India trip 2018 - Day VI

Having some time to spare during the day, I was watching a Test match cricket between India and the West Indies. It was completely one sided affair in favor of the host nation. It was sad to see the mighty Windies fallen to such a low over the years. Excactly 35 years ago the pace battery of the touring West Indian team battered the Indian batting attack to the pulp. I starkly remember in 1983 Raghuram Bhat, a player from Karnataka standing away from the stumps out of fear while facing the fiery Windies speedster Malcolm Marshall. Now it's other way round, India has mercilessly whipped the West Indians to submission in all the departments of the game.

In Odisha each day of the week has its own food related significance. You chose to go vegetarian or be a non-veg in local parlance (meat, fish and poultry eater). Most Odias stay vegetarians, some even avoid Onion & Garlic, called TAMASHIK (titillating carnal desire) food on the following days.

MONDAY - Day of Lord Shiva.
TUESDAY- Day of Maa Mangala and Hanuman.
WEDNESDAY - Budhei Osha. Very few practice this though. Most devour non-Veg food after a hiatus of two days.
THURSDAY  - Goddess Laxmi and Saint Sai Baba. Mostly women stay vegetarian than men on this day.
FRIDAY - Santoshima Brata. Devotees of the Goddess apart from avoiding non -Veg food avoid KHATTA (tangy) stuff like lemon, tomato, tamarind etc.
SATURDAY - Lord Shani and Hanuman.
SUNDAY - Lord Surya. Not many respect the Sun God as Goat meat features on the menu at most Odia homes during lunch.

That leaves non Veg food on the plate for only Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Friends and relatives crowd my schedule by inviting only on those days. I beg them to cook Bhata, Dalma and invite me on Mondays, Tuesday and Saturday as my stomach and schedule can handle so much. But they refuse to relent. Though I have absolutely no question about their hospitality, force feeding meat and fish need not be mandatory for a guest for someone who has time and scheduling constraints.

I saw a girl driving a Scooty, not wearing an helmet and talking with mobile on the left hand. Too dangerous ! Is it that important to put the life on the line to be online with this kind of unsafe driving ? Can't the call wait until the driving is done ?  A person once went to an astrologer, who after seeing his chart said "You will be begging after two years". "What will happen after 2 years ?" asked the curious and now somewhat concerned person. The astrologer responded "You will get used to it". Now I can proudly proclaim of getting used to the chaotic, snarling traffic, the unsafe driving in Bhubaneswar. More later...

India trip 2018 - Day V

The stifling heat and humidity is the talk going around the town. I am still having fun going around, sampling the food but making sure to wash the food down with plenty of water. I feel it has less to do with the heat, more to do with the humidity. The higest temperature of Bhubaneswar hovers around 32 degree (90 degrees Fahrenheit) - which is about the same presently in my state of Georgia in US. But in terms of himidity, it is no where close. City-zens of Bhubaneswar earlier fed up with rainer than usual monsoon this year are now praying for a shower to bring down the heat.

I went to withdraw some cash from my account at the local branch of State Bank of India. The service has got much better these days. You need to pick up a numbered ticket at the counter and wait for your turn. My account was in a dormant status due to not being used for more than a year. So I was directed to another counter after filled out a form to re-activate my account. 

A guy suddenly barged in from no where hoding up a check, broke the line and stood in front of the lady at the counter - "Madam NAMASKAR, EI CHECK TA TIKE DEKHIBE. PEMENTE HABA (Greetings ma'am. Can you take a look at the check. A payment awaits)." The lady hardly impressed by the line breaking of the recalcitrant customer without acknowledging the Namaskar directed him to back of the line". Can't fathom why some folks lack civic sense and patience to wait for a few more minutes.

At night my friend Shubhranshu took me out to the local "Food Street", centrally located in Bhubaneswar behind Ram Mandir. A plethora of stores serving all kinds of fast foods are located next to each other. The crowd was relatively small today being Saturday, when many Odias eschew meat, fish and eggs lest they earn the wrath of arguably the most feared planet in their horoscope "Lord Shani".

I sampled on chicken cutlet, Bali prawn on stick, followed by a footlong chicken roll. A mongrel nearby stared at me, waiting for a few crumbs to fall off as manna dew. But it didn't happen as the greedy me devored everything, hardly leaving any scope for chunks of chicken to reach the ground, even inadvertently.

It reminded of a funny colloquial story. A starving jackal was lying on a large field, craving for food. He saw a Bull, happily grazing with it's huge b**ls swinging like a low hanging fruit from its behind.

The hungry jackal wouldn't dare attack the Bull, as the giant bovines reaction can be unpredictable. Watching his forbidden fruit swinging vigorously like pendulum from behind, the Jackal thought its fall was imminent and patiently waited for his meal.

Soon it became noon, evening, followed by twilight. No sign of the Bull's b**ls falling off ! The mountain sized bovine moved away after finishing his meal. The frustrated jackal died from starvation.

The moral of this story in Odia :

"ANAAI ANAAI GALANI BELA

 SANDHA PE**A LAGI MALA SIALA".

Meaning...

"Forever Waiting for Bull's Ba*ls to Fall,

 The Jackal Died After All."

Today it was the turn of the poor Doggie to be frustrated a la the hungry jackal. For it the bull's b**ls never fell off in form of in the form of chicken chunks. It forever remained elusive low hanging forbidden fruit for him. He moved on to the next person who kept munching on and shooed it way in a heartless manner - HEY JA JA ( Hey, go away). 

The doggie turned back and looked at me as the better guy who at least didn't shoo it away. This time his wish got fulfilled as I rolled the last chunk of the roll towards him. Wagging its tails, it toungued in that chunk in one attempt. More later....

India trip 2018 - Day IV

While scouring local Odia TV Channels, I saw a promotional video of an Odia movie SUNDARGARH RA SALMAN KHAN. A song in that movie goes as- "HEY CHHORI, TU BEAUTIFUL KANYA KUMARI". Nice to know words "Chhori and Beautiful" are new additions to Odia lexicon. I flipped to another Odia channel where a girl was explaining how to prepare an Odia dish in a very PHULEI (Attention seeking girl) accented Odia - DEKHANTU, EI LA JAWAB DISH, KHAILE SONE PE SUHAGA HEI JIBA. She continued further - EI MASALA TI ETHI "BELONG" KARENI. Disgusted, I switched the TV Off. 

However I learnt a few new Odia terms - La Jawab, Sone Pe Suhaga, Belong etc. Odia must have surpassed the English language in enriching itself by adapting words from other languages - even if Fakir Mohan Senapati and Pandit Nilakantha Das turning in their graves. God bless my mother tongue.

In the meantime some one tried to sell me a residential plot in the outskirts of Bhubaneswar, now marked as premium because it is located on road side. In US, the most coveted residential lots are those located on the cul de sac of the neighborhood with premiums attached to them. In Bhubaneswar, it is other way round. Closer they to the main road, more expensive are they. Two different worlds homes apart.

One of my small plesures of life was fulfilled today - peeing in open air under an open sky (In Odia as they say MUKTA AKASHA TALE), a privilege not so readily available in America. At peak of middle age a softened prostrate can't hold it much any longer. After I consumed couple of glasses of cocunut water, the opportunity to avail this much cherished guilty plessure arrived. I found a secluded location under the cover of darkness on the side of a highway. It can be termed as an eco friendly pee - away from residential area and far from the madding crowd.

Today when I pulled out my credit card to pay, the reluctance to accept it as form of payment was visibly stark from the expression on the face of the cashier. Bet he wasn't so ecstatic to see the plastic, even if the purchase amount was good enough to cover the 2% they need to pay as processing fee to the bank. The cashier gave me unique look - a blend of the feeling of losing a CHARENI (25 paisa coin) and chewing a bitter lemon. Last time I had a similar experience at a merchant as the man at the cash counter said - "SARE, CASH HABANI" (Sir, can't you pay by cash) ? "Sorry, I don't have cash, so please use my Mastercard" - I insisted back.

Reluctantly, he swiped my card. After a minute, he said "AGYAN, MESINI KAMA KARUNI - Card machine doesn't work". I told him to swipe again and leaned over for a closer look. Another guy, think his supervisor, snatched the card from his hand and chastised him, "KIRE MESINI CHALEI JANINU. MATE DE", Don't you know how to run the machine, lemme try". Now the MESINI (machine) worked miraculously and my card went through clean, like a hot knife through butter, resulting in the ejaculation of the receipt, coming out in a stuttering whir.

I have a feeling both of them were acting in unison, a la "Good Cop, Bad Cop". Why so much fuss, NATAKBAJI (histrionics) then ? My guess - One, it's typically the merchant greed, who would love to hold on to that 2% cut at most (transaction and settlement fee has come down a lot these days). Two, these transactions are recorded and accounted for. So, they can't do a Tax FANKI (avoidance), which could come back to haunt them later.

Online Railway and flight reservation in India has cut down the role of touts and middle men and the accompanied corruption. Similarly, more use of credit cards down the road will lead to cleaner, accountable transactions - Adding to national exchequer and substantially subtracting the Tax fraud. It will take time, but more use of plastics in the shop and less use of plastic bags when coming out of it is a step in the right direction. More later....

India trip 2018 - Day III

First night can be painful - the night with jet lag. A stubborn Jet lag can be a real pain in you know what. My body clock simply refuses to relinquish the US Time Zone as I woke up at 2.30 AM this morning. Jet lag for me now seems to get too stubborn to relent as I age. It feels miserable to get up so early in morning, without being able to sleep any further. Kishore Kumar's song from Rajesh Khanna's movie AAP KI KASAM - KARWATE BADALTE RAHE SAARI RAAT HUM (turning sides on bed for whole night) never sounded more prophetic. 

Goodnight Mosquito repellant had its effect, but if you think you are too small to make an impact try going to bed with a mosquito in the room. A couple of them still bothered me as I battled them in the darkness to clap them to death. Thanks to internet, Facebook and my addiction to blogging, I kept myself busy until the murmurung of mosquito gave way to the tom tomimg of GHANTA (brass plate) from a nearby MATH (monastery) sounded like music to me, more musical than the sporadic KAWALIs (group music) from stray dogs. No sooner the gang of musical mongrels on the Eastern end of the street finished with a seqience of wooo.. wooo..woof.. than their western side competitive cousins responded with their musical version of wooo.. wooo...woof. The Kawali sessions continued for the better part of the night with intermittent 10 - 15 minutes of break.

The long arduous wait in darkness paved way to dawn. The eastern sky grew brighter, turning crimson red as the light slowly drove away the darkness. By now the early rays of morning sun sprinkled the trees with a golden hue, giving their dust covered leaves a shining copper coating. The chirping of birds turned louder, so also the sound of GHANTA from the nearby Monastery - sounding the end of its morning session of prayer.

I went over to the balcony to take a peek at the outside world. A Bull was placidly chewing cud under a big mound of sand nearly. Couple of mongrels sleeping nearby noticed the tectonic shift in their surrounding as the giant bovine stood up suddenly, shrugging off sand from his body. The doggies shifted further off to a nearby semi-broken concrete culvert, apparently perceived by them as a more secured, safer location. 

One of the parish dogs tried to sniff his way near to a man plucking flowers leaning over the nearby fence only to be shooed away - HEY HEY JA JA (Hey, hey, go away). The doggie nonchalantly walked away. From distance approached the Newspaper walla (guy). He swung and threw the paper past our main gate with immaculate accuracy and moved on to the next house.

A jet lag can be an irritant, a nuisance especially for those plying between India and United States. The long journey can put one's body clock out of whack, which varies from individuals who experience little or no jet lag, to those who have to make a trip to the Doctor's office for medication when their jet lag stubbornly refuses to relent. Eventually most get over it. For me it lasts for 3 to 5 days, now more on the later side. 

Here are a few tips on how to minimize the jet lag. This is hardly scientific, rather based purely upon personal experience. Try not to sleep during the day. Keep yourself busy, sip some caffeine, especially late in the afternoon when your eyelids refuse to stay open. The more you sleep during the afternoon, longer it takes your body to adapt to the new clock. Also don't forget to drink plenty of water and go easy on food. Don't splurge on fried foods and alcohol when you still have a jet lag, it can cause havoc to your system. 

Last but the least, time is the best healer. Let your body clock take its own sweet time to adjust. If it's already a week since you have landed and the jet lag refuses to go, better see a doctor. More later...

Arrival in India trip 2018 - Day II

At IGI Airport in Delhi I breezed through immigration which was a shoo in for me. The Terminal 3 is quite impressive. Restrooms (toilets) maintained nice and clean. No strong smell of ubiquitous Phenyle and dark brown betel stains at each corner. Our International Airports can now be considered as world class. I saw a digital bill board proudly displaying Happy Gandhi Jayanti, followed by a visual of Chivas Regal Scotch. Ironically our Mahatma was never stood for consumerism, nor he extolled Chivas Regal.

In the year 1998,  no sooner I came out of IGI Airport in the middle of night night than I was treated like a hapless hlHare amid Hounds baying for my blood in form of haranguing touts. I was forced to do an about turn and beat a hasty retreat, only to come out at break of the dawn to be ragged again. It was not unusual then for hapless passengers to dish out a $20 note (Bill) to buy themselves out of harassment by Customs. Such things are now passe.

After checking in for my last leg of flight to Bhubaneswar, I settled down on a chair as the sun brightened the horizon, revealing the array of Aircrafts on the turmac, spraying them with Orange hue. The Roundtrip return fare between Delhi and Bhubaneswar cost me only Rs.4443. I remember paying at least Rs.21000 for the same in the 1990s, a stupendous amount then. How the affordability of airfare has changed in less than 2 decades !!!

The departure area of the Domestic Airport before boarding resembled our BADAMBADI Bus stand in Cuttack. I saw a guy surreptitiously scratching their private parts in public. When our eyes met he pretended to adjust his belts. The Air crew were goading passengers like cattle towards to board the flight (hats off to the person who coined cattle class for the economy class). 

Inside the flight a man sitting next to me was let out a lot of hot air - both literally and figuratively too. The silent, sneaky hot air from down below with a "Not I" look on his face was followed by some bombadistic hot air from his loud mouth. He boasted how he carries all his company's responsibility on his shoulders and visited all 75 states of India (never knew there were 75 states in India, even if you include the Union territories).

Groggy with jet lag, I dozed off with my head drooping sideward, as the Airhostess politely woke me up - "Veyzz (veg) or Non - Veyzz Sir ?" While munching the food I looked out through the window. The roaring big bird was flying low, whizzing past low lying clouds, enabling me to take a peek outside to get a Bird's eye view. The plane was flying high over snow white fleece of cloud looking like a vast cotton plantation or a big flock of sheep. As the plane lowered itself preparing for landing, the rivulets meandering through the gray undulating land down below formed a spectacular sight. The green waves of Eastern Ghats was taking shower of morning sunlight. River Mahanadi looked like a huge Anaconda taking a sunbath on golden sand.

Every other year I fly over Bhubaneswar, sadly I see more concrete and asphalt, less green foliage as an once asthetic city known for its salubrious weather slowly turns into an urban jungle. Way too many skyrises have become a growing environmental concerns - gonna to bite this city big time sooner or later.

How contrasting is the worms eye view of the sky from the ground to the bird's eye view from the top. It makes me understand the meaning of the phrase "Down To Earth". When it all seems you are on top of the world, in minutes you are back on the ground. So are the vagaries of life. How much and how high you fly you have to come down - in no time you must descent from 39000 feet to ground zero. Airplane teaches us a lesson on life.

I was welcomed by a not too hot muggy Bhubaneswar weather. On my way home I savored the sights of the millieu where vehicles yonked their way through in a zigzag maze. As I stepped out of my vehicle I could feel beads of sweat swelling on my chin and forehead. A sudden burst of breeze felt good, vindicating the old law of Physics "Evaporation caused cooling".

Dog tired after a journey of 28 hours across 3 continents, I badly needed a shit, shave, shower and sleep. I turned the faucet on. Prrrt..Prrrt..It farted twice before emitting a thin stream of water which slowly got thicker. I could hear the tweeting spree by a sparrow which would have given Donald Trump run for money - "Tweetwoo... tweetwoo...tweetwoo..", without bothering about any character restrictions.

It gave way to coarse cawing of a crow on the branch of the nearby mango tree, interspersed with occasional spurts of bikes honking -"keee..kicky.....kicky..." and

wafting of street vendors - E KADALI KADALI (Banana, Banana), AMBAAAACHAARA LEMBAAACHAARA (Mango pickle, Lemon pickle). No sooner I had my lunch of rice with Ilisi ( Hilsa) fish curry cooked with Yougurt, than my eyelids refuse to stay open. More later...

Trip to India - Day I at Doha

After a long flight of 14 hours from Atlanta I reached Doha, Qatar. It was late afternoon, local time as the flight descended piercing through a hazy sky, the gulf next to the Airport looking like faded sky blue ink on a dusty sandpaper. 

Being peak school season, the flight was filled with good number of vacant seats along with mostly old couples and families with infants & toddlers - some of them cranky and cacophonous. I boarded the fligh the evening of October 2 in Atlanta and arrived in Doha close to evening of next day. In between the night went fast, so also the day. On the 3rd of October this year I saw the shortest duration of daylight - thanks to the diurnal rotation of mother earth from West to East. Flying West to East you lose time, you gain time flying other way round, as earth is round.

Four more hours before connecting to Delhi, I took time to walk around. Folks in Arabians in white cotton helmets with their female folks tagged along in black attire from top to bottom peeping through tiny slits cut below their foreheads - looking like Ku Klux Klan members in black.

A Virgin Airline flight was about to board and names of passengers not boarded were called. An Air hostess swung by, shouting at top of her voice - "ANY VIRGIN HERE", obviously looking for some missing Virgin Airline passengers. Couple of girls raised their hands. Everyone close by started looking at them, some with chuckles and half baked smiles. The shy girls retreated to their privacy by dropping their heads over their smartphones to hide their embarrassment, still peeing through their corner of their eyes. Non of them got up to board the flight. We humans are slaves of inadvertent reflex actions.

Through out the journey I watched folks drooling over their smartphones. All heads down like Ostrich, they were busy fingering over the glaring screens of their devices. I have seen this in America, not unusual and unexpected in a nation where individualism rules the roost. But I observed the same in Europe, Middle East, Singapore and India. Asian culture is more social and group oriented, where people enjoy a tete-a-tete, even with strangers. I saw many, including Airline crew busy dragging bag in one hand and texting on the other, clinging to their phones, baby sitting their devices.

Growing back days in India, we use to chat about anything and everything under sun, alluded to topics ranging from NANA BAHA GHARA RU, NANI BAHA GHAR PARYANTA (From Dad's marriage to Sister's marriage). Perhaps we have gone electronic doing eKhatti (chit chat) on social media.

In 1979, when I was hardly 10 year old, I accompanied my Uncle to a play in his Alma Mater Vani Bihar under Utkal University. It was a symbolic play which I could barely understand but still remember those lines 

OTA PARI JABA BHAI NAHI NAHI HOIRE,

JIBARE MANISHA OTA HEI JIBARE

PITHI RE KUJA, KI MANOHARA....

Roughly transliterated,

You will become a camel, uttering no no,

Humans will become camel as days go,

How wonderful to have humps on back !

Replace OTA (Camel) by OTA PAKHI (Ostrich) and KUJA (Hump) with Smartphones. The drama is now enacted in another era. The nondescript person who wrote this Odia Drama (play) in 1970s was so prophetic and way ahead of his time. More later...

Departure for India trip 2018

Jet, set and go. A long journey awaits me with the itinerary of Columbus --> Atlanta --> Doha--> Delhi ---> Bhubaneswar, spanning seven seas, thirteen rivers spread across multiple continents. Hours left before I leave and miles to go before I reach.

This is the moment I eagerly look forward to every other year, an exciting time before I make my trip to India. It is normally planned months ago with a lot of parameters factored into - getting time off from work, social, family or festive occasions, price of air tickets and of course the weather in India (which may not exactly salubrious now, but hopefully not be awfully bad either as SHARADIYA or Autumn like weather with clear, blue skies with crispy, still air - usually around the Durga Puja Holidays).

Apart from cricket, it is arguably the weather which unites India at this time of the year - it is sultry. This is the time a tired monsoon winds down and bids adieu to the most part of India, leaving behind a trail of moisture hanging in the air. Barring a handful of places on higher elevation, from Ahmedabad to Agartala,  Chandigarh to Chennai it is invariably muggy at this time of the year but nights are cool and bearable.

I am too excited and ready to take the heat. In life the feeling of apprehensive curiosity in anticipation of an event is much more pleasant than the event itself. It is going to be my 14th journey from Coke Land to my Motherland India in more than couple of decades of stay in US.

As the D-Day approaches, excitement builds up. Can't focus on work as mind is preoccupied about the trip and what lies ahead. My coworkers find it a bit odd that we visit our home on vacation, when they travel away from home for same. Yet there is so much fun homecoming when you are away from home.

Upon arriving in India, the initial days of jet lag and reverse cultural shock gives way to lot of attention from friends and relatives, a la an infrequent guest is treated more cordially than a regular one. Even if I try not to, I invariably eat like a pig, shit like a Bull and end up write a lot of bullshit as blogs. Time is short and finite, engagements are many - way too many things to do, so much food to sample.

Looking forward to challenge my sweet tooth, splurging on an array my favorite Odia sweets which includes but not limited to, CHHENA JHILLI, CHHENA PODA, PAHALA RASAGOLA. The other stuff I like are Cuttack Mixture, freshly baked Naans, numerous Street foods, AVADA from temple and much more which I don't get here. I have made a solemn promise to myself not to eat any Pizza, KFC, Subway, McDonalds (the last one I believe doesn't have an outlet yet in the smart city of Bhubaneswar). I firmly believe in - Be Roman in Rome, be Indian in India.

Excitement would be an understatement, I am so thrilled for a fun filled 3 weeks, no work and full play. Dear Motherland, here I come. Sandwiches, Burgers, Pizza and Pasta - please take a backseat.