An Indian Cup of Cricket

Cheering for Delhi Daredevils in IPL? Go take a sip of Delhi Coffee-Devils at Café Coffee Day!

Hockey might be the national game of India but it is cricket that scores all  runs when it comes to popularity. And if IPL (Indian Premier League) the game alone wasn’t enough feast to this cricket crazy nation, Café Premium League (CPM) is running successfully in Café Coffee Day (CCD) outlets ! CCD is the Starbucks of India. I was in CCD, Nehru Place yesterday. Here’s what I had : Delhi Coffee Devils, a CCD tribute to Delhi Daredevils an IPL team from the city. The Innings Break stands tall next to it.

Thoughtmandu

escape

The only point I make by watching three movies back to back is the innocent fact that I am trying to escape. From life and its realities whatsoever they are. Having to do nothing but watch a character come of age in An Education or understand Cameron’s message through the Navis or simply being reminded of the powerful Monsanto is escapism. No matter how ‘real’ they all are it still serves an  escapist’s purpose. Food Inc did stir my senses a bit, some sort of wake up call but I was in no mood to jump back to reality. I enjoyed all that I watched. This isn’t about my impressions about the movie though. I didn’t start this because I had something to say about them. I do, but that doesn’t serve my need to express here.

Blogging about mere impressions of places is superficial and lifeless.  It is like writing because I want to, not because I have to. It’s dead writing…It feels better now that I have written it. Plus escaped everything for the day too. G’nite. I don’t want to have anything to with this computer screen for today.

9:12 pm

3/13/ SAT

28.7°C

Bhogal: An Indian Market

Bhogal. That’s the source of my stress-buster: Vegetable Patties. I know Vegetable doesn’t grow at Modi’s pastry and that Mother Diary isn’t the correct source of milk but that’s what Bhogal makes it seem. It’s a source of just about everything the residents of Jangpura and other localities around Bhogal need. Starting from food which includes a variety of North Indian, South Indian, Nepali/ Tibetan/Chinese and Afgani cuisines to all the ingredients required to cook anything else it is home to hairdressers, tailors, bartanwallahs (utensil sellers), dry-cleaners, hardware stores, mobile stores, cloth stores, furniture stores you just name it. And if you ever feel too materialistic walking through lanes solely dedicated to one product, for instance, there is one lane here which only has tailor shops, the other lane specializes in hardware products there are temple(s), a mosque, a gurudwara, a budhha vihar and a church to visit.

Holi in Delhi

 

HOLI: A little boy seen in Asaf Ali Road

Jaipur Literature Festival 2010: A belated entry

It’s exactly one month past the Jaipur Literature Festival and I haven’t posted anything about it. But I can’t let all the photos, videos and notes I took at the festival go to waste. Thus this entry:

Day 1 @ JLF : ( It was the second day of the festival.) Jaipur Literature Festival might actually be ‘the greatest literary show on earth’ (last year it was ‘Asia’s Leading Literary Festival’) but I had never heard of it until I came across the Jan 8-21 issue of Time Out Delhi. I am sure it was in the news in Nepal but I have absolutely no memory of it. A few Nepali journalists seem to be regulars at the festival. On the other hand, quite a few people in Jaipur were clueless about it too. And the credit to this finding goes entirely to my ritual of asking directions. Pedestrians did show us the way to SMS hospital road nearby but they didn’t know their city was hosting a ‘world class’ literary show.

We reached the festival venue on the second day (Jan 22) and I knew what I wanted to do: Attend a session called Travels with a Typewriter in the Mughal Tent. I had done a bit of homework on the festival before leaving Delhi and the realization was disheartening. I had read the works of only two of the 200 authors who were to be attending the festival- Chetan Bhagat and Shobha De. I could not bear to make it to the end of the list because I was frustrated by seeing the names of so many people I had never read! Shobha De was a huge hit among us girls back in school (pre-S.L.C.). It was a book where she talked of her relationship with her young daughters. I don’t remember a word of the book now, nor the title. I read Chetan Bhagat’s ‘Five point someone’ in 2007 and ‘One night at a call centre’ sometime later. I am actually ashamed to admit I have read such books! No offense to Bhagat fans but I can’t understand why he is such a huge hit in India. A recent Tehelka survey of bestselling books in India reveals that the first 4 out of 10 bestsellers in India are by Bhagat….simply unbelievable!

Getting back to the festival, I presumed ‘Travels with a typewriter’ to be a session which would discuss the art of writing travelogues. I later realized the session was named so after one of the speaker, Michael Frayn’s book . It was a pleasure listening to the British writer. He spoke well and the best thing he had to say was this:

Travels With a Typewriter By Michael Frayn