Delhi Diary

’Tis the Book Do Season

There were three book launches, back to back, in Delhi last week. Hari Kunzru, the internationally acclaimed author, batted first with the release of his latest novel, Gods Without Men. Unfortunately for him, only 50 or so invitees showed up. The event clashed with the British High Commissioner’s bash inaugurating the Alchemist Hay literature festival coming up in Kerala. The choice of the venue was also ill-advised, a restaurant in the boondocks close to the Qutub. During rush hour, it takes more than an hour to get there by car from central Delhi.

A day later, the author of Lucknow Boy was luckier. It was standing room only at the Meridien in the heart of Lutyens’ city. The politicians came early and occupied the front seats. It is one of their fundamental rights, as anyone who lives in Delhi knows. The two ministers who were sacked were downgraded to the second row. The rest of us, the aam janata and the page 3 crowd, sat wherever we could find seats. Some ministers leafed nervously through the index of their copies. Those who were not mentioned in Vinod Mehta’s book were probably the luckier ones. Kamal Nath left early, perhaps unhappy that he was once seen by the author at a party in the company of a “luscious lady”!

The last literary event of the week belonged to Suhel Seth and it was at the Taj. Suhel has a following but the title of the book might have something to do with another good turnout: Get to the Top: The Ten Rules for Social Success. Citizens of Delhi are always upwardly mobile and are suckers for any book that promises self-advancement. I get a mention in the book though I am not sure if it is complimentary. That’s fine with me since my name is spelt correctly!

French Veg Indeed

Give me a nice beef steak, cooked the way the French cook it, add a glass or two of good red wine and I am in high heaven. Before you start sending me abusive mail, let me assure you that I make it a rule to eat only foreign cows. They look nothing like our cows. It was not always that way. I grew up a vegetarian and I was already in college when I had my first taste of an egg. The chicken came a year later. But I still crave for khichdi, cooked Gujarati style and eaten with dollops of ghee. Mothers always make it best!

I have been invited to an exclusive dinner early next month that will satisfy both my vegetarian background and my fondness for French cuisine. Anyone who has tried tracking down a vegetarian meal in Paris will find the term ‘French vegetarian food’ an oxymoron. But Alain Passard, the owner of the three Michelin-star restaurant, Arpege, is flying down from Paris to explode that myth. Apparently there is such a thing as French vegetarian food. The wines that will be paired with various courses will come from the legendary Chateau Margaux. It promises to be quite an evening.

The chef is planning three separate dinners, in Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi. It seems that Calcutta and Chennai now play in second division as far as fine dining is concerned.

The Refined Patel

I have lots of relatives who owned motels when they first migrated to America from the villages of Gujarat. In some of the seedier Patel Motels, you could rent rooms by the hour but you had to bring your own lady. It was a line of business that did not require much knowledge of English. The husband took the money at the reception counter while the wife supervised or did the laundry and cleaning. These days they have Hilton and Sheraton franchises and their children are Harvard and Yale graduates.

When someone told me that a Patel was producing wines in California, I took the information with a grain of salt. We are traditionally farmers, mainly cotton and tobacco, and are descendants of Jats from the north who migrated and settled in Gujarat centuries ago. We grow grapes sometimes but we don’t make wine.

But sure enough there is thriving winery in Napa Valley that sells Cabernet Sauvignon under the ‘Patel’ label for $100 a bottle. That’s a steep price but, apparently, it is rather good. Robert Parker, the renowned wine critic, gave it 95 points out of a hundred. As I suspected, wine-making is a side business for Raj Patel. He is a vice-president in a bank. Now that is something that would have made his Gujarati parents proud!

Return of the Annoyance

It was a huge relief to all of us when the government finally banned sending of cellphone messages in bulk. The most annoying were from property dealers. They were the most persistent. The bad news is that the messages have started coming again. How these guys get around the ban is a mystery to me but the other day I received the same message repeated more than a dozen times. The message was pitching some housing in Noida that I have no intention of buying. There have been others.

I hope Kapil Sibal is reading this. Please plug the loophole.