Chp 438. Mizoram Journal II: potpourri

Here are some more photos I took with my phone during my brief (but memorable) recent vacation in Mizoram.

1. The family cook

Some of you may not be aware of my trademark fried potatoes. I have a very unique method of preparing it (it’s a secret). My flat-mates call it “heart-attack potatoes”. Everybody who has tasted it, swear it is the best goddamn fried potatoes they’ve ever tasted. The only flipside is, it is extremely high in cholesterol, hence the name “heart-attack potatoes”. I decided to treat my family with that special dish.

And of course, a cold can of Dagon to make cooking more enjoyable. :P

Can you smell the exotic aroma? The heavenly spices? The greasy cholesterol? :P Yummmm…  Everybody loved it, especially my two nieces.

2. Roadside Sanpiau

Speaking of food, I was walking with a friend in Aizawl when we suddenly decided to stop at a roadside tea stall and have the Sanpiau. It’s a traditional Mizo dish made from blah blah blah (ok I don’t know exactly what it’s made up of and am too lazy to google).

What I love the most about tea stalls in Mizoram is the honestly. As you can see in this picture too, there are some boiled eggs on the table. Anybody can have them. Likewise, there are assorted breads, cakes and sweets too. Just eat whatever you want from the table and later go up to the stall keeper and tell him/her what you had and you pay only for that much. Nobody doubles checks on what you actually ate, and at the same time, nobody lies either.

3. Child yesterday; woman today

Our household currently consists of my dad, mom, sister, and two nieces. My two nieces are the daughters of my eldest sister who is living with her new husband someplace else. We’ve been taking care of the two nieces since they were babies. And that is why it took a long time for me to get over the shock that the older niece now has a boyfriend and goes to beauty parlours frequently.

Here is me picking her up from the parlour. Daymmm they grow up so fast! Sob sob…

4. Water at your service

So this Christmas and New Year, my sister and her husband from UK too flew home. Therefore there were a lot of us. We would usually end up finishing our regular water supply, and hence had to call for extra water time and again. These private water suppliers charge 1400 bucks for one trip. One trip consists of two Sintex barrel filled with water, which is 4000 litres.

One really embarrassing incident – So the first time these people came to deliver water, I climbed up our tall water tank like a big hero to insert the huge water pipe. The water supply team consisted of two workers – one was holding the pipe coming from the supply truck, and the other was fixing up the generator. As I was waiting for them to start their machine, I was busy taking pictures of my neighbor’s house instead of holding the pipe firmly.

Suddenly, the water generator was switched on, and the force pulled down the pipe I had painstakingly attached to our water storage. I dived but failed to grab it, and so the entire water, in all its force and glory generated by the generator, gushed out from the pipe onto the road! After the machine was quickly switched off, both the supply guys and all my neighbors gave me this very dirty look, as if to say “What a clumsy, good-for-nothing, tall, fat, handsome oaf!” I just grinned and scratched my head while they passed the pipe back to me again.

Anyway, here are some of the photos I took from the water tank, cramped into one picture, just moments before the pipe disaster. Hope it was worth it. Click to enlarge.

5. Merry Vodafone Christmas

Most people will tell you Vodafone customer care sucks, or Airtel customer care sucks, or Idea customer care sucks. In fact, most service providers’ customer care sucks sometimes. But compare that to Mizoram and you will realize bad customer service is actually better than no customer service. In some restaurants in Mizoram, sometimes you actually have to get your food from the chef’s counter yourself because the waiter’s slacking off or busy chatting with his/her friends! That’s how bad it is there. Nobody gives a shit about customer service.

So imagine my surprise when our doorbell rang and I opened it to find… two pretty girls dressed smartly, and a Santa Claus! They were from Vodafone. They asked for my sister (who’s a Vodafone subscriber), gifted her a Christmas cake, and then took a photo of her and the Santa together near our Christmas tree, and then left as quickly as they came, wishing us all a merry Christmas on their way out. Now THAT’S good customer service and PR indeed! Below is the cake they gifted us.

6. The unaffordable cost of Arsenal!

Yeah yeah, I know Arsenal’s not doing great at all this year, and like the past so many years, we’re not buying any of the top players again. So like I said earlier, my sister from UK came home, and like every other year, she gifted me the new Arsenal jersey this time too. However, this year the price of an Arsenal jersey (I’m talking about an original, bought from the Emirates Stadium) shot up because apparently, it is quite different from the older Arsenal jerseys due to the new blue arm patch!

So guess what’s the cost of this jersey? 

£ 59.99!

That’s… 5259.61 bucks in Indian currency! Definitely my most expensive tee-shirt ever! All the other Arsenal jerseys my sister used to buy for me every year never used to cross £30. And in spite of charging us hardcore fans so much for the jerseys and tickets (oh yeah, Arsenal has the dubious distinction of having the most expensive match-day ticket price!), the fact that we never buy good players because they are “too expensive” just feels soooo frustrating sometimes.

7. Suit up!

Suits season 3 will start airing from next week, I can’t wait!!! Meanwhile, I got myself two new suits when I went home this time, one for Christmas service and the other for New Year service. I took them both down with me to Mumbai too, but I’m sure I’m not even going to touch it here. Hopefully, I wouldn’t have outgrown them when I get to wear them next – that is, Christmas 2013.

In case I outgrow them (like I did to all my other suits), here is how I looked like because this is probably the last time you’ll ever see me wearing them :(

[Me Christmas suit up]

[Me New Year suit up]

Cheers!