Why I like the Wine

Wine and dine sessions are quite interesting and can be equally entertaining (if you know what I mean). Talking about wine, my memories go back to the year 2003 – it was when I first tasted the chilled, sparkling fermented grape juice. I was in Germany celebrating my birthday eve with my friends and at the stroke of midnight a bottle of Sekt (German sparkling wine, similar to champagne) was uncorked. They say you need to develop the taste for wine to enjoy it, but I fell in love with it the very first time I imbibed it.

In the year 2005 when I again visited Germany for academic purposes, my university used to organize weekend excursions for all the students. Castles and palaces, lakes and gardens and one day trips to nearby cities was the customary routine; but what also was a part and parcel of the weekend jaunt, was our visit to vineyards and wineries! The whole experience was really fantastic – it was explained to us how the grapes are selected, how the wines are fermented, how they are stored in the cellar and what differentiates the wine varieties from one another, the quality categories: Tafelwein (table wine), Landwein (country wine), Qualitaetswein (quality wine) and Qualitaetswein mit Praedikat (better quality wine) and there are several other criteria for classification. I don’t know and don’t remember much about the technicalities about wines, all I care about is the taste ;). I enjoyed the wine tasting experience to the hilt – not to forget everything was gratis for us (so predictably the Indian students among the group were over the moon and consumed more wine than the rest of the group altogether) - wine and cheese accompanied with some German music and dance and traditional German drinking games!

This time I got a couple of wine bottles for my dad – one of the Riesling variety (from Alsace) and the other was the Sekt (sparkling white wine). It was a one-of-the-best souvenirs from Deutschland for daddy dearest and he was obviously delighted.

The very next day after I returned from Germany, I went to Vaishali in the evening for a cup of “medium-strong sweet” (for all the non-Puneites that is coffee) and sada dosa. I returned home by dinner time and when I opened the door, the living room was dimly lit with terracotta and paper lamps, Ghulam Ali was intoning “Kal chaudhavi ki raat thi…” and the center table was primly set with homemade chicken and cheese appetizers, three wine glasses and a bottle of Alsatian wine. Dad was comfortably resting on the jhula, waiting for me to come home – the moment he saw me enter the house, he welcomed me with his charming smile and poured in wine in the three glasses, handed one glass to mom and the other to me and said “Here’s to you my lovely.” I remember I ran to him and curled up in his warm embrace like a baby.

Today I dedicate this memory, this blog to dad “Here’s to you Baba, here’s to all the precious moments we share!”

Achtung Baby

How to judge whether a movie is worth a dekho or not:

1. The production house has got nothing to do with "Yashraj" or "Dharma" productions.

2. There is no cross border (Veer Zara or Alvira Khan - Ricky Thakural) love story.

3. There are no songs shot in Switzerland, Times Square or any exotic locales.

4. Himmesh Reshammiya is not the music director.

5. Big B does not perform the song and dance routine at Waterloo station (or any other station for all I care).

6. Salman Khan does not take his shirt off or better if he doesn't make any appearance.

7. There are no Punjabi families - no balle balle, shava shava or mahive; no extravagant North Indians. I would like to draw attention to the fact that there are other many other communities in India viz. Maharashtrians, Tamilians, Mallus (yes there is a big difference between the two – all South Indians are not the same and anything below Maharashtra on the map cannot just be classified as South India), Gujrathis, Assamese (FYI they are Indians and not Chinese/Korean) et al.

8. SRK is not trying real hard to portray a 23-24 year old college guy, Rahul/Raj, clad in Tommy Hilfiger.

9. There is no Fair and Handsome (or its correlate) product placement throughout the movie.

10. It is not a miserably failed over the top remake of some Hollywood (or foreign) flick.

11. There is no unreasonable, tasteless humor (that makes you wonder am I the only one who is not laughing, what is wrong with the people) as well as there is no emotional melodrama of any kind.

12. There are no 3-4 bachelor roommates desperately trying to create humorous situations with their stupid acts and everyone hitting on the same girl

13. No weird camera angles that seem to feature exclusively on the actress's derriere.

14. The title of the movie does not include the article “The” or the director’s initials.

Achtung baby!