The perils of flying Air India

Last week I had to make a quick trip to Chennai. A quick search on the net, showed I would be lucky to get a flight ticket on Air India at a fare which is just about 3 times the bus fare to Chennai at 10-15 am.

Folks at that time, for that price if you get a deal, have no further expectations. Unfortunately, I did. My mistake.

1. You could be booked on the domestic leg of an international flight.
2. You could be stuck in the security line behind 39 [that right i counted] Haj pilgrims, most of whom are on an airplane for the first time in their lives.
3. You could be incredibly hungry and all the snack counters inside the airport could be closed
4. You could get a flight crew, where the air hostess is older than your Grandma!
5. You could get the world's worst breakfast snack on the flight
6. You could run into turbulence and feel the seats vibrate violently. And your granny Air hostess will give you a stern "Do Not Whine" look
7. You could have the worst landing when you think damn I don't wanna go like this
8. You could land up in the airport and go through a swine flu machine that shows your body temperature to have reduced to freezing levels.

Yet for all this, you could still be better off than Ryan Air [or so I am told!]

Would you be massaged by a snake?

I came across this story earlier this week. I was disgusted!! Apparently this has been going on for quite sometime around the world. The reporter in this news-piece refers to the massage as a "sensual feeling". Ain't that bestiality? Illegal in many countries?

In a way however, its only natural progression. Once men acquiesce their role in bringing massage pleasure and relief to their fellow beings, its only natural that the snakes take over, figuratively and otherwise!



So snakes as techies...who btw have the same cribs this hero in the video has!

The Values Proposition

I'm in a profession that involves managing people and their aspirations on behalf of the organization that we work for. Some people, I manage directly but the vast majority indirectly. The rigors of daily work apart, it is always a very interesting experience watching people take life decisions and the grounds on which they take them.

I've seen people use money as the barometer for measuring every situation and people associated with it. Everything from their job to marriage boils down to the monetary value. As I type this, I can hear the dhol at a wedding hall down the street and can't help but wonder, whats the deal there! I somehow thought that by the time we complete our first year at work, it is pretty much established that money is not the only thing, not even the primary thing for one's career! And I wonder at what point of time in life, do we get this realization?

Another kind of decision making, is people who use emotion as the barometer. There is lot of conviction that comes with these decisions as they are of the heart. But often times, this can be quite disastrous as they might turn a deaf ear to valid arguments of reason that could potentially avert disasters. After a while, folks around them learn how these people can be manipulated through their emotions.

There are many more styles of decision making, but their analysis is not the point of this blog. A lot of times, we see that we fluctuate between one style to another. At the top of the month, when the money is in the bank, the style is very different, from the end of the month when we are broke. It seems our entire worldview fluctuates with our bank balance. This is where I've found values make a difference. We need to have a set of values, that shape our world-view. These values should not be prisoner to our bank balance, but a more stable reflection of what we want out of life.

Let these values decide if we should live our dreams or make our dreams fit our life. Whatever, be the result, its our decision and we live with its consequences.

Social Networking Hiatus

A cursory look at my recent Facebook activity, has convinced me that I need to prove to myself that I am just fine without FB. Its a wonderful medium to stay connected with friends and family, but I need to know that i'm not addicted to it. To ensure i don't transfer my interests elsewhere during this period, im off orkut and twitter as well.

Ram took 14 yrs vanvaas and then we had diwali...Me had diwali and 10 day vanvaas from social networking. Lets see how many days I last, coz mind u a] im not a mythical God and b] unlike Ram, i can end my vanvaas in 8 seconds! [thats how long it takes to get on FB mobile!]

Just in case ur wondering, this note wud appear on my FB profile, since its linked to my blog! Today is Day 1 and its gone just fine, so far! :)

The Intellectual Whore to the Punjabi Bride

As a freelancing intellectual whore [IW] to a Punjabi friend, who is to get married shortly, I’ve been privy to the various crests and falls in the waves that is scientifically called, mood swings. The following are a few snippets of my observations, post censoring.

1. There is a spike in the number of tiffs between the couple and they could go for days without speaking to each other
2. The bride actually goes through the same feelings of loss of singledom as the groom, but is not ok if the groom expresses his sadness over the same. She feels her sacrifice is not being appreciated enough.
3. Bride would have a big fight with groom and then bitch to Intellectual Whore about losing her singledom, sometimes I suspect, using the very same words the groom has used.
4. Neither the groom nor the IW will have a clue, why she is picking fights. But that’s the Venetian trait, I guess.
5. Bride wants to watch any movie the groom identifies with during this period, just to ensure our boy doesn’t get any wrong ideas.
6. Bride has a proclivity towards increasing her alcohol consumption. This can be disastrous, if left unsupervised.
7. The biggest fear the bride has is, that her female relatives would call her fat in her wedding dress.
8. To tackle aforesaid fear, bride spends a tremendous amount of time and energy at the gym. Statutory Warning to the Groom – Watch Out for the Post-Marital Explosion!
9. No matter who you are, for your own safety, always deny that she has put on weight, when she starts her weight related crib sessions.
10. Bride would never admit it. But sub-consciously, she has been planning for this wedding her entire life. Ever since, she attended her first wedding as a little girl.
11. Bride likes the fact that the Groom would let her choose all his clothes for the wedding and its associated ceremonies. The odds of the Color of the Groom’s suit, being color-coded with the bride’s blouse and the pandal are extremely high.
12. If you want to appear to be the groom, who is contributing to the wedding arrangements, say Yes to everything she asks for. Watch for the trick question, when you’re supposed to say NO.
13. Always, let the bride pick the honeymoon spot. The groom will get what he wants. Let her choose where.
14. Weddings are an expensive affair and will leave you broke for a time, after the honeymoon.

Well for those of you who don’t know what is an IW, read this. And fortunately, for me, the wedding day would also signal the demise of my only IW relationship.

More Pics from Hampi Trip

Nothing Says Roadtrip like this pic does.


And God Surd Said Go That Way...


True Love - A Man and His Machine


Baap ka sadak hai...soyenge ispe ... tera kya jata hai?


Mudgal fort and its moat - quite literally in the middle of nowhere


Thats an overflowing Krishna river, that has taken over the road and the bridge


The rocks that make Hampi


A building in the royal zenana

 

Tungabhadra Dam by Day

 

Tungabhadra Dam by Night

Austerity Drive Impacting the Masses

One thing about Govt initiatives is that you read a lot about it in the papers and the News Network would smother you to death over it, but the reality would hit us months or years later, if it ever would.

However, the recent austerity drive announced by the Govt has been a noble exception. It has hit the aam aadmi even before he could say aam. Aam admi aka Mango Man, given my fondness for our national fruit, has been hit by this austerity drive so bad, that he has taken to his own austerity drive.

Saddled with the standard expenses of a salaried professional at this time of the year, ie Credit card bills, travel bills, tax savings etc, I have no option but to declare my own austerity drive. Damn it. My disposable income over this quarter would be less than the average autowallah. I have decided to subsist over a meagre 3k month over this quarter. This is my own little reality show - produced, directed and watched by me, starring me.

If its going to cost a fortune to keep me poor, my only supplication, is please do share that fortune with me! :-)

Yeh Dilli Hai Mere Yaar

Something really disturbing happened to me on this trip to Delhi..nostalgia. For a self-proclaimed nomad like me that is the worst feeling to have. Its the first step into the descent into staying rooted somewhere.

A few days in this city and I experienced the myriad of lives you could possibly live here.

1. The Gurgaon Yuppie - Slog it off during the week and hit the malls on Friday evening with office folks for a beer or two.

2. Work it out around CP - Meet a friend for coffee or a movie in CP and then head home

3. Work for the Govt - stay in a palatial house in Lutyens Delhi, hang out at CP or Khan market and top it off with an ice-cream at India Gate

4. Live a miser's life in University campus @ JNU/DU and have the most fun in the world while doing it.

5. Work it off in the city and head home to Dwarka on the metro, while watching all of Delhi on your way to and fro.

Perhaps Delhi is a better place to visit rather than stay? My personal experience says otherwise because when you're tired of it, just drive off into the Mountains or the Dessert, its close enough... or if you have a death wish into Uttar Pradesh!! Its closer.

The Beer Chronicles

This is the story of 3 bachelors in their late 20's and their tryst with 8 rounds of beer during a road trip.

Round 1 - Nothing

Round 2 - Burp!

Round 3 -
Krazy Kumar - "You idiots bought only 3?"
Me - "Guilty"
Krazy Kumar - "The point about beer is when you're done drinking, there should always be another 2 bottles around"
Me - "Guilty as charged, My Lord!"

Resupply

Round 4 - Boys stop on a bridge and pose for photographs and also take photos with the beer bottle and of it. Said Beer bottle is treated like a deity..

Round 5 - Boys stop on the middle of the highway and pose for photos - again, this time while sitting on the middle of the road

Round 6 -

"Maa"

Boys reminiscence about their mother and how they understand them the best. There was also almost a, "Mere paas maa hai" dialogue, almost..

Round 7 - 2 Boys talk about this awesome woman in their office, and her charms and her voice and her eyes and declare that if only she were not married with kids, she would have definitely been proposed to. Me say "Hmmmmmmmmmm...."

Round 8 - Boys congratulate each other on an awesome roadtrip!! :-))))

The Politics of Calamity

I'm sure all of us have now been inundated with news of the unprecedented floods in AP and Karnataka.

Over the last weekend I had gone on a road trip with a couple of friends. We had traveled over 1187 kms through the so-called flood ravaged areas. No doubt there had been incessant and tremendous rainfall and the dams in the region were opened causing water logging in some areas. But we felt the reports carried in the media were grossly exaggerated. We saw only one IAF helicopter, no Govt vehicles or military vehicles carrying relief material, one camp for displaced people with 20 tents and nothing out of the ordinary really. But all along the way, incessant calls/sms from friends and relatives who were seeing the news, led us to believe we would be seeing some extraordinary tragedy. I've seen, first hand, the aftermath of the tsunami. There was no such displacement of people on view here. Not even a fraction of it.

Incessant media coverage, swamped with repeated imagery of flooded areas and damaged houses area creating a catastrophe bigger than what it really is. This seems like a ploy to get more relief money sanctioned by the powers to be. How much could you really muster of this tragedy by doing an aerial survey? As for the media, they seem to be more into selling their sound bytes, with visuals of people's misery edited and rerun to the tune of some sad Carnatic music [u need to watch the Vernacular channels for this innovation in news media].

In the end, the media gets their TRP and the politicians the relief money to swindle. In the midst of this sordid affair, I can only hope that the affected people, do get help in time to rebuild their lives.

A Road Trip to Nowhere

"Dude if we spend the next weekend like this we are losers", I said to God Surd.

"If we don't get out of Hyderabad it would be bad man. Anywhere but here", he replied

These words were spoken last Sunday after watching "Quick Gun Murugun" by two employees of Hyderabad's burgeoning IT industry. It gives us a lot..money, job, security, work to keep us occupied, but it takes away our individuality. In a way that is what we reclaimed this first weekend of October, if only for 3 days.



As with all things unplanned, this trip had a beginning and an end with just sheer awesomeness in between! We decided to go to Hampi in Karnataka, a distance of about 400 kms from Hyd. To and Fro shud be around 800 kms. We did nearly 1200 kms!! :-))

1. The Ride

We set off in a Maruti Swift vxi Diesel. Mileage of 20 kpl on the trip [guessing] and a top speed of 170 kmph [not guessing]!!. Needless to say that is a killer combo and not once did I feel I was in a diesel car. The more dust and grime that piled on to the car, the cooler it looked. The proud owner of this machine and its lover Krazy Kumar, had the honor of being the lead driver and driving us through an Overflowing Krishna river [true story, more on it later]. Yours truly, was the designated backup driver who managed to get behind the wheel of this beauty one dark Friday night, if u know what I mean.

2. The Terrain

All the places and districts affected by the current flood situation! Our road trip took us through some places we had planned and a lot many more places, simply coz we got lost. Thanks to a road map, Google Maps and wanderlust, we ensured we were on track to our final destination - Hampi.

We had traveled through Mahbubnagar, Devakadra, Marikal and Makhtal. After Makhtal we encountered a huge traffic jam at about 4 pm. On further probing, we saw that the Krishna river had overflown the bridge we were supposed to cross. The first truck guy at the bridge told us that he had been stuck there since 3 in the morning. We decided to take a detour and run around the Krishna river. We drove up to to Utkur, Narayanpet and got lost in Shahpur. STATUTORY WARNING: There is a road there not shown in Google Maps. We got lost there. We managed to hit Shorapur and then again reached a surging Krishna river, a little past Tintani. This time we were told that the water would recede. After watching quite a few cars get stuck in the middle of the bridge and their occupants push the car out of 3ft deep water, we decided to make our move. First gear at full throttle, some clever clutch play, shrewd calculation and a lil' bit of crazy, is what it took Krazy Kumar to get us over the river. On retrospect, we were sure it was also the darkness that helped. If we had seen the entire river in daylight, we wouldn't have had the guts to cross the river.

By this time we were beginning to get tired of the drive. Night driving, in the monsoons with bad roads and onward traffic of trucks is not easy. I switched with Kumar for a while. I couldn't see it then, but I knew we were driving through some beautiful terrain. Could just make it out with the way road was curving beautifully and the rise and fall of the slopes. On the way back, we realised it was an awesome sight indeed. We wanted to reach Hospet, the closest town to Hampi. But, the night was just never ending and the road increasingly treacherous. I remember saying we rather sleep in the car, when I saw a signboard saying 95 kms to Hospet. Just then, we saw a motel. At that moment, we would have taken anything! The place was Ikkal. God Surd was already asleep in the backseat!

The onward journey next day to Hampi was horrible. It took us 3 hours to traverse 95 kms. The roads were in pathetic condition. The roads did not have any potholes though...they were ravines. And our poor little Swift surrounded by huge trucks, put up a spirited performance. He was like a puppy amongst lions! But as Krazy Kumar would say, "Sab Maaf Hai" for that was the awesomeness of the view of the Tungabadra Dam. It was in full flight, with all the sluice gates open, even the emergency gates. What a sight!! So amazing was the sight that it got God Surd to have a full go at capturing those visual moments, with KK's SLR.

3. Hampi, at last

Our trip in Hampi itself was good, but on a different level from the road trip. Hampi, itself was a city of about 47 sq.km. which was flattened by Adil Shah after the defeat of the Vijayanagar Empire's army to the Deccan Sultanates. Its quite an irony that we have intact constructions from the Mughal era which just followed the Vijayanagar empire. One can rant about the destruction of our cultural heritage but thats too old a skeleton to dig out. It was quite fascinating to go around this city on a beautiful monsoon evening and wonder how splendid it must have been when this city was at the peak of its glory on such an evening.

The constructions, or whatever of it which is left, gives an indicator of the life of the Hindu empire of the time. Its astonishing that they would have 2000 temples in that small a city. Come to think of it same holds true for mosques and muslim empires. No wonder, people say, religion is deeply woven into the fabric of Indian society - a precious inheritance and a curse. The architecture in some of the places did make us ponder on what life would have been like in those days. The sculptures make us question the folks who worship at these temples, yet spew venom in the name of Indian culture and ban women wearing jeans to college. "Please look at what you are worshiping!" Beyond the erotic architecture, one also give it to the artisans for their creativity, of being able to carve out 5 designs out of a single carving. The things one has to do to amuse the king!

There was a lot of Muslim influence in the architecture in some of the buildings with domes and arches. Apparently, that seemed to extend even into the way of life. The King apparently had a zenana [harem] which was guarded by a contingent of Eunuchs. I've also seen photos of Abyssinian women who were on the retainership of the Nizam of Hyderabad to guard his zenana.

4. Israeli Tourists and Tourism

Apparently, Hampi is another place in India which is flooded by Israelis tourists that restaurants also have an Israeli section in their menu. This is the second place I've seen such a concentration of ISraelis after Dharamkot near McLeodGanj. The food in and around Hampi is nothing to write home about. But the place in one, which you can get over with in 3 hours, like us or spend 3 full days also. There are motorcyles and cycles that you can hire for to enjoy a more relaxed but energy sapping day of looking around this dead city. Would highly recommend this trip during the monsoons. The place is just divine. You need open space to really watch the beauty of sheets of rain come down on the country side - the green hills, the multi-hued boulders and the brown earth. Just takes back to a whole different time.

5. Psychology, Relativity and Knock Out Beer

We decided to head back to our lodge in Ikkal for the night. We knew the road was bad, in fact the worst stretch we had encountered on the trip. But we wanted to do in anyways. These guys told about their experiences in a grueling experiential training camp and how they were wanting to taste that high again. Perhaps this was a way to do that.. I don't know. I was game though! And amazingly enough,none of our apprehensions materialized. The road was not as bad as we thought it would be. During night driving, you are able to see and focus only on the road ahead of you and not on the craters around you. It is a psychological thing. During the day, we were looking at the huge traffic jams and all the obstacles that everyone on the road was facing. It amplified our own difficulties on the road. But at night, the focus was only on our problems and our road ahead.

Or as the God Surd said, maybe the road was bad on the other side!

Having got to our hotel back on time, we hit the nearest dhabha to celebrate our trip and have a night snack. That turned into dinner and drinks. Drinks for the day was KNOCK OUT beer. Beer has always been an acquired taste for me, a labored one at that. But this was the first time, I genuinely enjoyed beer. It was a fab revelation! Like the icing on top of the cake, that was a great trip! More about Knock Out in the Beer Chronicles!

6. The Road Back

Usually the return journey in a road trip, is the low point of the trip. But in this one, we were just stretching awesome to its limit! In school I used to read about how big armies got slaughtered in retreat by their enemies, because they lost their way, and used to think how stupid they must be. Well, I can tell you one thing, the roads in the light of day and in the dark of the night can look totally different. Well, we got lost again!! :-) But such was our luck, that we stumbled onto a detour a really smooth detour and reached Mudgal quicker than expected. At Mudgal, we were surprised to see the Mudgal fort. We had no inkling such a structure could exist in a place like this when we passed it in the night. But lo and behold here was a fort, with a proper moat!! We went on further ahead, getting lost again at Gurumatkal. But the road and the view was so awesome that we ditched our plans to join NH7 at Mahbubnagar and pressed ahead, fueled by beer and mirchi bhajjis with double mirchi,

By this time, the beer had hit home, our destination much closer than what we had anticipated and our fun quotient unbelievable! By the time we hit NH7, Krazy Kumar decided to end this on a high and stretched the car to touch 175 kmph. That is something on a Swift. But it sums up the trip - fun, eccentric, on the edge but ultimately memorable! :-) Here's to many more! Cheers!!