To find/ contact people in Mumbai

Pls see http://mumbaihelp.blogspot.com/2008/11/can-we-help.html

Udupi like you’ve never seen before

Of the four southern states, perhaps the one whose cuisine is least represented in Madras, is Karnataka’s, the dozens of Udupi hotels across town notwithstanding. A majority of them serve the generic tiffin of the South and call it Udupi, just as these days every second place calls its food Chettinad. Despite this, Madras does offer the best Udupi home food you will not find even in Udupi, outside somebody’s home. Ram Bhat’s Matsya Udipi Home, an old Egmore institution (No. 1, Halls Road, Egmore; 044-28191900), is widely loved for its special blend of coffee which you can get till as late as 2 am. During the 1965 war, black-outs were routinely ordered in Madras, and approaching trains would be stranded a couple of hours away from Egmore. When the lights came on again, thousands of tired and hungry people would tumble into Egmore Station, with not a hotel open to feed them. The government requested Matsya to step in, and to this day it enjoys the privilege of going to bed late. Come here and ask for the Udipi Home thali (Rs 110, see photo). You start with rasam vada and a plate of guliappas, akin to the paniyaram, and tiny, delicious Mangalore bondas. Then comes the big thali with kara uppu puli, paalak and neer dosas. The latter is an exquisite combination with the sweetened coconut in one of the bowls. Start with this before moving to the sambhar, kadubu idli, fruit pachadi, bisi beli bath, chittranam, kara kozambhu and curd rice. All of these made from extended family recipes. The T Nagar branch BR Matsya (Thanikachalam Road; 42127007) offers a limited version of the Udipi Home thali for lunch alone.


For real Udupi tiffin, you can do no better than Welcome Hotel (26433626, 26421534) in Purasawalkam. I had a perfect podi dosai here, crispy and coated with milagapodi, served with that sambhar that only boys who learned to cook in the Sri Krishna Temple kitchen in Udupi know how to make. It's such a relief to walk into an Udupi hotel and actually find bisi bele bath, medu vada, birinji kurma and the cross-Karnataka favourites cauliflower and diamond masala dosas.

Mad about kappa

Velachery is Chennai's Gurgaon. Every big restaurant chain in the city has to have a branch here. Driving down its arterial 100 Feet Bypass Road, past glitzy malls, you will spot a Kumarakom, a Vasantha Bhavan, a Murugan Idly Kadai and a Triplicane Ratna Cafe. But you aren't driving all this way to find what you get back home. You come here for a homegrown Velachery-only joint which is one of the most non-descript but fabulous Kerala restaurants in the city. Palani Yadav's A Kalavara makes kappa with a spicy Kottayam-style fish curry. Ah, boiled tapioca! The mere sight of it salvages an evening in the most irritating company, lifts the most tired soul, distracts from the worst bad mood. When eaten just before bedtime, it affords lovely dreams. No amount of descriptive writing can capture its brilliance. It is feathery soft, and also quite a mouthful. It is by all standards incredibly heavy, but you can eat many plates endlessley for hours. Like most carbs, it is but a foil for the flavours of the curry spooned over it, yet long hours after your meal, you remember the taste of tapioca more than the meal itself. Somewhere in these contradictions is the hand of God.

A Kalavara No. 8/1, Maheshwari Nagar, 100 Feet Bypass Road, Velachery; 044-42022647

Baksheesh Bhai

He's been with me when I carried my friend's ashes home from Allahabad in May 2004. He was there on my first date with my girlfriend in July 2006, and there two years later when we went to the airport, from where she left to begin a 2-year MFA at the University of Notre Dame.

For me, Baksheesh is the best taxi driver in Delhi. I wonder what he makes of me, for we couldn't be more different. He is a religious, orthodox Sardar. He has a tiny TV in his taxi. While waiting for me, he watches live Gurbani on the Harmandir Sahib channel. His mobile
ringtone too is Gurbani. Often he declines to have dinner sent to him because 'amrit chhak rakha hai'.

And then there's me. A kuri varga munda, often drunk and passing out on his back seat. More rarely making out with a woman on that back seat. And smoking like a chimney, which is anathema to most orthodox Sikhs. What he thinks only he knows, for he never says a word. Just wordlessly walks me till my front door every time I'm sozzled, ensuring I am within my home before leaving. I have many other regular cab drivers. Sita Ram, with his invaluable Member of Parliament sticker which he uses to park nonchalantly wherever he chooses. Avdesh, my auto driver, who can get me from the Jama Masjid to Karol Bagh to Vasant Kunj in a jiffy. Baksheesh is the only one who walks me home when he thinks he needs to. And he's the master of discretion. So he's the one I call when I know I'm going into a tough situation, or simply when I know I'm going to be partying. Of course he overcharges me horrifically for the hours he puts in. But I remember the time I fell down once, bumping into a speed breaker of all things. Wordlessly he helped me up and walked me to the first floor. You can't put a price on that.

With just a few functional words passing between us, somehow Baksheesh and I have forged a relationship that spans several years and several differences. I would like to talk to him some more, but am too inebriated at most times to initiate a credible conversation. Will have to surprise him one of these nights and emerge from a party sober. And then tell him. That my girlfriend will be back soon, in December. That without hesitation I would send a tiny infant alone with him across the city, if ever such an infant needed shifting. That wherever he may move to, he must stay in touch. Because I tie rakhis left, right and centre on SuperPoke these days, but it's he who has been the big brother everyone wants.

Kaun Jaaye Zauq

A new magazine. A new blog. A long day's work for me.

The former you'll see anytime you take a flight out of Delhi Airport, to anywhere. It's called Outlook Lounge and yours truly is the Managing Editor. Pick it up. It's phree!

Also free, and even more dear to me, is the blog. Kaun Jaaye Zauq is Monica and Lesley's discovering/ writing/ sharing space. Go to KJZ to figure out the name.

Can't he read it over first?

It's not often that Amod K. Kanth, perpetually oiling his well-crafted public image, let's his mask slip. A mask that displays the ignorance of an arrogant man whose greatest impact during his policing tenure in the capital was on the third page of its newspaper supplements rather than on crime figures. Kanth's op-ed comments in today's Hindustan Times (Let's talk it over) suggesting that the current petition in the Delhi High Court asking that Section 377 be read down to exclude consenting acts between adults, effectively decriminalising homosexuality, would somehow remove the only legal protection children have against child abuse, proves that he has not read the petition. The petition does not in fact ask for Section 377 to be scrapped entirely because the gay community in India recognises that in 60 years, India has failed to create laws that punish child sexual abuse. Hence children's lawyers are forced to use Section 377, a vague law relating to adults which can only be used in case of penile penetration, and hence is a poor deterrent for paedophiles. The shallowness of Kanth's concern for child rights is also exposed by his column, which he has used to indulge his thinly-veined homophobia, yet not once has he repeated the long-standing demand of the gay community, of the Law Commission and of numerous child and women's rights groups in India that the government immediately formulate a separate act to effectively punish child sexual abuse.

Bhopal kya badiya

An extract from a story I wrote for Outlook Traveller in Bhopal, March, 2008

I knew I would like Bhopal when the first thing I heard on its streets was the mobile ringtone ‘Tum aa gaye ho, noor aa gaya hai’. I was sold. My first impressions? This old Nawabi jewel, today capital of Madhya Pradesh, brought to mind the capital of Andhra Pradesh. Nizami Hyderabad was the only Muslim state that outsized Bhopal. Both are today capitals of huge states that dwarf and are culturally distinct from these erstwhile kingdoms. Both offer a rich built and culinary Nawabi heritage, and both offer glimpses of the varieties of food eaten in all the corners of their respective states. The two cities equally share a passion for nargisi kebab and briyan (biryani) – with subtle distinctions, of course. The latter you will find in every gali of both cities.

Bhopal reminded me, too, of Pune. Its Budhwara and Itwara areas bring to mind the Shaniwar, Mangalwar and Somvarpets of that one-time capital of the Peshwas, who, together with their Maratha allies the Holkars of Indore, the Scindias of Gwalior and the Bhonsles of Nagpur, coveted Bhopal and attacked it several times. Bhopal’s perfectly light breakfast of poha, too, reminds me of Maharashtra. The typical non-Nawabi breakfast in this city comes with a difference, though. Here it comes topped with Madhya Pradesh’s beloved sev and served with hot and crispy jalebis. A superior combination.

One of Bhopal’s most delicious offerings is a meltingly soft delicacy tucked in a bun, which, for a bade ka kebab, is second only to the famous offering of Tunde Miyan in Lucknow’s Chowk Bazaar. Bhopal too has its own Chowk Bazaar, an area of highly concentrated special shopping and eating experiences at every second footstep, just like Lucknow.

It’s love of nalli nihari reminds me of my own city, Delhi. A narrow lane delightfully named Chatori Gali in Ibrahimpura, the first place Bhopalis will recommend for a bite, is lined with four restaurants that offer Bhopal's best 'Dilli ka nalli nihari'.

For all these reasons, Bhopal was comfortingly familiar. And on my first day I thought the city and its cuisine could be an amalgam of influences from India's great Nawabi cities and the Mughal capital. There are few ideas with more chances of offending a native of this city. Bhopal is unique, because it is Bhopali. And Bhopalis consider themselves pioneers who are always ahead of the times. A brief look at its history and you can’t argue with that.

In the days before Holi, iridescent flashes of crimson, blooming palash greet planes descending on Bhopal. India’s earliest known human settlers powdered these blooms to paint the rocks of Bhimbetka, a short drive south of Bhopal and a UNESCO World Heritage Site list. About 8,700 years after the rocks at Bhimbetka were daubed with palash, the roots of what was to become India’s second most important Muslim princely state were planted in around 1707 by an Afghan adventurer from Tirah, Dost Mohammad Khan. Over the next three centuries Bhopal survived onslaughts from competing Maratha armies and the formidable state of Hyderabad. It was among very few Indian royal houses which aligned with the British before and during 1857, ensuring survival under British protection and remaining independent until 1949. But even this doesn’t set Bhopal truly apart. To me, the most impressive facet of its history is that for just over a century, like no other preceding or contemporary Indian state whether Hindu or Muslim, it was ruled by four women, each the first born daughter of the preceding begum. An achievement that neither Lucknow, Hyderabad, Pune or Delhi (which boasts but one Razia Sultana and no, Zeenat Mahal does not count) could lay claim to. It’s tragic that Bhopal’s begums are barely known outside Bhopal, though they steered their state successfully through the most turbulent of times and all saw tumultuous reigns that would fascinate any lover of history. Sikander (reign 1844-1868), the second Begum of Bhopal, retrieved Delhi’s Jama Masjid from the British post-1857. The victors had used Delhi’s grand mosque as stables, and the begum is said to have washed the courtyard clean with her own hands. She was also the first Indian ruler to make the Hajj. In modern times, Bhopal is also India’s first city to elect hijras to its municipality, staying true to its egalitarian, gender-blind history, at least when it comes to its rulers. I was in Bhopal this Holi to discover what the men were creating in the kitchens while the women were doing the real work of running the state.