The air smelled fresh and crisp, a mix of sun, shade and a hint of rain, a gentle breeze and I swear I even heard birds chirping. Things got nicer as I heard a street busker playing some cool Celtic tunes on the violin. I was smiling and happy until a big truck farted on me, its thick black smoke snapping me out of the idyllic mood I was momentarily lost in. What an awful way to remind you that you were at one of the busiest intersections in the city, during rush hour, and that dirt and noise was all that was in store for you. To make it worse, there was a crazy man across the street swearing at his comrade and smashing a bottle against the sidewalk.

I got my coffee and asked for a cranberry muffin that smelled delicious. The girl taking the order looked visibly nervous and I caught her glancing repeatedly at the queue , that kept on lengthening, of caffeine deprived serious looking folks in front of the counter. Slightly annoyed, I responded with a firm “No, thank you” when she asked me “Would you like meelk?” for the third time. Poor girl, seemed on the verge of a breakdown, prompting me to resolve to never work a morning shift if I were ever to work at a coffee shop. “Sank you, hava nice dae” she said, coming up with a smile (in a Chinese accent, in case you didn’t catch that).

I ran across the street to my bus stop, holding a hot cup of coffee in one hand and a brown bag in the other. As I was boarding, I saw a lady and (her?) child, who was crying loudly, getting out. I get annoyed by children who have learnt the art of faking crying. It starts with the kids making weird faces that makes other people, except me ofcourse, go “aww” and the mother go “oh god not again”. This is usually accompanied by loud screaming, crying and throwing tantrums while not a single drop of tear escapes the eye (worse than crocodile tears). They’ll stop this drama as soon as the mother lifts them up or they get a chocolate or something like that. Talk about parents spoiling their kids by patronizing such obviously fake theatrics, or other acts employing emotional blackmail.

As my bus left the intersection, I couldn’t help but think how interesting these little segments in our day-to-day life could be. If your day was uneventful so far, perhaps spending few minutes reading this made it interesting.

Cheers.

Simcity is a computer game that simulates city building. Its a single player game where one starts with an empty piece of land and slowly builds a city (or a town / village) over it. A range of factors, such as unemployment, pollution, transportation, utilities, environmental and trade policies, taxes, industries, health and education, govern how the city will develop – and I must say it is pretty close to real situations. Infact, this game has been used by planners and architects in a number of research projects.

Here are some screenshots from a small rural village housing a population of 3,000 people.

Town center, Mayor’s house, medical center, a mill and a little lake with stream flowing across the village. I like cities that have water bodies. There’s a school and a small library nearby.

Water pumping station, few houses and shops. The road tunnel under the bridge connects to the neighboring city.

Railway station and a blue train on an elevated terrain.

Rural rail with farms on one side and residences on the other.

I like laying out rail tracks, routing them through the village and working on their traction.

Some large farms next to agricultural industries. The tunnel passes under the railway line and takes you to the other side of the village.

More farms, trains and trees.

Assorted farms: Sunflower, apple orchid, wheat, corn etc.

So that was my calm little village, with no air or water pollution, almost zero crime and healthy, educated people. The train connects this village to the city (40 minutes away) and those with higher education go there to work. About 600 people from this village work in the city, while 300 people from the city work in the industries here. Primary revenue sources are industrial and residential taxes, and export of water to the neighboring city.

That concludes visit to my farming village. In the next post, I’ll take you on a tour of an industrial town.

On December 8 2006, I arrived in Toronto and began my MBA studies at one of the most prestigious business schools in North America. Everything was new – people, food, student life, language, snow etc. and everything familiar was left far away – people, food, work life, language, heat etc.

Last three years have been remarkable. I learnt many new things. Taking a cue from my China-loving-French-immigrant blogger friend Zhu’s post, I made a list of things that will eventually lead to an identity crisis:

9 clues I am becoming Canadian:

• I have a number of seasonal clothing and other supplies. There’s winter jacket, fall jacket, summer jacket, fall hoodie, winter hoodie, winter toque, summer hat, winter socks, summer socks, snow boots, winter boots, (you know the difference, eh?) running shoes, sneakers, formal shoes, flipflops. I also have a humidifier (for winter) and de-humidifier (for summer).
• Holidays that are conveniently placed on certain days of week (as opposed to fixed dates) no longer surprise me. For e.g. Labour day is first Monday of September, Thanksgiving is second Monday in October, Family Day (ON) is third Monday of February, etc. I love talking about looking forward to the long weekend, planning trips for the long weekend, etc.
• I bitch about rush hour ‘crowd’ in Toronto subway. Rush hour means that each passenger gets only one seat (as opposed to four or five during non rush hours). Being an avid cyclist, I sign petitions asking for separate bike lanes in the city. In India, we usually have a common road for everyone – pedestrians, cyclists, stray dogs, and motorists (yet the per-capita injury rate is lower).
• I can comfortably shit in public washrooms which have flimsy partitions that barely offer any privacy.
• My sense of “personal space” has changed drastically. Now I get uncomfortable if strangers come within a radius of 1m around me. I also use terms like “personal time off”, “personal property”, “personal blah..” – terms that are unheard of in collectivist cultures like India.
• I get into unnecessary discussions due to my argument that the Liberals’ initiative of harmonised sales tax (HST) is actually a good idea but the Conservatives just want to oppose anything McGuinty does.
• If someone apologises to me for accidentally brushing their bag against my elbow in rush hour traffic, I apologise to them for making them apologise to me in the first place.
• I often say “hey! howz it goin’?” and walk away. Note to newcomers: This is a polite way of saying “hello”. When someone asks you “How are you?”, just say “Good, thanks, how are you?” instead of telling them how you actually are. This is just how we greet each other.
• I can identify Americans (I mean people from USA).

9 clues I am still an Indian:

• I don’t enjoy the “Indian” food served in fancy “Indian” restaurants at all. That’s because that food is so heavily customised for local tastes that it loses its Indian-ness. If you can eat your food with forks, spoons and knives, assume that it’s not genuine.
• I always address my teachers as “professors” rather than their first name. I have an incredibly tough time calling them Rick, Steven, Mary or Mark.
• I brush my teeth first thing in the morning and wont step out of the house without taking a shower.
• When I see an empty seat in the train, I run to grab it. Then I notice ten other empty seats and smile at myself.
• When I hear white people say that they eat “very spicy” food, I secretly giggle. I must say that there are notable exceptions to this rule.
• I mix up V’s and W’s, and forget which of the 4 T’s (त, थ, ट, ठ) or 4 D’s (द, ध, ड, ढ) I should use while speaking. I’m also known to speak (and write) “Indian English” (which, I hate to tell you, is much superior to American English). I ask people if they are standing in a “queue” or whether they “endavour” to plan something, etc. I am sometimes caught using awkward translated expressions like “today morning”, “I like this too much”, “many many colours”, etc.
• I am kinda shy of using public shower facilities, especially locker rooms where people walk naked.
• When people tell me that Toronto is a “fast-paced city”, I secretly giggle again. Ditto when they refer to their hometowns with population of 100,000 as “cities”. Oh please! The only real cities in Canada are Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton (in that order). It might be useful to mention here that my little suburban hometown Dombivli would be the fourth or fifth largest city in Canada. Among the suburbs of Mumbai alone, Dombivli ranks fourth.
• I carry an Indian passport and I’m kinda hesitant to give it up. Unless the Indian government stops eying all non-residents with suspicion, it won’t allow dual citizenship. And that sucks.

So you see, I am kinda all over the place, but I am happy with the balancing act of defining my identity. Only few thousand years ago we were all black and and living in Somalia. And in another few thousand years we might be on Titan or who knows if we’ll even exist! In any case, I am happy to learn and experience something new every day in a country that has so warmly welcomed me.

Recipe

There are probably a million recipes out there but this one makes the gaajar halwa closest to how it tastes when my mother makes it (we need a benchmark, right?).

Ingredients (4 servings)
4 cups shredded Carrots (गाजर)
1 cup (250 ml) Milk (दुध)
1/2 cup (125ml) Water (पाणी)
1/2 cup sugar (brown sugar tastes better) (साखर)
2 table spoons Butter or ghee (तुप)
1 tea spoon Cardamom seeds/powder (विलायची)
Mixed nuts: Almonds, raisins, cashews, pistachio, wanluts (बदाम, बेदाणे/मनुका, काजू, पिस्ता, अक्रोड)

Procedure:
1. Wash and grate the carrots. I prefer to keep the peels (hence the nutrients) on.
2. Drop the butter In a deep pan and let it melt.
3. Add shredded carrots and saute on low flame (about 10-15 minutes) until the carrots change colour to light brown. It’s easy to burn the carrots, so stir well and be watchful. Add water to compensate for the moisture.
4. Now add sugar evenly while you stir. It will quickly melt. If you are using cardamom seeds, add them now.
5. Add milk and keep stirring until all the milk has been absorbed and the mixture thickens (about 15 minutes). If you are using cardamom powder, add it now.
7. Remove from flame, let it cool and garnish with nuts.
Enjoy it with some hot chai and let me know how it went.

Gajar halwa: Carrot pudding, decorated with almonds, raisins, cranberries, cashews and walnuts.

• The first time I heard a non-Indian person speak Hindi in Toronto was when I was waiting tables (back in 2007) and a fellow waiter, who had long blond hair, blue eyes and strong East-European features (later I learnt that he was Czech) started chatting to me in Hindi. I thought that was unusual, but then I was in Toronto for less than a month, what did I know. I told him I was from Mumbai, and he said in Marathi, “मुंबई छान अाहे” “Mumbai is nice”, ehhh.
• Few months back I went to my bank (Bank of Montreal) and a young East-Asian lady, with a distinctly Chinese name was (wo)manning the service booth. I greeted her and subconsciously prepared my ears to hear some Chinese-accented English, but I was shocked when she said: “आप भारत से हो?” “Are you from India?” (formal). For few seconds, I stood there staring at her, dumbfounded. She said that she loved shocking people like that using the language she picked up as a child living in India.
• Then this one time I was in a west-Indian Roti shop, waiting for my order when two old east-Asian ladies walked in. ‘Two Chinese grandmas in a Jamaican restaurant… that’s kinda strange!’, I thought. I was almost expecting to hear some accented English, but instead I heard strange conversations: “Gimme wen glassa wata pleez”, “De nex time me will buy”, “How yuh eet so much!”, “Tek yu time man” and so on. Later a Jamaican friend told me that there are several people of Chinese ancestry that lived on the island. Pheww, who knew!

I’ve had reverse experiences too!

• The other day I was in the grocery store listening to my Russian lessons on iPod and repeating the lines, “Hi, if you have some time, would you like to have a drink with me?” “Yes why not, I like Vodka”, when a babushka (old woman) bumped into me and asked, “Ты в порядке?” “You okay?” I blushed realizing what happened.
• When I came back from Russia last year, at Toronto airport a Russian man asked me, “Ezkyooz me, izz the boos come ere?” Somehow, automatically I replied to him in Russian, giving him directions to the bus stop. I could see in his eyes the joy of hearing your mother tongue when you are in a foreign country, something that I’ve experienced few times.
• I posted an advertisement on craigslist looking for a study buddy to practise Russian with. Guess who showed up? A Chinese-Korean man who told me that he was learning Russian because he wanted to preach the “correct” (i.e. Catholic) Christian religion in Russia (which has Orthodox Christianity). I left immediately.

Making such generalizations and assumptions can often land you in funny situations.

• The other day a big fat guy was sitting in the subway, with one vacant seat next to him. Since I like personal space, I preferred to stand rather than take that seat. A couple entered the coach in haste and the lady immediately ran to snatch that empty seat (Hint: That’s how you can tell if someone is new to Toronto – they rush!). Something happened and the next thing I know, the fat guy started grumbling loudly in Spanish at the couple. There were some angry exchange of words between them in Spanish. Apparently the couple was making fun of the fat guy’s fatness in Spanish, assuming that the fat guy didn’t understand them. Oops!
• Also in the subway, I was once riding with my ex-boss who speaks Italian for some reason. Two college girls sitting opposite to us were giggling and talking something that seemed like girl-talk. My boss told me later that the girls were talking, in Italian, about boys and their recent sexual experience with all sleazy details. No wonder my boss didn’t talk to me the entire time we were in the subway, (I think she was learning new tricks from the girls)!

So you see, Toronto is full of language surprises and these are just few random stories I remember. There was a time a white guy speaking fluent Hindi puzzled me, but now I kinda take that for granted, I’ve seen atleast three such creatures this year.

That’s why I love Toronto so much.

I walk a lot and often with an ipod plugged into my earphones. I’ve noticed that my walking style (pace, stride, etc.) are greatly influenced by the music track I am listening to. I have also been noticing that I walk better with some people than others, as if the rhythm of our movements was strengthening or hampering interpersonal chemistry. I was especially sensitive about this when I was dating. It added to the something does/doesn’t feel right feeling about the other person. If I am walking with someone, I try to match my walking characteristics to that of the other person, almost as a reflex, sometimes taking fast, smaller steps, and sometimes taking large, slower steps. But there is always a time when walking with someone is not smooth.

Personally, I have analyzed the origins of this behavior and it probably has something to do with the sense of rhythm programmed into me. Being a musician, counting the beats and perfectly maintaining gaps during improvisation is a skill that’s necessary, not just a good-to-have thing, especially in the mathematical progressions of Indian classical music, – as I’m told. After few years of practise, the task of measuring the beats and playing on-beat or off-beat becomes a task that’s relegated to one’s reflexes and my active brain is now focused exclusively on coming up with something to play next. So when I am walking with someone, or listening to music, I have this obsession of aligning my walking rhythm to the external rhythm that’s “given” to me. And if that doesn’t work, I get frustrated.

For example, last night I was listening to “With or Without You” (U2) while walking to the grocery store. I listen to that kind of music (i.e. western) on my regularly-irregular morning runs, and it works perfectly well because for every beat on U2’s drums, I have 2 steps of mine (1:2 ratio). Last night however, I was trying to match my walking to the music but those 3-something minutes were very uncomfortable because the beats were too slow no matter how large strides I took.

Then there are people who walk in a disorganized manner. Slow, fast, slow again, big steps, small steps…. what the hell! Obviously, we will never have a second date (unless they are terribly cute).

Maybe rhythmic walking could be used as a therapy: Just like watching a goldfish helps heart patients, walking in the rhythm of certain music might help people since it combines discipline and exercise. Coupled with synchronised breathing, I feel that rhythmic walking is a great way to make a trip to the grocery store really productive.

I was never a fan of Will Smith because I don’t like action movies – especially the ones that have a fake science fiction or a thriller feel to them. This was the first time I saw him act in a drama, a movie without guns or fight scenes, and I think he can do better. Will played the subdued character somewhat okay, although at some points in the movie, his expressions made me laugh: simply putting a sad depressed face is not enough in this day and age.

When I heard the title of the movie, it reminded me of Shylock, the Jewish money lender from Shakespeare’s play The Merchant of Venice, in which Shylock demands one pound of flesh as a loan repayment penalty from his rival. This movie does nothing of that sort, although it does involve transfer of human organs.

The movie starts with a suicide call and nobody knows what’s going on until scenes from the main character’s recent past are revealed one at a time. I must say that the basis of Will Smith’s drama of repentance is extremely flimsy – had they shown this at the beginning of the movie, I would have watched the movie at 2x speed. At some points, I did wonder if the movie was based on selfless generosity or mere egotism. Romance, there’s Rosario Dawson, was probably added as an afterthought and it makes no rational sense (but then some would argue that love is irrational).

I won’t further spoil the plot for those who will hopefully watch the movie – I would say that the movie is emotionally satisfying but intellectually shallow. There are very very few movies that make my eyes moist, and this was one of those.

An Economist would say: “The number of beggars-per capita is very high.”
A Mathematician would say: “The ratio of number of people to number of beggars is very low.”
An Engineer would say: “The concentration of beggars per square meter is very high.”
A Sociologist would say: “What you are measuring is actually a sign of social degradation and deprivation – how insensitive!”
A MBA (i.e. someone like me) would say: “These people are wasting their time here.”

You heard me right, I may not know the social theories regarding the cause of begging – whatever they are, they don’t matter. But one thing is clear – Parkdale is not the place to beg. Let me explain why.

The dollar store in my neighborhood, with one of the begging spots. Image courtesy Google maps street view.

See that dollar store? A dollar store is a sign that screams two things:
#1. “We sell crappy Made-in-China goods for a dollar”
#2. “This neighborhood is full of people who will buy that crap”
The dollar store is not the only sign – there are several thrift stores, discount stores, pawn shops, junk stores, cheap restaurants etc. It’s a great place to get deals and bargains. The neighborhood is full of rental apartment buildings (perceived by certain bloggers as being owned by slumlords), large number of people living on social welfare, community centers, etc. To summarize, Parkdale is a place filled with poor people* and low income families.

This place should ideally be a nightmare for a professional beggar – right?

But for some reason, it seems that Parkdale is also the home to all beggars in Toronto. Clearly, these guys haven’t done any market research, market survey, target segmentation, and their implementation shows a complete lack of strategy.

Some picture from some forwarded email. This is no longer funny

Therefore, as an almost-MBA dude, and since I find it prudent to dispense advice even if people won’t take it, I have decided to share my insights with anyone who asks me for change the next time. The beggars in Parkdale, and there are a lot of them, must go somewhere else. Not for the sake of the residents, not for the sake of the neighborhood, but for their own good – if you wan’t to beg, atleast do it right! For starters, I propose they go to Bay street, which is just 20 minutes away in downtown Toronto (a place full of tall glass buildings, people wearing dark suits, perfume and makeup …and no beggars!)

Small town white boys

The fall 2009 term at the University is set to begin next week and the campus is already buzzing with 17-19 year old’s who, after recently finishing high school, are ready to begin their undergraduate studies at the University. September is usually a strange month – young students walk around the campus with their eyes wide open, scanning everything in sight, almost looking delirious, lost, and definitely looking overwhelmed. Many of these students have never been in such a place before: the caring and confined environment of their neighborhood high school is a past. There are fifty-thousand other students at the university now, all unfamiliar, diverse, and nobody will hold you in their arms if you start crying.

Among the different kinds of students starting university, I find that the most fascinating ones are the students coming from small Ontarian towns scattered around Toronto. They come to the big city from a pretty homogeneous society that’s predominantly Caucasian and Christian (I am still learning the denominations – Catholic, Protestant, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Anglican, etc. so pardon me for painting everything in one brush). Their towns are small, everyone-knows-everyone type, sparsely populated, relaxed and have similar kind of food. Toronto on the other hand is a big city, extremely multicultural, mixed, noisy, crowded, pretty ruthless and fast paced.

Consequently, these small town students are bewildered and you can easily sense some strange mix of panic and excitement on their faces. Often parents will accompany them as they go around various offices for registration, and the kids will marvel at the number of food options they have, while struggling to understand people’s accents and double checking if what they are seeing is real.

Wait. That sounds familiar!

Let me exaggerate my story a bit. I grew up in a little suburb north of Mumbai, and until the age of 16 I was pretty much a local boy, going to primary school (grades 1-7) and secondary school (grades 8-10) close to my home. Most people were middle class Hindus, spoke Marathi and were vegetarians, and those awful things they show in movies were seldom heard of. Once in a while my parents or my school took us to Mumbai, to “see the big city”, and I thought - ‘wow… how busy, how crowded, and look at that building… it has a lift (elevator)! and 10 floors!… oh god… I can never live here…’

For grade 11 & 12, I went to, what we call, a Junior College that was in the city – a 90 minute commute. I was thrilled, shocked and confused. There were people from five religions, speaking ten different languages, eating god knows what kind of food and speaking in strange accents that took a while to understand. At times I wondered if I could really take all that change.

So now, whenever I talk to these fresh puppies from small towns (and I have to deal with a lot of them), it reminds me of my own time back when I took the leap out of the shell. It’s interesting how remarkable and essentially similar our stories are.

There is a Marathi saying that comes to my mind: “घरोघरी मातीच्या चूली”¹ which roughly means: “Things work the same way, regardless where you go.” Indeed.

We took a quick look around what was going on. Apart from traditional Nepalese foods like popcorn, coca cola and nachos, they had a stage with dance performances and a small but quite enthusiastic crowd of supporters cheering for everything that was being conducted. It was very nice to see so many of ‘my people’ (apparently) enjoying a little ‘by the Nepalese, for the Nepalese’ festival in the very heart of the city while there were two other large festivals, Chinese and Caribbean, going on few blocks away (Summer Sundays are busy man!). The music was blaring, and it was what I call, for the lack of a better term, ’second grade bollywood music’.

15 minutes passed. Unable to bear it, I was getting increasingly uncomfortable, but the seemingly tranquil facial expressions on my friends made me wonder if I was the only one who was getting bothered and others were actually enjoying this ‘exotic’ music. Finally I asked each of them, “Do you like this music?” Almost apologetically, they said, “Not at all!” and added that they thought that I was probably liking it. I wish.

: : :

I had an image of Nepal as a virgin, exotic (even for Indians, Nepal is exotic) country, unharmed by foreign cultural influences. Technically, each state of India is a little country in itself (more diverse and distinct than the little European countries), and Nepal could easily have been just one of those states. Fortunately or unfortunately, Nepal is a separate country, and that, I fancied, would be a sufficient reason for Nepal to maintain its indigenous cultural identity that includes its Himalayan music.

When I think of Nepali music, what comes to my mind is not what I get to hear today. I have listened to lot of Nepali music over the last few months, and sadly I am forced to conclude that today’s Nepali music has lost the Nepal-ness in it. It’s just second grade Bolywood garbage bundled with Nepali lyrics. Now what exactly is second grade Bollywood music? you might ask. Well, Bollywood (the Hindi film industry based in Mumbai hitherto called Bombay) movies, as you might know, are roughly equivalent to what is referred to as ‘musicals’ in the west. Each movie has anywhere between four to ten songs of four to five minutes each. About 800-1000 Hindi movies are made each year, and probably an equal number of movies are churned out from different states in their own language. As a result, every year there are tens of thousands of movie songs in the market. Then there is also the music from independent musicians. Quality and quantity are almost always inversely related, and as a manifestation of this rule, a very very large chunk of commercial music produced in India is of very low quality – repetitive beats and limited variation in notes. Hardly any songs have shelf lives longer than few days, since alternatives are cheap, plenty and easily available. Ask yourself (if you are Indian) or an Indian friend how many songs you/they remember from the latest movie you/they watched. The answer will be surprisingly low since most of these songs have null significance in the movie plot. I am not painting Bollywood music in one stroke at all, there is extremely good stuff but very rare.

Traditional Nepali music (for example Newari, Gurung, etc.) has virtually lost its influence on contemporary mass-produced music, just as the impact of Indian classical music on Hindi film music is more or less a history. What I mean to elucidate is that contemporary Nepali music has unfortunately been overwhelmed by second grade bollywood music – a silent take over (or adaptation if you prefer to call it that) and I am upset with this kind of evolution.

I leave you with an awful Nepali song which could easily pass as just another Hindi movie song if the language is changed (spare yourself from watching the video). Sorry Nepal, ‘our’ Bollywood, a monster factory churning out conformist music, is uncontrolled and will kill regional traditions.

: : :

I suspect this post will force the proponents of Bollywodization into a defensive stance, nevertheless I am curious to hear criticisms and opinions.