country roads take me home

This was the days when I was a junior doctor at SDME Dharwad,


We had a student from the Mundgod Tibetan settlement. A soft spoken well behaved girl. But she did the forbidden that is she fell in love with an Indian boy.

I met her couple of years later; she was no more the exuberant girl that I knew. She was confused. After obliging her family and giving up on her love she spent time at Dharmashala, to her it was still more traumatic. Born and brought up in India, she was going through an identity crisis. Though Dharmashala was have reinforced her Tibetan roots meeting up with others with her problem made her question what she had accepted all her life.

Would she sometime in the future go back to Tibetan assuming she did, will she be able to live there after this cosmopolitan upbringing. The shops run by Tibetans at Dharmashala was like personification of the generation that grew in India, the shops sold old normal Tibetan household requirement that were not used anymore.

For want of another name I call her Tenzin, she is the victim of a country and culture that is trying to survive in another instead of flowing along.

I say this because, of the vast Chinese community that we come across. Not only in Calcutta, you have them at Beneras, at Bombay too. Ching mani was what my brother and his friends called Thomas Ching whose father ran a Chinese restraunt (actually a shack) at udupi. The family spoke Chinese at home, kept up Chinese traditions and cuisine but the kids were fluent in both Kannada and Tulu. Ching’s mother of coursed mentioned that with the kids eating at their friends house she has picked up lot of udupi cuisine. She makes a variation of Bisibele bath with Chinese blend!

For those of you watch the show High way on my plate, Mayur and Rocky did mention that the china town in Calcutta talked of adapting the basic Chinese cuisine to Indian palate how else would one explain the Chinese bhel?

Forget about china and mid-eastern cuisine and culture that exist harmoniously with the Indian traditions. Even the European horlicks has lent itself to Indianness by becoming horlicks burfee!

To-be Rai? Bacchan?

Sushmita Sen talks about Aishwarya’s pregnancy, Amitabh blogs about it.


It s only short of “behold the savoir is born”

If you look at the media or public appearance pictures it looks Amitabh-Aishwarya while Jaya and Abhishek are hangers on.

People are extensively talking about Amitabh’s emotions on being a grandfather, but he has already been a grandfather twice over courtesy daughter Shweta Nanda. After all this bitching I come to this cultural-legal issue.

No one talks to Jaya about this, even if they did, my mother once told me the first child that makes you a grandmother is most special. My grandmother reasoned daughter’s kids are more precious than the son’s after all the pain is your daughters. 

Aishwarya belongs to the shetty community a matrilineal society which would make her child Tobe Rai, while Amitabh is from the bhaiyyaland where it’s the question of the son and daughters are non-entities.

Indian law no longer recognizes the matrilineal structure, this to me is aryanization, that it inflicting the cowbelt culture and eliminating the individuality and not horsemen coming down for a war.

whats the party in honour off?

Let’s party,


It’s party time,

Plinky prompt of the day is the ideal number of guests for a party.

But what goes into making a party a success?

3-4 weeks prior to the event

• Decide the day and date

• Create a guest list

• Create a budget.

• Pick a venue and book it.

• Decide a theme.

• Make a supply list

• Decide on the cake design if needed.

Two weeks before the party

• Mail in the invitation

• Plan the menu

• Make a general grocery list.

• Take an inventory of the serving dishes and check if you need to beg, borrow or steal. 

• Call up the people from whom you need to borrow fix a date of pick up.

• Check your supply of camera, film

• Order your cake if you’re not baking it.

Week prior to the party

• Confirm venue

• Select party music

• Shop grocery

• Confirm head count—call in the RSVP’S

• Pick up event prizes

• Clean house

Two days prior to the event:

• Shift and label goody bags and prizes.

• Charge your camcorder

• Purchase last minute requirements

• Purchase perishables

• Pick up things to be borrowed.

• Make room in the fridge for the cooked food.

• Tidy the general areas of the house.

• Clean up the area used for party.

The day before:

• Bake and decorate the cake if you are doing it yourself

• Confirm cake order if ordering it.

• Get games and activities in order.

• Prepare food that that can be prepared ahead,

• Clean cooler if using one.

The big day

• Keep enough time for your dressing

• Pick up ice decorate

• Prepare remaining food

• Last minute tidy up.

A day or two afterwards

• Develop films

• Write thank you notes enclose pictures.

If organizing a party is so tedious then don’t you think the guest list is important?

So how many does it takes to make an ideal party?

Even before I made this list I should have figured what is meant by a party?

Party incidentally has its origin in 1250-1300 AD English and is inspired by the French noun parti.

If we consider party as a noun then

It’s a social gathering of invited friends and guess for conversation, refreshments and entertainment. The ideal number of guests here would be enough to have a comfortable conversation, which is all your guests, must be comfortable with each other; the cost of food and venue should be within your budget.

If it is a gathering of people for a special task say a hunt party—again the ideal number would be just enough for everyone to relax in each other’s company and carry on the purpose of the party. If it is a formal then all associated with that task, or all associated with the company would definitely be there.

If it is a squad, or detachment or detail of a troop—like a search party then more the merrier.

If my party was an adjective then

It takes only to be party to a secret. For here party is something shared or pertaining to.

If is something pertaining to a party like a leader then god forbid we have more than one, if is something like a party dress then well…

If my party is a verb then

It’s to participate in a series of parties; I guess the guest list here is bringing your own guest.

But what likes the best is verb—to enjoy oneself thoroughly without restrain hey then it’s more the merrier.