On apps and cabs and rickshaws and the authenticity of it all..

On apps and cabs and rickshaws and the authenticity of it all..

It is a high tech world where one gets apartments for rent at the drop of a hat. It is a world where you go online for everything that you want, from grocery to rentals to furniture to clothes to curtains. It is a world where you book a cab online and are told it is safe to do so.  It is a world where outside it, everyone praises Ola cabs, and it is a world where a few like me who roam across a wide diameter within 5 days using Ola, are now wondering about the madness of it all. I am talking of a  world, NO-a country called Whitefield in Bangalore.   Excerpts from my diary :

Day 1 :  All is well. I go from Whitefield to Prestige Shantiniketan, then to Forum Value Mall and then back to Whitefield. Again  in the afternoon from Whitefield to Shantiniketan and then back again to Whitefield using Ola. All is well.  I am charged a normal fare, and I give the drivers 5 star ratings each time.

Day 2 : Unable to get a cab in the peak time in the morning at 9 am so I go out of my hotel room at Whitefield and ask an auto to take  me to Knightsbridge. He says 200 or no rickshaw. I look for an Ola rickshaw on the app, but none of the rickshaws accept the request.  Am forced to use the normal rickshaw. On the way back I get an Ola cab that charges me half the price of what the rickshaw did. The same day in the evening I type the name of an upscale locality I was in as the start point, and am charged a 2.2 X rate in the afternoon at 3 pm, which I am told , is not peak time in Bangalore. Not just that, the driver further takes me for a ride via a longer route  and so I rate the driver a low one or two star, and there starts my ordeal .

Day 3; each time I rate a driver poorly for not coming on time, or for being rude, or for taking a longer route, I am forced to take a 1.4 X or a 2.2 X ride. Makes one wonder- how is Ola any different from the rickshaw drivers who charge a flat 150 or 200 INR  fee for something that costs hardly 40  to 50 INR  on the meter  ?

Day 4 : I am wiser now. Fresh from a google thorough search, I ask an auto-rickshaw to take me to Marathahalli, a local market in town.  I tell the  driver to drive via  “Silk Board Route”; he nods his head vigourously, and somewhere along the way- within a split of a second (for he knows I am watching him drive past the landmarks I have looked up)  takes a U turn, turns into a gulley and lands up at a “silk store”. On being asked why he stopped, he says “Muh-dum....you told me Silk Store muh-dam”.   He refuses to even acknowledge that he had heard it right the first time, and starts shouting in the local language. I am forced to get off the rickshaw, pay 150 INR, and still be stranded in an unknown place, yet to get a cab to go to my destination.

My learnings are not new to travellers- but I write them here in the hope that people who visit Bangalore for the first time (like me) are not conned into believing that Ola  (or for that matter, other cabs) will do everything for them, or that the rickshaws will be any better.

Learning 1 :  before you get onto an auto or a cab- make the driver  repeat your destination 3 to 4 times, and get him to ensure that he heard you right.   Otherwise they have a habit of taking turns to wrong places and then claiming that you never told them the correct destination in the first place!   My “Forum Value Mall”  was changed by an auto-driver to “Formula1” store at the drop of a hat by one driver.

Learning 2 : Ola may ask you to say Ola to your driver, but at times- that’s about as pleasant as it can get. The app is designed to detect up-scale localities and to force a 2.2 X rate on you in times other than peak times. Not just that- when you rate their drivers poorly, the app throws 1 1.4 X or a 2.2 X or a 1.6 X rate at you constantly- giving you no choice but to accept the rate. This too I can vouch for- because for 2 days I rated their drivers a 5 star rating all the time- and I kept getting normal rates- EVEN in peak times.

Learning 3 : Not all Ola drivers are polite or courteous. They will pretend that they don’t understand Hindi or English, and will first ask you “which route do you want to go by Muh-dum” ?  If you can not throw landmarks at them, or route/road names, they will for sure take you via a longer route- since Ola charges by meter.

Learning 4:  In spite of checking the route out  on google- these people may still take you for a ride, since they think that money earned by white collared people is exclusively meant for driving around Bangalore at atrocious and ridiculous rates.

Having said this, I wish to end on a hopeful and positive note by saying that not all drivers are con-men. Some of them turned out to be extra helpful when they realized we were outsiders not knowing the local language. One rickshaw driver went so far as to actually point out a shorter route to a destination once we reached there, telling me that I could use the short cut the next time. I presume there are the good ones and the bad ones in the same egg basket, whether you say Ola or meru or.. whatever app name comes to your head.   Happy journeying to our very own Bengaluru !!

My tryst with the stars for a few bucks

My Tryst with the Stars for a few bucks...

Anyone who has been to the Americas , especially from India would know how tough it is to find your kind of a cup of coffee. Other than the fact that even the hot coffees are cold out here, there are other tough questions on size, milk, caffeine to deal with. You’d think after 5 trips to the US, and after watching English-Vinglish, I would know better. Apparently, it is not so.

Day 1:  I go up to the counter and ask for brewed coffee since sis had already let it be known that none of the ‘lattes’ (too bitter) or mochas (too chocolaty and bitter) would work for me. So I look for the smallest size and I find that the “tall” one versus the large and extra large on the menu would work for me.  I find that the tall one also is really huge (were they trying to feed a hippopotamus or was it me? I wonder). Anyway I go ahead and say I need 1/4^th  of the glass to have milk in it. I pay 2 dollars  and sixty nine cents and get away with it; however I still find the coffee too strong for me, and the temperature very low – so low that I finished the coffee in one shot in a few seconds.

Day 2: I go up the counter and ask for brewed coffee again and this time, instead of saying ‘tall’ I ask for the ‘smallest size available’ . Lo and behold ; the lady at the counter pulls out a glass and says this was the ‘short’ one , and to my surprise it looked like it was pretty much closer to the cup size I had in India.  So now I start the next thing on my rigamarole: I say “25% of the glass to be filled with milk please”. This time it is the lady’s turn to look at me quixotically. Clearly- she does not understand what I say. But she obliges with a smile and starts to make coffee. Suddenly she asks me ‘is 2 percent milk ok?’ . I say yes, and move on to pick my cuppa up. And THEN when I taste my cuppa, its not ok at all. Tastes like the bitterest coffee amongst the brewed. I realize she meant “2 percent of fat milk” – it means she put in the milk, but not in 25% of the glass ( which we Indians know is  1/4^th of the glass).  Clearly, In America, they do not do the math; and clearly: we Indians do not know these “x percent” milk fundamentals. I resolve to say “1/4^th of the cup” should be filled with milk and not 25%, the next time around. Not having a choice, I wolf down the barely heated up bitter coffee. The milk that is poured in is always so cold that it brings down the temperature of the already too-cold coffee down by several nautches.

Day 3: I resolve to add more to my say at the counter, in the quest to find the perfect cup of coffee. This time I walk up boldly, confidently, and say “ I need a REALLY  hot cup of coffee; can you please get me one?”. The guy at the counter smiles and says “you are at the right counter honey”. Emboldened, I say “I need a short glass, if it is the smallest possible one, I need 1/4^th of the glass to be filled with milk; I also need the milk to be fully fatty ; and I need the coffee to be really really hot”.  You’d think this was enough, but I get a look over again and am told “there is no fatty milk in the United States”. I am also asked ‘would you like it 190 degrees?’ . My mother in the queue behind me gestures frantically to say “no” but I remember just in time that the Americans use Fahrenheit and not the Celsius system. So I nod a Yes.  The next question put to me is “is half and half OK?”. Now THIS, my dear readers, is the closest they get to having “full milk” in the US. So finally, I get a cup of coffee that has 1/4^th of it filled with half and half milk at 190 Fahrenheit and the shortest possible short cup (which is smaller than the tall one on the menu).

My day 3 coffee is pretty good..not bad at all.  I dream at night of making it perfect, and I dream of more temperature and milk and caffeine factors to talk about when I reach the counter.

Day 4 : I teach my mother to repeat whatever I had discovered on day 3. Alas- she comes back to the table with two Café Lattes none a size too small. For now I am beleaguered with more questions: Do I like my Latte as a decaf, or with milk; A shot of coffee or custom? Syrup or drink? Tall, thin, Large or Extra Large? Hot or very hot or extra hot?

PS: For anyone who wants to travel to the Americas, keep saying you need the ‘smallest possible size of the cup’ that is available, and hopefully you will find that elusive cup of coffee which so evades me even as I write. And make sure you want it EXTRA HOT. (you’d need a lesson in Fahrenheit to Celsius conversion for this one)

Why should you and me watch Madras Cafe

Why the average literate Indian should watch Madras Café

 This is not a film review. Neither is it an opinion on what rating the film deserves. This is simply  why I feel that people like you and me should watch Shoojit Sircar’s ‘Madras Café’.

When I was growing up in college, ethnic war had been around in Sri Lanka for years. Our country dispatched the IPKF to the civil war torn country for reasons one never pays attention to when all one wants to do is try and clear exams, move to higher studies and one day- earn a decent living for oneself.   Little does one realise that to be able to do all this, Peace plays a vital role. Were it not for the peace that we middle class Indians enjoy, living  in  our self made cocoons in cities, we would today  not be in a position to learn, earn and spend selfishly on ourselves.

Sircar’s film takes you back to the start of,  and in and out of those 27 years of black days for both India and Sri Lanka, leading to colossal losses of life and property on both sides. It makes you realise that peace and harmony for any citizen is hard won, and that –to use the cliché’- politics makes for strange bedfellows. It makes you dwell on what it would have been like for India, if indeed Sri Lanka had been taken over by vested foreign powers.  It makes you realise that the country’s political decisions are not really made overnight, and that the real decision making process is mostly a consequence of really long drawn debates amongst the county’s intelligentsia.

I remember reading years ago, that N.R.Narayana Murthy was one of the keynote speakers at the Indo Pak business meet in 2010. He spoke then-as he speaks even today- about how peace is many things: Harmony, non-violence, kinship, and more. Peace is the absence of fear; the absence of terror; the elimination of mistrust; the end of suspicion. Murthy spoke about how commerce and trade are the indisputable signs of a healthy relationship between countries, and how trade must be put on the front burner. But he also said that trade flourishes only when there is certainty about a harmonious peaceful relationship. For this reason, political will and backing between countries is always a must.

Sircar’s film too likewise brings out why war is never a solution, and why political solutions are always the key to progress.  Politics too is not an easy path, and people like us would do well to remember this.  If nothing else, the younger generation –by this I mean the masses in colleges in India and the masses in the thriving IT industry would benefit by watching the film, because it forces  one to think about beyond just joining an NYSE listed CMM level 5 company- to think about why such companies and the likes can even thrive in today’s  “peaceful” India. For once, mere mortals…people like you and me, are forced to think beyond ourselves and our day-to-day lives, and in my opinion, this is the film’s biggest victory.

I have my own Gandhi

I have my own Gandhi

The other day, some months ago, I attended a book opening session in Crossword Pune, the author being the well known Andrew Cohen, who  wanted to talk about his new book “Evolutionary Enlightenment”.  Mr Cohen  was disappointed about the poor turn out,  and along the way, for reasons I don’t want to get into right now, he also claimed that Indians are ‘rude’.

This is not the first time I have faced comments in the snide about us Indians. In fact,  with a family that spreads across multiple countries, God’s grace has given me an opportunity to travel across continents, and see for myself a bit of the world. My most poignant memory is of the time in Florida, in the immediate 9/11  aftermath, when I was shouted at and called a bitch by an American in the elevators of a tall building and another when I was told that Indians  do not care  about the world and do not recycle.

Why I am even thinking about this after all these years is a mystery; but maybe this person was right. We Indians don’t know how to recycle. We use cloth bags and kerchiefs made out of our mothers’ old cotton sarees and scarves made from grandma’s beautiful silk sarees. When we take old curtains off our hall rods after years, we use these to stitch pillow covers, and to wipe our floors clean. We ask our house help to use cloth dipped in water for wiping, because we don’t have one-time use nylon swipes in our houses.  When it is time to throw away bedcovers, we Indians cut them up into little pieces to use as dusting cloth, because we do not use use-and-throw paper towels for dusting.

But this American was right. Indians do not know how to recycle.

Most of us use leather footwear in office, and simple chappals at home.  When a heel breaks, or a strap pinches, even today – we do go to a roadside cobbler and get footwear repaired because we  do not throw away stuff just because we are able to buy new wear. The toys and clothes and text books and story books that  we got in our childhood were always hand-me-downs and  were received with grace and thanks from older brothers and sisters, and not as brand new things  every year.

But this lady was right. We Indians do not know how to recycle.

My father was in the Indian Air Force, and this meant a move to a different place every 2 to 3 years. We always packed in huge blank trunks- and never even once in cardboard one-time-use throw-away cartons. Our crockery and fragile items were wrapped up in old clothes and cushioned in old newspapers. We used Godrej locks and keys instead of throw away nylon straps which are so popular at International airports today.  When a glass plate was chipped in the  house, it was used to give the cat milk in. When guests came home..we served water in steel or glass, and not paper cups. The Punjabi would go an extra mile to provide an extra large steel glass of lassi. But yes… we did not know how to recycle.

Not even one in every thousand houses in India has a washing machine today. Our clothes are washed by hand, and dried by air- the same air that the Westerners breathe in. We do not use dryers to dry dishes and clothes, preferring to use natural wind and air instead.  When we pick leaves from our gardens, we use mops made of coconut tree leaves and bend down to pick leaves by hand, instead of going to the gym and paying to do the same stretch for the back.

But the lady was right- most of us still do not know how to conserve energy, or recycle.

I read in the newspapers years ago about how our scrap dealers have it tough because they do not  have gloves to handle carbon and cobalt in the scrap coming in from developed countries.  Being a poor nation, we accept payment to house deadly scrap on our homeland, so that developed countries can remain clean.  But yes, the lady was right, all of the pollution in our homeland is our creation, with no help from developed rich nations.

Oprah Winfrey in the Jaipur Literature festival makes fun of us eating with our hands. But the lady perhaps fails to see that we wash our hands, instead of using one time use paper tissues all the time. What she calls elegant manners (read as  eating with forks and spoons) , is but an indulgence for the white-collared in India.  We don’t throw away balls and balls of egg yolk just so our kids can have egg-white. Our egg curries make use of the yellow, because it is life-giving. We eat every grain of rice on our plates for regular meals in the house, and most of us do not order for more than we can eat in restaurants. Our plates when eaten from, contain the occasional mirchi or adrak as waste, or perhaps some vegetable that has remained mistakenly uncooked.

But what to do.. only Americans conserve and recycle.

Coming back to my experience at Crosswords.. Americans are far more judgemental of Indians –than Indians are of Americans.  If nothing else- we are a lot who is forced to be judgemental , because of the great book writers and speakers who visit us.   My sincere thanks to Andrew Cohen – instead of buying his book that day- I landed up buying M.K. Gandhi’s “The story of my experiments with Truth”. This is a treasure I will always cherish.  A colleague recommended Mani Bhaumik’s (also an Indian) Code Name God; and I am a big fan of Robin Sharma- the leader who never had any title.  I do not need the Andrew Cohens of the world- I have my own Gandhi.

(My musings reflect a personal opinion, while still fully respecting the virtues and vices that both countries and countrymen possess, perhaps in equal measure. More on that later)