Restaurant Week India & Koh

After two weeks of gorging on amazing preparations in Los Angeles and New York, I've heard the best news this morning:

The event starts next week (Sept 6-12). A friend of mine (Mangal Dalal) along with a few other people has accomplished somewhat of a foodie coup by

1) Herding notoriously unherdable Indian entrepreneurs
2) Convincing Indian luxury places to sell things for the cheap-cheap
3) Picking just a great starting list which includes:
- Koh (Ian Kittichai of New York)
- San Qi (Great but normally overpriced Pan-Asian Resto at the Four Seasons)
- Tote (Same owners as Indigo but more exciting menu)

Reservations can be made through the website and the prix-fixe is only Rs 1000 (~$20).


Separately, I'm very excited that Ian Kittichai's Koh snuck into Mumbai during my hiatus (see below). Brunch this Sunday at New York's Kittichai--the once-hip but now largely-overlooked restaurant--pleasantly surprised me. Granted, it's not the best traditional Thai in New York (go to Sripraphai or Land Thai for that), but it's always more enjoyable to try innovative Thai!

Re-re-patting and the power of a signature

At this point, I'm already confused as whether I'm a repat, expat, repat turned expat pretending to be a pat or whatever. To add, more confusion to the mix, I've started my application process to be an OCI (Overseas Citizen of India) which some claim is essentially "dual citizenship" to India (it's more like an expensive lifetime multi-entry visa for people of Indian origin).

Ironically, I have had more unpleasant run-ins with immigration bureaucracies in moving to India than I did when I moved to America. However, my OCI process so far has been *knock on wood* relatively painless. I've heard of people being asked for a copy of the past page of their grandparents' expired passports (no joke).

The toughest part of the process for me was the signatures. Let me illustrate with simple set of facts. Number of signatures required for--

a) 1 US Bank Account Application = 1
b) 1 Indian Bank Account Application = 12
c) 1 OCI Application = Carpal tunnel syndrome aka a whopping 104

A quirky--but ultimately very secure--characteristic of India is that signatures are taken seriously. You have to sign your name exactly the same way everytime. And people actually check it! I've had a check bounce here because the banker called and said that my signature was missing a usually distinctive loop on 'x' letter--they thought it might have been a forgery. My signature is distinctive? Take that other-guy-with-a-famous-signature!

Not-so-friendly skies?

Some of you may have already about this, but those that haven't: a interesting encounter on my return Jet Airways flight from Calcutta. See below super-accurate transcript.*

Sri: You're in my seat
Passenger: No, I'm not [shows boarding pass]
Sri: Oh, they assigned us the same set. Flight attendant, fix this.
Flight attendant: Why don't you sit in this non-reclining seat instead?
Sri: No.
Flight attendant: Gucci/Prada Lady, will you sit that crappy seat instead of that guy?
Gucci/Prada Lady: Sure
Sri [thought bubble]: Wtf, ok, I'll take it.
Sri: That was nice of that lady to move
New Neighbor: Yeah...why are you here?
Crazy Girl In-Front (CGI): Who are you? Why you are here? What happened?
[Situation explained by Sri in detail]
CGI: Flight attendant, you're bad at your job. Is door open? Call ground staff. Ground staff, you also suck. How could this happen?
[All embarrassed staff members leave with heads-down]
Sri: Wow, thanks for that? This flight from Calcutta is always late and service on this airline sucks.
CGI: No, you suck. This airline is awesome. It's always on-time and has great service.
[2-hour verbal altercation follows]
Sri: Wtf is CGI's problem?
New Neighbor: She's daughter of the CEO and Chairman of Jet Airways. But don't worry, I'm head of Jet Airways HR. Give me your business card. I'll upgrade you to Platinum by Monday.
Sri: Oh. ... Can you also give me her number?

****Epilogue****

(1) Proclaimed identity of CGI was verified to be accurate
(2) Gucci/Prada Lady was a Jet exec that decided to change seats instead of prolong a potentially embarrassing situation for the airline
(3) I did not get upgraded to Plantium on Jet
(4) Finally, I may or may not be forever blacklisted on the airline


* Note, most details may have been simplified/paraphrased/modified slightly for dramatic effect.

Bel English or Belhi English?

There as as many varieties of English in India as there are social strata (read: thousands). However, the creme de la creme of Indian society--e.g grads of Doon and Cathedral--has decidedly developed a unique, elite, Bombay-Delhi accent of English. It's not quite British, and not quite American. Perhaps a linguistic crisis of conscience--striking a balance between former colonist and current imperialist?

In any case, more often than not, it sounds more polished than American and more accessible than British. I know it's getting close to a real language because there's a Lonely planet guide for it--see:

Some mannerisms/expressions I like:
* Pronouncing "can't" as British "caaant"--easier to tell it apart from "can"
* People "doing the needful" -- not that I would ever do that
* Prepone is a real word here--not that ANYONE ever does that in India

Things I could do without:
* Over/inappropriate use of "even," "only," "much," "just," "the same, " and "man/mate"
* Inappropriate use of progressive tense
* "Reverting" to an email instead of just replying to it
* Using honorifics ("Mr." and "Ms") with first names--sounds weird


Whether this evolving Bombay-Delhi English will be a "Bel" accent anglais or an attempt at an standard accent gone "Belhi" up, only time will tell. But I'm hoping when India's economic imperial age starts--say in 50 years--this will be one of our key exports. After all, the way to a man's brain is through his mouth. Did that sound dirty to you? Get your mind out of the gutter.

Separtely, new contest with double secret prize--add your own favorite/least favorite expressions and mannerisms of Bel/Belhi English! Or put in sample exaggerated constructions for fun, "even I was only telling you just now the same thing, na?"

The town that never stays

While New York is the city that never sleeps, Bombay is the town that's always out of town. Mumbaikers appear to more often "out-of-station"--a unique Indian term--than in town. A city in perma-transit.

I have a few theories:

1) Is it history? Mumbai's roots are of a trade city. What is trade but moving of goods for money. I suppose people need to move to effect movement of goods.

2) Is it family? There's always a cousin's wedding in Delhi (60% of air traffic in India is the Bombay-Delhi corridor)--and of course, every one has to be there! What will your aunt think?

3) or Is it just the weather? Bombay is tolerable for literally 14.58 days in Dec/Jan. No wonder people head to Florence/Kashmir in Summer, New York/Ambi Valley during the Monsoon, Phuket/Goa in the fall, and Switzerland/Alibaug in the winter.


By the way, I'm writing this from Calcutta. And while we're talking about the topic of being out of Bombay--I'll be in New York on weekends of Aug 13th and Aug 27th and in LA on Aug 20th weekend. Holla if you're around.

India -- Full of Life

"India Rising, India Gaining, India Growing, India Blooming" shout the Indian media. For once, I agree whole-heartedly--in more ways than one. As the !ncredible India campaign would rightly have you believe, India is absolutely full of life : being here is a perpetual multi-sensory overload. However, today, my focus will be on a slightly different definition of "life" in India.

Tabling the discussion of pro-choice vs anti-choice, let's define life for now as a single functioning cell. The conditions generally required for cell growth are

1) Temperature around 35 degrees Celsius: check
2) Ample supply of water: check/double check during monsoons
3) Supply of nutrients (carbon/nitrogen): check (you don't want to know where these "nutrients" are coming from)
4) Lack of antiseptic toxins: check

Where am I going with this? Grab a fruit in Bombay, take a bite, and leave it out for 5 min. Even in your filtered-air, daily cleaned office, 10 fruit-flies will come to life. You can literally watch life happen.

Hence, in a country with such conditions, when people use handkerchiefs, re-usable diapers and cloth tablewipes/mops, no wonder people get sick so often!

While its may be environmentally friendly, India's luxury tax on paper towels, kleenex and toilet paper needs to end ASAP. Besides paper's compostable. Due the lack of a proper market, the situation has gotten so bad, I know people that import 'Bounty' from the US on a regular basis! Pretty please, Indian government?

India gets Finance's oldest yet hottest accessory

Every couple of months, I disappear from the blogosphere while I live in my office. It's that time of the year again, but I have been able to sneak a few minutes to share this earth-shattering news that is causing an uproar of self-congratulation amongst the Indian financial media: India finally has a single character currency symbol! See below:

The Rupee, long considered a 2nd-hand currency behind USD, EUR, GBP, YEN, and even CAD, AUD, CNY, and CHF is finally getting its own symbol in Unicode, joining the ranks of Dollar, Euro, Pound, and Yen. The symbol was designed by an IIT professor and is a blend of 'R' in roman script and 'Ra' in Devanagari script

While it is just a symbol, I have to agree, it's pretty cool we have one. I'm not just saying that b/c I've gotten tired of typing "Rs" or "INR" on every output table.