Blog 5701: Travails of Travel

Delhi Airport.

21st Nov, 8 pm.

Need to catch the Delhi Metro and get to Noida to meet Pandey before heading off to Ghaziabad for my cuz's wedding.

Pandey: Closest metro is Dwarka Sector 8 or 11. Take auto - prepaid taxi will be costly.

Yogesh: Closest metro is Dwarka Sector 9 or 21. Take prepaid taxi - its very reasonable.

Ranjini: Go straight to Dwarka Metro Station... no sector and all... and take an auto, its cheaper.

Police Station: Dwarka Sector 10 hai sirji... aur prepaid taxi le lo, regulated hai aur cheap hai.

Guy behind me in line for pre-paid taxi: Closest is Sector 9 or 11.

I count the votes. 2 for 9 and 11 and 1 each for the rest.

There's this saying about listening to everyone but doing what you believe in.

I believe in asking some more people.

So I went straight to the guy in the pre-paid taxi counter and asked him to get me in a taxi to the nearest metro station.

:-)

Dwarka Sector 9 - Metro Station.

Get off taxi.

Ask someone if metro to Noida goes via this station.

Girl nearby giggles.

Reminds me of the girl who giggled when I asked in Kgp's Tech Market if there was a cyber cafe nearby.

:|

Buy ticket and get security checked.

Run up the stairs.

See Metro doors closing before my eyes.

Damn.

Reach Noida Sector 32 - City Center.

Meet Pandey after 2 and a half years.

Head to Spice Mall.

Pizza Hut and Costa Coffee act as poor replacements for Chillies and Harry's.

At a little past midnight, I realize its time I thought about heading to Ghaziabad.

Outside the mall, a policeman tells an autorick guy how to take me to a particular place near Ghaziabad border.

Autorick guy is totally uninterested in taking me anywhere.

Side note:

This is the thing about auto drivers in this country.

They do it as a hobby - not an occupation.

They ferry people when they feel like it.

If not, they ask for half your fortune and your right leg as fare.

I once got off at the flyover near Andheri and asked an auto guy to take me to Sher-e-Punjab colony.

He patronizingly told me to walk for a few mins in a particular direction to get there.

"Baaju mein hi hai"

20 mins later, I was still walking.

No sign of Sher, Punjab or any darned colony.

Did the auto guy think I was asking him for a lift? Did he want to save me money? Did he want me to get the exercise? Was he conserving petrol?

No.

He just didnt feel like it.

Axiom: You can gauge the economic prosperity of a country by checking how eager to transport people its auto drivers are.

Back to story.

Apparently, Ghaziabad autos dont enter Noida and vice versa.

So Noida Auto Guy (NAG) scoffs and agrees to take me at an exorbitant 200 bucks.

But its 12 at night, fcuking cold and no transport sans a random bull with big horns.

Not that bulls are the best means of transport from Noida to Ghaziabad, but refer to this story for more on my chemistry with bulls.

200 was par for the course.

We travel for 15 mins till we reach Ghaziabad border and NAG spots a Ghaziabad Auto Guy (GAG).

That does it for NAG.

NAG tempts GAG with a passenger.

GAG curses the misfortune of getting a passenger...

...but nevertheless agrees to ferry me.

NAG settles for 100 bucks.

GAG asks for 150.

Considering the factors listed above, everything's reasonable.

I finally reach the wedding hotel at 1 am.

Marriage will need a post of its own.

2 am. 23rd November.

Its time to head back to Delhi Airport.

Got a flight to catch at 6.15 am.

Why so early?

Coz there might be a quiz in the MPPO class at 11.45 and I have to be on time for it.

So I miss the phere coz they got a lil delayed and I leave at 2 am coz some people said that the road could be full of lorries at night and could be jammed.

:|

By 3.30, I'm at Delhi airport with 2.45 hours to kill.

Wonderful.

What was that thing about listening to everyone but doing your own stuff?

Sometime during the flight, I'm woken up for breakfast.

Air India cost me the same as Indigo... but they offer food.

I eat and think, "Air India does have its plusses".

"Maybe I should travel Air India more often. My contribution to the national carrier"

I think I jinxed myself.

In IIM lingo, it was "khud se RG".

Here's why...

9 am, 23rd Nov.

Bangalore airport, baggage claim section.

I've always had this sinking feeling at the baggage claim conveyor belts "What if my luggage doesnt turn up"

Today, I was hoping mine will be amongst the first to arrive.

"Please, please, please. Need to be in time for test. Pleaseeeee"

By 9.20, everyone else has left that baggage belt.

There are no more baggages being loaded onto the belt.

Its finally happened.

The airline has screwed up my luggage.

I can feel my sleepy head swell with outrage.

:-X

Some manager from Air India comes to me and takes my boarding pass.

Starts huffing and puffing and generally acting busy.

Finally, at 10.15, after filling the missing baggage form, I leave the airport.

Class with possible test is to start at 11.45.

Volvo drops me at Mandovi Motors at 11.40.

I wave down an auto and he agrees to take me to IIMB.

4 mins left.

I tell him to go a little faster.

But damn...

...Traffic signal.

2 mins left.

We enter IIMB.

I take him to main entrance.

Thrust a 20 rupee note in his hand and run.

Its pointless.

I'm late.

The doors are closed.

No phere.

No luggage.

No class to attend either.

The luggage finally arrived at 11 pm yesterday.

I felt like kicking the Air India guys and asking for compensation.

But I didn't.

After all the news about their poor financial condition, it was the least I could do... or not do.

Not quite the way I'd thought of it earlier... but so much for my contribution to the national carrier.

*halo*

Blog 5401: Love's in the Hair

Ah, so its already been 3 months since my last post :P
Anyhoo, lemme move right on and post a new one.
This one's a speech I gave for a competition at IIMB... but its worthy of appearing here as a blog post too.

-------------------------------------------------

For the love of hair

A man’s life is full of endless frustrations, fights, struggles, disappointments, ideas, strategies and remedies until the day he gains enlightenment and gives up. The day he realizes that do what he may, he will go bald.

The express purpose of this post, here, today, is to help you reach this conclusion. Allow me to show you that everything in a man’s life is designed to make him go bald. I speak from first hand experience.

I’ll follow the advice that the king gave to the white rabbit in Alice in Wonderland. Begin at the beginning and go on till you reach the end.

Now, right from the time we’re born, we are encouraged to go out and play or sit down and study hard. Playing, you must understand, entails going out in the sun, having the wind ruffle your hair and having dirt fly around and settle on your scalp – all of which have been medically proven and constitutionally decried as being detrimental to the proper growth and well being of hair. And when you have the sun, wind and earth coming together to take your hair away, there’s little you can do to stop them.

I would have said ‘Hence proved’ but I see you’re not convinced.

Okay. Take studying. Why do we study? To take exams. What do exams do? They cause stress. What does stress do? It makes you lose hair.

I would have said “Hence proved” but I can see you’re still not convinced.

So consider love. As long as a guy is single, he worries himself no end trying to find a girl. Worrying, of course, does to your hair what George Bush did to the US – ruins it. Now there are three standard techniques that guys use when they’re in this phase of emotional development: a) they buy a bike b) try building muscles; and c) in any case, they spend a lot of money on girls. Now I can show you that each of these three activities is specifically designed to make you go bald. Riding bikes puts your hair at the mercy of the wind. Please refer to my theory on wind and hair propounded a while ago. Building muscles leads to excess male hormone secretion which causes male pattern balding. And spending too much money on girls who don’t finally turn into girlfriends has been known to induce a mature emotion called “I feel like tearing my hair out” which, as the name suggests, is not the best thing to happen to a man’s hair.

I would have said "Hence Proved" but some of you are... well...

So, if indeed the girl converts to girlfriend, things quickly move into marriage and parenthood territory. Both of those are positions of responsibility that a. don’t give you resume points and b. cause stress. Hence, more hair lost.

This phase of life also corresponds to a thing called work life. Governments around the world have asked tobacco companies to put the picture of a skull and write “Statutory Warning: Cigarette smoking is injurious to health” on cigarette packets. There shall come a day when such things will also have to be put on job appointment letters. Work is something that comes with a cloud around it that has “stress, stress, stress” written all over. First you have to study hard to get a good job. Then you have to work hard to retain the good job. If you don’t work hard, your boss will fire you. If you work too hard and stay long hours in office, your wife will leave you. Both events are known to cause stress. Stress is known to cause hair loss.

I hope I have made it adequately clear to you how playing, studying, love, marriage and work – all of them – will make you go bald. I’d wish, but my theory isn’t all just a conjecture I’ve dreamed up. Its backed up by solid observations from my own life. I personally have shown a lot of loyalty to my hair. Unfortunately, its been one way traffic for quite a while now. I f you really want to know how bad things are, then here's a story: a few days ago, a friend of mine put up a status message “Bad hair day”. I replied back with a status message of my own that read – ‘bad hair life’.

I would have said "I think you're not convinced yet", but I think I'll just say, "Hence Proved!"

Blog 5102: An update

This pic!


This pic symbolizes exactly what I described in the post http://sunnyblogs.blogspot.com/2009/02/blog-4801-dream-on.html

Thanks Sandy... got it from your comment on Kadir's status on Facebook!

Blog 5101: A normal day in the life of Suite-16

5.58 pm
Cell phone shows "Shailu Calling".
Shailu:"Sunny, tu office mein hai?"
Me: "Yups... ssup?"
Shailu: "Oh good, IRCTC ki site khol".

Sunny, though, is busy playing Pathwords on Facebook.

Me: "Haan yaar... (while I make another pathword)... khol raha hoon... umm... ek sec"
1.43 mins left on this game.
I realise it wasn't going so well.
Game kaata.

Flashback.
Abhinav Somani is getting married this Tuesday.
The first of the inhabitants of Suite-16 to get married.
:-)
I'm unable to go coz of a misalignment of the planets in the Solar System.
Shailu decided on Thursday that he's going.
Booked tickets.
Azad Hind Express for today, Saturday, on waiting list.
Spicejet for Tuesday morning confirmed.

Shailu: "Ghar pe power cut hai. Site dekh ke bata ki meri ticket ka kya status hai".
I open IRCTC's website.
Shail gives me his login, password.
Says the train is for 6.25 pm.
Its 6 pm right now.
We're cool, Honeybunny.
We're cool.

He basically wants to ensure that he's still on the waiting list so that he can cancel his ticket.
But...
There's many a slip betwixt the cup and the lip.
Site shows a change in ticket status.
Ticket confirmed, seat reserved.
Shail: "Oh!"
Shail: "Toh... should I go?!"
Adi from next room:"Ticket confirm?! Toh jaaa!"
Shail:"O teri... !"

First hiccup.
The e-ticket hasnt been printed yet.

25 mins.
To pack bags.
To print ticket.
To reach station.
To catch train.

Divide and conquer.
Adi goes to cyber cafe to print ticket.
Shail packs.
But...
There's many a slip betwixt the cup and the lip.
Power cuts everywhere.
Cyber cafe has no power.

I try calling Railway station to see if they allow passengers without printed ticket and just with valid ID card.
Its ringing.
No response.

6.10.
15 mins to go if the train's on time.
They're headed to the station on Adi's bike.
But...
There's many a slip...
Second hiccup.
Adi's bike has a UP registration number.
Traffic policeman stops them.
Asks for papers.
They dont have the papers on the spot.

Ragda+makhhan.
"Jaaane do sir"
"Train hai sir"
"Mere do bemaar bachhe hain us train mein sir"
Policeman: ?! ?!
"Zindagi aur maut ka sawaal hai sir. Jaane do. Upar waala aapka bhala karega"
The works.

The policeman tells them to submit the license and PUC papers and come back from the station with NOC to retrieve them.

Meanwhile, I narrate the story so far to Dot Lal on gchat.
Dot lal:Wanna bet?
Me: I think he's screwed
Dot lal: I think so too.
Me: We need to find someone who's willing to bet he ain't screwed.
Dot lal: That would be Shailu

6.25
I desist from calling Shail or Adi.
I expected them to be on the bike frantically trying to reach the station.

6.30.
Phone says "Shailu calling"
I fear for the worst.
Me: "Kya hua finally?!"
Shail: TRAIN MEIN HOON!"
And he tells me the whole story about printing the ticket and the traffic police guy.
Screw clothes, he also packed Shantaram and his lappy.

The only thing left now...
Shail: Ab yeh Spicejet cancel karna hai
:-)