Book Review : The Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer by Cyrus Mistry

The title of the book may sound morose, but this latest offering from the reticent Cyrus Mistry (not to be confused with Cyrus Mistry of Tata Group) is anything but that. The book revolves around the lives of a hardly heard-of and rarely-seen set of people - corpse bearers or Khandhias - within the more prosperous and gregarious Parsi community.

Apparently inspired by a true story, the book recounts the life of Phiroze Elchidana, the son of the head priest of a Parsi fire temple in Bombay (the book is set in pre-Independence India when Bombay was still 'Bombay'). His parents have high hopes of their son becoming a renowned Zoroastrian scholar or atleast a great priest. One day while wandering through the lush environs of Doongerwadi - The Parsi Tower of Silence, Phiroze meets and falls in love with Sepideh, the daughter of a Khandhia (corpse bearer). Phiroze goes onto marry her much against the wishes of his family and faces no future prospects except to become a Khandhia himself. The job of Khandhias is to collect the bodies of the dead, perform the final purification rites and rituals before the body is fed to the vultures for final disposal. Their job is one of the noblest services a Parsi can perform for one of his own faith but which at the same time condemns them to a lifetime of shunning and ostracization. Phiroze's happily married life with Sepideh is short as she passes away soon after, leaving Phiroze with the responsibility of a young daughter. 

The book captures some beautiful moments of being part of a discriminated lot and the poignancy of some scenes is truly heart rending. The book's biggest value is the rare insight it offers into the harsh treatment of a marginalized segment of the sophisticated and admired Parsi society which rarely comes to the fore and very few people know exists. Some unique customs pertaining to Parsi rituals for the dead would be interesting to the anthropologist in us.

The book also brings to mind an incident in the not so distant past when an old Parsi lady mourning the demise of her mother set foot into the forbidden grounds of Doongerwadi's actual disposal pits and clicked photographs of rotting corpses which had been lying around for months and apparently even years due to lack of vultures in Mumbai. She had clicked photographs of the scene and circulated them in the media leading to a huge outcry amongst the conservative sections of the community. Scenes of those photographs flashed through my mind as I read 'The Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer' and I could only shudder to think what Khandhias see and go through each day.

Overall, the book is an engrossing read and I would recommend it especially for people who have an interest in other religions / cultures and their customs and rituals. In my opinion, Cyrus Mistry is one of India's most under-rated authors and this book is testimony to his prowess as a master story teller and that too against the backdrop of a funereal setting. Cyrus Mistry and his elder brother Rohinton Mistry both write about the same microscopic topic : Parsi life in Bombay. While Rohinton Mistry is the more popular of the two, my personal inclination is towards the writings of Cyrus Mistry. I guess Cyrus has not had the same impact with readers due to his low profile nature and non-prolific writing. I rate both the Mistry brothers very highly for their writing skills but Cyrus does seem to have an edge in capturing your heart with simple and poignant tales. Read the book for precisely that - a simple tale of love amongst one of society's most shunned lots.

Airline Review : IndiGo

Indian skies have seen a flurry of airlines come and go since the domestic aviation policy was liberalized to allow private entrants 20 odd years ago. With the arrival of any new player on the scene, a question one is wont to ask is how long will this one survive? After all, staying afloat in Indian skies is no mean feat (and we are not even talking about being profitable here). It is with little fanfare IndiGo airline was launched a few years ago and today is the poster boy of Indian aviation.

Whats going for the airline :
1. IndiGo has an impressive almost hard-to-believe punctuality record. The inflight crew refers to departure and arrival times as IndiGo Standard Time and not without reason. The on-time performance is a real feat in the Indian context and this makes IndiGo the preferred choice for business travelers also now.
2. Fares are very competitively priced and if you book a month in advance, you can grab some really good offers. Of late, they have even introduced 'sale fares' on select routes for off season travel.
3. Aircrafts are spanking new and well maintained. In line with practices at low cost carriers like Ryan Air and Easy Jet, food containers and other trash is collected by inflight crew as the plane prepares for landing. This allows for a quick turnaround time between flights as only a quick vacuum cleaning is needed once all passengers have disembarked.
4. IndiGo is truly a non-frill airline. You pay for a seat and that is literally what you get. Any additional service (priority boarding and disembarkation, choice of meal served etc) attracts additional charges.
5. Free checked-in baggage allowance of 15 kgs/pax coupled with 7 kgs of hand baggage allowance might seem low in the Indian context but compared with international peers, is quite generous.
6. Connectivity offered within India is excellent and on some routes, IndiGo has a clear monopoly. Their biggest USP is connecting India's metros to Tier II and Tier III cities with direct flights.

What could do with some help :
1. There is a wide variety of beverages offered onboard. However, be wary if you are ordering any dishes which should ideally be savoured hot. From the rice dishes to sandwiches, expect to eat everything cold as there are no heating facilities onboard. Very disappointing really.
2. International fares are a downer. You might get the odd good deal to Singapore / Dubai but most often, Indigo is way over-priced over national carriers of these countries (SQ/EK) and mind you, those are full service providers with meals et al included and these inclusions do make a difference on 3-6 hour flights.
3. In line with a rising trend amongst Indian carriers, penalty for date change is quite high. IndiGo charges INR 1000 per date change against the higher INR 1200 charged by Jet Airways.

Overall rating : 8/10. IndiGo is by far the best Indian airline operating at the moment. It's admirable on-time performance record has made it a clear favourite with travelers of all kinds. With the impending arrival of Air Asia on the Indian scene, it will be interesting to watch how IndiGo rises to the challenge of competing with one of the world's most successful low cost carriers and holds its own. Watch this space.

Restaurant Review : Yauatcha, Mumbai, India

Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC), the new CBD of Mumbai has really started to come into its own. Apart from the gleaming office towers and (relatively) clean and broad roads, what stands out about the area is the growth of quality dining options here. No longer do you have to trek to the airport hotels or Bandra (West) for a decent dining venue with office colleagues. The newest entrant on this evolving scene is Yauatcha - a Hong Kong style dim sum house owned by the same group as Hakkasan, the upscale Chinese restaurant from London which opened its Indian outpost in Bandra (West) last year.

Yauatcha is located in fashionable Raheja Tower and you can see the restaurant exterior from a distance. The all glass paneled seating area with its 20+ feet ceiling looks warm and exclusive as you drive upto it. For people with disabilities and pregnant ladies, some disappointment awaits. You have to climb a flight of stairs from the reception foyer area to the first floor. There is an elevator but in the usher's own words 'it is located at the back of the building and not so convenient'.

Once on the first floor, a large bar area with ample seating against well stocked wine fridges greets you. You walk past them to where the dining tables are and what surprised me is the proximity at which they are placed next to each other. You can actually participate in the conversation of the table next to you. I visited on a Wednesday evening and the crowd comprised mostly of office goers from the BKC area and a handful of television personalities. The place really starts to fill up around 10 pm and you are well advised to make reservations.

Yauatcha's ambience is sophisticated and understated with dark wooden furniture, small aquariums at either end and subdued lighting. All seating looks onto the expansive open kitchen or the BKC skyline. By the time we left, not a single table was unoccupied.

Now onto the raison d'etre for our visit. Going through the menu, you realize there is plenty of choice even for vegetarians. The drinks menu is interesting and in keeping with its tea-house origins, there are varied tea choices from across China/ Taiwan and India. I was happy to see a personal favourite of mine - Dragon's Well Green Tea - featured on the menu and with most of them priced at INR 250 for a pot, I thought the pricing was quite attractive for tea lovers. The wine list is exhaustive by Indian standards and by those same standards, very expensive too! Cocktails priced at INR 350-500 and beers in the same range are standard in Mumbai which explains their presence on most tables.

We started off our evening with a portion of steamed chicken and prawn shui mai (4 pieces for INR 275) and a portion of hot and sour soup with shredded chicken (INR 300). The shui mai was strictly average - I've eaten way better ones and can say the same for the soup. Next to arrive were steamed chicken dumplings (3 pieces for INR 475) which again were passable. They were kind of gelatinous, bland and not a patch on what you'll be served at a Din Tae Fung (for half the price) or even a standalone tea house in Hong Kong. Wanting to try a prawn preparation, our waiter recommended Crispy Prawn Cheung Fun over the Prawn and Chinese Chive dumpling. Great recommendation! This was by far the best dish of the evening. At INR 525 for 10 pieces, the portion was generous and delicious. The soft exterior of the Cheung Funs wrapped a fried prawn mix inside which was really tasty. We decided to wrap up with a rice dish and promptly ordered the Emperor's Seafood Fried Rice which was a decent size portion of rice with scallops, prawns and squids with a soy chilli gravy on the side. I didn't enjoy it too much and was thankful for the fish we had ordered. The Steamed Rawas in Spicy Black Bean Sauce (INR 650) was absolutely fantastic. Our server recommended Prawns in Spicy Sauce and to my surprise, it was a big let down. It is hard to go wrong with tasty meat like prawns but Yauatcha managed this. Quite a feat in my opinion!

The service at Yauatcha is wonderful. The staff are well groomed and well informed about their menu and are able to make good recommendations. They are not intrusive and at the same time, available the moment you need them. The 10% mandatory service charge is well deserved by the crew. On a side note, let me make a mention here about the washrooms. They are done up in the same dark wooden theme as the rest of the restaurant but the actual cubicles are so small that you have to stand at an angle to be able to open / close the door. And if that isn't enough, the high-tech sensory taps don't work! Not one of the 4 taps in the ladies' washroom worked and the attendant cleaner even rapped them with a prong to get them started but to no avail. Not very befitting of a high end dining establishment.

Overall, I recommend Yauatcha for an evening out with friends. The elegant ambience, innovative drinks and swish crowd all make for a fun evening out on town. If you are planning to come here only for the food, I would say once is enough. Tea house style dining is a new concept in India and I am not sure most people will take to it since it can be quite tedious. The concept is to order multiple dishes so you can sample a variety of them (also because portion sizes are small) but the Indian palate is different. It can get quite boring to pore over the menu again and again to come up with the next portion. What doesn't help is that the most popular dim sum dish of any tea house - Juicy Pork Dumplings - don't make an apperance at all on Yauatcha's menu. Having lived in Hong Kong, my high expectations were probably misplaced especially with respect to dim sums. They left me highly unimpressed. I would say Yauatcha's dimsums are at par with the dimsums you'd be served at most decent 5 star hotels in Mumbai. Would I be back to Yauatcha? Only for the food, no. For a chilled out evening with friends in a nice setting, Yauatcha is as good as it gets.