AAYI JHOOM KE BASANT...

Peeli, peeli, sarson phooli,
Peeli udey patang,
Peeli, peeli udey chunariya,
Peeli pagri ke sung...
Here's s a sure-fire sign to tell you spring's already here. No, Basant Panchmi is a wrong answer. The correct answer is your kid suddenly looks dark and dingy in his grays, blacks, and brown fashions that were ever-so-hip even a month ago. And if your kid is like mine, here's another sign: just like new foals snort, gallop, kick out their legs and just run without reason--he gets spring fever as well. That may be fine at home or at enrichment activities, but teachers still want their students to show focus and discipline.
I know, because I went for his PTA recently, minus his mother and the class teacher told me all.
Anyway, spring is also the perfect time for summer plans, and don't forget about ensuring your outings are kid-friendly. Swim lessons, special camps, amusement parks, and special field trips can require planning, transportation, work schedule flexibility, and affordability. Till that time, the good thing about living in Delhi is there is no dearth of rolling yellow fields of mustard around. You could just vroom a bit, bask in the yellow glory, stop at a roadside dhaba, sit on the charpoy and make good use of juicy sugarcane...ummmm!

Chanda bhi dekha, taare bhi dekhe,
Dekha suraj barson,
Par jis din se tujh ko dekha,
Man mein phooli sarson...

For all ye Weekend Warriors, here's what we read on a passing truck...
Aaj kal parson,
Jab phoolegi sarson,
Sajan ghar aa jaana...

NOT 'WHAT' BUT 'HOW'

Something tremendous is happening in India. Even one of my favourite columnists, Gurcharan Das, with his keen eye and often elegant prose, has his finger firmly on the pulse of the transformation…All those who love reading his column in TOI on Sundays know how his stories enliven what could easily have been a dull piece of economic history. How I wish we had more economists making you believe in India, its might and what we are capable of. How our rich country became poor and how it will be rich again.
Here, excerpts from his column on NH-8...

I was driving down from Jaipur to Ajmer. But I could have been anywhere. The six lane highway was a smooth beauty and the pot-holed India of the PWD was a hazy memory.
Then the wondrous colours of Rajasthan appeared and for an instant I thought I had entered a certain paradise, which seemed to unite modernity with tradition, world-class infrastructure with the ineffable loveliness of old India.
What makes the Jaipur-Kishangarh section of the golden quadrilateral special is that it is a true public-private partnership based on transparent legal contracts that might be a model for the world.
Such contracts have created a new level of trust and are enabling India to access funds, skills and technologies from the best companies in the world, who will build and operate our roads, ports, bridges, airports, and container trains, and transfer them to the state in 15 to 30 years.
Gajendra Haldea, an unusual economist-lawyer of integrity and conviction, drew up these model contracts at the Planning Commission. As a result, he is the most hated man in Delhi's infrastructure ministries. He has demolished opportunities for corruption.
Soon we shall have 20,000 km of highways, hundreds of private container trains, and many private ports and airports _ all in public-private partnership. These quiet steps teach us that reforms are not about the 'what' but the 'how'. They are less about economics and more about law...

CUT TO KARJAT, AGAIN!

TENT TIGHT FOR THE NIGHT!

Travelling light gets a new meaning. Though this tent is a bit bulky and heavy (3.5 kgs) for hiking, but good for a car trip. The cool thing is that it sets up in 2 seconds. You just have to throw it in the air and boing!, you are ready to sleep in two seconds (hence its the name). Two seconds for fold-out is realistic, except when it lands on its roof and, you've got to roll it over, adding a few more seconds. Once done, you've got to pitch it down with 2 stakes if the wind is moderate, 4 more if there is any more wind.
The manufacturer, Decathlon, claims one needs 15 seconds to fold it away. With some training you can get it down to less than one minute, for sure, on a lazy day, including all accessories. You just have to expulse the remaining air, and put it in the bag. When folded it is a disc _ a bit larger than a 28-inch bicycle wheel (around 80cm in diameter). It's too large to fit into a backpack, but you can hang it on the exterior of a pack. If you do that you'll look like a dwarf holding his shield. It could fit on the back of a bike, but really it is made for car camping.
The tent sleeps two. The room is 145 x 245cm, so it could be possible to sleep three, but not for a long time. One advantage is that the roof is flatter than an igloo, like in a tunnel. Inside it's a pretty standard tent, with a double roof, and nets for venting.
All in all, it's not the perfect tent, but a good tent, light enough, larger than a regular pop tent, and a lot of fun. You would like to open it several times just because it's amazing.

CURRYING FLAVOURS @ KARJAT!

Rumpled sheets, two warm bodies and a little ankle origami. You never want to get out of bed.
Warm gingerbread with pears and honey, steaming tea casting a spell or two...
Spoon till noon!
Ahem...when you get time, take a tour.
From pearly skies at dawn to the sparkling lights of the night-time cityscape, Karjat on the outskirts of Mumbai scores fantastically on the location front. The hilly hamlet with its profusion of greens is mesmerising and intoxicating and having a face-off with your wild side seems like the most natural thing to do... Sit under the waterfall at midnight and watch a swarm of fireflies do a ballet or just go skinny-dipping in the lake in torch light.
Karjat is merely a two-hour drive from from Mumbai (Central).



Fuss Factor: The Dirty Getaway
Hit the freeway early on a Friday afternoon to beat the traffic.
Stop by the supermarket to stock the picnic hamper.
Check into the motel.
Start things off with a naughty board game: strip scrabble, pants off twister...
Make each other sandwiches, build each other bites.
Steam the windows!

THE DIRTY MENU
Raid the fridge, stop by the supermarket and pack for the ultimate indoor picnic.
A crunchy baguette/whole wheat bread, your favourite cheese slices, a fresh roast chicken and a handful of cheeky little odds and sods is all you need.
Tear a chunk of bread/take two slices, spread some pickles, add slices of cheese and some sauce, wedges of avocado and juicy strips of roast chicken...a sexy sandwich built to feast on...
Some olives and cheeses
A bottle of Merlot
A block of good chocolate and a bag of crisp, firm apples (they are, after all, the fruit of seduction)...
You might not have to leave the room all weekend!

THE RIGHT MOOD
Sight: Raindrops on the windows, filtered through the venetian blinds!
Sound: Water gurgling and random tunes playing in the background (check playlist down below)
Smell: Salt air, motel soap cakes and wine on each other's breath
Touch: Naked flesh against cheap sheets
Taste: Fresh, crisp apples in the dim lit afterglow

THE SHOPPING BAG
Food: fresh baguettes/whole wheat bread slices; roast chicken; avocado; pickles; a stick of butter/cheese slices;
olives and hors d'oeuvre what nots; fresh fruit; fruit juice; wine/champagne/whiskey/good chocolate
Goods: bottle opener; napkins; a knife, fork and spoon; glasses; plates; blanket; iPod music and speakers; scrabble board

Now get a foot in the door:
This is your chance to show yourself as spontaneous, carefree and whimsical.
Overplanning this weekend will strip it of it's charm: an escape...
Look at the list, then willfully forget at least two things on it. This will force you to improvise:
Share the toothbrush glass to drink the wine/whiskey/vodka or whatever
Use the shopping bag as a picnic blanket
Use a fork to push the cork into the wine bottle (not my favourite activity)...
Being almost perfect is much more endearing than being absolutely perfect!

Gt your paws on some claws; it's good practise on tearing into flesh...then move onto each other!
Every word used to describe the first meal that you serve someone is an adjective about yourself: light, spicy, colourful and a little foreign is much better than heavy, bland, fatty or dull. Like, say antipasti...avocado...
Which is why this menu is a much better introduction to the wonderful world of 'you' than a hanger steak with good ole mashed potatoes and string beans!

Random Tunes: The Playlist
-----------------------------------------
Love Me Sweet (St Etienne Remix) by Kid Loco

All I Need by Air from the album Moon Safari

Glory Box by Portishead

Angel from Massive Attack’s Mezzanine album

Sweet Jane by Cowboy Junkies (Natural Born Killers' soundtrack)

Song to the Siren from This Mortal Coil’s It'll End in Tears album

Only Us by Peter Gabriel

Stay by Me by Annie Lennox

A Lucky Guy by Rickie Lee Jones

Up in Suzes' Room from Paul Weller’s Heavy Soul album

Just Like Honey by The Jesus & Mary Chain

And No More Shall We Partby Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

We Float from PJ Harvey’s Stories from the Sea

Sunday Morning (Stereo) by The Velvet Underground & Nico

Gett Off by Prince

Some Kinda Love by The Velvet Underground

Ask for Answers from Placebo’s Without You I'm Nothing album

Reservations from Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album

Wild Horses by The Rolling Stones

I Can't Go to Sleep (featuring Isaac Hayes) by Wu-Tang Clan

Total Control by Tina Turner

Sign Your Name by Terence Trent D'Arby

D.M.S.R. by Prince

What Goes Around Comes Around by Lenny Kravitz

Let's Stay Together by Al Green

Why Can't We Live Together by Sade

Fly Me to the Moon from Astrud Gilberto’s Finest Hour album

DEATH BY BLAZE!

Look at the irony: while one report talks about ending commuters' woes by reducing travel time on the 15 km-long Palam-Gurgaon stretch, another gory tale of a car catching fire grabs your eyeballs early in the morning...
It can't get worse than this.
Think about it. And shudder. A car-full of your favourite people on a chilly winter morning singing happy songs and snacking on homemade sandwiches suddenly realising a spark somewhere in the rear of the vehicle. Within seconds, the car turns into a fireball killing all on the spot.
Most recently, a 40-year-old businessman rushing home to his family from work is charred to death after his car catches fire.
Or the three musketeers who escaped near death after their car caught fire after an accident on the Noida-Delhi eway on December 17, 2006. Not for the Indica driver on the Mumbai-Pune eway, who died of burns after he was trapped in the car which caught fire on December 29, near Urse toll junction...
Right from failing of the central locking system to zipping on empty roads to not getting serviced on time to faulty frills, causes galore. The fact, however, remains: people are dying all the time and we don't seem to be able to pinpoint the culprit.
Police say the businessman's car was fitted with central locking system which failed, leaving no escape route. So are my cars!
In the Pune incident, cops say the fire could be due to over speeding resulting in friction. But then what are eways for, if not speeding?
Why don't the car companies do something about it? Instead of just introducing fancy hotrods and making millions, why don't they try to make travelling safer? And by safe, we don't mean airbags!
Guess, it'll take someone at the top to die and force the car firms and powers to be to get into action. Till then, you and I are lucky...we are still driving.

GLADIATORS OF LOVE!

WE LOOKED EACH OTHER SQUARE IN THE EYE. I WAS
a little nervous. When I looked at her, I knew she was nervous, too.
We were standing on the floor of the Taj, the epitome of love and romance, encircled by pristine, white marble walls _ two indentured slaves with a self-imposed sentence, serving up the punch line of a long-standing private joke. We'd come to Agra at a critical juncture of our relationship. A point at which the death match of romance either blossoms into the detente of love or folds into yet another cold war of battered egos and botched opportunities. And we were gladiators of love, both battle weary, and looking for some peace.
Romance, like war, creates two kinds of combatants. The first identifies with Robert E. Lee's remark at the Battle of Fredericksburg: "It is well that war is so terrible: We would grow too fond of it." This is the veteran who longs for another fight, who never feels so alive as when his neck is truly on the line. That bloodthirsty longing for conquest, that dangerous dance around the rim of rejection _ it gets you addicted to the adrenaline of adventure. And if you pursue this dance long enough, the notion of returning home, or of even having a home to return to, becomes foreign to you.
The second kind of combatant is more like Russell Crowe's Roman general in Gladiator: the guy who has nothing left to prove, who has conquered and been conquered, pillaged and been pillaged, for whom the end goal of any battle is the chance to return home at last.
I've always thought I was more like Lee, and _ to beat a metaphor to death _ that I wasn't ever going to be the swords-into-plowshares type, romance-wise. I felt like my love life was always going to be more like Serbia than Switzerland, always with the pleasures of peace outside my grasp. Yet there's been something here, at this monument of love, that's made me willing to discard the armour. to see if the hearts underneath still beat, to inch closer to that treaty that says war is over, and it's time to go home.
"I love you," I told her.
"I love you, too," she said.
Ah. That's so much better than, "At my signal, unleash hell."

LOVE IN THE TIME OF FOG!

ROMANCING THE STONE: STILL PREFER A MOONLIT NIGHT?
More on travelling to Agra soon...watch this space.

AMADER RANIKHETER CHHOBI!

WHAT IS IT? Holm Farm Heritage Hotel & Resort. In 1869, Norman Troupe, a 'restless' Brit Army officer landed in Ranikhet and instantly fell in love with the place. He set out to build that dream that had been haunting him all his life: a home for himself and a place where his friends would frequently love to come.
STILL WORTH A VISIT? Of course. Turned into a resort, the sprawling 13-acre Holf Farm Estate offers a magnificent view of the Himalayas. It's an incredible combination of the traditional and the modern.
WHERE TO STAY? The majestic bungalow has six comfortable suites and a museum like lobby with pinewood floor, ceiling, century old hand- painted wallpaper, an antique piano, old colonial furniture and much more which itself tells the remaining story of the bungalow. The adventurous could aslo stay at one of the several Swiss Cottages (read tents).
HOW FAR IS IT? From Ranikhet town, Holm Farm Heritage is a mere 10 minutes drive along a zigzag dirt road amid pine, cedar, oak and chestnut groves.
WHO GOES THERE? After Troupe`s death in 1890, this bunglow was sold to Mohd. Amin, then to F. C. Banyon from Ms Catherine Abbot (wife of Col. Abbot) and since independence, this property is being owned by Madan Mohan Upadhyaya, a veteran freedom fighter and a very close associate of the Nehrus. During his lifetime, many celebrated personalities like Jawahar Lal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Lady and Lord Mountbatten, Acharya Narendra Dev, Govind Ballabh Pant, Narayan Dutt Tewari, and several embassy-types have been here and appreciated the beauty of this place.



Delhi-based Weekend Warrior and Good Relations honcho, Sushmita, travelled to Holm Farm Heritage Resort, Ranikhet, along with hubby Rajat and son Shaon. A believer in 'Truth in Travel', she refused to play any PR tricks on the resort management and paid to stay at the Holm Farm!

ONE FOR THE ROAD!

...AND ANOTHER!

THIS FOGGING HIGHWAY!

Don’t be a tailgater! Many of us don’t see as far ahead as we should
because we follow too closely, and the vehicle ahead blocks our view.

On a bright morning, we would start at daybreak and land up at the oldies (in-laws) for lunch in Lucknow. Throw in half-hour break for sandwiches and tea at Bareilly, making it percisely eight hours from Noida covering exactly 500 km on NH-24. But as Luck (now) would have it this year-end, hit the foggy zone within an hour of starting out at 6.30. Things looked fine, so there was no reason to call off the trip. But who could imagine the weekend would turn out thus? While a Toyota Corolla met with a horrible head-on with a truck ahead killing the driver on the spot, had my share of killing, too! A pup! Shit!!! And let's not forget the anti-Bush protestors at Ferozabad, who won't stop banging Speedy until I nearly crushed some of them under the rear wheels. All in all, why do people drive to Luknow? Could someone tell me, please? Unless, of course, you missed the 6.20 a.m. Shatabadi Express from New Delhi Railway Station or the flight got delayed because there were too many politico-types boarding the same flight...

Now, why go to Lucknow at all?

ALL THE REASONS TILL LAST YEAR: Tunda's Kakori kebabs @ the Chowk! And, ahem, chikankari (avoid Sewa at all costs, too costly); old fellas, of course.
ALL THE REASONS THIS YEAR: Tunda's Kakori kebabs @ the Chowk! And, ahem, chikankari (avoid Sewa at all costs, too costly); old fellas, of course, and the Lucknow-Kanpur-Etawah-Ferozabad-Agra-Delhi highway! It rocks...all thanks to Mulayam Singh Yadav. Etawah is his constituency. The only rough patches you encounter are at Etawah that end at Makhanpur near Agra.

It also makes sense to take this route this time of the year because NH-24 runs through the sugarcane belt and this is harvest time. Back to fog, there aren't that many accidents when its foggy as opposed to when it's raining or when it's a fine day. But as soon as you link these to the number of days when it's foggy, raining or fine, you find that you are dozens of times more at risk. In fact, it is not putting it too strongly to say that if you do run into fog, you are in serious danger. Everything about fog is wrong - you can't do a thing, there's a fog code which everybody knows but not everyone obeys, and if an accident happens, it could be a pile up with dozens of vehicles crashing into each other and no way to avoid it.

No one is really quite sure what goes wrong in fog. Why do people drive at 60 kmph as if there's nothing in front of them? Is it because they become disorientated with no visual clues to let them assess their speed? Or are they assuming that because they can see other people driving fast they become frightened that they'll be rammed from behind? Even a person driving slowly according to the fog code will be pressured into speeding up when he/she sees cars zooming past them.

What is needed is some research to come up with answers - what happens when we drive into fog, why do we end up with one lot of drivers following the fog code and the other drivers not obeying it - which is a bit like traffic lights where one lot of drivers obey the rules and drive through on the green light and the others disobey the rules and drive through on the red light.

So what can we do if we do hit fog. Clearly we should obey the fog code but my own personal view is that there is a problem because not everyone is using the code - the pile up happens when a fast-moving vehicle hits a slow moving vehicle, i.e. the person obeying the code. It may need legislation so that you must drive at say 20 kmph. With modern speed cameras it would not be too difficult to deploy these and there's nothing like a fine to make people drop their speed. Until that happens, or we all have cars with infra-red imaging systems, my priorities would be:
1) Don't travel if there's fog
2) If you do get caught in fog, move to a quieter road and find a safe place to park
3) Use the fog code and resist the temptation to increase your speed. And in case you don't know your fog code, here it is:

THE FOG CODE
Before driving in fog, consider if your journey is essential. If it is, allow extra time. Make sure your windscreen, windows and lights are clean and that all your lights (including brake lights) are working.

When driving in fog:

(a) See and be seen. If you cannot see clearly use dipped headlights. Use front or rear fog lights if visibility is seriously reduced but switch them off when visibility improves. Use your windscreen wipers and demisters.

(b) Check your mirrors and slow down. Keep a safe distance behind the vehicle in front. You should always be able to pull up within the distance you can see clearly.

(c) Do not hang on to the tail lights of the vehicle in front: it gives a false sense of security. In thick fog, if you can see the vehicle in front you are probably too close unless you are travelling very slowly.

(d) Be aware of your speed. You may be going much faster than you think. Do not accelerate to get away from a vehicle which is too close behind you. When you slow down, use your brakes so that your brake lights warn drivers behind you.

(e) Fog can drift rapidly and is often patchy. Even if it seems to be clearing, you can suddenly find yourself back in thick fog.

On a lighter note, with modern cars we've all but forgotten the fog horn which of course was for use in fog. And in London, back in the 1930's they tied blow lamps to traffic lights in the fog partly to burn it away and partly for drivers to see.

SEASONS' GREETINGS!