Blog’s the word.

A little history

In the beginning was the home page. And heaven knows how much corny clip art, inspirational poetry and other such atrocities have been inflicted on the unsuspecting world in the name of one’s very own personal web space.

Disclosure: This writer has had many personal home pages on many free sites and has even, once upon a time, when he was young and didn’t know better, put his own poetry up on them.

But then, in the last few years of the last century (i’ve been wanting to slip that phrase into print under my name for the longest time), a strange new phenomenon began to take root.

A few home page owners who wandered far and wide on the still comparatively new world wide web began to gather links to the wondrous sites they saw, and share them with their friends. Rather than just email those links to their friends, some of them began keeping virtual log books of their journeys around the net, pages of links that they posted on their personal web sites, laced with generous helpings of personal commentary. Most of them were run by people who were either web professionals or self-taught amateur enthusiasts. Indeed they needed to be, because this was before the existence of software and/or web sites that made web publishing the type-and-send affair it is today.

That changed in July 1999, with the launch of Pitas, the first blogging tool. Like Hotmail, which had given email its growth surge, it was an online tool, and the price was right – it was free – and suddenly people who wouldn’t know a comment tag from their navels were able to release the fruit of their meditation to the entire world. Or at least the 83 close friends they emailed about it. Again like Hotmail, other providers quickly jumped on the bandwagon – notably Pyra with Blogger – and Blogging was on its way to becoming the Next Big Thing.

In 1998 there were just a handful of sites of the type that are now identified as weblogs (so named by Jorn Barger in December 1997). Jesse James Garrett, editor of Infosift, began compiling a list of “other sites like his” as he found them in his travels around the web. Cameron Barrett. … published the list on Camworld, and others maintaining similar sites began sending their URLs to him for inclusion on the list. Jesse’s ‘page of only weblogs’ lists the 23 known to be in existence at the beginning of 1999.
Suddenly a community sprang up. It was easy to read all of the weblogs on Cameron’s list, and most interested people did. Peter Merholz announced in early 1999 that he was going to pronounce it ‘wee-blog’ and inevitably this was shortened to ‘blog’ with the weblog editor referred to as a ‘blogger.’
At this point, the bandwagon jumping began. More and more people began publishing their own weblogs. … Cameron’s list grew so large that he began including only weblogs he actually followed himself. In early 1999 Brigitte Eaton compiled a list of every weblog she knew about and created the Eatonweb Portal. Brig evaluated all submissions by a simple criterion: that the site consist of dated entries. Webloggers debated what was and what was not a weblog, but since the Eatonweb Portal was the most complete listing of weblogs available, Brig’s inclusive definition prevailed.’
– Excerpted, with permission, from weblogs: a history and perspective, © Rebecca Blood)

How do i blog thee? Let me count the ways…

Right then. There endeth the history lesson. Now, what’s the blogging scene like today? In one word, bubbling. Thousands (that is probably a conservative estimate) of new blogs launch each day.

Blogs themselves have changed from those early halcyon days. The masses have taken over, and now easily outnumber the early pioneers and adopters. And, as with email, chat, instant messaging, and indeed the web itself, they have morphed it into something its trailblazers wouldn’t recognise. Or wouldn’t want to. “The bastardisation of the blogging ideal” is one phrase i saw as i was trawling the net researching this article, but, for better or worse, things will never quite be the same again.

The original blog style – let’s call it the Filter Blog – still exists. Heck, i have one myself. My blog is a generalist blog, a reflection of my mind, my interests, with regular sets of links, short introductions to each of them, maybe little ’taster’ snippets from the sites they link to, to whet the reader’s appetite, the stuff i used to email to my friends once upon a time. There are others far more specific in their focus – literary, political, journalistic, sports-related, fan blogs, you name it, again reflecting the minds of their owners, and their passions. In an ironical twist, there are blogs that hark back to blogging’s pre-web ancestors and inspirations – Travel Blogs, journals with maps and pictures and destinations. And incestuously, there are many, many, many blogs about, well, blogging.

But, a newer kind of site, also updated regularly, also with dated entries, and new entries appearing at the top of the page pushing older ones down, and therefore technically a blog too, has become almost ubiquitous. i call this type the Dear Diary Blog, or Journal. While the Filter blog is, as i said, a reflection of the mind of the owner (and since writing reveals, even in what it conceals, some perhaps reveal more than the blogger intends), in the Diary type blog, the focus is very definitely the blogger. Entries can be descriptions of what s/he is going through in life, what kind of day s/he’s having, books s/he’s reading, movies s/he’s watched, what s/he ate, who s/he ate, and so on.

Of course, these are not mutually exclusive categories, and many bloggers straddle the two with aplomb, mixing links with rants, comments with confessionals, the state of their love lives with the state of humanity.

Besides that hazy, arbitrary division based on content, other types exist too.

There is, for instance, the Commentary Blog, where the writer takes a topic or a link and presents a long personal view on it. As blogging software improved, one of the bells and whistles added on was giving the reader the ability to comment on blog postings, giving rise to spirited public conversations between blogger and reader, or among the readers themselves. i call these Dialogue Blogs (and as i do so, i’m hoping no one decides to shorten that to DiaBlog – or if they do, that they’ll give me money for it). Then there are collaborations between two or more bloggers, each presenting his or her own view and links, panel discussions rather than speeches, jugalbandis rather than solo acts (i gave up on a category here – CollaBlogs? JugalBlogs? –naah). And to take that principle even further, there are Community Blogs, which crossed the blurry line from old style bulletin boards and web forums, where membership, and blogging rights, are shared between hundreds, even thousands of contributors.

Some blogs aren’t even text oriented – i have seen beautiful ArtBlogs, where the owners show their artwork as their take on the world, instead of words. And VoiceBlogs and VideoBlogs, both pretty bandwidth intensive. Or PhotoBlogs. And their inevitable descendant, made possible by cameras built into mobile phones, where pictures are sent directly from cellphone to blog, the Moblog. Which is about as hybrid a word as one can get, considering it tacks half one word onto an existing word that was originally formed by the union of two other words. Wait, i take that back. Just yesterday, i read that the newest fad doing the rounds is the Cyborglog, which has already been shortened to ‘Glog.’ A Glog is kept by bloggers who use various kinds of portable or wearable computing tools, that they habitually carry with them. They see themselves as cyborgs, or at least as close to that as one can get without actual surgery. Glogs are just about the ultimate when it comes to a life that is blogged as it is lived!

Blogs for all seasons

People enter the Blogosphere (hey, that’s what all the cool kids are calling it, mom) for all manner of reasons – expression of ideas, their message to the world, self promotion, boredom… you name it.

Speaking for myself, it’s partly exercise – daily calisthenics for my writing muscles. It doesn’t take up too much of my time – the surfing i do is about the same as i did before. The only difference is that now, when i find something interesting, i reach for the Blog This button rather than my email program. If it also results in some visibility, and perhaps more writing assignments, so much the better.

Other bloggers i’ve talked with have different reasons: to reach out; to tell people about themselves; it’s a soapbox for some; confessional for others; a way to express parts of one’s personality that don’t get an outlet in one’s normal life.

Many use blogs a professional tool: to establish a presence and credibility in their fields; to propagate their views; to test and share concepts and ideas; to communicate and collaborate with other professionals, either in the same field or complimentary areas; as a research aid. Writers find many uses for blogs too: as ‘process logs,’ as ways to test out ideas and plots; as a medium complete in itself. Blogs are also finding a use in education, in news gathering and analysis, the list goes on and on.

There have even been scams and some very successful panhandling efforts. And if you need further proof that it’s in the mainstream is that marketing types are looking beyond spam email and training their beady eyes on blogs as tools to push products.

Is anyone actually making money off blogs then? From what i hear, not many are. Don’t do this because you want to quit your day job. Yes, it could result in income, perhaps indirectly, perhaps through advertising if your blog pulls in readers by the million. But don’t count on it. Do it because you want to.

As The Babu (in real life, a close friend, and my personal inspiration as a blogger – see the box / companion article at the end of this one) put it to me, “Some blogs make money. Some blogs get you jobs. Some blogs introduce you to new friends, new partners, new catsitters. None of this may happen; usually, it won’t. Do not expect to get rich, employed or laid. It might happen, and if it does, well, that’s a bonus. Blogging is a second job. Blogging is a social disease. Blogging is a virus. It can take over your life if you don’t watch out, and it will even if you do. Two words: have fun. That’s about the only reason to get out there, take your pants off in public, and ask a world of people you don’t even know by name to come over and have a look.”

Getting on the blogwagon

Now you, if you want to blog, how do you go about it? If you’re the cautious type, you could try my way: read a lot of blogs, figure out what you like, what makes them tick, then attempt to replicate it. Soon, you’ll find your own voice. Or you could just jump in, feet first, and swim. Either way, remember that its going to take up a regular chunk of your time, and you had better be doing it because you enjoy it.

Blogging services? If you’re HTML savvy, you don’t need any, but even if you are a web guru, there are services out there that take all the pain out of blogging. Things like automatic placement of new posts, archiving and the like. Services to try out: MovableType comes highly recommended if you already have your own domain and server space, and is free for non-commercial personal use. Among the sites which offer both interface and hosting: Blogger is still the best known, and pretty good for beginners, with some limitations; LiveJournal works well if you’re planning a diary-style blog; Rediff’s service has quickly acquired a large Indian following. Just fire up your favourite search engine and you’ll get lots more. Play around, experiment, network with other bloggers, and you’ll soon find one that best suits your needs.

Don’t underestimate the networking bit, especially if you hanker for an audience. Bloggers are arguably the biggest readers of other blogs. And by and large, a helpful bunch. They are also clannish, and link to one another, wearing their affiliations, friendships, peer groups, the groups they desire to be seen as part of, as proud badges, traditionally displayed in a row of links to other blogs (a ‘blogroll’) on a sidebar. Trading links is a very effective way to get readers of your own. As is reading other blogs, commenting on them and entering dialogues with their owners.

So, if you need advice, pointers to resources, links to interesting articles, or just a reader for your blog, come see me some time!

Peter Griffin blogs at zigzackly.blogspot.com

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This section of the article wasn’t carried in the magazine – guess i lost out to my other profession, advertising.

Voices from the Blogosphere

There’s a lot more to the blogging phenomenon. What do bloggers think? Why do they blog? Who do they blog for? What do they hope to get out of it? Rather than make this just my views, i posted a few questions to some message boards, mailed random members of the bloggerati, and got some interesting answers from around the world.

Scott Allen, as befits his area of specialisation, is one of the first to write back to me. He is that rare bird, a “professional” blogger. Besides getting paid to blog at About.com, he also runs OnlineBusinessNetworking.com/blog, which he uses as “a marketing tool intended to increase visibility and establish credibility as experts on our topic.” His blogs are “about 70/30 commentary/filter.” He takes his audience very seriously, tracking numbers, encouraging feedback and acting on it. Because, as he succinctly says, “No audience = no point.” He has oodles of advice on his site, which is well worth your attention if you’re looking at using your blog even semi-professionally.

Aldon Hynes replied at greater length. He runs several blogs, for several different reasons. “My personal blogging, is to let my friends know what I’ve been up to. At aldon.blogspot.com, i test programs that I write to interact with blogspot. I started posting to my MovableType blog, initially to learn MT, but now, more and more to talk about my political activities, which has also lead me to be active in greaterdemocracy.org and numerous Howard Dean related websites.” About the kinds of blogs, Hynes says, “A blog that is primarily ones own experiences can be interesting if the person is living an interesting life and is a good writer, but many of these get boring fairly quickly. Recaps of events without any great new insights also become boring pretty quickly. In many ways, a good blog is like a good op-ed piece in the papers, tied to what is going on in the world and written in an interesting and enlightening manner.”

Anita Bora, formerly at Rediff.com, and now an independent communications consultant in Mumbai, currently blogs at anitabora.com, and is pretty active in getting Indian bloggers to know each other, in real life as well as online.

She rebukes me for my attempts to pigeonhole the various kinds of blogs. “These categories have been created for your own convenience,” she says in her mail. “When you’re online, you tend to do diverse reading, rather than just writing in one genre. There are blogs which might or might not fall under these categories. Ultimately, it’s what appeals to you. Most bloggers browse around a lot, find blogs which strike some kind of a chord, either in their writing, choice of subject, or just their tone of voice. Communities develop around one’s blog and most pretty much stick to their own (straying once in a while), since there are only that many blogs you can read in a day. Blogging serves different purposes at different points of time. I might just want to know what readers think of a topic. Or give vent to my feelings on the state of affairs in my country. Or share a personal experience. The blog lets you ’publish’ like a magazine or a newspaper, and puts you in the editor’s seat. That’s what makes it interesting and challenging too! Audience is reasonably important. We might say we write for ourselves, but it’s going to be lonely if no one ever drops by. By and large, bloggers encourage feedback, and it is common to find groups of bloggers meeting offline and taking their relationships forward.”

Mihail Lari is the cofounder of Blogging Network, the first venue for competitive blogging that pays based on a blog’s popularity (50% of each member’s subscription fee goes towards the writers that person reads each month). His preferred blog reading is the Filter. “A good blogger who decides to serve as a filter on one subject is invaluable as we seem to have less and less time to deal with the overwhelming amounts of information coming at us.” He blogs himself, initially anonymously, but now under his own name “Because I wanted readers to know who I was, that one of the founders of the site is among them.”

He, obviously, recommends his own service “I suppose I am biased, but I really do feel that free blogging is fine for those who also want to spend time marketing their blog and finding readers. Blogging in a vacuum is hard and no fun. The reason why so many people stop blogging after a few days or months is because it is hard to find readers. New bloggers should start out on Blogging Network or some other venue where you can be sure to find readers immediately. We do the job of finding you readers so that you can focus on what you do best – write your blog!”

William Thompson is using his travelblog, Calles y Callejones, Backroads of San Miguel (there’s an accompanying photo gallery too) as a “trial balloon” for a book. The book will be “a guide to the little-known things I find. The colonial city of San Miguel de Allende is a tourist destination and I work (informally) with the local tourism office. I would probably explore these things on my own without the eventual goal of a book.” As to time spent blogging, he grins. “If you consider the time I spend researching and exploring the area, I’d have to say a lot. Actual time spent in front of the computer? Most of it is editing my photos for placement on the blog pages. Once that’s done, the blog more or less writes itself, arising out of the pictures and the things I want to say about them.” He isn’t making money off the blog directly, but has had quite a bit of success with his photographs and writing, with his work being selected for special publications from Mexico’s tourism office, and a photo essay in the BBC News Web site. “I would have to say that the blog has been a successful springboard into other things, which was one of my goals in starting it. I’m not realizing any monetary income from this as yet, although it’s obvious that I hope to eventually. One of my goals is to have travel magazines see some of my material and perhaps contact me to do articles on other locales in Mexico for them.”

Some bloggers prefer anonymity. Like “Nancy,” who writes Desi Bridget Jones Diary. She is a finance professional in Bangalore, but has plans to write professionally one day. i have her word for it. Because i know nothing about her (even the “her” is on trust) that she does not choose to reveal in her blog, which aside from the occasional link, usually to entries on other blogs in her online circle of friends, or extracts from articles or news reports which she comments on, is largely a personal journal. “I blog anonymously” she tells me, “Simply because it allows me to be more honest.” Nancy is one of those people who revels in the ease of use of blogging sites: she confesses to being decidedly technically challenged. “Audience is important to me, but I don’t track numbers. Simply because I don’t know how to! But I read all comments, even if I’m not able to personally respond to them. The fact that there are visitors makes me more diligent about regular posting – heck, i got customers!”

“Hurree Chunder Mookerjee,” a.k.a. “The Babu” also conceals his real identity, though his blog isn’t a personal diary. Kitabkhana is filter with a touch of commentary, and focusses on the world of books, writers, writing and publishing. “I like playing with alter egos, and thought creating the Babu might be an interesting experiment. He’s far more outspoken than his creator, and has more swash and buckle, though these days I need the ’screen’ less and less. Initially, it dismayed me when people discovered his identity: Now that I’m more relaxed with the blog, it doesn’t matter all that much, though I’d prefer the blog’s creator to remain as anonymous as possible for as long as possible.” The Babu, whose site attracts thousand of readers from all over the world, didn’t start out searching for an audience. “Kitabkhana began out of enlightened self-interest: I kept coming across articles that I wanted to save for future reading and then forgetting where I’d seen them. It made sense to start a blog that collected those links. The blog dragged me willy-nilly into a community of book buffs whose views and opinions I found fascinating. Geography is unimportant on the web; the community is far-flung, but we all know each other and share a sense of creating something new, perhaps even an alternative literary culture.” On making money off the blog, he says, “Directly, no. Indirectly, yes, an indecent amount of work has come my way thanks to the Babu’s profile. Never expected it, so it’s icing on the cake. More than work or money, what the blog has done in a peculiar way is to change the way people in my field see me. The real me is fairly prissy; the Babu is more flamboyant. I get people doing a double take, which is not always comfortable, but it is interesting as a social experiment.”

These links weren’t intended to be part of the article, merely my own research. You may find them interesting if you’re interested in the subject.

Useful Links

A tale of one man and his blog

Blog Fiction by Tim Wright, on trAce

(Weblogs and) The Mass Amateurisation of (Nearly) Everything… (September 03, 2003)

Making a Good Blog for Dummies

weblogs: a history and perspective by Rebecca Blood

History

Archived copy of the first blog (TBL’s cern site, http://info.cern.ch/)

1st mention of “blog?” Eatonweb’s proprietor Brigitte Eaton credits it to Peter Merholz.
http://blogbib.blogspot.com/

http://www.userland.com/theHistoryOfWeblogs

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A43254-2003Nov14?language=printer

http://www.economist.com/business/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1218702

http://www.perseus.com/blogsurvey/thebloggingiceberg.html

http://cyberatlas.internet.com/big_picture/applications/article/0,,1301_2238831,00.htm

http://dijest.com/bc/

http://www.blogcensus.net/weblog/

http://doc.weblogs.com/2003/11/16#celebratingConditionalCelebrity

http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html

http://www.microcontentnews.com/articles/googleblogs.htm

http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html

http://www.microcontentnews.com/articles/

http://news.scotsman.com/features.cfm?id=68052004

http://johnporcaro.typepad.com/blog/2003/12/business_is_per.html

http://andrewblog.weblogs.us/archives/009203.html

http://www.shirky.com/writings/weblogs_publishing.html

How to blog

http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/hw/blog/creative/

http://www.periodicfable.com/

Making money blogging:

http://www.rightwingnews.com/archives/week_2003_04_27.PHP#000905

http://www.onlinebusinessnetworking.com/blog/2003/12/29/how-to-become-an-a-list-blogger

http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/ten_tips.html

http://radio.weblogs.com/0117128/blogpaper/blogging_the_market.html

http://www.commoncraft.com/archives/000443.html

Published in It’s a Guy Thing (GT, for short) the Times of India Group’s Men’s magazine.

Tags: GT (It’s a Guy Thing)

What women want

On the Attractiveness of the Eligible Bachelor

Egad.

A man writing the one article in a men’s magazine that would be better written by a woman. Except possibly the one that helps you understand why the woman in your life needs so many pairs of shoes. Or the one that lays bare for your feeble male understanding the pleasures of a day spent shopping without buying anything.

Ah well. Here goes.

First things first. “Attractive,” “eligible” and “bachelor” are not synonyms. Being one does not imply you are both the others. Or even one of them.

Now that we have that straight, let’s continue.

My research involved focus group discussions and media analysis. (Sorry. Force of habit. More than ten years spent in advertising, you see. It means i dredged a rather faulty memory for past conversations, and checked out magazines.)

Scour the matrimonials, a wise journo friend tells me, when i confess i have no idea what eligible means in this day and age. So, leaving out the religion and community bit, here’s a quick “what’s hot” list, based on the totally random scanning of three Sunday newspapers and several web sites.

One definition of eligible is “someone you can take home to Mama,” so let’s start with what the parents of the to-be brides seem to prefer: well-settled (preferably doctor, engineer or professional, even more preferably in the USA); cultured; fair, or even wheat-complexioned (someone explain this to me – is it ripening stalks swaying in the breeze, wheat grains, aattaa, maida, bread or chapatis?); between 25 and 30 (stretchable to 35 in exceptional cases); good family background; tall would help, but it’s not essential; widowed is ok, just about, just no “encumbrances”; divorced is fine, as long as you’re an “innocent” divorcee, whatever that means.

And the boys’ folks, what do they think will get their pride and joy the right bride? The buzzwords are: any post-graduate degree; well-settled; USA; good family; with car and house, own or company-provided, doesn’t matter; below 35 (or if older, then “looks younger” or is “very well settled.”). And all of them seem to want “homely” girls. Which, if they knew what it meant, would be truly liberated and refreshing. But those are rants i’ll save for another time.

Ok, enough of the Situations Vacant. Pick up a women’s mag, and it’s pretty likely that there will be a poll in it. And that poll will say the highest points in the eligibility stakes go to A Sense Of Humour. Ha ha. And there’s Broad-mindedness. And Caring. And Should Understand Me. Sneaking into that noble list you’ll also find many PC-speak aliases for well-settled. Which also figure in conversations i’ve had with women friends over the years. Some lasses confess to being impressed by swank cars, great clothes, cool apartments, elite degrees and other status symbols. And Green Cards. The sophisticates who would not admit to such material desires use terms like Security, Makes Me Feel Special, High Achievers, Good Taste and Appreciation For The Finer Things In Life.

Which, Gentlemen, brings it down to this: If you want to be considered eligible, you better have trophy value.

Where does this leave me?

The women who seem to place my eligibility score highest are the wives and girlfriends of buddies. One cynic’s theory (no, not me, certainly not me) is that they want all seemingly carefree bachelors safely settled down and domesticated, because that way, their men won’t go all envious and wishing they were single. But i digress.

Technically i am a bachelor. i can’t deny that i’m demonstrably single.

As to the attractive, well, my dearest friends will go no further than to say (now and then), “Hey, nice shirt.” Or, when i look in major need of cheering up, “Ah, you shaved?”

Eligible? Since i passed the age of consent, which was a long time ago, i have spent roughly 75 percent of the intervening years being also unattached. Some of it was voluntary, i admit. You know, the normal thing: you see your madly in love friends getting married, and proceeding to either live unhappily ever after or getting divorced; and you think, not me, never me.

But i’m no misogynist. Quite the contrary. Since my voice broke, there’s always been at least one woman occupying disproportionate amounts of my mindspace. And i’m not anti-relationships either. But i’ve never quite figured out what women want.

The much-trumpeted Sense Of Humour? Doesn’t work. They’ll complain that you can’t take anything seriously. The ones that admit to liking money will complain about the inordinate amount of time you spend earning it and seek consolation with toy boys. The ones that say they like a well-toned body will cringe from the sweat worked up attempting to achieve it. If you’re possessive they’ll call you jealous and insecure. If you’re not possessive, they’ll condemn you for not caring.

Er. Yes. i know. i’m ranting. Sorry. But you get the picture.

And despite all i’ve said so far, i’m a romantic at heart. No, really.

Where was i? Ah yes, my eligibility.

Going by the wish lists, i’m screwed. Or rather, i’m not going to be, not in the foreseeable future.

My bank balance has seen better days. My butt is the kind Botticelli liked. Plus i’m over the age limit, don’t have a 9-to-5 job, earn a decidedly irregular income, drive a battered 800 when i’m not taking the busses, don’t even have a passport, live in a rented flat that’s so far away from the city centre it’s in another city.

But perhaps there is hope. A dear friend – a woman, i hasten to add, and she was consoling me after the last jilting, and she’s happily married – said to me once, “Single women above a certain age, go sour. Single men get better with age.”

So, by that reckoning, if i get that post-grad degree, save up for a house and get a job in an MNC, i’ll be just oozing with eligibility by the time i’m about seventy. And women will throw themselves at me as i hobble down the street. i had better start stockpiling the Viagra.

Hopefully, all the women i know would have forgotten this article by then.

Published in It’s a Guy Thing (GT, for short) the Times of India Group’s Men’s magazine.

Tags: GT (It’s a Guy Thing)

Lean Cuisine

When your wallet is on a diet.

Perhaps no one wants your dotcom shares. Or your pocket got picked on the train. Maybe you’re PGing, and they don’t let you cook, and there isn’t much money left over after the rent anyway. Or it’s the month end and Accounts has been sneering at your food vouchers. You still have to eat, but the happening joints are out of the question.

Bombay is a kind city.

There might just be a zunka bhakhar stall around, offering you wholesome Maharastrian peasant fare for the ludicrous sum of Re 1. But there aren’t many of those left after our state last changed governments.

So you look around.

There’s the sandwichvala. Choose your filling: cheese, jam, tomato-cucumber-potato-onion-beetroot. And do you want it toasted? It’s chopped into six bite-sized pieces, slid onto a piece of paper, and you’re offered a splash of ersatz ketchup with more pumpkin in it’s lineage than tomato, despite what the label says. You’re wallet’s lighter by just ten to 15 rupees. Plus a tenner for fruit juice at the next cart, the one with the mixer stealing BMC electricity.

In Nariman Point or Bandra, or near just about any local train station, search for a red cart, with the name painted in white pseudo nib stroke. Take a friend. You can do a one-by-two bowl of soup that you’ll never find in all of China for less than twenty bucks.

You want to sit down and eat? Find a street corner in South Bombay, and you’ll also find an Irani joint. Ten bucks will get you a chai and bun-maska, with sugar sprinkled on it. Or perhaps you prefer the crusty bruns? Another fiver, maybe a rupee or two more, and you can have a bread pudding as well. Or maybe you want to do a mutton potato “pattice” or a samosa with your chai instead? You’ll still get change back from a twenty.

(Oh yes, anywhere except the posh joints – read “non-AC” – tea comes pre-sweetened. If you like yours without sugar, then you’ll have to stump up extra cash for a ‘special’ tea.)

Need meat? A decent kheema at a small Muslim-run place near Mohammadali Road, Mahim, or Bandra won’t cost you more than 20 rupees. Actually, you’re unlikely to find anything on the menu that costs more than 25 bucks, with the possible exception of the Biriyani, Full.

A Maharashtrian joint (Dadar, and what used to be the mills district is a good place to find them) will serve you a spicy, soggy missal, or just the ussal, with a couple of paus. Rs 15, tops, and that’s if the man behind the counter is wearing a shirt. If he’s in a ganji, and also doing the cooking, cheaper. A plate of bhajias, or sticky, sweet malpoas would cost about the same, and the chai – very sweet, very strong – will probably cost one or two rupees more.

Of course there’s daal-rice, roasted paapad and a smidgen of pickle gratis, which you can get at almost any restaurant. Depending on the grade of the place you could pay from Rs 10 up to Rs 30, if the place has uniformed waiters.

The nearest Udupi will get you an idli sambhar, vada sambhar, or, go ahead, go wild, an idli-vada sambhar, for about Rs 12. Dosas start under Rs 20.

Those quintessentially Bombay snacks, bhelpuri and its siblings, sevpuri, dahibatatapuri, paanipuri, can be found everywhere, walking vendors, their dabbas suspended from their necks, cycles, handcarts, hole-in-the-wall stalls, family restaurants, beach stalls. Prices differ, depending on who’s serving you.

And there’s yummy pau-bhaji. The rule of thumb: the cheaper it is, the less likely you are to be able to tell the ingredients, and the more likely it is to blow the top of your head off. Anyway, there’s likely to be a man squeezing the juice out of sugarcane within earshot. Yell, and tell him no ice. You don’t want jaundice, as well as indigestion now, do you?

Need something cheaper?

Hmm. Two or three bucks almost anywhere will get you a hot vada-pau, liberally sprinkled with chilly powder. Or perhaps you’re in the mood for mixed bhajias. Potato slices, onions, chillies, if you’re lucky, spinach too, dunked in batter and fried golden brown. Eat them plain, or crammed into a pau. Look around for the guy selling ‘cutting’ chai. Half a minuscule tumbler for a buck.

Hot boiled channa shouldn’t be hard to find either, with a sprinkling of chopped onion, tomato and chilli, lime squeezed over it.

And as a last resort, there’s peanuts. Which is probably what I’m going to get paid for this column…

Published in It’s a Guy Thing (GT, for short) the Times of India Group’s Men’s magazine.

Tags: The Times of India, In Search of the Perfect..

The Wheels, They Keep On Turning

In which the writer earns his spurs.

My first set of wheels was a black convertible.

I’m told we were quite a hit with the ladies, my brother and I. They oohed and aahed as they leaned in to chuck our chins. Admittedly more my brother’s chin than mine, but them was good days, dude, as Mum pushed us around in our big black pram.

In later, more mature years, I was sole proprietor and chief executive of a tricycle, and at some later point, in a different city, skipping push scooters (having foolishly opted for a dud cowboy outfit the year that was offered me), I had a bicycle. For all of a year. Before it was stolen from a staircase in a pal’s building.

Fast forward many years, and past another cycle, second-hand this time, which lasted close to 20 years (it too, got stolen, a few years ago), since my parents couldn’t afford to buy me a motorbike, and by the time I could afford one, I didn’t want one. Pause, for a sweaty moment, at the time of taking the sardine tin on rails to office, and busses, and cabs and ricks whenever the conveyance vouchers would cover it.

And then, after many years in the salt mines, I suddenly found myself in custody of that mark of middle-class success: an office car. A dinky, humble, white 800. Cool. But one leetle problem. I didn’t know how to drive the darn thing.

A friend drove it home for me, and there it lay in state in front of the building, gathering dust and leaves, and territorial markers from the street’s canine population. Every few days, usually under cover of darkness, I would self-consciously start it, as per advice from less automotively-challenged friends, to keep the battery alive. Eventually, a driver was found, and I achieved what every office goer commits mayhem for: a comfy window seat all the way to work and back. Bliss. All the comforts and none of the hassles of driving through rush hour.

A year later, the driver, as drivers do, went off to seek his fortune elsewhere, and was duly replaced. By now I owned the car, having taken advantage of a discounted offer on it when I quit the company that gave it to me. Driver Two also wanted to make his fortune, but unlike the previous incumbent, decided to do so without leaving my employ. I, at this point, was discovering that dotcom streets were not, after all, paved with gold, and was watching the pennies. So his attempts to pad bills from mechanics, and suchlike shenanigans, were soon found out. And he was quickly downsized, with a fortnight’s salary VRS package.

About time, I decided, despite the advancing years, to learn to drive. Can’t be that difficult. I had set record times on Need For Speed 2 at the office.

Quick research on the driving schools in the area. And National catches my eye with it’s claim to “not create license holders, but drivers.”

Day one. My instructor, Chandu, points out a list of the relevant parts of the driver interface. Hm, many more thingiebobs here than there are arrow keys on the PC keyboard. I struggle to absorb all this complex new information. And he gives me the best driving advice I’ve had till date. “Aisa chalao jaise sab doosre driver c______a hain.”

And then, as I move to get out of the car to ponder the list on the walk home, he said I should start the car. I look at this foolhardy man in the passenger seat with horror. This is Day One. This is a busy street. I am not sure if I remember which pedal moves the wipers and whether I’d paid up on my insurance premia.

But Chandu is firm. I turn the key. The engine rumbles encouragingly. It is a cool day, but sweat trickles down my spine. Following instructions, I floor the clutch, move the gearstick, release the clutch, the car shudders and stalls. Again. This time I remember to use the accelerator. Ah. A difference.This time we lurch forward three feet and then stall. Many tries later, we are moving. As is the rest of Vashi, who all pick this time to go out and pick up the laundry, patronise kamikaze rickshaw drivers, walk the dog or just practice their jaywalking. Despite which, no collateral damage results.

I am gaining confidence. An open stretch of road approaches. “Fast,” Chandu says. Inside, I glow. I’m doing well, and he trusts me to take this baby through her paces! I floor the accelerator. “Fast, Fast,” bellows this maker of Schumachers, “Main bol raha hoon FAST!” A bend in the road is approaching. He’s more confident of my abilities than I am, evidently. I steel myself for the screech of tyres. But the car stops. Chandu has used his set of clutch and brake pedals to postpone our meetings with our maker. Vituperation (his) and indignation (mine) fill the air. And we realise accents had caused a communication lapse. Not Fast. First. As in Fast Gear, Saykund Gear, etc.

Ah.

Let us draw a kindly veil across the next 19 lessons. Suffice it to say that the long suffering Chandu’s perseverance paid off. And I actually passed my test.

So now, amigos, I was a man. For all of a week. Till I did my first rush hour traffic jam. And regressed to quivering infant wanting mummy to come push me home so I could curl up in my crib and sleep.

Published in It’s a Guy Thing (GT, for short) the Times of India Group’s Men’s magazine.

Tags: GT (It’s a Guy Thing)

Sex

Do we need sex?

If your instinctive answer is a fervent “yes,” you’re probably male. But then, that’s why you’re reading this magazine and not watching Oprah.

But hold your, er, horses, messieurs. ’Tis not the act of fornication that we’re discussing here. This isn’t about you giving up your sex life – such as it is.

We’re talking about what my father’s 1964 edition of the Reader’s Digest Great Encyclopaedic Dictionary refers to as “the sum of the physiological difference in structure and function which distinguish the male from the female in animals and plants; males or females collectively.” Very disappointing find it was for a certain sweaty-palmed 11 year-old poring through the dictionary for the meaning of words his indulgent aunt said he should ask his parents about (and when he broached the topic with his parents, they in their turn shuffled nervously and changed the topic, which is why, remembering earlier parental directives about finding things out for oneself, he was scouring the dictionary.) The dictionary primly goes on to say, “(loosely) the sexual relationship,” which was as clear as mud to me – er, i mean, that 11 year-old.

We are, senõrs, wondering whether it’s necessary for our species to have human beings of the male persuasion. Or the female for that matter.

There was a time, I will grant you, somewhere after our distant ancestors mastered the art of splitting themselves into different cells – but before cellular phones – when having two different sexes made sense.

I mean, what’s the next step after you divide? You divide again. And then again. After a time, monotony sets in. I’m willing to bet if some bored cells on a drunken weekend hadn’t chanced upon this business of getting together with other like-minded buddies and forming (trumpets here) the first multi-cell organism, life on earth would have pretty much had it.

But evolve they did, and evidently had a lot of fun doing so, since here we are, still doing our best to mingle cells at every opportunity. Then some curvaceous protozoa invented the headache – but i digress.

Let’s stay with homo sapiens. When we first got up on our hind legs, dividing up the work made sense. The larger, hairier ones got to go out in the cold and kill things, while the smaller, smarter one stayed home, snug and warm, and had babies and headaches. This way, despite the fact that ones with the dangly bits between their legs frequently made errors of spatial judgement and went after beasts much larger than them and quickly became breathing-challenged, or, as frequently, got lost because they refused to stop and ask directions, the species as a whole continued.

Those differences have persisted, becoming more complex, more stylised – I can show you an in-box full of gleefully vicious email forwards that alternately rip apart men and women. For gosh sakes, we’ve even got different magazines!

The only real need for different sexes now is for, well, sex. And how much time, deo, depilatory products and tight pants do we devote to the pursuit of a few minutes of frantic coupling? Think of the all the more productive uses we could be making of our time and money. Not to mention the arguments, fist fights and wars caused by our aggressive instincts. Hell, the differences between the sexes has lead to reams of terrible love poetry and, even worse, country and western music .

Time, methinks, for us to evolve.

After all, now that we’re the second most evolved form of life on this planet (happy trails, Douglas Adams), no longer needing to ensure survival of the species by pursuing and subduing sundry mammals, birds, fish and reptiles, there is no real need for us to persist with this stubborn notion of different sexes.

Look at the social insects – all female colonies, a few token males around to impregnate the queens.

And there’s a particularly clever kind of fish that is all female. Until they feel the need to procreate, whereupon the larger ones turn into males and do the needful.

Snails have it all – hermaphrodites every one, doing unto one another as they have done to them. Think about it, multiple orgasms and the ability to pee standing up.

But let us get serious now. Science is already coming to the rescue. A while ago. some boffins scraped a few cells from the udder of a sheep, and hey presto, Hello Dolly!

Well, ok, i’ll grant you that having one’s udders scraped isn’t the most pleasant form of procreatory activity, and the fact that it only creates a genetic carbon copy, a clone, and therefore what price diversity and the elimination of weak characteristics and the enriching of the gene pool – after all, how many Jayalalithaas can this planet handle? But there’s more.

Those men in white coats, after questioning Murlitharan’s action, have also mapped the human genome. I’ll leave it to erudite gentlemen like Mukul Sharma to explain the finer points of that, but it won’t be long before they’re doing cut-and-paste with DNA. Along with eliminating cancer and acne, they’ll soon find ways to combine the excellent X and Y chromosomes of, let’s say George and Barbara, eliminate all the weaknesses and come out with something far more interesting and advanced than W.

Is that so far-fetched? I think not. Someone said it better than i can, and i misquote, I’m sure: the science of today is the magic of yesterday, the magic of today is the science of tomorrow.

Imagine the faces of your great-grandparents a century ago if someone had given them a sneak peek into the future and they had seen, as a random example, cybersex.

So, kind sirs, remember where you read this first.

Because, not long after we get the letter “Dubya” right, if we have any sense, we’ll create a super wo/man. A creature that is the best of both sexes. Whose mind isn’t cluttered with thoughts of who it is going to ask out on Friday night. A being that is complete in itself, not needing another one to make it so. That will procreate when it wants to, with whom it wants to (with mutual consent, of course). Deciding at the time whether one, or both, should have the baby. Sharing responsibilities for the offspring in every way.

We’ll all have the same moving parts in exactly the same places, then. And, being controlled by the same hormones and body cycles, we’ll all understand one another much better, instead of relating to, at best, just 50% of the human race.

Perhaps then, we won’t need theories about Mars and Venus. Because we’ll all just be from earth.

This was one side of a debate, "Do We Need Sex?"

Published in It’s a Guy Thing (GT, for short) the Times of India Group’s Men’s magazine.

Tags: GT (It’s a Guy Thing)