Author: manuscrypts

  • Punjab Grill

    …and we have a brand new mall in Whitefield. Let’s not speak of whether we wanted one. The mall wasn’t fully functional when we visited (mid November), but from the looks of it, the Indian non-resident Americans of Shantiniketan would be a happy lot. I was most excited by a microbrewery coming up. That makes it 9 in the vicinity! As D mentioned, there would really no need to get out of Whitefield on weekends.

    Meanwhile, Punjab Grill was what we visited for, and that was on the ground floor. The frontage is completely open, and while that might show off the interiors to passers-by, it does take away from the privacy. The decor is definitely fine dining – plush seating, chandeliers, photos of royalty and elegant crockery. The staff is very courteous too.

    All of that also means the pricing is exorbitant too! There’s no alcohol available, so we asked for lassi – D wanted a Kesar Pisteywali version and I chose coconut. We asked whether the coconut flavour was fresh (and not powder or extract) and were told it was. Reality was different and given the Rs.295 we were paying for it, I did something uncharacteristic – I sent it back, and asked for what D was having. That was thick, rich and a much better offering for the price.

    The Murgh Tikka Punjab Grill was our chosen starter – boneless chicken with a mildly spicy red chilli marinade. This was delicious fare and highly recommended.

    Mains was a Patiala Shahi Kadai Murgh which had onion, tomatoes, and green chili in a cashew based gravy. Microgreens for the with-it quotient. 😉 The Zafrani Paronthi Naan sounded interesting and turned out to be so as well. Filling too. D tried the Rajgira Parantha, which was described to us as one with an aloo filling. It didn’t have much of that but did have great texture.

    A nice paan shot (complimentary) ended the meal well.

    The wallet was lighter by a little over Rs.2500. We did know that going in, so we were mentally prepared. The service is extremely good. They are courteous, describe the dishes- along with the spice level to expect, and make sure serving and refills happen at the right time. If you’re in the mood for North Indian fare in this part of the world, this will do the job.

    Punjab Grill, Ground Floor, Forum Shantiniketan, Whitefield Main Road Ph: 49653240

  • Regression planning

    During our reindeer sledding tour in Tromso last year, our guide, who was a Sámi, gave us a glimpse of their way of living. A semi-nomadic life, built around their reindeer herds, which involved them traveling for several days twice a year across hundreds of kilometres. She told us how the capture and nurture of reindeers, and the lifestyle itself, has changed from a means of livelihood to a tradition that only very few are interested in.

    In Fahadh’s movie Njan Prakashan, there is a hilarious, yet poignant moment, when he is asked to help the other workers plant rice seedlings in a field in Kerala. The workers immediately start off and are soon singing in gusto. Fahadh, who has never done any of this before, stands with his mouth agape, and then asks what the language is! His boss explains how most of the paddy field workers in Kerala now are Bengalis, and they’re singing their customary song. “We’ve forgotten our job, we’ve forgotten our song“, he says (roughly translated). (more…)

  • Freedom

    Daniel Suarez

    If you’ve read Daemon, I suspect it’d be very difficult to not read its sequel. If you haven’t, you know where to start!
    Freedom picks up right where Daemon left off with the kind of intense action that dominated the last portion of the latter. Even as the Daemon systematically tears apart the corporations and financial systems that rule the world, its enemies prepare to launch a counter attack. What makes it all interesting is that the different players in the game have divergent agendas.

    It is also interesting that the book brings to life at least a few concepts that I have read in non-fiction in the context of how unemployment, extreme capitalism and the wealth divide will cause fundamental shifts in civilised society. Neo-feudalism, trust based community networks, and the irrelevancy of state borders are a few examples. In doing that, it also shows the possibility of how new systems could end up just like old systems because the basic human tendencies remain constant.

    The narrative sets a scorching pace, and one is tempted to just zoom forward a few pages just to know how a plot point is going to end. Excellent read!

    P.S. I somehow felt that it was written with a movie or two in mind. Almost like a screenplay.

  • Evolving against entropy

    ​In the last fortnight, I had two interactions with customer care teams. The first was Kotak, for a bank account. There were failures at multiple levels, but the biggest takeaway was how difficult it was to get through to a human. Chatbots have their uses but this was extreme! Twitter DMs weren’t a help either. The second was Amazon, and that surprisingly included being put on hold for about 15 minutes and transferred 5 times! Thankfully, the problem was resolved in 30. But given the famed Amazon customer-centricity, this was a disappointment, and I wondered if at scale, it was inevitable. 

    What causes it? The best frame I have seen is entropy. (via) Yes, that physics and thermodynamics thing – the degree of disorder/randomness in the system. Though the meaning remains the same, the application changes. In the context of a business, it is the tax applied by the system between input and output. Just imagine the effort that is required to get things done in a corporate structure as against a startup. While it is theoretically possible for a complex system to have lesser entropy than a simple system, I have not seen it in practice. I can imagine why it is so – the randomness that can be generated by different touchpoints, and their optimization for following rules as opposed to providing solutions. What happened to me with Kotak and Amazon were examples of that.   (more…)

  • The Yellow Submarine

    Beatles, beer of the craft kind, and a 4.4 rating on Zomato. What’s not to like, we thought, and the long Dussehra weekend gave us the courage that one must have in the face of Bangalore traffic, especially when we have to get to the other half of the planet – Bannerghatta Road.

    We reached there by around 5.30, and got our first warning – the building has Big Bazaar on the ground floor. We were reminded of 3 Monkeys, Bangalore’s worst microbrewery in our experience. Even the Sarjapur ones couldn’t beat that one. The trip to the fourth floor, where the brewery is located, wasn’t really an uplifting experience either. The elevator had a capacity of 4, and was already full. So we took the stairs, and that was an olfactory assault that we barely survived.

    After the entrance hatch, things get a little better. The rooftop itself has two levels, and we chose the lower one. It has bar stools and regular seating, and probably thanks to the greenery across the road (IIM campus), there is a fair amount of wind. Later in the evening, when the yellow lights are switched on, the place does look pretty.

    From the beer menu, I asked for a Kölsch, partly because I had liked the version at Wanderers. D chose a safe Hefeweizen. When the waiter said “select starters”, I began doing just that. But it turned out that only select starters were available till 6.30 – fries, masala peanuts and the like. Thankfully, pizzas were available, so we ordered a BBQ chicken pizza. After a while, we began wondering whether he had meant that service in general would happen only after 6.30! We consoled ourselves that perhaps he didn’t want us getting the beer without anything to eat. Around then, we saw a pizza making its way from the kitchen to a serving table nearby. After an appropriate cooling time, it was allowed passage to our table. We casually enquired about the beer, and got a “really?” look in return. The beer mugs had obviously not seen cleaning for a while and we had to clean them ourselves. My beer, on the other hand, seemed like soap water! The Hefeweizen was a consolation. The pizza wasn’t bad, and they were nice enough to ask, after we had finished most of it, whether we needed any sauce! Aww.

    Only because there was a 2+2 on Zomato Gold, I asked for a Belgian Witbier. This one seemed to be from the initial batch – around the time they had started the place! 😐

    D merely repeated her drink! In the meanwhile, we were told that pasta also made the cut in the ‘select’ dishes available. The tri colour lasagna seemed like a patriotic must-do. The yellow lights had been switched on, so every picture took on a jaundice filter! The pasta was so-so, and by then it was 6.30. We chickened out of the Ghee Roast and ordered a Housemade (sic) Snicker Bar. This thankfully, wasn’t very bad.

    The bill came to around Rs.1350, mostly thanks to the 2+2 beers.  The service, from what we experienced, considers this a glorified bar. Masala peanuts is their go-to suggestion. They also have a very rule book led south Bangalore approach – only tiffin until 6.30! The music is classic rock, and that helped drown the sorrow of having traveled more than 20 km one way! It barely beat 3 Monkeys, so I wouldn’t recommend a visit.

    The Yellow Submarine, 4th Floor,SRK Towers (Big Bazaar building), Bannerghatta Road, Ph: 8722147555 (map)