Parlez Vous, Vino?

 

“Has legs like a thoroughbred, strong and forward, with a tannic backbone that sucks the life out of your palate. Notes of leather and tar accentuate a rather presumptuous, if not heady structure though voluptuous berry notes of cream and citrus lift your spirits. An elegant and gentle finish just lingers on and on”.

I know you will be disappointed but I did not author those words. Had I uttered them, my immediate family would have angrily demanded my exclusion from the gene pool. This is Vino speak, a language wine critics use in their critique of the wines. I guess you have to be sufficiently inebriated to come up with this advanced 256 bit encrypted wine description that tells you and me that obfuscation has now been taken to a new level . If a wine has notes of leather and tar, please count me out because too much of that kind of wine may make me say shings like thish.

Several wineries have mushroomed in to viable entities in the last two decades in the Columbia valley, where I live. The valley appellation is known for its Cabernet Sauvignons and Merlots.  Washington makes some of the best wines in the world and we can now proudly show an appropriate finger to the insufferable French.

 Wine tasting room is a sight to behold. You see grown up adults’ silently but diligently sloshing wine back and forth in their mouths and in the process making faces at each other. If you are a first timer, you may hastily conclude that you walked in to a pre kindergarten class. With the wine glasses in their hands and nothing on their minds they move like molasses in the tasting room examining the accessories and other merchandise on sale.  I often idly wonder if this crowd will ever come out smelling like roses in an emergency evacuation area.

The wine tasting place that I frequent has a wine steward who merits a brief introduction here. He goes by the name Dan Druff. No kidding, that is his real name. Wine stewards, as a rule, are avuncular in nature, capable of a few belly laughs, and have an occasional predisposition to wink their eyes as they speak fondly of their wines. Not my man Dan Druff. He is a lean and muscular machine with a well chiseled face and a matching pencil thin mustache. There is considerable room between his mustache and the nose, which is characteristic of all the pencil thin mustache owners if you have not noticed. He smiles gently but is generally very economical about it. He is a maniacal enforcer of discipline in the tasting room (no slurping, particularly the tam Brahm variety). His contempt is palpable if you do not splurge on his wine recommendations.

As I walked in to the tasting room the other day, he signaled to me and gestured that he wanted a private conversation. I knew at once that something was amiss. I began to tremble with anticipation as to what might come next. As I approached the counter with a tingled nerve, Dan leaned in and looked at me with his piercing eyes. He then began addressing me in a conspiratorial voice.  “This is confidential and I do not want a word leaked out, for my life depends on it”. I was petrified and my heart started pounding.  “Our management has decided to make our wine less austere going forward” he implored.  He then shook his head dejectedly and showed his disgust in abundant measure by banging the counter. A few empty wine glasses were collateral damage but the situation warranted some drama.

To the uninitiated: austere wines are meant to be aged to be fruity, lush and luxurious. If you drink the wine young, it will taste like leather and tar. Now you know where the critics come from.   

I do not remember if I emoted when I heard this precious bit of information.  When the wine steward talks to you in that manner and looks a good Cabernet red in his face, you know the tectonic plates below the wine tasting room are about to move. I probably looked suitably aghast for it prompted a cacophony of tongue clicking, from others in the room, all in sympathy I guess. May be a few overheard the conversation.   

The wine tasters soon went back to making faces at each other. They also produce some guttural noises (men in particular) which they have assiduously cultivated by watching ball games at the sports bars and in front of the large screen TVs at their homes. I can actually tell you whether someone is a football or an ice hockey fan by the kind of guttural noise they make.  

If you think drinking and driving is not advisable (because you may spill the wine), and or you must use wine in cooking (and add food when needed), then you and I are schooled in the same   tradition. We can get along famously so stop by next time you are in the NW for some unforgettable wine tasting.

A female wine lover once said “Men are like a fine wine. They start out as sour grapes. It's our job to stomp them, and then keep them in the dark until they mature. And hopefully they'll turn out to be something we would like to have dinner with”. Amen.

Happy New Year

Dear Family,

Warm greetings from us for a happy new year. As I look back,  I see that the year 2011 was not all that bad. My stocks plummeted in value, lower back pain got worse, just two speeding and a few parking tickets, broke an expensive  antique ( I should know, I paid for it) at a vacation home, cancelled two out of three vacations because my boss wanted a report, hints of irritable bowl syndrome followed by more reports to my boss, and to top it all a frequent unexplained allergy to work. Other than that life has been dandy and peachy.

I recommend that you all read "Love for no reason" by Marci Shimoff as you begin another successful year in your life. She says in her book that "when you experience love for no reason, you no longer look outside yourself to get love. You stop being a love beggar and become a love philanthropist, dispensing love, kindness and goodwill wherever you go. Let us get the unconditional love mojo going again'"'. Well, I am getting teary eyed.

The year 2011 was kind of tumultuous in a way (if you skipped the beginning of my email please read again) but ended on a pleasant note. The wine club where I am a member held a lottery earlier this week and I won 24 bottles of heavenly red wine on the Christmas day. There is hope after all for the beleaguered.

I wish you all and your families a fun filled year in 2012. Since most of you are prosperous and peaceful there is no need for me to heap more of the same on you.  Just keep your sense of humor in play and my crystal ball tells me that all is going to be swell.

Cheers and good luck

Why this kola veri da?

Recently my friend told me about his unfortunate car accident on his way to a vacation spot in Kerala with his family. He informed me that he crashed his car in to a tree but no one was injured, luckily. The story should have ended there ideally with me mumbling a few indecipherable words about how things are these days with road rage and what not to mitigate his agony and personal misery. I am a nice guy and not much of a believer in ruffling feathers, you all know that. However, when someone does it for the third time, it gives me and the rest of the humanity a collective pause.

My friend had also very thoughtfully emailed me a picture taken on the spot of the accident to show the extent of the damage to his car. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Make it a million in this case please. Let me describe the scene: It is a quite village road in Kerala with absolutely no traffic whatsoever. The road is only 25 feet wide that if an oncoming car were to pass, one has to either stop or pullover to the side to make room for the other. The road is lined by beautiful coconut trees on both sides.  It is a dirt road so my friend could not have gone at more than 30 km per hour. The stars were all lined up so to speak for a perfect drive to the destination until my friend decided to take a detour and say hello to a tree.  This is the third time, I am informed.  I can picture the trees, with their eyes filled with liquid chlorophyll, asking my friend “Why this kola veri da?”

 His eighty year old mother, daughter (with infant daughter in her arms) and his wife are in the picture with facial expressions that can be best described as total disbelief and disgust. Believe me; ladies can bring the right emotions in right proportions when it is time to shame their beloved.

I have long condemned the city and town planners for planting trees where we gents may want to venture with our four and two wheelers. It is particularly unsettling when you have witnesses (son-in-law, friends, and on lookers) and hostile witnesses ( wife, mother-in-law, daughter) and it takes a eon before you get your bearings and nerves back and start driving without further eliciting derisive laughter from the hostile witnesses mentioned above. When I heard about my friend’s get-to-know-your-neighborhood tree incident, I was painfully reminded of my head on collision with a lone cyclist (I was also riding a cycle) on a village road and the disbelief my fellow villagers displayed on their faces for several weeks.

 Not to be deterred and help my hapless friend I racked my brains (an exercise that I do not undertake often) and I remembered a road named Dalton Highway in Alaska that is 666 km long with no trees whatsoever in sight. Driving on this road a few times up and down will restore his confidence, boost his morale and put a not so easily erasable smile on his face, I thought. This may be the solution to permanently end the isolation he is now facing in his house as a pariah driver. If he does not want to go that far he can consider Mojave Desert in California. I will write once the dust settles down and he is allowed access to computers.

Well, no one likes an unsolved mystery. As my friend is somewhat incoherent and unintelligible after the accident, and sounds more like when he was in his college days, I decided to rack my brain (second time in the same week) and come up with some possible explanations.  These are the possibilities I came up with: 1) he had low sugar 2) he fell asleep at the wheel; 3) he was distracted by the annoying caller on the radio Mirchi station 5) he wanted to get some fresh air and 6) he wanted to walk the last one kilometer.  Or, is it possible that he went to a female driving school? The definition of a tree according to Aljaffe is "a tree is something that stays in the same place for several years before suddenly jumping in front of a woman driver".

Feeling elated with my own resourcefulness, I called his wife to discuss my findings and find an amicable ending. She cut me short as I started rambling and told me that her husband had too many beers before he got in to the car and will not be behind the wheels for a while. Any questions,  she demanded. I said a few nice things about Kerala and quickly got off the phone.

The Buddhist philosophy tells us that all sufferings in life are due to desires, desires emanate from thoughts and therefore one should meditate to quite the mind and free it from thoughts. The Buddhist monks and others tried very hard to accomplish that goal to get their salvation.  I see men these days walking around with a blank mind and a vacant look to match and they are doing this damn thing so effortlessly that it would have boggled Buddha’s mind. Even if they have only one thought, it is all about beer.  Occasionally men are conflicted between ales and lagers and that is when they have more than one thought. Is it a quirk of fate that we have the monks of yester years eating out of our male hands or is it just the marvel of evolution? But I am digressing.

I am not sure if there is help for the trees in Kerala in the meantime. I know one thing for sure, when my friend shows up for the final verdict, Lord Krishna is going to crash his chariot in to him; Justice will then be served.

Moral of the story: You only crash twice, after that your wife takes over.

 

Rejuvenation of a friendship

I wrote two short blogs humoring you and many of you leaped out of the water to take the bait. I have decided to write till I start getting hate mails.

On a recent business visit to Columbus, Ohio I decided to swing by and see my good friend Mithu, from my Loyola college days, and his lovely wife Jharna. Truth be told, I was in Ohio to see Mithus and decided to swing by and have a business meeting. That is just between us girls, no need to pick up the phone and call my boss.

 Mid western states are known for tornadoes and this happens to be the peak season and understandably I was quite nervous driving to Mithu’s place. If you are unfamiliar with tornadoes, here is a quick primer: When the warm moist air from the southern oceans and the cold dry air from the northern mountains migrate towards each other and happen to meet a meandering jet stream on the way they all become a toxic cocktail and all hell breaks loose. The tornado comes down in a hurry and grabs everything in its way and toss them several hundred yards up in the air before bringing them back to the terra firma, never gently though. It is quite possible the view of the downtown was great from up above but none survived to give us the juicy details. Not surprisingly, mid westerners celebrate non tornado days by holding signs on the road that says ‘no tornado today, stop for hugs and kisses’. Though I was relieved to see the signs I decided to keep driving because those holding the signs were men with beer bottles permanently stuck in their mouths and women whose size makes you think you are suffering from a temporary double vision.  

USA and Bangladesh are the only two countries in the world where tornadoes are common. Also, these are the only two countries that have not gone metric yet! Is there a connection? Memo to myself: Start the rumor first thing tomorrow, blame the republicans if possible.

I reached my friend’s house by sevenish in the evening. I was going to see him after 40 years and I quite did not know what to say first. He was on the drive way to greet me and we shook hands and hugged and we effortlessly bridged that 40 year gap by declaring that we both had not changed one bit and looked the same (hey, what are friends for?).  It is like yesterday, I was coming out of the viva voce exam looking totally constipated, when my friend walked up to me, put his arm around my shoulder and said the magical words: “ well, we all failed”.

We started talking and he was regaling me with stories of his ‘damn-the-expense’ vacation trips, how the work took him all over the world, his only daughter’s marriage celebration, what he does for a living (this one went a mile over my head because he is a scholar and has authored many technical papers that no sane person can read and say with a straight face that he or she understands ), how he is passionate about do-it yourself projects at home and his second love that is cooking. He went to the extent of putting scaffoldings around his house to paint his outside walls. I am not planning on introducing this man to my family and neither should you. Any tincture of hope you may be nursing that your family looks up to you as the go to man will be imperiled if you bring him and his reputation in to your fold. I belong to the class of gents who bridle at suggestions that wall papering and painting are the bailiwick of men and being a good handy man is the best way to leave your foot print in the sands of time and a legacy that your family will be proud of. That is pure BS. The older I get, the more I look up to my dear cousin Bala.

After a few drinks, we sat down for a sumptuous dinner. Though I pride myself as a health conscious person, my knees become jelly-like when I see good food on the table. When you see you a good variety of high calorie food on the dinner table in your honor, the situation clearly calls for several double takes but as a person committed to economy of action, I took only a couple of DT and proceeded to attack the food. It is amazing how two more drinks after the dinner makes you forget that you are stuffed!

Mithu and Jharna looked lovely together like champagne and bubbles. It was really good seeing my best friend after a lapse of four decades. We want good friends in our corner in our lives, and if that means a few brushes with the tornadoes, so be it. 

They got me over a barrel

I seek your indulgence one more time and allow me to share my latest predicament with you all. My daughter is in the process of buying a condo in downtown Seattle, and I am playing the role of the negotiator- in-chief. This job was not assigned to me, I usurped it.  I am no shrinking violet when it comes to taking on tough assignments but my family has a different take on this. My chin is barely above the rising waters of everyday demands of my job but I am always itching for anything that is not run-of- the-mill stuff.  As a matter of fact, the meal ticket to my personal happiness is dealing with the unknown, as I find the process of due diligence very therapeutic.

It really boggles my mind why a simple home buying process is so complicated. The process starts with the lender ‘qualifying’ you for the loan and it is quite hilarious. The recent housing market scandal has made things worse. They want your entire history.  Names of friends who have ditched you, number of times you were caught with your pants down, why you are such a bad tipper...all questions are fair game. They ask questions in the name of collecting data till the blood drains from your face and you go chalk white. When they ask for my golf handicap, I tell them enough is enough. Well, I am exaggerating a bit but I hope you get the drift.

Sellers throw a curve ball once in a while by offering to lower their sale price if we will also look in to a time share offered by their parent company. This is the moment you should all dread in your life and hold on to a person of large girth nearby, to stay calm. This may lead to other complications in life if the person you are holding on to belongs to the other gender. If you make the mistake of looking the seller in the eye at this precise moment, trust me, your jig will be up. Rule # 1, avoid eye contact totally. Rule # 2, look distracted or distressed or preferably both and be unintelligible. You will be a natural in following these rules if you are a male.

People who sell time shares make Nazi interrogators look like your favorite uncles. They humiliate you so badly even your wife is having second thoughts about the decision she made several years ago.  They give you no latitude whatsoever in your decision making. My pet theory is that these guys live on a psychoactive mushroom diet. That is what keeps them going . If you can fake a massive heart attack, it will be a good time to show that hidden histrionic talent in you and get carted off to the nearest hospital where with some good luck you may get taken care of by a pretty nurse wanting to elope with you. But I am digressing.

 Sellers look professorial one moment bamboozling you with all the technical jargon and then effortlessly morph in to a butcher when it is time to butcher you.  They somehow know that we are all genetically coded to cave in at the wrong moment.

 I am staring at a mountain of documents that needs my review.  The prospect of my actually going thru the whole thing looks pretty thin as time goes by. The second glass of Merlot I am on is egging me on to seek a horizontal position on the deck chair and ponder the vagaries of life. I do not know what tomorrow is going to bring but certainly not more determination on my part to wade through all the documents. May be, I will sign on the dotted lines.   

A funny thing happened today..

I got a call from my wife’s clinic yesterday saying they spotted two snakes in front of her clinic and wanted to know if I could drive down to the clinic immediately. It was not clear to me as to what I could do anything different other than starring at the snakes and panicking, which was what the ladies were doing anyway. I decided to go as I always do when confronted with invites that offered no way out. The ladies informed me the snakes were 6 ft long and quite aggressive in nature, just to stress the enormity of the situation.

I got in to my protective gear (full length jeans trousers and ankle high boots) just in case the reptiles decided to engage me in a friendly bout. Once I reached the site, I noticed the snakes had slithered away to a far off place but to my disappointment (and relief) found the snakes were only 3 feet long. They were decidedly not aggressive!  I guess when panic hits, people lose the concept of dimensions.

A gent passing by stopped and offered expert opinion that the snakes were gophers and harmless.  Such details about snakes are opaque to me in general. Apparently, their single mission in life is to choke the rats to death and devour them. More power to them if that is their only objective.

The reptiles were enjoying the warmth of the afternoon sun and perhaps felt comfortable being close to a doctor's office just in case they felt unwell. Happily, all ended well with the reptilian friends deciding to move in the direction of their supper.

I am working in my yard today and every time something moves behind me, I jump. Life changes in inexplicable ways. Go figure.

Just an update in my otherwise unremarkable existence.