Travel Book Logs

Frequent visits to Bombay in the last few months have given me an opportunity to experience some great cuisine and night life of this great city.  In particular Bandra with its hip and trendy lifestyle has been a lot of fun.  Shopping in Bandra at places like Hill Road, Linking Road etc is always fun.  The Bandstand and the beautiful churches in the area are some of the attractions not to be missed.  Driving past the Chuvim fishing village with its quaint little houses is a pleasure.  Pali Hill and the Pali naka with its little hole in the wall eating joints is always a never miss spot.

Earlier this year while driving on Hill Road I noticed the Spice Tree restaurant near the old Kobe’s.  Walking in for lunch was pleasant and service was friendly.  Ambience is very nice with a spicy theme to the three sections of the restaurant - Cinammon, Cardamom and Clove.   Clove is the open air section at the back of the restaurant with the Cinammon and Cardamom up in front.  Food is a mix of coastal and continental with a reasonable dose of Indian.   Full bar service is available for refuge from Bombay’s sultry weather and I was happy to see that they offered Valet Parking service.  Convenient considering that they are located right on one of the busy end of Hill Road opposite St Andrew’s Church.

This is easily one of the best seafood restaurants in the Bandra area.  I recommend the Creamy Crab Meat Soup which friends and family now fondly call the Dreamy Creamy Craby Soup.  The Koliwada Prawns are what I order along with my Mangalore Fish Curry and Rice made with a choice of fresh fish for the day - Pomfrit, Kingfish or Mackerel.  I order the Bombay Duck fry (which is a fish by the way) along with the drinks but some may like the prawns first.  The squid is also an excellent option with the drinks for those who favour a sip and chew before the main course.  On days when I am looking for a lighter version of the meal I ask for their excellent oppums or Neer dosas.   These come fresh off the pan served in plates with banana leaves at the bottom giving them a touch of the south.

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Games Indians Play: Why We Are the Way We Are
Raghunathan V

On my trip to Goa last week I picked up this interesting book which gave me an insight on what is an interesting question perhaps all Indians ask ourselves - Why are We the Way we Are?   Its the kind of question that dogs me everytime I walk around our country and maybe more when I travel abroad.  What causes the massive systematic failures that plague our country?  If you are Indian you know what the heck this is all about - even more unsettling is that on further investigation, the answer is, perhaps we don’t!

In Raghunathan, I find a kindred soul who like me has walked down the same path.   Its nice to see some of the same questions I’ve asked or even worse been asked about our fair land.  What the hell do you say?  Too often I see people retreat to our history and even worse to our population problem.  You can almost anticipate people saying “Its complicated!”    Most of the time its exhausting trying to explain India’s vagaries and unfortunately its big failures because in truth that is what our signature problems are - corruption, pollution, traffic apathy, lack of public hygiene etc.

Unlike others who resort to above said  “reasons” V Raghunathan applies an interesting blend of behavioral economics and game theory.  Ever since I read Freakanomics by Steve Levitt and Stephen Dubner, I have pondered the potential of the behavioral economics approach to explain the India situation.   Raghunathan goes one step further and brings in game theory to help grasp difficult to explain scenarios.   The Prisoners Dilemma in particular illustrates the familiar scenario of when parties or individuals are worse off by pursuing their own selfish interests.   It should be mentioned that game theory does not predict the outcomes of human situations but it does a darn good job of giving us a good idea once you know how to set things up.

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The new airport at Hyderabad was completed in March 2008 several months ahead of schedule catching almost everyone by surprise.  Hats off to the GMR consortium for delivering on time and in style.  To get an idea of the “surprise”, the roads and hotel infrastructure around the airport are still catching up with the airport.  The flyover at Medhipatnam built for the sole purpose of diverting airport traffic is only going to be completed in September 2008.

The Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) at Shamshabad as it is officially called ran into speed bumps even as the curtains were to be raised.  Many locals were extremely vocal about the choice of Rajeev gandhi’s name for the airport.  Fair complaint in my opinion.  However try explaining that to a Congress government.  Sonia Gandhi inaugurated the airport on March 14th, 2008 almost three years to the day of laying the foundation stone.  First flight arrival was the Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt which also became the first departure flight when it turned around a couple of hours later.  More information on the airport can be found at the Hyderabad International Airport website.

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