Winter 2008-Notes from back home-1

* Yes! I am back home. After a 32 hr journey, no doubt! You know, after one of these marathon journeys one fails to remember when one left home and how long one's been 'traveling' so to speak. Anyhow, what was noteworthy was the fact that we were rescheduled by chance on the Kingfisher airlines flight from London to Bangalore. Now this is my first time on a Kingfisher flight and let me tell you this. If not for the "economy" sized seats I'd have thought I was in business class. The service is unbelievably good, the amenities are jaw-gapingly good and like I said, if it weren't for the economy seats, I'd have slipped into dream land thinking I was flying business! There are menu cards on what to "order" for meals. There's hot towels, sleep kits replete with eye masks, toothbrush/paste, socks and individual tv screens playing a range of hindi and english movies. The vegetarian option for a dinner plate came with parathas, hariyali kofta(which actually tasted good, just like what you'd get at a fancy eat-in restaurant), rice, aloo-palak, a bean salad made of rajma, channa, lima beans topped with salt/pepper and lemon juice and ends with a small packet of mukhwas. After this meal, even I(who rarely sleep on flights) tucked in a good 4 hr nap. Ya, no kidding! Oh and breakfast options included uttappam, idli/sambar and upma- a regular darshini in the air no?

* I managed to catch Life in a metro in the flight. Surprising how I missed watching this movie earlier. I actually liked Shilpa Shetty's acting in this movie and Shiney Ahuja impresses once again. The movie itself was typical Madhur Bhandarkar fare with his usual serving of dry almost-documentary style of narration on marital/relationship angst in a metro.

* The first few minutes of arriving home is always special. One's eyes get acclimated to what has been for a while, to whats new, to whats different, to whats missing and to whats moved.

* 24 hrs since landing, I took someone to task for spitting. I dislike this of our people. Spitting everywhere like its one's birthright. Something terribly unhygienic and crude about it!

* Morning walks coupled with the sights and sounds of a neighborhood waking up is soothing. Two things that bother me though are crows(droppings more like) and litter. Why is there always a trash container on the streets with trash everywhere else but inside of it?

* I am struggling to finish Amitav Ghosh's latest- 'Sea of Poppies'. This is the 3rd book of his that I am taking a shot at(first two were 'The Hungry Tide' and 'The Glass Palace') and looks like his works are not for me. While I like the theme and settings he chooses for his stories, most times I feel he loses essence somewhere mid-way and then the whole book seems to drag endlessly. This story is set in Bihar around the 1840s and talks about the workers in an opium factory run by the British for export. Pretty depressing and melancholy, I must say.

* How could I be home and not finish a post with more mention of food?
So Day 1's menu consisted of Amma's soft fluffy idlis for breakfast, some spicy/tangy vathakozhambu/beans curry for lunch and kachori chaat coupled with cold badam milk for dinner.

More later.

Yenjoy!