Spanish Flamenco comes to a close

This is an ode to the Spanish lessons I was taking for the past couple of months. It is difficult to translate in English what it meant to learn Spanish!!! It is exhilarating to just sit in a class of 25 students with no baggage of past knowledge and wisdom just like a kindergarten kid to imbibe elementary nuances of a language.

Spanish is a true "romance language" and I realised that speaking Spanish with the right intonation, phonetics and orthoepy is like music to my untrained, non-native ears!!! Each class brought with it the excitement of learning new vocabulary, new rules of grammar, discovery of more and more common roots between English and Spanish words (Latin being the mother language of both). I must also confess all was not hunky dory during these months of literary adventure. Ensconced within those hours of joyous discoveries and learning were the moments of frustration on coming across the dreaded "exceptions to rules". At times there seemed to be more exceptions to rules than those confirming to these rules. For instance it nonplussed us that day is masculine (el dia) but night is feminine (la noche). Hence it is "buenos dias" and "buenas noches" for good morning and good night respectively.

On the upside Spanish is a very phonetic language, you read and pronounce what you write unlike English. Also once you get the grammatical agreement between masculine and feminine and singular and plural in place more than half the battle is won. But it is easier said than done is a different story altogether! Also the endless list of verbs to be mastered (of course, with the ubiquitous "exceptions") is no mean challenge. Each day of Spanish lessons for me has been an exercise in stimulating the tired and wearied grey cells and bringing them out of the rut of mundaneness. Even this task of writing about the entire experience has filled me with an enthusiasm and energy that is prodigious to say the least. I am just thankful for having gotten a chance to acquaint myself with this wonderful language.

Gracias a la vida!

B2B

B2B here has no connections whatsoever to the plebeian meaning of business-to-business transactions in the marketing sense of the term. It is a more personalized term here, referring to the newest happening thing of my life – “Back to B-school” (albeit for a shorter stint than I would have liked, I admit).

Since the time I started working I had been sorely missing the feel of being a student. The longing and wistfulness was addressed to some extent by the weekend Spanish classes. Not a believer of half-measures, I plunged head on at the first given opportunity to get back to a real classroom.

Now the subject I am learning might come as a surprise to many, even I surprised myself by deciding to study it. Econometrics was very much an elective which I could have opted for while pursuing my MBA in environmental management. But I decided not to opt for it owing to a multitude of factors at that time. Its utility in quantitative research can’t be denied. The current situation is overwhelmingly conducive to study this subject. I would say a lot of things happened which I can only term as sheer coincidences which goaded me to begin my journey in this applied field.

I learnt about the usefulness and practical value of this bailiwick while attending a practitioner’s conference on evaluation of developmental programs. There I learnt that the power of making time series estimations is not one to be underestimated (pun intended). Even as I was listening to erudite professors holding forth on econometric techniques in the development sector, a mail popped in my inbox announcing this opportunity to join the IFMR B-school to study econometrics for 25 hours flat! Hurrah!!! Now I would be able to fully appreciate the finer nuances of this science by intelligibly following the meat of all the technical discussions.

Hopefully Bikram, soon we will be on the same page when discussions veer towards propensity score matching (PSM), difference in difference etc. So here I am crossing my fingers to take my newest endeavour to its logical conclusion!

**The MAST KALANDAR Effect **

When you wantsomething, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it- Paulo Coelho

"Take your akka-anna for chawal channa” went the tagline and for once the fare inside lived up to the tagline outside. You may wonder what this mast kalandar effect is all about. I will wax eloquent about all of it shortly. I am still reveling in the after effect of eating out at MAST KALANDAR – a north Indian eat out joint promising authentic desi combos. All the details of this place in greater granularity a little later.

I want to give the exact sequence of events that led up to my best gourmet experience in Chennai thus far. In retrospect, I would like to say that there was a positive aura when I set out from home yesterday. Let me list out all the “positive and good” things that happened en route-

• I was taking a walk after a long time (Yes, finally I can come out of the guilt trip)
• I was walking to the beach (yippee!)
• On the way to the beach bought a book for a good bargain (a real good omen, isn’t it?)
• First visit to a temple after coming to Chennai
• A quiet and peaceful half a kilometer trek along the serene coastline
• Sinful cup of chocolate mousse at a French bakery

Now the moment arrived! I was on the walk back home with the friend and we just spotted this funky and riotously colourful signage – Mast Kalandar, the name did it. We decided to check it out. I have to admit that I liked it from the word go, the spacious interiors, peppy colours of the walls, the comfortable seating, the LCD screen displaying the Italy-New Zealand fixture and the aroma of dal-makhni and paneer curry.

We ordered the quintessential North Indian fare – butter naan, dalmakhni, paneer – the food was lip smacking and along came the complementary raita, which had just the right amount of salt, sugar and spices and a smattering of coriander. After finishing the meal I had a beatific smile on my face. I didn’t know what I had been missing so sorely until I stepped into Mast Kalandar. Finally I can recommend a restaurant to my colleagues (up until now I was always bugging them to suggest decent places). Mast Kalandar, you surely have found a new patron!

New (& single) girl in the city!!!

Lots of newspaper columns and blog posts have been filled in the past about the trials and tribulations of single (working) women in the big bad cities - well, this one is different. For me relocating to Chennai has been a pleasant and smooth transition. I had heard horror stories about how haunting the house hunting expeditions could be. My first day of Mission House Hunting henceforth referred to as MHH was hilarious to say the least.

Just walking across the road from the office guest house where I was temporarily put up, I sighted this small sticker on the wall advertising “decent furnished houses for rent” with a contact number. That’s it! No name, no information on the location of those “decent furnished houses” on the ad sticker. With all the enthusiasm of a person freshly into MHH I immediately punched the contact number.

A Tamil voice responded from the other side, very businesslike. Yes, he was a real estate guy he said and asked me how I had gotten his number. I tried to explain to him my exact coordinates (with my dubious knowledge of Chennai roads and streets) to the best of abilities and with each of my attempt he grew happier and told me that he was somewhere nearby and asked me to reach a prominent landmark of that locale within 15 minutes as he had just the perfect place for me. Now came the sticky part, how were we supposed to identify each other. He said he was wearing this orange shirt with white stripes and a black trouser. I reached the mutually agreed upon place much before him and while waiting had a panic attack. Should I get onto the bike or car of this stranger to go and see this “perfect place”? Hadn’t I been foolhardy in my rush to find a place? But thankfully “the perfect place” was just round the corner and we walked to that place.

The house was fine though the building was tellingly old. Most disappointingly the landlady had stuffed the place with all the unwanted stuff from her house and the place looked like a humongous godown. Muthu (the real estate guy) read the disappointed look on my face and started making placating noises and I decided to keep this place as a backup if the worst came to worst. The MHH ended on a happy note a week later with me finding a house in a locality near the office. The icing on the cake was I didn’t shell out a penny on the brokerage, as the house was discovered by me through an online advertisement.

Getting my own place in the city was really a big relief. It was nothing short of cathartic, what with MHH taking a toll on my nerves and trying to figure out a decent and pocket friendly eating joint everyday (remember this is was before I got my first pay cheque) was turning into a pain. With managing a household, came along the responsibility of stocking it with the minimum essentials, buying groceries etc. The first week went off in a blur. But the location of my new house I must say is really strategic, on the one side are these really big houses with well tended lawns and gardens and the adjoining road leads up to this market place with all the big shops with swanky brands and on the other side are the modest houses and they too have their own small market to serve their requirements. I like to call these the BoP (Bottom of the Pyramid) markets that serve everything from salt to sugar and tamarind to all kinds of spices in quantities customized to cater to the customers’ needs. This market has been my mainstay in the past two months. I like both of these markets. The former for its huge “window shopping” value and my occasional buying sprees and indulgences and the latter for its high utility value in my day to day routine.

Now a word on the attitude of Chennai people. I found them very forthcoming especially when it came to helping me with directions whenever I lost my way in the city. I remember one of the Reader’s Digest surveys some two years back ranking cities by their friendliness to strangers etc. Chennai surely gets my vote on this one.

But it is not all goody goody though. On the downside I can’t bear the humid weather here. Worst, it stays the same all through the year. Two minutes out of the door and you are sweating buckets! I also have a huge issue with the city public transport system – the bus stops just aren’t marked / named, how is a person supposed to know where to get off?

Still the overall Chennai report card is in the green for me and I hope it stays so for the remainder of my stay in the city. Amen!

Inane chatter...

Only the self absorbed and the self obsessed narcissists blog. Not me, NEVER. Those were my thoughts not long back. Understandably things have pretty much changed since then. But still this needs lot of "getting used to". I will keep my first ever blog post short and sweet. My course of work these days involves lots of reading and this set me thinking that I should share my reflections on what I read, with the larger world out there. This is the raison d'etre for Gaia Gander.

The story behind how this blog came to be named is interesting. I had sent in "Gaia Gander" as a competition - title entry for the new office newsletter. But fortunately my carefully thought out gem lost in the rat race and as a consolation today I hereby, christen this blog "Gaia Gander". Now a little bit of gyan on the etymology. Named after the Greek goddess of the earth and the innate desire to visually perceive things that happen in the surroundings, through this blog I will strive to put forth my humble views on all and sundry with special focus on all issues "green and blue".