On the Fringes of Scotland

 

Alright; now about Scotland, the next item I crossed off my bucket list a couple of weeks ago. I had a lovely time visiting Edinburgh and the highlands, even though it was a fairly short trip at less than three full days. I'll break up the visit into three parts: the food, the highlands, and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Edinburgh Castle

The Food 

Let's start at a very good place to start: breakfast. The pic above shows a typical Scottish breakfast, comprising the usual eggs and bacon, sausages, tomato, potatoes, a nice and crispy slice of mushroom, and toast, all of which I was well acquainted with. The new entrants were haggis (the brown circular cutlet-like piece), and black pudding, which despite its name turned out to be a black circular cutlet-like piece. Now here is where you vegetarians (all two of you, yes) stop reading and skip to the highlands. Black pudding is made from pork or beef blood, fat, and oatmeal, and is as sinful as you imagine. It's also quite tasty, despite being a bit dry.

Haggis is a mixture of sheep heart, liver, and lungs coupled with oatmeal, onions, and spices. You can eat it like a cutlet in the above picture, or with 'neeps and tatties' as in the pic on the right. Now these are actually cunningly disguised turnips and potatoes, which you discover later, much to your chagrin. The Scots call haggis a pudding too, but don't believe them. This isn't the pudding your mom fed you in India when you were all cold and feverish. What's more, you should be in the highlands by now. 

 Scotland offers other kinds of food as well, like this plate of fish and chips for the wife's dinner, and this nice bit of steak for the ever-hungry teenage boy. Said wife was also very happy with the devilishly well-made eggs she had for breakfast, and wound up skipping both lunch and dinner that day.

Fish, chips, and strangely enough, peas

 

 

 

 

Deviled eggs with the inevitable haggis below

 I would be remiss if I did not include the wonderful pulled pork roll we consumed at this appropriately titled restaurant, Oink. You decide your size, you pick your bread, choose your stuffing - which includes the omnipresent haggis, of course - and pick your sauce. You then plonk down if a seat's available, and dissolve into a state of bliss until you lick the sauces from your fingers and your stomach congratulates you on a job well done.

 

You know what would be remiss too, don't you? Oh, you do. Much to my surprise, you can't ask for Scotch in Scottish restaurants. Nor can you insist on single malt with a splash of ice, like you do in every Indian Bar and Restaurant ever. You have to go with whiskey, making sure you pronounce the 'e'. If you are a connoisseur like me, you can ask for a flight of whiskeys, sip all of them, and promptly forget the names of each one of them. They were all very good though, ranging from the less smokey to the very peatey. I slept quite peacefulley that night after the whiskeys.

The Highlands

Scotland is divided into two, as per our tour guide and bus driver, Neil. The highlands, which ye'll take, and the lowlands which I'll take to make sure I be in Scotland afore ye. Stretching from slightly north of Edinburgh to pretty much every other part of the country, the highlands are mountainous, sparsely populated, and comprise forests, castles, coastlines, and thirty three thousand lakes, called Lochs just to confuse the average tourist. Now the average tourist would make a beeline for Loch Ness, since they would have heard of Nessy, the monster that lives there. Not us though, the clever tourists that we are. Being brought up on a steady diet of Tintin comics, we headed to Loch Lomond, the closer (and more affordable) tour offered by Rabbie's. The lake and the surrounding hills are drop dead gorgeous, and is absolutely a must-visit if you are in the area. 

Inveraray, north-west of Loch Lomond

 We also got to visit multiple castles, some of which you may have seen on shows like Outlander or Game of Thrones, or in movies like Monty Python and the Holy Grail. In fact, Doune Castle has a souvenir shop that sells not just Python t-shirts and hats, but coconuts as well. 

Doune Castle, of Outlander & Winterfell fame (just S1E1 though)

Kilchurn Castle, stronghold of the Campbell Clan

 Cows in the highland have a shaggy mane, powerful horns, and are called Coos, to make them look cuter to tourists. They are apparently the oldest breed of cattle in the world, and have survived for centuries as Malayalees hadn't made the long voyage over yet. The three we met were called Hamish, Honey, and Baxter (the Efficient one). 

 

Edinburgh Festival Fringe

August 1947 witnessed two historic events. One was the completion of a 4300-mile long voyage on a wooden raft by Thor Heyerdahl, and the other was the start of the Fringe Festival at Edinburgh. The story goes that the Edinburgh International Festival was created to celebrate and enrich European cultural life in the wake of the Second World War. Eight theater groups who were not invited to this festival went ahead and did their own thing on the fringes of this event, thus establishing the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which now attracts millions of people from all over the world.  The festival organizers are committed to include anyone with a story to tell and a venue willing to host them. This makes August a crazy time to visit the city though, with streets packed with tourists, locals, and artists.

Street Performer at the Fringe Festival

The Royal Mile, connecting Edinburgh Castle and Holyrood House

We attended an hour of stand-up comedy where five performers took turns to come up on stage for ten minutes each, which was a lot of fun. We then went to KC Shornima's show at a bunker nearby, which we thoroughly enjoyed. I'd highly recommend checking her out - she's really good! The last was a rock show by this tribute band from Australia, called 27 Club. They play cover versions of songs from Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, and Amy Winehouse, all of whom died at 27. 

And Finally...

 I loved Scotland. The people were friendly and welcoming, the food was great, and the weather was just perfect during our visit. It's a very inclusive country, which actively invests in human rights. They were the first country in the world to protect, in law, the right to access free period products for everyone who needs them. I was pleasantly surprised to find tampons and pads in restrooms, marked as free. Their LGBTQI+ community seems vibrant and active, with a clear voice during the Fringe festival. They take pride in their heritage and culture without making a huge deal out of it. I'd visit again, in a heartbeat.

Bugged

I took the easy way out the other day at lunch. The easy way out was to pretend the cockroach in my food didn't exist and get back to work without barfing my guts out. I also resolved never to order food from that stall in the food court again. This resolution should last till end of the week. Hopefully.

It's been worrying me, though. Why didn't I create a fuss and demand to see the manager? Why didn't I demand a full month's lunch, free? Maybe because the cockroach was so tiny, it really wasn't their fault it had sneaked into my plate. Or maybe because the first thing that came to my mind was the old scene in movies where the hero tries to weasel out of paying for lunch by inserting a roach into his plate at the end of the meal. Balachandra Menon in Chiryo Chiri and Jayaram in Nagarangalil Chennu Raapparrkkam, if I remember correctly.

Which reminds me, it's time for lunch.

You know what?

Guys, we should do a bar camp pretty soon.

Thanks for the idea, .

The weekend that was

Revenge of the Sith had the corniest dialogue you can imagine. If you can sit through that and somehow remain awake for the first 100 minutes, then you'll enjoy some of the snazziest action ever seen on screen. Starting with Obi-Wan doing Greivous harm, moving on to Anakin getting converted to the Dark Side and winding up with the fantastic duel over lava, the last 45 minutes made it all worthwhile. If you are someone who hasn't watched a single Star Wars film, I recommend skipping the first two episodes and walking in halfway into the third.

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Thanks to , I'm now completely Friends-Only. Hurrah!

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Dinner at Sufi was a complete disaster. For starters, they did not have starters. Or at least, starters you could start with. There was also this wedding party going on at the basement which featured Cacofonix and his crew. He launched into a Carnatic rendition of Staying Alive, which we barely managed. Needless to add, the rain came pouring down as well. The plain rice was, well, plain. The green veggie thingy was absolutely unpalatable. The chicken was just about ok - at least the parts that were not burnt. Maybe we caught them on a bad day.

Blogging as usual

After a few weeks of being blase about blogging, we are back to our regular programming.

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I leave for San Jose on Sunday night. Will be passing through sunny Singapore, where I have a day to kill and a date to kill for. Will be back in Bangalore on the 31st.

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Had a good laugh watching Ju-On the other night. Sorry, ! I guess I'm too old for all this now.

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Dean Koontz once wrote a book called 'How to Write Bestselling Fiction'. While I don't rate Koontz very high as a writer, I thought he made a few good points. One that stuck with me was that a good book should always immerse the reader in the story so much that the reader shouldn't realize he is reading a book at all.

Stephen King's Wolves of the Calla starts off by dragging you deep into the story. Obviously inspired by Seven Samurai and other such epics, it does a fairly decent job of keeping the reader occupied. Occupied and happy till the last couple of pages, when King slaps you twice across the cheeks, pours cold water on you and jolts you awake, yelling "Hey, wake up, dummy! You are reading a book! Muahahahaha!". Jackass.

I'm not looking forward to reading Song of Susannah now, though I know I must. Ka.

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The office serves free lunch on Fridays, usually ordered from a nearby restaurant. The food is a mix of non-vegetarian and grass-roots fare and is almost always yummy. A co-worker brought his own lunch today, though. He told me it was to protest against the Benny Hinn event in Bangalore. No, seriously. He felt that he would be supporting the show if he ate the food at work, so he stuck to puliyogare and curd rice.

I think I'll pack up and go home now.

Last lap

Why did I order pasta? I can't stand pasta. Oh man, I'm really looking forward to Saturday when I head back to Bangalore. Tomorrow should be good too, my cousin has invited me and over for dinner. Beef fry is on the menu, yum yum.

Just got back from my tour of Cleveland and Atlanta. I honestly don't know what time zone I am in now. I give up.

The DVD haul, Hokker food, the Blr trained cabbie and the Immigration Incident

The trip was tiring but productive. The demo went off quite well; the project lead has given his endorsement. Didn't get too much time to shop in Penang, but I did manage to get a few dvds: Easy Rider, Last Tango in Paris, Stand By Me, Princess Mononoke, The Lion King and Kill Bill Vol 2 (for ). The store had the cover case of True Romance, but couldn't locate the actual disc for me. Maybe next time. Most of the other dvds available were the blockbuster variety, which I wasn't really interested in.

The sales folks I was helping out wanted to know what kind of food I wanted. I told them I was game for anything except Indian food and wanted to know the speciality of Penang. They spoke highly of what I heard as 'Hokker Food', so I signed up for that for a post-dinner snack, dinner being already booked at a Thai seafood restaurant. The dinner was quite good: I feasted on tiger prawns, chicken and fish, but I did leave some space for the promised Hokker stuff. Sure enough, my hosts took me to a place that looked a lot like Medical College Jn in Trivandrum, or Juhu beach in Mumbai. There were loads of vendors with carts and vans, selling fried rice, noodles, ice cream and what have you. Apparently, this is the speciality of Penang: Hawker Food. It wasn't all that bad, though.

I had changed my schedule a bit, so got into KL only by 4:30pm on Friday. My return flight to Blr was at 10:00pm, so I had a few hours to kill. I took an express train from the airport to the city, which covered about 75km in 28 minutes flat. Much impressed, I got off at the Sentral Station (no, not a typo) and hailed a cab to KLCC, which houses the famous Twin Towers of KL, the tallest building(s) in the world. The cab driver picked me up as well as another passenger and promised to drop us both at our respective destinations. Traffic was as its peak, reminded me of Bangalore/Mumbai rush hour. The cab driver, who had probably done his schooling in Bangalore, promptly drove on the wrong side, on the sidewalk and elbowed his way through. I could spot the towers in the distance when he pulled over, smiled at me and said "Only one dollar, sir. Please take the train from here". I didn't know any Malay swear words so I smiled back at him, de-cabbed and legged it to the said railway station. I wasn't sure whether the cabbie meant $1 or RM 1, but it turned out to be slightly more than a Ringgit and just two stops away. The train reminded me of Bombay too, just that it was cleaner and there weren't any bhajan singing folks around. The mall at KLCC is huge, pretty, choc-a-bloc with brands and expensive to boot. I wandered around for a while and then took a train to Sentral and the Express from there back to the airport.

The return flight was uneventful apart from the Immigration Incident. The immigration person, who usually exists only to wear out the official stamp, took one look at me, another at my passport and immediately called a lackey over. Whispered to the lackey. Both looked at me out of the corner of their eyes. I put on my best namma bangaluru face and grinned. Lackey smiled back and hauled me over to his boss, a tall, dark ogre who was eyeing other passengers. Ogre looked me up and down and asked a few questions about my company and my work, cleverly mixing English with Kannada. I replied keeping my sunny smile intact. He let me go after a while and I got my immigration papers stamped. I still don't know what that was all about.

Didn't take too many pics - didn't get time, frankly. Overall impression - Penang is a lovely, laid back city. Has a lot of islands nearby, which look like prime targets for a holiday. KL is very Mumbai, very New York. Lots of buildings, lots of cars, lots of people. Need to explore it more next time.

Last, I'd like to know who this Irving Savio Sequeira from Scandent Group is. He sent me a mail before I left, with the subject 'LJ' and content 'Heard you are in the region'. As far as I know, none of you good folks have the name Irving and my last LJ post was friends-only. Hmm. What gives?

How I spent my summer vacation

Through a window, clearly

The first glimpse of Kerala always floors me. The mode of transport doesn’t really matter. A train window does offer a different perspective compared to the view from above, but the effect is the same. Wonder. Happiness. Awe.

Sindha looked outside and said, "I see only coconut trees. Nothing else - no houses, no roads, nothing." I smiled back. I love this land.

The Heat

We could feel the difference in climate from the moment we alighted. Hot, humid, sultry as hell. Rachu got affected the most; the first day was pretty bad for her. She cried a lot after reaching home, got very cranky in the evening and scared off most people who came close to her. Luckily, we did have a bit of rain a couple of days later, which cooled things somewhat. Sleeping with the a/c turned on also helped. Rachu perked up immediately when the a/c kicked in. She grinned at us, did somersaults on the bed and went to sleep without too much fuss.

But it was still hot most days. We didn’t venture out anywhere during the day.

The Songs

It was all about one song, really. Lajjavathi was everywhere. Three year old kids who couldn’t put a normal sentence together were crooning the lyrics. Sixty six year old grand-moms whose last song sung was Aatmavidyalayame were singing while working. The song played in shops, in movie halls, from loudspeakers on cars on election duty and on every channel every day.

The song is quite catchy, of course. It’s easy to see why it’s such a big hit. Jassie Gift’s singing style adds a tangy flavor. However, I doubt if he can repeat this phenomenal success.

I bought a few CDs - 4 The People (of course), Hits of Manju Warrier, Bharatham, Panchagni+Nakhakshathangal+Kaathodu Kaathoram (the best Malayalam soundtrack CD ever) and an assorted collection of the latest hits.

The Books

I badly wanted to start reading Malayalam literature. I’ve always been ashamed of having read novels like Kazhakhinte Ithihasam and Yakshi in English, rather than their native Malayalam. Went to Current Books and bought a pile:

1. Kazhakhinte Ithihasam by OV Vijayan
2. Marthandavarma by CV Raman Pillai
3. Ummachu by Uroob
4. Mayyazhippuzhayude Theerathu by M Mukundan
5. Payyan Kathakal by VKN
6. Asuravithu by MT

Sindha bought Mrs. Mathew’s cookery book and an English translation of Premchand’s Godaan. I started reading Payyan Kathakal, found it light and enjoyable. The others will be more difficult, I guess. Might need a good dictionary, too.

The Movies

We couldn’t go for any movie, for obvious reasons. Or rather, one reason - li’l Miss Rachana Madhav. 4 The People and Vellinakshathram were the current hits, from what I understood. Mohan Lal had a new movie called Vismayathumbathu, which appears to be a pale reworking of Manichitrathazhu. No one apart from a few die hard fans seemed interested in the film. Sad to see one of the best actors of my generation slowly sink into oblivion.

The Friends

There aren't too many of my friends around aymore. Jamy is the only one from what I call my inner circle, who is still in Trivandrum. Sindha, Rachu and I went to Sreeji’s house and met his parents, two brothers and other folks. They were quite happy to see us, after a really long while. Met Jamy at his house, but he had a personal emergency and we couldn’t get too much time to sit and talk. We wanted to go to Jayasankar’s house too, but lacked the energy to go up to Vattiyoorkavu in the heat.

Sindha's circle has three friends, out of which two were in Trivandrum. We visited both of them. We also did the obligatory visiting neighbours thingy too. Smiles all around.

The Sights

Veli was packed with people the day we visited. I was sad to find that my favorite coconut tree, the one which leant over into the backwaters, was missing. That apart, it was quite relaxing to sit next to the lake, with the cool sea breeze gently touching your face. Rachu was delighted too - she really enjoyed being next to the water and watching the birds fly by.

We did visit Shankhumukham beach too, but the kid was exhausted by then and we had to leave.

The Food

Staying at Sindha’s place is always fun. I never feel hungry from the moment I step in. Chicken - curry and chilly, three different varieties of fish - each fried and curried, tapioca, mutton cutlets, crab curry, fried prawns and the usual vegetarian spread of avial, sambar, thoran, ithyadi. The whole trip was one gastronomic delight. I also managed to get meat puffs from Jayaram Bakery and halwas (pineapple, grape and fig) from Sweet Mahal.

Net increase: 2.5 kilos per person. Rachu has also put on weight. Not bad for a week’s visit.

The End

Back in Bangalore. Back to routine, back to work. Back to pressures and deadlines, expenses and bills. But also back to what we can really call home.

Biriyani Merchant

Just had lunch at Biriyani Merchant, the paradise on earth new restaurant on Castle Street, off Richmond Road. The food was out of this world pretty decent. I am salivating at the thought of might go there again.


You start by reading what looks like a menu but turns out to be a story of the origins of the biriyani, along with a brief bio of the owner, Mr Biriyani Merchant himself. The menu for the day is fixed, your only choice is vegetarian or non. You sneer at the vegetarian and get going on the two non-veg starters - one chicken, one mutton. There are four varieties of salads/raithas, one pickle and papads on the side.

The biriyanis come rolling in next. You are served three varieties, one following the other. You gulp down the first (Calicut Prawns Biriyani) just in time for the next (Hyderabadi Chicken). You sit back and burp when the third (Awadhi Ghost) arrives. The waiter stops by five minutes later, when you are surreptitiously loosening your belt, to ask: "Sir, which biriyani would you prefer as the main course?". You goggle at him and mutter something about prawns. He comes back with another serving of Prawns Biriyani. Unlimited, of course.

Some time later, the fingerbowls are out, you lie back on the seat. You can't move. The waiter arrives yet again with a serving of the day's sweet (Double ka meetha). You nibble at it, decide it's delicious, you wolf it down and order one more. A serving of Sulaiman Tea brings up the finale.

Mr Biriyani Merchant stops by your table, asking about the food. You restrain yourself from falling at his feet and proclaiming that you are not worthy. You also restrain yourself from gushing about the restaurant, on LiveJournal. After all, it's just another meal.

1 to 4

, Hypnos, Biriyani and Prawn fry. Aaah !

God's Own Restaurant

Tried out this new restaurant at Koramangala (near Jyothi Nivas College), called Padippura. Man, its probably the best mallu restaurant I've been to. Then again, like says, aren't they all ?

This place has a buffet lunch, kerala style, for just Rs 75 ! The decor is really good and quite unlike the one-step-better-than-a-mess ones I've visited recently. Buffet menu: chicken, fish, boiled rice, white rice, avial, sambar, theeyal, thoran, mezhukku purattiyathu, chammandi, pappadam, sambharam and payasam. Burp !

In news from the email front, I switched back to hotmail from netscape. Sorry, I just had to use an id thats stable and will survive in the long run. So sue me.