Dosas in Ernakulam / Cochin / Kochi?

I can’t say how much I used to dread having to eat vegetarian food in Ernakulam (Cochin / Kochi) when it’s not the usual puttu, appam, idiyappam. Most hotels that have the Udupi tag in this city serve trash in the name of Dosa and hence when Benoy Chettan said “Let’s go to Pai thattu, they have a huge variety of dosas” I wasn’t quite enthused. Lijo Chettan came that night and said “Have you tried Pai thattu, I go there every night with Benoy, the dosas are amazing” and then I thought I should go there just once and see how the foods is.

Pai Brothers is on a small lane off MG Road, the lane is called Pai Brothers Lane and shows up within a kilometer of turning into MG Road from Banerji road. They’ve advertised that they have 36 types of dosas however their price list has more than double that number. There is no service at the table and guests are expected to pay first, get the bills and produce them at the cooking counter to be served piping hot dosa. Butter dosa, egg dosa, duck egg dosa, VOLVO dosa, family dosa, tomato onion dosa, kanchipuram dosa are some items which stood out from the usual masala dosa, onion dosa fare.

The dosas were tasty, the chutney wasn’t. The sambhar served with the dosas were very nice. A meal for two would cost anywhere from 150 to 300 bucks depending on if you want to eat 1 dosas each or 3. This eatery is open from 6 PM in the evening till 2 AM  early morning, Benoy Chettan says that it’s actually open till 4 AM. So the next time you are driving through this city and dread eating the dosas served in all the Udupi places head to Pai Brothers, just make sure it’s in the evening. Their address is:

Pai Brothers, Pai Brothers Lane, MG Road, Ernakulam - 35

Formula ONE Season 2010 Preview

McLaren get to retain number 1 & 2 on their cars this year by  poaching Jenson Button. There’s no doubt that he’ll drive car number 1 while Lewis Hamilton will drive car number 2.  Martin Whitmarsh takes additional responsibility as the Chairman of FOTA, the association of Formula 1 teams. Mercedes has taken over Brawn GP, Norbert Haug will get to play a larger role in the new team and Ross Brawn retains the role of Team Principal.

Michael Schumacher makes a return to active racing with Mercedes GP. Would anyone ever have imagined Michael S to don an apparel which had the silver arrows on it after such a long, passionate and successful sting in Maranello? The Tifosi are going to be disappointed, but I hear German pride will kick in this time. I feel sad for Felipe Massa, he earned his stars under the tutelage of Michael Schumacher and was blooming into an exquisite driver in his own right when fate intervened.

Felipe returns back to racing only to find Fernando Alonso as his teammate, this is the one big bit of ill luck I’d attribute to his career through out which he’s been denied a little luck. Though they won’t accept this, Felipe will be expected to play no 2 to double world champion Fernando otherwise we all know how it might end up given Fernando’s days with McLaren with a certain rookie named Lewis Hamilton who was making his debut in F1 in 2007.

12 teams are listed on Formula 1’s official website, which means we’ll see 24 drivers on the grid. A 13th team might just make it on to the tarmac eventually, and that’d most likely be Sauber who lost BMW’s backing and have been left to fend for themselves. The 2010 season will see the return of Cosworth as an engine supplier. Teams that commit themselves to the £40 million budget will get slightly more freedom technically and commercially. Lotus makes it’s return to F1, Campos and Virgin are the other two teams that will race in 2010.

Such teams will be allowed to run movable front and rear wings and also have an engine with no rev limit (current max is 18,000 rpm). Commercially there are more incentives like an annual payout of US$10 million, free transportation of two chassis and freight of up to 10,000 kgs in weight along with 20 air tickets for each event held outside Europe. These are certainly welcome moves which are bound to excite the new teams but will Ferrari or McLaren be enthused? That’s something we can all debate on.

The new season will also see a ban on refueling, cars will start with fuels to last a full race, I hope to see cars running out of fuel every now and then. The front tyres are slated to be made narrower, minimum weight of the car has been increased to 620 kgs (currently 605 kgs) and the points system has been revamped. 25, 20, 15, 10, 8, 6, 5, 3, 2, 1 point wait to be awarded to I, II, III, IV …… X positions on the grid departing from the current system of awarding points to the top 8 drivers.

Another interesting move to encourage overtaking is to ban wheel fairings, this year you won’t see those wheel cover like things on McLaren, Red Bull, Ferrari etc which have a vent to direct the hot air from the brakes escape in a particular direction which aids in increasing downforce making the air dirty for the car behind. Ron Dennis is expected to be seen more on the track now that Max Mosley isn’t at the top of the FIA, Jean Todt has already started discussions to find out ways to make Formula 1 more environment friendly.

Force India and RedBull haven’t change their driving line up and 19 drivers have been confirmed by the teams as off today:

McLaren	Jenson Button, Lewis Hamilton
Ferrari	Fernando Alonso, Felipe Massa
Mercedes GP	Michael Schumacher, Nico Rosberg
Red Bull	Sebastian Vettel, Mark Webber
Williams	Rubens Barrichello, Nico Hulkenberg
Renault	Robert Kubica, ???
Force India	Adrian Sutil, Vitantonio Liuzzi
Torro Rosso	Sebastian Buemi, ???
Lotus	Jarno Trulli, Heiki Kovalainen
Campos	Bruno Senna, ???
Virgin	Timo Glock, Luca di Grassi
???	???, ???

There’s also been a fair share of drama and outrageous ideas been exchanged. The czar who owns F1 wanted medals to be awarded instead of points and recently he was in the news for saying that cars should be allowed to use run off areas, alternate routes a certain number of times in each race to make up track positions. KERS is officially in the reckoning for 2010 however I believe the teams have mutually agreed to not use this system although the increased minimum weight should give sufficient leeway to teams with heavier drivers in trying this technology.

At the end of this year we’ll also know which direction Force India will tilt given the media attention this team gets in India. Will it be a productive year or will FIF1 end up in the also ran list? Currently they have a technical agreement with McLaren where Mercedes provides engines and McLaren supplies gearbox, electronics and other hydraulic systems. What’ll happen to this arrangement now that McLaren and Mercedes are two distinctly separate entities?

There is also news doing the rounds that double diffusers will be banned completely. Given the fact that Red Bull’s competitiveness is almost entirely due to Adrian Newey’s aerodynamics and a good part of that performance comes from it’s diffuser we’ll have to wait and see what the teams are going to do to play around the rules and try to squeeze that wee bit of performance from their respective cars. From next week we’ll start seeing new cars being unveiled.

I hope we get to see tons of good racing and at the end of a year have a worthy champion, over to Bahrain everyone, cheers !!!

Happy birthday - Roy J George

Dearest RJG,

I’ve asked you many things and you have done each of them for me. I’ve spoken to you about many things and you’ve been the best listener I’ve had in my life. There’s a lot we haven’t spoken, we exchanged those amongst us through silence. I’m sure you’d remember the day I was born. When I was a toddler you’d always keep saying “Kuttan give me a kiss” and move your cheeks away till I can’t lean any further. I do that with your daughter’s today, it looks funny to you, I enjoy every moment I spend with them. History repeats !

Do you remember the first cricket bat you had? It was “SYMONDS” and do you remember how you used to stoop and lean while facing a bowler exactly like Krishnamachari Srikkanth. During my school days your commentaries about West Indian bowlers and batsmen were the one’s that kept us hooked to the early morning matches on DD. I vividly remember all the night’s you’d land up our doorstep in Coimbatore and leave by the Eratupetta bus the next evening.

While in Muvattupuzha or Avoly all the cricket matches I and Kanja have been spectators are very fresh in memory. We were barely as tall as the stumps back then and were allowed to bat. We’ve watched umpteen movies on rented video cassette players. One night we even drove an OMNI into a stream, parked the car in the middle of the stream and washed it. I’ve never seen Ammachi go wild except when you ask her permission to watch a movie and your skills in getting her consent to take us to Latha to watch a movie are incomparable.

The visit to Newman college in Thodupuzha to meet Sr. Kunjuorshi Ammayee and all the young women there who’d line up to take a look at you were copied later in Minsara Kanavu with Aravind Swami playing the lead role. Your anti-establishment stance in Nirmala College and later Rajagiri College but still being a good guy to the Teachers was a skill any student would give one hand and one leg to possess. Did you have an iota of idea of where the MSW from Rajagiri would take you when you passed out of college in the late 80’s?

After you moved to the North we did meet up in Delhi every summer holiday. After diploma Sabarish joined us once on a trip to Delhi and he used to say that he had the time of his life in your and Josthy’s company. Every person I’ve known who knows you holds you in such high regard – James, Ravi, Ganesh, Sam, Timmy, Hari, Stanley, Pradeep and the list goes on. There’s hardly anyone I’ve known who isn’t in awe of your down to earth nature and the incredibly humble air you carry around yourself.

Do you remember the first road trip you did from Madras to Coimbatore when I came down the previous night to do the driving? It’s another matter that we ended up doing many such trips all the way up to the last trip we did to Vailankanni in August 2009 last year. What about “CHINATOWN”? Do you know what we ordered the first time we went there? Soup and chicken lollipop, and that’s because you had very limited pocket money as a student those days. We even took Mia to this place once and she loved it. Kanja and I went back to this place last year before he left India but these chaps don’t seem to open anymore.

Do you remember that ill-fated night when Ammachi left this world and you drove down from Madras and I took over from Coimbatore? Do you still remember how close the tanker lorry came in front of you and Kanja before Kanja swerved to the side and avoided a head on collision? “Kanja is a super driver, if not for his reflex we’d all have been hit” is what you said when you got down from the mangled vehicle. How could you remain so cool, calm and composed?

How many times we’ve have discussed prospective business opportunities? You even served a deadline to us: April 2009, and we decided to extend that for a little time more considering the volatile nature of certain things in our personal lives. You persuaded me to get married and settle down but not once did you try to give me a sermon about it.

There’s a T-shirt with GEO written on it which I haven’t worn till now, I got that from you in June and I intend to keep it that way for a while. Our visits to Burma Bazaar, the DVDs we bought, the music system we installed, the road trips we did, all the tech doubts you asked me, the blackberry usage training I gave you, the endless talks we had about AR Rahman, the way you enjoyed Malayalam movies and some Tamil movies, your devotion towards Mother Mary, the way you adore Mia & Mishma, the way you call Josthy “Kuttu” and enjoy it when I mimic it, the way you and Kanja discussed HR practices (as someone from an alien background I used to listen with amazement at the ideas you two shared), the books you read, the course you did with IIM-A, I can go on and on about every little thing that inspires me however I can’t write everything in one big post here. Like our real lives we’ll leave most of it un-exchanged verbally and sync at the levels of our soul, what else can you call the way we connect?

I hope you get a sense of what I’m trying to convey, if you can’t then nobody one else in this world can. Here’s wishing you a happy birthday. Don’t worry about things back home, everyone is ok. Mia & Mishma are doing well in their studies, Josthy’s a star and effortlessly seems to juggle all her responsibilities efficiently. This year I’ll miss not being able to wish you in person; I’ll miss not getting a treat and not going to Church with you.Hhowever our time to catch up will come. Do keep an eye out for us and tons of prayers.

Yours lovingly,

Kuttan (HJG)

19^th Jan 2010