January 26th

As all of us in India stay at home and avoid venturing out onto the roads, because there are 'Islamofascists' out there with IED's strapped to their bodies, and security is tighter than the cop's ass who has to stand out there in the cold and wait for the unthinkable, and pray for it all to end without incident; We come to a startling thought- have we have become so used to the presence of fully armed policemen with flak armour and sub-machine guns around every corner, that we may be already under a militaristic rule, and we just don't know it?

that, for the most part, is far from the truth, leaving aside those pesky northeasterners and kashmiris, whom the general Indian populace continues to keep out of their conscience, and continues to call 'chinky' or 'mullah' or whatever.

But the fact remains, we have been living under the shadow of the gun for over two decades now, and we have been bullied and coerced into accepting the presence of riot-control brigades and .303 slinging policemen through the years. And we seem to be okay with it.

I have rather sketchy memories of growing up under the fear of terrorism, when my home state was in the throes of a self-destructing war with itself, and the citizen was the one who could be crushed either under the heel of a power-crazy cop, or the rifle butt of a terrorist. I still remember the time when my school was specifically targeted upon, because our school's uniform included skirts for girls. For a brief period, our uniform code was changed to suit the fundamentalists's views. Now I look upon what the Taliban did to the women of Afghanistan, and I think, we were headed down the same path. We were that close. Thankfully, we never got to the point of where the Islamic Caliphate of Afghanistan (1997-2002) had reached.
There used to be sandbagged bunkers at every entry and exit into the city where I lived, and soon there would be watchtowers, some of which still exist(though not equipped with a LMG and a pair of sentries, like those times) Random stops of traffic, blackouts at seven PM, stories of terrorist abductions and police torture, these are the memories of anybody who lived through the eighties and the early nineties. We lived in a city, that was next to the state capital, so we were relatively safe. the situation in the villages was such- Don't come home before dark, and it could be assumed that you were either in an interrogation cell somewhere, or were running an errand for the terrorists, under the threat of certain death to you and your entire family.

I feel fortunate not to have lived through those times in the shoes of those who were older than me. Which brings me to my second question- How much of our personal liberty are we willing to sacrifice in order to ensure that someone does not detonate a few kilos of RDX next to you?

In the USA, where personal freedom is held in the highest regard, this is a highly debated issue. There is much protest in society about the means the current administration is using to fight terror at home. The general opinion is heavily favoured towards preserving the citizens' personal freedom. As a non-citizen, this stance is amusing for me, coming from a place where you are routinely frisked and your bags opened before you board a metro train. After all, the one minute of total freedom that you are denied also gives you the freedom from the fear of a backpack bomber blowing himself up in a crowded bogey. In today's world, it's a price i'm be willing to pay.
What seems okay to a guy like me, may be a cataclysmic breach of personal freedom for any American (or for that matter, anybody) who likes to live in a bubble.
The allegations that these means could be abused are not unfounded. If someone deliberately fondles your scrotum or your breast while frisking you, that is real abuse of power. Of course, frisking is only one part of the whole set-up. Things become very complicated when matters like phone taps and surveillance come into play. The official position is- If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about. This position could also allegedly give cover to unscrupulous agencies or persons using whatever information they have on you for personal gain. It's hard to draw a line between what is legal and what is not, and this defining process cannot be fast-tracked, avoided or omitted.
I cannot say how far the Citizens of India will let the government go in the arena of anti-terrorism and counterintelligence. Could it be that we are already so under the cloud, that we cannot see the true position of things, to rephrase my first question?

Don't try this at home.

The last three days on the job, I have been working as the relief saute man on the line, and many a times, I have had to step in and take over the whole line with seven pans spitting and bubbling at the same time. It's an organizational nightmare, trying to keep track of the state of each pan on the flame, and correctly judging when it's ready to get the next ingredient, and periodically glancing at the POS terminal screen to see what's coming my way, and getting the pans ready for the next wave of orders.

Of course, such matters leave little room in your mind for things like your appearance, language, physical comfort and stress. It also keeps your mind diverted from the fact that little by little, you are also cooking your own body, as well as whatever is frying away in the saute pan. The bursts of fire that result from an ounce of wine or a few droplets of oil burning on direct contact with the plasma of gas coming from below continually sear your face, sometimes touching the brim of your baseball cap, an event that puts common sense to work, and makes you wisely wear your cap backwards. As your reach across the burners to ladle some sauce into your searing-hot pan, a pillar of intense heat cuts across your bare forearms, instantly wilting each strand of hair. Stay in that position long enough, pondering if you put in enough sauce, and the heat will give your entire arm a nice waxed appearance, with an extra dollop of agony thrown in just for fun.

A grill and an oven give off this invisible, intense heat that makes their presence felt at a distance. You try to avoid any contact between your flesh and the radiant surfaces, because you can still see the marks from the last time the two of you met. A deep-fat fryer is like a mirage of apparent calm, the illusion dissipating with the immersion of a cold, wet item into the pool, which results in a display of arrogant rage, the liquid spitting and sputtering in a fit of fury. With a gas range, the heat comes at you like the thrusts from a skilled fencer, hitting a tender spot each time, until you learn all its tricks, or just become impervious to the dance of the flames below. With my arms extending over the gas burners for a few seconds every now and then, I have estimated that over the course of a regular working day, I voluntarily roast my appendages for a combined period of about a minute everyday. In about a week's time, I should be cooked to a nice Roti au bleu (rare) degree. Just the way Dr. H.Lecter prefers it.

Gravy, anyone?

Music- Gioachino Rossini-The barber of Seville-Ouverture (1989 Zagreb music festival, Croatia)
Igor Stravinsky- The Firebird-finale (BRT Philharmonic, Brussels, 1990)

Busy, busy, busy...

Friday night is probably the most suitable night to to go out and have fun. Everybody knows that the next day is Saturday, and they don't have to get up early and go to work, or to school or whatever. It is the one night of the week that gives people the most succour in the fact that they can do whatever the hell comes to their mind, because tomorrow will be a holiday,and they will be answerable to no one.

It was this sentiment that sent droves of diners to the restaurant last night. Over a period of just under 2 hours, we had fed close to five hundred people. by the end of the day, we had served over one thousand people.

Now that's not a very big number, one might say. 1000-strong marriage parties are commonplace in India, and many of them go through without a hitch. But these are events that are predicted and prepared for well in advance, with all the food and service essentials already in place before the guests arrive. Now, in a restaurant, it's a little different. Say a 25-seater suddenly descends out of nowhere, and most of them decide to try out the grilled skewers or steaks. Somewhere in the annals of the restaurant, a grill man screams in horror. Suppose there is a four-top, and they're all rather picky, so each guest orders a totally different dish. Time for the assembly man to get busy. It's Crazy...

And yet, I survived.

It is good to know, that you can work with the ones who have been doing this for years, without slowing them down.

P.S- In a related incident, my bicycle was nicked from right outside the restaurant last night.

On a 80's trip

For some reason, I have started to develop a taste for those crazy pop hits of the Eighties, devoting a good share of my time to musicians such as Cindi Lauper, Eurythmics, Tears for Fears and the evergreen Phil Collins(OK, Cindi lauper was overkill...won't be downloading any more of her work.)

I have also purchased a new pair of headphones, not because the old Philips ones were shot, but because I was getting rather tired of them, with those large spongy earpads that make my ears itch, and all the duct tape and Araldite used to keep the thing in one piece. They still sound great, and to some extent, Better than the new Sony ones, especially in the higher frequency bands. And that's why I won't be tossing those in the trash anytime soon. The Sony ones are lighter, smaller, and more comfortable, and I think the sound will improve marginally with the increased use of the transducers.

I will greatly appreciate it if anybody could send me a playlist of their favourite 80's numbers...I know a lot of the tunes from that era, but I need the names so I can download them.

In other music related news, I found a twin CD set of Chopin, in mint condition, for a dollar-fifty at Goodwill, alongside Green day's American Idiot. I also bought a used DVD of Deepa Mehta's 'Water', not available in India; at a great used CD's/DVD's store. The best thing about optical media is, if handled with due diligence and care, it will not wear out like a tape, so it has a decent resale value. And a lot of people are buying into the theory of digital music files, copying their CD's onto monstrous hard drives, and selling off the original discs to clear up some cabinet space, so guys like me can buy them at reasonable prices, which is stupid of them, but all the better for me.
Agreed, most of the discs you find at such stores are so insipid, you would be too embarrassed to use them even as coasters. A lot of this junk is by bulk-production acts such as Britney Spears and extinct boy-bands. But if you look a little carefully, and you may find the occasional gem within the detritus.

Music - Scorpions-Rock you like a Hurricane

Screwing with our holy cows

As is my habit, I was flying through the internet, when I came across a controversial YouTube video, depicting M.K Gandhi as a pole dancer.
This hellraiser video has attracted the attention of the Government of India, which in its characteristic hamfisted manner, also seen in places like Kashmir or the northeast, seeks to ban the entire YouTube website, just like it tried to ban Blogging sites last year(unsuccessfully)

The funniest part about the whole thing is the comments that people have left for the performer at the page. Ironic how a man who helped free the nation through non-violence and passive resistence inspires such crude violence, such as the examples below-

He should be called terrorist.This person should be brought back to india and approriate action should be taken against him.He is very much influcenced by American Goras.I am sure the sangh pariwar, BJP,RSS must be enjoying watching this clip.Hope Indians wake up this time atleast.

you will die in hell dude

I think, he should be brought to India and thoroughly fucked....

He should be castigated..

beta! galti se kabhi jindagi mein bharat mat aana, sacchi tereko bhadva banaake mumbai dance bars mein nachayenge teri jindagi bhar.

wish i could cut u into little pieces motthafukka...how dare u to do the insult to our Father of nation...making fun of our MAHATMA in the whole world who brought freedom to our nation...u son of a pig....May God kill you my friend...die mothha fukka...

madarchod teri maa ka bhosda,randi ki aulad....gautam madarjaat prasad...teri maa chudegi,behen ke laude... capon's seed

it is only too obvious that the 'artist' in the video is desperately trying to gain publicity. Nothing gets the world's attention like someone else's stupidity. The Indian media has displayed its extraordinary immaturity and opportunist nature by actually showing the clip. I don't recall the BBC or CNN or any news agency displaying the incendiary cartoons of prophet Muhammad, and egging on our very touchy Muslim bretheren.

Personally, I think we Indians give M.K.G far too much credit when it comes to the freedom struggle. I find it offending to the spirit and the sacrifice of the hundreds of freedom fighters, revolutionaries, educationists and reformers who all contributed to the birth of the nation over one hundred and fifty years of struggle. It's not as if Gandhi alone was the man who gave us freedom from the already exhausted Britons.

And are we really free? We have achieved nothing, but exchanged imperial stewardship for a permanent state of war with the people who used to be our fellow countrymen less than sixty years ago.

We still have no freedom from the fear that inspires terrorism.

Of course, freedom of speech and all that is great, but have we come to such a point that nothing but the most controversial and the most offending will arouse us? Do we need to pay attention to the morons of this world?

Music- Amar Arshi - Kala Chachmma

you know you're busy when...

Have you ever been so busy that you forgot whether you were wearing boxers or briefs?

Today was my turn at the appetizers and pizza section, and boy, was I on my toes. No breaks, except for the trip to the restroom, where I was confounded by the type of undies I was sporting.
I got so busy, that while keeping my eyes and right hand focused on the task of arranging the breadsticks, I had to mentally countdown exactly 45 seconds, before the calamari frying in the grease turned to rubber and remember the pizza that I had placed in the oven 7 minutes ago, alongwith the fondue that takes 8 minutes; and catch the cup of demiglace the fry man had just slid down the line with my left hand and pop it in the microwave for 30 seconds, and then fetch the garlic seasoning for the breadsticks, sprinkle it on the bread, keep it back, and then stretch over with my left hand again and pick up the tomato concasse after passing the fry man his heated demiglace.

Confused?

Music- Rahat Fateh Ali Khan - Man ki lagan

Saturday-grill/fry man

yesterday was my turn to stop being an observer and get into the thick of it all. I was stationed on the grill and the deep-fat-fryer, and since the day was Saturday, we were expecting a lot of late lunches, therefore, a constant flow of orders coming in all day.

Needless to say, that did'nt happen. The thing about line cooking is how you could be standing around, arms akimbo, while your mate at the saute or the salad station looks like he could use as many arms as a member of the Hindu pantheon. There's not much you can do to help him, especially if you know bollocks about his station. You'll just get in his way. The worst thing is, the situation could turn out the worst for you any second as well.

I had a steady stream of orders coming in, (think Queen and David Bowie) when all of a sudden, my computer let out a longish wail, and announced a screen filled with crazy orders. (think Cannibal Corpse) I had to cook off things that took 15 minutes on the grill and 3 minutes in the fryer and 7 minutes in the oven and so on in one go.
surprisingly, my heart did not sink, even when the sous-chef looked at my screen and offered a sympathetic look. I took it all on, and I got it all done. Not as perfectly as the older guys, not as fast, but still good.

It is a good sign, when you don't feel like a total blithering idiot at the end of the day, and you are satisfied with the way you performed.

P.S - the restaurant offers employees the option of eating in the establishment for half the price, and day before yesterday, I decided to luncheon there after my work was done. All I can say about the food is, that I felt like I had swallowed a portion of vomit-inducing rubber. OG is definitely THE place to go if your idea of Italian food is something so overly seasoned, and so saturated with cheese, fat and salt, you can feel it coming out of your pores.

Music-Gustav Holst-The Planets suite - Mercury, the winged messenger