No ice in my water please

I live far away from home. In a strange country, amidst strangers. I don't fit in and yet I fit in. Funnily enough, I am comfortable with strangers, it is the vaguely familiar that makes me nervous.
Indians who have been here longer than me constantly remind me that I have just gotten off the boat ... just because I don't drink my water with ice and lemon like they do. "Oh, that's so Indian," someone remarked. After I stopped throwing up into my ice-less water, I smiled. "Funny how Indian I am, considering I am one."
But yet I fit in. Because I am part of a cosmpolitan world. And I am cosmopolitan not because I bought myself an accent, it's largely because I had an education. And there is a difference, you see, ice in water lady.

Open

Agassi's autobiography Open is way more exciting than his tennis. It's done so rare you can almost taste the blood. Read it. Now.

Morocco Memoirs - II

Essaouiran legend has it that Jimi Hendrix wrote Castles in the Sand on the beaches of this gorgeous town. Ignore the fact that Hendrix wrote the song a few years before he visited Morocco and it's a great story to tell your grandkids.
Essaouira considers Hendrix her own. And it's hard not to see why he fell in love with this Moroccan beauty. It breathes music and colour and there is an endless supply of weed. You can escape the steaming kettles in the souk but there is no running away from the pot.
In recent times, Essaouira has found a new love. The Moroccans can't get enough of Shah Rukh Khan. They sing his songs, they know his lines, they even know Kajol. It's quite unsettling to be in a strange land many moons away from your own and be serenaded with Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. It's so wrong, I tell you.

Morocco Memoirs - I

I am in love with Essaouira, totally and unconditionally.
Anchored daintily on the Moroccan coast, this little town of winding alleys, sunshine smiles and Gnaoua music is a throwback to a lost era. A time when you didn't need to tell time, when you still had time to smile.
Many have fought and died for the love of Essaouira ... the Dutch, the Spanish, the English. But she has repelled every advance and instead welcomed a legion of artistes and poets to embrace her riches. Essaouira is a joyous burst of colours and smells. Art galleries joust for space with cafes, Bob Marley with Jimi Hendrix. I would happily be a lotus eater in Essaouira, eh Odysseus.

And I saw Him Standing There

Him and his acoustic guitar and Blackbird. Twentyfive thousand hearts beat noiselessly lest they intrude on the mesmeric voice soaring over the sweet twang of his guitar. He joked later that he may have missed a few chords.
He played the Ukulele in a moving tribute to George Harrison. He had played Something in George's house fifty years ago and he played it for us last night. It was moving, magical and humbling.
He sang for George, he sang for John, he sang for Linda, he even sang for Jimi Hendrix. The strong resonant voice is still there, so are the boyish good looks. I went to see Paul McCartney perform songs that my parents grew up with. It is a night I will never forget. I came away happy and inadequate.

Snow, rain and two cities

The first flakes of snow dropped on my shoulder today. And before I could say winter is here it had turned into a full-fledged cotton woolly Yash Chopra song.
The smiles on people's faces reminded me of the first hesitant showers that announced the arrival of the Mumbai monsoons. If you were near Nariman Point or any other point with a view of the bay, you could see the clouds assemble in the yonder like unruly boy scouts.
London has many charms but the English rain lacks conviction. It is a polite, semi-educated rain that is almost apologetic about its existence. It lacks the gorgeous primal fury of the Mumbai monsoon in full ballast. Now, that's a real force of nature, thrilling and wrecking at will.

Comma tose

The importance of punctuation, according to Stanley.
"If you don't put one stupid comma nobody will read your story or what man," he asks.
I bow my head to a superior force.