aditya kumar's weblog

Three bachelors, including yours truly, spent their new years eve walking down Brigade Road. Then to Residency road, briefly touching St.Marks Road and then most of MG Road before coming back to Brigade Road. And then doing it all over again. We could have walked from Brigades to MG but for the Police. Not only had they made Brigades a “Pedestrian-only” zone, they had made it one-way as well. Not a bad thing, considering the amount of crowd expected in the area.

Few minutes past ten and hunger strikes. What better than to have Pizza at Pizza Hut on this eventful evening? Only that the restaurant is closed. This got to be some kind of joke, I say; New Years eve and Pizza Hut’s shutter down? Just the shutter down, not closed per se –as we find out 20 minutes later.

Turns out, same time last year, people high on beer did some bad things to the Pizza Parlor. So this year they decided to play safe. Shutters down, and (backdoor) entry to people only after being sure that they’d not create trouble inside. Of course, a little extra time to prepare your order — It’s rush and everyone wants to have a good time here. Lovely, take your own time — We have plenty to talk.

An hour later we are still wandering, no where in particular. The mob that surrounds us is high on alcohol. Not exactly the kind of place you’d want to take your girl to. Amidst of all this, the crazy cricket fans that we are, we try to arrive at a conclusion on why our team has had a hard time in South Africa. Speaking of which, would they care if they knew? The Sehwags and the Dravids, would they care if they knew that at a quarter to New Year, in the middle of a crowd of thousands at MG Road, Bangalore, two guys were indeed found discussing, of all things, reasons for the miseries of Indian Cricket? Crazy, yeah. We’re just the kind of people BCCI needs to run the show here.

They say what you do at the stroke of the hour, you tend to keep doing for the rest of the year. We, afraid of the excited mob that we had witnessed, spent the moment in the auto rickshaw going back home. So much for the New Years. In the words of Garfield, that lazy fat cat, “We’re bachelors, baby“.

The more I see of Sreesanth, the more a character he appears to me. Towards the end of the days play, South Africa at a good 139 for 1, Sreesanth bowling to a well set Amla. Our hero starts his run-up from — guess where — Somewhere near long off. Running topsy-turvy, parabola like, as he approaches the crease, he’s completely behind the umpire and then finally comes out with a, another guess what — slower delivery. So he is trying everything legitimate to knock off the concentration of batsman. Reminds me of this historic test match when Gillespie bowled to Laxman (or was it Dravid?) with his arms flapping like a bird.

Except that, in both cases, the batsmen didn’t oblige.

And Muralitharan. Look at his face while he bowls — his eyes are not only focussed at the point where he intends to pitch the ball at, but almost popping out with his mouth wide open. Goosebumps guaranteed. Oh and that peculiar chinaman from South Africa, Paul Adams. After a bit (?) of twisting and turning while he bowls, at the point of delivery — his eyes are in the sky(!) . He’s taken more than a 100 test wickets like that. Without even looking at the batsman.

Sreesanth could have taken a cue or two from Andre Nel, his South African counterpart of sorts. Both are good bowlers but have a long way to go. Nel, by now, must be knowing the names of all the ICC Match refrees at the back of his hand. And yet he gets away with it.

How could you justify these antics then? More often than not, these are unsuccessful attempts by desperate bowlers. I think the answer lies somewhere in the fact that, over the last decade or so, cricket has turned out to be more of a batsmans game and bowlers need to do something different. Though things like these have added to the amusement of the spectators, I doubt if it has done any good to the bowlers.

The Konark Wheel, The Sun Temple, Konark

The Sun Temple, Konark

Buddha, Shanti Stupa, Dhauli

The Victoria Memorial, Kolkata

The Victoria Memorial, Kolkata

Below the Howrah Bridge, Kolkata

City of Blinding Lights — Park Street, Kolkata at 1750 Hours

All pictures taken this month while I travelled to Orissa and Kolkata. Your comments, as always, welcome.

Though I have always believed that Indians have been, on the whole, more open to changes related to technology, I have also found out how various (Indian) organizations, which would have otherwise benefited from people using more technology, have failed to realise this and have lost a lot of money and goodwill, on the way.


I regularly use the Netbanking service of the bank that I bank with. Today when I accessed their website, instead of the usual login page, it showed me a message that promised a “host of new features” and gave me a brief account of each one of them. Everything alright except for the fact that since they were “busy”, “incorporating” those features in their website, I would not be able to access my account till the 22nd of December. That is tomorrow and I am not sure for how long this message has been online.


I can’t imagine this is real because these guys don’t appear a wee bit apologetic about it. Whats worse is that when you sign up, these banks portray Netbanking facility as a “substitute” for visiting the bank. So in effect this is equivalent to “closing” the bank for those number of days. And there is no apology whatsoever. To me, this is an indication of how strongly they feel about this mode of banking and how seriously they take it, nevermind those “new features”.

And the talk about “being busy” while “incorporating the features”. Maintenance of a website is not like the maintenance of a bike or a car, where you can’t use the vehicle until the job is done. It’s more like filling the air in your vehicle’s tyres while the engine is running. In effect, during the upgrade, certain features might be unavailable, but that is all. In websites (web applications) that handle data of a much larger magnitude than of a typical bank, the maintenance job never takes more than a few hours. And in here in this case, the same thing has gone on for more than a day.

Update:In a bid to give a quality Banking experience, things may have to be double checked and it could take a while. The Service Quality team took the initiative of talking at length about the whole issue with me. I must mention that they promptly addressed this issue by explaining me why it took so long, the causes that were responsible for it and it gave me a picture of their commitment to their customers for a better quality of service.

Now that I have travelled to all the four metros of the country (and lived for 10 years in two of them), I hereby proclaim that Kolkata is the most metropolitan city of all.

You could be surprised but that is what I feel. Of course, like always, you may or may not agree with me.

Let’s go at the beginning. Let’s just ask ourselves, and this is a tricky one, what exactly is a metropolitan city? Is it high rise buildings? Is it the big roads and the transportation that makes a city a metro? Is it the food? Is it the dressing style of the people? Is it People?

I think in the acceptability of various cultures lies the real essence of any metropolitan city. High rise buildings are only a few decades old.

When I went to Kolkata, I had to look at it as a metro. I had expectations but looking at this city, I wanted to go back and check out the meaning of the word “Metropolitan”. I needed to evaluate the city but I was forced to re-evaluate the benchmarks first. Because I feel, over the years, the definition of a Metropolitan city has been messed up with.

In Kolkata, there is a certain openness to everything. Because when a guy from Bangalore walks on chowringhee road, they don’t call him a madrasi like they do in Delhi. Because there they start off their first sentence in Bengali and by noticing your bewildered look, they smile and say it again in Hindi. Because there the UP wallahs and the Biharis are considered partners at work, rather than being treated as outsiders as they put up with the cheap rhetoric of Shiv Sena in Mumbai. In Kolkata, you can have tea for Re.1.50 and then you can have it for Rs.10 as well.

At the same time, I know, Mumbai has a big heart. But Kolkata isn’t that bad too.

Coming to another aspect, and an important one, you can almost feel the pain of Ganguly’s 10 month exile in every man’s heart. I was made to feel a sinner when I confessed that I had almost forgotten Chappell’s obscene gesture to the crowd at the Eden Gardens. It’s fresh in the minds here as if it was yesterday. They have not forgiven the coach over that. They never will, I can tell you that.

The cook who prepared the fine meals for me in the mess I stayed in, never looked much of a talkative guy. Until, while he served me a bowl of rosogollas, I asked if he had ever been to the Eden Gardens. He gave me a look, as if I had asked him one of the stupidiest questions. Well, maybe I just had. Kolkata resident not been to Eden! And then a sudden smile, a glitter in the eyes and the tone of his voice revealed that I had set him off. Eden Gardens, many times! How can you come up with that? Right, stupid me. A gentle loosener to start up with, so to say. Hit for a six alright.

Then on to Saurav Ganguly. Has he ever seen him play? Oh yes sir, sure, he has played near our guest house. A day before the news was confirmed, about Ganguly’s inclusion in the test team. So what did he had to say about the Maharaja being out of the team for such a long time?


“No, the cry is not because a Bengali player was axed from the team. The problem is with the way it happened. Bengali or not, he deserved better”.

No doubt, he did deserve better and maybe he will get to that. I often heard Pradeep Vijaykar on radio. He always said that the people of Kolkata have an immense knowledge of the game. That is just so true — You can almost feel it here. They live for it. They think about it when they walk. They have cups of tea, discussing what went wrong the other day as if they could have changed the way it all went. An average Kolkata resident will be able to match his wits against the best of commentators on ESPN, that is the level of their matured opinions. To call Cricket “just a game” will be dishonoring their respect, knowledge and above all the love for the game.

I have heard they are more passionate about Football. I didn’t get to that. And trust me, I can’t imagine that.

Orissa may be the land of temples and The Holy city of Puri may as well be its “Temple capital”, but my stay there was a terrible story in itself.

According to the Hindu mythology, we are living in the Kalyuga — The material age and the one in which mankind will be the farthest away from God. Ironically, the house of God has not been spared and that is what you get to see in this land of temples.

A kind of place where any conversation with a stranger often leads to some kind of “payment” from your side. Priests eye your wallets and object if you do not “donate” enough in the temples. I had a row with a couple of them, for a few moments I wanted to leave the place there and then. But I asked God, what had gone wrong there, why was this holy land transformed into a “wholesale market” of Gods. Religion, a big and probably, the only, enterprise here.

The only saving grace being the wonderful architecture of the temples. The remenants of a wonderful age, a truly holy past — now in ruins.