I need more hands to count all that money

I recently received this piece of, well, good fortune out of the blue. And instead of keeping it under wraps, I thought I'd share it with all of you. Please stand by for the name of the yacht aboard which I shall host a party to toast my success.

Dear Sir,,

My Name is [Mr Brown Robinson Citizen a Member of Omnipart Team.

I got your esteemed contact during my search, am looking for a capable,

reliable and trustworthy individual from your country India.

My Proposal:

There is a multi-national Gold and NATURAL PRECIOUS STONE company based in

the Dubai whom I would like you to stand in as a middleman between me and

this Gold and NATURAL PRECIOUS STONE multi-national company in united

kingdom.

I am acting as their consultant; This Company will visit your country to

buy their raw materials in a huge quantity.

But the problem I am having with the dealer in your country is language

hence, I would like you to assist me and be part of this business in your

country as both of us will be making substantial dividends at the end of

every transaction with this company anytime they visit India to buy this

materials.

Please your participation will not hinder you from your original Business

/ activities but you and I will be making huge profits at the end of every

supply made to the Dubai Company. Respond as quickly as possible for more

details.

I await your urgent response.

Yours truly,

Brown Robinson.

Omnipart

To which I've responded thusly:

Dear Mr. Brown,

Let me see if I get this straight. You, Brown Robinson, a citizen member of the Omnipart team, is willing to take me, a complete stranger in every sense of the word, to be your Indian partner. And a reliable one at that.

OK, I'm going to be real nice and not ask questions that may be perceived as rude. Like, How in the name of God did you get my friggin' email id?, for instance. I mean, here you are, taking me into complete confidence to do business with you and it simply isn't etiquette to probe your selection methods, even if they seem downright fishy.

Moving on to this business proposal itself, let's see: you want me to liaise with this dealer in India, who, I'm sure, you'll introduce me to at a later stage, to buy Gold and NATURAL PRECIOUS STONEs on your behalf. Hmmm. I share a relationship with gold that can be best summarized thus: None. That's right, none. You see, I'm not that into the gold/jewelry thing. And the only Karat that I'm familiar with is a communist with a disproportionately large bindi. And by the looks of it, she doesn't seem to be too fond of gold either. Take a look for yourself.

I mean, the last thing we want on our hands is the Dubai folks taking both of us to task for getting them anything less than the very best, right? I'm told that guys in sheikh's garb may drive fast cars and live in modern palaces but still chose very medieval methods of punishment. But wait a minute, reading further down your mail, I see that you have chosen me to specifically overcome the language barrier. Now, that changes the whole game doesn't it? I don't have to know a thing about gold and yet help you. What a relief!

Dubai, gold, export. I'm no Sherlock Holmes, but I'm sure that the Indian language you have in mind is indhi, I mean, Hindi. I don't believe in bluffing my way to get a job. So let me come clean to you Mr. Brown. You see, I possess this rather serious handicap when it comes to indhi...oops, Hindi skills. Brief history: In the 80's, it was a firmly held belief in the South that a sound knowledge of Hindi is a life-saving skill that anyone aspiring to amount to something in life should possess. But I come from a state that has a rather rich history opposing Hindi. May be it is in the air or something, but to cut a long story short, four different teachers and a few years later, I'm as familiar with Hindi as I'm with gold. Now that I've come this far, I feel OK telling you this. Recently I watched 3 Idiots (A famous movie in, yes, Hindi) with my wife. Chatur was delivering a supposedly very funny speech and while the rest of the theater (including my wife) were rolling on the floor, holding their intestines, tears in the eyes, I sat there watching as if Chatur was being neutered on screen. You get the drift, right? But don't worry. I can scrub and polish my Hindi and bring it from its current "Ek gaon mein ek kisan" depths to a business-worthy level. And since numbers will be of much importance, you will be glad to know that, thanks to a certain movie song, I'm already very familiar with numbers up to 13. That's right, No: 13.

So when can I start? There's something I need to make very clear to you. You have approached me while I'm in the midst of what can only be termed as a great financial run. Allow me to clarify. You know Mark, right? What?! You don't know Sir Mark Dulles? He's the coordinator of the Online Promo Programme of the UK National Lottery, silly! I've just forwarded him my bank account details to transfer the £2,500,000.00GBP(TWO MILLION FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS STERLING) that I've won. I initially had some doubts if this was a scam or something that's going on all around. But then he is the fiduciary agent of the National Lottery Board of the UK, alright? Do you even know what fiduciary means? Neither do I. And, to kill all doubt, he has been knighted, for God-sakes! The queen doesn't go around conferring knighthoods on thugs. OK, that Allan Stanford guy was a mistake. But, hey, Sir Dulles furnishes my exact lottery details: REFERENCE NUMBER:Ref:UK/9420X2/68 BATCH: 074/05/ZY369. If this ain't legal, I don't know what is.

Anyways, I'll be in London to collect my winnings. Once done, in may be a week or so, onwards to beautiful Nigeria. Why there, you might ask. Does the name Dr. Clement Okon ring a bell? Well, he is the top official of the Federal Govt. Contract Review Panel over there. This Dr. Okon has recently chosen me, through rigorous selection criteria, as his overseas partner and offered me an irresistible deal. If you are willing to keep this to yourself, here are the details: I help him route a sum of US$21,320,000 (TWENTY MILLION THREE HUNDRED TWENTY THOUSAND U.S DOLLARS) through my account in return for a 30% share of the pie. I know! I told you right, that this is a great time for me on the financial front? In fact, I almost missed out on this proposal. I came across this gem while I was clearing my junk mail folder. Good fortune seems to find me somehow. But spare a thought for poor Dr. Okon. I don't envy his position. Having to clean up the financial mess created by the previous military regime, a raging civil war and all that. Life ain't easy Mr. Brown. And living in a globalized world, I can't ignore the call of duty to extend this favor to get this fund released so that he can use it to resume his "importation business". God help him!

Back to our story. Give me a month while I finish up pending business in London and Lagos. But rest assured that I'll be carrying a copy of "Learn Hindi in 30 days" and a DVD of 3 Idiots (starring Brown "Rancho" Robinson, Sir Mark "Farhan" Dulles and Dr. Clement "Raju" Okon). Upon my return, I shall be able to take on the gold dealers and together we can start supplying the Dubaians (Or is it Dubaiites?) with all the gold they'll ever want. I chose to post my reponse to you here rather than by mail so that my readers (all 3 of them) can be made aware of my good fortune and that they should expect a delay in posts.

Achcha Brown-ji. Namaste,

Slow electron-hain. (What can I tell ya, I'm a quick starter)

Hotel Saravana Bhavan

I refuse to bow down to Hotel Saravana Bhavan (HSB), the tallest peak in Chennai's bhavan-scape and arguably the big daddy among the vegetarian restaurants in Chennai. There, you heard it. I'm a rebel of sorts, refusing to be drowned out by the oohs and aahs from the many who venerate the brand and consider a meal there as the ultimate culinary experience under the Chennai sun. Before you think that I'm claiming moral high ground, my avoiding HSB has no connection with the cocktail of crimes that the management has been accused of. For all I know, the owner of the local Sree Bhavan (Adayar) that I used to visit could make Sandalwood Veerappan look like a gardener or Sangeetha's owner make Auto Shankar look like an eve-teaser from Nandanam Arts College.

So why do I hate a brand that is considered as integral a part of the Chennai experience as Marina, Ranganathan street and fleecing auto drivers?

Save for a quick bite at their Vellore outlet en route to Bangalore, I've stopped patronizing HSB since the late 80s which was when one could enter their restaurant and actually find a vacant seat during meal time without having to subtly nudge the elbow of a patron getting medieval on a masal dosai or cough in the general direction of someone trying to send back the final dregs of an expensive coffee in order to announce your arrival and speed things up. (Although, these attempts, more often than not, turn out to be counter-productive.) Well, the scene isn't all that different at the other bhavans, I agree. But even from those visits, my collective HSB memories are limited to getting charged by an unapologetic cashier for a thayir sadham that had a finger nail clipping in it (may be it was from a toe, I'm not sure) while a life-sized Kripananda Vaariyar was smiling down upon us from behind him (HSB, Vadapalani), being reprimanded by a burlesque supervisor in an olive green safari for sharing an item from a "u-share-this-i-break-ur-face" meal (HSB, KK Nagar aka The Mothership) and our Bajaj Chetak getting bumped by their delivery van on Mahalakshmi street in T Nagar.

Call me quirky, but multi-hued uniforms, matador vans bearing the phone nos. of their various branches and ever shrinking, ever expensive portions (HSB definition: A bonda will have exactly 6.023X10^ 23 bondons, at Re 1 per bondon, fried with leftover oil from Milikan's oil drop experiment.) just don't turn me on. So if there exists an overall "HSB experience", then I'm not aware of it.

You know that fraying banian (vest) that you haven't quite given an honorary discharge and thus is still a part of your wardrobe? You don't usually go for it and thus it gravitates to the bottom of the stack and languishes there until either your laundry laziness or a rainy week makes you reach for it? Well, being in Singapore, HSB is that ill-fated banian. The choice of vegetarian restaurants here, even if limited to a handful of eatouts clustered around Mustafa stores, is enough to keep me happy most of the time. But every once in a while, I look beyond them just to break the monotony.

So when a colleague of mine was visiting on a rainy afternoon, I dragged him over to HSB on Syed Alwi Lane for lunch, thus trying to revive a relationship gone cold. We both placed our first orders which arrived without incident. On to the second dish. Mine, the regulation onion rava, arrived and his didn't. So I decided to wait for his dish. After a few minutes, I started to nibble at the edges of my OR. His dish was yet to arrive when I was using the last piece to mop up the remaining traces of tri colored chutney off my plate. The food was not worth writing about but the service was. And write I did on their customer feedback register - a 100 word entry that gave vent to my feelings about the franchise. Amidst all the outpurings vouching for the value, taste and clean food, mine suggested various other businesses that the management should consider. I stormed out of that place with a full heart and a half-full pit, vowing never to go there again. Ever.

For reasons outlined earlier, I've been there twice since (over 2+ years) and just as they maintain the taste and consistency of their sambar down to an atomic level across their outlets, they have maintained their service levels exactly at very bad levels.

The common problems that afflict this place, in my opinion, are:

2 floor seating: It is a double edged sword. Yes, the dining space is nearly doubled and hence little to no waiting. But when you factor in indifferent waiters having to climb flights of stairs to get you the food, the quality of service comes down. Moreover, their staff persuade us to wait and take a seat below rather than go upstairs. A choice between bad service below or delayed bad service above.

Sample this real conversation I had with one of their staff (Italics show the unsaid responses, of course):

Ajay Devgan look-alike: Sir, where are you going? (Abey kidhar jaa rahe ho tu?)

Me: The ground floor dining hall is full. (To take part in the mushaira upstairs and read out a couple of shayaris that I've composed. Hell, last I heard, this is Saravana Bhavan and I'm here for some grub.)

AD: Sir, wait here (pointing to the ground floor entrance) (I dare you to climb one more stair...)

After about 10 minutes, he located a yet-to-be-cleared table and insisted that we sit there.

Hindi Speaking Bearers (HSB): I don't know about you, but when I walk into a *.Bhavan, I want idly, vadai, dosai and sambar. Not iddely, wadaw, dosaw or samburr. The next thing you know, they'll start calling idiyappam as idyuppum and adai as adey. Wait, they have started doing that already! And for the record, it is appalam (pronounced appalaan) and NOT pappad! God help the guy that asks Anil Kapoor for an extra cup of kaarakkuzhmbu or poricha koottu to be brought from one floor below. For some reason, Poornam Vishwanathan's dialog in Thillumullu is ringing in my ears: "tamizhan tamizhana irukkanam, telungan telungana irukkanam..."

Technology: All South Indian waiters evolved from sweaty, oily men processing multiple orders in their brain and relaying orders to the kitchen by a 150 dB yell in the general direction of the source of all the smoke. They never missed an order, the manager never lost a rupee and believe me, things were generally efficient. At some point in human history, HSB introduced the safari-clad homo supervisorous species (complete with a notebook and pen) into the scheme of things and spoiled it for everybody. Since then, service has been reduced to a game of telephone message and people stopped getting what they wanted when they wanted. HSB has taken this one step ahead and have put a fancy order taking machine in the hands of their Supervisaurus (Homo supervisorous mutated). Long story short, your order is lost in translation, data corruption and you can kiss your food good bye. It is one thing to sport cool machines and look like someone from the future. But it is quite another to take an order and get the items served. Which is where they come up short.

Unapologetic, bad service: When I voice my grievance about the lack of service, at least put up a sad face and try to look like someone feeling bad. As soon as I ask for the feedback register (a brown, musty diary that bears two of my long entries), she reaches for it with gusto and gives me a look with a Steve Bucknorish smile that says, "The path of the arrogant restaurant is beset on all sides by the whining of the shortchanged and the cribbing of wronged, overcharged customers. Blessed is he, who in the name of conformance and following the herd, shepherds the hungry through the streets of Little India to our doorstep, for he is truly the loyal customer and the finder of more business. And I will strike down upon thee with bad food and pathetic service those who would attempt to question and challenge my ways. And you will know my name is the Lord when I throw that hefty check upon thee."

I'm willing to look beyond all their shortcomings, yes, all of them, if the food is great. But alas, I've sampled idlies with a molten core, anaemic dosais that clung on to the plate rather viciously, indifferent sambar and could-have-been fried rice. Consistently. I mean, you can be the soup Nazi, but your soup better be kick-ass.

So, 25 years and probably as many attempts later, I'm retaining my original opinion of HSB: Great locations, OK food, bad service and pathetic attitude.

15 minutes of watching Indian Idol

Delhi, Allahabad, Ahmedabad and Kolkata. These were the cities in which auditions were being held for selecting the finalists for Indian idol on Sony TV on Sunday. The judges were Anu "Ctrl C" Malik, Sunidhi "Smug" Chauhan and a third guy whose name or credentials, I'm unaware of.

The show was in Hindi, a language that I spent a few years trying to get acquainted with and nothing significant to show for it. But lack of Hindi skills didn't pose any serious challenge towards understanding what the show, or atleast the auditions, was about: a sequence of people willing to, nay, hell bent on making complete fools of themselves on a big stage. And the judges going out of their way to help them on this mission.

Sample this: A twenty something girl prancing around in what can be best described as a "loose sari" claiming to be Katrina Kaif's sister and singing in a voice that held such an animosity towards shruthi. And the judges taking turns to mock her, leading to heated exchanges between judges and the judgee. All this on air, passing off as entertainment, beamed across large swathes of inhabited parts of the earth. Recording the auditions and getting them sponsored is the closest Sony TV has come to pulling rabbits out of hats. [Maybe this is routine in the Idol show format. And may be I've been living under a rock]

Now, I won't question the selections themselves. I'm as talented in music as Anu Malik is in...well, never mind. That analogy ain't going nowhere. But Mr. AM passing scorching comments, (styling himself after Simon Cowell?) on the lack of talents of the aspirants? Or Sunidhi acting like she is Lata Mangeshkar in a modern dress while mocking at someone? The lack of talents in many of the competitors were rivalled only by the lack of finesse in all the judges. And it was an even match.

And the compulsory drama around each selection and rejection. The elaborate celebrations with that mandatory sweet box always at arm's length, dads prostating at the feet of the judges, crying mothers: it was like watching a bad movie. Isn't there a law against such crimes/violations?

If my grandmother were alive and watching this show, her comment would have been "நாசுக்க தொட்ட கையால தொடல" (nasukka thotta kaiyaala thodalai, very roughly, absolutely devoid of any class)