Free Coffee at Corner Perk

It all started two years ago at Corner Perk, a small, locally owned coffee shop, when a customer paid her bill and left $100 extra, saying she wanted to pay for everyone who ordered after her until the money ran out. The staff fulfilled her request, and the woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, has returned to leave other large donations every two to three months.

Sounded great to me. I figured that if I went early enough to my uncle in downtown Mumbai, I could wrap up early and make it back to my office in the suburbs of Mumbai well before lunch.

I got to my uncle’s office early and we walked out to find his printer associate. As we walked the by-lanes of the Fort area, we could not figure out which building he was in. Neither his name, nor mailbox, was in any of the buildings that my uncle remembered him to be in.I wasn’t even sure that any of the buildings housed actual people anymore. However, the cigarette and beedi seller on the corner pointed out the building that he worked in and we headed in, like children with torches gingerly entering a dark cave.

We came up to an open courtyard after climbing two floors. There were some ramshackle offices all around. I turned to look behind, and my uncle identified his office. We walked in. An elderly lady, who seemed to be the assistant, greeted us. We walked on into the main office and sat opposite a very elderly man. He was hunched over in his chair. He seemed asleep. I was about to go back to the elderly lady (it dawned on me that she might be his wife) to find out if he was alive, and if he was alive, was he the printer, and if he was both, could she perhaps wake him up?

Just then he stirred, and began to speak to my uncle. As they exchanged pleasantries, the printer gentleman made a comment that was heart rending. My uncle said
“My nephew here wants to print wedding cards. You print all our material. So I thought you would be the best person for him”

He replied wearily “Thank you. You are one of the only people who still come to me for printing”. It was said with a quiet tired sigh that would have melted Saddam Hussein’s heart. Inwardly, I hoped he would stay alive and awake through our conversation.

He went on to say that he no longer carried wedding card designs. I would have to go to a specific street in South Mumbai near the Metro cinema, choose a design, bring it back to him, and then he would print it. It was also the only street in Mumbai where one could get wedding card designs. He suggested a specific shop where he knew the proprietors and that I should get my design from there and bring it back to him.

So off I went to the street of wedding cards. I got lost, since directions in India generally don’t go beyond “Over there” or “It is in the general direction of my outstretched arm” or the most famous “Just ahead”. Eventually, I did find the place. The street was nothing but wedding card shops, with an occasional dairy shop or a sweetmeats shop thrown in. The shop I was referred to was at the very end of the street, naturally, and after navigating people, cows, goats, bicycles, and wheelbarrows, I made it to the shop.

The shop owner did not know the printer. He suggested that it would be more cost effective for me to buy a pre-designed card rather than custom design a card with him. I then shopped at the other stores, but the store owners refused to provide samples without a deposit that would have bailed out AIG. As I stood outside surveying the cards, a cow came alongside and began to survey the cards along with me, swishing its tail. It was unclear if the cow fancied the cards or if it found my shoes the perfect colour to unload some dung.

At that moment,I wondered, and only for a moment since I did not wish to get dunged on, how the day had eloped away from my plans and timelines.

It was already noon. Traffic would now be a force to reckon with. It would take me longer to get to the office, some 25 kms away from where I was, than it would take to fly to Kolkata from Mumbai.

So, without a wedding card design, without an order to the printer, I pushed headlong through the traffic back to my office, marveling at the way time and space warps in the wefts of India.

I don’t have a car yet so I have to take public transport to the office. Taxis normally refuse to ply between my home in Bandra and my office in Goregaon West(or is it Malad West; one can never say with the shifting Durand lines of Bombay). I’m therefore compelled to take an auto for an hour’s worth of stomach churning, but occasionally I do get lucky with a taxi. Today seems to be one such lucky day. I find a taxi just around the corner from my apt.

It’s a Fiat, sometimes called the Premier Padmini by no one I’ve ever met. Bit of a bummer, getting a Fiat, because the Fiats are better suited for short nostalgic rides in South Bombay. I say Bombay, and not Mumbai, because that’s when Fiats really belonged. As a rule, new black and yellow taxis are mostly Hyundai Santros and Marutis.

Well, beggars can’t be choosers, so I saunter over to the Fiat taxi driver and ask if he is willing to go to Goregaon West. He says yes, stops inspecting the car engine, shuts the car bonnet, and we get in the car. While I’m speaking with the taxi driver, my mobile phone rings. It’s an unknown number. I ignore it with the intention of calling back later.

We get in the taxi. Since the driver was inspecting the car, I ask if the Fiat will make it to Goregaon in time for my meeting in 1 hour’s time. He says that we need to get some CNG gas, but it can be done after he drops me. We head off for the highway, and all’s well. I’m going to make it to my meetings well in time.

10 minutes into the highway, he says that we actually need to fill gas immediately. The closest CNG station that he knows of is in Andheri. He turns off the highway, under the flyover, and headlong into Sakinaka junction, the worst possible junction on a working day morning. We take about 20 minutes to cross 600 metres and then, just as I thought he would turn left and skirt the traffic, he turns right. Right into the worst possible road to take on a working day morning.

I am now reaching the hairline delay mark for my office meeting.

I jump out of the cab after some joyless banter about how much he thinks I should pay him versus how much his meter shows versus how much I think I should pay him given that I am now racing against time to make my meeting. I pay him somewhere in between the multiple choice answers, and then I start searching for an auto since there are no taxis around. There’s huge noise and commotion all around, and autos refuse to go by the meter. After 10 minutes of hailing and bargaining by the side of the blaring dusty highway, I finally find a stomach churner, and my stomach and I set out on a warp and weft to Goregaon.

If James Bond ever used an auto in the suburbs of Mumbai in any of his films, he would never have to specify that his Martini be shaken, not stirred.

I make it to my meeting 15 minutes late. The meeting, however, got cancelled at the last minute, so all of my shake, rattle and roll was in vain. I sit at my desk to catch my breath, and my stomach.

I catch up on my emails, and notice an email from www.moneycontrol.com, a popular portfolio management site in India. It says something like “Thanks for opening an account with MoneyControl.com. Please validate your email address by clicking on this link “. My late mother used to store her portfolio details on Moneycontrol, and I’m wondering as to what’s going on, since I never opened an account in the morning. So I validate the email to see if I can figure out who is using my email id.

When I log into Moneycontrol with my email id, I find that various personal details such as birth date, pan number have all been entered correctly. Now I’m really intrigued. I check my portfolio, and I find that it’s being populated in front of my eyes by some other user. All the stocks are being copied into my portfolio from my mother’s portfolio.

I’m stunned. I call Moneycontrol’s help desk, who send me on a merry go-round until they find the correct IT nerd who can understand my IT nerdish questions about security, hacking, and the account opening process. We are all at a loss. After an hour of my frantically checking various accounts in other web sites for possible widespread hacking, and during which time my portfolio is growing by itself into a replica of my late mother’s portfolio, we decide to launch a complaint and a security investigation.

Just about then, I get a call. It’s the relationship manager from my bank, and he’s asking if I’ve received any emails from moneycontrol.com.

Relationship manager story, “Sir, you had mentioned to me last month that you want to start an account with Moneycontrol, and move your deceased mother’s portfolio to yours for tracking. I thought of doing it for you. I tried to call you in the morning, but you were not picking up the phone. So I decided to go ahead and start the portfolio, and let you know once it is done”.

My shocked response, “But I had to validate the account with my email id, so how were you expecting to have started the portfolio unless I had known and responded???”

His calm response, “No sir, it is all done now. Please go ahead and validate”. Indians have a masterful knack of providing an answer completely unrelated to the question.

My trying-to-be-calm response “Moneycontrol.com is launching a security investigation into the whole affair. I had no idea what was going so I asked them to investigate…”

His shocked response “No sir, I will lose my job. Please stop the investigation.”

I call Moneycontrol. All investigations are halted.

It is now 12:30. Not one bit of work has been done yet. But my day feels like it’s over. Jai-ho.

In a country such as this, every day is Spontaneity Day. It can also become a WTF Day, HowThe… Day, PleaseGodHaveMercy Day, DidThatReallyJustHappen Day, WhereAmINow Day, and WasThatAllInOneDay Day. Many a day has ended with my goals for the day and my activities of the day as far apart as the desert is from the rainclouds. To those who can then find the time to maintain a daily blog, kudos with judos.

To retain any sanity, one has no choice but to fall back to the old adage that it’s all about the journey. Sure. Think of it as a regular thrashing to keep one spiritual; that’s the journey. I will post an example of one such Spontaneity day in another blog entry.

Now, back to the reasons.

Some years ago, I saw a play in London called “The Compleat Works of Shakespeare – abridged”. It was by a few Americans, and in a tribute to American efficiency, they demonstrated Hamlet in 15 minutes, then in 5 minutes, then in 1 minute, and then in 1 minute backwards. As I think about how to share the many reasons for my hiatus from the overcrowded blogosphere, I am inclined to take a page or two from the efficient Americans.

December 2010 was my last post. Since then, I have successfully stopped my top floor occupier from building a new illegal floor on my house, gotten a new job with Morgan Stanley, relocated to Mumbai – which includes finding a flat, a car, maid, learning to drive in the Mumbai suburbs -, taken business trips totaling near 2 months worth of travel, made week long trips to Kolkata to keep my house running and in order, sorting out my deceased mother’s assets and holdings, fighting various cases in the Kolkata civil courts, and, last but not least of all, getting married.

Was that 30 seconds?

I will post about these experiences in more detail. I’ve come to understand, to some extent, what it really means to relocate to India and live in India. I want to share what I’ve learnt and surmised so far in the hope that other lambs may experience an Irish meadow rather than a slaughter house.

To be fair, my case is a bit unique since I also had to tackle property issues in another city on an ongoing basis, navigate the famous bureaucracy of Kolkata as I sorted through my mother’s various holdings, manage a long distance relationship with my fiance, and pretty much coordinate or arrange all the preparations from my side for the wedding, honeymoon and reception. It will be different for someone who relocates to India purely on a work basis, but there are still small lessons to glean and learn.

In the meanwhile, does this get your goat?

This is a post of an email I received recently, involving a carrot, an egg, and coffee.

A young woman went to her mother and told her about her life and how things were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as one problem was solved, a new one arose.

Her mother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Soon the pots came to boil. In the first she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs, and in the last she placed ground coffee beans. She let them sit and boil; without saying A word.

In about twenty minutes she turned off the burners. She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl.

Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl. Turning to her daughter, she asked, “Tell me what you see.” “Carrots, eggs, and coffee,” she replied.

Her mother brought her closer and asked he r to feel the carrots. She did and noted that they were soft. The mother then asked the daughter to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg.

Finally, the mother asked the daughter to sip the coffee. The daughter smiled, as she tasted its rich aroma the daughter then asked, “What does it mean, mother?”

Her mother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity: boiling water. Each reacted differently. The carrot went in strong, hard, and unrelenting. However, after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak. The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior, but after sitting through the boiling water, its insides became hardened. The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After they were in the boiling water, they had changed the water.

“Which are you?” she asked her daughter. “When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?

Some photos to illustrate my point. Here are some photos of Bengal and Kolkata from the plane on a recent flight.

And here’s UK. A little blurry, but this is what I could get from the web.

Click here to see the world’s most beautiful tree barks

An incredibly colourful tree, the Rainbow Eucalyptus. Click here for more.

TREES

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

by: Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918)

I had heard many stories about the house in Mumbai being graced by the presence of great artists such as Balamurali Krishna and cultural stalwarts such as K.M. Munshi. But the story that is my favourite is of my grandparents in that house.

My grandfather was young, unmarried, and on his way to study law in England. On his way to England, he stayed at my great-grandfather’s house in Mumbai before boarding the ship to England, where he met my grandmother. Rather than board the ship to London, he went back to his home in Andhra Pradesh.

His father was perplexed at seeing his son at his doorstep at the time when his son should have been getting seasick on the Arabian Sea. My grandfather told his father that he had met the girl he wanted to marry and had changed his plans about going abroad. My grandfather’s father was now in two minds. On the one hand, he was unhappy that my grandfather was not going to England. On the other hand, he was happy that my grandfather liked a girl who was a friend of the family and a welcome choice.

Soon, my grandfather was back in Mumbai with his parents for a formal alliance meeting with my grandmother’s family. My grandmother’s parents were also quite happy about the potential alliance and were looking forward to putting their best foot forward and securing the marriage. Urban legend has it that my grandmother, who was supposed to act demure and retiring, opened the door to my grandfather’s family and, to the horror of her parents, looked at my grandfather and exclaimed “What! You’re back so soon???”

That, luckily, did not deter my grandfather. Thus, he gave up his education in England to be with my grandmother. The rest, as they say, became the future.

My aunt had visited the house last in 1975, but despite that, we found the house quite easily. It was a lot more decrepit that in the 70s, which was to be expected. The current residents were quite intrigued to meet us and actually allowed us in to see the house. Very few things had changed. Large rooms, old mosaic floors, the quarters for the domestic staff now being used as additional rooms.

Below are 2 pictures taken at the same location. The first is of my grandparents soon after they were married. The picture should date back to the 1930s.

The second picture is of my aunt and I taken a few weeks ago in front of the same staircase.

Some pictures of the home.

Economic Times
24 July, 2010

What’s so great about living for the day? Or for that matter, its various high-speed variants that urge us to exist in the here and now, the passing
present, that urgent, ephemeral and apparently most-important ‘moment’ ? Stuff like “For the past is but a shadow and the future an unknown; therefore, voyager revel in the instant you transit through for ’tis the only thing you know” . (Yes, it’s made up, but you get the drift.)

The Bible says give us this day our daily bread — and not, for instance, our week’s supply. Buddhists tell us to take one breath at a time. The Gita’s advice is to concentrate on present action.

Alcoholics Anonymous, whose rules are similar — namely, to lay off the liquor only on a day-to-day basis — is at least understandable . Psychologists know there’s a neat therapeutic trick of reinforcement involved by means of which a person can reward himself with one brownie point on completion of each 24-hour period that passes without downing a drink.

Yet, when that same rule gets applied to everyone across all levels of living, it hardly makes sense. If all of us did that — which naturally would be the goal of such an exhortation — and took it literally, then we’d end up in monasteries, mountain-tops or in our own reclusive and absolute worlds.

There’s nothing intrinsically wrong in that, but if taken to its logical extreme, it would be like how most animals live: not for the day, not for the minute, not even for the moment because their lives are a mindless and biotic persistence that keeps traversing through infinitely thin slices of time till that fleeting instant also passes through them and they die.

So, if living one day at a time means don’t think about tomorrow or the next day and just live the now, it’s a no-brainer . Because unlike animals, we have an awareness that allows us to learn from past mistakes and anticipate possible futures and, therefore , why should we unnecessarily and suddenly renounce this added feature of our brains?

Also, what if all the enlightened people in our history had thought they should be living in the moment and not tomorrow, not next year; that they should be enjoying life today? If they had simply allowed their wisdom to lie fallow while wallowing in its bliss by themselves, would we have had some of our greatest religions today? No. It goes without saying they definitely lived for another day.

Mukhul Sharma

I have to disagree with Mr. Sharma.

It’s a matter of how one interprets “live in the moment”. Living in the moment does not mean that one does nothing. I would be curious to know which religion, which philosophy, and which saint ever said that. The Gita clearly says that to act is a must, there is no choice. But act now without getting hung up on the results in the future – that is living in the moment. To plan for the future, but not get overly attached to your plan, that is living in the moment. To think of the future as necessary, but not unduly worry about it, that is living in the moment.

I wonder if Mr. Sharma has truly studied the lives of the saints. All the great saints – Ramakrishna, Ramana Maharishi, Kabir, Guru Nanak, Adi Shankaracharya – all lived ( and acted) in the moment.

I’ll speak from personal experience. In May, the uncertainty in every aspect of my future – be it job, my potential move to India, my property issues, the work pending in India, my relationships, my work here in the US- weighed down heavy on me. I got so overloaded that my immunity came down and I had a relapse of Malaria. During my severe fever and in the days of bed rest later, I realized that I had forgotten to practice that simple lesson- live in the moment, do your best in the moment, leave the future to the divine hand, to the river of life.

Now I am doing so again, and a large part of the stress is gone. I am recovering. And things are working out beautifully, by God’s grace.

How do I live in the moment? Any time i start having negative thoughts about what might look like an insurmountable future, I ask myself if there is anything wrong at this present moment. It’s very hard for me to find something wrong. The past is over. It cannot be changed, so no point dwelling on it.

From my perspective, living in the moment removes worries and troubles. And by doing so, I don’t feel like an animal. Not every quality of an animal is inferior. There are things we can learn from them. Nor do I feel like my progress has stopped.

It is a waste of time and mind to wrestle with such things beyond a point. I just make sure I understand it, try it for myself. If it works, I keep it.

Living in the moment is a keeper.

A disciple once asked Swami Vivekanada
“it would be better for me to come back to this life again and again and help the causes that are of interest tome rather than striving for personal salvation and deep longing to get out of life. “
Swami Vivekananda replied ” That’s because you cannot ovecome the idea of progress. But things do not get better; they remain as they are. We grow better by the changes we make in them.”

It’s a very useful thing to understand. As in Einstein’s theory of relativity, or as we sometimes think the sun moves in the sky, the outer world does not move. It is we who are moving, constantly, ceaselessly. And when we understand this, we also realize that living in the moment cannot be static. It is impossible.