Two

Stumbling a bit as Govind released him roughly. Joshi moved to the side of the room where a rudimentary audio set lay, covered with a plastic shroud. Collecting himself for a couple of seconds he took off the cover and switched on the set. As he reached for the microphone Param sidled up to him and authoritatively barked, ‘Exactly what you need to say Joshiji, lets not complicate matters for you.’ There was no need for him to say more, Joshi knew that he had no option. Gathering himself Joshi switched on the mike, cleared his throat and surprisingly calmly started talking.

‘Brothers and sisters, today I speak to you with a heavy heart. For some days we have been hearing all these rumours about our animals and where they might have gone. We have been patient and not reacted. But today is too much. I have just been told by a confirmed source that one of our cows, the gentle Basanti, who belonged to our friend Paramji has been killed. Killed my brother and sisters. Slaughtered for her meat. Who would do this to such a gentle animal, an animal who we consider our mother?’ Pausing to regain his breath, Joshi wavered slightly, he knew what his next sentences would lead too. Like a bloodhound sensing weakness, Govind brought the brick down on the decrepit table on which the audio system lay, chipping off the already worn veneer. Joshi glanced down at the gouged wood, even in his panicked state his mind idly wondered why he had ever bought such a garish green table, his wife hadn’t even liked it. ‘Maybe I will buy another one or just paint over it?’

Snapping out of his mid sentence dream, Joshi continued, ‘I have also been told that part of the body of our mother has been found next to Rahman, the rest of her is in his house, ready for sinful consumption my brothers and sisters. For consumption!’ He looked up and saw a satisfied look pass between the men standing around, Govind was already striding out, ready to do what was next. ‘In the name of our Gods I urge you to do what is necessary, we cannot sit by. We cannot.’ With that he switched off the mike and looked up, ‘Enough. I have done what you’ve asked me too. God help us now.’

Param smiled and replied, ‘God will definitely help us know. Thank you for your help, we will not forget this.’ He then leaned forward and his face darkened, ‘But if anyone else knows what just happened, you will not forget us. We will not come back for you but…’ The threat was unsaid, both Joshi and Param knew that he didn’t need to elaborate. While the town had been calm for a number of years, there had been previous incidents involving women that people had turned a blind eye too; over five women had vanished in retribution for various ‘crimes’. Their disappearance had never been reported. Param was a powerful man with political connections across the town and the neighbouring areas as well, people knew better than to take him on; everyone remembered what happened to the Trivedi family. Joshi just nodded, keeping his eyes firmly on the ground, ‘no need to worry Paramji, I know what to do and say.’

Param wrapped his shawl tightly around himself, looked up at his companions, and walked out with deliberate purpose. Randhir spat a bit of paan on the dirt floor, pushed his pistol back into his pants and followed his boss out. Veer took a bit more time, pushing his hair off his forehead, before walking past Joshi, deliberately scuffing the ground round him. Joshi looked up at them as they left, wondering if his status in the town would protect him from any recriminations if something did get out. Unlikely. Param ran most of the illegal operations in the district, and he was a brute of a man. Tall with massive shoulders he matched his bull dog strength with a cunning mind. This is why Param being seen here today puzzled Joshi, he was very careful to make sure he was insulated from any blowback. Randhir, his right hand man also never got involved directly in the violence, he managed the operations and the money, running the largest restaurant and bar in the town. Veer was another sort, muscular, handsome in a faded sleazy film star way he was always quick to fly off the handle. While not an enforcer, Veer was the most unpredictable and overtly violent of the three.

Shaking himself back to reality Joshi moved cautiously to the entrance to his house to see the effects of his address. The courtyard was now awash in myriad shades of saffron and red. More men and more home made weapons had arrived. Some of the men carried familiar house hold appliances; irons, pressure cookers and one even had a sewing machine. It all seemed surreal to Joshi, almost an ordinary evening. Then it all changed. Govind was now shouting at the crowd, galvanising them, “lets go, we know where he lives. We will make them pay, they have insulted our practices and traditions enough.” Param was no where to be seen but Joshi saw Randhir pull Govind aside and whisper something in his ear. Govind seemed to disagree but Joshi could see Randhir grabbing his shoulder and being more insistent this time. Govind finally seemed to agree. He turned back to the crowd which had now taken on the ugly hue of a mob and shouted, “We need to find Rahman, if we make a lesson of him no one will make the mistake again. Remember only Rahman, no one else.” The mob seemed to waver, not sure if they were ready to listen. Sensing the mood, Govind shouted again, “Paramji has made it very clear. No one else to be harmed. Be clear.” Behind Govind, Randhir grimaced in anger, obviously Govind had made a rookie mistake by bringing Param’s name in this. In spite of himself Joshi smiled quietly to himself, Govind would surely get a talking to from Param later on, perhaps a bit more.

Param was thinking the exact same thing. He was standing about a hundred metres from the temple flanked by Veer and three other men. “Fucking asshole. Why can’t he use his brains, sometimes I wonder how we are related!” Veer looked at him but didn’t reply, he knew this was more rhetoric than reality. Param was fond of Govind more than anyone else and it would not be a wise career decision for him to add his point of view. Veer was fond of Govind, even if he thought him a smart aleck with a penchant for immature decisions based on emotion rather than reason. He’s a bit like me actually, Veer thought to himself. “Let’s go boss, we don’t want to be seen here now. Govind will manage this for us now”. Param abused again and then grunted his agreement. As he turned to leave he put his arm round Veer’s shoulder and said, “You stay, look after Govind. Make sure both you and him get out before the heavy stuff.” Veer looked at him and then said “Sure boss, whatever you say”. Param squeezed his shoulder and then walked away to the jeeps parked a little way down the road. He was done, he could not stay and implicate himself anymore.

As Param walked to his jeep he was thinking about Joshi. Could he trust him to keep quiet or did he require a remainder of what might happen if he spoke? Maybe a small one, later once the task was done. He would get Govind or one of his younger men to handle it. It would be a good test for them. Whistling to himself he turned to look at the mob and watched them move down the road towards the other side of town. He needed a drink and a conversation with his Uncle, money and next steps were to be discussed. It had been a tiring day and more was to come.

One

It started in a rather innocuous way. A bunch of people got together and did something violent, something bad. These things happened rather frequently; honour killings, drunk fits, outrage over perceived slights. Mostly reported by local papers, occasionally picked up in the national media if it was particularly gruesome or titillating. Wife murders husband with the help of lover, then chops his body in little pieces and stuffs it in a suitcase; all the elements of sex, violence and crime. Ironically these ‘incidents’ were no longer a rarity which meant most people had become desensitised, to the point where if there were no celebrities involved it didn’t event merit a passing reference during the evening meal.

What was different about this? As towns went Rohila was not exceptionally different from others. It was in the heart of the country, close to a major city yet far enough to not reap the benefits of industry, though access to the river and decent infrastructure gave it potential. Hot in summer, cold in winter. Religion played an important role. It brought the community together, it gave the populace hope and it gave all a sense of being loved. No one else did, not the local leaders nor the government in power.

That day was different. It was late evening and the air was cool and you could smell the burning grass mixed with the pungent smell of dung. But there was something else in the air. The dusty narrow streets did not hum with the typical energy that was normal and were unusually empty. Walking down towards the town temple the energy levels had changed; a crowd had collected. Not a crowd in celebration. A bunch of young men.  Ordinarily one wouldn’t read too much into this. Today was different, sullen rage you could feel punctuated with a dangerous sense of purpose. And the men were armed, knives, lathis and the occasional locally made machete.

As they stood outside the temple, Govind pushed his way into the main room of the adjoining house. He stared at the group of 3 men talking aggressively with the town priest, Joshi. Impatiently he walked over to his uncle, Param and muttered, ‘What are you waiting for?’ Param looked up with an impatient look, ‘What are you doing inside? Go back out and wait,’ Used to being obeyed, Param looked away and back to the priest. Govind waited for a second and then walked over to Joshi pushing the two men away. In one swift move he grabbed the priests saffron scarf and pushed him against the stone wall. ‘Make the announcement. No more debate.’ One hand of his gripped a brick he had picked up on the way in and with obvious intent he brought it up and growled, ‘Or else…’

Now Joshi was a quiet passive man. He was in his early fifties, and had been the town priest for over twenty years. Age had grayed his hair, though the tufts edging out of his ears remained a dubious shade of black. A mid size paunch, reminiscent of a 4-month pregnant woman and slightly watering eyes topped off by a bulbous nose, pockmarked with the faint vestiges of chicken pox. He was not used to aggression and conflict; except for the occasional mild spat between neighbouring families which were usually over perceived slights to the household or some minor religious infractions, he never had to preside or pass judgement on anything significant. He prided himself on being an accommodating man, and had developed a backbone over time. It had never been tested.

‘What are you doing? Have you lost your mind? Paramji tell your nephew this is not the way to behave!’, Joshi sputtered out the sentences half choking, looking around at the group of men. Govind just tightened his grip on the scarf and half raised the brick. Joshi was starting to worry now, Param had made no move to assist him while the other men just stared silently. He knew two of them well, Randhir and Veer; they wouldn’t lift a finger if Param didn’t order them. The other man he had never seen before, tall, thin, his face shrouded behind a scarf and all he could see were his dark eyes and heavyset eyebrows. He seemed a contrast, something calm yet menacing about him. Joshi was frightened, ‘the unknown devil was always the more to be feared than the known devil’, he thought to himself.

Param looked at Joshi thoughtfully. His initial reaction was to drag his nephew out of the room and give him a sound thrashing but he stopped himself. He had nothing to worry about, the instructions that came to him this afternoon were quite clear, they would be taken care off. On top of that his earlier meeting with the silent companion had added a second dimension to the matter in a deliciously ironical manner. Their handling of the matter quickly and with minimum fuss was something that had been stressed upon.

‘Joshiji. Govind is my nephew but he is also his own man. I think he will break your bloody head if you don’t listen to him’. With that Param looked at the unknown man and shook his head slightly. The man returned the nod, raised his hand to his face in a familiar gesture and turned around and walked out of the room. There were now four of them left with Joshi who had realised he had no way out, he had to acquiesce now. Raising his hands in a supplicating gesture Joshi whispered, ‘All right.’ In his mind Joshi was praying, ‘God, let me get through this. I know what will happen. I am sorry, I don’t know what else to do.’ Joshi knew he had no choice.

Why Craft Beer?

What is it in beer that makes it craft? I hear this question often whenever I talk beers with friends or even consumers I meet at bars. Sometimes for the layman, craft and draught beer are even seen as the same.

Unlike whiskeys and malts where brands have done a lot of work on building the category and driving differentiation, beers by and large in India have talked lifestyle as opposed to product. Nothing wrong in it; just doesn’t apply to craft.

Chocolates, gin, tea, leather goods are all categories where craft is seen as a positive; and worth paying a higher value for. Why do discerning consumers travel to Milan and pay a massive premium for hand crafted leather shoes when they can hop across to a mall and buy any popular brand? Why is a hand-made leather trunk by Louis Vuitton so sought after or a doctor’s bag from Nappa Dori; both objects which you will rarely use! The obvious answer is the brand name. But that brand name has been built on the back of quality. Raw materials. Process. Traditional techniques. The same applies to craft beer.

The best raw material. Which means premium malt, grain, hops, yeast & any other natural ingredients such as berries, fruit, peels, pods go into the making of the beer. No artificial sweeteners, additives or syrups. Craft beers are authentic.

Now this is called beer!

Craft beers spend more time in the vats. They are allowed to mature more, which gives them more body and aroma. It makes them smoother and more drinkable. Water is important, hence the purest cleanest sources. Not the local tanker for them. And then the quantity. Less is more. No massive commercial steel tanks making millions of barrels of beer. Smaller batch sizes, more consistency and greater quality.

Traditional vats

Craft beers have multiple styles. Their brewers are experimental. Willing to try bold new things. Coffee, oysters, guava. Why not? Brew it in single malt casks. Sure. 12% alcohol content. Of course. Bitterness more than your grandmother’s secret cough mixture. Oh yeah!

And then there are the names. Fat Bastard. Bone Shaker. Santa’s Butt. Bootlegger. Naked Pig. Moonlight Death and Taxes. Of course, they are the slightly less crazy ones. Just add Brewing Company after any name and the chances are it’s a craft beer.

Craft’s Spiritual home – Belgium

Finally, what makes them so differentiated from mass market commercial beers besides the fact that they are far more flavourful, aromatic, hoppy & tastier? It’s the people. Passionate, experimental, risk takers and dreamers. Not corporatised corner office driven drones willing to cut corners on quality and output to save a few rupees. Craft brewers LOVE their beer and they LOVE their customers. No short-cuts for them. Just a drive to make the best tasting brews, whatever it takes.

Casks in Action

So next time you want to get a beer don’t reach for the largest distributed mass market 3.5 alcohol % watered down “macro brew” and grab a craft beer. Because that my friend, is truly good beer. #drinkcraftnotcrap

Cheers!

 

Adventures with a Tattoo for the over age…

There comes a time when you do think of getting a tattoo. Sometimes that time is at 18, sometimes at 34. My time came when I was 28, but I acted on it a good number of years later. What was the reason? Boredom, angst, change? Probably a combination of all three. Historically every one of my visits to Goa would have one “Lets get a tattoo” day, which never culminated in it. And for good reason; sun, water, alcohol are all not very conducive to getting a tattoo so here’s my advice, don’t do it in Goa regardless of how cool it would sound when you narrate it to your friends. You might end up with one like this…

I chose a studio in Bangalore after considerable research. It’s a place called Skin Deep in Indira Nagar. Modern, comfortable and with a bunch of talented youngsters.

I did think quite deeply of what I wanted. No design involving the devil or anything satanic, nothing as spiritual as one of the gods, no women names for obvious reasons…just a quote from Hamlet which I felt best represented my life situation. I mulled over this for a couple of days and then spent a day thinking where, disregarding the back, arms, legs and my buttocks for various reasons, both personal, pain related & obvious! Eventually I decided on my right rib cage, research pointed to a decent amount of pain but not unbearable.

When I reached the studio I went in and gave them the script which one of the guys showed me how it would look in various fonts on the system. I liked one style, it was printed on thermal paper and then stuck on my rib and I was whisked into the “theatre”. All in all this took not more than five to eight minutes, which meant I did not have time to think or change my mind, which in hindsight was a good thing, I don’t think I would have gone through with it if I had much time to think about it.

In we go, shirt off, alone in a strange room surrounded by prints, tattoo ink, couple of people getting inked, chest, arms, back and a secondary private room where an attractive girl was being inked close to her unmentionables..hence a half ajar door! It never struck me to ask why the door was not shut completely?

My tattoo artist was this young guy from art school who had moved to Bangalore from Pune. Talked to me quite a bit about the process, nonchalantly pulled out fresh needles and got to work. Now the rib cage as per multiple web sites was an area of moderate pain. Moderate pain is now defined for me as a combination of giving birth, being knifed in the gut and hearing Pantera being played repeatedly in the back ground.

The first half hour wasn’t bad, he skirted the ribs and stuck to the periphery. Once he hit the ribs it was pure agony. Not for one hour, not for two hours but for three solid hours. To be fair to him he tried to distract me with conversation, we went through varied topics like alcohol, career, his family, girls, drugs, his future, music…that lasted about half hour. Very tough to speak through clenched teeth and perspiring lips.We took one break. I wanted to use the loo. I actually wanted to take a detour, one that wouldn’t bring me back ever, but better sense prevailed. A Shakespearean quote is always hard to decipher, half a quote is just silly.’This is Sparta’ sent goose bumps down spines, ‘This is Spa’ is the entrance to a Thai massage parlour, not quite inspiring.

By the third hour, the pain was at a constant level, the area had numbed and I was relatively ‘comfortable’. I also took solace in seeing the burly men next door crying in pain, what sissies…though to be fair there tattoo’s were infinitely bigger and more complex. Still. I was given multiple doses of chewing gum, it distracts you. The music was also quite good, rock down the ages. The studio also had a bunch of interesting memorabilia, an old style TV converted to a fish tank, skulls with ink, witty sayings, all in all a good place to feel the most pain ever felt by man.

The last hour was possibly the worst. He did something which he called ‘whitening’ which basically ensured that the ink did not spread and become patchy. My limited understanding of whitening was basically taking hot coal and running it across your fresh raw tattoo for an hour, apparently this is not the scientific definition. The scientific definition is something I still don’t know. I prefer my definition, it is a more accurate representation both scientifically and for the layman. I tried stopping at this time. However convincing a tattoo artist mid way is tougher than getting cows to move in rush hour traffic by honking. “I’m an artist”, “I would not be comfortable”, “You think Da Vinci would have stopped half way through the Mona Lisa because her neck was hurting” were muttered in different tones, this I para phased as “Shut up and sit down you sissy ass man and finish it!”

And then it was done. My tattoo was over and I had managed to not cry, weep or do anything remotely unmanly. Sweating profusely and getting the shakes doesn’t count. The relief washed over me, it literally washed over me since I was sweating so much! Post that the mandatory photo’s, the wrapping of the tattoo in cling film, getting a small brochure on after care, a bottle of neosporin powder, the even more mandatory fist bumps followed by the even more mandatory payment…cash only.

So there it was, my first tattoo. It pains like hell, but its meant too. The rib is apparently extremely painful for a first timer. The web sites that mentioned moderate pain were referring to people who had tattoo’s before and probably looked like this.. not someone like me who looked like this in tattoo years. Post care management was easy, within a couple of hours the redness vanished and within a fortnight it had scabbed over and healed completely. It’s important to remember the following things, shave the area you wish to tattoo or if you’re hairless like me no need, don’t think too much or you might not do it, don’t drink the night before or your blood thins and can ruin the design, man up and complete it, don’t cry and finally..Just Do It!

Bangalore Women & The South/North divide

I never really thought of the differences between men and women were so drastic until I moved back to ‘Zouth India‘ after three years. So it’s not like a move to virgin territory, I did live in Bangalore for 5 years earlier, but things are a bit different now…for one I was not living in with a woman, and two…I am older now!
I have just shifted jobs with a beer company based out of Bangalore and like all companies based here, the marketing team is filled with, North Indians! Anyhow that’s a different story for another time.
I just finished reading another article on Delhi boys written by who else, a nice South Indian girl (http://raagshahana.blogspot.com/2011/09/open-letter-to-delhi-boy.html?spref=fb)where she proceeds to rip all North Indian boys apart, along with a couple of sweetly timed barbs at the women down there as well. While the article is funny, it’s also a summary of all the clichéd impressions one tends to have about us from the other side of the Vindhya’s, so I thought why not flip the coin and do unto others what they do unto us, after all it was the Bible that said ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth’!
So why do all women here think that ‘macha’ and ‘da’ are supposed to mean something to everyone? Every sentence is punctuated with one or the other from, “let’s meet for a drink…da!” to “I want to have your baby….da!” Imagine spending ‘intimate’ time with one of them and in the middle of all that, sweet nothings are liberally sprinkles of da and macha…
I have yet to meet a Southie who doesn’t think that music begins and ends with rock, that every time Pink Floyd plays there needs to be this insane air guitar strumming and when Iron Maiden plays, all the long lustrous locks (half the reason there is a global oil crisis…most of it is used for oiling the long locks every morning.) start violently moving in every conceivable direction, mostly defying gravity. Ladies, just because it doesn’t show so easily as women northwards, doesn’t mean the upper lip, legs and arms should be in full blossom…visit the parlour once a month please! Not all South Indian women look like they are about to burst in to a Bharat Natyam dance or change in to bright red and yellow clothes, run around trees following a big mustachioed man and play with big bouncing balls!
The interesting cliché of all thoughts is that the North is a state in the region of Punjab! Forget about Rajasthan, UP, Jammu, etc etc…all North Indian boys belong to The Punjab! They all have rich daddies, live in South Delhi or Chandigarh, drive BMW’s, listen only to Bhangra & Jay Sean, work in ‘papa’s bizness’, go to F Bar or a similar club to party, went to Bhagat Singh College and go to ‘Amrica’ to visit ‘vilayat uncle’ once a year! Sorry to bust the myth, but that’s as far removed from the truth as the fact that all South Indian girls come out of their mother’s stomach either holding a stethoscope or a keyboard!
A few home truths, breakfast, lunch and dinner cannot be idli, dosa and sambhar every day. A work day does not start at 10 am…full straight means absolutely nothing in the English language while giving directions…Hoysala is a semi-abuse not the correct name for the police…banning a film actress from movies for having an affair is not progressive…all boys from Delhi are not automatically Punjabi and definitely do not look like the guy on the left…the airport is not a railway station, bedding is not required…one hour does not mean one day, it’s IST not SST…everyone living here does not automatically know Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Malaylam, try English or Hindi once in while…Dubai is not in India…putting racing stickers on white Maruti Swifts does not make it a F1 car…and smoking and drinking isn’t being an “independent woman”!
Let’s give Delhi and it’s boys it’s due. It’s the capital of the country. We’ve had a women chief minister through three elections, unlike the quarterly ‘let’s make 500 crores and then move over for the next politician” CM process here. For every destination in Delhi there are a minimum of 5 four lane roads, unlike here where there are three roads…one to the airport, one to Infosys’s office and one to the house of the new CM. The Delhi Metro covers over 250km, the one in Bangalore began construction before India’s independence, I believe they may have covered 6kms till date. When the boys in Delhi party, they start drinking at a bar at 10 and then move to a club at 1, here they start drinking at 6 and wind up by 10! Oh, and when they go out, they wear this really cool invention called clothes and shoes, not vests and slippers! We don’t really care for inheritance laws, because we would give our sister whatever she wanted anyway. We went to St. Stephen or Hindu College not because we studied 20 hours a day and didn’t have a life, we went because it’s part of Delhi University!

Finally, don’t get this wrong…I love South Indian women, just not the stuck up, pseudo-intellectual, oil loving insular clichéd bunch who think that the Sun rises in the South and a mustache is the newest fad in town!