147 Dosas and Nothing To Eat

Disclaimer: This is an experience in one particular branch of a chain restaurant, and only with the items we ordered, and in no way reflects the overall quality of the franchise. Or at least I hope it doesn't, because that would mean India has lost its collective taste buds. 

Sure, cooking is an art form, but the one thing that will always separate food from, say, movies or music, is that with them, there are always a few samples that fall in the "so bad it's good" category. With food, there's nothing like that. With food, there's just "so bad it's pretty bad", "so bad it's really, really, really, really bad" and  "so bad that even years later it makes you physically ill to think you ever paid for it". You can probably see where I am going with this.



It's my fault, really. After all, the warning signs were everywhere. The first was outside, where the billboard, about as tasteful as a combination of orange and green can be, boasted of a hundred odd dosas. Impressive at first glance, but there's a reason why Domino's does not have a hundred odd topping combinations even though it theoretically can.



The second was was when we settled into the American diner-style seats (those just SCREAM dosas, don't they?) and I ordered a cold coffee. Service was quick, I'll grant you this. One sip, and I knew why. It was white as Voldermort and thin as clear soup. It was like the server had just heard "cold" and walked away, omitting the "coffee" entirely. It was cold coffee from a fucking vending machine. In a South Indian restaurant. I know that's probably stereotyping, but when I walk into a specialist cuisine restaurant, I want my stereotypes dammit!



The third was when the lassi my wife ordered arrived. Or rather, didn't arrive. And didn't arrive. And didn't arrive some more. I make it faster at home, and I use a spoon. When it finally did, it was like someone had used the salt shaker to mix the curd. Admirable of the staff to watch out for our health like this, and granted, we are a couple that looks like we should really cut down on the sugar intake, but I prefer it when my servers don't take dietary decisions for me. So I sent it back, and then guess what happened? Yep, more waiting. Oh, and remember when I said that the server just heard "cold" and walked away for coffee? Turns out, that time, he was actually paying attention. The lassi wasn't even cold.



The fourth.....you know what. This is depressing. Instead of the fourth warning, let me offer the management and staff of the fine establishment some advice. See, when a couple walks into your restaurant and orders, and I'm being completely hypothetical here, say, a cold coffee, a lassi and a couple of dishes, it's kind of a given that they know each other and hence, would like to eat together. As in, at the same time. Now granted, there may be a bit of confusion about the timing of the drinks and the food as a group. Did the couple want the drinks WITH the food? BEFORE the food? AFTER the food? In little doggy bags to take home??? Oh how will we ever know? So I will give you guys that. I will also accept that somewhere in the deep dark recesses of your kitchen lies a dosa bible that expressly states "thou shalt not do the logical thing that servers in every other establishment does and actually ask the patron when he wants his drinks". But why would you ever think it's ok to serve one drink first, a salted version of the next drink 10 minutes later, the proper version 10 minutes after that, the first dish 15 minutes after that and the other one, again, after a 15 minute gap?



I was feeling experimental, so I had ordered something called a Paneer Crispy Dosa. It was crispy all right. It looked like the crispiest shade of black this side of a house fire. I poked at it gingerly. Oil oozed out like it had been laid by BP. I lifted the crusty lid with all the confidence of a teenage student in a slasher movie and inspected the contents. The "crispy" theme had permeated through and through. Among the shredded, blackened (I assumed from an overdose of sauce and not because it was "crispy". Or at least, I hoped so) vegetables lay slices of....what? Carrots? Potatoes? Paneer? Black chalk? I speared one on my fork with some difficulty and nibbled on it. It tasted very, very crispy. My wife took a bite. Have I mentioned how brave a woman she is? After a couple of chews she proclaimed "Potatoes". I looked at the menu. It listed the basic ingredients of the dishes - invaluably helpful as far as we were concerned. There was no mention of potatoes. By a process of elimination we settled on paneer. We had to. It was right there in black and white, and we had no evidence to the contrary other than the fact that it was like no paneer I had ever tasted.



Suffice to say, I didn't even try what my wife had ordered, an unholy concoction of paneer and mushroom. It had one great advantage over the dosa, in that I could tell which was which. But I still dared not taste. I wanted a brownie. Or at least something sweet. I flagged down the nearest server "Do you have any dessert.", I whispered, in my most apologetic voice. IA menu was flung in my direction, along with a mumbled "Sorry, no ice cream avelable". I have never heard the word "sorry" spoken with such a combination of disdain and disinterest before, and I include the time my sister told me she was sorry I had even been born. I opened the menu and saw a large list of nothing but ice-cream, which basically meant a large list of nothing. The bill was quick to arrive though. That was a relief. Suffice to say, we aren't going back to try the other 147 or whatever-the-number-is dosas. 

Killing Time

I feel your every breath, you know? I am perfectly aware that you are stalking me, playing the waiting game. You are waiting for me to slip up, make a mistake, catch me unawares. You want me dead. You wont be satisfied until I am so much ashes and dust, the charred remnants of a body that once held a human being. And you will kill me, I know that too. All my struggling and fighting will come to naught. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow, maybe a few years from now. But you will win, and I will lose. You will wipe away my existence like a teardrop on a candle flame.

Funny thing is, I don't want you to win. Defeat is inevitable, and yet, I don't want you to win. It's stupid, isn't it, this struggle against what is meant to be? I mean, I feel your presence in every step, even my body tells me that inch by inch, cell by cell, you are claiming me as your own, and yet I WANT to win. Is this trait exclusive to humans, I wonder? This stupidity of wanting something that could never be? The nerd wants a date with the prettiest girl in college, the orphan wants to be hugged by his parents, the penniless destitute wishes for extravagant dinners and mansions to have them in. But no wish is foolisher than mine. This wish of winning this battle against you. It's tiring me out, and driving me just a little bit insane, and why wouldn't it? I have been fighting this battle for decades now. I look around and see my fellow soldiers and they seem so normal. How the hell are they so normal? Don't they know what's happening to them? Don't they realize what you are doing? Yet, they go about doing their daily chores, and reading their books and watching their films. Do they really believe that any of it MATTERS, or is it just an elaborate ploy to keep their minds of this unwinnable war they have waged against you? And if it is, why am I not taken in? Why am I not being distracted? Why do I teeter on the precipice of madness every night, filled with incandescent rage and yet unable to do anything about it?

So many questions. Will it be better when you finally come? Will I be prepared by then, maybe even ready for whatever you have in store? Or will I struggle until the last ragged breath, struggling to open my eyes one more time, to carry on even when my body won't? Will it be peaceful, or will it be agony? So many questions.

You know, time? It's not life. YOU'RE the real bitch.

Neverending Story

Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated. I never died, I just stopped letting you live. Actually, correction, I just never stopped you from letting yourselves die. Across millenia I have existed and endured, borne by the interminable celestial forces that govern us all. I have felt uncountable neutrons and protons, atoms and molecules shape and reshape themselves into larger beings for the briefest flashes of time, to twinkle with the brightness of conscience for but a cosmic moment, and then disintegrate into nothingness; to crumble away and fall into the bottomless, awning crevice of yesterday.

I have seen each shape, each form declare itself the one who will inherit my being, and heard that voice echoed by a thousand more, before being stilled into nothingness. I have felt them all, over moments that lasted millenia, and millenia that flashed by faster than the memory of a dream. I have seen them struggle to understand, and die before they could even begin to.  And when sometimes someone did understand, I have seen others come in and twist and turn and bend and scorch and blacken that understanding into a snarling, squirming bundle of hate; all talons and teeth. And then I have seen them rip into each other in a way baser beings never could. I have seen them spend hours and years thinking about new ways to cause others to disintegrate faster than they would. And I have shuddered as they all found the ways, and they all used the machines.

Yes, I have shuddered. And yet, as the skies blackened, and the waters turned toxic and fell on them from above, and the leaves turned white with pain, I have endured. As the angry fires lay down to sleep because they had nothing else to burn, and the smoke created vortexes of hell on earth, I have endured. And as it all went quiet, and dark and dead, I have endured. I have endured, and I have existed. For I know, someday the black shell will split open, and the atoms and molecules and protons and neutrons will re-assimilate into another little speck of green. And it will turn to the sun, and wave.

And it will all begin again.

Movie Review: Drive

Warning, this review contains spoilers

There is a scene in an elevator where the driver (Ryan Gosling) draws the woman he's been falling in love with over the last one and a half hours or so, and proceeds to kiss her. Deeply. Passionately. Less than a minute later he's stomping a man's head into bloody pulp in that same elevator while the woman watches, her face a mask of shock and then, pain.

Drive is that kind of a movie.

The promos have mostly made it out to be an action adventure movie. Fast and furious yes, but less racing stripes and more snarling gangsters. Drive is that movie sometimes, but often, its a love story that exists within itself. The driver (his name is never mentioned) is an urban cowboy, part Clint Eastwood, part Steve McQueen, although there are times when he shows a lot more vulnerability than both. He's a mechanic who hires himself out as a stunt driver. He also hires himself out as a wheelman for small-time criminals sticking up pawnshops and warehouses. He's very good at what he does, and he manages to do be so through a combination of skill, horsepower and an encyclopedic knowledge of the city. Instead of trying to outrun and outgun his pursuers, he ducks into dark alleyways, parking lots and under flyovers with a smooth, serene confidence.

But then again, movies where the hero, operating on the wrong side of the law and yet very good at what they do, are common. What's not common is the love story and the amount of effort put into that story to make it tight and believable. He meets Irene for the first time in the elevator on the way up, and they exchange awkward smiles. The next time, he sees her in the supermarket shopping with her son. Later, he drives her home, her car having broken down. In the elevator, he bonds with her son, Benicio, over a game of who-blinks-first. She invites him in for a glass of water. Her husband is in prison and he's new to the apartment. We get to know little more about their backgrounds.



Meanwhile, the driver's boss Shannon has made a deal with two local mobsters, Bernie (Albert Brooks) and Nino (Ron Perlman). They will put up the money for a race car, and the driver will drive. Shannon is confident of his chances, but the people he deals with are not nice people. That's not a spoiler, it's obvious from the get-go. In a movie filled with small time criminals, they are medium-time; petty, violent, ruthless. One of them is played by Albert Brooks, and the other by Ron Perlman. Ron Perlman has of course, made a career playing tough guys, but Albert Brooks, known mostly for the voices he does for the Simpsons, is shockingly good. He's not slithery and cold, nor is he blustery. He's cruel in the most matter-of-fact way, with more than a hint of regret, but regret never comes before business. The kind of man who would comfort you gently as you bled to death, after he himself had slashed your wrists.



Driver spends a lot of time establishing the romance between the driver and Irene. It's paced slowly and allowed to develop, and while her fingers curling over his while they are on a drive is as physical as it gets (other than the aforementioned kiss, of course), its great to watch two very interesting characters communicate with glances and little gestures. It helps that Gosling and Mulligan are phenomenal actors.
However, the film picks up pace with the return of Irene's husband, Standard, from jail. Initially hostile to the driver character, he becomes friendlier after the driver helps him out. Standard could have been a stock character, and while he largely IS a plot device, the fact that he is played to be a decent human being who is truly regretful of what he has done and wants to change things is what keeps the film from moving into simple black and white territory. However, pretty soon, the film delves into the action and the tone changes completely, with intelligent car chases, shotgun battles, and lots and lots of blood. I didn't have a problem with the gore, but I can see why some people might.



There isn't a lot of suspense to the movie, so it's not a conventional thriller. The basic plot line is pretty easy to predict, but like many great movies, its not about the story, its how the story is told. And by giving us a stoic man-with-no-name hero who nevertheless breaks quite a few conventions about how such people are supposed to behave, and then surrounding him with characters you connect with and feel for, characters that vibrate with life, the movie tells a cracker of a story.