Chitrakatha: Story of My March

From the comments I can see that some of you have been wondering where I had been missing for the last month (As for others, shame on you for not wondering). There have even been rumours making rounds that I have hung my keyboard and retired from blogging (as if!).

So, in order to show that I am not going anywhere soon, I have decided to tell you the story of my well-earned (well, earned to be sure) leave. And I got pictures to prove it…

Rewind back to 1st March, and I was all ready for a flight to India, after more than 2.5 years. My place was all cleaned up (and I got photos to show my parents how I keep my house clean)

The bags were all packed:

And I was waiting for my cab.

And then… this happened:

That’s supposed to be the parking lot of my office. And how did I end up in the office on a Sunday, you ask? Well, as you can see, the reason was the weather. My Sunday afternoon flight was cancelled, so was the alternate flight I got on Monday. The dedicated worker that I am, I spent the Monday in office (that’s my story and I am sticking to it). Finally, I left my house 48 hours after I was supposed to.

As for the flight, almost empty plane means we can spread around a bit. So, I was not worried that my seat monitor spent the entire 15 hour flight doing this:For the people who curse Windows’ slow booting, just look at that symbol top left.

Finally, I was home, from sub-zero (Celsius, always Celsius) temperature to 27 degrees at 1000 feet in Mumbai. The stay at home was very relaxing: meeting everybody after a long time, relaxing at home doing nothing, meeting friends etc.

Let me tell you, trying to live through the air pressure changes in aircraft is very hard when you are suffering from cold. After 20 days at home, it was back to US, reaching one afternoon at 4 and starting office the next morning. How was I feeling? Well, this was the weather when I was leaving for the office after a long stay at home:

 

- The Great Eagle Has Spoken

P.S. My contract with airlines is still valid: all bags (and their contents) came out fine in either direction.

Getting Back...

I was actually going to write the second part of the travelogue while going to India. But then I thought, I am back in Durham now, and truth to tell I don't remember that much about the journey now after two months, so forget about that. The journey back was more eventful all in all, so I thought I should put it here, and of course I had written the entire thing to my friends in a mail already, so it is easy to post (lazy that I am). Anyways, here is it, after removing the private part...


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I reached Durham finally after a looong journey on Saturday night.

Anyways, reached Mumbai airport on 12.30 on Thursday, and reached the Air India desk. It seems there was a place on the earlier flight at 3.30 (which was the one I was supposed to be on from London to New York) had a seat on. Literally like, स्टेशनवर गेलो, conductor म्हणाला आधीच्या गाडीत जागा आहे, बसून घ्या. म्हणून गेलो आधीची गाडी पकडून. Solved a major problem, सकाळी ५ ला उठालो नाही तर सकाळची flight चुकली असती ना... Flight was mostly uneventful, spent some 1 hour in Delhi airport in aircraft, watched Rang De... and Taxi no. again, and watched a movie called Aquamarine. The only event as such was the aunty in the window seat losing her watch one hour into the flight after we left London. Not a pleasent one, but she "saw time at 6.10 and then at 8.15 there is no watch". Sherlock Holmes would have been mystified, as were the air hostesses. Try sleeping when an old man next to you is poking you to so that he can go out... Still no good looking girls sitting near me even though there were some on the flight, some guys have all the luck. The service was good, so was the food, and so now I have effectively survived 4 (ok 3, but the third was a long one) AI flights.

Anyways, reached JFK airport, New York at 3.30 pm on 21st, rushed to immigration. तिथे "रामाच्या शेंडीपासून रावणाच्या दहाव्या डोक्याच्या (सगळी एकावर एक ठेवून) केसापर्यंत" लांब रांग होती. Took me more than 1.5 hours to pass that. Immigration passed good, very happy to see that both my bags got through ok, without missing their way on the way (like last time). But then, I knew this would happen. Then rushed to American counter to get the good news that my flight has already full, since I could not reach there before last call, and all passangers are waiting at the gate. They gave me a ticket on 9 o' clock flight, which was supposed to take me to Durham by 10.30. Then I passed through security and saw that the flight was delayed to 10.50. Oh well, anyways I am going to sleep once I reach Durham, let my friends stay awake for me.

Then at 10.30, they declared that the flight was cancelled due to "Bad weather and traffic control". So I collected check-in bags and rushed back to counter to stand in line for about 2-2.5 hours, and got the good news that they could give me stand-bye (with rare chance of getting a seat) on morning 8 flight, or a confirmed ticket from La Guardia airport at 3'o clock in afternoon. Confirmed ticket it was, and I moved off to see if I can get a place to sleep on the airport. Opened a bag, and started eating the "बाकरवडी" and लाडू, since all the cafes and everything on the airport was closed.

Woke at 7 next morning and took airport bus to La Guardia. Checked the baggage in (again) and went in the security area. The flight to Washington was good, on time, and then the next flight was about 2 hours late. Finally, after waiting for a lot of time in airports and some time in planes, I reached Durham around 10.30 pm on 22nd July, more than 24 hours later than I was supposed to. Slept at about 1-2 am. Was supposed to wake up early on sunday, but had a dream that it was 1.30 pm and I hadnt gotten up yet. So I woke up immediately and checked the time, to see that it was 6.30 pm already. My friends were knocking on the door to see if I was in this world yet. Then I could not sleep at night, and so I had to go through the night without sleep, after which I slept at 6.30 next afternoon, woke up at 2 am, slept at 5 am and woke again at11 am. All in all the time table is completely gone. Calculating the time differences, I have moved from India to somewhere in atlantic near UK, so there is improvement. By this rate, I will be able to get rid of remaining jet lag by tomorrow or day after. And this is the reason I haven't sent mails to anybody till now. Watching TV while half asleep is not a great encouragement to write mails.

And I have noticed two things about my international flights:
1. On first flight to any country, one of my my checked-in baggage gets way-laid. If I have only one checked-in, tough luck.
2. On the second flight to the same country, me and my baggage will be safe and sound, but the flight will be late by at least 6 hours.


The Great Eagle has spoken...

Quote of The Day:

Wow, this flight contains a lot of hot men.
- One AI air hostess to another (she was fresh out of academy, in her defense)

Travelogue Part 1

This was written sitting in JFK terminal something or other waiting for my flight, and then in the flight to London. The inflight movie (The Californians) is nothing to write home about, and reading Harry Potter VI for about 600th time can be postponed. Not sure when I can upload this given the dial-up at my home, but will try my level best.

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“Getting there is half the fun” I know I have said this before, but my trip to India turned out to be pretty enjoyable. Currently I am sitting at JFK airport. In terms of number of flights, half the journey is over. In terms of distance, I doubt even 10% is.

14th May:

7:55 am: I am all ready, packed up and (I) know where to go. When we got up today, me, my roommates and their parents had to get ready early (8, 8.30, 8.30 resp.). But I had a major advantage over my roomies, I wake up pretty early, especially when the day day promises to be good. So, by 7.30 I was all ready, and my roomies were stirring up. This unfortunately spoiled my plans to get a photograph with them in gowns (the graduation variety, not the night ones) and me in my travel gear. So having nothing productive to do (how many times can you check the mail in half an hour) I call the taxi service, knowing that the taxi should be at my door in 5 minutes. Surprise, surprise! The person has no record of my booking, and runs to get me to the airport on time.

8:30 am: In RDU. Trying to check in my bag. I get a good news (what else can you expect from a Tar Heel) that my bag is overweight. After frantic re-packing and movement (mainly of chocolates) I have to check in both my bags, leaving me with only my sac containing my laptop, iPod and the travel documents.

9:30 am: Seating in seat 1A (the front most seat). Pilot asks for volunteers from front of the plane to move back (to balance) weight and I graciously throw in my (truly insignificant) weight in the bargain. And I move back to my customary window seat over the wings. My journey home has started as the flight takes-off.

10:30 am: The flight to DC is late by almost half an hour (weighty problem), so is the flight taking off from DC to JFK. But as I have a lot of time between the connections, the only worry I have is where and what to eat for lunch. McD to rescue as usual.

2:30 pm: Reached JFK. Get across the terminal to collect the bags. Baggage claim area is situated keeping in mind that the average jet-setter does not get enough exercise done in a normal day, and walking is a very good form of exercise. Pick up a trolley ($3) collect the bags, get to the airtrain (thank JFK authorities for the airtrain) and get to the AI counter.

3:15 am: AI counter is just waking up. PCs starting up, personnel logging in. So understandably, it takes a little time to process everything properly. I decide to be adventurous and choose a isle seat. Then the boarding pass printer at the terminal is stuck, and retry-log off & log on-paper in paper out (in short all the normal things) do not work. Maintenance is called and somehow they get the things back to normal. The printer celebrates coming back to life printing 3 copies of my boarding pass, proving to me that PCs are same the world over. The person at the other end of lounge could see the lady at the counter blush.

3:30 pm: Security check done, boarding time is 7 pm. Till then, eat (chips and cookies), drink (chocolate milk and then coffee) and read on laptop (Don't want to use the iPod till its absolutely needed, battery problems you know). Do not have a single WiFi network in the range, so it seems I am out of net-reach till at least London. Let's see how I fare there.

3:00 am (7:00 am in London): Yet to reach London. A very good flight till now, including service and food (no hint of the erstwhile idlis, Silverine) No individual screens though and the movie (The Californians) is unheard of, a typical romantic movie, leaving me a lot of time to read and write. Just helped an Senior Citizen couple fill up their immigration forms. Hope they pass through without a hitch.



The Great Eagle has spoken...

Quote of The Day:

The saying "Getting there is half the fun" became obsolete with the advent of commercial airlines.
- Henry J. Tillman

There and Back... and Again

Being an account of my two travels to the Capital of Cars.


“Morgen, Gut, Danke, Tschuess” These are the only words I remember out of the “Easy German in Seven words” we had decided when we were in Germany. And of course, there was a word which sounded exceedingly like a#$hole but which meant a polite inquire ala “is it so?” (One of my friends there got so much habituated to saying this word, that his friends back in India used to berate him every time he called because of his गालीप्रदान)

But I think I should start from how I got there before going on about the story. So, let's go back to October '04. I have just come back from a visit to my parents in Hospet (not my home, it is in Pune, but my father was in Hospet for quite a long time till last year) and I appear in office on Monday morning (not so) fresh from my travel. Our team leader asks me and my colleague to join him for a meeting. The only things I remember from that meeting (I never slept in any meeting I remember of, but still...) are that we had to move across to the opposite wing of the building to get an empty conference room (the same room in which my exit interview was to take place 6 months later, but we didn't know that at that time) and that my team leader asked me to get a visa to Schengen states as I had to travel to Germany to our client's office in 15 days.

After a brief call to my parents to give them the news, I tried to digest the fact that I was going “onsite” and I had to prepare a lot. My preparations had to start from getting myself photographed for visa, getting a decent suitcase and something to survive in the sub-zero temperatures of Stuttgart. All in all, I was ready to go to Mumbai, but the small travel from Mumbai to Stuttgart was the one I needed some help for. The only things I needed to do was talking to my friends already there to get me accommodation, talking to HR for my visa, talking to travel desk to get my tickets, and talking to finance to get my money. So after getting my photos the day I had to submit the visa documents, getting some currency to sustain myself on the day I had to leave for banglore, and getting the so-called “warm clothes” 2 hours before I had to leave for Germany, I was sitting with my parents on Bangalore airport waiting for my flight to be called.

Reaching Mumbai, the first thing, and about the only thing I did was to spend the two hours between the flights productively meeting my brother. The distance between Mumbai domestic and Mumbai International (I guess both are called Chhatrapati Shivaji now, so the names will just confuse) was covered from outside. Thinking back, I have been through both Chhatrapati Shivajis at least 4 time in last 2 years, but I haven't taken the airport bus yet. I took the bus later in Delhi, but that is for later. Anyway, after a full meal, I was ready to board the Swiss airways flight.

The flight was peaceful, and the only problem I had was to run across the entire Zurich international airport with my cabin baggage, as the comforatble 1 hour time difference between flights was reduced considerably by the flight delay. My tryst with the airline companies dates from here. After literally dashing through the giant airport, I was just in time to catch my next flight. After that, reaching Stuttgart, meeting my colleague from office, and dropping my bags in my hotel room (which was booked for 2 days, after which I had to move to a different, and much better hotel room) was a work of an hour or two. And finally, I was ready to face my new work as “On site co-coordinator”.

After that day, my daily schedule was fixed. Get up at 6, get ready and have a sumptuous breakfast at the hotel, get to office by 6.30 by 6.50 bus. I won't bore you with what I did at office, but it should suffice that I was able to get my module back on tires, I mean track. Luckily I wasn't involved in the (in)famous meetings where the language was German, and so we english-speaking people had a translator transwhispering eerything (including jokes) in our ears. After the work, leave by 7.30 or 8.05 bus (else the next one would be 9.30 odd), and get back to the bus station, which was walking distance from my hotel. Then either go with my friends to eat something in hotel (chinese noodles, no.64 was veg noodles) or at their place (omlette and toast, or pizza) or worst late case, go back to hotel and eat some pizza from the shops below. The Friday nights were devoted to going to Indian restaurants (extremely expensive, but then, I was not picking up the tab for my food) and getting drunk (not me, others).

And of course, the weekends were for shopping (groceries and digicam, which was bought one week too late), browsing Media Markt, lazing at my friend's place playing Caeser III (in german, with a german-english dictionary at hand) and of course visiting museums and places.

First on our list was Daimler-Chrysler museum, which is car-lovers' concept of paradise. Four floors filled with cars, each seeped in so much history that you can almost see the dates and histories dripping from it. What else would a person need to enjoy an afternoon? This was the time I rued the fact that I had not bought or brought a camera. I corrected this oversight next week, but it was already late. The Porsche Museum was just one big hall. Well, of course I didn't know that Porsche was into F1 once upon a time, and of course, the Carrera placed there was a sight to behold, but then, it's not on the same level as DC.

While working and enjoying the sights, before I knew the time for Christmas was there. The day Christmas vacation started, I was packed off back to India to work. And after working for 15 days in India while people enjoyed in Germany, the day Christmas vacation ended there, I was on my way back to work in Germany again.




Update: The second chapter of The Love story is online. Please read it here.

Die-hard fans of Friends will recognise the format. For others, I have tried to emulate the format of the episode guide of Friends like here.


Quote of The Day:

Travel is only glamorous in retrospect.
- Paul Theroux (1941 - )

Back from Trip

So, the break is over. Did a lot of things in those 20-25 days, some of which are:

• Went to San Jose to meet my cousin


• Visited Disneyland, California Adventures and Universal Studios in 5 days trip. (More on this later, when I get some time)


• Met a Swedish cousin (won’t go into exact relation, but still…), and heard/read about their Project India.


• Finished about 10% of the activities I had planned for the break.


• Visited University of California, Berkley and Stanford campuses. (Stanford’s is very good, definitely better than Berkley)


• Went to see Golden Gate bridge, Fisherman’s wharf, Crookedest and steepest streets and Modern Arts Musuem (explanation coming up later, and believe me, it is good. And I mean explanation.) in San Fransisco. Ate great seafood, and had a Hot Fudge Sundae at Ghiradelli.


• Saw Tech Musuem in San Jose, and had a great time watching Polar Express in IMax. (Believe me, it is a GREAT experience) Wondered how Harry Potter would look in IMax dome.


• Ate puranpoli, pavbhaaji and other items of ghar ka khana for 10 days.


• Schedule for New Year’s Eve: Met a friend in San Jose, and watched No Entry. Then went and watched The Incredibles, You’ve got mail, Sleepless in Seattle and some part of Kate and Leopold while eating a lot of chocolate fondue.(It was not my idea to turn 31st Dec party in chic flick marathon, but then, majority wins here too)


• And last but not the least, heard the greatest reaction to meaning of my name, “Oh s#$%!!! Sorry, I meant that in good way. I mean, it is so mathematical!” (Watch out for San Fransisco post for details)

Ok, I know this post is just a space-filler till I get time to write about all the things I have promised to write “later”. But then, term has started, and I am turning into even lazier boy somehow (if it is humanly possible). So right now, I need to concentrate on starting to “get my act together” and start studying again.

So, till the time I get back to normal, watch this space. And here’s some idea of things to come.











P.S. Indiatimes has come up with a good chain of articles. Check this out for some good (very) short stories.

The Journey Chronicles (Part II)

Part two of the journey was London - New York - Raleigh-Durham (And, don't judge by my posts, there was only 1.5 hrs time between the flights). So again I got into the window seat of a "jumbo-jet" for a cross-atlantic hop to New York. The two adjoining seats were occupied by two french boys. नशीब ***** तो ***** (तबियतदार तज्ञांनी फुल्या भरून घ्याव्यात), so I was sure my whole time was going in watching the in-flight movies.

Now whoever said that in-flight movies are boring are probably in the age where Wright flier was still news. I got Hitch and Valiant, both of them excellent movies. What with the movies, and sleep in between them the flight was very short for me.

But who can imagine that while you are going from London to New York (i.e. heading west), you have sun shining straight at your window, so that you are forced to close the window? Believe me, I kept the window closed for almost the whole time, except when we reached american coast (flying south from Canada, if you can imagine that :o) My voisin requested me to keep the window open, while landing, which was anyway my plan.

So finally, we were flying over the american land, and of course sea. (Believe me, I counted at least 10-15 baseball and football-american version-grounds in 15 minutes). When the plane (finally) reahced New York, we all rushed to the immigration control. (Where was the Statue of Liberty??????) There was a looong (रामाच्या शेंडीपासून सीतेच्या शेपट्यापर्यंत) line for that, luckily containing passengers from only one plane. Finally the procedure was over, I had stamp on my visa, and I was legally allowed to enter American territory as an alien (MIB, here I come...)

Going to collect my bags to transfer them to the domestic flight, I got the good news that one of my bags was not seen from London. I think this is my contract with all airlines that they try to reduce the load I am carrying by sending my baggage later. Next time I am going to carry only cabin baggage and hope that they don't keep that with them too. Anyways, there was no customs check (so that all the chutnis, papads, laddus etc got safely out, except those which were in missing bag), and I gave my bag to the staff at the domestic terminal, and started towards the gate for my flight. I had almost 2 hours before the next flight.

The aircraft for next flight was an embraer which is going to be used by our belived Prime Minister and President. Good choice, Mr. Prime Minister... Anyways, I reached Durham safe and sound (minus one bag, and after getting younger, or maybe older, by some 10 hours). My friend was waiting for me, and we started for his home. The highways reminded me of the Germany. the only difference was that in germany, the taxi needed heater, here we needed cooler in the car. I wasn't feeling any jet-lag and we were conversing very happily, meeting after 2 years.

I got to his room, and told him to continue with his plans for the evening (playing volleyball) while I take bath and watch some TV. I still wasn't feeling tired or jet-lagged. So I took into bath, and sat down to watch TV. In 5 minutes, I was sleeping like a log...

The Journey Chronicles (Part I)

They say, getting there is half the fun. Well, in my case, I can say that it was fun, dunno about the half part.

The journey started at Mumbai airport. All of us were expecting that I can come back after checking in the airport, and meet them in the visitors' lounge. But then, it turns out that the visitors' lounge is closed for security purposes till 17th Aug, and I am leaving on 16th Aug... So the good byes were unexpectedly pretty brief, and I marched off inside.

By now airline travel is not novel experience to me, so completing the formalities is easy. But then, it turns out that BA is fighting their caterers... and we are left with free coupons to the airport restaurants. And I can tell you, whatever they say about the airline food, airport food (at least what we got there) is worse. And it also proves that even though "Army marches on its stomach", airlines do not need their belly full to fly. Maybe it is harder to fly after you stuff your stomach, don't know!

It is said in marathi that we meet Pandit in travels. (But) I met three guys like me, who are going to US of A for education. So there were four people sitting around that table, all four from different places in India, going to four different places in USA. Everybody was dying to call the people we left outside, and so the talk was pretty much limited to banalities, we even discussed Mumbai's weather. (But on the other hand, Mumbai's weather was a national topic of discussion then).

Marching off from eatery, I called up my parents, and we talked on phone even though we were within a kilometer range. कितने दूर, कितने पास... huh??? So the instructions/best lucks were all uttered on phone, and then I decided to wait for my flight to be called.

The line for security check was so small as to be invisible from distance, and the person behind me was wondering out loud if the flight is almost empty or what. The kind of questions he was asking me led me to believe that this is his first flight from India, and his accent was most definitely "फिरंगी". After going through all the checks and all, we talked some more, and turns out, he is going to Canada. I say, OK, a Canadian business class dweller... and then imagine my shock when he turns out to be an NRI straight out of Pune. I hope my accent and my Marathi is not like his after my years in USA.

Nothing much to tell about the flight, it was almost all completed in sleep. The window seats don't help in the night flight (and definitely not in afternoon ones). After waking up, the French coast was below us, and the British Isles were there on the horizon... It was really great to see the much heard of (and much read of in my case) English channel. After all, channels are to be seen, not to be read about ;)

Then it was fairly short distance (by 747 standards) to Heathrow. It really is HUGE airport. Getting for one gate to another is a looong walk, and with a bag in tow, it gets really boring. And when you have to eat something in the airport before catching next flight with just one hour for you, god help you!

Anyways, I somehow caught my flight, did not get lost in that जंजाळ, and was on the move for second leg of my journey.

One interesting thing though, however hard I looked down, I could not see a single cricket ground in the land where cricket originated...