Italian food

The last three days into the weekend were hectic beyond comprehension. Waking up at 12 noon on Sunday meant that I caught up on just a small percentage of lost slept over the week. "Let's go fine dining, treat's on me", said Josh. "Let's do it", I said and jumped out of bed. "Where are you thinking of going?", I asked to which Josh replied "Let's do some good food today dude, surely non vegetarian and not your usual Brindavan". "Fine, give me 10 minutes" I said and off I went for a bath.

Ten minutes later we were driving in Koramangala 6th block passing Koramangala club for the third time trying to fine Fiorano Ristorante when I said "Do you know where exactly it is or have an address somewhere?". "Dude, I've been here a couple of times okay, it's somewhere here I'm sure, my geography is not that bad !". "Oh well tell me about it" I said with a wry smile which could beat any fox in a 'wicked smile' competition. "My geography was very good, believe me" said Josh to which I asked "And when was that?". He replied "In school probably, that was when you didn't even know me" to which both of us laughed loudly and finally found the restaurant. I've known Josh since VII standard.

Fiorano also is the name of Ferrari's test track outside Maranello. To the uninitiated Maranello is Ferrari's headquarters in Italy. I've eaten authentic Italian food only once before in my life on an overseas trip and I was looking forward to a good meal. I'm very open in trying out new cuisines.

Josh was a pro in cuisines, especially foreign and was a good person to go with if you were in a mood to try Greek, Italian, Mexican or Mesopotamian cuisines. Having woken up with a blistering headache I badly needed a drink to take the migrane away and drink we did - virgin mary & bloody mary. We went through a rather elaborate italian meal:

Fritto Di Calamari (deep fried squid rings)
Stracciatella con pollo (chicken soup with cheese, italian spices and egg)
Spaghetti Alla Carbonara (spaghetti with bacon, eggs and parmesan cheese)
Costollette Di Maiale (grilled pork chops served with sun dried tomatoes, mashed potatoes and grilled pineapples)
Tiramisu (chocolate cheese cake flavoured with rum)
Mango Cheese Cake
Lemon Cheese Cake

After enjoying every morsel of food the restaurant had to offer Josh exclaimed "It's when the bill comes that the sinking feeling comes back damn". We walked out of the restaurant and started driving homewards when the sms tone went beep beep beep. You have made a debit card payment of Rs.2848 in Fiorano Ristorante said the message. "Dude, why can't they tell us before we make the payment too" said Josh. "You are about to make a payment of Rs.2848 should be a value-add banks can do, don't you think?"

The pilgrimage ..... 5 yrs and counting

Paulo Coelho's 'The Pilgrimage' is the writer's account of his pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain. St.James' Cathedral is a famous attraction that brings in scores of pilgrims to this place. The trek to Santiago is renown and arduous and requires a lot of personal determination to undertake the journey. St.James is also the patron saint of Spain. In the ancient times all pilgrims going to the holy land (Jerusalem) from Rome would visit Santiago on their way.

Catholics in India have their own St.James in St.Thomas who came to India in the first century via the spice route and got off in Cranganore which is modern day Kodungallor near Ernakulam in the state of Kerala. During those times the caravan route from the west coast to the east between Kerala and Tamilnadu was through Malayatoor. It is in Malayatoor that St.Thomas fled to the top of the hill to pray and meditate. Malayatoor is a small hamlet of farmers. This is situated in Ernakulam District about 14 kms from Kalady, which was the birthplace of Adi Shankara. St.Thomas died a martyr's death in Madras and was interred in the site of the Santhome Cathedral before being exhumed and taken back to Rome.

The river Periyar flows in all it's glory through the sleepy town of Malayatoor, this separates the town from the elephant reserve Kodanad. After the onset of the monsoon the river periyar in spate is a sight to behold. The places where one would normally be able to get down for a bath or swim would become very dangerous with strong currents and flash floods. Situated on the banks of this river is the Church of St.Thomas, believed to have been built centuries ago. The hill that St.Thomas prayed on is today an international shrine and the end of the Lenten season plays host to lakhs of pilgrims visiting the shrine re-enacting Christ's last moments on Earth by reciting the stations of the cross.

I've been a visitor to Malayatoor for 6 yrs now, my first trip to Malayatoor was in 2004. This year it was just Kan (Renald George) & Bob (Antony Renald) for company, Josh couldn't make it due to professional commitments. For us it was a repeat of the trip we made in 2004, it was just the three of us then and it was the first time Kan & Bob visited Malayatoor. This year we reached the foothills at 10PM. It took us over an hour to get to the top. After getting down we spent some time in the Periyar and headed to Ernakulam hoping to get home by 2 AM so as to get some food to eat and sleep.

A quick moment in St.George's Church, Edapally from where we reached Ben's house in Thripunithura. Molly Aunty's meat curry with parotta and bread brought a top class day to it's fruition. This year's trip was filled with more driving, less arguing (with Kan), more eating, more talking, more traffic and very less tension. Over to Malayatoor 2010 ......

Driving on a highway - Part 1

Driving on highways are experiences in themselves. An automobile can either be a joy or a nightmare on a highway. One can either be thrilled, elated and happy with the experience or feel stressed, tired and bored even worse a freak incident can cause it to be a nightmare which'll haunt you all your life. Reading Jiya writing for the first time about driving on a highway brought out a certain sense of excitement and discovery. I started driving in 1995 and a Maruti OMNI was the car/van on which I learnt the art and honed it (if one could call it so). City driving demands lots of patience, deft use of the gear & clutch (if you are driving a diesel), lots of attention to the road and mirrors (all three - center, left, right), anticipate a rash bike to cut across or a pedestrian to jump across a median, and most importantly keep your cool given the increasingly stuffed city road, pollution & traffic hold ups. On the other hand to drive on highway one'll need all of the above coupled with an instinct to know when to speed (rip as some would call it) and when to exercise extreme caution. Having driven all over South India on all the highways and most of the state highways if there's one thing that's common to all roads in India then that is their unpredictability. One has to stay ahead of the automobile one is driving performing calculations in real time in one's mind working out the distances in overtaking & braking, knowing when to put your foot down on the accelerator and when to brake so on and so forth.

We all know the risks of highway driving, the speed for one can be deceiving and give one a false sense of safety. With the high speeds modern cars can achieve and the increasing improved nature of our roads the thrill of going overboard on the speedometer is not an easy prospect to fight over. Mind you, I'm not advocating snail's pace on a highway, it beats the whole point. I'm only advocating a more cautioned approach where the drive is majorly convinced of his/her actions. And ofcourse one person's view might just not match with another and hence each one interprets events in their own special way. There are no set rights and wrongs and no one can claim to be immune from an accident. An accident / mishap can happen to anyone, to the aggressive, to the extremely cautious, to all and sundry, one can only take some precautions hoping to remain on the safe side and enjoy the drive. I'd like to cite an example here of an extremely competent drive I know, my brother. This guy is a master of speed, he can do Coimbatore --> Bangalore(340 kms via Sathyamangalam, Mettur) in 5 hrs (minus a couple of minutes). He knows where to bark and where to calm down, sitting with him in the front seat will open your mind to innovative ways of calculating time it takes to overtake a vehicle with oncoming traffic. The way he slips in and out of traffic looks and feels so effortless and one could think it's because of the power in the car he drives but most often he sets the records straight by doing the same on a Maruti 800. Even this guy has had a bad day on the road and the reason was sleepishness. Despite the best of human efforts and thinking there can always be a day when things simply don't go your way, don't fear that day.

Before you hit a highway plan your trip here's some pointers for the layman which are apart from the fact that the vehicle should have been recently serviced and is not due for a service anytime within the next 1000 kms. Most of these are also regular maintenance tips but hold more importance when embarking on long trips.

* Start the engine and let it idle for 2 minutes, closely hear to the engine's hum and try to see if any unnatural ratting, clinging or vibration is observed.
* Switch off, check engine oil level by pulling out the dipstick in the engine. The right way to do this is to pull the dipstick out, clean the oil off it, dip it into the engine and pull it out. Check if oil is within the min/max markings and also see it's colour. Any shade of brown/black means it's time for an oil change (on petrol vehicles this is done every 10000 kms, on diesel's it usually every 7500 kms)
* Check coolant levels and top the wiper water container with fresh water preferably not hardwater/seawater if possible.
* Check all electricals for proper functioning - headlights, turn indicators, fog lamps, horn, electronic locking system.
* Check the aircon and let it run for 10 minutes, try to see if any abnormal smells comes into the cabin like smoking or burnt oil. Make sure the cooling happens normally and watch out for signs of a lag in cooling in which case the gas in the system needs recharging.
* Check brakes and get them adjusted if the pedal is too soft or if biting occurs when braking.
* Start the engine, engage the first gear and release the clutch. The vehicle should get into motion smoothly with no signs of strain or jumping. If the clutch is not in good shape you'll feel the vehicle behaving like a frog getting into motion. This problem needs immediate attention to avoid being stranded on a highway with a broken or faulty clutch.
* Check onboard and confirm that you have a copy of the registration certificate, insurance papers (up to date), emission certificate (irrespective of the state you are driving in), driving license and the first aid kit with basic medication (cotton wool, dettol, paracetamol, saridon/anacin). Do not carry cough syrup. It's okay if a driver coughs for 50 kms before reaching the destination than allowing him to drink cough syrup and sleep midway.
* Check and make sure you have the tools for refitting the tyre on board (spanners, jack and a hazard sign)
* Check tyre pressures, don't miss the spare wheel. Check the pressure early in the morning or late night and don't drive too long to check. The idea is to check cold tyre pressures which are what you find marked on the body. When you drive longer you heat up the air inside the tyres and can cause setting an incorrect value. An Indigo rated is 28 psi tyre pressure normally. After driving 25 kms at 80 kmph the pressure shoots up to 30psi which is perfectly is normal and within the working parameters of the rubber. But if I check pressure at this point then I'll bring the pressure down 2 psi down (to 28 psi because that is what is on the body) which is less than ideal. Make it a habit of checking tyre pressures the first thing in the morning all the time.

We're making an assumption that wheel balancing and alignment has been carried out on the automobile every 5000 kms and the tyres are in good shape. After writing this much I'm tempted to convert this post into a series because summing it all up will make this one HUGE article. So, over to the next part of this post next week. Drive safe folks.

F1 2009 - Thoughts after a race and a half

Albert Park this year has turned to be a complete revelation. Who'd have expected the team that almost didn't make it to active racing in 2009 to come from behind and take top honours. With testing having shown already that the usual front runners are going to have a lot of work to do to remain in the front and some surprises were in store. Williams is a good example of a team that seems to have got it almost right in terms of engine, aerodynamics and drivers. Their pace during testing has been quick and they've demonstrated considerable consistence topping time sheets. Toyota similarly have shown progress with their 2009 car during testing.

McLaren and Ferrari are the two front runners who seem to have a lot going against them. During testing they had huge problem keeping up with the rest of the pack though the reds from Italy managed to top the timesheets every now and then. It's another matter that these two teams adopted KERS early on and were focussed to run it on their car right from the first race.

Brawn GP came from nowhere with no sponsors in tow and swept the first race completely. Overnight Ross Brawn became a sensation, not that he was any less earlier. His work in Benetton with Michael Schumacher is part of F1 legend and the records he helped Michael break after moving to Ferrari is part of F1 folklore. Yes, Brawn was truly worthy of every bit of the praise it was receiving however probing a little further one would see that Honda Racing (before it became Brawn GP) spent all of 2008 developing the 2009 car. The 2009 car was supposed to be Ross Brawn's baby.

Jenson Button's second ever Formula 1 victory came in Brawn's first ever GP. Today in Sepang Jenson too his second consecutive pole position ever. Surely there's a lot in store for the fans.

Sebastian Vettel proved his driving capabilities in Torro Rosso last year and showed class in Melbourne this year. A freak incident with Robert Kubica cost both drivers their championship points and Vettel was served an unfair penalty of 10 grid places in Sepang. Sebastian Buemi's debut in active racing is proving to be interesting, there's going to be a lot to see from this guy this season. Force India with the ugliest looking car on the grid don't seem to have made rapid progress despite the technical support from McLaren-Mercedes. Ofcourse since they haven't done too much testing by mid season their true mettle will show.

After watching qualifying in Sepang I'm pretty sure of one aspect of this year. The frontrunners are the one's that are not running KERS and it makes sense because KERS needs significant economic investment. McLaren and Ferrari are the two consistent KERS runners and the weight of their cars are atleast 20-35 kgs more than the frontrunners. Add to this the fact that McLaren is having a problem with grip and cornering speeds and you know where the focus should lie. Easier said than done, how will McLaren go about closing the gap will be seen in the days to come. It would be unfair to expect McLaren to suddenly show up in the front row in the next race. However in a couple of races I expect them to be back in contention and I get this feeling that back in Woking a diffuser similar to the one's used by Brawn, Williams & Toyota are in the works and might debut in Spain, that would be subject to the FIA ruling from the hearing scheduled on the 14th of April w.r.t diffusers.

Starting from 13th & 14th would definitely not be a prospect Lewis & Heiki would be looking forward to but is there a choice? They will have to have a clean start and then make up as much places on the grid as possible. I hope Heiki adds to whatever Lewis is able to garner from each GP and avoid repeating the mistakes of last year. Over to Malysia .....