498A= The ticking time bomb in our midst

“The quality of a nation’s civilization can be largely measured by the methods it uses in the enforcement of criminal law”. – -The Supreme Court Of India, 1994.

The concept of democracy in India is as porous as India’s border, with respect to loopholes being present. There are fronts where democracy is strong and there are fronts where democracy is turned a blind eye. While India as a whole is deemed better than many countries for having an active exchange of opinion and freedom of speech, the loopholes sometimes make a mockery of what constitutes a democracy. One such is something that even the Supreme Court has taken cognizance of, on it, being a burgeoning problem in Indian society. Welcome to the farce that democracy is with respect to not having gender-neutral laws.

The new legal cocaine/ecstasy pill, which bypasses and leaves no strand of democracy is a law called 498a, which is called the Domestic Violence or Dowry Harassment law. It came by in 1983 to protect women from dowry harassment.  An aggrieved woman just needed to get to the nearby police station and file a 498a if she faced harassment, and her husband and his whole family would be arrested and by the police. So far so good as this meant power to the women in a country that was largely seeing a lot of crimes against the fairer sex.

The moot point was all a woman needed was just to complain and they did not need any proof at that instant. Slowly women realized that they could actually use this to their advantage to settle scores with their male counterparts, if there was any dispute. A new wave of legal terrorism and extortion followed until July 2014, when the Supreme Court passed an order to not have automatic arrests for the 498a unless an investigation was done. But an investigation can just be another reason for harassment, another step for money to exchange hands. 498a is still around and staring at you from the corner, even though a barrier has been put in place.

Here’s how this law was abused over time. When a husband disagrees or fights with a woman, the woman walks over to the nearby police station and files a 498a. Very few policemen actually enquire what’s the problem and are usually paid off by the woman or her family. The husband is then usually pulled out in front of society or office and dragged to the police station. Not only that, in some cases the whole set of distant relatives are pulled in too, including children. The husband is beaten and harassed in a police station and an FIR is filed against him and his family. His job sometimes is lost, his kid taken away by the mother, his parents subjected to mental and physical cruelty in the police station and in the society. By the time the man/husband gathers his composure and finds a lawyer, having suffered harassment in the jail does the damage mentally. The ones who makes it past this stage slowly find their feet, while some men succumb to suicide.

The ‘so called accused’ in these cases might have been on bail – but the injustice of pendency of trial for long periods is the uncertainty and the concomitant anxiety suffered by the under-trial. The under-trial is inhibited in making future plans for his life or executing present ones due to the uncertainty which pendency of trial brings. His confidence starts to erode and at the end of the trial, even if he is honorably acquitted, the scars of the long trial remain. He feels condemned despite the acquittal. Democracy never reaches the man, or it reaches very late when the damage has been done.

Now to add some salt to the wounds, the woman/wife has now gone on to file for divorce pressing huge compensation claims in the forms of alimony and maintenance. With the FIR on the man’s name, he has to pay huge sums of money to the lawyer and the police to get his name off the FIR. If doesn’t go to the FIR stage, the wife extorts her husband for money, otherwise she will create more trouble. In these false dowry harassment cases the husband is a sitting duck waiting to be extorted, for the crime of being a nice husband and a good father.

As any lawyer would tell you, husbands can only mitigate the extent of damage but cannot fight an equal battle legally with a woman. Due to India’s archaic laws women can never be aggressors or perpetrators of crime, but can only be victims, so women can never be brought to book in a mental/physical harassment case. Not only those, the police see each FIR as a means of milking money from the husband and the wife over time. It’s a standard formula for harassment legally possible as an option, and nothing but money can solve the problem.

“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. She will have her revenge and your family will collectively bear the brunt of it. The 498A Wives have a soft corner for your mother and your sister (s). Prepare your mom and sister(s) for special treatment. They may very well see the inside of a prison”-  from http://www.498a.org

Lets look into some specific examples and stories to see how ineffective democracy is in a case like the one below with Rupesh Savant, Varshini Swaminathan and Nitish Shivrayan (*names have been changed to protect identities)

Rupesh was married to Varshini and they had a 2 year old baby boy.  While Varshini always showed traces of evil when she fought, Rupesh’s calm and patient nature somehow kept the marriage from falling apart. Rupesh was paying the EMI for a 3 BHK flat which was also in Varshini’s name. Once the flat was in her name, Varshini drove her in laws out, slapped her mother in law and then decided that in that state of being drunk on woman power it was okay in having a relationship with Nitish, her colleague. Varshini and Nitish used to have sex in the office lift, office basement, at Nitish’s place and even at Varshini’s place, with the 2 year kid kept in the other room, when Rupesh was away on work. Sometimes the kid would need to wait an extra hour at the day care because his mother was having an illicit relationship. When Rupesh discovered this one fine day, when he came earlier than expected, Varshini showed no sign of remorse or regret. She went over to the police station and filed a 498 a along with Nitish for company (acting as her brother). Rupesh and his family were jailed, despite showing proofs of the illicit affair that Varshini had. Varshini also got Rupesh sacked by filing a false FIR of dowry harassment and going to his office and crying. Rupesh is without a job, and the house he paid EMI’s for is now possessed by Varshini’s parents (who are also fighting a court case for misappropriation of funds from their former employer). Varshini and Nitish have settled in the USA working for an Indian company that supplies cheap software coolies to be rented by the hour. Rupesh is literally on the streets and with some help from friends stays at their places for a fortnight and keeps changing places as he has no home, and all his savings had been taken away from the joint account by Varshini, when Rupesh was remanded to police custody. Rupesh has been summoned many times in 2 different cities for false cases against him. Rupesh’s parents died on seeing him in mental agony. All of this because a false 498a was filed and the Indian laws make it comfortable for a woman to get away with crime which in this case is adultery). Rupesh has no sympathy, from his extended circle, as the world believes men must be brave and women cant commit crimes. The only way Rupesh can come out of this non-compoundable case is if he pays off the police and pays of his psycho wife for maintenance, and basically funds his wife’s next marriage, for a crime he has not even committed. Just another day in the life of the extortion racket, being played to the court’s galleries by the tri teams of evil women, corrupt police and greedy lawyers.

Rupesh’s story is one of the thousands of stories lost as it does not conform to the general script templates that news media has a daily orgy on. Rupesh’s minority story wont make it to ‘Satyameva Jayate’, nor will Arnab Goswami question Varshini that ‘The nation wants to know’. Rupesh doesn’t have money in his pockets as he has been out of a job for 6 months now. He has developed a fear psychosis and spends his day staring at his bail papers wondering what percentage of the ordeal still remains. His home, his child and his parents have vanished away because one woman decided to make a mockery of the law 498a. This is just one case. A law meant to protect our women, has armed the women with a nuclear weapon that is spoiling harmony. More than crimes against women, its crimes against humanity that needs to have a proper mechanism for justice. This article however, focuses on the part of democracy that’s a vacuum for crimes against men.

Whether its Rupesh, Peter or Farooq, thousands of such men are subject to crime by women. Like the ‘Farmer Suicides’, the ‘Husband Suicides’ too are on the rise. Every 9 minutes, a married man who is affected by the 498a, commits suicide in India. 64,000 married men commit suicides a year, double that of married women. Complete stats are provided here.

The government in order to appeal to a section of the female vote bank is mulling on a bill that gives an ‘aggrieved’ woman rights over the husband’s ancestral property also to make the extortion racket seem more evil. While we men and women rise up in unison, to fight the men who rape our sisters across the country, its time we raise up in arms to fight against these characterless women and the corrupt section of the police.

Democracy is almost naked and is dancing to the tunes of ‘Munni Badnam Hui’. You get to decide if you would like to disrobe democracy further or join the fight to cover it up. It’s never too late to dream about #betterdemocracy, is it?

The World is More Indian Than We Think!

What goes up, comes down, What goes around comes around! Newton formalised the law of Gravity, but something a little similar is the unwritten law of Karma, which basically says that wheels of fortune can come a full circle!  India actually had the distinction of being the world's largest economy hundreds of years back, as it accounted for almost a third of the world’s GDP.The goods produced in India had long been exported to far off destinations across the world.Therefore, the concept of globalisation is hardly new to India, but as we begin the story in the 1980’s and the 90’s, India’s contribution to the World GDP was less than a 1%, being completely isolated from world markets, completely in contrast to how India was perceived hundreds of years back.

The 80's and the 90's were quite the times for reserving your awe towards developed countries like the US,UK or Australia. Your cousins in the US spoke about having Mac computers at home, while you were were still hoping that your neighbourhood school got itself a computer. We Indians, were happy playing catch up, waiting for the cousins to come and haughtily narrate tales of the west. Hoping for India to be on par with the world, was still a dream that was never saw the light of the day. In 1991, as India's economy opened up, brands flocked to India, and soon we had the same brands that some of our cousins used to have in the west, right here in India. Things as simple as having a global chain like Pizza Hut or just having ACT II popcorn in your kitchen, meant a lot to your self esteem, eventually trickling down to a globalised world in the late 90's. The Foreign Direct Investment in India as a percentage of India's GDP was still low at 0.2% but the ascent towards a "Happy Days Are Here Again" sign had begun in the right earnest.

As a 10 year old kid, I was happy to be watching the highlights of  a Zimbabwe vs England World cup cricket game(1992), on the same day as the match happened. What a Zimbabwean fan or an English cricket fan, used to watch, now I could also watch. The rapid spread of news, fashion and thoughts through media was making me a globalised citizen, even before I knew it. Life could never be better. I felt included, as part of the world.  To add to it, a Bengali girl had been selected Miss Universe, and a Mangalore girl had been selected as Miss World, and a little more importantly for me, India had won the Wills Cricket Cup soon after, capping an excellent 1994. India had arrived for me! I went out striding a bit more confidently with my bicycle on the road, feeling a sense of accomplishment as I overtook cars with a perceived foreign connection(DCM Daewoo and Cielo). On my way home from school, I used to stop my cycle with a swagger, just to stylishly drink a Fountain Pepsi and be in time to watch Small Wonder on Star Plus. Those very products that was the awe of Indians, when their desi cousins use to come home in the 80's and 90's were now, available at our Kirana store or in our living room. We Indians were more than happy to be included as an invitee for western brands to consider India worthy, as we swept past the Y2K bug into the next century. 

My world view of globalisation, was then largely limited to just cricket and technology, and it just helped that India under Saurav, had begun to form their best team in years. When India beat other countries at Cricket, my confidence level seemed to surreptitiously suggest that I was increasingly seeing myself as a global citizen, on par with the world. As much I needed the scores of Mambalam Mosquitoues vs Jolly Rovers in Chennai, I also needed to know if Lancashire could beat Essex at Durham. My world had expanded through television, through retail and through the internet(Cricinfo).  My life was  getting intertwined with those of distant people and places around the world culturally. Western Culture seemed to have diffused to all parts of the world including India, through Television, internet, newspapers and magazines, and was amply getting reflected in art, sport and pursuits of leisure.


It also helped that most of my friends found migrated way to the US either through writing code, or cramming vocal books in a fortnight, that one could envision a career abroad more easily than people a couple of generations ago. So far so good, India's was expanding steadily and the global potpourri mix had a bit of Indian'ness seep in. Basically a global cocktail, with a drop of Indian Jaljeera. To me, it looked like the world around me had compressed and there was an intense thought around the consciousness of the world as a whole.India's Foreign Direct Investment as a percentage of the Indian GDP now stood a 150 basis points higher at 2%, but still well below growing economies like Brazil and China, who have a number of around 5% for FDI flow as a percentage of their respective GDP.

The next major tectonic shift that tilted scales in India's favour were a bunch of seemingly unconnected events that seemed to happen around the same time. Apple iPhone's launch, IRCTC, Prime Time Televsion, A liberalised FDI policy, IT revolution, Real Estate Boom, and India's burgeoning billion plus population. Well it may seem disconnected, but here's how we connect the dots with these events. 

a) Mobile and Tablets- Apple's iPhone launch, left a lot of people around the world developing the strong desire to own a touch based smart phone, but not having the money to own one. Google and Samsung worked on an affordable model in Android, and   a lot of people around the world could now buy smart phones, and what that meant was a globalised world existed in the pocket of every soul who had a smart phone. Also a new order was created in development of Apps. A team of 3 sitting in Bhatkal in Karnataka could now make an iOS app for children in Sierra Leone, or adults in Las Vegas. The world was truly at your finger tips, with the 'touch' devices revolution, that has snowballed into an avalanche over the following years. A lot of app purchases are done through credit card transactions virtually, and the next mega trend, shown below in point b, helped app purchases achieve scale.

b) IRCTC- Opening up Indian Railway's ticket inventory to the public over the internet, meant a lot of productivity for Indians who did not need to go to a physical centre or depend on a travel agent. What it also did on a large scale was set the ball rolling for a burgeoning yet-to-arrive online travel industry, the backbone of which depended on credit card being used virtually. India bonded with the world instantly, as one could purchase any service across the world with their credit card. 

c) Prime Time-The ICL in 2007, was an attempt at pitting city based leagues in a new T20 format, played at times when the family was together at home. The fact that it did not have the blessings of the relevant authorities, gave rise to the beast called IPL. Life was never same after the entry of the money spinner called IPL, which established India's financial muscle in cricket.This new time-christened as Prime Time Television, between 8 PM and 10 PM, got a lot of viewers, where television show formats were licenced from the West, like Kaun Banega Crorepati.

d) The Boom Years- The IT software services, which started providing low cost maintenance work for companies in the West, started getting more work, through the end of the 90's and started to peak around 2003-06, where a lot of hiring happened at the fresher level. This huge job demand, created a demand for real estate in cities where IT jobs were concentrated, which in turn resulted in a huge construction boom of malls, which were very similar to those of the west with all modern amenities. These were further boosted by the liberalised FDI policies in 2005, which further opened up the economies. The increased population further helped in giving audiences and demand for various services like television, services and real estate.

So the learning from these mega trends, is that when all these mega trends converge it leads to a huge revolution wiping businesses and paving way for the new. As Steve Jobs once said in his Stanford Commencement speech that death, could be life's biggest change agent, and a similar view is valid for convergence of individual mega trends.

India has done well to be part of a global village all along, where India has blended well into the global mix. Globalisation is like a wave, and one can grow together along with it, and also fall along with it. While India is dependent on globalisation to make it better, India has also evolved certain aspects that make India unique to the outside world. 
The red carpet welcome to India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the USA recently, showed the importance of India in Obama's plans. India has shown a lot of leadership, and has a lot of potential in helping out our neighbouring countries to foster peace and economic development, keeping India as the fulcrum for trade. Moving to the field of technology, A lot of Western tech companies have people of Indian origin at the helm, and many Indians defining the culture of these companies(Sundar Pichai at Android, Satya Nadella at Microsoft etc).India scores high on culture, history,technology,wellness, cricket and cinema, and is slowly making the outside take note and take in a bit of Indian-ness in their daily life. 

a) Cinema-Hollywood actor Kevin Spacey doing the lungi dance in an Indian award function, or Hollywood movies with an Indian theme(Eat Pray Love/Slumdog Millionare), definitely opens up India to the world. While the attention is on India,  India need to keep honing their excellence at their craft, and work tirelessly. As they say in the movie '3 Idiots', success will follow excellence wherever it goes.

b) Wellness- In the cult classic best seller in the West,"The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari", the world looks at India as the mystic place, whose ancient habits and rituals have protected Indians from ages, helping them lead a happy and contented life. The world is flocking east, to understand the ways of life and the rituals that make India what it is. May it be the flocking of faith, which attracts the largest gathering of people in the world at the Maha Kumbha Mela, or burgeoning Yoga and Ayurveda treatments which are needed as an antidote for today's "Tune in and burn out" work culture.

c) Sport- India for the last couple of decades, have produced sportsmen, who have shined individually like Sachin Tendulkar, Jeev Milkha Singh, Mary Kom and Abhinav Bindra, putting India on the sporting map. While India's position is still a blinking light, compared to the athletic and sporting development in similar economies like Brazil and China, India's sporting revolution seems to be led by Cricket. The global cricket economy runs on India's audience, and after the success of a globalised tournament like the IPL, India has been looking for revolutionising other sports like hockey, football and tennis with similar initiatives. Sport is a great way for cultures to mingle, and for opportunities for creating Indianisation in Sport(which is already happening in cricket)

d) Tech- While India has been lapping up the benefits of a technology revolution, there are lot of efforts made by people of Indian origin who lead a lot of the tech firms in Silicon Valley. India is warming up to entrepreneurship in technology, opening up avenues for India to slowly become a global power. 

If you looked at each of these 4 pillars through which the world is becoming more Indianized, you would have realised that all India has done, is put the right foot forward. These are baby steps and needs all the support in growing big over the years. These 4 pillars are mega trends in their own right and right now, will wait to converge. That will be the true power when the world will get to be more Indianized than ever, relative to the world being a similar Global village.

While these are positive steps and helps India carve a niche for itself in the world, it needs to take a holistic look at how  technology can make its primary economic driver of agriculture better, and make technology access to the bottom of the pyramid possible. Primarily, India needs to identify what's unique with its culture, and follow that. There's a line in the sand we draw between Indians getting globalised and the world getting Indianized, and thats possible only if we Indians are awakened spiritually to know what's right for us, instead of accepting a template and being blindly globalised. Blind globalisation of trends can some times erode into a region's uniqueness. You just don't want the world to be a place where you by default have a McDonald's, a Star Bucks, a Hard Rock Cafe and a Hilton Hotel. While Globalisation is great, India needs to ask itself its acceptance of Globalisation is coming at some cost, which is eroding into its Indianization. There's a very thin line there that separates both of these, and recognising that thin line is what will determine how Indianized the World will get relative to India getting Globalised.

So to answer the question, while the  world is set to get more Indian than we think, if we look at it holistically India is still more Globalised than the world being Indianized. I've written more on the trends that helped India adjust to Globalisation, and what's taken us so far here.But hey, we are in the incipient stages of the next big Mega Trend- The World getting more Indianised, and hopefully by the unwritten law of Karma, India's heydays should complete a full circle in the immediate future.

This is written for Indiblogger and Lufthansa's contest. Do check their video below as Lufthansa tries to beat the perceived grayscale and integrates with India's vibrant customs and colours! #MoreIndianThanYouThink

Skore T20 League- Part 2

Now, Coming to the most interesting part, we review the games that are there as part of the SPL(Skore Pleasure League)

As with the 8 team IPL franchisee format, SPL has teams from various cities like the IPL. I chose to stick my fandom with the Chennai Team. No Dhoni or Mccullum here, but I don't mind imagining myself bludgeoning like Dhoni or Mccullum in the bed revelling either in a T20 shoot out, or a long innings.

Once I chose my team, it was now time to select the variant of the game, I wanted to play. I found it interesting and exciting that the team at SKORE carefully curated 8 variants of a simple quiz.

So, I started with "Read Between The Lines". A subject I never quite managed to understand with various women in my life, ranging from Mother, Sister and Wife.

It felt like I was playing in the IPL finals. Full of nerves, as I looked at each question, and tried guessing the answer.

The format was lovely and life like! You look at a woman's face and try and gauge her reaction. as they the devil lies in the details. I performed like I usually did with women. In IPL Parlance, I played like Dwayne Smith in the IPL final, terribly out of form and touch.

My scores showed! Maybe its time to test some of the other games! The first one was bad, as it usually is for Chennai in the IPL. Time to peak at the right moment and SKORE well!

Skore T20 League- Part 1

I generally see condom adverts around a couple making love in a car, or silhouettes of curvy females with lust. One of the better ways to integrate your brand into what consumers lap on to, is an interesting way of reaching out with meaning to your consumers. Skore Condoms has used the IPL bandwagon to get into the minds of the cricket loving Indian. The other natural brand fit is the format of T20, which is a quick bang bang format, not to different from how sex is perceived in its myriad "Sex Surveys". It seems like its designed for women, from the limited attempts that I played. It would have been great to have questions for the women as well, about men. That would have added an other quotient, in a 2 X 2 matrix, where men and women get to answer questions on the opposite gender and themselves!

The website is designed well, with the core element of gameplay being captured, with limited attention to consumers who may also want to purchase condoms online. The whole experience revolves around picking variants of a quiz game centred around foreplay and understanding a woman.

Last year's theme revolved around 'Pataoing' a woman, while this year's theme explores pleasure. So we have a change of avatar from Skore Patao League (SPL) to Skore Pleasure League.

The registration is simple, and quick, and one can get on to playing the game in a jiffy! The only headache in the registration is the placement of the "Sign up" button. Some times people end up typing an email and a password and end up clicking on sign up, since it visually suggests that this may be the flow. Do read my next post on how some of the games look like.

What's your Cool Quotient? Blumerq's trendy summer collection is out!

Its Summer, and given we Indians don't really flock to the beach to take in summer, we need to find other ways of enjoying them. One of them is to get to hill stations and feel cool, or invest in some fashion that makes you look cool!

Here are some interesting things to try 

Blumerq Spring/Summer 2014 collection – This season’s collection expresses digital aesthetics & sensuous nature with interplay of colors & splashes of bright shades in tandem with Brand’s inspiration - Music.

The colour palette boasts of lime green, yellows and sea blues accompanied by gray tones in hazy print effects.SS14 collection is offered using various wash techniques giving a vintage summer feel.

Blumerq Tees and Polos – Crew and V neck Tees are crafted with Tie dye & ombre dye technique. Also, introducing a new range with special treatments by giving a washed down as well as a techno feel that can be worn both at a casual evening gathering or a leisure outing. The polos are in dark tones using different techniques from tie dye to color sprays. Apart from these, basic line of polos come in myriad of colors making it a must have in every youth’s wardrobe, be it the all-time Red, the flashy Yellow or the aqua shades to cool the summer.

Blumerq Shirts - Woven shirts are designed in Pastel bright from solid oxfords to space dye stripes. Medium checks in bright accent colors, Printed shirts in light weight cotton are balanced with linens and pinpoint oxford in neutral colors. This summer Blumerq is also introducing a new range of color blocked shirts in tonal colors that can be worn both at work and on a weekend.

Blumerq Bottoms and Denims - The casual bottoms are also getting colourful this summer from burnt brick red to the ever aqua green. It is not only the colors that are new, Blumerq have some trendiest fits that will add an edge to one’s look. Blumerq has a perfect pair for every knit tee or a woven shirt. The same goes for the denims; Blumerq is expanding the line with newer & trendier fits in various colors and washes, thus completing the Summer/Spring 14 collection.

Choose Blumerq this Spring/Summer for an exciting palette and refreshed prints for all the summer wardrobe needs. The SS 14 Blumerq collection is all set to welcome you at Blumerq stores and available across all leading e-commerce sites. The price range varies from 399 to 1899.

The Calm before the Musical Storm! Blumerq's Fashion Show

Before settling into the music event, Blumerq had organised a fashion show. The designs that were displayed had Blumerq's shirts, tees, chinos, and denims on display. The brand while it portrayed fashion, showed a connection to the Indian way of fashion, with wrap arounds adding to the flavour.

The backdrop of the concert was very colourful, once the evening set, and the fashion show, hogged a lot of attention from the 10,000 strong crowd, that was waiting at the event. The concert was  a fine melange of style focussed music afficianados, Spring summer 14 was colorful like never before with flashes of yellows and lime green, cooled by the blues. I quite liked the digital aesthetics & sensuous nature that was on display
 with interplay of colors.

Blumerq's casual bottoms are also getting colorful this summer from flaming brick red to the ever
aqua green. Its quite a new thing to get used to, seeing men in colourful shades of 256, instead of the usual 16 that we men see. Its not only that  the colors  are new, Blumerq is also introducing some new trendy fits
that will give an edge to one's look.

They  also have summer cargos in light weight slub cottons and blotch cottons.

Some of Blumerq's Woven shirts come in Pastel bright from solid oxfords to space dye stripes. Mediumcheck with bright accent colors, Printed shirts in light weight cotton are balanced with linens and 

pinpoint oxford in neutrals colors. What's also working for Blumerq's designs is that they have color blocked shirts in tonal colors which can be worn both at work and on a weekend.

Weekend Trip to Sawantvadi and Vengurla

There has always been this romance associated with unreserved and unplanned travel in terms of meeting new people, understanding their life story, and exploring lands already explored by well known travellers.. I set off on this trip alone, after office on last friday. At 7 15 pm, I decided to call it a day and head to Dadar Railway station for buying a ‘unreserved’ ticket from Dadar to Pernem. Now the best train to catch, to head to the konkan coast, would be Train number 6335, from the outskirts of Mumbai. When buying unreserved tickets in Mumbai, for travel north or south, the best place to buy it would be at the bigger railway terminuses like Dadar/VT/Bombay Central/Bandra Terminus/Borivali/Panvel. I tried buyinga a ticket from Lower Parel, but that is seemingly not possible and if you do head to the Dadar, you need to get it only from the counter on Dadar East.

Dadar-Pernem- 137 rs

Now after purchasing my tickets and realising that the 10 pm train at Panvel was a better option than the Konkan Kanya express, I decided to head to Mani’s lunch home at Matunga and explore the combo that keeps every Tam guy worth existing- Ghee roast and filter coffee. After a short tiffen, I managed to find a taxi to Wadala Road station and took the local train to Panvel, which eased and ambled to Panvel by 9 30 pm, with the crowd being 1/1000th of what it was when I bullied people to head butt my way at Wadala road.

Once at Panvel, I removed the heavy bag I was carrying and allowed my shoulders to be free. The last 2 day’s work out sessions had obviously made every sinew of my shoulder writhe in pain. I was feeling weak all of a sudden, whether I would have the energy to last the night braving the crowd in the unreserved compartment. But Today was Gudi Padwa, Maharashtrian new year, so every Mumbaikar was at home celebrating with family and if he was a travel freak, he would have left on Thursday night and not on Friday night, when I was leaving.

Just when my shoulders were groaning, I came across a short, dark man who seemed to be glancing into reams of paper. I guessed, he must be the TTE, and went and asked him if there was a possibility of getting a reserved seat. Today was my day, and given that quite a few states celebrated new year on Friday, nobody was competing with me on the train to Sawantwadi. The TTE charged me 200 rs extra for accomadating me in a middle berth, for me to lay me shoulders to rest.

Fine to the TTE- 200 Rs

I must have woken up every half an hour after 2 30 am, and finally decided to get up at 5 am, as the train was scheduled to arrive at Sawantwadi at 5 15 am. With everyone sleeping in the compartment, I couldnt rely on ‘wisdom of the crowds’ to get off, so I decided to take the plaunge of connecting the mobile phone GPS on my N-81, on Roaming(this combo guzzles the charge on your mobile). I was still a few kilometres from my destination, and so I decided to abandon my 2 foot space of the middle birth and stand at the footboard, allowing the morning chill winds to hit my face. After staring aimlessly at darkness, I saw that next to the toilet, there was a charging point and decided to charge my mobile phone. My friend Vinay, was to pick me up at the station. He had arrived the previous night after a sales visit to central Maharashtra. Vinay had brought an auto along and we drove to Sawantwadi town, which was 9 km’s from the station. I hear that there is only 1 hotel near the sawant wadi railway station, and if you are caught up at the station, there’s atleast a paid home to go to unlike stations in Goa( Pernem/Thivim/Karmali/Cancona).

We had breakfast in an udupi hotel, where the sun’s rays had just pierced in at around 7 15 am. We tried to ask the hotel proprietor for breakfast at 6 20 am, but he was least interested in serving us, as words like ‘customer’, ‘dhandha’ are alien terms in this slow moving,bovine and peaceful town.

Its not that you have too many options within a few minutes of the hotel opening. Whatever we asked for resulted in 3 items being suggested/reccomended. Upma,Sheera and Poha. We were in a mood for any thing, as long as it facilitated bowel movement and gave us a pleasant taste to make us feel good, while we saunter around the town.

The plate on the left is mine, which has Sheera(Yellow sweet) and Upma. Vinay is seen having Poha, which has become his favourite dish after he relocated to Mumbai.

The town reminded me of the faint little town of Malgudi, which had a sense of calm written all over it.

People are early to rise and discuss news with other people in the promenade of the lake.

We went to the Sawantwadi bus stand to find a sleepy little mini-town that was in no hurry to head to the coast. The coastal buses here go to either Vengurla, Kudal or Terekhol. We decided on Vengurla and sat in the bus to find a certain calm that was not present in the big cities.

The bus never had a fixed time of leaving, nor did the conductor seemed to have any fixed target on number of commuters. It was a happy little world that fortunately had no one with a dagger saying DEADLINES! People could stop the bus by just plonking their foot 2 steps on the road and that would be a bus stop. We were asking around a farmer on some observations we had on the fields as to why Hay was kept in stacks all over the fields. We heard from him that, it was food for his horses and animals, who were working on the fields. Nothing super duper, just that corporate life dulls your common sense!

One needs to climb a small ascent to get to a ruined stone fort. Shot this from there. Alluring views of the azure waters and the palm/coconut trees.

How much must that be? 20 metres long and walkable in 20 seconds? NO… It was far longer than we expected and the water was close to 6-7 feet deep, during the high tide. Vinay decided to get inside and try out how quickly we could cross, as we had a laptop bag to ferry across. When he came back bleeding from the swim, we realised that the water was deep and had gorges and rocks inside, so we hired a small boat for 50 Rs to help us cross to UTOPIA.

While on the boat, during the 10 minute ride, we played the oarsman, learning how to use the oars in the lake, with the fisherman also giving an insight into his life. The fisherman,during the monsoon, also doubles up as a mechanic to supplement the income, which goes on a downward spiral with rough seas and weather conditions. during such impulse trips, conversations with the local people reveals a lot about the place, people, their customs, their lives, their motivations and then finally you are able to connect the dots between geography and history that lies dormant in your brain.

GOA??? Wasn’t I in Maharashtra during sunset? After we discovered at around 5 30 pm, that food might be a problem at Vengurla, We decided to explore the next beach, so a state transport bus from Vengurla market, took us to a town called Shiroda, and from Shiroda we reached Terekhol (border of Maharashtra). We took an evening(make that twilight) ferry and reached the other side, and had no other option but to take a taxi to civilization – Arambol

Damage- 400 Rs

Next, we settled into German Bakery(Damage- 300 Rs), a room good enough just to park your electronic luggage. We then headed out for a dinner at “21 Coconuts Inn’ for a candle lit dinner, which was briefly interrupted by the romantic tele-presence of Vinay’s boss. By the time we finished, both of us were tired, and we hit the sack by about 12 am, after a brief walk through the Arambol market, hunting for medicines (for my headache).

Next morning, we were up by 5 30 am, and I had a bath in the Arabian Sea, while I waited for Vinay to get ready. We started to cross arambol and came to the Sweet Water Lake beach. The sweet water lake was dry and it wasn’t worth taking a dip there.

We saw a couple of nice portable boats cum tents. Looks like the Russians are all over(Little Zizou ishtyle). Only the Russians can be that adventurous, and after day dreaming about what a beautiful life those people must be having, and bitching about Indian corporate life, we set on to climb a huge hill, to reach Keri

While we were trekking, Vinay decided to take rest at a huge rock, and dozed of for a while, while gazing at the blue sky. It was a lovely feeling, dozing off and then waking up to the blue sky above as vision comes after a period of darkness. Try it some day!
The mountain had a bunch of bushes and thorns that we had to make way through to reach the other part of the mountain. Vinay, then decided that we follow the footsteps of the dogs that were rambling, as they knew the terrain much better than us. Better to rely on dogs than our mutilated intelligence (thanks to the Corporate world).