I heard the news that Field Marshall Sam Maneckshaw passed away on Firday. I did not feel sad or overly emotional or anything, just a wee bit of remorse at the back of my head (if it can be felt there).

I had never known Maneckshaw, I only saw a glimpse of him as he was being whisked away with sirens blaring in an old Plymouth, complete with his own flag and  5 star plates on the bumpers. The grandeur and pomp of the ceremony surrounding his renk was enough to give me goosepimples. His presence and influence was all pervaiding during my childhood and adoloscence spent in Army Cantonements. During my teenage days when it was time to choose a career for myself, I was all fixated on wearing the uniform. We were living in Mhow those days, which is most military of all military cantonements. Nearby was an awe inspiring institution of The Infantry School, the mecca for all Infantry officers and soldiers who need to be trained in finer arts of destroying the enemy. My friends were young officers, doing what they call as Young Officer’s course. Our converstions after hours of football or squash used to be around wisdom and acecdotes related to Sam Manekshaw and Military leadership in general. Thats how I learnt about Maneckshaw.

Maneckshaw was what most of the YO’s wanted to be, though a cynical few, who could not be moulded by the years of indoctrination in the IMA and a few years of fighting in Kashmir, did not share the same viewpoint as most of us did.

As an officer of Indian Army a person holds almost Godlike power over the lives and destiny of men under command, especially in combat situations. It takes a great amount of power and self control  not to misuse the power and enjoy it too much that it gets into your head.

Maneckshaw stood for integrity, bravery under fire, chivalry (now a dead virtue even in the Army), love for his men, and plain old sence of humor. I was influenced by the force of his personality  through folklore transmitted through generations of officers. Bieng there I obeserved how a person had achieved God like status in the minds of men, who had not even met him, while still being alive. I spent hours daydreaming of bieng like him some day.

Of course reality is different and I never got to wear the uniform in the end, and my friends in the Army who wanted to emulate Maneckshaw are a disillusioned and a frustrated lot.  The values that he held dear and stood for are long out of style, though while he was alive we could still remember them and sigh out aloud while remembering good old days. Now that he is gone I dont know how long we can hold on to the vestiges of the decency, humanity, class and dignity that he brought to the uniform.

Maneckshaw Rest in Peace.

I love Newspapers. My day has to start with a hot cuppa Nescafe and a heavy news paper. In fact I read 4 of them in a day if I include the two online editions of the Times of India & The Economic times.

I have read many different papers during my days and here’s what I make of them.

The Times of India, the grandaddy of them all, was once my staple when I was in Mumbai, and the day could not start without one. Then they went and reduced the size, ostensibly to conform to some notion of international style (whatever that means). To me it was simply cutting on paper expense, saving on the news that they have to write and proportionately increasing the advertisement space, though the reduced size did help in handling the broadsheet in crowded locals.  They also went all colour, which was a nice touch. Along with all the superficial improvements, they have decided that tabloidesque is how people like their news. So you have crisp headlines, sharp photos and racy language but brainless content. Reporters who are factually incorrect while going breathless trying to be readable, amateur analysts with short memory and an irritating bias towards all things Congress. Capitalist mouthpieces telling us how we are so successful growing at 9% and all that. Then there is entertainment news and spicy snippets, whose sole aim is to find a lame excuse to publish a semi nude photo and tell us moron readers how people in other places are enjoying their sex.

INDIA TODAY was another venerated magazine that I grew up reading and I was very young in 1984 when I started reading it and have been hooked to it since then. But over the past few years since they have gone weekly, the standard is also going down. The problem is same affecting the times of India and print media in general. Every now and then they publish some or the other Sex survey. I am not against such surveys and am definitely not against any healthy discussion on the topic, but should some very adult discussion on a very adult matter be dished out in something as acceccible as a News-Magazine? I cannot help but pity them. What news can a weekly news-magazine bring in the age of 24 hour news channels and a plethora of newspapers, who have already dissected the issue beyond recognition. They have to ensure their survival and therefore seem to be trying to re-invent themselves as a regular dose of inane surveys.

Less said about Outlook and Week the better. The Reporters seem to be sitting on the web and gathering information from Wikipedia.

One news magazine that has retained its character is the ‘Frontline’. I loved this magazine but the availability was limited as it was published in far of Chennai. The incisiveness, the issues, the analysis, the humanity of the subjects chosen are still there,  but it is difficult to stand up to Machine Gun chatter of 24 hour news channels. I think Frontline is also in its decline.

The other papers that I read are The business line, The Economic Times, both are out and out business dailies, with very little interest for a lay reader, but I want to be informed about the world of business, therefore I take them with a pinch of salt.

Sometimes I get to  lay my hand on the Indian Express. Well the anti establishment tirade is still there, but the edge is gone as all the best columnists of their times.

Print I think is losing its journalist talent to TV. But when I watch TV and see all the greenhorns trying to speak serious English, while trying to give opinions about issues and events which they know nothing about, I wonder where all the talent is going.  With the IT boom I think best of Indian Talent including people who could have been journalists are writing code for TCS and the likes. Even celebrated TV journalists (I hate to name them) are trying to go for the TRP and appear more as Programme Anchors of political debates, where couple or more of second rate politicians try to tear each other to pieces.

Some channels, who have invented and given themselves multiple awards, rape and murder the hell out of any incident involving such a thing. They themselves play the role of police, judge, jury and the executioner. The way Aajtak, one of the most unashamedly idiotic, opinionated and self aggrandised channel on the air, went about dramatising and pronouncing the guilty verdict in the Noida twin Murder case, complete with fake actors and blood splashing on the screen, gave me bouts of nausea.

Another English news channel called Headlines Today turns girly magazine after 11 PM. Its no surprise that both Aajtak and Headlines Today are owned by the India Today group.  Then there are other insignificant news channels trying to ape and out do each other in the department of sleaze and un-invited, un-informed opinions. Some news channels actually air clippings of Reality shows running on their sister channels as news, complete with a voice over describing the latest nuances that have been played out while singing and dancing. I wonder whether they should atop airing any one of the channels to save Electricity and prevent ‘TV Remote Thumb’, which is a cramped thumb resulting from furious channel switching.

In the total chaos that the news media in India has become a few of news channels stand out. The old and respected NDTV, which still retains some of serious TV journalistic traits imbibed into it by Prannoy Roy and the original gang.  Rajdeep Sardesai though could not play second fiddle to old Prannoy and has left for CNN IBN where he is now anchoring his own shouting matches. NDTV also has been bitten by the TRP bug but thankfully they are launching other channles to cater to the baser instincts.

Then there is another new channel on the air by the name of NEWS X. I think they are affiliated to the 9X group. They have yet to come up to the standards as far as news and its presentation is concerned but they do it with a very stylish and sophisticated BBC manner. No  dramatisation, no shouting and shrieking anchors, no breathless reporters, not much of partisan opinion. Hope they improve and stick around and not get affected by the TRP race.

Then lastly the most revered member of the news media in my opinion ; ‘The Hindu’. The Hindu as the name suggests is not a communal paper and was published from Chennai for a long time before technology allowed it to publish more city editions. Now this is one serious paper deriving its style and line of thinking from the Left-of-Centre ‘The Gaurdian’ of England.

The paper is old broadsheet, not the abbreviated paper towels that the Times and HT have become. It is mixture of colour and Black and White. To prevent early morning head aches and death due to severe envy, there is NO Page 3 content. There are very few colour supplements to distract your chain of thoughts as they are formed by the deep analysis. Friday’s are a day for literary and art review, which would have put Old Illustrated Weekly to shame. News is crisp, headlines attract but don’t scream. Mistakes of spelling, facts and opinion are there but the  Managing Editor acknowledges every one of them pointed out by the readers on Mondays. Columns are big affairs as they have more space than any other paper. The columnists are people like P Sainath, Ramesh Thakur, Shashi Tharoor, Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman etc. And then there are syndicated pieces from ‘The Gaurdian’ and ‘USA Today’. Letters to the Editor are more than a couple of lines, and reflect more than one line of argument.

Its a joy to hold a ‘Hindu’ in your hand. It is difficult for someone used to the Times of India or Hindustan Times to immerse themselves in the sheer seriousness of The Hindu. I also found it very boring initially, but it grows on you like and acquired taste.

Not that I am one serious character. Just that I like my things to be pure. If I want to be titillated and thrilled then I have other means, which do just that.  News papers, magazines and channels should deliver just news and not try to be playboy, filmfare and BBC at the same time, because at the end of the day they become just a lot of ‘Raddi’ and a sore thumb from switching channels.

I am a great fan of Fiat Palio. I owned one for the last 4 years before deciding to move onto something more economical like a Swift Diesel. Not that my Palio was a thirsty baby, just that it used to run on Petrol and given the way Petrol prices are I thought I should switch to Diesel.

You can read my older entry on Fiat Palio mileage HERE

I loved my Palio 1.2 ELPS extremely smooth ride and amazing handling. It took a really bad stretch of Road to perturb my baby. Most holes and ruts could not be felt at all, many were just a small sound, some were a bit of  a wobble but it took it in its stride without a jerk, jars, tail twisting or loss of direction. I could really throw it around the curves at 60 -80 kmph, without any fear, whatsoever. With curves I mean curves on Kerala roads, which are a bit more curvaceous than most.  I agree that I achieved the feat with 185 size tyres, which are a definite improvement on the stock 165.

Actually I was waiting for Fiat to launch the Grande Punto at the end of 2007, but that was getting postponed indefinitely, meanwhile I landed a good buyer for my old Palio and I decided to let her go, with some grief in my heart. I then immediately booked my next set of wheels in the form of a Swift DDiS. Immediately after my booking Fiat launched their own Multijet Palio. I thought that I should check out this vehicle before I take delivery of the Swift DDiS.

So I landed up at the Tata Fiat showroom in Cochin and the test drive vehicle was immediately available. I looked and saw this Silver Grey shape which looked similar to Palio.   Now the old Palio had a nice muscular, thickly curved bonnet, which lent it a very aggressive stance. The new vehicle’s bonnet seems to have been flattened a bit and the curves toned down, I think maybe to improve visibility. The grill looks good but looks like an afterthought rather than an organic part of the vehicle.

I opened the door and was greeted by a familiar layout complete with the Blue oval key. Only change is the Beige colour which they have tried to incorporate to lend a slightly modern look, but given the quality of plastic used looks a bit cheap actually. Cheap plastic looks better in dark Grey shapes rather than beige. If a company should use beige then the plastic should be similar to ones used in Chevy Aveo at least. Anyway……the layout is completely same as old Palio, they have not even given a digital odo/ trip meter. AC controls are same with heating and direction controlled by rotary controls.

Once I turned the key there was an earthquake and the whole Car shook once and then settled into a steady tak-tak-tak of a Diesel motor. The sound actually intrudes quite a bit into the cabin and the vibrations could be felt right through the steering wheel and the seats.

The ride quality remains as good as ever. Though the original fitment 165 tyres dont do much justice to the handling capabilities of the Palio. Under normal driving they are OK though, and the low profile of the vehicle and lower passenger seating helps bring down the centre of gravity and helps to hug the road . On Swift DDiS the 165 size tyres are positively dangerous, lacking in grip and frequently skidding under hard braking. Only when Swift is carrying four passengers it feels attached to the Road. So if you are normally drive solo on bad roads, the the tyres should be upgraded to at least 185/ 70, or drive very carefully.

The Palio gear lever is the same though I feel with a smaller and cheaper gear knob. Gone are the precise gates and slick shifting. The lever is all wobbly and the gates are wide and sometimes difficult to find. Engage the first gear and release the clutch and you need not press the Acc pedal, the clutch immediately bites and the vehicle shoots of the mark. In-fact it is quite disconcerting. There is very little gap between fully disengaged and when it starts to engage, which means that the clutch needs to be fully pressed before engaging the gear and that it may be slightly difficult in bumper-to-bumper traffic where I drive only with the clutch. Also if the clutch is not released very smoothly the engine can also stall, like I managed to do once, even with a 1 lac kms plus experience on fiats. Swift on the other hand have come up with nothing I have seen on Maruti before. The gear lever is delightfully short throw, with nice smooth shifts, which click in with lovely TIK sound. The clutch also is light and has a good gap between fully depressed and when it starts engaging.

Both vehicles pickup is awesome with huge tank like roar filling the cabin as you push in the A pedal. The noise starts to get bothersome  very early in the Palio and by around 1500 rpm in Swift and may actually intrude in the driving pleasure as I love to listen to some music while tootling along.

Once you have reached a decent speed you need to brake. The Palio brakes are powerful and have an immediate bite like the clutch. I feel there should be smooth gradient in the brake force starting with a touch to some hard pressing. Old fiats had this nice gradient. With the pressure you could smoothly vary the braking force. Here the pressure comes all of sudden. A peculiar thing which I noticed was that brakes don’t disengage immediately when I released the pedal. There was just a fraction of a second delay before the wheels felt free from the iron grip. THe sales person said that it could be a problem with this vehicle only. Swift’s Brakes are also quite good and have the nice gradient which I have mentioned earlier.

AC is good and does not affect vehicle performance much in both cases, but pick-up from low rpms in high gears becomes slow, but that is hardly important as it is very rarely that I need to it. Palio says 184 Nm torque compared to Swift’s 190, but its impossible to make out the difference.

Palio also has this nice double barrel head lamps which illuminate the road nicely, though in true European fashion are highly focussed, designed not to blind the fellow coming from opposite side. But in India we have lot of ignorant and arrogant drivers who drive with high beam on. Swift’s headlights are a nice cure for such drivers. It throws a very wide diffused high beam which can blind such drivers coming from the opposite side and motivate them to dip their own lights.

Swift for all its good looks is built quite flimsily with door panels that actually stretch when the door is closed. Something or the other keeps making a nagging rattling sound. The bumps which could not even be felt in a Palio are a heard and those that could be felt,  positively make a jarring noise in the Swift. If the road is rough when you are taking a turn, you might end up loosing control of your tail, as it bounces out tangentially. Suspension is very hard and 36 psi of tyre pressure in the front does not help at all.

Swift seating is high with a lot of visibility, which helps handle this very wide vehicle. The seats are OK though not as comfortable as a Palio. The driving position is also not very good. I with 6 ft of height have to stretch for every control if I adopt a relatively comfortable driving position. Palio’s controls are within easy reach, I could comforably adjust AC controls by resting my hand on the gear shift.

Swift may probably have little advantage in Fuel economy as it rides on bigger diameter tyres and has overdrive in 4th and 5th gears, whereas Palio has it only in the 5th. Palio though may have better city driveabilty, but with almost maximum 19 Kgs of torque (same as Skoda 1.9 TDi)  both vehicles can be driven comfortably in any gear.

Swift is serviced by Maruti, which has very wide network of fully equipped Dealer workshops and they have been servicing the vehicles for more than a year now, whereas in case of Fiat, all Tata dealerships have yet to get Fiat products and many still dont service them.

Multijet is a sophisticated engine and I would rather trust Maruti with the service than some Fiat trained Tata dealer workshop who is used to working on miniature truck engines.

Feature for feature Palio MJD wins hands down, with the top end SDX being almost Rs. 20000.00 cheaper than the Swift VDi. Come to think of it the Swift Ldi does not even have basic safety features like the passenger seat head restraints, Central Locking, Tachometer and prismatic rear view mirror and luxuries such as power windows and cigarette lighter, which even Palio SDE comes with.

Anyway my test drive was over and I decided to take delivery of my Swift DDiS.

First impressions of the Palio Multijet ?? It makes a lot of noise and vibrates a lot, I feel even more than the old 1.9 Palio D.  Even Swift makes similar sounds but they don’t intrude into the cabin until around 1500 rpm, which is where I do most of my driving. At least I could not feel the vibrations in Swift. Palio seems to have forgotten some of its good points, while Maruti seems to have picked up a lot..

As much as I loved my Palio 1.2 I cannot forget that once it took Fiat 2 months to arrange for a rocker arm, and all the while I had drive with a damaged Rocker arm. Its only a Palio that could have survived being driven around with a damaged Rocker arm and it could have been only Fiat, which could have left its customers in a lurch like that. I could have forgotten that had they come up with something superlative, but this is quite ordinary, even though it costs less than the comparable Swift.

So even though I am diehard fan of Fiat and my heart says Palio, my brain ruled in the favour of Maruti Swift in-spite of all the wekanesses, for the sheer peace of mind that comes with it. I will allow Fiat some time to grow and become more experienced in manufacturing, selling and servicing before spending my lakhs of Rupees with them  Maybe it will be a beautiful Linea…..or something absolutely ravishing like the Bravo. But that is in future

Arsenal is struggling at the top of the league. They were on top of their form a couple of months back but after that  other teams have learnt to thwart their free flowing style.

Come to think of it Arsenal score a lot of their goals by quick  and fluid passing right into the penalty area. How do you counter such brisk passing. Simple,  flood the area with bodies at least one will be able to get a leg on a cheeky pass about to be pushed into the goal. Thats what all the teams playing against Arsenal are doing. Even teams placed at the bottom of table have sufficient defensive talent to choke any Arsenal advance. Thats why they are ending up with draws against teams  10 to 15 places removed from them.

Arsenal is still pretty successfull in the European arena, because most teams the European teams have not played many games against them and are still as yet to learn the counters to the fluidity.

Other teams like Manchester United have incorporated both quick passing and quick deep penetrating strikes with long range shots, which is giving them good results. Arsenal players meanwhile are continuing to look for the perfect pass, which will enable them to score that perfect goal, instead of improvising on even a quarter chance.

Even though I am big fan of Arsenal and their game but they need to capitalise on even small chances, instead of playing ‘passing the parcel’ at the Goal mouth, if they are hoping to finish the season with a top spot.

I googled RDF and came up with all sorts of answers such as Resource Description Framework & Reality Distortion Field, which I think is a very apt for what I saw the other day.

Parachute, a well known brand promoted by Marico Industries is advertising one new ‘Hair Therapy’. Hair loss they say is caused by RDF. I have searched the net and came up with everything else but hair loss. To see whether it is something they have invented, i searched on Parachute+RDF and came up with Military sites related to paratroopers and other such junk, but no RDF, which causes Hair Loss.

I cannot remember the Brandname of the product that they are advertising, but I dont think its worth remembering.

The ad centres around 4 good looking women, who have been made to appear educated and independent. I wonder if the women who are as independent and as educated would not love to know what is this new devil called RDF, which is causing their hair to fall like dead leaves in autumn, before dumping the latest Parachute product on their already deteriorating pate.

They do show some very microscopic fine print in the ad at the bottom of the screen, but the women were so distracting that I could not read it.

Shah Rukh Khan appears on the screen and starts talking in his melodramatic best. He talks about this new Formula One team promoted by Vijay Mallaya. How this team is the best that could have happened to this country. How this is going to represent the dreams and aspirations of 1 Billion Indians. How India has arrived at the world scene, by having this new formula one team.

How is it a sport which barely anyone in this country follows or understands claim to have brought its 1 Billion on to the world stage? It’s Billion, half of whom; a staggering ½ a billion live well below Poverty Line, which means that they find it difficult to find one square meal a day !!

It does not mean that the other half are well off. At least 40 % of the other ½ a billion, a good 200 million, struggle through the day, trying to make ends meet.

Can Owners and promoters and Ambassadors of Team Force India, claim to represent such people who have hunger gnawing at their stomachs, disease in their bodies and worries lining their heads, when this India does not even have time and television to watch their exploits (whenever it is going to start).

The only people who have arrived are Vijaya Mallaya and Shah Rukh Khan.

I am not against having formula One teams but how it is being promoted as a pride of this absolutely impoverished country. How success and sheer wealth of a few is being represented as being one of the whole country. Frankly the way Vijay Mallaya goes around strutting his stuff is vulgar to say the least. Not to forget that he is also an MP of the Rajya Sabha. I wonder what kind of representation he is giving to Karnataka, in the upper house?

Shah Rukh Khan I thought was a man of integrity in the slimy world of filmdom. I thought he did things with his head, but No if you throw enough money, he will say anything on the screen.

Formula One as such is an unfair and elitist sport where the winners and losers are more or less already decided at the beginning of the race. What chance does anybody starting in the eighth row have of winning? What chance does a team who is using Ferrari’s or Honda’s last years engine has of competing with them this year?

How can a sport where people start one behind the other, claim to represent One Billion hopes and dreams? It can only represent those who are on the pole position, at the head of the starting grid.

Do they know what are the hopes and dreams of the rest of one billion ?

It seems they do.

Please read my earlier posts of Kerala Guide series Here & Here.

Sorry for the delay. I got busy with quarter ending business activities and there was no time to write anything.

Anyway some feedback asked me to give guidance on specific things as to where to stay and what to do? But Ithink I should not deviate from goals, which is to inform about the spirit of this land rather than the physical infrastructure, which is known to all travel agents and available in all guidebooks.

But still I should just give some hints to those backpackers, who do not travel without any plans and are frequently stuck on the street without any clue.

As  far as Hotels and accommodation is concerned, Kerala is well endowed. You can find a relatively comfortable Hotel (By comfortable I mean a relatively clean room with an AC) in any mofussil level town in Kerala. The tarrifs at these hotels is also reasonable, by which I mean that it is within Rs. 1200.00. Hotels near major tourist locations such as Alleppy, Kumarakom and Thekkady command very high rates. It is better to stay at these moffusil level places and explore the touristy spots from there if you want to save money. But if you have money to burn then there is nothing like a lake side cottage at Kumarakom and Middle of the forest KTDC Aranya Niwas. You can google these terms and get the results, since I don’t want to do any free publicity for these locations.

As far as service is concerned Kerala hotels are not very reputed and anything less than the very best such as the Taj and Le Meridien, the service ranges from bad to indifferent. Only saving grace at most of these hotels is the food. These Hotels are generally not meant to attract any tourists and cater to the vast NRI population, who support the economy of this state and need some place to stay and unwind.

Most of these small Hotels don’t need any advance reservation. Star accommodation requires advance reservation like everywhere else.

The profusion of these small but OK hotels means that you can have an unplanned back packing trip to Kerala, without worrying about getting lost or stuck. Most of these Hotels are respectable establishments if not very well run, which are suitable to take your family to.

As such this is a very peaceful land, with very little violent and petty crime. Most women go around with Kilos of gold around there necks and limbs, without anybody molesting them. This does not mean that streets are safe late in the night. There is always a risk of being harassed by heavily inebriated men. If you are caught on the street late in the night, the best thing is to make a beeline for your hotel. Don’t try to get off your vehicle and mingle with the crowd. Men who in daytime are peaceful and harmless beings, become demons after downing a few shots.

If there is any trouble approach the nearest police post. Police in Kerala is generally very polite and helpful, especially if you are an outsider. This probably is because lot of policemen and women are highly educated but have joined the force because of dearth of opportunities. Though the police are not very well known for their crime solving prowess they are sincere in traffic direction, helping old people, women, children and lost tourists, which is very important to us.

More Later

Where are we headed……

Three Cheers for Thackeray and co. who could not bear the anonymity of their Marathi Name ‘Thakare’ and changed it to sound and appear more distinguished and English.

Are these the same people who are appealing to Marathi Pride (or Inferiority complex)?  Do they actually know who was Shiv and what did he stand for?  Does he really know the meaning of ‘Navnirman’? So this young Thackeray did not get his share of moolah in the original ‘Shiv Sena’ so he decided to float his own gang of hoodlums.  How does he differentiate himself and his pack from the original Shiv Sena, who was already venomously xenophobic ?  Very simple….take your xenophobia to the streets, be one up on the Shiv Sena.

Things do not seem to be so simple as they are made out to be. Why is he targetting only the North Indians (People from UP, Bihar)…because these people are poor and powerless to oppose. They clean the streets, drive taxi’s & rickshaws, work as construction labour, carry head loads, sell vegetables and are literally carrying the city on their shoulders. They have virtually shunted out the more relaxed local Marathi out of the trades at the lower spectrum, by their hard work and sheer endurance to inhuman living and work conditions that the city subjects its poorest to. Very few Marathi’s with their pride (or conceit) will work these trades.

Some of them are second or third generation and have got some education and are now begining to bite at the white collar jobs that most educated Marathi’s held in Private sector and government.

Why dont these people target Gujratis, Marwaris, Parsis, Shetty’s……….Its not that simple…. they are seriously monied. Mumbai pays 60% of India’s Income Tax, where does this tax come from?? Its easy to attack a cart puller but very difficult to put a hand on an Ambani or Tata or Birla for that matter. Marathi mannoos will not have any where to work if these people shift shop.  And kind of corruption that we have in this country its not too difficult to understnad that nobody attacks the hand that feeds.

So at the end its about Predation…..Thackeray wants to survive in an increasingly divided country and polity and he does what is easiest ot do. Marathi pride is the only one he can appeal to. Kill a few street labour in the bargain damage a few properties and voila I have a political career !

So what is this Marathi pride and respect for Marathi culture? I for one admire Maratha Valour stemming primarily out of my knowledge of Shiv and the Maratha Light Infantry. I love their Pav Bhaji, Wada Pav and spicy fich curry and am titilated by Lavani theatre. I dont speak Marathi  but I know many North Indians and others who can.

What more does Marathi culture stand for to a common man? I wonder if even Thackeray & Co can explain that? Have Marathi people worked to popularise their culture? Who watches Marathi films? Who reads Marathi literature?

I think Thackeray & Co will do much better justice to Marathi culture by opening a touring theatre company.

So are we headed for disintegration of this country?

Gujrati pride, Marathi pride, Tamil pride, Uttar Bharat pride, Naga  pride, Oriya Pride, Bengali Pride, Asamiya Pride, Kannada pride……..the list is long. We have already seen the effect of Punjabi/ Sikh pride on this country and are bearing the brunt of Kashmiri pride……

DO we need any more prides?

Why dont these people die early deaths?

So my Dell Inspiron 1520, which I had ordered on 08, Jan, finally reached me 22, Jan. (Read about the Ordering here). A full week earlier than the estimated delivery time of 29, Jan, given by Dell, which is very good, but the the cynic in me was wondering whether Dell gives itself too much time to deliver the stuff.

Anyway since I am in Kerala, I had to make a lot of effort to get the machine delivered to me. First I found out an acquaintance of a friend in Coimbatore, and had the parcel delivered there. A person then travelled from Coimbatore to Pallakkad to deliver it to my friend,  who then shipped it to Kottayam in local transportation.

All this rigmaroll because Dell will not deliver in Kerala without a certificate of ownership (Form 16) from Kerala Sales Tax. The sales tax department will not release the  certificate unless you have a valid invoice, which Dell will send only with the Merchandise once you send them the certificate in advance. So we end up in a Chicken and Egg situation, which is very difficult ot get over unless you have freinds/ relatives in Tamilnadu, Karnataka or in Kerala Sales Tax.

That is a lot of effort for a Dell, which I am saying in retrospect after getting the machine.

The machine reached me in one large box, which could easily have carried a desktop late on 22.01.2008. I was eager to open the unit and take a look at the result of my marathon effort. I fended off the day’s hardword crying through my bones and pulling on my eyelids, to cut open the parcel.

Things are very well packed with accessories coming in a seperate compartmented box. The nylon bag which come free with 1520 is well built, but looks cheap, compared to the imitation leather bags that come with HP or Compaq.

The notebook itself is packed in a Thermocol box. I had ordered a nice midight blue colour for my laptop. The unit looks nice from ouside with lovely well finished matt blue color on the screen lid. There is a plasti-chrome latch to open the screen lid, which I thought looked a bit tacky and felt similar with a lot of play. The latch also does not hold the screen snugly with the body of the machine and there is a some 2 to 3 mm up and down movement of the screen lid even with latch closed. Compare this to smilar HP which does not have a latch and screen closes with a help of pressure from a spring loaded cam as you fold the lid and fits quite snugly.

Once the screen is open you are greeted by a swathe of pure brushed aluminium finish (or silver if you prefer). Palm rests are aluminium, keypad and touchpad are also aluminium. The screen is bordered by a thick aluminium finished plastic, the top of which holds the 2 MP webcam and microphone array.

So much aluminium might look good to some people, but I thought that it looks a bit cheap. The Windows and Intel stickers are also very small and unattractive and in my case a bit skewed and do not any value to the looks of the notebook. The palm rests though feels solid with little depression due to pressure. The screen also is tightly fitted with no sideways or untoward movement.

The keypad is nice with uniform key travels  and no sideways play. The touch pad is also quite good with decent screen coverage and dedicated scroll areas. The media buttons located on the front edge are again made up of cheap plastic, with each having a slightly different finish.

My unit came with a 9 cell battery, which I tested, lasted for around 3 hours 45 minutes while playing movies, which I think is good for a couple of hollywood flicks. With this battery the unit weighs a good 2.5 Kgs, which does not make it very portable. The battery itself is very snugly fitted, unlike some Vaio and Lenovo models where the battery moves quite a bit in its housing.

The performance is blistering with booting time almost same as my desktop. The screen is OK with good resolution and around 30 degrees visbililty angle horizontally. Vertically though visibilty angles are very poor with constant adjustment of the screen required with your posture to get the perfect picture.

The speakers are good though lacking in Bass and start losing fidelity at slightly high volumes, this though can be compensated by using excellent set of Creative ear-plugs supplied with the unit.

There are lot of proprietory Dell softwares come with the PC such as Dell Support, which essentially records your sytem configuration and changes to both hardware and software and alerts Dell everytime you log onto the net. This helps Dell have a fair idea of your system whenever you seek support. The Dell media centre is also good and comes with a remote and can be started without booting the computer, so that you can play media without booting the machine.

Dell also supplies you with all the CD’s of the softwares installed on the unit including the Windows XP (in my case), which I think is the first in the market.

Overall first Impression 

The unit as a whole feels well built with very little fan noise and limited heat generation. Looks though are not very sophisticated but not bad also with nice well painted screen lid. HP and Compaqs though with their Cool Blacks, Greys and sophisticated contrasts and Sony with beautifull finish look much better. But this beast offers the best configuration possible for the money paid. HP will take at least another year before they will offer similar configuration in similar price.

Read my other post on ordering a Dell here

Ok Now that we are on the ground and ready to explore this beautifull land, let me continue further.

 Earlier I mentioned the drinking habit of the taxi drivers. Well Taxi drivers are not the only drinkers in the town.  On the topic if drinking…….

Kerala has the highest per capita alcohol consumption in the country. Yes THE HIGHEST. They even beat the hearty Punjabi, when it comes to worshiping Bacchus.  

Alcohol is distributed by a Kerala government undertaking called the Beverages Corporation, whose logo is two arrows going up and one coming down encased in a circle. The symbolism in the logo is hard to miss. The shops will have this logo displayed prominently and there will be a big queue in front of the shop by around 6PM.  If you want to procure your own booze then ask for ‘Bevco’ and anybody will tell you the shortest route to it. The shops remain open up to 9 PM everyday except national holidays and major religious holidays. Most brands of Indian Made Foreign Liquor are available. 

Since the booze market is so big there is a lot spurious material available in the market. Though Bevco shops mostly sell good stuff , you should be careful if you are drinking in any shady bar. 

Toddy is another favourite drink of Kerala. It is made by fermenting juice from the coconut palm. It is nice and warming and not so alcoholic if taken fresh. Leave it over for a day and it becomes a hammer of Thor, to blast the drinker out into oblivion. It is cheap and easily available.  

Toddy shops are some of the shadiest places you can go to, and the best way to procure some  is to ask your hotel fellow to arrange for a fresh bottle in the mornings. Some toddy shops have tried to reinvent themselves as traditional Kerala food specialty restaurants, and some of them have succeeded in the endeavor. Many such joints can be found in central and south Kerala, where you can get into an enclosed well ventilated area, drink toddy, have good fish and crab with your family in full privacy. 

To keep up the lead on rest of the country, an average Malayali has to start drinking early, which means that most roads in central and south Kerala are deserted by around 8 PM. Decent restaurants start downing shutters by 9 to 10 PM. Only Bars are open up to 12 to 1 in the morning. Most bars serve good food but are not good if you want to take your wife and kids. Some up market bars are an exception. One can make out whether a bar is up market by looking at the makes of cars parked outside. 

Malabar or North Kerala is slightly different. With a large muslim population Malabar drinks less. This does not mean that those who do drink drink any less than their Cochin (Central Kerala) and Travancore (South Kerala) cousins. The shops and restaurants remain open late in the night, people are generally sober even after 8 PM. 

Most restaurants in Cochin and Travancore  will close by around 10 PM. A person can get food either through room service or if you are stuck on the street then you can always go to small road side food stalls that spring up after 7 PM everywhere. These stalls serve hot chicken, egg, beef, black gram curry with traditional Kerala rice pancakes called appam, Idiappam, or even dosa. The food is generally very fresh and hygienically prepared. At least I have never fallen sick after eating roadside chicken here in Kerala. 

Vegetarians will have a hard time in Kerala. Traditional Kerala vegetarian fare is not to everybody’s taste and the Tamil or Punjabi style vegetarian food that most of north Indians crave is available in few restaurants. Unless you are staying in a good hotel, north Indian style vegetarian food is difficult to find. From a backpacker’s point of view, it is bad to be a vegetarian in Kerala. 

For People who prefer non-vegetarian food, Kerala is heaven. Numerous varieties of fish and other sea food, cooked in delectable Kerala style await you. Try everything, its lovely.  A malayali eats everything that runs, flies or swims, so everything is on menu. Fish, Chicken, egg, mutton, beef, duck, rabbit, frog, all crustaceans…….the list is very big. Nice hotels and restaurants are good, but charge a lot of money. If you are like me, a value seeker then try eating  at toddy joints and road side places. The food is much fresher, tastier and is equally (un)hygienic. If you eat out then avoid drinking water or carry bottled water.

To be contd………