks in Modena and works closely with Formula One drivers to enhance their performance. Nice guy.

Finished that bit, directly left for the airport, and here I am writing this for you while I wait to board my flight.

Probably not the best of travelogues, but a very satisfactory travel.

Adios.

PS: I am probably up for a running event at Leh during July. That is one travel I am keenly looking for. Would keep you posted.

Regards,

K

(P.S: Today is the 3rd  of February 2011. It has been eleven months since I wrote this and lost it as a word file somewhere on my computer. Found it half an hour ago and was amazed how little did I remember from that trip. So this goes online to help my memory through the years. And yes, I skipped the running event at Leh. :)

The code of the Maliks (Bangalore)

Prologue

What follows is a tale of hardships, disappointment, deceit and misery. Or very nearly could have been, had one from the Clan Malik not been the protagonist and your humble chronicler of the tale. Fine body of men we Maliks I have always heard people say. Always upfront and as full of merry thoughts as a pomgrenate is of pips. But more about the code of us Maliks as the article unfolds. The following story begins at 4 am on the 23rd of January, and ends at 2 am on the 25th. What waits the patient reader is a breath-taking nailbiting adventure encompassing 46 hours and the entire length of India.

Story

The news about a conference in Bangalore first reached my ear when I was on my tour to Hyderabad in November. Though travel costs and hospitality are of little consideration, my enthusiasm laid damp as  I had been awfully occupied at my bearing. To add to the dampness, two visits to the city on earlier occasions didn't leave me much scope for overwhelming surprises that I like to experience at my holidays. With a busy schedule at Delhi, the chances of me attending were grim.

But then last moment alterations motivated my spirit to take a stand and my attendance was confirmed  due to a deep desire for a holiday. Having said this, like a true Libran my mind still wavered to both sides even till the morning of my departure, and the dense fog was doing no good to my half hearted spirits to catch the flight. And even though up and about at 4 am waiting for my cab to reach at 5:30, my spirits lacked something the forefathers of the clan could have identified as jaunty.

I decided to give my camera a miss and settled on relying on my phone for the art work I was to assemble during my travel. With matters approaching dullness, the gods decided to give the first bolus of adrenaline at about 5.40 am when the cab decided not to make it on scheduled time. On calling the infernal, almost balmy I should say, chap he said something about reaching in half an hour. The reply that my flight leaves at 6.45 am failed to bring a change in the timbre of his voice, and a lack of quiver in the same made it perfectly clear that he was in the "it's bloody hell your problem mate" frame of mind.

The ordinary personality here may have panicked and in all likelihood jumped off the roof, but not the Malik's. For it was not when the forefathers were standing shoulder to shoulder in the battlefield with King Porus and the news that Alexander's army were approaching from all four sides did the forefathers say "Come King Porus, let's jump off a roof". No, they took a stand, and so did I. I left home in a jiffy, met the taxi driver on the main road avoiding further delay he might have faced in finding the house, and offered him a reward of Rs 20 if he made me reach the airport in 15 minutes. He took the challenge sportingly and off we went in dense fog at speed previously only attributed to a particularly slender cheetah in his heat period.

Sharma Singh, for that was his name, gave it his best shot as he shot through the dense fog in zero visibility towards the airport. Bad luck that he could not cover those 14 kms to the airport in fifteen minutes. Poor sod took sixteen. Oh well, hard sort of luck for him I say.

At check in, for which I was the last passenger for the flight, things didn't get any better. I had constantly been after the Spice Jet staff to inquire if the flight would delay but they had maintained a strict "On Time" charade. Even now, as they stuffed me in the plane and shut the door behind me the gorgeous ladies did not yield to my line of inquiry, and convinced me that modern day aircrafts have better technical revolutions to back them than modern day Meru Cabs, and Sharma Singh (cabbie) and Capt Maninder Singh (pilot) did not see with the same eye the issue of dense fog. How wrong they were, because scheduled at 6.45, the flight took off at 10.25 am. And though enough has been said about the mirth and merry a Malik carries in his travel kit, I would be lying if I said the delays did not take a chunk off the very travel kit that I mention above.

Thankfully I had with me Mr Wodehouse's "Code of the Woosters" to give me company, and Cup Noodles and N/V Kathi Rs to occupy the interests of my metabolism. The flight in general was uneventful, what with no beautiful faces to look at, but hope springs eternal in the human breast and I kept to my mood strongly.

It was no sooner than I landed at the Bangalore airport after a, what a feeble heart would describe as gruesome, six hours in air did I bring my faculties together, brushed aside the inadequacies thrust upon me since dawn and changed my persona to a very pipped man who has a lot to look forward to in life.

The Bangalore airport, as the inquisitive traveller would be aware, is large, roomy and well equipped, and stands tall with the fact that it is the only structure in the entire width of land to hold any importance to anyone. This in reverse would mean, that for any other structure that might hold any importance to anyone else, the aforementioned width of land would have to be traversed. There may be many ways to do so ofcourse, but my idiom automatically took me to the tourist information desk to apply for a Map and basic information.

The friendly man gave me the map and the approximate distance confounded me. The well established fact that these radio taxis charge 15 rupees a kilometer and the recently acquired one about the distance to my destination being 45 kms made the sharp mathematical Malik mind to spring in action and make this basic calculation that Fortyfive multiplied by Fifteen was equal to more than Rupees Four Fifty.

(45 x 15 =  >450)

This was enough for me to find other ways of transport to my destination. Before, however, I did anything of the sort, nourishment of the body was due for which I treated myself with a heavy glass of Berry Juice with especially added whey proteins at an extra cost to achieve that ripped torso the observant eye may have spotted on hoardings of old time kasrat-ghars.

No, the man at the counter is not trying to tease you.

The nourishment was followed by an uneventful journey in Volvo no 7  (fully air-conditioned, no less) to the venue Nimhans. The only interesting place I saw on my way was the National Bureau of Agriculturally Important Insects. I did not know such a bureau was in existance but there it was, in brick and cement right in front of my eyes. And since a Malik knows never to disregard what he sees with his own two peepers, regarded this information was.

The conference was like any other. In a bid to be diplomatic and have those invitations to attend conferences keep flowing, I shall here refrain from expressing my general perception of a medical conference, but it would suffice to learn that I had an erstwhile wicketkeeper in my company with whom I had the following picture taken.

The chief objective of my Bangalore trip, and I disclose it here, was to catch up with a couple of my friends, who very recently formed the proverbial couple with a couple of guys. The first of them two was Neha. Dr Neha 'erstwhile Badhwar' Anand was a pillar of strength during my internship at Dr RML Hospital and could endure my ramblings with considerable ease. She then had a tryst at the Cardiff University and now seeks to counsel those with rashes, itches, scabies and STDs. Noble profession. Married to Dr Kanav Anand, currently a "Fellow" at the department of Paediatric Nephrology at St John's Hospital and perpetually a nice "Fellow" to hang out with, the evening was spent with considerable success at the roulette of joy.

On my way to her abode I took the footpath which was barren and devoid of all walking population. And it deserves a special mention that when this happened (see picture), the biker was more surprised to see a pedestrian on the footpath than the pedestrian was seeing the biker at the same.

Kanav (the respected husband) was on duty when Neha treated me with some mindboggling stuff like "Chinese Idli" at Sukh Sagar. I am now the first amongst all chinese nationals to have eaten a Chinese Idli. I shall make it a point to taunt them about it when the opportunity provides itself.

The above shows you a glimpse of yours truly and Dr Neha as seen virtually. After the idli it was time for coffee. I have maintained this over the years that Barista though serves wonderful coffee, the full value for money for the article only justifies if accompanied by a shot at one of their fantastic board games. So an hour long session of "Scrabble" was only perceived natural.

By dinner time we were joined by Kanav, who guided us to a very fancy place at the roof top at Koramangalam. Cheese seekh kababs were indeed very yum.

Dessert at Cream and Fudge was extraordinarily gratifying. I was glad to be in company which gave the gastronomic inclination as much preponderance as a true Malik does. Observe our man making the delicious chocolate supreme and hand it to us like the Olympic torch.

After the epicurean extravaganza I made a quick retreat to the apartment complex at diamond district and rested my worn out exterior till the long hours of the morning.

The next day came as a day of spring that has followed a very pleasant springy night. Much was in store as I went to the conference venue if only to prove my presence amidst those actively involved.

After an hour's session with the Who's Who of the stream I made my retreat to Total Mall where I was to meet Sonia. Sonia 'erstwhile Arora' Bose, as not many may know, forms a deep part of the memories of my days at the Force. The Air Force School that is. My colleague, friend, guide, but not quite the philosopher. Well, nobody's perfect!!

She met me deep in the cavity of the mall and we fed on food from the pizza serving corner.

The torso's food storage and metabolism unit had now reached saturation. We Maliks are epicureans to the core, but even we know when to draw a line and I did exactly that. I drew the line and that too with a permanent black marker. It was time to digest and time for exercise so I  took Sonia for some sports. We  ended up playing two games of Basketball.

Sonia insisted on Watersports and proud that I am of being the most chivalrous man in the entire F Block district of Vikaspuri, I could hardly refuse. Here she uses a stream of water to fill the ever thirsty orifices at the board.

We made our retreat to her abode where I had the pleasure of coming face to face with her husband of sixteen months, Priyam. We met, exchanged pleasantries,  and I changed my attire to something more fitting of a man in his late twenties.

Pleasantries were soon followed by aimless chatting and sweet nothings. It could well have gone to naughty jokes, the building blocks of a strong and everlasting friendship amongst men, had Sonia left us alone for some time. But then merciless optimists the Maliks are, I hereby promise you Priyam, that I shall save your share of some extremely naughty jokes for another time we meet.

On dropping me to the bus stop for the airport, I bid my goodbyes to these pleasant folk and went my way.

I made my way to the Bangalore airport, and just as I reached, I received a text from my airline telling me my flight was late by two hours. But the Malik spirit is not easy to trod upon. I roamed freely at the airport and made interesting observation about the geography. After a while I decided to enter the complex.

And though you might read the placard and think our association is over at this point, you would be wrong. It would take more than an official sign at a South Indian Airport for the Malik Spirit to quiver and give up on its share of friends. I entered the complex unperturbed with  four hours of spare time to ride upon. One of the first things was to check in and get a seat with plenty of leg room which is paramount for us six footers on low cost airlines. Then on buy a good book to read at the local bookshop, grab a large mug of coffee and get on with the literary entertainment.

After about three hours and as many number of hot coffees, I decided to look around for nubile folk to bring cheer to a lifted spirit which had so far been reading short stories about ol' London society, but to my horror there were none.

It has never ever happened in my experience with airports that there not be a single nubile folk to soothe the eyes, but probably fate was trying to check the free and merry spirit I held. I would be hiding precious information if I said it failed, for for a few minutes I fell in despondency. But the lively spirit does not take long to spring back in to action and all went well, when at about 1.30 am I finally reached home (not an iota of fog in Delhi on this day), ate a well deserved bar of chocolate, sang a merry song and went to sleep.

Contrast this with Picture One. Travel, no matter how jading, in turn does bring out the best in me. Well, if not been a doctor, a travel show host would have been ideal job for me. Oh how I envy you Michael Palin (CBE). How I envy you. :)

Epilogue

That was all about the Code of the Malik and Bangalore. Next installment should bring you some fascinating details about an even bigger journey. Till then, Good bye.

PS: The journal was written in inspiration from Mr Bertram Wooster's idiom of narration.

Hyderabad

The November of 2009 marked a conference on Cochlear Implants at Hyderabad.

Summary:

Days:......................Friday to Sunday (6-8th November 2009)

Temperature:........ T-shirt walla

Rainfall:..................Casual. In good humour.

Sex:.......................None

Export:...................None. There was nothing that they wanted from me.

Import:...................None. There was nothing that I could afford from them. (Pearls and jewelery per se)

Chapter 1.

The Airport

Hyderabad boasts of a super-coolly made airport. The only glitch is that most super-cool things are now made many miles away from the city. I made my way to the tourist information center which sadly was not marked anywhere near the exit gates. I could deal with that no problem, but when it was brought to my attention that the airport didn't have a dedicated tourist information center, something died inside me. I missed the fancy " i ". I then made my way to the taxi walla and Mr Meru took me to my hotel in about 45 minutes, driving across an eleven point five kilometer long flyover.

Chapter two:

The Conference

I entered my hotel, checked in and sat at the multi-cuisine buffet breakfast. The hotel reception staff compensated for an absent " i " at the airport by arranging a pocket map of the city for me. At the conference venue I socialised with the lot and had lunch, which was rather gratifying.

Chapter Three

The outing

As the clock struck late afternoon, I moved back to my hotel room, changed into my walking gear and left for Hussain Sagar Lake. A colleague, probably unaware of my brand of masochistic tourism pleaded to join me and walked along. We walked far and wide aided by the local map and ever helpful Hyderabadi locals, and within minutes reached the artificial lake named Hussain Sagar, which was dug somewhere in the 16th century AD as a water reservoir.

Ankur by then was dead tired and conveyed this to me by ways of interesting abuses. Ultimately when I felt the abuse could readily turn into acts of needless violence, I caved in to his wishes and we entered Lumbini Park. The guards wished to have the camera checked and I made them check it in the most functional way possible.

Once inside the park I could see a cricket practice net, the wickets at one end and a machine that automatically throws tennis balls at the court when a single person wishes to practice and play at the other. The objective was to hit a half century in 18 balls which when achieved shall grant you another 18 balls to convert your score to a century. I just had to do it. I made 34.

Thence on Ankur realised that I am a mean bastard who won't let him rest even in a park, and pulled me in his characteristically cool way to a place where death took a toll at my enthusiasm in one of the more graphic ways that one gets to see only in Tarantino movies.

Obviously he was only looking for some rest and did not buy anything, but the experience enhanced my knowledge on the subject of pearls. It was Ankurs mighty plan to then drag me to another place called snowworld or snow land or something. It was a sort of place I personally would never ever have gone during my travels, but I have absolutely no reason to complain because once we went in, it was rather good fun inside. I owe all this to Ankur of course.

Once out from the Hyderabad woods, had to rush to the hotel to change and attend the evening dinner in the lawns of Apollo hospital. Reached the hotel, draped myself in artificial fragrance and left for the dinner session.

Book Two. The next day

Chapter Four:

Liaison

The day started with a brilliant one hour session at the breakfast table. The course started mildly with fresh fruits, reached a crescendo with ham and cheese, accelerated upwards through the south indian vada samber and reached a steaming orgasm with a bowl of kellog's chocos with wallnuts, raisins, dried figs and whole milk. The conference immediately after was sort of a dampener, and the high part at the venue was me meeting Dr Achamma Balraj, Professor Audio-vestibular Medicine CMC Vellore, the only person who had been to London for the Masters before myself.

Chapter Five:

The Max Day

As soon as lunch was served I left the venue, one because I wasn't carrying the coupon for lunch and two because I had anyway planned to have the anticipatory delicious biryani served at the old town. The auto rickshaw I hired almost immediately ran out of fuel and stopped at a refueling station. I was particularly enthused watching a petrol operated rickshaw at a time when in Delhi all of them now use CNG. So I took a picture.

My man left me at the Charminar. There are two kinds of popular places. One, which owe their popularity to their very build, structure and magnitude, and two, which owe theirs only to the story behind them. Charminar clearly fell in the latter. Though the structure itself was not badly done, it didn't however elicit the same respect that I would like to give to something of a national stature. The story that it was built to redeem and protect the city from some kind of a plague was reasonably interesting. Below you see a) an image of the Minar from the outside, b) the image of outside from the Minar, and c) an image of inside the Minar from inside the Minar in order of reverse.

Next on my agenda was the Mecca Masjid. Personally I prefer the Jama Masjid in New Delhi for the reason that security guards don't stop people to enter with bags, phones and cameras, plus that one can climb up one of the minars and bask in the panorama of Delhi's low rise buildings in the area. The interesting part seen here is the cleaning women in the Municipal jackets with the Masjid in the backdrop.

By this time the morning breakfast was metabolised to its last molecule of glucose and I was in hunt for food. Already the local shopkeepers had told me that Charminar was not a grand place where one could find kebabs and my only hope lied in the well recommended Hotel Shahran.(Someone even suggested hotel Shabaab, but my instincts didn't let me fall for the trap. ) I quenched my appetite with liberal helpings of the kebabs and moved to the Salar Jung museum which was within walking distance from the minar. On my way I came across shops selling arms and ammunitions the price of which I happily haggled with but my conscience (and a weak feeling at the knees that one gets when holding a live firearm) prevented me from venturing forth.

As I walked towards the museum, I came across an interesting godown for raw bananas. Here it shows.

The Salarjung Museum was a bit of a let down really. Probably the British Museum (I used to live 200 mts away on the same road), and other London museums have set the bar a bit too high. So I made my way out of the display in the next thirty minutes and boarded a rickshaw for the Golkonda Fort, which remains my high point of the day.

The fort was built over seven generations and encompasses an area of seven kilometer square, the inner construction of which is about three square kilometers. Please note that for me as a tourist numbers are meaningless and I mention them only for the sake of completion. The point equally passes along with the fact the the fort was really amazingly big.

I hired a guide, named Ghaffur, who showed me around the place and told facts in detail. I should mention here that there is something about the old Indian Palaces, Castles and Forts that makes me fill up with a very potent energy and enthusiasm. And a tour without a well qualified tour guide is as rotten as something very rotten.

Here's a short commentary video by Ghaffur where he tells about the brief history of the fort,and Hyderabad itself. Might fill you up with the feel of being there too. Watch it. And listen to the brilliance of the breeze.

Once through with the guided tour, I stayed back to watch a laser show where different coloured lights light up the fort and surround sound in Mr Amitabh Bachchan's voice fills up the space detailing the history of the fort. It was near perfect. Apart from the song routine in between but that could easily be ignored amidst the beauty of the fort and lovely-ness of the weather (it was partly drizzling on and off).

As soon as I was through with the show I rushed back to my hotel where I changed in little under four minutes and tagged along one of the delegation party to the conference banquet. In the halla-balloo it was inevitable that I forget something at the hotel, and the camera chose to volunteer by deciding to place itself over the bathroom slab and lying desolate and alone all along the late evening. It was then when my phone camera came to the rescue.

After leaving the banquet I reached the hotel by about 11 PM. One thing I had by this time realised, that in Hyderabad people weren't really into food as much as when compared to the northerners. We guys need food, and lots of it. Biryani is all right once in a while but there should be scope for other things too. So as is the case, I was fairly peckish when I reached the hotel. At this hour the weather was fine and roads empty so I decided to stroll. About a kilometer of walking and no sign of a chaalu food shop forced me to take an auto rickshaw to the nearest place where I could gather a packet of crisps. After much ado we finally reached a chemist from whom I took a pack of biscuits and a couple of crisps. Here is when the autowallah dropped me back at the hotel.

Now powered with positive energy, a packet of biscuits and two packets of chips, I planned to make the most of my holiday by watching a movie on my laptop ( which rested on the English Style Potty) while me myself laid back in a hot bath munching on my packet of crisps. Tropic Thunder.

Finally tucked myself in the razaai and had a peaceful sound sleep.

Book Three: Day of Retreat

Chapter Six:

Quiz

Woke up at a convenient time and dressed myself up for the magnanimous breakfast. I had by now developed an immensely strong sense of respect towards the first meal of the day. Once through, I went to the conference venue and waited for the last event of the day, the CIGI quiz in which I was a participant.

After a long wait did start the quiz. The teams were set by the organisers and cutting a long story short, it would suffice to say that yours truly won the first prize. Here is the pic with the certificate. Shall post the ones where the official cameraman clicked as and when they upload them on the CIGI Site.

I carried my First Prize ( A Phillips 2 gb portable music and video player) to my room back in the hotel, checked out, deposited my baggage in the cloak room and left for Paradise Hotel, the most reputed Biryani provider in Hyderabad. Was pleasantly surprised to find a mega building that had a take away counter at the ground floor, an economy restaurant at the first and a fine dine at the second. I packed two kilograms of biryani for my kinsfolk and sat for a hefty meal of biryani for the hour.

This task finished, I rushed back to the hotel, had a cold coffee with colleagues from the conference and left back for New Delhi.

This marks an end of my travelogue to Hyderabad.

Fare Well !!