A love note for 'Midnight Diner: Tokyo Stories'

I don’t usually do this. I do not take time off to write about my current favourite series. Now that I think about it, I’d love to write about how Breaking Bad, The Americans and The Wire made me feel. Before that, I must express my admiration for this new series on Netflix called Midnight Diner: Tokyo Stories. 

What is it? It is a series of ten short stories, each close to 30 minutes long, each named after a particular dish. Each story involves people who visit a certain diner in Tokyo that is open from midnight to seven in the morning. 

What is so special about it? Well, for one, it is a window into the lives of the Japanese. It features people like you and me, with similar problems and familiar dispositions. 

Midnight Diner is a safe place. People feel comfortable talking about their personal lives here. The proprietor of the diner, fondly called ‘Master’ has a unique policy. Apart from the usual fare of Pork Miso Soup Combo, beer, sake and shochu, he will make anything that a patron requests, provided he has the ingredients for it. He understands the effect comfort food has on people. No wonder everyone who comes to the diner hungry returns deeply content, touched not just by his delectable food but also by his warm and comforting words. No judgements are passed here, everybody is polite, yet eccentrically Japanese. Their exclamations and loud expressions are still tickling me, a couple of days after finishing the entire series. 

Each story also has something that brings you closer to the characters. One episode has someone learning how to make something in order to give it to someone they care about. It sounds shallow when I say it like that but the treatment is where the beauty lies. 

If you’re hungry while you’re watching it, brace yourself because you’re bound to get hungrier. Master cooking his dishes made me want to go to Japan now just to try those dishes. Never before has a simple broth of meat and vegetables looked so enticing on a non-cooking show. 

Almost all of the series has been shot indoors, either inside the diner or in somebody’s apartment or workplace. This points at a cost-effective production but I’m glad the makers did not compromise on the writing, casting, art direction and direction because all of them come together to deliver what is an endearing set of stories that will make you sob, sigh and laugh. 

If you haven’t watched it yet, I highly recommend it. You can arigato me later. 

DIY: Upcycling glass bottles

Today, months after I made my first Carlsmug, I put my glass bottle cutter to good use. I made a few goblets, a couple of small and large tumblers and a terrarium. Here are a few pictures and some learnings: 

Presenting all the goblets. They are nothing like the ones people in Game of Thrones drink from but that’s what they are. I am yet to sandpaper them and wash away the soot. If one was to drink from them right now, they would know exactly how Joffrey felt moments before he croaked.

This one in particular is my favourite. It was the cleanest cut of the day. It stands tall and confident, like a royal goblet. 

It is not that I don’t like the others. It’s just that some of their bases need to be sanded carefully so that they stop wobbling. 

Tuborg bottles make fantastic tumblers. So do Kingfisher Ultra Max. They shouldn’t be tumbling too much though. That will be injurious to their health. 

The clear Smirnoff  bottle here will make a great terrarium.

Now the learnings.

Like you cannot control the way bamboo grows, you cannot control the way glass will crack. It has a mind of its own. All you can do is scour it, heat it, then cool it and pray for it to clicnk into two separate pieces as neatly as possible. The rest can be sandpapered into perfection. The trick is to not leave any jarring glass ends, for obvious reasons. Here is a picture of all the casualties.

Some of them cracked like the bottle Bollywood heroines would use to threaten villains with rape on their mind. 

 

Some of them were held back by their best friend, the label. 

Beer bottles are the easiest to crack. 100 Pipers is the toughest bottle to crack. Check out this guy, standing strong and uncracked even after one round of scouring and multiple rounds of heat and cold torture treatment. 

And I couldn’t...just couldn’t get myself to cut this gorgeous bottle! 

So yes. I’ve had a funglasstic weekend. Must go wash the soot off my hands and clear the kitchen counter before this fat thing walks all over the glass crumbs. 

P.S: Many thanks to Deepak Nair, Anita Rane, Sushant Ajnikar and Rochelle Noronha for the many bottles that made this experiment possible.

Just like that. Just for fun.

Keeping in line with the trend of constructing more floors on top of their existing single -storeyed houses, a house opposite our apartment is expanding vertically. Judging by the pace of 

work, the upper floors will soon become a ‘PG for Ladies/Gents’ by next month. But that is not what this story is about.

The labourers working on the site live onsite in tiny, temporary, concrete houses they built themselves. These are two ten-by-five spaces built with concrete blocks and an asbestos sheet. While living on-site means work can begin early in the day, it also means the workers do not have to be away from their families. Construction projects go on for months. 

Among the people living in these houses are the two protagonists of this story - a 9 or 10 year old girl and a younger boy. I have noticed them play around the construction area ever since the project began but it was only yesterday that I stopped to take note of what they were up to. Ever since, they have been of continuous amusement to me. 

The two siblings (or friends) share some plastic toys. They have a completely green autorickshaw 
with bright yellow tyres. They have a bus that is half blue and half silver. They also have a JCB or 
whatever a muckraker is called. The body of this vehicle, the front part and the part behind it are all 
different colours. Yesterday, I stopped to observe the two engrossed in their play action outside my 
neighbour’s gate. A blue human figure lay face down. The girl had controls of the bus. The boy sat 
with his back to a metal gate waiting to roll his rickshaw down the elevated cement slope people 
make outside their homes to enable smooth parking. 

My guess was right. The two of them wanted to synchronise the time in which the rickshaw would 
ride over the human figure after colliding with the bus. I stood watching their innocent yet morbid 
game trying not to think about Salman Khan’s acquittal. 

                                             

Throughout their game, they yelled at each other for letting go of their vehicle a few seconds too soon or a couple of seconds too late. They cackled and laughed. They pulled at each other’s hair, even 
though the boy had more advantage. The cement on their clothes, the temporary pock marks on their knees caused by kneeling on the gravel, the dust on their faces and the grime in their hair are all a 
part of their game. 

This morning, from the second floor walkway of our apartment, I saw the two happy idiots rolling in a mound of gravel. They (or someone else) had put two sheets of newspaper on top on which they 
lay, laughing at nothing in particular and poking each other. I ran in to get my phone because that is what we do for fun nowadays. We click pictures of things we find interesting and put them up for 
others like us to see. 

By the time I got my phone, they were up and about again. I noticed a stack of cement made into a 
wobbly stairs. The two would climb the ‘stairs’, climb onto the wall of the house and plonk onto the 
newspapers and laugh. Then they would repeat the entire cycle endlessly. 

Why? Just like that. Just for fun. 

Why regional cinema shouldn’t avoid having subtitles anymore.

I just saw the trailer of Rani Padmini, an upcoming Malayalam film starring Manju Warrier and Rima Kallingal among others. As much as I like the trailer, I am dismayed by the fact that the trailer did not have subtitles, which means, most likely the film will not have subtitles either. 

Now let me take you through my thought process.

l Hey, looks like a nice movie, must watch it.

l Oh, no subtitles - how will Tamanna watch it?

l Will have to go without her...

l Or will take her along and translate every dialogue for her.

l What’s the fun in that?

l Never mind, we’ll watch something Hindi or English instead.

Tamanna, my wife, is Sindhi and comprehends very little Malayalam. 

I am guessing a lot of people who comprehend little to no Malayalam undergo the same  thought process. 

I am grateful to the makers of Anjali Menon's Bangalore Days for not only having subtitles 

but also putting effort into doing a good job of it. It was the first film my wife saw and enjoyed. Her respect for Malayalam cinema has only grown manifold because she felt included. 

I have a question for producers and filmmakers. Does subtitling a movie cost too much? You are already spending a lot of money to make the movie and promoting it on-air, online, on-ground among fan clubs and what not. Doesn’t it make sense to have subtitles for the dialogues since most movies open in major metropolitan cities in India? 

Going by its trailer, Rani Padmini seems to be a decent+ film that discusses pertinent issues in contemporary India. I wonder if the makers don’t want the message in the film to reach an audience outside the Malayalam-speaking community? Why restrict it to a few who comprehend a certain language? 

Another film I’d love to watch with my wife is Lord Livingstone 7000 Kandi. The film is apparently about the need to conserve forests and wild ecosystems. That again is an important issue for India. 

The same goes for new releases from the Kannada, Telugu and Tamil films releasing every month. How do you expect regional cinema to grow if you don’t have newer audiences partaking in what you have to offer? 

Times are changing. Your audiences are changing. Catch up no? 

Vodafone is being very professional. So...

I recently moved from Mumbai to Bangalore. Vodafone network here was erratic and Airtel seemed to be the prevalent ‘better’ network. Wanting to retain my number, I applied for MNP - the sham called Mobile Number Portability. Having submitted my photo and documents, I waited. I was told I’ll receive a message after which I was to insert my new Airtel 4G SIM in my phone and I’d have successfully ported. 

Sometime in the middle of last week, my new colleagues complained that my Vodafone number is ‘temporarily disconnected.’ I assumed MNP had kicked in and inserted the Airtel SIM. Calls to the Airtel call centre revealed they did not have the necessary details to start my Airtel connection. I waited, knowing Bangalore’s laidback attitude with everything. On Friday, when I called Vodafone customer care, they told me my number is disconnected because I have applied for MNP. I was advised to get in touch with an Airtel Store in Bangalore. 

No connection yet. 

Yesterday, when I visited the Airtel store, they found out my Vodafone connection is disconnected because I have ‘outstanding dues.’ When I called customer care this morning (18 September 2015) they corroborated this. It was an amount of Rs. 194 - generated after my billing cycle. I was assured that my connection will come alive on its own after 4 hours of payment of dues. I paid the dues. 

No connection yet.

Airtel Store people tell me all I need now is a UPC - Unique Porting Code that can only be generated if my Vodafone connection is restored.

When I called Vodafone customer care again, I was told I’ll have to visit the Vodafone Store to activate my SIM because it has been disconnected. 

The Vodafone Store is another joke. They tell me they can’t do anything because my number belongs to the Mumbai circle. 

I call up customer care and tell them my story yet again. Vodafone personnel Mohsin promised me around 6.00 pm that my SIM will be activated within 30 minutes. It is 7.45 pm now. I have rebooted my phone multiple times. No connection yet.  

 The Mobile Number Portability service is supposed to make life easy for consumers. It is doing exactly the opposite. 

You have recorded all the conversations you have had with me ‘for training purposes.’ use them to teach your Customer Care personnel to not lie to your customer. Or to not give false hope. 

Also, if I may remind you, this is 2015. What do you mean your Vodafone Store in Bangalore can’t help me because I bought my connection in Mumbai? Are you really stupid enough to recommend that I could ‘request a friend in Mumbai to go to a Vodafone Store there and ask them to activate my number’? Do you even know how ridiculous that sounds?! Have you heard of omni-channel marketing or whatever it is called? Have your agency explain it to you. Use some of your marketing funds to fix the holes in your service. How difficult is it to setup a system where the people here can get in touch with their counterparts in Mumbai and get things done?

And why do I have to repeat my problem every time I call Customer Care? Does no one keep track of the status of complaints at your end? Do you know how taxing this is?

Do you need me to tell you how difficult it is to survive in a new city without a mobile connection? I keep getting lost without Google Maps. Family, friends and colleagues cannot reach me because my phone is disconnected. My number is registered with my banks. Every time I make an online transaction, I need an OTP that I can no longer receive. 

How many more times do I have to call Customer Care to get my mobile connection back? 

Also, every day till you fix my problem, I'll be making a poster. 

Here's the first one. I call it Hangman. 

September 18, 2015


No connection yet. Intensifying my protest. I've made a template. Background ideas welcome.

Moving cities with a cat

We recently moved to Bangalore from Mumbai with our two-year-old cat A. It has been fun and we have a few people to thank for that.

The Indian Railways allows passengers to take pets in the First Class compartment. Which is a good thing because pets need their space and become awfully crabby in confined spaces like cages. The sudden exposure to new sounds and sights is too traumatic for them.

Transporting pets by air is possible. We know someone who successfully moved her three cats from Mumbai to Dubai, of course it cost her a bomb. There have also been cases of pets dying in the cargo. Only Air India allows pets inside the cabin but the final word still rests with the pilot. We lost a cat last year and weren’t prepared to take the risk. Trains seemed like the only other option. A friend sweetly offered to drive us down in his car but that would have been traumatising for him as well.

We booked two First Class AC ticket on the Udyan Express online on the IRCTC website and selected ‘Coupe’ in the drop-down menu to select seat preference. We read somewhere that it helps if you write a letter to the Railways telling them why you need a coupe. So we wrote a letter, took a print, attached a copy of our ticket and showed it to the Chief Reservation Manager at CST, Mumbai. She read it patiently and asked me to drop a copy of it at the Chief Commercial Manager’s office one day before the date of journey. (The Commercial Manager sits in the building at the Masjid end of Platform no. 1 along with the Materials and Accounts offices). There was a slot in his door into which requests are supposed to be dropped, post box style.

Something the Chief Reservation Manager said still haunted us though. ‘If there is no VVIP travelling at that time, you’ll get your coupe.’ A certain blog also mentioned that the TC can ‘arrange’ a coupe for you even after the charts were made if you only ‘gift’ him. Thanks to this, we were only partially relieved when an SMS appraised us of a coupe reservation.

A mewed her head off in the cab to the station. Once there, the noise of the trains and announcements pushed her to the very back of her carriage. She didn’t mew much but we could see her heart beat furiously. Her goggled eyes looked around in all directions. We couldn’t wait to get her into the quiet of the train.

Once inside, she stayed under the seat for about 6 hours. Only. After that, she wanted to be everywhere. We had read that pets don’t eat or poop when travelling. But we’d carried some treats which A readily had once she was comfortable with the space. Also drank water and use the litter once or twice. So relieved! 

Many thanks to Kaustubh Srikanth and Malika Bhavnani for taking time to write detailed mails about travelling with pets. Thanks to the awesome Clyde Nunes for offering to drive us down if we didn't get the coupe. Avantika Kapur, A loves the carriage, thank you! Varun Joshua, if you didn't let us bring A to your place, didn't know what we would've done! And of course, thanks to the Indian Railways for making A's first big journey comfortable!

Enjoy the pictures!

Best fifteen rupees spent ever!

The most amazing thing just happened!

If you call me on my number right now, you’ll hear a splendid old song - the title track of the Kishor Kumar 1961 classic Jhumroo.

I got a call from someone. Here’s how it went:

Hello sir, mein Sriram Finance se bol raha hoon. (Hello Sir, I'm calling from Sriram Finance.)

Ok.

Aapko koi loan ki requirement hai? (Do you have a loan requirement?)

Nahi. (No)

Accha theek hai sir, no problem. (Alright, no problem).

I was about to hang up when he said something that made my day.

Aapka caller tune sun-na tha. Mein waapus phone kar raha hoon. Aap receive mat kijiye. (I wanted to hear your caller tune. I'm calling you again, don't receive it please).

How I laughed when I hung up.

His call is lighting up my phone in silence mode right now!