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.

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. 

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!

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.

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.

Minimal: Dreaming of a Phone that Does Less

By doing less than most modern conventional smartphones, the Minimal Phone promises to give you back some of your life. I want the Minimal Phone now!

Much as I hate to admit it, my life has been taken over by my smartphone. I’m a slave to an innocuous, 6.5-inch slab of glass and metal. It’s a pocketable supercomputer that allows me to make phone calls (both voice and video calls), access emails, take photographs and instantly share those with whoever I want to, send and receive text messages, photos and videos, make and receive payments instantly (I hardly ever carry cash these days), do all my online shopping, help me navigate across the city, book cabs, flights and hotel rooms… the list is endless. The sheer range of things that a modern smartphone will allow you to do is nothing short of astonishing.

I was a tech journalist until the early-2000s and used to write about computers and technology. This was 25 years ago and if someone had suggested at that time that there would, in the future, be a small, pocketable device – a 'smartphone' – that would allow you to do all of what I’ve mentioned above, I would have probably thought the idea quite preposterous. After all, I was still going to a PCO (anyone remember those?) to make international calls in the early-1990s, when I was in Bareilly. By the late-1990s I had moved to Bombay, started working as tech writer for CHIP magazine and subsequently started using a Nokia 5110, my very first mobile phone. Making and receiving calls was still prohibitively expensive back then, and I used that phone sparingly. Gradually, call rates dropped over the years and the ancient 5110 was replaced by the sleek little Nokia 8210, but usage was still restricted to only making and receiving phone calls, and sending and receiving text messages.

Book Review: Fluke – Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters

In his book, Fluke, author Brian Klaas presents some powerful ideas that might make you reconsider the way you approach life and its many complexities

Think about this for a second. There are currently more than a billion websites in the world, about 200 million of which are active. Two hundred million active websites. And here you are, on The Lucknow Wallah, reading about Fluke. In the larger scheme of things, how random is that? What might have been the probability of you ever visiting this website and spending 2-3 minutes of your life reading this particular article? Infinitesimal, perhaps. And yet, here we are. Pure chance? Think about the biggest movie stars, the richest businessmen, and the most successful people in the world, regardless of what their profession might be. How did they get there? Are they necessarily the smartest, brightest, most talented, most knowledgeable, most hardworking people in the world? Sure, they probably do have one or more of those qualities, but there may well be many others with at least as many – and perhaps more – of the qualities that are required in order to succeed, and yet they don’t achieve the same levels of fame, success, money etc. Ever wondered why that might be?

Canning College: The Lucknow University Years

I did a B.Com from Lucknow University. The three years I spent there were quite memorable, though I now regret not having paid enough attention to my academics

In an earlier post, I wrote about Christian College, from where I completed the last two years of my schooling. After class 12 was done and dusted with, I decided to do a B.Com from Canning College, Lucknow University. The story continues here.

Getting admission into Canning College, Lucknow University was much simpler back in 1990, than it is now. There was no written test, for one. From what I remember, all I had to do was fill a form, attach copies of my class 12 marksheet, submit that form in the admin office and that was it – I was in. A bunch of my friends from Christian College had also secured admission – we’d all now be spending three years studying economics, accountancy and banking etc., and hopefully get a graduate degree in commerce at the end of those years. Looking back, I now realise I had no interest in – and no particular aptitude for – commerce. Why I opted for B.Com is now a mystery to me, but lack of other options must have been one of the reasons. In terms of general awareness and the existence of dozens of different career options, as well streams of study that one can opt for, 1990 may as well have been another planet when compared to 2024.

Lucknow Christian Inter College: My Last Two Years in School

Lucknow Christian Inter College, where I studied for two years

In an earlier post, I wrote about my school days in Lucknow – the first 12 years, two of which were spent at Mount Carmel, and the remaining 10 at St. Francis College. After completing class 10 from St. Francis, it was time for to move on, since I had opted to study commerce in class 11 and 12, and SFC did not have that option. The story continues here.

Along with a small group of my friends from SFC, all of whom had also chosen commerce, I got an admission into Lucknow Christian Inter College for my final two years in school. Established in 1862, Christian College is one of the oldest education institutions in Lucknow and is situated in Qaisar Bagh, a mere 3km from the historic Bada Imambara. Inside the sprawling old campus, there are multiple buildings that have apparently been constructed at different times over the last 100-125 years. It’s a grand old place that had a slight air of decay, a whiff of neglect, about it in the late-1980s. It may have been spruced up these days, though I wouldn’t know about it since I haven’t been inside the campus after 1990.

St Francis College: My School Days in Lucknow

A video of St. Francis College, in Lucknow, where I studied for 10 years
Video copyright: St. Francis College

In an earlier post, I had shared some of my earliest memories of Lucknow, my hometown. In a follow-up to that, here are some memories of my school days - of the time I spent in Mount Carmel and then in St. Francis College.

When I was born, in 1973, my parents used to live with my grandfather in his very large, old house in the quiet residential locality of Mahanagar. There were no apartment complexes back then – Mahanagar was lined with stately old homes, most of them having been built in the early-1950s. My father’s younger brother also used to live in the same house. However, by the time my sister and I were born, each family had started feeling the need for more space, and my parents moved out. A Punjabi family, whose house was a 5-6 minute walk from my grandfather’s house, were looking to rent out their first floor, which comprised a living room, one bedroom, one bathroom, a balcony at the front, a large open courtyard and an open backyard. My father spoke to the owner – a kindly old gentleman, Mr Batra – who agreed to give the place to us at a monthly rent of Rs 350. This was towards the end of 1976. No rent agreement was signed, no police verification – just a verbal agreement between my father and Mr Batra, and we moved in. My father used to work with the ICI Group in those days, and his office was also just a 5-minute walk from Mr Batra’s house.

TechTree: The Next Chapter

In the early-2000s, I was very into working out with weights, hence the posters you see on the walls in my apartment in Raval Tower, CBD Belapur

In an earlier post, I wrote about joining ITNation, where George and I started TechTree, an all-new tech website that featured hardware and software reviews, along with technology news and features. The story continues here.

While TechTree was essentially a small startup, there wasn’t a great deal of pressure on the editorial team to produce more and more content every minute of the day. The team did a reasonable number of articles every week and we prioritized quality over sheer quantity. In the evening, George and I were often among the last 5-6 people to leave office. Sometimes, we left together and walked down to Marine Drive, which was barely five minutes away from our office. We’d stroll down Marine Drive, talking about work and our lives, often stopping to buy sookha bhel from one of the streetside vendors there. George had an interesting perspective on most things – not just technology or tech journalism – and I enjoyed spending time with him. Sometimes, we’d stop for a cup of coffee at one of the fancy cafes nearby and watched the world go by. George, who lived in Mahim, would then catch a local train to go back home, while I carried on to VT and got on a train to Belapur.

TechTree: By George!

That's me in the TechTree office in Nariman Point, back in 2002. ITNation was a great place to work at and while I was there for less than a year, that time was quite memorable

In an earlier post, I wrote about having submitted my resignation at Indian Auto. With nothing to do, zero earnings and meagre savings, while still paying rent for my apartment (along with other regular monthly expenses), I wasn’t exactly in a very comfortable position. Had been writing to and calling up some people whom I knew, but nothing came of it. After a few weeks, I started getting a bit worried – if I did not get work, I might even have to leave Bombay and go back to Lucknow, and I really, really did not want things to come to that. But then I got a phone call, which helped put thing back on track. The story continues here.

One Sunday morning, about six weeks after I had left Indian Auto, I got a call from GV Sreekumar, a good friend and a professor at IDC, IIT Bombay. GV and I had earlier worked together at CHIP, where he headed the design team. After moving on from CHIP, I had gone to CNET India, while GV went to IDC, a prestigious design college which is a part of IIT Bombay. With a deep interest in typography and great love for high-end Apple computers, GV is a genial, soft-spoken gentleman and we got along very well when we were at CHIP. Both of us lived in New Bombay back then, and we sometimes used to meet up at a bar in Nerul for our favourite Old Monk rum with Coke and lots of ice.

Pixels Multimedia: End of Days

Sometimes, life can take you down a path you never thought you'd ever walk 

In an earlier post, I wrote about how things had started going downhill at Pixels, team members had left and I was on my own. I was also on the verge of having to move Pixels out of the Sahara Bazar location, which had proven to be expensive and where the lack of footfalls had stopped the business from growing. The story continues here.

My father had been able to speak to his bosses and eventually got a transfer to Lucknow. He was actually doing very well in Bareilly and both he and my mother were quite happy there. However, he got the transfer in order to help me out and to ensure that we could all be together in one house. We rented a house in Aliganj, where I would have the largest room in the house – the drawing-cum-dining room – from where I could continue to run Pixels Multimedia in its new, diminished avatar.

Big Changes Happen at Pixels

Pixels Multimedia would ultimately move from Sahara Bazar, in Gomti Nagar, to a large house that we took up on rent in Aliganj. Here is a small animated clip of our new setup in Aliganj, which I made in Corel Motion 3D

In an earlier post, I wrote about experiencing the great kindness that was extended to me, for which I remain eternally grateful. When I was asked to vacate the house I was living in, my friend Shobhit immediately offered to let me stay in one of the two houses that his family owned in Lalbagh, and even refused to let me pay rent. When I had to sell my old motorcycle because it had become unreliable, my Tau ji gave me money to buy a new motorcycle. But in the meanwhile, there was trouble brewing at Pixels – there were issues that I would have to address immediately and some changes that I would have to deal with. The story continues here.

When I reached office that day, Tabrez was already there – he had reached there before me, which was slightly unusual. We looked at each other and I think both of us realised that we needed to talk. It had been around 6-7 months since we’d started Pixels Multimedia, things were tough and we needed to reevaluate and clearly define Tabrez’s role in what we were trying to do. I called for cups of chai from a nearby teashop and we sat down inside my small cabin. I encouraged Tabrez to speak openly and share his views on where he thought our business was going and what needed to be done in order to keep going. He admitted he was going through a lean phase and that he needed some time to think about the next steps that he wanted to take. On his part, I think there was a tacit admission of the fact that he wasn’t really enjoying working at Pixels, that there wasn’t really much for him to do (especially given his complete lack of interest in computers) and that he may eventually move on to do something else. As I said earlier, when we first met in October 1996, we were both very excited at the prospect of working together. Now, 8-9 months down the line, we were realizing that that happiness, that excitement stemmed from our many years of friendship and little else. Neither of us had thought things through, which had landed us in a difficult situation.

Pixels Multimedia: Thrown In at the Deep End

Managing Pixels Multimedia and running the business wasn't easy, but I quite enjoyed the challenge. Every day brought new surprises, new issues to resolve...

In an earlier post, I wrote about the passing of my grandfather and travelling to Jaipur to pay my last respects to him. In the meanwhile, things were steaming ahead at work; within one week of my coming back from Jaipur to Lucknow, my small team and I launched Pixels Multimedia. After about 10 intense weeks of groundwork, we were finally open for business. Unfortunately, within a few days after this, I got a call from Mr Nautiyal, in whose house I was staying, and went to meet him. He said I’d have to vacate the house, since he needed the room that he had given to me. He said he was very sorry about this and I reassured him that vacating the house was not a problem, and that I’d find another place and move out soon. The story continues here.

After being asked to vacate the house where I’d been living for the last 10 weeks, I was slightly worried. I needed to find a room quickly – a neat, clean room that I wouldn’t have to share with anyone else. Preferably one that had a PCO and a few inexpensive eating joints in the vicinity. And a safe parking spot for my trusty old Yamaha RX100, which was now beginning to show its age. I spoke to a few of my friends about this and one of them – Shobhit – immediately offered to let me stay in one of the two houses that his family owned in Lalbagh, near Hazratganj. In the house where he offered to let me stay, his family had an office on the ground floor, while the first floor was unoccupied. I was very grateful for his offer, and one room, with an attached bathroom, was given to me. I moved out of Mr Nautiyal’s house in Indira Nagar and took my stuff to Shobhit’s house in Lalbagh. This house was around 9-10km from Pixels Multimedia, which was in Gomti Nagar. But I used to love riding my RX100 in those days and quite enjoyed commuting from home to work and back. I used to get to work early and the morning rides used to be insane, with me wringing out every last bit of performance from my bike’s two-stroke 100cc engine. Downshifting aggressively at every opportunity, accelerating hard, cornering as hard as I dared and riding as fast as possible – the 15-20 minutes of riding to work in the morning, when there was not much traffic on the roads, was pure bliss.

Saying Goodbye to my Grandfather

My grandfather had great love and affection for me. The news of his passing left me devastated

In an earlier post, I wrote about how, when I was getting ready to launch my new business venture in Lucknow, my father called to tell me that his father – my grandfather – has passed away. My grandmother had passed away about three years ago, after which my grandfather had sold his house in Lucknow and had moved in with my father’s eldest brother, who was based in Jaipur. My grandfather, a kind and gentle man, had great love and affection for me and the news of his passing was quite devastating. The story continues here.

As soon as I got to know that my grandfather had passed away, I immediately decided to go to Jaipur to pay my last respects. I left for the railway station right away – bought a train ticket to Jaipur and, while I was unable to secure a reserved birth, climbed into one of the second-class compartments spent the 14-hour journey sitting wherever I could find space, flitting from one corner to another whenever I was asked to move on. I tried to occupy as little space as possible and kept moving, not giving anyone a chance to complain too much. The journey passed without incident and reached my Tau ji’s house just in time. We left for the cremation grounds shortly thereafter where the last rites were performed. I was inconsolable, couldn’t hold back my tears and cried my heart out. While many of my other cousins had also been close to my grandparents, I was perhaps the one who had spent the maximum amount of time with them, and had a strong bond with them. And now, both my grandparents (from my father’s side) were gone. It was an indescribably sad day for me.