Dheeraj Kalgutkar

  Photo by Rodrigo Curi on Unsplash   There are very few things that send me into a quiet rage as much as food dishonesty. Let me demonstrate. Before I do that, let’s get a few things out of the way. There are no superhumans here. And superman is a figment of imagination. Likewise, not everyone can be a chef and not all chefs can cook all food items. There are as many cuisines and foodstuffs in the world as there are people. So to expect any one person to know every kind of cuisine/food is absolutely silly. And that is why every restaurant comes up with its own menu, a limited set of food items which they promise to serve their guests. So we now have restaurants declaring a set of dishes they promise to serve in the form of a menu and of their own volition. Naturally, this means they have a chef and/or cooks who know what these foodstuffs on their menu are and how they are made, also they know what goes into these items and obviously, they make sure the ingredients require...

That’s just a random picture of crowded Delhi. Photo by Fancycrave on  Unsplash         Bus rides are joyful experiences. To travel peacefully on a window seat staring quietly at the passerby's, looking at people on bikes and cars hurrying themselves to reach someplace quicker, buildings by buildings of varying sizes passing like a film via the window glass. And then if you are lucky you meet a nice fellow passenger, you both talk and somehow in its own small and strange ways, you become part of someone’s life who was stranger a while ago. Aha. That is if you are lucky. But I was with no luck in my pockets. I did not get a fellow passenger to talk to. I did not even get a seat to sit forget the window one. I was standing in a crowded bus near the back door of this public transport vehicle with my travel bag. Not big but not too small either. The bus had moved few stops from where I had boarded and had just stopped at another stop. Of the many people who...

Okay. I promise I will make this quick and short. A few days back, while getting on to my train, I hugged someone rather in a strange situation. I got the hug which I needed but I couldn’t really hug back how I wanted it to be keeping in mind the slowly starting train and also a dozen eyes ever pricking on our embrace. Also, there was this whisper in my ear, “When will you reach?” 6 in the morning, I quickly replied. And got back on the train. There was so much that happened on the train which I least expected but will save it for another day. This is just about one part of a long tedious trip. Mid-way through the journey, somewhere past the midnight I opened my cell phone to check if I had the network. Luckily there was. I quickly browsed my way back to the train info page to check where my train exactly was. Hey! the night is dark and full of terrors… I had no idea where I had reached! And to my surprise, my train was moving fast...

It not only takes your right to question the second occurrence but also opens a cycle that is hard to break.   First things are always the first. How lame a sentence, isn’t it? But seriously; Good, bad or ugly, firsts set the precedent and it’s always important to make note of them. When an error, a mistake, a crime, an event where norm or law is broken for the first time, it is important to stop and question it then and there. However small or insignificant it may seem at first, it needs to be called out for what it is. A mistake. You don’t ignore it because it doesn’t matter and not affect your flow of work. It might not affect you now but believe me it will come to haunt you tomorrow and then you will have nothing to do about it except to regret. That’s exactly what I did last week when I went home.  I had marriage of a family member to attend to at one side of Goa, a small Indian state famous for its pristine beaches, old churches and Portuguese era ar...

The bus conductors across India have problem of their own, from chewing pan to indecent language to not-so-warm behavior. But this one was not so cut-out for that definition. Most of my traveling across the stretch of India which I have stayed and moved has been by bus, mostly public and sometimes private. Rarely on train and more scarcely by flight. Most of Indians will relate to this except for those staying in Mumbai for them bus can be replaced with local train! And this is where I have met people from different hues of life, old, young and those not-at-all charming end-of-the-world-loud babies. It’s great experience where you throw yourself to unexpectedness. But there’s one person you have interacted regularly while traveling by bus, ticket collector or bus conductor. Recently, few women have started to apply for the job of conductor and take up the challenging work which otherwise is a man’s world to move from one side of the (most of the times) crowded bus to other si...

Long long ago, in 1689 a Japanese poet Matsuo Bashō set out on an epic 1,200-mile journey through the then narrow roads of Japan. He wrote his travel account in the form of poetry (haiku) and also prose. This poetic travel works added lustre to his reputation which continues till today. Like Shakespeare for west, Bashō is to Japan. More so as everyone in Japan can recite at least one of Bashō’s poem by heart. The part of the route he traveled is traveled by thousands of people today in memory of the great poet. People go to pilgrimage at his birth and burial sites. Bashō today is part of Japanese culture. In his masterpiece, Oku no Hosomichi, or Narrow Road to a Far Province, as first entry Bashō writes, “Each day is a journey, and the journey itself home” That was 300 years ago. Today, Bashō is mostly remembered world over for Haiku. What is Haiku? It’s a Japanese form of poetry which uses few words to capture a moment into reader’s mind. Unlike other forms of poetry,...

internet image   Railway stations, bus stops are places where you find people from across the social fabric, from middle class to ultra poor to children and to old. So yesterday when I had to board one bus from Karwar to Goa, I found one old lady or rather she found me. I had seen her before sitting myself on the bench kept for waiting travelers as she boarded off a bus but didn't noticed much. It was not any rare sight to see people in their seventies and eighties traveling alone while their children kept themselves 'busy', we have all grownup watching such scenes. So I was sitting there talking to my cousin who had given me lift on his bike till there. In the middle of that conversation she came and sat beside me. Not that I was any special but coincidentally that was the only place available. So after a minute or so, she asked me if she can use my cellphone to make a call. The thing at that time was that I had two phones, one which is not so audible bu...