Choice Cool Bar or restaurant

One of the notable things about Kerala streets or vehicles is that atleast English spelling are not absolute howlers as one would find in North India. It is not uncommon to find atrocious spelling in North India. I live in punjabi dominated South Delhi for more than two decades and travel in the "cow belt" quite often. For starters the main road with smart shopping malls in Vasant Kunj is called " Nalson Mandela Marg". Dilliwalon ko sab kuch apne NAL leh jaane ki aadat hain!!! Then ofcourse take a drive to neighbouring Jat land and you easily could get Tandi beer or "Child Beer". Not to mention the trucks that would have "Horan Please"written phonetically along with "Powar Brack "( Power brake) or "Use Deeper at Night!". However what takes the cake is malayalis with all their vocabulary and supposed literacy seem to be at their wits end when it comes to finding a name for a restaurant or juice joint. Choice !!!!! I have seen atleast a hundred "CHOICE" restaurants in Kerala.
Pronounced  choyees" On the subject of booze nothing to beat the lungi wallahs down south. The most unsophisticated bar culture in India. Every evening almost every guy with a news paper and "podhi" ( small bag)rolled in his armpit would alight from a "bes" ( bus) and walk nonchalantly to a lightning bar ( because of the speed of downing ) for a peg a "small" . Does not matter how many gallons you gulp in a drunken evening it continues to be measured as "zimbly small" . This North South blues is getting to me !!! I am zimbly heading for one "small"!!!!!!!!!!

Nirmal Paul passes away

My very dear friend Parveen’s mother Nirmal Paul passed away on 4th December 2009 at the ripe old age of 88. She battled for a month and a half in hospital before departing for her heavenly abode. She is survived by her husband Ravi Darshan Bushnel Paul who was with her for an incredible 63 years, son Joseph Paul a publisher who lives in New York and Parveen Paul senior travel and hospitality consultant who lives in Delhi.
I remember my first visit to meet Parveen at her home in Xavier Apartments ,Pitampura and was greeted at the door by her mother with a long Shayari which my pathetic Urdu could not grasp!! However she laughingly called Parveen from her room and explained to us jointly that we were awaiting your grand arrival. It was probably the only time in my life I was privileged to be welcomed to someone’s house with chaste Urdu sher-o-shayari!!! I felt very welcome in that household . Coincidently and sadly it was at that very spot many years later that I saw her in Gods lap draped in the wonderful white dress that she wore on her 60th wedding anniversary.
I was lucky also to have been invited to many lively parties in Xavier Apartments where I had the privilege again of listening ( and thankfully someone translating!!!) to many a Urdu couplet from the wonderful affectionately ‘Nimmo’ . Nirmal Paul was born in Shabga in Punjab on 28th July 1922 to parents Shoroginee and Alic Shah and had 23 siblings and seven of them survived to adulthood. Nirmal’s father was a missionary in several villages of Delhi and she completed her education from Ganges High School and later to Lahore for training in Nursing. Having worked in many leading hospitals with distinction in Delhi during her long career. She trained at Lady Kiniard Hospital for midwifery and remembers many important persons who she had the opportunity to serve notable among them leading hotelier PRS Oberois. Since 1980 she dedicated her life for charity and help for other others an endeavor her daughter Parveen continues to undertake.
Among her various associations ‘Nimmo’ was a soprano in Christ Church along with music directors L.B Mann, Noel Shaw and Mr MacLaren. She was amember of WSCS in Christ Church,Temperence Union and the Bible Society. Nimmo went to Allahabad to study Classical Hindi Music and learned to play sitar, tanpura and harmonium and had a deep interest in gazals and ragas which has kept many a family evening enthralled with her appropriate ‘turahs”.
Truly a family of the fast dissappearing “old school” all their members have that quality of service before self.

Ramesh Nambiar the Pan Indian Dilliwallah

Its quite an arduous task to turn the arc lights on oneself. How does one do it without making it an excersise in self illumination !!! . Well I could more or less describe myself as a ‘Rootless Cosmopolitan’ not in some radical uprooted jewish sense but in an India where your domicile can be so important. "Rootless Pan Indian" would be more apt. Maybe an occassional Pan eating Indian ( non- zarda -only sada variety!) !!
In 1958 my dad started working in N.E.F.A ( Arunachal Pradesh) for Survey of India. He started counting Indias population early in life and aptly was given a medal for meritorious service by the Govt of India !!!!.They have not stopped counting ever since! Then he moved to Assam Goverment's Education department and finally to NEHU in Shillong nestled in Meghalaya . I was born in Laitumukhrah in Shillong . My sister was born in Ziro in the Apatani region of Arunachal Pradesh. My brother was born in Kerala. My parents traditional matrilineal Nairs who belong to Kannur in Kerala landed in North East India among matriarchal Khasis in Shillong . I completed my school education at St Edmunds with the Catholic Irish Brothers and just as I reached my teens found myself in the heart of the Deccan in Hyderabad a truly cross-cultural twin city where Muslims and Hindus, Parsis and Christians jostled for space where I completed my BA from Nizam College. Then on my life transformed from an easy going sports loving adventure and wildlife enthusiast to serious academics in very leftist JNU in Delhi drifting from an MA to research and then an MPhil in Political Geography . Since submitting my M Phil dissertation on “River water disputes in South Asia" I had my fill of academics and decided to pursue my lifelong passion for exploring the outdoors.

In 1989 joined Tiger Tops the pioneers of Himalayan treks and wildlife lodges headquartered in Nepal and embarked on my career in the travel industry the first 14 years as a professional in various capacities as Treks and Field operations Manager in Buddhist enclave Ladakh to Overseas Marketing Head for Travelite & Indo Asia Tours based mostly in France and since 2003 built my own company, Oasis Excursions India Private Limited based in bohemian Hauz Khas Village in New Delhi. This glorious two decade journey has taken me to almost every district in India and over 40 countries around the world for work , pleasure and pure wanderlust. Not quite a polyglot but speaking a smattering of quite a few languages i am most at home with English followed by Hindi, French and Malayalam. If my life depended on it could manage some words in Tamil, Bengali, Assamese , Nepali,Punjabi and Khasi and un pocito de Espagnol!!!!

Today in addition to facilitating travel and tour needs of predominantly European and North American clientele to the Indian sub-continents remotest corners , my life revolves around providing diverse organisational services such as event management (meetings, exhibitions, entertainment etc), liaison services with the government, logistics and hospitality services particularly for media related work (films, documentary production), assistance for overseas companies to set up offices in India.
We have launched the Chalo Spain outbound travel project and also promote The Marigold Guesthouse  in an affordable and well located Hauz Khas area.

Today i  mostly live in wonderful Delhi which is what i call home now. Sadda Dilli! Neither Khasis of Shillong where i was born nor Malayalis of Kerala consider me one of their own!!!! who cares!!

Enough self illumination for one day !! oye puttar chup kar ! chai- wai ,chicken-wicken , mutton- shutton lao!! meri dilli meri shaan!!

Hauz Khas Village- For foodies

My encounter with Hauz Khas Village first came about while pursuing my Masters in JNU in the mid-eighties to check out "scenery" and pure hunger . Descending upon Hauz Khas Village in our ramshackled motorbikes and completely famished looking for some food we found it had an unusual flavour compared to the more earthy villages we were used to like like Munirka and Mehrauli. The entrance to the village had long lines of smart cars warned us that it would be exhorbitant. Someone had quite aptly described it ""Hauz Khas Village preferred mode of locomotion is designer bullock cart, raising designer dust, causing designer dislocation of spine on encountering designer pothole!! Today its one of New Delhi's most fabulous patches of greenery with a nice walkaway around a lake and some impressive monuments of of the second city of Delhi ( Siri) and Sayyid/Lodi period dot the region.Adjacent to the crowded lanes of the village another world thrives. Some very docile spotted deer roamed around quite abundantly in this lung of South Delhi being blessed with good vegetation and water bodies is a haven for the winged and feathered species ! The Island on the lake looks like a good breeding spot for waterbirds. .............The lake which has basically rain and drain fed gets "cleaned" of the algae by local swimmers who have to push the muck to the corners with their hands and lung power and a bit of help from water fountains. Happens only in India...!!

Food in Hauz khas village is the biggest draw now.......Even though famous eatery Bistro is taking painfully long to open a friend is opening a new Kashmiri/North Indian Restaurant just opposite it. The Living Room Cafe & Kitchen is truly one of Delhi's most affordable Mediterranean joints with good music and booze on weekends while Gun Powder is the most recent addition for good old Peninsular Indian Non Vegetarian food. Naivedyam going strong for years with excellent south Indian Vegetarian fare. Park Balluchi with its Frontier non veg food under its foliage  . Looks like Hauz Khas Village is going to be one of Delhi better known foodie hangouts. Caution .those used to Five star facilities and cleanliness and valet parking ...this is not the place!

Rann Of Kutch 2009

It was a great feeling to return to Kutch after 12 years. This time for Rann Utsav 2009 where the colourful people and a faded jeans clad floater footed Chief Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi put up an impressive show on the salt laden White Rann. Neither was there noticable earthquake ravage in Bhuj, Anjar and Bachau except for a few cracks on some bulidings. Brand new townships replete with surplus housing, well tarred roads and excellent mobile communiaction. Whether it was Narendra Modi or sheer Gujarati enterpreneurship the fact remains that the state is way ahead of all the others when it comes to development. Airtel never works properly in South Delhi sometimes. My Airtel mobile and my Reliance data card are mostly struggling in Delhi but in remote Dhordo Village close to Sir Creek in Pakistan it was going great guns. Connectivity by Flamingoes i guess!!!!

Thanks to all the efforts put up by the cash rich Gujarat Tourism and their private partners.

To top it all friend and enthusiastic photographer Gurinder ( our colourful vintage bike loving dilli da surd) and myself had Pavithran our local liaison officer ( hails from Kannur-my hometown) as our knowledgeable guide and it was blast. Kem cho? Zimbly Maje mein!!!