Drinking Man

Fifteen men on the dead man's chest
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
Drink and the devil had done for the rest
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!

I probably read Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island sometime in the early-1980s, approximately one hundred years after he wrote it. I must have been nine or ten years old at that time and the short poem above, which is from the book, made no sense to me back then. But it did seem quite catchy and has somehow remained in my memory over the decades that have passed since.

I quite used to like rum myself. Old Monk, with a bit of Coke mixed in, with lots of ice in it – I used to love that and, more often than not, I drank a quarter bottle of Old Monk once a week. Usually by myself, though sometimes I did have company. I used to look forward to that one day of the week – usually Saturday but it could be any other day also – when I’d wait until 7-7.30 pm and then open up my quarter of Old Monk, pour it out in a glass, add some chilled Coke (often placed in the freezer at least 30 minutes ago) and half a dozen cubes of ice. I’d put on some of my favourite music, often songs from Hindi films of the 1970s-80s or maybe some Jagjit Singh ghazals, and proceed to enjoy the next hour and a half.

What I’ve Learned

The inspiration for writing this came from Esquire – they have this ‘What I’ve Learned’ series where they get stars and celebrities – all people who’ve been very successful at something or the other – to share the pearls of wisdom that they’ve acquired over the years. Some of these are a bit fatuous but some others are very interesting indeed. After reading a collection of these pieces, I thought I should write one of these myself even though I’m not a star / celebrity and haven’t really been very successful at anything I’ve ever done. Be that as it may, I am now 53 years old, I like to think I’ve seen a bit of life and do have some thoughts to share.

Esquire, of course, won’t be asking me to be part of their ‘What I’ve Learned’ series anytime soon. Not in this lifetime. But luckily enough, I have this blog and here I can write whatever I want. And so here we are, here’s what I’ve learned.

Starbucks vs Mathura Walla

My 17-year-old son is a big fan of the local Starbucks here in Greater Noida, where he and a bunch of his teenager friends often hang out. While they usually have limited amounts of cash to spend there, they know there’s always UPI payments. While my son is still two months away from having his own savings bank account and cannot yet make UPI payments on his own, some of his friends do have a PayTM wallet and can make payments. For bigger payments, which they can’t manage on their own, all they have to do is call up somebody or the other’s parents, share a QR code and the payment is made.

Most parents – certainly including my wife and I – have come to accept the fact that everyday there will be demands for UPI payments. Cabs. Coffee. Snacks. Movie tickets. Autorickshaw rides. Rapido bike rides. And, less frequently, clothes, shoes and gifts for friends’ happy birthdays. It’s a never-ending drain on our resources but one that we have, unfortunately, had to learn to live with.

Some parents don’t seem to be too bothered with this and seem to think it’s okay for teenagers to blow thousands of rupees every month on random frivolous expenses. Not on things that kids necessarily need, only stuff they want. Stuff they can easily do without. Yes, parents with higher disposable incomes might not feel the pinch while those on a tighter budget may find frivolous spending harder to deal with. But regardless of their parents’ financial means, I do find it bothersome that most teenagers these days refuse to understand that money in middle-class households is hard-earned and that it is a limited resource. Someone has had to work hard to earn the damn stuff and others need to be prudent while spending.

Not My God

I was born into a Hindu family and just about everyone in the family is at least reasonably, moderately religious. Some – including my wife – are deeply religious. As is common in many Hindu households, we have a small temple in one corner of our apartment, where a small selection of Gods and Goddesses are ensconced – comfortably, I hope – and my wife and parents pay their respects there every day, in the morning, for a few minutes. My wife, a devout Hindu, also goes to a neighbourhood temple every day, in the evening, for a second round of prayers. No harm in receiving a double dose of Godly blessings, I suppose, and she says the 20-minute walk does her some good anyway, which must be true.

Regardless of which religion they follow, I have no problem with the devout. Well, except for the indiscriminate use of loudspeakers, which I wrote about earlier. When it comes to religion, there can’t be one single path that everyone must follow. Godliness can’t be one-size-fits-all. For those who regularly go to temples, mosques, churches and other places of worship – if it makes them feel good, if it works for them, that’s just great. For those who regularly spend a few minutes – or even an hour or two, as the case may be – every day to pray or meditate, if it brings peace to their minds and happiness to their hearts, that’s just awesome.  

Of Musical Keyboards and New Beginnings

I recently sold my Yamaha PSR E453 (not shown here) and hope to get this Casio CT-S1 soon!

The first time I saw a musical keyboard was probably in 1990-91, when I’d just started going to college, in Lucknow. There was this one time when I’d gone to my friend Shobhit’s house and there, for the first time, saw a small, compact Casio keyboard and immediately liked it very much. With all its lights, buttons, switches and fancy sounds, the little Casio looked quite cool and I absolutely loved it right away. I think that keyboard belonged to one of Shobhit’s elder brothers and I assumed it might be fairly expensive. So, while I wished I could have one too, I didn’t really imagine I’d be getting one anytime soon.

However, I soon got lucky beyond my wildest dreams. A few days after seeing that Casio keyboard at Shobhit’s house, I mentioned the whole thing to one of my best friends, Manish, and told him about how fascinated I was with that Casio and how I wished I could have one, so I could learn to play. Immediately, he said he had one too – his father had got one for him from the US – and that since he wasn’t really very keen on playing music, I could have it for as long as I wanted! The next time Manish came to my place – I was living with my grandparents at that time, since my father had been transferred to Bareilly and my parents had moved there – he got his keyboard along with him and handed it to me. I have to admit, I was very, very happy! This was also a small, compact keyboard, white, and every bit as cool as the one I’d seen at Shobhit’s house. However, I don’t remember if it was a Casio or a Yamaha – this was 35 years ago after all – but I think it may have been a Yamaha keyboard. 

Kishore Kumar and the Incredible Power of AI

Legendary singer Kishore Kumar passed away in 1987. With the magic of AI, his voice has been brought back to life for this new song, which is from the movie Saiyaara

 

I know it's not him. It's not Kishore Kumar's voice. It can't be. The legend passed away in 1987, when he was just 58 years old. My childhood and teenage years were filled with his music - so many songs, so many memories of sitting by a record player and, later, a cassette player and listening to Kishore Kumar's songs. Such a powerful voice, such resonance. 

Today, when I heard this new AI-generated version of the movie Saiyaara's title song, which has been co-created by musicians Kisna and Anshuman Sharma, it first came as an incredible shock. How can it be?! It's THAT voice, the one I knew and loved so well. The singer whose songs I still listen to all the time even today, almost 40 years after he passed away. And yet, here he is, again. Singing, like he used to. It's the 1980s all over again. I know, of course, that it isn't Kishore Kumar who's singing that song. It's just an AI-generated representation of what he might have sounded like, had he sung this song. But it still brought tears to my eyes. Tears of happiness. I couldn't stop crying. Tears flow, every time I listen to this song. I try to sing along and I can't, my voice gets choked with emotion.  

There will never, ever, be another Kishore Kumar. He'll remain unmatched. But I'm grateful that AI tech was able to bring him back, even if only for four minutes, for just one song, just this once. 

Time Traveller: My HMT Jawahar

The Jawahar, with its hand-winding mechanical movement, dates back to the early-1970s

I just bought a new watch. Only, this ‘new’ watch is around 55 years old, which makes it just a bit older than I am. It’s an HMT Jawahar, which is powered by a 17-jewel mechanical hand-winding movement. I bought it from a seller in Calcutta, whom I came across on a Facebook group for HMT watch enthusiasts. The deal was surprisingly hassle-free. I got in touch with the seller and asked him to send some photos of the watch, which he did. The watch looked clean and I liked it. Made the payment. He sent the watch via India Post which, as one may expect, did get the watch all the way from Calcutta to Greater Noida but did not deliver it to my house, making up some excuse about the door being locked at the time of attempted delivery. Yeah, right. In any case, the post office is not too far from my house and I went there, spoke to some guy who was sitting in a corner sorting mail and assorted packages, and he in turn spoke to another guy who found my package sitting in a random cupboard and handed it over to me after making me sign a piece of paper. And with that, I became the proud owner of a really, really old mechanical watch, one that I’ve been wanting to get my hands on for the last many months.

The Jawahar was one of the first watches to be manufactured by HMT Watches, which was set up in Bangalore in 1961. This was in collaboration with one of the biggest watch companies in Japan, Citizen. The Jawahar is powered by the HMT 0231 hand-winding movement, which I’m told is essentially an adaptation of Citizen's 0201 movement that incorporates the latter’s ‘Parashock’ shock protection system. And indeed, ‘Parashock 17 Jewels’ is imprinted on the Jawahar’s dial – a nice little touch for people like me, who love to wallow in horological nostalgia.

In Search of the End of the Road

I suppose I’m a shifty character. Wait, let me explain. I’m not saying I’m deceitful, devious or particularly insincere. What I meant is, I’m always ‘shifting.’ Moving, that is. Moving from one house to another, changing neighbourhoods, moving from one city to the next… again and again, all over the country. It wasn’t always like this. I did stay in my hometown, Lucknow, for the first twenty years of my life though even there I did move houses four times over those two decades. But after I moved out of Lucknow, to Bareilly, moving from one place to the next became the norm in my life. From Bareilly to Baroda to Bareilly to Lucknow to Bombay to Pune to Bombay to Dehradun to Greater Noida to Dehradun to Greater Noida to Bombay to Pune to Greater Noida. That’s more than a dozen moves between six different cities spread across four different States across the country. And that doesn’t even include the number of times I moved houses within the same city!

Lady Gaga - Vanish Into You

Vanish Into You, by Lady Gaga, is rocking!

Lady Gaga is rocking with some of her recent releases and of those, my number 1 favourite is this song, Vanish Into You. The other is Abracadabra, reimagined in 1980s style. See below. I think it's better than the original. Both songs remind of the music I used to listen to, back in the 1980s. You go, Gaga!

Battle of the Laptops: The Pursuit of Coolness

The Lenovo Ideapad Slim 5 Gen 10 (model no. 13ARP10), with its 13.3-inch WUXGA IPS display and Ryzen 7 processor, is perhaps the Windows laptop to buy for those who want an M4-powered Apple MacBook Air but don't want to spend Rs 1.20 lakh

Last month, I’d written about my son’s laptop. Or rather, the fact that the old one was broken and we were looking to buy a new one. Having told my son that I’d been using computers for close to 40 years, had set up and run an animation, video editing and computer graphics training institute in the mid-1990s and had once headed the writers’ team at CHIP (a leading computers/technology magazine back in the late-1990s), I assumed he would be sufficiently impressed. And that he would not question my wisdom in selecting a laptop that would be best suited to his requirements. Clearly, I was clueless about just how hard - perhaps even impossible - it is to impress the young these days.

My son has finished school about a month ago and will soon be starting college. Which would mean some homework, maybe a few college assignments. Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, Excel sheets, web browsing, emails, video chats and watching videos. That should be about it, right? So, I suggested we get something with an i3, i5 or Ryzen 5 (hexa-core) U-series processor, 16GB of RAM, 512GB SSD, 15.6-inch screen and a good display, ideally a full-HD IPS LCD. A fair number of such laptops are currently offered by manufacturers like Acer, HP, Asus, Lenovo, Dell and MSI, at prices ranging between Rs 35,000 to 45,000. Laptops with an IPS display are a bit more expensive than those with non-IPS displays but still cheaper than OLED displays.

What’s With the F***ing Loudspeakers?!?

One of the things I miss most from the past, from my growing up days in Lucknow, is… peace. Peace and quiet. I was born in Lucknow and spent a good 20 years in that city before moving out to Bareilly. And in those 20 years, we lived in four different houses, in different residentials areas across the city. And in all those years, wherever we lived, I don’t remember ever being subjected to loudspeakers. Not once. Sure, people still celebrated all festivals, happy new years, birthdays, anniversaries and… whatever else there may have been to celebrate. People celebrated with joy and enthusiasm and with a genuine sense of neighbourhood camaraderie. But without the noise. Without massive loudspeakers blaring out jarring music at earsplitting levels of volume. Without the incessant noise, which today makes me want to get the hell out of Delhi-NCR and move to some small, remote village somewhere up in the mountains of Himachal.

Looking to buy a Laptop: Hey RAM!

Getting a laptop that ticks all the boxes, at a price that fits your budget, isn't the easiest thing in the world. But as long as you know what exactly to look for, you should be okay

I was looking to buy a new smartphone in October last year and, at that time, wrote about how unexpectedly complex the selection process has become. This time around, I’m looking to buy a new laptop for my son, who’ll be going to college later this year. He happened to drop his laptop 2-3 months ago and one of its hinges is now broken, along with cracks in the bodywork and a cracked bezel. Repairable, yes, but repairs will be fairly expensive. Plus, other issues include a non-IPS LCD display that has very poor viewing angles, and poor battery backup. So, it’s time for this laptop to go and for us to buy a new one.

My son uses his laptop for many hours every day. Most of his school assignments are done on the laptop. And since he also runs a small NGO and is heavily involved with multiple other events and activities, there are online meetings, video chats, image and video editing work, making presentations, working on documents, and… you get the drift. The last time we bought a laptop for him – an Acer Extensa, powered by an Intel Core i3 N305 processor, along with just 8GB of RAM – it turned out to be a mistake. The Acer’s performance levels were quite okay – no complaints there – but its non-IPS LCD display turned out to be very bad. I had ordered the laptop online, on Amazon, and had no way of knowing in advance that the display on a 35,000-Rupee laptop could be so bad! I did try to return the laptop right away but Acer wouldn’t accept the return, saying that they won’t take it back since there was no actual ‘defect’ in it and that there was no ‘malfunction’ as such. Amazon India couldn’t help with this either and we were stuck with the damn thing.

Recommended Read: Challenger, by Adam Higginbotham

Close to four decades ago, NASA and the American space program faced one of their biggest setbacks ever. In January 1986, one of the two rocket boosters attached to the space shuttle Challenger sprung a leak and exploded. The explosion happened just 73 seconds after the shuttle had taken off and Challenger crashed into the Atlantic Ocean less than three minutes later, killing all seven astronauts on board. It was a disaster of epic proportions and one that was watched live, on television, by millions of Americans. 

The story of how – and why – this disaster happened has been told in bits and pieces in thousands of magazine and newspaper articles, and on many TV shows. But now we have Adam Higginbotham’s book, Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space, which was published in 2024 and which is the full, deeply researched, comprehensive account of what really happened on that day in ’86 and how a multi-million-dollar piece of machinery fell apart due to sheer carelessness, apathy and incompetence of those involved. The book is an incisive piece of work, sharp and very well-written.

Sipani Badal Rides Again

The late-1970s Sipani Badal, at the INDEA booth, at the Bharat Mobility Global Expo 2025

 

Okay, not really. I mean, the Sipani Badal isn’t really coming back in any shape or form. But for one glorious week, this three-wheeled plastic-fantastic from the ’70s had showgoers – at the Bharat Mobility Global Expo 2025 – in its thrall. This was, mind, India’s premier automotive show, where car and motorcycle manufacturers were busy taking the covers off their latest, greatest electric vehicles that are all the rage these days. Swoopy, swanky styling, powerful electric motors, batteries that charge quickly and allow vehicles to be driver farther than ever before, and plush, luxurious cabins filled with high-tech electronics, ADAS and big touchscreens – that was the vision of mobility shown at this year’s Expo. And yet, amongst all this glitter and EV-glamour, the stone-simple Badal held its own, bringing happy smiles to the hundreds of people who visited the INDEA booth from 17^th to 22^nd January.

Recommended Read: Ghosts of K2

Here’s an honest admission: I’m not much of a climber. When holidaying in Nainital, I often take a cab to go from the Mall Road up to whatever hotel I happen to be staying in, usually not more than 2-3km away. Forget about mountains, I even take the elevator when going up to my apartment, which is on the 2nd floor of the building I currently live in. And yet, I do have this strange fascination for reading about adventures in climbing, of great exploits in extreme mountaineering. Real accounts of people risking life and limb to get to the top of some piece of rock. I mean, getting to the top of something like Mount Everest or K2 entails suffering extreme physical hardship, tolerating intense cold and freezing winds, facing difficulties in breathing due to lack of adequate oxygen and coming to terms with extreme dangers that include the risk of losing toes and fingers to frostbite. And, of course, there's the ever-present risk of death. More than scaring the hell out of me, which it certainly does, extreme mountaineering leaves me confused. It’s simply incomprehensible to me. Why do it at all?!? But I guess that is what separates a couch potato like me from mountaineering heroes, the people who have astonishing courage, the sheer indomitable will to achieve something that is impossible for 99.99% of the rest of us.

In the context of the above, I just finished reading ‘Ghosts of K2,’ a terrific book by author Mick Conefrey, who has laid out the saga of how people started trying to climb K2 in the early 20th century and how an Italian team became the first to summit the great, savage mountain in the 1950s. Many tried, most failed, some died. Even for those who succeeded, controversies dogged them for the rest of their lives. But the story of the sheer effort – the planning, the massive resources, the logistics, the manpower, the technology – required to go up a mountain like K2, and actually getting to the summit, is simply brilliant. It’s a story that unfolds over many decades and Conefrey has done a very good job of telling that story. If you are at all interested in mountaineering – or even stories of extreme adventures of any kind - I’d suggest you get a copy of this book. The paperback is available on Amazon, for a mere Rs 375.

Book Review: Secondhand - Travels in the New Global Garage Sale

Humanity is drowning in a sea of… stuff. You know, stuff, things we can’t stop buying. Shoes, clothes, furniture, electrical home appliances, kitchenware, digital devices, automobiles. We buy stuff to use, to show to others, to keep up with the neighbours, to give as gifts, to store so it can be used ‘someday.’ We buy stuff for the pleasure that its ownership gives to us, we buy stuff so we can pass it on to our children someday, we buy because we fall for the marketing that makes us believe we need to ‘upgrade,’ and we buy stuff because, well, because we can. But how many of us ever stop to think, even for a minute, what happens to all our stuff once we are done with it, when we no longer have any use for it and when we don’t want to keep it any longer? Where does it go, what happens to it, where it ends up? Adam Minter’s book, Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale is a thought-provoking read that encourages us to pause and think about the afterlife of the things we buy, once we sell, donate or discard those things. It’s an unexpectedly interesting story that takes you all over the world, exploring the world of ‘secondhand,’ which in some ways almost functions like a parallel universe, a shadow economy that barely accounted for.

Motoring: Days of Thunder

I pull a wheelie as part of my 'work' at Motoring, as Shumi, who was then head of two-wheeler content at the magazine, looks on. The pic was clicked by the indefatigable Param

In an earlier post, I wrote about moving on from TechTree to join Motoring, an automotive monthly magazine which was, at that time, published by the Business Standard group. The story continues here...

On my very first day at work with Motoring, the team was heading out for a photoshoot of the Mitsubishi Pajero, an old-school SUV powered by a 2.8-litre diesel engine. The hulking vehicle was parked outside the Motoring office, which is on PB Marg in Lower Parel. Editor Bijoy handed over the keys to me and asked me to drive. There were other cars parked one inch ahead and one inch behind the Pajero and I slowly, carefully, manoeuvred it out of the parking slot, silently cursing the morons who had parked their cars so close to the Pajero, leaving almost no space for the massive SUV to move either forward or back. Thankfully, after a lot of twirling of the steering wheel and inching the vehicle forward and back, I was finally able to get it out of its parking slot. The team trooped in and off we went to the photoshoot location. My first drive/shoot for Motoring went off without any incident and we were back in office by afternoon. After a quick lunch of sambhar and masala dosa at a nearby joint, I spent the rest of the day just sitting around and talking to the team, trying to understand how Motoring functioned and how things worked in the office.

The Mind-Boggling Complexity of Buying a Phone in 2024

Last week, my phone died. It had served me well for a long time, so no complaints there. The only problem is, I hadn’t realised just how complicated it is, in 2024, to choose a phone if you’re buying a new one. Well, I guess it probably isn’t that complicated for the very rich. In that case, you either buy an iPhone 16 Pro Max that currently retails for Rs 1.45 lakh (if you’re an Apple fanboy) or a Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra (if you’re an Android loyalist) that’s currently priced at Rs 1.22 lakh. And that’s it, you’re done, you get the best of everything at a price that’s completely unaffordable for the rest of us.

Bicycle No More

That's me, riding my Avon Buke from school to home, in Lucknow, sometime in the mid-1980s

When I was younger – in school, during my early teenage days in Lucknow – I had a bicycle, an Avon Buke, and I used it to get around everywhere. It wasn’t a fancy bicycle – it was a basic, single-speed bike, like the kind most kids used back then. It did not have a zillion gears, which seems de rigueur these days, but that did not make it any less usable – when you hit a steep incline, you just pedalled harder. No suspension, but you could always pedal around ruts and potholes instead of going through them. And no disc brakes either, but the regular brakes – essentially bits of rubber that would rub against the wheel rims when you squeezed the brake levers – were adequate for the rather modest speeds that my bicycle could do.

Marking Time: My Fascination with Watches

Buying one is well beyond my means, but I do love mechanical Swiss watches. Thankfully, companies like Timex, Seiko and Citizen are also making some really cool watches these days that are vastly more affordable than those high-end Swiss watches

I currently don’t own a watch and haven’t actually worn one for quite some time now. And yet, one of my favourite pastimes is looking at watches on the Internet; watch manufacturers’ websites, used watches websites, Amazon and Flipkart. In fact, I especially enjoy looking at watches on Amazon and Flipkart and my ‘process’ for this is always the same. I first search for ‘men’s watches’ or ‘watches for men,’ and then use the filters provided to fine-tune the results. The filters are everything, they help you separate the wheat from chaff. You can choose which brands you want to see. Band material and colour. Case size and shape, dial colour, display type, movement type. Price range. The permutations and combinations are practically endless.