Eating Out Can Lead To Korrhea

I'm not really into eating, but I must survive; I couldn't bear the alternative just yet. My point is, I can't be really relied upon as an expert of food, but, since there isn't enough mention of it, I'd like to bring to your attention, if you're ever in Delhi (India), the Korean restaurant called Dokebi Nara. It's a small place, and a decent review of it has already been done here.

The most fun thing is finding this place - I guess the Metro came up after the review above, so as a tip, the nearest station is Ramakrishna Ashram Marg on the Blue Line. Get out on the Ashram side and take a right, keep walking till the first large intersection. Then take the small lane to the left and you come to the 'small square' mentioned in the review.

More than anything, the atmosphere of the place is warm and reminiscent of a beachside shack at Goa, especially at night. The food is perhaps not in tune with the spice requirements of the Indian palate, but good enough, and chand (No, you read 'filling', 'filling'). Let me reiterate that it takes ages for you to get your order, mainly I guess because there's only two guys running the whole show, and the food is all freshly prepared.

The walls are covered with messages and doodles scrawled by customers - look for an Achaya when you're there (UPDATE: The wall has been whitewashed, alas!). Another thing I guess you could try is the Korean booze 'Chamisul Fresh Soju', empty bottles of which line the parapet - it's 350 INR though, so it hasn't quenched this poor man's thirst. Yet.

Fresh, all right!
Poster for “Ip-Saeju” soju (2009), © Bohae Brewery Co. Ltd

Overheard

"My boss is having an affair with a girl in my office, and he's married, with kids. We all knew, but, like, what can you say. He's been, like, going around with her - not obvious, sometimes he drops her to office, sometimes people at restaurants have seen them, but the problem is, it comes into the workspace.
According to him he's not discriminating, but according to us, he is (and she's a psycho). There are exceptions made for her, and he thinks we don't realise; if she gets upset with somebody or anything, she goes and screams at him and walks out. We have seen her screaming at him, he has a glass door.
Any time you confront him - I've had problems with her - he is so cunning and clever; any person who wants to learn how to talk, should learn from him. He'll say she has a rough time at home, and comes to me and my wife."

"She's not good looking."

"He's bought her a laptop which she uses in the office. Recently, for all of us Yahoo and Facebook is blocked, but she has. For her birthday last year, he ordered pizza, I went to collect it, we didn't know who it was from, the guy said, 'It's from ****'. He's sent her a bouquet, he bought her an iPod Touch, this year she got a camera; she doesn't say it's from him. This time she said her brother gave her the camera for her birthday - her brother's working in Dubai.
Two days later, one of the girls saw on Facebook her brother saying 'sorry ****, forgot your birthday', so then how did he buy her a camera? Her mother's salary is Rs.7000, so how is she buying on her own?
When I accuse him of being biased, he'll say, 'She has tough time', but then I say, 'We all have problems, you can't take advantage of the fact' - anyway, thats an ongoing thing. Now its reached a stage where nobody likes her in office. He's divided the team into two, i'm managing one and the other team he's made her the manager and put newcomers under her, who won't know about her."

"She acts like such a hypocrite, like she's fallen from heaven."

"The other day one of the girls found a letter in his drawer, written on our stationery in his handwriting, not a poem, more like his thoughts:

'I'm not going to think about her
I'm not gonna think about her anymore
I'm not gonna think about the way she looks
I'm not gonna think about the way her hair smells
I'm not gonna think about the way she cried when her turtle died
I'm not going to think about the way she wants a pup
I'm not gonna think about the way we drove to Bajpe airport and had salty omelettes
I'm not gonna think about her powerful legs
I'm not gonna think about how delicate she was like a bird
I'm not gonna think about the way she decorated the christmas tree
I'm not gonna think about her booty shake and something something
I'm not gonna think about her love for crab cakes at Moti Mahal
I'm not gonna think about the way she screamed and smashed so many phones
I'm not gonna think' - I can't remember the others right now.

One of the girls has taken the letter now, it's with her - one original is there and many Xeroxes are there. I'm imagining his guts, ok - our team for the past year and a half, I can't tell you how many placements we've done - I looked at her client sheet (it's hidden like a big secret. initially it was on a server, now its a big secret), you should see the hits - from last year till now, just 4 or 5. We had a meeting, I gave it to him - he's accusing us of not working and not saying anything to them. I said its damn unfair, he's saying, 'Last quarter in the past three months, tell me who you've sourced and when they've joined.' "

"I'm stupid? I gave it to him properly!"

"This is, like, getting worse now. Let me tell you about his stupid -
and, er, I asked him, 'So ****, what about the other team?', 'coz they dont do any work. He said, 'I think they've done pretty well' - the client sheet I got after that meeting - he's saying, 'A VP position, she's closed' (nothing like that was there). Next day, he called me and apologised, he knows we have something against him."

"To this girl, ****, when she behaves stupidly, the other girls loudly will tell one another, 'eh, you know last evening I went to Bajpe airport and ate salty omelettes' and 'what about the crab cakes in Moti Mahal?'"

"The poem also has a 2 by 2 code -

'I'm not gonna think about the 2x2 code
I'm not gonna think about the games we played in office - hide and seek (without the balls) :)'

What are the balls in hide and seek?"

Right-click on "Download" and choose "Save As..."

People who are opposed to all forms of piracy are oversimplifying the case. I would make the justification based on the item in question, it's actual value, availability and requirement (for now).
I, in India, am opposed to piracy in ascending order as follows - music, software, movies and books. Right now, I only want to discuss why I stand by music piracy:

1. In the absence of good radio stations, piracy is the only way available to 'test' a band before making the decision to buy it's music. This argument doesn't hold good for movies or books because both are easily available in India
2. Many bands actually do not mind people downloading their music because like true artists, they want to be heard, not just make money. This is also true of some great freeware developers, and to a lesser extent, writers and filmmakers
   
3. They suffer the least loss in quality and therefore the 'message' and 'feel' aren't diluted
4. The cost of a song, through iTunes for example, is 99¢, which is a prohibitive price in a country where the urban per capita income is about $800 (or $2.20 a day)

Yeah, yeah, "Piracy, it's a Crime" but do I really have to be charming and lovable for you to accept my reasoning?

Case in point.
Still from Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (1982),
directed by Gore Verbinski. © Walt Disney Pictures