An Amazing Weekend at the TATA Lit Fest!

TATA Literature Live, one of Mumbai’s foremost literary events went bigger this year and in addition to NCPA (its regular venue), this time it was held at Prithvi Theatre as well! With the venue so close to my house, I was definitely not going to miss it! The star studded line up (see schedule) was also a big draw.

The first session that I attended was The Changing Idea of Romance in India at Prithvi Theatre, where Astha Atray Banan who has authored a Mills and Boon novel and Sathnam Sanghera (British Writer famous for his novel Marriage Material) were joined by Ashish Shakya of All India Bakchod. I honestly didn't expect much realism from a panel discussion on romance but what ensued was a really interesting and pragmatic discussion. Surprisingly enough an author of a Mills and Boon novel was convinced that romance was on the decline while the guy from Britain was making the case about how arranged marriages could be a good idea after all! The discussion veered between various issues ranging from the influence of the internet, moral policing, influence of Bollywood and the changing mindsets of the youth, to much more serious issues such as the institution of marriage, sexism in romance writing/movies and eve teasing. As you would expect when one of the panellists is from All India Bakchod, the discussion was interspersed with great dollops of humour.

A big fan of military history myself, the session that I was looking forward to the most at Tata Lit Live was ‘An Indian Army in Afghanistan’, a talk by William Dalrymple. The great historian is also a master storyteller who effortlessly transported us back to the 1837 and the first Anglo Afghan war. The talk was his short retelling of the story of his book ‘Return of a King’. He manages to weave together into his story-telling the big macro events such as the backdrop of the Great Game and also funny tales of the vanity of the British Army generals who while trekking 4000 miles across the subcontinent, had 40 camels carrying their wines and liqour. In his crisp voice he managed to hold the attention of the crowd and an hour felt like ten mins. While the story was indeed fascinating, his descriptions of his process of research were also interesting and to an extent, even thought provoking. Dalrymple has gone beyond the British accounts while researching for the book and has delved extensively into the Afghan accounts. He spoke at length about his research and travels into the heart of Taliban controlled Afghan countryside where ordinary people were well versed with the history of the Anglo-Afghan war which they had received orally from their elders. On of the most interesting things about the ‘Return of a King’ is how Dalrymple manages to draw parallels between the Anglo-Afghan conflict and the modern day US led invasion – “It is always possible to conquer Afghanistan but difficult to finance a continuing occupation.”

Dalrymple also emphasised how for several centuries in India including some periods of Maratha rule as well, ‘Persian’ was the language of administration. He expressed his dismay at the fact that very few Indians know about this and that today only a handful of persons who can read and write Persian, survive today in India. He urged the amateur and aspiring historians in the audience (and I am sure that after his talk, many were considering it) to not restrict themselves to colonial historical accounts in English but to read local primary source materials as well! While he was signing his books for fans, I managed to ask him regarding his next project and it is a topic that Indians shall be even more interested in – The East India Company. In hindsight I could have guessed it myself because even while talking about the last book and the story of the Anglo Afghan War, Darlymple who now must be well into his research about the East India Company, could not help himself from making repeated references about the marvel that the company was and how it was a astounding and absurd phenomenon that the fate of a subcontinent was in the hands of a public corporation run for the shareholders’ interests from a single block in London. All in all, it was an amazing session, the only negative point about which was that the venue, Prithvi House was so small that several people had to be turned away

The following morning, I turned up two hours early at Prithvi to ensure that I got a pass for the most awaited panel discussion of Tata Lit Live – “Gone with the Gandhis- Will the defeat in the 2014 elections leave an impact on dynasty politics in the Congress”. The panellists were Shashi Tharoor, Pranay Gupte and Shekhar Gupta in conversation with Barkha Dutt. I had expected the panel to express significant agreement with the motion express but surprisingly enough it was a rather balanced discussion. Shashi Tharoor began by rightly pointing out that we also see a dynasty effect not only in other political parties but also in other walks of life such as Bollywood (and even the legal profession). The other panellists also for a while seemed to suggest that dynasty is a media favourite hyped issue which doesn’t matter much. They seemed to all agree that the performance of a candidate matters much more to a voter than the candidate’s dynasty. However Barkha and Shekhar Gupta were also quick to point out how Congress is especially addicted to the family and there was a funny moment when upon being asked by Shekhar Gupta, Shashi Tharoor had to admit that he did not know all the members of the Congress Working Committee. While Shashi Tharoor was eloquent as always despite having the unenviable task of having to defend the dynasty as the rightful head of the Congress, it was Shekhar Gupta who really brought the house down with his jokes and very quirky anecdotes about everything. My descriptions really cannot do any justice to how amazing this session was. I just hope everyone gets the chance of hearing these great folks talk atleast once in a lifetime!

While I spent the weekend at the TATA Lit Live’s Prithvi events, there were also a lot of great sessions happening at the NCPA which culminated with the annual TATA Lit Live Awards. This year, ‘Arctic Summer’ by Damon Galgut bagged the Book of the Year Award for fiction writing while ‘Capital - The Eruption Of Delhi’ by Rana Dasgupta won the prize for non-fiction. What I particularly like about the TATA Lit Live is that they also have a Best Debut Award to encourage new writers. The Smoke Is Rising by Mahesh Rao was adjudged to be the best fiction debut while in the non-fiction category it was  ‘A Southern Music: The Karnatik Story’ by TM Krishna.

I hope I shall be able to participate for the all four days next year! Hope it remains as awesome!

Mumbai Metro – Day 1 Ride

Extremely overbudget, extremely delayed but the much awaited and much controversial, first phase of the Mumbai Metro (built by Anil Ambani’s Reliance Infrastructure) is finally open to the public!

Not only did I ride it on the very first day, I also managed to board the exact same one which the Chief Minister boarded when he declared the line open, earlier in the morning today! It was the one decorated with flowers!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s a video of it pulling into the station!

One of the best things about the metro is the creativity of the posters and signage! Check it out -

 

 

8th June being the day the metro was inaugurated, it was extremely crowded!

 

 

Also interestingly enough, though in response to the earlier controversies, the name has been settled as ‘Mumbai Metro’ some evidences of the old ‘Reliance Metro’ nomenclature still persist!

 

 

However, new controversies regarding pricing are still looming. While I could avail of the introductory Rs. 10 fare, Reliance Infrastructure is hell bent on implementing Rs. 10 – 40 fares while MMRDA wants the fares to be between Rs. 10 – 13! Reliance’s proposed fare chart has already been put up -

 

All in all, it was a fun ride exploring, Mumbai’s newest mass transit system!

 

 

The first phase of te Mumbai Metro is a very welcome development but a lot more transport infrastructure is going to be needed to satisfy all of this ever growing city's infrastruture needs... 

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Highway Gomantak - A Quick Review

On 16th May, after several hours of simultasking between internship work and frenzied election result tracking and discussions across WhatsApp and Twitter, a hasty plan was put together to meet and have seafood. After a lot of confusion about which restaurant to patronise, I finally suggested Highway Gomantak, which I had often heard, dishes out the best maharashtrian seafood. Since I started eating seafood when I used to live in Singapore, I myself hardly know much of the local Maharashtrian delicasies and was eager to try out the place myself. 

 Decor & Service

Image Source : http://bandra.info/

The place derives its name from the fact that it is located right off the Western Express Highway in Bandra East. A simple board in Devnagri above a small door as pictured, welcomes you to the restaurant. Though I liked the simple setting, I was quite surprised by the lack of air conditioning.

Inside the restaurant, there is not much decor to speak of. The food is served in steel plates and bowls on a wooden table. While our group of four could comfortable manage on their table meant for six, the seating is rather cramped and we would have been uncomfortable had we been a larger party. The service also wasnt much impressive as we had to wait for a considerable amount of time before anyone bothered to come to take our orders and even then, the server wasnt very interested in helping us to make a choice.

 The Food

The food is where Highway Gomantak makes up for all its other (slight) lackings. When we went there, the system seemed to be that everyone orders a la carte starters i.e. fried fish and one of their many thalis as the main course. Though everyone around us seemed to be having fried bombil (bombay duck), we opted for a couple of plates of surmai fry (kingfish fry) which turned out to be fried with a deliciously crispy coating.

Mr. AA having surmai!

Each thali at Highway Gomantak comprises of rice, solkadi (a pinkish maharashtrian appetiser made from coconut milk), bits of onion, green chutney and chapati (or tandlachi (rice flour) bhakri) along with whichever seafood or chicken gravy you choose. While Mr. AA, was afraid of fishbones getting stuck in his throat and ordered surmai again, the rest of us opted for a different taste.

Ms. AM was surprised to find that the prawns in her prawn curry though plentiful, were tiny in comparison to what she was used to back home. However, even the Calcutta native admitted that the rich brown gravy was lipsmacking good.

Mr. AD ordered the Mori Masala thali, not because he knew what it entailed or had any idea of what it would taste like, but simply because he was excited seeing the dish described on the menu as Mori (SHARK) Masala. The idea of eating a sea monster enraptured him. 

I ordered teesrya (clams) masala thali which turned out to be a drier dish without much gravy compared to the rest. However, Highway Gomantak thoughtfully adds a small bowl of tangy orange gravy to have with the rice. I had to specifically ask for tandlachi bhakri because if you do not, the service staff simply presumes that you shall have the chapati. 

Highway Gomantak also offers the authentic maharashtrian dessert called kharvas which is a rare delicasy which not many restaurants carry on their menu. So we ended our meal at Highway Gomantak by sharing a plate of kharvas between us. 

Though all the main dishes in our thalis shared the masala nomenclature, each tasted disntinct and complemented the meat it accompanied. Everything that we ordered was delicious in its own way. So Highway Gomantak is not the sort of place where they have the same base gravy for any and every dish that you order.

Our meal which left us reasobnably fell set us back by only about Rs. 360 each which reflects very good and affordable pricing. Considering the rates, the slight lack of decor and service can be easily excused and this place is definitely the most value for money sea food restaurant that I have been to in Mumbai.

For anyone visiting Mumbai, and wanting to have good local seafood, I would definitely recommend this restaurant over its more famous (and much more costlier) counterparts such as Mahesh Lunch Home or Gajalee. Though after 8pm the heat did not bother us much, I might be much more apprehensive about visiting this place for lunch during the summer.

Overall I would rate this place : 8/10

P.S. - Despite my best efforts and photography overenthusiasm I often fail to capture the best moments. On the road to the rear of this building is an amazing icecream place where we polished off a few scoop of amazing tasting Litchee and Berry flavoured ice-creams while loudly debating and placing friendly wagers about who shall get what ministerial berths. Making several loud snide comments about several possible ministeral candidates, we were blissfully unaware about the surroundings and the fact that the others in the parlour could have been amongst the171,459,286 BJP voters. I do not even remember the name of the place. I hope I shall be able to find it again. :(

UPDATE (30/05/2014) : Anonymous commentor and Ms. AM have kindly let me know that the name of that really nice Ice Cream place is Kamath Icecream! Thanks folks!

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For my previous food and restaurant review posts see-

• Good Luck Cafe (Bandra)
• Pancham Puriwala

Transparency lesson from the past!

Interning at an office in South Bombay has meant that I found time to and had to go to several colonial buildings including the Bombay High Court, the Esplanade Centre of Magistrates’ Courts, the Central Telegraph Office and the Victoria Terminus (now – CST).

I noticed a common feature in these beautiful public buildings built in the late 1800s or early 1900s. To ensure transparency, these buildings carry a great many details on their prominently displayed plaques. These plaques have details of not only when was the building sanctioned and who built it but also about the chief designers, engineers and most importantly the difference between the estimated and final costs of the project.

Take a look at this plaque at the Central Telegraph Office*.

* – The image says General Post Office because it was built as the GPO but later on  when the present GPO building was built it was made the Central Telegraph Office.

The very detailed plaque above shows that the massive building was completed in just about three years from 1869 to 1872 and that the actual cost of ₨. 5,94,200 was actually about five thousand rupees lesser than the sanctioned cost of ₨. 5,99,992.

This plaque is infact a tool of accountability and transparency. The name of the architect along with the names of those who were incharge of the construction is out there literally etched in stone for everyone to see. 

Another example of such a plaque is the image below (taken from http://www.greatmirror.com) which I believe is of the building presently housing the Maharashtra Archives.

 

Let’s bring back this practice…

This practice of elaborate plaques has been almost completely abandoned today. I don’t remember seeing any post-independence building or structure of which so many details including the name of the architect and the cost of construction is available on the structure itself. While plaques still exist they tend to only highlight the names of the so called VIPs who inaugurated it.

With several infrastructure projects and public buildings in Bombay (and other parts of India as well) being way behind schedule and extremely over budget, this could be an effective way to put pressure on contractors to finish on time an within budget because if the don’t, their shortcomings would be on display for the world to see, for ages to come. It is also a transparency mechanism since when the people see how many taxpayers’ rupees were spent on a particular building or project they would be able to gauge for themselves if it was money well spent.

In our hurry to move forward and progress, it is not really wise to leave behind the wisdom of the past!

Do comment and let me know if you have ever seen in Bombay,a modern building plaque that states anything apart from the name of the VIP or VVIP who inaugurated it!

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Emu Kheema! Good Luck Cafe - Review

A Vegetarian is a person who doesn’t eat meat and a Non-Vegetarian is a person who does. That is how I see it. I can never understand people who claim to love or require a hefty quantity of meat every week but still balk at the idea of having anything except chicken and mutton. As for me, if there is something exotic, I want to try it!

Literally months having passed since I had snake meat soup in Taiwan, when Mr. GP told me that Emu meat is now available in Mumbai I had to have it! So on one overcast Saturday evening, Mr. GP and I headed to the old Iranian Good Luck Cafe in Bandra West (Mumbai). The place is pretty easy to find and only a short autorikshaw ride away from the Bandra station. Mehboob studio opposite the cafe is a well known landmark in the area.

The Emu !
We wasted no time and immediately ordered Emu Kheema which was no surprise at all and we were served in a jiffy. Apart from being slightly lighter in colour it looked no different than regular mutton kheema and we were disappointed moments later to find out that it tasted the same too! On take the first few bites we both thought it might just be mutton but soon we realised that it leaves a different aftertaste and has a stronger smell. However, Kheema seems to be a poor choice of dish to exhibit the qualities of this meat unless the point being made was that it isn't really very different from mutton because all in all we didn’t feel like we were having something different and exotic.

Chicken Biryani !
Though the Rs. 100 emu kheema is more costly than a usual plate of kheema, the quantity is nowhere enough to be filling for anybody and we went on to order the Chicken Tikka Biryani since the cafe does not offer any other emu meat dishes. The Chicken Biryani was rather satisfying, fragrant and the chikken tikka in it weren’t burnt or overdone in anyway. It was enjoyable enough but I have tendency to get annoyed with places that do not serve raita along with the Biryani by default. Also, as Mr. GP rightly pointed out to me, the Biryani was slightly less spicy than it is at other eateries and we would have enjoyed more, a slightly spicier version.

Irani Chai !
Any true Mumbaikar knows that it is blasphemy to leave an Iranian Cafe without having the chai so we ordered “broom maska and chai” as the last course in our dinner. They served us ‘bun maska’ (on being asked they claimed kadak pav is available only in the mornings) and tea in paper cups! Why they serve tea in paper cups to customers dining inside the restaurant is beyond me but the quality made up for the lack of presentation and I had another cup before leaving.



The Emus are from Gujarat !
Right outside the cafe is this huge board advertising the main attraction, “Emu Kheema”. The claim is that Emu meat is 98% fat free and thus healthier than other meats. Interestingly enough, it is advertised as ‘red meat’, and not ‘poultry’ as I imagined it would be. On talking to the person at the counter, I learnt that their supplier runs an emu farm with 40000 birds in Gujarat! Gujarat, the land of vegetarianism of all places. Most of the meat is sent abroad and very little to Mumbai I was told. He mentioned about it being expensive at Rs. 600 a kilo for him perhaps as an explanation for the tiny quantity they serve. I hope some Infocity entrepreneur, Gandhinagar makes good use of this locally available meat to relieve the craving of meat hungry GNLUites.

The cafe is very clean, spacious, well lit and modern looking meaning that it is more of a middle range restaurant than the stereo typical Irani Cafe in Mumbai. So if you are looking for that kind of rickety wooden seating then this is not it. We saw at least three four families who had come for dinner apart from the usual Irani cafe crowd of men looking for special chai.

There were many more tasty looking items (such as Chicken Shawarma) on the Good Luck Cafe menu that we didn’t try. At the end of the day, despite the underwhelming emu, it was a satisfying meal which cost us less than Rs. 200 per head. I wouldn’t go there again or recommend anyone to go there just for the emu unless the come up with items like emu tikka which shall let us appreciate the meat better than kheema.

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Pancham Puriwala

I came to know of the place when a friend of mine recommended it to me. Since I am a fan of almost all cuisines and dishes I made up my mind to give it a try at the earliest opportunity. The opportunity arose rather quickly when I had to go to GPO on Wednesday. The restaurant was rather easy to find as it is literally at a stone’s throw from both the CST station and GPO.

The rather small and dimly lit place was full of activity when I arrived at around 1300 hours and the old wodden tables seemed all taken up by nearby

Live and let live

In 2010, Mukesh Ambani who is usually the less flamboyant of the two Ambani brothers provided a lot of newspaper and news-channel fodder when he and his family of five moved into his newly constructed 27 storey house named ‘Antilia’ that apparently took more than a billion dollars to build. He went on to make some more headlines by inviting almost all of the city’s celebrities to the housewarming party and then paying Mumbai’s largest residential electricity bill of Rs. 70 lakhs (Rs. 7,00,00,00) a month later. Many months later, trivia and rumours about the house and its amenities continue to circulate from email forwards as well as idle chitchat over chai.

While constructing such an extravagant home in the heart of the city was bound to make headlines, what surprised me was the fact that the Ambanis faced heavy criticism for being too extravagant and insensitive. Most of the criticism  revolved around how it is an obscene display of wealth because there are millions who are homeless and many more who cant get a square meal a day in India. This is so absurd that I would not have believed that there exist people who actually believe this ludicrous argument had I not personally heard it being said.

I believe that it is absolutely ok for Mukesh Ambani or anyone else to build for himself a house as extravagant as his heart desires. The rich do not have an obligation to alleviate poverty. Mukesh Ambani should not be held responsible for abject poverty that exists in India or Mumbai today nor should he be expected to give away his wealth towards poverty alleviation efforts. The philanthropists who do so rightly deserve the compliments that they receive but its unreasonable to expect all the wealthy to join their ranks.

Secondly, poverty is a problem more complex than most and money is not always the solution. There is no guarantee of even the slightest change in poverty levels in India, even if Mukesh Ambani gave away all of his wealth.

Any money, earned in whatever way, be it legal or illegal does a lot more good when used for consumption rather than when it is locked away in swiss bank vaults or complex financial instruments. The billion dollars spent on the mansion will now be spread out over all the contractors and workers who toiled to build it. Furthermore, the newspapers report that the 27 storey home is staffed by 600 staff members who have now gained employment and who thus shall definitely benefit. It is a given that most of this household staff will be from the poorer section of the society and not sons or daughters of fellow industrialists. Some of the millions paid in utility bills shall also be used to pay the salaries of the utility’s employees. So the house is infact helping a lot of people earn money.

Lastly, the Ambani’s have money and how they spend it is none of anyone else’s business be it politicians or social workers. While it is true that someone might fell disinclined to work hard knowing that even his entire year’s salary cant get him a home like Antilia, it is just as likely that looking at the Ambanis’ display of opulence might encourage others to work harder and inspire some to take up the daunting mantle of being entrepreneurs.

P.S. – This post does not mean that this is what I would do if one fine day I  have as much money as Mukesh Ambani does. Frankly speaking, I would consider it a massive problem if every morning, I had to select a vehicle to travel to work, from over a hundred cars parked over 4 floors of parking space…

P.P.S. – Happy New Year to all the (very few) readers of this blog!!! Hope you have a great year ahead!