Day: March 9, 2014

We Built This City

- Roshan

What do you love most about the city / town / place that you live in? What do you like the least about it? If you were mayor, what would be the most important problem you’d tackle? How would you tackle it?

Positives : Lots of good places to eat, lots of bars & hotels, overall it is a good place to live and grow up. Has a couple of beaches, lots of sea food, lots of cool people, lots of theatres and a couple of malls for hanging out. Seaside areas are a big favourite of mine and we have that. Lots of new organizations popping up. Influx of the best people from other parts of Kerala due to the city being the commercial hub of the state.

Negatives : Terribly cramped roads (and all that metro railway work blocking part of the roads is not helping), bad infrastructure, heavily polluted, mosquitoes, mosquitoes, mosquitoes, places gets very dusty very quick and when it rains the roads get mushy and water logged making travel difficult. Along with the good number of cool people, unfortunately there are a whole lot of assholes & motherfuckers and a lot of people seem to be still living in a 16th century, mindset wise. Lots of rats. Way too many stray dogs. Shameful to say, we have our share of homeless people.  Gets very hot during late February till late June.

Status : We’re like a 14 year old brat that shows flashes of being intelligent and levels of coolness that’s way ahead of our age (in terms of being a modern city) but we have a long, long way to go. I just hope that we solve our problems one by one in a sensible manner and not create more in the process.

Prompt from the Daily Post at WordPress.com.

Asterix & Obelix

- Roshan

One of the comics that has stayed with me from childhood to current age (37 going on 17) and one that I can still read and enjoy with the same pleasure as when I first read it are the Asterix comics. The Asterix comic books, for those who don’t know and are missing out, is a series of French comicswritten by René Goscinny and illustrated by Albert Uderzo and features one lone Gaulish village that resists Roman occupation in France. The villagers are aided by the magic potion, created by their wise druid Getafix that gives them super strength and hence they bash al opposition, including the Roman army. Heading the brave warriors of the village is our hero Asterix, who is always joined in his heroics & exploits by his best friend Obelix and his little dog Dogmatix.

I think the first time I read the comics was a kid in Kuwait, way back at the age of perhaps 7 or 8, and I couldn’t even pronounce the names – I called them Astri, Oblee and Dogimatoo) and didn’t know anything about France or the Roman empire. The comic series has remained a loveable favourite, among a lot of my friends and relatives as well. One of the most enjoyable scenes, and something that I’ll always associate with the comics, are the fact that the villagers, especially Obelix, loves to eat wild boar! They hunt wild boar and then cook them over an open fire and also serve them at every dinner party celebration that they have. Even in the comics the huge racks & legs of wild boar looked delicious. Ofcourse when I first read it, I had never tasted pork before having been born and living in an Islamic country till the age of 11. Once back in India ofcourse I’ve eaten pork, ham and bacon and even once – just once – managed to get some excellent wild boar, cooked by a trained chef friend. It looked nothing like the wild boar roasted over open fires in the comic ofcourse and fueled in my imagination but it was delicious.

This post was inspired by a cooking video of wild boar ribs that I just watched. It reminded me of the comics and Asterix, Obelix and Dogmatix eating all those wild boars :).