Our daily bread

Some things...the weirdest of things...trigger a memory. A random memory.
Like...some dough had gone bad (this is possibly a year back) and guess what memory it triggered? The first or second day of school, back in high school days when the school folks assembled a room full of 100-pg and 200-pg notebooks to be given to students. The smell of the dough going bad was exactly like the smell of the glue used to stick the jute/cloth binder that held the books together. One notebook caused you to wince, a sack full caused you to feel nauseous. A room full of such books caused you to get high and have distinctly horrifying hallucinations. Especially with the Mumbai rain out in full force and the smell of damp clothes and wet socks adding to the attack on the olfactory senses.

Obviously, the school got the notebooks for less in bulk and also avoided the premium, luxury notebooks for rich kids v/s blotting paper notebooks for the poor ones.
So everyone got the blotting paper kind.


Yesterday, I was reading my latest book "Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid" and there was a reference to a Mexican bread company...Bimbo!
Now any desi kid who grew up in India, especially in Mumbai remembers a few specific bread companies that operated back in the day of socialist raj- Wibs, Britannia and....Bimbo.
Each bread had a unique smell...mainly because of the yeast used to make it.
If you could afford it, you went for Britannia. Short on money? Buy Wibs and the days Britannia and Wibs was out, you bought Bimbo.
Still remember the white, blue and orange alternating squared wax paper cover.
We tried to find the loaf that seemed tightly packed. Basically it meant that roaches or lizards could not have made their way into the loaf. There were no coated wire ties or transparent plastic bags with plastic holds in those days.

I used to wait for those Sunday mornings when my grand ma would send me to fetch the premium bread while she cut slices of tomatoes, cucumber and made mint chutney and made awesome sandwiches. If I was lucky my grandma would let me have two sandwiches and half of a third one.
I remember making coffee icecream...basically I 'forgot' my strong milk coffee in the freezer overnight and then I'd wait for the 10 am cartoon show to start. In those days of DD1 and DD2 we didnt have the luxury of having fun shows right through the day. You got to see one...maybe two...interesting shows on a Sunday. I'd make sure that I spaced my sandwiches (or Maggie) right so that the last bite would be a min or two before that fun hr ended.
It was optimization of a simple joy.

In Malegaon, the small town where my folks live, premium bread was very hard to come by, back in the day. So the bread we got was made at the local bakery...simply called "Apni Bakery". It had the best naankatai, khaari biscuits and loose 'Nice' biscuits which he sold by weight. It was fascinating for a young city boy.
The bread wasn't always very tasty and the slices were really small. Possibly 2.5 inch square. Tiny. But the intriguing part was that it didnt come from some faceless corporation. It was made by the guy I spoke to at the counter.

The days have changed and my brain and senses are overwhelmed by a flood of bread choices- white, whole wheat, 5 grain, 7 grain, sourdough, baguettes, foccacia, and what not. But none has an association. Usually, I buy the same brand of bread but I'd be damned if I remember the name.

A simple thing...a simple trigger. A sweet memory.

The week that was

Seems just like yesterday that I blogged. Turns out it was 5 days ago.
The week was 5 days of good , solid hard work and nothing else really. All the things I plan that I want to do on a day to day basis come to nought. I want to read some every day. I want to write a page or two every day. Just doesn't happen. It takes discipline to do thing you like on a daily basis, especially if you work 9 to 9 or 9 to 10 everyday.

I need to take control of my life. I love the thrill of the chase in business. I love my work on days it is exciting. But I have so much more to offer. So many more skills to develop.
I'm just afraid, someday I might decide to drop it all and become some traveling hippie. Well, that's not REALLY going to happen. But I don't want to tire of this fun at work. I have a short attention span. Thank God consulting love THAT as much as I do.

A fun filled winter afternoon

So yesterday was tepid. So what? The temperature was close to freezing..or at least its 'LA equivalent'. The regular LA person begins to describe the temperature as "it's freezing" when it falls below 50 or 45F. When it falls to 35ish you know the end of human existence and the next Ice Age is near.
Well today wasn't quite all bad. In fact today was a lot of fun! Unanticipatedly!
Alps has been salivating at BMers and Audis for quite some time now. He is finally out on the market for a BMer. Went out to look for one and I thought I overheard them say that they were going out shooting. I decided to join in.
So visualize this. 4-5 desi guys in a car. One guy gets out...this in a posh neighborhood...goes to another car's boot, takes out a shotgun that looks more like an anti aircraft gun to me, and peacefully examines it on the road. NOT the kind of thing you want to be doing in the street these days. But Jude isn't given to such rational thought.
Went for desi food and it took us so long to get our ration of parathas, chole bhaturas, and lassi that it was well on 4 pm when we got out of there. Place closes at 5pm in the seedy San Fernando valley.
We were reluctant. Altaf was insistent. He won.
So we were on our way there, got there just in time to hear that it was closing.
The lady still let us through. So we got through to the skeet shooting range with Jude's howitzer.
I was freezing my bollocks off even with a thermal combo on. And I'm supposed to be OK with cold.
So we shot 3 shots each of that death-donor gun. That thing is LOUD. As usual, I didnt take ear muffs or ear plugs and though not deafening, each slug makes you wince.
As you'd expect, its damn difficult to hit a skeet with a shotgun slug.
So we were getting a few shots off, when this chunky old Bubba walked up to us in all right ernest and on his way started out loudly that he had 5 issues with us (color wasn't one of them).
The primary one being this wasn't your usual skeet shooting gun but a mother of a...as I have said before...defense shotgun. The kind that you keep under your bed and gives thieves a heart attack when you show it to them.
Net net- We weren't allowed to shoot further.
I'm not sure I'm ready for skeet shooting or for trap shooting just yet.
I prefer indoor or outdoor pistol or air rifle shooting. I prefer the peace and concentration there than the ruckus out in the field with skeet. Next time is going to be some pistol and possible some air rifle. At $40 it isnt too cheap but isnt too exhorbitant either.
So gout out of there early. Came back home by 5:45ish and the gang wanted to do something else.
Decided tennis was it. Went to the local floodlit facility for a few games.
I was rusty initially...the first 15 mins. Havent played in a long time.
But after a few warm-up faux pas...I was ready to serve a few zingers that really whistled out.
I was getting great whip, speed and angle. Jude was standing a clear 5-7 ft behind the baseline to take my serves. Felt hella good.
Played for close on 2-3 hrs. Tomorrow...this is going to hurt a lot. A LOT!
So back home I'm in my room, sitting on my pillow, and blogging my ass off.
It's been a peaceful weekend. An end to 10 slow rested days...were they really so rested? Maybe not.
But one thing is for sure. I'm beginning to do way more interesting things that a) I couldnt afford as a student and b) I possibly never would do in India.
But it's been fun over all.
Next few things in the pipeline
1) Learn golf
2) Learn scuba diving- wanna scuba dive on the great barrier reef one day
3) Sky dive
4) Para-glide
5) BASE jump
6) Snorkle
LAst but not the least 7) SURF BABY!!!!

Hora from Boston

Boston is a global city. It is an international city. It has a personality. A personality that has come with age and having seen many a blizzard and snow storms. Of having lived through rain and hail and wind. A face leathered by the forces of nature. Of a face with lines. Of a work of art.
They say tell a man by his underwear, a woman by her stockings and a country by the way it treats its old.
In the same vein, tell a city by its downtown.
I'm not sure where Boston downtown is. I'm not sure if I'm in Boston downtown right now.
I'm putting up at a fairly nice hotel (its NOT a Four Seasons or Parker Meridian but hey I'm not a Partner or a VC yet) across from Qunicy'a market.
The place is replete with tradition and stories and history.
The whizzened face of this old city.
I walked around the financial district and along the harbor, as is my wont when I go to a new city. Walking around a city gives one a good feel for the city and its people.
Leaving my cold induced bias against Boston aside I have enjoyed my first few days here.
It has the typical East Coast Old England charm to it.
Add to it the spectacular views from the 39th floor of my office building.
Overall, I came away impressed though not in love.
Like I say about SF-a love affair with SF is a love affair waiting to happen.
The British lilt to the speech of Bostonian women is intriguing...but it is an intrigue more of novelty. Not one designed to make me fall in love for ever and ever.

Med School friends come back into my life

For a fairly long time I was not in touch with the med school gang.
Lotsa reasons really.
1) They were getting their asses whipped in residency
2) Too busy trying to stand up on their own two feet
3) Trying to work 4 jobs at once to make some money to open a clinic
4) Trying to manage an affair or a marriage at the same time
5) Desi docs are not technophiles

So 4-5 yrs after the dumbest webheads and netheads in India had discovered Orkut my classmates discovered it too. Slowly, they are beginning to trickle in.
My school community which was almost exclusively juniors now has a growing contingent of the oldies who were my super senrs.
Old cricket matches, annual functions, professors, asshole bureaucrats in college, Prithvish, Rangoli, Rajawadi, Kurla Bhabha, locals, bike ride in the rain to college, casulty...everything came down in a mad rush of memories.
When they were happening to me I was unhappy, angry, sad, disappointed with that life. I deserved better. But humans have a way of rationalizing the past. Of romanticizing it. Of glorifying it. Of certain events being enhanced just that little bit with every narration till every day in that past begins to seem like the perfect day in a Paradise. A Paradise that wasn't.

Some friends I don't identify with now. Some folks I didnt care about much back then and dont care much about now. But in that glorified past, even they get tagged as friends. Friends become almost brother like.
Makes one yearn for that past.
It wasnt all bad.
There is good in the world. There was good in my past.
We were co-passengers on a journey to a common destination...or to a common transit point.
Some of these co-passengers stay with us through to the end of life's journey. Some we part with at transit. Hopefully, they were a pleasure for whatever time you spent together.
You may meet them later, at another transit point in life.
Share a few beers, revive memories and move on.
Transits cannot become destinations...don't treat them as such.

Funny one liner by my med prof-1

Friend: Sir, I have joined a psychiatry residency
Prof: Oh, why did you leave clinical medicine???

BAM! POW!

Prof:1 Psychiatry:0