Going Back, One-room Mansion, Cola and ****

Well, I'm getting ready to go back to India for the next six months. My broken toilet seat, flaky Internet connection, etc., are waiting for me there. I live in a place I call my one-room mansion. It's not that it has only one room. The house itself is reasonably large, but I (we rather - my wife, son and I) more or less use only one room - the bedroom, which also acts as my place of work. A typical day starts with us walking to my parents' house nearby. There we have breakfast, then we come back, go again for lunch, come back, siesta, go again for tea and stay till dinner and a final come back to sleep (and work). I sometimes wonder why I built the house.

The one-room mansion I mentioned above is a standard term in Japan. Let me explain. The first time I heard this was when the company that took me to Japan (last century) told me that I'd be staying in a one-room mansion in Tokyo. Wow! Mansion! The word evoked images of grandeur. So, I come to Tokyo and find that a mansion in Japan is about the size of a matchbox. Well, a big matchbox, if you please, but still a matchbox. By stretching your hands out, you could touch all four walls and the ceiling with ease. The room comes with everything you need. It has a small kitchen unit, a toilet and bath (with a Japanese-style bathtub) and usually has just enough space for a single bed, small desk, chair, TV and a shelf. It'd be nice to meet the guy who first used the term mansion for these rooms. Y'know, just curious. Maybe, a head butt after the initial pleasantries.

I was finding it difficult to think up any real rants. Partly because I was busy with work and travel preparations but also because I was feeling a bit under the weather. Then the cola ban was imposed in Kerala and elsewhere in India. Now, this is my kind of stuff. I don't drink colas. Period. I don't like it. No Coke, no Pepsi, no Thums-up or any of those $h*t. "$h*t", in case you haven't heard, has now become a socially, diplomatically and officially acceptable word ever since el presidente Bushie used it at the G-8 summit recently. Newspapers print it without the *s and some TV stations aired it without the bleep, but I'm sticking with the old format, for now. Back to colas and $h*t. Well, I don't drink them and therefore don't care one way or the other about the ban. I, however, don't like governments when they say they are worried about the people's health. These are governments that can't provide potable water to a majority of the public. "What, you don't have water? Drink cola!" governments suddenly start worrying about people's health. Something fishy there. So, I thought I should support the cola guys. Then Amrika appeared on the scene, displaying as usual its penchant for poking its **** into other's affairs. The BBC said that an U.S. official warned India blah, blah, blah investment blah. I immediately switched my allegiance and am now rooting for the central government to come up with a nation-wide ban.

That's all for now. It's Independence Day in India etc. etc. Refer Aug 2000 and Aug 2001 for earlier brants on those subjects, as I am feeling kinda lazy to think up new stuff. Next update on Sep 1 is a bit iffy considering that I'll reach India only on Sep 2 and am not sure if the www will get hooked up in time or not. I might try to do it during my stopover in Tokyo, but no guarantees on that.