Cafe Tales

This morning, feeling quite blue and in serious need for a pick-me-up, I decided to try the breakfast menu at the Barista cafe on the ground floor of my office complex. It turned out to be surprisingly pleasant, considering that this was the first time I had had breakfast alone at a cafe. Maybe it was the ambience that gave me the calm I needed, the time I needed to collect my thoughts, or maybe it was the delicious food, but I felt great and ready to take on the day and the challenges it may present. Mental note: must do this more often.

On another note, it made me think of the cafes and restaurants that I have frequented in the cities that I lived in or visited.

I used to stay in the university hostels of the University of Delhi, located in north Delhi. Kamla Nagar was an area my friends and I used to frequent. It had its share of inexpensive restaurants specializing in Chinese and Tibetan food, and when the Barista and the Cafe Coffee Day outlets opened, we were a happy lot, spoilt for choice when it came to eating out. Majnu ka Tilla, located near the Yamuna, was another place you could go to if you wanted to taste authentic Tibetan food. In south Delhi, my favorites are Dilli Haat (for its myriad offerings of ethnic cuisine from all over India), South Extension Barista, and New Friend's Colony Community Center for its Shawarma, momos and of course, its cafes.

In Hyderabad, sadly, I didn't explore much of its eateries, but my favorite remains that rooftop restaurant--Koyla on Road Number 1. And my undergrad days in Shillong was a gastronomical delight! Almost every Sunday, I'd lunch at the restaurant in Hotel Broadway and feast on palak paneer (I still think they make the best I have ever tasted!) and chili chicken. There also used to be a chain of restaurants serving authentic Chinese food located all over Shillong-- I think it was called Abba, which had the best momos and fried rice and noodles. Nice ambience too. Then there was Palace, right bang in the middle of Police Bazaar, which served the best samosas and dosas in Shillong. And need I mention the traditional "jadoh" stalls run by locals that dotted every nook and corner of the city? A jadoh stall is a place people go to for tea, but mostly for lunch, and it would have an inexpensive but delicious menu that consists of rice prepared in the traditional Khasi way (more on this later) with traditional chicken and pork dishes and fried seasonal vegetables and lentils. This was a place where people, even strangers, bonded over food and enjoyed the easy camaraderie. I should also mention the Chinese restaurant that's run by my friend Chin-Hai (who's also a biker) in Dhanketi. It used to be called Touches (unless he's rechristened it) and served the best Foo Yong in town! Ahh Shillong, it's a foodie's paradise, with its restaurants and cafes, and I miss it so much.

And my hometown, Imphal...it used to have some nice restaurants back in the nineties. As teens, my friends and I used to wait for holidays or weekends to snack at the Lake View near the Kangla Paat (a moat that surrounds Kangla). It used to serve delicious Chinese food and had a nice view of the Kangla Paat. Sadly, the restaurant has long been closed. A restaurant that has seen the seventies and still serves nice food is Airlines (I wonder why they named it that way). It's located in the heart of Imphal on Mahatma Gandhi Avenue, right opposite my alma mater. After school, we used to go and get strawberry ice-cream from there. It seems my parents used to date there and my mom till date swears by the cutlets they serve there! I haven't been there in a long, long time. My husband says the food is still great (he went there last November to meet his buddies), and the impression I get of the place is that it's become a hang out for men, almost like a male-only watering hole, though when I was a school kid, families and youngsters would go and enjoy a nice cup of coffee there. Another restaurant I still like is Naoba's on RIMS Road, which is frequented by office goers and RIMS hospital staff and students. You can have a decent lunch and hang out with buddies there.
Now, the reason I mention that  is that Imphal doesn't have a great eating-out culture which is really sad. Apart from the places mentioned here, there is hardly any decent place to go relax over a nice cup of coffee. Some other exceptions are the Host and the Hotel Nirmala restaurants. Sure, you can see myriad establishments with the tag "restaurant" or "cafe" in their names dotting the city. However, the horror that greets you on entering these restaurants just isn't worth it. For one, these are usually dimly lit places frequented by drug addicts and couples who want some privacy and is NOT a place to have coffee or snacks with your friends or family. Forget about lunch or dinner at these places! These places have given a bad name to the terms 'restaurant' and 'cafe' and so if you inadvertently mention that you'd like to go to a cafe, people would stare at you. If you have friends from outside the state visiting you, you CANNOT think of taking them to try out these restaurants/cafes. Now, there are rice-hotels and tea stalls, where you can go and have tea and some snacks, but these are the poor cousins of the Baristas and the Cafe Coffee Days of the world. Visit these stalls if you are in for an adventure and like to give/get a taste of the local life. The plus point of these rice hotels and tea stalls is that you can taste authentic Meitei cuisine like "tharoi thongba" (escargot curry) and "tharoi angouba" (fried escargot), paaknum (a salty steamed snack made of gram flour and vegetables tempered with fermented fish) and pakoras and kanghou (fried vegetables) and ooti (a traditional curry made with peas). I long for the time when the cafes of Imphal would clean up their act and become family hangouts and serve ethnic cuisine too.

United We Stand

United we stand.

The verity of the statement is timeless. It has been the mantra behind India's independence and the credo of many organizations. It has been the guiding principle of many a family and many groups of friends who have stuck together through thick and thin. It is also something that people with common goals (but not necessarily of similar outlook) have used from time to time. I stress on the word used. This is when the statement becomes a mockery and is subsequently reduced to mutual back scratching for mutual benefit. You might wonder what's wrong with that. Aren't we all inter-dependent beings, living in society as symbiotic creatures bonded to each other? Sigh. How or where can I even begin to explain? Look around. You can find examples everywhere, in every aspect of life.

Experts who study group dynamics have a term called cliques. It's supposed to be a high school phenomenon, but some of these extend into adult life as well. Hindi TV soaps gave examples of sisters in law ganging up against the newly wed bahu. It's a group with restricted entry. And they have targets. And they are mean. (Not that cliques are confined to soap operas or chick lit novels).

So...what's the big deal?

A lot actually. Cliques are damaging--they erode self confidences, they create silos and unhealthy competition, and they stop growth and independent thinking. Suddenly, the group is making all the decisions: who to talk to and how, who to admit into the group, and how to spend your time.

Probably unexplored is an aspect that's scary, to say the least: the clique can potentially get away with bad decisions and tardy work if it's an influential group in an organization. Birds of the same feather flock together. Another saying whose truth rings out far and wide, and has been reduced to a cliché. Indeed, sometimes, this becomes the motto of members of a clique whose sole aim is to get ahead and gain influence. That's when the seemingly childish phenomenon rears its ugly head in diverse forms elsewhere, to the detriment of society.

Hopefully, each one of us will examine whether we are becoming part of a clique, whether a clique is exerting its influence near us, and whether there are victims and collateral damage. Hopefully, we are sensitized to the dangers involved and take appropriate steps.

Holiday Pics

Back in Gurgaon after a break in lovely Imphal. Didn't do too much sight-seeing, but visited lots of relatives and met up old classmates. :)

     

    

And I attended the wedding of very dear friends...The wedding album is here.

Surviving a Long Commute

A long commute, as you may have heard a lot of times, is a pain. On an average, I spend 2 hours daily commuting to work and back. I stay in Delhi; my office is in Gurgaon--in the neighboring state of Haryana . Compared to my colleagues who come from places like Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh, I must say my commute is better (I spend only 2/3 hours on the road), but of course, the ideal thing to have done would have been to stay in Gurgaon, but that's not an option I like. So how do I survive the commute? Here's how:

• Since I don't drive, I can afford to nap while the driver does his job. I sometimes nap on the way to work, and it never fails to give me an extra zap of energy.
• I listen to the radio. FM radio is so very entertaining. I ignore the highly repetitive songs that are aired, but thoroughly enjoy laughing at the RJ's wisecracks.
  
• I use the commute time to catch up with family and friends. Thank God for the cell phone!
• I take a book or a magazine along and use the time to catch up with my reading. This is sometimes quite a strain to my eyes, so I limit this as far as possible.
• What I NEVER do while commuting: working on my laptop. A strict no-no as it's stressful to my eyes.
  

What else can possibly help survive a commute that long?

These are stuff I read about or have thought about doing, but haven't really started:

• Taking pictures
• Trying to see patterns in vehicle number plates; things like the total, or quirky looking numbers
• Trying to remember the various makes of cars that zip past
• Trying to solve the Rubik's cube puzzle
• Buying flowers from the vendor at the traffic signal
  

If you have recommendations, do drop in a comment.

On Boredom 2: Secrets to Snapping Out of the 'Talle' Moment

Yeah...Talle...but it's better not to be, as any of you will attest. I have tried on occasion and succeeded (yippee!!) at beating boredom. To be honest, I have to keep up with the momentum by distracting myself from time to time. But yes, it works.

Here are some secrets (or non-secrets) to snapping out of the talle moment:

1. Make sure that your brain isn't idle when you are free. This is an old one, but the adage, 'an idle mind is the devil's workshop' is indeed true. What this means is that you need to have a hobby, or many hobbies--something you are really passionate about--so that you aren't bored when you have free time.
2. If you find that you become restless very soon while doing, make a list of the steps involved in the tasks at hand. Then look for the obvious ways to sort the problem out. Most likely, if the solution is an obvious one, it can bore you. The trick is in making it challenging by approaching it from a different angle. Think out of the box.
3. Meet friends and see if they need help with something. This will not only make you feel good about yourself but also give you a chance to catch up. Of course, the bonding comes as a bonus.
4. Learn something new--a foreign language, sign language, knitting, origami, whatever! The sky is the limit!
   
5. Volunteer for social work: you could spare some time to mentor neighbors' kids, your nephew or cousins, or you could spend some time at an old age home. It's very rewarding.
6. If you like animals, offer to look after your friends' pets.
7. Surf the net, try out Google's free products.
8. Build your aunt a website or blog.
9. Paint/doodle.
10. Tell someone a story. That someone could be you. Or listen (I mean really listen) to someone's story. It could be inspiring and it will make the other person feel good too.
    
11. Learn math. Maybe teach math.
    
12. Use the time to sort out your finances and keep track of your investments.

If all these fail, and you are still bored, take a walk. It doesn't matter where. But do stop to smell the flowers and enjoy the sights and smells around you.

Happy snapping out of the talle moment! If you have more to add to this list, do write in.

Secrets be damned!!! Gonna spill them here!

I have a secret...that's gonna be out now...I love cheese and crackers, fruit, and nuts...and the diet bar too...certainly.